From: allenroy (allenroy@peoplepc.com)
Date: Thu Jan 16 2003 - 13:07:01 EST
I found these questions on another email list.
Would anyone on this list use these questions on any of your tests? Why?
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1. On page one of "The Blind Watchmaker" Richard Dawkins states:"Biology
is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having
been designed for a purpose". If living things _look_ designed--if the
empirical evidence suggests purpose--then how does Dawkins know they
_weren't_ designed? What is Dawkins' criteria for "apparent" design?
2. Are scientists able to determine the specific evolutionary process
that accounted for the complex arrangement of inanimate matter into a
life form that grows, metabolizes, reacts to stimuli, and reproduces?
(the four criteria for biological life)
3. Give one example of an evolutionary process or mechanism which can be
seen to create new functional information at the genetic level. Give one
reference for any study that has shown that duplicated genes acquired
different functions during an experiment or series of experiments.
4. Computer programmers utilize complex codes to create software. The
genetic code, which is more sophisticated, controls the physical
processes of life and is accompanied by elaborate transmission and
duplication systems. How does evolution, using natural processes and
chance, solve the problem of complex information sequencing without
intelligence?
5. Evolutionists believe the Cambrian explosion of new life began about
525-550 million years ago. Stephen Jay Gould writes: ". . . an elegant
study, published in 1993, clearly restricts this period of phyletic
flowering to a mere five million years." (Scientific American, October
1994, p. 89.) What is the approximate number of beneficial mutations
which must have occurred per year during this 5-million-year period,
given that billions x billions of information bits would have to be
encoded? What percentage of mutations in multicellular organisms have
been recognized as beneficial? List any you find.
6. Within the field of biogenesis studies, there are a number of models
which posit that the early, prebiotic earth must have had a reducing
atmosphere (without oxygen or ozone). How could life begin to evolve
without ozone to protect the earliest life forms from harmful UV radiation?
7. Both "left-handed" and "right-handed" amino acids occur naturally.
Life forms contain proteins consisting principally of "left-handed"
amino acids. Assuming a simple protein molecule of 172 amino acids, what
is the mathematical probability that all 172 amino acids would be
"left-handed"?
8. Megatons of amino acids would be required to reach the necessary
concentrations for protein synthesis in a vast primordial ocean.Puddles
and ponds have a limited duration. Does evolution address this problem?
9. Molecular biologist Michael Denton (Senior Research Fellow,
University of Otago in New Zealand) in his book, Evolution: A Theory in
Crisis, states there is not a trace of evidence on the molecular level
for the traditional evolutionary series. Other molecular biologists
agree/disagree with his conclusion. Why?
10. How does evolution explain the emergence and development of sexual
reproduction given that both male and female physiology would have to
mutate simultaneously?
11. True or False? Life appears abruptly and in complex forms in the
fossil record and gaps appear systematically between various living kinds.
12. Document from the fossil record the transitional forms leading up to
the first fish, from their assumed invertebrate ancestors.
13. Jellyfish consist entirely of soft body tissues. How do
evolutionists explain the existence of jellyfish fossils, in view of
their argument that soft body tissues of missing intermediate forms did
not fossilize?
14. The coelacanth fish was thought to be extinct for 70 million years,
until one was caught off the coast of Madagascar in 1938. How do
evolutionary biologists evaluate the discovery?
15. Describe one undisputed example of a creature that was transitional
between fish and amphibian.
16. There are innumerable evolutionary enigmas, such as eyes, bat radar,
and pterodactyl wings. In each case, all the component parts would have
to evolve simultaneously in order to function properly. Discuss three
other structures which defy evolutionary explanation.
17. Describe one insect from the geologic record that was transitional
between a non-flying insect and a flying insect.
18. During the Industrial Revolution, dark-colored peppered moths
appeared in larger numbers during environmental changes. Did a new
species emerge, or did it already preexist? Is this macroevolution?
19. "Bird-like" dinosaurs such as Struthiomimus were "lizard-hipped,"
while dinosaurs such as the low-slung, four-legged Ankylosaurus were
"bird-hipped." How do paleontologists who believe dinosaurs evolved into
birds, account for these characteristics?
20. Is it possible to document from the fossil record the series of
transitional forms that led up to any dinosaur species?
21.
(a) Were the feathers of Archaeopteryx identical to modern flying birds?
(b) Are there any undisputed true birds in the fossil record that had
teeth?
(c) Archaeopteryx had claws on its wings. Name three modern birds that
have claws on their wings (either in the juvenile stage or as an adult).
22. Evolution teaches that mammals evolved from reptiles. All mammals
have three bones in the ear (and the Organ of Corti) and a single bone
on each side of the lower jaw. All reptiles have a single bone in the
ear and on average six bones on each side of the lower jaw. Speculate
how intermediate forms could have managed to hear and chew, while the
necessary restructuring was taking place and the Organ of Corti was
being developed.
23. Has any creature been identified as a direct ancestor of primates?
Has any creature been identified as the common ancestor of man and apes?
Explain your answers.
24. Evolutionist Dr. Charles Oxnard (Professor of Anatomy and Human
Biology, University of Western Australia) completed the most
sophisticated computer analysis of australopithecine fossils ever
undertaken, and concluded that they have nothing to do with the ancestry
of man whatsoever and are simply an extinct form of ape (see Oxnard's
The Order of Man, Yale University Press, 1984). How have
paleoanthropologists responded to his conclusions?
25. Stern and Susman write in the American Journal of Physical
Anthropology 60:279-313 (1983) that the hands and feet of
Australopithecus afarensis are not at all like human hands and feet;
rather, they have the long, curved fingers and toes typical of arboreal
primates. How, then, do some insist that the footprints Mary Leakey
uncovered in strata (dated at 3.5 million years old) in Laetoli were
made by Australopithecus afarensis, though these prints are
indistinguishable from modern man? (Tuttle, Natural History, 64)
26. Nebraska Man (based solely on a fossil tooth) became a significant
image in America during the time of the Scopes trial (1925); later,
scientists discovered the tooth came from a pig. A report in Nature
(August 17, 1995) states that analysis of an incomplete shin bone from a
creature dubbed Australopithecus anamensis suggests it walked upright
"between 3.9 and 4.2 million years ago." How should we treat discoveries
which have not yet faced the rigors of scientific validation?
27. In 1982, Dr. Lyall Watson stated: "The fossils that decorate our
family tree are so scarce that there are still more scientists than
specimens. The remarkable fact is that all the physical evidence we have
for human evolution can still be placed, with room to spare, inside a
single coffin!" (Science Digest, vol. 90, May '82, p. 44.) Is Watson's
statement still valid today?
28. In his book, Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to
Evolution, Dr. Michael Behe defines an "irreducibly complex" system as a
single system composed of several interacting parts that contribute to
the basic function, and where removal of any one part causes the system
to effectively cease functioning. Give an example of a system (living or
non-living) that could be considered "irreducibly complex," and explain why.
29. In his 1981 address to the geology staff at the Field Museum of
Natural History in Chicago, Dr. Colin Patterson (Senior Paleontologist,
British Museum of Natural History) asked: "Can you tell me anything you
know about evolution? Any one thing? Any one thing that is true?" The
answer he got was silence. Can you state any one thing about evolution
you know to be true?
30. If "yes", how do you know it's true?
31. Should students have the academic freedom to critique evolution?
-- "I have been shown that, without Bible history, geology can prove nothing. Relics found in the earth do give evidence of a state of things differing in many respects from the present. But the time of their existence, and how long a period these things have been in the earth, are only to be understood by Bible history. It may be innocent to conjecture beyond Bible history, if our suppositions do not contradict the facts found in the sacred Scriptures. But when men leave the word of God in regard to the history of creation, and seek to account for God's creative works upon natural principles, they are upon a boundless ocean of uncertainty. Just how God accomplished the work of creation in six literal days, he has never revealed to mortals. His creative works are just as incomprehensible as his existence." Ellen Gould Harmon White, 1864
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