The exchange of letters between Rich Lenski (of the famous E. coli experiments) and Andy Schlafly (founder of Conservapedia) came up in a lab meeting today.
I just read the whole thing again, and highly recommend this thoroughly enjoyable read for those who didn't see it back in June, 2008: Conservapedia:Lenski dialog.
Also check out the Conservapedia Commandments:
4. When referencing dates based on the approximate birth of Jesus, give appropriate credit for the basis of the date (B.C. or A.D.). "BCE" and "CE" are unacceptable substitutes because they deny the historical basis. See CE.
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Oh, dear dog. That was beautiful. Thank you so very much for linking that! Dr. Lenski should be knighted or some such thing, since atheists do not canonize. :) He is a credit to the scientific community for his diplomatic skills as well as his interesting work. Of which work I now have a basic layperson's grasp, thanks to his cogent and carefully worded emails.
ReplyDeleteI've just been reading a collection of sci-fi short stories by Alfred Bester, and this tale of E. coli and evolution did interesting things with the images already in my brain. Namely, Bester's "Adam and No Eve", Terry Pratchett's half-eaten egg sandwich in Eric, and the deep-ocean bacteria I read about in William J. Broad's The Universe Below. Wonderful, uplifting stuff. I hope perhaps I can write a poem about lovely, lovely bacteria sometime!