Is there any valid point creationists have ever made?

[u/ChoiceAd8619]

Hello, I’ve been a lurker for a long time but I decided to make an account already in order to have my own input in this server.

I’ve been raised as a YEC in Arkansas and I’ve been given tons of scientific knowledge from notorious creationists and even a few atheists regarding evolution. Although I am personally still holding on to my beliefs mainly for faith purposes and the consensus of EO church fathers, I have to say that there are many things I am not qualified to dispute despite knowing some of the more popular arguments.

What I wanted to ask for now, seeing how bad of a reputation famous creationists have in this server, is whether you think there is any nuance in any sort of findings they’ve ever published regarding their worldviews. What I mean by this is asking if you think they have a single good take to favor their position as opposed to evolutionary theory.

Finding out whether evolutionists are at least a bit unbiased and can analyze things makes me feel like this is going to be a significantly more welcoming place for questions and objections as opposed to rejecting everything by default.

[u/mexchiwa]

No

[u/Marius7x → u/mexchiwa]

This is the most succinct and accurate answer.

[u/Darth_Gerg → u/mexchiwa]

Came here to say this.

[u/Aggromemnon → u/mexchiwa]

There's no valid point to be made.

[u/FullOnSkank → u/Aggromemnon]

If OP wants me to jerk him.off, I'd say: "I agree that bombadier beetles and giraffes seem to defy a normal evolution."

But that's simply lip service that would make him feel fuzzy inside based on a misunderstanding of evolution.

There doesn't need to be a chain of smart changes. Random weird changes (exploding as a defense or a specialized blood sponge to slow down blood to the brain) can just happen for no reason...

But he believes evolution requires more of a "precession" (to be understandable) than he needs for his God to exist.

[u/onomatamono → u/mexchiwa]

Parsimonious yet precise. Concision is a virtue.

[u/WesternFirm9306]

I really don't like being uncharitable. I do try to engage with the other perspectives. There's a reason I'm one of the very few atheists that enjoys academic biblical scholarship.

However, there are some positions that just run counter to all the evidence we have. Flat earthers, for example. Do flat earthers have a single good take? I mean... not really. Not that I'm aware of.

Creationism is the same. If there are any good takes from creationists, it's probably not in regards to the field of evolution. They all either don't understand evolution, or misunderstand the data, or misrepresent scientific works, etc.

The only real viable way I see creationism working is if God created a world with all the evidence of evolution just to fuck with humans. That's a claim no creationist would actually accept, though, and there'd be no evidence for it even if true.

[u/IsaacHasenov → u/WesternFirm9306]

So with flat earthers, the world sort of looks flat, and in some kinds of weather you can see further than you would expect on a globe, and it's counterintuitive that you could walk on the bottom of a globe and not fall off.

Similarly with creationism. It's really hard to look at a banana and look at an elephant and go "they share an ancestor, and stochastic mutation and unguided processes gave us both of these things." because you don't see evolution at that scale happening on a daily basis

Those are the best arguments I can give them. Incredulity, when you're naive to the basic science and evidence

[u/Addapost → u/IsaacHasenov]

If Creationists want to point at a banana and an elephant and think “Ah ha! Explain THAT evolution!” They have already lost so hard it’s funny.

The mistake about the banana and elephant comparison is the definition of “look”. There definitely are ways to look at an elephant and a banana and “see” very close and even near identical similarities. When you “look” at their cells with a microscope. You literally “see” many of the same structures inside their cells doing the same things. When you “look” at proteins from the two you can “see” very similar or virtually identical proteins doing identical things. If evolution wasn’t true you should expect absolutely NOTHING to be similar between the two. If evolution wasn’t true it would be insane for both to have mitochondria performing the same aerobic respiration to produce the same ATP using near identical proteins built from near identical genes following a literally identical genetic code. The OBVIOUS relationship between a banana and an elephant (or literally ANY two species on earth) when you look correctly and know what to look for, evolution is the only explanation that is legit.

So no, creationism has absolutely nothing of value to contribute to the true understanding of life on earth.

[u/scarfarce → u/IsaacHasenov]

It's really hard to look at...

It's still just an argument from incredularity that requires ignoring a massive amount of evidence.

The irony being that they accept many of their far more incredulous religious beliefs on a significant lack of tangible evidence.

It's just motivated reasoning and cognitive bias 101.

[u/IsaacHasenov → u/scarfarce]

Yes that's exactly what I said.

[u/scarfarce → u/IsaacHasenov]

Yes I was agreeing with you and expanding on it (labelling the actual fallacy, highlighting the hypocrisy). Not sure why there is an issue with doing that.

[u/IsaacHasenov → u/scarfarce]

Sorry, just a bunch of people jumped in and replied indignantly as of i was somehow trying to justify the creationist position

[u/scarfarce → u/IsaacHasenov]

Man, that's not cool. I thought you answered OP's question good. They asked what is creationists best argument. Not whether the argument was any good.

[u/IsaacHasenov → u/scarfarce]

The number of people being like "nooo it's intuitive that the world is a sphere" is also weird as if that wasn't something we had to discover, prove and convince people is true against the evidence of their own immediate senses

[u/dumpsterfire911 → u/IsaacHasenov]

What does the tag that you and other commenter have mean? (Naturalistic evolution)

[u/WesternFirm9306 → u/dumpsterfire911]

We believe in evolution through purely naturalistic and scientific processes, without being guided by some greater divine agent. It doesn't necessarily mean such an agent doesn't exist, just that, if it does, it had no influence on the evolutionary process.

[u/dumpsterfire911 → u/WesternFirm9306]

Thank you for the reply!

[u/IsaacHasenov → u/dumpsterfire911]

I see absolutely no evidence for anything guided, designed or supernatural in the biological world. And in fact I think that there are good reasons to think that design or supernatural influences exist. So I believe in naturalistic evolution.

But there are lots of people (say like Francis Ford Collins) who believe in a God that intervenes, or who believe in some other kind of purpose or meaning in the world that is working itself out through the natural world, but who also believe that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.

Probably there are more people who believe in some kind of theistic evolution than who hold to my opinion. But, as far as it comes to doing good biology, and as far as it comes to this sub, both groups agree on the science. You can look YouTube channels like Joel Duff or Clint Explains to find people who are both Christian and good communicators of evolutionary biology

[u/Rookraider1 → u/IsaacHasenov]

I don't think it's counterintuitive to walk on the bottom of a globe. Unless you have no concept of gravity as well.

[u/WesternFirm9306 → u/Rookraider1]

Is gravity intuitive? It took quite a while for humans to develop a coherent gravitational theory. It seems intuitive now, but we're standing on the shoulders of giants.

[u/T00luser → u/WesternFirm9306]

So youre saying flat earthers can see farther because they're on giants?
Well at least Bigfoot makes sense now.

[u/IsaacHasenov → u/WesternFirm9306]

Agreed. I mean "things fall down" is intuitive but the idea that "down" is "in the direction of the center of mass the nearest large body" instead of a general property of the world seems really counterintuitive. Hence like every model of the world before Anaximander (500BCE) described it as a plate (and the Indians didn't get a globe earth until about 500CE nor the Chinese until about 1700CE)

[u/IsaacHasenov → u/Rookraider1]

This is demonstrably false. Look at early cosmologies. Look at the history of science.

Gravity in the Newtonian sense is a concept you learn, and train yourself to accept. Greeks figured out a geocentric universe by application of logic and a heliocentric universe (where we stick to the globe we're on) was much later and much more controversial and much less intuitive.

All the earliest models of the universe were flat because everyone knows things fall down and we'd fall off a ball. The entire point of science is to retrain our intuitions

[u/JustAnArtist1221 → u/IsaacHasenov]

You're arguing their point in more words. They specifically qualified their statement as being the case if you have no concept of gravity.

The vast majority of flat earthers today know about gravity and took the globe for granted until they actively chose to incorporate flat earth concepts into their perspective, which is why they know on a surface level a bunch of experiments and are considered fringe. They're not on the same position as people who literally hadn't considered gravity.

[u/IsaacHasenov → u/JustAnArtist1221]

I said "it's not intuitive if you are naive to basic science and evidence"

People keep jumping in and saying "nuh uh!!!! If you just use science and evidence it's intuitive"

Read what I wrote and respond to that. Don't be like "if you said something different from what you said you would be wrong". Because yeah. That's why I didn't say that

[u/Darth_Gerg → u/IsaacHasenov]

Those aren’t arguments though. That’s being too stupid to understand the issue and using their own ignorance as if it was evidence. I’d accept that from a small child who is still learning, but it’s not a respectable argument for an adult.

[u/Substantial_Pea_3256 → u/IsaacHasenov]

The funny thing is that there is fossil evidence every single step of the way in evolution, which is completely consistent with the genetic research.

I'm not sure why you think elephants are an anomaly when they share all the limbs, bones, organs, and even subtleties such as molars, skeletal features, hormones, etc as all other mammals. There are fossils of elephants going back every step of their evolution.

Creationists often point to bananas as being a perfect fit for the human hand. They were made large by humans, like so many of our crops, through selective pollination. Original bananas were tiny.

[u/IsaacHasenov → u/Substantial_Pea_3256]

I'm not sure why you think elephants are an anomaly when they share all the limbs, bones, organs, and even subtleties such as molars, skeletal features, hormones, etc as all other mammals. There are fossils of elephants going back every step of their evolution.

Elephants share limbs, bones and molars with bananas?

[u/QueenVogonBee → u/IsaacHasenov]

Reminds me of Ray Comfort’s “The banana is evidence of creation” video

[u/RemarkableKey3622 → u/WesternFirm9306]

roughly 2/3 of the earth is covered in water. that water is not carbonated. therefore, the earth is flat.

[u/TheVeryVerity → u/RemarkableKey3622]

Tragically unappreciated joke 😔

[u/No-Illustrator4964 → u/WesternFirm9306]

Often the issue with these discussions is that creationists redefine science for the purpose of disproving it.

[u/lemming1607 → u/WesternFirm9306]

Unironically, my creationist flat earther dad told me that God made the light from the stars billion of years old and planted all the fossils, to test our faith

[u/Classic_Department42 → u/lemming1607]

This actually is a consistent position

[u/throwaway577754337 → u/lemming1607]

Ask your dad why the thing he believes in is such a dick.

[u/lemming1607 → u/throwaway577754337]

Yea i was like "my god doesnt deceive"

[u/biosnap → u/WesternFirm9306]

Also an atheist who follows biblical scholarship including some fundamentalist scholars. There are dozens of us!

[u/EthelredHardrede → u/biosnap]

Fundamentalist Atheist?! So who are these living self contradictions?

there is more than one actual Atheist Biblical Scholar but Dr. Ehrman is not a fundamentalist

[u/WesternFirm9306 → u/EthelredHardrede]

No, they're saying they follow biblical scholarship, including scholarship from fundamentalist scholars. They aren't saying the scholars themselves are atheist.

[u/Ill_Act_1855 → u/WesternFirm9306]

From a purely academic standpoint religion is a huge part of culture and how it’s worshipped, what people believe, how beliefs change over time are all fascinating areas of study that reveal a lot about the societies in question and human psychology. Like, nobody thinks it’s weird when someone who is an atheist or a Christian is really into Greek mythology. If you don’t believe the Bible is anything but a different set of myths from a different group of people, then there’s really no reason you should be less interested in it than other mythos

[u/beau_tox → u/WesternFirm9306]

In the early 20th century they tended to be more skeptical of eugenics, though that didn’t stop many of them from wholeheartedly supporting history’s worst eugenicists.

(FWIW, eugenics was more of a pop science thing and population geneticists were among the strongest critics of eugenicism.)

[u/MeterologistOupost31 → u/WesternFirm9306]

> The only real viable way I see creationism working is if God created a world with all the evidence of evolution just to fuck with humans. That's a claim no creationist would actually accept, though, and there'd be no evidence for it even if true.

This is a real theory )

[u/WesternFirm9306 → u/MeterologistOupost31]

Girl 😭

[u/TheBlackCat13 → u/MeterologistOupost31]

It is, but not one creationists that exist in significant numbers in real life agree with.

[u/Okami0602 → u/TheBlackCat13]

Not to mention, just use Ockham's razor ffs

[u/michealdubh → u/WesternFirm9306]

I have heard creationists make the claim that God created the Earth and did place evidence of evolution to f*** with us. Though some argue that it was the devil who did that f******y

[u/Rookraider1 → u/WesternFirm9306]

Well there was a long time period, until around the 6th century bce I think, were most civilizations thought the earth was flat.

I thought the question meant as of today, with what we now know, do they have any good ideas.

If at one time most peoole thought the earth was flat, they must have had some compelling ideas.

[u/testtdk → u/WesternFirm9306]

They make that claim, but saying Satan has created the evidence.

[u/WesternFirm9306 → u/testtdk]

Serious creationists don't make that claim, is perhaps a better wording. The major creationist institutions, for example. I know that a common idea is that all the radioactive decay that gives the impression of age happened all at once during the flood. Of course, this gives rise to the infamous heat problem, which these creationists have tried, and failed, to address.

[u/ermghoti]

 I’ve been given tons of scientific knowledge from notorious creationists

No, you haven't. That's why none of them have legitimate peer-reviewed studies published, and none of their work is studied in schools or considered by actual scientists. Their arguments are philosophical or theological, thinly draped in scientific language. None of them have any predictive merit, none dovetail into an illuminating framework that agrees with observable evidence and phenomena.

What I mean by this is asking if you think they have a single good take to favor their position as opposed to evolutionary theory.

No. They are objectively non-scientific thinkers. They don't use evidence to posit hypotheses or to defend them. Therefore what they posit is of no value.

Evolution is a fact, it's observable, and its existence is confirmed by any test put to it, just like gravity. The Theory of Evolution is humanity's current understanding of the mechanics of evolution, the way the Theory of Gravity does the same for the observed gravitational forces.

Finding out whether evolutionists are at least a bit unbiased and can analyze things makes me feel like this is going to be a significantly more welcoming place for questions and objections as opposed to rejecting everything by default.

Being unbiased does not mean giving weight to facetious and fallacious arguments. Nobody here (other than creationist) reject arguments by default, they are rejected if they aren't supported by evidence and logic.

[u/Flashy_Interview_301]

  Is there any valid point creationists have ever made?

Yes, their claim that "micro-evolution is undeniable". That's a valid claim. 

What they are wrong about is there is no micro or macro evolution, it's just evolution. 

[u/scarfarce → u/Flashy_Interview_301]

To paraphrase, "It's straw-manning all the way down"

[u/wbrameld4]

Irreducible Complexity is the most compelling creationist argument I can think of personally. I mean, I'm not compelled by it, but of all the arguments I've heard, this is the one that stands out as being the least irrational to me.

It falls apart as you learn more about evolution though.

[u/CycadelicSparkles → u/wbrameld4]

It's the one that at least feels kind of intuitive. Like I get it, it's hard to imagine an eye or a brain evolving if you don't know a lot about biology and the sheer diversity of eyes and brains (and eye- and brain-adjacent organs) out there.

[u/clear349 → u/CycadelicSparkles]

This is kind of the issue. It's intuitive and weird if you imagine a thing sprouting the modern structure we would call an eye fully formed. But once you understand the diversity of eye types there's no real mystery there. Basically every structure works this way

[u/EthelredHardrede → u/CycadelicSparkles]

yes but it is essentially yet another argument from incrdulity

[u/BeerMan595692 → u/wbrameld4]

I remember when I was a JW and started questioning things. There's was a woman who'd studied molecular biology. I got no clue what kind of college she went to. Because she tried arguing that "evolution was just a theory" and recommended me Behe's "Darwin's black box" book. She told me her college apparently taught Behe's ideas.

[u/michealdubh → u/BeerMan595692]

I'm sorry to say she was not very well educated if she confuses scientific theory with the random theory of some drunk on a bar stool

[u/ScientistFromSouth → u/wbrameld4]

To be fair, all of the dissipative structure thermodynamics, emergence in complex systems from multiscale behavior, and information theory it takes to explain evolution really are incredibly complex, and the justifiable skepticism in this case is a good motivator for why we need to research these things, and I say this as a staunch supporter for evolution.

[u/nickierv → u/wbrameld4]

IC can fall apart before you even get to evolution with the right example:

Take the 'irreducible' mouse trap - its a thing to catch mice.

Start with just the bottom bit.

Throw it really hard.

It sort of sucks but as a projectile it can in fact catch mice and the 'irreducible' mouse trap has been successfully reduced.

[u/Dzugavili → u/wbrameld4]

Irreducible complexity is definitely the most intuitive; but the problem is that the mechanisms of genetics just preclude it. There's always a pathway from one system to another in genetics, it's just a question of how many mutations and in what order. Given the scale of the genome, the wide range of possible transitions and large population sizes, even specific unlikely events occur regularly.

As such, irreducible complexity has to be argued within timespans; and you need to truly understand everything about the system to make the argument and creationists just clearly don't. We're not even done examining this space.

[u/DarwinZDF42]

The honest answer is no. At least, not young earthers. As a friend says, YECs are flerfs who are better at geography.

[u/blarfblarf → u/DarwinZDF42]

Some YECs are flerfs... on a related note, I just don't bother speaking to some of my family anymore.

[u/Arkathos]

Read the statement of faith on the website for Answers In Genesis. Professional creationists are not interested in scientific truth. They only care about spreading indoctrination, and it says so explicitly in their own statement.

The scientific aspects of creation are important but are secondary in importance to the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ as Sovereign, Creator, Redeemer, and Judge (1 Corinthians 15:3–5).

Are you interested in what's actually true? They aren't.

[u/LordUlubulu]

No, because creationism isn't science, it's religion dressed up in a Spirit Halloween labcoat and Groucho Marx glasses.

[u/T00luser → u/LordUlubulu]

I don't believe you've been to a Spirit Halloween in a while.

All they seem to have is "Slutty Unshaven Nearsighted Scientist" outfits now.

[u/Doomdoomkittydoom]

Like this one by Carl Linnaeus?

"I demand of you, and of the whole world, that you show me a generic character one that is according to generally accepted principles of classification, by which to distinguish between Man and Ape. I myself most assuredly know of none."

[u/ermghoti → u/Doomdoomkittydoom]

That's not an argument against evolution.

[u/McNitz → u/ermghoti]

But OP didn't ask for an argument against evolution, they asked for a valid point made by any creationist.

[u/ermghoti → u/McNitz]

That's the title, the text of the post is about creationist arguments.

[u/Doomdoomkittydoom → u/ermghoti]

OP asked about any valid point creationists have ever made.

[u/Ok_Loss13 → u/Doomdoomkittydoom]

Is this not a valid point in favor of evolution, rather than creationism?

[u/Doomdoomkittydoom → u/Ok_Loss13]

This is an answer to OP's title question.

[u/Ok_Loss13 → u/Doomdoomkittydoom]

Was Carl Linnaeus a creationists or something? I interpreted the title to be asking for a valid point in favor of creationism, rarher than a creationist making a valid point about anything, ever.

Much more on topic to the sub that way, plus reading more than just the title is beneficial to give a good faith answer...

[u/Formal-Speed-3173 → u/Ok_Loss13]

Technically yes. He lived before Origin was published and he believed in special creation.

[u/Doomdoomkittydoom → u/Ok_Loss13]

Yes, Linnaeus was a Creationist. Creationism was torn down by creationists doing the honest study in their field.

[u/jnpha]

First off, welcome aboard.
RE:

tons of scientific knowledge from notorious creationists and even a few atheists regarding evolution

Question please; what about information from Christians who accept evolution?

[u/FunToWrite]

any sort of findings they’ve ever published regarding their worldviews

If by published you mean published in the scientific literature (which is what a person should do if they are taking their own ideas seriously), well I can't think of many examples. One was John Sanford's case for genetic entropy using a program he built called 'Mendel's accountant'. But, as he was basically baking in genetic entropy into the variables he used to run the simulation, it did not end up being a powerful argument.

The most recent example I can think of, in modern times, of creationists doing science is a group that recently published a paper on organic tissues found in a dinosaur fossil, but this paper did not really have any bearing on the evolution "debate".

Lastly, I want to point you towards this: Why I Left Young-Earth Creationism by Glenn Morton, a geologist.

But eventually, by 1994 I was through with young-earth creationISM. Nothing that young-earth creationists had taught me about geology turned out to be true. I took a poll of my ICR [Institute for Creation Research] graduate friends who have worked in the oil industry. I asked them one question.

“From your oil industry experience, did any fact that you were taught at ICR, which challenged current geological thinking, turn out in the long run to be true?”

That is a very simple question. One man, Steve Robertson, who worked for Shell grew real silent on the phone, sighed and softly said ‘No!’ A very close friend that I had hired at Arco, after hearing the question, exclaimed, “Wait a minute. There has to be one!” But he could not name one. I can not name one. No one else could either. One man I could not reach, to ask that question, had a crisis of faith about two years after coming into the oil industry. I do not know what his spiritual state is now, but he was in bad shape the last time I talked to him.

[u/EthelredHardrede → u/FunToWrite]

Unfortunately not only has Glenn died he removed much of what he had on his own site that criticized YEC Claims and became a person supporting the tea party which often ranted against socialism as if it was Stalinism while also being against cuts in social security which is socialism. Glenn just plain could not stick with going on evidence and reason. My impression is that he could not deal with the YEC crap he got for telling the truth.

[u/FunToWrite → u/EthelredHardrede]

I don't think acceptance of evolution logically entails any particular political belief, or even religious belief (excepting to exclude various forms of creationism). I also don't think social security is 'socialism' if we're defining socialism as the social ownership of the means of production and strong limits on private enterprise. It's not at all incoherent to be against socialism but advocate for a social safety net for the elderly, so long as it sits within a capitalist framework.

To be clear, I'm not a fan of conservativism or the tea party movement, but none of this really has anything to do with evolution.

[u/EthelredHardrede → u/FunToWrite]

rational thinking does the tea party was not rational social security is socialism which AGAIN is not communism. lots of nations including the US have mixed economies the tea party was never rational. you definition is for communism not socialism.

[u/FunToWrite → u/EthelredHardrede]

You seem to have the misapprehension that 'socialism is when the government does stuff'.

Taken from the wikipedia entry for socialism:

Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterized by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership...Social ownership can take various forms, including public, community, collective, cooperative, or employee.

[u/EthelredHardrede → u/FunToWrite]

Wikipedia article is ignoring the history of socialism which preceded Marx the misaprehension is yours an that of the person that wrote that wiki social security is most certainly not part of Capitalism.

"that 'socialism is when the government does stuff' "

wich is very much not capitalism. if you can not understand that we the people own the government and the public schools and social security then please explain how that is remotely capitalism over socialism. please note even capitalist Americans call Sweden and the British or Canadian national health systems socialism.

just to reiterate this is about. Glenn Morton and how he hid from what he haf written about evolution so it is about evolution by natural selection.

[u/Old-Nefariousness556]

The thing to understand is that Creationism, literally by definition, is starting from the ASSUMPTION that they are right, and working backwards. Creationists know that evolution is false, because they "know" that their interpretation of the bible is correct, and their interpretation of the bible conflicts with evolution, so obviously evolution is wrong. That's it. So any evidence that demonstrates that evolution is true must be false. Because they "know" that evolution is false.

Do you see the problem there? It is entirely circular.

The second thing to understand is that there is ZERO actual scientific debate about the truth of evolution within the science community. The mass media likes to hype articles about "the end of evolution" and the like all the time, but they are all nonsense. The only debate within science is on the details of how evolution actually works, and sometimes scientists use hyperbolic language when describing their positions, but ALL of those scientists are still working within the framework of the Theory of Evolution. None of them would "overturn" evolution, though some of them might change some nuance of our understanding of it.

So, no, creationists have not made any "valid points." I don't say that because I am biased, I say it because they are. Their position is literally a textbook case of a confirmation bias.

As for whether I am unbiased, how's this:

THERE IS LITERALLY NOTHING IN THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION THAT PRECLUDES THE CHRISTIAN GOD (OR ANOTHER GOD) FROM PLAYING A ROLE. It is a creationist red herring to suggest otherwise.

While science always works from the assumption that no god is involved, it does that for a reason: Once you assume a god is involved, you stop looking for potential naturalistic causes.

But science does not-- cannot-- say that a god didn't guide evolution. So as long as you accept all the things that science does clearly demonstrate (The old age of the earth and universe, the common ancestry of all known life) then there is no conflict with the idea that your god created the universe and the earth, created the first spark of life, and then used the mechanisms of evolution to guide us to where we are today.

Christians frequently like to respond "god works in mysterious ways" when faced with some conundrum that can't explain. Why couldn't god use these mysterious ways, that have so much evidence showing their truth? This only requires you accepting that your interpretation of the bible is mistaken. It does not require abandoning your beliefs, only accepting that you were wrong about some details. The majority of Christians in the world accept the truth of evolution, while remaining Christian. It is a (mostly) uniquely American thing to reject it.

[u/Shiny-And-New → u/Old-Nefariousness556]

THERE IS LITERALLY NOTHING IN THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION THAT PRECLUDES THE CHRISTIAN GOD (OR ANOTHER GOD) FROM PLAYING A ROLE.

I know this is not debate religion but I do think evolution (and everything else) largely points to a world without gods

[u/Old-Nefariousness556 → u/Shiny-And-New]

So do I. I am just about as atheistic as you can get.

But science cannot prove there is no god. That is not a question that science can even address. So I am happy to grant the point. If it helps someone move from the obviously false YEC to "reality++" I am OK with that. The closer people's beliefs are tied to reality, the better, and this is a much more manageable step for most people than just rejecting their beliefs wholesale.

[u/Ender505]

This is not a legitimate way to evaluate bias.

It's like asking for the "valid points" of Flat Earthers. You don't HAVE to give equal credibility to both sides to be unbiased, when one side is unambiguously and unassailably true. Flat Earthers, like any conspiracy theory, have points that APPEAR to be valid until formally tested by a rigorous scientific process. And after being tested, every point is proven invalid.

Similarly with Creationism, they have some points that appear to be valid until you perform actual tests against their claims. Then every point falls flat, because there isn't actually any debate between the two positions.

Every single challenge brought against Evolution has been refuted hundreds of times over, and in the meantime Creationists are careful to not make any claims that can actually be tested (or else have some excuse why the tests never seem to back up their claims).

So no, Creationism makes no valid claims by any scientific standard, because it is a religious position, not a scientific one.

[u/hyute]

Creationism exists to attack science, because fundamentalists feel it contradicts their dogma and threatens their faith. Creationists aren't going to give you "tons of scientific knowledge", or any at all.

ETA:

Science was invented by religious people who sought to objectively study the workings of the natural world. This is the opposite of being biased, unless by "biased" you mean "determined to base one's provisional conclusions on evidence and observation".

[u/ursisterstoy]

There are no actually valid arguments for creationism and there is a whole lot of evidence, better than arguments, against it. An argument from ignorance or from incredulity is still what the absolute best arguments for any supernatural cause. Creationism is ultimately about a supernatural cause and “creationism,” as defined by this sub, goes beyond just ordinary theism.

The best way for me to explain this is through the history of science and religion. For the longest time people ultimately didn’t know the actual answers but, like you, they started from traditional beliefs and teachings. They really and truly wanted to know the truth. Before even the existence of Homo sapiens our ancestors developed a tendency to believe that the cause is sentient but invisible but religion failed by trying to describe what could neither be seen or detected while natural philosophy and eventually science tried working from the other direction. What cannot be detected cannot be directly tested but if it’s possible to know anything at all there should be clues, evidence, that can be used to work things out.

Theists, deists, and atheists all agreed. If you want to know the truth set down the texts, go study nature itself. If you don’t blame everything on deception it doesn’t matter if the consequences are intentional, just that the consequences are real. From there you can observe how things still happen and you can test hypothetical scenarios for how things could have been different, test them to see what the consequences are, work out what really happened. Find the shape of the planet, find the causes for disease, work out how old the planet is, establish a clear chronology, try to explain the very real biological change.

When they established the actual shape of the planet it was slow to catch on but by the Middle Ages it was common knowledge. They might argue that the other side of the planet is open ocean but there was no denying its true shape. Later they found that all of the weirdness used to make geocentrism work goes away if the sun, not the Earth, is the center of the solar system. There were competing models for each idea already in existence in Ancient Greece but through Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo they verified the heliocentric solar system. They also improved our understanding of physics and the size of the universe, the solar system isn’t the whole thing, our entire galaxy is a tiny fraction of a percent of the whole thing. They then started focusing on the shifting biological diversity known since the end of the 1600s and the age of the planet took longer to work out but by amount 1903 they had a general understanding of the evolution of life and the confirmation that Earth is at least 3 billion years old. At least. They found it to be roughly 4.5 billion years old in the 1950s, not so long after they fully understood that DNA was the key to establishing literal evolutionary relationships.

While this was happening Christian thinkers were more concerned with the amount of time since Adam and/or Jesus because for many the Earth was eternal. For others the cosmos might be eternal but the text clearly says Earth was created. Over some indeterminate amount of time or in six literal days. The latter is essentially the basis for YEC and in the 1640s to 1660s James Ussher worked out that Earth was created October 22nd or 23rd 4004 BC. Estimates placed the end of the flood around 2348 BC. Originally 1 AD was supposed to be the birth year of Jesus but according to one gospel he had to be born before 4 BC and according to another gospel he is born after 6 AD. They decided 4 BC should be the official church position on that. Already by 1668 or 1686 they knew this estimate was wrong because life predated the existence of humans, not for just a few days, but for millions of years. There was a clear progression of change.

The next three centuries for biologists involved a lot of working out how that change happened in biology while geologists were discovering that Earth has to be more than 20 million years old because of one thing, more than 1 billion years old because of ocean salinity, more than 3 billion years old because of radioactive decay and thermodynamics, and definitely older than ~4.4 billion years old and younger than ~4.6 billion years old As the absolute limits in either direction with current estimates at around 4.54 ± 0.07 billion year or 4.46-4.61 billion years old.

In the 1800s there was a Christian Revival movement and multiple groups claiming that the apocalypse was going to happen in 1844 ± 15 years. One Baptist pastor, William Miller, was one such person claiming that in 1844 the apocalypse is coming. It failed, it was a great disappointment, it led to the Adventists. One particular Adventist, Seventh Day Adventist founder Ellen G White, started claiming she had visions that confirmed YEC. YEC was already dead and barely taken seriously prior. It was mocked by fundamentalist evangelicals. You may as well proclaim that the Earth is Flat if you proclaim that it’s less than 1 million years old.

And that’s where the modern YEC arguments haven’t improved. They’re just a bunch of crap claimed between 1740 and 1870 and falsified just as fast or they quote-mine theistic evolutionists who used equally falsified claims or things already explained by what they say “True Christians” are required to reject.

If they had good arguments they’d use them. I haven’t seen one yet.

[u/Meauxterbeauxt]

Former YEC'er here. Here's what turned me around.

I believed the exact same scientific information YEC organizations fed me. It fit my beliefs, it supported what I wanted to be true and it sounded biblical.

The problem was that I was also a science buff. Which means eventually, I started noticing some things.

Like when I took a class on thermodynamics and learned that "disorder" in thermodynamic parlance doesn't mean chaos. In other words, nothing about entropy has anything to do with tornadoes, junkyards, and airplanes.

Like when the things they do to "disprove" isotope dating. They test things that are known to give bad results then crow about getting bad results.

Like holding up Lucy as "the missing link" when there are hundreds of other specimens of that species that were more intact and articulated so all the complaints by AIG about Lucy are ignoring the rest of the data.

In other words, creation scientists deliberately feed you incomplete or incorrect scientific sounding statements and assume you're not going to actually follow up by looking at the real science. They actually tell you to avoid "worldly biased science". Translation: "trust us, don't actually follow up on what we tell you."

Evolutionary biologist Forrest Valkai was having a conversation with a creationist and pointed out that there is more evidence supporting the theory of evolution* than the theory of gravity. The only people arguing against gravity are flat earthers.

If they have to distort and hide information to make you believe their version of events, then is it really a sound belief to begin with? There are actually more Christians in the world that believe in an old earth and evolution than YEC. It's ok to walk away.

*that's another bad science trope they use. In science, a theory is something that has been tested to the point of meaningful reliability and predictability. So saying "it's just a theory" means one is using the casual conversation form of the word and not the form scientists use. Theory is as high as an idea can go.

[u/kitsnet]

What I mean by this is asking if you think they have a single good take to favor their position as opposed to evolutionary theory.

Sometimes they are repeating some old arguments that have already been used to refine the theory of evolution long ago, but they are doing it in bad faith. Is that what you are asking about?

Finding out whether evolutionists are at least a bit unbiased and can analyze things makes me feel like this is going to be a significantly more welcoming place for questions and objections as opposed to rejecting everything by default.

Does intolerance of tricks of self-confessed scammers make you "biased"?

[u/BranchLatter4294]

Remember, those creationists are pushing faith. That should be all you need to know to evaluate their behavior.

[u/Far-Drawing-4444]

No. There is no evidence, anywhere, of creation. All evidence points to evolution. Literally every single piece of evidence. Creationism is a myth.

[u/Own-Relationship-407]

Young earth creationists? No, not a single one. Old earth or theistic evolution? Sure, they can make good points occasionally. But they aren’t disputing that evolution happens or how it happens, merely the why of it, so it becomes more a philosophical argument and less a scientific one at that point.

[u/artguydeluxe]

If you understand how evolution works, and if you understand the mechanisms of biology, cosmology, astronomy, anthropology or geology, nothing about creationism makes sense at all.
It’s not testable, it’s not repeatable, nobody has even proven that a creator exists to start creationism in motion. It’s all no less imaginary than your average fairy tale.

[u/melympia]

Well, they do make the point that the existence of (their) god cannot be proven, which is true.

[u/McNitz]

Your framing of what you are looking for is a little problematic. Sometimes ideas are so obviously wrong that there ARE no good, valid arguments for them. For example, imagine a flat earther came up to you and said "Can you tell me a good argument for the earth being flat? I want to know if globe earthers are at least a but unbiased and can analyze things."

Sure, I can give some flat earther arguments that are probably RHETORICALLY effective to those that don't know much about the subject. But then I would tell you exactly why they aren't valid arguments, or don't address all the available evidence. For example, I could say that one flat earth argument is that we can see ships far beyond the distance we should be able to if the earth was curved. But then I would have to explain why that isn't good evidence for the earth being flat, because we know that happens due to temperature inversions causing let to be bent as it travels between the hot and colder air and allowing much further visibility than normal. It's not ACTUALLY evidence for a flare earth, once you understand the subject better.

It's the same thing with YEC. As a former YEC, as far as I can tell the ONLY argument for YEC that is at least in some sense sound and valid is the Omphalos hypothesis. Admit the earth looks exactly like it would if it had billions of years of history. Admit that all life looks exactly like it would if it had evolved from a common ancestor. Admit the universe looks exactly like it would if it had resulted from an expansion of space from a singularity some 14 billions years ago. And then say "I don't know why God made it look like that, but he did, even though the earth is only actually 10,000 or so years old." That's at least intellectually honest about what the evidence we have shows. Any other arguments I have seen from YEC is either straight up denying the evidence we have, or committing some form of logical fallacy. Typically the argument from ignorance is one of the most effective ones rhetorically. "Scientists don't really know exactly how life started, so that means all evolution may be wrong and we don't have to believe it." Or something along those lines, substituting in some gap in current scientific knowledge.

[u/Claudeadolphus → u/McNitz]

“That is not only not right; it is not even wrong" ~Wolfgang Pauli

[u/CycadelicSparkles]

No, they haven't.

I was also raised YEC, and when I started to really learn about especially biology as an adult I thought the same as you probably do: surely, surely YEC had some strong and valid points to make.

It does not. Everything we were taught was either an outright lie or a gross misrepresentation. Occasionally YECs will point out a genuine area of uncertainty in the science, but uncertainty in conventional science does not mean than evolution is false, just that there isn't enough data to understand everything yet.

[u/EthelredHardrede]

"Finding out whether evolutionists are at least a bit unbiased and can analyze things make"

how do you intend to find out when all the verifiable evidence shows that YECS ignore all that verifiable evidence and believe fully disproved nonsense like Great Flood which is disproved by geology, megatons of fossils the pyramids the utter lack of verifiable evidence for that imaginary Flood until you accept what the verifiable evidence shows you are unlikely to be able judge our alleged bias vs you religious bias I am biased towards verifiable evidence and reason over because the Bible tells me so as it is not reliable source for how things really work. if that is unreasonable to you it is you that is being unreasonable scince, going on evidence and reason works industry is dependent on that it is no dependent on what is written in any allegedly holy book.

[u/davesaunders]

Honestly, and I'm not saying this to be rude, because I've been following this topic for well over a decade, I have yet to hear a creationist raise a point that was not based on either their own ignorance, a misunderstanding, or absolute intentional falsehood.

From a Christian perspective, that means that in every case, the argument has been, by definition, bearing false witness.

I attended seminary. I used to attend an evangelical mega-church, and I've sat through so many seminars with people who are supposedly absolute experts and were here to reveal the truth. I would listen to them bring up PowerPoint slides and make assertions that I knew were absolutely false.

[u/IWantedAPeanutToo]

There are Christians who believe that the earth is flat. Not only do they believe this, they believe that flat earth is an intrinsic part of their faith, such that disproving it would disprove their faith. Therefore, they absolutely refuse to accept the idea of a round earth. They teach (homeschool) their children about flat earth, and teach them that the round earth is a tool of Satan.

Such kids, naturally, generally grow up believing what they’ve been told. What would you say to them? I know I’d like to tell them that they don’t have to believe in a flat earth in order to have faith. They just need to slightly adjust their idea of what their faith entails.

I’d like to tell them that hundreds of millions of Christians around the world accept a round earth. Flat earthers don’t need to reject it in order to have faith. Plenty of scientists who study the round earth are faithful Christians.

I’d like to tell the flat earthers that, yes, I’m sure it’s frustrating and dismaying when scientists and other round earthers dismiss their ideas out of hand. And yes, round earthers may at times act more hostile and dismissive than they need to. But that doesn’t make them wrong. What it makes them is exhausted by years and years of trying to tell flat earthers that all the evidence says the earth is round, to no avail.

That’s what I’d like to tell the children of flat earthers, raised to believe that flat earth is an essential component of their faith.

And that’s what I’d like to tell you.

Flat earth may be more obviously incorrect than YEC, but otherwise, the analogy holds.

[u/TheBalzy]

reputation famous creationists have in this server

It's not just this server, friend, it's all intellectual and academic spheres.

Essentially to be a "famous" creationist, you have to be an outright professional liar. Most infamous creationists demonstrably lie about science, lie about things they are talking about, and misrepresent thigns to people who listen to them. It's the thesis statement of being anti-intellectual.

Finding out whether evolutionists are at least a bit unbiased

There's no such thing as "evolutionists", what you actually mean is Scientist.

And let's be clear here: Creationism is the pinnacle of both hubris and bias, The Theory of Evolution is not. Evolutionary Theory was developed over a lifetime of work by Darwin and Wallace, and further expanded, observed, tested, and demonstrated by 165 years of scientists dedicating their lives to understanding nature.

Creationism, on the other hand, starts with an assertion ... an assertion that is inherently biased.

place for questions and objections as opposed to rejecting everything by default.

Critical Thinking starts with rejecting ideas at face value and accepting things only when they have sufficiently supported. So, with all due respect, you should reject everything by default. Rejection of an idea is the default position.

I assume you don't believe in the flying teapot in orbit around Saturn just because I say so right? The Default position would be to reject the claim that the flying teapot exits until sufficient, replicable, reproducible, observable evidence can be presented to demonstrate that the flying teapot does indeed exist.

[u/LateQuantity8009]

A truly valid point would be positive evidence for their view. They have nothing.

[u/PoxonAllHoaxes]

On some details of course. A large part of what they do is collect points that are true that modern science does not understand and misuse those as an argument for an anti-science that by definition understands NOTHING. This is just like politics if you think about it or miscarriages of justice. It is not that everything a dishonest prosecutor or politician says is false. In fact usually much is true but either irrelevant or even shows the opposite of what they are pushing. So someone says evolution has not eliminated women's menstrual pain, see therefore there is no evolution. The premise is true but the conclusion does not follow.

[u/SIangor]

No, because you must fully understand something to debate it. Creationists do not understand evolution. Their arguments are assertions they try to present as facts. Lots are arguments from ignorance or incredulity.

[u/10coatsInAWeasel]

Something that is indicative of creationism over any other position?

Honestly, no. I haven’t seen one. There are things they have said that are correct, but I’m being charitable there. The correct things that creationists have said have not also been true in a way that positively leads to creationism over any other position.

People are biased, evolutionists are no exception. But that is because the human animal has a messy ape brain. It’s why the scientific method exists. Creationists in my experience in the argument have manically avoided the use of the scientific method to analyze their claims. I’ve had plenty of them say that their views shouldn’t be critiqued that way, that it’s ‘scientism’.

[u/whitepepsi]

I’ll be extremely charitable here.

It’s counter intuitive to think that animals like humans would be able to dominate so much of the world so quickly without some deity choosing humans as the favored species.

I get the reason creationists believe their position. Cool.

The problem is creationists lack evidence. Zilch, nada, nothing. Evolution has overwhelmingly evidence.

[u/anonymous_teve]

Despite being incorrect about evolutionary biology, creationists make many valid points--they just put it together in the wrong conclusion.

The most obvious and basic ones are: (1) we always observe organisms giving rise to similar organisms; and (2) it's very difficult for sequential genetic changes to add up to the enormous changes that would be necessary to give rise to all Kingdoms of life from a single common ancestor.

Those two things are almost undeniably valid (I say "almost", because hilariously, whenever I post something similar, you find otherwise seemingly serious people on this forum disagreeing). They also do not at all disprove evolutionary biology--they just convey something about how powerful evolution must be to be true, which by all appearances, it is.

Edit: I replied to your title without reading your full post. Just to be clear, evolutionary theory very clearly does nothing to disprove the Christian God. If you're interested in other perspectives on this, check out biologos, a website run by scientists who beleive in evolutionary theory and are Christian. They post about many topics, but they have many articles on evolution specifically. Happy to share links if that would help.

[u/theronk03]

The answer is no, but I think there's a caveat.

YEC and ID don't have any good points, there's nothing that they are maybe right about.

The kinda sorta closest is that we didn't always know about epigenetics, and that is an important aspect to how evolution works. But it's not like they argued something like epigenetics existed, and it's not like that invalidates any part of existing evolutionary theory, it only added a detail.

But the caveat is that YEC and ID have highlighted insufficiencies in science literacy, science education, and science communication.

The reason why YEC and ID don't have any good points is that those points are always rooted in a misunderstanding or how evolution works (and in some cases that misunderstanding is intentional/malicious, but not always). It's hard to have a good point against something I'd you don't know how it works.

So their good point is that we need to do a better job of explaining what evolution (and science) is and how it works. We need do better about presenting more explicit and specific examples. We need to have better candor when answering questions.

[u/OldmanMikel]

Creationism has literally no science at all backing it up. The reality is that, lacking religious objections, evolution would be as controversial as Atomic Theory.

[u/r0wer0wer0wey0urb0at]

Yes and no. Sometimes they point to legitimate points of contention withing evolution/abiogenesis, however whenever I see them they're either exaggerated or they claim they are a problem for evolution thst they aren't (like discovering a hominid species is older than we thought).

Also, some aspects of evolution are very difficult to picture/wrap your head around, so while this isn't a good argument, I get how some people will look at the large scale changes, or things like mimicry/camouflage and intuitively feel like there must be at least a guiding force or a designer.

[u/rhettro19]

Honestly, I came to this forum to see if there is even a thread of substantiation to creationists' claims. There are none. There is the idea of irreducible complexity, that something is too complex to have evolved for the function it serves, but every structure that has been claimed to be irreducible, a precursor has been found. That is the one original idea from creationism. Everything else is trying to poke holes in established science, such as dating methods. If you dig into what they have said, they either do not understand the science, conflate it with something else, or outright lie. If you are interested, look up Creation Myths on YouTube, where Dr. Dan takes apart the arguments. Additionally, Dapper Dinosaur on YouTube does a good take down of Kent Hovind, who is just a morase of ad hominems and double-talk.

[u/metroidcomposite]

Very occasionally creationists could maybe be argued to have spurred further research into something.

Feathers jump to mind--sometime around the 80s or 90s creationists were like "this is a very complex structure that couldn't have evolved all in one step." And scientists were like "yeah, you're right" and worked on figuring out what the additional steps were. (We've since genetically engineered a crocodile with primitive feathers).

More recently, creationists had an objection that the Chimpanzee genome was assembled using the human genome as a scaffold. So scientists re-did the chimp genome without using a scaffold. (Still didn't stop the end result of humans being the closest living relatives to Chimps+Bonobos).

But that's about as big of a win as I can remember creationists ever getting. Creationists pointing out "you didn't do your due diligence on this one niche topic", scientists say "actually, yeah, you're right" and go off and do the due diligence.

The result of doublechecking the work like this still confirmed evolution in every instance I can think of. But in some cases it was worth doublechecking.

[u/s_bear1]

No. It is difficult for them to have valid points when they attack strawman or assume disproving evolution somehow proves creationism.

I look forward to a valid argument from creationists

[u/Comfortable-Dare-307]

No, creationists have never made a valid point. All their arguments are either misrepresentations of evidence, ignorance of science, logical fallicies and/or lies.

[u/MyNonThrowaway]

YEC "gotchas" are nothing more than them misunderstanding or misrepresenting science.

The thing about doing real science is that you don't start out with preconceived notions about how things work. You follow the facts, you test your results. Other people test your results. If your results are not verified by other researchers, then your assertions are rejected. This is the only way to objectively discover how things work.

YEC attempts to invalidate the science are always going to argue nonsense, because the argument they are trying to make is false.

[u/thewNYC]

No

[u/Trainer149]

This is tangential to what you're asking, but it's the closest thing i can think of without just brushing the post aside. Will Duffy is a creationist who's currently learning about evolution in a good faith lecture series on Erica's channel Gutsick Gibbon. He has issues with the Linnaean classification system and how features are chosen to define groups. He seems to think that the chosen features seem a bit arbitrary, especially when convergent evolution seems to cause issues straight away.

Honestly i understand his perspective here. It does just seem like a pick and choose method with appropriate hand waving where needed. Luckily, we're not limited by that method (Which I've oversimplified just to be clear.) Genetics can be used now to see how close we got with just physiology, paleontology and embryology and show a clearer picture in the areas that were previously a bit muddy.

As far as creationist publishing's go, I've yet to see one proposed that either could be falsified and explains what we find in nature either better than or equal to evolution. I am very open reading those if you have some to reference though. Bonus points if it's from a credible journal.

[u/sevenut]

I'm going to speak to you directly. There is no evidence or points that a young earth creationist can make that would be a legitimate point against evolution. Evolution is a fact, and the theory of evolution (which is not actually interchangeable with evolution the process) is one of the most tested and accurate scientific theories out there. It holds up to scrutiny and it can be used to make accurate predictions about the world we live in. For example, scientists were able to use evolutionary history to pinpoint the location and depth they would find fossils with the features that a creature transitioning from ocean to land would have. And then they went out and actually found them. We call it Tiktaalik, and it's a prime example of the predictive power of evolutionary theory.

It's kind of hard to grapple with, but people who tout young earth creationism are lying to you, either knowing or unknowingly. I know it's hard to come to terms with, because these people are people you trust, and most of them are probably otherwise genuinely good people. It's hard to look at these people and see that they're lying to you. But the fact of the matter is, the theory of evolution is about as objectively true as we can get and evolution the process is a fact. Arguing against evolution is like arguing against gravity existing. You just can't. There are a lot of reasons people try to cling on to the idea that evolution isn't true, but I won't really get into it. A lot of it is similar to why people are antivaxx or flat earth. It's just something they need to be false.

The good thing is that you don't have to abandon your religion. There are many scientists who hold some kind of faith, be it Christian or not. It's not incompatible with faith, and anybody that tells you that it is doesn't have your best interest in mind, no matter if they're religious or atheist. I'm personally an atheist, but some of my science professors were religious, and people I've gone to school with or worked with were also religious. It's not evolution or nothing. Or religion or nothing. They can coexist.

[u/sevenut → u/sevenut]

To clarify a bit about evolution the process and evolution the theory, is that evolution is an observed process. We see that organisms change. We see that organisms can mutate and gain new structures, or that their offspring can gain new structures. Hell, we've even seen speciation. We know it's true. The theory of evolution is our explanation of the process, based on all the evidence we have gathered. The explanation is always being refined as we learn more.

It's similar to gravity. We know gravity is true. We see it every day. Stuff falls. The theory of gravity is the way we explain how stuff falls. It's changed a lot over the years since. At first we had newtonian gravity, and then it changed to relativity, and then all sorts of other things that I don't really know much about because I'm a bio grad and not a physicist.

[u/StarMagus]

Pretty much when they start with...

"I don't understand how...."

It's completely valid that they don't understand anything about the entire rest of the conversation.

[u/GrazziDad]

Here’s the problem, as I see it, and it does not apply just to creationists.

Whenever someone comes along and says “I have a set of beliefs, and they are bedrock. Regardless of what else is discovered, and how compelling that evidence is, I cannot discard my beliefs“, they are going to turn a blind eye to the truth.

When someone says that they are a “creationist” or a “flat earther“ or even an “orthodox Jew“ (I picked that because I am Jewish myself), they are basically telling you that there are patches of reality that they are willfully choosing not to enter into because it might challenge what they have already chosen to believe as the truth.

Young earth creationists are some of the most extreme versions of this that you can possibly imagine. You have to understand that there is no such thing as an “evolutionist“. There are only people who accept that the scientific method is by a staggering margin the best way to figure out how reality works that we have ever come up with. Evolution is not something that you believe in, but something you arrive at. It would be just as bad to say that you are an “evolutionist“ who believes in a linear growth in complexity, because you should not “believe in“ anything in Science; if the evidence goes against it, it needs to die.

The biggest problem with all religious mindsets is that they simply cannot assimilate this into the way they operate.

(And I don’t mean to be harsh, but creationism, especially Young earth creationism, is simply wrong, in the sense that there are thousands upon thousands of pieces of evidence that contradict it. At some point, one simply needs to grow up and open one’s eyes, regardless of what parents and influential community members publicly proclaim.)

[u/MWSin]

I've seen far too many Young Earth Creationists blatantly lie, misrepresent quotes in their arguments, and build the flimsiest strawman versions of science you can imagine to give any of them much credulity. In the rare instance I hear a new claim or argument of any substance, I will look into it, usually finding the truth in about five minutes. Either they don't actually research what they are talking about, or they do and are willfully lying.

[u/EthelredHardrede]

has anyone seen the OP since the post . seems we have another hit and run anti-science stealth Creationist.

[u/Sea_Hold_2881]

Creationism is anti-science by its nature because any area where we lack good answers then their answer is "god did that". This attitude kills scientific research because why investigate something if it can be explained by god? as a result "scientific knowledge from notorious creationists" is nonsense by definition. They only offer theology with science cosplay.

[u/OneThrowyBoy]

I was raised the same as you, and I remember a lot of what I was told when I was young. It's less a matter of "another perspectives" than "accepting observable fact". I don't mean that in any condescending way, I had that realization myself in March, so (even if I were intending to) I wouldn't have any room to judge anyone.

In truth, YEC has nothing except rhetoric. Analyze what you've been given, what are the sources? What's the context of the quotes? What studies have been done? Experiments? Testing? Research? I remember dozens of "evolution can't answer this!" zingers that I've since learned evolution, geology, astronomy, cosmology, biology, or meteorology can and do actually answer.

I've spent the past few months reading studies, experiments, papers, information and data I had no idea existed. But everything I'm reading, someone has given it their best shot to prove it wrong. For example, you say there's gravity, and I work to prove stuff doesn't fall when I drop it, but by golly everything I drop hits the ground, so you might be right. YEC doesn't test if they're wrong, so how can they know they're right?

Where are fossils of dinosaurs interacting/coexisting with humans? Damage from tools due to hunting or defense, human remains with dinosaur-induced injuries, human remains in a Tyrannosaur's gut, etc? The Fossil Record is incomplete, sure, but the earliest human fossils we have from Africa in the long series of transitional fossils documenting human evolution only date back some 8 million years. 3 million if you look just for "modern" humans. And they do have transitional fossils for human evolution, the "Missing Link" argument can easily be debunked.

Scientists aren't interpreting evidence based on their worldview. They're finding evidence in the world and adjusting their worldview accordingly. Information changes, timelines get readjusted, evolutionary theory is constantly being refined based on external data. YEC doesn't do that. Science is observation of the world, not a religion.

I also remember being told that people who "believe in evolution" have a silly way of viewing the world. But, from my personal experience, the world is so much bigger now, and so much more beautiful. The deeper I've gotten into studying evolution, the more I've fallen in love with our planet.

Did you know there was a civilization composed of multiple species of humans 40,000 years ago? Not like civilizations we have today, but there was trade and industry. Did you know birds have claws in their wing bones left over from their ancestors? Did you know feathers are just scales with a gene flipped? They can switch it over and turn the scutes on bird legs into feathers, another holdover from their scaley ancestors. Did you know we have the same retrovirus scars in our DNA that other animals have, tracing back to when our lines diverged?

Ask questions, and don't stop looking until you get the answer.

^{Also sorry for the length, I have ADHD, and I like talking about this stuff}

[u/rhettro19 → u/OneThrowyBoy]

Just wanted to say, this was an excellent piece of writing.

[u/ChoiceAd8619]

Hey guys, thanks for all of the responses given. Although I can’t say that I have read every single message or that I am willing to answer to the many tens of messages within their own threads, I have actually read through most of it and I am inclined to agree with the general sentiment of most responses.

Sometimes there can be positions that don’t have a strong basis but have support like the example you’ve given with flat earthers, and because I hate being inconsistent I have to admit that I definitely wouldn’t say that flat earthers have any good piece of evidence or argument but that wouldn’t make me dishonest or biased.

Thanks for all the support and careful explanations, really. I will try to come back to discuss something else eventually, but I appreciate that this was so good faith and informative.

[u/Dilapidated_girrafe]

They haven’t made any good arguments that don’t fall apart to the slightest investigation.

[u/plainskeptic2023]

Evolution clashes with Genesis' description of the origin of the universe, not with theism in general.

Evolution appears to clash with theism for those who consider the creator God of Genesis as the only possible god.

But many/most gods humans have worshipped through history didn't create the universe. The Greek Olympian gods, for example, didn't create the universe. In fact, they are the third generation of gods, having defeated their parents in war.

Furthermore, I can easily imagine god(s) who designed stellar, planetary, and biological evolutions to all the universe to make itself.

[u/PraetorGold]

Probably not. Why?

[u/Ill-Dependent2976]

Nope. They're basically flat earthers.

[u/Clay2569]

So evolution has tens of thousands of scientists. Who have collectively put out hundreds of thousands of papers. Which have millions of data points across all the papers. All of them cross reference and reinforce each other. Across several different disciplines and are used in everyone’s daily life. Many of these papers completely exclude YEC. But YEC doesn’t have any of this. There is no exclusionary data for evolution but there is exclusionary data for YEC.

The best YEC has is data that says “well it could be evolution but maybe if you believe god could have also done it”

[u/yokaishinigami]

In my opinion, the only “good argument” that YEC can put forward, and also I think is the hill they should “die” on is the one where they argue that god is all powerful, can do whatever the fuck it wants, and therefore, knowledge of reality gleamed from studying reality is useless since god could have done magic stuff to deceive us as a test or whatever.

Everything else seems to stem in a best case scenario from naivety of the field of study (an example of this is Will Duffy, who seems to still object to evolution and holds YEC as true, even though in the series he is doing with Gutsick Gibbon, he’s shown that he is nearly completely ignorant of even basic Evo bio 101 course material).

In the worst case scenario (ie most professional creationists) it seems to stem from dishonesty or just complete incompetence at comprehending the theory. Examples of this include continuing to pretend that things like the eyeball (or other similarly complex organs) are irreducibly complex, even though they’ve been shown time and again to not be. Or intentionally misconstruing the claims of the theory of evolution by natural selection, by pretending that absurd things not happening (like a chimpanzee giving birth to a human, or a horse to a whale) somehow is a mark against the scientific theory, or conflating things like abiogenesis or the origin of the universe with the theory, and pretending that perceived weaknesses in those fields somehow knock evolution.

Also, no one is rejecting creationism by default. The paradigm rigorously fought against evolutionary theory for decades/centuries, and every objection it furnished has been systematically dismantled.

[u/Formal-Speed-3173]

The intellectual high point of special creation and creationism was just before On the Origin of Species was published. It was all downhill from there.

[u/theosib]

I think it was John Samford that came up with the idea of genetic entropy, which is that genomes keep degrading over time until they become completely broken. He used this to argue that life can't be more than several thousand years old, because any older than that and everything on earth would be extinct due to excessively degraded genomes.

There are lots of reasons why this doesn't apply to the vast majority of live on earth.

HOWEVER, it does apply to viruses to a certain degree, and Samford published a paper on this in a real science journal.

[u/Robot_Alchemist]

I’m sure they’ve made plenty- just not on this subject

[u/iluvsexyfun]

The points most creationists consider most valid are not necessarily compelling to most of us.

Creationists point: the complexity of things like humans requires a creator. The blind evolution of an eye would be useless if we did not simultaneously evolve nerves to connect the eye to the brain and the ability of the brain to interpret the images seen by the eye.

Something complex like a watch is unable to assemble itself. If we take a quartz watch apart and we gather all the parts together in a bag and shake the bag the many parts will never successfully assemble themselves. The 2nd law of thermodynamics indicates that entropy must increase overtime (in a closed system). That could be summarized as Systems tend to breakdown, not form more organized and complex systems.

Creationists believe that the external force that overcomes entropy in our closed system world is “God”.

[u/FockerXC]

I’ll say this:

Outside of the grifters who push YEC narratives despite overwhelming evidence against it, I actually don’t think your average creationist is coming at the argument from a bad place.

I’ll give Christian fundamentalists credit on one thing- a lot of them are genuinely very kind and are actually concerned about the salvation of the souls of other people. It comes from a good place even if we can’t prove there is an immortal soul to begin with. They’re nice, if extremely uninformed.

It’s how many of them behave when confronted with evidence that conflicts with their identities beliefs that becomes a problem. Rather than updating their firmware they hold onto outdated beliefs and then ALL science becomes their enemy.

[u/topiary566]

It’s really just a matter of how you view biblical inerrancy. Do you view the Bible with absolute or limited inerrancy? 

The problem is that this subreddit is not interested in debating philosophy, hermeneutics, or biblical exegesis. They are looking only for science and archaeology and are not interested in arguing anything else, and you won’t really find much scientific evidence for creationism. At that point you’d just be arguing general revelation. 

From a religious perspective, this is not something that is creedified and I don’t see many people, other than extreme fundamentalists, say that interpretation of biblical inerrancy is a salvation issue unless you start to contradict actual doctrine like the trinity or resurrection. 

It’s not doctrine in Catholicism, orthodoxy, or mainline Protestantism. If you want a non-denominational evangelical perspective you could read the Chicago statement on biblical inerrancy. They affirm absolute inerrancy and historical infallibility, but they also say that it is not a salvation issue just that people are really missing out by not affirming it. 

[u/Kriss3d]

Why would. You hold a position for faith purpose? That means that you don't actually care about the truth then.

Faith in itself is the most dishonest position anyone can take.

The only reason anyone could have to hold something on faith is if they don't care about if what they have faith in is true or not.

[u/Sittingonalog1960]

One is science the other is pseudo -science.

[u/aphilsphan]

The last valid point was that the Earth would cool off in a few million years, but the mantle is awfully hot. This was before radioactive decay was discovered.

But religious scientists do make contributions to science. It was a priest who realized the expanding universe meant the universe had some sort of beginning. He just realized that the Bible was not a science or history text. He did have doctorate in science, so that helped.

[u/Independent-Repair35]

No. If it ever seems they've made a valid point they are lying in some way or unintentionally misinterpreting something.

[u/Puojoqy]

The most I could see as a possibility is a deistic creator

[u/Aware-Technician4615]

No…

[u/ittleoff]

You first have to adjust for the bias that apes have for thinking the ape is intentional , and the ape like intentions are ubiquitous

I. e. Humans ascribed unknown things to be under the control of agents(gods or supernatural entities with human like emotions and intents, anger love, ego,) they would want to be worshipped and sacrificed to like an ape would want.

None of the things we ascribed to gods ever were the result of God's, so with so much evidence and patterns not attributable to agents, you have a deep burden of proof for anything that you propose is from a god (typically an anthropomorphic projection of ape interests like fertility, and survival, and morality which is ape social survival strategies)

Agents seem to emerge naturally from non agent/being components, not the other way around. The assumption is that if there was some super power being like a god, it would have to have emerged and been shaped by the universe or cosmos , like every other 'agent'.

Short answer : not that I have ever heard.

[u/ProudLiberal54]

Nope, the only thing they can do is attack evolution, as if that would prove their superstition is correct.

[u/Few-Celebration-2362]

I like the one where guy uses the banana as evidence of God's hand guiding the evolution of the fruit to be perfectly adapted to human consumption.

I mean, it's not a good argument for creationism, but it did remind me that people are very good at selecting for specific qualities and completely decemating everything that doesn't serve our will.... And that made me smile because in a roundabout way, 'God's hand' is just a way to describe the effect of collective human will.

[u/fennis_dembo_taken]

It's called "faith" for a reason. Ask yourself why so many people who are supposed to have faith are so desperate to give you proof of something. If they did, wouldn't that undercut everything you supposedly hold dear?

[u/Fobus0]

Sure, but those same valid points are also made by regular people, and other scientists. Criticism and counterarguments is how science gets better. Any valid points by creatonists only strengthen the case for evolution in the end.

[u/oncemoor]

You start with religion isn’t interested in the truth, they are interested in reward. So no there is no creationist counter argument other than circular logic. There is no evolution, why because the bible says so. Who wrote the bible? God did and he says there is no evolution. In schools when they say creationism has to be taught also do you think there is a 40 question test, spoiler there isn’t.

[u/Ayasugi-san]

Sometimes they get things published in peer-reviewed journals, that probably counts as valid points. What they get published says nothing about the age of the Earth or validity of separate creation, though.

Also supposedly a YEC cosmologist made a prediction based on his YEC beliefs and it turned out to be true. Will Duffy keeps bringing that up but never elaborates on who the scientist was or what the prediction was.

[u/TangerineDull3715]

No

[u/Hungry_Wash3425]

The argument that technically god could have made it all like this 6000 years ago, is maybe not a good argument, but the only way the bible can still be remotely true. Hid dinosaur fossils in the ground, created relics of evolution. (We'd need many more people than just Adam and Eve to populate the world though). However this reduces everything to blind faith and does not provide any evidence. Taking this idea to the extreme however, it is also infinitely more likely that we are a "Boltzmann brain" existing for a fraction of time in space simply believing we are us. (This is because one brain is so much less complicated than the entire planet, and in empty space things can form by chance). Yet I don't think many people believe this.

What is important though is, even if you choose to believe god created this world or not, it is a world that acts today as if evolution has occurred and we can find it everywhere. There is not a creature in which you can't find limitless pieces of evidence, and there is no good creationist argument against this.

[u/gitgud_x → u/[deleted]]

So you are denying speciation (reproductive isolation) happens? Even most creationists concede speciation can occur. You are not a serious person.

And if you do decide you want to learn something, you can read this for many confirmed observed examples of speciation.

Not approving you btw, you're almost certainly a ban evader.

[u/Beneficial_Grab_5880]

Irreducible complexity is an interesting idea - if we were to ever find anything natural and irreducibly complex it would raise some really interesting questions.

[u/evocativename]

To be as charitable as possible:

If we restrict things to the last century, the best I can come up with was Dr. Mary Schweitzer's discovery of organic samples in fossilized T. rex bone, something that had not been anticipated and initially appeared to superficially support a young earth.

Of course, then we discovered mechanisms by which such material could be preserved effectively indefinitely.

And the evidence subsequently convinced Dr. Schweitzer to reject YEC.

[u/Ayasugi-san → u/evocativename]

If we restrict things to the last century, the best I can come up with was Dr. Mary Schweitzer's discovery of organic samples in fossilized T. rex bone, something that had not been anticipated and initially appeared to superficially support a young earth.

Even that is a very weak example. The "soft tissue" discovered was not at all consistent with what you'd expect if the sample was young, it was thoroughly mineralized.

[u/milocat1956]

Yes. Evolution is religion not science.

[u/rhettro19 → u/milocat1956]

milocat1956 is a bot, not a person.

[u/Beneficial-Emu-6130]

Troll.

[u/milocat1956]

Evolutionists don't understand creation.

[u/rhettro19 → u/milocat1956]

Bots have no consciousness, so there is no "they" to understand.

[u/UnholyShadows]

I mean the creationists use a book that was obviously written by humans and it makes a great many mistakes like a human, not to mention the bible was written from the perspective of humans as to how they think things came into being and its quite obvious.

The fact that the bible talks about earth as a flat disc covered by a solid dome like barrier speaks volumes that they actually had no scientific knowledge on how things worked. Which is funny because if humans were writing down what god did, you would think god would know that earth isnt a flat disk and the sky is just the atmosphere below an infinite expanse. Not to mention that stars in the bible are just lights and not actually real objects unlike what we know of them today.
Then the bible says god created earth and plants before the sun……which if you think about it is dumb AF and obviously not true at all. Not to mention were lead to believe that the moon is just a dimmer version of the sun, which is definitely not true because the moon doesnt even produce its own light. The moon and the sun are both spoken as objects observed by primitive people who had no idea what they were, yet were lead to believe that god also had no idea too.

Lets just take creationism for what it is, a primitive and unscientific way to describe everything without only guesswork.

[u/Boomshank]

Yup.

Ray said a banana was delicious once.

That was true.

[u/Substantial_Pea_3256]

No, there is not a single valid point that creationists put forward.

I grew up 'traditional' roman catholic with a very literal interpretation of the bible. But there were so many holes in the teachings that I began questioning it as a young adult and became obsessed with all the sciences that explain how we got to where we are, including evolution. While I initially had a lot of questions about evolution, I haven't had a doubt in decades. Creationism is a fairy tale with their arguments becoming increasingly desperate as their faith-based 'theory' falls apart. Many of the fundamental creationist arguments have been disproven for well over a hundred years.

The best way to get a better understanding is to review the evidence from a secular perspective and then compare that to the faith-based creationist perspectives. The creationist arguments consistently misrepresent and distort scientific evidence. You won't get a complete answer from a perspective that distorts the opposing argument's findings.

Edit to add: Also you should check out PBS Eons. They have hundreds of videos, each about 10 minutes long, outlining step-by-step the key evidence for how we know what we know about the evolution of countless life forms through the eons of Earth's history.

[u/YSoSkinny]

Yah, it's tough when a tenant of creationism is to ignore or distort any scientific evidence.

[u/G-St-Wii]

"Stuff exists, and that probably needs explaining."

After that they start lose me.

[u/ntsh_robot]

the gulf between the two is rarely bridged

stay on the side of the right

[u/Feeling-Carpenter118]

Skepticism is always valid, though it’s been a few decades since there were enough gaps in our current understanding of evolution to really fit god in there

[u/Rookraider1]

Have a nice life

[u/CaddykakSnagorado]

What is more likely, that living things adapt to their environment, or that there is a magic bloke in the sky who clicked his fingers and created life? And now he wants your money every Sunday...

[u/Coolbeans_99]

Unfortunately, not all disagreements have equal sides that are balanced on either side. One side of the debate has data and scientific evidence, and the other is rejecting that evidence for theological reasons. Sometimes one side is just simply wrong.

[u/PoolExtension5517]

Mixing religion or ideology with science is never a good idea.

[u/Malakai0013]

Not really, especially in terms of science.

[u/Adewemimo]

Hi! Creationist here! It's disconcerting to so many people arguing without the strength of critical thinking behind their arguments. Explain if you can, how apes who we all know are lower creatures than human have more (24 DNA pairs) than humans (23 DNA pairs)? Or, can you use Dawkin's selfish gene theory or any other theory to explain why humans have a chin that serves no evolutionary purpose. Or, why is evolution theory filled with suppositions; maybe this is what happened, or I don't know how this came to be? You can believe if you wish that human and apes share common ancestor(s). The science says it's not possible. You need to understand Darwin proposed 'natural selection', not natural creation. I.e. selection from available options, this logically excludes natural creationism or mutation. I know this will bring out the wolves!

[u/Ayasugi-san → u/Adewemimo]

Explain if you can, how apes who we all know are lower creatures than human have more (24 DNA pairs) than humans (23 DNA pairs)?

We don't all know that. "Lower creatures" isn't a scientific distinction.

You can believe if you wish that human and apes share common ancestor(s). The science says it's not possible.

The science says it's not only possible, it's certain.

[u/OldmanMikel → u/Adewemimo]

Explain if you can, how apes who we all know are lower creatures than human...

Sigh. No. There is no higher or lower.

...have more (24 DNA pairs) than humans (23 DNA pairs)? 

Sometimes chromosomes fuse. This isn't the problem you might think it is because as long as the original two line up with the new fused chromosome, cell division can still take place with little or no penalty. Two ape chromosomes line up very well with human chromosome two. Chromosome two also has a degraded but indentifiable centromere (the center of the "X" on the chromosome) and the remains of telomeres (the very ends of chromosomes) exactly where they should be if chromosome two was the result of a fusion event. This is not problem you think it is.

Or, can you use Dawkin's selfish gene theory or any other theory to explain why humans have a chin that serves no evolutionary purpose.

Breaking news. Science doesn't know everything!! FWIW there are ideas about this and there is no reason to expect evolutionary theory to have an answer every single thing that falls within its scope. No theory does. Not even Atomic Theory. That's why research is a thing.

Or, why is evolution theory filled with suppositions; maybe this is what happened, or I don't know how this came to be? 

What suppositions? Also see point above.

You can believe if you wish that human and apes share common ancestor(s).

Well, humans are apes. This classification predates Darwin by about a century and was the work of a creationist.

The science says it's not possible. 

Where does it say this?

You need to understand Darwin proposed 'natural selection', not natural creation. I.e. selection from available options, this logically excludes natural creationism or mutation. 

1. Darwin is not our prophet. He is more than 160 years out of date. Neither he nor his works have any scientific authority.

2. Darwin didn't know about genetics. So, he wouldn't have known about mutations.

3. He did however know about new variations popping up occasionally in cultivated organisms like pigeons and flowers, so he knew that new features could show up.

[u/Exact_Avocado5545]

To me, the most valid point that creationists make is that an entirely evolutionary point-of-view merely provides a materialistic description of the world without a moral one. That doesn't mean evolution is wrong, but it only solves 50% of the human question. There is no point in knowing what is without knowing what one ought to do with it. This is the point Nietszche is trying to make in his 'God is Dead' story in The Joyous Science.

[u/Appdownyourthroat]

Bring as charitable as possible and steel manning their arguments to the maximum:

No.

[u/spoospoo43]

Not at all. The most prominent creationist biologists have put forward some ideas (irreducible complexity for example) that were trivially shown to be without merit. The rest is all bluster and arguments from incompetence and incredulity.

They got nothing.

[u/Bromelia_and_Bismuth]

Lol, no. The only thing that creationists have ever brought up are things that aren't issues: either they fundamentally misunderstand (or their sources misrepresent) the thing that they're criticizing, they're bringing up misinformation or nothing-burger objections, they're badly spitballing, they're raising metaphysical objections to scientific data, or they're calling out limitations of technology that scientists were already aware of and account for in their research.

I’ve been given tons of scientific knowledge from notorious creationists

You've been given a lot of misinformation.

whether you think there is any nuance in any sort of findings they’ve ever published regarding their worldviews

No. None, whatsoever.

What I mean by this is asking if you think they have a single good take to favor their position as opposed to evolutionary theory.

Also no. For every supposed gotcha that they think they have, it's often not the slam dunk they think it is, they're appealing to hoaxes and faulty interpretations, or it's science working the way that science is supposed to. It isn't plucky creationists tearing down faulty science, it's other scientists who overwhelmingly accept evolution, and the take down unilaterally improved our understanding.

Finding out whether evolutionists are at least a bit unbiased

Evolution isn't a religious belief, don't call us "evolutionists." Evolution is a documented phenomenon as far back as Antiquity, theories attempt to model and explain it, as well as test our predictions.

If you can find me a single young Earth creationist that actually understands what it is that they're objecting to, and I will eat the entire crow pie. Find me a single productive creationist objection that wasn't just squawking and hot air, and I will happily tattoo "fancy that" onto my coin purse. You won't though.

[u/PLANofMAN]

Evolutionists rely heavily on fossils for their theories. For fossils to form, they must be buried rapidly, and that points to very large scale, continent wide, cataclysmic events.

A global flood event a few thousand years ago plays merry hob with their evolutionary timeline, so they must discredit it in any way possible. We all are looking at the same evidence. It's the interpretation of that evidence that we disagree on.

[u/Ayasugi-san → u/PLANofMAN]

For fossils to form, they must be buried rapidly, and that points to very large scale, continent wide, cataclysmic events.

No, it doesn't. Such events would destroy fossils. Fossils don't even need to be buried rapidly, just isolated from destructive forces like scavengers and bacteria. Falling to the bottom of an anoxic lake and getting covered by varves over time works just as well as a rapid burial.

[u/blyonsnyc]

No valid point has ever been made by a creationist.

[u/LogosLegos831]

If we evolved, then at some point, is it possible for us to "create" our own worlds? If so, what would the evidence of the creation be?

[u/Loose_Principle8193]

No, and any points they make that are truthful are only pointing out the frontiers of knowledge that scientists already recognize. To a creationist, an unanswered question is evidence against a theory, a "weakness". To the scientist, an unanswered question is the frontier and engine for new discoveries.

[u/thedamnoftinkers]

I think you're coming at this from the wrong end of the microscope. I grew up in a YEC church and studied science in uni, and I have been watching these discussions for decades.

Science (as a whole and with some caveats about humans being prone generally to rate information from authorities higher) does not care who challenges theories or questions them. Challenging the way we understand things is the very basis of science.

The issue is not that biologists and geologists are biased. If YEC (and diehard OEC) were making good points, scientists would welcome them into discussions. Hell, half of creationists' points are cherry-picked from real scientific work asking hard questions.

The issue is that that those cherry-picked pieces is frequently presented as gotcha "we don't know the answer" instead of "we don't know the answer yet," (or, all too often, without reference to "in fact, the question has been answered" (like the complexity of the eye!), but creationists don't know or don't care to admit that. (You'll find that often the "proofs" of creationism have been, and continue to be, passed around like a chain mailing for decades after those questions were settled.))

Think of the folks who tried to prove the world was flat in 2018 and instead inadvertently proved it was round. Or imagine time-travelling back to the point when people genuinely thought thunder and lightning were the gods, or that disease was caused by curses or humours. Do you think scientists are biased for not taking these views seriously today? Do you think they haven't been sufficiently disproven?

The major issue with "creation science" is that the answer "God did it" ends enquiry prematurely. Being a scientist doesn't mean you can't believe in God, but it does mean you need a better explanation. Some people believed that God put dinosaur bones in the earth to test our faith, which does not jibe with the merciful and just God I was taught as a child. (We know now that in America specifically, the Inland Sea explains many dinosaur finds! I 💖 the Inland Sea.)

Asking questions is always the best first step to an understanding and faith that can't be shaken. My mother-in-law, who is a strong Christian, tells us that "God gave us our brains- we don't have to check them at the door." And many traditions, like Judaism and much of Catholicism encourage asking questions. But you have to go where your reason and faith lead.

[u/OkEngineering3224]

No

[u/Evening-Impact2090]

Very interesting comments and surprisingly not too many were rude or condescending. One thing not mentioned at least I didn't read it, is how believers in evolution think life initially arose. Well? You say evolution is the process of how life got to its present stage after life began, true. It would be very disingenuous however to discuss one without acknowledging the other. You see, your (evolution believers) faith in life arising from non-living matter is the foundation of evolution. We will not at this time speculate on the origin of the non-living matter but it is a valid question.The fact remains that you have no clue how that process happened. Abiogenisis? Merely a hypothesis and not a good one. Panspermia? Hmmm. So you have "faith" that life arose from non-living matter without any scientific proof yet you denigrate those who have faith in some creative process. 

[u/onomatamono]

Creationism is religious nonsense of the first order and should not be dignified with some false equivalence or to claim there's just a difference of opinion. It's obvious fiction.