Advertise evolution!

[drdanger]

I just read a survey that was... well i wouldn't say shocking, but disappointing at least. According to the survey only about 47% of Americans believe in Evolution, which is pretty close to the 44% who believe in ghosts (though I'm guessing the overlap isn't too dramatic...) but that is vastly overshadowed by the 80% who believe in the existence of God.

Link: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/More-Americans-Believe-Devil-Hell/story.aspx?guid={9FF6758C-00C0-4673-81B9-6D506085F974}

I was thinking that since many Christian denominations take the time to be evangelize, and since acceptance of Scientific fact and logic is so core to public policy and social wellbeing, why shouldn't those of us who believe in evolution try to "evangelize" as well?

 

With that in mind, I want to collect, summarize, and synthesize all the data that I can find on evolution and all the arguments that Creationists use and try to make it fit on a flyer that can easily be printed and handed out. I can't tell you how many times I've been in a debate with a Christian who brought up some argument against evolution, or some passage in the bible that "conclusively" proves the existence of god, which, while I was sure was false, I didn't have the data to argue on the same grounds.

 

I want to make this flyer in order to give everyone who wants to defend evolution the tools they need to do so, and hopefully to gain some converts.

I want to lay it out just like any other flyer you might pick up at a community center or have handed to you in a city square: 8.5 by 11 inch printer sized paper folded three ways with info on each side.

 

This is where all of you come in!

 

I only know so much about evolution, and my ability to research is limited by time. If anyone here has data which they feel deserves to be included in this pamphlet please summarize it, post it here, and cite your source.

 

Citations are necessary! I don't want to put forth an argument with the same reasoning a creationist would have: "You should believe me just because I told you so."

 

I hope to get a lot of feedback, and I'll definitely keep updating this thread with project progress. And of course I'll post the finished result with printing and folding instructions so hopefully you all can distribute them.

[Mokele]

Bugger, I was going to link to talk.origins but the stie seems to be down. Google "talk.origins" in a few days.

 

Mokele

[npts2020]

drdanger; It's a great idea. You don't want them looking too much like the stuff evangalists hand out or a lot of people will throw them away without even looking.

 

You aren't related to Thomas Paine ("Common Sense") are you?

 

(He was a famous pamphleteer in Revolutionary times for those that need to ask.)

[marnixR]

EvoWiki is also a decent site with counter-arguments against a variety of creationist drivel

[drdanger]

@ marnixR: Wow, evowiki looks like a great resource. I'll have to read through it when I have time.

@npts2020: Well, seeing as how I'm a U.S. citizen, I'd say that he had a pretty big influence on my cognizance. I think that the zeitgeist/ken/consciousness of an era can be looked at as an onion of influences. Greek-->Roman-->English-->U.S. if you add in about a million steps along the way we get a good picture of influences on a communities thought. So yes, I am related to Thomas Paine.

@mokele: I've been trying to load talkorigins for days now and its been down which is really strange since it is still the first result in a google search.

 

Anyone have any specific proof/line or reasoning/influence/? that they found particularly convincing to them? I mean, I didn't really need to be convinced of evolution because we learned about it in 6th grade. Though I did grow up in an active christian household so I was confused while I was growing up. I think that it was learning about the work of Gregor Mendel back in 7th grade or so that convinced me of the validity of evolution. I remember having this revelatory feeling when words were put on the ideas of why I look like my parents and why they look like their parents and why some traits are recessive, etc. It was a magical moment.

 

Any other conversion stories?

[npts2020]

My parents were both creationists but I don't recall ever thinking about things in any other than an evolutionary manner. Even though I was still mostly "going along with the program" until graduating high school I can recall having an interesting conversation with a pastor about this topic at about 12 years old where he couldn't answer any of my questions to my satisfaction. Soon after I read "On the Origin of Species" and could only think about how much sense what Darwin was saying, made. There was no looking back after that, everything I have learned since has reinforced my evolutionary outlook and I have spent ever since trying to correct family and acquaintance misconceptions about the subject.

 

We could always popularize "Monkeys' Uncle" bumper stickers.

[pioneer]

I believe in the evolution, in principle. But it is not always easy for science to answer all the layman's questions, without first building background so the proof seems valid. If the audience doesn't know how statistical proof works, these arguments look like hocus pocus. I am not saying this proof is not valid, but if one can't understand how the method works, one can't see how it proves anything.

 

This is subtle. Picture you are trying to prove the particle-wave duality of energy to a young person who knows very little about physics or math. They don't want to take your word for it but what to understand with proof. It is up to you to explain and proof this to a person who doesn't have enough background for you to use the trump cards that can offer the solid proof. Simple explanations may not work. You are hand cuffed. The final approach is to have faith that this has been proven.

 

If you had only human robots programmed to blindly accept anything, you could skip all the needed prerequisites of the mind and give bottom lines. This is why many say evolution "must" be taught or programmed even before it can be proven to the untrained mind. If you don't fully understand the proof, but still have questions, these can be answered, but in ways you will not understand, therefore you must believe it is true. It sort of sounds like another religion.

 

Science needs simple arguments that can convey proof to the layman, without spouting dogma. Once it departed from just logic this is not easy. Evolution uses premises stemming from empirical correlations and therefore not premises of common sense, but which need magic math to be proven. We need to offer a real life example they can see in person and not bacteria using statistics.

 

Again, I am not saying science does not have proof. Just it is not able to convey this to the layman audience since the proof is removed from the layman. He is required to blindly accept the nebulous proof (in their minds) with faith, even if they don't really understand it.

[Phi for All]

The problem isn't lack of proof. The problem is lack of time before the average person stops listening to all the proof you have.

[drdanger]

As far as needing a foundation to understand complicated concepts that's true of anything. You can't be a carpenter until you have a foundation of skills that the aggregate of allow you to use tools to build houses. You can't be a pastor until you have studied the bible extensively. You can't understand calculus without a background of other mathematics. I don't think that anyone should expect to be a master of anything without taking the time to learn the skills/knowledge that make of mastery of that field.

 

I am in no ways a master of understanding evolution. I'd still call my self a layman really and I understand a great deal more than the majority of people. I'm not even dead set on evolution being valid. I've just examined the possibilities, looked at the evidence in favor of other explanations and decided that evolution is logically the most probable. This is the kind of convincing that I think should be focused on. I'm not looking to give people the equivalent of a doctorate in evolutionary biology in five minutes--that would be impossible. Instead, I'm looking to show them that evolution is the most likely, rational, provable explanation that we have.

To do that just requires a basic explanation of what evolution is, some important pieces of evidence that support it, and refuting some examples of counter arguments made against evolution.

Like Phi for All said "the problem is the lack of time before the average person stops listening to all the proof you have." If I wanted a mountain of evidence I'd write a book that very few people would read. Instead, i just want to make a pamphlet that someone could work through in a few minutes.

[doG]

According to the survey only about 47% of Americans believe in Evolution....

 

I think it would be a fair practice to reserve supplies of this year's flu vaccine for this group and give the rest of them last year's vaccine

[iNow]

You might enjoy this recent article in Scientific American.

 

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-latest-face-of-creationism

• Creationists continue to agitate against the teaching of evolution in public schools, adapting their tactics to match the roadblocks they encounter.
  
  
• Past strategies have included portraying creationism as a credible alternative to evolution and disguising it under the name “intelligent design.”
  
  
• Other tactics misrepresent evolution as scientifically controversial and pretend that advocates for teaching creationism are defending academic freedom.
  
  

 

Vast areas of evolutionary science are for all intents and purposes scientifically settled; textbooks and curricula used in the public schools present precisely such basic, uncomplicated, uncontroversial material. Telling students that evolution is a theory in crisis is—to be blunt—a lie.

 

Moreover, it is a dangerous lie, because Dobzhansky was right to say that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution: without evolution, it would be impossible to explain why the living world is the way it is rather than otherwise. Students who are not given the chance to acquire a proper understanding of evolution will not achieve a basic level of scientific literacy. And scientific literacy will be indispensable for workers, consumers and policymakers in a future dominated by medical, biotechnological and environmental concerns.

 

In the sesquicentennial year of On the Origin of Species, it seems fitting to end with a reference to Charles Darwin’s seminal 1859 book. In the first edition of Origin of Species, Darwin was careful to acknowledge the limits to his project, writing, “I am convinced that natural selection has been the main but not the exclusive means of modification.” Nevertheless, he was misinterpreted as claiming that natural selection was entirely responsible for evolution, provoking him to add a rueful comment to the sixth edition: “Great is the power of steady misrepresentation; but the history of science shows that fortunately this power does not long endure.”