This is one of those “this would also make a good blog post” posts. Over Christmas, the topic of evolution came up in conversation between some younger people and some older people (names and places omitted to maintain proper focus, and to protect the innocent). To my horror, a person younger than myself stated that “some points of evolution are actually kind of convincing”. I chose not to insert my opinion in the interest of preserving the holiday joy that was going around. Later on though, I wrote the following to this person. Feel free to copy and paste sections for your own use if you also have fears of a loved one straying from logic and reason. Also feel free to suggest additional points you think should be included. Enjoy.
I wanted to drop you a note because of what you were saying about evolution on the other night. I was going to say some things right there that night, but philosophical debates never lead to anything but hurt feelings etc.
I’m not your parent, teacher, life coach, or therapist, so I’d never want to tell you what to believe, but I do feel the need to tell you that if anyone tries to say that evolution is complete BS, that is a person you should think twice about trusting on much of anything.
Here’s why: science does not try to convince us of things. Science is the study of things. The theory of evolution is just that: a theory. BUT all known FACTS have come from theories. Theories exist as “our best guess” until they are either proven or disproven. Real scientific proof is always recorded and is reproducible by anyone who wants to test its validity. If new information becomes available, theories are revised and retested. Every modern thing we have in this world started as collections of theories. The electronics inside of the TV you watch are here because of years of experimentation and theorizing.
What worries me about your scepticism of evolution isn’t that you’re questioning things; that’s always a good thing. The worry comes because it sounds like you’re looking to make a decision about what’s correct or incorrect. *PLEASE DON’T DO THIS*! You should not accept anything as the truth until it is proven.
I don’t want to say much about religion to you because that’s a personal thing, but I do feel like I should say SOMEthing about it because it’s the source of most denial of evolution.
I personally do not believe the earth was created by god in 6 days etc, but that’s not important. What’s important is that we recognize what’s most probable and why. I can’t tell you what the truth of the universe is, but I can tell you that the first place you should start searching for the answers is where the most evidence lies. Look at what discoveries have been made, think for yourself about where they point and just think to yourself:“what is most likely?”. I’m not saying accept it as the truth, but accept it as the most probable current thought.
One of the main things that holds religions together is the fact that you can’t disprove any of them. You can’t say that it’s false that god created the earth out of nothing and then required a rib from Adam to create Eve, or that it’s definitely untrue that a talking snake in a tree convinced them to sin, because there’s no evidence that these things didn’t happen. BUT you also can’t disprove that a flying spaghetti monster exists. And what about Zeus? Didn’t people used to believe that he was a god? When did anyone prove that Zeus didn’t exist? I’m not saying that any are right or wrong, but this train of thought is what’s behind the China Teapot argument: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07JvzfO0vOk
How you view the world is up to you, but here’s how I personally see things: Churches are nice to look at, offer many positive services to humanity, and are often filled with the most friendly and generous people. When it comes to answering questions about the universe though, I’ll always put my trust in the people doing actual research, who revise their views as they learn new things and who don’t advertise things as truth before they’ve tested them. I think it’s always better to say “I don’t know” than to just pull your belief from a hat with no real investigation.
So is evolution real? Nobody can say for sure, but it probably is. Most biologists will tell you that it’s nearly certain. Regardless, anyone who tells you it’s DEFINITELY NOT real, ask them to show their work. And ask yourself how likely it is that they’ve done any real research on this complex topic.
Anyway, here are some Richard Dawkins clips on evolution. These are biased in favor of evolution for sure, but these clips best describe how I wish more people would analyze our existance.
Reason vs upbringing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-da6eH7UXM
How evolution works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mhX2Kas558
Why there are still chimps today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh0F4FBLJRE&feature=related
Missing links in evolution: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIGYGat3nT0&feature=related
Feel free to let me know what you think! Or just ignore this and think I’m crazy. Totally up to you.
Later!