Darwin Day

Just a short note to point out that Charles Darwin was born on this day 201 years ago. There are those who think today should be a national holiday. I support this idea myself, but frankly, I would be happy just to have this not be the sad state our country is in :

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6173399/Charles-Darwin-film-too-controversial-for-religious-America.html

It both saddens and infuriates me that this country lags so far behind Japan and most European countries in acceptance of the Theory of Evolution. The Theory of Gravity, The Theory of Relativity, The Germ Theory of Disease, these are all Theories. For those who don't know, a Theory is not a guess or an opinion. When something is given the designation of Theory, that means it's been tested over and over again and found to be true, so when you hear people dismissing Evolution by saying it's "just a theory", you should know that they're hoping you don't know the difference between a Theory and a hypothesis (which is an idea that either hasn't been tested or hasn't been tested enough to reach the level of Theory). 99.99 % of the population have no problem with those other Theories, but The Theory of Evolution is different. It seems that people are willing to accept scientific facts as long they don't conflict with their religious beliefs. There is some good news. Recent polls show the number of people who don't belong to any particular religion (or, in some cases, aren't religious at all) is growing. So hopefully, at some point in the future, we won't be the laughingstock of the civilized world due to the willingness of a large segment of our nation's population to give more credence to a book full of fairy tales than to scientific facts.