Bob Dutko's Fifth and Sixth Proof for God's Existence Refuted.

Five: Logic, Commonsense & Reasoning: Intelligent Design vs. Natural Selection

How do you explain the Egyptian Sphinx; art works like paintings; and mechanical things like alarm clocks? It's obvious according to Dutko that these are works of an Intelligent Designer, and this is entirely true. The trouble for Dutko is that these examples of his are not living things and therefore not subject to the laws, principles and relationships that have influence over living things. It's a fallacy to compare chalk with cheese.

Biological evolution by natural selection / survival of the fittest has been amply demonstrated. Laboratory work, especially with fruit flies has amply demonstrated the concept of biological evolution via genetic mutations - in this case usually induced. As another obvious example, consider the natural selection for antibiotic-resistant bacteria and DDT resistant bugs. Evolution by unnatural selection can be speeded up drastically. The unnatural element is the human species who have drastically altered your basic species and created multi-dozens of unnatural varieties of same. Consider all the breeds of cats, dogs, horses, cattle, goldfish, roses, corn, and wheat - and on and on it goes. Mother Nature could have done the exact same albeit taking a lot longer to accomplish it. If you can change the basic nature of a species, like creating breeds within that species, that's evolution.

Natural evolution is amply demonstrated in the fossil record. Consider the evolution of the horse (before human domestication and artificial selection). The gradual changes in size and other features (like toes) is extremely clear from the fossil record.

To make a very, very, very long story shorter, natural biological evolution is supported by the fossil record, by direct observation by the membership of the human species, and by known genetic mechanisms, all of which are in place to account for biological evolution by natural selection. As for Intelligent Design, you can go no further than the human being and human physiology itself to disprove Intelligent Design. For example (one of many), our red blood cells have a far greater affinity for carbon monoxide than for oxygen - a super, ultra, major screw-up if God did it. And if God doesn’t like foreskins, why create foreskins in the first place?

As for dinosaurs co-existing with humans (excluding their descendants, the birds) then young earth creationists need to document or provide or find a T-Rex skeleton that contains the eaten and well chomped-up remains of a human corpse inside. We're not talking "The Flintstones" here.

There is by the way an excellent series of YouTube videos by Aron Ra explaining biological evolution by natural selection, or, of course, you could read relevant books by Richard Dawkins.

Six: The Origin of Life: A Mathematical Impossibility

As long as something is a mathematical possibility, however remote, there can be no such thing as that something being a mathematical impossibility, only a mathematical improbability. So, for example, if you shuffle and deal from a standard deck of cards, sooner or later you WILL deal out in one go a Royal Flush. If you live long enough, sooner or later you can toss a fair coin 1000 times and get 1000 heads up. Consider the quantum mantra - whatever can happen, will happen, given enough time.

When it comes to the origin of life, given the vast amount of cosmic real estate; the natural abundance of elements that life (as we know it) is made up of which mirrors the relative cosmic abundances (i.e. - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen); the chemical reactions inherent in those elements; and billions upon billions of years of time for chemistry to do it's chemistry thing - well whatever can happen (and life obviously can happen) will happen, given those four essentials - real estate; abundant elements; chemistry; time.

To be continued...