Rant on.<\/p>\n
An overlook, by one definition, can be a beautiful thing. I have not been to the Grand Canyon, but I understand there are many beautiful overlooks there, places where the natural glory of the area is overwhelming.<\/p>\n
The other definition of overlook isn’t always so pretty. I mentioned some of this last week, how birthers and other conspiracy theorists overlook a body of evidence–ignore, really–if it doesn’t agree with their point of view. FactCheck.org has investigated President Obama’s birth certificate and, based on the determinations made by those whose lifelong training is to determine such things, concluded our president was, in fact, born in Hawaii. The birthers overlook his birth certificate (which has <\/em>been produced) and the experts who have seen it agree it’s legitimate. They overlook the birth announcement in a Hawaiian newspaper at the time.<\/p>\n Now, I know liberals overlook things, too, but–and my opinion is <\/em>biased–it seems to me the conservatives do a worse of it.\u00a0 There was a discussion of sorts in mid-2008 between ultra-conservative Andy Schlafly and evolution biologist Richard Lenski.\u00a0 Andy runs a website, Conservapedia.\u00a0 Richard spent the last twenty years working on an experiment.\u00a0 You see, some misguided Creationists have, from time to time, stated that since evolution can’t be proved in a lab, it’s not science, thus equating it to Intelligent Design.\u00a0 Well, Mr. Lenski went out and ran this experiment to test evolution in a lab and he succeeded.<\/p>\n This did not sway anybody of significant Creationist persuasion, such as Andy Schlafly.\u00a0 Mr. Schlafly emailed Mr. Lenski asking for his data.\u00a0 However, Mr. Lenski had already made this data available in the article Mr. Schlafly was attempting to discredit.\u00a0 Mr. Lenski replied to Mr. Schlafly saying as much and in a polite, professional manner.\u00a0 Mr. Shlafly continued to overlook what the data he overlooked the first time–by his own account, he only “skimmed” the article–and again<\/em> demanded to see Mr. Lenski’s data.\u00a0 Mr. Lenski was less polite in his second reply but no less professional, in my opinion.\u00a0 You can see the details of the entire exchange in this article<\/a> at RationalWiki.<\/p>\n Now, I understand Mr. Schlafly and his ilk don’t want evolution to be true.\u00a0 They want everything to have been magically done by their definition of God.\u00a0 However, Mr. Lenski’s experiment is only the latest piece of evidence in a mountain of evidence.\u00a0 Certainly, it is significant–my limited understanding of the results promotes what I have believed for a long time, that evolution is not a random thing, but a careful, steady process doing exactly what needs to be done from one generation to the next–but it is not the first, only or last proof for evolution.<\/p>\n To me, it’s like standing on one of those overlooks at the Grand Canyon, and overlooking–ignoring–the Canyon itself.\u00a0 It would be foolish to step forward and fall to one’s death just because you don’t believe (for whatever insane reason) the Canyon cannot or does not exist.\u00a0 Gravity doesn’t care what you believe; you’ll fall whether you think there’s a drop there or not.\u00a0 Evolution is the same:\u00a0 You can overlook the mountain of evidence, trying screaming “IT ISN’T SO!!!!” with your hands over your ears and your eyes shut, but evolution will remain a fact.\u00a0 Ignoring it isn’t lethal, but denying it–or the president’s birth certificate and other evidence of his origins and religious beliefs, etc–is, in my opinion, just as foolish as overlooking the Grand Canyon’s existence.<\/p>\n Rant off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rant on. An overlook, by one definition, can be a beautiful thing. I have not been to the Grand Canyon, but I understand there are many beautiful overlooks there, places where the natural glory of the area is overwhelming. The other definition of overlook isn’t always so pretty. I mentioned some of this last week, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59,"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions\/59"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}