| Topic: |
Religions > Bible |
| User: |
"The Last Liberal" |
| Date: |
10 Dec 2004 08:37:22 PM |
| Object: |
All Tomorrow's Parties |
http://www.lasvegascitylife.com/articles/2004/11/24/opinion/all_tomorrows_parties/atp.txt
By Joshua Ellis
I happened to be in the middle of reading evolutionary biologist
Richard Dawkins' excellent book of essays A Devil's Chaplain this
week, when I came across a piece in the Boston Globe detailing recent
attempts to remove the theory of Darwinian evolution from textbooks
all over America.
"In 2002, [Cobb County, Md.] school board members voted for the label
after a petition drive by Marjorie Rogers, a lawyer and devout
Christian, who said in trial testimony that she was motivated simply
by reading her children's textbook: 'It presented it just blatantly.
Evolution is a fact. It did happen. I was outraged.'"
Currently, I'm thinking the best course of action would be to remove
science entirely from public school curriculum, because it doesn't
seem that Americans want their children to learn how science works.
Bits of trivia about prisms and how snowflakes form is all very good
and well - isn't it nice how smart my Junior is? - but actually
understanding scientific method, or accepting that there might be such
a thing as objective truth regardless of whatever medieval notions one
might personally ascribe to ... Lord, no, we can't have that.
Americans seem to believe that the word "theory" is a synonym for
"some ***** I made up that might be true or not." This is
incorrect. A better word for that might be "religion." For those of
you who snoozed out during science class - and I'm guessing there's a
lot of you, based on the Globe article - let's go through this yet
again.
A scientist observes some natural process, be it the tendency of
female monkeys to seek out partners with Day-Glo genitalia or the
unaccounted-for behavior of photons in some arcane set of
circumstances. He or she makes a hypothesis based on this observation
- I think that phenomenon X happens for reason Y. The scientist then
experiments - if my hypothesis is correct, then X will happen when I
do this other thing involving expensive equipment.
If such is the case, the scientist is well on his or her way to having
a workable theory. Unlike religious doctrine or, say, postmodernist
literary study, science is extremely rigorous in its process of
verifying its results. Einstein didn't just pop out of the shower one
day and say: "Ja, I haff it, all matter is merely energy condensed!"
and promptly win the Nobel Prize for Best Haircut Ever. His hypothesis
was based on observation. Experimentation confirmed his hypothesis.
Nobody has ever come forth with anything contradicting it. Therefore,
it is a widely accepted theory.
Evolution, on the other hand, is not a theory. It's a fact, one that
can be observed if you bother to look in the right places (like fossil
records instead of religious texts). Charles Darwin came up with a
theory of how evolution works, one that most educated people agree
with. But even if they didn't, even if Darwin were totally off-base,
it wouldn't discount evolution itself, and neither does the average
person's inability to see evolution in action. Just because a child
believes the moon is made of green cheese doesn't mean that the moon
doesn't exist. Nor is gravity imaginary because you cannot see it.
Most of the people who argue against any given scientific theory have
merely skimmed a magazine article or two on it, or have only heard
arguments against it. Very seldom do they bother to actually read a
book on the subject, or take a look at scientific findings.
But since most people see nothing wrong with holding deep convictions
on subjects they know nothing about, they often go out and start
campaigning to have the theory - whether it be Darwinian evolution or
the big-bang theory - removed from textbooks, on the grounds that they
themselves are either too stupid or too lazy to actually educate
themselves, so why should anybody else learn anything?
Hell, why stop with evolution? Why not take basic physics out of
textbooks as well? After all, basic physics tells us - completely
contrary to the Word of God - that it is demonstrably impossible to
fit two of every species of life on the planet inside a boat roughly
300 cubits (or 135 meters) long. We're not even getting into the
ludicrous notion of a flood that covers the entire planet. And maybe
we ought to ban meteorology and geology, too, in case they tell us
something we don't like.
In a just world, strangers on the street would point at these people
and mock their stupidity. In this one, however, these are precisely
the idiots that politicians cater to in stump speeches.
If you want to believe things that aren't true, fine. But please leave
the rest of us (who are dealing strictly with what we like to
affectionately refer to as "reality") alone, OK? Don't make American
schoolchildren any more ignorant than they already are, just because
you can't wrap your head around any scientific advances made since the
French Revolution.
Future generations will thank you for it. I promise.
JOSHUA ELLIS IS A WRITER, ROCK STAR AND WEB GURU. YOU CAN SAVE YOUR
SOUL AT WWW.COLUMN.ZENARCHERY.COM, THE WEBSITE FOR HIS WEEKLY COLUMN
ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES.
---
http://lastliberal.org
"How, then, can the feds justify favoring sons of Hispanics over sons of
white Americans who fought in World War II or Vietnam?" -- Pat Buchanan,
discussing affirmative action (01/23/95)
.
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