To date 2009 has proven to be a bitter-sweet year. It was and is to be a year of ‘change’ as proclaimed President Obama, the first black President of the United States. It is the International Year of Astronomy to celebrate 400 years of science since Galileo and also the 200th birthday of Darwin. This year is also supposed to be a year of reform, a year where we shed our old ways of faulty banking methods that have led to a global economic recession, invest our future in environmentally friendly and sustainable industries, and learn, grow, and reform from our mistakes in the past.

But without even touching the global economic troubles, some people around the world have managed to screw things up even more than they already are. The United Nations has further damaged freedom of speech and human rights by passing anti-blasphemy resolutions (this will surely cause/continue the numerous deaths and lifetime jail sentences within Islamic states for anyone speaking/acting against Islam as interpreted by the state), Afghanistan has legalized marital rape after Canadians, Americans, Britons, and other countries around the world have invested billions into restoring and creating a democratic and free Afghanistan and have taken on hundreds of casualties, a few weeks ago Gary Goodyear, MP and Minster of Science and Technology has shown Canada that he doesn’t understand evolution, doesn’t know how it works, is probably a creationist, and doesn’t even support science. And now ‘Dr.’ James Lunney, Conservative MP has embarrassed Canadians in defence of creationism.

Recently he addressed parliament and said:

Jesus Rides a Raptor

Mr. Speaker, recently we saw an attempt to ridicule the presumed beliefs of a member of this House and the belief of millions of Canadians in a creator. Certain individuals in the media and the scientific community have exposed their own arrogance and intolerance of beliefs contrary to their own. Any scientist who declares that the theory of evolution is a fact has already abandoned the foundations of science. For science establishes fact through the study of things observable and reproducible. Since origins can neither be reproduced nor observed, they remain the realm of hypothesis.

In science, it is perfectly acceptable to make assumptions when we do not have all the facts, but it is never acceptable to forget our assumptions. Given the modern evidence unavailable to Darwin, advanced models of plate techtonics, polonium radiohalos, polystratic fossils, I am prepared to believe that Darwin would be willing to re-examine his assumptions.

The evolutionists may disagree, but neither can produce Darwin as a witness to prove his point. The evolutionists may genuinely see his ancestor in a monkey, but many modern scientists interpret the same evidence in favour of creation and a creator.

If it wasn’t bad enough that Canada became the laughing stalk of the world after Prime Minister Harper missed the G20 photo shoot with world leaders, all saying he was in the washroom and missed it (this made world news headlines I might add), now the scientific world is laughing at us. PZ Meyers, a biologist and associate Professor at University of Minnesota wrote on his blog “Of course, none of those other countries are entirely exempt from having dumbasses pontificating on science, so we can still occasionally take a cheap, desperate shot at some furrin’ loon.”

Larry Moran, Professor at the Department of Biochemistry at University of Toronto has responded by calling Lunney “a genuine kook” who has “made a fool of himself”. And rightfully so because clearly Lunney hasn’t a clue about evolution.

Thanks to PZ Meyers for posting resources to respond to some of Lunney’s errors about plate tectonics, polonium radiohalos, and polystratic fossils.

I’d like to add that even if Darwin rose from the grave and told us all that he no longer supported evolution and wanted to scrap his books, it wouldn’t matter because the overwhelming evidence that supports evolution continues to grow daily. Darwin’s idea gave way for future evolutionary research and understanding but had he not thought of it, we would have discovered evolutionary process without him.. he was merely the first one to hypothesize it. It’s no different then Sir Isaac Newton discovering gravity, had he not ever lived then someone else eventually would have discovered it. So the creationist argument that we need Darwin is faulty.

I also want to add that we did not evolve from monkeys, monkeys and humans both share a common ancestor.

Finally, I prepared this little clip to show why creationism (called intelligent design in this clip) keeps failing. Please watch and enjoy. P.S. Lunney, political suicide?

More readings about this topic here:

Darwin would think again, Lunney tells House of Commons -- Canada.com
James Lunney v. Evolution -- Macleans.com
Not so smug now, are you, Canada? -- Scienceblogs.com
James Lunney: Creationist, Chiropractor, Conservative -- Sandwalk Blog
I’m a Believer -- Ottawa Citizen

—--

If you want to discuss evolution and creationism please take it to our forums at http://atheistbus.ca/forum. We have a special category just for evolution. Thanks.