CommunicationAlthoug taken from a comedy series (or because), this small dialog is a wonderful "real-world" example, of how discussions about the theory of evolution are about to perform.
Proof of Evolution: Fossils and Science
FRIENDS: The One Where Heckles Dies / First Aired: 5.10.1995 / Season 2 Episode 3
written by Michael Curtis and Greg Malins.
PHOEBE: That's fine. Go ahead and scoff. You know, there're a lot of things that I don't believe in, but that doesn't mean they're not true.
JOEY: Such as?
PHOEBE: Like crop circles, or the Bermuda triangle, or evolution?
ROSS: Whoa, whoa, whoa. What, you don't, uh, you don't believe in evolution?
PHOEBE: Nah. Not really.
ROSS: You don't believe in evolution?
PHOEBE: I don't know, it's just, you know...monkeys, Darwin, you know, it's a, it's a nice story, I just think it's a little too easy.
ROSS: Too easy? Too...The process of every living thing on this planet evolving over millions of years from single-celled organisms, too easy?
PHOEBE: Yeah, I just don't buy it.
ROSS: Uh, excuse me. Evolution is not for you to buy, Phoebe. Evolution is scientific fact, like, like, like the air we breathe, like gravity.
PHOEBE: Ok, don't get me started on gravity.
ROSS: You uh, you don't believe in gravity?
PHOEBE: Well, it's not so much that you know, like I don't believe in it, you know, it's just...I don't know, lately I get the feeling that I'm not so much being pulled down as I am being pushed.
ROSS: How can you not believe in evolution?
PHOEBE: Just don't. Look at this funky shirt!
ROSS: Pheebs, I have studied evolution my entire adult life. Ok, I can tell you, we have collected fossils from all over the world that actually show the evolution of different species, ok? You can literally see them evolving through time.
PHOEBE: Really? You can actually see it?
ROSS: You bet. In the U.S., China, Africa, all over.
PHOEBE: See, I didn't know that.
ROSS: Well, there you go.
PHOEBE: Huh. So now, the real question is, who put those fossils there, and why?
ROSS: Ok, Pheebs. See how I'm making these little toys move? Opposable thumbs. Without evolution, how do you explain opposable thumbs?
PHOEBE: Maybe the overlords needed them to steer their spacecrafts.
ROSS: Please tell me you're joking.
PHOEBE: Look, can't we just say that you believe in something, and I don't.
ROSS: No, no, Pheebs, we can't, ok, because--
PHOEBE: What is this obsessive need you have to make everyone agree with you? No, what's that all about? I think, I think maybe it's time you put Ross under the microscope.
ROSS: Is there blood coming out of my ears?
PHOEBE: Uh-oh. It's Scary Scientist Man.
ROSS: Ok, Phoebe, this is it. In this briefcase I carry actual scientific facts. A briefcase of facts, if you will. Some of these fossils are over 200 million years old.
PHOEBE: Ok, look, before you even start, I'm not denying evolution, ok, I'm just saying that it's one of the possibilities.
ROSS: It's the only possibility, Phoebe.
PHOEBE: Ok, Ross, could you just open your mind like this much, ok? Wasn't there a time when the brightest minds in the world believed that the world was flat? And, up until like what, 50 years ago, you all thought the atom was the smallest thing, until you split it open, and this like, whole mess of crap came out. Now, are you telling me that you are so unbelievably arrogant that you can't admit that there's a teeny tiny possibility that you could be wrong about this?
ROSS: There might be, a teeny, tiny, possibility.
PHOEBE: I can't believe you caved.
ROSS: What?
PHOEBE: You just abandoned your whole belief system. I mean, before, I didn't agree with you, but at least I respected you. How, how, how are you going to go into work tomorrow? How, how are you going to face the other science guys? How, how are you going to face yourself? Oh! That was fun. So who's hungry?
Evolution and God: The Origin of Species
The Simpsons: The Monkey Suit / (No. 377) / First Aired: 14.5.2006 / Season: 17 Episode: 21
MUSEUM OFFICIAL: Sorry, folks, the weapons exhibit is now´closed for the day. Sorry, no way.
MUSEUM OFFICIAL: But you can all feel free to enjoy the rest of the museum.
EDIT: Enter the "Hall of Men"
NED FLANDERS: Evolution?
EDIT: Ned Flanders sees signs "MEN’S EARLY ANCESTORS", “INDISPUTABLE FOSSIL RECORDS", “UNISEX BATHROOM" and is shocked, and uses his hands to cover his children eyes.
NED FLANDERS: Excuse me.
NED FLANDERS: How can you put up an exhibit on the origin of man and not have one mention of the bible?
EDIT: We do. Sign "THE MYTH OF CREATION"
EDIT: Song: What a fool believes ... [Doobie Brothers style]
NED FLANDERS: My most cherished beliefs, a myth?
TODD FLANDERS: Daddy, was mommy a monkey? I can't remember.
NED FLANDERS: No one was ever a monkey! Everything is what it was and always will be! God put us here and that's that.
TODD FLANDERS: But you said a stork brought me.
NED FLANDERS: Umm … that was God disguised as a stork.
ROD FLANDERS: Who brings baby storks?
NED FLANDERS: There's no such thing as storks! It's all God.
TODD FLANDERS (Kneeling beside a statue of a stork): Please bless daddy and mommy ...
NED FLANDERS: Stop praying to that stork!
EDIT: Sign: First church of Springfield / Today: Church council meeting / Topic: religion
NED FLANDERS: They're telling people we're descended from a pack of apes.
NED FLANDERS: Even though there's nothing about it in the bible.
REVEREND TIMOTHY LOVEJOY: Ned, you've got to take this thing with a grain of salt.
REVEREND TIMOTHY LOVEJOY: I mean, come on.
HELEN LOVEJOY: Tim, this controversy could put more meat in the seats.
REVEREND TIMOTHY LOVEJOY: Well ... our membership has been dwindling since those Episcopalians put in those vibrating pews.
HELEN LOVEJOY: Evolution is the hot-button issue. We need to mobilize our flock. They'll be hanging on your every word.
REVEREND TIMOTHY LOVEJOY: I'll be a white Al Sharpton.
EDIT: Both are kissing each other.
MELVIN VAN HORNE: Why does every church meeting end this way?
EDIT: Confrontation in Principal Seymour Skinner’s office:
NED FLANDERS: We want you to teach alternative theories to Darwinian evolution.
PRINCIPAL SEYMOUR SKINNER: You mean Lamarckian evolution?
REVEREND TIMOTHY LOVEJOY: No, the Adam and Eve one.
PRINCIPAL SEYMOUR SKINNER: And what if I say no?
REVEREND TIMOTHY LOVEJOY: I believe you leased your Camry from Christian Brother’s auto.
EDIT: Reverend Lovejoy threats to burn the lease contract.
PRINCIPAL SEYMOUR SKINNER: No! That was a once-in-a-lifetime APR [=Annual Percentage Rate]!
PRINCIPAL SEYMOUR SKINNER: Class, starting today, we will be presenting an alternative theory on the origin of man.
EDIT: Teacher is writing "CREATIONISM" with chalk on the black board.
LISA SIMPSON: Creationism?! But that's not science.
PRINCIPAL SEYMOUR SKINNER: It is now.
Clarice Dremond: This trial is the biggest load of… Oh for crying out loud!
Wallace Bravy: Now Bambi, who started that forest fire that killed your mother? Evolution?! My my my …
Gravity: Charles Darwin in a letter to Charles Lyell [1860]
With respect to Bronn's objection that it cannot be shown how life arises, & likewise to certain extent Asa Gray's remark that natural selection is not a vera causa. I was much interested by finding accidentally in Brewster's life of Newton, that Leibnitz objected to the law of gravity, because Newton could not show what gravity itself is. As it has chanced I have used in letters this very same argument, little knowing that anyone had really thus objected to Law of Gravity.
Newton answers by saying that it is philosophy to make out the movements of a clock, though you do not know why the weight descends to ground.
Leibnitz further objected that the Law of Gravity was opposed to natural Religion!
Is this not curious? I really think I shall use these facts for some introductory remarks for my bigger book.