Bad Astronomy

Girding evolution’s loins

So some creationist twinkie comes up to you at a party and says, “If evolution is true, how come there aren’t any transitional fossils?” What do you do?

Beating them with the punch bowl might make you feel better – why do you think they call it a punch bowl? – but may in fact harm the effort of rationally educating people who try so desperately hard to avoid reality.

Nature magazine – a premier science journal –has created (haha) a document called 15 Evolutionary Gems that will do as much damage as that punch bowl, but intellectually. It lists 15 slam-dunk reasons why evolution is real, including why there are transitional fossils, how feathers developed, and even why looking at the humble guppy defeats the arguments of the most arrogant creationist. Sadly, they don’t talk about the evolution of the eye, which really should be in there, but overall this is a good, solid document that should help us folks in the trenches.

And if that doesn’t work – after all, Nature is from evil scientists – then send them to this editorial at The Time Online, written by a religious Christian who understands evolution and defends it. I disagree with him on some of his points, but overall his message is that evolution need not disagree with religion.

Mind you, most people in the US are not Fundamentalists, but that’s from where they are getting the message about evolution and science, so having more religious people talking about the reality of science is a good thing.