Tangentially, the fact that she is arguing with a person that believes in evolution could itself be a problem that changes the dynamic.
I’ve often observed that most people believe in evolution in essentially the same way a creationist believes in creationism. They did not reason themselves into that position nor do they really understand evolution in any significant way, it was a position they were told all right-thinking people should believe and so that is why they do so. The charge often forwarded by creationists that evolution is merely another quasi-religious belief comports with reality in many cases, unfortunately. Nominal evolutionists that are clueless about evolution and just parrot talking points can often destroy the credibility of scientific evolutionists that come later.
Understanding the qualifications of the person she is having a discussion with is helpful from a tactical standpoint—it determines the nature of the defense of creationist ideas.
Being a veteran of many creationist arguments, I would make the point that there is no need or reason to bring religion into it nor even to talk about “losing an argument”. You can ignore it entirely if you choose to and it usually keeps the defensiveness down. Also, stay away from any arguments that have well-known creationist defenses; it will force her to think about what you are saying rather than giving the opportunity to borrow what someone else has said. Keep the tone matter of fact so that it doesn’t sound like you have an emotional investment in it—very important. If you really want to play it clean, don’t even frame it in terms of what you think or believe; just discussing chains of reasonings over reasonable facts without inserting a value judgement helps make the other party think they are reasoning to the conclusion themselves rather than you imposing your beliefs.
Most of the work is framing. If you make it completely orthogonal to what anyone believes, religious or otherwise, and turn it into an emotionally-neutral logic puzzle, you can often bypass the memetic defenses long enough to make a difference. It does not matter what you believe if we have this interesting set of scientific facts...
Tangentially, the fact that she is arguing with a person that believes in evolution could itself be a problem that changes the dynamic.
I’ve often observed that most people believe in evolution in essentially the same way a creationist believes in creationism. They did not reason themselves into that position nor do they really understand evolution in any significant way, it was a position they were told all right-thinking people should believe and so that is why they do so. The charge often forwarded by creationists that evolution is merely another quasi-religious belief comports with reality in many cases, unfortunately. Nominal evolutionists that are clueless about evolution and just parrot talking points can often destroy the credibility of scientific evolutionists that come later.
Understanding the qualifications of the person she is having a discussion with is helpful from a tactical standpoint—it determines the nature of the defense of creationist ideas.
Being a veteran of many creationist arguments, I would make the point that there is no need or reason to bring religion into it nor even to talk about “losing an argument”. You can ignore it entirely if you choose to and it usually keeps the defensiveness down. Also, stay away from any arguments that have well-known creationist defenses; it will force her to think about what you are saying rather than giving the opportunity to borrow what someone else has said. Keep the tone matter of fact so that it doesn’t sound like you have an emotional investment in it—very important. If you really want to play it clean, don’t even frame it in terms of what you think or believe; just discussing chains of reasonings over reasonable facts without inserting a value judgement helps make the other party think they are reasoning to the conclusion themselves rather than you imposing your beliefs.
Most of the work is framing. If you make it completely orthogonal to what anyone believes, religious or otherwise, and turn it into an emotionally-neutral logic puzzle, you can often bypass the memetic defenses long enough to make a difference. It does not matter what you believe if we have this interesting set of scientific facts...