From Pharyngula: For God's sake, have Bryan Appleyard's articles made any difference to our lives?
Naturally, since this is from the UK, where people aren't quite as proudly stupid as they are in America, and since this was linked to at Pharyngula, he's getting savaged for his utter lack of anything that could be considered a rational thought. I decided I'd throw my two cents in there, as inelegant as they may be:
Hey, hack journalists, have I got a great concept for you! (...)Make no mistake, this guy's drooling mishmash of stupidity isn't hard to counter - he touches on pretty much every old creationist meme there is, from "I ain't no munky!" to "Evolution caused the Holocaust!" to "Irreducible complexity!". I swear, it reads like a strawman, but there it is, in black and white, as real as you can get without the guy being right there in front of you.
Here it is, and just the title alone will inspire you. "Has _X_ made any difference in our lives?" It's universal! It doesn't matter what the editor tells you to write about, just plug it in in place of the X, and you're ready to scamper through the story like a cockroach with its cerci on fire. (...)
No one has mastered the art form of turning abysmal ignorance into a stream of money-earning words on a newspaper page better than Bryan Appleyard, who writes for the London Times. I've stumbled across Appleyard's excretions a few times before, and I've learned what to expect. He fulfills those expectations beautifully in an impressively corrupt and reeking bit of mass-market offal, For God's sake, have Charles Darwin's theories made any difference to our lives?
Naturally, since this is from the UK, where people aren't quite as proudly stupid as they are in America, and since this was linked to at Pharyngula, he's getting savaged for his utter lack of anything that could be considered a rational thought. I decided I'd throw my two cents in there, as inelegant as they may be:
Beyond your absolute ignorance of any level of scientific fact, one thing stands out: Without understanding of evolution, we would not understand the rather basic concept of bacterial resistance to antibiotics. Right there, your entire premise is blown to smithereens.There were far better comments, and I doubt they'll even publish mine. I just think it needed to be said.
Second, you open up the old canard that evolution is responsible for hateful ideas. Evolution as a scientific concept is far less responsible for these ideas than out-and-out stupidity. Furthermore, if you're going to ascribe bad ideas to perfectly good concepts, perhaps you'd like to talk of witch-hunts, crusades, and pogroms, all inspired by religion?
You just want to feel special, like you're better than any other being. That is the basis of the "I Ain't No Monkey" meme of the denialist. I, meanwhile, see a level of beauty in being the distant relation of the noble primate. Personally, I think they are smarter than a good deal of humanity.
I don't expect you to acknowledge any of this, considering you think the Ignorance Museum is anything other than a pseudo-scientific laughingstock. All I can say is that I sincerely hope you realize that rejecting evolution as a concept is to reject much of modern science.
