I love you Ian. But no wet ones.

But you are all spending too much time with boneheaded pete- set out the evidence, and time after time he just replies that he doesn't believe it, and quotes some crazed antiscience fundamentalist website that he doesn't understand either. Given the quality of thought that has clearly gone into his belief system, it's tripe and he may as well be left to it. Just slap his mates down when they try to take over the schools and poison the kids. Like Breitvik's nutty belief system, it's also dangerous.

This isn't totally anti- religion - I know some first rate believers- but as someone pointed out ages back, there are two kinds of believers- those whose scripture is a book of answers, and those who have a book of questions. And I'd add that the first lot see their answers as laws to be imposed on others, while the other type see the questions as problems that they have to wrestle with themselves.

As for "evolution" vs "theory of evolution" I still say that in the context of trying to persuade someone not to think they can fly, it's nitpicking. Especially as there isn't a single thing called "The Theory Of Evolution"- theories have been, well, evolving since before Erasmus Darwin (the grandpa) was dissuaded from publishing his theory in the 18th century. And that was because he realised that an outraged Church would have destroyed his doctor's practice. Some things don't change.