Evolution, religion, and ignorance.

[Esquilax]

I suspect you'll be disappointed.

I agree that most creationists don't understand evolution, but that's a damned poor excuse for not accepting it. By way of analogy, I don't understand how my television works, but I accept that it does. Why? Because I can see it work.

But there's a difference between knowing how a TV works, and knowing what a TV is: Even without knowing how your TV works, if I asked you what it is, you'd tell me some variation on the theme of "it's an electronic device that outputs signals as visual and audio media."

That simple threshold of understanding, that one would expect to be the minimum requirement for having a cogent opinion on something, is lacking when theists speak about evolution. We've had multiple threads recently that do this, but it's a common enough refrain, where we're asked for evidence of evolution, and then when we all supply it, the creationist responds "yes, but where's your evidence of dogs turning into cats?"

If I asked you what a TV is, you could give me a correct answer. When I ask a creationist what evolution is, I'm told it's something it absolutely is not, which makes any opinion that creationist has on evolution roughly equivalent to their opinions on televisions, if they'd started the conversation by telling me that a television is a four wheeled vehicle driven by horses.

Hence my question: I'd like to know if any of the evolution deniers here actually know what evolution is, and conversely, whether any of the people who actually do understand evolution could still have a reason to deny it.