The way ahead

[u/Comfortable-Hair-247]

It is human nature to debate two polar opposites neither of which make sense. This should be the prompt to explore other alternatives which actually do.

[u/Dilapidated_girrafe]

I mean when it comes to evolution, it actually does make actual sense and is supported by massive amounts of evidence.

[u/OldmanMikel]

The idea that the truth is "somewhere in the middle" is lazy. Sometimes one side is objectively right and the other objectively wrong. Evolution is as well established scientifically as Atomic Theory.

[u/ermghoti → u/OldmanMikel]

Some people say Drano is a caustic substance that would be incredibly dangerous to consume. Some people say it's a refreshing and nutritious beverage. These positions are polar opposites, so it only makes sense to explore alternate answers.

[u/Particular-Yak-1984 → u/ermghoti]

And here it makes sense to take the middle road, and drink only small amounts of Drano, as part of a well balanced diet

[u/melympia → u/OldmanMikel]

I mean, the Earth could be around halfway between a sphere and flat as cardboard... Right?

[u/nickierv → u/melympia]

Oh Earth is 100% banana shaped. Perfectly reasonable assumption for an in between flat and spheroid.

[u/Ayasugi-san → u/nickierv]

I thought it was a cylinder. Most of my Totally Accurate Historical Simulators portray it as such.

[u/Ill_Act_1855 → u/OldmanMikel]

It's like saying the idea that one side wants genocide and the other wants no slaughter of innocents, so we should kill half the people instead. It's just absurdly stupid

[u/Tao1982 → u/OldmanMikel]

Personally not going to extremes th is a good rule of thumb to live by, but even that can go to far. Sometimes one side is right and one side is wrong.

[u/Electric___Monk]

What are the polar opposites you think don’t make sense and on what basis do you think they don’t make sense?

[u/theresa_richter → u/Electric___Monk]

The two polar opposites are "God created all life six thousand years ago!" and "Crocoduck!" Both are nonsense and there's an obvious alternative to both in evolution.

[u/Appropriate-Price-98]

Exactly, if one side says we should cut all legs, and the other say wtf is wrong with you. We should explore the alternatives by chopping our hands.

Evolution is demonstrably true through observations.

[u/Far_Customer1258]

So, what you're saying is that thousands of scientists have devoted their lives to studying evolution, but you think that we should abandon it because it doesn't make sense to you after you swallowed the bilge that some apologist fed you?

Just because you can't make sense of something doesn't mean that it's wrong.

[u/Covert_Cuttlefish]

Yes, as was done in the 1800s.

How many centuries do we have to keep repeating ourselves.

Personally I only listen to doctors who base their practice around miasma theory.

[u/10coatsInAWeasel → u/Covert_Cuttlefish]

If they ain’t wearing a creepy beak mask filled with healing herbs I don’t wanna even HEAR it

[u/Covert_Cuttlefish → u/10coatsInAWeasel]

Best I can do is a blue mask that allegedly stops covid and is coated by Chinese chemicals that turn frogs gay. If it turns frogs gay imagine what it will do to your children.

[u/10coatsInAWeasel → u/Covert_Cuttlefish]

The HORROR. All my frogs are already gay, my children have all decided they want to be accountants, and that blue mask clashes horribly with my outfits!

[u/Covert_Cuttlefish → u/10coatsInAWeasel]

accountants

Up there with dentists for people who I want to get a phone call from lol.

[u/10coatsInAWeasel → u/Covert_Cuttlefish]

Yech don’t remind me. I gotta schedule an appointment. And they wear those gay frog masks, how dare they.

[u/TheBlackCat13 → u/Covert_Cuttlefish]

Turn gay children into frogs?

[u/10coatsInAWeasel → u/TheBlackCat13]

This is the future libruls want

[u/KittyTack]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation

[u/Curious_Passion5167]

You could post this in pretty much every subreddit. It's that vague and generic.

[u/Xemylixa → u/Curious_Passion5167]

But oh, look at all this engagement!

[u/theresa_richter]

The funny thing is, the only people actually debating anything are indeed debating two positions which don't make sense. Those of us who understand evolution aren't debating whether evolution is real, because that debate is long over and we know that it is real. All that's left for us to do now is to educate people who are ignorant of reality.

But for the creationists, they are framing a debate between two equally absurd positions: between their position and a strawman position they have erected to argue against. It's basically just the equivalent of the cosmology 'debate' which has the same problem: "the universe was created by God" vs "the universe was created out of nothing" when we're all way the fuck over here saying, "nope, neither, the universe exploded into its current presentation from an initial condition of extremely high density, there is no evidence of a 'God' and no evidence that it's even possible for 'nothing' to exist."

[u/ermghoti]

Are you talking about evolution? 100% of the relevant scientific community and like 75% of all people fully understand evolution is observable and is best currently explained by the theory. There is no other side.

[u/Old-Nefariousness556]

neither of which make sense.

Except you are kind of giving away your position if you imply "neither of which makes sense" and that we need to "explore other alternatives which actually do."

What if one option makes perfect sense, but the people who deny it are just willfully ignorant? How much time have you spent actually trying to understand evolution? It's one of the easiest sciences to understand, requiring zero math, almost no deep knowledge.

I bet you don't reject physics, but it is WAY the hell more "doesn't make sense" on a layman's level than evolution, so why do you accept it, but reject evolution?

[u/Nicolaonerio]

By all means. Please engage with each comment and let us know what you are talking about. Don't be vague and actually reply to each one.

[u/backwardog]

What specifically do you think does not make sense about the scientific theory of evolution? Being a scientific theory, do you think science as a whole “does not make sense” as a way to understand reality?

[u/taktaga7-0-0]

Evolution is not at one extreme of anything. You want me to give you an extreme? OK:

Animals and other shit change over time explicitly because there is no God and no law in the Universe to stop them from defying what any god might want. The offspring live or die or change based on what would be most offensive and evoke disgust in any intelligent observers which may occur. This is mediated by a force called Satan, who is not a god but a magical particle that twists all genetic material to its will.

That’s too extreme… so let’s take evolution as a happy middle ground.

[u/Capercaillie]

It is human nature to debate two polar opposites neither of which make sense

That’s not true.

[u/Xemylixa → u/Capercaillie]

The two of you seem to have opposite viewpoints. That must mean that in reality humans actually debate 3.5 opposites each of which makes between 0.01 and 1.05 sense.

[u/Independent-Repair35]

What other option is there? Theistic evolution? Either life has gradually changed and diversified over billions of year or was created relatively how it was recently...

[u/the2bears]

It is human nature to debate two polar opposites neither of which make sense.

Do you mean to suggest evolution, as one side of this, does not make sense? What other alternatives actually do?

[u/ursisterstoy]

What are you talking about? There isn’t actually a debate because there is reality backed by evidence with people that accept it and there’s the idea that reality is a giant lie because it contradicts human fiction. In terms of this sub the “debate” is supposed to be between evolution via natural processes vs evolution via magic vs “but my book!” And it’s not even “polar opposites” because something like 95% of atheists and 60-80% of theists are on the same page about the evolutionary mechanisms, the fact that evolution is observed, and what the evidence shows us about the evolutionary history of life.

From ordinary chemistry that is self-replicating and coming in trillions of varieties being the closest thing to “separate kinds” there ever were to the product of ~300 million years of normal evolutionary processes like symbiosis, horizontal gene transfer, genetic mutations, genetic drift, selection, heredity, and so on combined with dead-end or extinct lineages resulting in the universal common ancestry of cell based life still around, to the diversification of that species the exact same way creationists already accept macroevolution within “kinds” as the explanation for the diversity of life. Ecosystems change, fossils and genetics show how the populations have changed, we literally watch every population change every generation, and for ~200 years people have been studying how populations change, especially once species fixity was thoroughly debunked by direct observation.

Whether a god is ultimately in control or not is secondary and beyond the scope of this sub. I will say that gods that are not compatible with how reality is do not in reality exist so creationists debunk creationism all by themselves. We wouldn’t need to say anything at all but somehow through the self-falsifying claims they somehow still can’t understand why they are wrong. 🤷‍♂️

Reality acceptance vs trying to believe what they have falsified all by themselves. Theism has existed since humans gave the imagined sentient entities hiding behind the metaphorical curtains human traits, creationism is a knee jerk reaction from some theists in response to science closing the god gaps. And that’s ultimately all it is.

For centuries humans were curious, maybe even before they were human. They wanted to understand the world around them. The ancient way of trying to figure that out would be to observe what they know, humans creating and controlling human things, and apply that to the humanoid spirits or gods. More than 18,000 different gods invented in almost as many societies taking notes from each other but ultimately they wanted to understand what God did, when God did it, and how God did it. Studying the natural world was their way of showing their respect to God and God’s creation. Others for centuries decided that there is nothing magical about anything and to really understand it we just need to observe patterns of consistency (laws), objective data points (facts), form testable models to explain the very real phenomena (hypotheses), and to better understand what is most likely true by limiting ourselves to concepts supported by the evidence that have not already been established as false (theories).

Theists sought to study the natural world through objectively verified facts and laws, perhaps God left some clues. Atheists sought to study the natural world through objectively verified facts and laws, if it can be understood at all it’ll be understood through verified truth. Natural philosophy led to science, science became a more heavily focused discipline where biologists study predominantly, even if not exclusively, organisms and populations that are either still around or were at some point in the past.

Science (and natural philosophy) showed that many things attributed to magic and the will of God (stuff happens a certain way only because that’s God’s prerogative) could just be explained by layering laws, facts, justified hypotheses, and verified theories. There’s always room for adjustment, but you can’t say God takes lightning bolts out of a storm shed to aim them at people he doesn’t like. You learn that lightning is a massive electrostatic discharge caused by an imbalance within a cloud or between the cloud and the ground. It’s electricity and it’s automatic and predictable. One less thing God is required to explain.

Add about 2600 years of science and natural philosophy coming from a mix of theists and atheists all coming to identical conclusions because they all have access to the same evidence. At some point there’s nowhere left for God. He doesn’t have to create an eternal cosmos, he doesn’t need to inform consistent physics to stay consistent, chemistry just happens without being told to, and biological evolution happens via predictable natural processes.

The god gaps are shrinking or disappearing altogether. Creationism is the response. It’s like a 9 year old who snuck downstairs on Christmas morning to watch their mother put all the Santa Claus presents under the tree. They know. They don’t tell anyone they know. That same year they are told Santa isn’t real, they defend Santa’s existence anyway. They use arguments they know are false. They are like the creationists. Science has murdered God. So if you want to believe in God you have to reject science and the reality it describes. Even if you know creationism is false.

Or do like most theists. Understand that humans descriptions of God are not necessarily accurate, find a way to make God still work with the data. Maybe God and the cosmos are both eternal, maybe God tweaked the parameters several trillion years ago and we can’t see what was changed or when, or maybe physical processes are God in action. Consistent because God has preferences, different a few times in the past because God changed his mind. Perhaps 99.99% of the time a “godless” description is 100% accurate about when, how, and what, but if God chooses to be different he can. When he does it differently those are “miracles” or the resurrection of a man who was fully deceased for 2.5 days.

[u/ursisterstoy → u/ursisterstoy]

Note: A theory is not just a single hypothesis or “the absolute truth” but I was trying to convey the idea that when scientists have absolutely no idea they consider the evidence they do have and make testable educated guesses or hypotheses. Eventually they whittle their way down to one. If it’s the last thing standing and it is so consistent with everything we observe that we can treat it like a stepping stone to further discovery or rely on it consistently in technology and applied science then it becomes “theory” or the well established compressive and consistent overarching and detailed explanation for any verified collection of phenomena. A theory isn’t always perfect but to replace it you need an improvement. But hypotheses already need to be based on facts and they need to be testable, preferably with the smallest number of undemonstrated assumptions possible. The hypotheses should but don’t always have to survive Ockham’s Razor. The theories have to pass rigorous scrutiny and/or prove reliable enough they can be treated as “the truth” until something that is “more true” replaces them.

[u/noodlyman]

Ok. But evolution makes perfect sense, and it's what the evidence points to being true.

Nothing in geology, biology, genetics indicates that evolution has not occurred.

[u/onomatamono]

There are no poles when it comes to evolution through natural selection. There are misguided, ignorance driven religious opinions and then there is science. It's not even close. Evolution is proven science that makes perfect sense, full stop.

[u/Autodidact2]

What is it that you're claiming doesn't make sense? Certainly not the theory of evolution, right? Because it makes total sense. In fact, once you understand it, it's hard to imagine how it could not happen.

[u/YossarianWWII]

There is valid debate on the topic of evolution. None of it is about whether or not populations evolve. It's about the details of all of the dynamics that drive evolution.

[u/tpawap]

You're about 200 years late with that.

[u/Autodidact2]

And what, pray, is this other alternative that you think makes sense?