[LINK] "Goodyear continues to deflect questions on evolution beliefs"

The story continues. Maybe I'll make updates on the Goodyear story a regular feature here if it goes on for much longer.

Gary Goodyear, Canada's minister of science, trumpeted the country's scientific achievements in a speech Wednesday but found himself deflecting, for the second day in a row, questions about his commitment to the theory of evolution.

“My view isn't important. My personal beliefs are not important. What's important is that this government is doing the right thing for science and technology – to support science as we have in every single budget,” he said during a brief scrum after a speech to the Economic Club of Canada.
[. . .]

Mr. Goodyear, the Minister of State for Science and Technology, attempted to clarify his views on the origins of humanity in a Tuesday interview on the CTV program Power Play; he said he believed in evolution. However, when he provided the show with examples of the sort of evolution he believes in, he left some experts in developmental biology wondering if he understands the concept.

“We are evolving every year, every decade,” Mr. Goodyear said on the television program. “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.”

Brian Hall, a biology professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax and an expert on evolution, said Mr. Goodyear is mistaken.

“This is not evolution,” he said of Mr. Goodyear's examples. “The minister is confusing evolution with lifestyle adaptation,” said Prof. Hall.

“We adapt to the intensity of the sun by staying in the shade, using more sunscreen, wearing a hat. We adapt to walking on cement by wearing more comfortable shoes,” Prof. Hall said.

These are not genetic changes that are passed to the next generation, he said. They aren't going to add padding to our children's or grandchildren's feet and help them walk on concrete, or help their skin withstand more of the sun's harmful rays.

Would it be worse for Goodyear to be a Lamarckian than a creationist? I wonder.

[LINK] "Lobster, the new bologna: marketers"

Very bad news about lobsters has come from Prince Edward Island.

With lobster season starting in about a month, something has to be done with last year's catch. (CBC)With a glut of frozen lobster in Atlantic Canadian warehouses, federal and provincial money is being put toward a new marketing strategy to move it.

Different tactics are being considered — including branding, new exports, product development — but there is agreement that the first step will be changing people's perception of lobster as a luxury product.

A deep dive in lobster sales is being blamed on the recession. Luxuries tend to be the first to go when people tighten their food budgets, but falling prices in the wake of flagging demand mean lobster is not the splurge it once was.

West Nova MP Gregg Kerr points out lobster has recently been about the same price as bologna, although it has risen in the last couple of months.

"I think most would recognize that the food value in a live fish product is probably quite substantially more than a processed product such as bologna would be," said the Nova Scotia MP.

There is at least $30 million worth of frozen lobster in processors' freezers, mostly in P.E.I., and if it can't be moved that will make for a difficult spring lobster season, which is only just a month away.

Why is this bad? There's the impact of the slowdown in the lobster market on the fishers and their wider industry, true, but there's also the attempt, as detailed later in the article, to promote lobster as an everyday sort of meat. That sort of intensified demand could help kill the species, already under threat in parts of its territory. Remember what happened to the cod of the Grand Banks.

[MUSIC] Ladytron, "Playgirl"

The only track on the compilation album Naan Commerical Hits that I found worthwhile, both back when I got the album and now, is Ladytron's 2001 song "Playgirl" off of their debt album 604.

"Kylie Minogue - Can't Get You Out Of My Head (Blue Monday Mix)" (Watch on YouTube)

"Playgirl" has a sort of chilly super-competency about it, with its insidious electronic metronomic beats and its precise dissection of an opportunistic personality, that really gets my attention.

They've got a concert in Toronto on the 6th of April, incidentally. Anyone interested in seeing it with me?

[BRIEF NOTE] Georgia, Eurovision, and nationalism

Georgia's participation in Eurovision is being suspended this year, as the country's February decision to put forward the song "We Don't Wanna Put In" (Put In, get it?) as Georgia's entry has led to the song being banned on account of its political commentary by the competition's organizers, in turn leading the Georgians to withdraw from the contest this year. This might be as good thing, inasmuch as this year's contest is to be held in Moscow.

"Eurythmics - Julia (Official Music Video)" (Watch on YouTube)

The song doesn't sound serious--it's light, it's kitsch. The bothersome bit is what it represents. As I understand it--and I don't think I do, that well at least--Eurovision is basically all light and kitsch, friendly What really bothers me about the whole episode, I suppose, is the sort of hard-edged nationalism that this erstwhile Eurovision represents. I certainly know that Europe's nations share numerous rivalries, but this sort of nationalist-tease song hasn't been present in Eurovision. It seems improper to me.

Thoughts?