Sporadic Ramblings

A recent NY Times poll shows that 42% of respondents think humans and other animals have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. Sigh. Of course, people believe all kinds of weird stuff, but in this case, they want to teach it at school.

It is weird to see this issue actually progress backwards through time. I think we're back to about 1870 at this point. If it continues, we might get back to 1781 or so, when Thomas Jefferson and other Deists were arguing that extinctions were impossible and never happened, because God wouldn't let things die out:

The bones of the Mammoth which have been found in America, are as large as those found in the old world. It may be asked, why I insert the Mammoth, as if it still existed? I ask in return, why I should omit it, as if it did not exist? Such is the economy of nature, that no instance can be produced of her having permitted any one race of her animals to become extinct; of her having formed any link in her great work so weak as to be broken. -- From Notes on the State of Virgina, 1781-1782.

What's doubly weird is that no other countries are suffering from this plague of boobs - it's mostly a dead issue in Europe and South America.