Destroying Evolution in less than 5 minutes

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

So I notice.

Why does it matter. You don't even care.

 

[AV1611VET]

I know that. His hostility to knowledge is clear. I ignore him for that reason.

Believe me, I hold knowledge up to a Higher Standard that no atheist can go.

If anyone is hostile to knowledge ... well ... you decide for yourself.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Believe me, I hold knowledge up to a Higher Standard that no atheist can go.

If anyone is hostile to knowledge ... well ... you decide for yourself.

The phrase 'I hold knowledge up to a Higher Standard that no atheist can go' and your tagline of 'SCIENCE CAN TAKE A HIKE' is the best example of an oxymoron and hypocrisy that I've seen exist on the internet.

You ARE hostile to knowledge, it's plain as day to anyone who comes to these forums.

 

[BCP1928]

Why does it matter. You don't even care.

He's just the relief pitcher. I don't think 1tonne will be back in this particular game.

 

[AV1611VET]

Why does it matter. You don't even care.

I'm the gardener around here.

I'm on the lookout for tares.

And when I find one, I zap that sucker with Roundup⁶⁶!

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

I'm the gardener around here.

I'm on the lookout for tares.

And when I find one, I zap that sucker with Roundup!

.. no you don't. You really do not.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

He's just the relief pitcher. I don't think 1tonne will be back in this particular game.

Well 1Tonne is in New Zealand, so he is like a full day ahead of all of us.

 

[AV1611VET]

The phrase 'I hold knowledge up to a Higher Standard that no atheist can go' and your tagline of 'SCIENCE CAN TAKE A HIKE' is the best example of an oxymoron and hypocrisy that I've seen exist on the internet.

Or maybe it's a paradox?

Ever think of that?

You ARE hostile to knowledge, it's plain as day to anyone who comes to these forums.

I guess not.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Or maybe it's a paradox?

Ever think of that?



I guess not.

No, it's an oxymoron, because there is no deeper knowledge to be gleaned from you. Well, nothing useful to the wider world or even this forum at least.

 

[AV1611VET]

.. no you don't. You really do not.

You have to recognize It first.

Reminds me of these old commercials:

 

[AV1611VET]

No, it's an oxymoron, because there is no deeper knowledge to be gleaned from you. Well, nothing useful to the wider world or even this forum at least.

We're trying to get the wider world in through the eye of a needle.

And it's hard when they're lugging around diplomas and dean's lists and Nobel prizes and what have you.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

You have to recognize It first.

Reminds me of these old commercials:

I recognize a gardener, in both reality and fiction. You are not one.

Have some humility about yourself, AV. It will certainly go a long way for you.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

We're trying to get the wider world in through the eye of a needle.

And it's hard when they're lugging around diplomas and dean's lists and Nobel prizes and what have you.

And the eye of your particular needle is so minuscule and form fitted to you that... well, there's no finer example of myopia.

 

[NxNW]

Don't be so quick to dismiss the power of God.

The question is, what part does God play in the evolution process? Is there some moment where we could have observed a biological miracle taking place? Or were there multiple moments? Note that I'm not talking about Adam & Eve.

 

[NxNW]

I’m aware that some Christians believe in evolution, but when they attribute the design and wonder of creation to blind, natural processes, they still redirect glory away from the Creator. That’s not a minor issue. I make no apology if that offends. What does offend me is when people give credit to chance and animals for what God clearly deserves praise for.

If it was clear, we wouldn't be arguing about it. Exactly when did God supposedly act during the evolution process? The evidence isn't consistent with Adam & Eve being created out of the blue. Was it just one miracle, or was there a miracle for every hominid species? Did the miracle take place in just one individual per species, or in an entire population? What testable hypotheses can you give us?

I have already pointed to the fine-tuning of physical constants (e.g., gravity, strong nuclear force, cosmological constant),

I notice you left out the speed of light and the weak nuclear force, which (as I pointed out) Creationists claim are variable. What is your response to the Creationist claim that they vary?

the specified, code-like nature of DNA, and the sudden appearance of fully formed systems in the fossil record, all well-discussed in scientific literature. You keep saying “that’s not evidence” without engaging with what’s actually being referenced. Dismissing every example as “not evidence” simply because it doesn’t support your worldview isn’t a scientific rebuttal, it’s evasion.

Don't forget the recent discovery of fossils in the Grand Canyon, which push may back the beginning of the Cambrian. So it's not as sudden as some claim.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

That's a thing I hate about these arguments, when someone espousing a very niche and not entirely evidence argument says "It's clearly this or that! Why are we having this argument?"

If it was clear, then we wouldn't be having the argument in the first place! This thread is a whole and clear example of that.

 

[NxNW]

Does that include your "own side," which has some seven theories as to how we got our moon?

Nobody's disputing the existence of the moon, though. I'm trying to figure out how creationists claim that the universal constants are both fine-tuned and variable. Which is it?

 

[NxNW]

If you believe in common descent

Who said anything about belief?

then yes, by your own framework, mammals (including monkeys) ultimately trace their ancestry back to fish-like creatures. That’s not "nonsense," that’s standard evolutionary teaching.

That's different than your description of "macroevolution, like a fish eventually becoming a monkey".

Try looking up lobe-finned fish, tiktaalik, or the vertebrate phylogenetic tree. If you're embarrassed by what your own theory implies, maybe it's time to re-examine it.

I've been talking about the Tiktaalik for awhile now. Nobody is claiming that they turn into monkeys.

If the case were truly airtight, there wouldn’t still be so many disagreements about the case itself. The fact that even evolutionists argue over which fossils count as transitional, how to interpret them, and what the tree of life even looks like just proves my point, it’s far from settled. "The details" are actually the foundation.

None of what you described above is "the foundation."

 

[NxNW]

On fine-tuning: yes, the full picture is complex and ongoing research continues. But that doesn’t erase the fact that many key constants fall within narrow ranges essential for life as we know it.

I just caught this; thus the separate reply. So it's "many constants", but not all? Can you comment on which ones are constant, and which ones are variable, and which ones fall outside the narrow range essential for life as we know it?

 

[1Tonne]

You were unnecessarily rude.



Yes, 3 million years is a short geological time, but when the topic is about the morphology of animals, biological beings, the time frame is still a great magnitude of time. We don't know how long the Cambrian lifeforms lived for; what their life expectancy was, how many years it took for a generation to become a generation, how many offspring they'd produce during reproduction. If they were short lived species that produced hundreds or even just dozens of young at a time, then 3,000,000 years isn't a barrier in the slightest for evolution to occur, especially if we do expand the time frame to the more commonly accepted timeframes of either 13,000,000 or 25,000,000 years. And yes, there are not a lot of precursor fossils to the Cambrian period (outside of those found in Avalon in Newfoundland that show such an explosion has happened before in Earth's history) but they do exist, otherwise we wouldn't be able to say what they evolved from.

Evolution is not linear and static process: it's dynamic, as the fossil record shows us, and other events outside of the Cambrian Explosion like the Great Dying/Permian-Triassic extinction event or the Late Devonian mass extinction event, or even the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, show that in the right circumstances, evolution can and will occur very quickly.

You say that 3 million years isn't enough for the theory of evolution. I find your claims entirely lacking and without any merit.

You say my claims lack merit, but you're brushing past legitimate questions. I acknowledged your point that 3 million years is biologically significant. Still, it doesn't resolve the central issue: the sudden appearance of dozens of complex animal body plans (phyla) without a robust trail of transitional fossils, despite fossilisation bias being factored in. Even evolutionary biologists see this as a major puzzle, hence why they’ve proposed punctuated equilibrium, evo-devo, and other mechanisms to address it. If gradualism worked smoothly, why the need for these alternatives?
You also mention the Avalon fossils, but even those don’t show clear, step-by-step precursors to Cambrian phyla. There’s still a massive jump in complexity. And yes, extinctions may open niches, but rapid morphological innovation still requires mechanisms that generate new functional information, not just environmental opportunity.
And here's a practical example: Scientists have studied fruit flies (Drosophila) for decades across tens of thousands of generations under intense mutation-inducing conditions. What did they observe? Minor variations, yes. But no new organs, body plans, or species. As zoologist Pierre-Paul Grasse put it: “The fruit fly seems to have hit a ceiling.” That’s after what should’ve been ample opportunity for macroevolution to appear, yet it didn’t. This challenges the assumption that small changes automatically build into large ones given enough time.
So, no, my claims aren’t baseless. They reflect real gaps, real questions, and real caution about overstatements often made in defence of evolution.

"The origin of specified, functional systems with interdependent parts" is making a claim about something different than "functional biological information is about specific sequences that produce meaningful outcomes, like building proteins", which was the subject of your earlier claim. Do you think that random variation and selection can produce functional proteins or not?

You wrote, "Even under these very favourable conditions, we only get 500,000 beneficial mutations fixed across human evolution, but we supposedly need 30 million meaningful genetic changes. And in reality, beneficial mutations are rare and slow to fix in populations. The real numbers make the problem worse, not better." You were summarizing Harris's argument. Do you think Harris's argument was a false premise or not?

Yes, I believe Harris’s argument highlights a valid issue, the mismatch between the time available and the number of meaningful changes needed. As for proteins: yes, I believe random variation and selection can produce some functional proteins. But the origin of integrated, complex systems, where multiple parts must work together, requires far more than isolated protein function. That’s the distinction I’m making.

If you think the inferences drawn by evolutionary biologists are wrong, are based on an inaccurate framework, and are fundamentally flawed, you should start your own research program and show how your way of doing things and the inferences you make are better.

I don’t need to start my own research program, there are already several active ones challenging evolutionary assumptions. Groups like Answers in Genesis, Institute for Creation Research, and Discovery Institute are doing exactly that: offering alternative frameworks, publishing critiques, and conducting research from different starting assumptions.

No, the fact that you thought the argument put forth in the OP "destroys evolution in 5 minutes" even though it was based on fundamental errors any undergrad would quickly spot is a good indication of your level of understanding of the science.

That’s a bold claim, especially when no one here has actually refuted the core of Haldane’s dilemma, only waved it away. The argument highlights real mathematical constraints on how fast beneficial mutations can realistically spread, and despite decades of evolutionary research, it hasn’t been decisively answered. Mocking the OP doesn’t erase that. If undergrads can “spot the errors,” maybe you can point to a peer-reviewed paper that definitively resolves Haldane’s dilemma rather than just dismissing it.

I'm still curious how ID Creationists measure their special versions of "Information".

Earlier @1Tonne agreed it was functional genetic sequences, which has been seen to evolve countless times. So now he's talking about the origin of the very first genetic sequences.

Yes, I did refer to functional biological information as sequences that produce meaningful outcomes (like proteins), but you're oversimplifying my position. The point was that functional information isn't just any genetic sequence, it’s about specified, interdependent systems that work only when arranged correctly, not random noise that selection happens to stumble upon.
Saying “functional sequences have been seen to evolve countless times” ignores the deeper question: how do such sequences originate in the first place, and what are the probabilistic limits involved? That’s the heart of the information argument, not just that sequences exist, but how they arise in the first place, especially in the absence of prior function.
The distinction I made is between Shannon information (mere sequences) and functional or specified information (sequences that do something biologically useful), and that context still stands.

He's just the relief pitcher. I don't think 1tonne will be back in this particular game.

How could I not come back? I love you guys. This is fun.

The question is, what part does God play in the evolution process? Is there some moment where we could have observed a biological miracle taking place? Or were there multiple moments? Note that I'm not talking about Adam & Eve.

From a creationist perspective, evolution as a naturalistic, undirected process isn’t how God created life. Rather than tweaking things over millions of years, Scripture points to intentional acts of creation. So, it’s not about spotting a “miracle” in the process, it’s about recognising that the whole process was a miracle, by design, not chance.

If it was clear, we wouldn't be arguing about it. Exactly when did God supposedly act during the evolution process? The evidence isn't consistent with Adam & Eve being created out of the blue. Was it just one miracle, or was there a miracle for every hominid species? Did the miracle take place in just one individual per species, or in an entire population? What testable hypotheses can you give us?

I don’t accept the evolutionary framework, so I don’t try to fit God into it. Scripture presents creation as a purposeful act, not a series of undirected mutations. The burden isn’t on me to find where God fits into an evolutionary process that I believe didn’t happen.

I notice you left out the speed of light and the weak nuclear force, which (as I pointed out) Creationists claim are variable. What is your response to the Creationist claim that they vary?

They’ve shifted the conversation to fringe speculation to counter real, evidence-based discussion:
Dose of Reality:
-Speed of light (c) and weak nuclear force are not observed to vary under normal conditions. They’re consistent constants in physics. Claims otherwise come from speculative models and are not accepted by mainstream science mragheb.com+11en.wikipedia.org+11arxiv.org+11.
-As for radioactive decay rates, the overwhelming data supports their constancy. Yes, small variations have been observed in rare isotopes under extreme conditions (like ionized beryllium or solar events)—but these changes are tiny (typically <1–2%) and don't undermine the reliability of radiometric dating for long-term geological timescales dl0.creation.com+2creation.com+2.

So, pointing to these fringe claims as proof that fine-tuning is baseless is like using alchemy to disprove modern chemistry. It doesn’t invalidate the main point: actual, observed constants consistently fall within narrow ranges critical for life, and that remains the foundation of the fine-tuning observation.
If someone insists that Josh creationists disagree, they haven’t engaged with the actual scientific literature on tuning and constants themselves.

Don't forget the recent discovery of fossils in the Grand Canyon, which push may back the beginning of the Cambrian. So it's not as sudden as some claim.

That discovery doesn’t erase the Cambrian explosion, it still represents the relatively sudden appearance of nearly all major animal body plans in a narrow window of geological time. Even if the start date shifts slightly, the core issue remains: where are the gradual precursors? The problem isn’t the exact date, it’s the pattern.

That's a thing I hate about these arguments, when someone espousing a very niche and not entirely evidence argument says "It's clearly this or that! Why are we having this argument?"

If it was clear, then we wouldn't be having the argument in the first place! This thread is a whole and clear example of that.

It's absolutely clear that God made everything and that evolution is a sham. The only reason we argue is that simple people fall for simple theories. (The bible has another name other than simple for these people, but if I said it on here, people would report me.)

I'm trying to figure out how creationists claim that the universal constants are both fine-tuned and variable. Which is it?

You're confusing different claims. Fine-tuning refers to the constants as they are now, allowing life to exist. Some creationists explore whether constants may have varied in the past within limits, but that doesn’t undermine fine-tuning; it highlights how even small changes could make life impossible. The point stands, our universe is exquisitely balanced.

I just caught this; thus the separate reply. So it's "many constants", but not all? Can you comment on which ones are constant, and which ones are variable, and which ones fall outside the narrow range essential for life as we know it?

The focus is on constants that, if changed even slightly, like the gravitational constant, cosmological constant, or fine-structure constant, would make life impossible. Whether some others are variable or not doesn’t undo the observed fine-tuning of those that are critical for life. The core point remains: life-permitting values exist within extremely narrow ranges.