www.jeffthefish.com

I recently spent a few days at the home of some of my dearest friends on Earth, who happen to be creationists. I really tried to avoid the topic, but inevitably it came up. One thing that came out of the intense but still respectful and friendly conversation was the recommendation that I check out the website of Come Reason Ministries, which is done by their friend Lenny Esposito. Lenny has a few articles about the relationship between science and the Bible, but only one of them seems to be about evolution. A cursory glance at the article revealed a few glaring mistakes, so I figured a more thorough analysis was in order.

I did my best to refrain from my usual snarkiness, since this guy is the personal friend of my own very good friends, but it was very difficult, and there were so many gigantic mistakes that I’m afraid I failed. If my Creationist friends end up reading this, please don’t take this personally. You know how I am. If he were just making honest mistakes, that would be one thing. But if you’re going to go to the trouble of starting your own ministry and attempting to debunk evolution, and then not do any actual research, but instead parrot Ken “Wackaloon” Ham, I’m afraid I just can’t force myself to pull my punches. It will hopefully soften the blow for you to know that one of my primary motivations in combating Creationism in this way is for the sake of Christianity! Creationism creates more atheists than any devil could ever hope to. Now, on to the article.

The article is a response to an email some dude sent to Lenny:

Hello,

Before I became a Christian about 2 and a half years ago, I was brought up by society to assume Darwinism is true, that living creatures are as we know of them are the result of random, purposeless evolution (”you can challenge ‘religious dogma,’ but even think for questioning ’science’ and be dismissed as a lunatic.” go figure.) Then not too long ago, I read some convincing arguments against Darwinism, and I became an Intelligent Designist. Heck, recently I read some intriguing arguments in favor of the literal interpretation of Genesis. my point is, I am curious about your stand point on the debate. I know that one could write a novel-sized response to this one, so I do not expect you to dwell on this subject very long unless you are led to.

God bless

Justin.

Phrases like “brought up by society to assume Darwinism is true” and “random, purposeless” evolution lead me to conlcude that Justin may be a little misinformed, but the impression I get is that he is honestly trying to find out the truth. Questioning science gets you dismissed as a lunatic? Really? That’s what scientists do! Perhaps he means that questioning science as a system of knowledge gets you dismissed as a lunatic. I doubt questioning it would get that result, but perhaps denial of it would, since there is so much evidence that science as a whole does work, it’s the functional equivalent of denying reality. You know, like moon hoaxers, homeopaths, YouTube commenters, etc. But since Justin wrote his email on a computer, I’m sure that’s not what he meant. Also, he heard convincing arguments about “Darwinism” and became an ID proponent? Maybe that was a typo.  [Ed. Justin said “arguments against Darwinism”, but I originally thought he said “arguments about Darwinism”.  My mistake!]

Enough about Justin. Let’s see how Lenny responds.

Hi Justin,

Thank you for writing. Darwinism is definitely a hot topic today, especially with students and churches. Your letter brings up many issues that I’d like to mention. The most important thing when addressing this or any other issue is to try and approach the discussion in a consistent way. We should be able to examine the evidence for and against it rationally and judge its reasonableness. I really believe there has been too much reaction on an emotional level from both sides and therefore we have not been communicating our position effectively.

So far, so good. In my experience, the people who accept evolution seem to be much more level headed in general than the Christians who believe in Creationism, but this could easily be an artifact of reading Ray Comfort’s blog. I know I easily get angry when I read Creationist distortions of facts and/or lies.

The best place to start with any discussion is by understanding the exact issue that’s being discussed. Misunderstandings about the Christian position of evolution are commonplace.

First off, when objecting to the idea of Darwinism, we are only discussing a specific type of evolution - macroevolution.

First mistake. There is no real biological distinction between microevolution and macroevolution. Macroevolution is simply the cumulative effects of microevolution. Any distinction scientists make is purely practical. Saying you accept one and not the other is like saying you believe in islands but not continents. It’s like saying you believe I could walk to the end of the block, but not that I could walk to the next town. There is no biological barrier to what Creationists refer to as “macroevolution”. They accept that small variations happen within a species, but somehow have a problem with the idea that those variations accumulate over time.

This means that we’re talking about life starting spontaneously and from a single organism came every type of living thing we see today - including germs, bugs, animals, fish, and all of the plants too. Not moths changing colors or some such thing. Having different colors or sizes within a species are micro-evolutionary changes and they are not in dispute.

Here’s the thing, Lenny: if you don’t even know what evolution is, what business do you have arguing against it? You’re confusing your own concepts! Macroevolution would be change at or above the species level. You’re talking about abiogenesis, which is a separate theory from the theory of evolution. This is a serious indicator that you really don’t know what evolution actually is.

More specifically, though, we must remember that Darwinian theory the way its proponents currently assert it is a RANDOM AND PURPOSELESS process.

Ok, you can stop dropping hints! I get it now! You really don’t know what the theory of evolution is! True, when natural selection works on an organism, it has no end product in mind, but it is far from random. Mutations are random, but natural selection is a very nonrandom mechanism to select for beneficial traits. It’s the difference between playing the lottery and playing poker. It’s not a perfect analogy, but it does illustrate my point. The lottery is completely random. It takes no skill to play or to win. It’s just luck of the draw. But poker requires skill. The cards you get may be random, but what you do with the cards is anything but. Likewise, though a mutation may be random (or as close to random as anything in a determinate universe can be), the selection process nonrandomly selects for or against a trait based on whether or not it helps an organism to survive long enough to reproduce.

That means we must leave out ideas of “theistic evolution” - God causing evolutionary changes to take place. None of the advocates of Darwinism as it is now taught in schools holds to ANY type of creator/designer having any hand in the evolutionary process.

Really? You really think that? Don’t take this the wrong way, but have you ever looked anything up? You’ve really never heard of Ken Miller and Francis Collins? Ken Miller wrote a frigging high school textbook for crying out loud! I’m starting to think you might not be very informed on this issue.

I cannot stress this enough. In discussing evolution verses Intelligent Design theory, we must discuss each of those theories the way that their proponents position them. This means evolution is a cosmic accident and nothing more.

Wait a second. You just got finished twisting and distorting the theory of evolution into something no scientist has ever claimed! Weren’t you the guy who just stressed how important it is to come at this problem in a consistent way? Didn’t you just get through bemoaning the fact the proponents of evolution don’t understand the Christian position? Yet here you are, blatantly misrepresenting what the theory of evolution actually says. Do you honestly not know that you’re doing it? Or do you realize that you’re misrepresenting the facts and presenting them anyway?

Secondly, we must understand that Darwinism is not an empirical science, but a historical theory based on interpreted evidence. Many people get caught speechless when someone objects, “How can you doubt evolution to be true? Don’t you know that science has proven it to be true?” Well, science has not proven evolution to be true. The origin of life is not testable and repeatable like the refraction of light or a chemical reaction. It is primarily a search to find out what happened in a specific point in time in history.

Science has not proven evolution is true in the sense that science hasn’t proven gravity to be true. If enough evidence surfaced against the fact of gravity, it would be thrown out. However, the testable predictions of gravity have come true so many times that it is reasonable to conclude that gravity really exists, and that finding this evidence is highly unlikely. The same is true for evolution.

So, evolution is not testable, you say? How do you explain Tiktaalik? Neil Shubin and his team knew that there were fossils of amphibian-like fish in rocks 380 million years old, and that there were fish-like amphibians in rocks 365 million years old. If the theory of evolution is true, there would have to exist an organism with features intermediate between those groups of animals, and it would have to exist between those two time periods. So they went to rocks that were 375 million years old, and lo and behold, a fish with a neck and wrists, exactly as the theory of evolution predicted. It’s so intermediate that it’s been referred to as a “fishapod”. If you think that’s not testable, empirical science, then you have no idea what testable, empirical science is. And don’t get me started on citrate eating e. coli. Not empirical. What a joke!

Much like a forensic investigator who examines clues at a crime scene and tries to put together the events, we are trying to find out what happened for a single occurrence at a specific point in history that is not reproducible.

What single point are you referring to? Not the origin of life again? As I’ve said, evolution is not primarily concerned with that. Also, in order to be consistent you have to reject the findings of forensic investigators. I somehow doubt that’s what you’re getting at.

Therefore, we approach the problem by looking at what we CAN examine and make educated guesses as to which processes are the most likely to bring about all of those outcomes. Evolution is simply one idea of what could have happened given all the evidence we have. The question then becomes “is evolution the best explanation of the evidence we have?”

It is just one idea, but it’s the only one that has withstood 150 years of scientific scrutiny. That’s why it’s the best explanation we have.

In reviewing all the evidence we have currently on evolution, I feel that its explanatory power falls short for the origin of life and great variation of species that have existed throughout time.

You’ve shown beyond a reasonable doubt that you don’t even know what evolution is, so I have a hard time believing that you have reviewed any of the evidence, much less all of it. Reading Answers in Genesis is not the same as reviewing scientific evidence. It’s the exact opposite.

Some of the problems evolution faces are its inability to demonstrate how living organisms began at all, how the components of the living cell are irreducibly complex and how the design evident in those organisms argues for a designer. As we look at each of these dilemmas, we can see how evolution fails as an explanatory model.

Well here’s an idea that hasn’t been debunked a billion times over the past decade. Irreducible complexity was first expressed in its present form by Michael Behe in his book Darwin’s Black Box. The most famous example is the bacterial flagellum, which, according to Behe, is a complex motor that would not work if you removed even one of its parts, and therefore could not have evolved in the small, stepwise increments that evolution requires. The problem is that it has been demonstrated that if you remove a single part, it does still work. Even more problematic for IC, there are other bacteria that have similar structures but that are missing some parts. These reduced structures are perfectly useable by the organism.

Irreducible complexity is basically the argument from personal incredulity: I cannot imagine how this could have evolved, therefore, it did not evolve. See this article for a more thorough explanation of why irreducible complexity is not a scientifically valid concept.

In studying the basic question that evolution attempts to answer, “where did life come from”, we see that there is no sustainable model for chemicals coming together and creating a living cell.

Yet again, that is not the basic question that evolution seeks to answer. Evolution seeks to explain the diversity of species. Now, some sciencey people say that this is a cop out. They say that evolution does seek to answer that question. I kind of disagree. I think they really are two separate issues, but that doesn’t mean that the origin of life should not be dealt with scientifically and it doesn’t mean we should not answer Creationists when they say things like this. However, it’s outside my primary field of interest, so I don’t know enough about it to be qualified to discuss it. But here’s someone who is.

As geologists uncover the true atmosphere of a primitive earth, molecular biologists find that generating amino acids - which produce the proteins needed in all cells for life - becomes incredibly difficult. Further, many scientists see signs that oxygen would have been present in the early atmosphere which would destroy any biological chain reaction creating life. In fact, there is no agreed upon model in the scientific community on how cells did come to be. Scientists who hold to one theory easily point to obvious flaws in a competing model and visa-versa.

Yup, it’s a young field with no scientific concensus and lots of questions to answer. But if you think that alone invalidates the fact of evolution, you’re committing the personal incredulity fallacy again.

Another refutation of the evolutionary model that has recently arisen is the idea that cells themselves are comprised of processes that are what as known as “irreducibly complex”. In other words, the entire system must exist all at once for it to be of any benefit at all. Michael Behe in his book Darwin’s Black Box explains this in greater detail. He uses a mousetrap as an example. In order for a mousetrap to be of any benefit, it must have some type of base, a spring, a holding wire, a trigger and the hammer that strikes the mouse. Without any one of these components, the trap is completely useless. In the same way, a cell cannot evolve gradually, because all the components that allow a cell to do work must exist simultaneously. Evolving one part but not another is not only useless, but according to evolutionary theory, would put a transitional form at a disadvantage and therefore less likely to survive.

I already dealt with this, but here is a tongue-in-cheek response to the mouse trap argument. But basically, irreducible complexity is bogus because so far we haven’t found anything that actually is irreducibly complex.

Lastly, the incredible design and purpose shown in the living cell and in the structures that make up living organisms have never been adequately explained by evolution. DNA is a prime example of this. DNA is a digital code made up of only four amino acids. As a digital code it provides a blueprint so that all the various mechanisms and forms of life are replicated according to its instruction. The question arises then how could something like DNA to be created randomly? There is no such thing as a self-generating code - for a code is an agreed upon representation of what it’s trying to communicate. That’s why they’re used in espionage; they don’t mean anything taken at face value. It is only when someone or something who understands the code based on rules which were prearranged will the true message of the code be known.

I don’t know very much about DNA either, so instead of parroting some Darwinist talking points, I’m just not going to say much on this. I would, however, like to point out that this paragraph is full of false premises. DNA is not a blueprint. It’s not even really a code. It’s not read by an intelligent agent who understands the message and then carries out the orders. It’s chemicals that have chemical reactions with other chemicals. It’s not a book. And if DNA is supposed to be this amazing code inserted into living cells by God, why is it so full of junk? Why do humans and other apes have the same gene for tails that monkeys have? Was God just being cute?

Similarly, the idea that several thousands of mutations that happened in the proper sequence are responsible for the flying birds or the eye of a man are, when examined objectively, pure fable.

Remember those hints you were dropping before? Here is the smoking gun! You have no clue what the theory of evolution is. Somehow you got this idea that the current crop of species inhabiting the Earth are necessarily the only possible crop of species that could be inhabiting the Earth. This is an idea that was made up out of whole cloth. Sure, in hindsight, the mutations responsible for giving dinosaurs the ability to fly might seem like they were heading towards some purpose, but that’s as ridiculous as saying that because legs are long and straight, they were obviously made for trousers.

We never see this type of successive mutation in reality.

I realize this was written before Lensky’s work was published, but again, I point you to e. coli that evolved the ability to eat citrate. That is exactly the type of successive mutation you are talking about, and unlike your claims about what the theory of evolution says, it happened in reality.

Even the fossil record shows environmental systems such as the Cambrian explosion appearing abruptly and completely.

Not if you have any clue what the Cambrian Explosion actually is. It was a diversification of life that took place over tens of millions of years. Not very abrupt, is it? The idea of the Cambrian Explosion is mostly an artifact of the fossil record: it marks the earliest development of animals with hard shells that are easy to fossilize. Also, what if God had indeed created a bunch of invertebrates 500 million years ago? That doesn’t help Creationism one bit. And what about all the organisms that existed before the Cambrian Explosion?

Also, the odds for such a delicate balance of all variables required for life to exist is so infinitesimal (see our latest newsletter for more on this idea) that holding it happened by accident becomes absurd.

You don’t know anything about statistics either. As of this writing, the winning numbers for the Washington State Lottery are 17, 29, 36, 53, 55, and 26. Do you know the odds of that exact sequence of numbers being the winning numbers? Neither do I, but they’re so low that I don’t buy lottery tickets. In fact, it’s so unlikely, I’m going to claim that there is no way that the lottery’s website could be telling the truth. It’s just too infinitesimal for me to believe!

Do you see what I’m getting at? You can’t consider the odds of something like this after the fact! If the conditions of early Earth had been different, life could have adapted to those conditions, and you could still look back and say, “wow, what were the odds!” It’s a convincing argument if you don’t think things through. I was convinced by this one for many years.

So, if all these things are evident, some may ask, why do smart people like scientists keep saying evolution is true and scientifically proven?

Nothing you have said so far has been correct, much less evident, making your question a little pointless.

Well, when you get them to talk seriously about evolution, they say something different. Professor Richard Lewontin wrote in The New York Review “We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.” This honest admission shows that these scientists view their theories as dogma. They are taken on faith alone, and not on objective scrutiny.

I was hoping you’d do some quote mining! It almost sounds like you want readers to think that Lewontin is talking about evolution when he mentions “unsubstantiated just-so-stories,” but I know you weren’t, because that would be dishonest, since Lewontin isn’t talking about evolution here (and since you got this from Answers in Genesis). That’s right, he’s actually talking about physics and astronomy! He’s talking about a book by Carl Sagan! Here’s the full quote:

With great perception, Sagan sees that there is an impediment to the popular credibility of scientific claims about the world, an impediment that is almost invisible to most scientists. Many of the most fundamental claims of science are against common sense and seem absurd on their face. Do physicists really expect me to accept without serious qualms that the pungent cheese that I had for lunch is really made up of tiny, tasteless, odorless, colorless packets of energy with nothing but empty space between them? Astronomers tell us without apparent embarrassment that they can see stellar events that occurred millions of years ago, whereas we all know that we see things as they happen. When, at the time of the moon landing, a woman in rural Texas was interviewed about the event, she very sensibly refused to believe that the television pictures she had seen had come all the way from the moon, on the grounds that with her antenna she couldn’t even get Dallas. What seems absurd depends on one’s prejudice. Carl Sagan accepts, as I do, the duality of light, which is at the same time wave and particle, but he thinks that the consubstantiality of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost puts the mystery of the Holy Trinity “in deep trouble.”Two’s company, but three’s a crowd.

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.

The incomplete quote that Lenny gives makes it sounds like Lewontin is simply being dogmatic about materialism, but what he’s actually saying is that if we didn’t assume materialism in science, it would cease to be science! The supernatural is by definition unfalsifiable, so you can’t build science around it. It doesn’t mean you can’t believe in God, you just can’t have any kind of science based on God.

There is so much more to this topic that I cannot cover due to time and space limitations.

Space? This is the internet!

I do hope, however, that everyone would think twice before shying away from the evolutionary debate or retreating to a “I take it solely by faith” response.

You don’t have to worry about me.

There is good evidence that evolution fails…

And I hope someday you decide to share it with us.

…and so the question then becomes if evolution doesn’t work, what other options are there for the existence of life? The evolutionists know the inescapable answer to this question: a Creator.

Um, actually, they don’t. You’re employing a logical fallacy known as a False Dichotomy: either X is true, or Y is true, and there are no other options. Sorry, you are wrong again. Even if evolution were proven false tomorrow, that would not make Creationism the winner by default. There is no evidence for Creationism. In a debate I watched between Michael Shermer and Kent Hovind, Hovind was asked what the thought the single greatest piece of evidence for Creationism was. His answer? “The absolute impossibility of the former.” Sorry, that is not an answer. That’s such a nonsequitor, it’s not even funny. In fact, it’s so not funny that it’s funny again.

So here’s what we’ve learned: Lenny doesn’t know anything about evolution. It’s not just that he doesn’t have any good arguments against it. He literally does not know what it is. Yet he has a website, an entire ministry, in which he tries to convince people that it’s not true. That makes no sense to me.

I seriously hope I have not offended any friends with this. I’m not trying to be mean, I’m just trying to tell the truth.

Day 9: Roswell, NM

There’s a good Mexican restaurant in New Mexico Roswell, but otherwise there’s really only one thing to do: The International UFO Museum and Research Center, which half-heartedly tries to present the case for an actual spaceship crashing near Roswell in 1947. It’s done at about the level of a high school science fair project, and I can sum it up in one sentence: “These guys couldn’t possibly be wrong!!” One big argument from personal incredulity. How creationist of them.

Here are some typical examples. They had a wall dedicated to an archeological dig that was done at the alleged crash site in 2002. What amazing things did they find?

OK, so what was this “stratigraphic anomaly”? The museum never tells you.

So what the hell were these supposed HMUOs? Again, the museum never tells you. I understand the need to step back and study your findings, but this was in 2002! It’s been six years, and that’s all you’ve got? But it gets better!

SO HOW ABOUT A PHOTO OF THE ACTUAL MANDELBROT SET!!!!

WHAT THE EFFING EFF!! DO THESE MARKINGS RUN AWAY OR SOMETHING??? Why would you draw it instead of photograph it? Oh, right, IT’S ALL MADE UP.

I had never looked at it in a skeptical light before, so I think I held out a little hope, somewhere in my lil heart, that the Roswell Incident actually involved extraterrestrials. Thanks, International UFO Museum and Research Center, for showing me that you are all delusional.

Day 10: Carlsbad, NM

Carlsbad Caverns is just some cave. Blah blah blah, big deal. The cool thing about Carlsbad is not the cave itself, but the fact that you are walking IN A 250 MILLION YEAR OLD REEF. Holy cows.

But here’s the cave entrance:

It was hard to get pictures inside the cave, on account of it was dark, but here’s one:

Day 11: White Sands National Monument, NM

This was another place with really interesting geology. Exposed gypsum from nearby mountains is dissolved by snow- and rain-fed streams and carried down into the Tularosa Basin, from which there is no way out. With no way of escape, the water evaporates, leaving behind deposits of gypsum, which is eroded by wind until you get a small region of pure white gypsum sand dunes with its own unique ecology:

A conversation with a real life friend led me to this quote.

Transitional forms would possess true transitional features such as half scales, half feathers, or half feet/ half wings, not merely eye displacement. The absence of transitions in the fossil record remains strong evidence against evolutionary origins. [Source]

The eye displacement he mentions is in reference to a new transitional flatfish recently found in a museum. It really sounds like the ICR is feeling a little desperate.

I know, I should be telling you about Roswell and the amazing things I’ve seen in the desert, etc.  But I’m hungry.  And I love bad restaurant reviews.  Here’s a pretty horrible one for El Mariachi in Banning, CA, where I just may eat tonight. They gave it three stars:

Once upon a time, a really fat El Mariachi carne asada burrito embarked on an hour long journey. Loaded with meat and slathered in guacamole, little did the meat only burrito know it would soon face it’s [sic] horrific demise.

After it’s [sic] hour long journey, it was still pretty tasty [sic]

Well, ok…thanks?

I’m not sure, but it sounds like it:

Hey Jason,

You are such a loser and a non-believer. if you really think you are so brave and doesn’t believe on this. Try going to the Philippines and make research on-hand? experience it for yourself. If you want, i can be your tour guide, know a lot of places where you can get the REAL DEAL. i will even pay for all your expenses and stay here if nothing happens. BUT if i can prove to you that some things are out of this world and for real, then you better pay me 10 folds. so what do you think? are you up to the DARE, amigo? all will be legal-with contract of course, stating that if something happens to you or lose your life in anyway during this research/documentation, i will not be eligible as responsible and that you are aware of the danger this research might encounter. just email me thru: love.hateme@hotmail.com so we could talk about your research thing. Believe me, its either you will become a believer or dead while doing this. Are you MAN enough?

Here’s the logical conclusion of this little wacky rant I just can’t get around:  if I find out that there are no magical creatures in the Philippines, I die.  He’s pretty clear about that.

Day 6

Denver Museum of Nature and Science! It was awesome! If you are ever anywhere near Denver, say, if you are in the Western Hemisphere, you need to visit this place! We didn’t even have time to see it all, because we got there at 2pm and they close at 5. We are kind of dumb. Also, it’s kind of dumb for anything but an office to close at 5! I think. But it was absolutely fantastic. They had the actual glass thing used in the Miller-Urey experiment!

There were also tons of awesome dioramas. Most showed modern animals in dioramas of their natural habitats, but the Journey Through Time exhibit had incredible dioramas of ecosystems long vanished, like this one from the Devonian, I think. I should have taken notes. Could be Cambrian, but were there belemnites / ammonites in the Cambrian?

And in the gift shop, I bought a cast of a raptor claw! GO TO THIS MUSEUM.

Then we headed south, on our way to New Mexico. On the way, we passed the Focus on the Family Visitor Center!

Fortunately, they were closed.

Day 7

We just drove and took it easy. And watched WALL-E. Frealz. We ended up in Santa Fe, NM.

Day 8

Walked around in downtown Santa Fe. It’s really neat. Everything’s made of adobe! I had an excellent locally made beer at a brewpub:

Which reminds me: I love Mexican food now. At least how it’s made in New Mexico. I srsly cannot get enough.

Then we headed south some more, through the desert, where we saw awesome and powerful storms, the kind you just don’t see in Seattle:

Finally, we arrived in Roswell.

And that is where I am now, writing this up on Day 9. And let me tell you, there is a lot of woo in Roswell. Not just the “aliens crashed here” woo. That’s fine.  That’s what the town’s tourism industry is built on. I’m talking about the kind of woo that puts books called “UFOs and The Death of Marilyn Monroe” written by a guy with a PhD in store front windows. I can’t remember if it was Dawkins or Gould who said not to trust someone who flaunts their degree on the cover of their book. It was probably Dawkins.

This one was sent in by Geoff, as I am on the road.  It’s a quote within a quote, so feel free (if you dare) to view the source link for context.

“get_education said… Evolution has done such amazing things, yep. However, it would not make any sense to worship evolution. It is a natural phenomenon. It would be like worshiping gravity.”

G_E . . . you are forgetting that you believe that evolution created gravity (over time). Evolution is the creator, and gravity is part of creation. That’s what you believe. Isn’t it? [Source]

Here’s the thing:  I am pretty tired right now, so I won’t be posting many pictures today, and I’ll be even briefer than usual.

Yesterday we visited Dinosaur National Monument in eastern Utah.  It was cool / hot!! We got to see some actual fossils embedded in actual rock in actual formation. Three of them belonged to Diplodocus!  Here is one of them:

Then we headed west to Denver, saw some pretty views, and slept!

Today we hung around downtown Denver and met up with Jeff the Girl, formerly of Five Iron Frenzy, my favorite band from college days.  She and her family are really nice!  And we ate some of the best Mexican food I’ve had in a long time! Thanks a lot, Leanor, Stephen, and progeny!

Some grownups taking a picture as a baby looks on

Oh, and then we returned to the campground to find that a storm had ripped our tent off its stakes and filled it with water, soaking parts of our bed sheets.  Oh well.  I have a microbrew in the ice chest.

Here’s the thing. I don’t really expect to do an update for every single day I’m on the road. That would be wasting everyone’s time. But right now, I’ve got some to waste. I’m sitting at a campground picnic table typing on my laptop. Yay the great outdoors (GOs).

Today we pretty much just drove and then went to the appropriately named Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum in Vernal, UT. It was small but awesome enough to make me want to be a paleontologist more than anything else ever maybe.

Then we went to our campground where I made a lil friend:

Speaking of campgrounds, I want to show you what we’re working with:

It’s nothing special, but I think it’s cute and it makes me happy.

I also learned something about my wife:

Then I saw and heard a chipmunk, and now I’m about to cook!

There is one thing anyone should know about Utah.  It’s flipping hot.

We left Brigham City and headed toward Salt Lake City.  On the way we stopped at Antelope Island, which is in the Great Salt Lake and which was really the only thing I wanted to see in SLC.

Barn swallows nested in the roof of the visitor’s center on the island.  I had never seen barn swallows before!

Here’s something that may interest you. We pulled into a parking lot so we could walk around and look at nature, but there was this minivan full of people I don’t like playing LOUD Spanish language versions of American pop songs on the stereo.  I don’t know if you can actually hear the music in this video, but that’s the minivan in the background:

But something happened that made up for that.  I can now die a happy man.  In fact, I might. For the first time in my life, I saw BRINE SHRIMP IN THE WILD!!

Why is that one guy so orange!  I don’t know!  But here’s a video of them!

The other animal that lives in the lake is the brine fly.  The beach was covered with the discarded skins of brine fly larvae.  That’s the brown trail you see here!