Thread by @c0nc0rdance

If I could put forward a single argument in favor of #evolution, it's this: It works.

Set the truth of it aside: it predicts how cancer responds to chemotherapy, it tells us how to find new genes, steer conservation efforts, and which genetic variations associate with disease.

No alternatives to evolution have this kind of utility: you can argue that "intelligent design" makes retroactive predictions, but evolution is the predictive algorithm that explains the specific mechanisms of change over time.

All of population genetics is built on it.

Ultimately, whether evolution is "true" or not, living systems behave as though it were completely accurate. It's the same type of predictive science that can tell us when eclipses happen, or what chemicals will form from reacting two compounds.

We *use* evolution.

My own work involves detecting the emergence of resistance in cancer in response to chemotherapy; previous work was on how viruses evolve in response to host immune systems. It's the shifting landscape of genetics: change in response to selection and drift.

Maybe you think this is "microevolution", but you doubt "macroevolution"... but on these scales, the process works with the same high precision.

Even if there's actually some supernatural mechanism at work, it's mimicking the natural process without exceptions.

In the end, I don't especially care if you accept evolution, or if it clashes with your religious dogma. Not teaching it means doctors that don't understand chemotherapy response, and conservationists that can't rescue species, and biologists denied access to useful algorithms.