A creationist’s very silly laundry list

I was reading the comments on Moran’s post, and there’s a creationist there challenging people to come to his youtube channel, where he has apparently refuted all of evolution. So I did. It was…pathetic. You can suffer through it if you want, but let me spare you some time with a summary of the entirety of the content.

This ignorant fellow, Tommy Hall, declares that he’s going to present a list of the failed predictions of evolution. Right away, there’s a conceptual problem: science makes failed predictions all the time. It’s how it works. We’re supposed to make predictions, and test them, and if none of them were to fail, what would be the point of testing them? So sure, I could put together a long and accurate list of failed predictions, and how we progressed from testing them.

But here’s the next problem: none of his listed failures are actually failures. He gets everything wrong.

And another problem: he doesn’t explain anything. All he does is assert “Here’s something evilutionists claimed, and it’s WRONG!” With a loud, continuous laugh track. Hint: it doesn’t make sitcoms funny, and it doesn’t make creationism true.

Tommy Hall really has nothing to say. Besides his list of vacuous assertions, he spends 3½ minutes of a 10 minute video telling us how stupid evolution is and how he likes making fun of it, before even trying to make an argument. You’re missing nothing if you skip it, but here’s basically the entire content in a simple list.

These things are supposedly all wrong.

Junk DNA

No, there really is junk DNA, and it makes up a substantial chunk of the genome. If you want, I’m in a youtube video discussing it.

Appendix has no function

No one said it had no function. We said it was vestigial — learn what it means.

Genes and genomes don’t change throughout the lifetime of individual

Uh, what? Cancer, for example, is caused by genetic changes during our lifetime. We know about this. The thing is, changes to somatic tissues are not heritable.

Neandertals couldn’t breed with modern humans

Was that ever a specific prediction? I don’t think so. It was a reasonable hypothesis.

Inheritance of acquired characteristics was impossible

Yes? Show me an example. I assume this was a garbled conclusion from misunderstanding epigenetics.

The almost totally abandoned concept of population genetics

Oh. Now I get the laugh track. That is absurd.

one gene=one protein=one trait

Cool. Beadle & Tatum’s “one gene, one enzyme” hypothesis. That was a really fruitful idea that explained a lot of phenomena, so I wouldn’t exactly call it “failed” — but it did have to be extensively modified with time. By scientists, not creationists.

Humans have 100,000 genes

Nope. There was a mob of patent lawyers who went nuts trying to preemptively patent all kinds of possibilities, and put together these claims. The scientists, especially those population geneticists who no longer exist, were quite definite about the numbers: 10,000-30,000 genes. That’s what I learned in the 1970s, and it was the likely estimate since the 1930s.

darwin’s tree of life

Sorry, still valid for many organisms, especially us multicellular beasties. Bacteria don’t pay much attention to it.

genetic determinism

OK, that one is wrong. Hasn’t been widely held for a long time, but I will admit that some scientists still cling to it.

the molecular clock

Yeah? What’s wrong with it? Still valid, still useful.

horizontal gene transfer rare

Yes, it is. The highest number I’ve seen reported for humans is that possible 100+ genes were introduced by HGT. That number is disputed (and I think highly unlikely), but even if we accept it, it still says that it’s a rare event.

macro=micro+time

Nope. Mass extinctions, for instance, are an example of a macroevolutionary phenomenon that isn’t applicable on a microevolutionary scale.

collapse of the central dogma, the foundation of modern biology

He even gets the definition sorta right: information can’t pass from protein back to DNA. Which is still true. Can he name any examples where it’s not?

Weismann’s barrier

Weismann’s barrier is the isolation of the somatic cell line from the germ cell line; that is, only gametes are passed on to the next generation, with no contribution from other cells of the body. Unless you’ve got evidence that your liver donated cells to your progeny, it’s still true.

DNA is a blueprint

Well, if you’re going to trot out every overly-simplified analogy used to try and explain complex concepts to simple-minded creationists, this is going to take forever.

all adaptive traits happen via random mutation & natural selection.

Also recombination. But other than that, what’s your example of an additional source of adaptive variation?

DNA is everything

I don’t even…

DNA is the sole container of information

Isn’t that what you just said? Why is a creationist’s ignorant misconceptions considered a failure of evolution?

All mutations are random

Define “random”. We’ve got a few tools for site-directed mutagenesis, for instance, that are not random, but otherwise, yes, mostly random.

That’s about it. He just zips through all that nonsense with hyenas laughing excessively in the background. Ironically, at the beginning he claims that evolutionists will only reply with insults, but at the end he say of evolutionists

preprogrammed circus monkeys, playthings for satan

I would encourage Mr Hall to show up here, and present one of his favorite examples of an evolutionary failure, and back it up with something other than canned laughter. I doubt that he will, though. I doubt that he can.