I’m beginning to think that the reason they haven’t embraced the whole notion of Evolution is that certain parts of the south are no longer evolving. Case in point: Georgia State House Representative Ben Bridges.
From Talking Points Memo:
“Indisputable evidence — long hidden but now available to everyone — demonstrates conclusively that so-called ‘secular evolution science’ is the Big-Bang 15-billion-year alternate ‘creation scenario’ of the Pharisee Religion,” reads the letter that went out under Bridges’ name. “This scenario is derived concept-for-concept from Rabbinic writings in the mystic ‘holy book’ Kabbala dating back at least two millennia.” . . .
Asked if he agreed with the Kaballah evolution conspiracy theory and the earth’s lack of motion, he told the Atlanta Journal Constitution, “I agree with it more than I would the Big Bang Theory or the Darwin Theory. I am convinced that rather than risk teaching a lie why teach anything?”
So you folks in Georgia still don’t think the planet is even in motion? That kinda makes me wish you were right. Because then there’d be no gravity and you’d go flying off into space.
Hey, you elected him.
Of course, Jewish groups are rightly calling for an apology. Bridges should be pressed to make one, but we all know it won’t really mean anything, any more than Kramer’s or Mel Gibson’s apologies. No, it seems the tack being used more commonly nowadays, when disagreeing with evolution, is to issue death threats. How very un-Christian an action taken in nominal defense of biblical views. An irony no doubt lost to those with limited literacy levels. Are we now to let fear and intimidation dictate the course of education and science in this country? This editorial makes the point very well:
The judge in Pennsylvania eventually found that real evolution was not stupid; that intelligent design was religion, not science, and that the school board in Dover, Pa., whose actions had precipitated this replay of Scopes, was out of line. Judge John E. Jones III was rewarded for his sensible and well-documented ruling with death threats. Such is the power of talk-radio evolution.
Meanwhile, a creationist history of the Grand Canyon is on sale in national park shops. A major American museum expressed interest in having me speak about my new book but decided the subject of evolution was too “political” now to risk it. And teachers across the nation tell me they feel compelled to downplay or skip evolution lessons to avoid controversy; one Los Angeles-area high school instructor said she is the only one of five science teachers on her faculty to even mention evolution in class, notwithstanding a clear state mandate to teach it.
Get that? Notwithstanding a clear state mandate to teach it. So why don’t they? Fear and intimidation are the only answers that fit the bill. That’s not how America is supposed to operate.
Maybe you need to listen to someone different for a change. Here you go:
Sorry, I should have warned y’all from Gawga that he’s a Jew. Deal with it.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: News, politics, Religion, science, You can't make this shit up
“Get that? Notwithstanding a clear state mandate to teach it. So why don’t they? Fear and intimidation are the only answers that fit the bill.”
I am curious how anyone is too intimidated to teach evolution in this day in age. Even Scopes wasn’t intimidated when he “allegedly” taught it many decades ago. I sat through numerous high school science classes (a little over a decade ago) and don’t remember anything stopping or intimidating my teachers speaking about evolution- no matter how ill informed they were about current evolutionary thought.
L.A. as a hub of Christian fundamentalism, I don’t buy it. Chances are the teacher simply doesn’t want to answer questions from students who are skeptical of evolutionary theory (I understand I am using the term broadly here to mean the package deal of big bang, primordial goo, bacteria to man evolution). I don’t know if you would agree, but if my experience in the field of history is any yardstick, many middle and secondary school teachers lack sufficient knowledge in their respective field to do more than teach the cookie cutter curriculum. To be fair I found Catholic school teachers had a similar problem when it came to explaining theology. So I can understand their fear to teach a rather complex subject- one students might have lots of hard questions about.
All that aside, I like the blog.
-J. Kaiser
You may be right, Kaiser, that part of the reason teachers don’t wish to address issues of evolution is that they lack the knowledge base to answer surprisingly probing questions from students. The fear, though, I think lies more in in politics than it does in the actual information.
In today’s educational system, it is much easier to solve a problem by blaming a teacher than supporting them. Should a teacher come under scrutiny for something like evolution, I imagine they would be concerned that they would become the scape goat or lightening rod. That’s what inspires the fear, not actually teaching the information, but how school districts seem much more willing to respond to parental complain than support not only their teachers, but what amounts to the backbone of biology instruction.
Ironically the biggest evidence that evolution is false comes from the fact that these idiots are still in the gene pool.
Threnody, that only proves that it’s gradual.
Haha well regardless. After reading this blog for a week and a half we finally agree on something. Hurrah!
I know evolution is a pet issue of yours, Jamie, but I think science (in general) is in the hospital. The legitimacy and quality of science is in decline in this country. There’s no question about that.
And it’s really the fault of the schools and universities themselves. By buying into postmodernism (where nobody is ever ‘right’ and all opinions are ‘equal’ regardless of what the evidence points to), they’ve allowed today’s sophists to run circles around the basic tenents of the scientific method by claiming that it’s ethnocentric, sexist, anti-religious, anti-social, and such. What the schools consider an act of self-critical reflexivity, their detractors see only as weakness. So, unwittingly, the schools themselves have become accomplices of a resurgent anti-Enlightenment movement.
\
You need not look further than the debate over homosexuality to see the results of this move. Mainstream scientists have long ago concluded that “reparative therapy” tends to do more harm than good, and that gay relationships (in and of themselves) are not a deterrent to child-rearing. In the professional organizations (APA, AMA, ASA), there is a relatively strong consensus on these issues.
Yet, President Bush can quote “Sociologist” Stanley Kurtz that “children function best with a mother and father” without any social consequence. What the President fails to mention, of course, is that Kurtz was expelled from the APA and ASA for ethics violations. Not that it matters in today’s America. It’s all about selling the product and invoking feelings. Sadly, many Americans have little scientific logos and an even more muddled understanding of methodology. They can barely separate solid research from think-tank junk.
And that’s the real crisis here. Not the debate over specific aspects of evolution itself, but whether we Americans even have the capacity to evaluate it dispassionately and within its own terms… without Stephen Colbert’s “truthiness”, if you will.
John, I couldn’t agree more. But I’m still going to point these fools out. Maybe I can get people to think critically. That’s the whole point, really, of this blog.
I had to laugh at this quote from Humes:
The real theory of evolution does not try to explain how life originated — that remains a mystery. The truth is that many scientists accept evolution and believe in God — and in a natural world so complete that it strives toward perfection all on its own, without need of a supernatural designer to keep it going.
That would be news to respected and quoted scientists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, both of whom have written books making it clear that the existence of evolution proves how life began and disproves the existence of God.
When Humes and his fellow “scientists” decide to criticize their own, or expel them from various organizations for their misuse and manipulation of research, results, and theories, then I think the American public will be more receptive.
But until then, I think they’re also very aware that so-called “scientific” organizations like the APA, AMA, and others invariably find what they want to find.
To be fair, there’s a good number of established, well-respected scientists who feel Dawkins and Harris both go too far and criticize them quite openly and famously. Stephen Jay Gould, for example, debated fiercely with Dawkins regarding the appropriate application of Science and Religion. So it’s not as if Dawkins and Harris represent the full face of evolutionary biology or what the majority of evolutionary biologists favor in matters of religion.
Essentially, both Dawkins and Harris have made careers on pushing buttons and blurring the line between science and philosophy. So the question is does one go after their intentionally sensational opinions or does one instead devote that time and energy to investigating actual evolution and science? To reframe it, does it behoove one to view David Duke as the face of the Republican Party or Fred Phelps as the face of modern Christianity? These are extreme examples, but using Dawkins and Harris to define the face of modern evolutionary biology just as blatant a strawman and also feeds into their egomania.
So the question is does one go after their intentionally sensational opinions or does one instead devote that time and energy to investigating actual evolution and science?
Given Humes’s statements, the former.
But only if they’re NOT “scientists” like Dawkins and Harris.
Your idea is lovely, QJ; however, it needs to be applied to both sides in order for it to be relevant.
I’m not sure I understand your point here, NDT.
My point is this, QJ; if scientists spent half of the time on abusers from their own ranks like Dawkins and Harris that they do on those from outside them, they would have much more credibility in this regard.
NDT, on your own blog you point out the presumed folly of relational comparisons by suggesting the folly of critiquing the death threats made to Peter LaBarbera on Pam Spaulding’s blog in relation the the harshness of LaBarbera’s own rhetoric. Yet you seem to be demanding scientists do just that, saying they can’t point out the horrible fallacies of “intelligent design” without including some sort of statement about Dawkins/Harris and their supposed overstepping of the purview of science.
It seems a mistake for scientists to have to play follow the leader here. Dawkins and Harris are more than welcome to run off onto whatever philosophical trek they wish and other scientist are then welcome to veer into philosophy as well to speak in support or disagreement, but to demand that that those scientists not offer scientific critique of intelligent design without also following Dawkins/Harris down this side path and dragging themselves away from actual science is unreasonable. Scientists should do what most are doing, which is focusing on the publication of their research and peer review of the research of others. Part of that is the examination of the non-science that is “intelligent design”.
Hume isn’t “less credible” because he avoids the ramblings of Dawkins/Harris in his op ed piece. I would, in fact, say he’s more credible because he strictly delineates what science is and tries to do and sticks with it, instead of going off on some curly-cue of rationality and trying to equate science with philosophy.
Again, QJ, the reason is this; scientists justify their loud and public anathema of intelligent design by saying that it is an abuse and perversion of science, and that due to that, they must then fight it tooth and nail.
However, when it comes to Dawkins and Harris, who also abuse science, going after them would be a “distraction” and “take away from real science”.
What I am simply pointing out is this; scientists claim to be against abuse of science in all of its forms, but the degree to which they oppose it varies drastically by the abuser.
Sort of like how raping a woman used to get radically different punishments depending on your skin color.
My point is that those differences in punishments and reactions critically undermined the perception of those administering justice as being fair, balanced, and rational.
The same is taking place with science.
NDT, on your own blog you point out the presumed folly of relational comparisons by suggesting the folly of critiquing the death threats made to Peter LaBarbera on Pam Spaulding’s blog in relation the the harshness of LaBarbera’s own rhetoric.
Not quite, QJ.
Had I been arguing that scientists were not justified in going after abusers of science because they don’t go after abusers in their own ranks, that would be one thing.
But what I have been pointing out throughout this thread is that the credibility of scientists is undermined because their reactions are so drastically different depending on who’s abusing science.
My point on my own thread was that the collective heads of Pam and her commentors would have exploded had LaBarbera posted death threats against gays. But she and they did nothing when her commentors posted death threats against LaBarbera — and, given that her commentors were not shy about informing her and complaining about me posting, her claims of ignorance simply don’t hold water.
“I am convinced that rather than risk teaching a lie why teach anything?”
That’s hilarious!