In the news...Murder and Evolution (Updated 8/11)

~ So this is stolen completely from Rell's blog but, I mean, honestly, I had to post this just in case you don't read everything in the additional reading section on the left side of the page. Sports Fan Kills Wife For Wanting To Cuddle After Sex. Some gems from the article:

"A man who got angry with his wife because she wanted to cuddle after sex when what he really wanted to do was watch sports on television was sentenced to death for killing her with a claw hammer."

"The defendant struck his wife approximately 70 individual blows after spending a happy interlude with her," the judge said. "Her desire to cuddle after sex does not justify the extremely violent, brutal response of the defendant."

~ Kansas Schools OK Scrutiny of Evolution. Hhhhhmmmmmm... This one is touchy, but interesting. I don't necessarily think this is a bad idea, but I don't like the wording. Rather than "OK scrutiny" (or, in other words, "throw in some ideas that say evolution is bad"), why not "include alternatives such as ID (Intelligent Design)".

A couple of notes:

• An email I received the other day was making fun of people for thinking that evolution was a theory. I dare you to find me a textbook that suggests evolution is anything but. I take issue with the statement not because of my opinions about the plausibility of evolution, but rather as a scientist. Things that are not proven in science (even ones that we treat as facts such as relativity, gravity, and evolution) are called theories.
• The ID theory has nothing to do with Christianity, nor any other religion. It merely states that the world was likely designed by something we have not scientifically proven to this point (bet it a God or aliens from another planet)¹.
• I still don't really understand why so many people feel threatened by Evolution. First of all, the theory of evolution doesn't seem to explain the beginning of the earth. That's the big bang. But even beyond that, I don't see why the idea that things may evolve is a threat to God².

¹: For an interesting and incredibly entertaining example of something that (I think) would fit into this theory, you should read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a thoroughly entertaining read which I happen to give
.
²:OK, so maybe I can sort of see how if you take a really fundamentalist stance on religion that evolution contradicts something, but I think some people need a slightly better grip on reality...Then again, maybe they're right³.

³:I forced myself to add those last 5 words because I have a really hard time judging what anyone believes about something that we can't/haven't proved...

In response to Jeff's comments/article (10:57AM, 8/11/2005):
First, as far as ID goes, I have never read anything to suggest that it is based purely as an opposing view to Evolution. Actually, I should state that most of my limited knowledge of ID comes from conversations between other people, so it could all be entirely wrong. In fact, at this moment I'm kinda regretting writing about it at all. But I did.

In looking a bit deeper, it seems that ID is really just a way of saying "Living things are too complex for evolution to have got thing to where they are today, and therefore there must has been something to intervene." That's not a scientific idea, but a philosophical. Unless you (or someone) can perform (or even design) experiments (which form a basis for science) to show that evolution cannot work to create incredibly complex beings, you cannot call it a theory (at least not in a scientific sense). Then again, the reason that evolution itself is just a theory is that it is very difficult to actually carry out experiments to prove it. And now I'm starting to get over my own head...

Thanks for the article Jeff, and also, if this (ID) is at all interesting to you, check out the Wikipedia article on ID.