Evolutionary topics needed, any suggestions?

Question

Okay, I am doing a report on evolution and I was wondering what basic topics/issues I should cover and their creationist counterparts (for comparison). Any suggestions? (needs to be fairly simple)

Answer 1

I like the 'irreducible complexity' argument.

Another one would be: why do all living organism have the same geneic code (minus a few exceptions)? If each species had been created separately, there would be no need for it and species would defend themselves better from viral infections.

A third one: IDers like to say that similar species look similar because the 'designer' tweaked a project to fit the needs. Why then the same project (wing) is so different in birds, bats and pterodactyls? Why flying chordata had to dedicate their anterior limbs to flight instead of just sprouting a pair of wings in addition to their existing limbs, as insects did? Evolution explains this in terms of what the wings were used for before they became wings. I'd like to hear the ID argument (if there is one)

Last but not least: why syntheny? Why pseudogenes? Why transposons in the same place in different species, if not by common descent?

I'd love to have a look at your report once it's done if you don't mind. Better yet, I'd love to hear what were the objections.

Answer 2

There's a topic called "irreducible complexity" used by I.D. and creationist proponents. It goes something like this:

"The eye is really complicated, and none of it works without the other parts, so it couldn't have accidentally evolved by itself."

The counterpoint from evolution is that there are varying degrees of functionality from eye spot, to eye socket, all the way up to the eye as we know it, even if we haven't found evidence for all of the in-between spots so far.

Another popular one is the flagella in bacteria - but it turns out that the base by itself functions in cell transport.

Answer 3

How about homology/analogy? Homologous or analogous features provide rather strong evidence on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

Here is a list of evolutionary topics, might give you some ideas. Good luck!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_evo...

Answer 4

I suggest that you discuss the problem of bad design as opposed to intelligent design.  For example, who is responsible for all of the genetic defects that cause misery for many humans?  If there is an intelligent designer, there must be a bad designer to account for all of the genetic problems.  Otherwise, the intelligent designer must be have a mean streak in order to produce so many genetic diseases, e.g., sickle cell disease, maple syrup urine disease, phenylketonuria, spina bifidua, and so forth.

That is, any answer involving intelligent design must also answer the issues of bad genetic design.