I managed to get embroiled in a little debate about evolution on an internet forum the other day, which I quite enjoyed – in spite of the fact that nobody was really taking up the creationism / intelligent design side of things. There was one guy who carried it on a little further, although I was having trouble discerning his viewpoint… I wasted a fair bit of time arguing with him before he dropped this bomb:

Until that day: I think human is not of this place we call ‘earth’. The earth is not a better place from our existence upon it and the earth will send us back to whence we came.

It’s difficult to argue with someone who believes in evolution for all organisms on the planet other than humans; someone who even agrees with the evolution of apes up to a point, but then seems to think that humans were beamed in from the stars. Genetic and fossil evidence are, apparently, ‘not enough’ – despite there being no evidence for anything else! Requesting something that might back up his hypothesis brought this telling response:

There’s that word again: evidence.

Do you really want want to know my thoughts or are you trying to make a point about evidence- or the lack there of? Because you know I have no evidence, I know I have no evidence. I know you know I have no evidence therefore I wonder why you would ask it of me.

Sigh.

In any case, the ramblings of someone who ‘wants to believe’ are not the aspect that I took from this discussion. I enjoyed having the opportunity to look back at some of the wider points of evolution, but I also realised that I’m very happy to be in my little niche. Human evolution, fossils, etc – it’s all very interesting, but the sexy stuff…. well, it’s in sex.