Monday, January 24, 2005
Too close to home
The reason for Science and Sensibility’s return is an outpouring of that most demeaning ignorance, Creationism in the letters page of a newspaper right her in little old New Zealand. It is easy for someone living here to look on at the struggle between rationalists and Creationists in Dover or even read talk.origins and feel a little smug. The bible belt might have these cretinous ideologues but at least we’re safe over here.
The reaction tp the Dominion Post’s publication of an article detailing some of the ways that DNA studies have supported scientist’s views on evolutionary history was enough to shock me from my complaisance . No fewer than five letters from creationists were printed, each making claims as ridiculous as the excerpts below:
“If evolution is right why haven’t all monkeys evolved into humans” “evolving is altering but not becoming a new species” “[Evolutionary theory] ignored the impracticalities of partially formed features and behaviours that would put semi evolved creatures at a disadvantage” “Swimmer Mark Spitz has tried to survive underwater for several hours everyday for years. Has he started to develop gills Are the hairs on his skin turning to scales?”Of course these questions are idiotic: The first could be rephrased “if all tetrapods evolved from fish then why are there still fish?” The answer is, needless to say, that there is still a good living to be made as a fish so fish continue to get better at exploiting that opportunity. The same can be said of monkeys. There a numerous documented cases of speciation, no one has ever shown any adaptation that cannot have evolved in a stepwise fashion with each step being beneficial to the organism carrying it. The last quote is some very confused Lamarkism, which is ironic since the letter starts by talking about “Darwin’s theory of evolution.” It all leaves me very sad and very angry. I can’t understand how these people can choose to take the word of their version of God, prescribed to them by some book, above the combined work of hundreds of scientists over hundreds of years. I really can’t see how someone could be so small minded as to prefer a “god did it” explanation of their existence and so pompous to think that kinship to the animal kingdom somehow diminishes their self-importance. Then I read this bizarre letter from another reader
More than 60 years ago my own dreams took a tumble when my mother revealed to me that father Christmas didn’t exist. I’ve not been quite the same since… As a result of this hang-up I consider myself to be in a position to advise evolutionists and the like to go easy on those theories. Ignorance might well be bliss. Who should deny others such a luxury.Are we to believe that the writer, at more than 66, wises he still believed in Father Christmas? Who should deny others the luxury of turning off their brains and ignoring the truth? I’ve said it here before but it’s worth repeating. We are immensely privileged to live in the second century in which one could live and justifiably say they can answer life’s great question. Why do we exist? A fact made all the more astounding when you realise that there has been life on this planet for approximately 38 million centuries. To close your mind from that opportunity is not just ignorance it’s philistinism.
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