Bryan Melugin
[This series is excerpted from the undated Thursday Night Nachos, free PDF]
Author’s Note:
The character Carl, in his passionate defense of Evolution, says many things which you may think are absurd and irrational, for example how he chooses to define “evolution” and almost everything he says about the Darwinian Tree of Life. You may feel I am unfairly representing the evolutionist in this discussion because of dialogue such as that.
However, the nonsense he says at the end of chapter two is taken from conversations I actually had with evolutionists who came to my blog to tell me how stupid I was to not believe in evolution, but who themselves could not define what it was. In their attempt to explain my stupidity, they would say things so astounding that I have often simply cut and paste them into the mouth of Carl because, had I simply made it up, I would not have believed it was an appropriate representation either.
But I have actually had these conversations with a lot of people over the years, and I have them to thank for this book. If it were not for the silly people of the internet and their frequent attempts to let me know how stupid I am, this book may never have been written. At the very least the character of Carl would have been a lot less entertaining.
The First Conversation
…“The human race needs to continue evolving or we will go extinct!” Carl said with passion.
“I have to disagree with you immediately, Carl,” I interjected. “In order for the human race to continue doing something, they must have already been doing that something.”
Carl let out an exasperated sigh and rolled his eyes. “Oh, we all know where this is going. Rent-A-Friend is going to lecture us on how he knows more about science than the thousands of PhDs who write textbooks.”
“I find that entirely plausible,” said Blue Beard. “PhD merely means Piled Higher and Deeper. Or, Permanent Head Damage.” He chuckled to himself as Carl stewed, and then said, “No offense meant, Bill.”
“None taken,” said Bill. “I’m an MD, not a PhD, and MD stands for Mighty Doctor! But I think before Carl and Rent-A-Friend begin debating whether or not evolution is a fact, we might want to decide what we mean by the term Evolution.”
“Well, it’s science,” said Tom.
“I beg to differ, Tom,” I said. “It’s a religion merely meant to replace Christendom in the Western world.”
“You’re a paranoid duck,” said Carl. “It’s no more a competing religion than physics, astronomy or global warming.”
“Actually, it’s climate change now,” said Blue Beard with a smirk behind his great, blue beard, “on account of there not being any global warming.”
“But what IS evolution?” I asked. “Define it for me, Carl.”
Carl grunted with the annoyed look one might have if you asked them to solve a few first grade math problems. “It’s a scientific fact with mountains of evidence supporting it and none opposing it,” he said with a confident disdain.
Bill had been searching the old interwebs for a definition. “How about this from that science website Carl loves? ‘Evolution is a big category of different things that affect life on earth.’”
“That’s perfect,” said Carl.
“No, no,” I said. “That won’t do. LOTS of things affect life which doesn’t make it evolve. Going extinct, just to name one big change which might occur in the course of things.”
“But the evolutionary history of life on earth has included many extinctions,” chimed in Tom. “The fossil record tells us that more than 95% of the species which ever existed have gone extinct.”
”Then why are we wasting so much time and money trying to save some of the pesky critters what’s got on the wrong end of the endangered species list?” demanded Blue Beard.
“I’ve wondered that myself,” I admitted, “but it’s a bit off topic. I was just pointing out that extinction fits the definition Bill gave us, but cannot itself BE evolution. If anything, it would happen outside of or alongside or, or maybe even because of evolution, but would not itself BE evolution. And I still want Carl to define what he means by “evolution” for us.”
“Bill just told you,” replied Carl, “it’s a big category! Don’t go pushing the burden of proof off on me just because you’re suddenly demanding expert level specifics.”
“Is a definition ‘expert level specifics’?” But everyone’s attention had been arrested by our lovely and affable waitress, Wendy, arriving with our colossal plate of nachos.
“Wendy,” said Bill, “Do you believe evolution is something that happens?”
“Oh sure,” she said. “I took a whole class on it in college.”
“Could you define it for us?” I asked.
Wendy thought for a moment. “Evolution is the way living things change over time.”
Blue Beard let out a scoff and then said, “Like when they gets a haircut? Or fall into a volcano and die? Thems would be changes over time, what?”
“Well, not little changes to one member of a species,” Wendy replied. “It’s the changes that happen over time to whole populations.”
“What kind of changes?”
“Well, the kind that drive evolution,” she said. “You guys need some refills?”
“Root beers all around,” said Bill.
Wendy headed off and we dug into our nachos. There was a contemplative silence as we sat thoughtfully munching on great handfuls of nacho goodness. After making a sizable dent in my side of the nacho plate, I said, “There’s something about her definition which doesn’t work. Tom, how would you define evolution?”
Tom finished a mouthful of nacho with eyes that indicated that, behind his purposeful chomping of nacho there was much activity in the old gray matter. “I don’t know that I would say differently from Wendy,” he said. “We had a textbook in middle school science called, “Evolution, Change Over Time,” and I always kind of thought that it summed it up well enough.”
“And it does,” insisted Carl.
“But Wendy essentially said that evolution is the changes that cause evolution,” I reminded them. “Something can’t be both a cause and an effect. Her definition is just too fuzzy to really mean something.”
“It’s a scientific fact,” said Carl, waving a handful of nacho for emphasis. “That’s all you need to know.”
“He doesn’t know,” scoffed Blue Beard.
“I’ve had a lot of people, not just Carl here, tell me that evolution is a fact and that I am a silly person for refusing to believe it,” I interjected, “but when I ask them what it is, they tend to go silent. I often suspect that they can’t make it clear, though they still defend it with the same vigor. I can understand why they take a pass.”
“Once they take a good look at whatever they’ve written,” interjected Blue Beard, “they make extensive use of that DELETE key because, whatever they’ve written, it was at best merely silly. So, naturally they prefer to say nothing at all.”
“I understand,” I said, “but on my end this makes for a dull conversation. I would prefer they have the honesty to simply say, “I would tell you what evolution is, but I cannot explain it in a way that does not sound profoundly ridiculous.”
“I think perhaps we need to do this little world a favor,” said Bill with some pep. “Whatever side of the aisle you sit on, I suspect that there are things you don’t know and have not considered, you see. So let us, the five of us, and Wendy, and these Nachos, all do some research and get our brains to thinking hard, you see, and come up with a definition which is clear and useful.”
We all agreed that this would be an undertaking quite worthy, which we would begin the following week. In the meantime, we did what we could to overcome the Nachos before us and settled back to listen to the local band of the week and toss some darts. I for one was eager to see what we would learn the next week.
