You knew this was going to happen, right?
Christian conservatives – who by the way are a rapidly shrinking percentage of the population – are furious because Google is celebrating the 41st anniversary of a historic moment in the history of evolution with its Google Doodle today.
“On November 24th, 1974, as dusk settled upon the southern edge of the Afar Triangle near a village called Hadar, a team of scientists organized by Yves Coppens, Maurice Taieb and Donald Johanson toasted a tremendous discovery,” Google explains on its Doodle page.
The scientists (a word likely held in disdain by some Christian conservatives,) had unearthed skeletal fragments “in the Ethiopian landscape [that] made up the most complete example of Australopithecus afarensis ever found.”
“While they celebrated, a small tape recorder blared ‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds’, again and again. And then it struck someone–what finer name than Lucy for the incredible specimen pulled from the sand that day?”
It’s no secret many on the far right think evolution is a “lie straight from the pit of hell,” to quote one now-former four-term Tea Party Republican U.S. Congressman from the state of Georgia. By the way, that former congressman is also an M.D.
And, like clockwork, today the religious right is apoplectic, threatening via Twitter to boycott Google – probably from their Android phones, Chrome browsers, and Chromebooks.
Take a look: