Mr. Darwin and the Blue-footed Booby

   Mr. Darwin, can you explain to me about Evolution and Intelligent Design?

   By all means, Booby. But first of all, let's make it clear that the two are very different indeed. Evolution is a well-proved theory, based on a solid foundation of observation and evidence; Intelligent Design, on the other hand, is a hypothesis based solely on faith and a grotesque parody of scientific method. It's like comparing the works of Shakespeare to a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

   But, Mr. Darwin, Intelligent Design says that Evolution is wrong because there are huge gaps in the fossil record – is that true?

   My dear Booby, that was a tired argument even in my day. Why, it's like saying that because there are gaps between the individual frames of a film, the film can't be a record of a continuous action, and is therefore false.

   But shouldn't there be fossils of all past life on Earth everywhere we look?

   Actually, Booby, it's remarkable that we have as many fossils of land creatures as we do. To become a fossil requires that one die in the appropriate place, not be eaten, avoid all manner of geological upheavals over untold millennia, and finally have the good fortune to be discovered by a diligent paleontologist. Why, it's estimated that far less than one in a million of us will end up as fossils!

   So science doesn't know everything, then?

   Good heavens, no!  But science is honest and transparent. As our knowledge advances, we revise our understanding to reflect new evidence and observation; and when we don't understand something, we say so. And we have peer review, which means other sientists demand proof before a new theory is accepted. And we have enough geographical and genetic data today to support the theory of Evolution even without the evidence of the fossil record.

   But the advocates of creationism (which is all that so-called Intelligent Design theory is, once you strip away the pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo) love to seize on any gap in our knowledge of the world, saying "Ah! Well, Evolution can't explain that, so that proves Intelligent Design correct!" This, of course, is nonsense logic. Note also that there's a double standard at play: the creationists impose impossible standards on science, while expecting their hypothesis to be accepted on so-called 'experience-based proof'. Pah!