Thursday, April 24, 2008

Catholicism and an Island Full of Lizards

Being Catholic is a weird spot to be in in today's America, mostly because people who aren't Catholic don't really get it. We're definitely Christians (actually, the original Christians), but the similarity between us and the crazy-ass fundamentalist assholes who running around spewing hypocrisy and fellating strangers in public bathrooms pretty much stops at having the same God.

Evolution is a great example. Unlike the protestants, we've believed in evolution for quite awhile now. Sure, it took us longer to get there than some, but it's been that way since before I was born, so it seems like a long time to me. But yet when people find out I'm a Christian, they tend to assume that means being some weird anti-science zealot.

But the point of this post isn't to be about how there's so much more variety in the Church than people think there is, because there's been plenty of that written and yet people are still incredibly misinformed, but in the way that most people are misinformed about most all religions.

No, the point is that recently scientists have discovered that an Italian lizard introduced to the island nation of Croatia in the early 1970s has already greatly evolved in a scant 30-some years. The animal's bodies have changed so as to become vegetarians when they were formerly bug eaters, getting new teeth, a different-sized head, and extra organs to digest the new food sources.

It's a pretty fascinating development and it will be really interesting to see what kind of discoveries come from this, but I just wanted to take the opportunity to point out that I'm a member of the Christian denomination that sees this as an interesting scientific development, not an assault on our way of life and a heretical attempt to challenge the infallible wisdom of God.

No comments: