Don Prothero posted this video on his Facebook page, and though it’s four years old, it’s a model of how to politely answer a creationist’s question. In this case, the creationist seems to be a student is at Berkeley (what???), and the professor is Tim White, the famous paleontologist who worked on hominins, especially australopithecines like Lucy.

The student asks the typical question about why we should believe evolution since it’s only a theory. White takes four minutes and closes the case. Indeed, he closes it and locks it.

This is a model of how to deal in a civil manner with creationist students. But, judging by her continuing sour expression, the student isn’t buying it.

I’m just curious why this class was taped, and why the student questions were taped. Perhaps it wasn’t a formal class but an invited lecture.

At any rate, White did perhaps the best job of all five of the scientists who appeared on the BBC3’s “Conspiracy Road Trip” refuting a group of creationist brought over from the UK. His lining up of casts of hominin skulls—probably the same ones that appear here on the desk—was something the creationists couldn’t refute. (Indeed, when White simply touched all those skulls at the end of his answer here, I felt a thrill which comes from seeing our ancestry laid out before me.) You can see the BBC3 program here.