Commentary, August 19, 2005 - TIME Magazine Boo-Boo, I Suggest a Gentle Sigh, An Open Request, Mr. Walker Doesn’t Learn Easil...
TIME Magazine Boo Boo
I Suggest a Gentle Sigh
An Open Request
Mr. Walker Doesn't Learn Easily
On the Remarkable Tweeter
No Thinking in the Bathtub
A Puzzle Well Solved
Basic Science from our Favorite Authority
From the UK
Kabbalah Strings Along
He Got Over It
A Step Backward for Sweden
Bamboo in Australia
Math Is Not Their Strong Point
How Embarrassing
Psychics On the Job
A Strong Representation of Skeptics
On the Trudeau Matter - Two Perceptive Executives
No Mystery After All
Superstition vs. Science
Our Phil Sounds Off
In Conclusion....
"The August 15 issue of TIME Magazine ran a good discussion of the “intelligent design” vs. evolution battle, but the cover was a problem for me. An excerpt from the article:
Sometime in the late fall, unless a federal court intervenes, ninth-graders at the public high school in rural Dover, Pa., will witness an unusual scene in biology class. The superintendent of schools, Richard Nilsen, will enter the classroom to read a three-paragraph statement mandated by the local school board as a cautionary preamble to the study of evolution. It reads, in part:
Because Darwin's theory is a theory, it is still being tested as new evidence is discovered. The theory is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence (??) ... Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view ... As is true with any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind.
As a reader asked me, “Like the Theory of Gravity? Or Germ Theory?”
After that one-minute reading, the superintendent will probably depart without any discussion, and a lesson in evolutionary biology will begin...
My problem is that – as often happens – the caption-writers and the graphics artists and the editors of TIME weren’t together here. The cover clearly invites one of the misconstrued notions that creationists often throw up to those who accept the overwhelming evidence for evolution: “I refuse to believe that my ancestors were descended from monkeys!” The Time Magazine cover shows the divine finger being extended to a chimpanzee. Evolution does NOT postulate that first the chimp was present, and that homo sapiens developed/descended/derived from that species. It says that primates – including humans and chimps – all descended from a common ancestor."
Now in the name of all hells do you expect TIME Magazine to decipher such a compound thought as that, James? Everyone KNOWS evolution is all about chimps to people as licketysplit as you can, and were you or anyone to advise them that this is not nor has ever been the postulate of ANY evolutionary theory, then what would they have to poke fun of?
Common ancestor? What's funny about common ancestor? What's controversial, what gets the rednecks even redder, what for heavens sake even pisses off the Pope?
Monkeys.
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