Rupert Goodwins' Diary

Rupert Goodwins AnchorDesk

Published: 17 May 2001 18:04 BST

Monday
16/04/2001

In keeping with the spirit of the holiday, I wander the halls of the Internet looking for enlightenment. I pop into the Usenet group talk.origins. This is the eternal home of the debate between creationists -- the world and all its creatures was made by God, just like the Bible said, in six days -- and those of a more mainstream bent who tend towards physics and Darwin. Last time I looked in was around five years ago, and things haven't moved on much: the pro-evolution lobby keep shovelling in scientific data, while the others insist on interpreting everything according to Genesis. It always worries me that a debate which was settled over a hundred years ago is still going on, and that half the proponents would -- if given the chance -- follow the lead of fundamentalist regimes like Saudi Arabia where Pokemon has just been banned because the characters are based on Darwinian concepts of evolution.

I wonder about getting involved, but when one of the creationists proclaims that pictures of Martian flood plains taken by the Mars Global Surveyor prove that the Noah story happened I slink off to nibble an egg.