I can remember cartoons and some TV programs from my childhood that were about finding “the Missing Link.” I was a little kid, I didn’t really know about evolution, but this whole missing link thing is now obvious to me as people not completely understanding evolution. They expected to find an “ape-man” that was that intermediate step. How funny. I hadn’t thought about “the Missing Link” in years.
Yup. All changes originate as a mutation in one individual, and can obviously only be spread to others in the interbreeding population in which that individual is a member. Speciation, by definition, is when a single ancestral population divides into two distinct subpopulations that are initially very similar, but no longer interbreed. Any subsequent changes that arise in an individual in one subpopulation cannot spread to the other subpopulation. What we see today in two species is a degree of divergence that is proportional to the time since the two species separated. Only if we could look back through time from the point of speciation would we see the divergence between the two populations since the last common ancestor accumulating gradually. The nearest thing we have to a time machine is the fossil record, and that’s what we do see.
Yes, the idea that there should be living transitional forms is obviously a complete misconception. And even in reference to the fossil record, any notion of the missing link is obviously nonsense. Unless the fossil record had continuously preserved every single organism throughout history, there would always be gaps. But there are certainly plenty of examples of transitional forms found in the fossil record.
How about just letting him believe whatever he wants to believe? He has that right.
I believe it’s fine to talk with him about this, and believe that I have that right.
Nobody is disputing that anyone has the right to believe something that is false. But I suppose since the motto of this board is allowing ignorance to go unchallenged since 1973 we should just let it go.
I think you have to start off by admitting that there is no way to refute intelligent design. The God of the bible can do anything he pleases and if he wants to make it look like evolution is incredibly plausible just to test your belief then he can do that. You have to admit that and then show him that it is incredibly plausible.
By the way, a partial eye can be incredibly useful. Even primitive bacteria have light-sensitive eye spots and it is very easy to construct evolutionary pathways for them to develop into eyes. It has apparently happened some 40 times in evolution, 40 distinct evolved types of eyes. Incidentally, one of the arguments against intelligent design is that it often isn’t very intelligent. Our optic nerves come out of the front of the retinal cells and then have to be bundled and go through a hole in the retina (the blind spot). In octopuses, they come out behind the retina and there is no blind spot. Why did the intelligent designer give us a useless appendix? Everywhere you look you see unintelligent kludges, just because evolution is blind.
Evolution of a clock - simulation
For the same reason this board exists: our goal is to help fight ignorance.
While it may seem like this particular bit of ignorance is harmless, and it could be in this case. But the idea of rejecting evolution is usually part of a wider concept of rejecting science in general, and that has wide-reaching consequences. The most recently dangerous would be those who reject the science on COVID-19, though it also includes those who reject environmental science.
This one guy not believing might not be too big a deal, but the only way to attack the larger problem of a lack of belief in science is to address changing the minds of people, and sometimes that means one person at a time.
It doesn’t hurt to try.
Interesting concept, but I’d much rather see an animation of the evolution than read the polemic, and I’m someone who is favorable to the message of the video. I think those hostile to it wouldn’t make it past the early text. A much more streamlined approach would, I think, be more useful.
I even tried to jump to the animation, but there doesn’t seem to be one. The video was more like a paper with transitions.
Still, the core concept that, if you give clock part the characteristics of biological life, they can actually evolve over generations (i.e. what AI evolution does all the time) is good.
I might suggest to the OP to maybe show how evolution works in AI models, if you can find a good video for beginners. Seeing how we put evolution into action in a way that can happen so much faster, and see how different things might be able to go a long way to get past the complexity argument.
How about this one (a simulator, not a video)
Do you also think his cousin should shut up about what he believes?
Yeppers (must be 5 chars).
First step is to ask him if there is any actual evidence that would change his mind and work from there.
If says “no”, drop the subject, there is nothing else to be done. You are no longer dealing with someone open to rational arguments.
But it’s likely that he doesn’t even have any conception of the kind of evidence that could exist. To him the many lines of evidence that support evolution are probably an “unknown unknown”. People may claim that it’s an unshakeable part of their religious belief, but people change.
You can’t debate someone without finding out the underlying reasons for their beliefs. Is your cousin a Christian? If so, then the main reason may be that evolution is often perceived as an indirect “God-does-not-exist” argument.
Indeed, one place where evolution is very much a live issue is in medicine, where we see phenomena like the evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
I didn’t say to ask “what” evidence would do it, just to establish the basic principle of whether he is open to “any” evidence at all.
If not, there’s no meaningful discussion to be had.
Another problem could be that, if his belief is religiously based there is the “Information that doesn’t come from us must come from Satan” factor. If this is true then any facts can be disregarded, doubly so if said facts come from a non-religious source.
I know someone who is a Flat Earther for religious reasons. They are convinced that if anything that they think the Bible says is proved incorrect, it knocks the support for their entire moral system right out from under them. This despite, in her case, fervent creationsts think flat earthers are idiots and embarrassing.
Some of them, like this woman, have dedicated their lives to this stuff. Changing is life shattering.