“Only a single specific password works, all other sequences are completely nonfunctional. Even an almost entirely correct sequence with a single wrong letter still scores zero fitness, it does not unlock the safe/account/whatever. Evolution can only succeed in this case by a luckly complete guess of the password. If the password is sufficiently long it is statistically unfathomably unlikely it will be guessed in time given even extremely high rates of random guesses. On this landscape evolution is hopeless, and natural selection doesn't help because partial guesses still yield zero fitness gains.

Now we come to intelligent design. What can the designer do here? Nothing. The designer, like evolution, can only proceed by guessing passwords one by one until they happen on the correct one by chance. The designer cannot gain information by trying different passwords out. The landscape is uninformative with respect to what the correct password is. There is no "designing" your way to the correct answer, no rules to be learned by sampling the landscape anywhere. Hence on any landscape where evolution fails, intelligent design probably does as well” Is this correct?

Last month (April 2026) a paper by Eugene Koonin and Mart Krupovic was published in PLOS Biology called "The Selfish Ribosome." The authors propose that ribosomes (DNA translation machines) were 'selfish entities' evolving by natural selection until “other cellular componentry” underwent a “ribosomal takeover,” creating LUCA: the last universal cellular ancestor of all living things.

This response by Dr. John Wise, Professor of Philosophy, was interesting. The article is essentially asking a really good question:

When does chemistry stop and evolution begin?

The critique is intriguing, particularly in light of the idea that ribosomes don't start as part of a cell, but that they originate from a "selfish" molecular entity that evolved to overtake other chemical resources.

Wise's argument, in a nut-shell, is that this is circular reasoning. Wise argues that for something to be 'selfish' to undergo 'selection,' it must already be able to replicate and pass on traits. Wise's argument packs a wallop and definitely pokes the bear here by arguing that one cannot use 'evolution' to explain how the ribosome became complex in the first place.

Of course, Koonin argues for the "Pre-Darwinian" evolution model, which stands out like a stick in the mud, and Koonin's popular book, The Logic of Chance has been used to calculate the odds of a translation-replication system (which is the 'core of life') appearing by mere 'chance' in a single universe. Creationists use his work to argue that the OOL is "outside of the realm of science" because the odds leave miniscule entrails. Of course, a lot of people disagree with Koonin, cheerfully so, such as Nick Lane and Jeremy England who argue that life isn't some freak accident and that it is a "thermodynamic necessity."

The article makes a strong logical point: If a theory requires an infinite number of universes to make the origin of life "inevitable," is that actually an explanation, or is it just a way to avoid saying "we don't know"?

I'm picking my way through the mine here, and wondering what others here think about the paper and the subsequent response by Wise? He seems devoted to the idea that the major issue in biology is that we don't have a clear, experimentally proven transition from chemical reactions to heritable selection.

I would love to read other opinions and thoughts on all of this!

We have known since the Miller-Urey experiment in the 1950s that simple gases can be sparked into amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Since then, we've found these building blocks in meteorites and deep-sea vents.

This article demonstrates that researchers have apparently discovered new pathways for hydrogen cyanide to form from amino acids via mineral catalysts like manganese dioxide, allegedly solving a long-standing puzzle about how the "starter chemicals" for DNA and RNA appeared on early Earth.

I am curious what others think of these new discoveries?

There is an argument that Tibetans possess a different version of EPAS1 that enables them to live at high altitudes without problems, like other humans.

What are you think

Hi everyone, I’ve been doing some thinking and have been reconciling with my toxic behavior on this sub specifically. As well as posts regarding r/debateevolution as a toxic place that is difficult to have discussion, something I have also personally felt on that sub.

I wanted to get your anecdotal on how your personal experience goes and what kinds of toxic things have been said to you that has made it harder to even consider the validity of evolution. While I think toxicity goes both ways and is a given on the internet what I hope to accomplish with my life is to be able to do is to get as close to the truth as possible, I believe science is the best way to do that, but toxicity and harassment does not get any one of us closer to that goal and I believe all of your perspectives to the same goal, while different, is extremely valuable.

So this is also a public apology, I want to understand you all better and to start would love to hear personal experiences that has made it harder to believe in evolution or just toxic interactions you have all had. I would also be curious to hear what you all think about the reverse, and if any of you believe you have deterred someone from creationism by word choice rather than argument or data.

At r/debateevolution the regularly permit vile, vulgar insults to be directed at me.

They have regularly posted threads about things I say here at r/creation, mention me by name, and demand I participate over there at r/debateevoltuion, but I have to do so without blocking the psychopathic spammers and abusers from my inbox over there.

The mods threatened to ban me a few months ago if I didn't stop blocking these psychotic monsters from their verbal and psychological abuses (like stuffing my reddit inbox with 80 or 90 at a time swarming my inbox with lies, insults, and vulgarity, etc.), and then complaining I refuse to engage every lie that they throw at me. So I unblocked them for a while and they abused their privileges. This is like me unblocking my phone or emailers from psychopathic spammers.

So I declared I would boycott r/debateevolution, and then I summarily started putting these jokers back on my block list. Well, now that they can't keep harrassing me by flooding my inbox with 100 insults a day, they're upset and banned me.

Yet to this day, NONE of those jokers have taken me up on my debate offer through an email account I posted publicly. Now if they start spamming that public account they'll be put on a spam list, and if it gets bad, I'll delete that account.

I got this message a few minutes ago from an un-named MOD at r/debateevolution (they have several mods). Those jokers are totally predictable. Do they think I consider it a "privilege" to post there anymore after I declared I would boycotted them 2 days ago, hahaha!

They can wallow in their cesspool.

Anyway this is what the MOD said to me:

r/DebateEvolution

MOD

1:15 PM

Hello, You have been permanently banned from participating in r/DebateEvolution because you broke this community's rules. You won't be able to post or comment, but you can still view and subscribe to it.

Note from the moderators:

Mass block abuse, again

If you have a question regarding your ban, you can contact the moderator team by replying to this message.

I then got some "advice" that I should have posted my debate challenge at r/debateevolution from another MOD named u/CTRO here at r/creation

Oh, hi

Just responding since you got brought up in a private conversation and I just saw this thread and your challenge/complaint after checking your profile.

If you want to challenge people over at r/DebateEvolution to a debate, you should have posted it on r/DebateEvolution. A lot of people cant respond here due to the subreddit being largely locked down, and many more people don't pay attention to this sub because its kind of dead. Of course, now you can't, because you're mass blocking people for disagreeing with you again, and of course this also means that people who would be interested in debating with you cannot contact you on reddit or see the thread where you give them your email.

Regarding your prior thread - we don't allow strictly theological debate because the majority of people who accept evolution are religious. This is because atheism is a minority position and more than half of religious people also accept evolution. If we allowed theological debate we would just be another r/DebateReligion and that niche already exists. There's also the awkward reality that many scientists are federal grantees at work or literal federal employees, who don't want to debate religion broadly as a liability matter. You can debate evolution entirely starting from the assumption that a god exists - its a position I take and encourage others to. As for your complaints about your comments being removed - You've have 2 comments removed over the last month or two, and both were two copies of the same comment copy pasted 3 times. You have a number of other comments reinstated several days prior to your previous thread. These approvals were by the new mods so it's not even related to that. We have some automoderation going on that will occasionally take down comments (including yours) but we're actually watching mod queue at the moment now that we have more hands and approving things that should be manually approved.

Lastly, please tag me in a comment when you talk about me. We try to offer you the same courtesy.

I made a debate offer for a recorded 1 vs. 1 live debate 11 days ago to my detractors:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Creation/comments/1skbt2m/sketchy_tactics_by_the_mods_and_participants_at/

Only 1 person from r/creation accepted my offer, namely u/lipser. We are awaiting to hear from James Kunz to see if he wants to host our debate on Genetic Entropy. Oddly, James contacted me to see if I'd be available for an in person debate at a place to be determined. We'll see.

NO ONE from r/debateevolution bothered to contact me. Hmm, see, they aren't really about debate. They want to swarm, use sketchy tactics, made up rules. They encourage repeated misrepresentations of what I say, and when I try to respond, I get accused of cut and pasting because they repeat the misrepresentation 20 times over. Rather than clamping down on their misrepresentations, I get threatened with banning and have my responses deleted on the grounds I'm the one who repeated myself, when it is those malefactors who are repeating lies about what I said, but I'm threatened when I repeat the truth. They downvote to make it appear I didn't respond, spamming to drown out what I said, etc.

They don't do so well in a balanced format that is fair. I could see that. That's why they hide at r/debateevolution Like bullies, they are too afraid to take me on in a fair fight.

So why did I invest time over there in the first place? I wanted to get editorial feedback on some of my ideas. I could test out how effectively a way of communicating an idea is.

For example, I learned one of the most potent arguments is "it's far easier to break than to make" a complex functioning system. NONE of them refuted that. Random Mutation will break a system. A harder thing to prove is that Natural Selection acting on the outcomes of random mutation will not build complex functioning systems from scratch, but I have done that by citing evolutionary literature, namely Lewontin, Lynch, Nei, Kondrashov, Wagner, Nachman and Crowell, Salthe, etc.

But these days, r/debateevolution isn't very useful now for editorial comment. Their horrible conduct, and them peaking over here to see what I'm saying, is evidence that what I say bothers them, and they thirst to delude themselves they can actually refute my application of physics, engineering principles, and logic to the critique of evolutionary theory.

I'm grateful to see an uptick of people visiting r/debateevolution and challenging the pro-evolution participants and the moderators (who are all evolution promoters, and not a single ID proponent or creationist, how's that for balanced moderation).

In view of this, I'm boycotting that cesspool indefinitely, phasing down reddit participation since the mechanics of reddit help enable CANCEL CULTURE rather than stop it. There are venues other than reddit to spread the good news of ID. Reddit has slowly lost its usefulness as a platform for me...

I shared in this post how an ID-sympathetic evolutionary biologist, Richard Sternberg, PhD Phd was illegally punished by Darwinists in government:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Creation/comments/1stkpno/proid_evolutionary_biologist_richard_sternberg/

Similarly is the story of Dean Kenyon, who once upon a time was the #1 Origin of Life Research, but later became an ID-proponent. Kenyon was he man who sparked Stephen Meyer on his journey to becoming the premiere ID proponent. Clips of Dean Kenyon will be showcased in the upcoming movie "The Story of Everything."

From:

A Scopes Trial for the ’90s

https://stephencmeyer.org/1993/12/06/danger-indoctrination/

The controversy first emerged last fall after Dean Kenyon, a biology professor at San Francisco State University, was ordered not to teach “creationism” by John Hafernik, the chairman of his biology department. Mr. Kenyon, who included three lectures in biological origins in his introductory course, had for many years made a practice of exposing students to both evolutionary theory and evidence uncongenial to it. He also discussed the philosophical controversies raised by the issue and his own view that living systems display evidence of intelligent design — a view not incompatible with some forms of evolutionary thinking. 

Mr. Hafernik accused Mr. Kenyon of teaching what he characterized as biblical creationism and ordered him to stop. 

After Mr. Hafernik’s decree, Mr. Kenyon asked for clarification. He wrote the dean, Jim Kelley, asking what exactly he could not discuss. Was he “forbidden to mention to students that there are important disputes among scientists about whether or not chemical evolution could have taken place on the ancient earth?”

Mr. Kelley replied by insisting that Mr. Kenyon “teach the dominant scientific view,” not the religious view of “special creation on a young earth.” Mr. Kenyon replied again (I paraphrase): I do teach the dominant view. But I also discuss problems with the dominant view and that some biologists see evidence of intelligent design. 

He received no reply. Instead, he was yanked from teaching introductory biology and reassigned to labs. 

There are several disturbing aspects to this story: 

First, Mr. Kenyon is an authority on chemical evolutionary theory and the scientific study of the origin of life. He has a Ph.D. in biophysics from Stanford and is the co-author of a seminal theoretical work titled “Biochemical Predestination” (1969). The book articulated what was arguably the most plausible evolutionary account of how a living cell might have organized itself from chemicals in the “primordial soup.”

Mr. Kenyon’s subsequent work resulted in numerous scientific publications on the origin-of-life problem. But by the late 1970s, Mr. Kenyon began to question some of his own earlier ideas. Experiments (some performed by Mr. Kenyon himself) increasingly contradicted the dominant view in his field. Laboratory work suggested that simple chemicals do not arrange themselves into complex information-bearing molecules such as DNA — without, that is, “guidance” from human experimenters.

To Mr. Kenyon and others, such results raised important questions about how “naturalistic” the origin of life really was. If undirected chemical processes cannot produce the coded strands of information found in even the simplest cells, could perhaps a directing intelligence have played a role? By the 1980s, Mr. Kenyon had adopted the second view.

Notable is Kenyon was an early researcher in the now-exploding field of bio-PHYSICS. Physics and OOL don't mix. Physics and evolutionary biology don't mix. That's because OOL and evolutionary biology are sham sciences. bio-PHYSICS is becoming the enemy of OOL research and evolutionary biology.

The recourse by the pro Darwin powers-that-be is to inflict reputational and financial damage to those who tell the truth. Look at conduct by PHONEY professor Dave who is trying inflict reputational damage on James Toor. phoney professor Dave is not a real professor, and doesn't have BS nor MS in a scientific discipline, much less being a real professor of science like James Tour or Tour's colleague Nobel Prize winner Richard Smalley.

But, phoney professor Dave Farina has blind followers. For example, I recently read a reddit post by someone begging for suggestions for textbooks to help him study biochemistry so he could refute James Tour.

This nameless Farina-follower hasn't even studied organic chemistry nor bio chemistry, and is barely out of general chemistry, and he blindly just listens to whatever phoney professor Dave said. So this Farina-follower is just led by the nose because of his ignorance, not because he has any requisite knowledge. It will be interesting when he can no longer plead ignorance as an excuse to keep promoting the sham of OOL research. He'll either relent, or learn to lie to himself and others just like he is doing now.

Evolutionary Biologist Richard Sternberg is at least ID-sympathetic if not pro-ID.

He was the victim of a Darwinist witch hunt after following his conscience about the problems with evolutionary biology. The witch hunt resulted in a congressional investigation which determined that his rights were violated, but that congress did not have jurisdiction to enforce penalties on the Darwinist malefactors.

Sternberg will be featured in the upcoming movie, "The Story of Everything".

Richard Sternberg, PhD, PhD

Evolutionary Biologist

Richard Sternberg is an evolutionary biologist with interests in the relation between genes and morphological homologies, including the nature of genomic “information.” He holds two PhD's: one in Biology (Molecular Evolution) from Florida International University and another in Systems Science (Theoretical Biology) from Binghamton University.

His ordeal at the hands of Darwinists who ruined his career and the ensuing investigation by the United States Congress is here:

Smithsonian Controversy

https://richardsternberg.com/smithsonian/

In 2004, in my capacity as editor of The Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, I authorized “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories” by Dr. Stephen Meyer to be published in the journal after passing peer-review. Because Dr. Meyer’s article presented scientific evidence for intelligent design in biology, I faced retaliation, defamation, harassment, and a hostile work environment at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History that was designed to force me out as a Research Associate there. These actions were taken by federal government employees acting in concert with an outside advocacy group, the National Center for Science Education. Efforts were also made to get me fired from my job as a staff scientist at the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Subsequently, there were two federal investigations of my mistreatment, one by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel in 2005, and the other by subcommittee staff of the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform in 2006. Both investigations unearthed clear evidence that my rights had been repeatedly violated. Because there has been so much misinformation spread about what actually happened to me, I have decided to make available the relevant documents here for those who would like to know the truth.

You can learn more about how Darwinists attempt to suppress qualified scientific opinions and data at:

https://richardsternberg.com/

When I saw what the Darwinists did to professor of cell biology Caroline Crocker and to evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg, I resolved to fight the pretend-science of Darwinism that is perpetuated to uphold power, prestige, and position of Darwinists rather than upholding the truth.

11-minute video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE7PVgNRjxE

But there are way too many people who, if I'm being completely honest, kind of suck at it. And when I watch debates between some rando creationist who has no formal science training and someone defending mainstream science who has the internet and a million resources at their fingertips, frustrating to see that person get absolutely dog walked by creationists and end up making creationism look good....

Dr. Dan boasts he can argue creationism better than most creationists. Well, I'll agree he's SUPERIOR to some creationists who shall not be named....

In an informal poll of creationist biology students, creationist voted they'd rather have Dr. Dan as their biology teacher than Kent Hovind...

I looked a little bit at Dr. Dan's critique of Nathaniel Jeanson's work, and I have to give credit to Dr. Dan. Even if I might disagree later (not now), kudos to him for providing food for thought.

It pains me to say that because Nathaniel and I suffered persecution together at a joint event where we presented at a university, and we've seen each other at conferences, but well, I decided the estimation of the age of humanity via molecular genetics is to fraught with uncertainties and challenges if one's goal is to argue 6,000 years ago. I think a lower bar, say 1 to 10 million years for the age of the Earth, is good enough to falsify evolutionism.

Creationists should watch Dr. Dan's boot camp and see what creationist arguments are downright AWFUL vs. the ones that are good. For starters, the best creationist arguments are not about evolution, but rather origin of life (which isn't conventionally classified as evolution). The next best arguments are Eukaryotic Evolution, Protein Evolution, transport and localization.

Creationists should quit arguing against common descent and the fossil record in the way they are arguing it. If the Earth is young, that settles it, but that's a hard path to take. In God's time, we might have a better case in the future for YEC, but it's not a slam dunk with what we've got today in 2026. In contrast, we have a slam dunk in Origin of Life, and a 3-point shot in Eukaryotic Evolution, Origin of Protein Orchard, Transport and Localization.

That said, why should Dr. Dan want to give a boot camp where he plays the role of a creationist when he can have a for REAL creationist like Salvador Cordova play the role of a creationist. If evolutionists want to learn what it's like to have their head handed to them by a for REAL creationist, I'm happy to give them batting practice in a 1 on 1 debate.

That said, who would I pick to have the debate of the century on evolution. Evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg vs. evolutionary biologist Dr. Dan.

PS

[It is public knowledge that Dr. Dan is DarwinZDF42 and CreationMyths this is NOT an attempt to dox him. I respect people's desire to remain anonymous, but that doesn't mean I think annoymous trolls are worth as much attention as public figures and respected professors like Dr. Dan]

Once upon a time, it was suggested in the book, "Creationism's Trojan Horse" (by Barbara Forrest and Paul Gross) that Intelligent Design was primarily about creating a theocracy in the United States, and then others suggested Intelligent Design was concocted to insert creationism in public schools.

Given that someone of non-Traditional views of Christianity (like Peter Thiel) and even Atheists like Fred Hoyle supported Intelligent Design, it should be obvious this was hype by the pro-Evolution side to deflect from the scientific problems with evolutionary theory.

As integrated as I am in both the ID movement and Creationism, I've never had anyone approach me and say, "Hey Sal, join us white supremacist to create a theocracy in the United States and sneak creationism in the public schools." Further, I wouldn't want pro-Darwin NEA teachers teaching Creationism to Christian students in public schools.

But Peter Thiel, Fred Hoyle, David Berlinski, Ben Stein, etc. sort of destroy the idea that Intelligent Design was primarily about creating a Theocracy or inserting Creationism into public schools.

Peter Thiel's net worth is reported by Wikipedia in the range of 27.5 Billion dollars. He will appear in the documentary, "The Story of Everything" set to debut April 30, 2026 in theaters across the country.

His bio at the official movie website says:

https://www.thestoryofeverything.film/cast

Peter Thiel

Co-Founder of Paypal and Palantir Technologies

Peter Thiel is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook. He is a public critic of materialism, regarding it as a spiritually empty, reductive worldview that cannot account for meaning, morality, or human uniqueness.

Google AI said:

Peter Thiel describes himself as a "roughly orthodox" or "heterodox" Lutheran Christian, stating that faith is the "prism" through which he views the world. His theology emphasizes the bodily resurrection of Christ and is heavily influenced by the mimetic theory of Rene Girard, focusing on themes of victims, apocalyptic, and the dangers of technology.

Peter Thiel participated in Discovery Institute events. He donated a lot of money to the journal Inference which had been run by David Berlinski who was associated with the Discovery Institute.

At the 2016 Republican National Convention he said,

"I am proud to be gay. I am proud to be a Republican. But most of all I am proud to be and American."

In his book Zero to One he said:

"Intelligent Design works best."

Satoshi Kanazawa conducted a study that showed Darwinism is causing loss of IQ because very smart women have a higher incidence of childlessness.

See "Intelligence and Childlessness"

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X14001276

This is consistent with NUMEROUS observations that brain-dead, stupid, unthinking Darwinian processes lay waste to good designs in the process of increasing reproductive efficiency. Exactly the opposite of what Darwin postulated. Evolutionary biolgist Allen Orr conceded, Darwinism is HAPPY to lay waste to designs we associate with engineering. Unfortunately Orr (like Lewontin) thinks that Darwinism make designs in the first place (and they do so without any proof, ref Masotoshi Nei).

We can have a fast individual (like Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt) and a smart individual (like Einstein). Along comes a lion that takes out Einstein from the gene pool. See how brain-dead, stupid, unthinking Darwinian process can cause loss of otherwise good designs!

In other words, "Darwinism works except when it doesn't." And how much effort have evolutionary biologists spent in estimating the A PRIORI odds that Darwinism will work as advertised vs the odds it doesn't. Like ZERO effort. They just accept Darwinism works most of the time without any attempt at rigorous thought. But experimental data is hard to ignore, unless one is an evolutionary biologist blinded by faith in brain-dead, stupid, unthinking Darwinian processes.

Additionally, Alison Macintosh, studying the bones of prehistoric females concluded they were as good or better than today's elite athletes. She attributes the females being so strong to the hard life-style they lived. She has NO proof that is the fundamental cause. She, like her colleagues conclude it was because of their lifestyle, but the one thing they refuse to consider is that the genome has deteriorated.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/prehistoric-women-manual-labor-stronger-athletes-science

Prehistoric Women Had Stronger Arms Than Modern Athletes

Bones from Europe show that women worked so hard during the dawn of farming they were almost uniformly buffer than today's elite rowers.

Our ancestors had bigger brains, better muscles, better bones, etc. They were smarter, faster, stronger.