In last night’s debate between wacko Christine O’Donnell and her opponent Chris Coons, both running for the Senate seat from Delaware, moderator Wolf Blitzer pressed O’Donnell to state her opinion about evolution, reminding her that a while back she claimed that evolution was a “myth.” She now realizes that she’d lose credibility big-time if she said something that blatantly stupid on national television, so she tries to squirm out of answering the question, talking about evolution in the schools instead.
YouTube has disabled embedding, but you can find the 45-second video here.
“What I believe is irrelevant. . . what I would support in Washington D.C. is for the ability for the local school system to decide what is taught in their classrooms. And what I was talking about on that show [the Bill Maher show; see below] was a classroom that was not allowed to teach creationism as an equal theory as evolution. That is against their constitutional rights and that is an overreaching arm of the government.”
O’Donnell (who showed remarkable ignorance of other issues), doesn’t seem to realize that court rulings banning the teaching of creationism in schools have done so precisely on Constitutional grounds, asserting that creationism is a form of religion and therefore teaching it violates the First Amendment.
Here’s a clip from that Maher show in 1998. O’Donnell didn’t finish her statement, but I’m pretty sure she was going to say that Darwin recanted on his deathbed. And she also asks why, if we evolved from monkeys, monkeys aren’t still evolving into humans today.
HuffPo has selected clips from last night’s debate.
Evolution is science and NOT a religion!
Our planet evolves and so must the life on it or it becomes extinct.
Living on a pressurized planet our basis of life comes from pressurized gases(water).
Our planet evolves from the changes to the planet in the form of planetary slowdown, rotation interactions to the many systems this planet has on the go.
Science has been stiffled by ignorance and profitablility rather than having the ability to look for the truth.
huh?
He’s a witch!
He turned me into a newt!
(I got better)
What also floats in water?
a duck…wood…
a… uh. oh.
mmm.. a… duck?
Uh, very small rocks!
Welcome to Joe’s World!!!
Unfortunately, your in it.
My “in it”? What’s an “in it”? Moreover, what precisely is unfortunate about my “in it”? I need a predicate here.
Some of what you said makes sense. Other parts don’t.
Exactly what kind of “planetary slowdown” or “rotation interactions” are you talking about?
The planet slows 1 second every hundred years which scientists blame on the moon.
The interaction of rotation changes are the compression and decompression of gases and mass when the planet is slowing down. Centrifigual force becomes less as gravity increases.
Everything you read and hear are not always true.
Newtons’ Laws cannot explain a simple piece of technology created 60 years ago. The coil spring can compress mass, change density, store and release energy.
“Everything you read and hear are not always true.”
How true. I’ll try to remember that, along with your moniker.
At least you will have a good education.
Our schools have created too many educated idiots in the system.
I am especially intrigued by your hypothesis on the bearing that the changes in centripetal acceleration caused by the Earth’s slowing rotation has had on the evolutionary process.
I’m a little fuzzy on the calculation, though — could you show me what the magnitude of this difference in centripetal acceleration is (in m/s^2) over, say, the last 100 million years? A constant rate of slowing over this time (from the period of 23.6 hours @ 100Mya) should be a fair approximation, I should think.
(also assuming measurements are taken at what is the rotational equator at both timepoints. I’m not trying to get too complicated here. I’m looking for the worst-case scenario.)
…and assuming a constant equatorial diameter across that time period. Again, I’m just looking for a rough ballpark.
sasqwatch,
You are far smarter than your monocure suggests.
You forgotten to include the distance change of our planet to the sun in that time period as well.
Plus one other thing that would have a big effect would be the moons influence back then as well, when being closer to the planet’s surface.
Sigh. What I get is 9.7x10E-06 m/s^2, using today’s equatorial radius, for the difference in acceleration experienced at the equator at those two timepoints, neglecting all other factors. By contrast, the strongest acceleration we experience from the pull of Jupiter is 3.7x10E-7 m/s^2.
Absolute (not difference) estimates for the current acceleration by the sun and moon is 0.0060 and 0.000033 m/s^2, respectively.
These seem to be really itsy-bitsy compared to the 9.8m/s^2 that is the pull of the earth. The differences in these vectors will be even itsier and bitsier.
How does such miniscule forces affect us critters down here again? Should we be concerned about re-opening inquiry into astrology? Or perhaps there’s more to it than gravitational forces at work? Last time I checked though, the other forces fall off rather rapidly with distance.
sasqwatch,
Your numbers are for gravity and does not include centrifugal force changes with speed, pressurization increase in lower atmosphere(which would be increased rotational speed of outer atmosphere).
Yes the numbers are small but a million years difference is small compared to 4 billion years. But they are constantly changing.Why do you think we still have massive pressure release through our crust after the creation of the planet? Too quickly a slowdown would blow the planet apart.In 2 diamentional rotation, the energy would force laterally if that were to occur.
Another word for “educated idiot” is scientist, I take it? Too bad you are discussing on a scientist’s blog.
That is wrong in both the head and tail ends.
For the former, if the acceleration is too small to affect the environment _now_, it won’t affect evolution, which adapts to said environment, _now_. And it is too small, since moving about on the planet creates larger differences in the acceleration a body feels, on the order of %. (By way of the difference in g.) Said bodies making the populations which evolution proceeds in.
For the later, during the same period evolution has also accumulated vast differences. You are running but not catching up, now you have to explain how the sum total of evolutionary change is affected by a comparably minute effect.
We haven’t, the planet is in hydrodynamic balance or it wouldn’t be as round as it is. It is true that there is still fossil gravitational potential energy released, but it is in the form of the heat the planet once accumulated.
Ironically, if you are alluding to volcanoes, it is this heat that drives them today. (As the heat from fossil and ongoing radioactivity is a smaller part.)
What would make this quick slowdown, and why would we be concerned?
The only free floating (“blow … apart”) planetary fragmented bodies we know of comes from collisions (fragmented asteroids) and gravitational fragmentation (putatively the rings of Saturn, new hypothesis making the blog rounds this week actually).
I’m too lazy, this being Sunday and a ridiculous hypothesis, but someone should check the energy release from a realistic slowdown process of the Earth. I would be surprised if it could overwhelm the chemical energy in the molecular bonds that holds a once gravitationally aggregated planet together.
Our science rough estimates make it difficult to be exact.
Along time ago, I calculated where the planet was 4 billion years back with what science believes our slow down is and our planet was only 640,000 miles closer. This is probably wrong off the top of my head.
I’m not sure what you are discussing here, but this is another case where your “educated idiot” method fails. Many-body systems such as the solar system are complicated, and you can’t predict that far.
Unless you try to approximate with a two-body system as you seems to have done, in which case your predictions fails numerous tests. How you can lay such a mistake before the feet of scientists, I don’t know, but in fact no scientist does, or should do, this.
For the Earth, the current drift is too weak to have been measured with the requisite precision IIRC.
And as for the Earth position 4 Ga hence, the astronomers are still modeling the early planetary system! The whole thing is up for grabs, despite your claims that scientists have a decided position here (“believes”). Up for grabs, except your pathetic model that is, which we can firmly toss in the trash bin where it belongs.
[Sorry about the scathing critique, but you started the eye-to-eye format. I’m playing with the cards you dealt us – and it’s fun!]
I should say arguing, not discussing. But backing up, I now see a trollish Gish gallop. sasqwatch had the right of it, you should present your models, instead of us critiquing endless Gishifications.
In principle if evolution ceased (for example, if a god created all animals as static), there is no reason that things will become extinct simply because they don’t evolve. Some currently existent animals and plants are believed to not have changed much over the past 100 million years or so (though I presume that’s based purely on morphology and not an analysis of DNA). At any rate, evolution is not essential to continued existence – every plant and animal which had become extinct was in the process of evolution.
A freeze on evolution is hard to conceive of in the world as it is, but all life would be extinct by now as species after species failed to adapt to changes around them, first environmental changes, then the loss of species on which they were dependent.
Relict species, such as New Zealand’s tuatara, Sphenodon punctatus, a reptile unchanged since the Jurassic, are rare, and the tuatara survives only on a few islands and sanctuaries, and would be extinct soon but for human help.
Your last sentence is a non-sequitur.
It is absolutely bizarre that you claim every species would be extinct without evolution – where is your evidence for this? Also, some adaptation of an individual to the environment is not necessarily evolution – for example, eating cows instead of rabbits. However, you do get natural selection when a population, say, loses its roast beef and has no choice but to eat the roots of the belladonna plant. I don’t think you understand evolution. A halt to evolution is purely speculative; that will only happen when all species are extinct, but why would you expect all species to go extinct if they all happened to miraculously stop evolving tomorrow?
I think the fact that no electable politician will come out and admit they are a creationist is down to the success of the NCSE and their nicely-nicely friendly approach towards the religious.
It has nothing to do with the confrontational mocking approach and the likelihood now that any pro-creationist statement will result in people pointer their fingers at you and loudly guffawing.
You forgot to add /sarcasm to your comment.
No kidding! Creationists are the only electable ones. Where has this guy been?
“That is against their constitutional rights and that is an overreaching arm of the government.”
In her case it would be the overreaching broomstick of stupidity.
Sigmund, I think you have it backwards. Plenty of candidates and officials are creationists (during a primary debate in 2008, Mike Huckabee came out and said, while Governor, that he didn’t believe in evolution. Tancredo and Brownback, both of whom have been elected to office, agreed).
I doubt you’ll find any elected official who won’t say that God created the earth.
Yes, but the fact that those candidates admitted being creationists immediately put them in the unelectable category. Perhaps it is more accurate to say ‘unelectable nationally’ since I realize that there are plenty of localities where being an admitted creationist is an advantage.
I hope you aren’t speaking too soon here, Sigmund. Even at this distance, it seems to me that a “Romney-Huckabee 2012” ticket is by no means out of the question.
Romney perhaps but Huckabee?
Huckabees unelectability is not down to creationism but to the Achilles heel of being too soft on crime. His release of Wayne DuMond, who went on to kill two women, will be enough to curtail his presidential hopes.
Sure hope you’re right. He’s sly and seductive, though. And he’s an unctuous, superficially soothing political chameleon who’s also a pretty smooth talker.
He was certainly very convincing on ’24’
http://www.brightandearlyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/huckalogan.jpg
Just want to make sure, are you OK? I fear you might have hurt something as you stepped on yourself.
The fact that Huckabee released Dumond and many others because Huckabee is a credulous moron for religious conversion stories will probably sail over the heads of his supporters. I agree it doesn’t look good for god-soaked boob, in any case.
http://www.arkansasleader.com/frontstories/st_08_11_04/huckabee8.html
About half the US population are outright Creationists, and perhaps another third or so are subtle Creationists of some sort (ID, theistic “evolution”, etc.).
I think on balance holding to some form of Creationism would be a winning strategy.
“I don’t know how old the Earth is — maybe it’s 6000 years, but it could be 7, 8, even 10,0000 years. Does it really matter? I just believe we come from God. How long ago doesn’t matter.” = A helluva lot a votes
Sure, that would piss off the scientifically literate, but are we enough to matter?
I don’t know, we better not try just to make sure.
/sarcasm
While she’s a whackjob on her social views & evolution, Delaware voters have to decide what’s a more imminent threat to this country: (i) stopping a President that’s intentionally destroying this country with his antigovernment/jobs-killing agenda, or (ii) stopping another creationist from getting elected into office. Given the dire economic circumstances in this country and 10% unemployment, I submit that #1 is vastly more important.
Bush is already out of office. Happened almost two years ago. I’m guessing you don’t watch the news much?
I couldn’t tell. From all the difference in policy, one would think he was in for a 3rd term…
Sad, but true. After all, about half of the population believe the same bullshit as O’Donnell so her cockeyed view of the world isn’t going to stop them from voting for her.
Perhaps we could club together & buy her a copy of Jerry’s book?! This woman is dangerous – my advice to America – DON’T VOTE FOR HER! PLEASE! She makes Bush Jnr look reasonable, which is saying something.
JC you really must blog on this for Caturday –
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9085000/9085644.stm
I think it’s all a secret plot by the GOP to make Sarah Palin look smarter so people will vote her into office in 2012.
This occurred to me as well. She’s “opening the Overton window” a little wider so Palin seems reasonable in comparison. This is a frightening thought.
Eric: Do you genuinely think that Obama’s “intentionally destroying this country”? Do you think that’s his *intent*, the destruction of the USA?
wtf.
I thought Bush was an asshole but I can’t say I ever thought his actual goal was to destroy your nation.
After Obama’s state of the union address where he “promised a laser-like focus on jobs, jobs, jobs,” he immediately did his sleazy backroom deals to pass healthcare and co-opt 1/6 of the U.S. ecomony from the private sector. He is absolutely atttempting to change the fabric of America by creating big govt and an underclass that’s dependent on the govt. I want to work, and we need strong business and a strong private sector to create jobs. The govt can’t really create jobs, but it sure as hell can create an environment where nobody wants to hire, which is what this guy has done.
Oh boy.
I have rarely seen libertarians this delusional.
No wonder Eric is on the side of the creationists.
You’re missing the point. I’m not a libertarian, I’m just a guy who wants to work. Right now, I just think it’s more important to support people who are going to help the US economy get back on track. Deal with the creotards later. Very little else matters if you’re struggling to put food on the table.
For some reason Christine O’Donnell doesn’t strike me as some sort of economic genius with a brilliant plan to create millions of jobs. Which specific job creation policy of hers do you think is the one that Delaware voters will go for?
As we all know, a) governments can never hire anyone (seriously), and b) having broad health insurance coverage means total absence of a private sector, as evidenced by UK, Canada, etc, and also c) it is not like some economists like Noble laureate Paul Krugman have blamed the small size of stimulus for economy failing to rebound.
Conclusion: the only way to bring back jobs is to give the keys to the creationists.
They call it “wedge strategy”. I can only say it is brilliant.
Everyone *says* “governments never hire anybody,” but my wife is a public school teacher. There are 50,000 troops in Iraq, and, well, you get the idea. Governments hire many millions of people.
Jerry
“court rulings banning the teaching of evolution”
— I think you mean creationism
“stopping a President that’s intentionally destroying this country with his antigovernment/jobs-killing agenda”
antigovernment? that’s not the teabagger talking point you’re supposed to parrot. What is this, opposite day?
Oh dear, big typo. Fixed, thanks!
“American biologists are in a state of war.” Dawkins
See! Didn’t they tell us he was “militant”!
How horrible is must be to have such embarrassing views that you can’t answer a straightforward question about what you believe.
I don’t think Wolf Blitzer was even trying to do anything underhanded. It’s not like some clever trap was being set. He was simply taking her to task for something she had publicly admitted, a ridiculous view that she has had several years to change her mind about.
I don’t think she sees her views as embarrassing — I think she is just being extremely cagey. Her potential supporters hear her as saying that she is one of them, while at the same time she doesn’t say anything specific enough to be pummelled in the liberal elite godless media. Her response was not motivated by shame, but by strategy.
The important thing, though, is that she’s not a witch.
Can we hold her under water to find out for sure?
No, the true test is to see if she weighs the same as a duck.
My liege!
I challenge Dr. Collins and Dr. Giberson to make a public statement with regard to this woman’s knowledge and credibility.
Now, Dr. Collins may feel he’s precluded from doing so as an employee of the current administration, but what would be Dr. Giberson’s excuse?
You want accommodation? Accommodate that.
I’ve heard that “Darwin recanted on his deathbed” at least half a dozen times by different Christians. The belief in this anecdote demonstrates how some Christians believe evolution and faith to be intrinsically non-compatible. Never in the accounts is it explicitly stated that Darwin recanted his evolutionary views when he “accepted Jesus”; it’s just assumed that to become a true Christian, he must have done just that.
More to the point, who the fuck cares what Darwin thought as he was dying? How does that make the truth of his ideas any less true? The whole notion of recanting is an important trope to Christians, where faith and truth are conflated, but in science the truth of an idea is separate from those who hold it. Evolution would be just as true (or false) no matter what Darwin thought as he lay dying, just as the truth (or falsity) of the Theory of Relativity would not have been impacted by Einstein converting to Newtonianism on his deathbed.
I agree entirely. I think that the supposed conversion of Darwin is important to these people because, in their own little world, Darwin started this new bad religion called “Evolution” and if the founder rejected his own religion, then you shouldn’t accept it either.
A lot of anti-evolutionists either regard evolution as being the equivalent of a religious belief or want to convince other people that it is (see- Teach the Controversy). By this logic, Darwin then becomes the “prophet” of the religion of evolution, and therefore if Darwin denounced evolution it must mean that evolution is wrong.
I heard somewhere Jesus recanted on the cross. You won’t find that story in the Bible or any theology textbook because the Christians just don’t want you to hear it, but it’s totally true.
Wait so it doesn’t work the other way around? Weird.
Nobody said that logic was one of their strong points.
“My God, My God, Why hast thou foresaken me” needs a lot of explaining, not only in general, but concerning the Trinity in particular.
Even worse, we know for a fact that Darwin never turned to god as he was dying – that’s nothing but another religious lie.
Sure, sure, that’s what the atheist evolutionists would have you believe. They deny that Darwin recanted on his deathbed because they are frightened that their pet theory/whole worldview would collapse if the truth were known. Such stringent denial of an assertion on your part must mean there is some truth in the assertion, or why else would you deny it so forcibly?
😛
…and yet, the NPR (National Public Radio) report of this debate had her “looking comfortable” and her opponent “frustrated, despite having conducting mock debates with female staffers.”
No mention of the truth claims whatsoever. Merely the stage presence.
I think I’m glad I didn’t contribute to NPR during the fall round of begging.
We’re going to elect a whole Congress full of self-assured morons.
Typical NPR. All process, no substance. It’s the church of savvy.
You’d think they’d be savvy enough to realize that a Tea-bagger Congress will eviscerate their funding.
I’m not saying their reporting should be biased. Far from it; I think it should be accurate and relevant.
Counting the number of times a candidate rolled his eyes is not “covering” the debate.
That’s an awesome debating strategy – make your arguments so worthless and your positions so utterly stupid your opponent can’t actually rip in to you without looking like a jerk, and so has to sit there frustrated.
What most disturbed me was not her evasiveness on evolution (it was already abundantly clear that she is a dyed-in-the-wool Creationist; Blitzer’s very sensible question was giving her a chance to tell us something different, which she did not). No, what most disturbed me was that she actually said “What I believe is irrelevant.” I can’t tell you how angry that statement makes me. Could there be anything more relevant than what the candidates believe—about everything? Where the hell does someone running for a senate seat get the balls to tell the voters that what she believes, about any issue, is “irrelevant”? I nearly fell out of my chair when she said that.
Not for populists, who claim that they merely represent the will of the people, unlike those nasty elites.
Right. She’s a “neutral medium,” as Robert Wright would say…
O’Donnell: She added: “During the primary, I heard the audible voice of God.”
In any other context, people who claim to hear voices are heavily medicated.
This woman shouldn’t be a candidate for the Senate, she’s a candidate for Seroquel.
With all due respect, I think this comment is completely inappropriate.
She’s way past Seroquel. It’s time to break out the Vitamin H!
You have to admit: those are novel, intelligent points that others haven’t raised. They deserve considerable thought.
Well, creotards just can’t understand that creatures evolve via small, often imperceptible, changes from generation to generation. There *is* no god directing how things evolved, so even in the case where you had an ancestral species which evolved into Animal_X, even if you were able to get a sample of that ancestral species and allow it to evolve, it is extremely unlikely that you will come back to Animal_X. However, it is likely that a few traits may show up in several such experiments. R. Lenski’s experiments on e. coli are perhaps the best such experiments today. He’s not mutating e. coli into another species, but the data clearly show e. coli evolving and developing traits – sometimes a physical trait is even developed in different ways. Anyway, short story: even if a new world monkey happened to be an ancestor to humans, evolution predicts that the animal will change, not that it will change into a human.
On the other hand, O’Donnell is proof that humans can evolve into asses.
Sure, but was that an overnight transformation?
I may be just a marginal Canadian in all this, but it just astonishes me that someone like O’Donnell can even be on the ticket. I know we’ve got a lot of fundamentalist idiots in the conservative government, but they have to hide in order to get elected, 9 times out of 10. Of course, I guess this shows that “little” Christine had to hide a bit too. But still, come on! What do you folks drink down there – water?!
Kool-aid.
No, water – along with all the pollutants we dump into the rivers.
My problem with her reply was her “teach the controversy” defense. Specifically, she said local jurisdictions should be allowed to determine what does and does not belong in the classroom.
That’s intellectually lazy and irresponsible. The kiddos deserve the best education we can provide them. That’s not nearly the judgment call that some folks would imply it is. We’re not teaching astrology as the counterpoint to psychology.
I believe the false controversy is a bigger point than her religious believes. That should have been followed up on.
No, it’s extraordinarily cagey, since fundamentalists have strategically attempted to take over school boards all across the US. Her position is not due to laziness, but is an intentional attempt to force a religious agenda into schools via electoral offices that are easier to gimmick than state and national offices.
Point taken.
Since Blitzer really wanted to play journalist more than he wanted to play moderator, I wish he had followed up. Would it be okay for the Earth to be 6,000 years old in Arkansas classrooms?
Boy, was she trying hard not to even use the word “evolution”! Blitzer introduced it, and she basically changed the subject.
I think two calculations were going on in her soggy mind. One, she’s been advised that expressing what she really believes about evolution might turn off moderate voters, who statistically tend to accept (with some provisos) scientific consensuses vis-a-vis things like climate change and evolution. Two, her talk of “local control” was a dog whistle to her base: “If enough of you get off your asses and get on school boards, you can undermine science curriculum nationwide—and I’ll fight for your ‘right’ to do so.” She could not allow herself to use the word “evolution” lest she alienate those sensible moderates (without their votes, she’s toast), and she didn’t need to use the word “evolution” for her anti-science base (who fund her campaign) to catch her drift. It was an answer only a hack politician could give—sleazy and fundamentally dishonest.
“It was an answer only a hack politician could give—sleazy and fundamentally dishonest”.
My first thought watching the video was that she is well qualified to be a politician (I apologise to the good politicians around).
(I apologise to the good politicians around).
Both of them?
And she also asks why, if we evolved from monkeys, monkeys aren’t still evolving into humans today.
Not a bad question, assuming she actually meant to ask why are there still monkeys. Which isn’t what she asked, but let’s assume she meant to ask a question that actually makes sense. This implicitly assumes that scientists haven’t noticed, or are ignoring the fact, that there are still monkeys. So she should be curious and go and find out why. She didn’t and never will, even if someone hands it to her on a sliver platter. Therefore she is completely $%#@@& stupid, and out of her &^%$#@ mind. (That’s all assuming she actually asked a question that actually made any semblance of sense at all, which she didn’t.)
Talking about monkeys …
On another website, there was a posting about customer dissatisfaction with the customer help line of a very large (but dwindling Australian phone company):
“Having trouble dealing with Telstra? Finding it hard to communicate to that non-native English speaking call centre operator in Mumbai or Manila? Feel like losing your cool? Well, it might just help: because Telstra is now tapping into your emotions” (by using voice recognition technology to read emotion).
To which a reader commented:
“So what’s really happening is:
‘Because our monkeys on the help desk cannot understand when and why a customer is pissed off; we are now using a machine to determine this …’
God what a fucking joke”.
I have redecorated my keyboard with coffee reading it.
The stupid, it burns!
She’s addressing her own audience — and she knows who they are.
Now if she had only crocoducked the question instead, she would have proved that the theory of evolution is wrong. No crocoduck = Darwin and most later evolutionists are correct.
Blast you, MadScientist! You beat me to it!
But, Jerry, really? “…O’Donnell ducks…” — I see what you did there!
Insane Clown Posse plays at O’Donnell rallies:
Hot lava, snow, rain and fog,
Long neck giraffes, and pet cats and dogs
Fuckin’ rainbows after it rains
There’s enough miracles here to
blow your brains. …
Fuckin’ magnets, how do they work?
And I don’t wanna talk to a scientist
Y’all motherfuckers lying and
getting me pissed.
O’Donnell could only stand for election in a country where an anti-science stance,and lack of basic scientific and political education is not seen as a hindrance to take public office, quite possibly the opposite.Same as I don’t think that Huckabee’s chances are in any way diminished by not believing in evolution.It’s all quite sad.
Sad as the embrace of ignorance (as in her anti-evolution stance) is, more disturbing to me are her opinions regarding our place in the world. For example, I heard a clip from the debate where she stated that the US had fought the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and that if we had finished the job then, we would not be in our current mess. It would be truly dangerous to this country to have someone of such a mind in the Senate.
Holy shit. She doesn’t know that we WERE fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan? She doesn’t know that this was the time we were arming the Mujahideen to the teeth? Tactical decisions we (and the world) would sorely pay for later?
People like her need to be barred from all public discourse, given a couple blocks to play with, and left in a padded cell.
No, Darwin did not recant on his deathbed. And no, monkeys don’t evolve into humans before our eyes.
In fact, the claim is not that monkeys evolved into humans at all but that monkeys and humans share a common ancestor.
All of this is true and yet none of it negates the fact that evolution (of the macro variety) is false and impossible according to the scientific evidence. That’s what O’Donnell should have said.