earlier today, this article – Click! – was on the front page of cnn.com. To make a long story short, there’s a father living in Pennsylvania who believes that polygamy is a good thing and therefore is teaching his 10 year old daughter about this. Surprisingly, the courts said that it is illegal for him to do so, even though he is arguing that polygamy is part of his religion and that he should have the right to teach his own child to practice whichever religion he wishes.
honestly, i’m really surprised that the court ruled that way. for the most part parents are allowed to teach their kids whatever the hell they please in regards to religion. for instance, i couldn’t imagine the courts getting involved if he taught his daughter that women are totally subservient to men as many religious zealots think… or if he taught her that gay people are evil sinners that will go to hell… or if he told her that masturbation will make god hate you forever. honestly, it terrifies me to think of the crazy shit that a lot of people teach their kids. and it’s not just the parents. i just read some statistic saying that almost a third of US school systems dont teach their students anything about evolution. hell, in some states you legally aren’t even allowed to teach that evolution is anything more than one of many possibilities of how the world works. in fact, according to recent polls, 47% of americans do not believe in evolution whatsoever. 47%!!!
-v
I don’t believe in anything, but do you think that evolution is really all that more plausable than any other theory?
oh totally. i dont see anything implausable about it. it completely makes sense that out of a number of offspring, the fittest will survive. hence slowly but surely over millions of years, certain characteristics in a species will change and be refined time and time again. on a minute scale, the evolution of species w/ short lifespans has been shown with certain animals like finches. and on a grander scale, stuff such as carbon dating, similarities in bone structure among similar species etc etc totally shows that evolution is the reason for the diversity in species that we have today.
-v
What about the “missing link”?
the “missing link” is just a gap in the history of human evolution. they have tons of fossil proof of evoltion leading up to that period, and tons from after. seeing as this is something that was ages ago, it’s not surprising that they have trouble finding fossil records from that time. although, i think some scientists think that they have found the “missing link”…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/326037.stm