Hello again to everyone! I want to start out by saying thank you so much for each and every response to my post on intelligent design. It was helpful not just to hear from each of you, but to hear from you all together at the same time, as a community. That experience taught me a lot.

Now I'm looking into the evidence for a 4.5 billion year old earth. What I'm hoping people will do is give me links to top quality science articles that address this issue. Of course I can just google it, and I plan to, but I suspect that people who are into this subject may have links I won't otherwise come across.

I've spent most of my science reading time with young earth creationist articles, but in the spirit of this quote, I want to read about the age of the earth from Secular sources:

“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them...he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.”
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Currently I believe the earth is about 6,000 years old, and if you want to see how I defend that view, you can check out this blog post of mine:

https://writingsometimesphilosophical.wordpress.com/2024/10/30/a-four-step-case-for-a-young-earth/

That having been said, I suspect there is a lot that I haven't seen when it comes to evidence for the age of the earth. Both sides want to put their best foot forward, and now I want to see the best of Secular sources. Thank you in advance to everyone who offers a link or shares their knowledge in the comments.

The primary reason I remain unimpressed by the constant insistence of how much evidence there is for evolution is my awareness of the extremely low standard for what counts as such evidence. A good example is sickle cell, and since this argument has come up several times in other posts I thought I would make a post about it.

The evolutionist will attempt to claim sickle cell as evidence for the possibility of the kind of change necessary to turn a single celled organism into a human. They will say that sickle cell trait is an evolved defence against malaria, which undergoes positive selection in regions which are rife with malaria (which it does). They will generally attempt to limit discussion to the heterozygous form, since full blown sickle cell anaemia is too obviously a catastrophic disease to make the point they want.

Even if we mostly limit ourselves to discussing sickle cell trait though, it is clear that what this is is a mutation which degrades the function of red blood cells and lowers overall fitness. Under certain types of stress, the morbidity of this condition becomes manifest, resulting in a nearly forty-fold increase in sudden death:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/46/5/325

Basically, if you have sickle cell trait, your blood simply doesn't work as well, and this underlying weakness can manifest if you really push your body hard. This is exactly like having some fault in your car that only comes up when you really try to push the vehicle to close to what it is capable of, and then the engine explodes.

The sickle cell allele is a parasitic disease. Most of its morbidity can be hidden if it can pair with a healthy allele, but it is fundamentally pathological. All function introduces vulnerabilities; if I didn't need to see, my brain could be much better protected, so degrading or eliminating function will always have some kind of edge case advantage where threats which assault the organism through said function can be better avoided. In the case of sickle cell this is malaria. This does not change the fact that sickle cell degrades blood function; it makes your blood better at resisting malaria, and worse at being blood, therefore it cannot be extrapolated to create the change required by the theory of evolution and is not valid evidence for that theory.

Found this over in the ID sub: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079610724000786

What do y’all think?

This is published in what seems to be a reputable peer-reviewed journal for biochemistry. However, beyond the very obviously biased tone and lack of professionalism throughout the whole things, I see some obvious major flaws in the methodology:

• The paper works off the assumed premise that enzymes which require cofactors in their current forms have always required cofactors

• The paper doesn’t even attempt to justify the numbers it uses for probability, it just assumes them seemingly at random

• There isn’t really any consideration given to the possibility that cofactors could just exist in the environment/arise without the help of life

That being said, I’m only an undergrad student, so I’m not super familiar with the specifics of the topic. Maybe I’ve missed something. Also, I’m inclined to think that since this is published in a peer-reviewed journal, it must have some level of rigor.

Does this paper actually make any valid points? If not, how did it manage to get through peer review?

I remember when this topic used to be very popular on chat rooms, other forums, YouTube. I remember the sense of hostility back then too. People like Chris Hitchens and Richard Dawkins being nasty and hostile. With books like "God is not great" and "The God Delusion". People like TheAmazingAtheist antagonizing Christians. Go over to DebateAnAtheist and be down voted to oblivion. Even there mods regularly beg people to stop the down voting. Maybe that discourages people. It's a culture of mockery and hostility.

Maybe you are actually winning. Everyone has access to the internet all the time now and there is so much content on the topic.

Btw I don't deny evolution. I'm a theist but as far as creation goes I believe we were created de facto by the god I worship, that he sent other creatures to drop cells (not made through magic but through an actual process)into the oceans and set everything into motion that way and then they let evolution do its thing. The only part I don't accept is abiogenesis.

The Theory of Evolution (ToE) is a mainstream, uncontroversial, foundational theory in modern Biology. It is taught and researched in every reputable university in the world. If you deny this theory, how does this relate to your view on science? Do you think that the scientific method works? If so, do you think the world's biologists are failing to use it? Are they all deluded or liars? Do you and AIG etc. know more about Biology than the world's Biologists? Or does this method not apply to living things for some reason? Or something else?

Or do you reject science itself in favor of a different method for understanding the natural world? If so, what, and why?

My position is that the scientific method is the best one we have for learning about the natural world, and that by using it, we have figured out that ToE explains the diversity of species on earth.

So I was lurking through subreddits talking about evolution vs creationism and one of those was one talking about Jay Dyer who’s one of the most sophisticated Christian apologists. (See his TAG argument for God it is basically a more complex version of pressupositionalism that I can’t really fully wrap my head around despite thinking it’s unconvincing).

Well anyways I was reading through the comments of this post seeing the usual debunkings of fundamental errors he makes in understanding evolution with his claims of it being a worldview akin to religion rather than an objective scientific theory/fact and I stumbled upon this:

“He has a phd in presuppositions. Philosophy graduates statistically score higher on almost every entrance exam than a graduate of any other field, including the very field for which the entrance exam is taken. Phil graduates score highest on MCAT LSAT GRE (med school , law school, psychology) and make up the top highest scores in entrance exams for engineering , chemistry, and biology. And that’s Phil graduates in general. Jay has a phd in a very complex facet of philosophy, branched off a field called logic (which is the field that birthed the fundamental basis of the scientific method, mind you). And besides, just because he says you don’t have to be, doesn’t mean he isn’t. The amount if biology and science classes he took, are definitely sufficient to understand basic Darwinian principles. Beyond that, with training in formal logic and presuppositions, you could literally learn just about anything. It’s an extremely rigorous field. I just took a basic logic course and was one of two students who even understood it and passed. It’s not easy. My friend w a master’s in bio failed logic. And Jay got a Phd in something far more complex, that’s built off of logic.”

This was one of the comments under the post made by user PHorseFeatherz and I just wanted to know how true this is. Does the type of deep and fundamental philosophy Jay Dyer dabbles in de facto make you a master of anything science, math, logic basically anything just by studying the basics? It seems like a really far fetched claim but what are your thoughts?

Btw here’s the original post you can find the comment in: https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateEvolution/comments/wjxupw/darwinism_deconstructed_jay_dyer/

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, and I apologise if it isn't.

I was recently talking with someone about evolution and how ERVs are considered to be very strong evidence for common descent. He sent me this article as a response

https://evolutionnews.org/2015/09/toppling_anothe/

I know Luskin and the discovery institute aren't exactly the best source, but I was wondering if their interpretation of the cited paper (http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1003504) is correct?

I'm also not sure I understand Luskins' arguement. What difference does it make if ERVs serve a function. To my understanding the fact that there are markers identifying them as ERVs and that they exist in the multiple species in the same sequence is evidence of a singular ERV insertion in a common ancestor.

Hi everyone, this is my first time posting to this community, and I thought I should start out asking for feedback. I'm a Young Earth Creationist, but I recently began looking into arguments for intelligent design from the ID websites. I understand that there is a lot of controversy over the age of the earth, it seems like a good case can be made both for and against a young earth. I am mystified as to how anyone can reject the intelligent design arguments though. So since I'm new to ID, I just finished reading this introduction to their arguments:

https://www.discovery.org/a/25274/

I'm not a scientist by any means, so I thought it would be best to start if I asked you all for your thoughts in response to an introductory article. What I'm trying to find out, is how it is possible for people to reject intelligent design. These arguments seem so convincing to me, that I'm inclined to call intelligent design a scientific fact. But I'm new to all this. I'm trying to learn why anyone would reject these arguments, and I appreciate any responses that I may get. Thank you all in advance.

There is an enormous incentive for researchers to exaggerate the amount of progress that has been made and how on the cusp they are at solving the thing or that they are making significant progress to the media, layman, and therefore the tax payer/potential donors.

Lee Cronin was quoted in 2011 (I think) in saying we are only 2 or 3 years away from producing a living cell in the lab. Well that time came and went and we haven't done it yet. It's akin to a preacher knowing things about the Bible or church history that would upset his congregation. His livelihood is at stake, telling the truth is going to cost him financially. So either consciously or subconsciously he sweeps those issues under the rug. Not to mention the HUMILIATION he would feel at having dedicated decades of his life to something that is wrong or led nowhere.

Like it or not most of us are held hostage by the so called experts. Most people lack expertise to accurately interpret the data being published in these articles, and out of those that do even fewer have the skills to determine something amiss within the article and attempt to correct it. The honest thing most people can say is "I am clueless but this is what I was told."

Note (not an edit): I was told by the mods to inform you before anyone starts shrieking and having a meltdown in the comments that I know the difference between evolution and abiogenesis but that the topic is allowed.

Hello Young Earth Creationists of r/DebateEvolution. My question is regarding the created kinds. So according to most Young Earth Creationists, every created kind is entirely unrelated to other created kinds and is usually placed at the family level. By that logic, there is no such thing as a lizard, mammal, reptile, snake, bird, or dinosaur because there are all multiple different 'kinds' of those groups. So my main question is "why are these created kinds so similar?". For instance, according to AiG, there are 23 'kinds' of pterosaur. All of these pterosaurs are technically entirely unrelated according to the created kinds concept. So AiG considers Anhangueridae and Ornithocheiridae are individual 'kinds' but look at these 2 supposedly unrelated groups: Anhangueridae Ornithocheiridae
These groups are so similar that the taxa within them are constantly being swapped between those 2 groups. How do y'all explain this when they are supposedly entirely unrelated?
Same goes for crocodilians. AiG considers Crocodylidae and Alligatoridae two separate kinds. How does this work? Why do Crocodylids(Crocodiles and Gharials) and Alligatorids(Alligators and Caimans) look so similar and if they aren't related at all?
Why do you guys even bother at trying to define terms like bird or dinosaur when you guys say that all birds aren't related to all other birds that aren't in their kind?

Look I know that creationist and learning science are in direct opposition but I know there are people learning out there. I'm just wondering if anyone has recorded that journey, I'd love to learn about science and also hear/see someone's journey through that learning process too from "unbeliever". (or video series)((also sorry if this isn't the right forum, I just don't know where to ask about this in this space))

Just to preface these is not my own words these are copy pasted taken directly from a thread I posted on r/TrueAtheism if anyone is interested, one of the top comments on this post link to it so here it is:

I will elaborate. Millions of transitional fossil forms were expected to be found by evolutionists, but they never were. If transitional forms ever existed then abundant physical evidence should remain among billions of fossils already found, not one occasional ‘aha’ event after another with overstated claims that are later demoted and disproved, as all widely touted ‘missing links’ have been. The so-called ‘Cambrian explosion’ is conventionally assumed to represent the oldest time period of animal fossils, but shows the majority of life on Earth suddenly appearing intact in the same time period with no known predecessors, and mostly in modern form. If living species did not naturally arise from non-life and transform from one kind into another, then each kind of life must have been intelligently designed and created. In an attempt to explain away this overwhelming problem, many modern evolutionists have adopted a fanciful concept called ‘punctuated equilibrium’, which is based on the idea that evolution did not occur gradually as expected by Darwin, but instead occurred so quickly at certain points in time that no evidence was left in the fossil record. In essence, then, the lack of any fossil evidence to support evolution is declared as evidence that evolution occurred but left no evidence. This type of argument is known as circular reasoning (not the highest form of logic). Rather than honestly declare the whole process a scientific failure, the ‘punctuated equilibrium’ concept was created to hang on to the evolutionary idea without even a shred of supporting evidence. Ideas that have no physical evidence aren’t scientific theories, but unscientific conjectures. Since there is no physical evidence whatsoever to support ‘punctuated equilibrium’, belief in it is unscientific.

Recent Soft Tissue and Living DNA in Supposedly Ancient Fossils

Soft tissue, living DNA and even intact blood has recently been found in many fossils, including dinosaur fossils. As in the popular movie Jurassic Park, these amazing finds have even inspired efforts to bring extinct creatures back to life! These finds include living DNA for creatures such asTyrannosaurus Rex, which is conventionally been assumed to be over 70 million years old. DNA has also been found in insects in amber dated from 25 to 135 million years old. Bacteria supposedly 250 million years old have also been revived with no DNA damage! DNA experts insist that DNA cannot exist in natural environments more than 10,000 years. Before these amazing finds, therefore, it was assumed that living tissue and DNA was far too fragile to be preserved in the fossil record, since it was supposedly millions of years old. Now that living tissue and intact DNA has been found in fossils claimed to be millions of years old, however, evolutionists are at a loss to justify their belief in evolutionary long ages despite clear evidence that disproves them. Despite such powerful evidence for relatively recent age of these creatures and the rocks their remains were found in, evolutionists still claim such creatures and sedimentary rocks they were discovered in are hundreds of millions of years old, because of their devoted belief in long ages of evolution. The presence of living tissue and intact DNA in fossils proves that fossils are only thousands, not millions of years old.

Evolutionists always point to Archaeopteryx as the great example of a transitional creature, appearing to be part dinosaur and part bird.  However, it is a fully formed, complete animal with no half-finished components or useless growths.  Most people know "the stereotypical ideal of Archaeopteryx as a physiologically modern bird with a long tail and teeth".  Research now "shows incontrovertibly that these animals were very primitive".  "Archaeopteryx was simply a feathered and presumably volant [flying] dinosaur.  Theories regarding the subsequent steps that led to the modern avian condition need to be reevaluated." --Erickson, Gregory, et al. October 2009. Was Dinosaurian Physiology Inherited by Birds? Reconciling Slow Growth in Archaeopteryx. PLoS ONE, Vol. 4, Issue 10, e7390. "Archaeopteryx has long been considered the iconic first bird."  "The first Archaeopteryx skeleton was found in Germany about the same time Darwin's Origin of Species was published.  This was a fortuituously-timed discovery: because the fossil combined bird-like (feathers and a wishbone) and reptilian (teeth, three fingers on hands, and a long bony tail) traits, it helped convince many about the veracity of evolutionary theory."  "Ten skeletons and an isolated feather have been found."  "Archaeopteryx is the poster child for evolution."  But "bird features like feathers and wishbones have recently been found in many non-avian dinosaurs".  "Microscopic imaging of bone structure... shows that this famously feathered fossil grew much slower than living birds and more like non-avian dinosaurs."  "Living birds mature very quickly and grow really, really fast", researchers say.  "Dinosaurs had a very different metabolism from today's birds.  It would take years for individuals to mature, and we found evidence for this same pattern in Archaeopteryx and its closest relatives".  "The team outlines a growth curve that indicates that Archaeopteryx reached adult size in about 970 days, that none of the known Archaeopteryx specimens are adults (confirming previous speculation), and that adult Archaeopteryx were probably the size of a raven, much larger than previously thought."  "We now know that the transition into true birds -- physiologically and metabolically -- happened well after Archaeopteryx."--October 2009. Archaeopteryx Lacked Rapid Bone Growth, the Hallmark of Birds. American Museum of Natural History, funded science online news release. What evolutionists now know for sure is that their celebrity superstar was not a transitional creature after all.  Wow!  OMG.  They better find a new one fast...    How about the Platypus?  They could call it a transitional creature between ducks and mammals.  The furry platypus has a duck-like bill, swims with webbed feet, and lays eggs.

I wanted to tell my dad about convergent evolution because I just wanted to tell him an interesting fact but then he brought up that Darwin was wrong and that birds can't have made the evoluntionary jump from dinosaurs and I went. What. And he said only god could have done it because there's no explanation for the jump from dinosaurs to birds and to search it up.

From brief internet research, it seems birds made some large evolutionary changes in a relatively short period of time from dinosaurs. Is there a way I can explain how they changed so quickly to him so that he'll shut the fuck up about god. Sources would be appreciated too so I can read through and familiarise myself with them.

I found someone who tries to counter the interpretation of universal common ancestry from genetic similarity data by claiming that it is a fallacy of begging the question. Since I do not have the repertoire to counter his arguments, I would like the members of this sub to be able to respond to him properly. the argument in question:

""If universal common ancestry is true, you would expect things to be this way, if things are this way then universal common ancestry is true." This is a rough summary of the line of thinking used by the entire scientific academy to put universal common ancestry above the hypothesis level. In scientific articles that discuss the existence of the last universal common ancestor (LUCA), what they will take as the main evidence of universal common ancestry is the fact that there is a genetic structure present in all organisms or the fact that each protein is formed by the same 20 types of amino acids or any other similarity at the genetic or molecular level. Evolution with its universal common ancestry is being given as a thesis to explain the similarity between organisms, at the same time that similarity serves as evidence that there is universal common ancestry. This is a complete circular argument divided as follows: Observed data: all living organisms share fundamental characteristics, and similar cellular structures. Premise: The existence of these similarities implies that all organisms descended from a common ancestor. Conclusion: Therefore, universal common ancestry is true because we observe these similarities. There is an obvious circularity in this argument. The premise assumes a priori what it is intended to prove. What can also occur here is a reversal of the burden of proof and the claim that an interpretation of the data is better than no interpretation and this gives universal common ancestry a status above hypothesis."

This is a a continued discussion from my first OP:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateEvolution/comments/1g4ygi7/curious_as_to_why_abiogenesis_is_not_included/

You can study cooking without knowing anything about where the ingredients come from.

You can also drive a car without knowing anything about mechanical engineering that went into making a car.

The problem with God/evolution/abiogenesis is that the DEBATE IS ABOUT WHERE ‘THINGS’ COME FROM. And by things we mean a subcategory of ‘life’.

“In Darwin and Wallace's time, most believed that organisms were too complex to have natural origins and must have been designed by a transcendent God. Natural selection, however, states that even the most complex organisms occur by totally natural processes.”

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/what-is-natural-selection.html#:~:text=Natural%20selection%20is%20a%20mechanism,change%20and%20diverge%20over%20time.

Why is the word God being used at all here in this quote above?

Because:

Evolution with Darwin and Wallace was ABOUT where animals (subcategory of life) came from.  

All this is related to WHERE humans come from.

Scientists don’t get to smuggle in ‘where things come from in life’ only because they want to ‘pretend’ that they have solved human origins.

What actually happened in real life is that scientists stepped into theology and philosophy accidentally and then asking us to prove things using the wrong tools.

Artificial selection proves that external circumstances literally change an animal’s appearance, said external circumstances being us. Modern Cats and dogs look nothing like their ancestors.

This proves that genes with enough time can lead to drastic changes within an animal, so does this itself not prove evolution? Even if this is seen from artificial selection, is it really such a stretch to believe this can happen naturally and that gene changes accumulate and lead to huge changes?

Of course the answer is no, it’s not a stretch, natural selection is a thing.

So because of this I don’t understand why any deniers of evolution keep using the “evolution hasn’t been proven because we haven’t seen it!” argument when artificial selection should be proof within itself. If any creationists here can offer insight as to WHY believe Chihuahuas came from wolfs but apparently believing we came from an ancestral ape is too hard to believe that would be great.

There is... a known phenomenon in psychology where people will reject information, however well supported, if it comes from an "enemy". There are many reasons for this, some of them quite complex, but it definitely is a thing that does, in fact, happen.

This can make convincing creationists that "special creation" (especially YEC) is, in fact, utter nonsense especially difficult. If you consider yourself a "God-fearing" person, arguments from someone who literally wrote a book entitled "The God Delusion" are definitely going to feel like they're coming from an enemy.

So, what are your favorite sources--books, videos, websites, podcasts, whatever--explaining evolution and/or arguing against creationism from a source that is, at a minimum, reasonably respectful towards the concept of religion/a Creator? They don't necessarily need to be from someone who is, themselves, a theist (eg I'd put Forest Valkai's videos in this camp, even though he is explicitly an atheist, because he never mocks or is rude about the concept of theism, just... the bad-faith arguments made by many creationists), though things by actual theists would be a bonus.

Basically, I'm looking for a list of resources that, eg, an ex-creationist can show to their best beloved to try to convince them that they are, in fact, wrong in rejecting evolution that aren't going to just get rejected as "the Devil's work" or whatever.

Like he gets thrown into discussions about the validity of evolution a lot for obvious reasons (some of those reasons are stupid like thinking the theory hasn’t changed beyond what he initially proposed).

But I also think even we do not appreciate him enough, the man is a role model for what a scientist should be. He writes eloquently exposing his ideas for what they are while welcoming criticism in the holes of his theory at the time, he was progressive probably due to his theory because it makes no sense to order people into different races based on superficial skin and facial features even without the genetic evidence of our common descent from Africa. Really the only thing I’ve found to rag him on is him marrying his cousin but that’s it, what do you guys think?

So I’ve been rewatching his videos on creationists recently and they’re a lot of fun and very informative. However, recently I decided to challenge my views a bit and see if there are any serious rebuttals out there aside from James Tour (they seem to be rivals) and some random Muslim apologists online.

So I went searching for a rebuttal for what I think is the most damning video on the Discovery Institute in particular, this was the very first video Dave made on exposing these guys which was talking about Casey Luskin blatantly lying about Lucy’s bipedal stance.

And I found this article on it from evolution news which was the first result:

https://evolutionnews.org/2022/05/examining-professor-daves-absurd-attack-on-casey-luskin/

I honestly do not know how to respond to this so I’d like some help, for reference here’s the original video:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HRxq1Vrf_Js&pp=ygUZZGF2ZSBleHBsYWlucyBjYWV5IGx1c2tpbg%3D%3D

How are you able to account for the presence of endogenous retroviruses on the same loci for species that share close common ancestors? For reference retroviruses are those that replicate within germ line cells, being such they are passed from parent to offspring and will stay within that genome. About 8% of the human genome is composed of these ERV’s. Humans and chimps share 95,0000 ERV’s in the exact same location within the genome. As you could guess this number decreases the further you go back in common ancestry. So how can you account for this?

I am not here to deceive so I will openly let you all know that I am a YEC wanting to debate evolution.

But, my question is this:

Why the sensitivity when it comes to abiogenesis and why is it not part of the debate of evolution?

For example:

If I am debating morality for example, then all related topics are welcome including where humans come from as it relates to morality.

So, I claim that abiogenesis is ABSOLUTELY a necessary part of the debate of evolution.

Proof:

This simple question/s even includes the word 'evolution':

Where did macroevolution and microevolution come from? Where did evolution come from?

Are these not allowed? Why? Is not knowing the answer automatically a disqualification?

Another example:

Let's say we are debating the word 'love'.

We can talk all day long about it with debates ranging from it being a 'feeling' to an 'emotion' to a 'hormone' to even 'God'.

However, this isn't my point:

Is it WRONG to ask where 'love' comes from?

Again, I say no.

Thanks for reading.

Update: After reading many of your responses I decided to include this:

It is a valid and debatable point to ask 'where does God come from' when creationism is discussed. And that is a pretty dang good debate point that points to OUR weakness although I can respond to it unsatisfying as it is.

So I think AGAIN, we should be allowed to ask where things come from as part of the debate.

SECOND update due to repetitive comments:

My reply to many stating that they are two different topics: If a supernatural cause is a possibility because we don’t know what caused abiogenesis then God didn’t have to stop creating at abiogenesis.

In trying to understand the difference between these two concepts, two common differences given the assumptions of a closed system and a very long period of time. Louis Pasture disproved the idea of spontaneous generation through his experiments with meat and bacteria in a jar. A common distinction I see is that his test didn't account for a system that was open and occurred over a long period of time. However I struggle to see how this is an acceptable answer since if one just changes the level of analysis from the scale of earth to that of the universe one of the two condition clearly is meet by all members of the universe. The universe is understood as a closed system just like the jar that Pasture used to conduct his experiment. All evolution has occurred within the universe which one knows is closed so then why is it not justified come to the conclusion that abiogenesis cannot occur anywhere within the universe which the earth is a part? Are there versions of abiogenesis which allow for life to develop in a closed system over very long period of time or are both required for it to occur? I assume other people have made this point.

This topic has come up before and been the subject of many back and forths, most often between evolution proponents. I've almost only ever seen people asserting one way or the other, using anecdotes at most, and never going any deeper, so I wanted to make this.

First, the big book of biology, aka Campbell's textbook 'Biology' (I'm using Ctrl+F in the 12th ed), only contains the word 'microevolution' 19 times, and 13 of them are in the long list of references. For macroevolution it's similar figures. For a book that's 1493 pages long and contains 'evolution' 1856 times (more than once per page on average), clearly these terms aren't very important to know about, so that's not a good start.

Next, using Google Ngram viewer [1], I found that the terms "microevolution" and "macroevolution" are virtually nonexistent in any literature (includes normal books). While the word "evolution" starts gaining popularity after 1860, which is of course just after Darwin published Origin of Species, the words "microevolution" and "macroevolution" don't start appearing until the late 1920s. This is backed up by the site of a paleontology organisation [2] which states that the term "macroevolution" was invented in 1927 by Russian entomologist (insect researcher) Yuri Filipchenko. Following on with source [2], the meaning of macroevolution back then, as developed by Goldschmidt in 1940, referred to traits that separate populations at or above the genus level, caused by a special type of mutation called a "macromutation". With the benefit of hindsight we know that no such special type of mutation exists, so the term is invalid in its original definition.

Biology has long since moved on from these ideas - the biological species concept is not the be all and end all as we now know, and macromutations are not a thing for hopefully obvious reasons, though one could make loose analogies with mutations in (say) homeotic genes, perhaps. Any perceived observation of 'macroevolution' is effectively Gould's idea of punctuated equilibrium, which has well-known causes grounded within evolutionary theory that explains why nonlinear rates of evolution are to be expected.

Nowadays, macroevolution refers to any aspect of evolutionary theory that applies only above the species level. It is not a unique process on its own, but rather simply the result of 'microevolution' (the aspects of the theory acting on a particular species) acting on populations undergoing speciation and beyond. This is quite different to how creationists use the term: "we believe microevolution (they mean adaptation), but macroevolution is impossible and cannot be observed, because everything remains in the same kind/baramin". They place an arbitrary limit on microevolution, which is completely ad-hoc and only serves to fit their preconcieved notion of the kind (defined only in the Bible, and quite vaguely at that, and never ever used professionally). In the context of a debate, by using the terms macro/microevolution, we are implicitly acknowledging the existence of these kinds such that the limits are there in the first place.

Now time for my anecdote, though as I'm not a biologist it's probably not worth anything - I have never once heard the terms micro/macroevolution in any context in my biology education whatsoever. Only 'evolution' was discussed.

My conclusion: I'll tentatively go with "No". The terms originally had a definition but it was proven invalid with further developments in biology. Nowadays, while there are professional definitions, they are a bit vague (I note this reddit post [3]) and they seem to be used in the literature very sparingly, often in historical contexts (similar to "Darwinism" in that regard). For the most part the terms are only ever used by creationists. I don't think anyone should be using these terms in the context of debate. It's pandering to creationists and by using those words we are debating on their terms (literally). Don't fall for it. It's all evolution.

~~~

Sources:

[1] Google Ngram viewer: evolution ~ 0.003%, microevolution ~ 0.000004%, macroevolution ~ 0.000005%.

[2] Digital Atlas of Ancient Life: "The term “macroevolution” seems to have been coined by a Russian entomologist named Yuri Filipchenko (1927) in “Variabilität und Variation.”". This page has its own set of references at the bottom.

[3] Macroevolution is a real scientific term reddit post by u/AnEvolvedPrimate

https://ibb.co/2NPRxbP

Preface

I'll be mostly sharing something that blew my mind, which I also hope would make a recurrent topic easier, that being the genetic differences matching the probabilistic mutation.

Two experiments

I've recently come across two seminal papers from 1952 and 1969 (1.8k and 2.3k citations, respectively).

The first paper/experiment settled the then-still-debatable role of mutation, where it was demonstrated that random mutation—not existing/lurking variation—was the process behind adaptation. This brings us to the post's title: given the random mutation, what is the expected outcome?

Enter the second paper:

The hypothesis was that random mutations to codons would lead to the amino acids forming the proteins to have an expected frequency based on how many codons are there per amino acid; as a simple example:

• Say we have only 6 codons, each codes for 1 amino acid (think a six-sided die), then we expect to find all 6 amino acids in rough proportions in proteins. E.g. if a protein is 360 amino acids long, then we'll find ~60 of each amino acid.

• Say one of those amino acids is coded for by 2 codons, not just 1 (that side is slightly loaded in the die analogy), then that amino acid will be twice as likely to be found as any other amino acid. I.e. ~100 of that amino acid versus ~50 for each of the other five.

• The second study did that for all the codons/amino acids, and it was a match. (Except for Arg, as was "predicted" a few years earlier, and it has to do with the now understood mammalian CpG; the different hypotheses then-discussed are also historically cool, but I digress.)

📷 The graph and table from that paper (I can't say which is cooler, the table or the graph).

To me this is mind-blowing (one of those "How else could it be"). More so that molecular biology got there decades before the big-data genomics era. (I expected it to be cited in the 2005 Nature paper linked below, but it wasn't—and now I totally get Dr. Moran's frustration.)

tl;dr:

Basically take any large enough protein, count the different amino acids, and the frequencies will closely match the expectation from "dice rolling" the codons; experimentally verified for 55 years now, and now genomics is finding the same but by way of how single nucleotides mutate probabilistically.

(To the curious/learner/lurker: this is but one aspect of one of the main five processes in evolution, and note that while mutation is random, selection is not.)

Over to you

If I over-simplified, if there's a better tl;dr, if there's even more cool stuff related to that topic, please share.

(This also made me wonder about the protein active sites, and it turns out, active sites are a mere 3–4 amino acids long—another big TIL.)

The papers and links:

• Lederberg, Joshua, and Esther M. Lederberg. "Replica plating and indirect selection of bacterial mutants." Journal of bacteriology 63.3 (1952): 399-406.

  • (🥇 1958 Nobel Prize work.)

• King, Jack Lester, and Thomas H. Jukes. "Non-Darwinian Evolution: Most evolutionary change in proteins may be due to neutral mutations and genetic drift." Science 164.3881 (1969): 788-798.

  • Shout-out to Dr. Zach (from the B[&]S academic debunk) and his YouTube channel.

• Initial sequence of the chimpanzee genome and comparison with the human genome | Nature; simplified and discussion here:

  • Testing Common Ancestry: It’s All About the Mutations - BioLogos

  • Human Genetics Confirms Mutations as the Drivers of Diversity and Evolution – EvoGrad

  • I asked over 25 creationists to see if they could understand evidence for evolution. They could not. : DebateEvolution by u/AnEvolvedPrimate

If the whole Earth was drowned in a global flood, which left the rock layers we see today, with pre-Flood animals buried and fossilized in those layers, why do we not see any fossil evidence of human habitation in those layers, such as houses, tools, clothes, etc.?

Edit: I've been told it doesn't belong here plenty already but I do appreciate recommends for alternative subreddits, I don't want to delete because mass delete rules/some people are having their own conversations and I don't know the etiquette.

I'm not really an experienced debater, and I don't know if this argument has already been made before but I was wondering;

When asked if God can make a stone so heavy that he himself cannot lift it, many creationists respond with the argument that God is incapable of commiting logical paradoxes but that does not count as a limitation of his power but rather the paradox itself sits outside of the realm of possibility.

BUT

Creationist also often argue God MUST be the explanation for two big questions precisely BECAUSE they present a logical paradox that sits outside of the realm of possibility. ie "something cannot come from nothing, therefore a creator must be required for the existence of the Universe" and "Life cannot come from non-life, therefore a creator must be required for the existence of life", because God can do these things that are (seemingly) logically paradoxical.

Aside from both those arguments having their own flaws that could be discussed. If a respondent creationist has already asserted the premise that God cannot commit logical paradoxes, would that not create a contradiction in using God to explain away logical paradoxes used to challenge a naturalist explanation or a lack of explanation?

I'm new here and pretty green about debate beyond Facebook, so any info that might strengthen or weaken/invalidate the assumptions, and any tips on structuring an argument more concisely and clearly or of any similar argument that is already formed better by someone else would be super appreciated.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotence_paradox

Evolution, as related to genomics, refers to the process by which living organisms change over time through changes in the genome. Such evolutionary changes result from mutations that produce genomic variation, giving rise to individuals whose biological functions or physical traits are altered.

i have no problem with this definition its true we can see but when someone talks about the past i get skeptic cause we cant be sure with 100% certainty that there was a common ancestor between humans and apes

we have fossils of a dead living organisms have some features of humans and apes.

i dont have a problem with someone says that the best explanation we have common ancestor but when someone says it happened with certainty i dont get it .

my second question how living organisms got from single living organism to male and females .

from asexual reproduction to sexual reproductions.

thanks for responding i hope the reply be simple please avoid getting angry when replying 😍😍😍

As this is a long post I felt it necessary to divide it into two sections. Part 1 will need to be viewed for context.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateEvolution/s/4vVSSddsEp

"Who is Finding Them?”

——————————————

Despite the low likelihood of a complete vertebrate entering the fossil record, quite a few inevitably will due to random chance, especially over the tens of millions of years dinosaurs existed and the sheer population sizes those animals must have had when put together. There are enough relatively complete fossilized skeletons of dinosaurs from all the major groups to nullify a good chunk of what Dubay is saying but he is of course, incredulous of any such discovery.

This is because, he notes, that dinosaurs are very poorly attested to before the 19th century and are primarily found by paleontologists. Why didn’t the native Americans know about dinosaurs and why aren’t farmers, ranchers, hikers, outdoor recreationalists, build construction industry, basement excavators pipeline trench diggers, and mining industry personnel frequently rather than on rare occasions finding such fossils?

Both of these observations are true, but I think an understanding of how such fossils would even occur in the first place and some knowledge of history dispels either of these observations as being particularly unusual, not unusual enough at least to propose they are instead explained better by conspiracy.

“Dinos of the Bronze Age” —————————————-

As explaining the lack of knowledge of dinosaurs from my perspective needs several factors to be understood, I will be plainly describing them in a list format.

1. Historical records from Roman times (2000-1500 years ago) and earlier are particularly scant today. Estimates go that roughly 90% at the least of writings from the ancient world have been lost. This is due to the tendency of paper and parchment to disintegrate if not properly maintained in certain chemical environments, accidental destructions, or even intentional destruction if one political group disliked a certain author’s work, (Trey the Explainer has a wonderful video on this subject here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcb2oLSb7Cs) If fossils of dinosaurs were ever written about that far in the past, it is quite likely they no longer exist.

2. Today, we take it for granted (especially when we are naturalists or scientists as many on this sub are) to want to possess an extremely detailed record of everything in nature. Countless species of plants and animals from all over the world have been collected, placed in museums or zoos/aquaria and given neat little scientific names with extensive writings about their kind in many books and websites. Pre-modern societies didn’t seem to have this fervor for a meticulous record of nature unless it was something for practical use such as books of plants described for the use of herbal medicines as an example.

To demonstrate this difference when looking at paleontology as a whole, I attempted to the best of my ability to find medieval or ancient accounts describing fossils. There are a few if you know where to look that were briefly described by authors such as Pliny the Elder, Aristotle, or Chinese historians such as Shen Kuo, but I estimate there are only dozens of records throughout this global history overall if we look at what has been uploaded online. Perhaps you could find a bit more perusing through a library.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shen_Kuo

https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/ancient.html

https://www.theedkins.co.uk/jo/fossils/pliny.htm

In extreme contrast, many thousands of books and papers have been written about myriads of fossils since the 19th century began (far, far more than just dinosaurs any fossil remains of any plant or animal you can think of has been written about quite a lot in the scientific literature). The pattern Dubay has noted that people “suddenly” started finding numerous fossils of dinosaurs applies even more strongly to every clam, tree, crinoid, and mastodon that also “suspiciously” increased in number at the time, fossils that outnumber every dinosaur by millions to one. Any fossil, dinosaur or not that was uncovered in ancient villages by farmers or quarrymen or perhaps excavators digging a foundation for their city’s walls was far more likely to go on deaf ears and blind eyes if no one cared enough to write it down but became far more likely to be recorded when people interested in the subject first began trying to scour the earth for them.

3. Ancient and medieval societies were certainly not inhabited by stupids, but they most certainly had a poorer understanding of anatomy than what we do today. Many aspects of the living things as well as fossils were viewed through a magical sort of lens rather than an understanding of their anatomy and this caused many fossil organisms to be misinterpreted by ancient societies. Here, I give a few notable examples of this sort of magical thinking that was applied to the fossil record.

“Glossopetra”, literally meaning tongue stones, were rocks that many ancient Europeans believed had magical properties, and were used in some medicines. It is now obvious today that these were actually fossilized shark teeth. They never made this connection despite probably knowing to some extent what sharks are, which is a bit baffling to me.

https://web.prm.ox.ac.uk/amulets/index.php/tooth-amulet5/index.html

Some communities in Britain historically viewed fossils of sea urchins and belemnites as “thunderstones”, magical objects that were formed by lightning strikes and could protect their homes from them.

https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803104511138

The Chinese for centuries (and still today) have quarried for fossils of various creatures in order to grind them up into a powder and sell it as a medicinal ingredient. Fossil bones are the most commonly used and are referred to in both modern and ancient texts as “dragom bones”. These bones however, are usually not from dinosaurs (or dragons) but far more abundant fossils of Pleistocene mammals.

https://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2021/03/dinosaur-fossils-and-chinese-dragons.html?m=1

Whenever ancient or medieval people found fossils of dinosaurs, there’s not only the issue of it actually being recorded in the first place but being accurately recognized. Many historical accounts that do exist describing fossils of vertebrates are vague as to what their anatomy even is and are interpreted in a mythological lens as described. The other hitting point about this issue is not just how many accounts do we even have of such fossils being found but how are we even able to tell since sketches of them are practically absent.

“Disinterested Parties”

————————————

Why is it that paleontologists are typically the ones finding fossils of dinosaurs currently? Well, if you are one of a “disinterested party” who is essentially excavating at random when it comes to fossil bearing horizons of rock, of course it is going to be far less likely than someone who is searching with knowledge and intent. Dinosaur fossils are far from being found everywhere, as I already eluded to, they are rare, significantly outnumbered by the fossil records of other organisms, especially sea dwelling non-vertebrates such as the bivalves, Brachiopods, crinoids, trilobites, corals etc. They cannot be found in rocks that are too old or too young, as this was either before they evolved or after they went extinct. In many places (such as where I live) Paleozoic rocks are primarily exposed at the surface, and in others, Cenozoic sediments may cover Mesozoic (when dinosaurs existed) rock sequences, making any dinosaur fossils there inaccessible completely at the surface.

Depositional environments are also very important. Most sedimentary rocks accumulated in the ocean, where a dead dinosaur is rather unlikely (though possible) to be buried and preserved. Dinosaur fossils are (with only a few exceptions) found in high numbers enough to be common in certain groups of rocks that accumulated as sediments in rivers, lakes, and floodplains on land. Since terrestrial sediments are more likely to be eroded away and occur over less widespread areas than marine ones (look up accommodation space for an explanation of this geologically) , most land areas will not preserve such rocks. Paleontologists are going to regions where it is already well known through mapping by geologists where such fossil rich horizons preserving dinosaurs may be, and thus where to focus their hunts rather than a mine or quarry or highway construction project which will only uncover them at all if they were built in just the right place due to sheer luck.

Other compounding factors with this may include accidental destruction of such fossils by equipment (this almost happened with the Suncor Nodosaur

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p_Jb64fwnjI ), as well as a “disinterested party” simply not recognizing or taking care for such things, especially before paleontologists started trying to cooperate with many of them as much as possible such as what happens in Alberta, where mines and quarries are often encouraged to report such fossils to the government, or some excavation companies doing roadwork having similar policies. If you’re a truly “disinterested party” as Dubay uses the term, why would you be necessarily interested in noticing it?

https://www.denverpost.com/2017/08/31/construction-crew-that-found-thorntons-triceratops-fossils-considered-heroes/amp/