Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.
Mark Steyn gets this email :
ARE YOU A CREATIONIST?
I enjoy your various articles in the Speccie, torygraph etc and agree with most of what you say and your support for Right views. But I am concerned with your right-wing mates in the US and UK who seem to be on the intelligent-design rubbish bandwagon. I hope you will distance yourself from them in future articles on this subject as there is no evidence for their views at all whereas evolution is supported by enormous volumes of evidence. You don't strike me as a creationist irrationalist.
And responds with:
The fact is that this is a planet overwhelmingly dominated and shaped by one species, and our kith and kin - whether gibbons or pumpkins - basically fit in in the spaces between. That's pretty much the world the Psalmist outlined in the Old Testament thousands of years ago. By comparison, the evolutionists' insistence that we're just another "animal" seems perverse and irrational and refuted by a casual glance out the window. I am coming round to the view that hyper-rationalism is highly irrational.
Tim Blair must reckon that Steyn is uneducated.
Update: PZ Myers writes about the hapless Steyn's ignorance of biology. Alan Adamson says that he has long enjoyed Steyn's writing but doesn't think that Steyn is worth reading any more after this.
Comments
The fact is that this is a planet overwhelmingly dominated and shaped by one species
I was trying to think what on earth Steyn meant by this. In terms of domination the general answer is "bacteria" and in terms of shaping the planet "plants", but it would be impossible to pick any species in particular.
I then clicked through and found Pharyngula having much the same thoughts.
Posted by: ChrisV | September 2, 2005 1:29 AM
I think it was the biologist JS Haldane who suggested that going by the evidence of Creation, all one could really say with any degree of conviction about God was that He liked beetles.
Posted by: dsquared | September 2, 2005 3:15 AM
Reminds me of Emo Phillip's take on physiology: "I used to think the brain was the most interesting organ in the body. Then I thought 'Oh wait, look who's telling me this'".
Posted by: z | September 2, 2005 10:13 AM
Dsquared, I believe the quote was: "He(the Creator) seems inordinately fond of beetles."
Posted by: The Dark Avenger | September 2, 2005 11:55 PM
Steyn is, and always has been, a complete nonentity who nitpicks others to death but cannot spot even the most glaring errors in his own arguments. Tu quoque is practically the only weapon he has ever wielded. When oh when will he go back to theatre criticism and stop making an idiot of himself.
Posted by: Andrew | September 9, 2005 6:38 PM