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Saturday, September 25, 2010

"Evolution is a myth," O'Donnell said as the others piped up incredulously. She repeated herself, then added:

"Well then why aren't monkeys still evolving into humans?
"


Ah one for the ages indeed. Republican Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell seems to think two strange things. First that evolution has a direction heading upward as it were, so that according to Darwin living things must get smarter and smarter. In fact, there is no such implication. Darwin discussed the evolution of the eye and the evolution of blind cave fish. His point is that the diversity and sophistication of existing living things could be created by processes which we observe every day.

Also she seems to have an odd idea about the speed of evolution. She thinks it works so fast that you can see it happening before your eyes.

My point above is that one would as reasonably expect people to turn into monkeys before our eyes as expect monkeys to turn into people. Clearly the case of O'Donnell shows two errors. Do you see people turning into monkeys before our eyes ? uh well uhm OK OK but the idea that evolution points upward is still wrong.

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