The evolution of a bad idea

I don’t understand what is wrong with my fellow countrymen. And, crap, I’m not even talking about war or false patriotism. But every couple of months, some stupid backwater school board has got to throw its two cents in on the subject of Evolution.

I’m not even going to provide links to the news stories, because the names change, and the method used to sneak in Creationism is tweaked, but it always the same old story.

Many scientists, someone will be quoted as saying, are doubting the veracity of Darwinism. Evolution, it will be noted, is a theory, not a fact. There are other theories on just how we got here, the school board demands. And so, stupid backwater myths are promulgated on children. As if they don’t hear enough bullshit from their ignorant parents.

Yeah, it gets to me.

Listen, in any other country with a half-way decent, non-religious education system, this isn’t even a topic. Modern biology is based on Evolution much like modern electronics are based on Quantum Theory. Some of the edges may be fuzzy still, and are vigorously debated by scientists, but no one doubts the core theory, and ANY scientist that says otherwise has an agenda. Some pip-squeak johnny-come-lately is always gonna gun for the quickest draw, but history rarely records his name. Call it evolution.

And here’s the thing: Theories are always based on facts, which are recordable, repeatable data. Theories are not opinion. The Theory of Gravity is not the opinion of Newton. They are the observable results from testing and testing and testing. The theory that Newton put forth worked for several hundred years, but was refined by Einstein. We still learn about Newton’s gravity in school, though, because it is very straight forward, and only breaks down at extremes not present on Earth. I hear no school board in Cracker, USA, demanding that kids learn about the alternatives to gravity.

So just what are the alternatives to Evolution? Surprise, surprise, but the only one available is an off-shoot of the totally ridiculous Creationist “Theory.” And that’s just a story in The Bible. The latest incarnation is Intelligent Design, which, amazingly enough, borrows most of its concepts from Evolution, but insists on a higher being to start it. It may be, after all, what most people believe at some level, but it is not based on any reproducible data, so it is not a theory. Maybe they’ll settle for a warning label on Biology textbooks that evolution is just one of a gazillion theories on the origins of humans. And maybe they’ll pay for all the frontal lobotomies that we need to perform on all those adolescents and their naughty, animal urges.

So what are kids supposed to learn, other than Americans are stuck in some bizarre, Puritan nightmare, where porn and guns and liquor are cheap, but God-damn the lesson that we’ve evolved from lesser stock? Learn this: Religion has no place in our schools or our science or our facts. Die out all ready, you ignorant fools, and let nature take its course.

Posted by Jonathan at 01:36 AM, 04 October 2002

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