Whackjob question time

Carrying on with the Harun Yahya extremist propaganda by Oktar Babuna and Cihat Gundogdu: do remember that mainstream Islam doesn't have a problem with evolution: something else not mentioned by the speakers or the organisers. 


Probably 80 people here.


Question 1: you don't see natural selection as beneficial and there's no beneficial example. How about the Gypsy Moth, over the past 100 years? It was bark-coloured. With the industrial revolution, it changed colour to match the polluted environment to remain safe, and is now reverting to the original colour. His father is a dairy farmer - has selectively bred for more milk production rather than beef.


Answer: even evolutionists don't use the gypsy moth example any more because it's a fake. As to cows: variations isn't evolution. The genes don't change, so there's no evolution.


Q3: Are you saying that if evolution's true, there should be plenty of transition fossils.
A: Trillions.
Q: And you say all species spontaneously appeared - in complex forms - with the Cambrian explosion?
A: Yes. 3 phyla before the Cambrian, millions in the Cambrian, 35 now.
Q: So millions of species decline to 35 phyla. So are humans and rabbits there in the fossil record if they all existed in the Cambrian period?
A: We never said they appeared at the same time. There's an order of creation. The Phyla tree is false.
Q: So did we start with simple and get more complex life-forms?
A: No. We start with complex forms. There's no progress.
Q: So where are the Cambrian humans?
A: Photosynthesis existed a long time ago and we can't do it in the lab: so no evolution.
Q: But no rabbits or humans?
A: Trilobites have the most complex eyes ever and they're extinct. So complexity was there from the start.
Q: Bones survive: fewer remains of soft-bodied organisms. How can you find the fossil of a bacteria as often as that of a dinosaur? How do you tell the difference between designed gradual complex appearance and evolution?
A: God wanted it this way.
Q: DNA insertion experiments prove the addition.
A: long rambling claim that God invented DNA and everything started in one go.


(Unfortunately a lot of the students are just laughing at the speakers' little jokes at the expense of the questioners and are clearly uninterested in referencing, peer review and experiment: just in the religious credentials of the speaker). Biology lecturer walks out because his questions are being silenced: students mock him. 'What have you evolved from?', jeers one. Moderator is clearly losing it.


Q. What's the name of the Pharaoh you referenced?
A. I don't know. One of the Pharaohs.
Q. What do you mean by pagan?
A. Belied based on nothing. DNA means there's an infinite wisdom far superior to human intelligence. Humans can't create life so there must be a god.
Q. A famous scientist (can't catch the name) traces hominids back to Kenya. Where did man come from?
A: Only the revelation of God can tell us. Qu'ran tells us we're the same as the first man. Science tells us that new DNA information can't arise so we're the same as the origin. 350 million fossils show there are no intermediates or transitions and Darwin, Gould and Dawkins agree.
Q. Dawkins says every fossil is intermediate.
A. Dawkins says they are planted in the pre-Cambrian.
Q. No he doesn't. He says 'appeared' and then explains why.
A. No transitions. No evidence. Evolution never happened. The Qu'ran says so.
(More students leave, clearly not impressed).
Q. (Me) how is it that blind trilobites appeared later than the ones with the eyes? How many peer-reviewed publication do you have? After all, I have to submit my work to the scrutiny of my colleagues to achieve credibility amongst them and my students: why hasn't he?
A. Trilobites existed in the Cambrian and not before. Eyes can't emerge step by step. Missing elements mean it wouldn't work (me: isn't this a design flaw?).


I ask again:
"Darwinism controls scientific journals'.
'Complexity to simplicity denies evolution', he says. Which is a total lie and he should know better. Darwinism says that species evolve to fit niches. If a simple model works better, that will emerge. This is the case with eyeless trilobites: they emerged (I point out to him) where trilobites lived in lightless places: why expend energy on an unnecessary eye? He again mocks this and ends the session.


Session closed: very hastily. There were no questions from anti-evolutionists - probably because they don't have the scientific background to make serious points: the event was an exercise of authority. Afterwards, quite a few attendees ask questions of myself and the biologist sitting next to me - they're not convinced but at least they're curious.


What a simultaneously enjoyable and annoying experience. I haven't seen such blatant lies, distortion and misdirection since I went to Catholic school. I hope I didn't come across as a humourless naysayer - I also hope that the speakers' ranting, use of spiteful jokes and repeated evasion of specific questions were noticed by the students.


PS. He keeps going on about proteins and the impossibility of them evolving: try this paper in Nature, the most rigorous science journal in the world.