Years ago, when the world was young, I auditioned for a band. The audition went well. I didn’t get the part, however, because the group split up, and some of its members subsequently formed/joined a group that became known as the Lost T-Shirts of Atlantis. I mention this only because it’s a great name, and also because of the entirely tangential connection with what follows.
Even more years ago (perhaps decades, even centuries) I read one of those faux-entertaining lists in a magazine (I think it was Q) entitled “Ten Ways To Know You’re Over Thirty”. I can remember just two:
- That you have a bradawl, and know how to use it;
- That you buy T-shirts that don’t have any writing on them.
I possess not one but two bradawls, of different sizes (no limericks, please, about the genital asymmetry of men from Devizes[1]) and they are put to good use. And if I have T-shirts with writing on them, they tend to end up being worn by my daughters. This one is my favourite:
modelled by my elder daughter, she of the unicycling girrafes and experiments on the flight of chickens. The T-shirt comes from the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia and celebrates the discovery (by Academy scientist Ted Daeschler, Neil Shubin from Chicago and Farish Jenkins from Harvard, and others) of Tiktaalik roseae, a fossil transitional form between fishes and tetrapods. Tiktaalik has become something of a cause-celebre among evolutionary biologists in that it makes the arguments of creationists even easier to debunk than they are already (go on – have a go – it’s a game all the family can play).
This T-shirt was designed by fisherman, palaeo-nut, and surrealist artist Ray Troll, and the caption (if you can’t read it) reads
Chuckie D Says – Embrace Your Inner Fish
(Neil Shubin has just written a book of the same name, all about the Tiktaalik discovery and other cool stuff). The picture shows the sage in a passionate clinch with a reconstruction of the said fishapod. Incidentally, I’m puzzled about the hand seen grasping Darwin’s right stylopod. I remarked, archly, to Mrs Gee that this might be the Hand of God. Mrs Gee retorted with some asperity that it probably belonged to Mrs Darwin, nagging her husband to stop feeling up that bloody fish and come to dinner. The latter is probably more likely given Mr Troll’s enthusiasm for evolution and marvellous installations such as the Evolvo, a Volvo Station Wagon filled with all sorts of evolutionary goodies and with a mannequin of Mr Darwin at the wheel.
I encourage my daughter to wear this T-shirt wherever possible (not that she needs any, she’s a Ray Troll nut and loves his book Rapture of the Deep).
The reactions of the good burghers of Cromer are hard to judge. Recently, when Mrs Gee remarked to a Christian friend that our daughter was starting to ask the Big Questions about Man’s Place In Nature And The Mysteries Of The Cosmos[2], the friend loaned her The Case For The Creator For Kids by Lee Strobel. I have yet to decide whether or not to let my children read this (what would you do?).
It’s very much what you’d expect – soundly from the Intelligent Design camp, it is a superficially scientific-sounding argument about wide-ranging topics from cosmology to DNA, trotting out the same old, tired arguments about the prime mover, the anthropic principle and irreducible complexity. The scientific analogies it uses are either poor or wrong. The old chestnut about the Big Bang expanding ‘into’ empty space is one; the incredulity about the uncertainty principle is another; the absence of any argument about multiverses a third, and so on. Curiously enough, the dreaded e-word is not mentioned, and Chuckie D doesn’t get a look-in (which I must confess was a relief).
What depresses me most about books like this is not the illogicality of the arguments, nor their poverty, nor their error, nor that they are so easily deflated—but that they need to be written at all. What are people so frightened of? A faith that feels that it must seek justification for its existence in the physical world is, as a result, lesser as a faith, at least to me.
As far as I know, my daughter is firmly of the view that science is science, God is God, and that is that. So perhaps I should let her read this book—after all, if creationism is so easily refuted, what should I have to fear?
Now, I promised myself that if I were to even think of discussing such things again I should go away and look at a picture of a golden retriever. Here is one I prepared earlier:
[1] Oh, all right then
- There once was a man from Devizes
- Whose balls were of unequal sizes
- One was so small
- It was no good at all
- But the other one used to win prizes.
[2] Keep your boots shiny, and the shit don’t stick.
See if she’s at all interested in the book, first. She may well smell a rotten tetrapod fish and not want to waste her time. Tell her you’d be available to discuss any discrepancies with her current world view. I myself am happy to remind my kids that they are critical thinkers in the making and they can question any and all, including myself. We talk about sourcing information and at what point each person decides that it could be reliable (there’s usually a cut-off that precedes being able to test it physically yourself). Makes for good dinner conversation.
You think you can plant a bug on her for her next conversation with the vicar’s wife?
Lovely stuff! Now, I’m not into endorsing marketing (which is what I think ID largely is), but take a look at some of these.
Lee – that’s lovely. My favourite bumper sticker is not so much evolutionary as geological, and reads Reunite Gondwanaland! – endorsing a cause perhaps even more lost than creationism.
I’m embarrassed to say that I recognised Strobel’s name – he’s a fellow of the Discovery Institute.
I did like this t-shirt. I might have to buy one.
How about this one?
You could always ask your daughter to read it and then submit a review on amazon.
1) Ray Troll is da bomb. We lived in Alaska, and around here, Ray Troll tops the art charts.
2) Somebody loaned me a Lee Strobel book, and I read it, and I’m sorry I read it, because I’ll never get that precious time back. It’s gone forever. Isn’t life too short to read Lee Strobel? And now he’s after the children. This is just depressing.
Give her the Gospel of Ray Troll.
A non-sequitur, but why is “giraffes” spelt that way in your blog header? I preferred the “girrafes”.
It certainly seems wrong any other way, Maxine.
Henry, as Golden Retrievers are de rigeur, and you mentioned your belief in Father Christmas the other day, I ought to point out that ours believes she is one of his reindeer.
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Google-bombing. Henry’s already the 3rd hit for ‘girrafes’, but wants to corner the more accepted spelling too.
@ Maxine, Brian and Richard. I see you found my deliberate mistake. Well-spotted. The blog header is now changed.
@ Brian: that dog. Scary.
@ Anna K … no chance that my daughter will swap Troll for Strobel. She just adores Ray Troll. As indeed should we all. Amen!
Henry – she’s not really scary. It’s just she’s trying emulate Rudolph, and she hasn’t worked out how to get her nose to light up yet.
I’ve encountered quite a large number of variants of the Devizes epic. Alas, I fear horizontal transfer has made any accurate phylogeny impossible to determine.
Question: is it actually possible to evolve a clean version of the “Nantucket” limerick?
Peter, I think these gentlemen managed it once.
The same gentlemen also managed a limerick starting ‘I love to play leapfrog with vicars’, and also this one, which from memory went
‘At a party at Jodrell Bank
I’d forgotten how much we’d all drank
The trouble with an orgy
(As I said to Boy Georgie)
Is when you leave, you don’t know whom to thank’
Those astronomers – they sure know how to party.
Heartwarming, that is. Do you think they take commissions? I’d like them to rustle up one using the word ‘bioinformatician’ (though alas, I suppose a proper limerick stanza subject can’t exceed 5 syllables).
Try here – science-inspired limericks aplenty!
Dr Rohn loved to kick back and play
On the Nature Network all day
She thought to commission a
Bioinformatician
To study her own DNA
Such talent, Henry, is wasted at Nature.
Thanks, Richard. The cheque is in the post… :)
An editorial fellow named Gee
with Lee
Would blog every day before tea
He would post on girrafes
Unicycling for a laffs
And argue reli
Honestly, that bloody dog gets everywhere.
Hey fellas, am I not meant to read that last line?
If you aren’t, Lee, then neither am I.