"Science is interesting, and if you don't agree you can fuck off."
Richard Dawkins
Creationism
Or, how did all the kangaroos get back to Australia?
The book of Genesis is nothing but boring lies!
Creationism is wrong. It probably made sense when Genesis was written, by a bunch of Middle Eastern goatherds several thousand years ago. To them, writing down the orally-transmitted myths of their tribe, it probably seemed like a perfectly good explanation of how the world and living things came to be here.
However, things have moved on since then and all the central pillars of the Genesis story - the all-powerful Creator, the lions that peacefully ate grass with the lambs, Adam and Eve, the Fall, the Flood - have come within reach of scientific investigation.
And none of them are true.
Knowledge progresses. Humanity learns things, makes connections between them then passes this knowledge to the next generation who build on that knowledge with discoveries, research and analysis of their own. In the process we find out that some of the things we have always believed are not true, and we replace them with a better explanation, a new approach, a more complete theory.
Unless we believe the bible.
Evolution is one of the most thoroughly proven theories of all time. It is the keystone of all modern biological research. It correctly predicts many phenomena which have been observed in the laboratory and in the field. It is an essential tool in preventing the emergence of new, lethal disease strains. To not accept evolution once it has been explained is the sure mark of an idiot.
Incredibly, though, there are a growing number of people - who really are educated enough to know better - who refuse to accept this obvious and elegant theory. They base their scientific Luddism not on contrary research, nor on a competing theory of their own; they base it on a few chapters at the start of a dismal tale of rape, slavery, torture, despotism, bigotry and genocide.
Hopefully, if I explain in a clear manner how evolution works and what the evidence for it is, it will do something to counter the dank, choking fog of creationist stupidity which is slowly creeping across the intellectual landscape. Please, read on...
"It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)."
- Richard Dawkins