Thursday, August 4, 2011

Welcome to the Athiest Evilutionist's blog

A more detailed "about me" to mark my presence in the blogosphere.

So who am I?
At the moment, I'm a back-office specialist in an international financial institution, but I started out my adult life as a science student at the Catholic University of Leuven, where I obtained my Biology degree (equivalent to an MSc). I spent 5 years working at the research laboratory where I obtained my degree, and for a few years, combined that with part-time osteo-archaeological research at the Africa Museum in Tervuren (B).

Looking for a more steady employment (I worked on short-term project-basis for those five years), I entered the IT-support world, where I managed a telephone support team for DSL clients for 2,5 years (and spoke to my fair share of clients as well). After that period, I entered my current employment.

Not really interesting, I know, but a little background info for those who might be curious.

Why that blog-name?
I've been member of some on-line atheist communities for more than a decade. I've been following current developments in biology and looked at amazement and horror at the prevalence of creationist crap that poisons the web.

Many of those sites like to use the "clever pun" of calling evolution "evilution". I decided to pick up that sad attempt at an insult by religious fanatics, and adopt it as a badge of honour. After all, there's historical precedent for that tactic ("Geuzen" in the Netherlands, "Yankee", etc)

But why the athiest evilutionist? Are there athy and athier evilutionists? Honestly, I don't know. I've asked the many fundie posters who've used this term over the years, but it looks as if they were just mistyping "atheist". But since getting a fundamentalist to admist that (s)he has made an error, is like picking up fog with a fork, it could just as well be an adjective they privately use to describe people they don't like.

And hey, if it describes people not liked by fundamentalists, it certainly describes me, and I'll carry their description with pride!

So what can you expect in these pages? Well, mostly my thoughts on recent (and not-so-recent) scientific developments. Comments about creationut and IDiot ramblings. Analysis of religion intruding itself in public life and other examples of threats (IMHO, of course) to a healthy society based on liberal, humanistic principles.

I know that many will not agree with me, but that's what the comments are for ;)