Give her a line of retreat by proposing that evolution is compatible with the Original Sin interpretation of genesis (which is very important to her and I would never attempt to argue against).
I can see why this is useful as a rhetorical trick but I don’t see how you can argue for compatibility without twisting evolution. All of the core elements, both historical and metaphorical, of the story of Original Sin run counter to actual fact.
beriukay’s post below seems like a good place to start. I might stress that evolution is inherently a bottom-up phenomenon: there are a few guiding principles that make sense, and if you accept the principles in one region then they can apply in every region and explain everything. Once you buy that microevolution can happen with moths and wing colors, and understand the two forces of mutation and natural selection, then you have to buy that macroevolution can happen. If wing color can be changed by mutation, then why not embryology?
Once you buy that microevolution can happen with moths and wing colors, and understand the two forces of mutation and natural selection, then you have to buy that macroevolution can happen.
When talking about convincing creationists, I think it’s valuable to taboo the phrase “have to” in the sense that you use it here. It might be a normative fact that, once you buy microevolution, you “have to” buy macroevolution. But it is definitely not an established empirical fact about human psychology that buying microevolution is inevitably followed by buying macroevolution.
The goal here isn’t to discharge some obligation to give her information that “ought” to convince her, normatively speaking. The goal is to actually convince her. So claims about what “you have to buy” are only relevant insofar as they reflect what actual humans really do buy in actual fact.
Totally correct. But I think that’s the right avenue to argue- not “haha, I tricked you into accepting A, now you must accept B!”, but “these phenomena- evolution of individuals and evolution of species- are the same underneath the hood. The only change is this superficial one, from changing gene expression in adults and gene expression in embryology / chromosome creation.”
I can see why this is useful as a rhetorical trick but I don’t see how you can argue for compatibility without twisting evolution. All of the core elements, both historical and metaphorical, of the story of Original Sin run counter to actual fact.
beriukay’s post below seems like a good place to start. I might stress that evolution is inherently a bottom-up phenomenon: there are a few guiding principles that make sense, and if you accept the principles in one region then they can apply in every region and explain everything. Once you buy that microevolution can happen with moths and wing colors, and understand the two forces of mutation and natural selection, then you have to buy that macroevolution can happen. If wing color can be changed by mutation, then why not embryology?
When talking about convincing creationists, I think it’s valuable to taboo the phrase “have to” in the sense that you use it here. It might be a normative fact that, once you buy microevolution, you “have to” buy macroevolution. But it is definitely not an established empirical fact about human psychology that buying microevolution is inevitably followed by buying macroevolution.
The goal here isn’t to discharge some obligation to give her information that “ought” to convince her, normatively speaking. The goal is to actually convince her. So claims about what “you have to buy” are only relevant insofar as they reflect what actual humans really do buy in actual fact.
Totally correct. But I think that’s the right avenue to argue- not “haha, I tricked you into accepting A, now you must accept B!”, but “these phenomena- evolution of individuals and evolution of species- are the same underneath the hood. The only change is this superficial one, from changing gene expression in adults and gene expression in embryology / chromosome creation.”