Sorry I didn't get back to this sooner, I totally missed it. It's only because of another reply that I saw this.
If somebody explains a concept incorrectly - I consider it important to correct that explanation.
Here's the thing. If someone writes "Only frogs have DNA", then yes, it's important that we correct them on it, since it's clearly wrong. However, if someone writes "Gene xyz12 is only found in frogs" we don't need get into an 8 post string about how some South American tree frogs don't have xyz123 or how toads should have it but don't, followed by a 3 post thread on how toads and frogs are different, etc.
If the original point was tadpoles and frogs both have xyz123, going down all the different nitpicky arguements isn't going to help convey the concept to the fundy. It's just going to look like a bunch of nerds can't agree on what is a frog.
a fundy should be exposed to two facts about evolution. The basic simple concepts AND the idea that it is a VERY complex, subtle subject that takes YEARS of hard dedicated study to fully grasp.
You are making a major assumption here. You assume that Fundies have the same thought processes which you or I have. They do not.
You've seen it time and again on the boards, and it usually looks like this:
A fundy posts someting ridiculous. We respond with why it's ridiculous. Fundy denies our position. We give a complicated scientific example to show the flaw in the fundy's thinking. The fundy responds with a bare link to AiG.
That last step is KEY.
Here's what happens in our minds - "Hrmm, I don't understand what he's saying. Let me take a look at it and ask a probing question about one of the pieces."
Here's what happens in the Fundy mind - "Hrmm, I don't understand what he's saying, I'm going to let someone else do my thinking."
The entire premise of the Fundamentalist argument boils down to "Someone else already figured it out and told me, so I don't have to think about it."
Giving them "big boy" science just hurts their heads and makes them fall back to "someone else's" answers.
The only way we're going to make any progress is to lead them by the hand through simple real life analogies, showing them the errors in their paradigm.
We don't need them to look at the full picture of Evolution and say "Okay, I get it now." They CAN'T get it. Not until they can first look at Creationism and go "Hey, wait, this and that doesn't make any sense."
Only when they have broken free of one paradigm can they accept a new one.
That scientists don't agree entirely with one another
I'm not suggesting we pretend that we do. What I'm saying is, we should pay attention to the audience.
Look, most of the guys/girls here are very bright. Very bright people like nuance. We can argue infinitely about sub-sub-sub-sub-issues within a field. It's how we show off our vast stores of knowledge.
The problem is, to outsiders it's all gibberish.
So, I think we should all (me included) try and pay more attention to explaining stuff to the Fundies in simple terms and less attention to who knows more about archaeic fungi or non-mammalian reproduction.
This forum should not just be serving the function of discussing biology at the high school level. We should be free to discuss higher level biology with one another, without fear of being criticized for harming some unrelated cause.
This is a fine notion. And on some of the more essoteric threads, it's fine. But when we get into itty bitty nitty gritty recom-dna on a thread like "How many animals on the Arc" we definitely aren't helping the overall arguement.