2009 AAAS Annual Mtg - Our Planet and Its Life: Origins and Futures

In February this year, more than 10,000 respected, intelligent scientists, many of them the brightest and most informed minds, from 50 countries, will be meeting on the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, and the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, in Chicago at the AAAS annual meeting. There will be 175 symposia, seminars, workshops, lectures. I wish I was going, but I am not a AAAS member.

Will they make room for the intelligent designers? The "speed of light is changing" proponents? The "incest did not lead to inbreeding in the Old Testament" crowd? The "climate change doesn't matter because Jesus[TM] is coming again" rational voices? The "all carnivorous animals were complete herbivores until after the Great Flood[TM]" voices?

Or will their tent only be big enough for those scientists who rely on data, observation, method, peer review, concurrence, facts, and not beliefs, to participate?

Imagine what a different outlook the meeting would have if Palin, or Huckabee, or Brownback, had made it into National Office!