Exposing Discovery Institute Part 4: Günter Bechly 

I'm starting to think that Prof. Dave doesn't really think too highly of the Discovery Institute.

Here to say: You did it, Professor. This video is the first one that appears when you search Gunter Bechly's name on youtube.

Every Christian "Conversion" story be like "Yeah I was a staunch Atheist for 30 years and I had a PHD in Evolutionary biology, but then I heard the kalam argument one time and instantly converted over to Christianity right there on the spot, invalidating my years of study"

That “I used to believe but I had an awakening,” trope is *the oldest and most well recognized propaganda technique in history.* The fact that some people can’t recognize that is arguably more dangerous than blindly believing things that have been disproven over and over again, just because a German accent sounds smart.

i love how these supposedly legit scientists repeatedly fall back to the criteria of whether or not things make sense to them as if they are not fully aware that human intuition is not scientifically reliable.

Yeah man I was a staunch atheist for like 300 thousand years living off of the blood of infants but after I heard the watchmaker argument I instantly converted to Christianity right there on the spot, invalidating a lifetime of scientific study and careful consideration of apologist arguments. This is totally real you guys, this really happened to me

I strongly believe that in addition to teaching science in schools, we also need to teach the history of that science. Not only it can be taught earlier than actual science giving the preview of what kids will be learning in depth later, it also completely removes the "science dogma" bias all non-scientists have. Knowing what scientists went through to prove their new discoveries and to validate their opinion, no one would ever say that "science" is being pushed to the kids in schools as a form of a "religious dogmas" that everyone is just too scared to oppose. Great video as always, Prof Dave!

It’s sad that debunking a lie takes 10 times the time it takes to tell the lie. Deep respect for people like Dave who take time out of their lives to do this invaluable service to humanity. 👍

DAVE, YOU COULD NOT HAVE PICKED A BETTER TIMING FOR THIS MAN. Got my snacks ready, time to watch...

Fun fact: After Professor Dave posted this (4 Nov 2022), Gunter Bechly posted yet another response on Evolution News, after another series of articles dunking on Dave for his tearing into Stephen Meyer (13 Dec 2022) "Yesterday I concluded my lengthy response to “Professor Dave” (aka Mr. Dave Farina) and his attack on Stephen Meyer and Darwin’s Doubt. See here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. [links to his other articles on Professor Dave] Farina has meanwhile also published a RU-vid video responding to my earlier article series, which debunked his video against Casey Luskin. However, he failed to refute any of my substantial points and ignored that I already addressed most of his shallow arguments in my published articles and public presentations. Otherwise, he just spills his usual poison with rude ad hominems, falsehoods, misinformation, and red herrings. It is quite obvious that his delicate ego was hurt by my factual destruction of his sloppy propaganda nonsense. While it was an affair of honor to defend others, I personally do not consider Farina to be a worthy opponent. Therefore, I will certainly not waste further precious time to respond to his silly new hit piece, but will instead follow the good Internet practice of not feeding the trolls unnecessarily. Of course, I do appreciate the welcome additional publicity that he is drawing to my work on ID theory with his channel. I also find it very revealing that guys like this have nothing more substantial to offer. We must be onto something!" Yes that's it. This is literally the entire content of the article. I'm no Discovery Institute member or expert, but I think I can give a speculation as to what happened behind the scenes: Bechly: Well, looks like Dave just published a video debunking me and all of my points! He's roasted me so thoroughly that I can't properly respond! What will I do! DI Member: Quick! Act like you're a based gigachad and just say that Dave is not worthy of you, and shut down the conversation there in a pseudo-honorable way! Bechly: Great idea! On top of that, I'll turn Dave's message around and call him a troll, and accuse him of what I do! Big brain time!

I see a Professor Dave debunk, and I instantly click. It's a good day! Thanks Dave.

I’m glad you’ve covered him. He always says he supports ID through the fossil evidence as a palaeontologist but then gives the usual creationist arguments.

"My whole life, I didn't believe in magical thinking. But then I noticed, if you stack the 7 Harry Potter books on top of each other, they weigh more than this post-it that says, 'Magic isn't real'. Now I'm a Hufflepuff" A nonreligious person would never mention baptism

Even if all of science was proven wrong today, it still doesn’t make “a genie did it” a rational solution, and no sane person would ever jump to that as an answer.

"Your reward is this humiliating video which will hopefully be the top search result for your name for the rest of the lifetime of RU-vid." Awesome.

I wonder if they ever sit down for five minutes to ask themselves what they are arguing for instead of only focusing on what they are arguing against... Well explained Prof Dave! Keep up the good work.

As someone that grew up knee deep in the church, I can’t thank you enough for what you do man. It took a while for me to put two and two together about religion but I’m glad I’m out. I also appreciate the fact that you go straight for the jugular and hold their feet straight to the fire. I come from a very religious and conservative part of west Africa where the Abrahamic faiths are fully woven into our psyche and therefore, heavily slow down much needed growth. The DI idiots are the foundation upon which many charlatans run their schemes to exploit the poor and desperate among us. Please never stop tearing them a new one. 💪🏿

this video alone has discovered more than the discovery institute has

Thank God it's illegal to teach creationism in schools

I never thought I'd enjoy such a thorough, nay, colonoscopic examination of an organization I already despised, but I'm four parts in and loving it.

Anti-scientist: *attacks Dave unprovoked* Dave: (slow turn with Terminator music) "So you choose... death."

Love the straight up science lessons too, but these debunking videos are gold

I'm glad you're here. We all know that the real target of these frauds, aren't people like you, or your followers, but the gullible, the under educated, or otherwise vulnerable. Hearing your concise logic and clarity is refreshing. Thank you.

Here are the TOP TEN Scientific Theories that have been subsequently replaced by a supernatural explanation: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

You're a god damn nightmare dude. Downright brutal to anti-science people and I LOVE IT SO MUCH IT'S SO GOOD!

I had just finished watching the third installment of the series so the timing of the upload was perfect:D By the way. Completely unrelated to the video but I wanted to thank you for helping me save Calculus this semester, your videos are awesome

he himself discovered over 160 new species from different ages. there is even a whole family of small dragon flies from the carboniferous named after him (Bechlyidae). he was quite the renowned paleontologist until he must have hit his head in 2016. sadly his english wikipedia article got deleted, but the german version is still online (if you wanna have a look).

Every time I hear a Creationist use the term "Darwinist" or "Evolitionist", I know I'm about to hear a load of bullsh*t from them.

He didn't read creationist books so much as he googled how much money they made.

"..when I watched those RU-vid videos and the discussions on intelligent design.." The fact he fell for the "RU-vid University" trap says a lot about his actual relationship to science and its principles IMO.

Thank you for what you do Professor Dave! Great breakdown!

Their goal to get ID taught in schools is low-key terrifying.

Claiming to have once been a redeemed atheist, satanist, drug user, sexual "deviant," ect. has been a favorite of religious charlatans for at least centuries. It's not actually convincing to even the most slightly skeptical person, but it reassures the true believers.

These videos are a goddamn gift to humanity! Words cannot express how genuinely grateful I am for your persistence and methodology, Dave.

Dave, is there anything you can share about the next part in this series? Or will your next video on the DI be the response to Tour's new conniption fit? Happy 2023 in advance, by the way!

Oh great, will watch later. Really hope you will check out Forrest Valkai! He's super fun and motivated in debunking creationists and explaining science to people. You guys would make an amazing collab!

A lot of times, these debunks serve as excellent contrasts and comparisons of science one doesn't really get a chance to study. My own understanding is quite superficial by comparison, but having a contrast often helps to frame an idea. Of course, the entertainment value of watching someone who presents unabashed confidence in lies get squashed has a certain satisfying component as well. Thanks for your work here, Professor. I'll be going back to watch the previous ones again, over time. Nice to have them available.

Another point of argument (at 6:41): Bechly said he never joined any type of religious education, but RE was a mandatory school subject in Germany.

Goddamn Dave. Did you leave enough of Gunter intact for an open casket funeral? Great work as always!

34:32 I fucking died when he said "Lucy's pelivs. As in, The pelvis." for some reason.

I cant believe I used to be a creationist 😂

I really like these debunking videos. Not only are they very teaching, educating people, but they're also fun to watch. The entertainment value is high, and sometimes a bit horrifying due to the fraud being exposed! It's like watching good movies full of action! 🙂

All we need now is some one of them being so stupid that they sue for slander and lose catastrophically in a public court case.

ID used to make a prediction: Irreducibly complex structures cannot evolve. They even had a reasonably rigorous definition for "irreducible complexity". It didn't turn out well for them... My favorite (because I was minorly involved with it) was clearly showing "irreducible complex" structures arising in a computational evolution system where we could observe every single step. That was fun.

You do the right thing

I just looked up James Tour’s channel. He’s planning on doing ANOTHER video series talking about Professor Dave. He also plans on “debunking” the people Dave invited to speak when he did his “700 papers” series on Tour. In his own words: “not only does Dr. Tour thwart a RU-vidr’s misguided understanding of chemistry, but he scrutinizes the details of chemists selected by the RU-vidr for engagement.” He then goes out of his way to call people like Cronin “experts” with quotation marks. It’s almost like Tour’s true god is his ego. Makes me wonder if Rice University knows what he’s doing in his spare time. They should given how public he’s making it.

Dude I gotta say this is actually cathartic in a way. I grew up being taught young earth creationism, before creationism was ever rebranded as "intelligent design". When I was young, I really did believe in God. I was really afraid believing scientific truths about evolution was the morally wrong thing to do and that that was the propaganda. It goes so deep. Eventually I did finally just throw in the towel when it was so goddamn obvious the creationists had no science to go on. I decided that ID was fine from a philosophical stand point and believed it in that way, but decided to just start educating myself about what actual science says with regards to evolution. I never looked back. I'm not religious anymore, but I'm still pretty pissed that my time was wasted with so many damn lies growing up. I wonder how far ahead I could have gotten in life if I hadn't had to waste time unpacking propaganda I'd been taught and learning things for myself. I'm actually in my 30s now and have believed the big bang since college, but only recently have been able to go back and learn more about how organisms evolved. I feel like a 5th grader learning biology for the first time and I realize I never really got an education about any of this stuff. It was all religious propaganda. Watching people debunk these frauds and speak out against them is everything. I always thought I just sucked at and hated biology, but most of what I'm learning is pretty interesting. Maybe it's just all the religious propaganda I hated.

I love how they always fall back on the argument: Origin of Species is dumb and incorrect, therefore Jesus. It's almost as if they know that we've progressed since Darwin and don't accept everything he said as fact because it's not, but he inspired others to do their research, and that if they were to acknowledge that fact their system would fall to bits immediately.

Prof Dave you are absolutely awesome. Your science content is so top notch, but you are really quite SKILLED and EXCELLENT at... THIS. The amount of cited papers and clear understandable explanations without having to wade through the harder scientific terminology (not to mention the vocal tone you have through the entire video) just make these the absolute top tier content. Thanks again.

I, as a child (12) think it’s funny how whenever Dave says a child could understand it, I do actually have a pretty solid level of comprehension about the topic or debunk in mind

As someone who's Jehova's Witness step dad is an evolutionary "skeptic" and won't shut up about it, this video is deeply cathartic.

I like these debunk videos, in part because it is clear Dave enjoys making them, too. You shine a light on these ghouls, Dave, and they all hiss at you in disgust and terror. It's entertaining on top of being informative.

So he doesn't agree with the science but somehow just agrees with religious views that have 0 proof of creation or god

"Let's hear it straight from the horse's mouth." Um, Dave, the mouth is at the other end of the horse.

Discovery Institute. Discovering new ways to be in institutionalized since the beginning.

They are so desperate to comfort their insecurities regarding their beliefs being utterly wrong. They attempt to force their ideas on others not only for financial gain, but also so they get the great EVOLUTIONARY comfort of “if I’m not alone in this I’m safe”. It’s so ironic.

The Name, the Face, the Accent, the Origin, the Ideas: Günter Bechly is a perfect example of a James Bond Villain. And I say this as a German

One problem with creationists is that they think that knowing HOW something evolved is equivalent to the question of whether it evolved in the first place. The answer is that no, even if we don't know how evolution works (of course we know a lot about how it works), we still can gather a lot of evidence that it actually happened.

That resurrection of the flagellum article is an absolute nail in the coffin against any claims of legitimacy from the ID crew. Especially after they admitted that would falsify irreducible complexity.

Saying "The Disco toot" was so unexpected that I choked on my Gatorade. That's two videos now with Dave saying "Disco" in a disappointed tone, i need more

It IS the top search, this Chanel deserves to be in the RU-vid hall of greatness

The irony is that, if "immaterial" was well defined and could be used to make testable predictions (even if only indirectly), then it would be perfectly within the scope of science. And, sorry to say Gunter, but it isn't the fault of science that your "immaterial" speculation fails to meet these basic criteria, it's a _you_ problem.

The thing is that reiligious people believe there is one book written at one point that has all the answers. They don't understand that things change, especially not that they evolve. Which is pretty stupid considering even religious people will say that Christianity came to be in a place dominated by Judaism, and more importantly when the protestant church branched off from catholicism.

This is beautiful! Not only is it a point-for-point debunking but a clear view of just what sort of person we're dealing with. Also glad to know that anytime someone googles his name, This video will be one of the results.

Dave, your last statement here was a home run. 😮 I hadn’t even considered the ramifications of these posted vids until now. Each of these guys will have to live with the fact that these will be their number one search results from this day forward. 😂 thank you for being a literal genius.

“ finally settling on the Catholic Church.” Lol 😂 That made me genuinely laugh loudly! He obviously doesn’t realise that the Pope accepts the science of evolution by natural selection.

The old "I used to be one of the opposition" routine is so boring now. Every flat earther uses it.

OMG you eviscerated him. This was a work of art, Dave.

Günters epiphany was realising that the amount of work required to be a scientist is a lot, and the pay rarely is. However being a conman within a group of other con artists who have substantial financial backing is not far removed from free cash.

What always gets me the most about these 'sudden evolutionary change' arguments is they make it sound like it happened overnight. No, there are at least 100,000 year gaps, usually longer. That's short on the geologic timescale but that's room for hundreds of thousands of generations of potential mutations and adaptations, particularly in the older, simpler creatures that likely had relatively short generational timescales.

I'm being serious about this but doesn't Steven Meyer kind of look inbred? It's clear he fell out of the ugly tree and he hit every branch on the way down and then he bounced and hit every branch on the way back up and then hit every branch on the way back down again

Thanks for your well-made exposé about Günter Bechly. You are right, he's a sad figure. What he tells about the misrepresentation of anti-evolutionistic arguments and their allegedly argumentative weight, is just ridiculous. We dissect his and others ID arguments since years (e.g. the flagella evolution in some extensive papers), but he never felt obliged to discuss any of them in a proper way. Every clear-headed human realizes that the arguments he representes are a mixture of fallacies and junk-science. It's embarrassing that he can't admit that his "conversion" has pure religious reasons. I hope at least he believes what he says instead of lying.

His education and work should contradict intelligent design and creationism. The cognitive dissonance is staggering.

Your education videos are great, but these debunk videos are what I live for (even though I understand they're a hell of a lot more work for you). Thanks Dave, keep up the great work!

Lmao when you said he is an "invertebrate scientist" for a second I thought it was a clever dig on somebody for being spineless, then realized you meant that he's literally just a scientist that studies invertebrates ;D

dave ya gotta get back to humiliating these sad little men i fuckin love it.

He looks like he'd be the perfect Nazi protagonist in one of the Indiana Jones films

The DI uses the same narrator at PragerU…very interesting.

One thing that I have learned from this series so far, in order to be a creationist you have to either be totally ignorant of evolution or you have to be a liar. The four people covered thus far are most definitely the latter.

Many thanks. You do a great service with these videos, and demonstrate our culture's need for scrupulous attention to verifiable data, and clarity of exposition.

Great video, Dave! I love your content so much, I hope you never stop at crushing these clowns one at a time!

Love to see the content as usual, really amusing to see the extent to which people will continue arguing for an absolute farce (Also as a unrelated sidenote if you see this, binging your mathematics videos helped me complete my final maths exam for my first year of uni, you're probably one of the best people I've seen at breaking down and explaining concepts effectively, also thanks because I was massively unprepared for dealing with matrices without those videos)

"The flagellum is IRREDUCIBLY complex, disproving evolution." "What about the type 3 secretion needle complex?" "Well, that is just a REDUCED form of the flagellum, that developed after the flagellum." Ehhh... In a parallel world: "Swans can only be white" "What about this black swan?" "Well, that is just a black version of a swan that developed after the white swan."

I subscribed to your channel because you fought hard against creationism 👏👍 I am an atheist, former Sunni Muslim from the largest Muslim country There are many Muslims out there including Indonesian Muslims who were fooled by the Discovery Institute they are so stupid 😂😂

You are absolutely right, you are shining the brightest spotlight on these frauds that has ever been shined on them.

Last time, I came this early was when Prof Dave destroyed Globebusters beyond recognition

You should make a channel named "Professor Dave Destroys".

Absolutely love the unrelentless attack tone in this series. Keep it up!

If this guy did even a little research into Dave he would of kept his mouth shut haha. Awesome stuff.

(2:58) "They will never give up this lie no matter how many times they are called out on it" This pretty much sums it up 👊

Hey Dave, you may remember me from your part 2 video. I recently defended my PhD working with Dr. Shuhai Xiao. I was very intrigued to see Scott Evans' stuff show up here. He was a post doc of Shuhai's until recently and so I'm a buddy of his. Another compelling vid.

Your videos were super helpful to me while I was in college. Now I come for these videos and the Andrew Gold stuff. Keep it up, great content!

We need people like u Dave to confront these delusional lunatics u can't let them spew their nonsensical tripe

Great watching this again. I’ve just watched your two most recent James Tour videos and this popped up after the second one. Great stuff. Keep at it. 😊

"Awakening event" A.K.A. a nervous breakdown

Imagine being like, an engineer, and being identified as a 'follower' of a prominent engineer from 150 years ago, even though you probably know things that that engineer couldn't dream of, because it was 150 years ago.

Dave I mentioned this on Twitter, but I’ll add here. If you are planning to continue this series, please consider doing one on their “token agnostic” David Berlinski.

I just watched these video’s again, they’re that good! Thanks man! I couldn’t find your destruction of the journal paper he wrote, did you make a video on that one yet? It’s golden…

Another video i'll love and then have recommended to me by youtube for months to come! Great stuff as always Dave!

They say ID isn't "creation science" and expect to be taken seriously. "Creation science" is literally not a thing, it's something almost exclusively said by creationists