Abstract
We have harnessed social media to meet our evolved needs to communicate, learn, and form and maintain social connections. For many of us, especially those of us who reside in the American South, beliefs about evolution are constitutive of self-identity and community affiliation. As such, these beliefs are resistant to change. These beliefs may be challenged by educators, scientists, and journalists. But we tend to interpret these challenges as threats, and we tend to employ social media to reinforce our solidarity with like-minded others. It can prove difficult to teach evolution or cover it objectively as a journalist, since the topic so readily triggers emotions that discourage or even short-circuit analytical thought. Journalists may be tempted to pander to emotions, to create stories about evolution that provoke and alarm viewers. This chapter positions social media in its evolutionary context; considers the distinctive aspects of social media users in the South; and reviews trends in religious affiliation that portend continued resistance to human evolution in the South even as acceptance grows elsewhere.
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Evans, W. (2017). Sharing News and Views About Evolution in Social Media. In: Lynn, C., Glaze, A., Evans, W., Reed, L. (eds) Evolution Education in the American South. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95139-0_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95139-0_8
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