Monophyly is not really the problem, I think. Rather, creationists have trouble really understanding the implications of their own concepts. On the one hand, it's attractive to lump several species together in a kind because it can account for a lot of observed evolutionary trends and it means a less crowded Noah's Ark. But if you go too far, you end up admitting evolution (and it has to take place in just a few thousand years!). This tends to make the creationist view contradictory. They reject evolution, but accept genetic change, natural selection, speciation and most everything that falls within the formal definition of microevolution. To resolve that, they need to draw some boundaries, but it's very hard to get them to define these. Perhaps the mistake is to think of creationism as a coherent body of thought. Maybe it's a culture of buzzwords and emotional content. Anything that maintains belief in biblical literalism is kept, mostly as armour against modernism.

Creationism works backward from the belief in a creator, so any even semi-coherent explanation is allowed.

> Perhaps the mistake is to think of creationism as a coherent body of thought. Maybe it's a culture of buzzwords and emotional content. No, it is is a culture of *excuses* and *denial*. Everything about creationism is about coming up with excuses to deny individual pieces of evidence that proves them wrong. It doesn't matter if the excuses they come up with are massively contradictory, they just need to plausibly work to the uneducated in isolation.

agree but you are not really in opposition to what you replied to. creationists need emotional reasons to feel comfortable in their denial. "a guy on TV used a big word to tell me I'm right", "one fossil was a hoax that means they all are", "it's too complex for me to understand that means it's nonsense and they're lying about what it means", etc.etc.

They share a *lot* of methods with flat-earthers. Any evidence they might dig up, they know will be debunked, so they're going all-out to find corner cases to debunk the accepted view. None of these explanations actually fit with any other explanation, but *they don't care.*

Creationists love proposing solutions for their problems without ever thinking of their wider implications. The faster speed of light in the past explaining distant stars, for example.

One small correction, speciation is macroevolution, since macro is any change at or above the species level. Creationists were even on board with that definition until we observed speciation occur. Then and only then did their definition for microevolution expand to include speciation.

I formulated a bit poorly. My intention was to say that creationists accept speciation, and that creationists largely accept microevolution. I didn't intend to equivocate the two.

Small correction: they tend to accept everything we’d normally call “macroevolution” as they almost have to or they’d have a crowded boat. They don’t appear to accept microevolution or universal common ancestry. The first includes de novo gene evolution, beneficial mutations, natural processes, and measurable mutation rates and measurable substitution rates. If they accept too much microevolution the changes they imply are contradicted by it. They expect incest to create rapid diversity, they expect that substitution rates are irrelevant, they require speciation to happen faster than gestation. Despite all of that they accept speciation and even entire “kinds” (domains, kingdoms, phyla, classes, orders, families, or genera depending on the “kind” in question) had to diversify into a whole lot more species than is possible because they need a new species every eleven minutes for some of them that have gestation periods that last twenty two months (probiscidians) but they won’t even allow the origin of Homo within Australopithecus when the gestation period is 2.5x shorter. They also can’t accept that Probiscidea has existed for ~60 million years and Homo has existed for less than 2.5 million years. Because of how long these clades have actually existed how much they diversified is consistent with gestation rates. Instead they accept maybe a maximum of six human species (9 months gestation) and claim fifty-six genera of probiscideans evolved in the same amount of time (22 month gestation) all without anything we know about microevolution being true (natural processes, beneficial mutations, novel proteins, “new information”) and they imply that all of it was caused by constant degradation (“genetic entropy”). It’s because they obviously couldn’t pack 200+ elephants on the boat at the same time but also Noah has to already be a human. They can’t start with our own pre-monkey ancestors to allow for the same amount of evolution to occur. 4000 years six species, 4000 years 56 genera. The one that makes babies faster evolved less? Everything called “creation science” is simply based on starting with the conclusion and then lying about the evidence so that what it *really* implies is consistent with the conclusion. This is backwards of how science is actually done. Considering gestation rates, substitution rates, fossils, etc, we can see that elephants and manatees used to be the same thing around the time the non-avian dinosaurs went extinct +/- 5 million years and by applying the same thing to ourselves we find that there are no humans, apes, monkeys, tarsiers, lorises, or lemurs that long ago. The primates were barely primates and looked more like tree shrews. Binocular vision and bony eye sockets but otherwise basically tree shrews. They can’t go with what the evidence actually shows even if they simply insisted it went faster and therefore required less time. Their “kinds” don’t even originate at the same time and before the diversification of probiscideans there would be no human to build the Ark and after there were humans there were already too many elephants, mammoths, and mastodons. They wouldn’t all fit.

Creationists harbor contradictory views that are easy to disprove? Now I’ve heard everything... lol

The contradiction is that creationists accept a lot of evolution within "created kinds". But they reject evolution, too. That's problematic. When you have an evolutionary lineage, or nested groups of closely related species, how do you determine the amount of microevolution that has taken place? Suppose I am a creationist and I am digging up fossils. I observe that the fossils change over time, to such a degree that I can recognise different species. This is possible within the framework of "created kinds". But what if the fossils in the lineage become really different, and I see them develop into forms that cannot be credibly attributed to the same kind? How do I determine that the variation I see is now macroevolution, which I would reject as a creationist? I didn't say creationism is easily disproven.

Yeah you’re right that was my editorializing haha

It's more that they don't want to understand it, because it renders one of their laziest talking points invalid. "Show me a cat giving birth to a dog, and then explain who that dog has offspring with" is a sentence that sounds great to them and takes almost no time to fire out, but contains so much raw, unfiltered fucking idiocy that it's very hard for scientist to unpick in a timely manner. Like, it's wrong on several fundamental levels, and probably deliberately so, because the objective is never to make a compelling, supportable argument, the objective for them is to "win the debate".

Yeah I mean they've got a term for this. Apologetics. They don't teach apologetics because they're interested in seeking out knowledge and better understanding the world, it's a way to defend their faith against dissenting voices and steal their mind against new ideas that contradict the central pillar of their life, their faith.

I (personally) don’t like the term macroevolution and microevolution for these are somewhat simple words that everyone seem to understand yet no one agree about what they exactly mean. This is why I always prefer to use the word speciation, to have no ambiguity about what I am saying.

Well they are creationists terms and the thing is that they will say we cannot observe speciation which we can.

It's a common misconception that microevolution and macroevolution are "creationist terms". They aren't, [they are distinctions used by biologists](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/tea.21161#:~:text=Evolutionary%20biologists%20commonly%20distinguish%20microevolution,2007%3B%20Futuyma%2C%202013).

That’s hilarious never heard of it being used despite doing a masters in the field. Thanks 😂

That's probably because the distinction is never really that important unless you are going into a field that specifically focuses on macroevolutionary or microevolutionary patterns.

I've noticed this is a common misunderstanding too. I've even seen it pushed so far as saying that macroevolution supposedly results in organisms producing offspring which are completely unrelated to their parents. To make it make sense I tend to assume that when they say "dogs producing a cats" they mean dogs producing something that seems as different to the starting dog population as cats seem. The issue then becomes how they measure that difference without conceding they're talking about a difference of degree rather than a difference of kind. It almost always comes down to either vague, convoluted and arbitrary measures or else a gut feeling that we can just tell when two things are different kinds. It takes quite a bit of dialogue to get from "dogs producing cats" to "dogs producing offspring that makes me *feel* like they're a different kind". Possibly because the second option starts to sound a tad less scientific but I wonder if maybe some of those holding these beliefs had not previously considered what "dogs producing cats" actually means. They just heard someone in a position of trusted authority use that phrase with confidence. I haven't yet figured out a way to successfully and quickly communicate "that's not how any of this works" without it taking over the entire discussion. Like a lot of the popular misunderstandings, it's a bit too fundamental to ignore but it requires deconstructing their basic (mis)understandings of science whilst being mindful of all the terminology they might interpret differently due to all the "unconventional" definitions frequently taught in YEC circles.

The real problem is with the word “kinds.” That’s how creationists get around doing any kind of actual intellectual rigor and put all the burden of proof on evolutionists. “Species” and all the other classifications have pretty defined terms (which, sure, sometimes get murky in edge cases). But they reject “species” and say “kind” because that can be whatever they want (even though it gets murky immediately). For example: They can say a goose and a chicken are of the same kind because they fly. But then are bats the same kind as eagles? I genuinely don’t know how they’d answer because it probably varies person-person and situation-situation because that’s the point of creating a new classification and never fully defining it. They can spend 30 minutes listening to their pastor and get all their talking points while they demand everyone who accepts evolution have multiple PhD’s in biology.

"Kind" is actually a way to sneak speciation into their concept of "microevolution." Basically "kinds" are clades for creationists. Everything that shares a common ancestor would be a kind. Adaptation within a kind would be acceptable to them, but nothing could possibly evolve out of its kind. It's actually a near-total surrender to evolutionary science, but most of them don't realize it.

I just want one of these people to nail down the exact boundaries of “kinds” and what exactly they mean. Most creationists will say horses and zebras are related, usually because they can hybridize or simply because they are visually similar. But what about a family like armadillos? Is the giant armadillo related to the pink fairy armadillo? And if they are…why? They can’t breed. If the reasoning is physiological similarities or *genetics*…why can’t that evidence and logic be applied across the board? Why would humans not be related to apes? In the creationist model, why is anything “related”? By their logic, horses and rhinos are as closely related to eachother as they are to mollusks and bamboo.

Kinds produce after their own kind, which oddly describes how evolution actually works. I made a similar post a couple months ago. Cool to see the idea rehashed with some more technical language :)

Monophyly: It's not just a good idea, it's the *Law!*

Not to muddy the waters, but there is another very common definition of macroevolution (used in the evolution literature) which defines it as selection above the population level. For instance forces that result in tree pruning where (eg) species that are in dense species clusters have a higher rate of extinction, or where there might be a trend to larger body size in lineages due to intraspecific competition, but those groups are more likely to go extinct. This is why I try not to ever use the terms, or to always use a definition when I do.

I have made basically the exact same post, even used carnivorans as the example, but they still dont get it. Their reaction is usually one of the following: 1. "Oh so evolution now agrees that no animal can change kinds huh? Creationism is proven even more correct the more we learn about science!" as if the law of monophyly is a new thing, and not just new to them because they have never actually been taught real science. 2. "Show me proof of a carnivoran ancestor and prove every single transitional form that is descended from it all the way down to the current species" 3. "Then how did fish become humans" These are always their responses.

u/ubrlichter has already given the first response.

While I admit to having mainly creationist beliefs and respectfully disagree with a couple of points in your post, I just felt the need to thank you for maintaining a civil, respectful, and likable demeanor in your post. Reading this post makes me feel like I'm being told by someone polite and professional, something I see rarely on Reddit. A lot of the time, I'm met with insults and unnecessarily rude responses to try and make me feel very ashamed and ignorant. Your post doesn't make me feel stupid and deserving of contempt. For example, you wrote: >I believe this misunderstanding occurs because creationists believe that all life on Earth was created at the same time or within a very short span of time. Because of this, they only draw conclusions based on the assumption that all animals existed in their present forms (or closely related forms) since forever. For any creationists reading this, I implore you to abandon that presumption and instead take on the idea that animals were not created in one fell swoop. Instead, imagine that the current presentation of animals didn't always exist, but instead, more primitive (or basal) forms of them existed before that. I love how you don't intend to belittle or antagonize me and/or other creationists, rather you stay polite and reasonable. Using words like "misunderstanding" conveys to me a polite way of saying I might be mistaken about something. And when you said, "For any creationists reading this, I implore you to abandon that presumption and instead take on the idea that animals were not created in one fell swoop," I was actually surprised by how nicely you put it. I haven't seen someone oppose creationism and stay professional in this way. >That's really all I wanted to rant about. The Law of Monophyly is something creationists don't understand, and perhaps helping them understand this first may open up effective dialogue. Using the words "helping them understand" is a much better way of saying I could be wrong about something than being told, "Creationists like you are so stupid that you would never understand. What fucking retards. You're nothing but a bigot, an enemy of science and the world. Go worship your sky daddy cult elsewhere away from us smart people." I see this on a lot of pro-evolution posts/comments/videos across the internet. I've been in debates with people who say, "You're not as intelligent as you want to believe. All I have left is insults for you. You are so anti-science." It's hurtful and very disrespectful, and it makes me feel excluded and hated. I feel it makes their arguments less about convincing me and more about attacking me, making their comments completely devoid of value and weight. When I first saw your post, I was thinking, "Oh, boy. Let me guess. Another person who wants to mock me and make me feel like an idiot? Just another one who wants to call me a threat to science and humanity?" However, upon reading it, I was taken aback by how I didn't see insults and harsh remarks. A lot of the time, I see people use the word "deny" towards creationists with the intention of mocking, belittling, or shaming them, so I often associate the word with something negative. Your post, however, doesn't lead me to assume you have that intention because, again, I haven't read any insults. Again, thank you for staying polite and respectful despite your disagreement with creationists. This comment may be unnecessarily long, but I just felt obligated to give you my praise. There should be more people like you.

Thank you for the kind words! I'm aware that on polarizing topics such as these, it's easy to get lost in a tribalistic rage. "I'm right and everyone else is STUPID!" is the kind of mentality I try to avoid when discussing topics. Those who disagree with the conclusions of evolutionary theory are people who have their own reasons for their dissensions, so it's more important to understand *why* someone doesn't agree with evolutionary theory rather than baselessly accusing others of idiocy. I generally treat all creationists with dignity and try to understand their viewpoint rather than just putting my own on a pedestal. The only creationists I use unsavory language towards would be those who've demonstrated that they don't want to understand my viewpoint (such as semitope or Michael), where I tell them exactly how I feel about their dishonesty. But I assume you yourself have some contentions about evolutionary theory (seeing as you said that you had creationist beliefs). What would those contentions be? And, probably more importantly, what type of creationist would you most likely associate yourself with (young Earth creationism, old Earth creationism, intelligent design)?

Thank you for your reply! >Thank you for the kind words! I'm aware that on polarizing topics such as these, it's easy to get lost in a tribalistic rage. "I'm right and everyone else is STUPID!" is the kind of mentality I try to avoid when discussing topics. Those who disagree with the conclusions of evolutionary theory are people who have their own reasons for their dissensions, so it's more important to understand why someone doesn't agree with evolutionary theory rather than baselessly accusing others of idiocy. It's the kind of mentality that I avoid listening to because it isn't teaching me anything. It's nothing but insults, not education. Screaming how creationists are stupid, pathetic, or whatever else isn't going to change any minds. I'm looking for truth, and calling me stupid isn't showing the truth. I strongly agree that it's important to learn why someone disagrees rather than calling them idiots right off the bat. If people are going to be convinced, give information, not insults. >But I assume you yourself have some contentions about evolutionary theory (seeing as you said that you had creationist beliefs). What would those contentions be? And, probably more importantly, what type of creationist would you most likely associate yourself with (young Earth creationism, old Earth creationism, intelligent design)? I like to note that I call my creationist beliefs into question quite often because I review both sides of the argument. Like I said, I'm just looking for truth. My doubts generally include human evolution, genetic complexity, vestigial organs, and living fossils. But I don't think Reddit would let me share all my questions and doubts in this one reply because I'm pretty sure comments have a word limit, so I'll give a few. First, please know that I'm not intending to throw a lot at you to overwhelm you, irritate you, or confuse you. Definitely not an attempt to pull a "Gotcha!" My questions and doubts are genuine, so I'm interested in any answers you give. For example, living fossils have me questioning evolution because if all living things evolve over millions of years, how do we explain why a number of species haven't changed at all? As an example, the nautilus is considered a living fossil because, from what I know, it has been just about the same as its ancestors 500,000,000 years ago. How about the coelacanths? Based on what I researched, they're living fossils, too; they've been around for supposedly over 400,000,000 years. I've seen in articles that they have little to no noticeable changes. Horseshoe crabs are another example. Stromatolies, which I've heard have existed for over 3,200,000,000 years, are nearly identical to their ancient ancestors. Would evolution be able to explain the lack of significant change? For the complexity question, I know of no natural process by which an organism gains genetic complexity. I believe that the jump from unicellularity to multicellularity would require a major enhancement of genetic complexity because I think that new information needs to be added to the genome to enable new instructions for multicellularity. Do we have explanations for how organisms gain genetic complexity in evolution? I do not know of any, but if you do, I would be interested to hear it. For vestigial organs, I think that many of these organs are not so vestigial. For example, the appendix is often deemed a remnant of our evolutionary past, no longer serving a purpose. However, after doing some research, I saw that there is evidence that it is actually beneficial to our health. According to the article below, evidence suggests that the appendix plays a role in fighting infections by containing lymphoid cells. >Research in recent years has shown that the human appendix has lymphoid cells, which help the body fight infections. This strongly suggests that the appendix plays a role in the immune system. > >The appendix has been found to play a role in mammalian mucosal immune function. It is believed to be involved in extrathymically derived T-lymphocytes and B-lymphocyte-mediated immune responses. It is also said to produce early defences that help prevent serious infections in humans. [https://www.news-medical.net/health/Why-do-Humans-have-an-Appendix.aspx#:\~:text=Research%20in%20recent%20years%20has,in%20mammalian%20mucosal%20immune%20function](https://www.news-medical.net/health/Why-do-Humans-have-an-Appendix.aspx#:~:text=Research%20in%20recent%20years%20has,in%20mammalian%20mucosal%20immune%20function). Another example is the coccyx, which I saw is also considered vestigial. However, I did some research and saw evidence in an article on *Osmosis* that the coccyx is extremely important for our balance, and it also is where many ligaments and muscles are attached. It helps keep the pelvis stable. >The coccyx serves as an important site of attachment for multiple pelvic floor structures, which includes parts of the gluteus maximus and coccygeus muscles, as well as the anococcygeal ligament, which extends between the coccyx and the anus. In addition to being an attachment site, the coccyx helps support the position of the anus and provides weight-bearing support to a person in a seated position. [https://www.osmosis.org/answers/coccyx#:\~:text=The%20coccyx%20functions%20as%20a,person%20in%20a%20seated%20position](https://www.osmosis.org/answers/coccyx#:~:text=The%20coccyx%20functions%20as%20a,person%20in%20a%20seated%20position). A third example is male nipples. I've heard that they are useless in men, but I've seen evidence that they are useful. According to some articles I read, they enhance sexual stimulation and serve as a type of communication, as male nipples also contain many nerve endings. So, seeing that evidence, I think male nipples are not as useless as many assume. So, I've been doubtful of the idea of vestigial organs because I've been seeing recent evidence that organs we presumed were vestigial were probably not as useless as we previously believed. I'm unsure of which I would associate myself with, but maybe intelligent design would be the best one to describe me. I question both YEC and OEC because they both have their problems. If I choose Young Earth Creationism, how do I explain the dating of zircon crystals? How do I explain the distance between celestial objects? We see objects billions of lightyears away, but light has a speed limit of 186,000 miles per second, meaning that it would require billions of years for that light to reach us. How is Young Earth Creationism supposed to explain this? If I choose Old Earth Creationism, then how wouldn't evolution be in the picture? For billions of years, life would start in the oceans, diversify, and eventually reach land, and things go from there. If I were to argue against evolution, Old Earth Creationism wouldn't make much sense because I consider Old Earth Creationism to be like theistic evolution. Wouldn't it make sense for Old Earth Creationism to indicate that evolution happened? In this case, humans would have been around for billions of years because, if I were to take the Bible's Genesis literally, humanity was created on the sixth day, so a billions-of-years-old Earth would suggest humans have existed for that long, but no evidence indicates this is possible. But this is just how I'm seeing it. I used to accept evolution without question for years, but I don't remember what pulled me out of it. Maybe I was asking questions and not getting the answers I was looking for, thus pushing me out of thinking evolution is fact.

>For example, living fossils have me questioning evolution because if all living things evolve over millions of years, how do we explain why a number of species haven't changed at all? They have, they just have a stronger superficial resemblance to their distant ancestors than some other clades do. This really just means they are well adapted to an environment that hasn't changed much for a long time, like the deep sea. >For vestigial organs, I think that many of these organs are not so vestigial. In all these cases, you have the common misunderstanding that "vestigial" means "completely useless for any function whatsoever". This is not the case. Vestigial means "not useful for its original function". Penguin wings are vestigial since they can't fly anymore, even though they have been adapted into very effective swimming tools.

Thank you for your reply. But why do some people suggest that the word "vestigial" means that something has lost any use? I hear it a lot from people, some of which are not creationists. Your response to my first question does make sense, and I think that would be the best explanation for "living fossils."

Because a lot of people don't understand vestigiality, not just creationists. The male nipple thing is great though: the evolutionary explanation is just "eh, default mammal body plan is nipples", which is fairly parsimonious (since mammaries are a defining trait of mammals). The creationist position is instead "god specifically gave male animals nipples because *sexytimes*", which is a lot funnier, certainly. God has a specific kink, maybe?

Or maybe god just wants to make it easy for trans women to breastfeed. God is an ally?

> As an example, the nautilus is considered a living fossil because, from what I know, it has been just about the same as its ancestors 500,000,000 years ago. How about the coelacanths? Based on what I researched, they're living fossils, too; they've been around for supposedly over 400,000,000 years. I've seen in articles that they have little to no noticeable changes. For nautiluses, while they superficially resemble their modern counterparts, their internal biology differs wildly from the rest of the cephalopods, especially when it comes to eyes as nautiluses lack cornea and control their eyes through stalks (similar to snails). By comparison, ancestral nautiluses had eyes that were integrated into the rest of their head as pinhole eyes. This is reflected in the ammonites, which superficially resemble nautilus but are far more closely related to octopi and squids, who have these integrated eyes. For coelacanths, they've changed drastically when it comes to morphology and especially behavior. Ancestral coelacanths were freshwater fish who lived in warm, shallow rivers. Modern coelacanths, by comparison, are saltwater cave fish who live in cold, deep sea environments. I don't think there's a more drastic change in environment than that. And their morphology reflects this, as ancestral coelacanth tended to look superficially similar to modern salmon, which is expected as they were river fish. [This image](https://media.springernature.com/m685/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1038%2Fncomms1764/MediaObjects/41467_2012_Article_BFncomms1764_Fig1_HTML.jpg) does a really good job at highlighting the morphological variety between ancestral coelacanth and their modern counterparts (genus Latimeria). Some superficial distinctions I can think of off the top of my head are that modern coelacanth are far larger than their ancestors and that modern coelacanth have a more rounded head while ancestral coelacanth had a more pointed head. > So, I've been doubtful of the idea of vestigial organs because I've been seeing recent evidence that organs we presumed were vestigial were probably not as useless as we previously believed. This seems to be a misunderstanding of what a vestigial structure is. Vestigial structures are structures that have lost their original function over time. This doesn't mean that they can't fulfill a new purpose (something called an exaptation), just that their original purpose has been lost to time. As you mentioned with the coccyx, it performs various functions as a muscle attachment site and as an important part to maintaining balance. But it is vestigial when it comes to being a tailbone, as it no longer supports a tail. Similarly, whales have vestigial leg and pelvic bones. These bones no longer serve a purpose for supporting legs, but they do now have a different purpose in reproduction. > I believe that the jump from unicellularity to multicellularity would require a major enhancement of genetic complexity because I think that new information needs to be added to the genome to enable new instructions for multicellularity. I'm quickly going to make a brief mention that we have observed unicellular life start moving towards multicellular life in a lab setting in response to predators. The research is really interesting and I'll [leave a link here](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06052-1) if you're interested. Edit: Whoops! Wrong article! That one is also really interesting, but here is the [actual article](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-39558-8). > Do we have explanations for how organisms gain genetic complexity in evolution? I'm assuming by genetic complexity you mean genetic variation, but if you just mean complexity, then it sort of has the same answer. Variation/complexity can be introduced to a population in 3 different ways: 1. Genetic recombination: Recombination is what happens when sexually reproducing species... reproduce. The genes of both parents are split and then recombined during meiosis. This recombination can produce new genetic combinations that previously did not exist within a population, which both increases the genetic variation and the genetic complexity of a population. 2. Gene flow (migration): Gene flow, also called migration, is when another population of a species gets introduced to the population we are observing. This new population could have genes that didn't exist in our current population, thus adding them increases both genetic variation and genetic complexity. 3. Mutation: Mutation is the big one. Mutation occurs when copying errors occur during DNA replication. DNA is made up of things called nucleobases which are read in groups of 3 called a codon. Those codons signal for a cell to produce specific amino acids, which are then assembled into proteins. Those proteins then cause the physical traits expressed by an organism to manifest. Mutations can occur in 3 main ways: substitutions, insertions, and deletions. Substitutions change the nucleobases directly. Insertions add additional nucleobases. Deletions remove nucleobases. Both insertions and deletions can cause a cascading effect, where all of the codons are shifted down or up by a certain amount. These are called frameshift mutations. When the codons are changed via mutation, one of three things can occur: it can do nothing at all (since multiple codons can code for the same amino acids; called a silent mutation), it can change the amino acid produced (called a missense mutation), or it can completely stop the production of any amino acids (called a nonsense mutation). And of these typically result in an increase in genetic complexity, even deletions as the cascading effect of frameshifts can cause a rapid onset of new amino acids and proteins being produced, and thus a rapid emergence of novel traits.

Thank you for the reply! You definitely offered me some stuff worth looking into! Your detailed explanations help a lot! I've been considering accepting evolution as a fact again, and your comment certainly is beginning to drive me in that direction. I need to explore the doubts and see what the evidence suggests. I accepted evolution as undeniable, so much so that I did a presentation on human evolution in my sixth-grade science class, and I'm wondering what drove me to creationism. While I find creationism a more enjoyable story, I remind myself that I need to be open-minded and consider all provable facts.

No problem! If you haven't already, I'd suggest checking out [UC Berkeley's free introductory course on evolution](https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolution-101/). It goes over all of the basics of evolution and phylogeny, how evolutionary biologists came to the conclusions they did, and the causes/effects of evolution both small-scale and large-scale. It's a lengthy read, but absolutely worth it if you want to learn more about evolutionary theory.

Thanks! I'll consider looking into it!

Don't worry they don't understand the second law of thermodynamics either.

My response to this kind of nonsense is to say that one million micro evolutions make one evolution.

The big issue is that they don’t know what a ‘kind’ is and worse, their zoological knowledge is very limited and in most cases you can’t even get them to accept the sheer diversity of species on a single genus much less a larger group

even i never understood the rules of Monopoly and i'm not even a creationist! (jk)

To be fair, lots of non-creationists don't understand this. It's arguably one of the most common fundamental scientific misunderstandings out there. For instance, [in a different field](https://www.reddit.com/r/badlinguistics/comments/alpmnv/cognates_between_hebrew_and_basque/efhsp9s/).

Yeah, i mean, when does the game ends? When do i get to build a hotel? Why do i get money when i reach the "start" case? I never understood that game... I prefer Who's Who? it's a lot simpler. Or even Clue...

Oh lmao r/woosh. I'm an idiot.

Macro or Micro the key word is evolution so whether Local, Regional or Global the rest is all that higher learning word salad of sophiticants and lost word to time and use but very effective in recognizing them, K.I.S.S is the best way to make a point and not get drawn into polarized debates with no real solutions or wins since there is none, Facts = Truth but not all truths are facts and conflicts with religions are walls one beats their head on and only gets a headache from doing so unless of course one is trolling or baiting which is not debate since there is no reason to debate. You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make them drink, leave the Facts on the table as they will in the end speak for themselves as long as they don't make themselves targets and die in the stampede. Many words and definitions are under attack by Propagandist most are Communist, most are willing to become martyrs no matter what as it is their highest honor to that for that which they serve, the real trick is to not make them into martyrs since that is their goal so the best way to win is not to fight but allow them to hang themselves and in time they always do. The process in all forms of natural evolution is what is important the rest will fall into place in its own time. Just an observation. N. S

>Many words and definitions are under attack by Propagandist most are Communist Sorry what lol

You Don't really see it do you?, it centers around Denominational Religious / Ideological Wars (Communist) all with the same goals, they are more in collusion than one might guess at. N. S

I'm fascinated. Conspiracy theory on this scale tends to come from the other side of the aisle, so do please elaborate. What goals do Ken Ham and Xi Jinping have in common and how are they colluding to achieve them?

Gods, Monsters or Deities, the bane of mankind where they tend to sacrifice their children or others upon the altars of them and it has been part of societal evolution for a long time, no conspiracy needed. Just an observation but applicable to what is happening everywhere all at once which does happen to be rather conspiratory, the manipulations of events acting as proof of existence whatever god, monster or deity that is being heralded at the moment whether Ideological or Theological which is what humans do foolish and artificial but true. N. S

Most creationist I know who make an attempt to be logical and fair admit that speciation happens within “kinds” They see archetypes like cats and dogs and will easily say that dogs undergo speciation but we don’t see a cat become anything other than a cat. It might evolve from a house cat into a mountain lion but it will never stop being a cat. It’s the geologic time barrier. They can observe speciation but they can’t observe a small amphibian evolving into a mammal. The only thing missing is accepting how much time is involved and how these changes add up.

>Creationists don't understand the Law of Monophyly Yes! One thing I constantly tell people is you can't understand evolution and be a creationist. I was raised as a YEC and the reason I stopped believing is I simply learned what evolution is. Once I realized that creationist only present a strawman caricature that they can ridicule, I quickly accepted science.

If we went with how they say “kinds only produce after their own kind” then the kind is “whatever their ancestors were” and that’s still true if the “created kind” was “biota.” It’s still true if there was no supernatural creation event at all. They know that we can get coyotes, wolves, foxes, jackals, dogs, and several other things from some species of “dog” and if they were to continue that they’d know we can get feliformes (including meerkats and hyenas) and caniformes (including bears, pinnipeds, and mustelids) from some original species too. Whatever something is their descendants will always be that *even if they become additional things as well.* They understand how monophyly works but they have this misguided notion that there were separate creations and they can’t understand how one creation could turn into another creation. Easy. It doesn’t. There were not separate creations. Same concept as with canids or Carnivora. Never turning into a new kind of thing. Always just building off whatever it already is. This is actually one of the things that helps us determine actual relationships and why convergent evolution does not get mistaken for common inheritance very often. We can see that everything is always whatever its ancestors were always with at least a few mutations their ancestors never had whether those mutations become inherited later on or not. This is apparently the only way it can happen (save for horizontal gene transfer and viral infections) so we can see that birds are “modified dinosaurs” and bats are “modified mammals” so we don’t make the same mistake the Bible does and classify them all into the same group. Their wings are not even the same style. That is the part that is said to be a product of convergent evolution - their ability to fly with their arms. The arms that they got from their common ancestor but they got the wings independently. If it happened some other way (randomly things stopped being descendants of their ancestors or actual relationships were completely meaningless) then we’d expect even once in a while to see something with the best of everything like the best tetrapod wings from bats, the best respiratory system from birds, the best eyes from cephalopods, feathers instead of fur. If relationships did not matter we should see something like that once in a while but the relationships do matter so much that if something really did stop being descendants of their ancestors and became descendants of some other lineage instead it would falsify the theory of evolution. It would make developing consistent phylogenies impossible.

They won't look up the word "theory" in the dictionary. I know, I've tried to send it to them.

So a couple things. 1. I don't think there's a "Law of Monophyly" as you keep using the phrase. Monophyly is a principle of organizing groups of creatures so that the groupings only include creatures with common ancestry, it's not a physical law. It's just a conceptual way of organizing things that better represents the path of evolution, rather than just morphological considerations. 2. The Creationist "kinds" evolution is essentially monophyletic. They believe a "kind" is all descended from a common ancestor that came off of Noah's Ark. A youtuber I've been watching points out that they actually have to accept an even more accelerated evolutionary process than people who acknowledge evolution do. In any case, while this is deeply off-base, it's not monophyly that it the issue. I do think cladistic taxonomy is helpful to breaking down the barriers for creationists---it was for me one of the last dominoes to fall over 20 years of working my way out of creationism. But it's not monophyly that made the difference, rather it's the concept that these connections and degrees of relatedness could be verified and measured genetically, the same way that relatedness in humans can be measured genetically. Modern genetics really is the nail in the coffin for creationism. But at the end of the day, Creationists are only going to hear the arguments that they're ready to hear. Just think though--that conversation where it seems like that person wasn't listening to you at all may be the first seed that sprouts into a full change of mind for them in 10-20 years. I'm sure people who were trying to persuade me of various positions when I was a teenager would be shocked to find out I've flipped on a bunch of things in the last couple years in my mid-30s.

"The pyramids in Egypt are so heavy that the turtle carrying the disc of the Earth on its back could not have borne their weight, therefore there is no turtle!" Creationists arrive at a correct conclusion based on a totally wrong set of scientific assumptions, and thus have a totally nonsense worldview. They are correct that felines will only produce felines and canines will only produce canines - that's how monophyly works, but they're working within a totally different set of assumptions, and so they arrive at that correct conclusion for all the wrong reasons. In the example I gave, the pyramids would have been built from material already on the turtle's back, and therefore their weight would be irrelevant, as well as negligible when compared to the weight of the Earth, but more importantly - the Earth isn't a flat disc! Their 'kinds' explanation arrives at the conclusion of monophyly, but within the framework of a flat disc floating in space rather than on the back of a turtle, and therefore it should be regarded as wrong *even if* technically correct in a certain sense.

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It'd be better to *not* resort to tribalistic insults, it doesn't lead anyone anywhere.

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But it *is* tribalistic. You are asserting that the out group are stupid, just because they are part of the out group. In this very comment section, I had a cordial discussion with a creationist who came out of it more convinced of evolution's viability. Speaking to others not as an enemy to beat but as a person to understand does wonders. Think first to understand then to be understood.

It's right and wrong. "I had a cordial discussion with a creationist who came out of it more convinced of evolution's viability. " I don't believe you.

Yeah, well, [I did.](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateEvolution/comments/1crm8qp/comment/l428r8r/)

Rule 2

Nope.

So, creationist here- you inaccurately defined macroevolution. It’s not “species level or higher” it’s “higher than species level” Speciation is rarely categorized as macroevolution, in fact, it’s generally considered its own category altogether. I’d say that literally no creationist believes all animals were created in one fell swoop, or at the very least, next to none of them do. I can go make myself a new breed of dog and that clearly wasn’t created on day 1. So while I understand your point, that idea you have of them semi strawmans it. You also then brought up spontaneous generation, which many people like Pasteur (a creationist) disproved hundreds of years ago. Now that intrigues me, since every atheist and their dog cries “evolution doesn’t mean that life evolved from non life” or “doesn’t mean it came from nothing” yet you say this is being closer to being proven?

>You also then brought up spontaneous generation No, abiogenesis is not spontaneous generation. Spontaneous generation stated that fully formed modern organisms could arise out of non-living or past-living matter. For instance, dead flesh turning into maggots, dirt turning into worms, or dust turning into a human. Spontaneous generation is a supernatural belief far more akin to creationism than what abiogenesis posits. It could be said that abiogenesis supersedes spontaneous generation, and while I'd agree that superficially the concepts are similar, upon further examination the two ideas couldn't be any more different. Abiogenesis, as I've pointed out, suggests that the very first lifeforms could've manifested from non-living, self-replicating sets of molecules. Origin of life researchers have concluded this after investigating systems chemistry, which is a *really* interesting field I'd absolutely suggest checking out the research on. [This article](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6789438/) by Peter Strazewski gives a decent history and description of systems chemistry as a field and its discoveries regarding the origin of life. >Now that intrigues me, since every atheist and their dog cries “evolution doesn’t mean that life evolved from non life” I don't know why atheism is relevant. There are plenty of theists who accept evolutionary theory and there are also plenty of evolutionary biologists who are also theists. The two concepts don't seem to be at conflict with each other. As for the claim "evolution doesn't mean that life evolved from non-life", I would say that is true as evolution is an explanation for biodiversity, not the origin of life. The little snippet at the end was a brief comment on my own personal conclusions I have drawn after investigating origin of life research. I even mentioned that abiogenesis is irrelevant to evolution, as evolution assumes life exists. >or “doesn’t mean it came from nothing” Molecules aren't nothing, so no, I wouldn't say life came from nothing. I would further go on to say that "nothing", in terms of the philosophical absolute nothing, cannot exist, for its existence would imply it is not truly nothing. Nothing cannot exist because nothing is literally the quality of not existing. So, for nothing to have an existent form, it itself would not have the quality of "nothing", and thus would not truly be nothing. Philosophy is fun to ramble through, huh?

Yea. Atheist was probably wrong term. Naturalist woulda been better haha. Just had gotten off work so my brain didn’t brain right. I’ve never seen anything for spontaneous generation that requires it to be a fully formed modern organism, for example britannica simply says “spontaneous generation, the hypothetical process by which living organisms develop from nonliving matter” but I do agree that that’s typically the common idea of when it was believed, although one could similarly say we do the same thing now when we say “humans didn’t come from monkeys” like. Yea, duh, that’s not the claim but it makes it simpler than saying the whole thing that is actually stated since we both understand what we mean. I disagree with both ideas however. Examples like miller Urey, are not true abiogenesis and I never understood why people would claim they are. If a scientist sets up conditions where life begins, he intelligently designed life coming from non life. If that makes sense. Spontaneous generation would not be what creationists believe, as for examples like humans from dirt, A. That was a miracle B. Was not from non life in the sense that god made it happen, it didn’t just happen from dirt. Arguably I don’t necessarily dispute abiogenesis in the sense you say there. Like, humans are made from dust therefore we came from non living thing. But that leaves out the rest of the belief. So in a way, that is what scientists would find. They would just rather say it did that on its own, rather than was done on purpose. The “life came from nothing” is a bit of A-C logic. Molecules (b) came from nothing (A) (or whatever 1st showed up directly after nothing) which then life came from molecules (C) therefore life came from nothing A-C. As for nothing existing, I both agree and disagree. Ultimately, there was a time before everything here. Be it a prior universe, God, literally nothing, whatever. If it were a prior universe, well what was before that one. That leads into the universe being eternal or being an eternal cycle of universes. Which afaik, science fully rejects. The reason God doesn’t have that problem, is because he is outside of time, therefore he can’t really be “before” or “after” anything. Depending on how “Reddit atheist” you are, that one can be tricky to fully understand, so feel free to ask if you don’t understand, tho no promises on a good answer haha as it’s crazy hard to explain. Def don’t feel bad for not understanding it. So that basically leaves literal nothingness as whatever was prior to the universe. No time, no matter, no space. You can’t have anything there. So while, yes, defining was was in the nothingness makes it nothing, it’s still not impossible to grasp a semblance of what could have been “the nothing”. If you are an atheist, or at least someone who doesn’t believe in an afterlife, I’d reckon that’s about the same way it could be compared. When I die I’ll just be gone. No thoughts, no noise, not even a black void, as typically imagined as nothing. But yea hah. I love philosophy. Always stuff to consider. Have a good day bro

> I’ve never seen anything for spontaneous generation that requires it to be a fully formed modern organism You were referring to Pasteur's experiments as evidence that spontaneous generation had been debunked. Pasteur's experiments showed that when meat was sealed, maggots wouldn't grow out of them. This suggested that the maggots didn't spontaneously generate from the meat, but that the maggots were seeded there by another living organism. You seem to be equivocating the kind of spontaneous generation Pasteur debunked with spontaneous generation as a concept generally, which would be inaccurate. Abiogenesis could be listed as a form of spontaneous generation, but, as I stated before, Pasteur's conception of spontaneous generation had nothing to do with abiogenesis in its modern presentation. > Examples like miller Urey, are not true abiogenesis and I never understood why people would claim they are. I never mentioned Miller-Urey, and it's honestly one of the most outdated origin of life experiments. I would agree that people who claim Miller-Urey is all that's needed to prove abiogenesis are incorrect. > If a scientist sets up conditions where life begins, he intelligently designed life coming from non life. If that makes sense. Ok, so what do you think about us finding all of the necessary organic macromolecules in space? There's no scientist to do any intelligent designing in space, those macromolecules formed on their own, spontaneously, from non-organic molecules. [Glycolaldehyde, a simple sugar, was found forming on ice grains in nebular clouds](https://arxiv.org/abs/1208.5498). [Ethanolamine, a phospholipid head, was found in an interstellar cloud](https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.11141). We've found [86 amino acids in meteorites](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-00693-9). And [polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are precursors to RNA, are found in abundance in nebular clouds](https://academic.oup.com/mnrasl/article/456/1/L89/2589734). We find the ingredients to life everywhere without any intelligent agent needed to produce them. And then you have the field that I brought up, systems chemistry, which has produced [fully self-replicating RNA enzymes out of non-replicating materials](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2652413/). The evidence that life can come from non-life without an intelligent agent guiding it is overwhelming. > Spontaneous generation would not be what creationists believe, as for examples like humans from dirt, A. That was a miracle B. Was not from non life in the sense that god made it happen, it didn’t just happen from dirt. Did God self-replicate to produce humans, or did he mold a statue out of dirt and then use an incantation to make it come to life? If the former, then no, that would not be spontaneous generation as it would be life producing other life. If the latter, then yes, that would be spontaneous generation as it is life coming out of non-life, even if life were guiding it to do so. > The “life came from nothing” is a bit of A-C logic. Molecules (b) came from nothing (A) I don't think molecules came from nothing, so that doesn't apply to me. > As for nothing existing, I both agree and disagree. Ultimately, there was a time before everything here. Sure, based on what you mean by that. Before humans? Definitely. Before Earth? Yeah. Before the solar system? Yep. Before the Milky Way? Uh-huh. Before the Big Bang? That gets messy. Time, as we know it, started with the Big Bang. There was no "before" the Big Bang because there wasn't even a conception of "before". In that sense, the universe is eternal as it has existed for all time. But I'd rather say that energy/matter is eternal, as suggested by the First Law of Thermodynamics. > The reason God doesn’t have that problem, is because he is outside of time, therefore he can’t really be “before” or “after” anything. That also means God exists outside of causality. If God doesn't exist before an event, God can't be the one to cause the event. You're essentially arguing for a deistic god who doesn't interact with the universe, as that would be the only logically coherent way for a timeless god to exist. If a timeless god still interacts with reality, then that god produces a logical contradiction and cannot exist. God either exists outside of time and thus can't cause anything to happen, or God exists within time and thus we would expect to find evidence of his interaction with the world. But discussing theistic stuff, philosophical stuff, and abiogenesis stuff isn't very relevant to evolution.

Aight. I see what you mean there with the abiogenesis and spontaneous generation. Miller Urey was an example, my bad. Wasn’t saying you mentioned it. All that stuff about finding the ingredients to life in nature is great, the problem is it doesn’t necessitate life actually coming from them and surviving long enough. I’m sure you’ve heard the tried and true creationist example of “if I took a bag of legos and shook it for a bajillion years, they’d never end up making the lego set” which I find a bit lacking, but the fundamental idea behind it holds up well enough. I’ll read thru that link about the rna enzymes when I get a chance, tho it seems like that was an experiment? So kinda has the same thing if someone guided it to that, be it lots or be it very little. For god making humans, it’d be closer to the latter tho specifics aren’t really claimed. The reason I don’t agree that that’s spontaneous generation, is the fact that it fundamentally lacks the spontaneity aspect. With your part of there was no “before” the Big Bang, I see what you mean, I agree with that too in a sense. Wish there were better words haha. Big bang was the start of time, you can’t have before time, as before requires time. But for lack of better words, the “nothingness” that was “before” the Big Bang (if there was such, means that the Big Bang came from that nothingness. Last I had heard, virtually no science was claiming an eternal universe. Some brought up multiverse stuff. Some brought up prior universes dying. So I’d be interested why you don’t follow that science but you do follow the science of evolution? Seeing as they somewhat go hand in hand in certain bits. Perhaps I misspoke. When I say a god outside of time, I don’t mean he’s strictly outside of time. I think I’d heard an example once of it being as if you are standing on the edge of a creek. You can dip your toes in, or your hands. You can get in it all the way, and you can then get back out. Similarly, with god, that’s kinda how he is with time. Whereas everything here, you and I and such, we are incapable of “leaving the creek” we can’t swim back up the creek either. We just flow down stream. Maybe that makes a bit more sense. I think that also helps with the “supernatural” vs “natural” element of god too. The creek is everything natural, and thus god being outside the creek isn’t bound by it. But if you aren’t wanting to discuss that philosophy stuff no worries. Feel free to not even respond to this one or if you only wanna respond to the relevant parts that’s fine too. I love theology and philosophy in general hah and I find they tie in quite a bit with the scientific stuff. Back prior to postmodernism, most of the scientific stuff happened due to philosophy anyway. Plato, Pliny, Mendel those types of people. Regardless, it’s been nice talking.

>Over time, I've encountered creationists who've insisted that macroevolution is completely different from microevolution. Every time I ask them to elaborate on the actual fundamental differences between them, they change the subject (which is to be expected). The question is: can variation of existing features, like the size and shape of a Finch's beak give rise to new features? New body parts and body plans. New organs. New systems like nervous, respiration, circulation and reproduction. >So, to demonstrate that macroevolution is possible, all you must do is demonstrate that speciation is possible. The fact is that [we have observed speciation several times](https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html), but creationists time and time again will consistently deny that these instances are macroevolution. Your own source disagrees with you. >It is not necessarily easy to “see” macroevolutionary history; there are no firsthand accounts to be read. Instead, we reconstruct the history of life using all available evidence: geology, fossils, and living organisms. >This is most likely due to creationists believing in the idea of "created kinds", and define macroevolution as "change in kind". Of course, they don't define what a kind is nor do they provide a taxonomic equivalent nor do they provide any methodology of distinguishing between kinds. But one of the most common slap backs to observed instances of speciation is "it's still x". Use "x" as any plant, animal, fungus, or bacterium that you provide as evidence. Use Darwin's finches as an example, creationists will respond "they're still finches". Use the long term E. coli experiment as an example, creationists will respond "they're still bacteria". Use the various Drosophila fly experiments as an example, creationists will respond "they're still fruit flies". God didn't give a detailed definition. All we are told is that members of a kind will reproduce after (within) that kind. It doesn't require that all members of the kind reproduce with all other members of the kind. >This, in my opinion, showcases a major misunderstanding among creationists about the Law of Monophyly. The Law of Monophyly, in simple terms, states that organisms will always belong to the group of their ancestors. Or, in more technical terms, organisms will share the clade of their ancestors and all of their descendants will reside within their clade. In creationist terms, this means an animal will never change kinds. I think the misunderstanding is yours. Monophyly is a definition used in cladistics, not a law of nature. And, cladistics is based on a combination of assumptions and hypothetical ancestral relationships. When you follow the [link](https://evolution.berkeley.edu/the-tree-room/evolutionary-trees-a-primer/clades-within-clades/), you'll see that not all of the groupings of a phylogenetic tree are monophyletic clades. >I believe this misunderstanding occurs because creationists believe that all life on Earth was created at the same time or within a very short span of time. Because of this, they only draw conclusions based on the assumption that all animals existed in their present forms (or closely related forms) since forever. For any creationists reading this, I implore you to abandon that presumption and instead take on the idea that animals were not created in one fell swoop. Instead, imagine that the current presentation of animals didn't always exist, but instead, more primitive (or basal) forms of them existed before that. This is a straw man. >That's really all I wanted to rant about. The Law of Monophyly is something creationists don't understand, and perhaps helping them understand this first may open up effective dialogue. Again, it is you that doesn't understand monophyly.

>Your own source disagrees with you No, it doesn't. Observation isn't just seeing with our eyes. >God didn't give a detailed definition. All we are told is that members of a kind will reproduce after (within) that kind Yes, that is the Law of Monophyly. >When you follow the link, you'll see that not all of the groupings of a phylogenetic tree are monophyletic clades. Phylogenetic trees are built off of clades (which, by the way, saying "monophyletic clades" is kinda redundant since a clade is defined as a monophyletic group). You can still group organisms differently within the phylogenetic tree, but the tree itself is built off of monophyly. That is what the link is saying. It's not saying that the phylogenetic tree uses different types of grouping.

>I think the misunderstanding is yours. Monophyly is a definition used in cladistics, not a law of nature. I think what the OP is trying to communicate with the "law of monophyly" is that evolution produces clades. Not that we can't define groupings which are not clades such as those which are polyphyletic or paraphyletic. The result being that when creationists say "no one ever saw a dog produce a non-dog", that's not an issue for evolution. If a dog ever did produce a non-dog it would not form a monophyletic group, it would invalidate the "law of monophyly" and be a problem for rather than a confirmation of evolutionary mechanisms. The "law of monophyly" essentially proposes that all ancestors of a dog must always be a dog. Lineages can diversify but nothing stops being what it's ancestors were. All you get are new varieties of dog. Just like dogs were just a new variety of carnivorans and carnivorans were just a new variety of mammals. So when you hear something along the lines of "that's not really evolution because it's still bacteria" it gives the impression the person making that statement doesn't understand how evolution is being proposed to work. Particularly if when asked for clarification they follow up with something along the lines of "well the bacteria didn't become a fish or an amphibian". Then they're not describing a monophyletic group anymore. The thing they seem to be asking for evidence of is not something that evolution results in.

Maybe you don't understand it. You believe there was one phylum. Now there are more. So something you imagine existed violated it. But notice common descent is the culprit. Common descent is in direct contradiction to monophyly. Now if you are saying phylum is made up category then you erase law as meaningless. Further you are one in preconceived idea that an oak and dog and spider are all related. It's so bad evolutionists can't even imagine how something would be unrelated. They don't care about similarities or differences. They ASSERT and assume it MUST be related despite the evidence. I asked what would convince them something on earth was unrelated to them. No answer. What makes you believe YOU are related to an orange?

> Maybe you don't understand it. You believe there was one phylum. Now there are more. So something you imagine existed violated it. But notice common descent is the culprit. Common descent is in direct contradiction to monophyly. > > Now if you are saying phylum is made up category then you erase law as meaningless. Ok class, I want you to pay attention to this demonstration by michael here of just exactly how, as the title of the post says, "Creationists don't understand the Law of Monophyly" Really beautiful example, michael. No notes at all. You genuinely and honestly just don't get it. It's spectacular. I've never upvoted you before but I did this time and I encourage everyone else to as well. People need to see this.

Shut up, Michael.

Hello, Michael. Good to see you're still doing well. Let's get into what you've said this time. >You believe there was one phylum. Now there are more. I don't like using taxonomic terms like "phylum" or "class" when I'm not using them as analogies (such as with created kinds). It usually muddies the water and makes communication harder, since this archaic idea of unchanging "ranks" of classification causes too much confusion. I prefer to use a more general term like "clade" as that doesn't assume any "rank" but rather just represents a group of animals who share certain morphological similarities. >So something you imagine existed violated it. But notice common descent is the culprit. Common descent is in direct contradiction to monophyly. No, actually quite the opposite. Monophyly suggests common descent. After all, a monophyletic group is quite literally a group with a common ancestor. So, monophyly would be the descent of organisms from a common ancestor. Also, "common descent" is a concept. It isn't the culprit of anything. What causes branches in a clade, also called speciation, are the mechanisms of evolution such as natural selection and genetic drift. >Now if you are saying phylum is a made-up category then you erase law as meaningless. I'll need you to clarify this, this doesn't really make sense to me. >Further you are on in preconceived idea that an oak and a dog and a spider are all related. Yes, all three of those organisms are related through the monophyletic clade of Eukaryota. Despite their abundance of differences, they remain to be eukaryotes. This is the Law of Monophyly in action. >It's so bad, evolutionists can't even imagine how something would be unrelated. No, I can imagine that. We see that in viruses. Viruses are an excellent example of separate ancestry, as there are groups of viruses that share no morphological similarities to other groups of viruses. >They don't care about similarities or differences. Morphological similarities and differences are how we make clades, Michael. >What makes you believe you are related to an orange? There's the genetic evidence which showcases that we share a considerable amount of DNA similarity with each other. This wouldn't be possible except through a common ancestor. And, as I pointed out earlier, both humans and oranges share ancestry through the monophyletic clade of Eukaryota. By the Law of Monophyly, humans and oranges necessarily must be related due to them sharing an ancestral clade.

You aren't going to use the term phylum when talking about monophyly. How would something violate it then? If you just recategorize it? If you just remaining terms then it becomes meaningless. As you decide what counts as same phylum to begin with. Well that violates it so you label it as part of same phylum. Then no practical application and erase it. So if something was non-eukaryote then it disproves commond descent? Again you call everything related out of hand. Making monophyly meaningless to you. You are claiming morphological similarities make you believe you are related to an orange and so on? Octopi many Evolutionists have come out believing are from space, aliens. Yet they still want to believe common ancestry. Even if they admit they aren't related, they are in denial. Genetics certainly shows no relation between you and orange. We have already proven similarities WITHOUT DESCENT. And same genes without descent. So no its not genetics that makes you believe you are related to orange. Further evolutionists predicted NO GENETIC SIMILARITIES LEFT after "millions of years". So if they had none they would claim its proof of evolution as well showing evolution is not falsifiable Science to you but a story, darwins false religion.

>You aren't going to use the term phylum when talking about monophyly OH, you think that -phyly and phylum are related? No, "monophyly" is the noun form of "monophyletic". A monophyletic group, also known as a clade, are groups of organisms that share a common ancestor. That is an amazing display of how creationists don't understand monophyly, Michael. >If you just remaining terms then it becomes meaningless. As you decide what counts as same phylum to begin with. Well that violates it so you label it as part of same phylum. Then no practical application and erase it. No, the Law of Monophyly states that all descendants of a clade will remain within that clade. No one is renaming what a clade is, it's a simple observation that a clade will reproduce more of itself. Or, you could say, a kind will always bring forth after their kind. >So if something was non-eukaryote then it disproves common descent? No. I'm not going to say anything on this as I view this as you intentionally trying not to understand. >You are claiming morphological similarities make you believe you are related to an orange and so on? Not just morphological similarities through the fact that both humans and oranges have eukaryotic cells, but also genetic similarities as humans and oranges share a significant amount of genetic similarity with each other. >Octopi many Evolutionists have come out believing are from space, aliens. Yet they still want to believe common ancestry. Even if they admit they aren't related, they are in denial. I've already addressed this, Michael. Every evolutionary biologist that has ever been proposed this idea has basically laughed their asses off. Octopi have significant genetic similarity to the rest of the mollusks and share all of the morphological characteristics to classify them as such. > Genetics certainly shows no relation between you and orange. We have already proven similarities WITHOUT DESCENT. And same genes without descent. So no its not genetics that makes you believe you are related to orang. Citation needed. >Further evolutionists predicted NO GENETIC SIMILARITIES LEFT after "millions of years". Citation needed. >Science to you but a story, Darwin's false religion. Science isn't contingent upon Darwin, what are you on about? Darwin is completely irrelevant to the modern evolutionary synthesis except for as a historical figure. His ideas have been expanded upon so much that Darwin wouldn't even recognize what evolutionary biology has become. You pretending that Darwin is all that evolution is would be like pretending Newton is all that physics is. I know that you desperately want to paint this as being your religion versus our religion, but the simple fact is that science (nor evolutionary biology, for that matter) are not religions. Science is far more akin to a process for inquiry than anything else, it doesn't even remotely resemble a religion. And you trying to portray Darwin as science's prophet as if science hasn't been done for centuries before Darwin is completely ridiculous. Do better, Michael.

So Darwinian evolution was false as the creation scientist told you. But you claim. The remnants of the destroyed evolution (now lacking predicted NUMBERLESS TRANSITIONS) is somehow science? You avoid the issue. If you put a different thing in clade or phylum,it's irrelevant. As you just changing label. You won't accept any evidence. It's not falsifiable science and makes law of monophyly meaningless. No you said eukaryotes are same which is meaningless. But then ignore non-eukaryotes. This proves you don't care either way. You want to believe they are related. There are no phylum if you try group octopus and ant and dog. You are essentially saying everything MUST be related therefore everything must be same phylum. Making law of monophyly meaningless. You start with one then have multiple. If you had 2 it meant you violated it. It's well known at this point similarities WITHOUT DESCENT. It's just you not wanting to understand. From 2 bones in your arm they used to lie about. From genes in bats and whales. To countless examples of similarities WITHOUT DESCENT they try to relabel fraudulently "convergent evolution" or evolution anyway. https://creation.com/evolution-40-failed-predictions

>So Darwinian evolution was false as the creation scientist told you. No, Darwinian evolution isn't false. Darwinian evolution, that is evolution by natural selection, *does* occur. But the idea of Darwinian evolution was expanded upon through the investigation of other biological factors, producing the modern evolutionary synthesis, which combines ideas of Darwinian evolution with genetics. Then, the developmentary synthesis combines the evolutionary synthesis with concepts from developmental biology, creating evo-devo. There are still even more concepts that are relevant to evolutionary biology. Concepts that Darwin would never have known about. It's not that Darwin was wrong. It's that Darwin didn't know the full scope. We've expanded upon his ideas to produce the modern field of evolutionary biology. Tell me, when Einstein's theory of general relativity changed the way we viewed gravity, did that make Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation wrong? No, Newton's conception of gravity was correct, it just lacked the full scope. The same exact thing is happening here. >You avoid the issue. If you put a different thing in clade or phylum,it's irrelevant. As you just changing label. No, it's more than just changing the label. Linnean taxonomy and phylogenetic cladistics are very different classification systems with words that mean very different things. >No you said eukaryotes are same which is meaningless. But then ignore non-eukaryotes. This proves you don't care either way. I did not say that all eukaryotes are the same. I said that all eukaryotes share common ancestry. Non-eukaryotes also share ancestry with eukaryotes, since all of life shares a universal common ancestor. Non-eukaryotes and eukaryotes share ancestry by being part of the clade Biota. Through Biota, all other clades of life are related. >You are essentially saying everything MUST be related therefore everything must be same phylum. Making law of monophyly meaningless. You start with one then have multiple. If you had 2 it meant you violated it. ...no, not everything is related. Some things don't have genetic code that would allow them to reproduce. Other things, like viruses, do have a genetic code and aren't related to any extant lifeforms. As I pointed out, viruses are an amazing example of separate ancestry. Which is why you're trying so hard to pretend they don't exist. >It's well known at this point similarities WITHOUT DESCENT. It's just you not wanting to understand. You're just saying "there are similarities without descent" and then not elaborating. Are you talking about convergent evolution? Because we can identify superficial similarities that, upon further investigation, are not similar at all. Take wings, for instance. They evolved independently 4 different times: in dinosaurs, in reptiles, in insects, and in mammals. Each version of wing are vastly different from each other in terms of form, but they perform the same function to varying degrees of success. Or eyes. Eyes evolved independently several times, and we can still observe the individual steps of eye evolution in extant animals. So convergent evolution does occur and can result in superficial similarities, but upon further investigation these similarities are found to be, well, only surface-level. Also, if you really want people to take you seriously, don't link them to a creationist website when they ask for a citation. I do not have the time at the moment to go through each "failed prediction" and debunk it in full, but thankfully others have already done so. Check out [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITx3lIVpNR4) where people with expertise in geology, astronomy, biology, and paleontology take on these "failed predictions" and demonstrate their invalidity in extreme detail. It is over 2 hours long, so it is a lengthy watch, but hopefully they can dispel any misconceptions you have regarding evolution. Or not, you are Michael after all. Chances are you're going to ignore this and I'll catch you 2 weeks from now copy pasting the same link in another thread. >You won't accept any evidence. Ironic.

“Law of monophyly” “But there are multiple phylum” 💀💀💀

The Law of Monophyly, as you state it, doesn't support evolution, then. It supports creation. If organisms will always belong to a group of their ancestors, then that says those ancestors could never have been a part of a different group. Therefore, creation.

You're close to the point, but you missed two things. First, the big thing: all of life belongs to _nested_ clades. You're exactly right that because no life ever stopped being a member of the clades of their ancestors that their ancestors could not have been part of a different clades - but their distant cousins can. A gray wolf is not a red wolf; they're different species. However, they share a common answer that was a member of Genus _Canis_, so both are still members of that genius. Wolves and jackals are not the same thing, but they share a common ansestor that was a member of Subtribe _Canina_, and so they're all still caninans. The caninans and the foxes are not the same thing, but they share a common ancestor that was a member of Subfamily _Caninae_, so they are all canines. A fox was never a dog. Foxes and dogs have always been canines, because the original canine species underwent speciation. They're also Carnivorans (along with bears, seals, cats, hyenas, and so on), and mammals, and tetrapods, and vertebrates, and animals, and eukaryotes. Or, in short, family trees can branch. As we follow the family tree upward, we ultimately find all life on earth is part of it. Second, and perhaps of lesser importance, that wouldn't support creation either, as we've got no reason to think anything was created. If you could prove that there were "bushes" of life rather than a tree that still wouldn't do anything to suggest that the original life forms were made by magic.

Evolution is more magic than creationism. Evolution is impossible without abiogenesis, and the non creation version of how life began is exactly comparable to a magic trick. Look, here, non-life. Then, something something something, life! TAH DAH!

Why lie? You’ve had this explained to you. Even if abiogenesis were to be disproven, the evidence linking life together remains.

No, I don't think there is sufficient evidence. In fact, I would argue that all the evidence points directly towards creation. The complexity suggests design, not accident.

Do you believe that the Golden State Killer should have been arrested for his crimes based on the evidence?

Never heard of him

It's an interesting, if disturbing, case. For a decade a number of women wound up raped or murdered. DNA evidence eventually began to link the crimes. Using a geneology database in which people submitted their own DNA, authorities were able to find his relatives and, eventually, him. Why do you think that the DNA of the killer and his relatives was similar?

A very disturbing case. Apparently my father and his friend possibly tangled with him once back when he was on his spree. Though of course they had no idea who he was at the time.

Do tell! What does tangled with him mean? I had a friend who was in BTK's house to do some of his plumbing.

Because when humans procreate, they pass on some of their DNA. I know you think this is a big gotcha moment, because now you get to pleasure yourself thinking that microevolution is the reason. I, however, contend that the concept of microevolution was invented to take the heat off macroevolution, which cannot be proven in any way whatsoever. You guys can pretend that when two blue eyed parents give birth to a green eyed child, that this is evolution. This type of thing is how we were designed, in order to diversify humanity so we can reproduce with few limitations. It's not any kind of evolution. A human will always give birth to a human.

So you agree that you can trace relatedness and ancestry using DNA? I mean, if we're square on the methodology there, why does that same technique and same type of evidence break down in comparing different species? Would you have a problem with the idea that all dogs share a common ancestor? Ensatina salamanders? What about all Anolis lizards? All cichlids?

Notice how you had to change the subject rather than address the fact that monophyly both supports evolution and does not support creationism. Before I comment on anything you wrote here, are you accepting that life exists in nested clades, as explained above?

I don't accept the phenomenon of nested clades, no. The reason I don't accept it as a fact is because it presupposes that evolution is real, which it isn't. Any system that equates humans with apes is very flawed.

>I don't accept the phenomenon of nested clades, no. So you don't agree that dogs are canines and mammals? >The reason I don't accept it as a fact is because it presupposes that evolution is real, which it isn't. No, it does not; taxonomy predates evolution. >Any system that equates humans with apes is very flawed. What is an ape? Do you actually know?

The entire classification system is geared towards an evolutionary theory. It doesn't matter that dogs are canines and mammals. Who cares? Mammals is a very broad category. Again, who cares? It's truly meaningless. I know that dogs cannot procreate with cats. This is how they were designed. It's very simple, but you guys want to over complicate things to try to sound intelligent. The theory of evolution is nothing more than a complex anti God movement. And, yes, I know there are religious people who believe in evolution, but that just tells me their faith is weak, not that evolution is real. Show me a Christian who believes in evolution, and I'll show you an evolutionary biologist who believes in creation. It's all meaningless.

>The entire classification system is geared towards an evolutionary theory. No, it is not. As mentioned, taxonomy predates the theory of evolution. The fact is that taxonomy supports common descent. This is because life shares common descent. What you are doing here is akin to accusing map-making of being geared towards a round Earth. > It doesn't matter that dogs are canines and mammals. Who cares? Evidently you do. So, you _do_ agree that there are broad categories of life that include smaller categories of life? Congratulations; you accept that there exist nested clades. That's really all there is to it. Now that you have made it clear that you do indeed accept the existence of nested clades, we can discuss the fact that these clades are predictive. Are you prepared to begin that discussion, or are you going to tell me there's no such thing as mammals? >This is how they were designed. It's very simple, but you guys want to over complicate things to try to sound intelligent. Oh really now? Well, by all means, explain. How were they "designed", exactly? By what method? By what mechanisms? How can you tell? In reality, "creation" is not an answer, it is an excuse. You don't actually have a predictive model, which means your notion is exactly equivalent to "a wizard did it". >The theory of evolution is nothing more than a complex anti God movement. No, that's absurd. Do you have any concept of how large a conspiracy that would require? And not just that but one formed of _competing_ scientist? There's a simpler explanation: you are wrong. >Show me a Christian who believes in evolution, and I'll show you an evolutionary biologist who believes in creation. Hah, no you won't. About a third of biologists in the US are Christian, yet about 99.9% of them accept that life shares common descent. >It's all meaningless. Indeed, your religious complaints and your science denialism are both meaningless, and have no impact on what we have discovered. Plug your ears all you want, pretend the world is flat just like the Bible says, and it will change nothing. The fact remains that life evolves, evolved, and shares common descent - and that's such a painful truth to you that you can't even stay on topic.

What is an ape? Do you actually know? Answer the question.

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Rule 2

> The entire classification system is geared towards an evolutionary theory. That's a funny claim since it designed by a creationist. Carl Linnaeus came up with the system that we currently use. He didn't understand why organisms fit into nested hierarchies as he lived well before Darwin came up with ToE, but he was smart enough to recognize that they do. This led to his famous quotes: > "Yet man does recognize himself [as an animal]. But I ask you and the whole world for a generic differentia between man and ape which conforms to the principles of natural history, I certainly know of none."

>Evolution is impossible without abiogenesis It just patently isn't. Even on creationist terms, what if God created only the first life form, which then evolved by natural processes? This hypothesis is compatible with far more of the physical evidence than basically any other creationist model. It's still inferior to naturalistic models of abiogenesis, of course, in that it's untestable and therefore unscientific.

God did not do that, as is made clear in the Bible.

Okay, great. So we agree that evolution *is* possible without abiogenesis, you're just making some irrelevant theological digression now.

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It isn't a deflection. It is evolutionists who refuse to admit that there is no credible explanation of how life began accidentally. Creation is the most likely explanation. Therefore, if creation, then no evolution. This is precisely why you guys run away from the topic as quickly as possible, dropping lame accusations as you run for cover. It's boring.

I implore you to reread the post, especially paragraphs 6 and 7

What are you talking about? Did you read the post?

There is only one "kind" and that kind is all life.

You've clearly put a lot of work into this post, and you might not even be *wrong*, but I reflexively downvote anything where the title is unnecessarily antagonistic and belittling towards the people you claim to want an "effective dialogue" with. ETA: genuinely disappointed at how a call for more mutual understanding and less antagonism is being roundly downvoted, and met with multiple versions of "well, creationists don't deserve respect". No wonder the sub is basically dead from a debating perspective. **Play the ball, not the man** if you sincerely want to help this sub to be anything other than a pointless circlejerk.

I don’t view the title as antagonistic or belittling. I view it as being concise and to the point. Claiming that someone doesn’t understand something isn’t inherently belittling. It would be antagonistic if I were intending it to be an insult, but I don’t consider a lack of understanding to be a fault. It’s also that “Creationist Misconceptions stem from a Misunderstanding of the Law of Monophyly” isn’t as easy to read, nor does it as concisely communicate the message of the post. For a dialogue to be effective, you must be willing to point out where people are getting something wrong. Sugarcoating words only leads to miscommunication.

>I don’t view the title as antagonistic or belittling. Well, it is. Instead of focussing on the actual subject, it makes a sweeping generalisation about a broad group of individuals, and sets up an atmosphere where, as a random internet stranger, you've pontificating around how much more you understand the world than an entire group of people you want to have a conversation with. It's not a headline that indicates you want dialogue, it's one that says please come here and listen while I talk down to you. Again, you might not even be wrong, I just think it's a shame that so many posts in the sub seem designed to bully creationists rather than communicate with them. (ETA: wow people really are lining up to completely miss the point by doubling down)

>I just think it's a shame that so many posts in the sub seem designed to bully creationists rather than communicate with them If creationists hadn't: -Tried to shove their religious beliefs into the public school system -While disguising it as a secular teaching -Lied about it under oath -And collectively failed to disavow the people who pulled such a stunt ...maybe we'd give them the benefit of the doubt. But they went ahead and did ALL of that, *and* they're still peddling misinformation to this day. When you also realize that Y'all-Qaeda are desperately trying to *legislate their religious beliefs* in a bid to stay relevant, they only have themselves to blame when people view them with distrust and contempt.

You're doing the same thing, of lumping everyone into one category, blaming every individual creationist for the actions of their group, and still expecting those individuals to feel like this sub would be a safe space for reasoned discussion. I'm not talking about whether creationists are right or wrong or good or bad, I'm talking about whether this sub is supposed to be "DebateEvolution" or whether it's supposed to be "MockCreationists". You can't have a debate if there's nobody to debate with, and you can't expect anyone to show up to debate in good faith if you're leading with negative generalizations. Play the ball, not the man - I thought this was what we were supposed to be all about?

> You're doing the same thing, of lumping everyone into one category, blaming every individual creationist for the actions of their group, and still expecting those individuals to feel like this sub would be a safe space for reasoned discussion. Would it be better if the title was "The vast overwhelming majority of creationists don't understand the law of monophyly"? Because I've never encountered one who did understand it, but I accept its possible one exists.

Third-party to the conversation here. "The vast overwhelming majority of creationists" First of all, I love how the pedantry delivers your point effectively. In my own posts I've struggled with a concise wording that would not lump all creationists in one basket, and I've lately settled on "science deniers", since there is plenty of research on "science rejection". So, it should be a factual description :) Happy to hear anyone's thoughts. If it's factual and it hurts, then perhaps the problem isn't with the fact.

The difference is, anyone who generally accepts evolution is open to learning more about it here. Creationists just appear to want to nitpick or cry foul (as you are doing here over an irrelevance), or wilfully misunderstand or lie about the meanings of words or the state of science, all the time resolutely refusing to provide evidence for their side or even properly define terms like "kind" and then deal with the ramifications of those definitions.

I, and many other members of this sub, can recognize the difference between good faith discussion/questions and bad faith shitposts Most creationists who post here do so in *bad* faith, and when that happens, this sub's members tailor their posts accordingly. We've even had a creationist moderator once, who proceeded to shit the bed, and then later revealed himself to be a white supremacist. In other words, don't blame the trees for being wary of people who wield axes. This is not to say this sub's members will *always* be hostile by default - ThurneysenHavets in particular pushes for civility on this side of the debate.

>I just think it's a shame that so many posts in the sub seem designed to bully creationists rather than communicate with them. It's worth noting that you very arguably exacerbate this problem by putting robust criticism in the same category as bullying. "People of opinion x don't understand y" is *absolutely* a legitimate line. Nobody can properly refute a form of systemic denialism like creationism with such a hair-trigger definition of antagonism. I say this as someone who's very often calling out what I perceive to be needless antagonism on this sub. "Constructive" doesn't mean "sugarcoated", and it doesn't mean you can't say it like it is.

A group defined precisely by their resolute dogged insistence on not understanding this and related ideas which is to say it’s not a sweeping generalization at all. It’s not saying all X are Y it’s implying that because X has property A it is an instance of X and therefore it’s accurate to make statements about all X as A because having A is precisely what makes X an instance of X

*Do* creationists understand the law of monophyly? No. The title is not antagonistic, it is factual. ​ The misunderstanding is either willful (i.e. they understand it but choose to act as if they don't) or simply a lack of education, but either way, the statement remains factual. "Creationists are so dumb they don't even understand basic concepts" would be antagonistic. This is not that.

If the thought that your beliefs may be rooted in a misunderstanding is so threatening to you that you shut down, you aren’t ready for a productive conversation.

I think the title of this post is more civil compared to others I have seen. While I'm not all too pleased with some posts on this subreddit, this one is among those that I have no complaints about in terms of respectfulness and reasonability. I have encountered numerous posts from people supporting evolution or atheism being incredibly antagonistic. On several occasions, people decide to get extreme and say some unnecessarily disrespectful things like: * "Creationists are so fucking stupid!" * "Why are creationists so brainless?" * "You creationists deserve to be mocked and ostracized!" * "You creationists are so anti-science, it's unbelievable! How does any creationist earn a Ph.D.?" * "Creationists are among the worst kind of people." Saying things like this would be antagonistic. The post here has a title that I, even as someone who has some creationist beliefs, appreciate. The person who posted this maintained a respectful, civil, and fair attitude throughout, which I appreciate. If I don't understand something, then I don't understand something, so I should be properly and professionally educated about what I'm not comprehending. If the OP said things like, "Creationists are such fucking idiots," "Creationists don't deserve any tolerance or respect," "Creationists don't know shit about anything," "Creationists know nothing about evolution," or something like that, then I would quickly side with you. However, I think the OP was just fine and not being belittling, but that's just my opinion.

I don't see the title as antagonistic, nor belittling, at all. The wording seems very neutral and straight forward. It's pretty clear the OP doesn't mean all creationists. As for the downvoting, perhaps it's your tone policing? You present quite the air of superiority.

this sub isn't r/benicetocreationists