An Itch to Scratch

This is just a quick entry before I begin my eons worth of homework tonight. I decided to comment in Sonny’s blog today, just a simple post about not knowing who Avril Lavigne is. He probably won’t even notice it.

I got to talk to my old buddy Anthony today. He’s grown up quite a bit since… hell, since last year. No more humping on trash cans and sprinklers in front of theaters. Ninth grade was so fun and carefree, yet despite that, I miss it, but I don’t want it back. A lot of bad crap happened that year (and tenth grade year too). I kind of don’t even want back the camraderie I had with M.K., Micah, etc. during those days. We’re all so “grown up” these days.

In Theory of Knowledge (our little IB philosophy class) today, we were discussing divorce using an article written back in 1987 by Helen Fisher. She provided evidence that our “high” rates of divorce in countries around the world (around 50%) may not be high. There is evidence to support that the desire the change partners after around 4 years biologically based, and so our divorce rates may be biologically normal, or even low. Anywho, we’re sitting there debating this, including references to evolution and other anthropological stuff, and I’m looking at my IB acquaintance Mark. Background info: Mark is a devout, conservative Christian that believes that the Earth is about 4000 years old, women belong at home (and in the kitchen a good bit), etc., etc. I wanted to ask him so badly what he thinks of this, personally. For instance, does he think biologist/anthropologists are mistaken in their theories of evolution/human development, does he think it’s Satan’s subtle work to demoralize and degrade humanity, or what? And I can’t ask him, because I don’t know him that well, but for him to have such “fundy” views, yet to be so smart (he’s probably our valedictorian), I have to wonder how he reconciles the two views. I know he chose to take physics rather than biology as his higher-level science and everything, but does he just automatically discount things taught in biology that don’t correspond to the Bible, or does he consider them, find them lacking in some logical value that would make them truth, then discount them? There are a couple of other IB students (that actually take biology) that I would ask the same questions, but they aren’t as… introspective as I think Mark can be. The article comes from the October 1987 issue of Natural History and is titled “The Four-Year Itch”.