The practicality for teaching evolution is the topic of a recent Op-Ed by Olivia Judson in the New York Times. Judson: “[Evolution is] discussed as though it were an optional, quaint and largely irrelevant part of biology.”
It reminds me of two birds I sketched a few years ago at the National Zoo, then, later, somewhere on Roosevelt Island. The Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus) and some type of Eastern shore bird, most likely a type of piper. Their respective quarry, carrion and crustacean, guided the process of beak formation. A beak, after all, is a bird’s utensil, and they come shaped as spatulas, toothpicks, scissors, spoons, sieves, nutcrackers, and forms unrelated to human design. And there’s that bugbear word: design. Design in this sense does not imply guidance of an intelligent or premeditated sort.
However, as Judson notes, intelligent humans can partake in another species evolution by over hunting, habitat destruction, and electing republicans to office, such as Sarah Palin.
