Darwinic pilgrims claim the image fills them with an overwhelming feeling of logic.
DAYTON, TN—A steady stream of devoted evolutionists continued to
gather in this small Tennessee town today to witness what many believe
is an image of Charles Darwin—author of The Origin Of Species and founder of the modern evolutionary movement—made manifest on a concrete wall in downtown Dayton.
"I brought my baby to touch the wall, so that the power of Darwin
can purify her genetic makeup of undesirable inherited traits," said
Darlene Freiberg, one among a growing crowd assembled here to see the
mysterious stain, which appeared last Monday on one side of the Rhea
County Courthouse. The building was also the location of the famed
"Scopes Monkey Trial" and is widely considered one of Darwinism's
holiest sites. "Forgive me, O Charles, for ever doubting your Divine
Evolution. After seeing this miracle of limestone pigmentation with my
own eyes, my faith in empirical reasoning will never again be tested."
Added Freiberg, "Behold the power and glory of the scientific method!"
Since witnesses first reported the unexplained marking—which appears
to resemble a 19th-century male figure with a high forehead and large
beard—this normally quiet town has become a hotbed of biological
zealotry. Thousands of pilgrims from as far away as Berkeley's
paleoanthropology department have flocked to the site to lay wreaths of
flowers, light devotional candles, read aloud from Darwin's works, and
otherwise pay homage to the mysterious blue-green stain.
Capitalizing on the influx of empirical believers, street vendors
have sprung up across Dayton, selling evolutionary relics and artwork
to the thousands of pilgrims waiting to catch a glimpse of the image.
Available for sale are everything from small wooden shards alleged to
be fragments of the "One True Beagle"—the research vessel on which
Darwin made his legendary voyage to the Galapagos Islands—to lecture
notes purportedly touched by English evolutionist Alfred Russel
Wallace.
"I have never felt closer to Darwin's ideas," said zoologist Fred
Granger, who waited in line for 16 hours to view the stain. "May his
name be praised and his theories on natural selection echo in all the
halls of naturalistic observation forever."
Despite the enthusiasm the so-called "Darwin Smudge" has generated
among the evolutionary faithful, disagreement remains as to its origin.
Some believe the image is actually closer to the visage of Stephen Jay
Gould, longtime columnist for Natural History magazine and
originator of the theory of punctuated equilibrium, and is therefore
proof of rapid cladogenesis. A smaller minority contend it is the face
of Carl Sagan, and should be viewed as a warning to those nonbelievers
who have not yet seen his hit PBS series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.
Still others have attempted to discredit the miracle entirely,
claiming that there are several alternate explanations for the
appearance of the unexplained discoloration.
"It's a stain on a wall, and nothing more," said the Rev. Clement
McCoy, a professor at Oral Roberts University and prominent opponent of
evolutionary theory. "Anything else is the delusional fantasy of a
fanatical evolutionist mindset that sees only what it wishes to see in
the hopes of validating a baseless, illogical belief system. I only
hope these heretics see the error of their ways before our Most
Powerful God smites them all in His vengeance."
But those who have made the long journey to Dayton remain steadfast
in their belief that natural selection—a process by which certain genes
are favored over others less conducive to survival—is the one and only
creator of life as we know it. This stain, they claim, is the proof
they have been waiting for.
"To those who would deny that genetic drift is responsible for a
branching evolutionary tree of increasing biodiversity amid changing
ecosystems, we say, 'Look upon the face of Darwin!'" said Jeanette
Cosgrove, who, along with members of her microbiology class, has
maintained a candlelight vigil at the site for the past 72 hours.
"Over millions of successive generations, a specific subvariant of
one species of slime mold adapted to this particular concrete wall, in
order to one day form this stain, and thus make manifest this vision of
Darwin's glorious countenance," Cosgrove said, overcome with emotion.
"It's a miracle," she added.
"As a vivid, living value, the nation-state as an object of worship and a source of practical and moral solutions is as dead as King Tutankhamun."-- S. Molyneux