Sunday, April 09, 2006

Are We Or Are We Not Monkeys?

Two stories from the papers this weekend have brought into focus the evolution/creationist debate.

In the Guardian newspaper on Saturday, came a report about an animal, scientists have called Tiktaalik which provides evidence of the 'missing' link between fish and animals. This animal showed that the transfer from sea to land happened slowly, with fish first starting to inhabit shallow water, before moving onto land completely. Further details of this fascinating animal can be found here.

But then I read in the Observer newspaper, that John Mackay, and Australian geologist and leading member of the creationist movement, is coming to the UK to visit schools, universities and churches to put the view of 'Intelligent Design'. One of the arguments used by the creationists is that there are breaks in the fossil record, well, the story above which was first published in Nature, and hopefully, rigorously peer-reviewed, should knock a further dent in this particular 'scientific' theory.

I am very much an evolutionist, but as a believer in free speech, John Mackay has the right to his point of view. It's just that I wish the creationist theory could be debunked sooner rather than later, so mankind can move and evolve forward.

4 comments:

Jeremy said...

I think creationism is hard to debunk. The reason why is that it's not science, and you generally can't disprove "faith" via science to the point where those with said faith are going to come around.

I mean, debunking faith via science is easy - just look at the recent prayer study. But when you're dealing with a group of people who will support emergency congressional sessions to force a feeding tube down the throat of a woman whose brain is literally liquified, you're not going to get very far.

Jay said...

I agree with Jeremy. Creationism cannot be debunked, or proven false, because it is not a scientific theory....the number one requirement of which is that any theory must be able to be proven false if untrue. Evolution theory can be proven false. The fact that it hasn't in a couple of centuries gives weight to it's validity and reason that it is the cornerstone theory in biology.

Besides....the creationists aim is not toward science, it is aimed at enforcing belief by act of legislation in their particularly primitive concept of a deity.

sandegaye said...

We're still all suffering whiplash from being jerked back into Victorian times by this idiot in DC.
Maybe one day we'll discover it's not all junk science after all, eh?

Loved the artwork on your blog today.. ;o)

jane said...

Yep, to what the 3 above me said.