149 – Natural selection of the fittest story

If you want to change someone’s mind, you need to find a range of stories, not just one. Listen to hear how Charles Darwin formulated and gained support for his theory of evolution.

Evolution

This week, it’s Shawn’s turn to share a story, and he tells Anecdotally Speaking’s first Charles Darwin story. Given Shawn has a keen interest in Charles Darwin, the Anecdote team is surprised we haven’t had one before now! 

The story portrays Charles Darwin’s strategy for changing minds and touches on how he came up with his theory of evolution.

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For your storybank

Tags: changing minds, communication, evidence, ideas

This story starts at 01:51

Darwin returned from his travels around the world in 1936. In 1938, he read an essay on population. It blew him away. He immediately realised that all the things he had seen while travelling were part of a competition between each species to survive. The essay caused him to formulate his theory of evolution.

Soon after, a man in Scotland anonymously published a book on evolution. He was a capable journalist and came up with a great story about how species evolved. But he didn’t have any evidence for it.

Scientists pummelled the author, which made Darwin nervous. He’d had the idea too.

So Darwin decided to build his evidence by looking at farm animals. He built up lots of stories, and his ideas were accepted.

About  Anecdote International

Anecdote International is a global training and consulting company, specialising in utilising storytelling to bring humanity back to the workforce. Anecdote is now unique in having a global network of over 60 partners in 28 countries, with their learning programs translated into 11 languages, and customers who incorporate these programs into their leadership and sales enablement activities.

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