Confronting Friends and Family

[Darkstar]

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A nice blog post by Steve that discusses the answer to this letter:

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index...nd-family/

So my question is; how far do you go to defend the science behind a theory – such as the theory of evolution- when you know full well that no amount of evidence is ever sufficient to ‘convince’ non-believers to change their outlook?! Sure, we must continue to profess the truth and what is fast becoming scientific fact, but when your relationships with those around you are at stake, where do you draw the line in such arguments?! Afterall, you could end up alienating half the people you know, right??

I’m completely torn between keeping the peace with those around me, and calling them all freaking morons for believing something with no evidential underpinning.

Your thoughts on this would be much appreciated, I’m sure it’s something you’ve considered before and maybe it would make an interesting talking point for the show.

Love what you do, stumbling across you guys on iTunes 3 years ago has completely changed the way I think about science.

Kind regards

Nick

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Linguistics has a very precise definition of language because language is a uniquely human capability for a number of reasons. All animals have a communication system of some sort, but only the human communication system is markedly different in that it allows us to precisely and, much more importantly, generatively convey meaning.

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The laws of chemistry are laws of physics, expressed on a different level. Abiogenesis simply claims that life arose from non-life.

Organic material are spontaneously created by inorganic material. This a is fact and an easily testable one. Life, of course, is more than just organic material, but there are many theories abou the development of life that do not necessarily require a tremendous amount of time.

Not to mention that self-replicating organic material probably developed over a span of 1.5 billion years. I'd say that's more than enough time for such structures to rise and evolve.

The details of their origins and evolution are still not entirely clear, but the paradigm of abiogenesis is accepted by practically any expert inthe field. Panspermia, by the way, is a form of abiogenesis that simply allows for a longer time span.

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Why do you keep dodging the Tower of Babel questions?

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I'm not an Englishman, but:

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Nothing to see here folks. It got derailed within two pages, anyway. Might as well be a whole other thread, but I don't care. I just found it kind of funny.