How do you debunk creationism?

Answer 1

The following are some of the current methods regularly used in attempts to debunk creationism:

1. Suppression- don't allow creationism (or any ideas though to be critical of evolution) to be taught, promulgated or put forward anywhere. This type of activity has been documented by Dr Jerry Bergman in "Slaughter of the Dissidents" and by Ben Stein in his documentary "Expelled".

2. The use of insults, put-downs and other dubious tactics, obviously doesn't deal with the issues but do intimidate some into silence.

3. Use of faulty argumentation such as "knocking down a straw man." Misrepresenting creationist views (creating a straw-man argument in which no creationist believes) in such a way that makes it easy to refute. One of the most common is the assertion that creationists believe in fixity of species and deny natural selection, neither of which is true. Species do change and creationists acknowledge it and have explained it.

Switching the meaning of terms is another common tactic used to debunk creationism, such as likening all change (which creationists also acknowledge) to evolution, whereas it is the 'type of change' that is the difference.

4. Ignoring History: Modern science, even scientific thought itself, flourished where there existed belief in an orderly universe, as in nations where Christianity had a strong influence. Great scientists from the past such as Newton and Kepler sought to 'think God's thoughts after him' in their scientific research. Attempts to debunk creationism regularly include suggestions that it is 'anti-science.'

A New Approach that would be successful in debunking creationism would be one that deals with rather than avoids all the key arguments put forward by creationists such as: Carbon 14 in diamonds, which should not exist if the diamonds are anywhere near as old as claimed.

Genetic entropy- the genome of all multicellular life including humans is gaining around 100 mutations per person per generation (an average estimate), leading in a relatively short time to genetic meltdown and evidenced by the literally hundreds of Mendelian genetic diseases evident today. Thus if we are as old as evolution claims, we should not exist.

The information issue -how does the new and massive amount of new information get added into the genome for a microbe to change into a man?

The origin of life issue- science has shown it is impossible to create life from lifeless chemicals.

To date such an approach remains unused.