evolutiongeek's blog

Last night during my Faith in Film meeting at church, the dreaded topic raised it's head again: is intelligent design really science? At least two of the group members believed so, with me being oppossed, but what really burnt my bacon was when they said evolution was not science but a religion. Knowing full well that this was an entirely different can of worms and it would take a long time to explain things, I diverted the conversation to a new topic, but that little bit of conversation was nagging at me all the way home. Scientists really have not done a good job explaining what evolution is, how it may work, and what it explains. There are exceptions like Gould who put a lot of time and effort into publishing into the public media, but how many people today that are not personally invested in the argument have read his books or articles? There are amazing discoveries being made all the time, but somehow these revelations are not widely known to the public, and I feel the ID movement is taking advantage of this.  Read More »

Sitting here at my computer, I'm relatively safe from nature's fury. There's little I have to worry about other than seasonal depression brought on my New Jersey winters, and I certainly don't need to fear a leopard crashing through the wall, grabbing me by the throat, and dragging my corpse off to dine on. Some people do. Recently I've been reading Monster of God by David Quammen, which deals with the few "monsters" left in the wild, from saltwater crocs in Australia to brown bears in the Carpathian Mts. The only megafauna I have to deal with on a regular basis are deer, which offer more danger to my car than anything else. This past summer I did observe a 800 lbs. + black bear run through the woods, and I have been in the water with sharks (on purpose) on several occassions, but making hay doesn't involve me risking my life on an African plain or Australian billabong.  Read More »

Yesterday afternoon the November issue of National Geographic arrived in my maibox, and as always, I eagerly tore through the plastic covering to admire whatever wonderful photograph would grace the cover this month. Much to my surprise, this cover started back at me with two little eyes as if engaged in an exceedingly pleasant game of "Where's the baby?" The child smiling at me from the cover, however, has been dead for over 3 million years and looks more like an ape than a person. It's a reconstruction of Dikika, the recently revealed Australopithecene child hailed by some as "Lucy's daughter," and she certainly is cute.  Read More »