u/francesco_angiolieri

Being a science communicator from a country where, unfortunately, Young Earth Creationism has gotten a certain traction on the internet in recent years, through YouTube debates and podcasts, I've had my share of debates with creationists.

What I have been trying to do (and doesn't work):

My strategy so far has been trying to lay an epistemological foundation.

Trying to explain how do we know what we know, how the scientific method works, what's a scientific model, how bayesian reasoning works (given hypothesis A, what's the probability of finding evidence B? And how much should we strengthen our prior belief in A, when we actually find B?), how hypothesis testing works (what's the probability of our working hypothesis being wrong, given all the evidence we have?), how a historical science is different from an experimental science and how a historical science works...

What I hoped was showing that, if the interlocutor accepts certain epistemological principles which seem completely reasonable to them when not applied to evolution, then the only intellectually honest position is to accept these same principles when dealing with evidence for evolution.

Why this fails:

Unfortunately, creationists simply don't have the attention span to have a one hour conversation about epistemology. They appear to not have (or not want to have) the predisposition to just listen and try to understand another viewpoint.

If you want to convey a message, you need to keep it extremely simple.

One simple question

I had one eureka moment when I heard Erika, the creator of the channel Gutsick Gibbon, just ask one simple question: "what do you expect the evidence to be if evolution was true?"

And proceed to show the opponent that the evidence they would expect in the case evolution was true is exactly what we see!

So, assuming that accurate and realistic drescriptions of nature can be given, let's ask ourselves: what would we expect if the theory of evolution was an incorrect representation of reality and creationism was true and what, on the other hand, would we expect if creationism was a failed paradigm and the theory of evolution was the correct scientific model?

Let's look at the history of failed and discredited paradigms, from the aristotelian-ptolemaic model in astronomy, to the temperament theory and homeopathy in medicine, to geosynclines in geology, to lysenkoism and biodynamic in agriculture.

What do these frameworks, these worldviews have in common?

• Appeal to authority or tradition:

Usually, discredited paradigms stem from the work of one or more authors from the past.

These authors are considered authoritative and not questioned. Examples are Aristotle and Ptolomy in Astronomy, Galen and Hippocrates in medicine.

Other times, the authority is the text itself, written by unknown authors. An example is the text of Genesis.

When scientists use the scientific method to empirically challenge those outdated models, academics born in the old paradigm resist the challenge of new data being presented by appealing to the authority and respect of these figures or these books.

With time, however, as more and more scientists try to collect evidence independently, they usually converge on the same answers.

When the old generation of scholars dies out, the new one, understanding the explanatory power of the new paradigm in the face of new data, promptly accepts it. Exactly like astronomers, who had initially rejected Galileo's ideas, when pointing their telescope at the sky, continued to confirm his findings and had no other choice than to accept that heliocentrism was a better model of the solar system than geocentrism

• Fruitfulness and sterility:

You should judge a tree by its fruits.

As I described above, new findings challenge old paradigms. These are progressively rejected and substituted with new, better models.

However, there always was and there will always be a minority strongly attached to the old paradigm who will never be shaken by new evidence.

Among hundreds of thousands of doctors, there will always be at least one suggesting you take dewormer instead of a vaccine.

This minority will usually found institutions devoted to preserving the old ways.

What distinguishes these institutions from academia practicing real science?

Science is fruitful. It produces results and these results change the world.

Nuclear physicists trying to understand how atoms work at the beginning of the 20th century laid the path for the development of nuclear energy.

Geneticists trying to understand how a cell works have led to the improvement of agriculture.

Defenders of an already discredited position, on the contrary, never produce new knowledge or results (at most, they are always making up new arguments and new ad hoc explanations for why evidence doesn't support their claims).

They are always citing their old books and stressing out how you should stick to tradition and shake water or plant seeds in esoteric rituals, exactly according to the tradition laid out by Hanemann or Steiner.

They often claim that there's a conspiracy in academia to supress their ideas. They also claim that these ideas are rejected for ideoligical reasons.

However, there's a field of human activity which doesn't care about ideology: industry.

Oil companies don't have any ideological reason to reject flood geology, geosynclines or abiogenic oil.

They couldn't care less. All they care about is making money. Consequently, they will only hire those specialists who use the models proved to give tangible results.

But why does good science produce results?

Because science makes accurate predictions!

• Predictability and Falsiability:

If we postulate that a realistic account of nature exists, then, what do we expect from a good scientific model?

We expect that, if it correctly represents reality, then it can make accurate predictions. And if we postulate that reality behaved the same in the past and just doesn't change its laws at random, then this model can be used not only to make predictions about the future outcome of experiments, but also about any evidence from the past that we're going to collect in the future.

What do we expect from an attempt at explaing nature that is not a good account, a good description of nature?

We expect that it could even present persuasive post hoc explanations of certain data.

However, as it doesn't accurately represent how the world works, it's always going to fail to make accurate predictions.

One strategy commonly employed by proponents of failed paradigms is to try to defend their ideas from attacks by making them unfalsifiable.

There is no evidence which could falisfy the idea that the world was magically created 6000 years ago exactly as it is today, because anything can come from magic. Thus, the creationist avoids any chance that his model can fail predictions, at the cost of not being able to make any predictions at all.

• Convergence:

If predictions are made from accurate accounts of reality, we expect them to converge.

If nature is an elephant in an indian village, even if each indian scientist is studying it using the peculiar methods of their own field, we expect that the results provided by the trunkologist won't contradict the results provided by the legologist or the bellyologist.

Every day, scientists from all kind of different national, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, religious backgrounds perform experiments and converge on the same results. Additionally, results from one area of science corroborate the results from another one: for example, paleontologists find fossils in the same order they would expect if the results given by geneticists who study phylogenetic trees using an evolutionary assumption were correct.

To sum up, using the criteria we have laid out, what would be expect if evolution was true and what would be expect if creationism was a failed paradigm?

We would expect that almost all practitioners from all fields of science relevant to the study of evolution - like paleontology, biogeography, ecology, botany, zoology, anatomy, biochemistry, genetics - when doing their work, would only find evidence not only non contradicting the theory of evolution, but exactly that kind of evidence predicted by evolution, which we can only expect to find if the theory of evolution is true.

We would thus expect that the most active and disruptive researchers, the ones dealing daily with evidence in the lab or in the field, would be the most eager to accept this theory.

And finally, we would expect that, when employing this model, results are produced.

That's exactly what we see when microbiologists use the theory of evolution to try to understand how bacteria develop antibiotic resistance or how biotech researchers use the theory of evolution to improve crops.

We would also expect that there would still remain a vocal minority who doesn't accept the theory due to any personal biases.

We would expect from a few members of this minority to even be academics. However, what we don't expect from these few academics is to be scientifically fruitful: they will never be able to produce anything of scientific value, except arguments to try to persuade the general public that their position is true.

And that's exactly what we see with intelligent design proponents: are you aware of anything of value produced by the likes of Dembsky, Meyer or Axe, apart from books aimed at the general public?

What we see instead is scientific parasitism: as they can't create on their own, they're always stealing findings and data produced by other scientists and trying to twist them until they fit their narrative.

Long time watcher here, as I enjoy reading all your theories, I had to create an account to share mine.

SPOILER ALERT: spoilers for the first episode of season 4

Now to the theory.

Everything we know so far:

We know that Fromville works in cycles.

And we know that Victor is a special resident, as he's the only survivor from the last cycle, which ended in a big massacre, with every resident being killed during the day.

We know he survived because he was hidden by his mother in the cellar. Afterwards, he lived for many years alone.

What's the chance of a kid surviving alone in that town without any adults, with monsters hunting every night? Basically zero.

We also know that, when he went down in the caves where the monsters sleep during the day, the lady monster threatened him to keep him down there, not to kill him.

Finally, we know from this season that, at the end of each cycle, just when the residents start figuring things out, the Men in Yellow appears in town.

In this cycle he appeared as Sophia, during the last cycle he appeared as a man in a yellow suit.

This could not even be his true form, as he's a shapeshifter. From all we know, he could just be a supernatural entity who takes the appearance of the last person they shapeshifted into.

We know that his goal is to stir animosity between the residents and turn them into each other: "this is my favorite part because they all tear each other apart".

Most viewers interpreted it as Sophia trying to manipulate the residents into distrusting each other and promoting infighting in some way.

But what if there's a way darker twist?

And here comes my theory. What if, near the end of each cycle, the malevolent entity known as the Man in Yellow enters the town disguised as a normal human (Man in the previous cycle, Sophia in this one).

They provoke even more chaos in the town with their manipulations and when everyone is at their lowest, the day before the massacre, they reveal themselves for who they are to the town and offer a bargain, a deal.

We know that all these cycles started because the first residents of the town sacrificed their children to a supernatural entity in a faustian bargain to obtain eternal life.

We also know that the first Tabitha - Jade couple refused to sacrifice their daughter, who was killed anyway. As they didn't become monsters, we know that there's an intentional aspect behind the sacrifice. It's not sufficient that the children die, their parents or whoever makes the pact must kill them willingly, voluntarily.

The evil entities who control the town are not purely interested in killing its residents, they want to break them, make them lose their humanity.

So back to the end of the cycle, the Entity tells the townsfolk the whole story of the creatures and the child sacrifice and explains that the sacrifice wasn't complete because a couple refused to sacrifice their daughter.

The Entity offers the townsfolk a deal: if you accept to sacrifice one of your children, then the sacrifice is complete, the cycles end and you can go home.

If you refuse to sacrifice the child, then everyone dies the next day, except for the child, who gains immunity and starts the next cycle.

That's why Victor's mother was hiding him in the cellar, not to protect him from monsters, but from the town's people.

Of course we know from history that even in dire situations, like wars or famines, there are humans who retain their ethics and refuse to kill innocent civilians to survive. But there are also people who don't care and are willing to kill if it ensures their own survival.

The last night all hell breaks lose in the town, as the residents split into two factions, one that is willing to kill an innocent child to go home and one who prefers to suffer but doesn't want to have the blood of an innocent child on their hands.

Fortunately for Victor, the townsfolk weren't able to find him even after searching for him all night, as he was hiding in the cellar.

As announced, the next day either the Man in Yellow killed everyone or monsters started attacking during the day and killed everyone.

Victor is the only survivor and gains immunity (the monsters don't touch him).

In exchange for the town allowing him to live and giving him food, water, electricity, etc (we know electricity comes from nowhere without a power plant, they have water running without a water treatment facility, etc.) every failed sacrifice helps shaping the town and the monsters, even if unwillingly and subconsciously, with their fantasy and fears.

This would explain why the monsters look like characters from Victor's cards. That's not their true form, their real form is the one they transform into when they attack.

This would also explain why in Fromville each building seems to come from a different era (settlement near the lake: first settlement; church: really old as well, could be from the 17th century? The colony house: 18th or 19th century, then there are buildings like the diner from the 1950...)

In this cycle, Ethan is the new potential sacrifice.

This would explain why the voices told Sarah that the only way to go home is to kill Ethan.

Is then the end so bleak?

Do they really have to kill Ethan to go home?

I don't think so.

I believe there are two possible endings, like in those videogames with different endings based on your choices.

Evil ending: the town is willing to kill the child and succeeds in doing so.

Good ending: the storywalker of this cycle manages to reach the lake of tears and free the children or something like that.

It would explain why Miranda was willing to risk being caught out at night by the monsters: she was trying to make a last attempt at solving the puzzle the good way, free the children and undo the cycle, as a ultimate, desperate way to save her children and prevent the bad ending