rone | you know what's intelligently designed? science!

Fresh off sciam is a writeup on the World Summit on Evolution, held (where else?) at the Galápagos Islands (sure, cute, but shouldn't we try to curtail human activity there? holding the conference there is, frankly, a matter of vanity).

I wonder how long it'll take to find a Creationist or ID response to the conference. I suppose it wouldn't matter, since they're just a bunch of vapid twits... but now i'm just being gratuitously mean.

VAPID. TWITS.

Anyway, where was i... ah yes. Although i'm basically rehashing the final paragraph, i'll point out regardless that the fact that the writeup lists people who present off-kilter theories (such as Provine's White Whale) or pooh-pooh currently held ideas (such as Margulis's declaration of the death of neo-Darwinism [whatever that means]) should put the lie to anti-evolution (let's call a spade a fuckin' shovel, yes?) proponents who claim that the state of science today is one that is intolerant of deviation from "scientific dogma", although some nuts will probably cling with desperation to small things like the one anonymous person who felt it impolitic to criticize Margulis because she was going to be awarded an honorary degree.

I did take issue, however, with one Richard Fortey quote: "Evolution was experimenting with many wondrous varieties..." Although it's only a figure of speech, it anthropomorphizes science, and (i repeat myself) it's the sort of thing that the nutbar fringe will seize as proof of science's elitist attitude that dares personify and equate Evolution with Our Creator™.

Despite a few things that were over my head (duh, i last took a biology class in high school), it was an enjoyable read.