A Good Video About Evolution

If you check Digg frequently you may have run across this already.

I love videos like this, because they're a great clearly laid out idea of what Evolution is all about that's accessible to most people. Quoting Richard Dawkins off of the top of my head, I believe he said something in The Blind Watchmaker to the effect of "everybody thinks they understand evolution", emphasis mine. This is one in a number of videos I've found that are great to recommend someone watch if they want to learn more about Evolution or science, or if they are basing their opinions off of misconceptions.

I think one of the most important and overlooked aspects of skepticism is the need to show your average non-skeptics why your view makes sense. Oftentimes we choose the comfort of talking with people who already share our beliefs. It's important to enlighten people who simply don't have all of the facts, and make decisions based on propaganda rather than evidence. Whenever I encounter someone that I wind up in a scientific, skeptical or evolutionary debate with, which happens fairly frequently now that I think about it, I always make sure to keep things focused on evidence and talk about why science regards it so highly. If there is one thing that watching hours of bad logic applied in a pseudo-scientific way it's patience in dealing with the misconceptions people have. After I lay out the myriad of transitional forms there are, how the theory has been borne out by so many disciplines in the last century, and a wealth of genetic information all confirming predictions about Evolution and Natural Selection, I can usually at least see a person thinking more then they were before. That's the best that any of us can hope for. Not changing a person's mind to coincide with your own point of view, but having that person think critically about why they believe what they believe and why you believe what you believe. 

-Lyell