Irresistible contest entry

We've been getting some pretty spectacular entries to our Evolution & Art Contest. Kids imagine an animal in a new environment and draw us a picture of how that animal might evolve. Grab a kid and enter! You could win some great prizes.

Now, we can't show you any of the kids' entries before the end of the contest (December), but this one is just too magnificent to keep under wraps.

One Natalie Ross of Eastham Massachusetts, 78 years old, officially petitioned the Charlie's Playhouse Complaint Department that our activities exclude older people. Maybe some grownups would like to imagine new animals and make a nice drawing, did we ever think of that!?

So the Complaint Dept. issued her special permission to make a nice drawing. Here it is for all to see, along with her masterful explanation of how the strange creature she chose might evolve to fit a new environment:

Charlie, a species of Homo Erectus, finds himself on a desert island where there is only strange (but nourishing) food high up in tall trees, and the only predators are dangerous stinging ants, very poisonous. After a million years Charlie evolved a long neck in order to reach the fruit, and very short legs to make it easy to swat away the ants.

Bravo, Natalie, thank you! You definitely win the 78-year-old age category.

Does Steven Pinker have kids? He should.

World-renowned psychologist Steven Pinker of the brilliant mind and ridicu-tastic hair was on Countdown with Keith Olbermann the other night. He was chatting about, of all things, reasons to teach kids evolution. I'm all ears, Steven.

You can watch the whole interview here, but to me this is the interesting bit:

Olbermann: Why is it so important that we teach kids evolution?

Pinker: "There are some practical reasons. Some of the greatest technological advances of the next few decades are going to be in the biological sciences. And you can't do biology unless you understand evolution. There's going to be a race between us and the superbugs, the viruses that are going to attack us. Their big weapon is that they can evolve fast. If we don't have a generation of science students and scientists who understand evolution, we're not going to be able to understand our worst enemies. Also, great advances in diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease are often going to come from research on other animals because you obviously can't give cancer or give Parkinson's disease to a human. You can to a mouse. We have to understand what the relationship is between a mouse and a human in order to interpret that science.

But also, what could be more fundamental than knowing where we came from? The theory of evolution is one of the most magnificent intellectual accomplishments of our civilization. It's a tragedy to deny children of the evidence, the line of argumentation, that led to this magnificent achievement in this essential bit of knowledge to understanding who we are and where we came from."

Ah, masterful. I love both his points but I have to say that the second one is my favorite: why deny kids the magnificent story of the evolution of life?

New podcast with Kate at Parenting Within Reason!

Listen here!

If you're wondering what the heck we're listening to: I was interviewed last week by Colin Thornton, host of a terrific podcast on secular parenting. The repartee was frothy, the ideas were pithy, and as usual I got all political and worked up about evolution education. Give it a listen!

Thanks so much, Colin.