How can we be expected to answer questions about Evolution when people like this are around?

Question

This is a direct quote from someone called 'NB_Girl'

"I have two questions for you:
If we all came from monkeys, why is there still monkeys on earth
and, why are we not evolving from monkeys now. instead we reproduce children within our own bodies, so why did we stop evolving from monkeys?"

Now I ask you, how is someone like myself, or anyone else who studies the Science of Evolution supposed to answer such an inane question?
No, really? How?
When dealing with someone so profoundly ignorant, how am I expected to dumb down the explanation to the point where this person can understand? I submit that it is impossible.
I mean honestly, look at the question!
NB_Girl, let me try and explain it to you. Humans (us) and monkeys (primates) all share a common ancestor. We did not evolve from apes or chimpanzees, they are related to us by common ancestry. That's why we share 99.983% of our DNA with them.
I hope this clears things up for you, though I highly doubt it...

BobM?
Just stop ok? Everytime you use 'answeringgenesis' you look like an even bigger moron than you already are ok?
I'm embarrased for you because, clearly, you're not intelligent enough to be embarrased for yourself.

Dullcinea?
you say you're a teacher? Of what? Home Economics? Because your spelling is atrocious and if you think she has a "valid point" then I think I'm beginning to understand why the US education system is in such a shabby state...

Edsawyer.
good point, I'll post it to Biology and see the difference.

Answer 1

Perhaps you can't convince her because of your condescending attitude.

Answer 2

I am a teacher I think that no question is a stupid question. Instead of putting down the poor girl, who has a valid point by asking her question, try to answer it in a clear, simple way. When I was a University student I had professors who were so stuck up in their knowledge that they had lost their humanity.
Einstein once said: "it is nothing short of a miracle that modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry."
He also said: "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."
"If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it."

So if Einstein , who was a genius, also thought that no question was idiotic, absurd or dumb, why should you?

Update

English is not my first language. How many languages do you speak? And I do not work in the USA. I had no idea that the education system in your country is so bad. That explains so many things...

Answer 3

Why do you bother to answer? If you study evolution you should know by know that some people's 'evolution' from apes only affected their physical appearance...

Some people are dumb, that's all. They take everything literally:

"If it's on the Bible, it must be true"...

Even if it was written 4000 years ago by people who knew nothing about science.

"If there are apes today, then we have nothing to do with them"

Forget all other species that evolved differently, forget the fossil records that document, beyond any doubt, the Evolution of Manking.

Answer 4

Anyone who makes comments like NB has doesn't understand evolution at all... Listen up churchies... open a book, do your research before you go looking to disprove something you know nothing about.

The "why are monkeys still here" rebuttal is the most commonly used and the most flawed argument against evolution... why, because it misinterprets evolution completely.

What bugs me most is people who call evolution or science a "religion" or refer to the "gospel of evolution." Poor poor misinformed people... I wish we could all truly use our minds properly, can you imagine how much more progress we would make as a society?

Answer 5

Thank you so much. All i can say is thank god stupidity isent contagious. So many people are so ignorant to belive in adam and eve as a factual event and refuse to even belive in the thought that any thing like evolution could ever have happend. Adam and Eve is just a story. Are people so stupid as to even consider the idea that god created the world with evolution.

Answer 6

Really, you can't directly answer questions about evolution to someone like this. The best you can do is exercise Socratic method. They'll eventually back into 'well, I just have faith!' or something similar.

If you can get them to that point, you've ac hived the best you can hope for, which is to get them to realize Creationism really is a position of faith, not science. They won't admit it, but you will have planted that seed in their subconscious.

Answer 7

One thing you learn in this forum that it is absolutely impossible to overestimate the utter and complete ignorance and stupidity of Creationists. If they ever give out prizes for morons, Creationists will sweep the board. They are truly beyond help.

Answer 8

A noble effort, but I suspect you need to make it a bit simpler.....

...I've been sitting here trying to think of how one COULD make it simpler, and, so far, I'm coming up empty.

Anyway, I don't think you're dealing with the profoundly ignorant, so much as the thoroughly brainwashed. Give up, and hope she doesn't reproduce.

Answer 9

Romans chapter 1 v 18 onwards says
But God shows His anger from Heaven against all sinful, wicked people who push the truth away from themselves. For the truth about God is known to them instinctively. God has put this knowledge in their hearts. From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see His invisible qualities-His eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God.

Ask God to reveal Himself to you further. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father, but through me.

Answer 10

It is because
'they feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from lesser life forms, but they have no problem with the Biblical claim that man was created from dirt'

Answer 11

Not all of us creationist use that tack. However, for someone schooled in evolution, you should check your facts better. A recent study by scientists who believe in evolution have concluded that we share less than 99.983% of our DNA with chimpanzees.

Here is the link to the info. Please check the references at the end as while it is on a creationist web site, it is using articles published in many respected scientific journals.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v17/i1/DNA.asp

BTW, I also recommend reading this article on how common design does not equal common ancestry. http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/RE2/chapter6.asp