First off, "reality deniers" is not an ad hom.
Also said deniers (Salem Hypothesis engineers and designer-ists included) are categorically so given the mind-projection fallacy.

Now: said reality deniers invoke tornado imagery putting together a computer, detached-from-reality combinatorial calculations for mutations, and Pokemon transformation (build another model) for evolution.
Each of those are based on a LEGO mindset.

Abiogenesis (i.e. geobiochemistry) is NOT the putting together of a cell, Lego style.
- You can't invoke design as we know it (and as we don't know it is just vacuous).

Embryology is NOT the building of bodies with parts, Lego style.
- You can't invoke design as we know it (and as we don't know it is just vacuous).

And evolution, a population-level process, is NOT Legos.
- You can't invoke design as we know it (and as we don't know it is just vacuous).

As a taste for development (embryology), from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9992/:

... Gastrulation usually involves some combination of the following types of movements

• Invagination. The infolding of a region of cells, much like the indenting of a soft rubber ball when it is poked.
• Involution. The inturning or inward movement of an expanding outer layer so that it spreads over the internal surface of the remaining external cells.
• Ingression. The migration of individual cells from the surface layer into the interior of the embryo.
• Delamination. The splitting of one cellular sheet into two more or less parallel sheets.
• Epiboly. The movement of epithelial sheets (usually of ectodermal cells) that spread as a unit, rather than individually, to enclose the deeper layers of the embryo.

Which of those are design/engineering/Lego processes? And if your first thought is what's that got to do with evolution, evolution begins with a change in development. If your second thought is it was designed to act like that, read the sentence that I repeated three times above.

Welcome to reality.

There's no doubt evolution exists today and it's observed, even small things like genetics and adaptation, some will call this micro-evolution. I find evolution very interesting and fascinating so sometimes I wonder, macro-evolution, it exists, but to those who believe it doesn't, why do they care so much to prove it doesn't exist? Evolution doesn't seem to be hurting them by just existing? Evolution works on a generation scale which will take effect and changes million of years after they're long gone. So why do some people care so much about disproving it I am curious?

Critics of evolution attack the theory from many angles - when it's not an argument from "nuh uh", it's from philosophy, theology, probability, sometimes physics and very occasionally biology. Notably, among these fields, only theology/philosophy is ever used to support a belief in creationism, but perhaps that's not surprising.

Arguments from mathematics, usually of the form "it's only a 1 in 10^[big number] chance that this thing could have evolved", i.e. invoking probability and statistics, seem to be used by creationists with disproportionately high frequency. Why might this be?

Mathematics has a reputation, and perhaps rightly so, for being the purest subject of them all. This means that, when working in pure mathematics, your theories (rather, theorems) do not have any prior connection to the real physical world. A person using maths alone to make any claim about something in the real world must justify why they believe their mathematical model reflects reality. This justification can come in one of two common forms:

1. They can point to the physical process they are trying to describe, and explain how these processes have been reduced to a mathematical description, using suitable modelling assumptions justified on physical bases. This is common in biology, engineering, chemistry and most experimental sciences - for example, the Lotka-Volterra model of predator-prey population sizes over time, where each term in the system of differential equations has a physical interpretation, or the Price equation and Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection.
2. They can use their mathematical model to make predictions about reality under certain conditions, and when observing reality under those conditions, the observations should match the prediction with some stated precision. This is common in biology too, but also in theoretical physics (e.g. quantum mechanics' Schrodinger equation - it's tricky to get much a priori physical intuition out of why it works, but it sure does seem to work).

The strongest mathematical models in science are devised first theoretically using (1), and then verified empirically using (2). The models in population genetics (e.g. Hardy-Weinberg, Wright-Fisher, Haldane, Moran, Kimura, Kingman, etc...), which is the modern theory of evolution's mathematical core, fall into this top-tier for example.

How does this compare to creationists' mathematical models?

When a creationist makes a 'big numbers' argument, they are claiming the mathematical model they have used within the calculation reflects reality. Once again, that's not something they just get to assume, they must justify it, by explicitly stating their assumptions and discussing their validity.

There are reasons for this shirking of rigour. The reputation of mathematics for its purity grants it some prestige in the minds of laypeople. The average Joe would think that mathematicians are the undisputed authority on the matter, and that biologists are hopeless at it. Yet, whenever maths comes up in debate, it is always being discussed in the context of applied maths, which mathematicians (being pure) are generally not all that great at without specific training in mathematical modelling. This is the failure of many professional intelligent design proponents like John Lennox for example. Scientists (and engineers, when they're not Saleming themselves), on the other hand, use maths exclusively in this applied setting, and are therefore far more competent at creating good mathematical models. With laypeople being the primary target audience of intelligent design/creationist media, they are banking on exploiting this misunderstanding in the applicability of mathematics.

When creationists make these types of arguments, they never do the hard work of justifying the model's connection to reality. In fact, when these arguments inevitably lose their polished facade as they are filtered down the creationist food chain (Discovery Institute -> e-preachers -> rank and file creationists), they often don't even state their models all. They'll just rattle off "big numbers" and sit back, not even realising that their argument is automatically dead on arrival for this reason.

I claim that, all mathematical arguments that creationists have ever made, will ever make, and could ever make with "evolution is false" as the logical conclusion will fail in this manner, because a sound justification of modelling assumptions followed by empirical validation has already been done - and evolution got there first. The absolute best case that a creationist mathematical argument could possibly be would be for it to be based on the same models as ours, and then distort the conclusions - which would then not be a mathematical argument but rather a scientific one. It is notable that so few "creation scientists" have even tried to do this - it's what they'd do if they were real scientists.

As an aside, I think there is a certain 'snobbiness' at play whenever one of those Discovery Institute (or similar) PhD-holding creationists makes an argument from mathematics big numbers. They are implying that biologists are incompetent at maths and are too stupid to see these things for themselves, such that someone who isn't scared of numbers needs to step in and 'rescue' them and clear everything up for them. Biology does have a reputation for being the science that historically avoided maths, but this is a laughably outdated and wrong way of seeing it today, and has been since the 1920s with the work of Fisher, Haldane, Wright etc that birthed the Modern Synthesis. These people invented statistics(!) and laid the foundations of stochastic process theory which has brought forth countless fruits in the applied sciences. People outside the field (i.e. all creationists, and most laypeople) don't know that evolution has a robust mathematical core (population genetics) - it's not as flashy as lions and dinosaurs and whatnot so it doesn't show up in any popsci articles or documentaries - but it's there, and all serious evolutionary biologists know it.

So, creationists:

• Using your favourite mathematical argument against evolution, justify that it is valid reflection of reality by using one of the two methods I stated in the above (justification of modelling assumptions, or empirical validation, and ideally both).
• Explain why all the mathematical models that underpin evolution are wrong, or don't support the conclusions that are drawn from them.

TLDR:

• Mathematics does not produce facts about biology by itself. It produces consequences of assumptions. Whether those assumptions accurately describe biological evolution is a scientific question, not a mathematical one.
• If your mathematical argument concludes evolution is impossible, then one of two things must be true:
  • your model differs from accepted population genetics, in which case you must justify why your assumptions better describe biology; or,
  • your model is equivalent to accepted population genetics, in which case your conclusions should agree with evolutionary biology.

Good morning people. I felt like writing here again mostly as a request to refute an ID argument given that, even though I started doing my due diligence recently in order to actually know about the subject, this is still a significant stepping stone for me. I have a very hard time understanding how it could be possible for some interdependent organs to form without being guided by something since they feel like such delicate systems such as the circulatory system of vertebrates or for instance how thermites need certain microorganisms to survive which reciprocally need the thermites to thrive, but I am absolutely willing to hear you out.

I am sorry if someone felt ignored in my previous OP since I just didn’t see myself able to respond to every single comment given even though I thanked all of them afterwards. I will reiterate my appreciation for all the responses here in case someone did not see it.

Well, I am from Brazil, and although I am learning to read English well, writing it is still beyond my ability. So, I used a translator to put this into your language; I hope you like it.

In recent years, Young Earth Creationism—imported from the USA—has been growing significantly in my country. Consequently, I have witnessed many clashes between science and the faith held by these people. One topic of interest I want to highlight here is this:

I believe that, regarding the global flood as advocated by fundamentalists, the fossil record is—quite simply and directly—the best way to refute that idea.

There are no rabbits in the Cambrian, nor cats alongside velociraptors in the fossil record. If all animals had lived together (dinosaurs, large mammals, etc.) on a single supercontinent, the fossil record would be an unparalleled biological jumble, rather than the evolutionary record we know today. Contrary to what we would expect from a global flood, the fossil record and modern animals display a highly gradual, orderly, fragmented, dispersed, and sometimes even predictable organization across distinct, identifiable geological strata. If a creature that, in theory, should have appeared more recently (a fox, for example) were found in Triassic rock, it would completely undermine everything we know; yet, such a thing has never happened.

Consider this: finding an animal from an older stratum in a more recent one—or even finding it still alive today (a "living fossil")—does not refute evolution. However, finding an animal from a recent stratum in an ancient one would be devastating to the theory (though this depends, of course, on the specific animal, stratum, and context). There is no issue, for instance, with a Carboniferous animal (like the dragonfly) still existing today in a different form; yet, it would be catastrophic for the theory of evolution if an animal from a more recent era—such as a seal—were found in Permian strata. That simply does not happen. In fact, fossils of large animals should be perfectly preserved—precisely because of the Flood; huge mummified sauropods, like the *Borealopelta* found in Canada, ought to be relatively common.

Furthermore, if all the continents were truly united such a short time ago and inhabited by literally every species that has ever existed, then geography should allow for fossils of animals native to Brazil—such as sloths, armadillos, or anteaters—to be found in Africa. After all, during the time of Pangea, Brazil was literally attached to Africa, and nothing would have prevented anything from a *Megatherium* to a common sloth from being found there—yet that does not happen. Similarly, kangaroo fossils are not found in Southeast Asia or China. If they had indeed all coexisted at a time before continental separation, there should be evidence of animal dispersal across continents, without abrupt divisions in flora and fauna.

That is why the fossil record runs counter to Young Earth Creationism. Of course, there is much more to be said, but take my word for it: press a creationist on this point, force them to try to give you a good answer, and then watch them fail miserably with the flimsiest excuses or desperately change the subject to avoid further embarrassment...

Sorry for any mistakes! and thank you for your attention.

What else could be added to make the argument even stronger?

I say this because I think often when I’m trying to understand a belief that goes against the scientific consensus I tend to look for any face validity or seeds of reason, or truth. For instance I might try to relate to why someone would believe a conspiracy theory by thinking about how people do lie sometimes and that might make conspiracy theories seem more plausible than they really are. If someone believes that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects I might think of how even though that belief turns out to be wrong it has face validity and may be based on seeds of truth, such as how a heavier object falling the same distance is more likely to crush someone than a lighter object. I might also think about times that I misunderstood something in science and what helped or didn’t help me understand it.

I think young Earth Creationism stemming from religion might make considerations of how it could stem from seeds of reason less useful. I mean I think when Young Earth Creationism is based on religion that means that it’s not just from misunderstanding Evolution, although that’s part of it, but from in some sense not being allowed to understand or at least not being allowed to accept the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. I think that aspect makes it a lot harder to understand how to try to change the minds of Young Earth Creationists, because I think it’s much easier to try to educate someone who misunderstands something in science, but who is at least allowed to understand the science, than someone who’s religious beliefs may not really allow them to understand something in science.

Could it have been possible that Neanderthals possessed a awareness similar to what we have now, what I’m asking is where they or possibly could’ve been aware of the fact that they are roaming a giant terrestrial rock, or have a religion, or the belief in something else other than human?

Coming from someone whose curiosity has gotten the best of them and decided to ask people who know more than I do on the matter.

Introduction

Hello again r/DebateEvolution. A few weeks ago was revealed a new avialan dinosaur originating from the Nanyuan formation in the fujian province in the southeastern China.

The paper is titled "Jurassic avialan reveals stepwise evolution of bony tail in birds"

The new genus and species was named Zhengheornis buyu referring Zhenghe County, where the holotype specimen was, the suffix "ornis" means "bird". The specific name "buyu" is mandarin for "unexpected" referring to its unusual combination of characters.

Zhenghenornis was found in sediments form the titonian in the upper jurassic between 150 and 148 million years ago. the Nanyuan formation has recently yielded some important discoveries of avialan dinosaurs from this period.

Why is fossil this important?

Diagnostic traist (autopomorphies) of this taxon include: middle and posterior caudal vertebrae less elongate; final two caudal vertebrae box-like; manual phalanx III-1 shorter than III-2, manual phalanx III-3 50% longer than III-2. But above all a short tail comprising 15 vertebrae that is shorter than the hindlimb.

And is this character than become a new transitional form. Basal theropod dinosaurs had long tails with 40 and 50 caudal vertebrae, while the modern birds have a short tail with a pygostile, a structure where the last caudals are fused.

If the evolution is true and the birds evolve from theropod dinosaurs we predict a gradual reduction from long tails to short tails, and then the origin of the pygostile. That is exactly that we see.

Stepwise tail reduction in the bird lineage:

1. Theropods (~230 million years ago): almost 50 caudals, no pygostyle
2. Coelurosaurs (~190-180 million years ago): approximately 40 caudals, no pygostyle
3. Maniraptorans (>170 million years ago): between 30 and 26 caudals, more slender tail, no pygostyle
4. Avialae (>160 million years ago): 26-20 caudals, not pygostyle
5. Zhengheornis buyu (~150-148 million years ago): 15 vertebrae, not pygostyle
6. Avebrevicauda and pygostylia(~140-130 million years ago): 8-6 free caudals and 10-5 in the pygostyle (at the origin long and with neural spines).
7. Neornithes (modern birds) (~100-90 million years ago, according to the molecular clock): 9-5 free caudals and 7-3 in the pygostyle.

How we can see Zhengheornis is transitional between ancient birds like archaeopteryx and more recent birds like confuciusornis in the number of free caudal vertebrea, also when can see that the tail's legth is intermidiate.

Phylogenetic position

An important detail that we cannot overlook is that the paper situe the new taxon in a more derived position that archaeoptery and anchiornitids, but in a less derived position than jeholornis, pygostylia, and Baminornis zhenghensis, another short-tailed bird of the same formation and age, however the baminornis' pygostyle have been reinterpreted like a synsacrum, but this does not seem to have affected his phylogenetic position.

If I offer my opinion both taxa (mainly Baminornis) can be related with a japanese bird from the kitadani formation from the aptian in the early cretaceous Fukuiteryx prima that is in a similar position (between archaeopteryx and Jeholornis + pygostylia) and prensent a long and primitive pygostyle that preserves the neural spines.

This raises an interesting question: why do Jeholornithiformes retain long tails with many vertebrae if more basal birds like zhengheornis had already reduced them?

Conclusion

Zhengheornis buyu is a new important find that helps us understand how the birds lost the long theropod like tail and evolve the short tail and the pygostyle. Its discovery fills a gap in the evolutionary history of the avian lineage.

References:

Wang, Min; Tang, Jianrong; Deng, Ke; Dong, Liping; Xu, Liming; Xu, Xing; Lin, Min; Du, Honggang; Lin, Ganmin; Chen, Runsheng; Zhang, Chi; Zhou, Zhonghe (2026). "Jurassic avialan reveals stepwise evolution of bony tail in birds" https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aeb5202

Senter P, Kirkland JI, DeBlieux DD, Madsen S, Toth N (2012)  "New Dromaeosaurids (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Lower Cretaceous of Utah, and the Evolution of the Dromaeosaurid Tail". https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0036790#amendment-0

Felice, Ryan N; O'connor, Patrick M (2014) "Ecology and Caudal Skeletal Morphology in Birds: The Convergent Evolution of Pygostyle Shape in Underwater Foraging Taxa" https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0089737#abstract0

Chen, Runsheng; Wang, Min; Dong, Liping; Zhou, Guowu; Xu, Xing; Deng, Ke; Xu, Liming; Zhang, Chi; Wang, Linchang; Du, Honggang; Lin, Ganmin; Lin, Min; Zhou, Zhonghe (2025). "Earliest short-tailed bird from the Late Jurassic of China" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08410-z

Huang, Jiandong; Wang, Xuri; Cau, Andrea; Mao, Lei; Liu, Yichuan; Wang, Yang (2026). "A new euornithine from the Lower Cretaceous (Aptian) of China reveals the first radiation of fish-eating birds" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195667125001673?via%3Dihub

Imai, T., Azuma, Y., Kawabe, S., Shibata, M., Miyata, K., Wang, M., & Zhou, Z. (2019). "An unusual bird (Theropoda, Avialae) from the Early Cretaceous of Japan suggests complex evolutionary history of basal birds" https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-019-0639-4

It is often said that LTEE represents an increase in fitness in these new mutated bacteria. Recent papers have increasingly called this into question:

"Unexpectedly, some evolved populations and clones show apparent declines in fitness. We also found evidence of substantial cell death in Cit+ clones."

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7299349/

While the cit+ phenotype did bring improvements in the short term, the long-term picture is quite different. Ultimately, they could no longer survive. Their fitness declined to the point where they were even forced to eat their own dead.

Has the experiment failed to demonstrate evolution here?

An example that has often been presented as an argument in favor of blind "hereditary" design is the anatomy of the vagus nerve. Evolutionists argued that one of its branches, the so—called recurrent laryngeal nerve, makes an allegedly meaningless and ineffective "detour"

down into the chest, skirting the arch of the aorta, to then rise again to the larynx. According to their logic, it would be "more rational" if the nerve went directly to the larynx — and this feature was declared a "vestige of evolutionary blindness.

Richard Dawkins even dedicated an entire documentary, promoting the idea as "clear evidence of the lack of intelligent design." However, with the development of neurophysiology, it became clear that this "hook" is not a mistake at all, but represents a vital arc through which the neural innervation of the deep cardiac plexus passes. This bend is not just important, it is indispensable for the normal regulation of cardiac function. What happens when there is no bend? There is an anomaly known as the Non-Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve, the "ideal" structure that Dawkins mistakenly considered "more reasonable."

Since according to creationists, creation is so well established it should be tought in school, but is censored by the woke-darwinist-marxist-rockefeller-mob™, I thought i’d give you guys a chance to speak up! I arbitrarily started from No. 1000001 which is a (imo quite generous) estimate. Feel free to provide further chances for creationists to provide evidence and simply raise the count by 1.

Please feel free to provide all the evidence you have for creation or against evolution.

Stage is yours.

I dunno if anyone here would know what I'm talking about, but I was just made aware of a purported Meso-American pottery piece in the (Phoenix, NY) Lost World Museum's collection, dated by them at around 926 years old and claimed by them to depict a sauropod. for example, in this Facebook post

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1G7FaGAYMb/

incredible find, if this is legitimate...but I'm skeptical. I can't find any sources verifying its authenticity, other than young-earth creationist Facebook/YouTube content, try as I might. and the piece in question doesn't even resemble actual sauropod anatomy all that closely, it looks far more like a cartoon depiction of a sauropod complete with a dragging lizard tail that looks kind of too weak for it - even mainstream young-earth creationists make a point of stressing how sauropods' tails were powerful and "like a cedar tree," to argue that the description of Behemoth from the Bible is meant to literally describe sauropods. I hate to get accusatory about this, to any YECs reading, but I find this too reminiscent of hoaxes like the Acámbaro figures to feel comfortable with it.

anyone else wanna weigh in? what's going on here?

I’m a theistic evolutionist however I do not deny that humans are primates nor do I believe humans are unique I also believe the universe is billions of years old however the belief that theistic evolutionists are still science deniers is heavily a western concept I’m a spiritual deist not abrahamic therefore my belief in god isn’t about human uniqueness and I don’t believe the universe is 6000 years old

Quick question: is it safe to say dogs have speciated? I'm thinking of the largest dog breed and the smallest dog breed. I don't think the two can reproduce with each other anymore. Size differences just make it not possible anymore, I don't think...

And even if they could, that doesn't mean they're the same species: horses and donkeys can interbreed but mules are dead ends (or at least I think they are. Can two mules reproduce?).

Anyways, just some thoughts going through my head.

Children who have never heard about evolution never come up with evolutionary answers for the origins of animals on their own. When a six-year-old child who has never heard of evolution is asked about how an animal such as a dog originated, their answer is never "it came from an earlier type of animal".

(Edited to make my point clearer)

Creationists often point to gaps in scientific knowledge as evidence against evolution. They are of course wrong to do that. All science has gaps. There are some things relevant to this Reddit that are areas of research, but do not have answers that can be considered theories. I have included a few below:

The origin of existence

The origin of life.

The origin of viruses.

Multicellularity.

If these are problems for evolution then why isn't the fact that science hasn't figured out

Every Single Thing that

Every Single Scientist in

Every Single Field in

Every Single Laboratory and Scientific Facility

On Earth is researching a problem for all of science?

Or do people think that large numbers of scientists are researching stuff they've already figured out?

So, maybe the items I started with and a few others aren't really the Darwin Demolishers that creationists think they are.

I plan to debate Donny and Sam from Standing For Truth in an open mic at some point. One of the topics I'll be discussing is whether human tail atavism provides evidence for human evolution. Since they argue from a young-earth creationist (YEC) perspective, I'd like to be as prepared as possible.

For those who have debated YECs before or are familiar with the common arguments they use, what debate tips would you recommend? Are there any specific objections or talking points regarding atavisms, genetics, embryology, or evolutionary biology that I should expect them to raise? I'd also appreciate any advice on how to keep the discussion focused on the actual evidence rather than getting sidetracked into unrelated topics or common debate tactics.

If you have any recommended papers, books, articles, or past debates that would help me prepare, I'd be grateful for those as well.

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

No one ever refers to gravitationists or Newtonists for those who support gravity, but people refer to people supporting evolution as evolutionists or Darwinists.

I have ran across a text from G.K. Chesterton from more than 100 years ago, saying the Darwinists are so tiresome. They say art comes from the survival instinct. Everything that ever happened, every human behaviour comes from the survival instinct, and it is just so low-brow and simplistic and of course not even a proven science, just a philosophy. There is more to life than the survival of the fittest and so on. And this philosophy led to eugenics for example. Social Darwinism.

So I think people who had a problem with this dull philosophy sort of overplayed their hands and started questioning the proven science part as well.

The irony is that this philosophy is dead. "Survival instinct" is just not a concept anymore. There is way less talk about "survival of the fittest" and way more talk about sexual selection and inclusive reproducive fitness than in Darwin's time. And if people would say art comes from sexual selection, well if you look at all the sex musicians are having, it does not sound too stupid...

You guys really let me have it 😅, my fault for coming in all willy nilly. I was high when I made the Post yesterday so I was thinking about isolated ideas or concepts that are a given for me and completely foreign to others. I was talking to my girlfriend about all this yesterday, she actually doesn't believe in God so we have interesting conversations. She falls into the belief that everything doesn't need to have a reason and why can't we just be here because we are. We were going around in circles about the beginning of everything, like what I was talking about with it either is or it isn't, its either something has always been or it never could be, but if you allow something to always have been you leave room for something from nothing which opens the door, for it is because it is which doesn't need a god to exist for it to be true. But I bet I can light another fire under you guys by saying I feel like there is more evidence that a God does exist then there is for everything just being because.

How are love, humor, creativity, self reflection involving things like morals, and hope evolutionary traits, or wold you say that they are parts of the evolution of morality over time because I believe humans evolve collectively as a species, ganing a better understanding of "right" and "wrong" but what gives us that in the first place? I feel like people overcomplicate creation by trying to figure out all the things that could have happened to create us and everything around us. Rather than accepting that we are all a part of intelligent design and if you accept then everything else makes sense. Not talking about the Bible just existence in general.

In my freshman engineering class our teacher asked us a couple questions that weren't meant to help us in our thinking abilities, like how do you put an elephant into a refrigerator? We were throwing out ideas, then he says open the door put it inside and shut it. There were a few more questions like that that he said we're meant to help us not over complicate our ideas.

Now you could argue that based on probability those things could happen, but how long would it have taken, I don't think our existence is based on monkeys with type writers bound for everything to fall into place exactly right at least once. Especially in under 14 billion years or so, 0x0=0 that's a hard law. So all I'm saying is something had to be here for everything else to be, so if it was it always had to be. We are a fact of life and in the laws of nature that we all exist in nothing can come from nothing. Even the law of conservation of energy, matter can't be created or destroyed, only changed so that means it has always had to be because it is.

We at base are all energy and atoms fitted together to be what we are, be it a rock, water molecule, or a baby. Everything works, not just on Earth but in the infinite universe, energy is transferred, math works and the laws of nature abide, the engine of reality works in balance, I feel like it would take longer for chaos to do all the things necessary for life to exist with what to me seems like a planned affair.

I mean the history of our universe seems pretty close to a checklist if you look at it, first comes this, then this, then this. All in order for creation and again, by probability it had to happen at some point but fuck me if that doesn't feel like a coincidence.

Do you feel like we exist in a reality where after unmeasurable time we have finally come to be because, or because someone decided to make it so. That + morality and guilt, makes me believe in a God, the immense complexity of nature itself feels more like an engineering project to me than an accident finally falling into place.

*Because I believe in God I feel like you'll all lump me in with everything people who believe in God believe. So let me state

I don't believe humans go to heaven or hell when we die.

I don't believe in hell

I think when we die, we are dead, nothing but ash, all that's left is energy that goes somewhere else

If I dare make the statement I say I believe in a god that makes sense, but if I go on we'd start arguing theology and this isn't the group for that I don't think.

Evolution has fascinated me a lot.
The more I read about it, the more awestruck I get.
There are many behaviours, organs, and traits developed by animals that make me wonder,
"How the hell did this behaviour get hardwired in the brain?"
"What series of generational actions could have led to this organ?"

For example, when a baby kangaroo is born, it immediately starts climbing into the mother's pouch the moment it's born and stays inside the pouch until it's young.

The two nipples of humans, with which infants are breastfed. I mean, why do all humans, each and every one, have exactly two and at that position? Why couldn't humans with a small mix of organs with small variance coexist?

I agree that you can explain these through some extremely small changes from one generation to another.

For example, for the nipple question, a possible explanation is that earlier, there was some liquid secreted from the body, which the offspring used to stay under for protection from microbes, and slowly, it became something like young animals consuming it for some health benefits. It slowly became concentrated in some body parts as it's more efficient, and slowly we ended up with two nipples. Okay, I agree, this seems like something that's possible. I accept.

But still, when I think about it, there are some questions I can't wrap my head around. I hope someone can answer them, as the responses from ChatGPT, for some reason, aren't convincing enough.

1. How do we end up with this type of segregated species? Like, why don't we have some spectrum of animals between species rather than fixed groups of species? You can take an animal and say, "This belongs to this species." But why is it like this for all species? Why can't we have animals where we have two extremes and a spectrum of animals between different species?
2. How could feathers have developed? Once upon a time, there were no land animals. There were just some fish (or some water animals). At what point, at what generation, what might have happened that took a step towards feathers? And what advantage could that have provided to that animal so that it transmitted its genes more?
3. One more thing is how some organs are labelled. You can explain sharp nails and say, "These help in hunting", and that explains it. And the feathers of peacocks, which are a big burden for them, are explained by saying peahens see this as an indication of strong genes, that this extravagant thing is present on its body (which doesn't help it in any way), which means it has strong genes.
4. Satin bowerbirds make bowers, and females get attracted to these bowers. But these bowers have no survival function. How could that trait have developed?

I started seeing God as a scientist when I was 12, I've always loved science and the first time I heard the Holy Spirit compared to energy I was sent straight down a rabbit hole. After that it started to make sense to me, how everything could exist, a being of infinite energy and power that is intelligent, but in a way that made sense. I started to think if I wanted to create the perfect organism "I.e" human, and I had infinite power and energy, not to mention to an eternal existence time isn't a thing so taking its time would be an issue it would be a given. So I don't believe evolution is a solitary path of existence, I see it as a tool by God in his creation of life. One of the meanings of gods name ( Jehovah) is causes to become. So over time he caused single celled organisms to become every living thing by means of evolution and survival of the fittest, the fact that it's fair also supported the idea, gods also supposed to be the god of order so the thing that makes the most sense just seemed like the thing that made the most sense you know. And if you believe what the Bible says to be true I think this was his first time creating reality. He literally created the laws of nature, he is science itself, but I feel like he taught himself over time and over the course of eternity and then used that knowledge to create.

Over and over again I’ve tried to explain to creationists that evolution does NOT propose that animals “change from one kind to another kind” in the sense that they stop being part of the group they were in before in order to evolve into the next one.
They will say things like “when will dogs become something other than dogs?” Or “fruit flies have been around for millions of years but they are still fruit flies, when will they become something else?” And “show me a dog evolve into a cat” and “dogs only ever produce dogs” and so forth.
When I explain to them that even within the theory of evolution, a dog would never evolve to be a non-dog, instead it would evolve into other forms of dogs. No matter how different it looks from its ancestor, the descendants of a dog will always be a dog, even if it evolved into some hairless, limbless, elongated snake-like thing, it’s STILL going to be a type of dog. They ALWAYS: will be. However, dogs did not used to exist. Dogs themselves are a variety of domesticated gray wolf. Gray wolves are a type of wolf, wolves are a type of canid, canids are a type of canine, canines are a type of caniforme, etc. at no point do the descendants of any of these groups leave their group. Therefore, a dog is still a caniforme, and never stopped being one.

The responses I get after explaining this is mind-numbingly dumb.
It’s always stuff like “oh, so you think macroevolution doesn’t happen then? Well then how did everything evolve from a common ancestor?”
And “so where did dogs come from then if they never change?”
And “then you admit that evolution isn’t possible!”
I will also get a lot of insults from them where they say I’m not making any sense and that I’m talking in circles and contradicting myself. But the thing is, I’m not. They just think I am because they do not understand what is being said. It’s like another language to them, literally, because they do not comprehend what is being said, so they accuse it of being word salad.

It’s comments like that every single time I explain monophyly. They literally can not grasp cladogenesis. They can not grasp that the descendants of a poodle will always be a poodle, but poodles came from non-poodle wolves, and wolves came from non-wolf canines, and so forth. This is too much for them to comprehend. They think it means I’m claiming that speciation doesn’t happen, when clearly that is not what is being said.
They are under the impression that animals evolve like “this animal was a dog, then it evolved and is no longer a dog, it’s now a cat”
They don’t understand that descent means clades are formed as subsets of the clade they descended from.

This is such a simple and easy concept to understand. It’s literally just categories and sub-categories within them. They think it’s one category becoming another category in the sense that it stops being the category that it was before in order to transform into the new one.

I’ve tried dumbing it down by using analogies to explain this, but they never understand analogies. I’ve tried using hypotheticals to demonstrate it, but they refuse to engage in hypotheticals and say things like “a hypothetical is imaginary it didn’t really happen” I’ve tried using examples of it in cases where they agree with it, like all dogs coming from wolves and all wolves coming from canines, but as soon as I go further they say the same concept no longer applies, without justifying why it wouldn’t still apply.

This type of mental block is astounding to me. It really is such a basic, fundamental concept, but they just can’t understand it.
It’s also a perfect example of the dunning-kruger effect. I say something beyond their comprehension, and due to their own lack of understanding, they think I’m the dumb one.