Monkey family

I had the chance to check out the new exhibit on Human Evolution at the Smithsonian in the company of anthropologists, and I can say I was very impressed with the result. A lot of information, from the high level brush strokes to details coming from freshly published research, a complete wall of casts to make you appreciate the variety and homogeneity of human ancestors and relatives, and some striking artist reconstructions of our family tree, full of life. Oh, and some of the actual remains from Cro-Magnon and other famous places, displayed publicly for the first time. Definitely worth a look!!

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 voilà: 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...