Under the principles of Darwinism, science purports to teach us that life began in the primordial soup of the sea, where amino acids and other basic compounds combined to form life, which eventually grew legs, wings and lungs to survive out of water, central nervous systems, and one lucky species in particular developed opposable thumbs, the ability to use language, to hunt and gather, then to form tribes, then to build tools to develop agriculture and trading communities, then states, then nations, and then this species reached its highest point in evolution when one of its members was able to develop an outstanding physique, star in a bunch of action/adventure movies, marry a Kennedy, and eventually become Governator of California! Namely, DarwinвЂ™s book put forth the notion that life evolved through the process of Natural Selection, in which individuals best suited to their environment are able to reproduce and pass on their genes to future generations. No member of The PIE ChartвЂ™s research staff was able to make it through The Origin of the SpeciesвЂ™ butt-numbing 544 pages, but the book is more important for what it wrought.

But weвЂ™re not running a book review service here. How does Darwin stack up against all this? Well, youвЂ™ve already seen the first paragraph suffice it to say, the Bible makes for a much better day at the beach. So, thatвЂ™s the Bible - and thatвЂ™s just the first page! Read just a bit further, and youвЂ™ve got fratricide, kinky sex, natural disasters, bloodshed, and the Great Flood, and thatвЂ™s just the Book of Genesis! The rest of the Bible gets even better (excluding, maybe, the Chronicles and the part where they kill the Messiah), so put it all together and youвЂ™ve got yourself one rip-snortinвЂ™ good read! And humans got the Special Members Benefit Package: The Big Guy pretty much said, вЂњYou humans are the boss around here, okay? You control all the plants and animals, and you can eat whatever you want. LetвЂ™s take a quick look at GodвЂ™s first week on the job: He created the Day and Night (Day One) Heaven and Earth (Day Two) Land and Sea (Day Three - in which He earned bonus pay for bringing forth grass, trees, herbs and fruit) the Sun, the Moon and the Stars (Day Four) animal life in the Sea and the Sky (Day Five) and - whew! get this guy a Gatorade! - finally, he created all the beasts of the land, including humans. But for those of you in West Rutland, here goes:Д¬reationism holds that the Earth and all its shrubs вЂ™nвЂ™ critters were created in six days, as described in the first chapter of the Bible (Gen. WeвЂ™re talking about it today because this age-old debate is once again in the news, and The PIE Chart believes this will become a major story in 2005.ДЄnyone whoвЂ™s made it this far into the article probably knows the basic principles of each argument. So, besides the prizes, whatвЂ™s the point of this exercise? As you may have guessed, weвЂ™re leading into a discussion of Creationism (or Intelligent Design) versus Darwinism (or Natural Selection). For those of you who answered вЂњThe BibleвЂќ for the first paragraph, hereвЂ™s a recipe for delicious coconut macadamia cookies!ДЄnd anyone who answered Charles DarwinвЂ™s The Origin of the Species (1859) for the second paragraph wins $10,000 available from The PIE ChartвЂ™s Contest Division (link temporarily unavailable).

Keeping your eyes on your own paper, please write the title of the book from which our first paragraph comes. Wow, and thatвЂ™s the edited version! YouвЂ™re welcome for the ellipses, by the way. And if we reflect on the vast diversity of the plants and animals which have been cultivated, and which have varied during all ages under the most different climates and treatment, we are driven to conclude that this great variability is due to our domestic productions having been raised under conditions of life not so uniform as, and somewhat different from, those to which the parent species had been exposed under nature.Our oldest cultivated plants, such as wheat, still yield new varieties: our oldest domesticated animals are still capable of rapid improvement or modification.вЂќ

вЂњWhen we compare the individuals of the same variety or sub-variety of our older cultivated plants and animals, one of the first points which strikes us is, that they generally differ more from each other than do the individuals of any one species or variety in a state of nature. вЂњIn the beginning, God created the heaven and the Earth.вЂќ Pencils ready, folks there will be a quiz. LetвЂ™s start off todayвЂ™s discussion by reviewing the opening paragraphs of two separate books.

The battle rages on wow