Hi everyone! I'm new to these forums and thought I'd start out with something...perplexing. At my school, we're having a pro/anti evolution debate and I've written a few speaking points. Considering I'm not an evolutionary science expert, I thought I'd share them around for you guys to pick about and see what I am mistaken about. I've pasted them below, let me know what you think.
Speaking Point #1: Irreducible Complexity is the theory that humans are too advanced to have evolved from a single cell, and states as a fact that everything we have evolved to didn’t exist previously. Additionally, systems such as the cardiovascular system or the central nervous system seem too complex to have evolved from a single cell. Take the human spinal cord for example. The spinal cord carries sensory information from our nerve endings to our brain, and the resulting information back. Without a spinal cord we wouldn’t be able to walk, talk, or continue to live for that matter. So how is it that the intricacy of the spinal cord and our central nervous system in general could have “supposedly” all evolved from a single cell. And seeing as vertebrates need a spinal cord, wouldn’t that technically mean that any vertebrate previously shouldn’t be alive?
Speaking Point #2: Irreducible Complexity stems from the claim that some biological systems appear to be too complex to have arisen by natural selection. Specifically, it argues that if you take a part away from an organism and it stops functioning (analogous to taking the engine out of a car) then it must be irreducibly complex and cannot have evolved. It is one of the main arguments of the “ Intelligent Design” movement. Say it’s true that we did in fact evolve from a single cell. In reproduction whether sexual or asexual, the chances of a mutation are extremely rare, but are “statistically random” according to multiple sources. Thus, it is hard to believe that every time there was an “evolutionary pressure”, the resulting evolution effect was positive and we gained rather than losing.
Speaking Point #3: According to Scientific American, “living things have fantastically intricate features—at the anatomical, cellular and molecular level— that could not function if they were any less complex or sophisticated. The only prudent conclusion is that they are the products of intelligent design, not evolution.” What does this mean? In a simplified form, all of our bodily features and processes all rely on each other. If one doesn’t work, it hampers other functions. The same can be said against evolution, laying down a strong argument supporting Irreducible Complexity.
Speaking Point #4: Remember the story about scientists growing an ear on the back of a mouse? This point has a faint connection to that. See, take the DNA of a fish for example. Somewhere in there is a piece that says “I’m a fish”. No matter what, under natural circumstances, that piece will always be there. So how is it that we could evolve with different DNA without external influence? It’s a recreation of asking which came first, the chicken or the egg. Neither, an outside influence created both. If that is in fact true, the entire theory of evolution becomes less and less tangible seeing as there is proof of Intelligent Design from an outside creator.
Speaking Point #5: Evolution states that we evolved from single cells which somehow became cavemen along the course of time. While physical evolution is a statistic that can be recorded, mental evolution isn’t. How is it possible to “evolve” something that isn’t tangible? And how could these mental changes be recorded if there isn’t any physical evidence to record? If someone writes down “This new life form seems smarter”, is that going to be taken as legitimate evidence? Hopefully not, there’s nothing to back it up.
Speaking Point #6: The well-known “Missing Link”. There are Missing Links all throughout the evolutionary tree. Gaps where we have no tangible evidence of evolution. Periods of time where nothing is recorded, nothing appears to evolve, and there’s nothing saying otherwise. To fill in these gaps, we’ve come to trust scientific hypothesising as official evidence without realizing that a hypothesis is just an educated guess at best. How can we create and support a scientific theory with holes all through it, spots where things are fuzzy at best? Evolution is still a theory, after all. We’ve seen supposed “evidence” and drawn our own conclusions without thinking of more legitimate alternatives.
Final Statement: While this is mainly a Biology debate, Irreducible Complexity can be supported by Chemistry as well. See, every time a blood cell in the lungs takes on an oxygen molecule, that's a chemical reaction. Every time a cell in the pancreas produces an insulin molecule, that is many chemical reactions. Every time a nerve cell in your eye or brain fires, this is a cascade of ions traveling through the nerve cell, which is essentially thousands of chemical reactions, which cascades out to thousands of other nerve cells. Just to give you a slight idea of how big the number is, here’s the crunch. Just to stay alive, a human cell has to turn over (consume and replace) all its ATP (energy source) about once every one or two minutes. So that's about 10^7 chemical reactions (a 1 with seven zeros) per second. Multiply that by 86,400 (8.64 x 10^5) seconds per day. That's 8.64 x 10^12 reactions per cell per day. Multiply that by 100 to 200 trillion cells in the human body (depending on how big you are) ... so lets call that 100-trillion = 10^14. So that's about 8.64 x 10^26 or 8.64e+26 chemical reactions per day. No calculator I could find would show me an actual amount as an answer, but the answer i got was 864,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, or 864 SEPTILLION. How is it possible that even if that single cell did in fact exist, it could sustain itself and the evolutions after it? And if we could sustain ourselves then, why can’t we now? According to the Theory of Evolution, Evolution occurs when there is a pressure. What could possibly create a pressure to not be able to sustain ourselves anymore?
***Let me know what you think***
