Evolutions

Yesterday was about overhearing conversations in the staff lounge. The one about creationism drove me near mad. A young man, educated, if not quite intelligent, could not buy Darwin and evolution. This is, of course, a side effect of the dominant religion here. They also believe the native population is descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel. (With recent DNA evidence in direct contradiction.) And there are no dinosaurs. Science, as a process of testing and discovery and advancing theory (as opposed to simply believing anything with the 'scientific' label on it, I feel I need to add) vs. Religious prescription, what is written is true, and further questions are heresy.

Not that I reject all that is inexplicable or spiritual. Quite the opposite, π is a fundamental ratio, the universe is, at heart, irrational, three and a bit. I can hold this paradox in my hands like a cracked egg. Scientific methods can only illuminate so far into the darkness. But religion gives up, closes the doors and locks them, and says, This Is It, ignoring the wonders all around because they are terrifying. Those literalists are, I think, the most truly agnostic, they turn their back away from the immensity, preferring a manipulable little god in a book.

But, I refrained from asking the young creationist in the lounge if he knew that the world was not flat, but round.

Millard Fillmore's Bathtub reports some progress in the eternal struggle of Galileo and Darwin.