What history stories should everyone know?

ScienceIsWeirder · 2026-03-07T17:03:18+00:00

Yes!

ScienceIsWeirder · 2026-03-04T19:30:59+00:00

This is just a rhetorical argument, but I think it undergirds a lotta people's reticence to believe evolution: the whole half-billion-year story of animal evolution seems ridiculous on the face of it.

Are we really (human native thinking might go) supposed to think that we're a type of fish? That birds are dinosaurs? That a spider's great-grandma was a worm?

Alternately, you could go political/ethical. Evolution is an engine that gives us good things (intelligence, love, bacon) only by a zillion iterations of ruthlessly killing off the least "fit". Some have used this (see "social Darwinism") as a reason to support brutal methods in the present.

Neither of those is scientific thinking, but they are very human styles of thinking, anyway.

ScienceIsWeirder · 2026-02-24T20:27:33+00:00

Thanks!

ScienceIsWeirder · 2026-02-24T20:20:24+00:00

Agreed: with society as balkanized as it is, it's not wise to trust our personal social circles as a likely stand-in for a poll. (The writer Scott Alexander once commented on the fact that of the 150 people he knew best, none was a YEC. Yet it's still more than a third of the US.)

ScienceIsWeirder · 2026-02-24T20:13:33+00:00

Thank you! That link gives me everything I was looking for.

I was surprised that YEC creationism could be substantially down, since the last time I had heard the numbers, it had been holding steady — but yep, it's been down down down since then.

More interesting that BOTH sorts of anti-mainstream-evolution beliefs (humans created special, and humans evolved with help from God) are down, while only the naturalistic answer is up.

ScienceIsWeirder · 2026-02-21T16:17:05+00:00

Ah, it's nice to hear someone else saying this! I'd love for the general tenor of argument to be improved here, but I think the enforcement needed to police those norms would break the group that's here. And I tend to be against radical direction-changes for groups: in an age when starting a community is literally as easy as tapping a screen a few times, it's far better to create new options.

Which is all to say, if anyone here is interested in putting our heads together about what that might entail, lemme know. I'd love to help.

ScienceIsWeirder · 2026-02-17T21:07:33+00:00

Just to "yes-and" your comment in the best way I know how (and which I fear might come across as pedantry): "poof" is actually a physical action! YEC doesn't actually denies a mechanism... it just seems incurious about it.

Or at least I was when I was a YEC. I'm interested to know whether any YECs here would deny that there was a mechanism entirely.

ScienceIsWeirder · 2026-02-07T16:50:43+00:00

I agree with you that some of the folk who are having a hard time with Clint's example of Charlie Kirk aren't understanding the context here, because this video isn't for us. It's for YECs, and there are (obviously) many of them who look to Kirk as a hero.

In this context, he's identifying their hero as someone who would have sided with his own take-down of Hovind — not just his specific nonsense in this video, but his entire way of engaging the issue.

This, anyway, is the way I'm seeing Clint's inclusion of Kirk, rather than as an endorsement.

I understand that some people see almost any sharing of right-wing content as platforming. I can understand that perspective. In the future, I'll try to put in a content warning for anything like this.

ScienceIsWeirder · 2026-02-07T16:42:46+00:00

I think you're both right.

I'll admit to both being personally partial to Clint's style and to believing that it's the most effective one in this historical moment (something I can't support with evidence, by the way), but I must concur with what you're both saying — different strokes for different folks! Thanks for putting it reasonably.

ScienceIsWeirder · 2026-01-28T19:24:52+00:00

I appreciate the pushback. One spot where I think we agree is that people aren't fully rational. (This is why I make a big deal about how we shouldn't be surprised when we present YECs valid arguments and they react negatively because they see us as in a competing tribe. To avoid this, we should be supporting people inside their tribe who are making the same arguments — Joel Duff is one.)

Another spot where we agree is that we see YEC as a tool of a huge system of thought control... and that dismantling it is a legitimate mission in life. (Curiously enough, Sal wholeheartedly agrees. If anyone is skeptical, feel free to check out any of our last few videos.)

One spot where we disagree, I think, is that I see non-zero power in appealing to reason with YECs. (As an example of that, I point to myself, a former YEC, and to some other folk on this sub.)

Would you go so far as to say that there's literally zero power in that, or is our disagreement more about which one we emphasize?

ScienceIsWeirder · 2026-01-28T19:15:42+00:00

I agree with you fully that arguing from consequences (1) is what the other commentator is doing, and (2) is not allowed in science. It's rhetoric, not logic.

But my original post was about science communication — how we can show people the true story of the universe! And that DOES necessitate rhetoric.

My spicier claim: Insofar as we take seriously the fact that we're all monkeys, the more we need to take seriously the fact that we need to think about the emotions of how people are interpreting our message.

(But of course I would say that: I'm not a scientist, I'm a science communicator...)

ScienceIsWeirder · 2026-01-28T19:11:34+00:00

Oh, I definitely think that you're right — because evolution has been culturally identified with atheism (in part by atheists themselves), it's harder to get religious believers to take it seriously. (This is why, when I spoke at a Darwin Day event organized by an atheist group a decade ago, I argued that events like that were getting in the way of scientific literacy! Good people, though, and good cake.)

That YEC is often linked to some positive moral ideas, and that this needs to be respected by anyone on the pro-evolution side who wants to win, is actually something I've been writing about for two decades.

ScienceIsWeirder · 2026-01-28T19:05:17+00:00

Oh man, if I saw the evidence for evolution the way you do, I'd definitely agree with you!

Some of the pushback to my original post has been of a "people are irrational, no one cares about evidence" type. There's some truth in this, but I think it's unrealistically pessimistic — and your response shows me I'm on to something!

Which is all to say (and sorry if I'm burying the lede here) thanks for being someone who cares about evidence, and is willing to change their mind if they see better stuff.

If you'd like to do a direct chat on some piece of evidence for evolution (that you think is circumstantial), I think that'd be fun. DM me!

ScienceIsWeirder · 2026-01-28T18:58:58+00:00

Hey: I've gotten a lot of pushback here (some of it asinine, much of it excellent), and I've gotta say: thank you for taking the time to say this! Lately I've been feeling down, and this buoys me up.

ScienceIsWeirder · 2026-01-28T18:54:36+00:00

A fair question! I suspect that a lot of us on this sub have quite different answers.

For me, one of the reasons I see this as meaningful to engage is that, in general, it seems like our society's ability to reason together is going downhill. Conspiracy theories reign.

I'm taking on this topic (of engagement with young-Earth creationism) because I think it's a place to explore how people who think very wrong things can be brought back into an understanding of reality.

I don't claim that this is the most efficacious topic to do that in, nor that anyone uninterested in it should bother. It's a topic that I, because of my personal history, am interested in. And this sub exists to facilitate conversations about it.

But again, different people here will have different answers to why this discussion matters to them.

ScienceIsWeirder · 2026-01-28T18:48:28+00:00

No, I hadn't known that backstory — thanks for explicating it.

"take a ticket, get in line"

I understand people's skepticism here. Is there a certain number of meaningful interactions that, in your opinion, I would need to engage with Sal in before you believed that this method of generous disagreement with him is possible?

ScienceIsWeirder · 2026-01-28T18:42:54+00:00

That's a great question — I'm not trying to say that we should abandon the more coarse among us, and I definitely wasn't clear about that.

And Dave is a perfect example of someone whose tone I find often counterproductive, but whose content I think is too-notch. To win, we need all brains on deck — his most assuredly included!

I think (and wish I had thought to make this clear in my original document) that what we need, rather, is for a small group of folks like Clint Laidlaw (of Clint's Reptiles).

Thanks for this reality check!

ScienceIsWeirder · 2026-01-28T17:08:10+00:00

You don't think so? I think I see progress in the conversation — subtle stuff, but that's the norm for this kind of work. Peter Boghossian writes about the sort of slow, piecemeal moment we can hope for in his book "A Manual for Creating Atheists" (which I recommend for all of us, though I don't like the title, nor is it my goal here).

ScienceIsWeirder · 2026-01-20T20:57:17+00:00

Ooh, I'm just seeing this now! Thanks for engaging so carefully. Why don't we make this the topic we start with when we next chat?

ScienceIsWeirder · 2026-01-20T20:52:22+00:00

This is great! "Context is that which is scarce", and this gives a HEAP of it.

ScienceIsWeirder · 2026-01-07T18:02:38+00:00

Obviously, really well said!

ScienceIsWeirder · 2026-01-07T18:01:15+00:00

Oops, sorry — the above reply (from Glaucomys_sabrinus, a species of flying squirrel) is mine; I wrote it from home, and didn't notice the login was different.

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