My other friend is denying what I say because I use reddit.
Is there like hard evidence to prove macroevolution is real?
He said macroevolution is like that mammal to whale evolution. He believe in micro/small changes. But he doesn't believe that things can have a big evolutionary jump.
BTW: uh if you got evidence pls send, he WANTS like hard evidence bru.
For all you out there who believe you are modern Galileos who are trying to advance new paradigms and overthrow established science and who believe that academia is this cabal trying to protect the old paradigm at all cost, I suggest you watch this video:
https://youtu.be/1Lrq9FpWRIo?si=-vF7\_FKbddC6RCJv
At around 15 minutes, they are discussing the idea that supposedly "science is never settled".
Of course, from an epistemological and phylosophical point of view, no amount of observation can elevate your belief in a certain scientific hypothesis to the degree of certainty of a logical or mathematical truth, like the truth value of a mathematical theorem.
However, practically, there are indeed established facts in science.
If we look at the history of scientific revolutions in the context of modern science, indeed, we almost never see established theories being completely overthrown, like we see when a certain field first becomes scientific.
In the transition from the non scientific paradigm of humorism (bile, blood, phlegm, etc.) to germ theory, we see a complete dismissal of the previous paradigm.
But as soon as the field in question starts being studied using the scientific method, doing observations, making hypotheses and testing those hypoteses, (in this case, with germ theory), we never see a complete rejection of the previous theory.
Since the germ theory was proposed, we have only expanded our knowledge of germs, but never dismissed the existence of germs.
Why is this the case?
Because, as the guy says in the video, every new theory purpoting to replace an older one must account for the success of the older one.
Every new theory must explain all the observations the old theory was explaining, plus some new observations the old theory can't explain.
This happened with Einstein's relativity: Newton couldn't be completely wrong, as his theory has been explaining loads of phenomena we observe daily for centuries. Instead of completely replacing Newton, Einstein's Relativity explains all the phenomena Newton explains, plus some more.
The best example of how new models replace older ones, while at the same time not contradicting them, is the progression of our understanding of atoms.
Dalton is the first to propose an atomic model, from the simple observation tha, in inorganic chemistry, elements don't combine to form molecules in any ratio, but only in fractions of small numbers: 1:2 (C02), 2:1 (H20), 1:3 (NH3), etc.
Dalton thus correctly inferred that elements must be composed of indivisible units, called atoms.
In 1897, J. J. Thomson discovered the existence of electrons. To explain the overall neutral charge of the atom, Thomson concluded that these electrons must be embedded in an uniform sea of positive charge. In this "plum pudding atomic model", the electrons were seen as embedded in the positive charge like raisins in a plum pudding.
Between 1908 and 1913, Ernest Rutherford performed a series of experiments in which he bombarded thin foils of metal with positively charged alpha particles. He spotted alpha particles being deflected. To explain this, Rutherford proposed that the positive charge of the atom is not distributed throughout the atom's volume as Thomson believed, but is concentrated in a tiny nucleus at the center.
I could go on with Bohr's model, but the point here is already clear: every new model makes the picture we have of an atom more clear, while never contradicting older observations.
The pudding model adds the information that atoms are made of negative and positive charges, while never contradicting the observation that they usually combine in ratios of small natural numbers.
The "solar system model" add the information that the positive and negative charges are not sticked together in a pudding, but the positive charges are instead concentrated in the center. And so on.
How does all this apply to evolution?
Evolution denialists believe they can somehow find any inconsistency or unexplained detail in the theory of evolution and from this completely overthrow the evolutionary paradigm.
The fundamental problem with this view is that evolution was a fact and an observation even before being a theory.
So called natural philosophers even before Darwin started studying the fossil record and found out that life on Earth in the past was different than life on Earth today.
There are many animals and plants in the fossil record which are extinct and most animals and plants living today are not found in the fossil record.
This simple observation is the reason why naturalists like Lamarck proposed an evolutionary explanation even before Darwin.
The fact that life evolved during the history of the Earth is indeed an undeniable fact due to the staggering amount of evidence in the fossil record.
Thus, any new theory purpoting to overthrow the "old darwinian paradigm", must also be an evolutionary theory.
I’m going to a Mormon school as a non Mormon, and I was talking to my sister (who knows I’m not a Mormon) and our friend was sitting there listening to us, and the topic got to evolution I was talking about how different animals evolved from living in the ocean to on land, and my friend looked at me and said “wait you believe in evolution?” (She thinks I’m a Mormon) and I was so confused and I said “you don’t?” and she said “no I think Adam and Eve came and that’s it”, and she was looking at me like I was the crazy one! but that doesn’t work scientifically, does it? How would this work scientifically/ realistically, because I feel like going thru life believing evolution isn’t real just doesn’t make sense, I need someone to explain this to me.
I see this conversation get derailed constantly, so I wanted to give it a shot here. Super interested in your takes!
I personally believe God created the universe and the world we live in. But, that being said, I am definitely not a young-earth creationist. I accept that dinosaurs existed, I accept deep time, and I accept that biological populations change over generations. I also accept that microevolution is directly observable.
My question is about epistemology, because I think I’ve noticed a trend in these threads, so I thought this might be an interesting exercise.
When people say macroevolution has been observed, what exactly do you mean by observed?
Do you mean that we have directly observed biological change within living populations?
That we have observed speciation or reproductive isolation?
That we observe fossils, genetic similarities, anatomical similarities, and biogeographic patterns?
That we infer large-scale common descent from those lines of evidence?
Or that we infer unguided natural mechanisms are sufficient to explain the whole historical sequence?
Obviously, those are all related claims, of course, but they do not all seem to have the same evidential status, and I assume most of you would say the same, I would hope lol.
Here’s an example, although I’m no expert at this, so please bear with me:
BUT:
So here, I’ll add on to the question:
Where exactly do you guys draw the line between direct observation, historical inference, and philosophical interpretation?
And when you guys say macroevolution is observed, are you using observed to mean we directly watched the process happen, or we observe evidence from which the process is inferred?
Please skip the crocoduck stuff. I’m pretty openly not asking why a dog never gives birth to a cat, or why an ape never gives birth to a human. I think those types of conversations are a bit brain-rotty.
Some more questions for you guys:
What is directly observed?
What is inferred?
What would count against the inference?
And how do you avoid sliding from the idea that microevolution is observable to therefore the entire large-scale naturalistic evolutionary narrative has the same evidential status?
Hello everyone,we are covering James Tour's video titled - Evolution vs design
In last part , I covered on the topic signal network and how they were whining that such a complicated system of embryo formation in fruitfly couldn't have evolved naturally .
In second part , I am going to talk about their second point, TADs ( Topologically Associated Domains)
Here are the exact points regarding TADs (Topologically Associating Domains) they talk about
TADs refer to groupings of chromatin—the complex of DNA and protein—that are bunched together and closer in three-dimensional space,in compact shape.
Transcription factors need to find specific DNA sequences to regulate genes. TADs help solve this search problem by organizing the genome, preventing the "tangled mess" that would otherwise hinder the movement of biological machinery like RNA polymerase.
Research, such as the paper by Dota et al., suggests that "intersegmental jumping" across 3D-proximal segments within TADs significantly speeds up the search process for transcription factors compared to simple diffusion.
Optimal Compaction: Theoretical models suggest an optimal compaction parameter (gamma) for these domains, around 0.7. Empirical measurements of approximately 8,000 human TADs show that they align closely with this theoretical optimum, rather than being too collapsed or too open.
5)Evolutionary Dilemma: The panel noted that the formation of TADs requires specific code (a 19-nucleotide sequence), the CTCF protein, and cohesin rings driven by ATP hydrolysis. They argue that this system presents a challenge for undirected evolutionary theories because intermediate, less-optimized states might have been energetically costly or non-functional, offering no survival advantage until the system is nearly perfect. The speakers suggested that TADs are a hallmark of eukaryotic genomes and were likely a necessary evolutionary or design solution to manage the vastly larger genomes of eukaryotic cells.
My argument -
I found it strange. They are looking at complex TADs of mammals which require cohesin and ctcf proteins interaction. They said ( mainly Truman) that this system is irreducibly complex.
The things in actuality , are much different from what they are saying. Many eukaryotes lack the ctcf - cohesin based TADs. So it's reducible . Like nematodes completely deleted their ctcf gene ,they rely on different mechanism of tad formation. Only basal nematodes like Trichinella spiralis have ctcf.
Insects also lack cohesin- ctcf based TADs network as in higher vetebrates. Platyhelminthes also completely lack the ctcf gene ,like more derived nematodes. They are still surviving . Yeasts completely lacks TADs . Plants have TADs but not like that in higher vetebrates. Jellyfish and sponges also lack the vetebrates level cohesin -ctcf mediated TADs organisation.
They are shocked . Why? Bcoz how is it possible for TADs to spread throughout the genome ?
Well it's easy . Start from simple- cohesin is much older than ctcf. Ctcf gene evolved in common ancestor of bilateria. Over time it acquired mutations in its n terminal region ( front part) which acted as binding site for cohesin,hence helping in formation of TADs.
Ctcf binding sites in genome mainly exist in non coding regions of dna . In few exceptions,they can exist in coding regions. Initially in primitive genome only few such binding sites for ctcf protein could have existed. Then n terminal mutations in the gene made the affinity for this protein increase towards cohesin and form partial tad networks ( not complete) But the most important events in the evolution of so many binding sites for ctcf occured due to retrotransposons which carried ctcf binding sites by copy and paste mechanisms. Those organisms in which ctcf disrupted genes by copy and paste mechanisms were removed from the gene pool. Only those survived whose genes and regulatory elements weren't affected by this retrotranspositions. Also they spread by wgd events. Hence more cohesin ctcf interaction leading to more TADs formation.
Here are links of retrotransposition part
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867411015078
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15520-5
Now creationist might ask ,how did not fully cohesin -ctcf tad genome could exist ? At one time in the past there weren't enough ctcf binding sites ,hence limited compaction of dna.
Nope ,other mechanisms of compaction of dna existed. It's just another extra mechanism that organisms benefitted from.
Finally , Truman says evolutionary novelty is a story . You require lots of energy ,dna ,proteins and finally a long time after over generations mutations fine tune a protein .Intermediate steps are detrimental.
This is laughable. Each step will be beneficial. If a gene gets duplicated,let's suppose ,how much energy is required to maintain it? Negligible. A huge amount of atp is required to maintain membrane transporters and other things. Am I correct ?
And James Tour as usual says that junk dna have functions
What do you all think of Truman ? Any more extra information on TADs ??
Btw ,can someone pls tell me that whether primitive systems require the same compaction parameters value as talked about here?
Waiting for all of your response.
The dispersal of animals across the globe into all its kinds is even more difficult
From Answers in Genesis:
The Flood of Noah’s day (2348 BC) was a year-long global catastrophe that destroyed the pre-Flood world, reshaped the continents, buried billions of creatures, and laid down the rock layers.
——
The Ice Age was a period of several hundred years that began within a short time following the global Flood of Noah’s Day. During this time, global temperatures cooled and glaciers covered one-third of Earth’s surface. The Flood’s after-effects, such as warmer oceans and cooler air temperatures, created the necessary conditions.
Two particular aspects of the Flood were instrumental in causing the Ice Age: (1) extensive volcanic activity during and after the Flood, and (2) the warm oceans following the Flood. We know the extent of the Ice Age because the glaciers left features on the landscape similar to features we observe around glaciers today.
I have been lurking for a while now. As someone that was homeschooled and taught creationism I knew very little about evolution, dinosaurs, the Big Bang you name it. I guess I was wondering if there was something that was beginner friendly to help learn the basics? I do enjoy reading but also like visual aids as well. Is there someone, YouTuber that you feel would be a great starting point for someone that is trying to learn more? I have taken an interest in biology and dinosaurs but feel like maybe I’m not smart enough to grasp certain concepts. If this post isn’t allowed please feel free to delete. Thank you again! A former YEC trying to think for themselves and not just be like well cause God.
The word “kind” is still majorly undefined.The best(by default)definition is from Ken Ham,”if two animals can interbreed they are in a kind.”However this doesn’t account for kinds that have animals that can’t interbreed like Equus and Canidae.
Can any creationist explain what a kind is and how to recognize different kinds?How do you know some closely related animals that can’t interbreed are still in the same kind?How do you differentiate closely related animals that are in separate kinds like hippos and whales?is there a reasonable explanation for hippos and whales to be in separate created kinds?
Creationists like to repeat that "all (or the vast majority) of mutations are deleterious and mutations can only destroy information and never "create" new information.
They then reason that, if subsequent generations can only accrue deleterious mutations, it follows that our genomes are constantly degenerating from the perfect state when they were created.
They call this idea "genetic entropy".
However, I'll show, using only mathematical and geometrical tools, that, if there is indeed a fitness landscape, it's mathematically impossible for a gene to only go down.
What do I mean by fitness landscape?
By landscape, I mean the multidimensional + one representation of the values of a multivariate function f(x1, x2,...), a function of many variables.
For example, the representation of a function of 2 variables is a 3D landscape (2+1).
By fitness, I'm not referring to the darwinian fitness, the capacity of an organism to survive and reproduce.
I'm talking about the fitness of a gene.
Let's restrict the genes to protein coding genes for simplicity.
The fitness of a protein coding gene could be simply defined as 0 if the protein misfolds and 1 if the protein correctly folds.
If proteins could fold only when coded from highly specified sequences, like creationist claim when they talk about "specified information", the landscape would look like an ocean of nothingness (where f = 0) only interrupted by a few spikes of f=1 here and there.
However, we know that's not the case: we know there's a high degree of polymorphism for the same protein sequence in different living beings
(Image 1: https://pdb101.rcsb.org/motm/206).
The primary sequences of amino acids coding myoglobin are all different in humans, horses and whales, although they fold to the same 3D conformation.
Thus, the function mapping sequences to tertiary structures is a map where many elements in the domain point to the same element in the codomain.
We can now reformulate the concept of fitness.
Many sequences fold to the same conformation, however, these folding sequences could have slightly different properties related to their function.
For example, there could be two enzymes, both folding and performing a catalitic function, but with different rates of reaction.
Or there coule be two proteins binding a cofactor or a substrate with different specificities or different strengths.
We could then redifine the fitness of a coding gene as:
- 0 when the protein misfolds
- a number between 0 and 1, 0 excluded, when the protein folds, according to the ability to perform a certain function
If a function can have values between 0 and 1, then the function can be represented by a landscape.
And if a landscape exists and if mutations are truly random, then it's mathematically impossible for mutations to traverse the landscape only going down.
The only point in a multivariate function from which all directions point down, it's the global maximum.
Unless all genes in the genomes of all species are sitting on their global maximum, if all mutations are random, then it's impossible for all mutations to only go down.
If there's a direction pointing down, then the opposite direction points up.
Everyone who has ever gone trekking on a mountain knows this.
But I'll show a simple example.
Let's suppose that there's a gene coding for this sequence of amino acids: ..NLKIGEHLEI..
And let's suppose that this gene suffers a random mutation and now codes for: ..NLYIGEHLEI...
If mutations are truly random, there's nothing preventing another gene from another species or another member of the population, which already has the second sequence, to mutate to the first one!
If all mutations were deleterious, then this would entail that:
seq 1 --> seq 2 is deleterious and
seq 2 --> seq 1 is deleterious
Leading to a contradiction.
Translated into English, this would entail that going up and down a stair would still lead you down.
This only happens in the realm of Escher impossible stairs, not in the real world!
(Image 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose\_stairs#/media/File:Impossible\_staircase.svg)
In the last evo-bio course with Erika [NOLASTNAME], Will Duffy said that
https://www.youtube.com/live/vhOyNiv6PTY?si=YSglirJI7xhwX673&t=16350s
"I will never accept that humans are apes"
Now this is just a flat-out dogmatic admission. Yet just 20 seconds earlier, he also says that "humans descending from apes seems reasonable" so im not sure what he believes. Well, if humans have descended from apes, then we would be apes. Flat-out.
Will Duffy also talked about soul stuff and anectodes from random people. Even if all those anecdotes were true, and mind-body dualism was true, humans would still be apes. As we have all the physical charachteristics associated with being apes. Erika [NOLASTNAME] had also told him that genetically, there is NO WAY to seperate humans from apes. To this Will Duffy would say that apes are all hominoids except humans. But if you say "all of them except for us", then that is a Freudian admission that we are one of them. To this Will Duffy would probably say that there is something fundamentally different about humans. And you might be right in a certain context. BUT, we are talking about biology here. Were there is NOT ONE GOOD REASON to seperate humans from apes.
I know we've been talking a lot about the recent debate on "genetic entropy" between Dr. Zach Hancock (/u/talkpopgen) and Paul Price (can't link a reddit account because he keeps deleting them), but I wanted to highlight the most important moment of the debate for everyone.
The format was opening-cross-opening-cross, and Paul went first, and the important part happened in Zach's five-minute cross-examination immediately after. Click the video link at the very top of this post to watch the actual exchange, but basically what happened is Zach got Paul to admit that 1) slightly beneficial and slightly harmful mutations do NOT behave the same as strictly neutral mutations, and 2) proportionally fewer beneficial mutations can compensate for the effects of proportionally more harmful mutations.
And...that's it! Debate over. "Genetic entropy" relies on 1) slightly harmful mutations cannot be selected out of a population, and 2) beneficial mutations cannot compensate for the accumulation of those harmful mutations.
In those 5 minutes, Paul conceded that both points are wrong. He didn't realize it, but that was the end of the debate right there. So I want to make sure everyone gets the importance of what happened there.
Genetic entropy is fake. It's popgen fanfic. The data prove it, and Paul, a committed young earth creationist, a former writer for CMI and AiG, agreed. The end.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/05/260514084421.htm
Now we have yet another one from 2025, an "exceptionally preserved" Edmontosaurus sacrum with collagen remnants. Before they found it, the models said this stuff should break down way faster, and impossible to be found in dino fossils. Then they find it and suddenly start running shor term lab tests with iron cross linking and whatever, claiming "see, it can last!" But those tests aren't simulating deep time at all. You can't run a lab experiment for 66 million years. They're doing months or a couple years max, then excusing like crazy. So they find it in dino bone, go "whoa, exceptional preservation!", time to invent experiments after the fact to make it fit, and act like it was no big deal. How exactly does this dovetail into the eVoLuTiOn theory and the deep time narrative again? It feels less like settled science and more like "our models were wrong... but trust the updated models bro."
Happy reminder: what you think is rock-solid fAcT today might need another "uh..er..duh" moment next week.
They are now suggesting to start examining dino fossils (collegen enriched bones bro) discovered over the last 100 years. 😆
I know this is DebateEvolution, not DebateReligion or similar, but I think this is very relevant and useful to discussions here. I've been thinking a lot about the CREDs theory (link to relevant paper) and specifically how it likely applies to conspiracy theories and pseudoscience.
Something I think that the theory does not sufficiently emphasize is that the underlying costs and burdens that lend credibility do not need to be genuine, they merely need to appear so. A person who gives up a $90k/year job as a university professor to instead make $150k/year selling books about crank pseudoscience has not actually sacrificed anything that they valued, and has in fact gained greatly monetarily. But by framing their personal experience as being 'expelled' and 'excluded' from academia, as having 'lost' their job instead of getting a higher paying one, they are able to establish a sort of credibility to those who have fallen for the pseudoscience, because their 'persecution' shows that they are suffering for the belief, which must in turn mean that it is true.
I title this 'counterfeit credibility' because these frauds know exactly what they are doing, know that they were willing and even happy to abandon academic integrity in favor of an easier income stream where all they have to do is lie and grift. They are deliberately manufacturing false credibility, and the more we try to point out their deception, the more 'persecuted' they appear to the faithful, paradoxically increasing their credibility instead of undermining it
I'm not really sure what the solution is, but I think it's important that we take this factor into account and keep it in mind when talking to both the frauds and to the unfortunate marks who have fallen for the fraud.
Part 1
Hello there , yesterday I posted about a guy named Onsi Fakhouri. Recently he has been coming to Tour's channel along with Stadler and Truman complaining about different things like origin of life and evolution based topics
I am here referencing a video on James Tour's channel titled - Evolution vs design.
I am making a part wise post of the video. They talked about a lot of points.
So I am breaking each point into distinct parts to keep my post short and simple.
Ok ,let's go -
Topic- Fruit Fly Embryo Development & Signaling Networks
Onsi says the following points-
Precise Positional Information (3:52 - 4:14): The embryo successfully differentiates cells based on location along an axis with 1% resolution. He argues that such high-level accuracy is remarkable and essential for the embryo to develop correctly.
Sophisticated Signaling Networks (4:26 - 6:00): This resolution is achieved through a complex, multi-layered processing system involving maternal inputs and four "gap genes." He emphasizes that this is a highly engineered system designed to filter noise and maintain precision.
Quantitative Optimality (10:13 - 13:25): Drawing on the work of physicist Bill Bialek ( a biophysicist) and colleagues, they note that the gene regulatory network is tuned to an optimal state. Modeling suggests that the system requires exactly four genes to hit the 1% resolution target—three are insufficient, and five are unnecessary "overkill."This overkill statement is Onsi's.
The "Knobs" (10:20 - 10:34, 13:42 - 14:14): As explained by him ( Fakhouri) , the model assigns two specific parameters to each of these interaction paths. He says that when you aggregate these variables across the entire regulatory graph defined in the model, you arrive at approximately 56 adjustable "knobs" or parameters.
Physics-Based Modeling (10:20 - 10:34, 13:42 - 14:14): These parameters were identified by Bill Bialek and colleagues as they attempted to build a predictive, quantitative model that could account for how the embryo achieves its 1% positional resolution. The complexity of having to tune all 56 variables simultaneously is a key point in the speakers' argument regarding the difficulty of this system arising through purely undirected evolutionary processes.
The Problem of Evolutionary Tuning (13:42 - 14:14, 58:47 - 59:18): Onsi and his arguments are that with 56 different parameters ("knobs") to adjust, the complexity is so vast that it is mathematically implausible for random mutations and natural selection to have fine-tuned the system to this optimal state without a directed, purposeful cause.
He also says these - Because there are hundreds of nuclei floating in the exact same fluid, they are all competing for the same maternal signaling proteins (like Bicoid). He argues that trying to pass an accurate, uncorrupted chemical message through a chaotic, crowded soup of 100+ nuclei without it getting distorted or lost in molecular noise is mathematically implausible. He uses the "Every Nucleus Knows Its Place" Claim: He points out that despite this chaos, each individual nucleus reads the local concentration of proteins so precisely that it "knows" its exact position along the body axis within a 1% margin of error. He argues that this level of coordinate-mapping across hundreds of independent points simultaneously requires an upfront, engineered communication network.
I was like wth? Why did they pick up a modern gene regulatory network?
Also Truman's words
The Knowledge Problem (14:26 - 15:22): He argues that a random process, such as mutation, lacks the "foresight" to know in advance that specific genes are required for a regulatory network, meaning it must simultaneously avoid disrupting thousands of other genes while attempting to build the correct ones.
And yes ,these are direct words of Truman
What do you all think about this? And Onsi ? He is in a nutshell saying that the entire network is too complicated to have evolved. It's designed. Same old creationist rhetoric. So many parameters. Mutate a gene , and boom something bad is going to happen . Irreducible complexity.
Wanna hear all about your words. Edit - https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2402925121 It seems like onsi is talking about this paper.
If male and females were created from the very beginning in the Garden of Eden, how do you explain the extensive fossil record showing that complex multicellular organisms reproduced entirely asexually through cloning for millions of years before distinct biological sexes ever existed, as demonstrated by the 565-million-year-old fossil "Fractofusus"?
I've been mostly lurking on this page for quite a while now. I grew up very very YEC in a religion that thinks believing in evolution will send you straight to hell. Needless to say, I wasn't allowed a public school education growing up.
Nevertheless, I've decided that denying something without even knowing what it really is would be dishonest. So I've spent the past year trying to learn all about the things I was never allowed to as a kid. I know many people here are often dumbfounded as to how young earth creationists can hold to certain views, and the simple answer I've come to is that it's easy to hold to a view when your education purposefully withholds key elements of knowledge from you.
Here are things I didn't know:
I didn't know that we have transitional fossils.
I really didn't know about 99%+ of fossils or basically any prehistoric creatures besides a few dinosaurs.
I didn't know anything at all about geology or how rock layers form.
I didn't know about continental drift.
I thought the only area of science that needed evolution to be true to work was biology.
I didn't know that evolution can be observed in a lab.
I didn't even know the basic definition of evolution (even though I thought I did).
I didn't even know that most sects of Christianity allow you to believe in evolution and still be a Christian.
Growing up, I hated science. I thought it was so boring. But as it turns out - it's fascinating! I just didn't know! But here is what I currently am trying to understand:
How do we know what we know? So we have all of these fossils, but how did we find them? Where are they stored? How can we possibly have anything that's been around for millions of years? My science lacking mind can't comprehend how something wouldn't degrade after all that time?! How can we know when a natural disaster happened millions of years ago? Or what animals ate millions of years ago? I feel like a 5 year old trying to make sense of basic things.
I enjoy reading the sub. I've learned a lot. I've been watching a lot of PBS Eons and feeling like a child. I don't even know what I hoped to get out of this post, but since I can't talk to any real life people about what I'm learning, I just needed to tell it here.
Gonna keep it short and simple: What's the creationist response to Archaeopteryx and Maiacetus?
We have the transitional fossils of the transitional fossils of the transitional fossils nowadays. These guys are just the mascots. We now have birds with teeth, birds with teeth and claws in the wings, birds with teeth, tail and claws in the wings, all in chronological order until you get creatures that are very different from birds, and so on until you only get worms. The same for almost all lineages, specially vertebrates and arthropods. I can cite the genera.
This exactly what we expected to find if evolution was real. These are not incomplete creative interpretations, the fossils are complete and articulated.
So, what argument would be capable of denying the pillars of evolution that literally show up in the rocks every week?
Hi there , I have been seeing james tour bringing a new guy named Onsi Fakhouri who is claims to be a phd , astronomer and is Pivotal’s Senior Vice President of Cloud R&D since a few days ,to talk about topics on evolution and debunk it . Any opinions on this guy ?
James tour also recently posted a video yesterday with him ,Stadler and Truman Evolution vs Intelligence.
From across the creationist world we've heard that there is "no known mechanism whereby mutations can introduce new information into the genome". This mantra is repeated so very, very often, but it obviously isn't and can't be true. If you believe it is true, however, then come, let us reason together.
It might be helpful for us to lay it out in a manner so simple that a 5-year-old would agree. I sincerely don't mean that in a condescending way, I just mean to say that we can simplify it enough into a plain and clear principle that all should be able to agree on, as an objective fact.
So, we could present a collection of elements (letters) that code for one single thing, let's use:
"cart"
That's one "item" of information, coding for "a small wheeled vehicle used to haul things". Now, we can duplicate that word as many times as we want:
cart
cart
cart
but alas, we'll still have just one item of information, "cart". We haven't added any new information.
However, now that we have more than one instance of that same item, any mutation may be introduced into any one of them, leaving the original one(s) as is:
cart
cart
dart
We now have increased our number of "items" of different information, now having one that encodes: "a small pointed object that can be thrown".
Now, we did that by a simple "point" mutation, but surprisingly (or perhaps not), we can even reduce our total volume of elements (letters), and still increase the amount of information:
cart
car
dart
Here we've removed (deleted) an element (letter), yet we've managed to increase our number of items again, now having a sequence that encodes "a driven vehicle that can transport humans/cargo".
That's it. That's the mechanism. It's such a very simple principle, that the statement:
"no known mechanism exists whereby mutations can introduce new information into the genome"
should be abandoned forever as simply not corresponding to the reality that can be demonstrated in very simple terms.
Addendum: Gene duplications are known to be extremely common, relatively cost-free (usually not deleterious, since they leave working copies of genes intact). And are free to mutate and expand the genome by increasing encoding space. Moreover, uncountable examples of related genes are known, throughout most organisms, having artefacts showing they were clearly duplicates at some point. Gene duplication is a very, very well-established mechanism.
And once you have a new duplicate, any change in one, even a deletion or "loss", not to mention an addition, substitution or block insertion, adds new information to the genome that was not there before. That information may or may not be useful, or even viable, but it is new informational content in that genome, because the nucleotides ACTG all have inherent meaning in that context.
Moreover, so long as the open reading frame can still be transcribed and expressed, there will be a new protein produced that was not being produced before. New content based on the new information.
It should be very clear, therefore, that the claim of "no known mechanism" for new information arising in the genome is simply, undeniably, and objectively incorrect.
Preempting the Why waste your time: the target audience is once again the 99%, and fans of biology. Also - selfishly(?) - trying to explain something helps one understand it better.
You can skip to the summary section, and read the sections later, if you wish.
The post is necessarily long (but made with love) for one main reason: my issue is not just the answer, but the challenge/question itself.
Duffy's challenge
Will Duffy, an hour and a half into his second lesson with Erika (six months ago), recounted his visit with a friend to Richard Dawkins' building at the University of Oxford (he wasn't in), with a printed challenge in hand (the friend made it), which a receptionist put in Dawkins' mailbox.
I uploaded a screen grab of that printout here.
It reads (I've removed Duffy's bold emphases except for one):
> Let's ignore all the wild complexity of the genetic code and try to give a Darwinian explanation for one of the simplest aspects of our DNA. Richard Dawkins, drawing on your lifetime of studying evolution, can you describe in as vague terms as you'd Like, how the 3-to-1 pattern could arise by a non-directed material process, such that three genetic letters code for one amino acid?
As Erika pointed out, this is a question about the origin of the genetic code, i.e. the origin of life, and she said she recalls Crick writing about that.
Indeed it was Crick, Woese, and a whole army, with a mountain of published research.
Because guess what? scientists love asking questions(!).
My gripes
Why pose that question to an evolutionary ethologist (animal behaviorist), beats me (not really; it's the YEC priming of "Atheists need evolution" and Dawkins is a prominent atheist, little they know atheism doesn't require a single scientific fact, and that the burden of proof is on them).
Of the points I'll try to make: they don't want to know the answer, despite the theatrics of the debate scene and going uninvited to a busy person's office with a googleable question.
Duffy preempted that by stating he just needs a "vague" answer, but IDists love nothing more than turning a simple answer into a straw man, so they can false-balance that with a quote mine of said straw man. (I have an example of Duffy doing the latter after the lesson on whales.)
Challenge breakdown
Again, not out of pedantry, as I've mentioned already:
> "Let's ignore all the wild complexity of the genetic code"
"Complexity" is the ID speak for design, so to burst that bubble (one of my pastimes here):
It took nine years from the discovery of the structure of DNA to decipher one codon, and 13 years in total to decipher all of them.
All the logical attempts, mostly by eager physicists, failed spectacularly, because the code has no logic behind the codon mapping (a fact that I'll explain). I think this should matter to the IDists:
No Logic Behind The Mapping.
No Logic Behind The Mapping.
(I'll mention below something about plants, when you get to it, revisit this)
> "try to give a Darwinian explanation ... a non-directed material process"
This nicely illustrates his IDist anti-materialism and very likely confusion given that tautology. Darwinism (in its academic sense), i.e. the process, is universal in the sense that to a Darwinist (in its respectable sense) it has no trouble at all accounting for the origin of the genetic code, even without knowing any of the details.
There is a reason engineering relies on that blind process to solve otherwise unsolvable problems. (See this post by u/gitgud_x and the one linked therein by u/theosib.)
Heck, Universal Darwinism was a Dawkins paper published in 1983.
And it's the same reason Dennett titled his 1995 book, Darwin's Dangerous Idea.
It's a process that not only solves the aforementioned engineering problems, it demonstrates that mind needn't come first. (The relevance of this to the "debate" is covered in the linked post just above.)
> "one of the simplest aspects of our DNA"
It's not the simplest aspect, unless - again - one is thinking like an IDist. Solving that one, solves all of it, bottom-up.
> "3-to-1 pattern could arise ... such that three genetic letters code for one amino acid"
Again with the tautology.
Duffy (or the friend) knows enough biology to know said pattern, and doesn't know the word "codon"? and hence codon mapping?
This feels like the intended audience wasn't Richard Dawkins(?).
The main point of this section was to highlight the erroneous, misleading and presuppositional framing; and the laziness to go on Google Scholar, or schedule a meeting with an appropriate expert - but no, best pretend it's unsolveable because personal incredulity.
Another IDist's "challenge"
The same comes up regularly here - here's one such recent example:
> I don't think AIG (or someone like Stephen Meyer) would argue that random mutation is unable to create a very small amount of information, like the 4 letter word in your example. Especially when you chose the initial word in the first place. What they (and I) would argue is that random mutation won't generate the sequence needed for even a small gene, much less all of the information needed to produce the proteins and rna that perform the transcription and translation processes. Without those processes, the information encoded in DNA is useless.
Quick breakdown:
> "What they (and I) would argue is that random mutation won't generate the sequence needed for even a small gene"
Randomly-generated sequences have literally disproved that (btw), but then again that comment was left by someone who once (hopefully that has changed) refused the role of stochasticity in chemistry(!), let alone that specificity isn't on/off.
Now take a closer look at:
> "the information needed to produce the proteins and rna that perform the transcription and translation processes. Without those processes, the information encoded in DNA is useless."
Not only is it self-contradictory, the author of that comment - if only they'd remove the intelligence blindfolds - answered their own question.
And like Duffy, I still wonder (not really as I've explained) where is the difficulty in searching for, ideally, books on Google or Google Scholar.
I, too, am curious about the world, I've asked the same question, and I've found answers.
The answer
- Let's meet the cast
- Present setting
An RNA enzyme (polymerase) reads the DNA and makes an mRNA or tRNA.
The ribosome (made of the aforementioned ribosomal proteins and some RNA) reads holds said mRNA, and matches waits for the tRNA ferrying the right amino acid to bump into it (stochastic bumping, verifiably so).
And earlier the AARSs (one for each amino acid) activate and attach said amino acids to the tRNAs.
- Prebiotic setting
Here, Jacques Ninio's (1982) analogy for molecular evolution will be useful: a hotel's passkey (which opens all the doors) is less complex than the room keys, because it is less specific, and it is the same case here: an increase in specificity, due to and via selection - Darwinian evolution 101.
(fun fact! direct evidence of this at the single-molecule kinetics level has been achieved)
But selection for what? That's the Darwinian answer Duffy wants.
Carl Woese pointed out selection for what in 1965, 61 years ago. (recall what I said about scientists, and the refusal to google)
Starting from statistical RNAs and proteins, a reduction in translation error means a selection for an increase in ribosomal proteins, for an increased specificity, with the tRNA coevolving (1859 Darwinism applied to a molecular - still "ecological" - setting). This selection for specificity (and redundancy; in molecular speak: codon degeneracy) also explains why the codon is 3 letters long (has to do with the biophysics error rate of each position with the second being the most stable - needs to be flanked, in other words).
But because the code (codon mapping) was still ambiguous, this alone does not help.
Enter the simultaneous selection for ambiguity reduction, which is a selection for an increase in the AARS proteins and the secondary amino acids.
Back and forth, back and forth, until it has settled into what has been termed a frozen accident - very optimized but an accident. (recall what I've mentioned earlier: the codon mapping is not logical)
-
Can this be bootstrapped from random sequences? (That's why I mentioned that earlier.) With an increase in specificity? (The passkey.) With clues left behind? (A mountain of research.)
So Yes to all. As an example of a clue: remove selection from the translation, and the tRNAs evolve away and the mapping changes (e.g. a very recent study on plants that become parasites of other plants; Ceriotti et al 2026, which I shared on r /evo). An older clue: the genetic code is not universal (only nearly so).
There you go, and a couple of billion years later, and Bob (the extinct hominoid) is our uncle.
Example research area
AARSs, annoyingly, come in two classes.
Two very different classes, which poses a problem. Because assuming two separate origins would leave the above genetic code origin in a pickle.
What did I say about scientists, as opposed to IDists?
Enter the Rodin-Ohno hypothesis; they "proposed that the two superfamilies descended from opposite strands of the same ancestral gene", based on tantalizing evidence.
Initially it was thought to be unfalsifiable, but as it turns out, that is not the case; experimental attempts at falsification failed, and Bayesian analyses support it.
As a taste:
1995
Rodin, Sergei N., and Susumu Ohno. "Two types of aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases could be originally encoded by complementary strands of the same nucleic acid." Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 25.6 (1995): 565-589. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf01582025
2014
Carter Jr, Charles W., et al. "The Rodin-Ohno hypothesis that two enzyme superfamilies descended from one ancestral gene: an unlikely scenario for the origins of translation that will not be dismissed." Biology Direct 9.1 (2014): 11. https://doi.org/10.1186/1745-6150-9-11
2025
Wang, Minglei, M. Fayez Aziz, and Gustavo Caetano-Anollés. "Tracing the origin of the genetic code and thermostability to dipeptide sequences in proteomes." Journal of Molecular Biology (2025): 169396. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmb.2025.169396
and
What do IDists do in such a case?
What they always do: move the goalpost (pretend the question, "How could it have happened?" wasn't answered) to something else, e.g. But you didn't see it (because when in doubt: Last Thursdayism), or the equally braindead false Thomistic analogy: But the experiments needed intelligence.
Recap (all qualified above)
TL;DR: Will Duffy's requested an answer in vague terms, and so:
(barring trickster deities and Last Thursdayism)
The genetic code and "3-to-1" evolved via an increase in specificity starting from statistical RNAs and proteins in response to the dual selection on error and ambiguity reduction, supported by the very attributes and heterogeneity of the "machinery" of the cell across life.
IDists pretend scientists don't ask or ignore questions
IDists pretend to have unanswer_able_ questions, therefore... <shrugs>
IDists pretend to seek answers
IDists pretend Darwinism hadn't already solved the no-mind-first problem, and so the design presupposition is present in their questions
IDists need to read this from 1859:
It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as the “plan of creation,” “unity of design,” etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact.
-Darwin, Charles
Finding a multi-part system, and restating the fact as "design", is, as noted by Darwin above and Francis Bacon centuries earlier, is not will never be an explanation.
Between their bogeyman "materialistic science", and their ID, only one of those actually answers questions.
Over to the pros here, and I hope it wasn't too boring.
^(edits: my memory failed me at the details of the visit, so revised that, plus one typo fix, the rest of the blemishes are left intact)
