Creation Museum

Today is the grand opening for the Creation Museum located just outside Cincinnati, Kentucky. I read about it in a Globe and Mail news article and couldn't help myself from blogging about it.

I am still shocked whenever I hear the statistic that ~45% of Americans believe in Creationism. However, I really wonder if it is fully explained to the people being polled that this means that our planet is ~6000 years old, humans co-existed with dinosaurs, and that millions of species have gone extinct in that amount of time. Have all of these people really took the time to think about what their beliefs are and what science implications are rejected by them by their choice? If so, I would feel much better about the situation.

However, I do worry about the gap between the public and science increasing over time. How do we keep the general public up to date with technology and science when the speed that they are increasing at is so rapid? Does anyone else see this as a potential problem?

Directed Evolution

Five days ago I was browsing one of my RSS feeds in Thunderbird that keeps me updated on what other students in the Bioinformatics Training Program are reading and bookmarking in Connotea. Usually, this is for academic purposes, but I came across a link by Ben Good about "What if the Singularity does NOT happen?"**. I took a quick glance at the article and was enticed immediately. I remember a colleague at work mentioning to me something about this book he was reading about the future of human development and technology. I messaged him on MSN and got the name of the book, "The Singularity Is Near" by Ray Kurzeil. I reserved the next copy available at my local library and two days later I am reading about a subject that I knew nothing about a week before.

Now, I should probably hold any reviews or opinions about the book until I am finished, but something in the first chapter bothered me. Kurzweil outlines in one section "The Six Epochs",

1. Physics and Chemistry
2. Biology
3. Brains
4. Technology
5. Merger of Technology
6. The Universe Wakes Up

and explains that,

"Evolution works through indirection: it creates a capability and then uses that capability to evolve the next stage."

This from the surface seems like a reasonable and interesting model, but implies that evolution has a direction. This may work for the last 3 epochs (based on technology), but has the evolution of intelligence (brains) really been inevitable?

Initially, I flat out decided "No", based on the fact that if we started another "Earth" there is no guarantee that intelligent life would evolve. This is due to the fact that evolution works by random occurrences that are selected for by the environment. However, after some more pondering (on my daily 1 hour bus commute), I thought that Kurzweil's theory may have some merit. Essentially, it is the idea that given enough time (approaching infinity) that the probability of intelligent life eventually evolving will reach 1. So instead of directed evolution, maybe we can say inevitable evolution?

I am still not entirely comfortable with this idea, but if I had wanted to increase my personal assurances I would have read a textbook!

**The singularity is an event in the near future where computers will become more intelligent then humans and will result in a drastic change in our society.