Help me prove to my friend that evolution exists!

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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ssbmon396
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Help me prove to my friend that evolution exists!

Post by ssbmon396 »

Hello, fellow geniuses!

My longtime friend doesn't believe in evolution (I swear he's a good guy other than that!). I've tried to convince him that evolution exists, allele frequencies, etc... but he won't listen. Now he just posted a video and he's rubbing my nose in how "correct" he is.

He's a Bill O'Reilly type that will not let you finish what you're trying to say. To add to that, I'm a soft-spoken meek person who doesn't like to have to yell to keep up with him.

Can you show him the light of reason?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q8JY_pBoF4

Thank you.
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Dan Rowden
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Re: Help me prove to my friend that evolution exists!

Post by Dan Rowden »

Two initial suggestions (made in the spirit of good will because I strongly suspect your post to be disingenuous spam); 1) tell the guy in the video to look up a logic site and learn what a "strawman" argument is; 2) tell him to learn some actual evolutionary theory.

Actually, I have 3 suggestions: 3) post that video at Richard Dawkins' forum and see how far it gets.
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Trevor Salyzyn
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Re: Help me prove to my friend that evolution exists!

Post by Trevor Salyzyn »

He's dug himself in too deep. He's become a living parody of buzzwords and popular misconceptions.

If you really feel the need to help him, maybe you could recommend some anti-seizure medication to stop that shaking.
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Ryan Rudolph
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Re: Help me prove to my friend that evolution exists!

Post by Ryan Rudolph »

give him an assignment: tell him to go to the zoo, and report on the behavior of baboons for half the day, and then afterwards, tell him to go his local pickup bar for singles, and watch the courtship and aggression behaviors in humans for the rest of the night, and then takes notes and compare results.
brokenhead
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Re: Help me prove to my friend that evolution exists!

Post by brokenhead »

Ryan Rudolph wrote:give him an assignment: tell him to go to the zoo, and report on the behavior of baboons for half the day, and then afterwards, tell him to go his local pickup bar for singles, and watch the courtship and aggression behaviors in humans for the rest of the night, and then takes notes and compare results.
Now, ryan, you know that humans did not descend from baboons.
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Ryan Rudolph
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Re: Help me prove to my friend that evolution exists!

Post by Ryan Rudolph »

Brokenhead,
Now, ryan, you know that humans did not descend from baboons.
I know they are a common ancestor, although, I don't know the biological name of the our closest ape relative, but I know that baboons are on the same branch of our evolutionary tree, whereas a reptile such as a crocodile would be on a totally different branch.
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Trevor Salyzyn
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Re: Help me prove to my friend that evolution exists!

Post by Trevor Salyzyn »

Chimpanzees, I thought.
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maestro
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Re: Help me prove to my friend that evolution exists!

Post by maestro »

Ryan:

In the past did you have a chance to observer Baboons at close quarters?
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Ryan Rudolph
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Re: Help me prove to my friend that evolution exists!

Post by Ryan Rudolph »

Maestro,

I've watched them on PBS and the discovery channel. There was actually a pretty good documentary on PBS recently, which compared the psychology and intelligence of a certain breed of ape with us. It was a very good analysis which illustrated what inferior qualities humans have in common with apes, and also what makes us superior to them.

Although, I would like to observe them in close courters real life, and do a few intelligence tests on them.
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Dan Rowden
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Re: Help me prove to my friend that evolution exists!

Post by Dan Rowden »

maestro wrote:Ryan:

In the past did you have a chance to observer Baboons at close quarters?
Yes, I have! I was at the pub just yesterday. Real ape-fest.
|read|
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Re: Help me prove to my friend that evolution exists!

Post by |read| »

Chimpanzees outperform humans in some quick-thinking, spatial-memory tasks. They've been swinging from branch to branch a lot longer than we've been driving in traffic. Although in big-picture terms, we've merely gotten out of practice swinging from branch to branch.

http://games.lumosity.com/chimp.html
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