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Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

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    Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

    And let's not forget that there are still utter fuckwits out there who we need to vigorously combat.

    #2
    Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

    Luckily that sort of thing only happens in America. Oh...

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      #3
      Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

      Speaking to the Guardian at Stormont, he said: "In the past, when I have written to the museum about necessity to show the public an alternative to Darwin's theory (and let's stress it is still only a theory), they have been quite dismissive.
      Arghhhhh!

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        #4
        Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

        I used to be under the impression that it took a long time for Darwin's work and importance to be generally accepted. This wasn't the case: he was so highly though of and his work so quickly became part of orthodox thinking in Britain - and acknowledged by the establishment - that he became one of the very few people otside the royal family to have been honoured with a state funeral.

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          #5
          Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

          He also described Charles Darwin as a "racist" over his description of aboriginal peoples in his other classic tome The Descent of Man. "In this politically correct society we live in today, if Darwin expressed those views about other peoples of the world now he would not be put on any pedestal."
          Ironically, the hilariously racist "As Mr. Greg has written" passage in The Descent Of Man concerns the intrinsic superiority of the frugal Scot over the feckless Irishman. Should have been right up his street, I'd have thought...

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            #6
            Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

            Storey confirmed he has written to the National Trust complaining about information on display around Ireland's most famous landmark, the Giant's Causeway in his North Antrim constituency. The DUP assembly member said he had objected to notices informing the public that the rock formation was about 550m years old. Storey believes in the literal truth of the Bible and that the earth was created only several thousand years before Christ's birth.
            Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

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              #7
              Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

              4 in 10 Americans believe in evolution



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                #8
                Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

                I wonder how many of those "no opinion"s are actually evolution agnostics who fall into a vague belief in prime creator-but-evolution-happened-on-its-own-from-there category?

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                  #9
                  Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

                  Inca, that survey may be a bit misleading, given the nature of the question. When the wording is a bit more nuanced, the result doesn't look so good for Darwin (or for that matter modern evolutionary theory). A huge chunk of self-professed evolution believers say that God guided the evolutionary process (ie not even that he set it in motion, but that he willfully performed the mutations and/or injected an immaterial soul into humans). A 2006 poll by CBS put outright creationism at 55%, guided theistic evolution at 27% and unguided evolution at 13%).

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                    #10
                    Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

                    Picking up on GO's post above, I must admit I really had been under the delusion that that kind of fundamentalist lunacy was essentially limited to the US. I suppose if it was going to crop up anywhere in the UK, it would be amongst the religious nutters of Ulster presbyterianism or their Scottish brethren, but having been surprised once, I should stop being complacent.

                    Are we confident, say, that all 600+ MPs for constituencies in mainland Britain are sane on this issue?

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                      #11
                      Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

                      a vague belief in prime creator-but-evolution-happened-on-its-own-from-there category?
                      "And on the third day, God created the land, and it was fucking hot, let me tell you, a bloody great molten volcanic mess, it was - stinking of sulphur, and not a breath of oxygen anywhere. You could almost say it was hell. Literally, hell.

                      And on the fourth day, God let the first few comets rain down upon the Earth, cooling it a bit and giving it a bit of water. And He decided that chucking a few microbial organisms into this hellhole of an environment would be a bit of a laugh, just to see how they did. And so, he said, "Let There Be Life!" And Lo, there was...."

                      Not exactly the "intelligent creator" (let alone "intelligent gardner") many agnostics are desperately searching for.

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                        #12
                        Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

                        Christopher Booker makes a complete arse of himself. Utter ignorance no barrier to voicing criticism shock.

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                          #13
                          Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

                          BBC employees have religiously stuck to the politically correct script by describing snow-depths only in centimetres.
                          The Telegraph and the Mail have subscribers, don't they? Can't we just round them all up, put them on barges, float them out into the Atlantic and sink them?

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                            #14
                            Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

                            Andy C wrote:
                            Christopher Booker makes a complete arse of himself. Utter ignorance no barrier to voicing criticism shock.
                            I got as far as "Cambrian explosion" before thinking "Oh, man, one of those" and clicking on the little X at the corner of the window.

                            He's an anti-vaxxer as well, I think, Booker, isn't he? I don't share Ben Goldacre's blanket distaste for arts and humanities grads, but sometimes I can see where he gets it.

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                              #15
                              Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

                              It pains me that Booker is still probably involved in Private Eye. I don't know if he's anti-vaxxer but he's anti-green, I believe.

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                                #16
                                Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

                                Oh, yeah, that was it: climate change denier, not anti-vaxxer. Thanks.

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                                  #17
                                  Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

                                  Wa ayat al Urbi wrote:
                                  I got as far as "Cambrian explosion" before thinking "Oh, man, one of those" and clicking on the little X at the corner of the window.
                                  you did better than me, i gave up on it after i read "As councils ran out of the grit they had failed to stockpile because they fell for the Government line that climate change made it unnecessary"

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                                    #18
                                    Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

                                    Storey believes in the literal truth of the Bible and that the earth was created only several thousand years before Christ's birth.
                                    Forget that, I want to know if he believes that the causeway was built by a giant who wanted to reach Scotland.

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                                      #19
                                      Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

                                      I work with an ardent creationist, I discovered the other day: a south Londoner in her 20s. Never would have guessed, but apparently you should see her go when anyone mentions the dinosaurs.

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                                        #20
                                        Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

                                        LL, get a load of these and leave them laying around the office. Instant hilarity.

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                                          #21
                                          Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

                                          When the wording is a bit more nuanced, the result doesn't look so good for Darwin (or for that matter modern evolutionary theory). A huge chunk of self-professed evolution believers say that God guided the evolutionary process (ie not even that he set it in motion, but that he willfully performed the mutations and/or injected an immaterial soul into humans).
                                          Darwin nowhere contradicts that. He renders it unnecessary, but he doesn't contradict it.

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                                            #22
                                            Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

                                            It's systematically unfalsifiable, so, no, he doesn't.

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                                              #23
                                              Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

                                              It's a pity Chris Booker is such a nutter (see also, his views on the EU), because his Seven Basic Plots book is utterly fantastic. For the first half, anyway, before he gets onto Why All Modern Literature Is Shit.

                                              He has the glimmer of a point, though. A lot of the celebration of Darwin seems to have the flavour of an Atheists' Secret Big Day of Celebration, which is a double shame. For one thing, Darwinism isn't and does not imply atheism, and it's one of the great obstacles to widespread acceptance of his theory among religious types that so many atheists and/or Darwinists think it is. For another, it's a shame that No God Day should have to be so covert.

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                                                #24
                                                Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

                                                Wyatt - well, yeah. So how such views "look bad for Darwin" I can't imagine.

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                                                  #25
                                                  Happy 200th birthday, Darwin

                                                  Here's a Booker antidote, by my mate and former supervisor.

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