# Did Douglas Axe Disprove Evolution? Spoiler: No

**URL:** <https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/did-douglas-axe-disprove-evolution-spoiler-no/17458>\
**Category:** Side Conversation\
**Tags:** Science, Design\
**Created:** [October 5, 2025, 7:11pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/did-douglas-axe-disprove-evolution-spoiler-no/17458 "2025-10-05T19:11:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 36

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**Author:** ![Giltil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Giltil](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Giltil)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 8:54am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/did-douglas-axe-disprove-evolution-spoiler-no/17458/724 "2026-01-17T08:54:30Z")

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> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> It’s simply that this universe, with tiny exceptions, operates by causality, and you are part of the universe. Your thoughts, as we will call them for the sake of convenience, have causes. Those causes themselves have causes, and so on back for as far as you want to go.

Are you arguing for an infinite regress of causes?

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**Author:** ![Gisteron](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/gisteron/32/15845_2.png) [@Gisteron](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Gisteron)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 9:23am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/did-douglas-axe-disprove-evolution-spoiler-no/17458/725 "2026-01-17T09:23:50Z")

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Can’t speak for John, but I would\[1\]. If you have a point to raise against it that does not boil down to “me no likey” in one way or another, I’ll be both surprised but also delighted for the opportunity to _finally_ learn something new regarding the subject. So, by all means, let’s hear it.

* * *

1. Except that I am uncomfortable with causation on some fundamental level as a scientifically viable concept altogether. But the objections raised are usually about the possibility of an infinite chain, not about the meaningfulness of the idea of causal links between events in principle.

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**Author:** ![Faizal\_Ali](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/faizal_ali/32/12416_2.png) [@Faizal\_Ali](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Faizal_Ali)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 1:35pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/did-douglas-axe-disprove-evolution-spoiler-no/17458/726 "2026-01-17T13:35:14Z")

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> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> I think it illustrates very well the materialist view, that we all are moving at the behest of purely natural forces. How is this not clear?

That is, indeed, the “materialist” view.

This does _not_ entail that free will or agency do not exist, or are illusions.

How is _this_ not clear?

I will also remind you that the issue of free will is no less problematic for people who deny physicalism For instance, it is difficult to reconcile libertarian free will with the proposition that God knows everything you will do before you do it. Sure, there are theological attempts to resolve this problem. But, IMHO, these are neither more nor less successful than attempts to reconcile free will with physicalism.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> I don’t see how “my brain atoms made me do it” is in any way meaning “I chose to do it.”

It’s simple: When you use the term “I” then, under this view, you are referring to nothing more than a particular aspect of the movements of the group of atoms that make up your brain. OK, maybe that isn’t exactly simple, but it should be clear.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> Dilated pupils do indicate brain death, which is also close enough to clinical death for my purposes.

Brain death and clinical death are absolutely _not_ the same thing. Failure to appreciate this underlies many of the poor arguments made for dualism by amateurs.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> John Lennox, we have a customer! Someone who will buy your laptop, even if we cannot explain who made it, or how. It just works.

I would guess that applies to 99.9% of people who buy laptops. Are you the exception? If so, please explain how my laptop was made and how it works. I would love to know!

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> But Lennox is not saying laptops are good analogies for brains, he is pointing out (as I do) that the same principal can be applied to both

IOW, he is saying laptops are good analogies to brains.

> [@Gisteron](#):
>
> Except that I am uncomfortable with causation on some fundamental level as a scientifically viable concept altogether. But the objections raised are usually about the possibility of an infinite chain, not about the meaningfulness of the idea of causal links between events in principle.

For my part, when I assert that causation is true, I am saying nothing more than that, by using the concept, I am able to make accurate and reliable predications about what I will observe in the world. I can make no metaphysical claims beyond that.

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**Author:** ![John\_Harshman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/john_harshman/32/1121_2.png) [@John\_Harshman](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/John_Harshman)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 2:01pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/did-douglas-axe-disprove-evolution-spoiler-no/17458/727 "2026-01-17T14:01:05Z")

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> [@Giltil](#):
>
> Are you arguing for an infinite regress of causes?

Back to the big bang, certainly. I’m arguing that we live in a universe in which causality is the rule.

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**Author:** ![Gisteron](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/gisteron/32/15845_2.png) [@Gisteron](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Gisteron)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 2:08pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/did-douglas-axe-disprove-evolution-spoiler-no/17458/728 "2026-01-17T14:08:16Z")

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> [@Faizal\_Ali](#):
>
> For my part, when I assert that causation is true, I am saying nothing more than that, by using the concept, I am able to make accurate and reliable predications about what I will observe in the world. I can make no metaphysical claims beyond that.

Yes, and with that I am (nuances pending) quite onboard. Perhaps my phrasing was strong in that comment. It’s not that I reject causation as a tool, especially in colloquial communication or when dealing with fairly high level abstractions. Rather I find it becomes very hard to pin down with any rigor once one dives into the weeds far enough. And often times the utility of causation as a concept becomes mirky too at such points, and trying to keep it around gets in the way as much as it might have helped earlier.

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**Author:** ![Faizal\_Ali](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/faizal_ali/32/12416_2.png) [@Faizal\_Ali](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Faizal_Ali)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 3:49pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/did-douglas-axe-disprove-evolution-spoiler-no/17458/729 "2026-01-17T15:49:33Z")

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I wonder, if we were teeny tiny beings for whom most of our experiences operated according to the laws of quantum mechanics, would we have ever come up with the idea of causation?

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**Author:** ![Giltil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Giltil](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Giltil)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 5:32pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/did-douglas-axe-disprove-evolution-spoiler-no/17458/730 "2026-01-17T17:32:17Z")

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> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> > [@Giltil](#):
> >
> > Are you arguing for an infinite regress of causes?
> 
> Back to the big bang, certainly. I’m arguing that we live in a universe in which causality is the rule.

Then I guess the question is what caused the Big Bang? Now, it seems that you are referring to what can be called horizontal causation occurring through time. But what about hierarchical causation where a given cause borrows its causal power from another one now, which itself borrows its causal power from another one now, etc…This scheme cannot go on indefinitely, because none of the causes operating now has any causal power by itself, for it borrows it from another one. So you have to imagine that a first and sustaining cause exists that brings to life any causal chain operating NOW. This is what Alex O’Connor explains in the video below.

[![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/peacefulscience/original/3X/8/f/8fc8248fdae30937981a786e3811e376daf77ab5.jpeg "An atheist explains the most convincing argument for God | Alex O'Connor") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t44PFI_V4LE)

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**Author:** ![Gisteron](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/gisteron/32/15845_2.png) [@Gisteron](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Gisteron)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 6:04pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/did-douglas-axe-disprove-evolution-spoiler-no/17458/731 "2026-01-17T18:04:24Z")

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> [@Giltil](#):
>
> Then I guess the question is what caused the Big Bang?

Okay. You guess that’s the question, and I guess it’s not. Where do we go from here?

> [@Giltil](#):
>
> But what about hierarchical causation where a given cause borrows its causal power from another one now, which itself borrows its causal power from another one now, etc…

What about it? Sounds like nonsense to me. What on earth is “causal power”, and why need anything borrow it from anywhere else?

> [@Giltil](#):
>
> This scheme cannot go on indefinitely, because none of the causes operating now has any causal power by itself, for it borrows it from another one.

I don’t understand how your explanation entails the statement. Please, complete the argument:

> Premise 1: No link in a causal chain has causal power of its own, if it has a hierarchical prior. To the extent to which it exercises causal power, it is borrowed rather from said prior.
> 
> - - - enter the rest of your argument here - - -
> 
> Conclusion: Therefore, a causal chain cannot have infinitely many links.

Also, please explain what Premise 1 means in practical terms, and justify why anyone ought think that it is true, while you’re at it.

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**Author:** ![Rumraket](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/rumraket/32/9328_2.png) [@Rumraket](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Rumraket)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 6:06pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/did-douglas-axe-disprove-evolution-spoiler-no/17458/732 "2026-01-17T18:06:14Z")

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That argument supports atheism:

[![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/peacefulscience/original/3X/8/f/8f2a72a8498995019c01c92a641eba01b755c3ef.jpeg "Alex O'Connor's case for God: Answered by Atheist Philosophers, the SciPhi Show") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chP1NSqf7Pk)

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**Author:** ![colewd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecd19e/32.png) [@colewd](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/colewd)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 6:26pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/did-douglas-axe-disprove-evolution-spoiler-no/17458/733 "2026-01-17T18:26:41Z")

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Hi Gil

It’s interesting that at about 16 minutes in he invokes evolution by natural selection explaining life’s diversity as a basis of his argument against specific Theism.

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**Author:** ![lee\_merrill](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/lee_merrill/32/14458_2.png) [@lee\_merrill](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/lee_merrill)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 6:55pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/did-douglas-axe-disprove-evolution-spoiler-no/17458/734 "2026-01-17T18:55:41Z")

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> [@RonSewell](#):
>
> > [@lee\_merrill](#):
> >
> > So I don’t agree that “thinking is a process happening in a material brain.”
> 
> Assume you are right. The brain has nothing to do with thinking. Then what is the brain for, and why do conditions of the brain affect our mental abilities? No fudging your answer now, the brain has nothing to do with thinking.

Well, I should have clarified my view, while quoting someone else. I don’t think thinking is a process only happening in a material brain. Certainly we use our brains in thinking, just as we use our fingers in playing piano. But playing the piano is not only muscles moving fingers.

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**Author:** ![lee\_merrill](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/lee_merrill/32/14458_2.png) [@lee\_merrill](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/lee_merrill)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 7:53pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/did-douglas-axe-disprove-evolution-spoiler-no/17458/735 "2026-01-17T19:53:22Z")

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> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> > [@lee\_merrill](#):
> >
> > Most systems indeed are not just the sum of their parts, I agree. But how do you make the jump to agency?
> 
> See? You make an exception for this one thing. Atoms aren’t alive, but collections of atoms can be alive. Atoms don’t think, and that means that collections of atoms can’t think either.

But you didn’t explain how you make the jump to agency. And to respond to your point, atoms can’t do just anything! They are not omnipotent. So I put thinking in the category of things atoms cannot do, for various reasons, one of them being that everyone (except the enlightened materialist) rejects thoughts and conclusions that are caused by unreasoning causes. They seem to require that real reasoning requires real independence, it is required that it is not a puppet show.

> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> > [@lee\_merrill](#):
> >
> > We recognize that agency implies will and intent and planning and action, apart from their physicality
> 
> Not sure what you mean by that, but I don’t think we recognize it. I think you want to think it, because it makes you feel more important somehow.

Ah, another instance where you reject my thinking, because you think you have found a nonrational cause: wanting to be important. You are illustrating here exactly what you say people don’t recognize, showing that even you recognize this.

> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> > [@lee\_merrill](#):
> >
> > But in the next breath, they must admit that they have no reason they can give for us to believe them
> 
> The reason is simple enough. We know that thinking involves the brain, and if it’s not solely a product of the brain we know of the existence of nothing else that could also be involved. Further, we know of no reason not to think that nothing else is involved.

Only we do know what else could be involved! We could, we’re reasoning beings, we embody this, we experience this, it’s part of the human experience, and people accept this, and it’s only by rejecting this possibility that you arrive at the place where the only option is materialism. Again, try saying “my brain cells made me do it” in a court of law, it won’t turn out well, you won’t be exempted because you make this claim.

> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> > [@lee\_merrill](#):
> >
> > I think it illustrates very well the materialist view, that we all are moving at the behest of purely natural forces. How is this not clear?
> 
> Because it doesn’t actually say that. The implication, if any, is in your head alone.

So then, tell me what it means, don’t just claim my view is mistaken.

> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> > [@lee\_merrill](#):
> >
> > What do you think it means, especially if you insist we must read the entire book to get the meaning of any statement in it?
> 
> I don’t know what it means. I bet the surrounding context would enlighten you, assuming you bothered and were capable of reading with comprehension.

But you can’t tell me my view is mistaken, yet you don’t know what it means! How can you tell if my view is mistaken, if you can’t see what the statement means? When you tell someone their calculation is mistaken, it’s because you see the mistake, and know how to get the right answer.

> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> > [@lee\_merrill](#):
> >
> > “They” means the people I am referring to, most people in this world.
> 
> But what is it that makes a plan? When you make a plan, what is the relevant part of “you”?

My soul, I would say, “I am a soul. I have a body,” as I heard someone put it. As indicated by out-of-body experiences, where people can observe, for example, doctors working on reviving them, when they are unconscious, and then describe accurately what was going on.

> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> > [@lee\_merrill](#):
> >
> > Yes, in the sense that a tornado could assemble a laptop, complete with a theorem-proving program that works! I still disagree that this is a reasonable view to hold, about my laptop, or about human reason.
> 
> No problem. All that’s required is that it be possible. Or perhaps you mean something by “possible” other than what the word usually means?

But not every possible explanation is a reasonable one. Surely you don’t think a tornado assembling such a laptop is a reasonable proposal.

> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> > [@lee\_merrill](#):
> >
> > So I don’t agree that “thinking is a process happening in a material brain.” I hold, with most people, that our thoughts are not a puppet show, the materialist explanation is too improbable to be plausible.
> 
> I don’t think you know what “improbable” and “plausible” mean either. Let’s put down “puppet show” as another term that allows you to stop inquiring into what’s really going on. I don’t recognize the term as a description of what anyone thinks a mind embedded in a causal universe is like. As is so often the case, you contradict yourself without realizing it

So describe it to me! I mentioned the materialist explanation, how is it not like a puppet show? And what is the contradiction? Your case is purely negative here.

> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> > [@lee\_merrill](#):
> >
> > I don’t see how “my brain atoms made me do it” is in any way meaning “I chose to do it.”
> 
> Of course you don’t. This is not something you’re capable of understanding, though I can’t see why. It’s simply that this universe, with tiny exceptions, operates by causality, and you are part of the universe.

So, pantheism? I think you just erased what people mean when they say “I” or “me”, they don’t mean just “this part of the universe.”

> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> Your thoughts, as we will call them for the sake of convenience, have causes. Those causes themselves have causes, and so on back for as far as you want to go.

I agree, though I think I am the cause of my thoughts, and that’s the end cause, there is no infinite chain of causation. And isn’t your infinite chain basically physics? Certainly we don’t know all of physics, but that’s no reason to conclude that there is no end to it.

> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> > [@lee\_merrill](#):
> >
> > Dilated pupils do indicate brain death, which is also close enough to clinical death for my purposes.
> 
> I can’t believe we’re having a stupid argument about whether anyone has recovered from being brain dead.

Well, that’s the claim in the study mentioned by Wikipedia! But I picked up my NDE book, “Beyond Death”, by Habermas and Moreland, and in their conclusion on the section on NDEs, they write, :”The additional suggestions of Greene and Blackmore concerning the ongoing operation of the NDEr’s brain still fail to relieve their dilemma–for at least two crucial reasons. First, no known biological function can explain the literally dozens of corroborated reports during clinical death, especially remote viewing. Hence, the best NDE reports remain naturalistically unjustified. As a result, evidenced consciousness _at the point of death_ is not magically explained by referring to still-existing brain activity or subjective phenomena. That such confirmed incidents, unexplained by human biology, would occur to the very brink of biological death and then suddenly cease is quite problematic in itself.”

“Second, evidenced information during long absences of heartbeat and measurable brain waves, as well as specific information about dead individuals, all previously unknown, appear to entirely bypass this objection. In other words, in each of these categories, there would be very little to no influence from the NDEr’s brain, _even if it was operating at the time._” (pp. 217-218)

> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> > [@lee\_merrill](#):
> >
> > John Lennox, we have a customer! Someone who will buy your laptop, even if we cannot explain who made it, or how.
> 
> Hate to tell you, but I can’t explain who made my computer or how, except in quite vague, general, and unsatisfying terms. But I can still tell the difference between one that works and one that doesn’t.

But you can explain this, with some investigation. And therefore you can trust it. And sure, you can tell the difference between one that works, and one that doesn’t, but how can you trust a working laptop? That is the question.

> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> > [@lee\_merrill](#):
> >
> > So I think Lennox’s question would still be apt if your laptop was the product of a process purely directed towards survival.
> 
> Sure, you can have any opinion you like of a fantasy situation.

But it’s the claim of the materialists here that direction towards survival produced our reasoning!

> [@John\_Harshman](#):
>
> > [@lee\_merrill](#):
> >
> > And I mentioned that only certain thoughts can be the result of brain stimulation, apparently. Physical movements, memories, but not abstract thought, for instance. This is unexpected, if all our thoughts are caused by operations in our brains.
> 
> Still looking for relevance to the questions this was supposedly responding to.

This is evidence that our thoughts are not all the results of operations in our brain, that is relevant evidence, arguing against the materialist claim.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![lee\_merrill](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/lee_merrill/32/14458_2.png) [@lee\_merrill](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/lee_merrill)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 8:34pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/did-douglas-axe-disprove-evolution-spoiler-no/17458/736 "2026-01-17T20:34:27Z")

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> [@Gisteron](#):
>
> > [@lee\_merrill](#):
> >
> > So I don’t agree that “thinking is a process happening in a material brain.”
> 
> Wait… So what _do_ you think thinking is, exactly? It must be either not a process at all, or one that is happening someplace other than the brain. Right?
> 
> It’s magic, isn’t it? That’s what you think thinking is. Straight-up mystical woo-woo, isn’t it? Boo!

I believe thinking is something that happens in the soul, and we use the brain in that process. And I can’t explain how I come up with my thoughts, exactly. Neither can you! People are still investigating the origin of consciousness, and they are still mystified.

> [@Gisteron](#):
>
> > [@lee\_merrill](#):
> >
> > … our thoughts are not a puppet show, the materialist explanation is **too improbable** to be plausible. (emphasis added)
> 
> Improbable, is it? And how probable is that, specifically? And by what calculation based on which observable data did who ever you are going to quote for this arrive at their estimate?

Seriously? You think it probable, evidently, and where are your calculations, and numbers? But as far as improbability, you may be familiar with Fred Hoyle’s assessment: “A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.”

> [@Gisteron](#):
>
> > [@lee\_merrill](#):
> >
> > If my actions are completely due to movements of atoms in my brain, there is actually no “me” to choose, you could theoretically compute what I will do next, if you knew enough.
> 
> First of all, yes, human choices _are_ in many cases predictable, and in many more cases unambiguously measurable well in advance of their being acted upon, or the candidate even being consciously aware of having made them.
> 
> Secondly, no, recognizing what it is that makes you the being that you are in no way erases your existence or the meaningfulness of identifying you as a whole, rather than a mere collection of your parts.
> 
> Thirdly, not only is this not at all a problem as per the second point, it is also not one to which you would have one remotely more satisfying solution. Replace “atoms” in your complaint with “soul”, and literally nothing else about it needs changing to make just as much (or as little) sense as it ever did. Whether I am made of atoms obeying physical law, or out of a spooky ghost obeying magical whimsy, one can in either case ask just what exactly “me” is, and in what sense it ever makes any choices, what ever those are.
> 
> Of course, in the case of atoms, at least they are bound to this physical realm, and at least the decisions that end up emerging through their motions are actually based on things happening in the real world, and aren’t completely disconnected and uncontrollable noise. See, if the only sort of “free will” you are willing to accept[[1]](#footnote-269973-1) is the sort that is causally divorced from nature, then sure enough you have the “free” part down, but in no meaningful way is this a “will” still.

But none of this extended reply actually addresses my point! How can you refer to “me”, if all I do and choose is theoretically completely computable? How does this not essentially erase my existence? There is nothing meaningful to speak of as “me”, I am merely an effect, an epiphenomenon of all the causes that produce my body and my behavior.

And yes, I believe therefore that real choices, and reasoning, must be causally divorced from nature, and I think this is actually the only meaningful way to speak of a “will.”

> [@Gisteron](#):
>
> > [@lee\_merrill](#):
> >
> > It just works. So far. Somehow. And that’s the basis on which you must trust it to keep working.
> 
> What exactly is wrong with trusting a machine based on its observed past behaviour? Why on earth would anyone’s story about its origin be a better reason to trust its reliability, than a large aggregate of data confirming said reliability?

Suppose you get an anonymous check every month, out of the blue. Wouldn’t you want to know who sent it, and why, and whether they intend to keep doing this?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Gisteron](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/gisteron/32/15845_2.png) [@Gisteron](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Gisteron)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 8:36pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/did-douglas-axe-disprove-evolution-spoiler-no/17458/737 "2026-01-17T20:36:15Z")

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Yes, most believers aren’t extremists who openly and emphatically reject the entirety of a field of scientific study with massive demonstrable utility based solely on their own deliberate ignorance of all nuances regarding some of the most culturally significant and impactful texts ever put to paper. It is quite interesting that religiosity alone is not sufficient to render one a reality-denying lunatic with no respect for the achievements of others.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AnEvolvedPrimate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a183cd/32.png) [@AnEvolvedPrimate](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/AnEvolvedPrimate)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 9:01pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/did-douglas-axe-disprove-evolution-spoiler-no/17458/738 "2026-01-17T21:01:08Z")

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> [@Rumraket](#):
>
> If the brain isn’t thinking, then what does it do that requires so much energy, and why does chemicals and physical trauma to the brain affect your thinking?

I would love an answer to this question. As someone who has had their ability to think interrupted by illness (covid-19), the idea that cognition is independent of the physical brain makes no sense to me.

Further to this, if consciousness is independent of the physical brain even to the point of physical death, why is unconsciousness a state that a person can be in? Especially in cases of physical trauma.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Gisteron](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/gisteron/32/15845_2.png) [@Gisteron](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Gisteron)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 9:02pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/did-douglas-axe-disprove-evolution-spoiler-no/17458/739 "2026-01-17T21:02:48Z")

</div>

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> I believe thinking is something that happens in the soul, and we use the brain in that process.

Okay. So what part of the process, specifically, is (a) demonstrably happening, and (b) demonstrably _not_ happening in the brain?

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> You think it probable, evidently,…

I’ll endeavour to express explicitly what I do and do not think. I made no claims of the probability. **You did**. I am unwilling to defend claims I did not make, so I shan’t.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> But as far as improbability, you may be familiar with Fred Hoyle’s assessment:

Sure. As I predicted, of course your only reply is a quote, although I am disappointed to see one that does not actually present an estimate of the probability you claimed wsa too low. Perhaps you can read the original source of the quote in place of the creationist material you grabbed it from and eventually find an actual number. In that case you can go on and present what calculation based on which observable data did your authority of choice arrived at their estimate with? Until then, your claim remains supported all with an exasperated “Seriously?” and nothing else.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> There is nothing meaningful to speak of as “me”, I am merely an effect, an epiphenomenon of all the causes that produce my body and my behavior.

If, in your opinion, being “an epiphenomenon of all the causes that produce [your] body and [your] behavior” is meaningless, that is truly sad, and as sympathetic I am to existential doubts of this sort, I am not trained to help with problems like it. I cannot provide you with a sense of personal meaning. To me, this is not meaningless, neither about myself nor about you. But no feelings either of us have about this changes the facts of the matter.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> And yes, I believe therefore that real choices, and reasoning, must be causally divorced from nature,…

Yeah, this is something I don’t think we’ll see eye to eye on. For me, a choice must be one rooted in past experiences and the personality it formed, and the desires so developed, and in a consideration of the consequences. Something that is independent of all of that is not a meaningful choice to me, it is just a random glitch. It certainly is not an expression of any will, if the person and everything that makes them what they are is not involved in it.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> Suppose you get…

Suppose you elect to not ignore the question that addresses the point you invoked an analogy for. Suppose you try not to bring in yet a new analogy in an attempt to deflect from the point, and instead make any attempt to actually address it. How much more progress could we be making in this discussion, if you engaged earnestly with it and with some focus…

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![lee\_merrill](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/lee_merrill/32/14458_2.png) [@lee\_merrill](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/lee_merrill)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 9:10pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/did-douglas-axe-disprove-evolution-spoiler-no/17458/740 "2026-01-17T21:10:55Z")

</div>

> [@Faizal\_Ali](#):
>
> > [@lee\_merrill](#):
> >
> > I think it illustrates very well the materialist view, that we all are moving at the behest of purely natural forces. How is this not clear?
> 
> That is, indeed, the “materialist” view.
> 
> This does _not_ entail that free will or agency do not exist, or are illusions.
> 
> How is _this_ not clear?

Because no one but the enlightened materialists believe this? And I need you to explain how free will is free, if we are moving at the behest of purely natural forces.

> [@Faizal\_Ali](#):
>
> I will also remind you that the issue of free will is no less problematic for people who deny physicalism For instance, it is difficult to reconcile libertarian free will with the proposition that God knows everything you will do before you do it.

I’ve always thought this absurd, I expect to work today, I know I will likely do this, but that doesn’t erase my freedom in this decision somehow. And does this work on a scale? The more likely I know a decision to be, the more I remove freedom from it? “He always orders apple pie for dessert, therefore he must do so, somehow.”

> [@Faizal\_Ali](#):
>
> > [@lee\_merrill](#):
> >
> > I don’t see how “my brain atoms made me do it” is in any way meaning “I chose to do it.”
> 
> It’s simple: When you use the term “I” then, under this view, you are referring to nothing more than a particular aspect of the movements of the group of atoms that make up your brain. OK, maybe that isn’t exactly simple, but it should be clear.

It is straightforward, if not ultimately simple, but the quote I gave from Chesterton earlier comes to mind: “As an explanation of the world, materialism has a sort of insane simplicity. It has just the quality of the madman’s argument; we have at once the sense of it covering everything and the sense of it leaving everything out. Contemplate some able and sincere materialist, as, for instance, Mr. McCabe, and you will have exactly this unique sensation. He understands everything, and everything does not seem worth understanding. His cosmos may be complete in every rivet and cog-wheel, but still his cosmos is smaller than our world. Somehow his scheme, like the lucid scheme of the madman, seems unconscious of the alien energies and the large indifference of the earth; it is not thinking of the real things of the earth, of fighting peoples or proud mothers, or first love or fear upon the sea. The earth is so very large, and the cosmos is so very small.”

> [@Faizal\_Ali](#):
>
> > [@lee\_merrill](#):
> >
> > Dilated pupils do indicate brain death, which is also close enough to clinical death for my purposes.
> 
> Brain death and clinical death are absolutely _not_ the same thing. Failure to appreciate this underlies many of the poor arguments made for dualism by amateurs.

That’s why I added “for my purposes”, certainly I don’t insist they are identical.

> [@Faizal\_Ali](#):
>
> > [@lee\_merrill](#):
> >
> > John Lennox, we have a customer! Someone who will buy your laptop, even if we cannot explain who made it, or how. It just works.
> 
> I would guess that applies to 99.9% of people who buy laptops. Are you the exception? If so, please explain how my laptop was made and how it works. I would love to know!

Along the lines of what I said to someone else, we have a good notion of the construction of laptops, from making things ourselves, and have reasons to believe we can get good answers to how it works, by investigation. If we thought there were no answers to these questions, we would be suspicious, for good reasons. It helps to view the diploma on the wall at the dentist! Though we also will check reviews.

> [@Faizal\_Ali](#):
>
> > [@lee\_merrill](#):
> >
> > But Lennox is not saying laptops are good analogies for brains, he is pointing out (as I do) that the same principal can be applied to both
> 
> IOW, he is saying laptops are good analogies to brains.

People here claim that, but they cannot tell me how what I am saying is an analogy, instead of two applications of a principle.

> [@Faizal\_Ali](#):
>
> > [@Gisteron](#):
> >
> > Except that I am uncomfortable with causation on some fundamental level as a scientifically viable concept altogether. But the objections raised are usually about the possibility of an infinite chain, not about the meaningfulness of the idea of causal links between events in principle.
> 
> For my part, when I assert that causation is true, I am saying nothing more than that, by using the concept, I am able to make accurate and reliable predications about what I will observe in the world. I can make no metaphysical claims beyond that.

But using the concept of causation does not somehow give you an ability to make predictions! You don’t get abilities by believing something. And just the fact that your predictions and your thoughts are caused, does not give you reason to trust them, either, you need to know if the causes have other directions and destinations than accuracy. I say they do, if your brain results from evolution.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Gisteron](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/gisteron/32/15845_2.png) [@Gisteron](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Gisteron)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 9:32pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/did-douglas-axe-disprove-evolution-spoiler-no/17458/741 "2026-01-17T21:32:51Z")

</div>

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> I’ve always thought this absurd, I expect to work today, I know I will likely do this, but that doesn’t erase my freedom in this decision somehow.

Fallibility makes an enormous difference here. You do not _know_ that you will work today, and it’s not about how likely it is to go this way or another. If God knows _right now_ which way things will go, then that means that the future is already, right this moment, factual. That there _can_ be knowledge of it. Not just a well-educated guess that happens to be confirmed a lot of the time, but actual knowledge of something that is really a fact, even before it comes to pass into the present.

If the future is factual in the present, then there is a definitive answer as to what will occur to it, and there is no actual freedom of choice between options. This simple version of omniscience amounts to a form of fatalism and precludes any libertarian notions of free will such as you favour. There are no logically coherent ways of avoiding this, and what theologians do instead is argue that much subtler and weaker forms of either omniscience or free will or both can still reasonably qualify for their respective label.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> That’s why I added “for my purposes”, certainly I don’t insist they are identical.

Yes, well, but your purposes are not the purposes of the sources you cite. When they speak of clinical death, they, as a matter of fact, do _not_ mean an occurrence that involves the death of the brain. And you choosing to not give a damn that there is a distinction there does not in fact erase it, nor changes how people who care about whether the things they say are true use the terminology in question.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> You don’t get abilities by believing something.

Correct. Using a concept, however, is not the same as believing something. So your point is moot. What Faizal is saying here is that the language of causation has a utility, that the concept, how ever foggy it may get if poked at too harshly, is not entirely meaningless. This has nothing to do with whether or not anybody “believes” it, what ever that even means.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> And just the fact that your predictions and your thoughts are caused, does not give you reason to trust them, either, you need to know if the causes have other directions and destinations than accuracy. I say they do, if your brain results from evolution.

My guy, your “reason to trust” our predictions and thoughts is that they are literally **un** caused. You think a choice is meaningful if it is divorced from nature, you say we can trust our reasoning because to at least some extent it is produced by a ghost instead of a machine that operates with consistency in at least its comport with the laws of physics. What room have _you_ to complain about the trustworthiness of clockworks, when literal unpredictable magical woo is what _you_ think can be trusted all the more?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![John\_Harshman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/john_harshman/32/1121_2.png) [@John\_Harshman](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/John_Harshman)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 10:17pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/did-douglas-axe-disprove-evolution-spoiler-no/17458/742 "2026-01-17T22:17:23Z")

</div>

> [@Giltil](#):
>
> Then I guess the question is what caused the Big Bang?

That’s certainly **a** question, though one irrelevant to the current thread.

> [@Giltil](#):
>
> But what about hierarchical causation where a given cause borrows its causal power from another one now, which itself borrows its causal power from another one now, etc…

No idea what you think that means. Borrowing? Not acquainted with that function. Brings to life? Whatever does that mean?

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> But you didn’t explain how you make the jump to agency.

I don’t know what you mean by “the jump to agency”. I certainly don’t know how the brain produces thoughts, if that’s what you’re talking about. Then again, you have no idea how the soul produces thoughts. At least I know that brains exist.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> So I put thinking in the category of things atoms cannot do, for various reasons, one of them being that everyone (except the enlightened materialist) rejects thoughts and conclusions that are caused by unreasoning causes.

Back to that again? Once more, your argument is that atoms don’t reason, therefore collections of atoms can’t reason, and atoms aren’t wet, therefore collections of atoms can’t be wet.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> They seem to require that real reasoning requires real independence, it is required that it is not a puppet show.

What does “real independence” mean. And stop with the puppet show nonsense already.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> Ah, another instance where you reject my thinking, because you think you have found a nonrational cause: wanting to be important.

No, as always, you have it backwards. I reject your thinking because it’s nonsensical in itself, and I try to imagine a reason you would hold these nonsensical beliefs. Why do you so consistently get everything backwards?

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> Only we do know what else could be involved! We could, we’re reasoning beings, we embody this, we experience this, it’s part of the human experience, and people accept this, and it’s only by rejecting this possibility that you arrive at the place where the only option is materialism.

Please stop with the logorrhea. If you have an argument to make, just make it. If you don’t, throwing meaningless collections of words won’t help.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> So then, tell me what it means, don’t just claim my view is mistaken.

It’s at the end of a chapter on genetics, and you can find the book here:

> **[Richard%20Dawkins%20-%20River%20Out%20Of%20Eden.pdf](https://avalonlibrary.net/ebooks/Richard%20Dawkins%20-%20River%20Out%20Of%20Eden.pdf)**
>
> 2.62 MB

Nothing in the surrounding context is about free will or how consciousness works or any such thing. The closest you get is that our basic drives, emotions, and such are all evolved.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> But you can’t tell me my view is mistaken, yet you don’t know what it means!

I can at least tell you that you don’t know what it means and have made no attempt to find out. But I did make such an attempt; it wasn’t hard.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> My soul

Great. How does your soul arrive it its plan? How does a soul operate?

Note that in addition to not needing a brain, your soul also doesn’t need eyes. Do eyes even work without souls to do the real seeing? How many of our organs are superfluous, with the soul doing all the real work?

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> But not every possible explanation is a reasonable one. Surely you don’t think a tornado assembling such a laptop is a reasonable proposal.

True. But in order to allow that it’s possible you have to accept that a laptop consists of matter. If it’s possible for natural selection (or a tornado, even) to assemble a thinking mind, that thinking mind must also be made of matter. The improbable part in that, if any, is the assembly, not the operation. You are consistely confuse about the difference, and it’s consistently getting in your way.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> I mentioned the materialist explanation, how is it not like a puppet show?

In every way. For one thing, there’s no puppeteer. And as has been explained to you so many, many times, in this puppet show metaphor you need to explain how the puppeteer works, and we end up with an infinite regression of homunculi.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> And what is the contradiction?

The contradiction results from your confusion between the assembly and the operation of a mind.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> So, pantheism?

No. Where did that come from?

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> I think you just erased what people mean when they say “I” or “me”,

I think we’ve established that you have no idea what people mean or what the “I” actually is or how it works.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> I agree, though I think I am the cause of my thoughts, and that’s the end cause, there is no infinite chain of causation.

So you’re the uncaused cause? How can you make a reasonable decision if that decision comes out of nowhere?

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> And isn’t your infinite chain basically physics? Certainly we don’t know all of physics, but that’s no reason to conclude that there is no end to it.

Again, it’s hard to determine what you’re trying to say.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> Well, that’s the claim in the study mentioned by Wikipedia!

At this point, I’m doubting whether you have correctly understood the claim, because you seem not to understand the difference between brain death and clinical death.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> But you can explain this, with some investigation. And therefore you can trust it.

As usual, when you say a word like “therefore” or “so” or “thus”, it seems not to mean what it means to other people. There was an example.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> but how can you trust a working laptop? That is the question.

Because that’s the definition of “working”.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> But it’s the claim of the materialists here that direction towards survival produced our reasoning!

Not survival: reproduction. And of course inheritance is built into the concept. The question is nonsensical because laptops don’t do any of that, though organisms do.

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> This is evidence that our thoughts are not all the results of operations in our brain, that is relevant evidence, arguing against the materialist claim.

So basically you have forgotten, if you ever know, what you were responding to.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![RonSewell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/ronsewell/32/6194_2.png) [@RonSewell](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/RonSewell)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 10:26pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/did-douglas-axe-disprove-evolution-spoiler-no/17458/743 "2026-01-17T22:26:42Z")

</div>

> [@lee\_merrill](#):
>
> And I need you to explain how free will is free, if we are moving at the behest of purely natural forces.

We choose according to our natures. Is that not consistent with reformed theology?

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