Andy Schlafly #fundie

Andy Schlafly #fundie conservapedia.com

The theory of evolution cannot permit any "counterexamples," or examples of things that could not have evolved. As in logic, the existence of merely one counterexample disproves the truth of the rule.

Here are some counterexamples to evolution:

*beautiful autumn foliage, which lacks any plausible evolutionary explanation
*the whale, which has no plausible ancestor (Charles Darwin suggested black bears)
*the eye, which lacks a plausible pathway for incremental evolution
*bloodclotting, which also lacks a plausible pathway for incremental evolution
*Jellyfish in Hawaii, which swarm to the beaches precisely 9 to 10 days after each full moon[1]
*cicada that appear like clockwork every 13 years for some species, and every 17 years for others[2]
*migratory powers of butterflies and birds[3]

74 comments

old comment by Horsefeathers

"The theory of evolution cannot permit any "counterexamples," or examples of things that could not have evolved."

Let me get this straight. You want the theory of evolution to take into account and accept as valid "things that could not have evolved"?

This is stupid. Even for you, Andy.

"As in logic, the existence of merely one counterexample disproves the truth of the rule."

Logic and you are not exactly on speaking terms, Andy.

"*beautiful autumn foliage, which lacks any plausible evolutionary explanation"

The change in the color of leaves is quite easily explained by evolution. The fact that you want evolution to explain the "beauty" of it shows a distinct lack of understanding on your part.

"*the whale, which has no plausible ancestor (Charles Darwin suggested black bears)"

Whale evolution is, along with horses, one of the most well documented as far as I'm aware.

"*the eye, which lacks a plausible pathway for incremental evolution"

Darwin himself explained how it could have come about and, as far as I'm aware, he wasn't off by much.

"*bloodclotting, which also lacks a plausible pathway for incremental evolution"

I'm afraid I don't see why you think this.

"*Jellyfish in Hawaii, which swarm to the beaches precisely 9 to 10 days after each full moon"

And?

"*cicada that appear like clockwork every 13 years for some species, and every 17 years for others"

And?

"*migratory powers of butterflies and birds"

And?

old comment by HazelHolly

beautiful autumn foliage, which lacks any plausible evolutionary explanation
The green in leaves is caused by a chemical called chlorophyll, which only works while the leaves are alive. Certain plants shut down thier leaves during the harsh winter months, and thus the leaves stop producing chlorphyll during autumn and the leaves change colour.

the whale, which has no plausible ancestor (Charles Darwin suggested black bears)
For the first bit, they share the same anscestors as dogs. Also, why is there no plausible anscestor for them? The second bit gets a resounding [CITATION NEEDED].

the eye, which lacks a plausible pathway for incremental evolution
Primitive eyes were most likely a fluke mutation that happened to be EXTREMELY benificial. Animals with eyes were more likely to survive and thus more likely to pass down the eye gene. As time went on, those with more focused and developed eyes were more likely to survive, resulting in the eyes we have today.

bloodclotting, which also lacks a plausible pathway for incremental evolution
Animals without clotteing blood tend to bleed to death, so they are far less likely to pass on their genes.

(cont.)

old comment by HazelHolly

(cont.)

Jellyfish in Hawaii, which swarm to the beaches precisely 9 to 10 days after each full moon
The phases of the moon are an easy reference point for animals. These jellyfish know that the moon is always at its biggest and brightest a given amount of time before the optimum time to swarm is. That's why.

cicada that appear like clockwork every 13 years for some species, and every 17 years for others
Life and mating cycles.

migratory powers of butterflies and birds
Birds and butterflies migrate from a place where there's not much food to a place where there's food aplenty. Those that can't do that tend to die rather quickly, and thus - any guesses? - DON'T PASS ON THEIR NON-MIGRATING GENES.

There. I, a 13-year-old Christian "evolutionist", just answered all of your points. There are no counterexamples to evolution.

old comment by Patches

The theory of evolution cannot permit any "counterexamples," or examples of things that could not have evolved. As in logic, the existence of merely one counterexample disproves the truth of the rule.

And that's what makes it such a powerful explanation: Falsifiability. In that one potentially COULD find a (legitimate) counterexample to it, but so far have not.

Creationism, on the other hand, explains everything as "it was just created that way", therefore it is unfalsifiable given there is absolutely no evidence that could ever potentially be found that you would accept as a counterexample. There is no way to test it because "it was just created that way" accepts all possible outcomes as supporting evidence for itself, thus rendering it with absolutely zero explanatory power.

old comment by

*beautiful autumn foliage, which lacks any plausible evolutionary explanation

When leaves are shed, the chlorophyll is simply the first to go.

*the whale, which has no plausible ancestor (Charles Darwin suggested black bears)
ORLY?

*the eye, which lacks a plausible pathway for incremental evolution
Such old hat, even Darwin addressed it. C’mon, Andy. Get with the times.

*bloodclotting, which also lacks a plausible pathway for incremental evolution
First time I’ve heard this one, so I’ll let Talk Origins handle it for me.

*Jellyfish in Hawaii, which swarm to the beaches precisely 9 to 10 days after each full moon[1]
Wow It’s almost like the moon has some sort of regular effect on the ocean. What could [i]that[/i] possibly be?

*cicada that appear like clockwork every 13 years for some species, and every 17 years for others[2]
Again, I leave this to someone with more experience

*migratory powers of butterflies and birds[3]
Really? You mean getting lost and falling into the ocean or nabbed by a predator isn’t a strong selective pressure? What would be a strong pressure, then?

old comment by Neith

*beautiful autumn foliage, which lacks any plausible evolutionary explanation

"Beautiful" is a matter of opinion. Leaves don't lose their chlorophyll every year just to make people go, "Ooh, pretty!"

*the whale, which has no plausible ancestor (Charles Darwin suggested black bears)

The hippo is their closest relative. A lot has been discovered since the time of Darwin.

*the eye, which lacks a plausible pathway for incremental evolution

This has been debunked so many times, it's pitiful that you people keep claiming this.

Richard Dawkins on the Evolution of the Eye || Part 1

*bloodclotting, which also lacks a plausible pathway for incremental evolution

Ken Miller talks about the evolution of blood clotting

I'm bored with this. See HazelHolly's response (and probably others) for the rest.

old comment by Papabear

It's not that the ToE "cannot permit any examples of things that could not have evolved, it's that no such examples have been shown.

As for your example of foliage, not everything requires a purpose. If something is neither beneficial nor harmful to a species, it has no role in evolution. That leaves turn colors in the fall just doesn't matter and is simply the result of chemistry in the leaf changing as the leaf dies.

The whale? Plenty of ancestors to modern whales have been found. That Darwin suggested bears is irrelevent.

The eye? There ARE plausible pathways for the evolution of eyes.

Blood clotting? Does that require any more than one step?

Jellyfish may swarm after the full moon as they are more likely to be eaten when backlit by the full moon. Just my guess.

Cicadas swarming at long intervals may have evolved such that the swarms take place when the predator populations are likely to be at a nadir.

Birds and bugs migrate to where temperatures and food supplies are better than where they are migrating from.

P.S. Do not presume to give others a lesson in logic. You are under-qualified.

old comment by GodotIsWaiting4U

1. That "beautiful autumn foliage" is only beautiful as a side effect. What you are seeing is the death and withering of the leaves on the trees as they lose chlorophyll in preparation for winter, something that would indeed be an evolutionary advantage as it would mean not wasting resources.

2. Whale ancestry has been traces and filled in pretty well. Whales are most likely descended from a previously land-dwelling mammal.

3. Actually, it's perfectly plausible. Evolution works on the principle of "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king". Even if your eyes suck, they're better than everyone who has worse eyes. If you're in the top half, you have an advantage. Better nearly blind than totally blind.

4. Again, land of the blind, one-eyed king. There is a distinct advantage to not bleeding all over the place forever, and the chemicals in blood allow for clotting.

5. And? So?

6. Neat, behavioral patterns. So?

7. So?

old comment by Bi The Way

1) You honestly think that dead leaves disprove evolution? They die, chlorophyll that is well fed is green. Dead things are not that good at transforming light to sugar so it turns a lovely dead color like brown. It just so happens to look good to some people (aesthetics is in the eye of the beholder, I hate the fall tree fashion).

2) Plausible ancestor = wolves actually. No kidding, most recently the consensus is wolves due to the beyond vestigial back legs they have (they are in a dog legged shape, for all who are interested).

3) Read the next fucking sentence after "To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree". No wait here, I'll do it for you: "Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound".

old comment by Bi The Way

4) Things don't die when they get bit. That sounds pretty important for just about everything with blood. But let's run through this: first couple millions and millions of fish that had blood had one shot at living, don't get snagged on something an then one animal actually didn't die on his first time getting food. He continues to mate and the gene lives on.

5) That has to do with tides really. After a full moon the tides are unbelievably high. A few nights of this and the jellyfish are on the shore. The have very little choice in this, and they wouldn't do this by choice, since it kills them. (Also, 9-10 is not a precise figure when your talking about 24 hour periods, 9 would be though)

6) Mating, and food supply. Farmers give plots of land a break after a couple years and then come back. And humans use the land too much for our own good. The cicada are just letting the land replenish itself.

7) It started as an ability to discern magnetic north. Then it advanced from there.

old comment by John

All of these are wrong - in fact, amazingly ignorant. Just to take one, the evolutionary explanation for cicadas is predator glut. By all coming out at the same time, they provide so much food at once that the birds and other predators can't eat them all; so many survive. Why do they come out at 13 and 17 years? These are both prime numbers large enough to avoid predators synchronizing their reproduction with them. If it were for example, 16 years (or any even number), then a predator with a two year birth cycle could synchronize its reproduction (because 16 is divisible by 2). So all the 16 year locusts, if they ever existed, would have gone extinct.

old comment by Swede

You don't understand the word "disprove", do you?
It does not mean "Andy says it, so it must be true", you conceited lug-head!

*Autumn foliage has to do with seasonal changes, when the tree draws back it's sap to the roots, the green of the leaves recedes also and the leaves turn red or brown.
*The whale has some dog-like ancestor, who returned to the water a few million years after leaving it. That's why whales have hip-bones.
*The evolution of the eye is very thoroughly researched; it started off as light-sensitive nerves.
*The moon has been around for billions of years, why shouldn't it be the cause of evolved jellyfishes' migration cycles?
*Same here. Are you next going to argue winter appearing like clockwork each year to be counter-evolutionary?
*Yes, apparently...

old comment by Atheissimo

And here are replies to your silly 'counterexamples'

* Sorry, that's what leaves look like when Chlorophyl dies - which makes sense for the tree as maintaining the leaves over winter is a waste of energy

* The evolution of the whale from a land ancestor is well documented, what Darwin thought is irrelevant. Even so, why would God make such a huge sea creature a mammal? Surely it would be better to give it gills so it didn't have to come up for air all the time?

* It is well documented that incremental evolution of an eye is plausible. In the country of the blind, the photosensitive celled creature is king - to paraphrase

* Explain. Why is blood clotting more implausible than any other mutation?

* None of the last three are implausible. It makes evolutionary sense to have a natural instinct to gather in one place to mate with your species. What dosen't make sense is that so many animals and birds die from the failure of their 'god given' navigation systems - such as whales beaching themselves en-masse

old comment by Paler_Face

*beautiful autumn foliage, which lacks any plausible evolutionary explanation

The aestethic beauty of anything in nature is only out perception of it. Evolution doesn;t need to explain it, because aestethics is not part of biology, beyond the sexual selection present in some species.

*the whale, which has no plausible ancestor (Charles Darwin suggested black bears)

Ambelocetus. Look it up.

*the eye, which lacks a plausible pathway for incremental evolution

Youtube "Dawkins evolves an eye"

*bloodclotting, which also lacks a plausible pathway for incremental evolution

Youtube "Ken Miller blood clotting"

*Jellyfish in Hawaii, which swarm to the beaches precisely 9 to 10 days after each full moon[1]

No idea what you are talking about here.

*cicada that appear like clockwork every 13 years for some species, and every 17 years for others[2]

Predator avoidance taken to the extreme. Evolution explains this readily. Try harder.

*migratory powers of butterflies and birds[3]

*facepalm*

Andy Schlafly #fundie conservapedia.com

74 comments

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