Debunking Evolution Taught in Public Schools video series for students

Genesisapologetics.com is promoting some slick new videos to equip students to go to class and school their ignorant biology teachers.

If any of you are into extra-curricular Creationist fact checking, I thought it might be a fun project to start a thread cataloguing the worn-out errors, lies, and misrepresentations for those who think these videos are scientifically compelling. I’m sure once people discover them, they are going to be used here as proof evolution is bogus for all you scientists who never learned to think critically.

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I wonder if anyone would be up for making a Bingo Sheet? That could be fun too. :smiley:

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You’d probably get bingo on just the promo video

mutations can’t add information
evolution says life comes from non-life
we’re supposed to believe one kind of animal magically turned into another kind
But the human eye!
Evolution has something to do with astrophysics and gases collapsing to form stars
CONFLICT THESIS CONFLICT THESIS CONFLICT THESIS
there is no evidence of transitional forms

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I don’t remember where I picked it up fairly recently (was it here somewhere?) or I would give attribution, but the fact that the shadow of a cloud produces information about the cloud is a great way to show that information – and its transcription – does not require intelligent design.

It sounds like the TalkOrigins Index of Creationist Claims would suffice:

Yes, I’m not suggesting reinventing the wheel and they aren’t saying anything that hasn’t been addressed a hundred times. But it would be nice if there was something that said, “Video 1 makes the following false or misleading claims: X, Y, Z” with links to appropriate responses/factual information. The YouTube account where they are posted has 110,000 subscribers and these videos are getting a crazy number of views.

@Patrick_S , we aren’t going to argue about whether or not the videos are right on this thread. They aren’t. This thread is going to be exclusively for fact-checking them, not defending them. If you would like to start a different thread about a specific claim you want to argue about, we can help educate you there. I am going to delete future posts from you defending the YEC claims here as off-topic.

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We know that their rebuttals are wrong. However, they aren’t looking for science. AiG’s pseudoscience seems to be a smoke screen to numb cognitive dissonance. In talking with others of a conspiracy mindset, we find that talking with the facts doesn’t help. @Christy and @Kathryn_Applegate pointed out once that in discussion, pointing out our commonalities (multiplicity of ways the science can jive with the Bible; and mutual agreement on finding praise of God in creation) can disarm concerns more than hard facts. I wonder if there’s a positive spin you can suggest for their response? I would like to learn. Thanks

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I think there is a difference between trying to convince the already convinced that Genesis Apologetics is wrong and trying to convince the people on the sidelines that Genesis Apologetics is wrong. I envision the audience as the spectators not the true believers. There are students who may be quite open to accepting the evidence of evolution who are being given propaganda that tells them they should “debunk” it in order to protect their faith. It’s these people who can benefit from fact-checking, before the are convinced one way or the other. Also educators who face objections like this from students in class can benefit from resources that counter the narrative the scientists simply don’t have answers and evolution is not supported by evidence. Will this be compelling to committed YEC apologists? Probably not. But at least those who are not committed let won’t be left with the impression that the YEC video is right and the scientists truly don’t know anything, it’s all a big hoax.

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You put it very well. I’m convinced! Thanks.

I would have no objection to the “Debunking Evolution Series” as long as it is taught side by side with a “Debunking Christianity series,” there is plenty of material to be found in places like this.

That may be shocking to some here. But while I am Christian because I think it is possible for Christianity to be better than atheism, I have also made in clear that I think atheism is substantially better than a lot of the Christianity you find in the world. I certainly defend atheism as a perfectly rational alternative. I suspect that a debunking Christianity series could do a great deal of improvement on the sort of Christianity which is practiced in many places if not all places.

Tomato, Tomahto. Churchill was using the general term which includes republics like the US.

To put it succinctly, I think we can all respect people who are trying their best to be moral citizens who are make positive contributions to society. In the end, I think we judge people by where their heart is because we also know how fallible humans are. Unfortunately, AiG is all too often on the wrong side of this fence. Their heart isn’t in the right place, IMHO.

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I agree…and yet…coming from.the other side at one time…it is amazing how much we can be indoctrinated. The fear of losing ones salvation by misleading others (though the Genesis story itself is not salvation, it is implied evolution is a slippery slope) is terrifying.

Honestly, one of the benefits of coming out on the other side includes realizing there are so many well intentioned people who royally mess up, that God can’t be nearly as picky and judgmental as we are, if He knows our hearts.

Thanks.

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I am fairly knowledgeable about fossil mollusks, which are quite often a problem for young-earth claims (particularly ones pertaining to deposition or sticking things in order arbitrarily to fit with evolution). Due to their obscurity, none of the young-earth promoters I have encountered has bothered addressing them. I can take a quick look at them, however, I have plenty of other things I need to be working on.

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I removed some off-topic political posts. Please take discussions of democracy and political parties to PM if you would like to continue them.

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The latest video by Genesis Apologetics is “Did Adam and Noah Really Live Over 900 Years?” It makes the claim that the Genesis genealogy after the flood (combined with some later numbers) shows a “biological decay curve,” something the authors couldn’t fabricate, so the ages must be accurate and Genesis must contain accurate history from eyewitnesses.

We’ve discussed this quite a bit on the forum. Here are some problems, with links to posts that go into more depth. (I’m sorry that most of these posts are mine, but they are the ones I know where to find.)

  • The “decay curve” uses cherry-picked values values to make it seem far more impressive than it is. It generally uses biblical figures, but throws in the average Roman lifespan to give the curve a good tail. It ignores average lifespans given in Scripture, such as the 70–80 years Moses mentions, or how it only took 40 years for almost every Israelite over 20 to die in the wilderness.

  • It’s easy to make a set of numbers that plot a curve without fancy math. Start with a big number and halve it or take a tithe away from it – each will give you a pretty curve. Nothing about such a curve means it is caused by “decay” or necessarily connected to recording actual history. The Sumerian King List also shows a curve in ages, though using much higher numbers. One can even find a “decay curve” in Paul’s material in the New Testament! Curves are natural when dealing with numbers that span a large range. It’s intuitive to see a drop from 1000 to 900 as about the same as a drop from 100 to 90 (a curve), not 100 to 0 (linear).

  • Different manuscript lines of Genesis preserve different numbers. For instance, the Masoretic Text, Samaritan Penteteuch and Septuagint massage different numbers in the genealogies to achieve a similar goal: making sure almost everyone’s dead by the year of the flood. This shows the plasticity in these numbers before they solidified into accurately copied texts. (It also suggests the genealogy existed on its own before it was connected to the flood.)

  • There appears to be meaning in some of the specific numbers given. If the numbers simply recorded history, we would expect extra precision for the important people for whom there were more records, and rounded numbers for less well-known individuals. Instead, Genesis shows the opposite. Significant people are given special numbers – multiples of hundred or ten, 777, 365, or a series of squares. The numbers that look precise and not artificial tend to be for minor characters.

  • There are also patterns in the Genesis 11 genealogy as a whole. Rather than a decay curve, there are stairstep declines that spotlight the importance of both the flood and the division in Peleg’s day. The two shorter lives in Genesis 5 also correspond to the two big gaps in the Genesis 11 ages.

  • Taking the long lifespans literally leads to absurdities nobody would expect based on a plain reading of the surrounding narratives. Natural death seems to be flowing through the generations, not starting just before Noah is born. Although his father lived past 200, the Bible views Abraham at 100 as being “as good as dead.” Nobody would expect Noah to be one of those building the tower of Babel, or Abram’s departure from his father’s house to include saying goodbye to Shem, or Eber to outlive his great-great-great-great-grandson Abraham, or Shem to be sending baby gifts when Jacob’s kids are born. The narratives assume the generations don’t overlap this much.

  • Overall, the long ages seem to underscore how we are peering deep into a foggy past. Legendary figures are made to look larger than life, not only by their ages but by how their paragraphs are weightier and take longer to read than the shortened form used for later figures. To make sense of the ages, it helps to dig into how ancient cultures understood genealogies rather than assuming it is the same as our first impression.

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I watched three of the videos, and took notes on them:

2a: Radiometric Dating:

Time is all-important to evolution.

Age of earth entirely dependent on radiometric dating.

Scientists have thought it had to be at least a few million years old since the late 1700s.

“It sure seems they are putting a lot of faith in something [radiometric dating] they can’t actually test through direct observation.”

Radiometric dating is easily tested by direct observation. How do you think we can determine half-lives?

Plenty of assumptions go into these measurements.

Yes, but they are well-grounded assumptions.

Age of earth is based on dating meteorites, and they are assumed to be the same age as Earth.

Yes, but we have dates on terrestrial-origin zircons back to 4.05 billion.

Rocks contain radioactive parent isotopes that decay into stable daughter isotopes.

Many isotopes have decay chains that run through many radioactive isotopes

Age is an interpretation, not an observation.

“What if the rock already had a daughter isotope from the beginning? Or what if the rock gets contaminated? Or what if the rate of decay was rattled at some point in the past? What was the original ratio of parent to daughter isotope? One must assume that no parent or daughter material was added or removed from the rock; and that the rate of decay has always been constant over millions and millions of years.”

Those are taken into account. If the decay rate isn’t constant then a good chunk of physics is wrong, and GPS cannot possibly work.

Different mineral components give highly varying radiometric dates.

Yes, because the grains in sedimentary rocks are older than the rock by definition.

Known age igneous rocks give noticeably older dates.

That is because of contamination.

Ono formation supposedly ~112 MYA. Fossils give dates of 36,000 in C-14.

That is because of contamination.

C-14 is found in diamonds.

That is because of contamination.

6a Fossils.

Claims:

Evolution predicts that we should find the simplest fossils in the lowest rock layers.

We do.

“Some of the lowest rock layers with fossils, called “Cambrian”, reveal incredibly complicated creatures right at the start.”

There are lots of layers below the Cambrian.

“If evolution were true, we would expect to see single-celled organisms down there, then basic-looking multi-celled… Instead we see incredibly complex sea creatures with no clear ancestors in the lower rocks.”

Primarily what we have are things where we just don’t know what they really are (e.g. Kimberella )

“The Cambrian presents a dramatic explosion in animal variety, including an example from every one of today’s major groups, plus more besides.”

All the ones which have any chance to fossilize first appear somewhere in the ~200-million year stretch from where we find the first animal fossils to the end of the Cambrian.

“There are no simpler creatures leading up to them.”

Only if you ignore the ones that do.

“The expected transitional fossils are missing.”

Not any more than all the other fossils.

Quotes On the Origin of Species: “Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms.”

We have much better material now.

“If evolution were true, we should have millions that show us the evolution between all these animals.”

And if the fossil record perfectly preserved things.

Archaeopteryx: quotes Alan Feduccia “Paleontologists have tried to turn Archaeopteryx into an earth-bound, feathered dinosaur. But it’s not. It is a bird, a perching bird. And no amount of ‘paleobabble’ is going to change that.”

Archaeopteryx was even further disqualified as an evolutionary ancestor for birds when scientists found what appears to be a crow-sized bird, and extinct four-winged birds in rock layers designated to be below those containing Archaeopteryx .”

Transitional forms usually stick around after the initial transition: I am alive, therefore my parents cannot be is very bad logic.

Tiktaalik is no good as a transitional organism, due to “footprints of a four-legged land creatures in rocks that are supposedly ten million years older than Tiktaalik.”

Transitional forms usually stick around after the initial transition: I am alive, therefore my parents cannot be is very bad logic.

“We see that there are many more kinds of animals than we have today.” “And many of those went extinct.” “Opposite of evolution.”

That is exactly what we would expect from an old earth, not a young one.

“Fossil graveyards contain animals from land, sea, and air all jumbled together; and, in many cases, the destruction was so powerful that fossilized creatures were ripped apart and buried quickly in mud. And 95 % of the entire record is marine fossils buried in land rocks, not ocean bottom sediments. Many layers that contain fossil are so large that they stretch over many states, sometimes across continents.”

What does “Marine fossils buried in land rocks” mean? Why are Pteropods, or Spisula , or Raeta , or Eulimids ever preserved, if everything is getting smashed? Why are deposits not highly sorted, as they would be with any sort of fast current? The fact that they are buried in mud discredits the massive destruction being invoked, as the mud would not settle out.

6c

Extinction: Noah’s Flood & Ice Ages

Five different mass extinctions

More like 10.

“Some scientists dated the dinosaur extinction 300,000 years after [Chixulub]”

The proposed causes for mass extinctions, other than Chixulub, are exactly the set of events that would be happening with the flood.

How does massive desertification fit with a flood?

All dinosaur graveyards are deposited in “watery mud or sand”

“Many dinosaur fossils are found in a classic death pose with their necks arced back, possibly from choking.”

It’s called “rigor mortis”.

“[the flood] does better explain what we see.”

“There’s a lot of volcanic material mixed into these layers. Vast amounts of volcanic material entered the oceans. That’s what makes up seafloors around the world. And that relates to the Ice Age. Storm-tracking models show that warm oceans would cause severe storms, and lead to massive snowfall.”

There is NO volcanic material found in any Carolinian marine deposits, except for one locality of Eocene limestone. Drastically higher water temperature would NOT lower sea level.

“Hotter oceans make colder continents”

In a completely different pattern from the observations.

“Volcanic dust and debris would have blocked out the sun during the summer, so the falling snow would not have melted.”

The “fountains of the deep” refers to massive volcanic eruptions releasing lots of water.

“Evolutionists don’t have a satisfactory explanation for one Ice age, let alone four or five. But, the flood gives enough calamity in a short amount of time to actually make an Ice Age, if there was only one, that happened only a few hundred years after the flood.”

How are there dozens of completely distinct marine layers in the Cenozoic, with practically zero mixing, each requiring several hundred years at an absolute minimum?

“Which would explain many of the Ice-age fossils we find near the surface of the earth, not deep down in the flood layers.”

Why are there dropstones and glacial erratics embedded in meta-sedimentary rocks in the local mountains, which are older than all of the coastal marine faunas?

“The book of Job was written just about that time, and mentions snow, ice, and cold more than any other book in the bible.”

“So, when scientists try to stretch five extinctions and five different Ice ages over the evolutionary view of the geologic column, they’re not sure how they happened. But, when you compress the geologic column down into a biblical timeframe, it’s all explained by a worldwide flood followed by an Ice age.”

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This is great, thanks. :slight_smile:

And here are notes on one of the other videos:

6b

Whale Evolution

“[Whales] would need to evolve a brand new respiratory system.”

They still have lungs.

“Their teeth would have to evolve into baleen.”

[Some of the other things listed that whales would have to evolve]:

Ball vertebrae, Tail flukes, Blubber, Ability to drink sea water, Forelimbs into flippers, Blowhole, Ability to see properly underwater, Reorganized skull bones and muscles, Modified ear bones, growing several hundred times bigger.

Blubber is found in practically all mammals. Changing substantially in size is not particularly difficult: Palaeoloxodon includes species ranging from 90 cm at the shoulder and 200 kg to 6 m at the shoulder and 20,000 kg.

Quotes textbook “Mesonychids are one hypothesized link between modern whales and certain hoofed mammals.”

Currently, no. Mesonychids are considered to be a separate stem ungulate group.

“The entire evolutionary ancestry of whales is based on an imaginary creature.” [last common ancestor of the horrendously polyphyletic pairing of artiodactyls and wolves]

Said imaginary creature is one which nobody sane thinks existed. A common ancestor of artiodactyls is another matter.

Pakicetus was shown to be “nothing more than a land animal.”

An amphibious animal with cetacean dentition.

There were only two fossils ever found of [ Ambulocetus ].

That makes no difference, if they were good specimens.

“[ Ambulocetus ] appears to be nothing more than a land animal. In other words, it was defined as a walking whale; not because it had a whale’s tail or flippers, or a blowhole, but simply because they believed it to be. In fact, they didn’t even find the part of the skull that would have a blowhole; but they still add a blowhole in museum drawings.”

Ambulocetus was distinctly built for swimming.

“[ Rodhocetus ] is often depicted…with a tail fluke, however, they never found the fossil bones for their tail.”

It doesn’t have a fluke in any of the illustration you show.

“[ Basilosaurus ] seems to be nothing more than an extinct sea creature, with what appears to be leftover legs from evolution.”

It is an “extinct sea creature” by definition , so is Carinorbis lyra , which is very distinctly not a whale.

“[ Dorudon ] appears to be nothing more than an extinct whale.”

With teeth that look quite a lot like those Basilosaurus , and not like any modern whale.

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Thanks, Timothy!