Did you ever have a discussion with someone, usually someone disdainful of science, maybe one who believes in the literal Genesis story, and you found yourself feeling frustrated at not being able to adequately explain to them the theory of evolution? When you try to explain to them the way evolution works, they throw back at you ignorant Christian apologetics, such as “Evolution is just a theory” or “Evolution cannot explain the eye” or “I believe in micro-evolution, but not macro-evolution” (as if belief is relevant to or helps one to understand science), or similar nonsense? Well, feel frustrated no more!
The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) has made available portions of many books about evolution, so that you can refer the creationist thorn-in-your-side to them instead of having to waste your time trying to debate him.
Such as:
- The Illustrated Origin of the Species, by Charles Darwin (only small samples of various pages which gives you a flavor of the book, and send you to the bookstore for the entire volume).
- Chapter 10 of Carl Zimmer’s Tangled Bank.
- Douglas Futuyma’s Evolution, 2nd Ed.
- Evidence of Evolution by Susan Middleton and Mary Ellen Hannibal (lots of pictures and diagrams for the verbally challenged).
- Douglas Palmer’s Evolution: The Story of Life
- A children’s book, Evolution: How We and all Living Things Came To Be. (This one might be particularly useful with the thick of skull.)
- Rapture Ready! by Daniel Radosh; and
- Eugenie Scott’s Evolution vs. Creationism, 2nd Ed.
Now, as noted, these are not the full books, but there’s a lot in here that can be used to debunk even the dumbest creationist argument. And even if you don’t need them for that? Just enjoy them.
Knowledge for the sake of knowledge isn’t a bad thing.
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I dunno, I still like the GOOMFYFM approach (Get out of my face you freaking moron), or its corollary GOOMFYFI approach (Get out of my face you frigging idiot). Most of these people can’t read, unless it’s impenetrable English from King James’s time, English subject to any interpretation any damn fool wants to lay on it, and they couldn’t understand a graph to save their life. Religious belief is a mental defect that messes up pretty much the whole brain.
It’s not a defect. It’s the symptom of a defect or multiple defects like fear of death or dissatisfaction with their lives. Religion is a means of self medicating, and they’ll latch on to just about anything which will excuse them to continue self medicating, so you’ll hear “it’s just a theory” or any of that other nonsense SI mentioned because they see evolution as a threat to their choice of self medication.
Creationists don’t accept science unless it accords 100% with their literal interpretation of the bible. So the NCSE can list all the books ever written about evolution, and it will still be a vain exercise.
Remember this interchange between Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan? (Note: This version has been edited and shortened, but it still gets to the nub.)
The desire to self medicate is a defect. Everyone knows you have to get meds from a priest. Or a shaman. Or a voodoo guy.
Except for Quakers.
That looks like a pretty interesting selection of excerpts and books. I’ll be back after I’m finished browsing those sites.
From Rapture Ready
Now, that is just sad.
Keep in mind that half of all people are below average. More, probably.
Chappy:
I think it’s because Hollywood has confused the idea that a person is mad at his chosen god with the idea that a person doesn’t believe in gods at all. Look at crap like “The Devil at Four O’Clock.” So people who are simply miffed at their magic friends are tempted to call themselves “atheists.” In a similar vein, though, I called myself a believer even when I had abandoned all but a vague deistic view.
Maybe we don’t need another word for atheists. Maybe we need another word for people who reject their god because of reasons unrelated to, well … reason. People who have not come to a lack of belief intellectually, but simply are actually pissed off that their god concept isn’t working for them.
They may be lacking in many ways, but they’re not lacking god belief. It’s a cancer one is either riddled with or free of.
I did too. As long as I still believed in something, I didn’t mind church and all the other trappings of Christian faith. Now, of course, I can’t stand any of the church stuff.
Good Grief! I don’t know what I did to the formatting in the previous comment! Can you fix it, SI?
A cup of coffee before typing works for me.
Ah, you read my mind. You may be right about typing without benefit of a caffeine fix.
Hmm… seems like I have arrived horribly late to the discussion. Well, I didn’t have anything earth shattering to say, anyway.
I will only say that the creationists I know are not the type of people who read books, so there can be books galore, but they will never read them, unfortunately.
Damn! I knew there was a flaw in my argument!
Or Rush Limbaugh!