Proud of evolution

In an earlier post, I talked about other people's responses to a question about "Why are you passionate about teaching evolution?"

I went up to the guy who asked the question a little later, and thanked him for a great question. I talked to him a bit and I told him part of my answer.

I'm passionate about evolution because I have professional pride.

I'm proud of the few tiny little dents I've made in ignorance.

Evolution informs my research. It informs the questions I ask, how I ask them, and how to interpret them. And it's been a pretty successful guide to me to find interesting questions to asked.

So yeah, when I see evolution getting dismissed out of hand, flippantly, with claims that have been known to be wrong for decades, of course I feel injured pride. It's not even so much that evolution is being attacked -- it's the dismissive attitude that makes me crazy. Because you can't have a thoughtful conversation if all the amassed evidence is dismissed in one sentence that takes a long time to explain why it's wrong.