Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Evolution's Imminent Demise?

Over on Topix a thread was started called "The Collapse of Evolution". It got me started thinking just how long has someone, usually a Creationist of one stripe or another, been predicting the imminent demise of the Theory of Evolution. Well I know it was well before I have been involved, which was just a few years ago when Ohio was on the target list of the Discovery Institute. I am not asking how long there have been anti-evolutionists. I assume they have existed since the first peep about the Theory of Evolution. I will lay odds that any idea that didn't recognize the direct involvement of one deity of another has raised the ire of someone. But more specifically how long have various pronouncements about the immediate demise been going on?

I was over on Pharyngula, PZ Myers blog and one of his posts "About that ad predicting the fall of Darwinism in 2013…" had a great link near the end. The link is to Glenn Morton's "The Imminent Demise of Evolution: The Longest Running Falsehood in Creationism". You have to take a look, some of these are hilarious! Not all of these are specifically about Evolution, but the majority certainly are. I love the 1840 "imminent demise of the old earth viewpoint", sure real successful that one.

So I wonder what 2013 will bring? If I were a betting man I would say a new prediction about the demise of evolution! In fact I am a betting man. I bet that in 2013 the nearest we will get to the demise of evolutionary theory will be additional pronouncements added to Glenn Morton's list. Any takers? Terms and odds are up for negotiation, all bets final by the end of 2010!

On a small side note, I have not found one pronouncement of the imminent demise of Creationism. I guess pro-science has a much better understanding of human nature than anti-science have concerning nature, human or otherwise.

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