Sad State of Science

The following excerpt was taken from a website that compiles fundamentalist views on science, religion, various other topics that are currently in the cross-hairs of social debate...  Which is kind of sad. Many of these questions are asked based on a poor understanding of nature and science to begin with.  Without a foundation on the nature of science and some basal level knowledge of nature, you end up with questionnaires like this one... I've entered basic answers for each.

Students, give this test to your teachers. When they fail it, ask them why they are teaching this nonsense! Teachers, give this test to your students if you really want them to know the truth about evolution!

1. Which evolved first, male or female?
Neither evolved before the other.  Evolution is determined by common ancestry and descent through modification.  Gender determination is as much a process as it is an evolutionary determined trait (which is a randomly occurring genetic mechanism).  Asking this question implies that at some point in human history, there was a population that only consisted of either males or females before the other appeared.  If that is a presumption, send students to research the evolutionary relationship between asexual and sexual organisms. Also have them note the evolutionary development in complexity and the rationale for which form of reproduction best suits the organism.

2. How many millions of years elapsed between the first male and first female?
Asking this question again implies that at some point only men or women had populated the Earth before both came into existence.  Asking questions like this means that you have no comprehensive understanding of the intricacies of mitosis or meiosis.  Please divert them to those chapters and the scientific evidence and microscopic rationales for both processes before attempting to dismantle the faulty reasoning that led to this question.

3. List at least 9 of the false assumptions made with radioactive dating methods.
The assumptions made with radioactive dating methods involve the relativistic nature of time, which bear no relevance to any debate on evolution, along with the predictability of half-lives of radioactive isotopes based on their concentrations found in fossilized organisms.  Students who ask this question probably have no idea themselves what they're looking for in an answer and why they choose the number 9 seems like an arbitrary number of reasons.  If you're not really familiar with this area challenge their question by demanding a scientifically viable alternative or by simply saying "I'm not sure, enlighten me."  It's my experience that when students ask questions like this that they don't even know the answer, so where's this question coming from?

4. Why hasn't any extinct creature re-evolved after millions of years?
Because they're extinct.  Evolution requires common ancestry.  Organisms that currently exist as close relatives are the equivalent of distant cousins.  So essentially you're asking whether it is possible to have a couple of your cousins mate to recreate another you.  That's impossible.

5. Which came first:
...the eye,
...the eyelid,
...the eyebrow,
...the eye sockets,
...the eye muscles,
...the eye lashes,
...the tear ducts,
...the brain's interpretation of light?
The evolution of the eye dates back to single-celled organisms (some still have light-sensitive organelles called eye-spots).  Its development into a complex multicellular sensory organ does not mean that each of these features developed in a specifically determined order.  Also, muscle development, neurological development, gland development, and hair development evolved independently of eye development, having them all come together is a matter of several hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary collective tissue development.  Answering this question essentially requires you to conduct several longitudinal genetic surveys of various traits, which is an ongoing genomic project.  So if they're really interested in this question, refer them to the numerous genome projects and the comparative genomic research that can ultimately determine the answer to this question.

6. How many millions of years between each in question 5?
I usually counter this with a question of my own.  How long do you think it took?  There's a vast range of answers you'll get which are probably just random guesses.  The smaller their numbers, the less they understand the process of evolution.  Though there is an argument of swift punctuated equilibrium models that may substantiate speedy trait development, that's still a process that takes hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years (at its fastest).  Again, if students really press this issue, you can refer them to ongoing genomic research that have the potential to answer this question.

7. If we all evolved from a common ancestor, why can't all the different species mate with one another and produce fertile offspring?
Refer students to mitosis and meiosis.  If  you want to shoot down this question, ask them if they've had any desire to mate with a tree recently and follow up with a why.  This is an outrageous question.  I'd probably laugh.  You'd have to define for this student what it means to be a separate species as well since it does relate to an organism's ability to reproduce between other species.

8. List any of the millions of creatures in just five stages of its evolution showing the progression of a new organ of any kind. When you have done this, you can collect the millions of dollars in rewards offered for proof of evolution!
What?  Who's offering millions of dollars for proof of evolution?  Go to any comparative genomics laboratory and collect their millions.  I suppose their question demands intermediate forms that are either extinct or haven't been uncovered yet.  Whoever determined this to be the benchmark for collecting millions of dollars for proving evolution to be true has yet to provide a scientifically viable explanation worth 2 cents.  Students should probably be taught at this point that over 98% of all life that has ever existed on Earth has gone extinct.  Where their remains are and what they provide in terms of intermediate forms illustrate the patchy nature of scientific discovery and the fossil record, which may never be fully pieced together because fossils require some form of preservation that nature does not make practical.

9. Why is it that the very things that would prove Evolution (transitional forms) are still missing?
Intermediate forms require fossilized evidence.  Ask students to find and survey a fossilized dinosaur to get an "A" in your class.  See how easy that was?  They're hard to find because nature does not make it practical for all living things that die to fossilize.  Also, if you require intermediate forms as evidence to believe evolution as scientific fact then you're either willfully ignoring the overwhelming genetic evidence that has been developed or you don't understand the genetic evidence altogether.  So review the comparative sciences: physiology, genetics, cytology, etc.

10. Explain why something as complex as human life could happen by chance, but something as simple as a coin must have a creator. (Show your math solution.)
Human life is more than a chance occurrence (but stops short of a miracle).  The conditions for human evolutionary development are based on more than chance but on survival (which is determined by nature/environment) and descent (which is determined by genetics).  Think of our ancestors, one of the ways to enhance one human's chance for survival is to survive as collective groups and communities.  The development of economy and government fall into the evolution of moral development and the notion of fairness and justice that arises from this community interaction.  If students are really pressing this question, refer them to Richard Dawkin's The Selfish Gene.  The notion of collective bargaining and selfish/selfless behavior can be explained through evolutionary biology.

11. Why aren't any fossils or coal or oil being formed today?
Just because something takes tens or hundreds of thousands of years to be created doesn't mean it is not an ongoing process.  Questions like this require the counter-question of how do you know they're not being formed?  Why are you asking this question if you haven't already made up your mind?

12. List 50 vestigial or useless organs or appendages in the human body.
Again with the arbitrary number of 50.  I'm sure you could probably find a dozen vestigial structures in the human body but they're pretty few and far between.  What should be taught to students about vestigial structures is that the reason why they're so rare is because nature is not going to select for wasteful physical traits unless it carries with it some survival value.  The idea behind a vestigial structure is that at some point in our history the organ used to have a function but we've adapted a lifestyle that does not require that function anymore.  So the appendix, the most notable of human vestigial structures, at one point probably had a function in digesting food in the diet of pre-modern humans but as our diet evolved, so did the functions of our digestive organs.

13. Why hasn't anyone collected the millions of dollars in rewards for proof of evolution?
They have.  The problem with proving evolution true is that scientists are forced to abide by not only the strict guidelines of their profession but the outrageous guidelines of the ignorant and uninterested populace.  If the common citizen is not willing to learn the science of molecular biology and its implications on evolution, then they'll make these obnoxious guidelines to disprove evolution without ever comprehending the science behind what evidence is already available.  The rewards for proof of evolution are unattainable if the uneducated public is responsible for generating the guidelines (for example, finding every missing intermediate form is an impossibility but it is a common requirement to acquire these reward funds - also researchers are more interested in acquiring funding through federal grants than from fundamental crazies).

14. If life began hundreds of millions of years ago, why is the earth still under populated?
First off, ask them to clarify what they mean by underpopulated.  What are the guidelines they're using to determine whether or not the Earth is underpopulated or not because a statement like that implies that there are some clear guidelines that the Earth is currently underpopulated.  If asked this question, send them towards population dynamics and ecological sustainability.  Also point out that the environment does more than sustain human populations, it also sustains all living populations, plant, insect, and so on.  So what they mean by underpopulated is a very important clarification.

15. Why hasn't evolution duplicated all species on all continents? 
Refer students who ask this question towards the differences between allopatric, sympatric, peripatric, and parapatric speciation.  If populations of organisms are separated by geographic boundaries, how can they mate to create uniform species on every continent?  Asking a question like this just demonstrates the inability to comprehend the process of heredity and the complex ecological systems that exist on the planet.  The whole planet cannot be a concrete jungle...