Evolution

Battle: Is Evolution True?
Arena: Hastings

Angelo and I were talking at Hastings about Christianity and all of the things that have been proven wrong. We were talking about Noah's ark and how ridiculous the whole story is. Eventually the conversation evolved into evolution and fetuses and how they have tails and gills and are crazy animals. I was telling Angelo about the moths that lived on these light colored trees and they were colored lightly as well. When the factories came near by, the trees turned darker and the mothes were now visable on the trees. These were mothes that lived for a really short time and bred really rapidly, so they evolved quickly. Soon, more and more of the mothes were becoming dark colored to fit in with the tree. It was a really fast evolution that was completely noticed and documented.
So I was telling Angelo about this and I noticed this one guy smirking and I thought it was kind of weird. Soon enough, he came over and said "now you don't have all your facts right." I asked him how and he said "Those mothes started appearing brown during the industrial revolution due to NATURAL SELECTION, not evolution. The birds could see the mothes on the trees that weren't brown because they stood out on the brown tree, so those mothes were eaten.", "of course", I replied "natural selection IS evolution." Which is true, I mean, if somebody were to sum up Darwinism in one sentence, the sentence would most likely include the terms "natural selection" and "evolution" in it. But this guy kept saying that natural selection was different than evolution. So I tells em "evolution results from natural selection. That is how species evolve." and he says "no. Natural selection is when the stronger survive and the weaker die off." So I say something like, "Right, but in this case the mothes that were a different color than the tree were the weaker ones because they weren't apt for their environment, so they died off. Eventually the darker mothes will be more likely to have offspring because they live much longer than the other mothes. Those offspring will have the genes for being dark like the tree and they will blend in with the tree just like their parents. This goes on for so long until almost all the moths are dark." And I dont' know how he snaked his way out of this one, but he somehow changed the subject to something else.
He just kept on saying that there isn't any proof of evolution and told us that he was a scientist and how he used to believe in evolution also, until he "looked into it." Well, his whole arguement seemed to rest upon him saying that there aren't any "transitional fossils", by which he means that there haven't been any fossils found of a species in between the aquatic phase and the land phase of creatures. He also told us that evolutionists always contradict eachother and once he learned these things he figured out that creationism is the way to go because there isn't any proof of evolution. I asked him for proof of creationism and he said that there are fossils of all kinds of fish stuck together and there is no way this could happen without a huge flood and he looked at us and said "moses' flood." Then he started talking about a tree that grew through rock and how it couldn't have happened. He mentioned that tree twice, but neither me and Angelo understood what he was saying about it.
Angelo then told him "well creationists also believe that the earth is only 2 thousand years old." The guy then told us that there are "young earth" and "old earth" creationists. "Young earths" believe that the earth is only a few thousand years old, and that is what he believes, but sometimes other creationists say that it is a lot older. So I told him that creationists contridict eachother just like he said about evolutionists. To that he said something like "well, there are variances."
We ended up talking about animals and creatures again and the man told us that a lot of the time scientists don't even know how old fossils are. Angelo said "What about carbon dating" and then the man said "carbon dating only works for things with carbon in them"
"Doesn't everything have in it?" Angelo asked.
Then a college student behind Angelo said "only living things" and the man said "that's right." The college kid had only been nearby our conversation for a couple of minutes. He was looking at books with his girlfriend and I could tell that he was listening to our talk and eventually he turned completely towards the conversation when he interjected about carbon dating.
Throughout the talk, the creationist man kept on saying that it is hard to break out of the mold of being an evolutionist. "You have been taught nothing but evolution your whole lives, so it would be hard for kids like you to approach the subject unbiased and weigh the evidence equally."
"Actually", said Angelo "I've been taught creationism my whole life." Which is true because his mom is a right-wing christian fundamentalist. The man said "well, most people are taught nothing but evolution, so when they go out looking for answers, they will find the answers that they want to find and are taught to find. He kept bringing this up, so I had to keep reminding him that for thousands of years Christanity was the only thing ever taught and nobody even fathemed the idea of evolution. That would be a hard mold to break out of, so he can't talk about how people are always biased towards evolution and that is why people believe it, because the idea evolution completely a recent breakthrough and before then society was completely biased towards creationism.
The college kid starts talking again after awhile and told the man about how recently hebrew texts had been researched and the more correct statement in the bible is actually not "created" but "is creating", meaning that the Bible didn't necessarily mean to say that God straight up created everything, but that evolution works within what he did create. The kid started saying some more interesting things to the man. The college student looking kid obviously was a pretty smart guy and after talking to him for a long time I asked if he was a major in religion or history or anything and he just said "no, I just read everything I could get my hands on about the stuff." But that wasn't until later. Right about after he told the man about the hebrew scriptures and some other things, the man coincidentally had to leave right away. He said he needed to pick up his son, but his son actually called like ten minutes before he said he needed to leave. I guess it was a good moment for the guy to leave the conversation. I mean, it's one thing to argue with some highschool kids armed with nothing but sheer common sense, but it is another thing to argue with somebody who studies this stuff, as the college kid appeared to do in his own time. Tomorrow I will talk more about the college kid and what he told us.