Thursday, February 11, 2010

Believe

I recently came across a Facebook group "I bet I can find a million people who believe in Evolution", no doubt in response to a similar initiative from flat Earth creationists or Intelligent Designers. I almost joined the cause, but then I was bothered: I don't believe in Evolution. And frankly, the whole debate is a bit hard for me to wrap my head around coming from Europe, where it's not an issue at all.

The thing is, no matter what I believe, no matter how many people believe in it or not, it is a fundamental law of the natural world and you have no choice. The same goes for Electricity: if I can find a million people who don't believe in Electricity, do the lights go out? Personally, I do find Electricity a bit hard to believe, what with all the tiny thingies called Electrons that are supposedly everywhere but we can't see them and then they move in coordinated fashion and voilĂ : the light switches on.

Isn't it a bit far-fetched? well, it is, but tons of hard scientific evidence have given us more and more clues about how Electricity works, and we more or less have a pretty good working model by now. Sure, Evolution has the drawback to be slow, you can't observe new species pop into existence like you flip a switch. Think more like plate tectonics. Do you feel the continents shifting around under your feet? so maybe it's time to make a "I bet I can find a few people who understand that Evolution / Plate Tectonics / Electricity is a fundamental law of the natural world whether or not they believe in it" group...

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