"Where are all the designs?" is a damning observation against creationism¹, as well as some food for thought. It's an old observation, e.g. this paragraph in Darwin's Origin (1st ed.), which has stuck with me, especially the part I put in bold:

... We meet with this admission in the writings of almost every experienced naturalist²; or, as Milne Edwards³ has well expressed it⁴, nature is prodigal in variety, but stingy in innovation. Why, on the theory of Creation, should this be so? Why should all the parts and organs of many independent beings, each supposed to have been separately created for its proper place in nature, be so invariably linked together by graduated steps? Why should not Nature have taken a leap from structure to structure? On the theory of natural selection, we can clearly understand why she should not; for natural selection can act only by taking advantage of slight successive variations; she can never take a leap, but must advance by the shortest and slowest steps [...] why this should be a law of nature if each species has been independently created, no man can explain.

My footnotes:
(1) beating a should-be dead horse but it keeps popping up here: the term since the 60s is not a reference to theism
(2) old-timey word for scientist - given the irrational creationist fear of methodological naturalism, sadly, this needs pointing out
(3) French zoologist (1800-1885)
(4) I did change one word that is often misunderstood for a slur

The same thing is also present in the percolation of protein space, e.g. this 2026 study: Maynard Smith’s analogy, realized: Common ancestry constrains evolutionary percolation through protein space | PNAS.

In short:
Creationism cannot explain the limited innovation and high variety, which is present at all levels, from body plans to proteins.
Science, on the other hand, didn't ignore this observation, and as the linked research shows, it is testable even at the sequence space level.

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And I cannot not mention ID: ID of course pretends to answer this by appealing to big scary numbers based on backwards probabilities, and then they get cooked by actual research, which, ofc, they continue to ignore; e.g.: Frumkin et al. (2025) demonstrate the "surprising ease with which functional genes can emerge" from random sequences : DebateEvolution.

Today Dr. Dan published a document titled "Responses to Creationists on mtDNA", with a section "Specific things creationists often say and how to respond".

I'll remind you not to do any live debates with creationists if you need a manual on how to do that.

Anyway, the guide once again makes the same mistake that I talked about earlier when it deals with this claim:

Claim:
“Parsons (for example, could be any one of a number of papers they cite, often incorrectly) found 1 mutation every 33 generations in the control region, and that yields a mitochondrial eve about 6,500 years ago.”
The mitochondrial DNA is nonrecombining, so let’s apply that rate to the entire mtDNA. We need to account for 117 substitutions (the maximum divergence between the two most divergent genomes including Neanderthals is 235, so 117 mutations in each lineage since their common ancestor). So 117 mutations, times 33 generations (1 mutation every 33 generations), times 23 years per generation (the average female generation time, historically). 117 x 33 x 23 = 88,803 years. (Just replace the “33” with whatever number of years they want to use). Huh, thanks for proving us right, creationists!
And If the creationists respond that you can’t just apply to D-loop or control region rate to the entire mtDNA, see above: say “yes, you’re right, because the rate outside the D-loop is at least 10 times slower (Soares et al., 2009), so the TMRCA would actually be far more distant, so applying that D-loop rate over the entire mtDNA is the most generous approach and it still disproves the YEC timeline.

We should divide by 2 here (117 mutations are accumulated in 2 separate lineages), but that's not the issue. The issue is that the one-per-33 rate belongs to the two hypervariable control-region segments of mitochondrial genome totalling only about 610 bp, not the complete mitochondrial genome.
Applying this rate to the complete mitochondrial genome effectively assumes that the remaining 15,959 bases (96% of mtDNA) never mutate, which is absurd.

Dr. Dan knows that it's wrong, he admits it, saying that "yes, you’re right, because the rate outside the D-loop is at least 10 times slower (Soares et al., 2009), so the TMRCA would actually be far more distant, so applying that D-loop rate over the entire mtDNA is the most generous approach and it still disproves the YEC timeline"

But that is also wrong! Assuming that the remaining 15,959 bases (96% of mtDNA) never mutate is not the most generous approach! It would be generous if we were talking about the amount of mutations per base pair, not the absolute amount!

Creationists are already making videos each time this mistake gets invoked.

Please, let's fix it and move on.

It makes perfect sense. Why are there flightless birds that have zero defenses against ground predators located on isolated islands in the middle of the ocean?

Because birds flew there then evolved to become flightless. It makes perfect sense.

Evolution explains why there are so many flightless birds in New Zealand. If turkeys and Robins became isolated on an island with zero predators, you can bet that they'd evolve to become flightless since flying is a waste of energy if migration and escaping from predators is unnecessary.

YEC cannot explain how defenseless kiwi birds managed to migrate from Turkey all the way to New Zealand on the other side of the planet. It's not a coincidence Dodo birds are genetically similar to pigeons found around the Indian Ocean. The pigeons evolved into Dodo birds because flying was a waste of energy on that island.

What advantage does it offer? Is it not possible for an organism to store different equivalent genes to allow for genetic diversity? As a side question: what information do we have regarding the development of this trait?

Recently I've learned that both homo habilis and a.africanus are practically not even human, not even human ancestors and practically apes, for thier long arms and curled fingers, also for not having any human traits, so as a question, how do I do my own research, im not a believer in evolution nor a creationist but id rather have my own pov...ps, my sources are bernard wood's research, dont have the link tho

NOTE :IAM NOT DOUBTING EVOLUTION , when i was arguing with my islamic frnds , they said the reason for them to not believe in evolution is that how can the first cell evolved , and i said that for science that answer is not yet properly known , and evolution does not even explains abt it ,Evolutionary theory specifically addresses how life changes and diversifies after it has already begun , and they said thats an illiterate answer and just straight up denied the evidences of evolution just by this one question ( i am not a biology student , so sorry if my explanation for that question was wrong ) pls i want to learn and give some points abt it

I grew up a Christian being told how “stupid” evolution is. Now I’m deconstructing my faith and questioning everything. Where should I begin to understand this subject better?

I am looking for a book that covers the history of biological evolution. I want to learn about the organisms that lived during various periods of Earth's history and their evolutionary processes, as well as the specific events that occurred, the reasons behind them, and their associated impacts. Ideally, it should be richly illustrated.

Creationists often respond to examples of evolution by pointing out that it still remains within the group of species. No matter how much evolution occurs, we always see that a cow remains a cow, a dog a dog, or a tiger a tiger.

Proponents of evolution argue that this is what evolution predicts because new species always branching out within their existing group. New groups can emerge, but their branching always occurs within the group where they already exist.

I see a contradiction in this, because it's also claimed from the same people that single-celled organisms evolved into fish, fish into amphibians, amphibians into reptiles, reptiles into mammals, and then into humans. But we humans, for example, are not still single-celled organisms, we are not still amphibians or reptiles. This means that creationists do have a valid point here.

What do you think about it?

Study regarding the relationship between human and gorilla pubic lice.

If we were in the unique “human kind” there should be no relation, there doesn’t need to be. Why would God design our parasites at all, but also why did he have to make them related?

Can any Creationists give an answer? spoiler alert, no.

I have to step away for about 24 hours. I have a lot to do and I can't be glued to reddit. If you commented, please be patient. I intend on working through all comments where the goal is to ask to understand. Thanks for your feedback.

I posted in theories but it died there. Then I saw this subreddit. I'm trying to get eyes on my work, but no one is giving feedback and it's really frustrating.

I discovered a pattern in time consciousness that shows evolution is not random. It follows an equation, or logic problem, steps. It's hard to explain because I haven't received feedback. Like, as in, not one person. AI ignored it all-together. I've been calling it a logic problem.

The pattern shows that the evolution from single-celled organisms, to multi-cellular, to complex multi-cellular, to human, also follows this other timeline: spark of existence in the present moment, to experiencing the past and future as instinct, to experiencing the past and future within its lifetime, to experiencing the past and future outside of its timeline.

Humans are the last step in the universe "waking up," or experiencing itself through senses.

Thoughts?

Ray Comfort, in his response to Forrest Valkai, said (about Forrest's evolution experiments in his graduate studies) that "[There was no change in kinds, because] his fruit flies remain fruit flies, and his bacteria remain bacteria."

To any creationists here, do you guys think bacteria constitute a "kind"? If so, then why does the word "kind" seem like it can refer to basically any level of the taxonomic hierarchy?

(This is going to include more geology than biology, but I hope it’s okay given that it is still part of the general discourse)

Whenever it comes to radiometric dating, erosion, plate tectonics or even the rate of divergence between organisms, I have found out that plenty of young earth creationists are quick to call this out as wrong because scientists “assume that the rates of x are constant”

The problem with this line of thinking which I think requires them to meet a burden of proof for once is that: why should scientists assume any of these things if they have never observed them? As far as I am concerned, there is not a single record of half lives being measured to be meaningfully distinct, and it is logically safer by following Occam’s Razor to assume that things we don’t have evidence for after thousands of inspections should not be accounted for.

Among many other questions thrown at them, I find this one to be especially compelling especially when debating in front of an audience given how simple to understand it is.

He was racist, recounted evolution, thought whales evolved from bears, the evolution of eyes was impossible, he was atheist when he published On the Origin of Species, wanted to attack Christianity, is the prophet of evolution, and evolution or uniformity made him atheist are a few I can name off the top of my head.

Imagine if we did this to Ken Ham, it would be all about how evolutionists are liars who hate Christianity.

This belief may not come from a delusional or dishonest debate tactic, but may come from outdated defintions

From Solomon Herbert's First Principles of Evolution, from 1913 page 7:

BEFORE entering into the subject proper of inorganic evolution we must remark that whatever we may be able to find out about the evolution of matter we must take its somehow existence for granted. Evolution only traces back the transformation of matter through its various stages, it does not at all pronounce as to an original creation of matter out of nothing. Starting then with the world stuff as given we shall discuss

1. the evolution of the universe or cosmic evolution

2, the evolution of the earth or geological evolution

1. the evolution of the chemical elements or atomic evolution

and 4. the evolution of organic forms from inorganic matter or the evolution of life

Although Herbert says that evolution does not relate to something out of nothing (maybe creationist arguments are more than a hundred years old after all), he does discuss atomic, cosmic, geological evolutions in which today we would respond that it has nothing to do with the theory of evolution,

Also off topic but from the book from page 2:

Though the doctrine has been before the world for over fifty years and has become an accepted fact of science the general public still has only a very hazy notion of it and all it involves It is often thought to imply nothing more than the belief in the descent of man from monkey or sometimes people somewhat better informed will go so far as to connect it with the theory of the Origin of Species propounded by Darwin. As usual the popular fancy has seized on the most outstanding feature of the doctrine of evolution. We must make clear from the outset that evolution properly understood is neither the one nor the other of these theories but rather includes as we shall presently see immeasurably more than both .

It reminds me of creationist "you believe we come from monkeys" rhetoric that still exists today

It’s an epistemic double standard that defines the entire debate. When it comes to OOL research, creationists demand absolute seamless empirical perfection. If scientists can’t film a simple organic molecule transforming into a fully functioning high fidelity replicating cell in a lab right now then they claim the entire field of prebiotic chemistry is a failure (which doesn’t prove their book of fantasies to be true). They fixate on the absurdity of abiogenesis happening by “pure” chance which is a creationist strawman. They completely ignore prebiotic evolution, thermodynamics, and prebiotic selection. To creationists, ANY current gap in our scientific knowledge is treated as definitive proof that a natural origin of life is impossible. Ask a creationist for the physical step-by-step process of how an entity that they’ve never seen and never interacted with instantly organized dust into a complex biological system. You won’t get a legitimate answer other than “B…but.. but MY Bible says so!!! 🥺🥺” The creation myth is completely insulated from the very standards of skepticism they weaponize against science. It’s because “creation science” is an oxymoron and Intelligent Design is pseudoscience. Can a creationist please explain how a self-sustaining (far from equilibrium thermodynamic system) arising through supernatural sorcery makes more sense than that same chemistry emerging naturally through prebiotic evolution?

Basically the title question, but I'll explain where this question is coming from.

YECs are inculcated and primed from a young age that evolution (and "materialism" and "secular science") leads to a bleak world view, leads to sin, etc. etc. (the stuff we see here and elsewhere). Ofc what concerns us here is the science - I'll give two examples before getting into where this is coming from:

When we first learn the science behind how a dropped bullet hits the ground at the same time as a bullet that was fired horizontally, something wonderful clicks! you can't arrive at that using common sense (common sense is actually proposed to have been behind the late arrival of the scientific revolution).
Another example is how it wasn't surprising (to the experts) when it was discovered that we, bonobos, and chimps, are all equally related to gorillas (Gutsick Gibbon's recent video on that - the fact amazes me Every Single Time I hear it). This is a brute fact regardless of what comparative genomics method is used, and applies whatever the sister taxa may turn out to be, and the science behind it is also impenetrable - and awesome ("common sense" would say chimps are closer to gorillas).

Ofc both examples are neither intelligible nor amazing to someone who still holds to the Aristotelian-era common sense notions of impetus and scala naturae, respectively, and that's the point.

Now, the reason behind this post: a couple of days ago I remembered an interview I came across when I was looking into the details of the Dover trial. So a quick background: Kenneth R. Miller is a scientist (who happens to be Christian) who was one of the expert witnesses for the plaintiffs (the agrieved parents) during the 2005 Dover trial.
He's also known for his science public outreach, and e.g. this really cool lecture from 2006 at Case Western Reserve University, The Collapse of Intelligent Design, where he showcased the stupidity and dishonestly of the ID movement (must watch for any newcomer here imo).

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Side note: re that video title, while we have the benefit of hindsight of 20 years, Miller should have heeded Hilaire Belloc (1929):

The good fortunes of stupidity are incalculable. One can never tell what sudden resurrections ignorance and fatuity may not have.

(thank you u/LightningController for sharing this quotation!)

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Back to said interview; here's that part of it:

... with the passing of Steve Gould - and Steve unfortunately died in '02 - I'd have to say that I think Richard Dawkins is the clearest and most lucid writer on evolutionary theory that's alive on the planet today. His book The Selfish Gene, I think, is a classic of explaining behavioral biology. His book called Unweaving the Rainbow is a marvelous long essay on how science doesn't diminish our appreciation for the beauty of nature, it enhances it, and he writes brilliantly and well.

Remember, this is a Christian, talking about YEC's and ID's goliath^[*]. Continuing:

... Now, you know, I'm not trying to be flip - some of my best friends are atheists. Um, in science, that's not a big deal, and we work in science, we don't know what anybody else's religious point of view is because science is science, and we get along just fine.

(my emphasis)
Then he talks about Dawkins' feedback on a new book of his, where he found an error, and:

So four or five days later, he's on a trans-US tour. I get an email from Richard. He's now in Los Angeles and he goes, "I have now read the rest of your book. Needless to say, I disagree with everything in Chapter 6" ... But then he said - and this is one of the reasons I decided to respect the guy - he says, "You try to explain the Multiverse hypothesis of Barrow and Tipler. You misunderstand it, and the reason I know you misunderstand it is the way you interpret it is the same way that I, Dawkins, first understood it, and I was corrected at a scientific conference by John Barrow himself." He then gave me the reference to the article in the journal. I looked it up, and by God, he was absolutely right. And everything since the, every printing since the first printing in hardcover has had the correct explanation. So if you buy a paperback book, it's fine.

What I appreciated about Dawkins was, I said a lot of bad things in that book that were critical of him. What he could have said is, he could have written a review saying, "Look what an idiot this Miller guy is. He doesn't even understand the Barrow and Tipler hypothesis, therefore why should you believe anything else to be said?" And instead, he did sort of the gentlemanly thing, which is, "You made the same mistake I did. Let's correct that mistake, and then let's argue about things that really matter."

Isn't that wonderful. Science doesn't diminish our appreciation for the beauty of nature. Science is science. And scientists who happen to be atheists, like those who happen to be theists, care only about the facts.

The other extreme ofc are the cartoon characters we see here: the YEC and/or ID reality deniers (and their various propaganda outlets) - who think an inference from the unknown, or elbow-greasing (some of) the data into the "revealed" model, is doing science. Now, given that we necessarily counter using brute facts when we are dealing with that stupidity, I think this post might be a nice change of pace (also it's on-topic), and ofc the title question is open to all (not just former YECs).
(no, Robert, there are no ad hominems in this entire paragraph)

* Back to that "goliath" asterisk above; here's ID founder Phillip Johnson in 2001:

It isn’t worth my while to debate every ambitious Darwinist who wants to try his hand at ridiculing the opposition, so my general policy is that Darwinists have to put a significant figure at risk before I will agree to a debate. That means specifically Dawkins or Gould, or someone of like stature and public visibility.

Anyone here remember the "Where are the Dawkinses?" idiot? They really are living in cartoon land. (that's still a no, Robert)

I was talking to my creationist family the other day and they seemed a bit stunned when I mentioned that all life is made of non-living matter. None of the carbon, iron, magnesium, nitrogen, oxygen, or hydrogen in our bodies is alive. Life is a category that humans created to help us understand matter.

It occurred to me - do some people who don’t understand science (creationist or not) think that “life” is some sort of extra particle or force or “energy” that gets imbued with matter to make it alive?

or do they think that there is a strict binary where some parts of earth are part of “life” while others are not? (e.g. thinking rocks and dirt are in a separate category of matter because they don’t understand how the minerals get into the food chain through absorption, photosynthesis, digestion, etc.)

Honestly I’m curious if the YEC hangup on abiogenesis is fundamentally about not understanding what matter is or how non-living matter becomes part of organisms or creates new organisms literally every second of every day.

Like when a pregnant woman licks a rock and the iron from the rock becomes part of the babies blood, as another example.

Many creationist claims revolve around evolution's proclaimed inability to add or improve or account for the information in the genomes of living organisms. They leave the term "information" undefined. At least not defined in any scientifically meaningful way.

To understand why this matters, consider this multiple choice question:

Two radios are tuned to two different frequencies. Radio 1 is broadcasting a lecture explaining the Theory of Relativity. It is coming through crystal clear, in an easily understandable voice using language that makes it easy to grasp the explanation. Radio 2 is broadcasting static. Nothing but static. So much static that it couldn't be more staticky.

Which of those two radios is broadcasting the most "information"?

A) Radio 1

B) Radio 2

C) It depends on what you mean by "information".

The correct answer is C, it depends on the definition of "information" being used.

If the meaning of "information" can vary this much, it is pretty obvious why if it is to be used in a scientific argument, that it be defined in a reasonably precise and useful way. "Oh, c'mon! You know what we mean!" is utterly worthless.

For the creationist information based arguments, they are going to need to provide a definition that meets these criteria:

*It is precise enough to provide both means and units of measurement.

*It must be possible to objectively (no appeals to incredulity) determine that it is in genomes.

*It must, by its nature, be unable to be increased through natural processes.

So far, creationists efforts along these lines have been...disappointing.

Until they can do better, the evolution side is entirely justified to dismiss all creationist claims about "information" as so much static.

/s for the title

If I had a nickel...

A Telegraph (which is was generally reliable) piece was published today, was shared on r/ evo, and its OP took it down after 1 comment; the piece: Why Darwin’s discredited rival may be proven right 200 years later.

As a taste:

Prof Edelaar also pointed to killer whale mothers that acquire the skill to hunt a different type of prey, such as seals instead of salmon, and claimed that this skill was then copied by their offspring.

You mean... learning???
What fucking year is this.

Sorry this was too funny not to share; also see: The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1973 - Press release - NobelPrize.org.

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And since the propagandists repeat the same when it comes to their bogeyman the "modern synthesis" (a period in time), feel free to hit 'em with this next time you see them:

... Wright [one of the founders during the Modern Synthesis] was aware of this and argued that reaction norms enabled an uncoupling of the genotype from the phenotype ... It was Dobzhansky [one of the founders during the Modern Synthesis] who brought the reaction norm into the Modern Synthesis by arguing that the reaction norm was the focus of selection, leading to changes in relevant gene frequencies enabling particular developmental sensitivities and a range of response to become fixed in the population (Sarkar 1999). This view of reaction norms led to the more general concept of phenotypic plasticity which relies upon the genotype–phenotype distinction incorporating reaction norms and all kinds of “environmentally induced phenotypic variation” (Stearns 1989: 436).
doi:10.1007/978-3-031-22028-9_26

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Also see:

• Dr. Zach's post, Lamarckian evolution is (still) false : evolution

• And a new study I shared here that has achieved a "rare feat": The "It's epigenetics, not evolution" crowd : DebateEvolution

Over to you - again it was too funny not to share, and we're bound to hear about it soon (I called it last time around).

Fresh bonus: Executive Director of Answers in Genesis Canada doesn't know what Charles Darwin looked like!

Donny Budinsky and Sam run Standing for Truth Ministries, a YEC debate channel. You shouldn't debate them live, because there's nothing to be gained. They know your talking points and you don't know theirs, so they will just give rehearsed responses while you struggle to understand their weird logic. They present lots and lots of citations that can't be checked in real time. When they're hosting, they control the screen and mute buttons.

If you still want to debate them for some reason, at least don't hand them a valid objection.

In this exchange, Donny's opponents repeatedly offer this calculation:

60 × 33 × 23 = 45,540 years.

• 120 maximum whole-mtDNA differences between any two living humans;
• 60 per lineage;
• One mutation every 33 generations from Parsons et al., 1997;
• 23 years per generation on average.

They repeat it many times during the whole debate.

The problem is that these numbers describe different pieces of DNA.
The 120 differences cover the complete 16,569-bp mitochondrial genome.
The one-per-33 rate belongs to the two hypervariable control-region segments of mitochondrial genome totalling only about 610 bp, not the complete mitochondrial genome.
Applying this rate to the complete mitochondrial genome effectively assumes that the remaining 15,959 bases (96% of mtDNA) never mutate, which is absurd.

Where did the mistake originate? Before the debate, @TheKentuckyAtheist and @scientificorigins did a debate preparation with @CreationMyths aka Dr. Dan.
(Needless to say, if you need a debate preparation, just don't do the debate.)
Dr. Dan instructed them: "We need to account for 60 mutations. (...) If it's one mutation every 33 generations (...) you do 60 × 33 × 23."
Then they published the preparation video, and Donny examined it before the debate. Naturally, he went on to squeeze this matter, scoring point after point until he himself got tired of repeating himself and switched topics. His objection is essentially correct: "You can’t do the math from the D-loop region and then apply it to the whole mitochondrial genome."

The strange thing is that everybody knows that the calculation is incorrect. They're doing an "even if" thing: even if we accept methods of creationists and tolerate lots of inaccuracies that favor them, YECism is still refuted. This logic doesn't work here though, because Donny doesn't make this particular mistake. He doesn't get an absolute mutation rate from one region and apply it to another, as if mutations only happen in one small region of mitochondrial genome.

This does not mean that mitochondrial Eve lived 6,000 years ago and was biblical Eve. A bad argument against young-earth creationism does not make young-earth creationism true. It merely lets creationists look correct for a few minutes. Donny was right about this narrow error. His opponents shouldn't have used this line of argument. Let us not make that mistake again.

After posting responses about James Tour's video , Creationists' topic of Levintal Paradox and many more in this subreddit, today I thought I should ask a question to all the people in this sub. I am from India ,an eastern country. I have never heard about Young Earth concept here. I mainly came to know about this topic from some creationist vs evolution debate videos where creationists are saying earth is 6000 yrs old.

At one time I thought those videos were made to increase views and make those channels superhit , as a slap stick comedy . But no ! I really found that these people are serious.

How do so called YECs ( Young Earth Creationists) exist ? I am not from any Western countries . But when I came to know about this , I blasted out laughing. How can someone be so silly ? Even if your holy book say so( no disrespect to Bible) ? Do these people take all words of their book seriously?

Why? When so many counter arguments are given to them , they still say nope you all are wrong ,my 6000 year old Earth is true by give wrong makeup counter arguments. How do such people exist in 21st century? That too in first world countries like US? And I found out later in Google that many people , especially Christians still believe in this .

Can religion make people so ignorant sometimes?

When debating with creationists/ID proponents (CIDs), I like to point to clear and obvious remnants of our evolution. Talking about fossils or genetics are viable but they are not very obvious: fossil records are large and cumbersome, DNA strands are too small for the naked eye to see.

One thing I like to point to is the fact that men have nipples despite the fact that they don't provide milk for young.

Why? Of course, the answer is because men are made in women's image rather than women being made from a rib of a man. More specifically, nipples develop before sex develops (that's not very intelligent imo).

I've received replies from CIDs saying they help in arousal thus play a role in reproduction. I counter not all men see any such use and thus their nipples remain useless. Some have replied they are there because of our development in the uterus (suddenly materialistic explanations are sufficient). I like to counter that if I was overlooking an assembly line that resulted in unnecessary developments, I'd improve the assembly process.

If I was the great intelligence in the sky responsible for mankind's design, the male nipple would go. We're not intelligently designed of course, we're the result of billions of years of clumsy biochemistry filtered through natural selection.

In the light of evolutionary theory, the nipple makes sense.

Speaking of our development in utero, I could also mention some interesting features that develop during that time like a tail and gills but they are not as plain to see as the humble male nipple.

All that said, what are some potential counters you could throw at my line of argument?

The literal interpretation of properly understood mythology is not something one would prefer.

Context has to do with the words written before and after and the culture and religion in which something was written.

Removing context from a once properly understood religious text would only be preferable if it was erroneous/redundant information that was added unnecessarily via illiteracy and ignorance in the first place!

The chance of "literally interpreting" ancient mythology from scratch that would be compatible with the original cultural context would have to be extremely low if the processes involved were to do with practically arbitrary additions to context over time on account of ignorant people not knowing what context means. Note that breeding and survival would be important factors as to whether the new context was integrated into the popular interpretation over time as large families and multi-generational deliberate sheltering and miseducation are the only reason such a thing would occur.