(If you are wondering where the whole "Dirty Duty" name stemmed from, it was best explained to me on my first duty day when a female co-worker pointed from the crying baby in the crib to the wall full of Pampers to the special trash can lined with the red bag marked "Bio-Hazard." Did I mention she smiled before she left me alone in the room?)

Provided the kids hadn't come from a horribly abusive situation, generally our charges were pretty regular: teenagers were sullen, tweeners were cautious but inquisitive and the kindergarteners moved from tears to trust with a little bit a work. I found one of the niftiest ways of getting the interest of a five or seven year old was pulling out a tall narrow glass of water and a short, wide, flat bottomed cup. I'd announce that I could do magic and make all the water in the big glass fit in the smaller one. To a "T" the little ones would give me some variant of the "You are crazy" look and declare quite loudly that it couldn't be done. With the evil grin I did do so very well, I'd pour the liquid from the tall glass into the short one in and watch the reaction on the child's face as nothing overflowed.

As I poured the liquid back, the incredulity on their faces would shift and you'd think they were in the presence of Harry Potter himself. (I could almost have pulled that off when I first started in the business - 12 years, forty pounds and a receding hairline ago.) Two 8oz. cups of differing shapes provides a good deal of questions from the we'uns. You pick up in grad school that kids of about age 5 existing in what Piaget called the Pre-operational stage of reasoning. They understand some simple logic about the world but aren't as clear yet with the transitive properties of things - the continuum items and ideas exist in and how the eyes and their perceptions don't quite track with reality. They grow out of it as they get older, but that sense of curiosity, wonder and even anger are very present and instructive. One kid was adamant that I was making things up, that I had somehow made the water disappear and reappear as I moved the liquid back and forth. He just didn't get "it" yet, and as what I was doing moved quickly from instructive to torturing, we moved on to a deep and meaningful philosophical discussion of Yu-Gi-Oh.

I'm reminded of all of this as I track the "debate" raging between Whizbang [Paul] and the rest of Blogosphere over his recent comments about his disbelief in evolution. Apparently he read this article and concluded - quite wrongly-"that we don't know jack about the origin of the species". Comments like that are understandable in the case of a child, though truth be told, kids seem to grasp evolution far easier than adults do. Less of an ego stake, I think.

When My Most Excellent BlogFriend I've Never Met in Person Andy" pointed out that Wiz was sadly mistaken the usual harsh ego-stoked harsh language ensued. When The Most Excellent Biology Professor Par Excellence PZ Meyers took Wiz apart point by point,the usual response oozed out. Now, faced with tons of folks pointing out the history and evidencies for evolution, Wiz has just decended into pouting and foot stomping, just like the kids I used to work with did.

Kids you give a time-out to; adults, well, hopelessly deluded ones, the best you can do, after pointing out the errors they've made and possible sources for their own edification, is give them a slap-down. Like most oozing pustles, the problem with vain stupidity is that when it pops it infects honest discourse and produces weeping wounds of ignorance, victimhood and darkness.

You get a mess that takes countless turns of Dirty Duty to even begin to solve.