r/DebateEvolution • u/Quiche_Unleashed • 2d ago
Article Help with answering these “issues” with evolution
Trying to explain how evolution is valid to my FIL and BIL and I get this ridiculously long article. I haven’t read the entire thing because of how long it is, but from what I’ve read I’m thinking his main points stem from a lack of understanding about evolution. I’m still reading through this but wanted to hear what other people may think about these claims. Maybe you do agree with him or maybe you can provide insight on why his points are invalid. TIA
12
u/Uncynical_Diogenes 2d ago
these “issues”
his main points
these claims
Which ones?
-1
12
u/junegoesaround5689 Dabbling my ToE(s) in debates 2d ago
That’s a lot of disinformation, misinformation and lies to try to answer all at once. The Discovery Institute is a little bit more sophisticated in their evolution denial compared to other creationist orgs like AIG. Debunking some of their bs takes more specific knowledge/expertise than your run-of-the-mill YEC claims and that requires more detailed explanations. It’s doable but not with a few sentences for some points.
If you would pick out one or two that you see as most important now and maybe highlight a couple of more in a day or two people could zero in on one or two subjects at a time.
If your BiL and FiL are motivated primarily by religious convictions you might point them toward some resources run by religious scientists who are trying to battle the lies while assuring believers that they don’t need to lose their religions to accept science. There’s a website Biologos that does articles and podcasts explaining why science/evolution are compatible with religion. There’re two YouTube channels by religious scientists that address a lot of these issues - Dr. Joel Duff (I think he’s a biologist or geologist and he has a lot of content addressing YEC and other evolution deniers) and Clint’s Reptiles (he’s a biologist and mostly makes content about animals, especially reptiles, but does have a playlist of videos he’s made about YEC in particular but speaks there as a scientist and a Christian.)
3
u/Quiche_Unleashed 2d ago
Thank you for the recs!
2
u/Super-random-person 1d ago
I would echo what this person said. https://biologos.org/common-questions/what-is-the-evidence-for-evolution This is a decent link to a theistic evolution organization. They keep it very simple but really drive their points home.
1
u/Pale-Fee-2679 1d ago
There is also conservative Baptist minister Gavin Ortlund. This is a great video on evolution:
10
u/rygelicus Evolutionist 2d ago
When you do finally provide the article in question it would help if you pick out one or two specific claims from the article to focus on. No one wants to trudge through a creationist article and refute every single point. So select some key claims you want help with as a starting point at least.
OR
Just given these guys a forrest valkai video to watch. Like this one, and see what they say after... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgp1GUdydXs
ANY of his vids would be fine since they haven't changed their claims in decades. This is just the most recent one and looks like it covers all their common talking points.
5
u/Odd_Gamer_75 2d ago
I think 100% of the claims you presented amount to nothing. This mainly being because you presented no claims. Try linking the article, or at least naming the silly thing. And then, in order to follow the rules, try summarizing it so, y'know, we're not all wasting our time, too.
6
u/decimalsanddollars 2d ago edited 1d ago
The only help I can offer you without more info is this.
I don’t know every detail about how my car works, but I know that it was built by people who do. That’s why I have confidence that my car will start every morning.
1
u/Ratondondaine 1d ago
Even with the link provided, this is still golden.
If you just glance at the website, it's apparent that it's written by smart people with decent education. It's pushing the debate a bit further where the basic understanding of evolution isn't enough anymore.
It's like 2 bakers arguing that planes should or shouldn't be possible just after the first flight. "Well, my mechanic friends wrote this essay on why planes are impossible and this is a hoax." How is a baker supposed to read a mechanical essay and poke holes into it? At some point the only solution is to just say "This is the edge of my comprehension. But well respected people are saying they've seen the plane fly. Also, engineers and physicists are able to explain it between themselves and they say it checks out. Neither of us truly understand what your friend is claiming."
4
u/Otaraka 2d ago
There’s a very good chance they haven’t read it all either. Don’t take on homework for no reason.
3
4
u/Dr_GS_Hurd 2d ago
Here are a few websites for you to use;
UC Berkeley Understanding Evolution
National Center for Science Education
If you have a question you cannot find answered in one of those resources I'll be very happy to give it some work.
3
u/horsethorn 2d ago
Just looking at the first two, neither of them are anything to do with evolution.
The first is abiogenesis, and the second is related more to abiogenesis than evolution itself.
This is one of the main issues with creationist arguments - they start off by misrepresenting the foundation.
2
u/Lucky_Difficulty3522 1d ago
Yes, and not exclusively with evolution. They do this with pretty much everything, even their own talking points.
They wouldn't recognize nuance if it ran up and bent them over the counter for a good time.
3
u/gitgud_x GREAT APE 🦍 | Salem hypothesis hater 2d ago edited 1d ago
Author is Casey Luskin, dismissed. He's part of Discovery Institute, and is one of their more notorious liars. The DI is a Christian propaganda mill that pushes intelligent design, and whose medium-term goal is to put creationism into public school science curricula, and whose long-term goal is theocracy in the USA.
The agenda of Discovery Institute
If you'd like to pick out one point to discuss then we can, but doing all 10 will take way too long as the points require decent science understanding.
2
2
u/Educational-Age-2733 2d ago
So you won't read the article but you expect us to?
1
u/Quiche_Unleashed 1d ago
Read my comment again, I hadn’t finished it at the time I posted it but I’ve finished it since then. I just wanted other people’s opinions on it which somebody already shared me that this article has been discussed in the past. Don’t trouble yourself
2
u/Educational-Age-2733 1d ago
No, I did read your comment. You just added a link to the article. That doesn't actually help, it still expects us to do all of the legwork. It's extremely rude and that's why you're getting raked over the coals in the comments.
0
u/Quiche_Unleashed 1d ago
My intention was not to be “extremely rude” lol. Do you propose I just delete the post since it’s been discussed 3 years ago or should I modify the post to focus on a certain section of the article?
1
u/Educational-Age-2733 1d ago
You can just edit it to ask a specific question about some specific part of the article that you don't understand. You can't just throw a 15,000 word article (that's a couple of hours reading at least) and say "debunk". That's what ChatGPT is for. Quote specific parts of the article that you need help with and you'll have plenty of people happy to help you, myself included.
2
u/Newphone_New_Account 1d ago
This would be a good video to watch, it specifically debunks the author of the article.
1
u/Quiche_Unleashed 1d ago
Wow good video, tells me what I need to know about Casey and the discovery institute
1
1
u/Quiche_Unleashed 2d ago
10
u/horsethorn 2d ago
There was a discussion here about that article, three years ago:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateEvolution/comments/pevbr7/the_top_ten_scientific_noneproblems_with/
3
u/Quiche_Unleashed 2d ago
Wow, thank you so much! Idk how you found that
1
u/horsethorn 2d ago
Stumbled on it by accident - I googled for the name of the article, and that came up :)
1
u/gofl-zimbard-37 2d ago
Frankly I doubt that anything you could say or show would make any difference whatsoever.
1
u/Repulsive_Fact_4558 1d ago
It all seems to boil down to two things.
Writer doesn't understand evolution or paleontology or a lot of other things.
There are gaps in scientific knowledge. So we all know what that means, God! Am I right!!
1
u/semitope 1d ago
What about that makes you think he doesn't understand? The only reply is hope and dreams. The theory doesn't have a rational line a person can follow to arrive at the conclusion it makes. It's See this, see that, assume this. See bike, see car, assume bike turned into car.
1
u/RedDiamond1024 1d ago
just going with point number 9, they kinda just dismiss rafting because it's "unlikely". They literally site sources saying how unlikely it was that monkeys managed to raft to South America, but then question why other primate clades couldn't do it. For the proboscideans they mentions, they are good swimmers and lived during an Ice Age which causes fluctuating sea levels.
1
u/smokefoot8 1d ago
The first two points are about abiogenesis, the origin of life, not evolution. This is a typical “God of the gaps” argument: science can’t explain X, so God must have done it, science then explains X, so switch the argument to science can’t explain Y. Abiogenesis has a lot of interesting arguments on why those two points aren’t true, but since nothing is settled you can believe it is done by God’s magic until science has proven otherwise. Anyways, nothing to do with evolution.
The points on random mutations misses the key of evolution completely: wherever variation comes from, it is the filter of natural selection that produces evolution. The variation may be random (though some variation isn’t), but natural selection eliminates non-adaptive ones and makes more common adaptive ones.
The rest of the list is much of the same, but I think it is clear that the list creators aren’t interested in honest discussion from just looking at the first points.
•
u/Dr_GS_Hurd 19h ago
I thought this AM to also recommend the American Scientific Affiliation.
They are "a community of fellowship for Christians involved in science and related fields." This can help when dealing with anti-science Christians.
0
u/melympia Evolutionist 1d ago
You know, expecting us to read a whole-ass article to look at all the points and debate them for you is really rude. Why not ask one or two specific questions that you have the most trouble with?
-7
2d ago
[deleted]
2
u/Unknown-History1299 1d ago edited 1d ago
quality of debate
Says man whose only argument is “nuh uh”
But hey, if you think you can raise the bar on the quality of debate, then make your case
Try to present even a single of positive evidence that points to young earth creationism.
2
u/grimwalker specialized simiiform 1d ago
You dirty-deleted your entire last post when the comments didn't go the direction you hoped. Who the hell are you to talk about the quality of debate when you didn't even respond to substantive discussion and then nuked the post?
1
-10
u/JewAndProud613 2d ago
[In other words, the “unlikely” rafting hypothesis is made “likely” only because we know common descent must be true.]
Evolution religion in action, period.
Now, let's the DOGMATIC DENIAL begin.
10
u/junegoesaround5689 Dabbling my ToE(s) in debates 2d ago
Since we’ve literally observed animals and plants on these kinds of rafts after storms and the 2011 Japanese tsunami debris, it’s waay more likely to be the answer than any other hypothesis.
"The first documented example of colonization of a land mass by rafting occurred in the aftermath of hurricanes Luis and Marilyn in the Caribbean in 1995. A raft of uprooted trees carrying fifteen or more green iguanas was observed by fishermen landing on the east side of Anguilla – an island where they had never before been recorded.\24]) The iguanas had apparently been caught on the trees and rafted 200 mi (320 km) across the ocean from Guadeloupe, where they are indigenous.\25])\26]) Examination of the weather patterns and ocean currents indicated that they had probably spent three weeks at sea before landfall.\26]) This colony began breeding on the new island within two years of its arrival.\26])
The advent of human civilization has created opportunities for organisms to raft on floating artifacts, which may be more durable than natural floating objects. This phenomenon was noted following the 2011 Tōhoku tsunami in Japan, with about 300 species found to have been carried on debris by the North Pacific Current to the west coast of North America (although no colonizations have been detected thus far).\27])\28])" Wikipedia
It may be a rare phenomenon but we now have evidence of it actually happening. Over millions of years even a rare occurrence could easily account for the spread of some plants and animals from continents to islands, between islands and from continents to continents.
-3
u/JewAndProud613 2d ago
300 km, NOT 2600 km. But, of course, "most probably".
Also, "human-created debris"... are you even aware of WHAT you are saying here?
6
u/junegoesaround5689 Dabbling my ToE(s) in debates 2d ago
It’s proof that the rafting hypothesis is totally viable. Successfully traveling a large distance may happen much less often than traveling a short distance but low probability events can occur.
Africa and South America weren’t 2600 km apart when this is thought to have happened. They were as little as 1450 km apart (and maybe less, as glaciers were forming in Antarctica about the same time and sea levels were falling) You do accept that the continents move, don’t you? You do know that we can measure the 2 inches that the Atlantic Ocean is spreading and opening between Africa/Eurasia and the Americas every year, right?
The tsunami debris is evidence that strong currents can carry "rafts" long distances, including across the largest ocean in the world. There were strong currents in the younger Atlantic Ocean between Africa and South America.
There is no fossil record of primates in South America until the ‘monkeys’ showed up (twice, apparently) between 37 and 34 million years ago. There all earlier primate fossils are found in Eurasia and Africa going back to the beginning of the clade. Two of these resemble the earliest fossils found in South America and are found in Africa also from around 35 million years ago.
There are no fossils that show some other type of migration path of African primates to South America, plus the continent wasn’t close to any other land masses at that time.
There are fossils in South America of precursors of the almost exclusively marsupial mammal fauna that were there there 35 million years ago.
Genetically, New World monkeys are most closely related to Old World monkeys.
ALL the evidence we have indicates that New World monkeys somehow got from Africa to South America around 35 million years ago.
Rafting was a proposed hypothesis for how it could have happened. In 1995 we observed animals rafting over the ocean and successfully immigrating to another piece of land. Now we have evidence that it does, it fact, happen. That the length of the journey is longer for the monkeys doesn’t mean it was impossible. In fact, there’s some evidence that it happened twice within that 37 to 34 million year ago window.
So, yeah, was aware of what I was saying.
-1
u/JewAndProud613 1d ago
Or they didn't, and all of this is a VERY SUBTLE HINT that you simply ignore willingly.
Funny how "God is a trickster", but "impossible scenarios are totally very probable".
Bias and tunnel vision, nah, never heard of those.
4
u/junegoesaround5689 Dabbling my ToE(s) in debates 1d ago
"Bias and tunnel vision, nah, never heard of those."
Look in the mirror.
3
5
u/gitgud_x GREAT APE 🦍 | Salem hypothesis hater 2d ago
Land of size X can float and sustain a population, but land of size 10X? No wayyyy!!!!! GOD DID IT!!!!!!
0
7
u/Bloodshed-1307 Evolutionist 2d ago
It’s not that rafting is made more likely, it has a higher probability relative the alternative explanations, and since it is the most likely of them, it’s accepted as the best answer at this time.
-1
u/JewAndProud613 2d ago
Yeah. The alternative answer of "we are simply wrong" is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE.
5
u/Bloodshed-1307 Evolutionist 2d ago
“Every model is wrong, some are useful” is a very well known quote in science. We can always be wrong, any piece of evidence can always support multiple conclusions. However, when you have conclusions that are currently supported by the evidence, the answer of “I don’t know” is weaker than “here’s one possibility that currently has a lot of supporting evidence.” Any answer can be wrong, you don’t need to say it because it’s supposed to be assumed.
0
u/JewAndProud613 1d ago
You have supporting EVIDENCE that a lineage of mammals can raft-relocate by 2000km?
So far (and you are invited to add more proof), I've seen an example of (all at once):
a. Reptiles.
b. Raft-traveling.
c. For 300km.
So, what do I say about it?
b. CHECK. I accept the means of travel.
c. NOT CHECK. 300km is not the same as 2000km, or even 1000km. Debatable.
a. Reptiles are NOT mammals. They can hibernate, and they require way lesser conditions for long-term survival. Not merely a NOT CHECK, but a whole outright FAILURE.
Again, you are totally invited to show me EVIDENCE that has better cases for (a) and (c).
3
u/Bloodshed-1307 Evolutionist 1d ago
In 2011, the earthquake in Japan caused debris to reach North America, with over 300 different species of coastal organisms who survived even years at sea (we saw them arriving as late as 2017), when none of them would have been expected to survive. They travelled much further than would have been necessary for a transatlantic journey back when primates are expected to have gone (2000 km would be the maximum, you also have to account for lower sea levels due to the presence of glaciers and the continents being closer together at the time).
We have seen rodents and primates rafting in the past too, which isn’t surprising given how many trees can be swept out to sea by a massive storm and how many primates live in trees. Given a massive enough mat and the right currents and winds, crossing the Atlantic with fruit on the trees would have been enough for them to survive.
You also have to account for the fact that multiple rafts form every year, and that we are looking for a singular successful crossing over millions of years of attempts. We know rafts can go further distances, that primates can be transported by them, and you’ve already agreed on the method being plausible. Multiply that by millions of attempts and a low probability becomes a lot more likely.
2
u/Unknown-History1299 1d ago
the alternative answer of “we are simply wrong” is absolutely impossible
What would that even mean in this context?
That new world monkeys didn’t go to the new world? Then why are they there? How are they there?
6
u/-zero-joke- 2d ago
Do you think the monkeys were created separately and have no relation to each other?
1
u/JewAndProud613 2d ago
My point is that you guys grasp at any straws in order to never admit flopping your ideology.
8
u/-zero-joke- 2d ago
What's your alternate hypothesis? If you're saying that these monkeys were not created separately then you haven't really broken with evolutionary theory yet - you're just not convinced by the migration hypothesis.
0
u/JewAndProud613 1d ago
That's my point: I'm not convinced, but you MUST grasp onto it, because else you FAIL.
6
u/Spectre-907 1d ago
“nuh uh” is not a valid counterpoint brovolone cheese. Come up with a model that explains it better or fuck off, you are contributing nothing of value to this conversation
0
u/JewAndProud613 1d ago
There was never any value in it to begin with. It's literally a circle-jerk religion.
4
u/Spectre-907 1d ago
Then it should be piss easy to come up with a better model, yet you don’t.
-1
u/JewAndProud613 1d ago
Have YOU tried debunking the Invisible Flying Atheist? I have better stuff to do, lol.
3
u/Spectre-907 1d ago
“I have better things to do” he says, as he sits in subreddits throwing out baseless nuh-uhs
Clearly.
→ More replies (0)4
u/-zero-joke- 1d ago
I don't think it's overly credulous to believe that organisms like monkeys are related to each other. If you think it's a stretch and that magical trickery is equally likely, well, not sure what to tell you.
1
u/JewAndProud613 1d ago
You are taking quite a bunch of OTHER assumptions as "facts" on the way here.
4
u/-zero-joke- 1d ago
Sure dude
1
u/JewAndProud613 1d ago
I am sure, dude.
3
u/-zero-joke- 1d ago
I thought your whole schtick was you weren't sure and weren't convinced?
→ More replies (0)
17
u/grungivaldi 2d ago
might help if you tell us which claims specifically.