So first of all, don't take this anti-evolutionist stance. A good understanding of creationism should take into account factors such as genetic change, natural selection, even speciation!
People used to think that asexual populations remained constant--they didn't change at all. However, they evolve [creationist stance!]. This is why, for example, care must be taken in administering antibiotics--bacteria can actually evolve immunity. But now, let's take a closer look at what's meant by "evolution" in this context. Are the bacteria still producing other kinds of bacteria? Have we developed "organelles" inside the bacteria (ie.protists), no. This important distinction needs to be made. Just because bacteria evolve into other kinds of bacteria, is not an argument that giant sequoias & blue whales evolved from a single cell! (A creationist would probably point out that the sequoia came from a seed of a sequoia, etc. traced back to some kind of a tree. As for the blue whale, its mother & father were both whales, that came from other whales, etc. so in the beginning there must have been 2 whales.)
The vast majority of "evidence" for evolution: flowers evolving, horses evolving, wooly mammoths evolving into elephants, even the evolution of humans (modern day humans are not all clones of Adam & Eve--the human population has changed over time), all this can be analyzed very carefully. In each and every single one of these cases, we are not forming any "new" structures. We are simply taking an existing creature, and modifying various features it possesses. For example, the color/shape/size of petals may change over time, through changes in DNA, etc. But because flowers produce other kinds of flowers, we can't say that redwood trees, tulips, and mosses all evolved from a common ancestor!! This latter argument(err..flaw in reasoning) is what creationists object to.
Perhaps the simplest way to refute the Darwinist viewpoint [I'm a little hesitant to say evolutionary standpoint, since even fundamentalist Christians accept evolution to some extent], is to trace the ancestry of a sexually reproducing creature, and the descent of an asexually reproducing creature. Take a bacteria--it splits into 2, each of those splits into 2, etc., etc. ANY descendant of that population has exactly one parent, correct? Now, take a human, you. You have a mother and a father. Your father has a mother(X) and father(Y). Your mother has a mother(X) and a father(X). Any ancestor of yours has a mother and father right? If a Darwinist accepts this, well, then that's easy, in the beginning someone must have created 2 of each basic kind (males & females of certain basic populations), as well as at least 1 of each asexually reproducing kind. If a Darwinist makes fun of this, well, you could turn around and laugh at him, saying he's a result of lizard sex, or that some of his ancestors were asexual. See if he wants to accept that!
Speaking of which, we know that egg-laying creatures produce egg-laying creatures. So for example a duck-billed platypus comes from another duck-billed platypus that hatched from an egg, etc. But have we ever heard of an egg-laying creature giving birth to something that produces live young? Or could there even be a transitional form? If all mammals actually share a common ancestor (a common ancestor among a lion, bat, human, and a dolphin, that's hilarious!), would that common ancestor lay eggs? If so, we have the problem of how they would evolve the ability to produce live young (not to mention the huge evolutionary disadvantage--most of the creatures that are endangered in the world now are mammals, mammals that can only produce 1 child at a time, and if the mother dies, the child dies with her. Whereas an egg-laying creature can lay several eggs, no long pregnancy period. Think natural selection doesn't favor egg-laying creatures? Think about cockroaches!!) Whew! Not to mention, what rodents evolving aerodynamic wings and becoming bats? Or land-dwelling mammals falling into the ocean and evolving fins? If evolution is a slow process, wouldn't they drown before evolving such structures?
It's much more logical to view the life around us as being designed, rather than through some sort of unnatural, birds evolving from reptiles, trees evolving from algae, scaly egg-laying reptiles evolving hairy warm-blooded mammals, and the fairy tale goes on and on. Don't take this the wrong way--"Universal common descent" definitely makes for a great movie, it's just that scientific evidence needs to be given to support such a far-fetched idea(fossils of humans & fossils of apes don't count, neither do pictures of horses changing over time)
Hope this gives you some ideas! Except if you're going to make any mocking remarks about "macroevolution", make it in a more sophisticated way, as follows:
So human DNA and ape DNA are very similar correct? Now, let's take the DNA of that orangutan in a zoo. Is there some chance that one of the bases in its DNA may become modified, through say UV rays, etc? Of course, it's entirely possible that *1* of the bases in that orangutan DNA can turn into a base in human DNA, and get passed down to its children. Over enough time, we can actually calculate the probability that all the orangutan DNA can "evolve" into human DNA. In fact, we're GUARANTEED to find a human in that zoo, we just need to get the right sequence of bases, and give it enough time. Surely a Darwinist would laugh at this, but then again, is it that much stranger to say that humans and orangutans evolved from a common simian ancestor?
Regards,
Monsieur Lynx
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This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 06-09-2004 02:03 PM
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