Going ape over evolution

There is no truth to the rumor this blog is turning into a earth sciences forum, though you wouldn’t know it by looking at the response to my item last week (“Unnatural selection”) about the Creation Museum. That entry inspired more than 140 comments; judging by the heat coming off some of them you’d think William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow were squaring off in the Scopes Monkey Trial.

Naturally, some Cringesters told me to stick to technology and leave religion and politics alone. I think IT touches everything, and it especially touches science and education, which is what we’re really talking about. If the notion that Adam and Eve rode into town on the backs of brachiosaurs doesn’t make you chuckle, I think it’s time to adjust the medication.

But I have a few corrections to make. Old Testament scholar M. D. notes that, according to the Torah, we live 5767 years from the date of Creation, not 6000. (Math was never my strong suit.) Frequent contributor R. G. points out that the dinosaurs living outside the museum’s Garden of Eden are “animatronic,” not “amniotronic.” (Apparently spelling isn’t either.)

Finally, Cringester K. A. brings the discussion home quite nicely:

Thanks for poking the hornet’s nest in your Unnatural Selection blog. This was such a blast you should probably do it sparingly.

One question – are the most telling assertions the ones that get the most or the least response? No one has yet to touch the notion that the concept of information, being itself immaterial, should have no place in proper (materialistic) scientific explanations. But then, who likes to find themselves pinned between the horns of a dilemma? A fine hour for IT, I say.

Our next philosophical question: If a man speaks in a forest and his spouse isn’t there to hear him, is he still wrong?

Any other topics you want to debate? Post them below or send me an email. Top tipsers may receive a Cringe bag large enough to carry both a Bible and a copy of The Origin of Species.