For those who read my blog a couple of years back you no doubt remember a series of posts I did countering the mis-information spread by somebody who went under the handle thedailycreationism and bigbangisamyth, he ran a few different blogs and often moved around between them (I have no idea why). But after a while all the posts dried up, much to my disappointment as he was a good source to use for topics to write about.

Well I was searching for his name the other day and came across a post he had made on somebody else's blog back in 2006 saying he would like to arrange a debate with an atheist. Funnily enough I offered to debate him back in December 2006, but never had a response.

But after seeing his request, I'd like to remind him again that I am willing to debate him. I can make time in August onwards, and I'll debate anywhere that has good rail connections with Yeovil.

On a related note, I've had a couple of requests asking if I could debunk the film 'Expelled the Movie'. Well I can't yet, I haven't seen it, but when I do I'll write up something to address whatever points are made in the film.

I had a few comments from creationists left on my blog lately. One from somebody who identified themselves as '?':

i have a question...how did creatures change from generation to generation to be better suited for their environments? i mean, if i moved to (i don't know) africa, and i had kids with an another person with my skin color, the color wouldn't change in my great grand children to make them better suited for their environments. it's called mating with another type of your own species, not evolution right?

To start off I'll briefly talk about how variation comes about. If the first self-replicating molecule could create perfect copies of itself, there would be no evolution, the world would be full of clones of that original molecule. Evolution by natural selection requires variation for it to act upon. Originally all that variation came about by mutations, either errors copying the DNA (or RNA), or by damage from cosmic rays. If the changes were advantageous the mutation would spread throughout the population. Around 1-1.5 billion years ago another tool to increase the variation evolved sexual reproduction, no longer did life descended from those cells create clones of themselves, instead they would re-combine their DNA with that of another, ensuring that children are not clones of the parent. This variation also provided something else for natural selection to act upon.

Darker skin evolved in humans in Africa around 1.5 million years ago, back in the time of Homo ergaster, as we began to lose our hair. At some point mutations happened in a gene (or genes) which darkened our skin, this may of been gradual or happened in a single mutation. This mutation was beneficial because it better protected the body from ultra-violent radiation (previously our hair protected us against it), and alas it spread throughout the population.

Around 40000 years ago, Homo sapiens began to move north into Europe. At this point another mutation happened, we know it was a change in a single nucleotide, out of 3.1 billion which make up our DNA. This produced a pale skinned individual. Further north we required less protection from UV radiation so maintaining our dark skin became less important, but this also had a benefit, it increased the amount of vitamin D that Europeans who carried this mutation produced. Some lines of evidence such as cave paintings suggest some Europeans could of been dark skinned up until just 13000 years ago, today however 99% of Europeans carry the mutation.

The original question set up a premise that the skin of their descendants would not darken from living in Africa. Obviously it is impossible to predict random mutations in the future, and the selective value of dark or light skin is less than it used to be before we invented sun block and had better diets. But if the climate of Africa remained the same, and if you could stop your descendants from mating outside of your family (both of which aren't realistic in practice) the skin of your descendants would almost certainly darken. We've seen skin colour changes happen multiple times independently in human populations in the past, and they will undoubtedly happen in the future.

Given enough time if you could prevent your descendants from breeding with the rest of Homo sapiens they would eventually form a new species, enough mutations would of happened in each population, and as no changes would be passed back and forth between the two groups eventually they'd no longer be compatible, of course this could take anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years for the differences to gradually build up.

Take our friend Su Kong, if the Earth went into a major ice age in the late 19th century and the rest of us were freezing to death around him (presumably we'd have to forget how to make hats too) his descendants could well make up Homo thefuture while Homo sapiens are strewn across a thin layer of dirt - so much for the species made in god's image!

Changes in our genes happen over time, and natural selection will act upon them.

it just doesn't make sense to me. i mean, all you have to do is think about evolution and it just doesnt make sense. u can't just scratch the surface. and also

Once you understand evolution it makes perfect sense, you develop an understanding, a real understanding of how life on Earth is so diverse, you see the interconnectedness of all life, how we are all descended from a four billion year old self-replicating molecule and you see that nothing is stationary and things are constantly changing.

how has evolution been scientifically proven? the only facts ive ever seen have DISPROVEN it.

I've never seen facts that disprove it, in fact everything has gone evolution's way, if genetics worked differently evolution could of been falsified etc. If anybody finds fossil rabbits in the pre-Cambrian that'll put a sizeable hole in the evolution by natural selection boat. If you're reading creationist sources, of which I am familiar, well let's just say somebody who spends their time studying the bible instead of the world probably isn't in a position to know a lot about the world.

Questions for Evolutionists, whatever an evolutionist is, from Mr Kent Hovind. I'll just go and find a biologist to tackle his attempt at disproving evolution by natural selection.

Oh wait hang on...

1. Where did the space for the universe come from?

That sounds like a cosmology question Kent. The universe doesn't displace anything, and as such requires no space. The universe creates its own space, which it is still doing at an increasing rate even today.

2. Where did matter come from?

The matter condensed out of the energy of the Big Bang, after inflation the matter in the universe was a mix of quarks and gluons. At 1.0 × 10^-6 seconds after the Big Bang they formed protons and neutrons.

3. Where did the laws of the universe come from (gravity, inertia, etc.)?

The laws of nature are inherit to the universe, they were created at the Big Bang.

4. How did matter get so perfectly organized?

I don't accept the premise that matter is perfectly organised.

5. Where did the energy come from to do all the organizing?

Actually it was the energy of the Big Bang that kept atoms from forming, the temperature and density of the universe had to decrease before quarks and gluons could form baryons (protons and neutrons). They were literally too energetic whizzing around too fast for the nuclear forces to have any impact.

More of his silly questions to come at a later date, maybe he could get onto biology.

Well I stumbled across my old friend, TheDailyCreationism. On a new website, again claiming to do daily updates but failing to do regular posts. Quite disappointing I have to say as I'd love to read a creationist blog that is well, up to date with fresh arguments not those stale things from a hundred years ago.

Anyway one of the posts on this blog featured Mr Kent Hovind's $250,000 offer. He presents it like James Randi presents the $1 million paranormal challenge, prove evolution and you get $250,000. Simple right?

Wrong. Look how this whack job defines evolution.

1) Brought time, space, and matter into existence from nothing.
2) Organized that matter into the galaxies, stars, and at least nine planets around the sun. (This process is often referred to as cosmic evolution.)
3) Created the life that exists on at least one of those planets from nonliving matter (chemical evolution).
4) Caused the living creatures to be capable of and interested in reproducing themselves.
5) Caused that first life form to spontaneously diversify into different forms of living things, such as the plants and animals on the earth today (biological evolution).

So yes only the fifth one has anything to do with evolution. This is how it falls down and becomes improvable:

Prove beyond reasonable doubt that the process of evolution [...] is the only possible way the observed phenomena could have come into existence.

Hmmmmm OK, oh wait, there's more, now he redefines evolution to mean:

When I use the word evolution, [...] I am referring to the general theory of evolution which believes these five major events took place without God:

1) Time, space, and matter came into existence by themselves.
2) Planets and stars formed from space dust.
3) Matter created life by itself.
4) Early life-forms learned to reproduce themselves.
5) Major changes occurred between these diverse life forms (i.e., fish changed to amphibians, amphibians changed to reptiles, and reptiles changed to birds or mammals).

So in effect, he is requiring you to disprove the existence of god. This isn’t possible, as you can’t disprove a negative. A comparable analogy would be me putting forward the following statement.

The Invisible Pink Unicorn created the universe ten minutes ago, and gave everybody false memories of events, and planted evidence of events that happened before the creation to give the impression that the universe is 13.7 billion years old. Disprove this and I will give you $250,000.

Or disprove the existence of Zeus, Apollo, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster and I'll give you $250,000.

Obviously it is not possible, Mr Kent Hovind's offer is junk. He's not asking somebody to prove evolution, he's asking somebody to disprove god.

Yes that's right, a creationist, Don McLeroy, has been appointed to head the Texas school board. This guy now has the ability to spew his anti-science ideology over 4.5 million school students, and the damage that could happen to the already poor science textbooks in the United States could be felt across the whole country.

Just check out some of this nonsense.

I don't think I share a common ancestor with a tree. However, most of the books we are considering adopting, claim as a fact that we all share a common ancestor with a tree.

Reality isn't required to obey what you do or do not think. The fact is we do share a common ancestor with a tree.

If you want more Phil Plait and Steven Novella have already written up good posts on the matter.

I stumbled upon this guy's YouTube videos thanks to Phil Plait. Here he is taking on a few creationist claims, mainly from the damn evolution vs. creationism video that's been floating around for ages on many internet video websites, it's the one with the annoying host, with far too much money wasted on flashy graphics, yes that one, the one set in studio, made up to look like a court room.

Great stuff, he says completely bogus exactly like me. He's also done an episode on astrology (another favourite topic of mine) and the Moon hoax.

Is it me or does his bogosity machine look like a Game Boy?