Creation? Evolution? Exploring Creationism Claims, Ep1

Creationism often makes many claims, both about the natural world, and about evolution. In this video, I analyze some of the claims that come from an interview posted by Creation Ministries International. Are the things that they say about evolution and the natural world supported by evidence? Do they align with what the common understanding is of scientific processes? Where, if at all, are their claims unsubstantiated, or inaccurate?

#creation #evolution #criticalthinking #darwin #darwinism #evolutionist

MUSIC ATTRIBUTION:

This Is It by Indie Box, BenSound License certificate no. 2201641
Ok Now by TwinsMusic, BenSound License certificate no. 20480795
Bright Future by Indie Box, BenSound License certificate no. 20480795
Path To Success, by Indie Box, BenSound License certificate no. 20480795
La la la, by Indie Box, BenSound License certificate no. 20480795
Countdown by Sound of Silence, BenSound License certificate no. 20480795
Dreaming of Tomorrow by Evert Zeevalkink, BenSound License certificate no. 20480795
This is Your Time by Dan Phillipson, BenSound License certificate no. 20480795
Go Get it by Dan Phillipson, BenSound License certificate no. 20480795
You Got This by Yan Perchuk, BenSound License certificate no. 20480795

[sciencenerd]

15:00 I'll also add here that the creationist mantra of "they're still finches"/"they're still dogs" fits in with evolution's ideas of monophyly and nested heirarchy. You can't outgrow a clade, so yeah, their still "finches" (or actually tanagers) in the same sense that their still passeriformes, still birds, still amniotes, still vertebrates, still animals, still eukaryotes... Likewise the dogs that are still dogs are also still caniforms, still carnivorans, still laurasiatherians, still mammals...

[DeathPetalArt]

It's kind of you to pretend that Don is "confused" & not just being, you know, willfully dishonest 😅
Excellent video, I've watched hundreds of hours of evolutionary education, & the way you explain things is very clear, & even novel at times! The "car brakes" metaphor was a particularly tasty rebuttal to Don's nonsense.

[sciencenerd]

I student taught a high school biology class last year and I can affirm that mutations are included in the curriculum at least in places that use the Next Generation Science Standards! We covered a variety of evolutionary mechanisms including natural selection, genetic drift, mutation, migration, and sexual selection. We also covered several lines of evidence such as biogeograpy, developmental biology, the fossil record, homology, genetic/molecular evidence, etc. So yeah natural selection is cool but not the only thing that gets taught.

[louvendran]

01:30 is already bs. I disagree. Doesn’t mean extra reproduction, but females choosing males with certain tropes. Perhaps the offspring have a better chance of surviving through analogous benefits.

15:04 Evolution is not linear. Those exogenous forces that may accelerate or slow down change allele structures eg. In times of abundance a species can produce many offspring with certain recessive genes or where a good proportion who have recessive genes become homozygous genotypes.

Theferefore various phenotypes become visable. I haven't studied this in 30 years as I moved on to Engineering & Commerce.

However, I am a mutant as I have Marfans Syndrome. My No15 Chromosome, FBIN-1 gene is defective. The only person that can take care of my situation is me first as being pragmatic as I have other chronic conditions as Psoriatic arthritis & hypotension then inform my physicians accordingly. It has therefore become a nightmare for my physicians to treat as I am hanging on a thread & science hasn't progessed technologically to treat my condition.

It's these religious zealots who trick people like me into fallacies of "it is God's will" or "prayer & penance will redeem my soul." I am a product of evolution & how it becomes game theory, under natural selection.

Breeding is a whole other issue. Thank you for debunking these multi-level marketers than prey on children & weak minds.

[DeathPetalArt]

17:31 I don't think you accurately restated this claim by Don. He didn't say "they" want students to believe in evolution more than they want them to believe in god. He thinks "they" want students to believe in evolution INSTEAD of god. Because he thinks they're incompatible beliefs. Even though most Americans who accept evolution are also professing Christians. There are even Christian evolutionary biologists!

Imo it's really crucial to show YECs that accepting science doesn't have to threaten their religious beliefs. I think your inaccurate summation at 18:26 weakens the video for a YEC audience, as you're not actually grappling with Don's real argument here (even though it's simple to defeat).

I'm excited to binge the rest of your evolution videos after this one 😊

[sciencenerd]

8:55 I love your analogy about brakes and cars here

[sciencenerd]

I'm starting to wonder how your channel doesn't have more views

[HoraceTorysScaryStories]

I was a Young Earth Creationist, now atheist. Most YECs believe God created each kind of animal with all the possible "genes" (alleles) their kind might need to use already present in their genome 6, 000 years ago in Eden. This was God's perfect creation, and that full catalog of genes allowed them to adapt to changing conditions and environments. In YECs' minds, this is all that was happening with Darwin's finches: when there was a drought that caused harder seeds, some of the finches' "strong short beak" type genes activated in subsequent generations, and they were able to crack open the hard seeds better, and the other finches weren't, and those died out. If a population migrated to a new island with lots of insects, those finches born with more "long probing beak" type genes activated were able to get more insects, had more babies with their "long probing beak" type genes expressed even more strongly, and so on. This is how they picture natural selection.

Because of Adam's sin, human and animal genomes have become more and more corrupted over time, and due to mutations (corruptions of our perfect DNA code) different populations have lost many different genes from our original full catalog of genes. Also, natural selection sometimes completely removes some genes from populations: if the drought went on long enough on an island, all the "long probing beak" genes might get bred out of the finch population there, and they'd be stuck with only variations of the "strong short beak" and other types to work with forever after. Since this has only been going on for 6, 000 years, most populations still have a decent subset of the original catalog to work with, but genes can only get lost through mutations, never gained or regained. If a population loses so many genes they can't successfully adapt anymore, they go extinct.

This is why they say "They're still finches" and the like. In their minds, God created a fish-kind with all possible fish genes, but no leg genes. Mutations and natural selection can remove genes, but never generate a leg gene, or even a half-leg gene, or 1/100th of a leg gene. So, even if they grant that a fish evolved, and even if a mutation gave a fish 1/100th of a leg gene, and it grew a little stub or something, that stub would be a disadvantage to swimming, and natural selection would select against it. Evolution disproved, mic drop.

If you would like to pick my brain as a YEC "cultural informant, " I'd be happy to answer questions by email or whatever.

[ramonfontes]

Amazing work and video bro.. please keep up !

[sciencenerd]

24:00 I like this example about the opsins

[JaniceinOR]

I find myself facing a language difficulty. If using the verb "select" for a nonconscious process is inaccurate (and it seems that it is) which term would be better? I looked in 2 dictionaries for definitions and synonyms and cannot think which English word describes the meaning I have in mind.

Which verb do I use in the sentence "A fine-grained mesh the sand from its mixture with pebbles and boulders."?

[JaniceinOR]

While overall this video does a great job, I think the analysis of Batten's claim about what is taught in schools missed the mark.
Since this is an interview with an Australian (I looked up Don Batten, though I already thought his accent sounded non-US) done by Creation Ministries _International_, I think his comments on education would either be specific to Australia, or about a broader world context.
In contrast, it sounded like this video only looked at what is taught in the USA. The written standards cited were specific to the USA. I am guessing the textbooks may also be specific to the USA though I am not sure how that works. (Since so many words are spelled differently in Australia, I would guess they use different textbooks there.)

(If there is a reason to think Batten's claims are specific to US education, or if I missed that the video analysis of education standards was not US-specific, please let me know so I can understand.)

[louisenaninaligthelm]

It makes natural sense to understand that the natural laws that govern us and creation can only initially come into being from a source not bound by natural laws, therefore the only logical explanation of the natural world around us is that it came into being through an "unnatural event", process and Inventor that must be outside our natural laws.

Therefore God, the Creator must exist for us to exist, or else we are only an illusion of reality, which is obviously not true. The "unnatural" miracle of creation by a creature must have occurred, for us to be physically possible.

Lastly is interesting how even in nature the more intellect an organism has the more it has an inclination or need for a personal relationships. The complexity of the creation begs for us to understand that the creator must a have enormously superior intellect more than any living being on earth. Does it make sense that he creates and in no way wants a personal relationship with the creatures he has created with the capabilities for a personal relationship. No it does not. The trinity God gave his only Son to die for undeserving human beings so that we can enter into an everlasting relationship with him...

[usergiodmsilvaPT]

It's not that he doesn't know... It's that he chooses to lie.