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Dec. 9th, 2007 02:02 pmPB mentioned a thing about "Skeptics" in his blog, which led me to the site of the Skeptics Society. The lead story in the latest issue is "The Evolution Controversy" which, apparently, is "the controversy that just will not go away..."
Well, I'm not too sure about that. Just because you get people cropping up every year or so saying that all of the Bible is literally true, that does not make it "a controversy that just will not go away". I mean, there's a flat earth society as well. Does that make this a controversy that just will not go away?
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I was sitting here thinking about the discovery of alien life forms (as one does) and I was struck by a worrying idea.
As we know, 95% of people in the world just aren't worth wasting time on. A quiet earwigging of the genereal tenor of conversation in a coffee shop, or a pub, or, indeed, anywhere that the general public congregates, is enough to convince you of this.
So, by extrapolation, this would mean that, even if we did discover that there were alien life forms out there, and that we could communicate with them, the chances are that they wouldn't be worth talking to. Their first question would probably be "How did Man Utd get on yesterday?", followed by "Is there a rollover on the lottery this week?" and then "That congestion charge. It's a disgrace, isn't it? Roads are as crowded as ever. I blame Ken Livingstone...."
Even if our alien life form turned out to be above all of this, there's a good chance that they would all be perfect candidates to work for rating agencies, or catastrophe risk modellers, or maths lecturers.
No, what we really need to find is an alien life form that is Corgi-registered and which will reqire a house, fix the plumbing and repoint the brickwork as part of their daily routine, developed over the millennia through the wonders of natural selection (the controversy "that just won't go away"). since it would also be an alien life form society that didn't have money, they would do this for nothing, or perhaps for a few scraps of dead animal.
+++++++++
Well, I'm not too sure about that. Just because you get people cropping up every year or so saying that all of the Bible is literally true, that does not make it "a controversy that just will not go away". I mean, there's a flat earth society as well. Does that make this a controversy that just will not go away?
+++++++
I was sitting here thinking about the discovery of alien life forms (as one does) and I was struck by a worrying idea.
As we know, 95% of people in the world just aren't worth wasting time on. A quiet earwigging of the genereal tenor of conversation in a coffee shop, or a pub, or, indeed, anywhere that the general public congregates, is enough to convince you of this.
So, by extrapolation, this would mean that, even if we did discover that there were alien life forms out there, and that we could communicate with them, the chances are that they wouldn't be worth talking to. Their first question would probably be "How did Man Utd get on yesterday?", followed by "Is there a rollover on the lottery this week?" and then "That congestion charge. It's a disgrace, isn't it? Roads are as crowded as ever. I blame Ken Livingstone...."
Even if our alien life form turned out to be above all of this, there's a good chance that they would all be perfect candidates to work for rating agencies, or catastrophe risk modellers, or maths lecturers.
No, what we really need to find is an alien life form that is Corgi-registered and which will reqire a house, fix the plumbing and repoint the brickwork as part of their daily routine, developed over the millennia through the wonders of natural selection (the controversy "that just won't go away"). since it would also be an alien life form society that didn't have money, they would do this for nothing, or perhaps for a few scraps of dead animal.
+++++++++
