Kudos Where Due…

Here are a couple of awesome things I found on that twisty maze of tubes known as the Internet.  The first is the “Information Challenge” posed by some doofus named Casey Luskin at the Discovery Institute, which for any who don’t know is the main right-wing think tank shilling for “Intelligent Design Creationism,” a.k.a. the GodDidIt Theory.

Or rather the cool thing is the answer.  The “challenge” was:

I request to see how:

    “METHINKSDAWKINSDOTHPROTESTTOOMUCH” 

can evolve into:

    “BUTIMSUREDAWKINSBELIEVESHEISRIGHT”

by changing the first sentence one letter at a time, and having it always retain some comprehensible English meaning along each small step of its evolution. This seems like a reasonable request, as it is not highly different from what Darwinists are telling me can happen in nature.

He thought he was so clever.  At least he could be bothered to find two sentences both containing 33 letters, making his challenge at least logically possible. Never mind that life itself doesn’t require that the genetic code remain the same length or change only one letter at a time, or even remain entirely comprehensible. Let alone have a specific target to evolve towards.

But never mind all that.  It can be done, and in only 44 generations.  It’s interesting to see between generations 33 and 42 how “DAWKINS” shifts from starting at position 8 to starting at position 9.

The second cool thing is this video.  I can only aspire to this kind of rhetoric coupled with a nice British accent, so I’ll just send along the link. If you have ever wondered whether you should respect religion to get along or express yourself forcefully I think you’ll find this interesting.

I didn’t say these two items were related, but if you want to find some connection knock yourself out. I just liked them.

- jack*

Comments

[01d55]

The link over "it can be done" doesn't lead to a demonstration of that fact, as one would assume. Is this an error?

[jack*]

You're right; I pasted the wrong link. And I don't have the original reference. I'm going to have to get searching.

[jack*]

Found it! Phew. Sorry for the confusion.