Shooting Blanks at Shadows

This is an letter I wrote for my local newspaper. Hope you guys like it.

---

This is an open letter to antievolutionists.

If you wish for the scientific community and other supporters of biological evolution to take you seriously, you will have to do two things.

First of all, stop lying about the details of evolution. Anyone with Internet access can visit the TalkOrigins Archive (http://talkorigins.org/) and see for themselves what claims are made by evolution and what claims are straw men set up by opponents of the theory. If all you do is knock down myths about evolution rather than actual claims, you might as well be shooting blanks at shadows. Please stop saying the tired, old lies like “evolution says that fish give birth to dogs” or “evolution says your grandpa was a monkey” or “evolution is totally random”. Evolution makes none of those claims. Saying it does is dishonest.

Second of all, start providing some actual physical evidence in support of your claim instead of the word play and illogical arguments you usually use. Evolution is supported by multiple, independent ways of calculating the age of the Earth, multiple fossilized organisms (including several pre-human ancestors), modern genetic evidence and even some direct observations of speciation. Antievolutionism is supported by a public relations and marketing strategy of appealing to authority and to ignorance. If you really wanted to throw evolution for a loop, you’d find a winged horse, a griffon or some other biologically-impossible mythical creature. That’s all it would take, one piece of evidence.

Antievolutionists, the ball is in your court now. Stop lying and show me a pegasus.