Monday, October 23, 2006

More Zaniness From Poland

Thank God for Kent Hovind. Otherwise, the USA might have to relinquish its title as home of the world’s looniest creationist crazybags.

Neanderthal man walks among us, Poland’s far-right says



Poland’s far-right League of Polish Families (LPR), which is part of the coalition government, claims Darwin’s theory of evolution is all wrong, that humans lived alongside dinosaurs and that Neanderthal man is still among us.

Last week, Poland’s deputy education minister Miroslaw Orzechowski, a member of the LPR, bluntly rejected British naturalist Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection and his postulate that man is descended from apes. […]

This weekend, Orzechowski was given some high-level support when European lawmaker for the far-right party, Maciej Giertych – the father of LPR leader Roman Giertych – told a seminar that Neanderthal man still roams the planet, notably in the United States where examples can be spotted in a boxing ring.

“A scientist showed me a picture of an American boxer. He had all the traits of Neanderthal man. These people are among us. They are part of the human race, probably more prevalent once upon a time, but who still exist,” Giertych, who has a doctorate in biology, told the seminar.

Taking up the mantra of creationists – who have a strong following among Christian fundamentalists in the United States, but whose theory that God created all living creatures at the same time has not won a huge following in Europe – Giertych also propounded that man and dinosaurs roamed the earth together.

“Research shows that dinosaurs and man were contemporaries. In every culture, there are indications that we remember (dinosaurs). The Scots have Loch Ness, we Poles have Wawel dragon (in Krakow), Marco Polo spoke of an imperial carriage in China which was pulled by a dragon,” Giertych said.

I… just don’t know what to say.

(Cross-posted to the Panda's Thumb.)