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(Ray Comfort) You're an atheist?

I am definitely an atheist, yes.

(Ray Comfort) Why are you an atheist?

Why am I an atheist? Because there is no God.

Atheism assumes that you can disprove the existence of a God.

Agnostic is a more correct term, but I'm an atheist.

(Ray Comfort) Are you an atheist?

- Yeah. - I am an atheist, yeah.

- I am, yes. - I am.

(Ray Comfort) So you're not an atheist?

No, I'm not.

(Ray Comfort) So you're leaning that way because of evolution?

Yeah.

I don't believe in the, there's a guy in the sky

that lives in the sky.

- You believe in evolution? - Of course I do, yes.

(male narrator) "Live Science" says of Darwinian evolution:

"It can turn dinosaurs into birds, apes into humans

and amphibious mammals into whales."

What Darwin showed in his work on evolution

and natural selection is that we don't need to invoke

any supernatural force or power

to account for the development of life through time on earth.

The ongoing processes that are observable in today's world.

(Ray Comfort) Do you think it's a belief?

I think it's just fact.

I think more like facts.

There is too much evidence to ignore.

(Ray Comfort) Do you think it's a belief?

- No, it's science. - It's the way it happened.

It's logical.

You know, all the scientists pretty much agree with it.

It's more of a fact.

(Ray Comfort) When did you start to believe?

When I started to think for myself.

(Ray Comfort) When did you start believing?

When I took my first biology class.

It all started to make a lot of sense.

The teacher made it very easy to understand.

I generally trust the scientific community.

It makes more sense than any religion or anything.

The fossils they have found of all the cavemen,

the Homo sapiens, dinosaurs-- it shows clear evidence.

I believe in science.

(Ray Comfort) What's your major here at this university?

Biology.

- You're a biology major? - Yeah.

- You believe in evolution? - Yes.

- What's your major? - Geology.

- Chemistry. - Biochemistry.

Environmental science and policy.

I'm a physicist.

Biochemistry.

(Ray Comfort) Okay, do you believe in evolution?

Yes, I do.

- Do you believe in evolution? - Yes, I do.

- Of course. - Yes, I do.

I do believe in evolution.

- You believe in evolution? - Yes.

- Are you a strong believer? - Yes.

- Are you a strong believer? - Yep.

- Yes. - Yes.

Absolutely.

(narrator) A Scientific method is based on "the collection

of data through observation and experimentation." -Science Daily

(Ray Comfort) Could you give me some observable evidence

that evolution is true?

Something I don't have to receive by faith?

- Yeah. - Some observable evidence?

I mean, take a look at what happened 65 million years ago.

(Ray Comfort) Hang on, I can't, that's 65 million years ago.

I believe, yeah, millions of years.

(Ray Comfort) So that can't be observed.

We can trace the evolution through the fossil record.

(Ray Comfort) Could you be specific, just give me one?

Between 6 and 7 million years ago.

Hundreds of thousands to millions of years.

- So it's quite a long time. - Yes.

- Millions of years? - Yes.

(Ray Comfort) So it can't be observed?

Evolution is not testable over time.

(narrator) "We are condemned to live only for a few decades

and that's too slow, too small a time scale

to see evolution going on," Richard Dawkins.

"We see nothing of these slow changes in progress,

until the hand of time has marked the lapse of ages..."

Charles Darwin.

(Ray Comfort) You've got the canine kind: the coyote and the domestic dog;

and there's the feline kind: which is the cats,

the tiger, and the kitten; and you've got humankind.

So Darwin said there'd be a change of kinds

over many years,

so could you give me one example of observable evidence

of a change of kinds?

So for instance, the fossil record shows

the common ancestors of all carnivores,

that cats and dogs were once linked,

united by a common ancestor.

(Ray Comfort) How long ago?

This, I believe, was, like, 60 million years ago.

(Ray Comfort) I don't want something that I have to accept by faith.

I want it to be observable.

Observable evidence.

Well, I mean, if you're just asking me here on the street,

there's really not much I can tell you

in terms of observable evidence.

Like, we would have to really examine existing data

to draw conclusions of our own.

(Ray Comfort) We would have to have faith, then?

We would have to have some amount of faith.

(Ray Comfort) Can you think of any observable evidence

for Darwinian evolution,

where he said there'd be a change of kind?

(male) Like a monkey to a man, is that what you're talking about?

(Ray Comfort) Yeah, a change of kinds.

I don't really believe there's any proof for that yet.

Well, monkeys are the only ones

with the fifth digit like we have.

(Ray Comfort) Koalas have a fifth digit. Did you know that?

(female) I didn't know that.

(Ray Comfort) Do you think we're evolved from koalas?

No.

I went to, like, Washington, D.C.

I saw they had a whole exhibit just on the--

- In the Smithsonian? - Yeah, in the Smithsonian.

(Ray Comfort) I went to that. It's just like some stuffed dummies,

like standing around a fire.

I know that everyone talks about the missing link

for humans and whatnot.

I believe that there are connections that are out there

that we haven't found yet.

I'm going to trust what those experts did,

those experts came up with.

I have a strong trust in evolutionary ideas

based on the evidence presented.

(Ray Comfort) Can you think of any observable evidence

for Darwinian evolution, a change of kinds?

I haven't seen it myself,

but I believe what the textbooks tell me about it, so.

(Ray Comfort) You've got faith in the experts?

I have faith in the experts, yeah.

I guess similar to how religious people have faith

that God actually exists, I have faith in the experts

knowing what they're talking about.

(Ray Comfort) The scientific method is it must be observable and repeatable,

so could you give me one piece of observable evidence

for Darwinian evolution?

Okay, I would point to-- there's one great example

is look at the genetics of the stickleback.

(Ray Comfort) What's that?

So stickleback fish are a very interesting collection

of species that were recently isolated

after the end of the Ice Age.

(Ray Comfort) What have they become?

They're various species of sticklebacks.

(Ray Comfort) They stayed as fish?

Well, of course.

(Ray Comfort) Can you think of any observable evidence

where there was a change of kinds?

Fish.

Human beings are still fish.

(Ray Comfort) Human beings are fish?

Why, yes, of course they are.

(Ray Comfort) How long did that take?

Couple billions of years, millions.

- Couple millions? - Yep.

- How is that observable? - It's not.

We came out of the ground as a mammal,

and one mammal created--

(Ray Comfort) Come out of the ground?

Didn't we come out of the sea?

Huh? Well, initially in the beginning,

we came out of the ground and the sea.

After the great destruction of the--

(Ray Comfort) So did we have lungs or gills when we came out of the sea?

You want to know something?

Those that were in the sea I guess had gills,

and those that were on land had lungs.

(Ray Comfort) But if we came out of the sea, we had gills in the sea?

You want to know something?

Who knows that we came out of the sea or we came out of--

we evolved from mammals?

- So you don't know? - Huh? Of course I don't know.

I'm accepting that they did their science correctly.

(Ray Comfort) Could you give me an example of Darwinian evolution,

not adaptation or speciation, but a change of kinds?

[laughing]

These are changes of kinds.

(Ray Comfort) They're still fish.

They're distinctly different fish.

We have thousands of examples.

(Ray Comfort) Can you give me one?

- I can give you thousands. - Just one.

For instance,

I would say look at Lenski's experiments in bacteria, then.

(Ray Comfort) So what have the bacteria become?

The bacteria are still bacteria, of course.

(Ray Comfort) So that's not Darwinian evolution.

That's not a change of kinds, is it?

It is a change in the genetic makeup of the bacteria.

(Ray Comfort) But they're still bacteria.

So what have the bacteria become?

A new kind of bacteria.

(Ray Comfort) It's still bacteria. There's no change of kinds.

To summarize, the observable evidence that you give me

for Darwinian evolution is bacteria becoming bacteria.

No, it is bacteria acquiring new metabolic capabilities.

(Ray Comfort) You said before that there was lots of evidence for evolution.

I just want one observable evidence

for Darwinian evolution. Just one.

But I gave you some. You don't want--

(Ray Comfort) Not some. I want one.

Wait, you don't want that.

(Ray Comfort) I want one. Yes, I do.

I'm pleading with people.

You asked me to tell you-- you asked me to tell you

when I've watched one species evolve into another.

Isn't that right?

(Ray Comfort) No, one kind into another.

There's 14 different definitions of species,

so I want a change of kind.

When you're talking about kinds or change in families,

you're actually talking about macroevolution.

You're talking about changes on the level that separates,

say, cats from dogs.

(Ray Comfort) So could you give me any examples of Darwinian evolution?

Well, when you say examples of that,

then you have to sort of look at it over a longer time frame.

It has nothing to do with faith.

Faith is something that I have to--unseen,

I have to believe it.

(Ray Comfort) That's it, unseen.

Look, do you believe evolution?

Of course I do.

(Ray Comfort) Are you a believer in evolution?

Yes, I am.

(Ray Comfort) When did you start to believe evolution?

I started to believe evolution

when I started to think for myself.

(Ray Comfort) Is evolution a belief?

Evolu-- well, you know something?

Evolution is a thought process.

It's this coming-to-terms

and checking out all the alternatives.

Like, taking a looking at the religion, man-made religions.

(Ray Comfort) Let me ask you again. Is evolution a belief?

No, evolution is-- well, yeah.

In a word, yeah, I could say it could be a belief.

When you say change of kinds,

do you mean the evolution of one species