Saturday, September 25, 2010

Christine O'Donnell - Does Ignorance Sell?

Christine O'Donnell asks: "Why aren't monkeys still evolving into humans?"



I guess I can forgive this ignorant question because we (scientists) just don't do a good enough job explaining evolution to the general public. At its simplest, evolution is a change in gene frequencies over time. A couple of points. First, humans did not evolve from monkeys. Humans and monkeys are thought to have evolved from a common ancestor. Second, evolution takes millions of years, but yes, we are still evolving as is everything else. Modern Tibetans underwent genetic changes, that enabled them to survive at high altitudes, very rapidly. It's much easier to see evolution in action when a population is reproductively (genetically) isolated.

BTW, evolution is a fact, not a myth. But, we still don't understand many of the details of how evolution occurs.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Pledge to America - Who they talkin about?

"An unchecked executive, a compliant legislature, and an overreaching judiciary have combined to thwart the will of the people and overturn their votes and their values....."

The above statement sure does tug at the heart strings. But just who are they talking about? The Bush "unitary executive"; a Supreme court that gave us Bush vs Gore; a GOP majority that bribed its members on the House floor for votes; "the President is always right"? Need I go on?

Remember the broken promises made in the "Contract with America"? Was there a single promise that was kept in the so-called "contract"?

"We pledge to honor the Constitution as constructed by its framers and honor the original intent...."

Oh yeah, these are the nut jobs that are proposing to due away with a good deal of the Bill of Rights. These are the guys that think only they can tell us what was the original intent of the framers.

This Pledge is a joke and isn't worth the paper its written on. Unfortunately, it will sell well with a good proportion of Americans because they won't read it and they actually have forgotten about the failed "Contract with America" and the 8 disasterous years of GOP rule.

Sunday, September 19, 2010