On Evolution and Curiosity

I shared a podcast on my Instagram story a few days ago, and the response of one of my friends made me think.

Of course, the podcast itself made me think too; it was a science podcast about the origins of life. Truly fascinating stuff. They were talking about things like an RNA world and the earliest biomolecules coded from DNA and some specific experiments that have explored evolutionary biochemistry.

After I shared this delightful podcast, my friend slid up on my story and made a comment about me preaching evolution. Which is honestly funny if you know me, because I don’t believe in evolution as a feasible explanation for the origin of life or the universe and I’m pretty open about that and my Christianity.

But his comment set my brain in motion to figure out why I shared the podcast to begin with. Please enjoy this brief list that I came up with:

Reason Number One: I enjoyed the podcast. I thought other people might enjoy it. I wanted to share my enjoyment. Sweet and simple.

Reason Number Two: I thought the podcast was well done. The cover art was beautiful, the host and guests were articulate and entertaining, the conversation flowed well. It was a worthwhile listen from a design standpoint.

Reason Number Three. And arguably the most important, although I didn’t consciously consider it until after my friend’s message.

In order to believe something, you should know why you believe it. This is the case for small things, like the right flavor of dish soap. But it can also apply to much larger things, for example, a Christian’s beliefs about evolution. You cannot oppose evolutionist theories with any certainty if you have no knowledge of what those theories are. Listening to podcasts like this one gives us that knowledge.

But even more, I strongly believe that we should invest in our minds. Grow our mental prowess. Strengthen our neural muscles. And the only way to do that is to think about things that challenge us. This is called cognitive dissonance.

Okay, so you don’t believe in evolution? Then you shouldn’t be worried about new findings proving you wrong, because you believe there’s enough evidence to support your point of view. Or do you? Introducing challenges to our belief systems, or cognitive dissonance, is so important because it forces us to consider and figure out what we believe and why. It makes our worldview more robust.

The real reason that I shared this podcast was to make people think. I hope that somebody listened to this podcast because of me and started asking questions. That was my goal: to prompt curiosity in the minds of my friends and to propose that they think a bit harder about things that are important.

Of course, science isn’t for everyone. Maybe if you listened to this podcast you would be bored out of your mind. That’s okay, I’m not saying that you have to know the Kreb’s Cycle to have an opinion about evolution.

What I am saying, though, is that you should think about things that don’t make sense. You should consider a painting that you simply don’t understand. A book that you love but don’t know why. A math problem that doesn’t fit any patterns you know. A recipe that isn’t working out quite right. A friendship that inexplicably fell apart last week. What if you got curious and figured out a solution?

Whatever it is for you, go think about it. Ponder. Challenge your brain. Listen to people smarter than you. And then go do something about it, because I think that’s what it means to be alive.