Aristotle and the Axolotl Lose Their Bottle

BBC 4 seems to be going for a heavy science kick at the moment. Chaos Last week, Chemistry this week and Aristotle at the weekend. And with the Dawkins Evolution book as well I am feeling very improved at the moment. Daughter has obviously had too much of book-learning as she was reading Captain Underpants last night. Obviously she has finished all the various Doctor Who media purchased and received over the last few weeks.

Anyway, the Dawkins book is currently describing an experiment involving pure strains of cloned bacteria divided into 12 "tribes" and maintained over many thousands of generations in order to provide a basis and snapshots for evolution occurring over measurable timescales. readers were warned not to embark on the section late at night and indeed it was detailed but nothing we couldn't handle. Went to sleep happy and tired in mind. However, my last thought before going to sleep was that Dawkins mentioned all this to crow at how Creationists do not like this experiment because it disproves some basic tenets of their arguments (how new information arises in the genes I think is one of them). I think that the arguments against evolution are usually so facile and anti-intellectual (faith-based would be the riposte I am sure) that there seems little point in arguing this detail. The yah-boo-sucks style that occasionally surfaces in the book detracts from the subtle progression through the various arguments towards the inescapable hammering on the skull with a velvet-covered brick which is surely going to happen before the end. Let's just not bother arguing any of it. We are right and they are wrong. There is no centre ground really. Well maybe there is some but rather than a grey morass of mud laid out between the two factions, there is a rickety suspension bridge with enough room for two people to pass one another. The best we can hope for is a meeting at some point with a handshake and a mutual exchange of papers. Young Earth Creationism is without any scientific proof and ..... - there I go again - being bothered to argue the point. It is just wrong and obviously wrong.