The current battle: the evolutionists vs. the creationists
I hope this post doesn't ramble as incoherently as my last one did - the debate sort of demands some form of organized construction. As with any contemporary socio-political issue (abortion/affirmative action/gay rights), this seems to be the hot topic amongst bloggers and scholars alike; I have reservations even thinking about it.
Normally, I'd avoid such a taboo subject, but the educational repurcussions that Bush is currently pushing by his public endorsement of "intelligent design" (as the self-proclaimed 'free-world leader of education') seem too drastic to just let slide. For those who have been buried in a hole for the last few weeks (or in the deep south/midwest), I'll summarize a little bit.
A large majority of individual state's legislatures (particularly the red ones) have engaged in an education battle to promote the teaching of what they call a "two sided debate". Bush, in particular, has publically voiced to the press that "as with any controversial issue", middle-school children should be educated in both sides of the dichotomy and be allowed to decide for themselves. Of course, that's the short version of it.
The dichotomy, however, is a paradox in itself. It's a little like teaching kids two sides of a self-proclaimed controversy - the problem is, it's not really a controversy. To teach kids, for example, that some people believe that the world is flat, and others believe it to be round and then to decide for themselves would be misleading them; in itself, isn't it already misleading to tell them there are two sides?
The creationists' theory has been "academically" published amongst many scholars who proclaim that Darwin's theory of evolution is insufficiently educational, and furthermore, filled with holes. The creationism theory itself is a somewhat primitive one: it revolves around the concept that certain and specific aspects of nature are much too complex to be explained by simple and random evolutionary mutation - instead, it must be the work of a divine creator or an intelligent designer (namely God). A popular example is the eye.
A million different parts are involved in insuring that the eye is functional in all animals, and what's more, all other parts would theoretically be nullified with the absense of just one. Light recognition, muscle movement, retina design, etc. all coincidentally resemble a camera, for example; a product which is of 'intelligent design' - how is it possible, the creationists ask, that this is all random? It must be, they say, the product of a divine creator.
Of course, scientists and most people with half a brain disagree - nature evolves through millions of years and usually, as is scientifically proven, it evolves by natural necessity. It is not a huge stretch, or even a stretch at all to believe that a series of mutations occurred to produce the efficiency of the eye that all animals have today, purely by necessity. Thus, high-flying birds tend to have much stronger eye sight than other animals, specifically because of the necessity to catch prey.
A large hole that adds particular insult to injury is that, essentially, the creationists' theory needs not a shred of proof, scientific backdrop, or even any empirical study to back it up. In fact, the only thing it needs is a preacher behind a podium to say, "look at all these wonderful trees. They're so complex. It must be God!"
Of course, the issue of combatting faith with science (or vice versa) is not a new one - both sides have had their heroes for a long time (since the middle ages in fact) and many well respected scholars like Carl Sagan or Isaac Asimov devoted their lives to proving one thing one way or another. Obviously, in vain.
To me, it strikes as a cheap biblical desperation attempt to promote a conspiracy - perhaps those words are too harsh...but then again, perhaps they aren't. Pretend, for example, that the Bible stated that in a right triangle, the sum of the squares of the two sides added up to the area of the triangle - would it be a controversy back then in schools? Would they teach the kids the "two different sides of the controversy" - that a) the sum of the of the squares of the two sides adds up to the area, and b) the sum of the squares of the two sides adds up to the square of the hypotenuse? I wonder.
45% of the United States population currently believes in the literal wording of the Bible, specifically that God really did create everything in under a week. But what is our education in the United States coming to - in a time where the US is slowly losing it's scientific edge and super-power control of education to foreign nations, we're arguing about stupid shit like this.
As one political cartoon depicts, when you teach kids about astronomy, you don't teach them astrology to present "a different side". When you teach med students about neurology, you don't teach them phrenology to present "a different side". When you teach physicists about the theory of relativity, you don't teach them magic to present "a different side". Those latter statements are reserved for trashy magazines you get a grocery stand and New York City fortune tellers with fake Jamaican accents.
It's a shame that we have to even present American with this "controversy", particularly when required textbooks for classes like AP US History still only teach one side of the controversy of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima - namely, that it "saved millions of lives".
I have a friend named Guga who is hairy as a fucking wookie, he looks like Chewbacca - creationist theory would specifically allow me (with no scientific evidence at all) to publish this fact as "proof" that evolution really did happen - I mean, is it really so coincidental that he looks like a fucking monkey? No! This was intelligent design!
I hate to have it come back to this, but this discussion is really just an extension of my last post about pianists. It always comes down to the theory and dichotomy of science vs. hocus pocus. Pianists believe that what they're doing when they do what they do really works and some even have convoluted scientific mumbo-jumbo to back it up - despite the percussive nature of the instrument.
When it all comes down to it, I don't really see myself as taking as strong a side as what I may have written just now. As you all know, I am not a man of faith, and I do not have any religious tendencies at all. But I do work at a church, have many religious friends, and am generally sympathetic and understanding of faith and the belief in God. That being said, I don't really understand how the concept of intelligent design even has to conflict with science at all; but Republicans (especially the hardcore ones) see everything (including the Bible) in black and white. The words in the Bible describing God's 6-day creation of the world to me just resemble a symbolic gesture of His grand plan - it's not really that science conflicts with religion; it's mainly that the two ask different questions of the other.
If nature really is rooted in intelligent design, I think it would be pretty fucked up. What kind of twisted intelligent design would promote the complexity of a sexually-transmitted virus that apparently has no cure? What kind of intelligent design would let a tsunami wipe out a huge chunk of South-East Asia's population?
"If an intelligent designer lived on Earth, people would stone his windows." - loosely translated Yiddish saying, from Time Magazine.
