NAS votes for common sense

It's sad that the National Academy of Sciences had to devote valuable resources in order to produce a comprehensive position paper explaining science and evolution, and debunking creationism, but it's welcome. Now can we move on? Please.

Mr Three Percent

The number of points that Bill Clinton got in the 1992 Iowa Caucus. What does it all mean?

Vote for common sense

I'll blurt this right out - I can't vote for anyone who doesn't believe in evolution. Phew.

Creationists tend to hang on the word "Theory" as if it means "Guess" - Darwins' Guess At What's Going On - and saying things like "Well, the jury is still out on Evolution, and it is only a theory after all". They don't seem to consider the fact that science is generally split into Laws and Theories. A Law is something proven beyond reasonable doubt - if you do this, the result will be this. Many Laws started out as Theories. The Theory of Evolution is unlikely to become a Law because there are too many variables - if you do this, the result, based on observation, evidence and testing will likely be this, although it's not certain. Meanwhile, as with Laws, we'll continue observing, tracing evidence and testing, and refining the theory as we go. Or we could sit back and say it must all have been created a Designer.

Now, back to the opening statement. I don't know that I could trust the running of a country to someone who rejects out of hand scientific evidence, observation and testing in favor of mythology, even if that candidate pledges not to interfere with science education. It amounts to impaired judgement to me.

In a test, which one of the following would make you pause and question the candidates judgement?

I believe....

• Santa Claus
• The Earth is flat
• The Sun orbits the Earth
• Mbombo vomited the sun. moon and stars
• A god named Pangu, born inside the egg, broke it into two halves: The upper half became the sky, the lower half became the earth.
• Gaia brought forth Ouranos, the starry sky, her equal, to cover her, the hills, and the fruitless deep of the Sea, Pontus, "without sweet union of love," out of her own self.
• An omnipotent being created the heavens and earth in 6 days
• Zeus is king of the gods and god of the sky and thunder
• "Conjecture about [the origin, etc., of] the world is an unconjecturable that is not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about it."
• All animals and humans have a divine element in them that is covered by the ignorance and illusions of material or profane existence
• Global Warming is caused by the declining number of pirates.
• Natural selection is a process that causes heritable traits that are helpful for survival and reproduction to become more common, and harmful traits to become more rare. This occurs because organisms with advantageous traits pass on more copies of these heritable traits to the next generation.
• Natural selection is a process that causes heritable traits that are helpful for survival and reproduction to become more common, and harmful traits to become more rare. This occurs because organisms with advantageous traits pass on more copies of these heritable traits to the next generation, with the exception of humans because God created us in His image, and therefore we're exempt.

All but two are fairy tales. Just vote for common sense, not myths and superstition.