Reminds me of a Far Side cartoon. There's this scientist showing off his latest theory at a blackboard. Complex equations and such on one side, then a giant arrow to the words "And then a miracle happens" and another arrow to much simpler equations. Caption: "I think you need to expand a bit on step two..."

However much you pretend, magic and miracles aren't science. "We're like this because some unknowable superior entity wanted us to be this way" is not a scientific theory. It's not a testable hypothesis.

Evolution, on the other hand, is a testable theory. And one we've seen a lot of evidence for.

And if there are problems with Darwin's original sourcework... Well, it's not like "Origin of Species" is the bible of evolution. If we find that some of it's wrong, we can update our theories.

Freud's theories on psychology were based on instinct, guesswork, and whatever seemed to make sense to the good doctor at the time. Most of it has been discarded by the bulk of modern psychologists. But that doesn't mean we've abandoned everything that was built from his work. He gave us the basic principles of psychoanalysis and modern psychiatric treatment. We've just improved on them and adapted them as new information came in.

Science is about learning, testing, and revising.

And no, scientists aren't perfect. They make mistakes. Some of them do bad things for selfish reasons. Sometimes, because we don't know everything (if we did, there'd be no need for science at all), they make invalid assumptions. But when things like that are discovered, or when new information comes in that contradicts the old... we learn from that, we make the corrections, and we move on.

As for nipples and such... Every culture is different. We all have our taboos. I remember Dad remarking on a Palestinian woman who was breastfeeding her child. When she saw strangers approaching, she made haste to cover up... her face. In her culture, it was considered indecent for anyone but her husband to see her face, but seeing her bare breasts was perfectly natural.

Then again, it wasn't so long ago that seeing a woman's ankles was considered pretty racy, and no small number of young boys thought that women had some mysterious means of locomotion that didn't involve legs.

What's considered indecent changes from time to time and place to place. Here, female nipples are not for public display, but just about everything else can be (face, hair, neck, midriff, legs...). I don't know that you can really say it's good or bad or prudish or not. It's the limit our culture has set. For now.

But anyway... Getting waaaaaay off topic here.

Wonder how many kids were (or will be) told that babies come from eBay...


When in doubt, think about penguins. It probably won't help, but at least it'll be fun.