Happy Birthday!

Today is the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin AND Abraham Lincoln. Pretty big deal really, both men are still as relevant as ever and both were born on the same day! Sorry, just found out, still having a double take moment. This year also marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin Of Species, released just a year before Lincoln became the first Republican president. Yes, I know it is just a coincidence that they were both born on the same day; a few have tried to come up with more parallels, but to me it seems fitting that these two men who were so influential on our world were more than just coevals, allowing us to celebrate them both today.

Lincoln and Darwin were both revolutionaries, in the sense that both men overthrew realities that prevailed when they were born. February 12th, 1809, Thomas Jefferson had three weeks left in his second term as president and George III still sat on the throne of England as the Enlightenment was giving way to Romanticism. Before Darwin's work, biology was nothing more than a way of categorizing and describing the world around us; his work showed us that all organisms are connected, giving us a framework for asking questions about the natural world, and about ourselves. Lincoln inherited a shaky democracy, transforming it by winning a civil war and validating the nation's founding documents by ridding America of slavery. They gave us the tools to modernity leaving us a world with more possibilities than when they entered it. Unfortunately, 200 years after their births and almost 150 years after their major accomplishments much of the world still rejects what they taught us and thus hold us back with their ignorance.

Darwin knew what he had to teach the world wouldn't be easy for many to accept, not the least of whom was his wife, a devout creationist. Lincoln entered office after 7 states had already seceded and knew that his actions would likely lead to civil war. As enlightening as both men's influence on the world has been, both still face resistance today. While the Vatican has officially proclaimed Darwin's theory of evolution to be compatible with Christian faith, the world is still plagued by fundamentalists who believe creationism, dinosaurs and humans living together, should be taught in science class. Somewhat ironically, it was the distortion of Darwin's ideas that led to survival of the fittest and the evils of Social Darwinism and eugenics which have been responsible for the continued belief of the superiority of some races and beliefs over others. While Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in America, many believe Darwin's ultimate aim in proposing his theory was to show "the brotherhood of the races".

Take a moment today to consider a world without these two great men. In many ways both were the greatest actors of the 19th century, leaving an indelible mark on the world, overcoming self-doubt, depression and adversity. While Darwin waited 20 years and tactfully dropped humans from his seminal work, there is little doubt that his work was partially motivated by the desire to show the brotherhood of man. Where Darwin hesitated, Lincoln acted, but in the end both risked everything for what they believed.

Your Cousin's a Platypus

Yes indeed, somewhere in your family tree there's a platypus. OK, you might have to go back a few years, but there's one there somewhere near the end of one of those branches. Yes, about 165 million years ago the platypus branched off the same mammalian path that we derived from. Go back a little further and you'll find a few reptiles as well that share some genes with you and me. The funny thing about the platypus though is that they kept a few more of the traits of their reptilian cousins, they lay eggs for instance, making it one of only two monotremes (egg laying mammals) in the world. However, like other mammals, it has fur and produces milk, although here again is another oddity, they lack nipples. The males also possess venomous spurs on their hind legs that are loaded with a venom so potent it can kill a dog. All of these eccentricities can be studied to determine when and maybe even why so many of our features evolved.

I love imaging a creationist, or ID (intelligent design) believer, reading these lines, face going red, blood pressure skyrocketing. NO! It was bad enough when science tried to tell them that we are related to monkeys, but a platypus? One of nature's oddest creatures, seemingly a random mixture of spare parts left over from a beaver, a duck, a lizard and maybe even a mole, has had it's genome decoded as reported in the journal Nature. Of course, it's just another piece of the evolutionary puzzle to aid the study of human evolution which will help scientists in innumerable areas, but particularly the development of the immune, nervous and reproductive systems. While scientists are hard at work with their latest scientific propaganda coup, I'm sure the ID folks will be hard at work with building another museum in the States to show their view of the world.

I may be getting a little ahead of myself here. If you are a European reading this, or for that matter, from almost anywhere else in the world besides the US, you might be unaware of the fact that there is a controversy over whether or not we are all here due to evolution. While evolution is known as a theory, it is one of the most solid theories yet proposed, with enough scientific data supporting it to sink a battleship. Yet, there is a hardcore group of people who believe that ID should be taught alongside the theory of evolution to children in biology class. What exactly is ID though? Many of the proponents of the idea go to great lengths to separate it from creationism. Their basic argument being that whereas creationism "typically starts with a religious text and tries to see how the findings of science can be reconciled to it. Intelligent design starts with the empirical evidence of nature and seeks to ascertain what inferences can be drawn from that evidence". They (IDers) try to present their idea as scientific method, a four-step process involving observations, hypothesis, experiments, and conclusion. Intelligent design begins with the observation that intelligent agents produce complex and specified information (CSI). Design theorists hypothesize that if a natural object was designed, it will contain high levels of CSI. Scientists then perform experimental tests upon natural objects to determine if they contain complex and specified information. One easily testable form of CSI is irreducible complexity, which can be discovered by experimentally reverse-engineering biological structures to see if they require all of their parts to function. When ID researchers find irreducible complexity in biology, they conclude that such structures were designed. In other words because there is complexity, it must be designed, the old burden of proof argument, whatever has not been proved false, must be true. Unfortunately for them absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Before you laugh these people off, you must consider the forces that are behind this movement. They have taken their case of teaching ID in schools all the way to the Supreme Court in the US, where fortunately they failed, but unfortunately will try again. They have produced a movie, one that I am loathe to advertise here, but one that you should know exists, as many people will see the documentary style and take it as fact. It is called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Fortunately there are many honest scientists out there who are working to counter the lies that these people are setting forth. Among it's fear mongering lies, the movie puts much of the responsibility for the holocaust on Darwin's theory. Also, in case you missed it, there is the Creation Museum, located somewhere in the wilds of Kentucky. Preparing to celebrate their first year anniversary, this $27 million "museum" presents the history of the world through a literal interpretation of the bible. In this museum dinosaurs exist together with people and scenes from the bible are portrayed as fact, no not metaphors, fact. Lastly, I'd like to remind all of you what happened when the question of whether or not the Republican candidates for the presidency of the US of A believed in evolution was posed:

Back in the real world, the scientists compared the platypus genome with human, mouse, dog, opossum and chicken genomes and found that the platypus shares 82 percent of its genes with these animals. Comparing us with the platypus means that we can say something about our common ancestor, which was one of the earliest mammals, so that means that we can ask questions about what happened to make us mammals. When the platypus was first brought back to England, many people thought it was a hoax, that there was no way it was a real animal, of course science proved them wrong. Today, I think most people would also view the ideas and beliefs being put forward by the Christian right as some kind of joke but therein lies the danger. If we don't stay on our guard, not only could we lose the knowledge gained from evolutionary theory in the past 150 years, but you never know, the world could go flat again.

McBush

As the Democratic party slowly kills itself in the months (or is it years) running up to the November election, the Republican party has been able to sit back and relax, already knowing John McCain will be on the ballot and secure in the knowledge that Obama and Clinton are doing their dirty work for them. With that in mind, their real work is the transformation of the man once known as John McCain into the man (monster?) that all real Republicans want, someone who will from here on be known as McBush.

Just who is this 71 year-old senator for the state of Arizona, and more importantly what does he believe in? The answers to this question could only be answered if you specified what period of time you were asking about, pre-presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, or the monster that is in the morphing process of becoming McBush. What's the big deal you may ask? Surely the American people won't be duped into voting for a Republican again after eight years of Bush. If you are so certain, your memory is worse than those who will vote for McBush in huge numbers come November as you've already forgotten the 2004 election. At the time I would never have imagined a world where America would vote Bush back into the White House, but they did, in what was a near landslide victory. War in Iraq? Who cares?! Economy sliding into recession? (see stagflation article below) Whatever! Osama Bin Laden nowhere to be found? A mere nuisance! All of this can only be explained by the magic of the American electoral system, one where money and power have far greater influence than ideas and wisdom. Convince the right people that having your man in the oval office will mean more money in their pocket for the next four years, and you win.

Let's rewind to 2001. President Bush pushes his plan for one of the biggest tax cuts in history to jump start the economy. At the time, the man still known as McCain said that he could not "in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle-class Americans." This was a tax cut aimed directly at the rich, with cuts mostly to capital gains and dividends. He becomes one of only two Republicans to vote against the plan. Along comes 2003 and Bush needs to keep his rich supporters happy before the next election and therefore comes up with another tax cut to match the first. The man still known as McCain called this cut "irresponsible" and saying "At a time of war, at a time of economic stagnation, at a time of rising national debt . . . one might expect our national leaders to pursue policies calling for shared sacrifice to achieve shared benefits. Regrettably, that is not the case." This man went on to be one of only 3 republicans to vote against the cuts, $674 billion that mostly helped the affluent (surprise!). Fast forward to today and a country in far worse economic shape still stuck in a quagmire overseas which will still cost trillions more and we see the outcome of the transformation process. Not only would McBush make the tax cuts introduced by Bush permanent, but his economic plan will add more cuts. This is something that most people would have said was impossible to hear out of the mouth of the man formerly known as McCain (MFKM from here on). Part one of McBush's plan is the suspension of federal taxes on gasoline and diesel from the end of May to the beginning of September to encourage Americans to drive more over the summer holiday, just what the world needs, help for the oil companies. The next part of his plan is based on lowering taxes for the rich (those making between $65,000 and $130,000) and (surprise!) lowering corporate taxes. This plan has been viciously attacked almost across the media spectrum.

Now, I'm not arguing again Keynesian economics, yes, tax cuts can help to stimulate the economy, it's not only Republicans who believe in this principal. I liked this video of JFK explaining his cuts of 1963 to the American people:


I just want to know when the brain operation was performed, or if it's just some kind of slow morphing potion that they fed poor ol' MFKM. The hard core republicans were afraid of a couple of MFKM's "shortcomings", one that he may not of been as "fiscally responsible" as they would like, and two that he was an not an evangelical Christian. Remember that this is a party in which three of the candidates for president openly declared that they did NOT believe in evolution. Reading the transcripts of what was said in the debate on June 5, 2007 in New Hampshire hosted by Wolf Blitzer of CNN:

Senator McCain, do you believe creationism should be taught alongside evolution in the nation’s schools?

SEN. MCCAIN: No, I believe that’s up to the school districts. But I think that every American should be exposed to all theories. But I can’t say it more eloquently than Pastor Huckabee — Governor Huckabee just did, and I admire his description, because I hold that view.

The point is that the time before time — there’s no doubt in my mind that the hand of God was in what we are today. And I do believe that we are unique, and I believe that God loves us. But I also believe that all of our children in school can be taught different views on different issues. But I leave the curricula up to the school boards.

If you're interested in what Mike Huckabee had said earlier, the entire transcript is here. MFKM's response wasn't particularly controversial of course but I just wanted you to know what he thought before the transformation was complete.