It doesn’t work with young earth zealots, but I’m not trying to convince them. I’ve given up assuming good faith on their part long ago: they know full well that they aren’t telling the truth. But the people I am interested in communicating this to are Christians who are confused and perplexed about the whole subject, and as far as I can tell, the things I’ve had to say in this respect have been helpful. And many of them have the same misconceptions and fight-or-flight reactions to concepts such as methodological naturalism as well.
It communicated things clearly to me right at the start of my A level physics course when I was sixteen years old. My physics teacher started off the very first class by asking us to define physics, and when none of us were able to come up with a simple answer, he described it as “the art of measurement.” It’s a bit of an over-simplification but it hammered a very important point home right at the outset: measurement is absolutely fundamental to the very essence of science.
So on, it’s not something that requires advanced degrees and extensive experience. It’s the core fundamentals. It’s the basics. It’s beginner stuff. It’s FizzBuzz territory. It’s stuff that every school leaver with the most rudimentary level of scientific literacy should be expected to know cold.