The Bible is the claim, not the evidence

[Crossless2.0]

Mutation is random. Natural selection is not. Whoever taught you about evolution did a poor job.

That is how I was "taught" evolution by the JWs. My impression of the theory of evolution for a long time was that a mutation would appear (like a fully formed eyeball) and simply be carried over to each successive generation until you eventually had a new organism. So a lizard would be born with a beak, and successive generations would be born with beaks until there was one that was born with feathers, and they'd have beaks and feathers until one was born with its arms shaped into wings... and so on.

You can understand why such a person would wonder "why aren't there any transitional forms in the fossil record?" I think that many of them are waiting for the discovery of a fossil lizard with a beak, and of a fossil lizard with a beak and feathers, and so on. They cannot envision a scenario where evolution would occur aside from that. The "croco-duck" thing is a perfect example of that. There is this belief that evolution entails massive, wholesale changes on an unimaginable scale (such as a duck being born with a crocodile's head, or vice-versa) and that without those "transitional forms" evolution is simply bad science that shows just how desperate secular scientists are.

It's not that we believed that this could actually happen! On the contrary, it seemed as preposterous to us as it should to you. And we wondered how it was possible that people fell for such obvious silliness. The only possible explanation was that the desire to reject god simply overrode any sense of reasonableness. In other words, SATAN.

And then I learned how evolution really worked and... D'OH!!!

Over the years I've had a depressing number of conversations with people who thought evolution was just as you described it as having been taught to you. My response to this nonsense has always been, "You're right. That's preposterous, and I don't believe it any more than you do. Fortunately, that's not what the theory states . . ."

I'd like to report that my success rate in setting the record straight has been 100%, but I can't. Some people refuse to let go of what their parents or pastors "taught" them and are afraid that if they accept the findings of biologists their faith will suffer.

Happily, there have been a few over the years who listened. When they grasp the elegance of the explanation, it's like a light suddenly goes on behind their eyes.

It's just so damned sad and infuriating that our schools do such a poor job of teaching the theory, assuming they even touch it in the first place. My 10th grade biology teacher avoided the chapter on evolution like the plague. When asked why during a private moment, he admitted that he wanted to avoid the inevitable blowback from fundie students and their parents. I've despised him a little ever since.