Out of curiosity, I searched on youtube "theory of evolution". Out of the first 20 results, 4 were about trying to prove that evolution is a myth, and it never happened.
Then I tried in Italian, "Teoria dell'evoluzione". 9 results of the first 20 were about "debunking" the theory of evolution.
I'm not sure this is related to my personal feed, but I found it interesting. It's almost half of the results in Italian!
🇳🇱
@arteteco I'm more worried about the fact that in multiple languages there is a hit at all int he top 20!
@freemo Yeah, it sucks. We need more skilled communicators I guess.
Considering the statistics it makes sense though, less than half of the population in the US thinks we evolved from other animals.
In Italy should be a bit above 60%, so ok, it's well reflected
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9786-why-doesnt-america-believe-in-evolution/
@arteteco I'm not sure if it is the lack of communication. Usually I find most morons who think this stuff to be true can not be convinced otherwise no matter how well someone communicates that.
The issue isnt the lack of communication, but the mindset of the people who think these things true.
@freemo There is that, too. I still think that more communicators, especially in high school and with kids, can do a great deal of difference. In Italy the school system is not really good, frankly.
Once they are grown up, at least that 15% of people who are not sure should be able to easily access good quality information and make up their mind.
Jeovah's witnesses here knock at doors and stop you in the streets, while the highest level of communication of many researchers I know is having a laugh about how we share a common ancestors with bananas when drunk, while trying to write the phylogenetic tree on the dusty windshield of a car =D
@arteteco We need communicators as parents, thats where it is lacking. Most of this willful ignorance comes from the parents.
I do agree that if we had better communicators in middle school and elementary school, it would likely help before these bad habits get established. But it is hard to work against a parent especially when you have a kid for only a year.
@freemo We do what we can. Like a STEM Instance!
Btw, if you good communicators and shows about it, please link, I'm starting to get interested in volunteering for this kind stuff and is very difficult to make evolution interesting (since I don't know how to find eye candy stuff to show kids!)
@arteteco I certainly do my best, but it feels hopeless sometimes.
@freemo @arteteco I think first important thing to do is to clarify the distinction between evolution and evolutionary history. Most people have a problem with the latter, and that is not surprising, since when it comes to history, at the end of the day, you have to speculate based on what seems most likely to you and that is highly dependent on your beliefs. It's kind of like a bait that allows people to drift the conversation away from science.
@arteteco
Not the history of the theory itself (though I wouldn't necessarily recommend mixing that in either), but all the stuff about who originated from what some unimaginable amount of time ago.
I think it's much more important to understand the obvious and undeniable truths that the theory tells about things that are happening now, happened recently and will happen in the near future.
You can't really grasp what's happening now or it's going to happen in the near future if you don't understand what we know about evolution of life as a whole.
Mechanics may be similar but you need to frame them in the correct time span to have an understanding of them, and that is basically a geological time scale
@arteteco
It's not necessarily a geological time scale, say for microorganisms, and same principles apply to artificial neural networks. It depends on things like "rate" of mutation, number of generations, change of environment, not time directly. The fact that these things take long time for an organism like a human being is just an obvious side effect of us being said human beings.
@freemo