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Hurray! I logged in properly today!

 So last week I started by talking about some impressions I had of the way a friend of mine seemed to perceive the story of evolution, and the nature of "fact." I spent this weekend in Florida with my grandmother and grandfather (84 and 91 respectively), and they, in due course, asked me the question

"Arielle, what are you reading?"

I was reading "Darwin's Dangerous Idea," and I told them so. Ultimately this led to a discussion of what dangerous idea was, and this led to a family discussion of evolution.

 Here's the interesting part.

 I explained to my family that I was studying evolution as a story, not neccessarily fact and not neccessarily fiction, but a story to be examined, proved, or disproved based on evidence and loopy science. I explained that what I had experienced in class the other day had given me the impression that people were likely to beleive what it is they'd been taught, and that evolution and (for example) creationism couldn't exist in the same mind by they were diametrically opposed, and similiar in that they both required some quality of willing belief, even faith.

 My father, the doctor who studied at UPenn and would consider himself to all degrees a scientist, absolutely refused to believe that evolution was anything but fact. "Of course it can be proven," he said. He made his views on any other theory, such as various religious theories, known. He thinks they're ridiculous. (As in the previous case, with my friend Dave, he could not actually supply this concrete proof.)

 My grandparents, two elderly orthodox jews who have attended synagogue every weekend of their lives, were readily willing to believe that evolution could be viewed as a story, just as religious belief could. They're personally fans of the religious viewpoint, obviously, but they saw what I meant immediately when I said that what it really took was a little bit of faith.

 Interesting how how the scientist was less willing to consider the nature and possibilities of "fact" or "fiction" than the elderly couple who'd happily entertained blind faith all of their lives.