This is a relaunch of the official Flores Girl blog.  Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot is my first novel about the discovery of a new people by two American Scientists. This blog will provide important updates regarding the novel and the soon to arrive sequel “To Hell with Heroes”.  Moreover, because my novel was initially attacked by creationists and religious fundamentalists that were emboldened by the weird neo-conservative turn many religious groups have taken I have since gone on the offensive. This blog is my counter-attack against the forces of ignorance and fear mongering.  I am pro-evolution but not anti-religion.  As to my politics I am neither a liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican but I am a fierce independent.

Originally, my first blog, that is the Millennium Writing blog was all about writing, creativity and the marketing of that creativity. The idea was that I would share with you my writing challenges and some ideas I have for the marketing of those very same writings. It was all about getting eyeballs for your work and breaking the constraints of the old school publishing world. There are thousands of manuscripts that end up in slush piles and millions of blogs that go unread. Somewhere in between there are a few success stories. To date that does not include my own work but hey you never know!

But lately the blog has taken a turn about the fight against Intelligent design and religious fundamentalists. The goals is to be a beacon of light among the human waves of ignorance. As to my own background I have a degree in Biology from the SUNY at Stony Brook and for a time studied physical anthropology. At some point in my life I came to the realization that I didn’t want to teach and charted an entirely new course in life but the love of science and nature has stuck with me nevertheless.

Oh, as to my own spiritual and religious beliefs, ah well.., oh, who to hell cares? All I know is I am not about to foist them off upon you and please no more of the tired arguments that evolution is a religion upon itself. Evolutionary theory is a science that is observable and subject to a rigorous scientific methodology. Furthermore, despite all the protestations by the Creationists, it is not a belief system like Intelligent Design. I can and have gone out to the field and collected fossils that are consistent with the theory of Evolution and that are inconsistent with the belief of a 6,000 year old earth. I ask all of the Intelligent Design advocates to do the same for their theories and I will be glad to weigh their evidence and present them a forum for their arguments. I’m looking for physical proof of your theories, you know like the bones of an angel or perhaps the proverbial bunny-rabbit fossil in a Precambrian rock. Come on give me something solid and not just your tired arguments. I want bones or proof that a personal god did it!

(Insert sound of crickets here!)

That’s not happening, am I right?

Anyway, I spend my days being a computer technology marketing slut when I am not combating the dark forces of Intelligent Design. On yeah, in my remaining hours I am attempting to complete this speculative fiction trilogy called Flores Girl with somewhat mixed results. When I say mixed results the writing has been well received, it’s completing the trilogy that is the challenge.

Anyway, the Floresgirl Blog will take the brunt of the fight against the evils of ID and creationism while I will leave MillenniumWriting to a discussion on marketing literature. Much tidier and neater that way, don’t you think?

Erik John Bertel