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What do we have to do to convince folks that evolution is true?

What do we have to do to convince folks that evolution is true? Does evolution tell you anything about morals?. Does understanding how a behaviors/tactics evolve mean that they are morally acceptable?.

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What do we have to do to convince folks that evolution is true?

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  1. What do we have to do to convince folks that evolution is true? Does evolution tell you anything about morals?

  2. Does understanding how a behaviors/tactics evolve mean that they are morally acceptable? Above is a picture of a female and male Gambusiaholbrooki. 100% of the copulations in this system are forced. Males sneak up behind and jab the females with their gonopodiums. Does this mean that rape is acceptable in humans? Similarly, does the fact that some bird species have siblicide make siblicide OK in humans?

  3. Of course not!

  4. We have cultural taboos, and rape and murder are among them. Humans make the laws based on our sense of what is right and fair. While our sense of fairness most likely evolved over time, our decisions on what is right and wrong are not based on what is necessarily evolutionarily advantageous. For example, we have laws that forbid torturing animals. Why do we have these rules? Not because they increase our fitness. Rather, it's because we are a species with empathy, and it makes us sad to see other organisms suffering great pain for prolonged periods of time.

  5. In her best-selling book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, conservative pundit Ann Coulter states that, for liberals, evolution "lets them off the hook morally. Do whatever you feel like doing – screw your secretary, kill Grandma, abort your defective child – Darwin says it will benefit humanity." Following the Columbine High School massacre, Tom Delay read out loud on the floor of the U.S. Congress a letter from a Texas newspaper suggesting – sarcastically – that "it [the massacre] couldn't have been because our school systems teach the children that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized out of some primoridal soup of mud." (Coyne, Why Evolution is True, 2010)

  6. The genetic basis of behavior? I like the 'human universals' on page 227. "There is no reason, then, to see ourselves as marionettes dancing on the strings of evolution." "One lesson that all geneticists know, but which doesn't seem to have permeated the consciousness of nonscientists, is that 'genetic' does not mean 'unchangeable'." Evidence that we are becoming a kinder species on pages 230-231. Bottom of 232 – Ian McEwan quote – 'Reason and myth remain uneasy bedfellows.'

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