Big Science for us

I confess to feeling a faint twinge of envy at all the news about the Large Hadron Collider. It’s Big Science, it’s got lots of shiny fancy gadgets, and it’s like NASCAR for nerds — they get to spin things together at high speed and smash them together. We biologists lack anything quite so dramatic.

Until now.

Scientists from the Evolutionary Acceleration Research Institute (EARI) announced that the first test of the Giant Animal Smasher (GAS) will begin on December 19, 2008, the 41st anniversary of the premiere of Dr. Dolittle.

Dr. Thomas Malwin, head of the research project, said, “The first test runs will only accelerate microscopic life-forms like bacteria and viruses to high speeds, but theoretically the GAS can handle animals as large as squirrels, hence the squirrel smasher moniker.”

Biologists from around the globe hope the GAS will unlock the secrets of the so-called “Darwin particle” that could unlock the secrets to life.

Ha! Physicists only smash together tiny invisible things that require detectors to be seen. Our stuff will be much more photogenic, require splash goggles to witness, and a firehose to clean out the chambers afterwards.

Anyone played Spore yet?

I have very mixed feelings about this game, but I’ve ordered a copy anyway (Skatje told me I had to). I’ve played with the creature creator, which is actually rather fun…but it’s really just the most elaborate version of Mr Potatohead ever designed. What I’ve seen of the game itself puts me off a bit, though. It’s not going to teach one single thing about evolution, and actually teaches several things that are anti-evolutionary. It’s a design toy, not any kind of evolution simulator, but people are gushing over it as if it might actually improve the image of evolutionary biology.

So I have reservations. I’ll hold off on final judgment until I actually play the silly thing. However, my reservations are nothing compared to this guy who has started an anti-Spore website, because it teaches kids evolution and…

The object of the game is to evolve from a “spore” into demon-like intelligent space creatures that violently take over the galaxy.

Hmmm. Maybe it won’t be so bad.

That explains something

After a pleasant period of my mailbox cooling down a bit, I’ve recently seen a significant surge of howling mad Catholics shrieking at me. I was wondering what prompted the resurgence, and here it is: apparently I made the cover of the Catholic League’s newsletter, The Catalyst, and am even the subject of a frothing mad editorial by Billy Donohue, a complete timeline of the Great Desecration, and various requests for the faithful to howl for my job.

It’s kind of cool, in a perverse way. Cry, babies, cry.