Divinely Deceptive (Evolution) Denier

Divinely Designed’s X avatar as of 2/20/26

The following is adapted from an August 2025 response I wrote to a creationist on X who goes by the handle “@DivinelyDesined“, henceforth “DD”. I put a fair amount of work into it and don’t think it got a sufficient hearing then/there, so I repost it here with some editing and additions for a hopefully wider audience. My apologies if some of this gets a bit technical, I had to read up a bit on this subject myself to formulate my response, so wherever technical terms pop up I have tried to link to relevant explanatory resources. Also, DD’s writing is a little scattered and repetitious. I tried to organize the primary issues into the same piles, but it is sometimes difficult, hopefully things aren’t too hard to follow.

DD, sadly, has over 12k followers on X and frequently posts “long” (for X) and very self-assured, dismissive attacks on evolutionary theory, largely made up of misinformation and strawman caricatures of what evolution. For example, DD once complained about an illustration showing an example of macroevolution, in this case a species of butterfly giving rise to a new species of butterfly, by suggesting that a better example of macroevolution would be …a butterfly transforming into a dragonfly.Anyone with an even basic understanding of evolutionary theory knows that it does not postulate that species from one existing clade will somehow morph into species of a completely different clade (see monophyly). This is not how evolution works; this is not what the basis of macroevolution (speciation) looks like. And in the case of butterflies and dragonflies, neither group is descended from the other, rather they share a common ancestor that while it was an insect was neither a butterfly nor a dragonfly.

In another DD posts with apparent approval a page out of an antievolution cartoon tract by the late Jack Chick titled “Bid Daddy” (pp.12-13) This alone is enough to discredit DD as a serious person, but never mind.

This particular engagement started with one of DD’s responses to an evolution defender on X who goes by the handle “Creationist Translationist” [@JustinCPorter], henceforth “CT”:

DD: The argument is not that there is a mechanism which stops genetic variation or change from accruing — the argument is that the change which accrues cannot ever build novel biological structures necessary for macroevolutionary innovation. [Link to source, 06/20/2025]

After which DD gave the following link to another thread where DD had stated the following:

DD: There is no evidence that random changes in DNA will ever add up over time to construct novel genes & cellular structures. [Link to source, 03/07/2025] …The evolutionist believes that mutations will add up over time and engineer novel genes, which leads to novel proteins, cells, organs, and body plans – despite the fact that we have ZERO evidence of this ever occurring, nor even being possible. [Link to source, 03/07/2025]

CT responded with a reiteration of one of his earlier responses:

CT: Without a mechanism to stop variation from accruing iver [sic, “every” -TB] generations, you have nothing to prevent speciation from continuing over millions — even billions — of generations. You are a fake skeptic. [C.T. on X 06/20/2025]

And I jumped in and added to the thread an admittedly lazy, throw away response, of the following:

Me: That and: [Google Scholar link to papers on de novo genes coding for proteins.]

DD responded to me with the following:

DD: Let’s see if you understand what you’re reading, and not just forming opinions based on misunderstanding hyped up headlines. Pick a paper from that list – any paper – and summarize why it provides evidence for Evolutionism. [From DD’s response to my throw away.]

To which I replied:

Me: LOL! This is not my first rodeo. I am not going to fall for the beach bum creationist routine where I do a bunch of work presenting evidence that the claims you make are nonsense, only to have you, based on willful ignorance and an existential dread of actually understanding the thing you’re sure isn’t so (evolution), dismiss whatever I show you as insufficient. For example, you have in the past said that macroevolution would be something like a “butterfly transforming into a dragonfly”, something which is impossible according to evolutionary theory. So, I could show you legit evidence of macroevolution, as the term is defined by scientists, and you would simply reject it out of hand based on it not matching your twisted creationist definition of the term. How about this instead? You’re claiming that the vast literature on the genetics of evolution is fundamentally flawed, and that the overwhelming majority of geneticists don’t know what they’re talking about, how about YOU pick a (recent, say from the last 10 years) paper and walk us through where they are factually incorrect or logically incoherent.
“Evolutionism.” 🙄 [Link to source, 06/21/25]

DD responded not by addressing any of the papers I had linked from Google Scholar, or even any similar paper dealing with the subjects DD laid out in his earlier comments about “novel genes & cellular structures” or “novel proteins, cells, organs, and body plans” but rather with a repost of something DD had written earlier attacking a paper on an RNA replication experiment, which is related to prebiotic evolution (abiogenesis/RNA world hypotheses) rather than biological evolution proper which was, as I understood it, what DD’s bluster regarding “novel genes” etc. was about.


Read on»

Consilience and whale evolution

Way, waaay back in December of 2005 (ye gods has been ten years already?!) I wrote a Feedback response on the Talk Origins Archive to a question about the vestigial pelvic bones found in modern whales. In this case the questioner did not believe them to be truly vestigial, no doubt due to holding erroneous beliefs regarding the subject. In my response I of course took the time to correct their faulty views, however I also used the opportunity to talk about the concept of consilience wherein multiple independent lines of evidence converge on a single explanation, giving us greatly increased confidence that those explanations (hypothesis/theories) are likely to be accurate reflections of reality, i.e. “true”. 

I have now and again thought of going back and using that post as a spring-board for a more detailed examination of this subject and who knows, I may still do so someday. In the meantime however, here is a great video from Stated Clearly that I ran across on Facebook recently that uses the same topic—whales—to essentially do the same thing I did all those years ago; make a point about the consilience of evidence pointing to a pretty definite conclusion with regards to not just the ancestry of cetaceans but the evolution of life in general. Better they include more details than I did and it has animations.

Check it out:

I miss answering the feedback question on Talk Origins…

Another Pharyngula podcast with yours truly

The first part was on intelligent design creationists latest attacks on some of the genetic evidence for human evolution. The second was a ostensibly on humanism but strayed into issues surrounding the internecine warfare going on in the skeptic/atheist community over issues of feminism (which I will not touch with a light-year long pole) and progressive politics. Being of a slightly libertarian bent, I bit my tongue and let the anti-libertarian jibs go by (I am used to being casually libeled and slandered by my liberal Democrat friends).

Wait, what?

Intelligent Design creationist Denyse O’Leary, in the midst of rationalizing (over at Uncommon Descent) why ID creationists spend all their time attacking science rather than doing science, has provided yet another example of how antievolutionists are pretty much pathologically unable to portray evolutionary theory (or its supporting evidence) accurately:

O’Leary: To me, Darwinism is like bad money. It becomes an intellectual vice. People are always looking for natural selection to generate random mutation, the way they are always trying to pass on the likely-bogus G-bill (when they are not out looking for the lucky strike). [Emphasis mine]

Yeah, right Denyse, it’s scientists engaging in an “intellectual vice” not creationists like yourself who spend all their time confidently bashing something they clearly don’t understand.

Newsflash: natural selection does not “generate” mutation; mutation is an independently occurring  source of variation from which natural selection “selects” after the fact.

For heaven’s sake, Google it Denyse! Here, I’ll do it for you; the top two hits for “natural selection” are:

Wikipedia – Natural Selection

U.C. Berkley – Natural Selection

That took mere seconds and after mere minutes of reading you won’t find anything on either of those two pages about natural selection “generating” mutations, random or otherwise. Here’s a bonus one on genetic variation from Wikipedia.

Is it really so much to ask for them to have a basic understanding of the science they put so much energy into repudiating?

[Hat tip to Larry Moran over at Sandwalk. Larry took the time to address O’Leary’s aforementioned rationalizations, have a look-see.]

Epic Horse Exhaust

OK, it took me a while to get to it but I am, as promised, responding to creationist Arthur Biele’s lengthy comments left in response to my criticisms of his writings on horse evolution. For those interested I suggest you go back and read Mr. Biele’s article and my original critique first. Those that do I think will find that his response didn’t really answer any of my original criticisms. Instead what he did was dump a new load of barely coherent nonsense on me.

A warning though, this goes on for quite a bit (it sure felt like it while I wrote it), which is of course due to the well known fact that accurately and substantially responding to horseshit takes considerably more time and effort than it does to spewing it.

Biele: With regard to Eohippus, If you knew anything about the actual fossil record, Eohippus finds are many and that category has been a dumping ground for certain archaic partial skulls that defy any specific classification, nor are they known to be ancestors of any known ‘evolved’ descendants, and they are mostly from Europe.

While apparently attempting to impugn my knowledge of the “the actual fossil record” Mr. Biele clearly demonstrates his own ignorance of the subject at hand. Let’s break this down in order:

Read on»

Evolution Rap from the Galápagos

[Via Why Evolution is True

Biologist bitch slaps (figuratively) intelligent design creationist

Prof. Ken Miller

Prof. Ken Miller

Brown University biologist and Dover ID trial witness Ken Miller pwns ID creationist Casey Luskin in a guest posting on Carl Zimmer’s blog The Loom.

Tis a thing of beauty.


Addendum

Miller is showing no mercy. The above was just part one! Here are parts two and three.

New Library Aquisitions

The wife made the mistake of insisting on going to a used bookstore last weekend. The result is that my library has grown a bit larger (and my wallet a bit thinner). For those not familiar the entire contents of the Britain Research Library can be found on my personal web site at the previous link.

Anstey, Robert L. & Chase, Terry L. (1979) Environments Through Time: A laboratory manual in historical geology (2nd Edition), Burgess Publishing Company, VI +140

Brockman, John (Editor) (2006) Intelligent Thought: Science versus the intelligent design movement, Vintage Books, XIII + 256

Cherfas, Jeremy (1982) Darwin Up To Date (A New Scientists Guide), IPC Magazines Ltd, 72

Desmond, Adrian J. (1975) The Hot-Blooded Dinosaurs, The Dial Press/James Wade, 238

Skybreak, Ardea (2006) The Science of Evolution and The Myth of Creationism: Knowing what’s real and why it matters, Insight Press, VIII + 338

Von Koenigswald, G. H. R. (1962) The Evolution of Man, The University of Michigan Press, 148

Watson, James D. et al (1983) Recombinant DNA: A short course, Scientific American Books, XIII + 260

White, Michael & Gribbin, John (1995) Darwin: A life in science, Dutton, IX + 322

And from the dark side:

Latham, Antony (2005) The Naked Emperor: Darwinism exposed, Janus Publishing Company, VI + 257

ORFan genes and intelligent design

“When you said “ORFan”, did you mean “ORFan” – a gene unique to one species that appear to have no relatives in other species, or “OFTen”, frequently?” *

In a previous post about a Expelled Q & A event held at Biola University, I mentioned that Paul Nelson (of the Discovery Institute), who chaired the event, had said something about “orphan genes” in our after event discussions (I now know it is ‘ORFan’ rather than ‘orphan’) . Well he brought them up again in the comments section of that post and now

[ * My apologies to Gilbert & Sullivan …and Musgrave.]


Expelled Q & A at Biola University

This last Monday (April 28th) I attended a Q & A forum on intelligent design (ID) creationism and the movie Expelled held at Biola University (La Mirada, CA) which I saw advertised over on Uncommon Descent by Paul Nelson (who told me he has my blog bookmarked; hi Paul):

…If you’ve got a burning question or two about the Expelled controversies. Darwin-to-Hitler, doesn’t Sternberg still have his Smithsonian position, the Pepperdine students were extras, the cell animation is plagiarized, Dawkins and P.Z. Myers and all the rest were tricked into granting interviews, Darwin’s Descent of Man was quote-mined, why didn’t Ben Stein just use Google Maps to find the Discovery Institute, ID is religious ’cause Expelled admits it, Yoko Ono is suing…whatevah.

Bring Your Questions for Profs. John Bloom, Mike Keas and Paul Nelson

Joining me to monitor the goings on were my friends Don Frack and Cal. State Fullerton Professor Jim Hofmann. Besides ourselves and the three panel members there were perhaps 20 other people in attendance.

Read on»