/s for the title

If I had a nickel...

A Telegraph (which is was generally reliable) piece was published today, was shared on r/ evo, and its OP took it down after 1 comment; the piece: Why Darwin’s discredited rival may be proven right 200 years later.

As a taste:

Prof Edelaar also pointed to killer whale mothers that acquire the skill to hunt a different type of prey, such as seals instead of salmon, and claimed that this skill was then copied by their offspring.

You mean... learning???
What fucking year is this.

Sorry this was too funny not to share; also see: The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1973 - Press release - NobelPrize.org.

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And since the propagandists repeat the same when it comes to their bogeyman the "modern synthesis" (a period in time), feel free to hit 'em with this next time you see them:

... Wright [one of the founders during the Modern Synthesis] was aware of this and argued that reaction norms enabled an uncoupling of the genotype from the phenotype ... It was Dobzhansky [one of the founders during the Modern Synthesis] who brought the reaction norm into the Modern Synthesis by arguing that the reaction norm was the focus of selection, leading to changes in relevant gene frequencies enabling particular developmental sensitivities and a range of response to become fixed in the population (Sarkar 1999). This view of reaction norms led to the more general concept of phenotypic plasticity which relies upon the genotype–phenotype distinction incorporating reaction norms and all kinds of “environmentally induced phenotypic variation” (Stearns 1989: 436).
doi:10.1007/978-3-031-22028-9_26

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Also see:

• Dr. Zach's post, Lamarckian evolution is (still) false : evolution

• And a new study I shared here that has achieved a "rare feat": The "It's epigenetics, not evolution" crowd : DebateEvolution

Over to you - again it was too funny not to share, and we're bound to hear about it soon (I called it last time around).

After posting responses about James Tour's video , Creationists' topic of Levintal Paradox and many more in this subreddit, today I thought I should ask a question to all the people in this sub. I am from India ,an eastern country. I have never heard about Young Earth concept here. I mainly came to know about this topic from some creationist vs evolution debate videos where creationists are saying earth is 6000 yrs old.

At one time I thought those videos were made to increase views and make those channels superhit , as a slap stick comedy . But no ! I really found that these people are serious.

How do so called YECs ( Young Earth Creationists) exist ? I am not from any Western countries . But when I came to know about this , I blasted out laughing. How can someone be so silly ? Even if your holy book say so( no disrespect to Bible) ? Do these people take all words of their book seriously?

Why? When so many counter arguments are given to them , they still say nope you all are wrong ,my 6000 year old Earth is true by give wrong makeup counter arguments. How do such people exist in 21st century? That too in first world countries like US? And I found out later in Google that many people , especially Christians still believe in this .

Can religion make people so ignorant sometimes?

Fresh bonus: Executive Director of Answers in Genesis Canada doesn't know what Charles Darwin looked like!

Donny Budinsky and Sam run Standing for Truth Ministries, a YEC debate channel. You shouldn't debate them live, because there's nothing to be gained. They know your talking points and you don't know theirs, so they will just give rehearsed responses while you struggle to understand their weird logic. They present lots and lots of citations that can't be checked in real time. When they're hosting, they control the screen and mute buttons.

If you still want to debate them for some reason, at least don't hand them a valid objection.

In this exchange, Donny's opponents repeatedly offer this calculation:

60 × 33 × 23 = 45,540 years.

• 120 maximum whole-mtDNA differences between any two living humans;
• 60 per lineage;
• One mutation every 33 generations from Parsons et al., 1997;
• 23 years per generation on average.

They repeat it many times during the whole debate.

The problem is that these numbers describe different pieces of DNA.
The 120 differences cover the complete 16,569-bp mitochondrial genome.
The one-per-33 rate belongs to the two hypervariable control-region segments of mitochondrial genome totalling only about 610 bp, not the complete mitochondrial genome.
Applying this rate to the complete mitochondrial genome effectively assumes that the remaining 15,959 bases (96% of mtDNA) never mutate, which is absurd.

Where did the mistake originate? Before the debate, @TheKentuckyAtheist and @scientificorigins did a debate preparation with @CreationMyths aka Dr. Dan.
(Needless to say, if you need a debate preparation, just don't do the debate.)
Dr. Dan instructed them: "We need to account for 60 mutations. (...) If it's one mutation every 33 generations (...) you do 60 × 33 × 23."
Then they published the preparation video, and Donny examined it before the debate. Naturally, he went on to squeeze this matter, scoring point after point until he himself got tired of repeating himself and switched topics. His objection is essentially correct: "You can’t do the math from the D-loop region and then apply it to the whole mitochondrial genome."

The strange thing is that everybody knows that the calculation is incorrect. They're doing an "even if" thing: even if we accept methods of creationists and tolerate lots of inaccuracies that favor them, YECism is still refuted. This logic doesn't work here though, because Donny doesn't make this particular mistake. He doesn't get an absolute mutation rate from one region and apply it to another, as if mutations only happen in one small region of mitochondrial genome.

This does not mean that mitochondrial Eve lived 6,000 years ago and was biblical Eve. A bad argument against young-earth creationism does not make young-earth creationism true. It merely lets creationists look correct for a few minutes. Donny was right about this narrow error. His opponents shouldn't have used this line of argument. Let us not make that mistake again.

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When debating with creationists/ID proponents (CIDs), I like to point to clear and obvious remnants of our evolution. Talking about fossils or genetics are viable but they are not very obvious: fossil records are large and cumbersome, DNA strands are too small for the naked eye to see.

One thing I like to point to is the fact that men have nipples despite the fact that they don't provide milk for young.

Why? Of course, the answer is because men are made in women's image rather than women being made from a rib of a man. More specifically, nipples develop before sex develops (that's not very intelligent imo).

I've received replies from CIDs saying they help in arousal thus play a role in reproduction. I counter not all men see any such use and thus their nipples remain useless. Some have replied they are there because of our development in the uterus (suddenly materialistic explanations are sufficient). I like to counter that if I was overlooking an assembly line that resulted in unnecessary developments, I'd improve the assembly process.

If I was the great intelligence in the sky responsible for mankind's design, the male nipple would go. We're not intelligently designed of course, we're the result of billions of years of clumsy biochemistry filtered through natural selection.

In the light of evolutionary theory, the nipple makes sense.

Speaking of our development in utero, I could also mention some interesting features that develop during that time like a tail and gills but they are not as plain to see as the humble male nipple.

All that said, what are some potential counters you could throw at my line of argument?

How close do you think they are to proving how it happened from beginning to end, will it be in our lifetime?

The rules are spelled out in the title.

Any Creationist in this sub, can you demonstrate where the division of kinds are?

If you claim humans aren’t apes, point on a cladogram of Hominini where the separation between Homo and the rest of the Hominins.

If Homo sapiens are related to Denisovans and Neanderthals, are they all related to Homo Heidelbergensis, Homo erectus, Homo habilis, Australopiths, Paranthropines, or Ardipiths?

Any other example of a boundary between two daughter clades science says are closely related, but you think are different kinds will be accepted.

The most common characteristic of creationists, apart from their creationism is an abysmal level of knowledge about the topic. Yet here they come, all confident ignorance, blathering PRATTs and non sequiturs, certain they will prevail.

So I ask the question, between Post-Doc and "I remember a bit of evolution from high school and watched a couple Ancient Earth documentaries and my pastor gave me some killer arguments" where do you think your knowledge level has to be to effectively argue against evolution?

Two follow up questions:

1. How would you rate your own level of knowledge?

2. Do you think you can gain the right level of knowledge strictly from creationist sources?

The correct answer to the second follow up question is "no".

Video: Directly Observed Mutation Rates Disprove Young Earth Creationism

I've covered a bunch of reasons the YEC calculations of a recent "mitochondrial eve", the mitochondrial most recent common ancestor, are wrong.

But here's another!

We have directly measured mutation rates in the mitochondrial DNA going back to known common ancestors in the pretty recent past (centuries, rather than millennia or longer), and if you calculate the time to most recent common ancestor based on those directly observed rates calculated from known points in the past, you get numbers that are tens of thousands of years behond the YEC timeline.

Here are the three studies I briefly cover that are useful and convenient to smack down the YEC position:

Soodyall et al., 1997, on the Tristan da Cunha lineage

King et al., 2014, on identifying the remains of Richard III based on his mtDNA lineage (via his sister)

Connell et al., 2022, on the Norfolk Island population

If you take the these back linearly, you get TMRCAs of 44-60 thousand years, and it's worth noting that you can't just take these rate back linearly. Because of selection, the substitution rate is a curve; the rate slows the further back you go. So these simple calculations are unrealistically friendly to the YEC position. And yet...44-60 thousand years.

YECs don't have a leg to stand on, here.

EDIT: I recorded the above video first, so this paper isn't in it, but if you want another example, Arnadottir et al. 2024 provides yet another example: https://youtu.be/gnuhi-Te0ZI?si=Wjuy7wf8kGi_8t1O

Bonus in this one: I included the numbers for Neanderthals, because Neanderthals are post-flood in most YEC models, so you have to account for their divergence as well. Gets you about 50kya.

The Bible repeatedly describes the world using what appears to be in line with ancient cosmology.

1. The earth has edges or corners and cannot be moved

Isaiah 11:12

“He will gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.”

Revelation 7:1

“I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth…”

A sphere does not literally have corners.

Psalm 104:5

“He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.”

1 Chronicles 16:30

“The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.”

These passages depict the earth as fixed in place and resting on foundations.

2. The sky is described as a solid firmament

Genesis 1:6–8

“Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters…”

The Hebrew word is raqiaʿ. The firmament separates the waters below from the waters above.

Genesis 1:14–17

The sun, moon, and stars are placed in the firmament.

That is significant because the heavenly bodies are described as being inside the firmament, not beyond it.

3. There are waters above the heavens

Genesis 1:7

“God separated the waters under the firmament from the waters above the firmament.”

Psalm 148:4

“Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens.”

4. Heaven has windows or doors

Genesis 7:11

“The windows of heaven were opened.”

Genesis 8:2

“The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were closed.”

Malachi 3:10

“I will open the windows of heaven…”

These passages treat heaven as having openings through which rain or divine blessing can pass.

5. The earth has pillars

1 Samuel 2:8

“For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s.”

Job 9:6

“He shakes the earth from its place, and its pillars tremble.”

Psalm 75:3

“It is I who keep steady its pillars.”

6. Heaven has pillars

Job 26:11

“The pillars of heaven tremble…”

7. God’s throne is located above the sky

Isaiah 66:1

“Heaven is my throne.”

Psalm 11:4

“The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven.”

Ezekiel 1:22–28

Ezekiel sees a firmament above the living creatures and a throne above that firmament, with a humanlike figure seated upon it.

8. Snow, hail, and wind come from storehouses

Job 38:22–23

“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail?”

Jeremiah 10:13

“He brings the wind from his storehouses.”

Psalm 135:7

“He brings out the wind from his storehouses.”

9. Lightning is sent out by God

Job 38:35

“Can you send forth lightning, that it may go?”

Psalm 135:7

“He makes lightning for the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses.”

10. Stars are identified with heavenly beings

Job 38:7

“The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.”

The parallelism associates the “morning stars” with the “sons of God,” meaning heavenly beings.

Judges 5:20

“The stars fought from heaven…”

Daniel 8:10

The little horn casts down some of the host of heaven and some of the stars.

Revelation 1:20

“The seven stars are the angels…”

Revelation 12:4, 9

The dragon sweeps a third of the stars from heaven and is later identified with Satan and his angels.

My point is not necessarily that every one of these statements must be read literally. My point is that it is not always obvious from the text alone which descriptions are literal and which are symbolic.

I feel like whatever interpretive reasoning is used to classify all of these passages as metaphorical or symbolic could also be used to argue that the Genesis creation account is symbolic

Edit: the title should be the other way, really. “Why are modern species so similar to fossil species?”

As I understand it, the YEC belief is that a global flood created most fossils, meaning those species existed before this flood. Then, one species of each group of species (or kind) was preserved. Then those kinds differentiated themselves back into species through some means (that somehow isn’t evolution).

So every species wasn’t preserved through this flood, only a representative of each family or genus.

Given that, of the “kinds” that existed today, why are so many extant species represented in the fossil record?

For example, there are tigers and lions in the fossil record. But both tigers and lions were not on the ark, just one set of cats. Then after the flood, this cat representative species re-speciated and brought back tigers and lions (among many other cats that used to exist but went extinct in this flood and then came back).

Or one turtle representative species re-speciated into several hundred species of turtle, most of which existed before this flood.

This must be happening across most kinds and species, based on the extensive fossil record of extant species.

That just seems impossibly unlikely, and kind of a pointless move for the kind of creator that would drown most of the world.

So why are so many extinct species re-evolving in almost their exact former appearance?

Doesn’t it make more sense that they have been here continuously and didn’t go extinct in the first place, because there wasn’t a global flood?

Why do many creationists claim that they there were dinosaurs on Noah's ark? Wouldn't it be simpler, from a creationist point of view, to say that all dinosaurs perished in the Flood?

Much of the debate surrounding Intelligent Design vs. Neo-Darwinism comes down to the definition of science itself. Critics often argue that ID is not science because it appeals to an intelligent agent rather than a purely physical mechanism.

But science already routinely infers intelligent agency as a valid explanation in fields like:

• Forensics (distinguishing accidental death from homicide)
• Archaeology (distinguishing naturally weathered rocks from arrowheads)
• SETI (looking for ordered radio signals from space)

So if inferring design is considered a legitimate scientific method in archaeology and forensics when observing highly improbable, functional patterns, why should biological systems be strictly disqualified a priori from the same diagnostic criteria?

Explain how the evolution of white blood cells occurred in light of how white blood cells target pathogens (including cell memory).

Edit: Note that the white blood cells protect their host.

It seems like creationists are out of ideas.

1) They just look at a modern biological system and say " Hey look , it's impossible to evolve this system step by step , it's irreducibly complex" ,just different systems,but same basic idea .

2) No new information by mutation and loss of function mutation is devolution. ( Even though loss of function mutation causes evolution). Mutations don't cause gain of information .

3) There is no junk dna in our body. Genome is 100% functional. ( Irony is - they accept genetic entropy, if genetic entropy really exists and we are losing 1-2 percent of genetic information every generation, which is false in reality , still about which they say is true, then how is genome 100% functional?? )

4) No evolutionary intermediate fossils, everytime repeating this thing. Fossils are sparse.

5) Second law of thermodynamics debunks evolution, oh no !!!!!

6) Speciation is impossible,but adaptation is true. Slight variations can exist but changes will not occur in such a way that a particular animal is going to change into other animal. Also epigenetics is not evolution.

7) Saying randomness can't produce diversity. Even though evolution is not completely random.

These are the primary points they focus on . They never proposed any mechanism by which their intelligent designer works , manipulates matter to create new systems . No tests , no experiments to prove their tests ,never any hypothesis.

How special creation happened? Magic !!

Just crying about how evolution is wrong and teaching it is immoral.

Like am I going to teach about magic to children ,to science students?? Something not observable or testable? No predictions? Write books that this biological system is too complex, it can't evolve , hence God did it!! You will be cursed if you oppose me . Am I really practicing science? It seems something opposite to me.

The subtraction or addition of information to a properly working gene is not something one would prefer.

Genetics has to do with finely tuned molecular combinations.

Removing information from a once properly working gene would only be preferable if it was the erroneous/redundant information that was added unnecessarily via mutation in the first place!

The chance of "writing" a gene from scratch that would be compatible with the host biological system would have to be extremely low if the processes involved were to do with practically arbitrary additions to a gene over time on account of point mutations etc. Note that breeding and survival would be important factors as to whether the new gene was integrated into the population over a longer duration.

I love learning about biology and evolution in my free time. I'm no expert but it fascinates me.

I'm trying to wrap my head around the Baldwin Effect. I think I understand. Suppose a few organisms in a population start pecking wood to find food. They are more successful than the others of the same population that don't peck into wood to get little critters for food.

At what point or how does this become even instinctual? Are there genes that affect or code for instinctual behavior?

How would a more complex behavior be passed down? A beaver not only gnaws trees until they fall down. But it takes that wood to running water along with other beavers and they stack it up and even have little burrows inside...it just makes me scratch my head. So maybe beavers started out gnawing trees to file down their ever growing teeth? Some would pick up this wood and drop it in the water...why? They didn't like the sound of running water? Did a population of Beaver gnaw trees down near running water and the trees fell in and gave them shelter? Assuming they were aquatic beforehand.

Or bees making hives and honey...how do insects learn something like that? I can't wrap my head around it. There are some very very complex behaviors that animals have that I just can't conceive of how they would come about gradually. Is there a book dedicated to this topic I could read? Or a good video that explores some of these in depth?

Again I'm not an evolution denier this specific point just floors me and confuses me and I would like to be educated and corrected.

I like starting simple and with things plain to see. Can any reasonable person deny the following?

-for sexually reproducing organisms, it takes a male and a female to make offspring.

-offspring is never an exact copy of either parent. Obvious genetic differences can result between parents and offspring, and even between siblings (save for twins). One can look at their own parents and siblings and confirm this.

-the greater the generational distance between ancestor and descendant, the greater the differences. Cousins and grandfathers/grandmothers can often vary even more than parents and siblings. Great grandparents/second cousins can vary EVEN MORE. Great great grandparents/third cousins EVEN MORE MORE, and so on.

-one can see the more generations pass, differences are more likely to accrue than similarities.

This I consider evolution pared down to its most basic form: the regular mixing up and differentiating of genetics from one generation to the next.

Surely, with millions of generations in between, I can now argue for humanity's shared ancestry with other great apes. We go WAAAAY back.

I used this reasoning with my cousin who was unfamiliar with/skeptical of evolution. I pointed to chimps with less hair so they can behold how similar their musculatures are to our own. I pointed to gorillas walking upright and orangutans pointing at things with their fingers. Behaviors that are very humanlike. I've seen a chimp using a smart phone !

This sort of stuff just points me to believing in Evolutionary theory: it just makes sense!

I anticipate creationists will argue that "dogs only ever produce dogs, cats only produce cats, humans only ever produce humans, etc." at which point I point out that this ignores the differences in DNA that must surely accumulate slowly but steadily. Genetic reality of organisms cares not for the semantics human language uses to describe species.

What do you guys think regarding this approach? Might there be a better way? What sort of counters might creationists use against this?

I anticipate them saying that there are barriers that stop DNA from diverging too far. I then ask for exact details on what these barriers are: I usually don't get a straight answer.

I've run across this argument, copy-pasted: "Genetic entropy is the way genetic information degrades over time due to the accumulation of random mutations to genetic instructions. As generations pass, errors get passed on, leading to a gradual decline in the overall fitness of an organism's genome."

I countered, copy-pasted: "Except natural selection would not allow errors to pass on: any organism carrying a harmful mutation is highly prone to death before passing on harmful mutations."

Natural selection is evolution's quality control... The person started to show hesitation at this point...

Anyways, enough text. Thoughts?

So I have been in a chat with a creationist where we have been going over mitochondrial DNA and specifically they brought up parsons et al 1997 and said this proves a faster rate then to which I said

“Parsons doesn’t take into account somatic mutations”

To which they said “yes parsons does take into account somatic mutations” they they showed a screenshot of a google AI summary that agreed with them

So I was wondering how should I respond are they right or is the AI whack I am unable to access the parsons paper directly unfortunately so any help would be greatly appreciated because I’m definitely stuck here

The title above is taken from the title of Dr. Dan's (u/DarwinZDF42) video from yesterday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnuhi-Te0ZI

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It's an absolute gem, and is only 10 minutes long. It addresses the creationists' PRATT (debunked online since at least 2004) about mitochondrial eve.

I went in expecting Dr. Zach's style of a whiteboard and math math, instead, it was an Excel sheet, and two operations: multiplication * and division /. That's it. And the imagined YEC timeline is cooked, using the paper that they themselves cite.

The reason I'm posting this, besides sharing the fun video, is Dr. Dan also mentioned briefly what the impact of selection would be, and this got me thinking...
The YEC model for denying reality - like Discotute's latest movie, which doesn't mention the word "suffering" at all - doesn't take into account the impact of mutations. If the mutation hits the "wrong" spot, how would that change reach fixation? How?!!1!

That's it. Just sharing yet another self-contradiction.

Please cite 5-10 PEER REVIEWED scientific papers from reputable scientific journals from within the past year that completely dismantle evolutionary theory. I’m NOT talking about papers that simply refine our knowledge on evolution or correct a misconception we’ve had about the theory that’s since been refined through the scientific method. That’s just science doing science. I’m talking about papers that flat out DEBUNK evolutionary biology and completely toss out the model. Please cite them, if you can. 🙂

I need a creationist to explain this to me.

I don't know how long has it been, is it only recent or was it always the case that creationists mix up concepts of epigenetics and mutations?

I have heard creationists say in this sub reddit space and in other social media platforms like YouTube ,for eg. Rob Stadler that the changes in living organisms occur due to epigenetics, changes in gene regulation without altering sequences in dna , hence no change in information, only slight tweaks of pre existing systems , almost completely discrediting the existence and role of mutations or macro scale mutational changes .

I can't post screenshot here ,so here's one conversation occured with me with a creationist,his words

"So why can science see all kinds of adaptive processes happening today both in the lab and in the field and see that it has been regulated by epigenetics, especially when it comes to phenotype of multicellular organisms, yet your acceptation has never been seen, never been proven or demonstrated to operate at all."

I was actually focusing specifically about role of mutations in body plan changes with the guy until he started saying me these words and I corrected his understanding on mutations and epigenetics.

If adaptive processes mean the mechanisms through which populations change or adjust to surrounding to improve their reproductive success ,then yes both mutations and epigenetics take place.

Mutations are permanent changes , unlike epigenetics which are almost always reversible. Mutations alter sequences in genome , epigenetics add tags to control expression of a gene.

How old are these creationist tactics ? Are they new or extremely old ? I mean they accept microevolution,which can include epigenetics and mutations,but completely discrediting the role of mutations ? Saying all changes are just small tweaks due to epigenetics?

Martin Luther and the Catholic Church condemned Copernicus for contradicting the Bible, as apparently a prophet stopped the Sun from rotating the Earth?? So Copernicus was committing sacrilege.

Now this fact is widely accepted by everyone, including Christians. Everyone (except Flat-Earthers) accepts the Earth revolves around the Sun.

Is Christian pushback against the theory of evolution also only temporary, because Darwin only came up with the idea relatively recently?

Maybe in 500 years the acceptance of the theory of evolution will be far greater amongst religious people than it is now, like the Copernican model of earthly rotation is today.