Canada, swirling down the drain with us

It’s been a regular gay social whirl here at Chez Myers; we’re having a party tonight, and last night, we had visitors from the Great White North, or “Ottawa” as they quaintly called it: Eamon Knight and Theo Bromine, familiar names to old hands at talk.origins. And they brought Canadian beer! I encourage all Canadians to feel free to swing south and stop by, as long as they follow suit. (It’s a beer called Maudite, appropriately enough, and I just got a close look at the label: 8% alcohol! Hide the lampshades, I’m going to be dancing tonight!)

Unfortunately, while they were gawking at the Big City of Morris — impressed, I’m sure, by the absence of large trees, polar bears, and glaciers — Canada got a little crazier. Or revealed some long-hidden lunacy.

John Vanasselt, with the Ontario Alliance of Christian Schools, said there is no reason why Ontario shouldn’t join other provinces that make room for religious beliefs within the public education system.

The alliance’s 78 schools already teach evolution in science class, but it is taught on par with creationism, he said.

It sounds to me like Mr Vanasselt has just made a case for removing state support from Canadian religious schools.

Don’t let this stop you all from visiting me, though: really, there’s no causal relationship between saying hello to that evil atheist in Minnesota and having your home transported back into the Middle Ages!

Two horrible new diseases

Scott Lanyon, director of the Bell Museum, has an article on two disease we should worry about, VHSv and EAS.

Personally, I think VHSv is the worst. It’s a virus that causes hemorrhagic septicemia in fish; just from the name you know it’s bad, involving blood and sepsis. My most horrible experience raising zebrafish was the time hemorrhagic septicemia swept through my colony and I had to euthanize every animal and bleach every last bit of plumbing to eradicate it. This disease has been detected in waters of Wisconsin, and it’s definitely not good.

EAS may not be as dramatically gory and lethal in its effects, but it strikes humans directly. It’s Evolution Avoidance Syndrome, and it causes the brains of scientists and journalists to seize up when circumstances are appropriate to discuss evolution in public. Apparently, we want local fish populations to develop, acquire, improve or have arise resistance to the hemorrhagic septicemia virus; we can’t possibly suggest that evolution might be at work.

Nice turn of phrase

Next time you hear the tornado-in-a-junkyard argument (almost as common as the why-are-there-still-monkeys argument!), remember this rebuttal:

Creationists seeking to argue against evolution often liken the evolution of complex organisms by natural selection to the building of a DC-10 by a hurricane blowing through a junkyard. Their conclusion? Since such an event is staggeringly unlikely, a special sentient hurricane must have built the plane deliberately.

That’s going to be handy!