Video & Multimedia
Related: About this forumUnderstanding evolution: Michael Gillings at TEDxMacquarieUniversity
There are a number of TEDx videos on evolution on YouTube, all can provide ammo in debates with creationists.
Beartracks
(12,761 posts)Bonus: If pressed, they can always claim that not being able to understand evolution must mean it's wrong!
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lastlib
(22,981 posts)To the knuckle-draggers, staying stoopid is a virtue.
longship
(40,416 posts)Richard Dawkins came up with the meme analogy. Here we see Gillings using it as an analogy for evolution, just as Dawkins did.
Genes are biological; memes are cultural. It's an imperfect analogy. Nevertheless, it is an important one, which is likely why Dawkins first proposed it.
An interesting mini-lecture, as many TED presentations are. However, I find them to be rather shallow. There is only so much you can accomplish in under 20 minutes. Science is rarely accomplished in sound bites.
That's why I find TED talks often frustrating.
My favorites are those who concisely deliver mind-blowing science, like my favorite TED talk by Carolyn Porco.
Carolyn uses few analogies here, just the facts. Although Gillings presentation is okay, he manages to avoid cutting to the hard science behind evolution, which I feel would make a much stronger case than his memetic argument. Evolution is not really about culture, it's about biology.
I recommend that DUers click through and watch both. (On edit)
Nitram
(22,671 posts)This speaker makes a brave attempt, but like most analogies, his breaks down if examined too closely. An intelligent creationist (assuming that's not an oxymoron) could poke holes in all his points because language is nowhere near as complex as the stressors and forces impacting a population embedded in an ecosystem with thousands of other interconnected species of flora and fauna. Evolutionary theory is supported by hundreds of thousands of distinct examples and facts, which is both its strength and its weakness. I say weakness, because it is impossible to give an exhaustive list of supporting facts to a creationist. It is a strength because those examples come from so many different fields and types of research.
tomhagen
(3,604 posts)mdbl
(4,972 posts)Evolution is not a belief system, it's a scientific theory that is there to be proved or disproved by scientific study. If more evidence keeps showing up to prove the theory, science will continue to study it.
Creationism is a belief system, not a fact. Unless you were there when it happened, you have less evidence than the scientists studying evolution. Creationism is a belief system which leaves it open to any thing someone wants to make up. You can "BELIEVE" anything -thus the hundreds of cults and religions in the world.