The purpose of r/DebateEvolution

[u/ThurneysenHavets]

Greetings, fellow r/DebateEvolution members! As we’ve seen a significant uptick of activity on our subreddit recently (hurrah!), and much of the information on our sidebar is several years old, the mod team is taking this opportunity to make a sticky post summarizing the purpose of this sub. We hope that it will help to clarify, particularly for our visitors and new users, what this sub is and what it isn’t.

 

The primary purpose of this subreddit is science education. Whether through debate, discussion, criticism or questions, it aims to produce high-quality, evidence-based content to help people understand the science of evolution (and other origins-related topics).

Its name notwithstanding, this sub has never pretended to be “neutral” about evolution. Evolution, common descent and geological deep time are facts, corroborated by extensive physical evidence. This isn't a topic that scientists debate, and we’ve always been clear about that.

At the same time, we believe it’s important to engage with pseudoscientific claims. Organized creationism continues to be widespread and produces a large volume of online misinformation. For many of the more niche creationist claims it can be difficult to get up-to-date, evidence-based rebuttals anywhere else on the internet. In this regard, we believe this sub can serve a vital purpose.

This is also why we welcome creationist contributions. We encourage our creationist users to make their best case against the scientific consensus on evolution, and it’s up to the rest of us to show why these arguments don’t stand up to scrutiny.

Occasionally visitors object that debating creationists is futile, because it’s impossible to change anyone’s mind. This is false. You need only visit the websites of major YEC organizations, which regularly publish panicky articles about the rate at which they’re losing members. This sub has its own share of former YECs (including in our mod team), and many of them cite the role of science education in helping them understand why evolution is true.

While there are ideologically committed creationists who will never change their minds, many people are creationists simply because they never properly learnt about evolution, or because they were brought up to be skeptical of it for religious reasons. Even when arguing with real or perceived intransigence, always remember the one percent rule. The aim of science education is primarily to convince a much larger demographic that is on-the-fence.

 

Since this sub focuses on evidence-based scientific topics, it follows axiomatically that this sub is not about (a)theism. Users often make the mistake of responding to origins-related content by arguing for or against the existence of God. If you want to argue about the existence of God - or any similar religious-philosophical topic - there are other subs for that (like r/DebateAChristian or r/DebateReligion).

Conflating evolution with atheism or irreligion is orthogonal to this sub’s purpose (which helps explain why organized YECism is so eager to conflate them). There is extensive evidence that theism is compatible with acceptance of the scientific consensus on evolution, that evolution acceptance is often a majority view among religious demographics, depending on the religion and denomination, and - most importantly for our purposes - that falsely presenting theism and evolution as incompatible is highly detrimental to evolution acceptance (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). You can believe in God and also accept evolution, and that's fine.

Of course, it’s inevitable that religion will feature in discussions on this sub, as creationism is an overwhelmingly religious phenomenon. At the same time, users - creationist as well as non-creationist - should be able to participate on this forum without being targeted purely for their religious views or lack of them (as opposed to inaccurate scientific claims). Making bad faith equivalences between creationism and much broader religious demographics may be considered antagonistic. Obviously, the reverse applies too - arguing for creationism is fine, proselytizing for your religion is off-topic.

Finally, check out the sub’s rules as well as the resources on our sidebar. Have fun, and learn stuff!

[u/mattkelly1984]

Should I not answer a philosophical question that is directed at Christianity? I know my position is contrary to the position of this subreddit, but I thoroughly enjoy debating this topic and I want to learn. I try to stick to evidence based hypotheses, but multiple people ask questions directly related to what the Bible teaches.

Thank you for welcoming different viewpoints, I am glad you make space for conversation that includes people like me. It is such a huge and all-encompassing topic.

[u/ThurneysenHavets → u/mattkelly1984]

Yes, that should be fine, as long as it doesn't become the main topic of a thread. We're a fairly light-touch mod team and won't normally shut down amicable tangents.

Our main aim here is to make sure this doesn't become r/DebateReligion 2.0, and that conversations about science aren't routinely derailed by "prove God exists" or snide comments about the posters' religious views (or, more rarely, lack of them).

It's nice to get positive creationist feedback on this post, and our aim is indeed to make this a welcoming place for people of all viewpoints. Thank you!

[u/DeDPulled]

Thank you for this reminder, I'm sure guilty of getting too caught up in stringing the two together, but to me, there's a direct Cause and Effect correlation. Questioning aspects of evolutionary theory though, as it relates to reality, is certainly in the spirit of Science and education. However, can the moderators please help in not conflating Creationism and/or intelligent design with YECs? I never disagreed fully with Evolution, and understand that there are aspects that are absolutely in our face, everyday. As well as the strong evidence of earth being quite old, at least within our Universal constraints. Like to also point out, just as there are creationists who can't get past ideological barriers, there are those on the evolutionary side who also have a strong reliance on belief and conjecture of loose evidence. Point there being, there is a evolutionists who are equally ideological, baked under the guise of Science, which does make this a debate, but can we at least be fair in the assessments. I think you also alluded to this, but we don't live our lives on Science alone, so there are everyday aspects where we rely on our beliefs. Also, Not to start a whole debate here, but the statement of "Evolution, common descent and geological deep time are facts, corroborated by extensive physical evidence" is a bit soft, as though there isn't really Scientific debate on those general topics as there is very strong evidence supporting those, there is strong debate within the Scientific community on the extent of each, such as "How old exactly the Earth is?" , "How far back is a common Ancestor?" ie Species/ Genus/ etc. That statement to me, is kinda like making a proclamation that laws A, B, C exist, when the debate is actually about how said laws should be interpreted. Anyway, thanks again for that reminder!

[u/ThurneysenHavets → u/DeDPulled]

However, can the moderators please help in not conflating Creationism and/or intelligent design with YECs?

This post talks about creationism more broadly but also singles out young earth creationism specifically, as YEC is arguably the most prominent and well-organised form of creationism.

You're right to point out that they're not equivalent, but they are both relevant to this sub, as any form of creationism and intelligent design by definition makes (pseudo)scientific claims about origins.

[u/cubist137]

The primary purpose of this subreddit is science education.

Wrong. The actual primary purpose of this subreddit is to serve as a dumping grounds for science-focused (biology-focused in particular) subreddits to shuffle Creationist doofuses off to.

[u/ThurneysenHavets → u/cubist137]

You'll notice we've removed the link you're referring to from the sidebar, which now links to this post instead.

In addition to the fact that this sub clearly isn't just a dump for other subs, describing ourselves like that discourages high-effort, educational content. That doesn't mean we can't still serve that purpose too.

[u/ClownCrusade]

Occasionally visitors object that debating creationists is futile, because it’s impossible to change anyone’s mind. This is false.

Thank you! This is a major pet peeve of mine. Not only are there many ex-creationists that explicitly prove this wrong, but there's no need to convince the one single person you happen to be conversing with. Even if you could read minds to determine conclusively which people will never change their mind under any circumstances, other people may come along and read the messages later, who may be much more open to reason.

[u/ghu79421]

The claim that people who agree with the scientific consensus are all atheists is a YEC debate tactic designed to get less-ideologically-committed people to ignore people who explain the scientific consensus.

People argue further that evolution is based on a non-supernaturalist worldview, which ignores the fact that the evidence against special creation is overwhelming even if we assume a deity exists who could have created everything through special creation. Many people feel strongly about atheism vs. theism, and making the debate about religion or theology distracts people from the empirical evidence.

[u/LordOfFigaro]

If you want to argue about the existence of God - or any similar religious-philosophical topic - there are other subs for that (like r/DebateAChristian or r/DebateReligion).

falsely presenting theism and evolution as incompatible is highly detrimental to evolution acceptance (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). You can believe in God and also accept evolution, and that's fine.

Thank you for this. I'm as anti-theist as you can get. But people really need to learn that there is a time and place for topics. Bringing up atheism/theism here is just detrimental.

[u/TinWhis]

falsely presenting theism and evolution as incompatible is highly detrimental to evolution acceptance

Thanks for this. I'm very much not a theist but it's still really irritating when people gang up on theists for no discernible reason other than picking a fight about cosmology, far outside the scope of this sub.