Hey Chuck, what's up? You any better at chess?

I was in county for 40 days and now my

chess skills are improved dramatically. My day consisted of chess, spades, reading and
work. Talking about myself is not something I enjoy doing, even to my family and closest
friends. But I'm glad you wrote, particularly about this topic, as it's something I enjoy
discussing very much. I read the book you recommended(I hope I got the right one). I'll
start by saying that no, it hasn't shifted my opinion on matters of religion or science. I'll
be going through it with you, from the beginning, item by item, with responses to each
item that I have something to say about. Mind you, I won't get very far with this, as each
response takes a few paragraphs, and I would have to write a book to cover every one.
But, what I would like, is for you to point out any specific items that you find to be
particularly compelling arguments, and I will respond to those. And of course, if you have
any counters to my responses, or if you request clarification on anything I've said, I'd like
to hear that too.

We'll get to the book soon, but first I'd like to address something you wrote in your letter.
“There is a reason the 1st and 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics are called laws and not
theories, and that the Big Bang Theory and the Theory of Evolution are called theories
and not laws.”

Yes, there is a reason, but I have yet to meet a creationist arguing this point who seemed
to know what that reason actually is. They seem to think it has something to do with our
level of certainty about the idea. As if, at some point, once a theory has really stood the
test of time and proven it's worth, it will eventually graduate to Law. That's not how it
works. The reason is not to do with the level of certainty, but in the type of idea it is. A
[scientific]law is a general principal that is always true in a specific set of circumstances.
A theory is a proposition meant to explain a certain set of facts. The Theory of Evolution,
Germ Theory, the Theory of Electricity, the Big Bang Theory, Atomic Theory or the Theory
of Relativity. No matter how certain we are of these theories(and I put Evolution at the
beginning of that list for a reason), they will never graduate to laws, because that's not
how science works.

On to the book. I'll skip the introduction and the preface, even though there are quite a
few things I would contest in there. When I go to a new topic, I will put it in bold, then
discuss it. I may skip a few items here and there, but I'll go in the same order as they are
presented in the book, so it shouldn't be too hard to follow.

Chapter 1a: History of Evolutionary Theory

"Stellar evolution is based on the concept that nothing can explode and
produce all the stars and worlds."

No, it's not. Stellar evolution is the process a star goes through from it's formation to it
it's demise. It starts with the collapse of a molecular cloud, and ends in one of three
states depending on it's mass and composition. A white dwarf, a neutron star or a black
hole.

Or is it the Big Bang that they are referring to? In that case, again I say no, it's not. The
Big Bang is the theory that at one point the Universe was really really really small and
really really really hot, and has since become much less small and much less hot.
Nowhere does the concept of "nothing" come into it. It does not explain how the
condensed material got there to begin with, nor is it meant to.

So how DID the material get there in the first place? Some believe it was the work of
God. However, I think the prudent answer to that question is "I don't know". Isn't it
better to hold our judgment on such a grand question until we have sufficient evidence?
Isn't that better than just making up an answer?

Next topic(next sentence actually): "Life evolution is founded on the twin theories
of spontaneous generation and Lamarckism"

No, it's not. Biological evolution is founded on the indisputable facts of variation and
natural selection.

Lamarckism is the inheritance of acquired characteristics, i.e. a blacksmith acquires

strong arms through his work, and as a result, his offspring are predisposed to have
strong arms. Lamarckism is not widely accepted among the scientific community.

The accepted ToE(Theory of Evolution) is that some of his children MIGHT be predisposed
to have strong arms, while some others MIGHT be predisposed to have weak arms, and
some may not be predisposed either way, and none of it has anything to do with his
being a blacksmith, or any other activities in life. That's the variation part.

The accepted ToE then goes on to say that if any of these traits has an effect on his
reproductive success, it will effect whether that trait is passed on to the next generation.
A tautology, yes. But tautologies are, by definition, true. That's the natural selection
part.

Spontaneous generation is ONE theory of abiogenesis. Abiogenesis being the study of

how life began. Spontaneous generation states that fully formed complex organisms
spontaneously pop into being, such as maggots appearing on meat that's left sitting, or
rats in piles of dirty clothes. Spontaneous generation was tested and definitively proven
false by Louis Pasteur, and is utterly rejected by modern science. Spontaneous
generation has exactly NOTHING to do with the ToE.

Another theory of abiogenesis is that life was spoken into being. This theory is
untestable, and therefore not considered scientific. That doesn't mean it's not true, just
that there's no way to test it. Another theory of abiogenesis(for man at least) is that a
man was formed from dust, and life was breathed into his nostrils, whatever that means.
This one also is untestable, although it can certainly be shown that man is not made of
dust, and life is not “breathed”, air is. (Perhaps it's talking about microbes in the air?). So
these two are nothing but claims of magic.

None of these abiogenesis theories have anything to do with the ToE. Evolution is not
concerned with how life began, but rather how life progressed once it was already here.
Just like the Big Bang is not concerned with how the Universe began, but rather with how
the Universe progressed once it was already here. And just as we don't know how the
Universe began, we don't know how life began. We are, however, closer to solving that
puzzle than the bigger Universe one. I will send you information on that subject, if you
want.

Next is this quote, which I found rather ironic.

“2: This is the evolutionary formula for making life: Dirt + Water + Time =
Living Creatures”

Obviously that's a total straw-man, since , as you know, neither evolution nor dirt have
anything to do with the origin of life. But the reason I found it ironic, is because it is very
close to the biblical formula for making life:

Mud(Dirt + Water) + Magic Breath = Man

Frankly Chuck, my expectations for the remainder of this book are pretty low, considering
they can't even take the time to get their definitions in order. The first 2 sentences are
either outright lies, or utter ignorance due to piss poor research because they obviously
don't care about the truth. They only seem to care about preaching to the converted.
Because for damn sure none of this would go any way in convincing someone who had
seriously studied biology or cosmology. If they want to debate a point, the least they
could do is take the time to understand the position of the opposition. As difficult as it is
after reading that nonsense, I'll try to keep an open mind while I get through the rest of
this . On to the next item.

William Paley . Darwin himself admired Paley, and in his youth, was quite impressed
by his arguments. But his design argument cannot be considered an argument against
evolution. The apparent design of living structures is the very thing that the ToE sets out
to explain. Saying that evolution is false because living things are too complex is like
saying planes don't work because people can't fly. A plane is designed to solve the
problem of people not being able to fly. The ToE is designed to explain the apparent
design of life.

So we have two theories here that explain the complexities of life, here's why the ToE
makes sense, but the God Theory breaks down. You think a cell is a complex thing?
How much more complex is a mind? Is the mind of man not a complex thing requiring an
explanation? How much more so is the mind of God? Does that not require an
explanation? Or do we just chock it up to mystery? The ToE successfully explains how
complex things can arise from simpler things. The God Theory just says complex things
come from even more complex things, Oh!, except for this one complex thing(God), it
doesn't come from anything. If life requires a designer because it's so complex, then God
requires a designer because he is certainly more complex than his creation. The ToE
provides the explanation for the first, without introducing the complication of the second.

Carolus Linnaeus . Far from showing evolution to be impossible, Linnaeus actually

provided, what many consider to be, the strongest evidence of evolution, even if he didn't
know it at the time. How could he know? He preceded Darwin by a century. He
categorized thousands of plant and animal species into a single nested hierarchy. This
hierarchy has been greatly expanded upon and is now known as the tree of life. All Carl
could look at was phylogeny, the physical features of the plants and animals. But now,
we can look at them genetically, and form a tree that way, based on the patterns seen
under the microscope. Turns out the genetic tree matches the phylogeny tree to a
statistical miracle. Which is why it's now called the Phylogenetic Tree of Life.

A common argument I hear from creationists goes something like this: “Just because
different living things have things in common, doesn't mean they are related. After all,
they share a common designer, why should they not have a common design?”

What they fail to understand is that it's not just about the similarities, it's about the
differences too, and how the similarities and differences are distributed to form a nested
hierarchy. For example, let's take two separate branches of the tree: Mollusks(squid,
clams, snails, etc...) and Vertebrates.

The defining feature of the mollusk is the mantle, most prominent in species such as
snails and clams, because it secretes calcium carbonate to form a shell. But it still exists,
though less prominently, in squids and octopuses. Every mollusk has a mantle, and
everything with a mantle is a mollusk.

The defining feature of a vertebrate is the backbone. Every vertebrate has a backbone,
and everything with a backbone is a vertebrate.

Both mollusks and vertebrates are part of higher taxonomic clades. The lowest clade
that includes both of them is bilateria. Bilateria is all animals which are bilaterally
symmetrical, with a definite front and back. This excludes sponges, jellyfish, coral and
the like. But includes everything else(in the Animal kingdom). Bilateria is separated into
two main groups, Protostomes and Deuterostomes.

The defining characteristic that distinguishes Protostomes from Deuterostomes is

something that happens very early in the life cycle. Early in embryonic development, a
cavity begins developing on one side of the organism, forming a tube all the way to the
other side, where another cavity is formed. This becomes the digestive tract, connecting
the mouth to the anus. The difference is this: in Protostomes, that first cavity that opens
up becomes the mouth, the other end becomes the anus. In Deuterostomes, that first
cavity becomes the anus, the other end becomes the mouth.

Now, included in Protostomes, we have several groups, one of which is mollusks.

Included in Deuterostomes, we also have several groups, one of which is vertebrates.

What's my point? This: Every single vertebrate is a deuterostome, and every single
mollusk is a protostome. Why should this be? Why should the direction in which the
digestive tract forms be in any way linked to the presence of a backbone? Evolution
explains it perfectly. At some point in pre-history, there was a population of animals with
a very primitive digestive system, one which didn't distinguish between mouth and anus.
We can see examples of this today, such as the jellyfish. That population began to
develop a more sophisticated tubular digestive tract. That population split. Both sub-
populations began to specialize the ends of their digestive tracts for different purposes.
Then those populations split, but all of the descendants maintained that peculiar
seemingly arbitrary trait. Some of the protostomes evolved a mantle, those are the
ancestors of modern mollusks. Some of the deuterostomes evolved a backbone, those
are OUR ancestors. Which is why no animal on earth that has a backbone develops it's
mouth before it's anus. And no animal on earth that has a mantle develops it's anus
before it's mouth.

Disproving evolution is easy. All you have to do is find a mollusk that develops it's anus
before it's mouth. Or find a vertebrate that develops it's mouth before it's anus. And
that's just one example. There are literally millions of other peculiar traits like this, up
and down the tree, that are ONLY indicative of common ancestry. Such as how ALL
animals and fungi propel their sperm with a single posterior flagellum, while plants have
2 or more ANTERIOR flagella. Or how, everything with a jawbone has a backbone, and
everything with a backbone has a cranium, and there are no animals with jaws attached
to their skulls which don't also have a backbone. Why should this be? The jaw is not
attached to the backbone, it can function without it. Yet, find a jaw, and you will find a
backbone, every time, the reverse is not true.

If any exceptions to these rules were found, we would have an organism that doesn't fit
on the tree, and is therefore not related to the rest of us. This would throw serious doubt
on the ToE. But none of these exceptions ever are found, everything fits in the tree.
That's why the ToE is universally accepted by the scientific community, because it's so
fragile, and yet nothing can break it.

First Law of Thermodynamics … “This law refutes several aspects of

evolutionary theory“

Such as? Biology is just complex chemistry, there is nothing in it that suggests creation
ex nihilo.

Second Law of Thermodynamics … “This law totally eliminates the basic

evolutionary theory that simple evolves into complex. “

No, it doesn't. Here is one wording of the second law: “In a system, a process that occurs
will tend to increase the total entropy of the universe.” Does the ToE violate this
principal? No. That's because a massive amount of energy is constantly being pumped
into this machine that is called “Earth” from the sun. That energy is what is responsible
for the chemical processes that drive evolution. But the sun is expelling a lot more
energy than the small slice afforded to Earth, increasing entropy at an alarming rate.
Eventually, the sun will die out, and those processes will come to an end. You must also
recognize, that the same influx of energy that drives evolution is also what is responsible
for the chemical processes that drive birth and growth. So if you want to say evolution
violates the second law, you also must concede that birth and growth violate the second
law, and are therefore, impossible.

Another popular wording is this: “In a closed system, entropy cannot decrease.” Well,
the Earth is certainly not a closed system, so this doesn't apply.
Let's look at a few other wordings from some notable physicists and mathemeticians:
“Heat generally cannot flow spontaneously from a material at lower temperature to a
material at higher temperature.” -Rudolf Clausius

“It is impossible to convert heat completely into work in a cyclic process. “ -Lord Kelvin

“In the neighborhood of any equilibrium state of a thermodynamic system, there are
equilibrium states that are adiabatically inaccessible. “ -Constantin Caratheodory.

I'll be honest, that last one confuses the hell out of me. But I'm pretty sure I understand
all the other ones. I can't see any way in which the ToE violates those principals, can
you? I don't like to make appeals to authority, but really, if the ToE really violated the
second law, don't you think the physicists would say something about it? And perhaps
explain to us exactly HOW the second law is violated? Or are they part of the evil atheist
evolutionist conspiracy?

Guadeloupe Woman Found “This is a well-authenticated discovery which has

been in the British Museum for over a century.“

I like to consider myself pretty efficient with Google. If it's so well-authenticated, why is
information on it so scant? No pictures or anything. Just a few creationist websites
claiming a human skeleton was found in 28 million year old limestone bed, but was
hidden away in the basement of a British museum because it disproved evolution and
confirmed the Genesis flood. Oh, I know. It must be that evil atheist evolutionary
conspiracy again, that's why we don't hear anything about it.

Gregor Mendel “His experiments clearly showed that one species could not
transmute into another one.”

No, they didn't. Now they're just telling bald-faced lies.

“Mendel’s work laid the basis for modern genetics“

Very true. When Darwin proposed the ToE, nothing was known about the mechanism for
heredity. Once the mechanism was found, it could very well have disproved the theory.
Perhaps the variation required for the theory to work would turn out not to be feasible
given limitations of the hereditary mechanism. Turns out that wasn't the case. In fact,
genetics confirms the theory beyond what Darwin could have imagined. One example,
ERVs. Endogenous retroviruses.

An ERV is a harmless virus in the form of RNA, that is able to insert itself into your DNA.
This is the reverse of the normal process, where DNA gets transcribed into RNA. That's
why it's “retro”. So, anyway, it get's transcribed in the DNA of a cell. When that cell
replicates, the ERV replicates with it. Now, if an ERV happens to infect one of your germ
cells (the cells that undergo meiosis to produce sperm or egg), and you happen to
reproduce, your line is now infected with this virus, and you will pass it on to your
children and your grandchildren. Scientists are able to identify these viruses.

If you look at the short arm of chromosome number one on a human's DNA, you'll find a
remnant of one of these ERVs. If you look at the short arm of chromosome number one
on a chimpanzee's DNA, you'll find the same remnant. Could just be coincidence right?
The chances of a pair of viruses inserting themselves at the exact same location is about
1 in 3x109. On the eleventh chromosome, you'll find another, in both Chimps and
Humans. In fact, there are 16 instances of ERVs at the exact same locations in both
Human and Chimp DNA. I'll leave you to calculate the odds of that happening by chance.
How do we explain this? Simple. The viruses inserted themselves sometime before the
split between humans and chimps. So both humans and chimps inherited them. No
astronomical probabilities involved. Another option is that God just inserted those
identical functionless bits of DNA upon creation, in the exact same place on both chimps
and humans, for some reason.

“and his discoveries effectively destroyed the basis for species evolution“

Another lie. Speciation has been observed, time and time again. Not only through
generations, but geographically. I'm talking about ring species, such as Ensatina
eschscholtzii. There are 7 subspecies of Ensatina eschscholtzii, whose habitats are
spread across California, one next to another, and they form a complete ring. Each sub-
species can interbreed with it's neighbor, and perhaps it's neighbor's neighbor. That's
the definition of species, the ability to interbreed. However, if you follow a complete
cycle of the ring, the last sub-species cannot breed with the first. So, A can breed with B.
B can breed with C. C can breed with D. D can breed with E. E can breed with F. And F
can breed with G. But G CANNOT breed with A. If that can happen over a geographic
area, why can it not happen through time? For example, A, if he was still alive, could
breed with it's descendants B, 1 million years down the road. And B could breed with it's
descendants C, 1 million years down the road, and so on. But perhaps 10 million years
down the road, breeding is no longer possible. Is that so inconceivable?

Most creationists will concede that micro-evolution(evolution within a species) happens,

but that macro-evolution(evolution to new species) is impossible. Some talk about a wall
of separation between the species. Hundreds of genomes have been mapped, no such
wall exists. Macro-evolution is just compounded micro-evolution.

I'm on 6 pages now, I think I'll stop. But like I said, if you have any specific items you
want me to address, please let me know.

With love and stuff,

Ben