Just to be clear, you're saying that "there just happens to be a Being capable of creating universes" is more likely than "there just happens to be particles and laws of the universe that can eventually lead to intelligence". Well, at this point argument is really impossible.

I, personally, would love to believe in a Creator. That would be so cool, to have some all powerful being who is looking over us. However, I'm not going to believe in something because I want to believe in it. I believe in what evidence points to as being most likely to be true.

The danger of a free society is that people are allowed to believe whatever they want to believe in. This means you'll get a lot of people believing things, not because it is the most likely thing to be true (the standard scientific explanation) but because it sounds cool (god or ancient aliens created us). It's fine if a few people believe these fringe theories that fly in the face of scientific evidence, but there's a tipping point where if you have enough people disregarding science, you could get something like the Islamic State.

Good point. What if Neanderthals could create viable offspring with Homo Erectus but modern humans couldn't?

Life is messy.

If by "artificial distinction" you mean the classification of lifeforms into different groups based on physical and genetic characteristics, the boundaries of those classifications made by scientists, then you have a valid point. A species is generally understood as a population that can interbreed and produce viable offspring. Homo sapiens and homo neanderthalis obviously can do so, so they should be the same species. However, there is a valid argument for them being classified a subspecies, due to measurable physical and genetic differences.

There is a bump in this 2014 graph between 20 and 25 that is comparable to the baby boom.

It's especially surprising considering that there is a population bulge of young people with the Millennials. Conventional wisdom states that since most crimes are committed by people in their teens and twenties, such a population bulge would increase crime. I guess it's time to toss out conventional wisdom.

Zombie Apocalypse Shelters.

My wife and I played Everquest II when I was in my thirties, and our guild was basically run by middle-aged women. One of the best parts of the game was camping boss mobs--sure, it took a while in that game but it was fun socializing with a variety of people from around the country, and the world. There were also limited online game references back then so it was a chance to compare strategy notes. The demographic of mature folk made for a pleasant social gaming environment.

I was in 3 different long lasting D&D groups in the 1980s. I think most of us would have loved to have girls join, but no girls played with us in that decade. Whenever we got the balls to ask a girl to play they just looked at us like we were crazy, like they would get nerd cooties. I went to a D&D convention in New Haven at that time and I remember there was only one girl out of about 500 guys. She was very popular, with a whole lot of guys wanting to be in her group.

There certainly was a social penalty for me being a nerd at that time, but I didn't feel I had a choice. I loved gaming and it was part of my identity. At that time, however, I think there was a larger penalty for female nerds coming from the non-gaming community than for male nerds. Any girl joining our very small and admittedly not very attractive group probably would have been marked as a pariah by mainstream social groups.

We'll get there within a decade after building a space elevator.

Not quite sure where you see the No True Scotsman. I believe you believe it is "Countries over 100 million". As in, "No countries over 100 million can compare their infrastructure to countries under 100 million," which I don't think quite fits the Scotsman. You retort with "Country A can be compared to city B". I say that is comparing apples to oranges.

I'm tired of the fact that the United States, a country that spans a continent and contains more than 300 million people, is constantly compared to countries with populations comparable to New York City. If you are going to compare anything infrastructure related in the US to another country, make sure that country has at least a hundred million people.

DM: "You walk into an underground chamber. At the other end of the chamber is a large chest with a lock. On either side of the chest is a marble pillar carved into the shape of a woman. The woman on the left has a sword and the woman on the right has a battle ax."

Thief: "I take out my lock-pick and walk to the--"

Magic-User: "Don't move! Those statues are going to come to life!"

Thief: "What makes you think that? That sounds quite unlikely to me."

Magic-User: "You're new around here, aren't you?"

Astronomers expect a certain amount of lithium based on current theories of element formation in the early universe. Apparently they are wrong, bringing about, as Asimov observed, the most exciting phrase in science, "Hmm...that's odd,"