Darwin Day: Threat or Promise?

February 12th, 2009 is the 200th birthday of Chas. Darwin. Yes, one of our famous politicians shares that exact birthday, but Abe the rail splitting lawyer is not the point of this post. So what does Darwin Day mean? To most of the world, he was a man who found the missing link between the observation of evolution (that was accepted as reality before he was born) and a workable theory explaining it. He changed the understanding of how it happens from "What the (expletive)?" to "Well, duh!". But this is America. We have to be different. We have to be independent. Less than half of Americans seem to share the world consensus on the value of Darwin's contribution. A survey conducted by Science Magazine (313:765-766) showed only Turkey having a lower public rate of understanding of the theory of evolution than the United States. Of course, the survey didn't have access to even more starkly theocratic nations. Here's the summary of what people think of the theory of common descent:

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Frank Rich: Rod Blagojevich is a small fry in our metastacizing culture of corruption

Rod Blogojevich is not a big fish by any means.   Most of the big fish remain nameless and free, according to Frank Rich of the NYT: What went down in the Land of Lincoln is just the reductio ad absurdum of an American era where both entitlement and corruption have…

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America: #1 in Bibles. #37 in Infant Mortality

This Chris Kelly headline says it all: America: #1 in Bibles. #37 in Infant Mortality. Here's an excerpt from Kelly's Huffpo article: Europeans are feeling pretty smug lately, with their sturdy currency, "health care," and rising rates of life expectancy, but there's one area where we kick their ass: American…

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