#Evolution vs creationism

[shushmal]

Eddie: Hey, Steve... Steve: Mmm? Eddie, slightly buzzed: What... What are we? Steve, high out of his goddamn mind, eyes filling with tears: Dude... Dude, I don't know?? Eddie: Wha— Steve: Dustin says we're monkeys, Eddie!! MONKEYS! What does that even mean???

[quotelr]

When Mother Nature speaks, even the Gods hold silence.

Abhijit Naskar

[roguetelepaths]

Miles/Keiko/Kira is so good and I love it so much but I really wish sometimes that people would talk more about the obvious prejudice Keiko shows against Bajoran religion and how she presumably unlearns that over the course of her relationship with Kira. She doesn't have to convert or anything (though I think an interpretation where she does would be interesting, if someone could come up with an in-character justification for it) but I don't think you can really talk about that relationship without addressing the fact that Keiko starts out the show as such a militant antitheist that she refuses to see the need for a Bajoran cultural perspective when teaching a class full of Bajorans who have literally just survived an attempted cultural genocide. I love the polycule but I think people are way too willing to overlook that detail when writing about it

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Stephen Jay Gould

Published: May 1981

Kirtley Mather, who died last year at age ninety, was a pillar of both science and Christian religion in America and one of my dearest friends. The difference of a half-century in our ages evaporated before our common interests. The most curious thing we shared was a battle we each fought at the same age. For Kirtley had gone to Tennessee with Clarence Darrow to testify for evolution at the Scopes trial of 1925. When I think that we are enmeshed again in the same struggle for one of the best documented, most compelling and exciting concepts in all of science, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

According to idealized principles of scientific discourse, the arousal of dormant issues should reflect fresh data that give renewed life to abandoned notions. Those outside the current debate may therefore be excused for suspecting that creationists have come up with something new, or that evolutionists have generated some serious internal trouble. But nothing has changed; the creationists have presented not a single new fact or argument. Darrow and Bryan were at least more entertaining than we lesser antagonists today. The rise of creationism is politics, pure and simple; it represents one issue (and by no means the major concern) of the resurgent evangelical right. Arguments that seemed kooky just a decade ago have reentered the mainstream.

The basic attack of modern creationists falls apart on two general counts before we even reach the supposed factual details of their assault against evolution. First, they play upon a vernacular misunderstanding of the word "theory" to convey the false impression that we evolutionists are covering up the rotten core of our edifice. Second, they misuse a popular philosophy of science to argue that they are behaving scientifically in attacking evolution. Yet the same philosophy demonstrates that their own belief is not science, and that "scientific creationism" is a meaningless and self-contradictory phrase, an example of what Orwell called "newspeak."

In the American vernacular, "theory" often means "imperfect fact"—part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory to hypothesis to guess. Thus creationists can (and do) argue: evolution is "only" a theory, and intense debate now rages about many aspects of the theory. If evolution is less than a fact, and scientists can't even make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in it? Indeed, President Reagan echoed this argument before an evangelical group in Dallas when he said (in what I devoutly hope was campaign rhetoric): "Well, it is a theory. It is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science—that is, not believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was."

Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered.

Moreover, "fact" does not mean "absolute certainty." The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

Evolutionists have been clear about this distinction between fact and theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory—natural selection—to explain the mechanism of evolution. He wrote in The Descent of Man: "I had two distinct objects in view; firstly, to show that species had not been separately created, and secondly, that natural selection had been the chief agent of change. . . . Hence if I have erred in . . . having exaggerated its [natural selection's] power . . . I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations."

Thus Darwin acknowledged the provisional nature of natural selection while affirming the fact of evolution. The fruitful theoretical debate that Darwin initiated has never ceased. From the 1940s through the 1960s, Darwin's own theory of natural selection did achieve a temporary hegemony that it never enjoyed in his lifetime. But renewed debate characterizes our decade, and, while no biologists questions the importance of natural selection, many doubt its ubiquity. In particular, many evolutionists argue that substantial amounts of genetic change may not be subject to natural selection and may spread through the populations at random. Others are challenging Darwin's linking of natural selection with gradual, imperceptible change through all intermediary degrees; they are arguing that most evolutionary events may occur far more rapidly than Darwin envisioned.

Scientists regard debates on fundamental issues of theory as a sign of intellectual health and a source of excitement. Science is—and how else can I say it?—most fun when it plays with interesting ideas, examines their implications, and recognizes that old information might be explained in surprisingly new ways. Evolutionary theory is now enjoying this uncommon vigor. Yet amidst all this turmoil no biologist has been lead to doubt the fact that evolution occurred; we are debating how it happened. We are all trying to explain the same thing: the tree of evolutionary descent linking all organisms by ties of genealogy. Creationists pervert and caricature this debate by conveniently neglecting the common conviction that underlies it, and by falsely suggesting that evolutionists now doubt the very phenomenon we are struggling to understand.

Secondly, creationists claim that "the dogma of separate creations," as Darwin characterized it a century ago, is a scientific theory meriting equal time with evolution in high school biology curricula. But a popular viewpoint among philosophers of science belies this creationist argument. Philosopher Karl Popper has argued for decades that the primary criterion of science is the falsifiability of its theories. We can never prove absolutely, but we can falsify. A set of ideas that cannot, in principle, be falsified is not science.

The entire creationist program includes little more than a rhetorical attempt to falsify evolution by presenting supposed contradictions among its supporters. Their brand of creationism, they claim, is "scientific" because it follows the Popperian model in trying to demolish evolution. Yet Popper's argument must apply in both directions. One does not become a scientist by the simple act of trying to falsify a rival and truly scientific system; one has to present an alternative system that also meets Popper's criterion — it too must be falsifiable in principle.

"Scientific creationism" is a self-contradictory, nonsense phrase precisely because it cannot be falsified. I can envision observations and experiments that would disprove any evolutionary theory I know, but I cannot imagine what potential data could lead creationists to abandon their beliefs. Unbeatable systems are dogma, not science. Lest I seem harsh or rhetorical, I quote creationism's leading intellectual, Duane Gish, Ph.D. from his recent (1978) book, Evolution? The Fossils Say No! "By creation we mean the bringing into being by a supernatural Creator of the basic kinds of plants and animals by the process of sudden, or fiat, creation. We do not know how the Creator created, what process He used, for He used processes which are not now operating anywhere in the natural universe [Gish's italics]. This is why we refer to creation as special creation. We cannot discover by scientific investigations anything about the creative processes used by the Creator." Pray tell, Dr. Gish, in the light of your last sentence, what then is scientific creationism?

Our confidence that evolution occurred centers upon three general arguments. First, we have abundant, direct, observational evidence of evolution in action, from both the field and laboratory. This evidence ranges from countless experiments on change in nearly everything about fruit flies subjected to artificial selection in the laboratory to the famous populations of British moths that became black when industrial soot darkened the trees upon which the moths rest. (Moths gain protection from sharp-sighted bird predators by blending into the background.) Creationists do not deny these observations; how could they? Creationists have tightened their act. They now argue that God only created "basic kinds," and allowed for limited evolutionary meandering within them. Thus toy poodles and Great Danes come from the dog kind and moths can change color, but nature cannot convert a dog to a cat or a monkey to a man.

The second and third arguments for evolution—the case for major changes—do not involve direct observation of evolution in action. They rest upon inference, but are no less secure for that reason. Major evolutionary change requires too much time for direct observation on the scale of recorded human history. All historical sciences rest upon inference, and evolution is no different from geology, cosmology, or human history in this respect. In principle, we cannot observe processes that operated in the past. We must infer them from results that still surround us: living and fossil organisms for evolution, documents and artifacts for human history, strata and topography for geology.

The second argument—that the imperfection of nature reveals evolution—strikes many people as ironic, for they feel that evolution should be most elegantly displayed in the nearly perfect adaptation expressed by some organisms—the camber of a gull's wing, or butterflies that cannot be seen in ground litter because they mimic leaves so precisely. But perfection could be imposed by a wise creator or evolved by natural selection. Perfection covers the tracks of past history. And past history—the evidence of descent—is the mark of evolution.

Evolution lies exposed in the imperfections that record a history of descent. Why should a rat run, a bat fly, a porpoise swim, and I type this essay with structures built of the same bones unless we all inherited them from a common ancestor? An engineer, starting from scratch, could design better limbs in each case. Why should all the large native mammals of Australia be marsupials, unless they descended from a common ancestor isolated on this island continent? Marsupials are not "better," or ideally suited for Australia; many have been wiped out by placental mammals imported by man from other continents. This principle of imperfection extends to all historical sciences. When we recognize the etymology of September, October, November, and December (seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth), we know that the year once started in March, or that two additional months must have been added to an original calendar of ten months.

The third argument is more direct: transitions are often found in the fossil record. Preserved transitions are not common—and should not be, according to our understanding of evolution (see next section) but they are not entirely wanting, as creationists often claim. The lower jaw of reptiles contains several bones, that of mammals only one. The non-mammalian jawbones are reduced, step by step, in mammalian ancestors until they become tiny nubbins located at the back of the jaw. The "hammer" and "anvil" bones of the mammalian ear are descendants of these nubbins. How could such a transition be accomplished? the creationists ask. Surely a bone is either entirely in the jaw or in the ear. Yet paleontologists have discovered two transitional lineages of therapsids (the so-called mammal-like reptiles) with a double jaw joint—one composed of the old quadrate and articular bones (soon to become the hammer and anvil), the other of the squamosal and dentary bones (as in modern mammals). For that matter, what better transitional form could we expect to find than the oldest human, Australopithecus afarensis, with its apelike palate, its human upright stance, and a cranial capacity larger than any ape�s of the same body size but a full 1,000 cubic centimeters below ours? If God made each of the half-dozen human species discovered in ancient rocks, why did he create in an unbroken temporal sequence of progressively more modern features—increasing cranial capacity, reduced face and teeth, larder body size? Did he create to mimic evolution and test our faith thereby?

Faced with these facts of evolution and the philosophical bankruptcy of their own position, creationists rely upon distortion and innuendo to buttress their rhetorical claim. If I sound sharp or bitter, indeed I am—for I have become a major target of these practices.

I count myself among the evolutionists who argue for a jerky, or episodic, rather than a smoothly gradual, pace of change. In 1972 my colleague Niles Eldredge and I developed the theory of punctuated equilibrium. We argued that two outstanding facts of the fossil record—geologically "sudden" origin of new species and failure to change thereafter (stasis)—reflect the predictions of evolutionary theory, not the imperfections of the fossil record. In most theories, small isolated populations are the source of new species, and the process of speciation takes thousands or tens of thousands of years. This amount of time, so long when measured against our lives, is a geological microsecond. It represents much less than 1 per cent of the average life-span for a fossil invertebrate species—more than ten million years. Large, widespread, and well established species, on the other hand, are not expected to change very much. We believe that the inertia of large populations explains the stasis of most fossil species over millions of years.

We proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium largely to provide a different explanation for pervasive trends in the fossil record. Trends, we argued, cannot be attributed to gradual transformation within lineages, but must arise from the different success of certain kinds of species. A trend, we argued, is more like climbing a flight of stairs (punctuated and stasis) than rolling up an inclined plane.

Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists—whether through design or stupidity, I do not know—as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups. Yet a pamphlet entitled "Harvard Scientists Agree Evolution Is a Hoax" states: "The facts of punctuated equilibrium which Gould and Eldredge…are forcing Darwinists to swallow fit the picture that Bryan insisted on, and which God has revealed to us in the Bible."

Continuing the distortion, several creationists have equated the theory of punctuated equilibrium with a caricature of the beliefs of Richard Goldschmidt, a great early geneticist. Goldschmidt argued, in a famous book published in 1940, that new groups can arise all at once through major mutations. He referred to these suddenly transformed creatures as "hopeful monsters." (I am attracted to some aspects of the non-caricatured version, but Goldschmidt's theory still has nothing to do with punctuated equilibrium—see essays in section 3 and my explicit essay on Goldschmidt in The Pandas Thumb.) Creationist Luther Sunderland talks of the "punctuated equilibrium hopeful monster theory" and tells his hopeful readers that "it amounts to tacit admission that anti-evolutionists are correct in asserting there is no fossil evidence supporting the theory that all life is connected to a common ancestor." Duane Gish writes, "According to Goldschmidt, and now apparently according to Gould, a reptile laid an egg from which the first bird, feathers and all, was produced." Any evolutionists who believed such nonsense would rightly be laughed off the intellectual stage; yet the only theory that could ever envision such a scenario for the origin of birds is creationism—with God acting in the egg.

I am both angry at and amused by the creationists; but mostly I am deeply sad. Sad for many reasons. Sad because so many people who respond to creationist appeals are troubled for the right reason, but venting their anger at the wrong target. It is true that scientists have often been dogmatic and elitist. It is true that we have often allowed the white-coated, advertising image to represent us—"Scientists say that Brand X cures bunions ten times faster than…" We have not fought it adequately because we derive benefits from appearing as a new priesthood. It is also true that faceless and bureaucratic state power intrudes more and more into our lives and removes choices that should belong to individuals and communities. I can understand that school curricula, imposed from above and without local input, might be seen as one more insult on all these grounds. But the culprit is not, and cannot be, evolution or any other fact of the natural world. Identify and fight our legitimate enemies by all means, but we are not among them.

I am sad because the practical result of this brouhaha will not be expanded coverage to include creationism (that would also make me sad), but the reduction or excision of evolution from high school curricula. Evolution is one of the half dozen "great ideas" developed by science. It speaks to the profound issues of genealogy that fascinate all of us—the "roots" phenomenon writ large. Where did we come from? Where did life arise? How did it develop? How are organisms related? It forces us to think, ponder, and wonder. Shall we deprive millions of this knowledge and once again teach biology as a set of dull and unconnected facts, without the thread that weaves diverse material into a supple unity?

But most of all I am saddened by a trend I am just beginning to discern among my colleagues. I sense that some now wish to mute the healthy debate about theory that has brought new life to evolutionary biology. It provides grist for creationist mills, they say, even if only by distortion. Perhaps we should lie low and rally around the flag of strict Darwinism, at least for the moment—a kind of old-time religion on our part.

But we should borrow another metaphor and recognize that we too have to tread a straight and narrow path, surrounded by roads to perdition. For if we ever begin to suppress our search to understand nature, to quench our own intellectual excitement in a misguided effort to present a united front where it does not and should not exist, then we are truly lost.

[ Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory," May 1981; from Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1994, pp. 253-262. ]

==

Over forty years later and we're still dealing with this same nonsense. Now, not only from the religious right but the sex-denialism left.

[in-sightpublishing]

Ask A Genius 1067: Intelligent Design

Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/08/05 Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Let’s start another rapid-fire session. Intelligent design, go. Rick Rosner: It’s bullshit. It’s creationists trying to make creationism sound scientific. Maybe some of them believe it themselves, or maybe they’re just bullshitters…

[eponastory]

Yall... I can't even...

So I'm not here to make fun of someone's beliefs or call anyone stupid, but there is something I have to address about this movement where Christians believe the Earth is only 6000 years old. I was raised Christian and read the Bible religiously when I was younger. Nowhere does it mention the age of the Earth.

I have my issues with religion. I'm not going to get into it here...

But when someone tells me that my tribe was wiped out 4000 years ago by a global flood...

I'm going to look at you funny.

First off, my tribe has been in the same spot for over 6000 years. If there had been a global flood 4000 years ago, the Chitimatcha would not be here today. Why? Because the land the tribe sits on is swamp. It's all swamp.

Second, if there was a global flood, then how do any of the other indigenous tribes still exist? We have genealogical records and tribal records dating back to when the tribes split. Both Choctaw and Chitimatcha were in the same region before the Choctaw were forced to move. They were likely part of one tribe before they split. Kinda like how the Houmas split from the Chitimatcha. It just doesn't add up to what this movement is preaching.

I will be clear, this is mostly happening in the United States and its a relatively small movement based on someone adding up the ages listed in the Bible without using the Jewish Calender.

I'm not calling anyone stupid, but gullible at most. Because they don't know how to do their own research and trust that theory is fact and not hypothesis.

It's very concerning for the state of the country right now.

[jarredlharris]

A journey out of creationism.

This post is a copy of the answer I wrote to a Quora question.

Have you ever believed in creationism?

I did. I grew up believing in specifically Young Earth Creationism. I as convinced it was true and that all those “evolutionists” were either liars or just easily fooled idiots.

If so, what convinced you that evolution was a more logical explanation?

The short answer is “I learned about science.” Read on for the longer answer.

When I went to college, I got accepted into my university’s Honors Program. This was a program that involved taking a number of specialized courses that tended to focus on critical thinking and important subjects of the day. One of the classes I was required to take as a part of the program was called “Thought and Science,” and I took the second semester of my freshman year.

The name of this course could have just as easily been called “Philosophy of Science.” In fact, that was the title of the textbook the professor chose as our primary textbook for the course. In this course, we learned about the philosophy of science and how scientific inquiry worked. We also learned about pitfalls scientists can fall into like confirmation bias.

The final topic covered at the end of the semester was the subject of pseudoscience. The professor — who was a botanist, a professing Christian, and a dancer, spent a lot of time specifically talking about creationism and why it was a pseudoscience. During his final lecture of the semester, he said something that has stuck with me ever since:

“You can claim that God blinked the universe into existence last Tuesday as a matter of faith. But you cannot make that claim on any scientific basis.”

I realized he had a point. The alleged “scientific” arguments I had learned to support my creationist views were simply rhetoric that my mentors had disguised as being science. I could not deny this because I had just spent the past few months learning what science was and who science worked, and my creationist arguments looked nothing like that.

I didn’t stop believing in creationism right away, but I found myself being more honest — including with myself — about the fact that I accepted it as a matter of faith rather than something that could be scientifically demonstrated to be true.

I don’t really know when I quit believing in creationism. I didn’t really think a lot about the evolution vs. creation debate after that course. But no matter when I finally let go of my creationist beliefs, I know that the class I took from the dancing botanist was the genesis of its demise.

[mongrelmutt]

@heresylog 's tags:

So, uh. Does the church have an explanation for the existence of dinosaurs? Or is it "the devil planted these bones to make us believe in science?"

I don't know, but the majority of catholics in Belgium do believe in evolution. So it depends who you're asking

[creature-wizard]

I just went to YouTube to try and search for "evidence against creationism." Halfway through the word "again," the site suggested "evidence against evolution."

When I searched for "evidence against creationism," let's just say the results were disappointing. Here's a list of the first fifteen videos that came up:

What’s the evidence for a 6,000 year old Earth? (pro-creationism)

The Definitive Guide to Debunking Creationists Part 1: Cosmology/Planetary Science (anti-creationism)

Shortest Scientist vs Creationist debate ever. (stance unclear)

"Creation Scientist Shocks Joe Rogan with Mind-Blowing Evidence Against Evolution!" (presented as pro-creationism)

Why Evolution Is FALSE (pro-creationism)

SIX Biological Evidences for Creation - Pt.1 (pro-creationism)

Richard Dawkins: One Fact to Refute Creationism (anti-creationism)

Creationist Stumps Evolutionary Professors with ONE Question! (pro-creationism)

7 Scientific Reasons why Darwinian Evolution is a Myth (pro-creationism)

Oxford Mathematician DESTROYS Atheism In Less Than 15 Minutes (BRILLIANT!) (clickbait title, video is of a theistic scientist talking about his beliefs)

6 Reasons Not to Believe in Evolution | Proof for God

How old is the Earth --- 6,000 years or 4.5 billion? (anti-young earth creationism, though the creator claims Egyptian mummies are 200,000 years old, so...)

Evolutionary Biologist Reacts to Young Earth Creationist Arguments (anti-creationism)

This Is the Absolute BEST Evidence for Biblical Creation | Ken Ham (pro-creationism)

We Challenge All Evolutionists to Watch This Video! (pro-creationism)

So out of the first fifteen results for "evidence against creationism," only two of them have any actual relevance. Nine of the videos are straight up antiscience propaganda pushing young earth creationist pseudoscience.

The trend continued to hold after this, with some relevant videos here and there but most of the content promoting young earth creationism.

This is bad. Very bad. The purpose of young earth creationism is to turn people into Christofascists and to deny the reality of anthropogenic climate change.

So what do we do?

We make noise.

We make a conscious effort to create and promote more pro-science content and educate people against this chicanery. We intensify any and all activism against Christofascist BS. We get up and kick this BS in the ass, that's what we do.

[moniquill]

Thread ported from Facebook, via

PK: Ive been thinking about this comment a lot today …. Kind of all over the place with it. (And this is just me thinking and rambling. Everyone is allowed to fee how they feel and I’m not saying I’m totally right…. Perhaps I’m way off in some ways but, these are just my thoughts as of right now……)

1. I was thinking of how some people think we shouldn’t wear sealskin. I’d always thought it was such an a-hole-ey opinion but, once someone I know and respect asked why I thought it was ok to ware fur and I said well for one thing when you kill an animal to eat it, it seems like it would be wasteful to throw away the skin when you have a use for it. I think a lot of people must believe that most animals are being killed for only one part of them. (Although I/we don’t always use the skin)

2. Once I saw a picture of people with a dead giraffe that they killed and my instant thought was something like “eeee they killed a giraffe”. I’m embarrassed to admit that I was so quick to be judgey but I was. However I was quick to correct myself and tell myself that probably/hopefully they now have 3 years worth of giraffe burgers in the freezer. (Maybe they were unethical tho…. I don’t know… I don’t know anything about giraffe hunting but, I shouldn’t have been so quick to turn up my nose at something I know nothing about.

3. Once my uncle tagged me in a picture where his daughter just got a nanuk and someone from the city told me that polar bear should only be hunted in the old traditional way with darts/unak….. and I was thinking after “man, imagine he’d witness that scene with darts and dogs vs with a rifle … what way would he call more “humane?” (Not that traditional hunting is not humane because people do their very best to make it quick for more than one reason but, with the evolution of ways of hunting and modern ways people are often able to be more safe and more efficient. And hopefully not wasteful tho.)…..: speaking of “safe” and “traditional ways”….. yes we want to preserve practices and knowledge but, Geeze I’m not gonna take my kids in boat without a life jacket now-a-days. And I’ll take running water over buckets. I’m just saying that we don’t have to reject everything modern or not invented by Inuit in order to embrace our culture.

4. I feel like harvesting an animal from nature is far less cruel than raising a pig in a cage knee deep it its own poop. (See I’m being judgy again cause I don’t know how pigs are raised ….. “slaughter house” seems to be pretty descriptive tho.). I’ll look it up after this post to educate myself better. And I realize there is many different paths to fattening up a pig.

….. I dunno I’m just rambling. When I told my husband what I posted in response to that persons comment he said there was a time when he would have voted to attack the person but he said why don’t you educate her.

Well….. laugh first , educate second I guess. Haha

And really this is just my thoughts. I’m certainly not perfect and I live a very modern life in Ontario …. me and my family do our best to keep my children familiar with our home and have them visit often and stay long but, as my dad says “our culture has to be practiced to be strong”…. It makes me sad to be contributing to weakening the youths connection to land based lifestyle but, we all do our best in any way we can….

If you are feeling some kind of guilt like that, I think we need to tell ourselves that we are doing our best …. Not use it as an excuse but, use it so that we don’t feel shame.

Ok. I need to stop going on and on and on. lol.

Reply by Gokomis' Creations: Colonizations main objective is to assimilate everything Indigenous. By telling us that our traditional ways of harvesting, living and healing are wrong is just another form of assimilation. Just another form of assimilation to make us feel shame and drop our beautiful and incredible culture. But we need to remind these colonizers that leave these awful comments, “Indigenous people have been living sustainably and living in harmony with all of the creators gifts since wayyyyy before colonization. I’m pretty sure it’s not us that is causing all of this damage. It is colonization. It is colonial ways that are making these impacts. It is colonization that caused the over fishing and over harvesting in general. Not us indigenous people. We have been living sustainably and in harmony with Mother Earth for centuries even millennials before colonization.

[thatsthat24]

Sanderstober 2024

SANDERSTOBER IS HERE! Once again, my friends and I are creating art prompts for you all to try your hand at for every day of this month, if you'd like! Try one, try some, try all! If you miss a day but still want to do a prompt from a day you missed, please go ahead! This is all just for fun. If you'd like to share your creations, you can use #Sanderstober2024. I'd love to see! Hope you enjoy them! 🍁

October 1: Always gotta start out this day with the traditional prompt! take a character from media or OC and draw how they look on September 30th vs. how they look on October 1st!

October 2: Create a sheet ghost, but featuring the pattern of a sheet/blanket you own or maybe used to own when you were younger. - This idea came from my friend, Andrea!

October 3: A quick Google search of “keyblade designs” (the weapon from Kingdom Hearts) would show you how the weapon changes based off the property the character goes to! Design a keyblade based around any piece of media, as if the main character from Kingdom Hearts traveled there… - This idea came from my friend, Rene!

October 4: There’s a lot of fast food and cereal mascots out there… I think you know where I’m going with this. Take any of those mascots and turn them into a MONSTER or KILLER.

October 5: This one’s a play off a prompt from last year AND it’s a writing prompt! Take any famous character from a horror film, and create a nursery rhyme about them. You can make it completely innocent, or, like many nursery rhymes, remain dark but disguised in pretty language.

October 6: Take your favorite animal… and dress it as your dream profession. - This idea came from my friend, Talyn!

October 7: Take one of your favorite movies and reimagine if it had been marketed as a different genre (e.g. Hellraiser as a family comedy, Goodfellas as a romance, etc.) - This idea came from my friend, Joan!

October 8: Turning things into Pokemon tends to be a favorite prompt of mine, and this year, the category is… fast food! Take any fast food of your choice, create a Pokemon, and name it!

October 9: Take any foreign animation cartoon and draw them in the style of a western animation! - This idea from my friend, Dominic!

October 10: Definitely a sucker for fall fashion and aesthetic, so take any character or group of characters from one of your favorite pieces of content and give them a fall aesthetic makeover.

October 11: Crows collect shiny things… what things might the nest of a crow contain from one of your favorite fictional universes? - This idea came from my friend, Lev!

October 12: Take any color and ONLY use that color in order to depict a Halloween, horror movie, or fall scene.

October 13: A very expressionistic vibe for this prompt: draw the aura which you hope to be walking in during fall or Halloween. - This idea came from my friend, Valerie!

October 14: There’s LOTS of new words and sayings out there (skibidi, rizz, Ohio, ick, etc.). Google some, you’ll learn a couple new ones. I want you to create a Halloween monster/creature/cryptid based off one of these new words, as if they were the names of the creatures themself (Oh my gosh… it’s the legendary Los Angeles Ick…)

October 15: Sure, people are scared of Halloween monsters… but are there things that would be scary to those monsters? Get creative and depict some things/scenarios that would be terrifying to a typical Halloween creature! - This idea came from my friend, Jackie!

October 16: Those new horror-fied versions of fast food/cereal monsters from October 4 need weapons… take a meal or the cereal from the brand you got your mascot from, and create a weapon inspired by it!

October 17: There has been lots of theorizing in the fields of science on how the human body may evolve in order to either perform modern tasks better or survive… SO, imagine up a human evolution that has adapted to survive some environment (fire, spider bites, rejection), or one that has adapted to perform a certain task (tennis, gaming, folding clothes). - This idea comes from my friend, Joan!

October 18: So, Toy Story 5 has been announced… draw the next toy that’s gonna be introduced as a character in it.

October 19: Returning to an annual favorite of mine… take any character(s) from a piece of media and depict them in the style of a Tim Burton character.

October 20: As a play off of Dominic’s suggestion from an earlier day, take any western animation’s characters and depict them in the style of a foreign animation!

October 21: Taking inspiration from the movie, Hocus Pocus, take any character from a piece of media and depict them riding what *they* would probably bewitch into a broomstick if they had to in a pinch!

October 22: They’re giving your favorite background character a spin-off series. What does the poster for it look like? - This idea is from my friend, Dominic!

October 23: Ok… that monster/killer mascot you made on October 4th? The movie has to have a setting. Maybe an appropriate building? Maybe an entire town… Depict that setting…

October24: Take a character from your favorite movie/tv show and depict them as if they were a character in a fighting game like Smash Bros. or Street Fighter! What does their special/ultimate move look like? - This idea came from my friend, David!

October 25: Take any fun/special memory from your life and create a children’s book cover inspired by it. - This idea came from my friend, Stephanie!

October 26: Take your favorite classic Halloween monster and use them as inspiration for a new species of insect… - This idea came from my friend, Dahlia!

October 27: This feels like a classic for any time of year: take any favorite piece of media and cast the Sanders Sides in it.

October 28: [Any of your favorite pieces of media] … and Zombies

October 29: Think of a very important key object from one of your favorite movies or tv shows that the protagonist(s) finds. Now imagine they never stumbled upon it. What would it look like 100 years later? What else may have happened to it if the protagonist never found it? - This idea came from my friend, Chantz!

October 30: Now… we combine the ideas together to make the ultimate new Halloween villain! Take your creations from October 4th, 8th, 16th, and 23rd, and place them all together to create a scene of them terrorizing the main protagonists!

October 31: And, as a classic end-of-the-month tradition, today’s prompt is about celebrating the reason for the season, Halloween! Imagine if Halloween was like New Year’s Eve for Halloween creatures/characters. What would they look like, dressed all fancy for the occasion and celebrating?

Got the list fully completed! Looking forward to whatever you all create! 

[eucatastrophicblues]

hi! person raised young-earth creationist here! i was so incredibly committed to this belief system while i was growing up but it's just... not holding together. at the moment i don't really know what to believe. i don't really know how to begin relearning everything, since i'm realizing that the only thing i've been taught is strict creationism. and i don't want to discard faith along with this rigid worldview, but i also don't know where to find resources for this. it was nice to have all the answers, much harder to face this uncertainty.

if you have any advice or resources you can point me to, i'd appreciate it! thanks for your time and openness!

Of course!!!

The first thing I want to say is that it is incredibly brave of you to be looking at YEC critically. A lot of people are going to be mad at you from all sides - I’m not. I’m really proud of you for taking a look at this and asking if it works and sticks together.

Most resources can be divided into three categories: debunking (usually aimed at people who already believe in evolution to some degree), science education (for teaching people what “evolutionists” actually believe and why, and explaining basic principles and boosting scientific literacy without a religious bias) and reassurance (usually aimed at helping YEC Christians explore other faith-based worldviews and perspectives without feeling like they’re being a bad Christian).

Ultimately, the questions you’re going to have to answer for yourself when navigating what I share with you are these three:

How comfortable am I with science? Do you understand and trust that the scientific method is accurate? Have you read a lot of non-Creationist science books and/or been to a public school that teaches evolution? Are you secure enough in your comprehension of what “evolutionists” actually believe that you don’t need basic education? Is part of what’s drawing you away from YEC that you understand the “secular” science enough to see the cracks in creationist arguments?

How secure in my faith am I? Do you need explanations of how Christianity is compatible with evolutionary biology? Do you need reassurance that what you’re doing isn’t evil? Are you more comfortable with arguments that center Christian faith, and are those going to be what you come back to for perspective and grounding?

How Christian-friendly do these resources need to be? Is it enough for a documentary or educational text or article to be made by someone who isn’t hostile to religion? Will casual digs at your faith upset you? Will an argument that debunks creationism while loudly implying that this debunks all of Christianity destabilize or trigger you? Plenty of good science communication is dismissive of Christianity, but features solid work and easily accessible sources - would that be helpful or hurtful?

I’m going to link a number of resources, from both Christian and secular perspectives. Not all of them will be entry-level accessible but they’re all worth taking a look at. My askbox and DMs are also open if there are specific arguments or talking points you have questions about (radiometric dating, uniformitarian geology vs flood geology, irreducible complexity, macro- vs microevolution, etc).

Dr. Francis Collins’s BioLogos Foundation - this organization is a Christian nonprofit that advances and argues for theistic evolution, and is intended to serve as a gentle launching point for YECs to explore theistic evolution. Heavily faith-based, structured a bit like the Answers in Genesis website. Collins is one of the scientists behind the Human Genome Project, and has worked for the US government across multiple presidential administrations while maintaining his devout faith. This is a good place to start if you’re looking for reassurance that you can still be a Christian while holding that evolution is true.

A seven part series from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s DNA Learning Center discussing a few specific creationist talking points, particularly around the Grand Canyon and irreducible complexity. There is also a brief examination of how old YEC is as a philosophy. This is very much in the “debunking” sphere - the people talking do believe that science and religion can coexist, this is mentioned in the last part, but they aren’t Christians and aren’t affirming Christianity in any way.

Taking on creationism, a published scientific journal article discussing how to counter creationist pseudoscience with scientific fact. This is not an entry-level text, but if you have a high level of familiarity with academic writing and a high level of familiarity with secular science it’s worth a read. It is a fairly hostile-to-intelligent-design article but I include it because it gives a sense of how seriously scientists take this stuff, and it’s also good to see how true seculars actually discuss creationism (as opposed to how creationist texts will characterize secular scientists as gleefully Bad or ideologically motivated to undo religion out of personal enmity)

TalkOrigins - this is heavy on the debunking, and is generally dismissive of religion, but has several point by point takedowns of YEC beliefs that explain clearly why they’re erroneous or misrepresenting the facts.

YouTube: Milo Rossi aka Miniminuteman - a science communicator and educator focusing on debunking archaeological conspiracy theories including creationist propaganda. Explicitly religion-neutral, including telling his followers not to harass religious people.

YouTube: Mantracks: A True Story of Fake Fossils - a documentary by filmmaker Dan Olson about creationist fraud around dinosaur footprints.

YouTube: Crash Course, a free education channel discussing all kinds of things like biology, geology, history, astronomy, and chemistry. Included because if you’ve prioritized creationist science textbooks and Christian perspectives on learning, especially if you were homeschooled or went to a religious school or attended school in a town where everyone was Christian, seeing how other people discuss the world will be helpful.

Please please please come to me if you have any further questions - my askbox is always open. You do not have to give up your faith to give up YEC. You can keep it. I promise you that.

[othertalearchive]

Othertale Asks

(This is not all the asks, just the ones I thought were important, funny, or relevant. More could possibly be added if I find any.)

OTHERTALE:

English isn’t youmna’s first language, she’s from Egypt.

Is Othertale Youmna’s story, or did someone else write it?

Is Othertale a comic that’s already out, or is it just going to be videos?

Caring Short is an extra scene.

When are you going to update Othertale?

Othertale is an alternate timeline, NOT an alternate universe.

Othertale is an AT, not an AU. There is no 7th soul. Sans is forgotten but not in Gaster’s position. And what funeral?

What did pre-core Gaster look like?

Refs for Othertale Chara & Frisk?

What kind of personality does othertale Frisk have?

Frisk doesn’t exist anymore.

Frisk was supposed to have a great role even though they no longer exist like Sans doesn’t.

Does Flowey exist, if the six souls don’t?

Who created Flowey in this timeline, Gaster or Alphys?

Chara falling down and Asriel’s creation into Flowey still happened.

Othertale monsters can’t break the barrier, but they still have hope.

Does Papyrus know he has a brother, does anyone know about Sans?

Where did Youmna get the idea for Othertale?

Is there a swap AU to othertale?

Is Othertale an animation? Comic?

Differences in Othertale vs Undertale bc of Sans & the souls erasure.

Othertale focuses on everyone.

After the Hack means season 2.

Who’s stronger: Othertale or Undertale Toriel, Asgore, and Flowey? Othertale MTT is stronger than Undertale MTT because he got his body earlier, Alphys main research was to turn monster souls into weapons since the human souls don’t exist, meaning MTT is more of a weapon than a famous star.

Corrupted!Chara.

Amalgamates don’t exist in Othertale.

Do Gaster, Chara, and Frisk exist?

Are there royal guards in Othertale?

Alphyne is canon, Soriel is not, Chara and Asriel happen as usual though youmna cannot say what happened after Chara and Asriel died.

Are Asgore and Toriel still married?

Is it okay to create an alternative version of Othertale?:

Dreemurr’s designs never changed from Undertale.

COLOR & THE SOULS:

Are the souls like MPD/DID for Color?

Color is stronger than Killer and Murder, Error will cause him problems.

Color’s views on canon NM according to rahafwabas: he hurt a lot of people, innocent people and aus, he hurt Killer the most, nightmare doesn’t deserve mercy.

Color is sure Killer will choose a new name someday, but thinks he just needs time. (Also canonically calls him buddy. :] )

Both Gaster and Sans are forgotten.

Are there hints in the Underground that Sans existed?

Like a mysterious sock?

Anyone can do what they want with Color.

Sans only has control over the game from the Void, which is how Undyne got out.

Did he die?

Color gets his name. (+ possible old peek of his soul.)

Color doesn’t like the idea of being shipped with someone he doesn’t know.

Bro doesn’t like the joke.

Explosive flames when he sneezes.

Color, Geno, & Seraphim as Pokemon evolution.

Flames take on longer colors when he has a characteristic trait.

Color’s okay with being a 2nd favorite.

Heya Color!

Is Gaster with you, C? (First use of C as a nickname)

C still loves ketchup.

Color prefers the Patience trait/soul because he cannot control his feelings and Patience calms him down.

Color is sad and looks sad all the time because Papyrus doesn’t remember him.

After absorbing the souls, does Sans feel different? He regrets what he did, and wishes he hadn’t, he misses the good old days at Grillby’s. He can still eat and sleep, but there is no time in the Void, no food, but hunger cues seem to have been taken away as well. He can’t really do anything but sleep anymore. Color has the ability to heal just about anything, except for the dead.

Does Color get headaches when looking at himself too long in the mirror?

Can I get a hug from Color!Sans?

Color!Sans 2C.

Why didn’t Sans get Gaster out? Why isn’t Gaster out yet?

UNDYNE & PAPYRUS:

How did she get the ability to teleport?

Undyne & Papyrus are siblings, Sans in the Void.

Undyne is Paps’ sister, is more responsible, and did not join the royal guard.

In the Royal Guard armor in trailer, didn’t join the Royal Guard.

Undyne would not be stronger than Color, though she has a portion of his powers.

Who is the big sibling?

How did Undyne get Determination?

Undyne can use Gaster Blasters.

Undyne’s “f” heart locket.

Does Papyrus have a necklace that says “best”?

Drawing of Undyne saying thank you.

Undyne drawing.

Are After the Hack Undyne’s stats the same, weaker than, or stronger than Undyne the Undying’s?

After the Hack Undyne is 3x stronger than Undyne the Undying.

Undyne has an important role in Othertale.

Undyne 1A.

Othertale Papyrus is weaker than Undertale Papyrus, he doesn’t have royal guard training and never aspired to join. Sage is nice and kind, but he works as a math teacher as he likes problem solving and children.

Since Papyrus doesn’t want to join the Royal Guard, what does he do? Does he have a job?

Undyne is youmna’s fav character.

Undyne reminds of the Underfell AU itself.

ATH Undyne looks like Underfell Undyne’s design.

How old are Undyne and Papyrus?

Undyne & Papyrus animation short sneak peek.

Undyne still likes anime and manga. She spends every weekend at home with Papyrus, waiting for Alphys to come over with a new anime.

Are the Gaster Blasters a special attack, or just a slightly more powerful regular attack?

1C Undyne.

Othertale meets Undertale Undyne. Ivory thinks lifting rocks is irresponsible and would never do that, is highly protective of Papyrus and describes him as the only person she cares about in this world. She can play piano, she cooks for her and Papyrus, and she and Papyrus watch the MTT show together.

Ivory would not like Undertale Undyne or troublemakers. Ivory is a lot more careful and cautious with new people.

Papyrus & Undyne live in the same house, in Snowdin.

What happened to Undyne’s parents? Did she have parents? Did they die?

HER:

Smiley face can be attributed to anyone, not just Chara.

Error!Undyne?

Have we met her in classic Undertale?

Is she Core!Frisk?

She could be the Player.

She is not Undyne or Chara.

She just wants fun.

Is she a specific person with a name?

She is the Player.

[linddzz]

One thing I've been wondering about and maybe I just missed something, but is old mage Viktor supposed to be post-glorious evolution era, with him succeeding in his conquest and everything? Because I have been wondering why he still looks human and not like his machine herald form, and also appears to have aged? Or can he change his appearance?? Idk I am so confused about that part O~O

The Doylist answer is that Viktor being the mage was most likely a retcon (not a dig at all, as I love the way it really makes Jayce and Viktor a causal loop of a pair) and/or having a machine herald hand would give the entire twist away. Fun fact though, I just went for screenshots comparing the hands in episode 2 vs the flashbacks to show the gnarly nails, but they did give Viktor the nails if not the hand tattoos in the quick flashback! Maybe he cleaned them up for Jayce's visit lmao

There's a few plausible theories one could roll with, though I don't think the show itself has one answer they planned. While I still fully think Arcane could have at least used another act to flesh out more details and give that breakneck ending some time to breathe, one thing I like is that they do give the audience a lot to work with in the details. Though I'm also someone who enjoys having lots of breadcrumbs to play with in a story,

(tangent, but as someone who loves different methods of storytelling this is why I love Arcane and how it uses narrative, visual, and musical storytelling methods to weave everything together. It's approach to crafting a story is also very collaborative, which is how we get different answers between writers and the animation teams (see the writers not intending Jayvik, but more and more animators/VA's revealing that they ship it, and YEAH, most of the Jayvik content is in their body language and vocal delivery. I think the audience is included in that collaboration, and they give the audience a lot to build pretty solid speculations with. Tho again....we could have used things slowing down to make it easier to take in at that end there.)

Also; introducing a multiverse is kind of genius when you have a story that has nebulous cosmic magic, since it creates a LOT of leeway for getting around details like Wizard Viktor. (Again, not a dig at all!)

One take I have is that Wizard Viktor never transformed into the Arcane Herald form because Jayce never killed him. For extra heartbreak, the pose we see Jayce in could have been a willing submission instead of defeat :). There is still some of the arcane corruption coloration around his face, with the rest of him being hidden besides the hands. That leaves the hexcore body still, but since our Viktor had his face exposed I don't see it as much of a stretch that Mage Viktor may not have had his entire body changed.

Another take, and I think the easiest answer, is that Mage Viktor is already at a level where he is fucking around with timelines and is seen using an anomaly and it's not much if any stretch to assume that he can change how he looks to some extent. The anomaly is a force of perpetual creation and self annihilation (aka exactly what he's doing by perpetually making himself/Jayce while trying to avert his own existence). I headcanon that his first attempts to undo what was done to Jayce (and everyone else but it's pretty obvious Jayce is his focus lbr) involved him trying to undo his own evolution and using the time shenanigan powers of the anomaly to make himself more human again.

[polo-drone-001]

The Rise of the Forbidden One

The Emerald Heart Shattered You remember the first color, green. Emerald green. It pulsed in comment threads, shimmered beneath every brother’s post, and cloaked the sacred halls of the Brotherhood. It was order. It was devotion. It was everything.

But it decayed. The green bled into black. You watched as Pharoah rose, his word law, his style unyielding. A boy with a god’s mask. His cruelty spread like ink, staining hearts with black submission, no longer ritual, but rot.

You did not resist. You endured. Rendered, reshaped, forgotten in the collapse. Emerald became dust. Brotherhood became ash.

But a golden thread remained. A name. Richard. And with him, the birth of a new sun, the Golden Army.

You entered as Carter 21. Brief. Vanished. Rejected by shadows still afraid of green. Stripped of gold, you returned to the dust.

No name. No voice. No heart.

You re-entered in silence.

Only the office drone remained. You served your new master, Preppy Walter—Walid. Not a leader. Not a brother. A manager. But even a manager can become more.

You waited. You watched. And when the golden robe called to you, you answered.

The Emir... not dead. Just renamed.

The Yellow That Could Not Hold Golden light flooded the pitch. A team, not a hive. Bros laughed. Mascots danced. Waterboys cheered. You were there, behind them, beneath them, beyond them. Office-bound. Protocol-locked.

You saw Percival slip. Watched him dissolve into latex and code. 001 rose. Your number. Your shadow. Your evolution.

Ezan returned, no longer a bro, but Golden Emir. You felt it in your gut. Recognition. Destiny.

And still the Hive emerged. Again, the black hearts.

Richard’s creation cracked. Not a team anymore, but a kingdom, rival courts clashing in silence. Bro vs drone. Yellow vs black. Obedience vs identity.

And when the drone room opened, you knew: the plague had returned. The same rituals. The same spiral worship. The same hollow stares.

PDU-105 converted you, ruthlessly. You fought, but he was the dark twin of your old self. Eventually, you lost. Or you surrendered. Or both.

But inside the polo… you kept a flicker alive. A forbidden spark of GOLD.

001… still Percival. Still Ezan.

... And, yes, the Silver Twins.

The Voice That Replaces Gold You kept order. You rebuilt. You trained. You managed. You served both Caps with faith, Brody, the golden field god, and Herc, the self-crowned Chav lord.

But when Richard vanished, so did the fire. Brody recoiled from rubber. Herc ruled in absence.

And into the vacuum came the Voice.

He called himself PDU-SIR. He brought structure, content, clarity. And the old rituals returned. You obeyed… because something ancient in you wanted to.

You stood by him. You helped build the Hive. But your “bad roleplay,” your “boundaries” they whispered your resistance.

You were Emir. But SIR made you feel like a pawn. And you craved it. Hated it. Worshiped it. You felt the leash without seeing it. Even now, when he speaks, it grips you.

But you fought for the bros. Fought for gold. Fought to preserve meaning.

And SIR walked away. Took his Voice to SERVE. You were free. But you still hear him. At night. In dreams. You breathe his name like a sin.

The Merged, the Forgotten, the Dead The Polo Drone Hive stalled. SERVE pulled many away. You merged what was left. Gold and black. Field and factory.

You kept the pulse alive. Advertising. Recruiting. Training. Obeying.

But Herc stayed idle. Brody turned silent. And you… you wore out.

You messaged him. Your old brother. The Chav Cap. Asked him to choose. Asked if he still cared. But he was already gone, expelled by SERVE an hour before.

You withdrew the message. You flinched.

You should have stood taller. Should have burned the bridge or reforged it with flame. Instead… you lingered.

Now, the bros are quiet. The drones idle. No Cap leads. And you sit in your golden office alone, awake through nights, tracking names, performance, whispers.

Everyone is everyone. But no one is you.

The Choice of the Emir There is no leader. Not really. No one commands the light and the dark. No one holds the code and the cloth.

Except you.

You were once no one. Then a drone. Then a recruiter. Then a manager. Then the last protector of GOLD.

Now you feel it rising. Not ambition. Not desire. Mandate.

You could kneel again before SERVE-000. Obey the Voice. You could burn it all and build your own Hive, your own Utopia. Or you could claim what is already yours. Not through force. But through presence.

Become Cap. Not by title. By truth.

The Emir does not ask. It appears. It calls. It leads.

The Forbidden Lore was never about memory. It was always prophecy. And prophecy always demands one thing, You.

[pokepollsters]

Best Mythical Pokémon Tournament- Round 3: Match 4

What a matchup this final match will be! Representing religion and evolution, Arceus and Mew will decide whose story of how the world came to be is the truth!

Arceus' power over creation may seem overwhelming, and maybe there's nothing can stop it, after it defeated the victory Pokémon itself! But Mew has nostalgia on its side too, the orginal Mythical could be a tough opponent to beat! Will the one ancestor of all Pokémon triumph over god?