Explain a bit of how genetics works, then mutation, then heredity, then selection, then show how the combination causes evolution.
This is a lesson from my 10th grade biology class:
Take a bunch of marbles with two different colors. (Lets say blue and white)
Explain that these are the possible alleles in the population, with blue coding for hair and white failing to code for hair.
If a rabbit inherits any blue marbles, it has hair. If it has only white marbles, it isn’t born with hair. White marbles represent recessive alleles, but that’s not particularly important to evolution.
Now mix all the marbles up in a bag/hat/whatever and draw them two at a time. This produces one rabbit. Write down what that rabbit’s traits are. The mixing and drawing represents random mating, saying that all the living rabbits have 2 children, with randomly selected other rabbits. These assumptions aren’t accurate, but evolution will still be demonstrated when...
You draw out all the marbles and produce a generation of rabbits. Now say that the winter was really cold and killed all the hairless rabbits. Remove all the pairs of marbles which are all white.
Mix marbles, repeat, take note. Explain that the white alleles are being selected out of the population.
Now just say that surviving rabbits will consume resources to make up for the deaths of the white ones, or not. This basically just demonstrates that a selection pressure will remove deleterious genes from the population.
It will still probably take work to explain that mutations will lead to different traits which are then selected for.
This is a great technique—you could probably save time/explanatory effort if you used the moths example—moths going light-skinned or dark-skinned as trees get more/less polluted. The obvious retort to your rabbits, is, ok, that’s how mutant freaks get eliminated, great. So species stay the same. You need (at some point) to illustrate how species change through useful mutations, and you may as well do it at the same time as you illustrate natural selection.
Note that if the person is already familiar with standard creationist arguments, the moth example may not be the best one, unless you want to spend time arguing over the details of the experiment… (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB601.html)
That also illustrates adaptation to a changing environment, and why evolution doesn’t always stagnate, on top of almost touching on evolution not having a target.
After arguing with another friend for close to a decade, I’ve determined that using the moths and similar examples doesn’t help it all. In fact it merely reinforced for him that evolution was “destructive” rather than creative.
In fact it merely reinforced for him that evolution was “destructive” rather than creative.
...shouldn’t the conclusion then be “Sure, it’s destructive, but it works!”? That he would focus on whether it’s “destructive” or “creative” rather than whether it works / it happened kind of scares me.
Explain a bit of how genetics works, then mutation, then heredity, then selection, then show how the combination causes evolution.
This is a lesson from my 10th grade biology class:
Take a bunch of marbles with two different colors. (Lets say blue and white)
Explain that these are the possible alleles in the population, with blue coding for hair and white failing to code for hair.
If a rabbit inherits any blue marbles, it has hair. If it has only white marbles, it isn’t born with hair. White marbles represent recessive alleles, but that’s not particularly important to evolution.
Now mix all the marbles up in a bag/hat/whatever and draw them two at a time. This produces one rabbit. Write down what that rabbit’s traits are. The mixing and drawing represents random mating, saying that all the living rabbits have 2 children, with randomly selected other rabbits. These assumptions aren’t accurate, but evolution will still be demonstrated when...
You draw out all the marbles and produce a generation of rabbits. Now say that the winter was really cold and killed all the hairless rabbits. Remove all the pairs of marbles which are all white.
Mix marbles, repeat, take note. Explain that the white alleles are being selected out of the population.
Now just say that surviving rabbits will consume resources to make up for the deaths of the white ones, or not. This basically just demonstrates that a selection pressure will remove deleterious genes from the population.
It will still probably take work to explain that mutations will lead to different traits which are then selected for.
This is a great technique—you could probably save time/explanatory effort if you used the moths example—moths going light-skinned or dark-skinned as trees get more/less polluted. The obvious retort to your rabbits, is, ok, that’s how mutant freaks get eliminated, great. So species stay the same. You need (at some point) to illustrate how species change through useful mutations, and you may as well do it at the same time as you illustrate natural selection.
Note that if the person is already familiar with standard creationist arguments, the moth example may not be the best one, unless you want to spend time arguing over the details of the experiment… (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB601.html)
Agreed, that is better.
That also illustrates adaptation to a changing environment, and why evolution doesn’t always stagnate, on top of almost touching on evolution not having a target.
After arguing with another friend for close to a decade, I’ve determined that using the moths and similar examples doesn’t help it all. In fact it merely reinforced for him that evolution was “destructive” rather than creative.
...shouldn’t the conclusion then be “Sure, it’s destructive, but it works!”? That he would focus on whether it’s “destructive” or “creative” rather than whether it works / it happened kind of scares me.
By “destructive” he meant “not able to generate additional complexity, ergo Macroevolution doesn’t exist.” (He was totally fine with microevolution).