12 Arguments Evolutionists Should NEVER use! (Apparently)

good morning everybody my name is Alex and as I'm sure you're aware by now if you've been following this channel for any length of time I'm a pretty strong proponent to the theory of evolution by natural selection and I certainly don't think that anybody should be restricted of learning of its explanation for the Origin of Species however as I'm sure you're also aware not everybody agrees with this opinion and there's a prominent organization within the creationist movement called Answers in Genesis which recently put out a list of 12 arguments that they think evolutionists should avoid using so I thought that we take a look through it and see if it holds any merit and of course a link to the original article will be in the description down below if you want to go and check it out for yourself but I'm going to try not to leave anything out here and now argument one evolution is a fact when our core beliefs are attacked it's often easy for humans to retreat to such statements as this my belief is a fact and yours is wrong that's exactly why we cannot trust mere human understanding to explain the unobservable past emotion and prize get in the way evolution is not a fact no matter how many times evolutionists say it is it's a framework built on assumptions about the past assumptions that will never have the repped firsthand observational proof now I've said this before but just because you can't directly observe an occurrence doesn't mean that you can't directly observe evidence of that occurrence take the following example imagine you're in the middle of a desert and stood in the wilderness is a single tree and on the floor is at least the same color is all the leaf on the tree now you didn't see that leaf fall off the tree but you can assume that that's what's happened based on the evidence that you do have available to you now this is inductive reasoning but inductive reasoning can be trusted when it's strong enough this is how the tected work is done also of course it goes without saying that nobody was around to observe the creation myth propagated by accident Genesis either and look evolution like any other fact of nature is a scientific fact meaning that it's based upon inductive reasoning and is falsifiable it's just that the likelihood of it being falsified is miniscule for instance if I were to take this book and hold it here I'm pretty sure that if I let go this is going to fall to the ground now I can't be certain of this because of course I can't see the future but based on inductive reasoning and things that I've seen in the past I can assume that it's going to happen again and that science argument to only the uneducated reject evolution sighs for arrogance of such statements this argument has no footing and should be cast off mainly those who make this claim usually define educated people as those who accept evolution anyone who disagrees fails the test no matter what their background eg if we follow this ideology Isaac Newton must have been uneducated the problem with the logic being presented here is that education is usually focused meaning you can be incredibly intelligent and incredibly educated just not specifically say in evolutionary biology for instance I could meet someone who's incredibly well-read in poetry and say well what do you think about evolution and they might say well I don't really know I don't believe in it I haven't seen the evidence and that makes perfect sense you have no reason to know about these things and so it makes sense for you to be on the fence that doesn't mean you're uneducated it just means you're uneducated in evolution in fact I'd say it's less accurate to say that it's those who disbelieve in evolution that are uneducated but rather the people who are educated in evolution almost unanimously believe in it and furthermore when you do find that rare combination of people who both do have some kind of education and evolutionary biology but still deny it they almost always share something in common and this is invariably some kind of religious presupposition also I simply must pick you up on your Isaac Newton example Isaac Newton died in 1727 which is over a hundred years before Charles Darwin published the Origin of Species he would have absolutely no reason to know anything about evolution by natural selection okay we judge people's intelligence by the standards of the time imagine I were to say of Albert Einstein was so stupid he couldn't even name who the 42nd president of the United States was well of course he couldn't because I would Einstein died when Bill Clinton was 8 years old this is a complete red herring argument three overwhelming evidence in all fields of science supports evolution the irony of course is that the centuries prior to Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species the majority of scientists found the opposite to be true the evidence supported creation what changed not the evidence rather the starting point changed ie moving from the Bible God's Word to humanism man's word oh so what you're saying is that people adapted their worldview based on evidence which contradicted their pre-existing beliefs look I used to believe in the existence of Father Christmas or Santa Claus and the evidence was right there they were present under the tree but I you know grew out of that in science new evidence always supersedes old ideas if the two are contradictory and I would love to see some overwhelming evidence to support your worldview that doesn't rely on the Bible show me that and then maybe you may have a point argument for doubting evolution is like doubting gravity why does this argument fail we'll show you take a pencil or a pen older than the air and drop it to the floor that's gravity next make a single celled organism like an amoeba and turn it into a goat go ahead we'll wait No as you can see there's a fundamental difference between operational science which can be tested through repeatable experimentation and historical science which cannot okay a few things here firstly evolution is not historical science okay it's not something that happened in the past and that we are the product of it's still happening today we're just one step along the evolutionary timeline secondly this is another red herring I do often hear this comparison between evolution and gravity but almost always brought up in the context of the word theory people criticize evolution for being only a theory people respond to that simply by saying well so is gravity and that's the context in which the two are compared and thirdly if you'll allow me once again to reach for Thomas Jefferson author of America we've already demonstrated that if I let go of this book it's going to fall to the floor but why how do you know that that's because of gravity I mean can you observe gravity itself no you can only observe the result of gravity you can only observe the evidence that exists in favor of the hypothesis that there is a force called gravity you can't observe it directly so why do you believe in it I'll tell you why is because you don't need to observe something directly to believe in it all you need to do is observe evidence in favor of its existence and that's what we have for evolution argument v doubting evolution is like believing the earth is flat ironically the Bible describes the earth is round and hanging in space long before this could have been directly observed a casus always gets me the quote that you're using from the Bible to support the claim that the earth of the globe is isaiah 40:22 which states it is he who sits above the circle of the earth now if I were something who wanted to prove that the Bible was scientifically accurate I would avoid this verse at all cost think about it for a second the circle of the earth if I were to ask you what shape of basketball is what would you say certainly not circular you'd say it was spherical you'd say it was globular okay and in fact you know what can be described as circular the Flat Earth model your point is not but even if it were true that people once universally believed in a flat earth the rekt repeatable observation shows us that the earth is round and orbiting the Sun evolutionary stories about fossils and not direct observations their assumption based beliefs wait now hang on a second what are you talking about direct observable evidence have you ever been to space I don't think so which means that you're relying on indirect evidence to prove that the earth is globular maybe ships disappearing bottom first over the horizon or the shadow of the earth on the moon during a lunar eclipse these are all indirect and your main criticism of evolution seems to be that it's unobservable but you're contradicting yourself again and again because it seems that so of many of your beliefs so you're really kind of shooting yourself in the foot here argument six it's here so it must have evolved a conclusion does not always prove the premises are true that is if the answer is four we could arrive at that any number of ways 2+2 5 minus 1 etc in the same way evolutionists often assume that since certain species or traits exist this is proof of evolution because it's how it must have happened this argument however is self-reflective and useless the Bible offers another and more sound framework how these traits and species came to be evolution does not imply that there's one way that things must have evolved in fact evolution implies the exact antithesis of this that there was a whole manner of ways an incalculable number of ways that life could have evolved and we're just having a great time figuring out exactly how that happened it's you that saying that there must be one way that things must have come to be on this planet and you're basing that upon the Bible which completely contradicts this many paths idea again this shows your complete lack of understanding of evolutionary biology and again you're just contradicting yourself argument 7 natural selection is evolution this is likely the most absurd argument on the list and most in need of being scrapped often evolutionists bait people into showing them a change that isn't really natural selection and then switch to say that this proves the molecules command evolution however this is quite misleading natural selection even according to evolutionists does not have the power to generate anything new the observable process can only act upon existing characteristics so that some members of the species are more likely to survive in fact it's an important component of the biblical worldview well no natural selection is not the same thing as evolution but natural selection is the process by which evolution takes place if you take natural selection and extend it over a long enough period of time then logically evolution will be the result in another article from Answers in Genesis they claim that God created animals with genetic variability to be able to survive the changes in nature which God also controls and my question would simply be why would God create animals with genetic variability allowing them to adapt when their environments become too hostile for their existence why would he not just create them fit to survive those environments in the first place or will retain the climate entirely also natural selection works on the basis of survival of the fittest that is deaths of the unsuitable now if God did create animals with genetic variability purposefully to allow them to survive then why don't all members of the species benefit from this by what standard is God deciding who lives and who dies is there not slightly more plausible that genetic mutation or variability is due to some kind of random biological factors nature rather than being divinely inspired I'll leave that with you argument eight common design means common ancestry historical common descent is not and cannot be confirmed through observation rather certain observations are explained by assumptions about the past these observations we might add have alternative explanations common body parts for example do not prove common descent that's an assumption a common designer fits the evidence just as well it's not better okay firstly stopped using the word design in that context by using the word design to describe all animals that exist there's a kind of subtle circular reasoning because that's the very thing that you're trying to prove but that aside common characteristics were the inspiration behind evolution not the proof okay when Charles Darwin noticed that there was some kind of visual similarities between animals he didn't say a hat the evolution is that was just the inspiration that made them think well maybe there is something more to it and if you ask an evolutionary biologist today not one of them will ever say that their reason to believe in evolution is because some animals look alike again a complete straw man not an argument that anybody ever uses argument 9 sedimentary layers show millions of years of geological activity sedimentary layers show one thing sedimentary layers in other words we can and should study the rocks but the claim that rocks proves that the earth must be billions of years old ignores one important point such an interpretation is built upon a stack of assumptions when we start with the Bible ok hang on a second I've just got to jump in there so you're claiming that independent peer-reviewed studies and investigations which all point to the same conclusion regardless of the fact that the researchers didn't communicate with each other or a stack of assumptions before imploring us to base our beliefs on the Bible an actual stack of assumptions when we start with the Bible and examine the rocks within the framework of a global flood the need for long ages vanishes but what you're failing to do is to provide any kind of evidence for such a global flood ok until you do so your argument will hold no wait in fact there's actually evidence to the contrary of a global flood at the time at which creationists claim that there was one for instance other people in other areas of the world didn't seem to notice that their villages and all of their friends and family have been destroyed by an unstoppable flow of water when they continue to live and right during that time period argument 10 mutations drive evolution perhaps because of movies and fiction the popular idea is that mutations make evolution go or perhaps it's because of independent peer-reviewed studies and investigations which all point to the same conclusion regardless of the fact that the researchers you you get the idea given enough time shifts in the genetic code will produce all the variety of plants and animals on earth and beyond the problem mutations cannot produce the types of changes that evolution requires not even close or there we have it ladies and gentlemen undeniable proof note the wealth of evidence and reliable examples presented here to support Answers in Genesis case namely it's impossible some may benefit an organism eg beetles on when the island losing their wings but virtually every time mutations come with a cost you are quite literally describing the process of evolution some mutations are good some mutations are bad most mutations have absolutely no effect whatsoever but given enough time you'll start to see changes within a species in relation to their environment now what you've got to do is add in some kind of geographical isolation of two or more groups and you're on your way argument 11 the Scopes trial misconceptions about the Scopes trial run rampant often accounts sound something like this fundamentalist Christian bigots arrested an innocent biology teacher fighting to scientific freedom and while they won the court case they ultimately lost the public perception battle to the well reasoned presentation of the defense thanks to the play inherit the wind this common though completely floored perception of the event continues to be used against creationist but real history presents a much different account again there seems to be a noticeable lack of supporting evidence here but even if that wasn't the case the Scopes trial has absolutely nothing to do with the scientific legitimacy of evolution you will never see a biologist attempt to use the persecution of people who believe in evolution as evidence of its truths basing arguments on emotion rather than reason is not a trademark of science but of faith look imagine I were to flip the script here and say you know Christians often complain that they're persecuted in education and politics but this clearly isn't the case I'm not persecuted at all therefore God does not exist it just makes absolutely no sense and again it's a complete red herring argument 12 and congratulations to you all for sticking through to the end of this don't worry we're nearly there science versus religion news stories thrive on conflict and intrigue and one common theme present science and religion as opposing forces reason struggling to overcome the draconian divine revelation it grabs attention but it's bunk many atheists and humanists oppose biblical Christianity but science does not well yes it does but that's besides the point science doesn't disprove religion just certain claims of certain religions one being that every single living thing had a sudden distinct origin less than a few thousand years ago okay it's not just atheists and humanists who reject this worldview milli and the Christians realize that Genesis is not a literal account even if it was originally written with that intention okay evolution happened evolution is still happening if you want to make some case against it without an appeal to biblical authority then I'd be willing to give it some consideration the first you have to drop the theology then you'll have my ear now before I go I just want to say congratulations to Robert who is this month's patron of the month and as requested Robert you will be receiving a copy of God is not great by Christopher Hitchens and if you want to learn how to become a patron to yourself of course links are all in the description but anyway I have been Alex O'Connor or cosmic skeptic you can find me on social media here don't forget to subscribe thank you for watching and I will see you in the next one [Music]

Channel: CosmicSkeptic

Views: 523,650

Rating: 4.8900995 out of 5

Keywords: Alex O'Connor, cosmic, skeptic, cosmicskeptic, answers in genesis, aig, ken ham, creationism, evolution, atheism, atheist, science, biology, evolutionary biology, arguments evolutionists should never use, 12, scopes trial, mutation, natural selection, charles darwin, isaac newton, proof of evolution, evolution is false, evolution is a lie, evolution is fake, alex j oconnor

Id: t0H9JzW9Sz8

Length: 16min 35sec (995 seconds)

Published: Mon May 01 2017