Notes on three more of them:
2b
Uniformitarianism
Lots of scientists believe continents move at irregular speeds.
Yes. Over very short time scales.
[John Baumgardener] showed that continents can move very quickly.
“[Uniformitarianism] refuses to take into account the major catastrophic events of the past.
Only Lyell and Darwin were that obstinate.
“During the 1980’s eruptions at Mt. St. Helens, 200 layers of rock were deposited in three hours. Entire river systems were carved in a matter of months right through 700 feet of hard rock.”
Volcanic ash. Not sedimentary rocks. And those 700 feet could hardly be terms solid.
“If [the layers in the Grand Canyon] took millions of years to form, then the bottom rock layers would be hard and brittle by the time the ones at the top would be deposited. But, near the Grand Canyon, all the layers are bent together. If they were bent together while they were hard [they would break]. The rocks didn’t shatter like they should have, they must have been together while they were soft and pliable.”
They did break. And those bends are pretty large. Even rocks are flexible, if the distance and time are long enough.
“If the river slowly carved the canyon, then we should see all the material piled up in the river delta, but it’s completely missing. In fact, about 1000 cubic miles has been eroded to form the Grand Canyon. Where did it all go? If the canyon was slowly eroded by the Colorado River, an enormous delta should be found at the mouth of the river where it empties into the Gulf of California; but, the delta includes only about 1% of the material we would expect if the evolutionary explanation were true.” “Unless it was carved by a massive catastrophe which carried all the material away.”
The only true statement in this paragraph is the volume of the canyon.
“What happens to a clam when it dies? They open up, and their two shells separate. But this clam was fossilized before it had a chance to fall open, or be pulled open by a scavenger.”
Not if they are already buried, WHICH THEY ALMOST ALWAYS ARE.
The well-known fossil of the Ichthyosaur giving birth had to be buried quite quickly.
Yes. But how many small pieces of ichthyosaurs do we have compared to near-perfect ones?
“And they’ve found many dinosaur fossils with red blood cells, soft tissue and even DNA.”
Impressions of red blood cells. Collagen is not bone, but it is still quite tough. Tiny fragments of extremely degraded DNA. If they were only a few thousand years old, we should have hundreds of complete dinosaur genomes.
“But all of these could have been fossilized during the worldwide flood.”
No, they would all be smashed in tiny pieces.
“It doesn’t take millions of years to form a fossil. It can happen rapidly under the right conditions.”
Which are extraordinarily rare.
3a
Did humans evolve?
All of the old ape-men ideas were fakes.
Yes.
“In our book it says that Australopithecus afarensis evolved 3-2.8 MYA. In this book it says that Australopithecus evolved 4-5 MYA.”
How are those contradictory?
A 1951 Life article says that Australopithecus lived ~700 kYA.
That article was wrong.
It was claimed that Homo erectus had a human body, but a different skull. But, in 2013 there was a study showing that many of the differences used to distinguish H. sapiens from H. erectus blur together.
There are still characteristics that distinguish them.
Many specimens of H. habilis are of debated identity, and the genus assignment is uncertain.
Same is true for most pleurocerids, which says nothing about whether they belong in Elimia or Pleurocera (both, sensu latu , probably constitute about five different genera, which are highly cryptic).
The remains of Lucy are quite fragmentary.
So are most dinosaurs. So are my fossil pholadids. All three are distinctive
Lucy was actually a Bonobo-like creature, based on the skull.
The body is rather different from a Bonobo.
Quote to the effect of “True Australopithecus is not a direct ancestor of Homo. ”
Cladisticly, it cannot be, because if it were, then Australopithecus would be a grade.
Neanderthals and Humans can interbreed, therefore they are identical by definition.
Nobody thinks that all species of Larus are identical, yet they can interbreed freely.
“So either these fossils are completely human, or completely ape, with nothing in between.”
That is a horrendous a-priori false dichotomy.
All of the specimens of the ape-human transitional forms that have been found could fit in the back of a small pickup truck.
I could fit every specimen ever found of Ersilia stancyki into a hollowed-out US penny. That says nothing about how reliable any conclusions about it are.
4a
Does Adaptation Prove Evolution?
Darwin’s finches [which are thraupids, not estrildids or fringillids, as the name suggests] arrived on the Galapagos and underwent speciation. “But is that really evolution?”
Yes.
“[Speciation] isn’t evolution by natural forces if these animals were programmed to adapt like that.”
What caused them to adapt?
Not all changes are caused by random mutations.
No, no one thinks that.
Mutations are always bad.
Sinistrality is a mutation which makes zero difference to the gastropod surviving. It does make it harder to find a mate, however, if one does, and sinistrality is a rare enough mutation in your species (varies between different types of gastropod), then a new population can be established (e.g. Busycon carica & contarium/perversum )
Resistance to pesticides in mosquitoes is from a loss of information in the genome.
Yes, but there are plenty of adaptations that are just changing information, rather than deleting it.
“People count on that loss of information from mutations to create the genetic blueprints for every living creature on earth.”
Nobody sane does. There are plenty of ways to increase the amount of DNA in an organism: polyploidy, grabbing pieces from the environment, etc.
“One basic kind of animal can never change into another.”
You never define “kind”, however, given your examples, it seems to be “things that look pretty similar to me”. Under that definition, Eulimella is much more like Melanella than Bartschella , however the anatomy shows that Eulimella and Bartschella are both members of Turbonilinae, whereas Melanella is a eulimid, which is in a different subclass than Eulimella .
