Similarities in DNA and anatomy are due to common design

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Contents 1 Claim 2 Source 3 Responses 4 Fallacies contained in this claim 5 References 6 Related claims 7 Acknowledgments

[edit] Claim

Similarities in anatomy and DNA sequences simply reflect the fact that the organisms had the same designer.

[edit] Source

• Sarfati, Jonathan, with Michael Matthews, Argument: Common design points to common ancestry, Answers in Genesis [1]
• Gitt, Werner, 1993. Did God Use Evolution?, p. 73

[edit] Responses

1. This creationist argument is a misunderstanding of the evidence for evolution. That evidence is not about mere similarity, but rather a very specific pattern of similarity: the twin-nested hierarchy. The vast majority of possible patterns of similarity would not be consistent with common descent. For example bats with feathers would be hard to explain via common descent since feathers evolved after the last common ancestor of birds and bats. For more on this see 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution by Douglas Theobald.
2. Most anti-evolutionists believe the common designer is all-knowing and all-powerful. But consider that a great deal of the reason why common design in human creations exists is that humans are finite beings with finite abilities, finite resources, and finite time. For this reason humans almost never create from "scratch" but modify previously-existing designs. The omnipotent designer envisioned by most creationists could have created each species from scratch, using radically different design philosophies.
3. In evolution, the theory of descent clearly requires a particular pattern of similarity. Intelligent design, however, has an omnipotent creator which is capable of anything, so there is no reason to assume that each organism would have to be very similar to others at all.
4. The patterns of similarities and differences in question, particularly in genetics, appear to extend even to areas in which there are many different independent structures that would all do the same things or that do not actually do anything. For instance, many proteins can have different amino acid sequences without this affecting the way they fold and hence what they do. However, species thought to be more closely related by common descent have sequences more like each other than they do with species that are more distantly related, which may have different sequences that do the same things. A common designer would have no reason not to simply use the exact same sequence over and over, or at least would not have any reason to create a pattern of differences that belies a specific cladistic ancestry that just so happens to be consistent with all the other apparent patterns of ancestry found elsewhere.
5. add more responses

[edit] Fallacies contained in this claim

• Untestability (everything fits a common designer)
• Exclusion (evidence is ignored)
• Begging the Question (one must believe that organisms had a designer at all in order to quibble over whether they had the same designer)

[edit] References

1. Lilith, 2003. Alignment of Chimp_rp43-42n4 against Human chromosome 15. [2]

[edit] Related claims

• Design is detectable
• Complexity indicates design
• Irreducible complexity indicates design
• Complex specified information indicates design
• Genetic algorithms require a designer to specify desired outcome
• Purpose indicates design
• Functional integration indicates design
• Similar structures for similar functions, different for different
• SETI researchers expect they can detect design

[edit] Acknowledgments