Well, “we” meaning my fellow residents of rural communities. I suspect most of the people reading this are members of the urban elite, so you won’t really care that today is the day when urban populations were predicted to exceed rural populations. That is, for the first time in the history of the world, a majority of human beings live in cities rather than in the countryside.

Now I don’t want to hear any sneering from you glossy depilated metrosexuals about us barefoot hayseeds reeking of eau de porc. We’re the ones with the low-traffic, low-stress, low-cost lifestyle and the fresh local foods who can still see the stars at night. And since there are now more of you than there are of us, I guess that means today is the day we have been promoted to the rarefied elite, and you’re the common majority.

That simple and charming organization, The Friends of Charles Darwin, has just signed their thousandth member. Good for them, but still, that’s pathetic — I hope it takes less than a decade to sign up another thousand. Go ahead and join if you haven’t already, it’s painless, I promise.

I was sent a link to this editorial by the science-fiction writer, Ben Bova. I like part of the sentiment, where he’s arguing that it’s worth the effort to try and change the world, but a substantial part of it bugs me.

The most prescient — and chilling — of all the science fiction stories ever written, though, is “The Marching Morons,” by Cyril M. Kornbluth, first published in 1951. It should be required reading in every school on Earth.

The point that Kornbluth makes is simple, and scary: dumbbells have more children than geniuses. In “The Marching Morons” he carries that idea to its extreme, but logical, conclusion.

Kornbluth tells of a future world that is overrun with dummies: men and women who don’t know anything beyond their own shallow personal interests. They don’t know how their society works, or who is running it. All they care about is their personal — and immediate — gratification.

I detest “The Marching Morons.”

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I pored over this map of online communities, and couldn’t find scienceblogs! I was so disappointed.

There’s an obvious place for us, though: somewhere down in the bottom left corner, around Sulawesi.

Anyone want to help Joolya with her unpleasant personal fungus problem? I should warn you that there are photographs at that link, and she is naked under her lab coat.

Randy Olson is putting together the DVD extras for the release of Flock of Dodos, and he’s gathering photos of showings of the movie. Did anyone out there take photos at the February screening at the Bell Museum? Let me know, or just mail them to me.

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Uh-oh — we’re under some time pressure. The deadline is today!

The Wellcome Trust has published a short pamphlet to inform young students about evolution. I haven’t had a chance to look at it carefully yet, but it looks like an interesting combination of a fairly wordy presentation and lots of color and flash. You can download a pdf of Evolution: The Big Picture for yourself; would it be a useful tool to catch student’s eyes and get the basics across to them?

Out of 16 pages, 4 are dedicated to the conflict between science and religion. It doesn’t come right out and say that religion is bad, and it even makes the usual waffley about how some scientists accommodate religion in their lives, but their point-by-point comparisons of how religion and science generates ideas come down hard on religion, and they do pin the blame for the creationist antipathy to evolution on religion. It’s not exactly ferocious on the subject, but at the same time it would cause an uproar if it were distributed in US public schools, I’m afraid.

One of the readers here is also a student at Virginia Tech, and has written his own reflections on the tragedy.

Here’s what the various ScienceBloggers are saying about Virginia Tech.

I’m not personally enthused about turning the whole ugly episode into a rallying cry for whatever cause you favor right now, but I do side with Dunford: of course this is a time you should express your positions. This is a good time, when events have made the concerns more immediate and when people are looking for answers. It’s not a good time to act on those positions, because emotions overwhelm sense, but they are also good indicators of what is important to people.

For instance, if you see this as an excuse to cage all the foreigners, I’d like to know so I can stay upwind of you at all times. If you’re concerned about what we can rationally do to prevent these tragedies in the future, even while distraught about the evil that has been done, then OK, I’ll try to remember that you are a fellow signee of our mutual social contract. So please, keep it civil, and remember that we are a community of civilized beings, not a mob of barbarians.

I knew this one would come slithering out quickly: Ken Ham.

Anyone heard from Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell lately? I wonder if their handlers heard the news and rushed to slap a gag on them.