I'm flabbergasted. "March of the Penguins" was a remarkable film, but to cite it as an example of Intelligent Design is beyond comprehension. Daft Design (DD) is more like it. Or the God must be crazy. This is the most bizarre, unlikely, onorous, and inefficient way of producing young that has ever been described. It has flightless male and female birds taking turns caring for a single egg balanced precariously on their feet, and trudging 70 miles between sea and rearing grounds through the most savagely hostile environment on earth. Only an intellectually-challenged deity could come up with such an outlandish scheme.
On the contrary, I emerged from the film thinking that surely here was an airtight case for the absence of intelligent design, its development comprehensible only as the result of random variation acted upon by natural selection in an exceedingly demanding environment. In other words, through evolution. But I guess I hadn't counted on the obtuseness of IDers in seeing intelligent design even for phenomenon for which stupidity is the more apt descriptor. Nancy M. noted that the penguins also exhibit a strange sort of family values for conservatives to endorse, because the admired penguin monogamy lasts for only one breeding season, after which they find new partners. It also occurs to me that this happy penguin family is essentially single-parent rearing, as only one of the parents is with the egg/baby at a time, while the other is fattening up in the sea 70 miles away for months at a time. Conservatives know that two parents good, one parent bad. Do they really think that we should be raising our kids this way? ["Bye dear, I'm off to Cancun for the next three months. Look after the kids. When I get back, it's your turn"]. And not incidental to our discussion, I hope that some of you caught Jon Stewart's segment on evolution, "Evolution, shmevolution" last night on _The Daily Show_. It was not only funny but it was impressively well-informed on evolution.For example, when was the last time you heard a joke about Darwin's finches? I believe he promises more for tonight. Stephen -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470 Department of Psychology fax:(819) 822-9661 Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lennoxville, QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Dept web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy TIPS discussion list for psychology teachers at http://faculty.frostburg.edu/psyc/southerly/tips/index.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------------- --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
