Oh, Twitter. How I struggled to figure out how you work. But this exercise placed me outside of my comfort zone and allowed me to dive a little further into the 21st century. As a biology major with a specific interest in evolution, I discovered Twitter was home to many conversations about these topics.
- 1. Many posts that come up when searching "Biology" are stories about new discoveries and studies - there isn't too much debate or conversation besides "Whoa, that's cool!" But adding a term like "evolution" to the search brings in much more discussion. There are a good number of tweets that begin with an idea, like strong evidence for evolution or a person's strong faith in a creator. The replies accumulate below, often resulting in an argument about who's view is correct. Evolution and Creationism have always been two contrasting ideas, and lots of that debate takes pace on Twitter.
- Two conversations:
- Here is the most interesting conversation I found. In the beginning, one woman misunderstood the post and started arguing, when in reality both parties supported evolution all along. After that thread, a few people chimed in about how they disagreed, but didn't stay for too long to argue. I was intrigued because it showed how so many people really are actively engaged in this debate, and that so many people are willing to throw their beliefs out there - knowing full well that someone will likely be there to argue back.
- And here is an example where other issues tie into the conversation. The original tweet was about a database of qualified women who speak on biology and evolution. It isn't something I would've originally expected to come up, but it is relevant! We could always use more women in science. I just wasn't anticipating that issue to come up when searching about evolution. No one was arguing or saying women don't belong here, which is definitely very encouraging. The issue pertains to all scientific disciplines, and I was happy to see it come up.
- I suppose the above example is a good illustration of how things came up that surprised me. Overall, I got a very good impression from people talking on Twitter about evolution and biology. People generally have sources and evidence for their claims (even Creationists are consistent about citing the Bible, which is better than nothing for sure). Evolution is a "big picture" idea, so that likely explains why many separate issues in science come up in the conversation. The large amount of debate between Evolutionists and Creationists was definitely expected, and I love following the debate and seeing what specific things people have to say.
No comments:
Post a Comment