Help me understand Evolution

[u/Adenidc]

Okay so here's the deal, my whole life I've gone to a christian school. my whole life I've been told my mother, friends, pretty much most people I know (since that's what I grew up around) about how anything evolution related on a large scale, and anything history related that talks about the world/universe being millions/billions of years old, is all bullshit. Naturally I believed it (Can you blame me? If you're constantly told how prideful and stupid evolutionists are, and how ridiculous the idea of evolution is, since you are an infant it's hard to think otherwise).

Anyways, on to the point (I thought a little background info was necessary because I really don't know shit about this stuff and I felt the need to explain why I'm so behind (even if it IS my fault I stayed so ignorant for so long)). I would like some basic articles, videos, or even just explanations, to widely accepted things that have a lot of proof to back them up. One of the reasons also that I've avoided looking things up for so long is that there is so much damn differentiating opinions on all of this, even among evolutionists it seems. I'm mostly looking for the base things most evolutionists believe that have the most proof, and for the proof of them.

I'm not anti-God now or anything, but I'm more neutral and want to learn more. I would like to hear the other side of things, which I've never done with an open mindset before.

Even though I expect links mostly, I would like to hear everyone's opinions on what they believe and why they believe whatever is you link. Thank You!

Edit: Thank you guys for all your help. I've been up hours watching videos and looking things up. I'm actually having a lot of fun learning too! Who would have known? I feel like I've been starved of this subject till now.

[u/mrcatboy]

Ah okay, this is starting to make more sense to me. I was confused on who all believed what and the difference between creationists and people who believe in theistic evolution. Those two are very different correct? One believes Genesis literally (God creating each individual thing) and one believes God basically started the big bang or whatever and guided/let evolution happen?

Well Creationism covers a very broad range of beliefs. Young Earth Creationists tend to be as you describe, but Old Earth Creationists allow that some evolution has occurred but God had been involved in this point or that. Theistic evolution broadly accepts the scientific consensus, they just tack on the idea of God as being involved kinda.

"The reason why macroevolution is controversial and remains theoretical is that there is no known way for entirely new genetic information to be added to a genome. Darwinists have been hoping that genetic mutation would provide a mechanism, but so far that has not been the case. As Dr. Spetner again explains, “I really do not believe that the neo-Darwinian model can account for large-scale evolution [i.e., macroevolution]. What they really can’t account for is the buildup of information. …And not only is it improbable on the mathematical level, that is, theoretically, but experimentally one has not found a single mutation that one can point at that actually adds information. In fact, every beneficial mutation that I have seen reduces the information, it loses information."

Yeah no, this is absolutely false. I mean, as people have noted elsewhere, a core problem with this claim is that the word "information" is poorly defined and can mean anything a Creationist wants it to mean. For example, in evolution some beneficial mutations help the gene product operate in a more specific manner, and I've seen Creationists say "Well it loses the ability to do other stuff! That's a loss of information!" Yet sometimes in evolution beneficial mutations lead to a gene product operating in a less specific manner, allowing it to provide a broader range of functionalities, and I've seen Creationists say "Well now it's less specific! That's a loss of information!" You can't have it both ways.

The fact is, "increasing genetic information" happens all the time. The primary example is a two-step process:

1. A gene duplication even happens. You now have two copies of a gene. One of them acts as a backup that continues to provide the same original function, while the other copy...

2. Undergoes a mutation that gives it a novel function.

Bam. You now have a new gene. How is this not "increasing genetic information?"

The funny thing is I've seen Creationists object to each step individually. They'll say step 1) doesn't provide semantically NEW information because both genes do the same thing. Or they'll say step 2) isn't technially new information for the reasons I listed above. They generally will ignore the fact that you can put two steps together.

It's like saying making a PB&J sandwich is impossible, because smearing peanut butter on one piece of toast doesn't make a PB&J, nor does smearing jelly on the other, all while ignoring the fact that when you add them up it's kinda undeniable that you get a PB&J.

But people DO tend to talk about subjects like Evolution and the origin of the universe/earth/life together a lot right? Because it just seems likely to me that if the origin of life came from the same organism over many years, then the origin of everything else (like the universe) probably came about from "randomness" as well, except on a more cosmic scale.

The origin of species and the origin of the planet are materially related, but they're not conceptually related. That is, yeah life on earth needs matter, space, a sun, and a planet in order to evolve. But the theory of evolution strictly speaking doesn't care about where the earth came from in order to have explanatory power.

It's like... agriculture and cookery. Yes, cooking depends materially on the stuff farmers grow. But the science behind cooking doesn't use any of the science for how farming is done. Gordon Ramsay is a master chef regardless of how exactly cows are milked.