If someone is talking to kids about evolution, is there an optimistic slant you can put on it?
Going in and saying ‘life is a pointless, brutal, miserable struggle created by amoral forces that don’t care how much suffering and misery they create just so long as it leads to higher survival rates. Life is in constant competition with other forms of life to survive’ isn’t too fun. What could a person say to a kid that would be less intimidating or scary?
I suppose you can talk about the good side effects of evolution. Love for one. Big brains for another. Do you emphasize love, how some organisms evolved to cooperate and work together because they all benefit? Or the benefits of having big brains (which create all the medicine, food and entertainment we enjoy)? Or the fact that evolution created joy, compassion, fun, etc?
The book ‘evolution for everyone’ had some good takes on evolution, but I don’t remember them. I should go re-read it.
It never occured to me that evolution was negative. When I’ve talked about it to kids I find the wonder of it, the amazement that it works and how marvelous nature it.
Evolution is a lot more hopeful than the notion that we exist at arbitrary and capricious whim of an invisible omniscient deity.
One thing I always try to remind myself when I start mourning over how much humans have destroyed the planet: Life is resilient. We could get bombarded by a shower of cosmic rays right now, and all of life could be destroyed. But as long as some of the basic building blocks are left, the circle of life will continue.
The human population could be wiped out by the worst disease imaginable. But there will likely always be some individuals who are resistant, who keep on keeping on. And if not, there are plenty of species willing to pick up the gauntlet. I for one welcome our future reptilian overlords.
Evolution is fueled by genetic diversity. All of us contain something hopeful in our DNA. And sometimes that thing seems like a major disadvantage from our limited vantage point. I’m sure the first ape-like ancestor who walked upright was teased mercilessly for being such an awkward tree climber. But aren’t we grateful he didn’t fling himself off a cliff in despair?
I agree that evolution is a little bit of a downer.
“The lovely forms of the deer were sculpted by the teeth of wolves.”
But if you want to emphasize the joy of it, look at the really screwball things that nature has come up with for survival. Bioluminescence, wildflowers, Redwood trees, Flying Fish, melons, flying mammals, and so on.
Evolution isn’t limited by anyone’s imagination. If it promotes survival, it’s likely to have been tried.
Hmm…well how old are they? Do you watch disaster movies of the type with killer plagues? Use that as a jumping off point on why everybody didn’t die. The Stand is probably a good example. Some people just won’t die due to their genetic makeup.
Too dark, kids too young? What do you want from me? Just kidding, how about explaining to them that Goofy and Pluto are both dogs but in the Disney-verse, Goofy’s type of dog evolved differently. Somehow clumsiness and speech was an evolutionary advantage in Disney Earth. Granted I’m pulling this out of my butt, but it kind of hangs together right? You might want to leave off the “pulling this out of my butt” part.
You are the product of billions of years of research and development in the most thorough lab the universe has ever seen. Practically everything about you is the way it is either because it saved someone’s life, or because it helped them get the girl or boy. The tools it’s given you are the ones that have taken our species to every reach of our globe, to the depths of the ocean, and into space.
Life is pointless, but that tidbit isn’t really needed to explain evolution. Focus on the fact that every little bit of yourself was tested and retested and perfected endless times, that down to a microscopic level your body works in weird, messy, bizarre, incredibly improbable harmony. Everything on Earth that seems normal to us - flowers, cats, hearts, butterflies - are just the random, beautiful results of colliding forces and pure chance. Aren’t we lucky?
I bought a couple of kids’ books on evolution a few years ago, and for awhile one was one of my daughter’s favorite read-alouds. It started with biogenesis, moved through trilobites and into early fishes, then to dinosaurs, small mammals, mastodons and saber-tooths, and early humans. There’s nothing depressing at all about evolution. It’s awesome.
Charles Darwin closed his book, On the Origin of Species, with the following statement: “There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
We can look at evolution as nothing more than a mechanism that has shaped the different life forms that inhabit (and have ever inhabited) the Earth. But evolution also points out the interconnectedness of all life forms in this planet. To me, evolution allows for a very postive and affirmative view of life.
But, and this is one of the cool parts, the others don’t necessarily go away - evolution doesn’t require extinction. Many of the living beings we interact with any day belong to species much older than ours. You better call that fern “sir”, young whippersnapper!
Kind of has been touched on already, but my take is that life is tough, we know that but you kids are descended from winners - hundreds of millions of years of winners. If only 1 in a hundred babies make it to adulthood without getting eaten by predators, your ancestor was that one. And its child and its child and its child …
Why must talking to children involve putting a positive spin on everything? Just give them the facts and let them decide what to think about it. Maybe you will benefit from listening to their unjaded viewpoints.
“Molecular evidence suggests that our common ancestor with chimpanzees lived, in Africa, between five and seven million years ago, say half a million generations ago. This is not long by evolutionary standards. … in your left hand you hold the right hand of your mother. In turn she holds the hand of her mother, your grandmother. Your grandmother holds her mother’s hand, and so on. … How far do we have to go until we reach our common ancestor with the chimpanzees? It is a surprisingly short way. Allowing one yard per person, we arrive at the ancestor we share with chimpanzees in under 300 miles.”
