Me

I think I've always been a bit of an extreme empath. A silly example: I remember as a young child watching my father cleaning out the hearth with a metal shovel. I know the grating noise jars the nerves of many people, but I felt sorry for the base of the hearth, and would take a soft brush to sweep it clean and, in my mind, soothe it.

I was a service child. Dad was posted to Malaysia, and all our family went with him. This was in the 1960s. I was nearing my teens. It wasn't until later that I could pin down what disturbed me about the experience of being there. It was the casual racism and the assumption of superiority on the part of the colonial powers. The lot of the "natives" was normal and acceptable - just what they were used to. Crippled beggars were a normal sight. Poverty was nearly everyone's natural lot. I thought that back in England, there were no beggars. How things have changed! Anyway, the plight of the average Malaysian seemed to be of no concern to the colonial powers. Many of my young peers, inexplicably to me, took delight in taunting them.

The callousness and indifference of people to other people has always disturbed and baffled me. How can people be so cruel to one another? History abounds with tales of individual atrocities - and of mass genocide. It is well-established that these acts are not down to particularly evil people. In certain circumstances, most people are capable of acting this way.

These thoughts led me to study human nature. Why are we the way we are? Why is it so easy for us to behave in these ways? I don't have any pat answers, but my researches led me to the field of evolutionary psychology. We are closely related to common chimpanzees - an extremely xenophobic species. Someone said that if you put a bunch of them (each from a different group) on a bus, only one would get off alive.

There is something in our natures that predisposes us, in the wrong situations, to behave in a similar fashion. Understanding this something is a necessary step towards doing something about it, and recognising our evolutionary history is necessary for that understanding. This is why I view evolution denial as a menace. It denies a full appreciation of what human nature is.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/533925.The_Most_Dangerous_Animal

http://www.pnas.org/content/98/26/15387.full

Best evidence for evolution IMO, http://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/endogenous-retroviruses-frequently.html

The way to deal with creationists? Always be polite and patient. If you aren't, it gives them an excuse to declare victory and to stop talking. I have no illusions about my chances of changing their views. Nearly all of them are stuck in a mental trap with no hope of escape. All I hope to do is to dissuade others, and to hone my skills in dealing with them.