Intelligence for Dummies

Man, and when I read the headline I thought I was in for another bit on Iraq!

I’m pretty much an apatheist, but if I DID believe in God it would be the kind of god who, billions and billions of years ago, struck a cosmic match on the soul of his shoe for the Big Bang and set the cosmos into motion. Ever since then he’s been sitting back in his La-Z-Boy, just watching, sometimes amused, sometimes outraged. Once in a while he may get up and adjust the color or the horizontal hold, but other than that, he’s been pretty much hands-off.

He doesn’t say much, either. But when the first coral reef appeared, and Tyranasaurus Rex, and the first creature flew through the air, and man discovered fire, he WAS heard to mumble “Damn — this is gettin’ good.”

“A White Lab Frock and a Pink Crustacean”

Can we put stickers in all the Bibles in Cobb County that say, “Biblical creationism is just a belief. Consider the possibility that Darwin might have been on to something.”?

Actually, You can thank ID for your local municipal zoo.

That’s right boys and girls, around the turn of the last century, all of the Museums of Natural History started springing up around the civilized world. One of the purposes of these museums was to educate the masses on the history of nature (including the theory of evolution).

Well, some of the of the folks who weren’t too keen on the whole evolution idea started funding public zoological parks to show the same masses the enormous variety of creatures around the world. The variety itself, as Adam points out in his wonderful column, is supposed to defy the theory that all life evolved from a single source.

Of course, this is just a historical theory.

This intelligence behind ID seems pretty smart, complex even. Who designed it? Why something even more intelligent, of course. Therefore, may I be the first advocate of Intelligenter Design?

Are there any fellow believers in IerD out there?

Emmarie,

After the last election, I’m leaning toward “We’re just one big mess inside.”

Mike Z- if only they followed such advice when it comes to Foriegn Intelligence.

The very beauty of ID is that you can’t argue against it. For every inconsistency and stupidity that you bring to the attention of the ID’ers, they just say, “God works in mysterious ways” or some such nonsense. They have the ultimate bailout. You certainly can’t say that about science! We scientists have no such lifesaving, all-purpose mantra.

I wonder how much of the societal resistance to evolution is due to a simple lack of understanding of evolutionary principles and natural selection. If people are basing their opinions on the notion that humans evolved from chimpanzees, then no wonder they’re anti-evolution. [Not that there’s any sense to being anti-evolution; that would be as meaningful as being anti-gravity.] Still, it seems that many people have closed off their minds to even considering evolution, much less accepting it.

Do any of these ID pushers have pure-bred dogs? How do they suppose the different breeds of dogs came to be the way they are? Dachshunds, long and skinny. Poodles, curly hair. We, as a society, have no problems accepting that artificial selection can mold species into vastly different forms. Why is it so hard to accept that the environment can do the same thing? It must be that since the environment has no intelligence, it can’t direct the evolution of species lineages. What hogwash.

As for the zoos, I find that the amazing diversity of life proves natural selection. The supporters of ID claim that the diversity of life is too complex to be explained by a “simple” mechanism such as natural selection, then tout their own even simpler “because God made it so”! Speciation via natural selection is not simple at all, although the basic principles aren’t that complicated. The fact that we don’t yet understand it completely is due to our own human ignorance, not the mystical incomprehensibility of the universe. We just haven’t gotten there yet.

By the way, I’m too lazy to look it up myself, but does anybody know what ID has to say about all of the species that have gone extinct?

Allison -

Regarding extinction, essentially it’s another “all part of God’s plan” kind of explanation. God decides that a) it is time for a certain species to go away, or b) it is time for a species to be dramatically updated (this one’s used to explain the progression observed in the fossil record).

The main thrust of their arguments (their real ones) are aimed not so much at “micro-evolution” such as dog breeding or microbial antibiotic resistance, but rather at the speciation that is assumed to have happened throughout the millions of years of history. That is: While we have indirect evidence of speciation in the fossil record and elsewhere, we have never actually observed one species evolve into another. Therefore, evolution is mere speculation.

Perhaps it is no surprise that the proponent of ID that has caused most of the post-”Inherit the Wind” court battles is a lawyer rather than a biologist–Phillip Johnson at Berkeley. Lawyers (criminal defense lawyers, anyway) only need to show that there is reasonable doubt in order to win. Johnson showed that there is reasonable doubt concerning evolution, so his followers claim scientific victory.

The current administration is proof of evolution since anyone of them could be the missing link.

Mike Z:

……Regarding extinction, essentially it’s another “all part of God’s plan” kind of explanation. God decides that a) it is time for a certain species to go away, or b) it is time for a species to be dramatically updated (this one’s used to explain the progression observed in the fossil record)……..

I really hope The Giant Lobster decides to make Bible-Thumping-Republicans go away. The amusement value MUST be wearing thin by now.

Hey, I can dream, can’t I? Imagine waking up one morning and all of the BTRs have just vanished in the night. (Kind of like the Apocalypse, but much more straight-forward) THAT must be what is meant by the term “heaven on earth”.

Wow. A funny and accurate critique of Intelligent Design here at Fanatical Apathy. “Adam Felber’s site, where The Panda’s Thumb meets Fafblog”. Do this sort of thing much more and you’ll replace Charlie Pierce as my favorite WWDTM panelist.

I for one welcome our Lobster overlords

The Giant Lobster’s 1st antennae are much reduced compared to the 2nd antennae. I’m sure that if we prayed right, TGL would tell us what he/she/it uses them to do and why they’re so small.

MikeZ — Thanks for setting me straight about ID’s position vis-a-vis macroevolution and microevolution. I probably should have figured that out for myself, but reading their arguments makes me too mad. Anyhow, it’s a cruel diety that would create species and then, as part of its grand scheme, have them vanish into extinction.

The argument that has always bemused me is that all those fossils in the rocks were placed there by God (this was a 19th century version when they still said God). There was never a good explanation why; but since God created everything, He must have created the fossils. I don’t think the ID folks are still using this…

I found myself (at what was supposed to be a pleasant staff lunch) trying to defend the scientific method against a pair of raging fundamentalists whom I didn’t know (to begin with) were - I don’t know why the concept that if you can’t disprove it, it’s not science, is so hard for them to understand. I think next time I’ll talk about the A’s.

Bring on the Giant Lobster. Can’t be any worse than what we have.

The Condi Rice quote that scared me was in a news analysis the other day. She met with James Zogby of the Arab American Institute (I may have the institution name wrong but I’m sure of his) to be briefed on the Middle East; and the article quoted him as saying she responded “too often” by saying “The President doesn’t agree with that,” as if that settled the whole point. Are they really stupid enough to believe that just because Saddam didn’t really have WMDs, the Iranians really don’t have them either? I wouldn’t bet a nickel on it either way.

ID is a Bushism, like Cleaner Skies. It means that people who have limited cranial capacity are admitting that almost ANYTHING is too much for them to comprehend, so the universe was created by someone or something more intelligent than themselves. Oh, yeah, and more intelligent than Steven Hawking too, because his ideas are just theory, whereas the Bible is fact.

And those fossils, found on mountains that used to be seabeds? Why, they’re just further proof of the Great Flood! Because no one has ever seen a mountain rise, Mt. St. Helens doesn’t count, Jesus was a white boy, and we’re the only planet in the entire universe that God chose to show divine intervention to.

Given the results of the latest election, coupled with all the people invoking his name to advance their causes, I have a bigger question to ponder: If he/she/the great sky being exists, WHERE THE F*** ARE THEY NOW?

I don’t buy the pbj/beer scenario. I’m thinkin” blackout bong hits. Because if the world, etc, was created in 7 days, one of God’s blackouts might be longer than normal in reverse proportion.

To believe in Intelligent Design is to believe in God, and that is a simple act of faith.

To not believe in evolution is a simple act of willful ignorance.

The big problem with ID, is that it tells us nothing. Evolutionary forces Macro/Micro or whatever, are still in effect. Evolution MUST still be going on. Does this mean the ID is still happening? Then the Giant Lobster is trying to kill us! Our time is done! The end is nigh!!! Repent! Repent!

If God is a giant lobster, then why did he invent melted butter? How come earth lobsters are so dumb? Why is heaven in the sky when lobsters can only survive under water? Is stealing lobster traps a deadly sin, or does is make me a deity?
I’ve got soooo many questions. I think I’ll consult my local fisherman for spiritual guidance.
“Praise to be Lobstah!”

OK, in one corner are the evolutionists who believe that natural selection favors certain forms of life that evolve to be more competitive. In another corner are the creationalist who say that God created the world in 6 days about 6006 years ago and anyone or anything who says otherwise is condemned to the lowest depth of hell to forever watch Howard Cosell reruns. And in the third corner are the IDs who have to admit the evidence is on the side of evolution but need to squeeze God in there somewhere.

We can argue till we are all blue in the face or we can settle it once and for all.

I propose that we fight it out.

Each side will pick it’s smartest, best informed, and most fit, voluptuous young female and they will wrestle it out in a big mud pit,(to simulate early earth conditions). (No divine intervention allowed).
Hey, this makes at least as much sense as Creationalism or ID.

As far as theories go, you better hang on to your ass because gravity is only a theory also.

What determines the difference between a theory and a law? Nothing really, the ones we feel comfortable with we call laws and those we don’t, are theories. Newton’s laws of gravity were amended by Einstein’s theory of Relativity, so even laws are’t written in stone.

Only a hundred years ago no one understood Relativity or Quantum theory either. But your GPS units work because they take those theories into their design. The complex questions are being answered every day and in a few short years it is likely that all of the issues that the IDers pose will be addressed.

Allison’s analogy to dogs is a good one. IDers are looking at things backwards, they see a greyhound and say natural selection couldn’t have come up with a dog that has a pointed nose, huge chest, long legs, and small feet, so that the dog could run fast. What they miss is that if you take a Dachshund and St, Bernard and keep selecting the fastest offspring, it will automatically end up with the characteristics of a Grey Hound because this is what is necessary to run quickly.

Intelligent design? Made in God’s image?

He sure did a lousy job on man.

Even I could come up with a better design for humans.

Look at our necks and throats. Our neck is far too vulnerable and who would make a throat that uses the same tube to eat and breath? This only makes sense if you are a fish. Our lungs are closed sacks. Any student knows that a flow through system is much more efficient (like birds). Why only 4 limbs? I’m convinced that intelligence took so long to form on earth because the original pattern had only 4 limbs. Locomotion is 4 times as efferent with 4 limbs, so it was a great sacrifice to give up two legs for 2 arms and a tool manipulating capacity. This is the only scenario where real intelligence is an evolutionary advantage. Had our initial fish ancestors had 6 limbs, (very successful in the insect world) 4 could have been dedicated for movement and 2 for tools (like a centaur), I think that intelligence would have evolved numerous times.

If God made us in his own image why did he give the squid a better eye?

Our blood vessels in the retna are on the surface which interferes with the rod and cone placement, the squid has the vessels behind the retna and avoids the problem.

If you look at a human, its design only makes sense if you think in terms of a given basic pattern, similar in all land vertebrates (head, body, 4 limbs and tail). What we have, is the best you can evolve from a fish that had that original pattern.

Not that intelligent in my book.

“The complex questions are being answered every day and in a few short years it is likely that all of the issues that the IDers pose will be addressed.”
Good point Murray. Over the past 100 years or so, the creationists have always been thrown back on their heels by science. They’ve been constantly changing their stance on issues. They’re forced to adapt their beliefs to the facts we’ve discovered. How can you argue for your beliefs when you’re always being proven wrong?
That’s where the IDers come in. They cut right to the chase. They know science can’t make evolution a hard fact. It’ll ALWAYS be a theory. (Unless science invents a time machine…which would be so cool!) IDers stress the THEORY of evolution to imply some element of doubt. It doesn’t make their side correct…but then again, that’s how conservatives always argue their point.

I just read this in the latest issue of Discover Magazine

“Language is an information medium, as is DNA. Language gets transmitted and transformed from generations to generation, just as the information in DNA gets transmitted and transformed, Many languages have appeared, changed and vanished over the centuries, but nobody has ever seen a new language spontaneously appear. (Except Esperanto perhaps) (parenthesis mine). Nevertheless, people accept that languages evolve and that modern languages derive from earlier ones that were, in many cases, considerably different. Why then is it so hard to accept that the same process might happen to the information in our DNA?”

Seems I heard the ID thing way back in History class (when there was a whole lot less history to learn) under the title of the Prime Mover Theory. Guess they had to make up for the faux pas of leaving out the “Intelligent” part the first time.
If so, it just goes to show that if you wait long enough, anything will come back into style - which is why I kept my Colonial Williamsburg costumes.

ID is founded on the premise “I can’t believe that evolved by chance.” Richard Dawkins calls it the argument from personal incredulity. Evolution is smarter than they are.

Great post, Adam!

Re Murray’s citation from Discover Magazine: We have seen new languages spontaneously appear. The emergence of Nicuaraguan sign language is a well documented case in point.

Damn, this is GOOD!!! Congrats to all the informed, articulate and witty folks commenting on this post.

You did, however, usurp all my informed, articulate and witty comments. So I am left with just this:

An old, simple argument of Creationism (now ID) is that if you look at a watch, you “know” that a random falling-together of atoms just couldn’t have created it. There had to be a “watchmaker.” What they never address is, if God made the universe, what made God?

Personally, I think the Lobster UberGod must have made our local God, and our local God is in deep doo-doo over the whole “boiling pot, drawn butter” thing.

Cobb county even made it into Scientific American. In the Feb. 2005 edition, Steve Mirsky has his own stickers for various textbooks. The last one, for the cover of Modern Optics, reads: “CAUTION! Dark ages in mirror may be closer than they appear.”

Pick up an SA and check out the rest.

The “Intelligence for Dummies” essay is hilarious. I’ve spent about two months in the National Geographic forum that spun off from their Nov 2004 article on evolution (”Was Darwin Wrong?”), and with that background of jousting with creationists and with pseudoscientists on another topic in another forum, I offer some additional observations to the preceding posts here:
(1) Evolution of species HAS been observed in the laboratory, and it is demonstrated when microbes evolve resistence to antibiotics. But the best evidence for evolution is emerging, not from paleontology or breeding experiments, but from genetics, where the study of DNA is showing evidence of common descent linking virtually all living beings.
(2) In this thread I’ve seen the term “theory” used as creationists use it — as an intermediate step in a hierarchy between speculation and fact. The Theory of Evolution encompasses all of the evidence, explanations and predictions of evolution. Evolution is both a fact (it happened) and a theory (the explanation and data from multiple disciplines that explain the fact).
(3) Creationists don’t accept the analogy between dog breeding and speciation as described by evolutionary theory. They say dogs remain dogs. In fact, creationists consider dog breeding to be evidence of a “designer,” because there’s some limit of deviation from the dog “kind” that cannot be exceeded.
(4) One post here seemed to imply that maybe the right evidence would convince creationists, and if we could only come up with it, we’d all be happier. My experience is that creationists/IDers are happy to argue all day about the evidence and whether it’s any good (mostly not, in their view), but, in the end, the evidence doesn’t really matter. To a creationist the Christian Bible was written by God, it is inerrant, and anything offered that disagrees with it is wrong or is misinterpreted or is an invention of Satan, no matter how convincing you and I might think it is. If you point out some place where the Bible is demonstrably wrong (the Bible clearly supports a flat-earth, geocentric cosmology) or morally offensive (endorsement of slavery and the subservient status of women), then they use “special pleading” to explain away the problem. “It was written so it could be understood by the people of the time” or “It simply acknowledged the existing social order” — i.e., God was unable to explain himself at times. They refuse to concede that their claim of biblical inerrancy collapses when they attempt to explain away the uncomfortable parts. I should point out that there are a very few creationists who DO seriously believe the earth is flat and that the sun and planets revolve around the earth. There’s an astronomer named Bouw, who apparently has advanced degrees from prestigious European universities, who has a whole website about the idea that post-Copernican cosmology must be wrong because it disagrees with the Bible. I haven’t seen any of these people in the NGS forum, though.

Anyone remember the big dinosaur in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure? It is on Interstate 10 west of Palm Springs. It is a gift shop that sells plastic dinos and fossils and books about how there is evidence that humans and dinos existed at the same time. See, it was the Great Deluge that wiped out the dinos! It all makes sense that way.

Just thought I’d pop out of lurk-mode for a change and address the whole Law-vs.-Theory thing. (I get plenty steamed about the radical right, religious zealots and other such topics, but nothing gets me more steamed than pseudoscience. So steamed that my soft flesh becomes tender and succulent, my hard outer carapace turns a bright red, and I become very tsty with a lemon butter sauce…)

Ahem. Scientific Theory vs. Law (a Primer)

Many people, and several on this board, seem to think that there is a progression from hypothesis, to theory, to law. This is not so.

A scientific law is just a (usually mathematical) generalization of something observed or measured. A theory is an explanation of a phenomenon. (Law = “what is happening”, Theory = “why does it happen”). Laws often take the form of equations, like Newton’s law of gravity:

F = G [(M1*M2)/r^2]

This law simply tells you how to find the gravitational force acting on two objects - if you know their masses and their distance from each other, you can plug ‘em in and figure out the force exerted. If you’re into this sort of thing, it also tells you that the masses of the two objects are equal factors in the total force, but their distance from each other is a REALLY BIG factor.

Notice that this law says NOTHING about WHY objects attract each other. That’s what the THEORY of gravity is for, and Newton didn’t really have one. Einstein eventually comes along and provides one; the theory of general realtivity explains why gravity works, why this force whose properties were described by Newton’s law works the way it does.

In terms of evolution, the theory explains the origins of species, the relationships between them, the fossil record, all that (it’s the Grand Unification Theory of biology, basically). It’s an explanation of the how’s and why’s, and it’s an excellent one. But it isn’t the kind of thing that would be labeled a “law.” like the laws of motion, the laws of thermodynamics, the ideal gas law. Those are just equations. Evolutionary theory is way bigger and cooler than that!

Clear so far? Good. This is why when ID and other creationists say “Evolution is just a theory,” what they’re realy saying is “Me am scientifically naive.” (Incidentally, in the legal profession, the word “theory” is used in a different manner, closer in definition to a scientist’s “hypothesis”. This is not the scientific definition/usage, but it’s probably why the IDers get away with using it that way. People tend not to make the distiction.)

Hey! You waded throught the whole thing! Congratualtions!

Thank you, Smallberries. That explains _why_ a woman I know who has two masters degrees (math and physics) can still be comfortable telling me that evolution is “only a theory”.

Oh, but wait. As someone trained in science, she should already understand the distinction between a scientific law and a scientific theory.

Oh, well. “My mind is made up. Don’t confuse me with facts.”

Hm. Minor point on Elven as developed by Mister Tolkien–it’s a lift from another language with nips and tucks. Basically it ends up being something like an offshoot dialect of old Norse. I don’t remember the exact language he modified to build it.

Klingon… I have no idea. May in fact be a total from-scratch build. I’m not so big a nerd that I have -that- particular piece of useless encyclopaedic knowledge at hand. -wry grin-

The Intelligent Design guys are using stuff out of Thomas Aquinas - not that that is BAD, just a bit old-fashioned. Design is a function of *perception*: I can see three beer bottles (empty) on the bar, but the threeness isn’t in the bottles, it’s in the counting. The design we perceive in the universe is a function of our perceptive mechanisms, eyes, nerves, brain etc. These organs evolved to see designs, so they do. Last summer I was sitting on my porch smoking some good weed and watching the fireflies light up on the lawn. Each time a few of them would light up at once, my imagination would connect the points of light with imaginary lines, making truly awesome geometric figures. I made the design - the fireflies are not working from a blueprint supplied by Mr. Invisible. Beer bottles, weed - these are the tools to defeat ID.

The supporters of ID claim that the diversity of life is too complex to be explained by a “simple” mechanism such as natural selection, then tout their own even simpler “because God made it so”!

Hmmmmm. Yes….

Perhaps that is one good rejoinder to the IDers. Why not ask them to prove that an “intelligent designer” is indeed capable of producing all the diversity that we see? I for one am rather doubtful about this unsupported claim, and I think it only fair for them to show that such is indeed possible. Call me a sceptic, but I suspect that we have quite a bit more evidence for evolution producing various bits and pieces of the natural world than we do for any space lobsters doing any such little part. . . .

Turn about is fair play, no?

Cheers,

Thompson: My personal Tolkien expert (my wife) told me that Elven was derived from Finnish, which is a Finno-Ugric language and unrelated to Old Norse, which is a Germanic language. The Germanic languages (English is one) are part of the Indo-European family.

PS: I am not suggesting for a moment that an innate human language faculty, if such a thing exists, is not the result of Darwinian evolution.

In 1957 Martin Gardner wrote Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. Carl Sagan’s 1997 book, Demon-Haunted World, seems to suggest that our society has become LESS rational in the intervening 40 years.

Some time ago I read Uncommon Sense, by Alan Cromer. The author, a physics professor, contends that objectivity is not natural for us. Science defies ‘common sense’. (Science is hard.)

I agree. I think our nature is to look for simple cosmic truths. Fire -> hot. Sabre-toothed cat -> bad. We look for purpose, for good, for bad. (For millenia the ‘purpose’ of astronomy was astrology.)

I can understand the appeal of ID. (Hey, I wouldn’t mind some purpose to my life!) But I can’t forget the sign posted in a geophysics lab I worked in. “I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t believed it”.

Chris Brockett:

I guess the Nicaraguan case just doesn’t strike me as being particularly spontaneous: You have a group of kids who each probably had some sort of gestural language to communicate with their familiies and then shoved them together. I figured that with the need to communicate, some gestures get adopted, others discarded, and ideas need to be communicated through grammar. Either that, or my uneducated speculation on linguistics is preventing me from understanding the logistics of what went on in these kids’ heads.

Though now I feel the need to commit a sin and eat the sacred offspring of the The Big Lobster in a salad with consomme on the side. Thanks — I WAS on a budget.

Another good book on this is “Finding Darwin’s God” by Kenneth Miller. He does a good job of explaining the distinct positions within the broad “creationism” or “intelligent design” categories.

Wow, don’t look away from this site. You blink and Adam gets infinitely more popular (or controversial). Either way, keep it up. I love his wit, and the community that we see in the comments section is amazing. Too bad the forum is dead….

I’m with Dee on the La-Z-Boy theory. I don’t attend a church anymore, but was brought up with a bit of varying takes. I went to synagogue when I was in preschool, spent more time at Bible Churches in youth groups, and attended a Catholic high-school (still proud of the fact that they only class I ever cheated in was Ethics!).

I’ve got to say as a scientific minded, non-church attending Christian, I’m a huge fan of what used to be called Theistic Evolution (at least as I understood it). When I first heard of ID (not to be confused with ED, although there are similarities) I thought it was just a new name for my little belief. Um, no.

To me the scientific theories of evolution are amazing. And I don’t have a problem with it (or any other real science) at all. It’s just when you go back to the Big Bang and you get to the ‘What was before that?’ question, I don’t have much of a problem leaving it to God, the Lobster, or some other force beyond my comprehension. And I don’t think that belief is hypocritical at all. But it’s certainly not this new pseudo-science called ID.

Thanks for discussion and the comedy (which I desperately need after listening to Ms. Rice all day yesterday and today on NPR).

God/Lobster/Allah/Mother Nature help us all.

The only soul I want mercy on is the bottom of the left of my favorite Converses. The poor thing is near to breaking.

…I hope this doesn’t post twice. The Internet is as tricky as the universe sometimes.

Sorry, but there are just WAY too many responses to read them all. Still, I would like to thank you, Mr. Felber, for writing this particular entry. As a hard-core, super-duper, far-beyond-what-you-can-possibly-consider-”healthy” evolutionist, I am just astounded by how creationists and “ID”-ists keep coming up with arguments supporting their so-called “theory” (and I use that term loosely) against evolution. Evolution is not “just a theory.” This particular phrase is the result of the ignorance of the lay-bible-pusher. A “theory” in normal English is synonymous with “guess,” “prediction,” or “hypothesis.” This is not so in the case of science. Scientific terminology defines a “theory” as a statement or set of statements that has been backed up by volumes and volumes of research, just short of becoming scientific LAW.

Dammit. I just read some posts above and it turns out I’m going to look like a major copycat. I could just delete everything above this, but I think I’ll just leave it. Still, I don’t know why some of you guys don’t fight for the right and duke it out with those ID-ers! I, and this may be just me, get my daily kicks from laying the smackdown on the Big Guy’s self-appointed science-killers. There are counter arguements for every single one of ID’s counterpoints, even going all the way back to questioning His existence if you have to. It hardly ever goes that far, but if they get to the point of physical violence, it helps to bring some friends. And fire extinguishers (for the torches).

BTW, Geni, LOVE the quote. ^^

Allison,

Don’t be so hard on those genetically defective folk. If I didn’t have glasses, my next bike ride might be my last.

A friend of mine makes a point that we are going backwards genetically. Look at which people have the most children and who has the least.

I’m confused; I always thought that lobster was food of the gods.

I apologize if someone snuck this comment in somewhere up there already, but it is also interesting to note that (as far as I’m aware) this whole movement to keep evolution from being taught in public schools is a uniquely American (USA) phenomenon. I’m not sure what to make of that, exactly, but it seems like it must tell us something deep about the Christian far right in this country.