Vote Baldwin Out

I don't understand much about Celebrity Big Brother.  My trips to the Room of Viewing have been few and far between for this one, partly due to the snow and partly to apathy.  But I caught about a dozen words from someone whom the Daily Star informs us is called Stephen Baldwin today, before I threw a pebble through the screen.  Stephen is of the Christian faith, and strong in it, and respec' to him for that, as my niece Alisha would say - and indeed frequently does.  But the dozen or so words I heard today were these - one of the other nonentities in the House asked Stephen Baldwin if he believed in evolution, and Stephen Baldwin responded that he didn't because "If we're descended from apes, how come apes are still here?"

Just let the fatuousness of those words sink into you.  Roll their gormlessness around the tastebuds of logic and irony like a fine brandy.
Consider the various ways in which this argument is wild-eyed, single-brain-celled half-wittedness of the highest order.
Consider that zoologists generally regard the ancestors of apes and human beings as being a common ancestor, not an ape.
Consider that even if human beings did descend from apes, this did not mean all the apes turned into human beings one day.  Only that fortunate (or otherwise) population that had the mutations that make us humans, not apes, descended from the common descendant as human beings.
Consider that gorillas, orang-utans, bonobos and chimps all descended from "apes".  Yet all those and their many other related species exist.
Consider that it is possible that rational human beings, creationists and bonobos all descend from a common ancestor.  Consider which of the three probably has the least highly evolved brain function.
Consider that, Stephen Baldwin being an actor, he probably isn't responsible for the thoughts that he expressed.  Consider that somebody else is probably the real source of this straw-man, gormless, half-baked answer and that actors aren't really responsible for many of the things they say.  And consider that whoever gave the unfortunate Mr Baldwin these thoughts is probably spreading the poison of lazy thinking and dopeyness to many others.  And think how awful that is.

Now, I couldn't encourage anyone to vote on Big Brother.  I really couldn't, in all conscience, do that.  But I beg you.  And apparently some churches are organising to keep him in.  For the sake of removing this hapless stereotype- for the sake of the sanity of those people who are able both to believe and reason - if you were going to vote on this useless programme, please vote him out.  It's the least you can do.

I also appeal to atheists of good-will and lots of money.  I know that it's tempting to let him stay in there, making those of us of many faiths or one look like idiots.  I know he's as much an asset to atheists as Gordon Brown is to the Conservative Party.  But please don't keep him in.  If you're daft even to vote on Celebrity Big Brother, at least be clever enough to vote him out.

Thank you for listening.