You might as well opt-out of reality...but that's where this is headed.


#############


https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/15-answers-to-creationist/


Fifteen Answers to Creationist Nonsense

Opponents of evolution want to make a place for creationism by tearing down real science, but their arguments don't hold up

The good news is that in 2005 the landmark legal case Kitzmiller v. Dover in Harrisburg, Pa., set binding precedent that the teaching of intelligent design in U.S. public schools is unconstitutional because the idea is fundamentally religious, not scientific. The bad news is that in response, creationists have reinvented their movement and pressed on. When they lost the ability to claim that creationist ideas are valid science, they switched to arguing that they were only supporting “academic freedom.” Worse, to further obscure the religious roots of their resistance, they now push for “critical analysis” of climate change, cloning research and other scientific endeavors that they paint as culturally oppressive.

Consequently, besieged teachers and others are still likely to find themselves on the spot to defend evolution and refute creationism, by whatever name. Creationists' arguments are typically specious and based on misunderstandings of (or outright lies about) evolution. Nevertheless, even if their objections are flimsy, the number and diversity of the objections can put even well-informed people at a disadvantage. The following list recaps and rebuts some of the most common “scientific” arguments raised against evolution. It also directs readers to further sources for information and explains why creation science has no place in the classroom. These answers by themselves probably will not change the minds of those set against evolution. But they may help inform those who are genuinely open to argument, and they can aid anyone who wants to engage constructively in this important struggle for the scientific integrity of our civilization.

I agree. There are growing numbers of children with literacy or fluency issues that make these subjects harder to teach. A lot of them think ChatGPT or Wikipedia has all the answers. However, there are also severe problems within the scientific community as well. It is very hard to shift an entrenched paradigm like the date of human arrival in the Americas or whether Newtonian physics is applicable to subatomic phenomena. Science has a lack of peer reviewers right now, and some areas are unapproachable due to lack of funding or social taboos. The science we were taught at school (probably much like now) was cleaned up, out of date and probably tendentious. The evolutionary theory that I was taught decades ago has changed, particularly in regards to human origins.

All science is up for debate and is subject to be questioned otherwise it's not science but dogma.

Science is questions that may never be answered.

Religion is answers that may never be questioned.

If scientists had all the answers they would stop.

HH =)

I actually think this is going to be a state-by-state, district-by-district issue with many so-called "red" states leading the way and many so-called "blue" states trying to push back.

This, of course, is part of the dumbing down of our kids that is being spurred on by the Christian nationalist movement. Since biology and evolution are subsections of the sciences, I think that it will be safe to say that not all of the sciences will be in trouble; only those (like biology and evolution) that conflict with current religious dogma.

I participate in several community college orchestras and symphonic bands assisting students and playing as well. This is the Bible Belt and I cringe when I see students wearing creationism t-shirts and jackets from their visits to the Ark in Kentucky. These are college kids mostly in STEM programs. I also overhear them talking about going to Liberty University or Bob Jones. I want to interfere but it is not my business. It is hard to not want to challenge their thinking.

News flash: they are already banned in many public schools. Private schools (in Utah they are all called "academies") started out that way.

We in America are in for twenty years of hell. That's how long it will take for some people to wake up.

"How long before science, biology, and evolution are banned in schools?"

COMMENT: Let me ask you (and others) a serious question:

Setting aside all explicit "creationist" or "intelligent design" conclusions and religious rhetoric associated with these ideas, would it be legitimate, in say a high school biology class, to call attention to and address the theoretical limitations, problems, and philosophical criticisms of Darwinism, and Evolution? For example, would Jerry A Fodor's book *What Darwin Got Wrong* be OK as assigned reading, since Fodor is an atheist and the book has nothing to do with God? How about books addressing the ubiquitous problems associated with "origin of life" theories, where such problems of themselves might suggest to some students the possibility of a "creator" notwithstanding the lack of any specific reference to God.

In short, is Darwinism and Evolution strictly off-limits to criticism in the classroom? If not, where is the line to be drawn? Intelligent Design has been rationally articulated by competent scholars, all of whom emphasize the problems of Darwinism, rather than the importance or legitimacy of religious faith per se. Many of these anti-Darwinist ideas retain their potency, even if the alternative "designer" conclusion is deemed unscientific and largely left unsupported.

Personally, I think high school students are capable of sorting these issues out on their own--especially when presented by a biology teacher who is largely committed to Evolution and naturalistic explanations. Even if the teacher happens to be a "born again Christian" I would think that high school students fairly presented with Evolutionary ideas, pro and con, could sort it out and draw their own conclusions.

Now for a couple of quotes:

First, from renown physicist, and Intelligent Design critic, Leonard Suskind:

"It seems hopelessly improbable that any particular rules accidently led to the miracle of intelligent life. Nevertheless, this is exactly what most physicists have believed; intelligent life is a purely serendipitous consequence of physical principles that have nothing to do with our own existence. Here I share the skepticism of the intelligent-design crowd: I think that the dumb luck needs an explanation."

"This book is about a debate that is stirring the passions of physicists and cosmologists but is also part of a broader controversy, especially in the United States, where it has entered the partisan political discourse. On one side are the people who are convinced that the world must have been created or designed by an intelligent agent with a benevolent purpose. On the other side are the hard-nosed, scientific types who feel certain that the universe is the product of impersonal, disinterested laws of physics, mathematics, and probability. -- a world without a purpose, so to speak. By the first group, I don't mean the biblical literalists who believe the world was created six thousand years ago and are ready to fight about it. I am talking about thoughtful, intelligent people who look around at the world and have a hard time believing that it was just dumb luck that made the world so accommodating to human beings. I don't think these people are being stupid; they have a real point."

(Leonard Susskind, *The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design* (2006) p. 5)

Second, here is a quote from renown philosopher, and atheist, Thomas Nagel:

"I disagree with the defenders of intelligent design in their assumption, one which they share with their opponents, that the only naturalistic alternative is a reductionist theory based on physical laws of the type with which we are familiar. Nevertheless, I believe the defenders of intelligent design deserve our gratitude for challenging a scientific world view that owes some of the passion displayed by its adherents precisely to the fact that it is thought to liberate us from religion."

(Thomas Nagel, *Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False* (2015) p. 12)

In other words, by all means, get religion out of our science classes. But, at the same time, do not give Evolution a free pass from criticism -- even if that criticism comes in the form of a thoughtful, well-expressed, religious perspective.

Even renowned people can get things wrong.

The controversies in biological evolution are nibbling around the edges. The basic tenets (that different species arose through mutations of earlier species, when the particular mutations led to enhanced survivability in the particular environment the organisms encountered).

We now know the mechanism for how mutations get passed on (DNA and genes) which Darwin did not know. We have filled in a lot of the details on evolution, and there are many more details yet to be filled in, but in broad strokes, Darwin was basically right. He either guessed wrong, or didn't guess at all on some of the details. That's how science works.

The bigger issue with Henry's post is that the entire process of evolutionary science is criticizing and revising the current understanding of the subject. That is precisely what the giants of biology, genetics, ethology, and evolution spent, and spend, their lives doing.

To take one example, there would have been no discovery of epigenetics if science had treated Lamarckism, and later anti-Lamarckism, as sacrosanct.

All you need to do to see the critical process at work is to compare a biology book from 1966--the year of a book Henry cited the other day as universally true--with one published in 2025.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2025 04:47PM by Lot's Wife.

BoJ: "Even renowned people can get things wrong."

COMMENT: True! After all, I have often cited numerous renowned materialist scientists and philosophers who I claim get it wrong. But then, I provide full explanations, including arguments and citations.
______________________________

BoJ: "The controversies in biological evolution are nibbling around the edges. The basic tenets (that different species arose through mutations of earlier species, when the particular mutations led to enhanced survivability in the particular environment the organisms encountered)."
*
COMMENT: Although there is no longer a debate about the *fact* of evolution, the remaining controversies are NOT just "nibbling around the edges." The nature, role, and "mechanism" of natural selection, as espoused by "Neo-Darwinism" in particular are hotly debated, and for the most part rejected as at best grossly incomplete.

Here is a quote from a "renowned" biologist. (For what that might be worth)

"Since Darwin, we turn to a single, singular force, Natural Selection, which we might as well capitalize as though it were the new deity. Random variation, selection-sifting. Without it, we reason, there would be nothing but incoherent disorder."

"I shall argue in this book that this idea is wrong. For, as we shall see, the emerging sciences of complexity begin to suggest that the order is not all accidental, that vast veins of spontaneous order lie at hand. Laws of complexity spontaneously generate much of the order of the natural world. It is only then that selection comes into play, further molding and refining. Such veins of spontaneous order have not been entirely unknown, yet they are just beginning to emerge as powerful new clues to the origins and evolution of life."

(Stuart Kauffman, *At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity* (1995) p.8 (Incidentally, for those who have heartburn over older citations, Kauffman's views have not changed, after multiple follow-up books and peer-reviewed articles.)

In other words, "Natural Selection" "the new deity" of biology isn't enough, or even primary in explaining evolution. Evolution must be supplemented by further, unknown laws of self-organization and complexity, which to this day remain unknown and mysterious, despite decades of heroic effort by Kauffman and others to scientifically pin them down.
___________________________________

BoJ: "We now know the mechanism for how mutations get passed on (DNA and genes) which Darwin did not know. We have filled in a lot of the details on evolution, and there are many more details yet to be filled in, but in broad strokes, Darwin was basically right. He either guessed wrong, or didn't guess at all on some of the details. That's how science works."

COMMENT: OK. What is the mechanism? Explain it for me, in terms as would be acceptable to a good mathematician or engineer. How are we evolutionist to understand "mechanism." Don't just talk about genetic mutations and natural selection and announce you have provided a "mechanism." The problem is that, if you want something theoretically meaningful, you have to get from genetic mutation, to phenotype, to survival advantage, to population genetics, by explaining actual biology beyond mere abstract terminology. Until then, all you have is natural history, not a theory, much less an explanation of natural selection. Here is a quote from the Fodor book cited above. It is very straightforward logic:

"Natural selection theory is often said to provide a mechanism for the evolution of phenotypes. That, however, is precisely what it doesn't do. What explains why there are the phenotypes there are is not natural selection but natural history. It is, as we've been seeing, just a truism that birds are adapted to their airy ecology. But what isn't a truism is that the bird's wings are the mechanism of this adaptation. If, in the ecology they occupy, birds with wings are better off than birds without them, there must be something about the birds, or about the ecology, or about the two together, in virtue of which birds with wings are better off in that ecology than birds without them. That's just a routine application of the principle of sufficient reason; as such it's true a priori and applies, sight unseen, to birds that have wings, fish that have gills, germs that are resistant to penicillin, and so forth indefinitely. So, as on politician asked about another politician, 'where's the beef?'

"The beef comes not from adaptation but from the details of natural history. You have to look into the structure of niches (how birds manage to fly; how fish manage to breathe under water; whatever). That's how to find out how having wings conduces to the fitness of birds. It's natural history that gets you out of the circle that plagues selection theory, in which 'niche' is defined in terms of 'adaptation' and 'adaptation' is defined in terms of 'niche.'"

In other words, evolution and Darwinism (new or old) is NOT a "mechanism" that explains adaptation. Evolution is an account of natural history! Birds may have wings, and fish may have gills because of evolutionary processes that happened to equip them with these features, but they didn't "adapt" to any environment, or niche, both of which were just there, as part of their own natural history.

So again, where is the mechanism? Why isn't Evolution just the result of what historically happened when some organism was faced with some environment and, for any number of reasons, managed to survive or not? Population genetics, as it relates to phenotypes, is then just statistics about the biosphere, without any need for "natural selection" or "adaptation." Nature doesn't "select" anything, much less select for "traits."

The above arguments refute Neo-Darwinian "mechanism" but, of course, not evolution itself. Moreover, it is consistent with Evo-Devo (Evolutionary Development), wherein developmental processes and other contingencies shape phenotypes and survival, without any Darwinian adaptationist explanation, except sometimes as an afterthought, or homage to entrenched Darwinian tradition.

Now, that should disrupt your comfort zone of evolutionary platitudes. Any substantive response? It is a very simple set of question(s), "Where is the "mechanism" in Darwinism?" What exactly is "natural selection?" Who is 'selecting' what? Why is evolution not simply the natural history of living organisms? And, finally, how does increasing biological complexity fit into this natural history? More laws?

You need a bit more nibbling around the literature.

https://www.iflscience.com/tibetan-women-living-at-high-altitudes-adapt-to-low-oxygen-demonstrating-human-evolution-in-real-time-76470


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Tibetan Women Living At High Altitudes Adapt To Low Oxygen, Demonstrating Human Evolution In Real Time
Researchers have found links between oxygen delivery and reproductive success in ethnic Tibetan women living on the Tibetan Plateau.


Evolution is a constant process, and humans are still changing as we adapt to the various environments we inhabit. Some of the best places to see this is in the harshest places, as demonstrated by a new study linking increased oxygen delivery and number of live births in native ethnic Tibetan women living at high altitudes.

Areas of extreme altitude are particularly difficult for humans, as the lower atmospheric pressure means there is less oxygen inhaled with each breath. Anyone who has tried mountain climbing to high altitudes may be aware of this situation as altitude sickness kicks in. However, for over 10,000 years, native Tibetan people living on the high Tibetan Plateau have not only survived in such conditions, they have thrived.

Pregnancy at higher altitudes, anywhere higher than 2,500 meters (8,202 feet) above sea level, leads to a greater risk of complications, such as preeclampsia or lor low having babies with lower birthweight, explain the study's authors. This raises the chances of maternal or infant death. At the same time, most people trying to survive at high altitudes will experience hypoxia, a condition where the body doesn’t receive enough oxygen for its tissues. Both these issues are less of a problem for native Tibetan people, and now researchers have found specific physiological traits in Tibetan women that could enhance their ability to reproduce in such oxygen-poor environments.

The results of the study highlight the resilience of Tibetan women while also showing how humans can adapt to extreme environments. The study also offers insights into human development, and how we may respond to environmental challenges in the future.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2025 08:49PM by anybody.

So too the discovery that Tibetans inherited the genes that enable them to thrive at exceptionally high altitudes from Denisovans. Naive science types think that some magical force* has favored the adaptation you describe, which is why Sherpas are so helpful in the Himalayas.

Or the mutation that occurred in Indo-European populations ca 3500 BCE and which magically* gave those people and their descendants a unique ability for adults to digest dairy products.

Or the fact that the offspring of HSS-Neanderthal and HSS-Denisovan matings all had 50/50 genetic contributions and yet some magical force* eliminated almost all of the harmful genes between those admixture events and the present.



*I believe the pretentious term for the recurrent "magical force," embraced by silly people who believe in evolution, is "natural selection."

The human genome project was expected to put these questions to rest. It didn't, the genome was not as complex as expected. It does not solve the heritability problem.

DNA shows the construction of the radio, not the information received by the radio. Epigenetics, a reboot of Lamarckian inheritance, concerns the latter.

Susskind's concern that "dumb luck needs an explanation" can be satisfied by multiplying minute probability by possibly infinite opportunity. The Law of Large Numbers practically guarantees a miracle. The miracle of existence can only be observed when the miracle occurs. Otherwise, there is nobody around to observe it.

This argument falls apart if miracles keep happening. The synchronicities and miracles experienced by religious folks blow the dumb luck theory out of the water. They also ensure that materialism flies in the face of direct experience, which will continue to undermine the credibility of science in the public mind until science comes in out of the cold and studies spirit and metaphysics.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/05/2025 01:57AM by bradley.

The human genome project was expected to put these questions to rest. It didn't, the genome was not as complex as expected. It does not solve the heritability problem.

COMMENT: Agreed. Moreover, in popular atheistic culture, some people still think that all human traits, including physical traits, psychological, traits, and behavioral traits (including beliefs, desires, and related actions), can be explained in principle by genetics, with the help of some purely physical epigenetic factors. But, as you suggest, human nature is grossly underdetermined by genetics. The materialist answer is that the genome creates the brain, and genetics coupled with the complexity of neurology explains all of human nature. But this doesn't work either (IMO) if one is committed solely to naturalistic explanations. After all, there is nothing in either genetics or neuroscience (both purely physical systems) that explains human consciousness and human agency.
____________________________________

DNA shows the construction of the radio, not the information received by the radio. Epigenetics, a reboot of Lamarckian inheritance, concerns the latter.

COMMENT: Well, this is the so-called "filter" view of human nature, such that the brain (and body) supposedly filters information from the environment in accordance with biological limitations of perception. If we could rid ourselves of our bodies, somehow the remaining soul would have enhanced cognitive powers, as evidenced by such things as NDEs. Of course, this is highly controversial, to say the least. I don't get your last statement. Lamarckian inheritance supposes the existence of *inheritable* traits that originate from environmental influences, rather than genetics. This, of course, is contrary to Darwinism. But how does all this relate to the filter theory of human nature, or epigenetics. In most (rare) cases of Lamarckian inheritance, the genome is altered by the environment, not bypassed.
_______________________________

Susskind's concern that "dumb luck needs an explanation" can be satisfied by multiplying minute probability by possibly infinite opportunity. The Law of Large Numbers practically guarantees a miracle. The miracle of existence can only be observed when the miracle occurs. Otherwise, there is nobody around to observe it.

COMMENT: Essentially right. But as Susskind notes, somehow the "Landscape" of 'possibilities' has to reduce to actual "bubble" universes (a multiverse) along with a mechanism that can explain the "selection" of our own universe, and its laws. He thinks String Theory might do that. But the key is that for Susskind the Anthropic Principle is a real dilemma that requires an explanation, which explains his comment about ID theory that I cited above.
_________________________________

This argument falls apart if miracles keep happening. The synchronicities and miracles experienced by religious folks blow the dumb luck theory out of the water. They also ensure that materialism flies in the face of direct experience, which will continue to undermine the credibility of science in the public mind until science comes in out of the cold and studies spirit and metaphysics.

COMMENT: Well, what is the evidence that "miracles keep happening?" Susskind, and most other physicists, would deny that, insisting that the laws of physics, as they exist in our bubble universe, are controlling. Even assuming that a part of human experience is 'mysterious,' there is nothing to say that the ultimate laws of physics, as necessarily expanded to accommodate such experiences, might not be complete and still preclude the "supernatural", including God. If, as you suggest, "science comes in out of the cold" to take consciousness, mind, and human agency seriously (which is already beginning to happen) whatever is scientifically discovered would turn out to be just part of "our universe." And Susskind's "multiverse" explanation would not necessarily be undermined in any way.

The problem is that "metaphysics" by definition goes beyond physics, suggesting (quite rightly) that there will always be questions that are beyond scientific explanation. That is why the hopelessly metaphysical question of the existence of God, for example, will never go away out of any scientific discovery.

So I looked up "Is religion science?"

Shockingly, my AI buddy says No!

Trying again, I asked "Is creationism science?"

Again, AI bud says "No."

(OK, I didn't really have to look it up. But I did. Just to see if anything had changed lately. So far, that's a No).

Ask it if science is a religion.

Better yet, you could turn every school into a madrassa -- but those aren't exactly the scriptures they have in mind...

Try this question:

"Is Intelligent Design science?"

The answer I got from "Copilot" was, "Not considered Science?"

"Intelligent Design (ID) is not considered science. While it deals with phenomena in the natural world, it lacks empirical support, testable hypotheses, and the other hallmarks of scientific research. ID posits that some features of the universe and living things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than natural selection. However, it is not widely accepted within the scientific community as a valid scientific theory."

Some questions naturally arise:

1. Not considered science by whom? Who is the final judge as to what is or is not science? Is it methods, motives, underlying religious beliefs?

2. Many "legitimate" scientific programs lack empirical support, testable hypotheses, and "other hallmarks of scientific research" (whatever than means) String theory is a prime example, which theory dominated physics departments for decades.

3. Why does the fact ID theory thinks that some features of the universe, including human beings, are best explained by design disqualify it from being scientific, particularly if there are scientific arguments that (a) support genuine scientific criteria for a "design" inference (like the "design inference" associated with finding Paley's watch), and (2) scientifically call into question alternative theories, like Darwinism.

4. Why should "what is accepted in the scientific community" be the beginning and end-all for what is deemed science? After all, nearly every scientific theory started as being rejected in the scientific community, often passionately, most notably quantum theory by Einstein and his followers.

In short, at some point you will need to pry yourself away from the simplistic, often false, and ideologically driven conclusions of your computer, pick up a book or two, and study it out for yourself.

God, life is hard! :-)

I hope RfM doesn't turn into a battle of AI buddies. 'My AI can beat up your AI' is already here. For my part, I think everyone's AI buddy wears army boots (or cotton knickers, depending on your age).

I think the question of whether or not evolution was just pure "dumb luck," may be answered if we find someday a distant planet identical to our own that has humanoids on it as developed as we are.

Of course, this question may never be answered if we stop the study of the sciences, including space exploration, altogether.

It could also completely end if we use our technical skills and know-how to kill each other over our religious beliefs...

Why would an "intelligent" designer allow mass extinctions?

Who should be allowed to live and who should die?

The Nazis claimed Jews and other groups had to be "eliminated" for "Aryans" to survive. Some so-called "christians" claim LGBTQIA+ people, blacks, etc have to also be "eliminated" for the same ridiculous excuse.

What theory or logic can describe the behavior of a designer?

Do you need to make a sacrifice to make sure the sun rises each morning? What placates the designer? What are the designer's motives?

It's not science when an arbitrary decision maker decides something that defies description.

More importantly, why do *you* (or anyone else) emotionally need a "designer?"

Are you not "special" without one?





Here's something that *is* science:

F = G * M*m / r^2

Issac Newton published this description of gravitational force in the Principia Mathematica in 1667. It wasn't until 1798 that Henry Cavendish was able to determine the value of big G, the gravitational constant. Since that time, many experiments have been conducted to measure G, and the value hasn't changed, only refined to greater and greater numerical accuracy.

All observations indicate that the same physical laws apply throughout the known universe.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/05/2025 03:20PM by anybody.

anybody Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> All observations indicate that the same physical
> laws apply throughout the known universe.


Like a god, anybody knows what the Universe is like 26 trillion miles away.

Also like a god, or at least like one of God's chosen, she apparently doesn't know of the genocide being perpetrated upon 2.2 million people 6 thousand miles away.

and I invite you to go search through all the experiments and data you want to find where time or gravity runs backwards.

Why don't ultra religious or far-right Israelis don't want the two state solution? Why do the junta in Burma don't want the Rohingya? Why are religious nut jobs in the US hooked on xenophobia? You tell me.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/05/2025 05:35PM by anybody.

Since you asked,

https://noetic.org/research/global-consciousness-project/

The random number generators used in the project have a balancing circuit that introduces a time delay. The signal that produces the effect must travel backwards in time for it to work. That is backward causation.

We don't know how much of our "reality" is caused by backward causation. It would be nice to have some better experiments.

Which comes back to the OP. Haven't we already opted out of reality? Do you you remember your teleology class from college? Me neither, there wasn't one. Biology and other life sciences explain away and deny teleological principles in a kind of theater of the absurd. Hello, you study life.

I love to hate JS, but I can't refute his dig against "learned men".

I don't think they will be, but they may have been getting close to replacing biology with gender identity studies, evolution may have been at risk of being tossed with the rest of human history in favor or critical race theory, and science in general had taken a big turn toward dogma, especially regarding CAGW, but I think the pendulum is on the return toward the scientific method.

Okay, you have clearly mastered the jargon. But can you back it up?


------------
> [The left] may have been
> getting close to replacing biology with gender
> identity studies

What does that mean? Can you produce any evidence at all that gender identity theory invalidates, or attempts to invalidate, biology?


----------------
> . . . evolution may have been at risk
> of being tossed with the rest of human history in
> favor or critical race theory. . .

Do you have an iota of evidence to suggest that CRT had any effect on evolutionary biology or its acceptance?


---------------
> . . . and science in
> general had taken a big turn toward dogma,
> especially regarding CAGW,

Ah yes, global warming, your bete noir. You've attempted to dispute the science on this several times but then flounder when others call your bluff. For example,

https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2529877,2530328#msg-2530328


------------
> . . . but I think the
> pendulum is on the return toward the scientific
> method.

Forgive my laughter, but you wouldn't know "scientific method if it leaped up and bit you on the backside. It was you, after all, who told us that God had sent "missionaries" out to "prepare. . . a darkened planet. . . for a future arrival."

Your evidence? Abraham's departure from Salem and "Taoism. Buddhism. Shinto. Confucianism.*"

*https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2534905,2534941#msg-2534941

That argument is ridiculous. In the first place, Taoism was the intentional negation of Confucianism; secondly, both Buddhism and Japanese Shintoism--which encountered Confucianism in neo-Confucian form when the Shogunate imported it a millennium ago--were also incompatible with the Confucian tradition. And thirdly, none of those religions envisage a universal deity compatible with the volitional God that is the core of the Abrahamic faiths.

You plainly do not know what you are talking about.

Thank you.

In the spirit of Jehovah in his Shinto Temple surrounded by the gods of the trees, streams and assorted big rocks, you are sincerely welcome.

Biology--and human evolution specifically--in the future will be more likely banned by neo-Marxists than by religionists.

Once again you answer a question no one asked.

The point was that the Right is forbidding the teaching and study of a range of scientific topics at the national, state, and local levels. The question was therefore how far that willful and official repudiation of reality would go and how much it would cost.

But putting reality aside for a moment, I'll play your silly game. Please tell us, how exactly could anyone or anything "ban" evolution?

"more likely banned by neo-Marxists than by religionists"

There's that term, neo-Marxists. Listen to Jordan Peterson much? Marxists criticize capitalism. That's the definition. Why would they care about rolling back science? Also, at this point isn't capitalism due for some criticism?

If anything, science is drifting into religious territory. At the same time, it's undermining its own publishing apparatus with an explosion of fraudulent papers, soon to accelerated by AI. So, politicians have wiggle room to pander to their constituents. Science is no longer a sacred cow.

How long have you been married?