Bad Astronomy

Oh, snap! Creationist smackdown

Remember a little while ago when I wrote about an evolutionary mutation seen in E. coli in the lab?

Well, the author of the study, Richard Lenski of Michigan State University, was not-so-subtly attacked on his work by Andy Schlafly, a creationist. The initial letter, by Schlafly, is pretty rude. Lenski replied, and Schlafly replied to that… and then it gets hilarious. Scientist Lenski hands antiscientist Schlafly his head, and it’s a wonder to behold.

Funny thing is, it’s discussed on Conservapedia, a wiki full of spin, incredible distortions of reality, and outright antiscience. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. So I won’t link to it there; I’d rather not have to soak my website in hydrogen peroxide afterwards.

But the really funny thing is the whole story is now up on RationalWiki, with some back story too.

And the funniest thing is, it appears that the Conservapedia folks left some critical things out, and then erased the evidence. Heh. That pesky Ninth Commandment again.

Anyway, RationalWiki looks pretty cool, so I’ll have to poke around there.

Tip o’ the test tube to Josh Asher.