 Hey everybody, tonight we're debating creation versus evolution and we are starting right now with Dr. Thompson's opening statement. Thanks so much for being with us, Dr. Thompson. The floor is all yours. All right. Thanks so much for having me here. I'm glad that I was able to come back to modern day debates and talk about this topic that I'm so passionate about. So let me tell you a little bit about myself. I'm going to share my screen first and hopefully you can see that. All right. So a little bit about me. Let's see. I think it needs to be resized. Great. All right. So I am Chris Thompson. I'm an assistant professor of neuroscience at Virginia Tech. And I can imagine, you know, one thing that you might be wondering like why would a neuroscientist be interested in this well in this topic. I do have a bachelor's of science from the University of Illinois in ecology, ethology and evolution. Now that doesn't make me an expert in evolution. I am not an evolutionary biologist. I'm a neuroscientist. I do study how hormones shape the development and plasticity of neural circuits in a wide range of species. Because animals and humans share a common ancestor, so I can learn things from the animals that I do work with, and I can understand how that applies to human health and the human condition. So the other thing, of course, is that the views that I expressed tonight are going to be my own and do not reflect the views of Virginia Tech. Now, a little bit about this debate. Now, this issue is not about science. This is a debate about creation and evolution that touches on scientific topics, but it's not about science. It really isn't. This is a theological debate between a worldview that requires a literal interpretation of the Bible and a worldview that does not require that interpretation. The majority of people all over the world do not start with the first principle that every single word in the Bible must be 100% factual or true. They just don't. In fact, many religious people see the Bible as allegory and metaphorical. Most accept that evolution is an accurate working model of the history of life on earth. It's just religious fundamentalists that start with the first principle that the Bible must be 100% true. They start there. They go out into the world and then they cherry pick evidence to fit their worldview. Now, what are the differences between evolution and creationism? Evolution, we believe that there's common descent with modification. We believe that there's a universal common ancestor. We have a mechanism to explain that change over time. Natural selection is a very powerful non-random mechanism described by Darwin and elaborated by others since then on heritable traits through DNA. The earth is old. It's around 4.6 billion years old. That's not really necessary to believe in evolution, but it's just another component of this whole debate. Of course, we explain biogeography where animals are located across earth and overall geology that's explained by natural mechanisms, not supernatural ones. Now, creationism, they have a belief that there are kinds. They tend to be a bit fuzzy on what that means that are specially created to no vote all at once. Now, as far as a mechanism by which creation occurred, is there a reasonable, testable hypothesis or mechanism beyond magic and the supernatural? I don't think that there is one. They believe the earth is around 6,000 years old. They believe in a very, very young earth, which is very inconsistent with the evidence. Then as far as biogeography and geology, they believe that these things are explained by Noah's flood. Now, the lines of evidence that support evolution are numerous. I can go through all these different things. The fossil evidence, comparative morphology, genetics, biogeography, I don't have enough time to go through all these things. It's just way too much to cover in about 10 minutes. So what I'm going to talk about tonight, or at least right now, is genetics. So as far as the genetic evidence goes, what we can see is that organisms with recent common ancestors have more similar DNA than those with more distant common ancestors. So I'm going to walk through that and the logic behind it. So one thing about genetics is that we can look at stretches of DNA and compare it across different species to see differences and those differences. So there might be subtle differences in the sequence, right? So DNA is made up of nucleotides, A, G, C's and T's, and there may be differences between two different species. We refer to this phenomenon as a molecular clock. This allows us to estimate when there was a last common ancestor. So now many stretches of DNA, they will accumulate mutations over time at a relatively constant rate. So what I have here, this is an image I took from this website. This is an excellent website to get nice, brief, clear explanations about evolution and how it works. I encourage you to check that out. So what we would say is the common ancestor maybe had a stretch of DNA. Now most animals have billions of nucleotides. What we're showing here is just 10. So 10 nucleotides here, right? So this is a sequence, a little stretch of DNA in some ancient common ancestor. Now a population may have split, let's say one part went west, another went east, and they split. And so with that split of a population, you're going to have speciation. And those different populations are going to accumulate mutations into that stretch of DNA because there's just random mutations that occur. And so what you're going to see is that you're going to have like, you know, in this case, this population, there's a T that emerges where the G should be. And here there's a G where the T should be over here. And then over time, there's going to be more and more mutations that accumulate. And until you get to today where we can actually sequence individuals from different species, and we can compare the sequence, we'll see that the sequence is largely similar, but that there will be some differences. And that with those differences, we can estimate just with the, you know, a constant rate of mutation and knowing how long a generation is, we can determine when the last common ancestor was. So more recent common ancestors will have more similar DNA, and more distant common ancestors like 50 million years ago are going to have more substitutions. We have evidence that supports this. So here's data showing pairwise nucleotide substitutions among 17 pairs of mammalian species from seven different gene products. And this is plotted against the date of divergence, as estimated from the fossil record. Okay, so one point here is how marsupials would compare to placental mammals right so that's the I know that that's what this point is from this data sense. And the thing is you can see that there's this is a linear data set. The number of nucleotide substitutions is shown on the y axis and you can see if the divergence was relatively recent, there are fewer nucleotide substitutions in this seven, seven gene products. But as you go farther and farther back in time there's more and more nucleotide substitutions, many of them just relatively neutral, or just, you know, non beneficial mutations, and that this is going to lead to differences. And so and what we can estimate the divergence from that. So this allows us to make phylogenetic trees. And so there's many lines of evidence that do support phylogenetic sorting including genetic evidence. And here's a map of, you know, this is a phylogenetic tree of some basic sort of animals that that are commonly used as as animal models so humans and chimps have a common ancestor around 10 million years ago. And then humans and chimps and mice have a relatively distant common ancestor with chickens and say also reptiles around 310 million years ago and so on and so forth. And we can do these comparisons and make these estimations and it's very consistent with the fossil record. So the thing is that the fact that genetic sequences result in this pattern. This precludes divergence of animals from Noah's Ark. So why am I focusing on Noah's Ark? You might be saying, Dr. Chris, what's up with that? We're talking about creation, right? We should be talking about the Garden of Eden. Sure. All right. So the Garden of Eden, you had Adam and Eve, and you had, you know, animals created by God at that time. But the thing is that's not the genetic bottleneck. A genetic bottleneck is when the population becomes so small that now all variation is reduced to a very, very small population. And that's down here. The real genetic bottleneck is that Noah's flood. And that's true for humans as well. Okay. So all humans and animals were killed around 4,400 years ago, according to creationists. And that's where there's a genetic bottleneck. And so, you know, Genesis 714 says that Noah had to collect all the animals and pairs, the livestock, they're considered clean. I don't necessarily consider livestock to be clean, but he had seven pairs of those. They were all brought onto the Ark and that included dinosaurs, right? Even dinosaurs are brought onto the Ark, right? If you're going to believe that the Bible is literally true. So creationists claim that Noah had two of every animal, male and female of each kind of animal on it. You know, kind in quotes on the Ark 4,400 years ago. They claim that all the biodiversity that we see has emerged from those original kinds. The reason why they say this is because you can't say that Noah had all the species on the Ark, because that would mean he would have to have had like around 6,000 different species of amphibians or 12,000 different species of reptiles. Instead, they say that there is like a frog kind or a snake kind. And all the biodiversity we see from that would have emerged from that single pair of organisms 4,400 years ago. Okay, so I hope you can understand this. This means that actually creationists and myself, we actually have a lot in common. We believe in evolution as do they. They believe that you can get speciation, but the thing is they believe in hyper evolution. They believe that speciation can occur so fast that you can have thousands of speciation events happening in the few years after Noah's flood. This clearly indicates that there's just not been enough time for this level of speciation. It's impossible. This is just one line of evidence why my creationism isn't true. And, you know, so I'm happy to get into other lines of evidence. We will talk about that as we go on. So I'm happy that I'm here, you know, with T rock and I'm happy to turn it over to T rock at this point. So that is it for me. Thank you very much for that opening and want to let you know, folks, if it's your first time here at modern day debate, we are a neutral platform hosting debates on science, religion and politics. We hope you feel welcome no matter what walk of life you were from. I'm your host, James Coons. And hey, if you didn't know, we have a lot of big debates coming up. So for example, the bottom right of your screen, we are thrilled about this upcoming debate that we have not even put up yet. This is brand new. We just booked it. Matt Dillahunty and Stuart Nettle will be debating on whether or not Christianity is rational. As you can see at the bottom right, that's going to be this Friday. You don't want to miss it. Hit that subscribe button so you don't miss it. And with that, thanks so much to rock for being with us as well. The floor is all yours for your opening statement. Thank you, James. And thank you to everybody for tuning in. I take it you can see my screen. Yes. Okay, real quick a little bit about myself. I come from a an engineering and manufacturing background. Not a quote unquote scientific background. Although there is quite a bit of science that goes into engineering and manufacturing both. And it is studied at the university level. So it's not like I'm without a an educational background to support my position but be that as it may. My position is young earth creation. The earth is roughly 6000 years old plus or minus 200 years. And so I'm here to defend the biblical historical account. I do believe it is it is absolutely scientific. Absolutely supported by scientific data. To be honest with you what I heard a little while ago in Chris's opening was that this was a theological discussion not scientific per se. To be fairly honest with you I had not heard that before then I came mainly prepared to talk about science. Most of Chris's presentation was science centered not theological so either way, and it sounds like we're kind of along the same lines. So with that I'm going to jump into this. Now shall not take the name of the Lord I got in vain. The reason is to use good arguments they would be creationist. That's my own humor. Evolution is mythology, which I thoroughly believe it's the modern mythology. Okay. Creation versus evolution so in creation there is, it is purposeful it is intentional rapid processes you notice that some of my text is in red and some is in black the red is is intended to delineate between what's unique to creation, or what's unique to evolution. So if it's in black it's kind of a shared region of their approach so rapid processes max six to 10,000 years but like I said my personal position is 6000 years plus or minus about 200 separate ancestry, basic body plans don't change. Evolution on the other hand has no direction it's random. It's very slow processes used at least used to justify you notice that it rapid and slower and black because as creationist we obviously are perfectly fine with very slow processes, and the evolutionist is fine with very rapid processes doesn't really delineate between the two positions. Evolution believes in a 4.5 billion year earth and a 13.8 billion year universe. For the age universal common ancestry and drastic body plan changes over time. Okay, so why do people think that evolution is science is because it's evidence based. Is it meticulous methodology that the dream. Does it withstand the test of time, the are the methods consistent with design and development is a peer reviewed. Is there no conflicting data that renders to possible mutually exclusive interpretations. I'm going to answer those real quick evidence based. Obviously, yes it's it's based has some in evidence. What is the creation position is it meticulous methodology, I would say yes it definitely refers to a methodology that is meticulous. Is it data driven. Yes it does have data behind it. We need to explore exactly what that means later probably doesn't withstand the test of time. Absolutely not. If you don't like the evolution story today stick around, it'll change. The methods are consistent with design and development absolutely not there are two different approaches to origins versus real time material medical and technology advances. And I'll talk about that later. Is it peer reviewed yes there is a peer reviewed system. Is it perfect. Absolutely not. Does it let a lot of garbage through. Absolutely, yes. And doesn't even have to be origins based in terms of how garbage makes it through the peer review system that actually happens in the medical field for example is quite common. No conflicting data that renders to possible but mutually exclusive interpretations. Absolutely yes there is a lot of conflicting data and we'll hopefully get to talk about that a little bit. Why do people think that creation isn't science is it because intelligence can't create life and intelligent designer can't communicate with people. There's no data. A very modern idea that didn't exist in the distant past methods are inconsistent with design and development. No peer review faith based. So first questions real quick intelligence can't create life. Obviously the evolutionists don't think that because that's what experiments like New York and and so on and so forth. So for more modern experience or exactly what they, they attempt to do in some settings, an intelligent designer can't communicate with people that makes no sense. Why do the evolutionists sometimes refer to panspermia and other mechanisms like that look for intelligent life outside of our galaxy, or outside of our solar system as it were. They obviously think that an intelligent designer can communicate with people. Because there's no data, absolutely not. One of the key points to make about this whole discussion is that you don't have different evidence that I do. We all have the same evidence at our disposal, whether you accept it or not. That's a different story creationist often get accused of cherry picking data, I would say that's absolutely false. I'm just about every shred of data week, every shred of evidence we can get I'll put it that way, when you talk about exactly what data might entail but is it a very modern idea that didn't exist in the distant past. Absolutely not. It's been the default position of everybody from the time that the Bible was written in any particular era, you know whether you're talking about the Pentateuch or the the prophets over all the way through the New Testament. That's pretty much the biblical position from any given narrator or characters perspective is that is that the literal creation of Genesis is the truth. They're inconsistent with design and development. No, they're not and they're actually much more consistent with design and development specifically and I'm just going to mention this quickly when we talk about the details later, but deep time extrapolation versus interpolation. They're mutually exclusive ideas when it comes to origins and material sciences for example you cannot use deep time extrapolation to do material science. It just does not work it's a known failure in in science and so the creation position is that with origins we use interpolation, not deep time extrapolation. No peer review, absolutely not true there is absolutely peer review as a matter of fact, creation is published quite frequently in the open literature. And so they're technically using the same peer review system for much of what we believe as the secular community uses for the evolution position based. That's a long discussion I'm going to go too far into that except that I will say that almost never have I heard an evolutionists give a proper rendering of exactly what faith is so is it faith based, I will say yes but I seriously doubt very many people at all. I don't understand exactly what biblical faith is it tends to be rendered in a very modern context and very inaccurate at that so is evolution actually science well extreme appellation extrapolation for dating method says. No, it's incompatible with how you design and build with the limitations in in, like I said medicine technology and material development. The acknowledgement of primordial daughter products this is a big a big deal to me when it comes to radiometric dating, because it's like every single. Radiometric sample that's taken the it's rendered as if the the daughter product could only have come by radioactive decay without giving thought to what process created the elements in the first place and whatever that process was. No matter whether you're an evolutionist or a creationist whatever that process was. It certainly created both parent and daughter simultaneously but acknowledging that kind of renders radiometric dating useless because you don't know what starting point is supposed to be able to analyze samples can't account for existence of heavy elements particularly as it relates to planet building what process has created the uranium that is on the earth today for example that's what I was just talking about. And I will submit that there is not a an evolutionist alive that knows what process has created the uranium that's in our uranium or mines on earth today. Ignores fundamental physics when conflicting data is apparent for example observed erosion rates over deep time lunar recession rate magnetic field decay etc speak volumes against the idea of millions and millions of years. The absolute standard dating method does not exist. Every dating method for deep time timelines beyond accepted archaeological standards is cross checked against another method that has to be cross checked against something else. So there is no absolute dating there. If there were the proof text would be that you could have one particular method that would always work and never fail and never have to be quote unquote calibrated against some other parameters. A couple key notes for evolution deep time can never be demonstrated. Nobody can live long enough to see what a million years looks like or what it does to the environment or to biology or anything else. Radical body plan changes over successive excuse me over successive generations can never be demonstrated. Because in the evolutionary fundamentals, it takes too long. Fundamentally, there is no technology that can ever be developed based on the exclusive characteristics of the evolutionary paradigm. Because things make it different are deep time. You can't use that to develop technology. You can't use unguided random processes to develop technology, and you can't expect your technology to basically change itself drastically over said deep time. Okay, so ultimately, nothing about deep time or evolution can ever be demonstrated because that would require the use of principles exclusive to the creations paradigm. James, if I'm going along, please let me know because I'm not timing myself here. You've got it got about another minute or so. Thank you. Okay, converging lines of evidence creation timeline is based on independent methods that aren't calibrated against each other. One of those methods is called cold subducted slabs is one thing completely independent diverse magnetic field decline completely independent of ocean salinity completely independent of lunar recession population metrics dinosaur soft tissue presence of carbon 14 etc. One of those doesn't require on one of the others as a justification for, for using it and, and keep in mind to that we're not using these as dating methods per se what we're actually using them for is get checks against other methods that might be used to try and date something. Evolutionary timeline is based on dependent methods that are calibrated against each other, which basically gives you a rubber ruler now these. They're not directly connected to each other but when you span deep time you have to make jumps from, say, carbon 14 to oxygen isotopes and barbs to an ice course radiometric dating and geology and so forth. So, so there's kind of leaps in between there so it's not like radio non biological radiometric dating is calibrated against carbon 14 because it's not. Nevertheless, there's a chain there so radiometric dating typically references geology as its backdrop so with that I'm going to stop and yield my time so we can enjoy an open discussion. Thank you very much for that opening as well. And before we jump into the open conversation, do want to say dear friends thrilled to have you here we are excited to let you know if you didn't know about this we are moving over on to tick tock. This is a great opportunity for us to expand modern day debate and exposure in terms of bringing more people to this neutral platform. So do want to let you know I'm going to put that tick tock link in addition to the description box. I'm going to pin it at the top of the chat and that way if you have a tick tock please do follow us there once we get to 1000 followers we unlock the ability to live stream our debates there which will be huge. Thanks for your support and with that. Thanks so much Dr Thompson and T rock the floor is all yours for open dialogue. Yes, Dr. Chris you're mute. I am. All right, I am unmuted now. I do that a lot. So, hey, great. So I have some questions for you, T rock so you so you confirm that you believe that the earth is 6000 years old when when do you date the flood event about how you had it around 4400 years ago. Okay, and do you so as I kind of alluded to in my opening. I feel like creationists often have kind of a fuzzy definition of kinds. Do you want to tell us what kinds are. Oh absolutely that's that's a very important part of the discussion. Let me back up on that I've heard a lot of this discussion that you're alluding to in the in the creation evolution arena and what I gather from evolutionist is that they, they, a lot of them deem the idea of kind useless in biology. Is that your take. As, as a term. Yes, now I sort of think that it. It's, it feels like it's, it's like taking our, you know, our limit, the nomenclature that we use scientific nomenclature for defining species as perhaps at the genus or maybe the family level and that that maybe is a kind I guess. I'm not entirely sure because I hear people talk about like the wolf kind or, you know, other kinds, and so. So, just to be clear, so, so we've got these two different concepts we've got kind versus species, they're obviously very different from each other right so my personal take is the concept of species is very useful in in everyday conversation and in in biological kind of thing. And the reasons it's useful is because just by the species name it informs you of things like size color habitat that it abides in that sort of thing right and and so it is useful for that reason however I also find it extremely scientific, mainly because in a particular regard let me put it that way, like I said I do find it useful in a scientific context but there's a context in which it's completely worthless to me and that is that, for example, if you look at a pit bull in a different species today, you know they're not separate species, their separate breeds of the same species. However, if you had never seen a chihuahua never seen a dog and never seen a pit bull and you only found their fossils, you would automatically conclude that they were different species. I don't know if you would necessarily do that I mean dogs have certain morphological features that are going to be consistent with being a canid, right. So even the skull of a chihuahua and the skull of a pit bull still share those same fundamental features that make it a canid. So at the very least okay maybe we call them different species perhaps if you just happen to see those. But you definitely know that they're I suppose within a kind is that what you mean. Well, I suppose you as an evolutionist would categorize them in perhaps the same genus. Sure. Yeah, I mean because they would have, they would have canid features, they both can a canid features and that's very clear the historical trend though is absolutely that they would be called different species that I would have a hard time disagree with that but I think that you can find some in congruent I mean it's hard to say right because so many species that as we define them from the fossil record it's dependent upon, you know, not like necessarily a wide range of examples it might be dozens or hundreds, if we're lucky. And of course we have some examples where we can find thousands and we can actually look at individual variability within a given species. But you know for like the hominids. We have dozens and dozens of examples for certain species. And it's sometimes can be somewhat tough to say is this, you know, part of this species or that species based on the fossil evidence. I would say that you have a valid point in that there can be a range within a given species. So, I guess, I guess dinosaurs make a good backdrop for me because I think, I think there's a wide and accurate perception out there that that there's sort of a trophy hunting thing among scientists to get to name a particular species or whatever. And so we can literally go find fossils that are practically identical to each other but because they're found either in different regions of the world, or, you know, different depths or whatever, they end up with different species That's not how that works. No, no, no, no, definitely not like you're not going to find virtually identical fossil specimens, whether that's just going to end up being speculated. At least you can recognize that there are morphological differences based on say adolescents versus adult or or early juvenile development and and dimorphism sexual dimorphism between male and female. If you had never seen one of the others. I mean a classic example, another one, just like the dog example is say dear. So it's well known of course that the doe has no antlers and the and the buck does but the but the buck sheds them. So it's like if you found a an identifiable buck in the fossil record but had never seen one in real life and you found it without antlers, you would very likely call it a different species than when you found with them. I don't know if that's necessarily the case. I because we know there there definitely are examples of fossil species where we know like there's males and females and identify them from the evidence that these are males and females. Now, the thing that I'm interested in though is that. So your model is that you have all animals. So, so you don't believe that Noah had all species on the Ark right you like you believe that he had kinds. Correct. Okay, so give me an example of what you're talking about like. Yeah, absolutely. Let me give a comprehensive idea of what a kind is. Yeah. It's super simple really in the any two animals that can potentially, or actually interbreed with each other. And so it only becomes obscured so there there's a concept of ring species and we'll talk about that in a minute but but but for that kind of working from the and going backwards, you see two animals, let's say a gray squirrel and a red squirrel. And let's say you know that they can interbreed with each other then you know they're the same kind. But let's say you've got a gray squirrel and a South American variety and I don't know a lot about squirrels but just just simply get there are there are South American varieties of squirrels that you look at and you go oh that's plainly what I would call a squirrel right but let's say it can't interbreed or or let me let me back up a little bit. Let's say you've never observed that species interbreed with a North American species. Right. And then you might conclude that they're there that you conclude that they're different species, but you have a an instinct that they probably could interbreed. And so maybe a better example is like in the cat family where where you know for tigers can breed right, and you know that that leopards and cheetahs for example can breed, and you know that leopards and lions can interbreed, but you don't necessarily know I don't know that this is true or not, but it's just an example but let's say let's say it's a fact that lions cannot interbreed with cheetahs, but they can with tigers and tigers can with leopards, and leopards can with cheetahs right so this is sort of the concept of the ring species. But because there is a chain just like we do in in like Algebra A, A equals B and B equals C therefore A equals C that's what we're doing with the kind so we know that a lion and a cheetah are the same kind, because there is an interbreed chain between them and the cheetah, and indeed it traces from the lion all the way down to the common house cat. Different different species. I don't think that we have that evidence for cats. And also for the record, red squirrels and gray squirrels cannot interbreed. Okay, fine. That's you see what I'm getting at though. And kind of accept that I think that you're being a little too glib with this idea of interspecies ability to breed. In fact, I think it's pretty limited. So, you know, I'm wondering like, Okay, so do you, for instance, let's say bears, right do you think like there was a bear kind on the on the arc. So that means that the bear species we have today came from that one bear kind, right. Well, and so that's another minor, another, well, not minor, there's another non insignificant point. I'm perfectly happy with the idea that there's more than one bear kind. For example, there are marsupial wolves, right. And then there are, there are placental wolves. I'm perfectly fine with the idea that that's two separate kinds that you have to trace their their pedigrees independently of each other. That's fine. So with bears, I'm fine with the idea that there's more than one bear kind. Okay, so that means so you're fine with that idea. Well, I mean, give me a prediction. Do you think that Noah had one bear kind or multiple bear kind? I, I, my get instinct tells me that there was probably only one but there may be two because when you, when you start looking at like the pandas and the, what's the other there's a, there's a red panda that's like a miniature version, right. And that's not a bear though. It's okay. Okay, but either way, my point is, is that if I knew those details, I might would make a slight difference. But again, it's to me it's, it's trace the pedigree as much as you possibly can. So if I can say for example that a, a Kodiak can interbreed with a polar bear and a polar bear can interbreed with a, with a grizzly and so on and so forth. If I can make a chain to a panda to it to the giant pandas, then I would call them the same. We can, we can barely get pandas to breed with themselves. So band as definitely cannot breed with other bears. So, um, so, okay, that's interesting. And I'm glad that we're talking about the bears because I hope you can bear with me. I wanted to actually share a slide with you a couple of slides. If I could bring that up. Okay, so hold on one second. Do this. Nope. There we go. And share. Okay, so hopefully that is up crystal clear. Okay. All right, so there are eight different species of living bears. Here's a list of them. We got the polar bear the brown bear the American black bear, the Asian black bear, the sloth bear, the sun bear, the spectacle bear and the giant panda, which is a type of bear. So if all eight species are derived from like the two bear kind animals, right, there's a male and a female on Noah's Ark. Then that should be evident in molecular clocks like I talked about. And you're talking about DNA specifically. Yeah, DNA right because that obviously bears a DNA right we can talk about morphologically you can talk about how they enter breed, but I'm talking about DNA. Another thing about this is that, okay, so there's been studies to look at this. And if they looked at the genetic sequence of 14 different autosomal introns, that's the spaces between exons within gene. So these are non coding portions of the DNA from several individuals across different species to account for heterozygosity. Okay, a lot of terms in there. And this is the basic branch that they found and superficially you might be like, Oh, sure, Noah's Ark would result in all these bears and you're right that polar bears can interbreed with brown bears, even though we call them different species. There isn't a lot of great evidence that American black bears can interbreed but there may be some. And then we have these Asiatic bears which seem to be kind of a different branch. But this is the thing so we can date them. So if you use the molecular dating methods that I talked about. I think that the divergence between polar bears and brown bears was around 620,000 years ago. And then the American black bear that goes back to sit 940,000 years ago. And then, you know, it was about 1.7 million years ago when there was a split between the North American bears and the, and the Asian bears. Okay, and then we can kind of go through for the each of these. Great. All right, but maybe, maybe evolutionists like you said, maybe we're completely wrong. We have this completely, you know, we're totally backwards and that in fact like we're just totally discounting these rapid processes that you're talking about. The thing is about the bear kinds, you also have the spectacle bear. So that's another bear that the data shows that their DNA is different enough where it would have to be around 5.8 million years ago, where they diverged. And if you include the panda, well that's around 12.5 million years ago and the spectacle bear cannot interbreed with any of these other bears and obviously pandas cannot either. Okay, so this is a figure taken from there. So if the creationists, if what we're going to do is we're going to assume that like Noah's Ark. So a bear that got off of the Ark, 4,400 years ago, like two bears, I guess, right, a mama bear and a papa bear. And so 4,400 years ago that that mama bear got off the Ark, maybe they had two that they had four babies I guess right a male and a female and one male and female went to China and and eventually that line turned into the to the giant panda and then you would have all these other ones right that went somewhere else and eventually you know some descendants went to Asia and then some descendants went to North America. All this would have had to happen within 4,400 years. And so what this means, hold on, let me finish. So with the molecular evidence, what this means is that the split for the spectacle bear from the rest of the bears would have have to have only happened around 2070 years ago around the time of Jesus Christ, right. So that's when the spectacle bear somehow diverged. And then these other bears, if you believe the molecular evidence right we're looking at the same like evidence. This would mean that polar bears and brown bears split only 218 years ago. That would mean that with if you believe the evidence that the molecular clock, you know, works with random mutation in these non coding regions from a single bear kind that polar bears and brown bears would split in 1796. Obviously, we know that there are bears that been polar bears around for a long time right these are some pictures from like the 1600s and the 1700s, and even 1000 year old polar bear statuettes carved from like Native American tribes in Canada. So you have to have an explanation for this that fits the creationist model and I don't know if you do. If you do count for these molecular differences across these bears, you know, if you also include the giant panda I suppose what you're saying is that, well that must mean Noah also had a giant panda on the Ark. So, okay, now, can you go, we go back and put your slide with the with the branching of the bears. Yeah, yeah, no problem. So, a couple things. What you're using for an average mutation rate for your molecular clock is absolutely going to affect the numbers you splash on it on a graphic like that right. So, as I've already pointed out, and so when you when you look at things like the Ark encounter, they do a fair amount of research, me not being a biologist. I'm not the one to to try and give you super specific details here, but you know whenever you go to the Ark encounter that they have to account for this exact same thing how do you how do you justify the given number of species in the world today with what you start with on the Ark. What they do with this is they in this case, they would assume three different bear kinds probably. I don't. Again, I'm not the biologist and I don't know those specific details but they do that they basically tend to fatten the numbers in favor of the quote unquote evolutionist objections so if you tell me there are three different bear kinds I'm perfectly fine with that that means two of your supposed splits are completely non issue. So you're saying that Noah had giant pandas on the Ark. He also had spectacle bears on the Ark, and then some other bear kind that ended up being the North American version and the South American or sorry the Asian version. Well, to be more specific, I'm not saying he had giant pandas. I'm saying he had the giant panda ancestor and perhaps one one pair of ancestors is what accounts for all of our giant pandas today I'm not suggesting that they had to look exactly like what we see today because I don't think they probably they probably did not. If these are specially created individuals. How do you account for the fact that like this, for instance, the DNA of a spectacle bear would have really high homology to all kinds of genes to all these other bears this cluster of bears that makes up the Asian population in the Yeah, no that's that's a very fair question and it has a very logical common sense answer to it and that is so in the evolutionary view, obviously those those DNA similarities come from common ancestry right. However, in the creationist view it's designed but I'm going to be a lot more specific than just saying it's designed. You being in the particular field you're in I think you can attest to this very clearly. It's the food source and the environment that tie the similarities together and so granted two different animals that are very similar to each other can have completely different food sources and yet share quite a bit in common as far as DNA I get that. But as a broader conversation for all of homologies and all of DNA similarities. It's, it's pretty common sense that for example, a fly a worm a bear as it were a person can all eat an apple and get the health benefits from eating that apple right so what does the apple do for any one of us well it. It promotes growth development reproduction metabolism. Even things like disease resistance or immunities and that sort of thing. So the food source has to account for that and what that means to me not being a chemist either. The molecules that your body uses the vitamins, the fiber, the protein whatever it is that's in your food source has to be able to be used. Just like I think of a mechanical interface between a net and a bolt kind of thing. The chemicals in your food source have to be able to support your DNA and your life cycles. So how do I account for the similarities between spectacle bears and the other bears. It's the food source and the fact that they probably have quite a bit of overlap in their in their life cycles. You've got a problem here because giant pandas. Okay, they're also very similar to the other bears. You're saying they're specially created and completely separate but they're very similar genetically. They're they eat. Do you know what they eat bamboo. Right. They do any of these other bears eat bamboo. No. Okay, are there other carnivores that eat bamboo. Okay, well, I have DNA that's very, very similar to all these other bears, but then is a lot less different. It's not quite as similar as it is to say like the other carnivores like foxes and coyotes and wolves. So what what vitamins does bamboo have in it. I mean, I don't know. Okay, so thank you for making my point. That's what I was saying, an apple. It's totally different from a piece of cauliflower have a lot of overlap in terms of the vitamin content and the nutrient content that's in them. So there's absolutely no surprise to me that panda bear eats bamboo and shares a lot of DNA similarity with other bears. They the other bears also most of them. I don't think any bears are obligate carnivores. You can correct me. That's true. They only like there aren't too many mammals that are obligate carnivores. So they all so they all rely on plant and vegetation matter to some degree. But they largely get a lot of their nutrition from from hunting. Panda are exclusively bamboo, they have to eat bamboo to survive. And that's fine. But what that tells me is that as a scientist, if you have not investigated that particular aspect of the relationship across the animal kingdom, let alone across the subset like this, you're not really investigating the full spectrum of possibilities. Oh, no, people have investigated and, you know, we can walk through it like this is part of the phylogenetic challenge. You know, you accept that evolution is true, at least within kinds, and that you can get speciation events in a very rapid way. And, and, you know, I'm glad that we agree on that and that natural selection, you obviously agree that natural selection can lead to divergence of populations and then have, you know, significant change and overall morphology. Yeah, so on natural selection, just a quick word on that. I'm not one, you know, there are creationists that say there is no such thing as natural selection, right. I don't know if you've ever heard that or not. I think most creationists accept natural selection. That is true. I'm just, I'm just pointing out that there are some that right. And I'm just pointing out that I'm not one of those I do accept the idea of natural selection but but I will caveat that with, I think evolutionist way over generalize the concept. So, let's kind of look at it from, from this perspective for just a minute because you made some points back in your presentation about hyper evolution. Yes. And so you said, you said specifically not enough time for this level of speciation. So tell me again how many species of bears are there. Well, there's eight species of their species. So, you know, that doesn't include fossil species for which we actually actually have their genetics. So in a 4400 year timeline. If the average doubling time if there were six bears on the Ark and the average doubling time this is a trick question, by the way. If the average doubling time of each of those six bears to three different kinds is what I'm describing here. But if the average doubling time is 149 years for their population. Okay. How many bears would there be in the world today. So if they wait the average doubling time around 149 years for the six bears that we're talking about that were on the Ark right here. But. Okay, but but I, there's only two of them. I'll answer the question for you. I'm not expecting you do the math on the side. The answer is about 7 billion 7 billion. Okay. Yeah, I think that's going to increase. You know what's unique about that number. I mean, about all of those numbers. Those numbers represent the actual number of reproducing people on the Ark the current population roughly it's it's more than that I think now but and and the actual average doubling time. So what that tells me not being a biologist is that if 149 years is roughly twice the average human lifespan. And that average being as proud as it is is is owed largely to things like natural disaster war disease and famine and that sort of thing that have killed a lot of people off between now and then otherwise we would have a lot more people on on the planet today. So, in other words, the potential for people and people and bears are, I'm going to say they're at least in the same ballpark. The potential for people in terms of doubling time is like on the order of 15 years, every 15 years now starting out the gate with the first two that's not obvious that's obviously not going to be the case probably but over time the average becomes that very easily, easily in the You're assuming that every single person survives right. No, that's what the 149 years informs you that you're not assuming I see okay I see that's interesting. Okay, so. So the point is is that if if we were anywhere near our potential. You know what the average population doubling time for people is now. It's like 39 years right it's it's from the US government statistics it's 39 years. If our doubling time had actually averaged 39 years since the time of the flood, there would be so many people on the planet there wouldn't be room to move literally. So the point is when you talk about the bears and the and you're saying not enough time. Yeah for speciation, because that's a different and so this is exactly my point. Okay, molecular differences, what drives molecular differences, and what I'm saying is in short, there is a food supply to consider. There is a. I mean you're saying natural selection has lead led to molecular differences so these animals can adapt. No, that's not what I'm saying. Okay, I'm saying why are you saying if you take the major I'm saying if you take the major contributors to molecular differences. They would be things like the food supply the specific chemistry of the food supply chemistry of the water supply temperature I think you would know as well as anybody in this in this arena that temperature affects chemical reaction right. It can be a catalyst or water supply it's hydrogen and oxygen right. No. Okay, you've never gotten a mineral report from your local water. Okay, sure there's some trace minerals. What real science you're right. Sure. I mean you're talking. It's going to be hydrogen and oxygen. That's that's very generalized. The animals that drink from the muddy muddy rivers. That's not just oxygen and hydrogen. It's majority oxygen and hydrogen. I think you're avoiding. Like what percent of muddy water would you say it like those molecules are non water molecules. Well, I mean look at the difference. I mean that's that's a super generalized double look at the density difference between salt water and fresh water that sort of informs you what that volume is going to be right. And so muddy water how muddy is it. I mean there's there's a variety of muddiness so to speak. So let's go back to like the arc right we're gonna a little lost on the muddy water and arguing about muddy water. Let me make this specific point I'll tie it all together real quick for you and then take your time and respond. So I've named three four different factors that directly affect chemistry. The food supply, the water supply, temperature, hydration levels and in other words environmental factors right. We've got eight species of bear. Now the question is if you can mix and match environment with food and water chemistry. For example, you're in the northern cold climates with a specific food source versus being in a tropical environment with a completely different food source. So if you mix and match those factors in a in a broad spectrum, and it's very broad. You're describing a huge spectrum of chemistry that has to directly interface with the DNA that is. Wait, how does the chemistry interface with the DNA. Have you ever taken medicine before come on. Yes, I'm a neuroscientist I teach it. Okay, how does the how do the chemicals in your medicine affect your body in real time. Okay, if you're talking about, okay, first of all, most chemicals that you put into your body get digested, and they have to be processed and there's enormous processing that happens before it gets to. Does it take millions of years, which is the thing that's going to be passed down from generation to generation. Right. Yeah. So like just because you drink some muddy water that doesn't mean that the chemicals in the muddy water are actually going to affect the germline which is the one thing that goes from one individual to your office. Can I make a real quick little point on that. Sure. There's a reason there's a surgeon winner generals warning on cigarettes and and other products like that and a reason why pregnant women are advised do not take this do not think that. Are they not affecting the germline. No, not in pregnant women know. So pregnant woman already is with it with child and the chemicals and cigarettes will have a substantial effect on the growing fetus this includes the nicotine will act on nicotinic receptors, which are really important for the development of the brain. And so you're going to have huge effects and overall brain development if you get put nicotine into the fetus and then it's affecting it but that doesn't mean it's affecting the DNA. I agree with most of that but but let's paint. That's not how many patients you understand a little better picture than that for real life science. Okay, so there are chemicals that are metagenic. If a 15 year old takes smokes, cigarettes drinks alcohol takes illicit drugs for for six years straight and then has a baby. Are you telling me that the bed and completely quits those things before they, they, you know, decide to reproduce. Are you telling me that that six years worth of ingesting those chemicals is not going to affect their offspring. I don't think so no. I'm sorry that's really special. Do you have any evidence that say certain kinds of drugs, illicit drugs are going to actually affect the germline. Alright, I honestly, I think we're getting way off topic. Let's go back to the arc a little bit and personally I think it's too specific for the average evolutionist. Okay, perhaps, but the thing is, alright, you think that there were three bear kinds on the arc now, right so it's not just one it's three. And to be clear, I'm not changing my view per se I'm just saying I've always allowed for the fact that there's more than one. Okay, as the evidence comes about. So the thing is like bears, there's not that many bears that many different kinds of bears. Right there, but we can look at other species groups of species. For instance, if you look at the myomorphs, I don't know if you're familiar with the myomorphs. But that includes, it's a subset of rodents. Okay, so we're not even talking about all rodents. We're talking about a subset of rodents. There are 1,524 different species of just myomorph. That includes mice, rats, voles, hamsters, jacanas, there's all kinds of weird little rodents. Are you, and we know that there are different species like they cannot interbreed you cannot get a mouse to breed with a rat, for instance, and you're positive 1,500 different species. Yes, people have worked with these. Let me, let me get you to answer a specific question real quick. You're positive that there is no interbreeding connectivity amongst those 1,500. All of them, I can't say for all of them, but for a lot of them. That's kind of important. Okay, for a lot of them, yes, they are separate species. Absolutely. And in fact, we know that like the genetic distance for a lot of the myomorphs goes back a lot farther than it is between say chimpanzees and humans. We don't have even the genetic capacity, like for instance, a mouse and a rat are more different genetically than chimpanzees are to humans. And we know that humans and chimps can't interbreed. Right, I assume you would agree with that. Sure. Right. Okay. I mean, given that they're specially created right so so rats and mice cannot interbreed. And this is true for the vast, vast, vast majority of the 1,500 different species of myomorphs. There's one thing that Noah went around and picked up all these little rodent like creatures all across the world and put them on the Ark and then had them separate. And then had had 1,500 different species of them. Obviously that's not what I'm saying. Okay, well, then what are you saying? So let's compare that to the bears real quick. Your comment, not enough time for this level of speciation. Yes. All you're talking about is eight, basically subpopulations separating from each other. No, they're not subpopulations. They're not subpopulations. Call them whatever, sorry, maybe biologically the incorrect word, but you get the idea, eight separate populations of diverge. And to me that's really trivial in a 4,400 year time. And that's one example. Okay. We'll take another one. Now you want to talk about the rodents, that's fine. You're describing 1500 species. You're not super, and I'm not faulting you for this, but you're not being super specific about how much inner breeding capability there is amongst that group. Very, very limited if at all. Whatever. So, and that's fine. But the point is, is that even 1500 divergent populations, if that's the term you prefer to describe 1500 divergent populations. And that's worst case scenario. Again, among rodents, I would happily allow for a variety of different individually created kinds. 1500 though worst case scenario is trivial for a 4,400 year time span. It's trivial. To have that many species emerge over 4,400 to have that specifically, let me describe it this way to have that many divergent populations. Right. So I'm describing worst case scenario, which I don't actually subscribe to, but for your sake and the evolution of sake, to mice on the art get off. They start having babies. What's the litter size? Okay, already I know that it's big. So the point is, we have historical evidence of these different species though. That's fine. That's fine. And I'm describing archeological evidence. You're saying the specification. How do you get a rat? Okay. So, are you saying that like Noah had rats on them on the Ark and then mice on the Ark, and then also voles and then like metal voles and prairie voles. Not necessarily. And montane voles. Because they don't, they can't interbreed. They cannot interbreed. Worst case scenario for biological processes in the normal world. So I assume I'm encompassing something where let's just say for the sake of argument, there were 30 varieties of rats or mice or voles. There's more than that. Right. I'm saying at the Ark. Okay. Obligate passengers on the Ark 30, but I'm narrowing it down even further to one. And I'm saying what I'm saying is if you can do it with one created kind of rat, we'll call it, you can absolutely do it with 30. Would you agree? If it could hypothetically be done. Wouldn't this also be seen in the DNA as well as in the historical record of the people living in areas with rodents? Wouldn't they have also seen animals? That's really deceptive. What's deceptive about that? Well, because you can have radical DNA changes in a very short time. And if you don't actually see it happen, and so a good case in point is probably the marbled crayfish that I know about. And I know very little about it to be to be clear, but as I understand it, marbled crayfish had literally a genome, a full genome duplication. Pretty much happened in a single generation, right? Yeah. And so their offspring, I guess, is understanding could not or cannot interbreed with parent population, right? I work with a species that's tetraploid. So that means that it also had a genome duplication relative to other sister species. So I work with the African clawed frog and that also had a genome duplication event. Now this didn't happen in a timeline that people saw it necessarily. I mean, I suppose you might. So I guess I guess the bigger point to make on that in the marble crayfish example, because you get a full genome duplication in a single generation. The point to be made there is that you would not apply a standard evolutionary mutation rate to that species. You can still apply a standard evolutionary mutation rate to that species because there's still the original genome that's there. Now what often happens is now in a genome duplication event, instead of having two pairs of chromosomes, now you have four pairs. And what we see is surprisingly, because you have two pairs that are there to just kind of work and do the thing that the animal needs, you've got now new genetic material for it to diverge and do new things. And that's one of the reasons why people study the African clawed frog or whether they do, because they're very interested in, well, how does an animal that had this genome duplication event that seemed to have occurred relatively as best as we can tell it was around 10 million years ago. But we can still look at the genetic sequence because it's still there. And so we can compare the African clawed frog, Xenopus lavus to Xenopus tropicalis, which is a sister species. And that is a diploid. And we know that like their last common ancestor was around 10 to 12 million years ago, there was a duplication event. And now like they have, they have doubled the number of chromosomes. And, but there's still been the slow mutation that's occurred. And there's lots of these, they're called the pinniped frogs, there's a bunch of these kind of African fully aquatic frogs. I suppose you might call them all one kind, but there's a bunch of different species. And the mutation rate between them varies quite a bit like that. I'm sorry, not the mutation rate. The differences between the genetic sequences varies quite a bit where they don't all diverge at the same time. Like the ancestry for the different Xenopus species goes back some distance. And it varies quite a bit. So, I mean, I think it should go without saying though, if if a species like the marble crayfish can have such a drastic change in their in their DNA in a single generation. It's also well understood that things like like chromosome fusion, complete inversions of long segments can all happen in a single generation. And they can have profound physiological implications, right? Right. No, not just physiological, but I, and I wouldn't even necessarily say substantially physiological, but what I would say is that this would likely lead to a, you know, probably genetic isolation. So if you have a population of animals that had a genetic duplication, and as long as like, because it's generally going to happen in one individual, but if a lot is somehow you can get it across multiple individuals where they can interbreed. Obviously, that's going to lead to genetic isolation. Surprisingly, though, even the Xenopus lavis and the Xenopus tropicalis can interbreed and create hybrids, but they can only do it if the female is the is the lavis with the four chromosomes. If the female is the tropicalis, there's no viable offspring that occurs. And that's because the lavis has telomers that have evolved to allow for segregating enough chromosomes. And so if you do a hybrid between a female lavis and a male tropicalis, the tropicalis has two sets of only two pairs of chromosomes that lavis has four pairs. And the female egg has the telomers that can allow for it to pull away the three chromosomes. Now, those individuals, they're not viable, but they cannot interbreed. There's not like a separate species. I apologize. I don't mean to interrupt. James was gone for a second. He was gone. James is back. I'm going to ask real quick, James, can you go to commercial break for just a second? And I need about 60 to 120 seconds and I'll be right back. You bet. Want to let you know, folks? Oh, you're on mute, James. Gladly. Go ahead, T Rock. And want to let you know, folks, if you have not already checked out the description box, our guests are linked there. That includes at the podcast. 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And as I said, that link is in the description box as well as pinned to the top of the chat. Ready for you to rock. Thank you, James. I apologize. I just had to get a drink. My mouth was getting really dry there. Okay, so I guess one of my major points here on this whole, you know, how much time does it take to get 1500 species of something from X number of kinds. I'm telling you that it's trivial to get 1500 different species, but I'm easily accepting the idea that there were 30 different kinds that contribute to the existing 1500 species. The, the, the crayfish example. Another example would be like grasshoppers and locusts. As I understand it, there's a species of grasshopper that literally morphs itself in real time to more of a locust. Well, I guess the locust has a specific look and a specific social behavior to it. And they do it in real time, but the difference between their genes is virtually zero, right? They're not reprogramming their genes. It's epigenetics that's doing it. So, and chromosome fusion and other types of broad scale inversions and swaps and that kind of thing that happened in the genome. You can get pretty profound effects in a very short time. So, if you take the mouse example, I asked the question, how many is in a litter? Well, it's a large number, right? So, but I'll keep it conservative and let's just say there's only six. We potentially have three new mating pairs that can go three other directions. The parent population can continue breeding, continue spitting out six, a litter of six every so often, whatever their breeding cycle is. And then you've got these original, the original offspring. They're still in the same conditions. How do you get speciation? Well, that's what that's what I was describing the chemistry of the food source for because if two of the mice go north, they're eating, they're in a completely different chemical and environmental. But chemicals that you eat don't, they don't, okay. So, you're saying that the chemicals that you're eating are affecting your DNA in the germ line and that's the thing that's causing speciation. Well, like I said, chemistry and environmental factors, so level of hydration, for example. So if you're a farmer and you want your peppers to be hotter, what do you do? You change what you feed them, you change the amount of water you give them, right? That's not changing the DNA though. Okay. But that's what we're talking about. Okay. I'm not insisting DNA has to change because you change the food source, but it does change occasionally. But we know that the DNA is different in these different species. But you also know the chemistry directly, the chemistry of the food supply has to directly interact with your DNA. It doesn't. Personally, I'm just absolutely appalled that a biochemist, I'm going to call you a biochemist. I'm a neuroscientist. Trust me, the food that you eat is not filtering through your body and touching on DNA throughout your entire body. That is not true. Every single cell in your body has to receive hydration and nutrients. Every single cell in your body. The DNA is in the cells. Okay. Oh, man. Come on. At every basic chemistry level, when you take aspirin for a headache, that aspirin, now there's a couple points to be made there because you talked about affecting pregnancy, but not germline. And you said, what's your proof? Well, my proof would start with, go back and talk to the surgeon general again and see how many warnings they have to mothers who wish to become pregnant. I don't know if they do. The thing is, mutagenesis, there are chemicals that will induce mutagenesis. That is a term. You can go to any MSDS, like long list, and you can see what are mutagenic chemicals. In food, there aren't, I mean, I'm sure there are probably some examples of food out there that have some mutagenic capacity. If you eat too much sugar, it's probably not on your list, but if you eat too much sugar. What causes mutations in DNA? I don't think I would say that very confidently if I were you. And the reason is, the reason is, is because if diabetes, for example, can be inherited from the parents, right? Sure. That's because there's already a mutation in the DNA that made that person prone to getting diabetes. What caused that mutation? I mean, there was probably just a random mutation that occurred at some point. There's some debate over whether some of these alleles for people to be prone to getting diabetes, if that they may actually have some benefit, and that the population may be supporting people with an allele for insulin production that would under certain conditions lead to diabetes, but would be advantageous under, say, famine conditions. Now, we don't live in famine conditions. We live in an environment of indulgence, and it's ridiculous the amount of sugar and food that we can eat. So now we're at a disadvantage in those kinds of populations, but people who have those mutations would be, you know, they're speculated that they may have certain advantages under certain environmental conditions. And so what I'm saying though... But that mutation happened a long time ago. It's not because they ate sugar. Not because what was it from then? It's not because they ate sugar. What was it from? The sugar did not cause the mutation. What was it from? I don't know. And how can you say it wasn't sugar? How can you say it wasn't sugar if you don't even know what the cause is? You're telling me that a mutation we know that's been around for a very long time was caused by sugar, and that's why we have diabetes today. I'm not trying to make a direct claim that sugar is responsible for the first mutation where diabetes... That's not my point. How does that work? If a line of people eat... Let's start with the mother-father. If the parents eat a pound of sugar every single day and then you take another couple that they don't eat sugar, they eat a much more balanced diet, which one do you suppose is going to end up with diabetes in their own lifetime disregarding their offspring? That doesn't affect mutagenesis. No, no. Hear me out. Right. It is well understood. You're talking about the completely unrelated issue. It is well and no, we're not. There's a direct correlation here. As a scientist, you should be able to put this together. And I apologize. I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but I think it's going to be super obvious because like when it comes to sugar and diabetes in particular, it is well known that you can induce diabetes in people. Sure. Yes. But that doesn't mean that that's caused mutations in DNA. But if first generation does that, and then they teach their children to do that, and then their children teach their grandchildren over time, you will get some mutations that arise from your diet. No. Guaranteed. That's not how that works. I think you need to talk to an actual geneticist, somebody like James Ture. I think he would fully endorse my position on this. I don't think so. But after a few generations of a family eating sugar that they're going to have a mutation to diabetes. At the end of the day, be as honest as you can here. At the end of the day, in your worldview, the genome is just a compilation of chemicals. I mean, it's four basic nucleotides. Yes. Okay. Right. For specific molecules. Just saying that these are specific chemicals that have a certain affinity for each other. And we have molecular processes in each cell that allows for the duplication of DNA and to make sure that there's air correction mechanisms. I mean, we can go on and on about this. Let's get back on topic. Let's talk about evolution. Now, where's your position on Neanderthals? Neanderthals. Do you think Neanderthals existed? Fully human. Okay. They're fully human. Okay. So have you paid any attention at all to the recent work on ancient DNA from Neanderthals? I've paid some attention. Yeah. I understand that like almost every human alive has some very small percentage of quote unquote Neanderthal DNA. Yeah. Right. Now, and there was a Nobel Prize. The last Nobel Prize went out to the guy who had been working on ancient DNA from Neanderthals specimens, right? Savante Pablo is his name. So the date, the DNA from Neanderthals shows that yes, they have high homology to human DNA. That's to be expected given that they are human. However, the differences between Neanderthal DNA and human DNA are so great that it's so much greater than any two humans compared to each other. Okay. How do you explain that if they're just human? Again, it goes back to my whole reason for bringing any of the chemistry stuff up is that your DNA in the evolutionist worldview is just chemicals and they have to react in the exact same predictable fashion that any other type of chemistry would work. Put a NaCl molecule next to an H2O molecule and there's a certain thing that happens from that chemical interface, right? So what I'm saying is, okay, there are large differences between Neanderthal DNA and modern human DNA. Fine, where did it come from? It came from a difference in chemistry or an exposure that they had to chemistry. Okay. Now, I want to kind of walk through the phylogenetic challenge a little bit. So I don't know if you're familiar with it, but basically... Not terribly. Okay, so you can basically take any three sort of organisms, put them in a room, and you can always kind of find two organisms that are more similar to each other than the third. And then you can kind of go beyond that. So like if we have Neanderthals and humans, and then we have a chimpanzee in the room, you obviously, I think you and I would both agree that Neanderthals and humans are more similar to each other than chimpanzees. And you would agree that humans and Neanderthals share a common ancestor. That was Adam and Eve, I guess, is what you believe. Well, more recently it would be Noah and his wife. Well, I mean, okay, so you think that there are still Neanderthals? No, I'm saying the Neanderthals. What of them was a Neanderthal? I'm saying that the Neanderthals that you find are post-flood, specifically not pre-flood. How are they post-flood? Where do you find them? In caves. In caves, yeah. Thank you. Yes. So you're saying that, well, which of Noah's sons was a Neanderthal? Again, I'll be honest with you, I am incredibly taken by surprise. Shem, Japhit, and who's the other one? Shem, Ham, and Japhit. Ham, yes. Right. I like Ham. I like Ham. Okay. So without knowing a ton about how the genetics trace somebody like Nathaniel Jensen would be a much better source for very specific details. But what I'm suggesting is Neanderthals were an offshoot probably from the, well, they went north, right? So that would be the line of Japheth. Does that mean Japheth was a quote unquote Neanderthal? That whole thing. And so for the audience's sake, what is the genus species of modern human? Yeah, it's homo. It's, it's the genus species is homo sapien, right? That's right. Oh, genus species. Yes, homo sapien. And what is the genus species specifically just those two of Neanderthals? Oh, homo Neanderthal. No, it's homo sapien Neanderthal. That is not, there's not a consensus on that. Let me show you why. I just saw this a day or two ago. Okay. Well, I'm going to share my screen here. It's up James. Hopefully this can be seen. Okay. So this is data from Savante Pavo. This is old data from 1997. He's done tons of work on this. I encourage anyone to look up work from Savante Pavo, Google his name. He's got the weird little umlauts in his name because he's Swedish. But he's got amazing work that he's done. So what they've done here is that they've looked at human to human differences. They've looked at human to human differences. They've looked at human to human differences. They've looked at human to human differences in mitochondrial DNA. And any given mitochondrial human human difference will be, you know, as little as one or zero, probably up to around 15 or so. And this is the distribution of the population, the number of pairs that you can find between human to human differences. So you're not going to find any two humans that differ in this stretch of mitochondrial DNA by more than like 15 or 16 base pairs. So this is from Shem and J. Feth and Ham, right? So one of them. These differences are now around 20, 25 or 30 mutations in mitochondrial DNA relative to humans. And then humans to chimp. Now we're talking about 50 to 60 mutations. So humans and Neanderthals, when you compare those two, they are different. And they're different so much that might, we know mitochondrial DNA does not mutate at some sort of massive, rapid rate. So how do you explain? To me, that's problematic. Okay. And I'm assuming you're probably having to say that based on modern genomic studies and mutation rate studies. But then how do you know that today's rates apply to 3,000 years ago, 4,000 years ago, 8,000 years ago? If they applied to humans, they would also apply to Neanderthals. What you're saying are humans, I would agree that they're a human like ancestor as well, right? Or human like cousin to homo sapiens. Yet they're different, right? So if the mutation rate was the same, then we would just see a broader distribution of mutations. The Neanderthals should not be different than humans, but they're distinctly different. That's a super extrapolated interpretation. And the reason I say that is because like I said, you've got modern mutation rates that are easy to study because you can get tons and tons and thousands and tens of thousands of samples to study, right? In real time, not so much with 3,000 years ago, with specimens from 3,000 years ago. And so ultimately you're still asking the same question. Why such huge differences between Neanderthal DNA and modern human DNA? I'm telling you chemistry is much, much faster than a 100,000 year timeline. Biological processes, name me one biological process that is slower than 80 years, or faster than 80 years. Name me one. Perhaps the Neanderthals are just eating too much sugar. I mean, that's real funny and everything. I know that's real funny for the sake of debate, but let's be a little more realistic here. We're the Neanderthals drinking filtered water. And neither were the humans back then? How do you know? You think the humans had like Brita filters back then? Come on, come on. You're the scientist. You're supposed to kind of apply these ideas to your actual science. I know as a non-scientist, I know that if I go to the Grand Canyon, for example, and I'm drinking a stream that's flowing through the bottom of the canyon, if it's going through a gravel bed, it's effectively filtered much better than, say, drinking from the Verticus River down the road from my house. Because filtration happens in nature. You're not going to be able to filter out like diluted chemicals that are in water. You got to be kidding. You got to be kidding. Have you ever dug a well? I've never dug a well, no. Thank you. Yeah, okay. Yeah, you can filter. You can filter. 5,000 years ago, you could filter water naturally. Sure. I mean, it can do a substantial amount. But if there's an actual chemical that's diluted in the water, unless it goes through like some sort of carbon filtration, which I suppose is possible. This is one of my greater points about this hand-waving idea. You're basically, it's a false dichotomy. You're either totally filtered in the modern context of Brita filters, or you're unfiltered, or okay, you can do a little bit. But there's a spectrum there, and there are a lot more chemicals in the water than just mud or clay. So you're saying, okay. So the Neanderthals that were found in caves that Savante Pavo has gotten DNA from, they were ancestors of the three people on the Ark. And specifically the line of J-5th, I'm fairly confident in that, yes. Okay, why do you say that? Well, because they went north, and that's where the line of J-5th went. The region that the Neanderthal bones are found is in the northern part. So just a quick biblical reference here as to why you find them in caves is because if you read the text of the Bible, they describe in multiple places throughout the Old Testament how the custom was, for example, Abraham, when his wife Sarah died. And again, when Joseph died, they did this with Joseph's body. But Abraham went and purchased a field and buried his wife's bones in a cave. It was a very common practice back then. So to me, it is a zero surprise whatsoever that modern scientists go around and find human bones in caves. It's perfectly in line with what the Bible says. Now where did Shen go? Shen represents the Asiatic group. Now are you familiar with Denisovans? Vaglia. All right, they are a sister taxa to Neanderthals. Their DNA is more similar to each other. We find Denisovans in Asia. Okay. And how did that happen? Well, I mean, they're people. One of the greater points to make here about all of this entire discussion has to do with selective breeding. And so it's not hardly ever mentioned in the context of this type of conversation. But humans have been selectively breeding each other for thousands of years. So to me, there's, you can't really call it an anomaly or an outlier or anything else because you know humans are in control of themselves. And in a local region, to some degree, they're in control of the local population. So to me, there's no surprise that either, that both cases are actually simultaneously true, that Shem's line went to Asia, that Jfest's line went north into more of a European setting. And then there's also crosses between them. A varying degrees, a varying degrees too. So for example, I'm married to a Mexican woman and I'm full on blonde hair, blue-eyed Caucasian, right? And so what genetic result do you get if my kids who are half and half, if they, for instance, one of them marries a full Mexican and the other one marries a full Caucasian, you end up with two different results or let's say they go off and marry somebody of a different ethnic background. The point is that the number of possible combinations is pretty unlimited and it's doable in a very short period of time. Okay. This has been illuminating. I, I'm not too sure what more we can say. The, and you obviously believe dinosaurs were on the Ark, right? Oh, absolutely. Okay. I don't think there's any real dinosaurs today. I highly doubt it. You doubt it. I mean, I only say it that way. I would say no, absolute no, but there's always the remote possibility that a very small population turns up in a very remote part of Africa, for example. But by and large, I believe, yes, they are extinct. Okay. This might. Why is that wrong of me to believe they're extinct? So what about, yes, I think that, well, I mean, except for birds, I don't think they're dinosaurs, but that's as far as we have. I don't think that definition by ancestry. But I mean, what's your point about the dinosaurs? I'm just curious, like, because we're talking about like, as per the evolution perspective is that dinosaurs were the dominant land terrestrial species, tetrapod species up until 65 million years ago when there was, you know, the asteroid that had struck the earth and pulled off the dinosaurs. Now you think that that did not happen. Because we know that there's an asteroid impact site, right? I think to me it's kind of common sense that you say the asteroid is the cause for the extinction event, yet 100% of the dinosaur bones are found in waterborne sediment. Because that's how fossilization occurs. Okay. We know that. Okay. You don't get fossilization under a lot of different conditions. It's under actually very particular conditions. Sure. And so there's all kinds of dinosaurs that are out there. It would have been some near, you know, across the 125 million years that there were dinosaurs. And in areas where they would have been fossilized. And so you also find said dinosaur fossils that are virtually always intermingled in layers that are also laden with marine fossils. That's not entirely true. No, like there's certainly not. Like there's plenty of fossil dinosaurs that are found that are not in marine layers. Not in marine. What are you calling a marine layer? Marine, like oceanic derives. And had any other not marine layers. Well, we can tell from the actual like sediments, right? I'm not a geologist, right? So I'm only going on a little bit of, I don't, I'm a neuroscientist. So I only study brains. But there's plenty of examples along those lines. Let me share a quick little, 10 bit of information for you on that very point, because, because that, that is a point that is widely contested by evolutionist. Right. And so in particular, I want to say, and you'll have to forgive me if I get some of these details slightly wrong, but the general gist will totally be accurate. I want to say it's the Coconino sandstone. No, no dinosaur fossils per se, instead what you find more of, I believe it's footprints, not, not, you know, put prints of dinosaurs. Right. Yes. Yes. Dinosaurs and other, other types of animals. But the point is, is that in the, in the open literature years and years ago, the first guy that went and investigated. So it was Coconino sandstone. Basically what he did was he was looking at the angles of the in, as they're, the cross bedding is laid. They're looking at the, so there's an angle where, and you've seen this I'm sure in, in like, if you've been to the beach and you see the ripples underneath the water. Right. So they're looking at that type of feature in the Coconino sandstone and they're measuring the angle of, of incline there. And, and what he concluded was that because those angles were what they, they are, it was an Aeolian deposit wind born sediments. Right. But the problem is, is he never actually chemically analyzed the sediment when he came to that conclusion. And the other problem is, is that there is actually a certain amount of overlap in those angles between Aeolian deposit and fluvial deposit. So for example, 25 to 30 degrees or so is kind of in that overlap zone. And so fluvial deposits, they don't typically go much above the 30 degree incline. Right. They tend to be a little shallower, whereas Aeolian tends to get a little steeper and, but there is some overlap between them. So you, you can't just throw a few numerical statistics at the, and say, Oh, I know they're Aeolian. It's not quite that simple. Okay. So I'll try and round this out real quick so you can comment, but what ended up happening was fast forward decades. And somebody smart enough to actually analyze the sediments and the sediments and the sediments and the sediments. And they themselves said, look, there's got to be a difference in the chemistry or the content as it were of these deposits, whether it's Aeolian or, or fluvial. So what they did was they set up this basic experiment in a jar where you take and put dry sand in a jar. And you have, um, Micah flakes in the sand. And then you just turn a fan, a circulating fan on and let the things sit there and, and then they did the same thing in a, in a wet sand environment with water and to compare the two results. And the results are that in the dry environment, the Micah flakes get pulverized into nothing in a very short period of time, but in the fluvial version, they don't, and it's because the obvious there's lubricity and there's some, some spacing because of the water and all that kind of stuff. So you don't pulverize the Micah flakes in the sand in the, in the fluvial environment. And so what do you find in the coconut sandstone? You find Micah flakes in the sand, which means that the open literature papers that were written decades ago were completely wrong because they didn't even do all their homework on it. So when you tell me that you find dinosaurs in, in, in non fluvial environments, I'm going to say no, probably not. Okay. Um, I'm making the distinction between Marine and non Marine. And that's the difference, right? So yes, fossilization is relatively rare. It typically happens where there are sediments, sediments have to cover the specimen, the animal or, you know, the plant or whatever we're talking about. And yeah, that's going to involve water typically. So, right. Fossilization is very rare and it's very difficult to happen under like non water involved conditions. So, so the other big indicator there is the size of the graveyards. Okay. I don't know. So you go out and you look at some dino digs and there are literally thousands upon that, literally in the tens of thousands, depending on how big of a geographical area you want to, you want to map out, but there are tens of thousands. And sometimes they're heavily concentrated in relatively small areas. And so when you look at, when you look at the bones, they're often heavily disarticulated, which basically means that they're transported by water before. Probably. And what it actually means is they died, then got probably degraded considerably, then got transported to a final location where they're buried. Some sort of massive flood event, not necessarily global, however. Okay. That's interesting. You should say that. We know that like substantial flood events can happen locally. Like you have good evidence of a recent flood event that occurred in eastern Washington where you have these mega ripples that you can find. Yeah, you're talking about, there's an, I know what you're talking about. Yeah. It was around 10,000 years ago. So there's like, Lake Missoula flood. Exactly. Yeah. Involved all the way out to Missoula into eastern Washington and across Idaho. Yeah. And that's evidence of a massive flood on a, on a very large scale. Yes. And we would see that. And what's, what's also interesting too in all of that is that I had a slide and I apologize if I don't have it immediately available, but I have the slide that shows you can, I found this on Wikipedia, which is not a creation friendly website by the way, but what I found was that they were describing these, these practically continental wide floods at, for example, 300 million years ago when the evolutionary timeline. So they, they actually have very large scale flooding in the, in the supposed evolutionary history. It's just, it's rarely ever talked about very few evolutionists actually know about it. This may be an opportunity to jump into the Q and A. We actually, because I know it's probably late for you, Dr. Thompson. Do I remember? Are you on the East? Okay. I am on the East coast. Yeah. I'm Virginia tech. So it is getting a little late, but I'm happy to do Q and A. Let's do it. Yeah. You bet. And we'll go through these fast. So actually, we don't have too many questions. So we're going to move fast. This one coming in from Ozzie and talks. Thanks so much. Great question. Is the question for, I assume that's for you. They didn't say it, but I assume it is for you, T Rock, just because he's usually a, Ozzie and is an evolution. Position person. Sure. Okay. So no, that's, that's a great question. And, and I think part of the answer is, you know, I think it's, you know, it's, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, I think in terms of searching. And I think part of the answer that goes to the fact that. Animals. Appeared to me to be designed to, quote unquote, spezie. And, and there would be a really good practical reason. So I'm going to, segue for just a second. kind of comes with the territory with being from an engineering and manufacturing background, but so I'm going to try to apply a very practical approach to this particular question. In a design perspective, the mice speciate drastically, I'll say, and plants, a lot of plants do that, a lot of things do, non-human things do this. They speciate drastically to the point they no longer interbreed, but the functional reason for that would be that they're designed so that you can parse out characteristics that you want. I used peppers plants as a real quick example earlier, so if you want very hot peppers or you want very sweet peppers, you can parse those out and you can force them down lines to your benefit to use the way you want to, animals the same way. You can breed horses, dogs, cows, whatever, cows to give more milk or more beef or whatever, but anyway the point is to be able to let them speciate and fix in characteristics that you want to keep, and humans are not intended to be able to do that. I think when you're talking about Neanderthal and talking about them being a different species, as Chris was describing a little while ago, I think you would be extremely racist if you called a living Neanderthal a different species from the rest of us, when you see them make musical instruments and make tools and make pottery and speak in an intelligible language, it would be extremely racist, but the point is, is that humans are designed specifically not to do that, but animals are so that you can reap the benefits of the variations in characteristics that you get out of them. You got it. Thank you very much for this question coming in from Sunflower. It says, Chris, studies are rapidly, they didn't say with the emphasis like that. Dr. Thompson, studies are rapidly identifying epigenetic mechanisms for how environmental factors cause an enduring change in the function of DNA that is passed to future generations. You don't need mutations. Sure. Okay. First of all, yes, there are epigenetic mechanisms can lead to change in DNA, well change into the expression of certain genes that can potentially be passed into future generations. There's debate around how robust this mechanism is and whether this genuinely occurs and how long it persists. This is not mutations though, what we're talking about are mutations, right? We're talking about mutations of the DNA. Epigenetic mechanisms are simply little chemical signatures that have been added to sites on DNA, like a methyl sort of change, like adding a methyl group that can lead to confirmation in DNA structure so that it no longer like expresses or maybe it expresses even more. Yeah, that is a mechanism. Thank you very much for your question. Coffee mom as well says, T Rock, do you accept that humans are also animals? You know, that's an interesting question. I like to say from a philosophical standpoint that definitions of words are their conventions. You decide what you want the definition of any given word to be and they change over time, right? So do I accept that humans are animals? Well, you're asking me, do I use the convention of defining animals to include humans and the answer is obviously no. You got it. This one from bubblegumgun says, Dr. Thompson, would you be willing to debate me one on one? Bring it. Actually, I'm having, I will, even though it's late here, and I'm going to do an after debate show over on my channel. Hey, if you want to come over and talk a little bit there, I can't go too late. It's pretty late here on these coasts, but I'm happy to do that. You can find my link down below, I assume, right? 100% and we can talk there. That's right. So Dr. Thompson's link is in the description box. So if you guys want to see that after show, you could open a tab right now and put that link in the tab so you don't forget. So I highly encourage you do it right now. This one from James W says, So all the civilizations archaeologists date to before the flood during, enduring after the flood are all misdated every single time they get it wrong. I think that's for you, T-Rock. Yeah, no, that's kind of a funny question. It's a very common question. I talked briefly about dating methods in general and the rubber ruler concept in short, when you get beyond about 3,000 years or so, things like carbon dating become extremely inaccurate very quickly. So it's kind of an exponential curve drop off there, but are they wrong? They have to calibrate against something. So if you're in the written history of humanity, architectural context, you basically have to calibrate your carbon 14 against the archaeological context to know whether you're accurate with it or not. And so a calibration curve is developed like that. But as soon as you get to a place, a place is the key, as soon as you get to a place where you don't have a good archaeological context, what do you have to calibrate your carbon 14 curve against? Well, the short answer is there are some other methods that would be used such as isotope ratios or, you know, varves or something like that. But the point is, is that those are also calibrated against something. So it's this, it turns into this long chain of I got to calibrate this method against that method and that method against that method, and then I got to take that method and calibrated against the very first method that I started calibrating for, and you end up with this bizarre circle. So in short, yeah, it's easy. It's super easy to be wrong with dating methods when you go outside the scope of written or archaeological history. You got it. And just two more questions left. Study God's word KJV. Thanks for your question says Dr. Chris Thompson. How did the first cell ever start needing a minimum of eight different parts when there are eight essential amino acids never made in any pre live conditions tests? Okay, so this is an a biogenesis question. Obviously, this is outside of my area of expertise. I'm a neuroscientist. I work with full complete animals, and I don't work on single cellular organisms or the last universal common ancestor there. The debate over last universal common ancestor is a complex one. I will grant that it's a little bit of a separate question from evolution. However, there's a lot of great work that's done on it. I encourage anyone to look up last universal common ancestor and look at that information there. It's theorizing because we're talking about an event that occurred four billion years ago, and it was molecular. So we can only intuit it from looking at extant living organisms. So it's a tough question, but the people who are working on are doing a diligent job. And I think that there's some really interesting work being done there. You got it. Thanks. And one last one, this one from Corrigal Contender says, what is the most important discovery or technology that we have thanks to creationism, T Rock? The most important discovery. I'm going to kind of generalize this just a little bit, but I think very important medical advances are based on a creation perspective. And I say that because if you look at the history of science, scientific progress in the medical field as regards evolution, they have done these bizarre things like say, oh, the appendix is vestigial, and I'm not naive to the fact that the definition of vestigial has changed over time. And they've also done things like, oh, junk DNA is the latest and greatest, you know, 80% or some number I heard like that just yesterday or the day before. Whereas the creationist does not approach things like that. They say, oh, that appendix was there for a specific reason. And lo and behold, we find a reason eventually. As genetics goes and DNA function, you got to get people to nail down a little bit. What are you calling functional? Is it only protein coding? Is it only something you can identify, regulates a developmental process or something like that? Bottom line is in the field of genetics and that sort of thing. Creationists have basically pushed leaps and bounds by taking the more appropriate position that what you find in the genome is there for a reason. So if you want to name a particular technology that was advanced by a creation scientist directly, the gene gun was developed by a creationist. You got it. And with that, I want to give a huge thank you to our guests. My dear friends, please give a huge round of applause at home to Dr. Thompson and T Rock. We really do appreciate you guys for real. It's been a true pleasure to have you guys tonight. Yeah. Are we going to give closing statements or anything? Oh, that was actually, we usually just wrap up with a dialogue in the Q&A. Fair enough. But I do want to say I'm going to be back in just a moment, folks, for my own kind of closing statement, which will be like a lightning fast two minute post credit scene on upcoming debates. So stick around for that. But like I said, Dr. Thompson's link is in the description box for that post debate show. So I want you to open that up right now. And I would recommend the same for T Rock. T Rock doesn't have a link at the moment. So I want to say we want to plug all of our guests regardless of what their position is as we do want to be as neutral as possible. So in the meantime, open up that Dr. Thompson link from the description box. That is right down there below. So right now, I see it for sure. It is Dr. Chris Thompson. And it's at pretty much the very top of the description box there. So I'll be back in just a moment with a post credit scene. So stick around for that two minute post scene on upcoming debates. James, just a quick word. I am not a content creator. So I don't have a link to share most of the stuff I've done is just being hosted as a guest on shows like yours. So no problem. Standing for truth is where the majority of my debates have been. So I apologize. I'm not going to have a link to share. No problem. Definitely not a requirement. A lot of people come on and they're just like, Hey, I just love to debate. I don't have a link. And so with that, I'll be back in just a moment. So stick around and thanks one last time to Dr. Chris Thompson as well as T Rock. It's been a true pleasure. My dear friends want to say thanks so much for being with us tonight. As promised, this is a quick little post credit scene to update you on some of the upcoming juicy debates on modern day debate in particular. As you can see at the bottom right of your screen, I'm about to pull this up. First up, I'll show you that as you already heard probably many times, we are absolutely thrilled that we are on TikTok. Once we get to a thousand followers there, we'll be able to live stream our debates there as well. And that's really important to us. We really think that'll help us expand this neutral platform as our goal at modern day debate is to fill the vision of providing a neutral platform so that everybody has their chance to make their case on a level playing field. That's what we care about. Our values are being neutral as well as welcoming everybody. So we hope you feel welcome with you be Christian, atheist, creationist, evolutionist, whatever you want to call yourself. We hope that you feel welcome and we're glad that you're here. And that link for the TikTok is pinned at the top of the live chat right now. And it's also in the description box. Like I said, if you follow us, that helps us get to a thousand. We're hoping to get to a thousand in about a month or so, give or take, which is going to be exciting because we really do think TikTok will help us expand this neutral platform. But I want to show you as well upcoming debates. Daniel Hook, you get to an inspiring philosophy you're going to be debating, is child marriage acceptable? It is going to be a juicy topic to be sure. And perhaps the last debate we ever have on the channel. Just kidding, I think we'll be all right. But want to say in addition to that debate, we have another big one. This one's coming up this Friday. We just booked it. We haven't even put the event page up yet. It's in particular Stuart Nettle and Matt Delhonte. They've debated before on, does God exist? They've never debated on Christianity in particular. So they're going to be debating on whether or not Christianity is reasonable or rational. You don't want to miss it. If you haven't yet hit that subscribe button. And as mentioned, our guests are linked in the description box. Dr. Thompson is having a post credits show and everybody or I should say not a post credits, a post debate show. Everybody is invited. So I do encourage you, if you are a creationist, if you are an evolutionist or one of the many strange creatures in between, want to encourage you click on that link. We do, as you can tell, Dr. Thompson is very poised, you know, very emotionally stable, very calm, very mellow and a congenial. He's a friendly, likable fellow. So I do want to encourage you do check out his post debate show. And I want to say thanks so much for being with us tonight. We do appreciate your support in the future. We'll have longer post credit scenes, but tonight I've got to run. Thanks everybody though. Seriously, I love you guys. Good to see you there in the old live chat. Appreciate you guys being with us. And we'll see you at the next one. Check out Dr. Thompson's post debate stream. Thanks everybody. Love you guys and I'll see you next time.