Thursday, November 19, 2009

we'll have the primordial soup to start, please, followed by the trilobite

I spotted an excellent phrase on one of the Pharyngula discussion threads earlier, which describes very succinctly the creationists' view of the Theory of Evolution:
from goo, to you, by way of the zoo
Isn't that great? I'd never heard it before, but it's obviously been around for a while, as it seems it's the title of a book by a chap called Harold Hill (no, not him). Some Americans have fond childhood memories of it, though, apparently. It almost has a bit of a Dr. Seuss sound to it, though you can bet what's inside will be considerably less entertaining and educational.

Actually, as scornful representations of the ToE go, it isn't all that bad a catchphrase, as it suggests life formed in very simple forms and evolved through lots of progressively more complex intermediate forms to the wild profusion of life we see today, which is pretty much what all the available evidence suggests actually happened. Ridicule is clearly what's intended, though. Those crazy godless Darwinists!

Whereas the Bible says God created life with the whole Adam and Eve thing, then The Fall (no, not them), a whole load of begatting, the flood, Jesus, yadda yadda yadda, you. Or, if you prefer, from two, to you, by way of some Jews.

2 comments:

Steve Wiggins said...

Hey, thanks for picking up on my post. This little book is impossible to find these days -- makes me glad I kept mine all these years!

electrichalibut said...

Thanks for stopping in. This is all fascinating to me as it represents a whole genre of stuff that we just never see in the UK. I mean, there was plenty of religious nonsense pushed on us at school, but no-one tried to shoehorn it into science lessons.