Image Credit: patheos.com
1. The etymology of the word 'universe.' This is the easiest of his claims to destroy and took me a single Google search to pick apart. As it turns out, the etymology is not a combination of the words 'uni' (meaning one) and verse (meaning spoken word) but of the words 'uni' (meaning one) and the latin word 'versus' (meaning turn) coming together to literally mean "turned into one."
With that out of the way let's move on to some of the stickier arguments.
2. Evolution is not a science because it's never been observed. He is wrong on several counts here. Something does not need to be directly observed in order to be considered science. Take the example of dark matter and dark energy. While both these things, by their very definitions, cannot be observed, their existence is pointed to by the way in which normal matter acts in the visible universe. The way in which it acts is simply unexplainable under normal gravitational rules unless dark matter and energy exists. Secondly, he is wrong that evolution has never been observed. There is this common misconception that for evolution to have occured a new species must have come about, while this is true about macroevolution, this is not what evolution is. The catchphrase for evolution is "descent with modification" which certainly has been observed in numerous places. Take the example of Darwin's famous finches. Over a matter of two years, Peter and Rosemary Grant have seen these finches evolving. The newest generation of finches have beaks 3-4% larger than their grandparents and ancestors. While this may not seem like a big deal, the implications are vast. Female finches are much more likely to mate with males that have the same size beak as they do, ultimately resulting in reproductive isolation and potentially a new species. Another example of this is with African elephants. In 1930 it's estimated that only about 1% of elephants were tuskless due to a chance genetic mutation. This number has risen to nearly 40% among African Elephants and nearly 93% among Asian Elephants on the island of Sri Lanka. There are two reasons for this. Among the African Elephants, the drastic rise in poaching has made tusklessness a much more desirable trait, those with the tuskless trait are much more likely to survive because poachers are generally after the ivory. This is a clear example of natural selection that, given enough time and the right conditions, will ultimately result in the African Elephant being fundamentally changed to the point where tusked individuals are the exception rather than the rule. As for Sri Lankan elephants, we see tusklessness occurring partly due to poaching, but mostly due to the capturing of tusked elephants due to their desirability. Keeping tusked elephants captive in the conditions listed in the linked article makes them much much less likely to breed, meaning that the gene linked to tusk growth is being slowly weeded out. One final example, in the Hudson River in the mid-20th century, GE dumped millions of pounds of toxic waste killing the fish population. While one would expect the fish to die out, an interesting thing happened. A particular species, the tomcod, developed a resistance to PCBs much in the same way bacteria evolve resistances to new drugs. All these examples are evolution in action.
3. Chaos cannot create order because the 3rd Law of Thermodynamics. This is a common claim among creationists. The claim goes something like this "The third law of thermodynamics says that entropy (chaos) is always increasing, therefore order cannot be created by a random process (evolution.)" There are several problems with this argument. The first is that the third law of thermodynamics has to do with defining absolute zero on the entropy scale. Basically what the third law says is that at absolute zero the entropy of a crystalline solid will be zero. Creationists generally don't do their research and confuse the third law with the second law, the law that actually does talk about entropy increasing. This guy gives a really good explanation of why they are wrong on this count. Creationists assume that our planet is a closed and isolated system, which it is not.
4. The Big Bang theory is flawed. While there are certainly flaws with the Big Bang theory (there are flaws with all theories) claiming that it's comparable to a tornado rolling through a junk yard and creating a Lamborghini is an inaccurate analogy. There are several reasons why this is so. First, this operates on the assumption that there was something before the Big Bang, that space existed. This is not true. Prior to the Big Bang there was nothing but an infitesimally small speck the density of which we can't even comprehend. Second, the Big Bang theory has nothing to do with evolution and is not even the only theory out there. This website lists a few. Third, the Big Bang theory hardly excludes god from existing. Scientists still can't explain exactly why the point (the singularity) ultimately exploded and created the universe. There are many more reasons why he's wrong on this, I'll let the Scientific American handle them.
With this all said, I'd like to interject my own beliefs into this. Do I believe in god? I do. Do I believe that god and science are mutually exclusive? No, no I don't. There's so much that science still does not fully understand, how life occurred in the first place, why the Big Bang happened etcetera etcetera. Is it plausible that there is some higher power out there that guided the creation and evolution of the universe and life? I for one believe it is. This doesn't disprove evolution though, nor does it disprove the Big Bang. Until science can explain how life occurred in the first place, and why the Big Bang happened, I'll continue to turn to the metaphysical.
Footnote: As I stated at the beginning of this, I can't claim to be a scientific expert of any sort. If anyone reading this spots flaws in my understandings of physics and biology, please don't hesitate to correct me in the comments. Ultimately I just want genuine discourse to be opened, as that is the only way to open minds.
EDIT: My religious views have evolved since writing this, and I no longer necessarily believe in god.
