An existential crisis is an important part of growing up.

Private school, Mississippi.

I was a YEC before going to university. I studied geology. After two years, I accepted that evolution happened. After four years, I was an atheist. I went on to get a doctorate, and I have published quite a few papers about rocks that are >2 billion years old.

As a kid, there were literally 0 authority figures in my life that accepted that evolution happened. It was taken as a given that it was ridiculous. My biology teacher skipped the chapter on evolution, saying, “this is controversial.”

Patience, love, and making critical information available gives kids like I was a chance.

I just think it’s funny that it goes from “terrible heads,” “fierce looking,” “beast head,” “dog teeth,” “two dog-like teeth,” to… “With breasts.” Really a dramatically different category.

Footprints.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a10933/tyrannosaurus-trackways-reveal-a-dinosaurs-walk-17016027/

Depends strongly on the community. Every sub discipline has its own standards of respectability. Publishing outside of those constraints can cause articles to be ignored.

I wasn’t sure if this was true or a weird misunderstanding or conspiracy type thing. Seems to be true. Here is an accessible writeup: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20231127-brazils-mysterious-tunnels-made-by-giant-sloths

Yes. In the heirarchy of science, it ranks just below literature.

Simply put, it’s not that simple.

My wife made this joke during a presentation that was part of a job interview. Nobody laughed. Clear sign of a toxic environment.

Depends on the program you are in. The view from being a doctoral student to being a postdoc to being research/lecturing staff is very different. Not all advisors expose their students to the realities of higher levels of academia. And when a woman or minority is being mentored by a white man, they may not be aware of biases that can affect the student’s later career.

If that doesn’t work, restart it and then try.