Conservapedia vs Evolution: Vol 3

Last time, we countered Conservapedia's claim that "Evolution predicts that human intelligence should increase over time" .  Click here to read that. (Same window)

Conservapedia's third counter-example to evolution reads: 

3. "The current annual rate of extinction of species far exceeds any plausible rate of generation of species. Expanding the amount of time for evolution to occur makes evolution even less likely." 

Entire species are rapidly becoming extinct every year, and it takes a lot longer for new species to emerge (speciation), according to evolution. That part's correct. (That's a first!) The second sentence argues that evolution becomes less and less plausible the longer this trend continues, since everything should have already been dead by now. That's also correct.

Note that the first sentence deals with the "current rate" of something, and the second sentence deals with applying that current rate to the past".

If we flat-out assume that Conservapedia's assertions are correct, the conclusion still does not follow. This is called an unsound syllogism. We can examine the truth value of the premises for fun, but this syllogism is already flawed, so we really don't have to. Here's why:
This argument conflates the current rate of extinction/speciation with past rates of extinction/speciation.

"Stocks are up 20% this quarter. Expanding our timeline back 10 years when we started, stocks must have increased by 20% every quarter! We're up 800%!"
- Conservapedia's Head Business Adviser.

Do you see the conflation? It happens as soon as the expanding timeline is mentioned, because the conclusion is based on the assumption that those rates are static. To lay the premises out in a way that avoids this logical fallacy, we have to take away the conflation tactic.

P1] The current rate of extinction exceeds speciation.
P2] Rates of extinction have always exceeded rates of speciation.
C] Expanding a given timeline reveals that extinction always exceeds speciation

Here, the argument avoids the logical fallacy. The argument's now stronger because it is sound. Now, the conclusion actually makes sense if the premises are true. You're welcome, Conservapedia.

In order to counter this, we now have to actually show that one of the premises is incorrect. In an actual argument, Conservapedia would have to prove the second premise. Us having to prove it's wrong is a shifting of the burden of proof, but we don't care since the second premise is so easy to refute.

If the second premise is false, this conclusion:

Expanding the amount of time for evolution to occur makes evolution even less likely

becomes unsound, and crumbles apart. Let's do it.
(Conservapedia's conclusion also seems to argue against how long scientists believe life has existed on earth. Conservapedia is known for young-earth arguments, but it's beyond the scope of this article.). 

Let's talk about death and destruction. Between the Permian and Triassic period about 250 million years ago [1], an event occurred that we now call the Great Dying [2].

Up to 96% of all marine life [3] became extinct. This was one of the few times in history where insects [4] took a massive hit. This event also wasn't isolated.

440 Million years ago, 60%-70% of all species became extinct[6]. 200 million years ago, 70-75% of all life was wiped out[5]. 66 million years ago, it happened again[6]. In fact, we know of 5 great extinction periods, and several smaller extinction periods, where the rates of extinction have far exceeded rates of speciation. This confirms that rates of extinction vary greatly from time to time.

When laid out on a timeline, the trend looks like spikes in extinction followed by longer periods of speciation. Keep in mind that speciation isn't always gradual[7].

It's literally not possible for the average extinction rate to exceed the average speciation rate. Otherwise, 11 species can become extinct when only 10 species have ever existed.

This proves that rates of extinction do NOT always exceeded rates of speciation. Therefore, this conclusion:

"Expanding the amount of time for evolution to occur makes evolution even less likely"

is logically impossible. The necessary second premise (which fixed the conflation problem) is incorrect, there's no reason to ever reach the conclusion. Because we actually know of periods where speciation exceeds extinction, the conclusion that we shouldn't reach is demonstrably false.

TLDR; The current rate of extinction is a trend and speciation rates generally exceed extinction rates. Therefore, Conservapedia's counter-example fails to reach it's conclusion. 

Next:: Does the Second Law of Thermodynamics invalidate Evolution? Conservapedia thinks so! (Same Window)
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Originally posted on Blogspot.com/RationalJesse.
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[1] 
250m years ago 
 Shen S.-Z. et al. (2011). "Calibrating the End-Permian Mass Extinction". Science. Bibcode:2011Sci...334.1367S. doi:10.1126/science.1213454.

[2] 
death due to carbon 
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/03/26/1318106111.full.pdf+html

[3] 
marine life
126/science.1213454.
^ Jump up to: a b c Benton M J (2005). When life nearly died: the greatest mass extinction of all time. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-28573-X.

[4] 
insects
Labandeira CC, Sepkoski JJ (1993). "Insect diversity in the fossil record". Science 261 (5119): 310–315. Bibcode:1993Sci...261..310L. doi:10.1126/science.11536548. PMID 11536548.

[5] 
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/extinction

[6] 
Raup, D.; Sepkoski Jr, J. (1982). "Mass extinctions in the marine fossil record". Science 215 (4539): 1501–1503. Bibcode:1982Sci...215.1501R. doi:10.1126/science.215.4539.1501. PMID 17788674. 

[7] 
https://www.inkling.com/read/biology-marielle-hoefnagels-2nd/chapter-13/13-4-speciation-may-be-gradual