One in a Million Monkeys

They say that given enough time, a million monkeys on a million typewriters could eventually write the entire works of Shakespeare. Or maybe that they couldn't. I don't remember. Either way, it's a very profound and deep statement, illustrating the power of time and repeated events to seemingly defy all probabilities. I don't know who They are either.

This blog will never manage to be that profound.

Even though I, Charles T. Monkey, have managed to master not only the typewriter but also the personal computer itself despite, I might add, the lack of truly efficient opposable thumbs, which makes it more difficult to ten-finger type than you might suppose (It has to do with the way the space bar is positioned), this, alas, does not mean that I have been gifted with the gift of elegant and insightful prose. Indeed not even one or the other, as it turns out.

The idea for this blog occurred to me while I was swinging past a book shop a few days ago and saw a copy of Charles Darwin's book, "On the Origin of Species". Having never read this book in it's entirety (and that's embarrassing because I'm named after the man), I decided to buy it and the other two of his books that were on sale, "The Descent of Man" and "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals". Apart from putting me out of pocket quite a bit (Not that I actually have pockets, most of the time, since I walk around naked.), the books also started me thinking; Charles Darwin came up with the hypothesis of evolution well over 150 years ago. To put that in perspective, that's 10 times the average life span of a squirrel monkey (Luckily, I'm not a squirrel monkey.). Yet even today, despite all the proof and experiments that have validated Darwin's hypothesis and established it firmly as a scientific theory and therefore tantamount to fact in the scientific community, some people still do not believe it. Even more troubling, a subset of those people who remain unconvinced about the veracity of evolution have tried over and over again and are trying still, to have their own "alternative" idea* taught instead, as science.

This concerns me. A world where pseudo-science has equal footing, or even precedence over science? That way lies madness. And this monkey does not like madness.

I decided there and then (but more exactly 5 hours later) to write a blog where I could add my voice to the growing collective of fellow skeptics, atheists and generally concerned citizens standing against irrationality and, let's be blunt, complete quackery. This is that blog.

So, prepare for sharp** and witty*** writing like none you have ever seen (from a monkey) about things skeptical and atheist, political and just plain strange.

Yours,
Charles

* Their alternative is Creationism, or Intelligent Design, which involves magic.
** Sharp like a pointy stick.
*** Witty like jokes from the turn of the century (the last one, not the coming one).