LITTLE VICTORIES AND A LARGE LOSS

Neville Goodman

The creationists in the US are changing tack. They posit a new theory called ‘intelligent design’, which they are pushing for inclusion in school biology curricula. They maintain their cry that evolution is no more than a theory, but this is just playing with words. Evolution is a theory in the sense that we can't run an experiment to see if human beings develop from an ancestor that resembles an ape, but there is enough circumstantial evidence for evolution being the only sensible way of describing how the world that we know came about. We can watch what happens to white moths in sooty landscapes, and bacteria exposed to antibiotics, and we know about the genetic code. Evolution looks like a good explanation to me. There is no evidence for intelligent design or its intelligent designer, other than a failure of imagination — and there is no way of testing it at all.

So, no victory for anyone there, but I claim one on another ground. I've been holding my breath, but the Observer does seem to have demoted the Barefoot Doctor. He's still there, but with only a half-page of touchy-feely stuff; he no longer gives quasi-medical advice on readers' problems. Other than the occasional supportive e-mail, there is little enough visible result from what I write, which I see as incontrovertibly logical and unimpeachable attacks on unsustainable premises, so I shall claim Barefoot's demotion as a victory, albeit a little one.

Now to something that I simply cannot let pass without comment. It's no longer topical, and it's not medical, except in the sense that a heart attack was its cause. John Peel died in October. I used to listen to him every night. Don't tell the BBC but I have cassette tapes full of stuff that he played. Failure to acknowledge a death is common when someone close dies, but there are different ways of being close and I find it difficult to accept that Peelie is dead. And I was amazed at the reaction in the country to the death of a mere DJ: not just obituaries — even a Weather Girl (It's raining men) got one of those — but full pages and double-page spreads, and stories that went on for days. To all those who, like me on hearing the news, went straight over to the hi-fi and played the Undertones' Teenage Kicks and cried: I know how you feel.