Hobbits and Raptors
Adding to the surreal quality of the evolution – creationism – intelligent design debate, while American journalism appears incapable of helping to establish a level of informed knowledge among the American people, it nevertheless dutifully reports scientific findings in its usual matter of fact style.
There are two stories making the rounds at the moment. The first involves the ongoing discoveries on the Indonesian island of Flores of the remains of what could be diminutive human like creatures which have been dubbed Hobbits. The carbon dating of charcoal found near the remains suggest they lived in a cave on the island as recently as 12,000 years ago. Other scientists aren’t particularly impressed with the conclusions and dismiss the remains as more likely humans with some sort of physical impairment leading to small bone size.
The other story relates to the discovery in South America of a rooster sized dinosaur of the raptor family and dubbed Buitreraptor Gonzelzorum (how’s THAT for a moniker. Say that fast 10 times I dare you! Hell, figure out how to pronounce it even.). I love the description of the beastie’s teeth as “serrated, like steak knives.” Based on the teeth, they figure it was a meat eater (yeah, sounds like a good guess to me). Apparently what’s interesting about this beastie is it implies that raptors have been around longer than anyone thought and possibly even before the breakup of Pangaea. Either that or two totally different species evolved independently (there’s that word) with strikingly similar characteristics. Add in the latest disagreement with the widely held hypothesis that birds evolved from dinosaurs, and I suspect that paleontologists will have stuff to argue about for quite a while.
So, now, in the interest of fairness, shouldn’t the news organizations also present the creationist and ID slants on these stories? Or would any reputible news organization get laughed out of business if it did? Do they even have a slant? If it's really science, then ID should be trying to explain these findings in terms of a "designer" in the same way that anthropologists and paleontologists are trying to explain them in terms of evolution. Come on boys, I don't hear you.
As far as the creationists are concerned, I supposed these discoveries are planted by Satan in order to confuse and mislead us? You figure the carbon dating of the charcoal on Flores is wrong? Was Buitreraptor of the steak knife teeth on the ark? How the hell did he get from Mt. Ararat to South America? How many different species do we have to discover before the fact that there WASN'T ENOUGH ROOM ON A FREAKING ARK TO HANDLE THEM becomes freaking obvious even to evangelical Christians?
There are two stories making the rounds at the moment. The first involves the ongoing discoveries on the Indonesian island of Flores of the remains of what could be diminutive human like creatures which have been dubbed Hobbits. The carbon dating of charcoal found near the remains suggest they lived in a cave on the island as recently as 12,000 years ago. Other scientists aren’t particularly impressed with the conclusions and dismiss the remains as more likely humans with some sort of physical impairment leading to small bone size.
The other story relates to the discovery in South America of a rooster sized dinosaur of the raptor family and dubbed Buitreraptor Gonzelzorum (how’s THAT for a moniker. Say that fast 10 times I dare you! Hell, figure out how to pronounce it even.). I love the description of the beastie’s teeth as “serrated, like steak knives.” Based on the teeth, they figure it was a meat eater (yeah, sounds like a good guess to me). Apparently what’s interesting about this beastie is it implies that raptors have been around longer than anyone thought and possibly even before the breakup of Pangaea. Either that or two totally different species evolved independently (there’s that word) with strikingly similar characteristics. Add in the latest disagreement with the widely held hypothesis that birds evolved from dinosaurs, and I suspect that paleontologists will have stuff to argue about for quite a while.
So, now, in the interest of fairness, shouldn’t the news organizations also present the creationist and ID slants on these stories? Or would any reputible news organization get laughed out of business if it did? Do they even have a slant? If it's really science, then ID should be trying to explain these findings in terms of a "designer" in the same way that anthropologists and paleontologists are trying to explain them in terms of evolution. Come on boys, I don't hear you.
As far as the creationists are concerned, I supposed these discoveries are planted by Satan in order to confuse and mislead us? You figure the carbon dating of the charcoal on Flores is wrong? Was Buitreraptor of the steak knife teeth on the ark? How the hell did he get from Mt. Ararat to South America? How many different species do we have to discover before the fact that there WASN'T ENOUGH ROOM ON A FREAKING ARK TO HANDLE THEM becomes freaking obvious even to evangelical Christians?
posted by Alencon at 9:49 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home