drafty drafts and propaganda preachers

I haven't posted much because I've been getting increasingly foggy and stressed. Nature is not supposed to do this to you! Actually I think it's a combination of things - only a week left and the stress of feeling that I haven't accomplished enough. I completed my first drafty draft of my Overview and About Me sections of the proposal, but its just not all coming together. I think I have some compelling ideas but I need to draw it out in a more narrative form. I admit I never have had real writers block, but I have had moments of self-doubt and fear, particularly with a new magazine or new important project.

I think perhaps the fear is that this message is so important & I have to do it right. I was browsing Robert Pennock's "Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism" last night - the intro talks about some of the creationist cartoon-based posters and tracts where they represent the big bad biology professor yelling at the poor Christian student and in the end, the student quotes from the Bible and defeats evolution and the professor retires. "We didn't evolve! The establishment has been feeding us THE BIG LIE! We really do have a soul!" (this is what the tract reads, apparently).

I mean, really! Come on people!!! The obvious untruths in this depiction are (1) that evolution is incompatible with Christian faith (2) that evolution says anything at all about a soul which is by its nature an unfalsifiable question and hence science can't study it (3) that the Bible would negate science - they are different realms entirely.

I browsed Phillip Johnson's book "Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds" and it just really gets my goat. I'm sorry but here is an educated guy, but he's a lawyer, he's not a biologist, and he's just so full of doodoo. His writing is just so ill-informed, full of a bunch of mistakes and untruths and half-truths and, frankly scary. I am truly scared about where our nation is headed. And I'm going to try to do something about it! (a la my book)

Well I have a lot of work to do... so I'll leave you with this photo of the snow dusting we had the other night. The photo didn't turn out great but you can still see what it looked like a bit!