# Is there an optimistic take on evolution when discussing it with kids **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 2, 2015, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-an-optimistic-take-on-evolution-when-discussing-it-with-kids/713973 "2015-03-02T01:50:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-an-optimistic-take-on-evolution-when-discussing-it-with-kids/713973/21 "2015-03-02T04:22:10Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Maybe I’m a pessimist. It would explain a lot. Were you a pessimist when you were a kid? It doesn’t seem to me that kids are going to be particularly inclined to make that leap. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-an-optimistic-take-on-evolution-when-discussing-it-with-kids/713973/22 "2015-03-02T04:36:48Z")
> [@AnaMen](#): > > 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. Also of course children _have to_ learn that there are negative things in the world, and have greater capacity to do so than we seem to give them credit for nowadays. There’s no reason to pretend it’s all flowers and sunshine until they reach, I dunno, 12. Obviously within reason. On evolution though, there’s just no need to add the philosophical angle that many here allude to; of it having a purpose or not, or being good or bad. It just is. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-an-optimistic-take-on-evolution-when-discussing-it-with-kids/713973/23 "2015-03-02T13:33:21Z")
> [@AnaMen](#): > > 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. True. “Kids, you know that Faerie Tale about a Psychotically Vengeful Childish Og? The one where he likes playing with people the way Sid plays with GI-Joes and Barbie Dolls in “Toy Story”? Well the truth is there is no such miserable sonofabitch Diety. Thoughts?” ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-an-optimistic-take-on-evolution-when-discussing-it-with-kids/713973/24 "2015-03-02T13:44:09Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > Life isn’t pointless. The point of life is to continue to exist. The point of life is whatever its posessor assigns to it. For some, the point is to help others. For some, it’s raising their own kids into health, well-adjusted adults. Or amassing unparalleled wealth. Or learning and experiencing as much as possible about the world. Or getting your name in the history books with publications, artwork, business achievement, or mass murder. Very few human beings will asert that the point if life is merely to continue to exist. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-an-optimistic-take-on-evolution-when-discussing-it-with-kids/713973/25 "2015-03-02T14:17:55Z")
The ability of life to take hold in vastly differing environments through natural evolutionary adaptations, including some which are extremely hostel to many life forms, speaks towards life being prevalent on other worlds, so speaks towards we are not alone in this universe. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-an-optimistic-take-on-evolution-when-discussing-it-with-kids/713973/26 "2015-03-02T15:16:59Z")
> [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > If your first reaction to the concept of evolution is “Life is pointless,” you have existential and/or moral issues to work out yourself. Indeed. Whether or not life has a point is independent of evolution. Although I think a lot of the resistance to evolution in America today is due to the idea that “believing in” evolution necessarily means buying into Social Darwinism or atheism or some other -ism that goes beyond the actual science involved. When evolution is described in terms of a “struggle to survive,” keep in mind that this “struggle” is a metaphor, and needn’t be how life is perceived by actual living beings. Note also that a key component of evolution is sexual selection: life isn’t just a struggle to survive but a struggle to reproduce. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-an-optimistic-take-on-evolution-when-discussing-it-with-kids/713973/27 "2015-03-02T15:37:44Z")
Wow. I was just reading about octopus sex yesterday. Apparently in most species, the octopuses are really aggressive and not social. This does not make for happy families. The female octopus will often eat the male octopus. Over the millenia the poor male octopuses have created many ways of mating. Like, some of them have their phallus at the end of one of their tentacles, and they just stick the tentacle into her slot to mate. Some can do this in a matter of minutes, but some, like the giant Pacific octopus, need 30 minutes to do this. There is documented video evidence of the female either getting tired or irritated and just eating her mate - dragging him off to her lair. Thus male octopuses often try to go after the females while they are foraging. There is one particularly aggressive form of octopus that got eaten so often - the argonaut - that they developed a detachable penis. They literally throw this detachable penis at the female and run like hell - a literal version of “Go fuck yourself”. Then they regrow that. All of that is evolution. I’m not saying you should go into the intricacies of octopus sex with your kids. I’m saying evolution is hella cool. There are so many things to tell kids about! I would start with archer fish, and skip the “pointless, miserable struggle” bit. Good gods. ---
**Author:** ![Double\_Foolscap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85e7bf/32.png) [@Double\_Foolscap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Double_Foolscap)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-an-optimistic-take-on-evolution-when-discussing-it-with-kids/713973/28 "2015-03-02T15:48:43Z")
Do you feel that you need to be positive about all scientific concepts? Gravity? Entropy? Atomic theory? The facts just _are_\*, whether we’re happy with them or not. \*Edit: until they’re not. And then the _new_ facts just are, and so on - hooray for scientific progress 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-an-optimistic-take-on-evolution-when-discussing-it-with-kids/713973/29 "2015-03-02T16:21:53Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > I was just reading about octopus sex yesterday. Apparently in most species, the octopuses are really aggressive and not social. This does not make for happy families. The female octopus will often eat the male octopus. > > Over the millenia the poor male octopuses have created many ways of mating. Like, some of them have their phallus at the end of one of their tentacles, and they just stick the tentacle into her slot to mate. Some can do this in a matter of minutes, but some, like the giant Pacific octopus, need 30 minutes to do this. There is documented video evidence of the female either getting tired or irritated and just eating her mate - dragging him off to her lair. The flip side of this is [traumatic insemination:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_insemination) “I can’t find your vagina, so \ here, this’ll do.” ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-an-optimistic-take-on-evolution-when-discussing-it-with-kids/713973/30 "2015-03-02T16:25:29Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > The flip side of this is [traumatic insemination:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_insemination) “I can’t find your vagina, so \ here, this’ll do.” It totally figures that fucking (pun intended) bedbugs would be one of the the assholes of the insect kingdom. 🙂 Regardless, thank you for the link! It reminds me of the complicated ways ducks have evolved to have sex and for the females to avoid sex. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-an-optimistic-take-on-evolution-when-discussing-it-with-kids/713973/31 "2015-03-02T16:30:03Z")
> [@Double\_Foolscap](#): > > Do you feel that you need to be positive about all scientific concepts? Gravity? Entropy? Atomic theory? > > The facts just _are_\*, whether we’re happy with them or not. That’s true, and I don’t think we need to spin evolution as indicating some deep meaning. But whether it’s meaningful or not, it’s **awesome**. And that’s the bit that I think should be conveyed to kids. Not that it’s particularly hard to convey. On the contrary, you’d have to work really hard to make the hundreds-of-millions-long history of sharks non-awesome. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-an-optimistic-take-on-evolution-when-discussing-it-with-kids/713973/32 "2015-03-02T16:33:12Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > The flip side of this is [traumatic insemination:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_insemination) “I can’t find your vagina, so \ here, this’ll do.” And then we have the perverse mating habits of waterfowl [http://www.cracked.com/funny-2938-duck-rape/](http://www.cracked.com/funny-2938-duck-rape/) “To say that drakes (male ducks) are out to f\*\*k anything that moves implies a level of fussiness that’s simply not there. A Dutch researcher once saw one drake ravage another male’s lifeless duck-corpse for seventy-five fucking minutes. They’ll hump any species, any gender, anytime. Ducks have a mating ritual scientifically known as “rape flight”, which can involve multiple drakes attacking a single lady-duck, often drowning or pecking her to death. Ducks are not nice.” ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-an-optimistic-take-on-evolution-when-discussing-it-with-kids/713973/33 "2015-03-02T16:34:52Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > And then we have the perverse mating habits of waterfowl > > [http://www.cracked.com/funny-2938-duck-rape/](http://www.cracked.com/funny-2938-duck-rape/) > > “To say that drakes (male ducks) are out to f\*\*k anything that moves implies a level of fussiness that’s simply not there. A Dutch researcher once saw one drake ravage another male’s lifeless duck-corpse for seventy-five fucking minutes. They’ll hump any species, any gender, anytime. Ducks have a mating ritual scientifically known as “rape flight”, which can involve multiple drakes attacking a single lady-duck, often drowning or pecking her to death. Ducks are not nice.” Yup, that’s what I was referencing. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-an-optimistic-take-on-evolution-when-discussing-it-with-kids/713973/34 "2015-03-02T16:50:50Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > If someone is talking to kids about evolution, is there an optimistic slant you can put on it? Evolution is a process. Why should it have a slant? If you want to talk about the meaning of life, turn to philosophy or religion. Leave evolution the hell out of it. And leave philosophy and religion the hell out of evolution. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-an-optimistic-take-on-evolution-when-discussing-it-with-kids/713973/35 "2015-03-02T16:58:48Z")
I see nothing but beauty in evolution, I see it as the greatest piece of art that could conceiveably exhist. It ties evrtyhting together and gives exhistance a good deal of meaning. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-an-optimistic-take-on-evolution-when-discussing-it-with-kids/713973/36 "2015-03-02T17:04:04Z")
Life is pointless, but so is evolution. Evolution has neither goals nor meaning nor a “slant.” As noted above, it is simply a process. You might as well be trying to put an optimistic slant on atomic decay. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-an-optimistic-take-on-evolution-when-discussing-it-with-kids/713973/37 "2015-03-02T17:12:10Z")
How about (for girls): “Evolution made you the special snowflake that you are today, and that’s why you are Daddy’s little princess.” ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-an-optimistic-take-on-evolution-when-discussing-it-with-kids/713973/38 "2015-03-02T17:30:41Z")
Get a copy of _The Cosmic Connection_, by Carl Sagan, and read your kids the chapter “The Star-Folk: A Fable”. It tells the story of the Big Bang and evolution in much the same language as a children’s fairy tale. And it culminates in his famous quote, “We are Star-Stuff.” Evolution is only pessimistic if you sympathize only with the prey. If you can empathize with the predator, it becomes much more dynamic. In Bram Stoker’s words, “Children of the night! What music they make! Ah, but you are a city dweller, and cannot know the joy of the hunt.” ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-an-optimistic-take-on-evolution-when-discussing-it-with-kids/713973/39 "2015-03-02T17:35:56Z")
Evolution is not a result of only, or even primarily, the predator-prey relationship. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2015, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-an-optimistic-take-on-evolution-when-discussing-it-with-kids/713973/40 "2015-03-02T17:42:43Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > Wow. > > I was just reading about octopus sex yesterday. Apparently in most species, the octopuses are really aggressive and not social. This does not make for happy families. The female octopus will often eat the male octopus. > > Over the millenia the poor male octopuses have created many ways of mating. Like, some of them have their phallus at the end of one of their tentacles, and they just stick the tentacle into her slot to mate. Some can do this in a matter of minutes, but some, like the giant Pacific octopus, need 30 minutes to do this. There is documented video evidence of the female either getting tired or irritated and just eating her mate - dragging him off to her lair. Horniness frequently makes fools of us human guys, but apparently we’re pikers compared to male octopi. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-an-optimistic-take-on-evolution-when-discussing-it-with-kids/713973.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-an-optimistic-take-on-evolution-when-discussing-it-with-kids/713973.md?page=3)