Of Jane Taber, Gary Goodyear and really dull knives.

Given the last few days of milk-snorting fun involving Canada's Minister of Scientific Illiteracy Gary Goodyear and his "clarifications," it's hard to know what to think, but there is one thing we can finally say without fear of contradiction:

Canada's science minister Gary Goodyear does not believe in evolution.

Surprised? Let's go to the record, shall we?

Science minister Gary Goodyear now says he believes in evolution.

"Of course I do," he told guest host Jane Taber during an appearance on the CTV program Power Play. "But it is an irrelevant question." ...

Yesterday, Mr. Goodyear said twice during the CTV interview that he believes in evolution.

"We are evolving every year, every decade. That's a fact, whether it is to the intensity of the sun, whether it is to, as a chiropractor, walking on cement versus anything else, whether it is running shoes or high heels, of course we are evolving to our environment. But that's not relevant and that is why I refused to answer the question. The interview was about our science and tech strategy, which is strong."

So, what can we conclude from the above? First, we can conclude that Jane Taber is an imbecile -- far and away not the sharpest knife in the drawer -- for reasons that will become obvious shortly. And we can conclude that Gary Goodyear most emphatically does not "believe" in evolution in any meaningful way, which I will now explain.

Note how carefully Goodyear provided his own definition of "evolution" -- that, as humans, we are "evolving" to adapt to our environment. Sounds impressive, doesn't it? Until you remember that the first symptom of being a creationist is to always carefully distinguish between "micro" evolution and "macro" evolution. "Sure," say the creationists, "we're evolving, but only within our species. That's not the same as actually creating new species. That's where we draw the line." And that's where Goodyear drew that line -- right under Taber's nose, and she was too dense to realize she was being conned.

Taber's mistake was in not having a clue as to how to ask the question. It's worthless to ask a creationist publicly if they "believe" in evolution, because you're almost certain to get the vague, nebulous weaselitude you got from Goodyear, who can state that he "believes" in evolution while quietly redefining the word to basic worthlessness.

What Taber should have asked was, "Do you accept the mainstream scientific position that life evolved over the last 3.5 billion years?", a question that Goodyear would not have been able to mangle beyond recognition and redefine into utter meaningless without being howlingly obvious about it.

But because of Taber's stupidity, we will never have the opportunity to go back and revisit that because every attempt to do so will give us nothing but, "I'm sorry, but I've already addressed that question." Yes, Goodyear has. And he suckered Jane Taber, and he got away with being a sleazy douchebag and, at this point, we'll never be able to hold him accountable for it. Thanks, Jane. Thanks ever so much.

CTV's Jane Taber: Perhaps she's not a complete retard. She just plays one on TV.

AFTERSNARK FOR THE HARD OF THINKING: Just in case you're not convinced by my impeccable logic, go back and read Goodyear's meandering idiocy after being asked about his belief:

"We are evolving every year, every decade. That's a fact, whether it is to the intensity of the sun, whether it is to, as a chiropractor, walking on cement versus anything else, whether it is running shoes or high heels, of course we are evolving to our environment."

If Goodyear wanted to make it clear that he "believes" in evolution, he could have just said, "Of course I do. Absolutely. Without reservation." But he didn't. He said he believed, but didn't stop there, instead going on to make it clear how he understands the concept and how he defines it as simple and limited adaptation within a species. In short, Canada's Minister of State for Science and Technology Gary Goodyear believes in evolution, as long as you allow him to define evolution in a simplistic, restricted, utterly useless way.

Only truly stupid people are going to be suckered by Goodyear's sleazy douchebaggery. Some of them already were.

BONUS TRACK: I'm assuming that most intelligent readers caught Goodyear's reference to the idea that we are evolving "every year, every decade." Um, no, Gary, evolution works with timeframes slightly longer than that. Really. I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere.

BY THE WAY, KIDS, just to make sure this angle gets as much airplay as possible, feel free to, you know, link to it. And recommend it. As I understand it, that's how this whole bloggysphere thing works.

OH, MY. Let the piling on begin.

PHARYNGULAED!! Which means that thousands of people from all over the world are going to follow one of those links above and learn that Patrick Ross is a retarded doofus.

It's not what I was going for. Just think of it as entertainment at no extra charge.

JUST BECAUSE HE'S A MORON, there's no need to be cruel to Gary Goodyear.



HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

I am such a kidder.