Creationist Arguments

This post is about common creationist arguments and why they're problematic. For those of you who don't know what creationism is, it's the belief that life as we know it was created by a divine source rather than the scientific conclusion which states that life evolved via natural selection.  Natural selection for those who don't know is the process in which organisms which have more favorable traits are more likely to have offspring and pass those traits to them. Organisms which have less favorable traits are less likely to survive and have offspring, thus they're more likely to go extinct. This post goes into detail about the 10 most common arguments from notable creationist I've seen and proceed to debunk them.  

1) Evolution is only just a theory.
 Re: This argument relies on the belief that the colloquial definition of a theory is the same as the scientific one. In everyday usage the colloquial definition of a theory means a guess, however, a theory in the scientific context as defined by the National Academy of Sciences is  "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses." (from Scientific American) Germ theory will always remain a theory no matter how much evidence it has. Because in science indirect evidence is used a lot.
2) We haven't seen life evolve.
 Re: Yes we have; an example would be during in labs when a group of bacteria were exposed to antibiotics that were meant to kill them but, some gain the ability to be more resist the antibiotics meant to kill thus, we have an example of natural selection at work (from CNN)      
3) But, that is an example of micro-evolution.
 Re: This is a common counter argument many creationist make when examples of evolution being observed are brought up the issue with this argument is that is that the difference between micro evolution & macro evolution is that macro evolution is same thing as micro evolution just over a longer time span. (from Scientific American)
4) But, the human eye is too complex to evolve via natural selection.
 Re: This argument relies on the lack of public knowledge on the evolution of the eye but in short we do know how the eye evolved. I don't have time to tell all of it so I'll leave with a link to a its okay to be smart video on the topic (from its okay to be smart)  
5) But, evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics.
 Re: This argument is based off a misinterpretation of the second law of thermodynamics which states "the total entropy can never decrease over time for an isolated system" entropy being the physics term for disorder. But, the key word here is isolated and earth is not an isolated system, thus evolution is able to happen. (from its okay to be smart)(from Scientific American)
6) But, Hitler believed in evolution and it led to his eugenics program.
 Re: This is a classic example of the appeal to consequences fallacy. The issue being that a thing does not become false because of one really bad person who believes in that thing hence evolution is still true even if one the most horrible people on the plant believes in evolution.       
7) There are a growing number of scientists that doubt evolution
 Re: No there isn't. Read any scientific peer review biology journal and you can find the scientific support for evolution. The Pew Research Center also shows that 98% of scientists that work for the AAAS say they believe humans evolved over time. (from Scientific American)(from Pew Research Center)
8) But, if humans came from monkeys then why are there still monkeys?
 Re: This is one of the most common creationist arguments out there. The short answer is that humans didn't evolve from monkeys but rather that humans and monkeys have the same ancestor. And even if humans evolved from monkeys that be like asking "If Australians came from Brits then why are there brits?"   
9) But, some fossils like Piltdown Man were shown to be hoaxes.
 Re: Creationist like to cite hoax fossils like Piltdown Man as evidence of a vast conspiracy to make fake fossils. This is despite the fact that the Piltdown Man was debunked by scientists. Thus, if there is conspiracy to fake fossils a scientist would have blew the whistle by now. (from TalkOrigins)
10)  But, we haven't seen any transitional species.
Re: The Problem with this argument is that plenty of fossils that one can consider a transitional species like the Archaeopteryx been found, thus supporting evolution.

Conclusion: Despite strong criticism based on unscientific and fallacious arguments, Evolution is withheld by scientific evidence and is the unifying theory of much of biology.
    

I'll get back to posting

Recently I've been having period of not posting. I'll soon get back to posting as soon as I can.