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I used the word "evolve" when talking about new strains of viruses to a co-worker who was a Young Earth Creationist. Dude was so triggered - it's like I threw holy water on him and he barks out: "that's NOT evolution! it's not like cats turning into dogs or a monkey turning into a human!!!111"
Not even kidding. Where to even start with these people? Did they just entirely skip bio 101 courses? This guy actually went to university (but not anywhere near a coastal city) and got a bachelors in science. WTAF.
Dude, the amount of engineers and technical people I meet that are creationists are astounding.
Like, you went through all that math and science. You know how it works. You trust it enough to get on an airplane or crawl under your heavy thing supported by a frame you built and worked the math out on.
You trust the material science, that you didn't actually do, other scientists did.
And yet you don't trust the math and science that went into proving the earth is older than 6000 years or whatever fucking random number they made up in your one fantasy book.
The mental gymnastics is just mind boggling.
Then they pull the, (well god put all that there when he created the earth to make it look like its that old)
That's about when I introduce them to the concept of the last Thursday theory.
One dude had the gall to say the Bible is the oldest written story, and I'm like DUDE! have you no idea about the Epic of Gilgamesh?
Huh, had to look up the Last Thursdayism thing.
I remember bringing up the Vedas when xtians bring up the "but the bible is the oldest written story", and they were like....ve-what? The thing is that even though several people like this make their way through uni, they treat it as just a fancy vo-tech track and either shut off their brain entirely during anything unrelated to their narrow goal or consciously just learned to say what they thought "they" wanted and immediately discarded it. Certainly, they seemed to not have changed their mind on anything vs. what they believed leaving high school.
What's even worse is when they get into discussions of morality - so many of them really do believe that people would not behave themselves and could not even have a society with a belief in their specific interpretation of their preferred version of an Abrahamic text. It's just so provincial. Even if they had a philosophy course - it all just seems to bounce right off their skulls. They really do think that if their Jehovah/Allah/Yahweh didn't supposedly set down rules like "don't murder" that people would still be doing it.
I looked up Last Thursdayism also, it did not disappoint :
I do like even the religious point of view that if God is almighty,
You don't even need to go as far as engineers. How regular people trust all the science that makes their cell phones and cars and fast food, but none of the tech that scares them or challenges their understanding is hilarious. They're like Amish people who got addicted to cell phones and mass produced food.
Username, uh, checks out.
Love your work btw.
These people are in their own reality. It's a cognitive dissonance wrapped in layers of shoddy reasoning and tribal beliefs to keep it from unwinding. You can't rationally reason with them and any attempt to do so will be seen as a personal attack. It's the classic "you can't reason somebody out of a position where they didn't reason themselves into."
Best you can do is going along, acknowledge their pain or fear that's somewhere at the basis of this cognitive dissonance and ask some questions that might get them to thing like asking them to explain who taught them this or the "so why would God cause a new pandemic?" type of questions from time to time.
Yeah, I find asking questions often tends to put them into a space they are not used to being in, depending on the question.
For instance, recently, I was visiting another relative during some larger gathering. I was flipping around channels and left it on CNN for a minute. Another relative (known for being a magabrain) drifts over to the TV and says, "CNN, eh?" and expects me to react in some prescribed way. I just shrug and ask "is there something wrong with CNN?" They honestly had no real answer. You could see them kind of thinking it through, esp. given the current content was something very innocuous.
I think I asked that anti-evolution type what they thought the difference between mutation and evolution was when they were objecting to the term "evolution" in regards to new strains of viruses. That was ages ago, it was probably around SARS or avian flu.
More recently, I asked one of those people going on about "gain of function" in relation to Fauci and Wuhan labs, etc., that I knew also to be an anti-evolution. I just asked them what they think gain of function means?
It's not about trying to find trick questions - that tends to just have the blowback question. I find just trying to ask more innocent questions, ask them to define their terms, or what they are parroting means to them seems to have them go quiet for a while. I'm assuming they are mulling it over. It might not change their mind, at least not any time soon. But if I can at least get them thinking about what they are mindlessly repeating, I figure that's a win.
Should ask him to look at pictures from the last 100 years and multiply the changes by 60
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fnewsimg.bbc.co.uk%2Fmedia%2Fimages%2F44937000%2Fjpg%2F_44937587_a72dcf54-068b-4632-911e-bd7a9cdf8947.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=500704cab3f000da57a170467942b506bf06777944233af66494707f00d42906&ipo=images
Extrapolating from those pictures? Rhinoceros?