The Atheist Experience 766 Matt Dillahunty and Jen Peeples

[@Getittogethersir]

“Stop with the hundreds of thousand of years”😂😂😭

[@richdandanell2911]

I love all the elaborate arguments these callers present for their belief's and how under just a bit of scrutiny they all fall apart . And still they cling to these unfounded belief's . You'd hope that most humans would think rationally but it seems most don't .

[@LyleVertigo]

This felt like a hundred thousand of years.

[@sumo1203]

I’m marveled every time I see this that Mike thinks fruit fly evolution is a time machine

[@pitchkid20]

On a similar note, I chuckle when I hear people say "God has blessed us with this beautiful weather." Then when a hurricane hits, they pray to God for a speedy recovery for those afflicted, instead of asking "why was this allowed to happen?" It's downright disgusting rationalization at any cost to keep God in a good light.

[@halo3ffs]

I just noticed the timestamps in the desc. Thanks for that.

[@TheZooCrew]

Here's from advice for Jay in Minneapolis: When you're praying for something to happen and there are known forces at work trying to make said thing happen, you CANNOT declare that prayer has any effect.

[@KristianKumpula]

That guy going on about evolution and Darwinian evolution as if they aren't the exact same thing needs better education.

[@Athrun000]

I understand that this is 4 years old. But you're wrong. Evolution is not the same as Darvinian evolution. Darwinian Evolution is a method of how evolution works. There are other theories that proposed other method of evolution.

[@larjkok1184]

Athrun000 Show a proven “theory” of evolution besides the Darwinian-based proposition.

[@williamwilson5718]

Oggy Oggy - The "unexpected offspring" theory: Every few thousand years a cow gives birth to a hedgehog, or a chihuahua gives birth to a seagull, or a duck gives birth to a leopard etc. QED

[@pretzelogic2689]

@@Athrun000 Darwin proposed his theory of evolution 160 years ago. Since that time, the theory has been highly modified because of the new information that has been discovered. Darwin knew nothing about molecular biology, biochemestry, or genetics for example. For that reason, it no longer makes sense to call it Darwinian Evolution, but it's the same theory (ToE) in the sense all the modifications have been made to Darwin's original theory. DE is a description of how evolution works, the ToE is a description of how evolution works.

[@Athrun000]

Modified or not, evolution via selection is a Darwinian theory. Calling is Darvinian evolution is not incorrect. Still doesn't change what i've say, evolution is not the same as Darvinian evolution

[@RonaldStepp]

For Jay, try curing every pet that comes to the veterinarian and gets prayed over for a year. If 100% of the pets are completely cured that were prayed over, then you might have a convincing argument.

[@oggyoggy1299]

Wow! Mike has this to be embarrassed by for the rest of his life. Well done dude.

[@ChannelMath]

my first and most important response for Mike would be "If you can't also find something online that says the opposite, you don't know how to use the internet. Maybe you should address that problem first"

[@TomMSTie1138]

Just imagine the possible millions of sick/dying pets prayed for that never got better. Bummer. Thank you Jen for mentioning "Confirmation Bias."

[@destronia123]

"Mike" is the same crank caller that threatened to punch Matt for Jesus. LOL!

[@theunrepentantatheist24]

no - the punch for Jesus guy could barely string a few words together

[@mindbenderrx]

Jay's call makes me think of the story that Lawrence Krauss likes to tell about Richard Feynman. He apparently would go around and tell people "you'll never believe what happened to me today!" and when they asked what is was, his response was "absolutely nothing!" See it does seem miraculous when pets or people recover from grave illness. But nobody goes around bragging when they don't recover. Your mind is drawn to connect a reason or purpose where none exists.

[@t4705mb6]

Right OR wrong, evolution has absolutely nothing to do with whether a giant pink rabbit is sitting at the controls of the cosmos.

[@unit0033]

agreed but theists think if they can disprove it that magically lends support to their giant sky fairy

[@jeova0sanctus0unus]

"We dont screen against crazy." Thanks Matt, but I think that is obvious.

[@twstf8905]

Jeezus! That conversation with "Mike" got frustrating FAST lol I was screaming at my screen for a minute! 🤜🤪🤛

[@MiqelDotCom]

Jen almost answered this guy, but his question was so poorly formed they couldn't latch on. Mike in Colorado was thinking that fruit flies should show changes over X number of arbitrary years. He's thinking that they will just change or evolve **automatically** on some schedule, he's missing the part about selection pressure driving the changes. Here's the thing: If fruit flies are successfully inhabiting an ecological niche, and conditions haven't changed radically over the past X millions of years, then they experienced no selection pressure to change radically and would continue as they are with minor adaptions. Some flies might find other strategies and change, but the regular fruit flies would remain.

[@donaldsmith7824]

Jay is easily impressed

[@moodyrick8503]

Caller Jay; Confirmation bias rules his beliefs. Counting the hits and ignoring the misses. He struggles with flawed reasoning, but he is willing to learn, so there is some hope.

[@Fluffykeith]

There is no distinction between "Evolution" and "Darwinian Evolution".....There's just evolution.

[@verticalhorizon4633]

+Fluffykeith Who fucking cares, Mullet Head?

[@Fluffykeith]

Vertical Horizon The first caller, Mike, seemed to care. He wanted to pretend there was a distinction between the two so that he could twist things. But I guess you were too busy being a tool to spot that. Sorry if my actually caring when Theists twist stuff offends you somehow.

[@kwj171068]

I agree FluffyKeith i also think we agree that mike just wasnt getting it hey what can i say he sounded like an idiot to me ...do we agree lollll

[@brucebaker810]

+Fluffykeith I think there's value in noticing the terms though. Because when someone calls it "Darwinism" or "Darwinian Evolution"...you know they don't understand it, that they don't realize or recognize that there's been a century or so of additional research, refinement and advancement of the initial theory; and that they've attached baggage to it that's probably gonna come up (Darwin's character, quote mining, "no transitional forms", Social Darwinism, Naaaaaazis, etc.).

[@KufLMAO]

Vertical Horizon someone sounds salty

[@securitytutorials]

Man I wish I could come down there and watch you guys live.

[@Vegas01973]

This last caller sounds a lot like a future atheist in the final stages of his faith. I enjoyed that call a lot and the responses were kick ass!

[@ChannelMath]

"I looked it up online and all I could find what that evolution was false" LOL! The first lesson in Grade 1 in every school should be "you can find sources online that say 'true' and 'false' to every question" So the proper first response to Mike "If you can't find something that says the opposite, obviously you don't know how to use the internet!"

[@gandalf7361]

Pray in one hand poop in the other and see which hand fills up the fastest.

[@IllustriousCrocoduck]

"but I think we are more than 4% different from chimpanzees." 🤦‍♂️

[@LeetCanadianBoy]

The day (wo)mankind breaks out of it's chains from religion, I hope you guys get a good chunk of credit. love the show

[@endthedisease]

This was a great show. I love the prayer guy, really made me laugh.

[@kyle1m]

Solid entertaining episode

[@TheGrahamBrechin]

Jay has the cure for cancer ... lets find out who this secret sect are and hound them for the method.

[@tommyXBOX360]

Thanks to everybody for investing time explaining the answer to my question. I've got enough comments now! :P

[@raymanscape]

Jay was a really interesting caller and made the show really good, hope he'll call in again some day.

[@theunrepentantatheist24]

Jay is a liar and weak minded fool. He does not want to present his prayer findings to help cure cancer etc as he fear he will be accused of proselyting. Matt called him out and he changed his tune.

[@philiptoner8719]

Evangelicals- not understanding evolution is different than refuting evolution

[@NOG9003]

jay got some tough love, he took it well though. fair play

[@SpookyJohnathan]

You're precisely correct. That's the definition of speciation. My point was that if people are trying to define "kinds" of animals (biblical terminology), then evolution doesn't make sense, but when you realise there are no "kinds" of animals and that "species" is only a designation wherat animals within a genus can no longer hybridize, evolution, biology, and the entire world begins to make much more sense.

[@Bergzore]

Jen is so adorable.

[@IOutDoSyndicate]

Matt and Jen. Awesome.

[@mahfuzurrahmansazal3974]

I liked Jay. He was as honest caller

[@aegisgfx]

Can I also get a thumbs up for a-unicornism?

[@rebelaxesix3496]

It happened to me. 1st I was religious, then I was spiritual, then I finally realized that I no longer believed in illogical myths that contained major parodoxes. In short, I no longer believed in a being that was supposed to be more loving, compassionate, forgiving & better than me but clearly was not.

[@samatardavidbndphotofilm]

@52:30-54:00. My exact feelings. I hate it when people can't connect those two simple dots.

[@CalvinJaded]

awh jay seemed like a sweetheart :x

[@Multi1628]

~ As an atheist that must live and work among scores of theists, I still in 2019 amazed to find in the USA how many people still automatically assume everyone they meet shares their various god delusions. I made the mistake once of innocently mentioning to someone I thought was a "good" acquaintance that the bible, tora, & quran were interesting books of fairy tables. You would have thought my innocent and honest remark had just been a stab through their heart. I have since learned in business it is often best to keep my knowledge to myself. That is, unless they are using their delusions to justify discrimination in the workplace. Then I go into an active atheist mode, without necessarily identifying myself as such. This remains a "truism" even (unfortunately) in 2019. Cheers, DAVEDJ ~

[@discolemonade66]

It is what I do. I simply put it on and listen. Keep posting please.

[@aegisgfx]

I don;t believe in unicorns, makes me an a-unicornist.

[@RebeccaSmith-tk4zy]

Dear Mike from Dillon, you've been educated with a banana and an innertube. When you call to discuss evolution, you bring a Crayon to a gunfight. Please call back following your own evolution.

[@Magar6]

Hi Rebecca, you wrote the above comment 6 years ago. Just curious, in those last 6 years, did you work out that evolution is true? That should have been enough time.

[@haydden_pogi]

@@Magar6 Hey dumbass, your god is a make believe FAIRYTALE. Deal with it.

[@towolie]

thanks for the added explanation, i thought something like that would matter allot.

[@D-me-dream-smp]

One of the big issues that theists who doubt evolution is that they find it difficult to appreciate the incredibly vast time frame over which it occurs plus the vastly different conditions that occurred during various periods of earth’s history. Anatomically modern humans have only existed for a very small fraction of the time that life has existed on earth. Evolution is NOT about changing from one species to another it is more akin to an extremely slow gradual morphing due to changing conditions. Evolution does not have a set goal or target it describes a process whereby a living creature will “adapt” to have a survival advantage in response to changes in the environment. Once again a theist is saying they believe in individual steps but don’t think it is possible to build a staircase to reach a different floor.

[@Nivola1953]

some 40 years ago I attended university courses on genetics and they were talking about fruit flies (Drosophila Melanogaster). What I recall is that the purpose of the study was NOT to study evolution in general but more precisely to understand how the mutated genes were transmitted to the following generations, that is how the alleles frequency is changing. Before the Drosophila in the 19th century Mendel used green peas to study the same subject even before knowing anything about chromosomes.That was 40 years ago and DNA mapping was still in the future, but religious people always confuse the genetic random mutation and the mechanisms of their transmissions with the selection on the reproductive process imposed by the environment that is absolutely not random and that gives the qualifier to the theory of “Evolution by means of natural selection” not by random mutations. It’s important to understand that for evolutionary success, it doesn’t matter if you’re stronger or faster or can fly or swim. What matters is that the new traits allow you to generate more offsprings that carry your genes and are able to survive to transmit them to following generations.

[@RickGladwin]

Exactly. Jen hit the nail right away when she asked about the selection pressure. The caller misunderstood, thinking she was asking about the mechanism used to increase the rate of mutation. He clearly doesn't understand how selection pressure guides evolution in the short and long term.

[@TheRational75]

Thank you for posting man.

[@tommyXBOX360]

Yeah I got the message already. Two persons already explained to me all I wanted to know and another two persons, including the atheist experience, gave me reading/watching material as well. But looking at his page, I seems you cannot see that people commented on my questions already so you are excused:P

[@putnamfinch1093]

The conflation of years to generations in regards to fruit flies is incorrect, regardless of what the article states (people are wrong sometimes). Because a fruit fly's life cycle is shorter and they reproduce faster, creating more generations annually doesn't mean that it's the equivalent of multiple human years. Humans and fruit flies evolve differently based on every single aspect of life- internal and external. It's comparing apples and oranges, and furthermore is equivalent to "which weighs more- a ton of rocks or a ton of feathers"- A year is a year, regardless of how many generations a specific species is expected to produce annually.

[@putnamfinch1093]

***** Oh, please, please make my fucking year and explain it to me in detail!!! This is going to be brilliant! I'm going to get some popcorn and wait for you to finish pumping your guns long enough to explain it to me in your super-spiffy-safety-specs!!!!

[@putnamfinch1093]

***** THAT'S IT?!?! That's the best you got? What a disappointment... I now know exactly how your parents, coworkers and intimate partners feel. Bye now.

[@Fluffykeith]

+Putnam Finch This Biologist right here got exactly what you were saying.

[@putnamfinch1093]

Fluffykeith I may not be the most eloquent speaker, but I thought I wasn't completely incorrect. Thank you.

[@sumo1203]

I mean… dude thought fruit flies were time machines. Don’t set your hopes too high

[@anvb5a1]

Believers be like: "Evolution? Hmm.... i won't believe that until i see a snake turning into a monkey with my own eyes!" - "Gawd? Creating the world within 6 days with magic, 6000 years ago? A flood covering the whole planet, saving all animal species on a wooden boat made by few men? Now, that sounds legit!"

[@tommyXBOX360]

With "at least one biologist with a big enough understanding of evolution", I meant people who read the comments. It was a mistake of me to ask the atheistexperience as well and I will refrain myself from asking unrelated questions specifically to the atheistexperience again. However, someone adressed two comments to me, as you can see below, that perfectly answered my question. Isn't that a great perk of the internet, that we can save eachother time by answering eachothers questions?

[@Skullgoroth666]

It was cool to hear David Lynch call in.

[@MorgueAbsolue]

If prayer works, I would assume that at least war, cancer, murder and rape would not be happening anymore or in the last two cases that at least the culprits would be found every time...

[@MrMsSihrus]

As soon as he told me to "shut up for a moment" I would have hung up on his face.

[@Bergzore]

And he would have moved on to the next caller.

[@MrMsSihrus]

wow, TAE cool aid drinkers are as annoying as a hernia

[@thebigredwagon]

Yeah Matt where do you keep the batteries for that shirt...

[@tommyXBOX360]

A few other people on youtube already gave me the answer, but thank you anyway :)

[@NilsMunchGecko]

37:25 : Oh noes, the eye fell off the Flying Spaghetti Monster :P

[@florin3k3]

p.s. isn't it just called "evolution"? why call it "darwinian evolution"?

[@ernestosuarez9807]

Hey Jay, Miss Piggy called and she said you need to get your ass home!

[@borg48]

I think what Jay was really looking for was information on how to look into his claim further. He has come up with a hypothesis that prayer works for a certain set of people. He seemed to be looking for help designing an experiment to test his hypothesis.

[@LyleVertigo]

I'm amazed at how tolerant Matt is with the number "evolution" questions that come in, despite the fact that it is completely missing the point of the show.

[@tommyXBOX360]

Thank you very much, just what I wanted to know :)

[@0bj4ct7]

When the guy still didn't get the fruit fly thing I facepalmed, missed a bit and really felt it :D That's what i think of the caller...

[@tommyXBOX360]

Yeah I already got like 8 comments with people explaining me the answer to my question. The youtube-commentsystem is alittle flawed not making it visible for people like you to see there was a wave of comments before. Maby it's my punishment for not looking it up myself :P Anyway, still thank you for answering.

[@M3t4lManiac]

Honestly I think Matt went off the track with this one, in fact I know it. He asked the guy how much different he though we were now from 100000 years ago, and of course the guy didn't know what to say so he came up with a random number and then Matt got confused and thought that was how much he thought we looked like chimps...

[@unit0033]

caller was all over the place desperate to prove his god

[@lennyhipp]

regarding his "animals aren't susceptible to the placebo effect" and "The animal didn't know they were being prayed for" There is most probably other factors contributing to the reaction. they respond to stimulus. when they are sick, they are often cared for, massaged, in human company more... all factors in the outcome health of the animal

[@TheZooCrew]

And some more advice...it's too bad you had a head injury, but when you go ahead and admit that your head injury causes you mental trouble, you need to be extremely skeptical of your own perceptions. He doesn't seem to doubt his "experiences" even a little bit.

[@999is666upsidedown]

Well I can't exactly elaborate on the subject, but as long as you understand the hierarchy, such as,from left to right: atom-molecule-macromolecule-organelle-cell-tissue-organ-system-organism, id say youre on the right track.

[@LogicAndReason2025]

Mike: "CAN" happen is not the same as WILL happen.

[@JAMESLEVEE]

You do, however, have faster evolution because, just as you pointed out, you have more generations and more chances for mutation and selection in any given period of time.

[@TheGrimGary]

Wow on the Fruit Fly guy. The explanation is: You cannot expect any species of animal to change the way you think they are going to. Fruit flies may never change morphology. The group tested may never change morphology. You cannot expect that to be the end result. All you CAN expect is genetic variation, which may or may not eventually lead to such changes. But in the experiment there is very little to make such changes become dominant in the confines of the experiment.

[@JesusGarcia-bu7tf]

I love how callers can challenge evolution talking about fruit flies. While at the end of the day, they are defending a book that features a talking snake. Lol

[@etatauri]

You should watch some highlights instead. There are numerous excellent 5-10 minute clips out on youtube. I personally watch these since youtube is basically my TV (don't have one lol)

[@TJTownsend]

Seems they could have just told the second caller to look up the scientific method, specifically what it would take to achieve statistical significance and the need for a control group. Sounded like he didn't realize that he likely had more work to do and more data to collect. Even just reading about other similar experiments and studying their data sets opens ones eyes as to what it takes to reveal statistical significance.

[@hanskraut2018]

Matt Dillahunty the show is 60% better with you

[@narco73]

If you can't imagine a transition from one thing to a second one, split it into two, then think if you can imagine a transition from the first one to the half way point, and from the half way point to the second one. If you still can't, then repeat, and imagine a halfway point between each of these. If you do this enough times, you end up with very small, simple to jump gaps.

[@AceOfSevens]

Do you have any references for this? Are you claiming that Mitochondrial Eve (about 150,000 years ago) was a different species than modern humans, despite (probably) being our last common ancestor?

[@dragonfiremalus]

Interesting. I haven't heard that. Do you have any sources I could look up?

[@Chris-op7yt]

if you want to see morphological changes in fruit flies, then you need to start changing their environment and selective pressures, for some random mutations to keep and become dominant in the population. Dog breeds and wolves happen to have genes such that small mutations produce relatively quick generational visible (morphological) changes. The changes are typically neutral in selective pressures, so are fairly easily passed on as a new lineage. There is no speciation, or species. It's our rough model. Life is always changing, not stopping at some "species".

[@tkaz123]

I would really like to see Matt have a conversation with Eric Hovind. That would be such an awesome clip!

[@AceOfSevens]

The other thing missing from the discussion with Mike is that evolution is a one-way street. Fruit flies can evolve into more highly derived fruit flies, but not into non-fruit-flies. Matt touched on this, but it seemed to be the root of the problem.

[@Ryuuken24]

Yeah, that's why he told you to Google it, or search inside KZbin. Pawned by information!

[@MundaneMuser]

I like that "loud" shirt.

[@stiimuli]

I agree its unfortunate when this happens. Matt is one of the best debaters on these subjects I've ever seen but sometimes he gets a little too eager to stomp on his opponent when a lighter touch would be much more productive.

[@O2BSoLucky]

I wish that the after show was shown.

[@dracumelenios]

The thing some atheist don't understand is why someone who believes on faith would go in the trouble of ever producing long drawn rationalizations, and not just call it for what it is i.e. faith.

[@CharmingLordSausage]

A fruit fly breeding experiment in a high oxygen environment and one conducted in a low oxygen environment over 30 years would probably lead to a speciation event.

[@brostelio]

Keep 'em coming!

[@jessesipprell]

Example of evolution in action: 20,000 years ago there were no adult human beings who could digest lactose (milk). Today there is a significant portion of the population who can but also a significant portion who cannot. If it continues to be an adaptation that, in general, helps people breed more successfully (which is by no means certain) then eventually, in some distant future, all adult humans will have the trait. We are in the middle of evolving this ability.

[@TJTownsend]

The first caller was either purposefully dense or on the verge of understanding. 100,000 years is not a very long time in evolution. I think it is about a coin flip whether we would have been able to interbreed with our ancestors 100k years ago. It is better to think about it in terms of 1's and 0's. A four gigabyte file that shuffles its 1's and 0's slowly over time ends up as an increasingly different file. At first they are almost the same, and eventually they are very very different.

[@tommyXBOX360]

Yeah it's not the biologyexperience I know, but maby somebody who will watch this show on youtube that has a degree in biology or something could briefly answer my question. I am not trying to refute evolution here, but it was just out of curiosity. Anyway, it's a great show and I appreciate what you guys are doing :)

[@XGralgrathor]

@tommyXBOX360 (2/2) Some of these forms would evolve tissue differentiation. Evolution would cause cells at the surface of such a colony-organism to react differently to external stimulae. They would develop protective mechanisms, secreting mucus or even forming a primitive epidermis. For some forms, it would prove beneficial to be able to process foodstuffs inside a cavity in the organism, rather than in every cell separately. And right there you have the first primitive organs.

[@brogren802]

He's somehow saying that the lab time observing fruit flies should be amplified so 10 years would be 1000 years or something weird like that. Time is time it's not alterable

[@stuchly1]

To put it very simply, take single-celled organisms. Some form colonies. In those colonies, they can either be unspecified, or specified. If the individuals are specified for a certain function, they partially rely on the other individuals in the colony, but not to the point to be unable to survive when separated from the colony A multicellular organism is a "colony" of cells interconnected to such an extent that they cannot sustain themselves after being separated from the whole. ;)

[@breaneainn]

Grammer is sumthin' up, with witch god will not put.

[@Fraterchaoraterchaos]

first thing to remember when talking about any sort of medical diagnosis (human or veterinarian) is that half of all doctors (or vets) graduated in the lower half of their class. often these types of things could be misdiagnosis. eliminate those, and how many are left? Now eliminate spontaneous remission. Now eliminate mistakes by the patient. Eventually, you will likely get down to very few cases that count. And then, you still have no explanation of WHY they got better. You can't say it was god, only that something that you cannot explain.

[@snowboredsnj]

Given the degree to which most people's religious beliefs are reflective of their own personal beliefs... you'll be hard pressed to find a person that is widely accepted to champion religion..