HOW DID LIFE ORIGINATE?

Firstly Evolution by natural selection, states nothing about the origin of life, but that too can be explained by Darwinian means.

HOW DID THE DNA CODE ORIGINATE?

DNA is not thought to be the original genetic material, cRNA can take that claim, just because the author of these questions doesn't understand the chemistry of why nucleotides bind to amino acids doesn't mean that they don't. In fact they do, incredulity is no argument in a scientific debate.

HOW COULD MUTATIONS—ACCIDENTAL COPYING MISTAKES (DNA ‘LETTERS’ EXCHANGED, DELETED OR ADDED, GENES DUPLICATED, CHROMOSOME INVERSIONS, ETC.)—CREATE THE HUGE VOLUMES OF

INFORMATION IN THE DNA OF LIVING THINGS?

This is like asking how "Chinese Whispers" could change the original message. There has been an extraordinary amount of time available for the amount of differences that exist to have evolved naturally, too much nearly, there should be more, but then there is the theory of punctuated equilibrium. It is estimated that close to 100% of every life form that has ever existed is now extinct, this tells how injurious DNA change actually is.

WHY IS NATURAL SELECTION, A PRINCIPLE RECOGNIZED BY CREATIONISTS, TAUGHT AS ‘EVOLUTION’, AS IF IT EXPLAINS THE ORIGIN OF

THE DIVERSITY OF LIFE?

It isn't, and Natural selection is the agent of evolution, if the author of these questions believes in Natural selection then they believe in evolution.

HOW DID NEW BIOCHEMICAL PATHWAYS, WHICH INVOLVE MULTIPLE ENZYMES WORKING TOGETHER IN SEQUENCE, ORIGINATE?

This is the argument from irreducible complexity, it is a weak argument at best, it is also completely unscientific. Why is it so inconceivable that something like a biochemical pathway had a different function before? One enzyme catalyzing one reaction produces a product that another enzyme has a specificity for, and so on. If the new addition to the pathway is helpful, hey presto, it stays and adds to the organisms chances of survival over it's competitors.

LIVING THINGS LOOK LIKE THEY WERE DESIGNED, SO HOW DO EVOLUTIONISTS KNOW THAT THEY WERE NOT DESIGNED?

Why would anyone, trying to find an answer make one up?

HOW DID MULTI-CELLULAR LIFE ORIGINATE?

Two heads are better than one.

HOW DID SEX ORIGINATE?

The explanation that goes with this question shows just how little the author knows about biological science, asexual reproduction normally precedes a species' extinction, save for Bdelloid Rotifers there isn't really any known multi-cellular asexual species that can survive in the genetically dynamic world of sexual reproduction.

If me and you are both organisms living in an aqueous environment and we both are asexual in our reproductive capacity, but by mutation or other means I spread my genetic material your way and you use it to create new organisms then we've just sexually reproduced, now, given that I've passed my genes on to our young as well as yours they can have a distinct advantage over their peers in that their peers are close to carbon copies of their mothers.

WHY ARE THE (EXPECTED) COUNTLESS MILLIONS OF TRANSITIONAL FOSSILS MISSING?

What the hell is a transitional fossil? If you want to scrutinize a theory at least learn that which it states. Every fossil is a transitional fossil, you, me and your dog are transitional organisms, there is no stop and start points, this exhibits the delusion of the discontinuous, mind, as if everything can lumped into discrete categories.

It is statistically highly unlikely that any one living organism will be fossilized, so the fact that there is so many actual fossils, which do show a marked gradation from "simple" organisms to the "higher" animals is testament to the validity of the theory.

HOW DO ‘LIVING FOSSILS’ REMAIN UNCHANGED OVER SUPPOSED HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF YEARS, IF EVOLUTION HAS CHANGED WORMS INTO HUMANS IN THE SAME TIME FRAME?

The clue is in the name, "Living fossils". They are unchanged in many respects because they haven't needed to, evolution by natural selection weeds out injurious changes and keeps that which fits the organism to it's environment, these organisms have not needed to change.

HOW DID BLIND CHEMISTRY CREATE MIND/INTELLIGENCE ALTRUISM, AND MORALITY

I think you'll agree that these are all part of each other, altruism is observed in other social animals, help now and you will be helped later is a the basis of society. Our evolution from tree dwelling ancestors to ground dwelling beings freed up our hands, this made them available for other tasks such as tool usage (we are not the only animals that learn, or use tools) the usage of tools leads to understanding of how they work, this in turn leads to their development, and eventually their engineering/our intelligence.

Natural selection as I've pointed out already benefits the bearer of useful traits, and tool usage, reciprocal altruism and ingenuity are clearly beneficial.

Morality is an extension of altruism, a deeply ingrained respect for it has led to the development of society.

WHY IS EVOLUTIONARY "JUST-SO" STORY-TELLING TOLERATED?

What really does this question ask? Is it asking why hypothesis are generated in science? I think so, and this points out a fundamental flaw in the authors logic. Not everything is known, but the evidence points in this direction, when it no longer does, it is disregarded until further proof can be gathered.

WHERE ARE THE SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGHS DUE TO EVOLUTION

Some people really want the world handed to them, don't they? Is the theory of evolution not a scientific breakthrough in itself?

It is because of our knowledge of how evolution works, through our genes, that we've been able to develop novel new experimental medicines, it has shown us how to tackle tricky pathogens such as HIV, HPV and bacterial pathogens, we've learned how to determine whether or not someone is susceptible to inherited traits. We are developing gene therapy delivery systems that can alter your DNA to make it function differently, we've been expressing therapeutic proteins for use in the highly complex multi-cellular environment of the human body from simple fungi and bacteria for decades that has benefited millions worldwide. There are many more, but I'll stop there.

SCIENCE INVOLVES EXPERIMENTING TO FIGURE OUT HOW THINGS WORK;HOW THEY OPERATE. WHY IS EVOLUTION, A THEORY ABOUT HISTORY, TAUGHT AS IF IT IS THE SAME AS THIS OPERATIONAL SCIENCE

Sigh

Humph

Tssk

Pfffft

Jeeez

WHY IS A FUNDAMENTALLY RELIGIOUS IDEA, A DOGMATIC BELIEF SYSTEM THAT FAILS TO EXPLAIN THE EVIDENCE, TAUGHT IN SCIENCE CLASSES

How exactly is evolution religious? How has it failed to explain the evidence? How is a scientific theory dogmatic?

As to why the author of these this article comes to their conclusions I don't know. They lack a basic understanding of the theory. If you wish to subscribe to evolution as a theory you aren't made to follow a specific code. Darwin's original book has been shown to contain some errors, but it would be way too prophetic if it didn't. This is what science is about.

Evolution is a scientific fact, backed up by evidence that is insurmountable, maybe it didn't happen exactly as current knowledge explains it, and I would be surprised if it did. The point is we are definitely looking in the right direction, and that is all you can ask of any theory. To stop and state, "well I don't know, so it must have been an intelligent designer" is to throw in the towel and admit you are weak and can't take the rigorous detail that a scientific inquiry demands.

Science is dynamic, it is ever changing as we are, the more we peel back layers the more we find out, so fuck this prick and their ridiculous assertions, their scathing and ignorant remarks coupled with bastardized quotes, about a beautiful theory that took the entire life of one of the most influential geniuses of modern history to develop, how about going out there and doing some research and finding out something new and interesting, instead of attempting to fill every (ill conceived) gap with their hocus pocus.

I'm no expert in biology, or evolution, but I can definitely give decent answers to these basic, misguided questions.

1: Evolution shows how species change over time, it does not try and explain where species come from. That's abiogenisis, I believe.

2: Again, this is not something that evolution specifically tries to answer, yet it's still obvious. Just as the first form of life would have almost certainly been something very very simple, a single celled thing with the ability to replicate itself, DNA would have started off as something very basic, and changed into what we now know as DNA.

3: Well, through evolution. I don't see where the lack of knowledge is here if the person understands evolution.

4: When natural selection works with the mutations mentioned in the previous question, then you have 'creation'. Again, this just implies that the person asking these questions has a very shaky understanding of evolution.

5: Through absolutely massive numbers of cell replications over millions of years.

6: Occam's Razor.

7: Same as 5.

8: Not a clue. I'm assuming it's the easiest way to control sexual activity in larger animals. Pretty sure there's an answer on the internet, but I'm not your personal search engine.

9: Because fossils are rare. There are very specific conditions for a fossil to be formed, and even then, for it to be found? We're very lucky to have found as much as we have.

10: Because fossils are dead.

11: What's the point here?

12: Because although evolution itself has been scientifically accepted, it requires a lot of guesswork to apply it to the human race over tens of thousands of years.

13: So evolution's not true because it hasn't benefited us? Great logic there.

14: Karl Popper's theory of scientific falisifiability says that all science requires a negative possibility - there must be a test result that could prove it wrong, or a number of test results. This is possible of evolution.

15: Well, it's not. This explains Popper's quote, and I don't believe that Ruse quote, here he shows his support for teaching evolution as fact, so it seems unlikely that he feels it is a religion. This entire point is based on misinformation.

That is some pretty good questions. I can't wait to see if anyone can dispute that.

My computer is lame and won't open the PDF, but does it happen to be these 15 questions: http://creation.com/15-questions ?

I'm no expert but they're not that difficult to answer. On some degree...

1. How did life originate?

This should clear things up a little (assuming you got the brains for it, although not much is needed...) http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/04/rna-enzyme-makes-another-rna-e.html

When life began on this planet conditions were very different from what they are now. This should clear things up, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller–Urey_experiment

Combine the two and there you go, makes it rather clear.

2. How did the DNA code originate?

Look at 1., then think, and you should see how.

3. How could mutations create the huge volumes of information in the DNA of living things? How could such errors create 3 billion letters of DNA information to change a microbe into a microbiologist?

Every slightest change in DNA is a mutation. Mutations are necessary to adapt to new environments and new requirements.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html

4. Why is natural selection, a principle recognized by creationists, taught as ‘evolution’, as if it explains the origin of the diversity of life?

Natural selection? The weak and inferior die, the strong and superior survive. It is part of evolution. The stronger and better the organism the more chance it has to survive.

Diversity comes from mutations, and stronger and superior mutations tend to survive better.

Creationism denies evolution, that means it also denies natural selection.

5. How did new biochemical pathways, which involve multiple enzymes working together in sequence, originate?

Through replicating and adapting to new requirements, and through other mutations.

6. Living things look like they were designed, so how do evolutionists know that they were not designed?

So stupid question... Simple answer is evolution, which is backed up by abundant evidence.

7. How did multi-cellular life originate?

Single-celled organisms "saw" the advantage of working together, it was easier to survive.

Presently a good example is lichen (two different organisms forming one), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichen

also worth to check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multicellular_organism#Hypotheses_for_origin

8. How did sex originate?

Sex. I'd personally say it was necessary for more variety, for more mutations, for different superior mutations to become part of one organism. Also to sift out weaker mutations. For better survival.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_sexual_reproduction

9. Why are the (expected) countless millions of transitional fossils missing?

There are specific conditions for fossils to form. Most creatures that die rot away wholly, and their bones (if are any) are also eaten or carried away if left to open ground teeming with life.

10. How do ‘living fossils’ remain unchanged over supposed hundreds of millions of years

Because there has been no need for much change, their features are superior in their environment. Although they are smaller then they were long ago, a lot smaller.

Organisms tend to change when there are rivals, either more fiercer in relation to certain conditions, or they adapt to other conditions, or they go extinct. If there is no need then they won't change as much.

11. How did blind chemistry create mind/ intelligence, meaning, altruism and morality?

??? From the beginning till this point? How the mind developed, evolved to that of ours'?

12. Why is evolutionary ‘just-so’ story-telling tolerated? ...

??? When it comes to humans it has mostly to do with their parents and the environment they are raised in, not only evolution. Humans have two different kinds of adapting mechanisms, one is evolution and the other is the abstract mind. Our mind is the most powerful one, since we can create things that make our lives possible in inhospitable places.

Evolution does not apply to humans as much as it did in the past because we create our own environment. Other animals don't and can't.

13. Where are the scientific breakthroughs due to evolution?

??? Evolution explains how life on Earth came to be as it currently is and how it could be in the future.

14. Science involves experimenting to figure out how things work; how they operate. Why is evolution, a theory about history, taught as if it is the same as this operational science?

There have been done successful experiments supporting evolution. (answers 1, 2, 3) Their purpose was to figure out how evolution exactly works, and they got a lot closer to it. Goes under science, does it not?

15. Why is a fundamentally religious idea, a dogmatic belief system that fails to explain the evidence, taught in science classes?

If “you can’t teach religion in science classes”, why is evolution taught?

Religion has more definitions than just one. Using the definition that is used when referring to, say, Christianity would be wrong when used in about evolution. Seriously, not knowing that while making the question... stupid. Check first then form. Or form, check, and change if necessary.

Evolution explains how this all (current life) came to be. To understand that you must understand science.

Science of biological evolution...

Whoever made those questions is... just a waste of space.

I can't believe you guys are even wasting your time with this creationist crap.