I met my first Creationist!
At least that I know of. At work a colleague was talking about a documentary he he had seen, something about weird worms, and apparently also about Darwin. At the mention of the name this suit from Sales or Administration, or something like that gets all defensive, asks "you don't actually believe in evolution?", etc.
I'm sitting between the two of them and I reply that I sure do believe in evolution and the Creationist suit begins the whole routine:
"Darwin was wrong about lots of things," "the transitional species are missing, even "It's still a theory," I kid you not.
I explain how Darwin was amazingly right about most things, that a theory is a scientific explanation and that the word does not imply uncertainty or lack of evidence, that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming and icludes fossils, genes, phylogeny, etc.
I explained how one human chromosome matches two ape chromosomes and how there was obviously a fussion even in our lineage. He replied to that with the lame line about how that proves a common designer and I answered that it really didn't, it was just a post hoc rationalization and that evolution actually explained and had predicted the similarities.
He finished by offering to lend me a DVD to which I joked hat I hoped it was not Kent Hovind's. He answered "oh, so you know him?"
I've had this kind of RL argument with believers in all kind of paranormal, New Age stuff, but this was my first live Creationist. They are rare here, or at least the know to shut up about it. I'm glad that years of debating Creationists and learning about evolution prepared me to be able to speak up and answer Creationist nonsense when I encountered it.
I'm sitting between the two of them and I reply that I sure do believe in evolution and the Creationist suit begins the whole routine:
"Darwin was wrong about lots of things," "the transitional species are missing, even "It's still a theory," I kid you not.
I explain how Darwin was amazingly right about most things, that a theory is a scientific explanation and that the word does not imply uncertainty or lack of evidence, that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming and icludes fossils, genes, phylogeny, etc.
I explained how one human chromosome matches two ape chromosomes and how there was obviously a fussion even in our lineage. He replied to that with the lame line about how that proves a common designer and I answered that it really didn't, it was just a post hoc rationalization and that evolution actually explained and had predicted the similarities.
He finished by offering to lend me a DVD to which I joked hat I hoped it was not Kent Hovind's. He answered "oh, so you know him?"
I've had this kind of RL argument with believers in all kind of paranormal, New Age stuff, but this was my first live Creationist. They are rare here, or at least the know to shut up about it. I'm glad that years of debating Creationists and learning about evolution prepared me to be able to speak up and answer Creationist nonsense when I encountered it.