Oh, and please do blather on how I'm so dumb that I don't understand that evolution is all incremental and that us being a few inches taller or birds changing color over time is easily extrapolatable into pure, obvious proof that inorganic slime, waaaaay wayyyy long time ago used to propogate life but that... oddly, it can't be done in an lab no more...

So it's obvious you don't understand evolution, the evidence supporting it, nor the scientific method. Not understanding this subject is no crime....

However, publishing a letter revealing your ignorance to everybody is probably not advised. You would do yourself a favor if you read and understood the subject matter at least to the level where you can discuss it intelligently. This probably means avoiding those creationists website and their "arguments" against evolution that will only end up lowering your IQ and obfuscating any understanding of the subject matter.

To give you one example: 300 years ago we had only the most rudimentary understanding of electricity. We could produce some sparks in the lab, but we had no real understandable theory that explained anything about electricity, electrons, or electromagnetism, not to mention advanced concepts like electronics, logic gates, amplifiers, computer logic, etc.

Your paragraph above shows that your concept of evolution is like what our concept of electricity was 300 years ago. Science has advanced way beyond your questions and criticism, and if you would bother to examine the current literature your head would probably spin for a 100 years. You are not current with the science, nor are your comments even remotely relevant.

"Those who can't do, ... teach. And those who can't teach, teach gym."

And those who can't get ANYTHING right are republican pundits appearing on Fox News Sunday.

See this article on his office's behavior when he was our "War on Drugs Czar" back in 2000.

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=324

...postal workers who refuse to deliver certain types of mail on moral grounds.

Or pilots who refuse to fly to certain "immoral" cities at certain times of the year.

Perhaps we can have theater workers who refuse to clean theaters or sell tickets to movies to which they object.

Hell, maybe we can even have hotel workers who refuse to clean certain rooms because of "what goes on in there."

Certainly we can have firemen who refuse to fight fires of morally objectionable businesses.

Isn't it funny how Republicans like to bust unions when it's about wages and collective bargaining, but when it's about "employee's moral rights" they literally cannot stop slobbering over the concept.

It doesn't look to pretty when you extend the concept to other businesses and services, does it?

Be careful what you wish for.

Mark Felt was prosecuted for illegal conduct in the gathering of evidence for the prosecution of the Weather Underground. The reason that William Ayers wasn't prosecuted for his crimes is because Mark Felt obtained evidence illegally, and the government believed that they could not go to trial with that evidence.

It's ironic that so much Republican wrath was directed at Mr. Ayers during this election cycle, but there was not one mention, as far as I am aware, of WHY Mr. Ayers didn't go to prison.

And so we have a similar situation now with detainees of the GWOT. With so-called "evidence" obtained through torture, hearsay, and other illegal methods, charges would be dismissed and detainees released if their cases ever got in front of real judge and jury.

I am sure Republicans will blow a gasket if that ever happens.

Of course the perpetrators of such torture will probably never be prosecuted, or they will be pardoned, just like Mark Felt.

On one hand they want a completely free market unfettered by regulations... (and see where that got us.)

And on the other hand, they want to tell retailers what greetings they should use for their customers during the holidays (as if the free market is incapable of working THAT problem out.)

These conservatives are no longer even a little bit logically consistent. It's like the whole movement now just lurches from one red meat item to the next in the hope of rallying public support for their dying cause.

And just to be clear, I know that there are conservatives and Republicans who DON'T share these absurd views. But we need you to speak up.

>I've been enjoying the last few days here in SF like everyone else but

>I'm more than a little concerned.

>We're not supposed to have 70 degree days in January are we?

Please don't confuse weather with climate.

Climate is the long term trend; what we are experiencing is long term climate change.

Weather, like the warm days now in California, is just noise in the system.

The issue with observations like yours is that a global warming denier can simply point to unusually cold weather or snow term and claim that it disproves your point.

Thinks of it this way: In Vegas the House alway makes a profit, but that doesn't mean that some gambler won't win a jackpot now and then. Winning an occasional jackpot neither proves nor disproves that the House is making a profit.

>Unlike some Darwinians, de Waal doesn't push his analogies too far, and he doesn't posit that people are just naked apes with clothes and credit cards...<

In the U.S. no one uses the term "Darwinian" to describe a modern scientist unless it's uttered in the form of a pejorative from a creationist.

The term you are looking for is "evolutionary biologist," or how about about just "biologist?" Evolution is the foundation of modern biology and its presence is assumed.

And which scientists push the analogies too far? I'd like to know.

Believing that one snowstorm disproves global warming is like believing that winning one hand of blackjack disproves that casinos are profitable.