1. Evolution leads to atheism
Countless accept evolution and still believe in a god, they even accept the Christian religion, Islamic religion, etc and still accept evolution. What evolution gets rid of is a literal interpretation of creation stories. That doesn’t mean you throw the creation stories out, many view them as metaphorical.
However they view their religion and or creation stories they are able to accept both.
2. Evolution is racist.
Evolution is not only not racist, it is antithetical to racism. Humans regardless of skin color, eye color, hair color and hair type are the same species, we are not even subspecies, we are the same species. Further: evolution and other biological sciences have shown that (underneath the differences) we are generally the same. I would go so far as to say that “races” don’t exist, the differences are too small.
3. Darwin renounced evolution on his death bed.
This story comes from Elizabeth Reid (Lady Hope) who claimed to have visited Darwin and claimed that Darwin renounced evolution and converted (back to) Christianity on his death bed. This story is simply not true. Darwins son Francis Darwin and Darwins doughtier Henrietta Darwin where at Darwins deathbed and both said that she was never there.
Why make this up if its not true? Many think that science (like religion) is authoritarian and that if you can discredit the authority you can discredit his ideas but science doesn’t work that way. Opinions (regardless of who they are from) do not matter in science, what matters is evidence and evidence only. Even if the claim was true, it would in no way shape or form effect the validity of evolution.
4. Evolution leads to social darwinism and eugenics.
Despite the name; “scocial darwinism” the concept long predates the theory of evolution, eugenics as well. In fact in Sparta children of Spartans who where deemed “weak” where left out to die.
Evolution leads to neither. Working together and helping those in need not only strengthens societies but us as a species. Further: its fallacious, its based on the naturalistic fallacy. Just because something us (perceived) to be natural, that doesn’t make it good or bad. Eugenics is basically animal husbandry for humans and is based on traits that are believed to be superior to others but these beliefs are not based on what traits actually better by any measure.
The argument it self is fallacious. Its an appeal to consequences fallacy. Even if it was true, that would have no baring on validity of the theory of evolution.
5. Evolution says “only the fittest survive” which implies “might makes right”.
“Fittest” in evolutionary terms does not mean the biggest, strongest and smartest. In evolutionary terms “fitness” is a creatures or populations chances of survival and reproduction and often the fittest are not the strongest, nor the smartest, nor the biggest. Often the most fittest are the small weak organisms, the ones that reproduce rapidly and can adapt rapidly to different environments. This isn’t always true, there are exceptions but think about this: How many mice are there in the whiled compared to elephants?
6. Evolution is just a theory.
“Theory” in science does not mean the same thing as “theory” in colloquial terms. In science a theory is a model that explains observations and is backed by strong evidence, it must make predictions and those predictions must be tested and verified and it must be falsifiable.
You can’t just come up with an idea and claim its a theory. For a theory to be a theory it has to go though the rigorous scientific process that attempts to falsify it.
Relativity is still a theory, gravity is still a theory, germ theory is still a theory.
7. Evolution can explain the origins of life, the earth, the universe etc.
Of course it can’t. Evolution is a biological theory of changes in populations over time. Evolution only applies when life (or anything capable of reproduction with variation) already exists.
The origin of life is explained by abiogenies (which is still incomplete), the origin of the earth an the solar system are explained by models of planetary and stelar formation and the origen of the universe has no scientific explanation (yet) as we have found no information from moment zero of the big bang or information from before the big bang (the big bang theory does not explain the origin of the universe, it explains the expansion of it).
8. Evolution has never been observed.
This argument is doubly wrong. First: You don’t need to witness something to know it happened. For example a crime scene investigator can reconstruct the events of a crime using the evidence at the scene (of course in reality it takes allot longer than it does on TV and real CSI’s don’t interrogate or arrest people). Using evidence and deductive reasoning you can figure out what happened in the past.
Second: It has been witnessed. Scientists have seen evolution in action in nature and the lab.
9. If we came from monkey why are there still monkeys?
First of all we did not come from monkeys, we came from apes and are still apes. Monkeys and apes are different and humans are in the ape superfamily. Second: Just because one species evolved from another, that doesn’t mean the parent species would no longer exist. Third: We did not evolve from Chimpanzees or Gorillas or from any currently existing species. We come from common ancestors whose populations split, the (now) two populations evolved until they where separate species, those populations split evolved into separate species again. This is how speciation works. Populations split and evolve into new species, those species that survive go on to repeat the process.
10. Evolutionism, Darwinism.
Its not really an argument but it counts. Calling it “evolutionism” or “darwinism” and those who accept evolution “evolutionist” or “darwinists” is an attempt to discredit the theory of evolution by painting it as a religion or philosophy when it is nether. The theory of evolution is a scientific theory and the validity of it should be judged by evidence and evidence alone. Calling it “evolutionism” or “darwinism” is fallacious and doesn’t actually deal with its validity.
Links and sources
My Stupid Creationist Arguments series
My Evolution series
Talk Origins – Index to Creationist Claims
Understanding Evolution
