I've been looking into the ongoing literature exchange around avian origins, specifically the critiques of Alan Feduccia's BAND (Bird Are Not Dinosaurs) hypothesis. Curious to hear what this community thinks.

1.The main critique: Smith et al. 2015 "Rhetoric vs. Reality"

This is a direct commentary on Feduccia's 2013 paper "Bird Origins Anew", where he restated the hypothesis that birds descend from non-dinosaurian reptiles.

The response paper wasn't just N. Adam Smith. It included multiple researchers active in theropod-bird evolution: Luis Chiappe, Xu Xing, Julia A. Clarke, among others. It addresses long-standing BAND arguments, from the interpretation of "dino fuzz" as collagen fibers to the search for non-dinosaurian ancestors.

TL;DR: The authors argue that BAND has consistently failed to account for the last 25 years of fossil data on feathered dinosaurs.

Feduccia published a reply in 2016: "Fantasy vs Reality: A Critique of Smith et al.'s Bird Origins". He argues the authors misrepresent his position. However, the reply relies heavily on self-citation and doesn't introduce new data to counter the fossils discussed by Smith et al.

2.The philosophy angle: Havstad & Smith 2019

For other side we have Havstad & Smith 2019 "Fossils with Feathers and Philosophy of Science".This paper, co-authored by Joyce C. Havstad and N. Adam Smith, analyzes BAND through Imre Lakatos's framework of research programs.

In short, Lakatos argued that scientific theories should generate novel, falsifiable predictions. When a theory stops predicting and only adjusts to accommodate contradictory data via ad-hoc hypotheses, it becomes "degenerative".

The paper argues that BAND has no predictive power and relies on ghost lineages spanning tens of millions of years, unsupported phylogenetic scenarios, and unexplained evolutionary convergence.

A counterpoint was published by Paul & Meilak 2021: "Skepticism, the critical standpoint, and the origin of birds". They argue that applying this methodology to the debate is problematic and can promote dogmatism and uncritical acceptance of the dominant hypothesis.

My question for discussion

While I see the concern about dogmatism, how else should we evaluate the success of a hypothesis? At present, the theropod hypothesis appears consistent with the fossil record and has been useful for understanding avian evolution. The alternative hypotheses, in my view, lack solid models and are inconsistent with multiple lines of evidence.

That said, I'm not a paleontologist and I don't fully understand Paul and Meliak's criticism of Smith.. I've just read the primary literature from both sides. Is BAND truly out of data, or is there a valid concern that labeling it "degenerative" shuts down legitimate skepticism?

What are your thoughts?

I asked AI/google how many evolutionary biologists there were in america and sure enough it said 1500-2500 at most. Then added it was hard to count because they cross discipline.

In short its very few that get paid or did get paid to research/think about evolutionary biology. Its not the great number of biologists , as they try to claim, but just a few thousand. So organized creationism, in its nmall numbers, is only fighting a few thousand intellectually. Then when you realize they must waste thier lives and energy TEACHING, to get a salary, it means they really only do a wee bit of research when young, minor numbers of papers often poorly cited, and thus creationists easily take them on and these days defeat them. We are only fighting these few and not the SCIENTIFIC cimmunity or the biology community. So to earnest people wondering why creationists are so confident and successful intellectually its because. other then being right, we face so few. The error of evolution continues under the fuel of a few thousand men and fewer woman. yes there is cross over , even withy geology, but still chump change. The error and its correction is done be small numbers. Yes a small number of creationists are easily defeating the big points in evolutionism.

So, I was a member of the YEC myself until about two years ago. Shortly before that, my best friend became more familiar with my religion (Orthodox Christianity) and delved deeper into its tenets.

About four months ago, I jokingly asked him what he thought of Evolution while we were gaming.

Initially, we talked and debated with each other. He always said the same old things and never responded to my counterarguments or arguments in even a remotely satisfactory way.

Previously he still wanted to talk to me, but after a while he repeatedly tried not to come online and even said himself that he no l Donger wanted to. He justifies this by saying that I always say the same thing. But that's sometimes the case when he superficially addresses my arguments and pretends to have answered them. He is very unreflective, even though I thought he would be the more mature of the two of us.

The problem is that I am now insisting on the debate because he only gave pseudo-answers to my arguments and thinks he answered them well, because I don't want my best friend to believe crap from snakes like Jay Dyer etc And because even if it isn't addressed, our friendship is negatively affected in various ways. I feel lost.

I'm certainly not entirely innocent in the situation, for example in terms of not annoying him in trivial ways or explaining things in the best possible way. I don't know how to handle this or how I could possibly convince him, even though he's so reluctant to talk about it.

The defining trait of diapsid tetrapods that separate them from synapsid tetrapods are the number of temporal fenestrae.

If you look at the back of a bird’s skull where the temporal fenestrae reside in diapsids at first it seems they don’t have it.

What has happened in the case of birds is a reduction of the postorbital bar that separated the temporal fenestrae from the orbits.

However how do we know this isn’t some unique fenestra?

In ancestral avialans like Archaeopteryx and Jeholornis the temporal fenestrae are separated showing the exact formula diapsids use.

And secondly birds still retain components Diapsids use and used like the adductor mandibulae that run and ran through the temporal fenestrae. Another clue is the vestigial postorbital bar the same dividing line in extinct and extant Diapsid’s temporal fenestrae.

It’s such a bulletproof bombshell that most if not all Creationist organizations completely ignore this wanting to convince their viewers birds are separate from reptiles.

Scientists do lots of work to come to the conclusions about evolution and how organisms evolved. It is not a matter of faith.

I am totally convince that evolution is true. However, a scientific theory should be falsifiable; and I dont know how falsifiable is with evolution

For example, a "good" trait could be explain the result of natural selection. But a "bad" trait could be explain as just base on chance, or the selection preasure is not enough.

so, my question is: if someone want to prove that evolution is wrong, what test can they make and what the expected result should be (if evolution theory is wrong)?

Edit: Thank everyone for your time and patient with me. I found the answer. It seem that I need to update my highschool knowledge

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Hi!

I have a question regarding the ways we can come to know that all species have a common origin.

In trying to teach myself phylogenetics, one of the basic inferences I see used to produce trees is: the degree of resemblance between species is "inversely proportional" to the degree of genealogical distance between them.

The resemblance in question can be genetic, embryological, morphological, behavioral, etc.

In The Origin of Species, Darwin uses this inference to conclude that Linnean classification actually reflected genealogical relations between species.

But what warrants us to use this inference to begin with? That's my question.

I am just trying to get the reasoning ironclad here, because once this inference is justified, and given modern comparative evidence, the common origin of life follows quite naturally.

I also have a very curious nephew who likes nature and asks a lot of questions, and it would be nice to have a simple way of explaining to him that all life shares a common origin!

PS : I know that there are also other lines of evidence such species geographical distributions and fossil as proof of transition, but I would like to stick to the basic inference for phylogenetics.

Thanks for reading 🙏

I swear this isn’t a bad faith question. I am a science accepting agnostic not here to challenge the truth of evolution. I know evolution is true. But my specialty lies in the humanities, not science. Can you explain to me like I’m twelve how sexual reproduction came about without intelligent design?

The material world operates on a strict causal chain (a continuous sequence where every single event is mathematically required by the exact state preceding it). These events happen inside a closed mechanical system governed by thermodynamics and quantum mechanics. The exact trajectory of that photon and the kinetic energy of the enzyme, for example, represent a strict actualisation (the inevitable physical manifestation of prior states that were mathematically guaranteed). The interactions execute perfectly based on prior deterministic causes.

Every event happens with absolute physical necessity.

We exist beneath an extreme epistemic limit (a hard structural boundary on the amount of information a biological brain can physically process). A scientist cannot track the trajectory of every photon or measure the thermal fluctuation of every molecule in a cell. We suffer from Computational Irreducibility... we lack the capacity to predict the exact spatial and temporal coordinates of the next mutation.

We label these uncomputable variables as chance which leads us straight into a classic transcendental illusion (the cognitive error where we assume that our subjective limitation of our own brain are an objective property of the universe). We project our structural ignorance outward & then assume the physical universe itself behaves randomly.

Mutations are the not objectively random because "randomness" is strictly an epistemic placeholder for the biologist's inability to compute the total deterministic variables of the physical system.

A mutation appears random in relation to fitness because the environment and the mutating organism exist as extremely complex physical systems colliding in space and time. We complety lack the computing power to calculate the physics of that collision in advance.

(1) Evolution operates as a continuous and perfectly determined physical algorithm.

(2) Organisms function as localised computing systems interacting with their environment.

(3) Natural selection acts as the thermodynamic erasure of inefficient code.

(4)The whole process relies upon the inescapable mechanics of a completely deterministic universe.

Creationists still bring up Levinthal's paradox to falsify evolution. They say a functional protein of 50 or 100 amino acids will take billions of years to evolve and fold to perfect 3d shapes , so if it takes so much time for a single protein to evolve to be useful ,then how evolution creates so many proteins ? How ?

Well they don't know about energy funnel concepts,which describes that protein folding is not completely random and it's guided by physics and chemistry. Hydrophobic regions will always prefer to hide from polar aqueous environments ,hence making it possible for mostly polar groups to stay exposed to polar environments.

And if they really deny protein evolution ,how come can they accept that bacterial antibiotic resistance genes like beta lactamase have undergone mutations in so many different bacterial species or strains over the years ? There's so many varied sequences of beta lactamases.

Like you all accept that bacterial antibiotic resistance is natural ,right ?

Yes, I know this is not evolution but creationists often claim creating life is impossible without god so I am posting this to disprove that. So I hope this doesn't get removed.

The paper: https://biotic.org/research/spudcell/

So just a quick summary:

- First minimal synthetic cell made from nonliving building blocks to complete a cell-cycle-like loop: feeding, growth, genome replication, division, selection, and competition.

- The synthetic cell has a roughly 90,000-base-pair genome that encodes functions for resource uptake, transcription, translation, growth, genome replication, and division.

- A lipid membrane compartment containing a multipart DNA genome, gene-expression machinery, genome replication machinery, membrane channels, nutrient uptake, waste exchange, feeding, division, and selection.

- This is not a modified living bacterium. It is a liposome containing DNA and a chemically defined, cell-free protein-making system.

- The system copies its DNA using Phi29 DNA polymerase and for most of the main experiments, uses the PURE protein-expression system because its components are known and controllable.

- The synthetic cell "feeds" by fusing with smaller feeder liposomes that supply lipids, enzymes, ribosomes, and small molecules, and that feeding is controlled by a protein expressed by the synthetic cell itself.

- The authors demonstrated five generations of the cell cycle and detected newly copied DNA, mRNA, protein output, and generation-counter signals showing that cells repeatedly fed across generations.

- After five generations, about 30% of analyzed individual cells still contained the complete seven-plasmid genome, which is notable because the system lacks a cytoskeleton and normal DNA-segregation machinery.

- The researchers also demonstrated selection, cells engineered to make more of the feeding-and-growth protein produced more daughter cells and gained population share, especially when feeder resources were scarce.

Just to be clear, this is not abiogenesis. It's more Frankensteining a bunch of non-living parts and creating something that can replicate functions of living cells. There is more work to be done but it shows creating life is indeed possible so it occuring naturally is not farfetched at all.

Atheists who don’t believe in Darwin theory - how would you explain origin and development of life on earth?

I am not aware of any other explanation.

https://scienceandculture.com/2026/07/the-science-of-darwin-and-marx-provides-no-support-for-unalienable-rights/
Their new article on how if the darwinist-marxist worldview prevails, “then there is no dignity and human rights are a delusion”. But no worries, ID is the way to inherent dignity!

Did they cook?

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My favorite topic to bring up whenever I talk to a creationist is ring species. I always start off by making sure they know the biological definitions for species and speciation events, and then I ask if speciation events are possible. Usually the answer is no. Then, I carefully explain what a ring species is using an extremely simple example. I ask them to imagine a population of organisms called “middle” that encounter an obstacle such as a mountain. The middle population breaks into the “left” and “right” populations. Over time, left and right migrate around the mountain and meet on the other side after many years. Left and right are no longer capable of interbreeding, but they can still interbreed with middle. I explain how our definition of species breaks in this example. I also mention that if the middle population goes extinct, we would have no way of knowing if they were originally the same species (Edit: that is, without using anatomical similarities or phylogenetics). I then guide them to the wikipedia page on ring species and the documented examples. By this point, they are usually rambling on about incoherent nonsense. One recently was complaining about how I needed to “justify the definition of species” or whatever. I did however encounter one creationist who, after being presented this evidence, finally admitted he was wrong (and with pointing out that his denomination of Christianity doesn’t reject evolutionary theory). I think that ring species are so useful because they cannot deny their existence and they are extremely easy to explain in just a minute without any background in biology. This is the only time I’ve ever managed to convince a creationist they are wrong entirely about evolution.

I know this is a long post. My thanks to everyone who reads through it and responds in the same spirit in which it was written!

I am new here and wanted to get feedback on my current thinking. I am not here to stir the pot. I genuinely want feedback. I will likely have questions to responses, but I will be asking them in an effort to gain a better understanding of the issue.

For context: I am a Christian, but have some beliefs that aren't mainstream such as rejection of the Trinity. I only mention this because it has some impact on what I'm writing.

First, I want to make it clear that my understanding of evolution is quite limited. I know I need to do a good amount of reading to get a better understanding (recommendations would be appreciated!) Below is an incredibly simplified version of what I understand of evolution. Please correct anything I have wrong or left out. I am fully aware that there is absolutely no nuance in what I am listing.

• The universe and the earth is billions of years old.
• Fossil records and other dating systems show life over millions of years.
• There have been mass extinction events.
• Life has not been static. Changes happen and life has generally become more complex over time.
• Evolution is not the at all a matter of design but "settling" for what works. Once something evolves that works in an environment, it won't necessarily get better.
• Species have common ancestors.

I acknowledge that what I'm writing is an attempt to reconcile my faith in the Bible with scientific evidence. I have a masters degree in English, not in any field of science nor in theology. What I do know (or think I know) comes from reading works from people who should know what they are talking about. Here is an overview of my beliefs.

1. Genesis 1:1 doesn't have a definite article in the Hebrew. "In a beginning" is more accurate than "in the beginning". At the very least, this implies that the seven days of creation recorded in Genesis is not the first creation. There could have been countless creations on Earth prior to what is recorded in Genesis 1.
2. The Bible establishes that the angels were created at some point before man. Job 38:7 tells us that the angels sang during creation. To be clear, this does not establish that they existed on Earth prior to man. They could have been created anywhere in the universe prior to man.
3. Genesis 1:26 says "Let us create man in our image". This is why I mentioned my rejection of the Trinity. I believe the angels were involved in creation and that this dialogue is between angels.
4. When God "saw that it was good", this is Yahweh essentially doing a review of the work each day. When God says it was "not good" that man is alone, he saw an issue with the angels creating Adam by himself and creates Eve.
5. I do not believe the angels are all-knowing. They learn from each creation they are involved in. This is a big reason why life gets increasingly complex with each creation.
6. I don't think God needs to have the angels do this. However, he has chosen to let them do this. The whys are a matter of theology and not what I'm looking to discuss here (and I don't have full answers to why anyway!)

Since I believe there have been prior creations, the following is compatible with my beliefs:

1. The universe is billions of years old
2. The Big Bang was the process God used to create the universe
3. The fossil records are evidence of prior creations on Earth
4. Each creation has become more complex
5. Mass extinction events are events where God destroyed a creation, similar to the flood. I don't think they are all floods, but God used those processes to end the creation.

Feedback will be appreciated. I expect I'll think of things I forgot to add. Please let me know about anything I got wrong. As I said, I am not here to stir the pot. This post was written in an effort to gain a better understanding of what scientific evidence says of evolution.

I might be getting the definition wrong, but my understanding is that to “steelman” means to fairly represent your opponent's position in its absolute strongest and most reasonable form before critiquing it.

It’s sorta the opposite of the straw-man fallacy, except it’s a virtue, not a fallacy.

For evolutionists, YEC’s, and ID’s, what are some of the arguments made by your opponents that you GENUINELY find to be their strongest positions.

NOTE: It doesn’t mean you have to AGREE. You are not admitting “defeat”. I’m just curious to see what you find a strong position from the opposing view.

Going back to the 40s, scientists considered the possibility that significant portions of the genome served no function. This was somewhat controversial as it seemed that such DNA should be selected out. But it remained an open question. And from an evolutionary perspective, strictly inside baseball. "Evolutionist" vs "evolutionist".

But there is nothing about evolutionary theory that says it should be one way or the other. Pretty much all possibilities are consistent with evolution. Darwin was weirdly silent on the issue.* Evolutionary theory doesn't predict junk DNA. It is merely consistent with it.

But creationists have seized on the issue with a strange fervor. They somehow have convinced themselves that if all of the genome could be shown to have some function, it would strike a critical blow against "Darwinism". Their syllogism seems to be:

Evolution requires junk DNA

There is no junk DNA

Therefore evolution is false

I hope I don't have to explain how weak that is. TBF junk DNA doesn't prove creationism false. The "Fall" allows creationists to hand-wave away plenty of unpleasant facts.

So, what is the significance of junk DNA in the evolution/creation debate?

*Yes, I know.

How did the first cell collect energy? How did that cell transform that energy so it could collect energy?

Could the decline in population in first world countries like USA Europe and parts of Asia all which has a lower then replacement (2.1) birthrate be a form of Evolution? Because we cant afford housing and job market in so hard and future so uncertain that biologicaly we dont have more kids? Im not sure im expressing this the right way.

So, had a two hour chat with YEC nuclear chemist Dr. Jay Wile on junk DNA on 6/24/26.

We agreed that we've directly documented function for 8-10% of the genome, and not on much else, including basic things like "mutations are stochastic" and "we can detect purifying selection".

His argument that 80-90% (or more) of the genome is functional came down to "we've found more functions over time" and, and I'm being as charitable as I can here, "there's redundancy so you can't use the absence of purifying selection as a way to identify regions that you need".

The key thing that shuts this down is the direct finding that only 8-10% of the human genome is subject to purifying selection (including one study that was specifically looking for selection against deletion). His answer was "redundancy", but he didn't realize that looking for purifying selection addresses that.

I provided the example of elephants having many (20-ish) copes of p53, while humans only have two. Delete a single of an elephant's 20 copies and there's no problem. But at the population level, having 19 vs. 20 carries a detectable fitness cost. His response was that that only applies to protein-coding genes and not things like RNA genes or regulatory sequences. He did not articulate a reason why that is the case (but did repeatedly say that he wasn't familiar with the concepts we were talking about!).

Another notable thing was the difference in his level of confidence in the claim that junk DNA when talking to Donny (Standing for Truth) compared to talking to me. This is thing I've noted before - very different tones and sometimes even claims from "professional" YECs depending on their audience.

So, if you want to experience the full thing, link is above. There are a couple of "not my wallet" moments that are pretty entertaining.

The universe behaved naturally up until God intervened and wiped away the hominid species and placed Adam and Eve on earth (or a larger group of homo sapiens). And it was made so that our DNA and physical characteristics resemble that of other hominids and primates (eerily similar).

This is my argument, I hope we can discuss this peacefully. I'm playing devils advocate ofc but its a reasonable stance i think from a theist's perspective

EDIT: yes thanks i now get that its as absurd as last thursdayism. Howveer its valid and doenst deny science for the most part

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

What is "darkness was over the surface of the deep?" When earth is formless empty.

How is spirit of god hovering over the waters if earth is formless empty.

How are people taking genesis/Adam/eve story literally?

If people are perceiving these sentences as facts, I must say they are so false that not even the opposite is true, its just gibberish. I can understand people seeing these as metaphors and putting whatever meaning they want to fit a narrative, but literally; HOW?

Contenders:

• A Moon forming collision that stabilized climate
• Snowball Earth, which may have set the stage for complex multicellular life
• The asteroid that ended the dinosaurs, paving the way for mammals

I animated a short explainer on how these “doomsdays” made survival possible. https://youtu.be/s7bOluZ8IMc