Alan Jacobs


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If you’re so used to evolution that you fail to see how weird it is, you’ll be in a poor position to explain why it isn’t as crazy as it at first sounds. Better to say, “Yes, evolution is crazy, but there’s overwhelming evidence that it is, indeed, the mechanism underlying the emergence of life in all its glory.” (And you should also admit that, although we have mountains of evidence that evolution is the mechanism, we are very far from understanding how exactly it does it, just as we’re sure the brain underlies our thoughts but do not comprehend how the brain works….

The fact that evolution wins the prize for “non-obviousishness” should already begin to change one’s view about the supposed close-mindedness of evolution’s skeptics. Evolution is extraordinary, and extraordinary theories take extraordinary evidence. Extraordinary evidence indeed exists, but you can’t communicate the evidence in a simple one-liner. (Much less in a one-liner addressing the other as a “close-minded sap”.)