Darwin's Day and Evolution's "Alternatives"
Brian Trent
February 19, 2007
A day after Darwin’s 198th birthday, the Kansas state Board of Education decided to evolve once again. Guidelines which had assailed not only evolution but the very definition of science, were jettisoned last Tuesday in favor of, well, science.
Since 1999, Kansas has been a chief battleground of the modern Creationist movement. They don’t like to call it Creationism anymore; religious conservatives are well aware of the beating it took in the 1980s, so they’ve bought new wrapping paper, a shiny new ribbon, and a new sales-pitch. Behold, they say. We peddle Intelligent Design!
Under the most basic scrutiny, though, that wrapping paper dissolves to show the familiar face of the Biblical Genesis story. And this may be why in recent months ID is getting so many slap-downs. In December, religious conservatives in Georgia’s Cobb County abandoned their four-year-long legal battle against Darwin. In November 2005, voters in Dover, Pennsylvania ousted school board members who had also been trying to push religion into scientific classrooms under the ID Jolly Roger.
To a civilization like ours which claims to be an advanced one, there should be no mystery here. Modern Creationism-ID fails the most basic of scientific tests. It inputs supernatural claims that rely on blind faith. It decries how incompatible modern science is with Biblical teachings, and rants about how students should be exposed to alternatives to evolution.
Of course, there are lots of alternative explanations to evolution. There is the Nordic tale of how all of humanity sprouted from the maggots of a frost giant. There’s the Chinese egg of chaos, out of which the Earth hatched. The Greeks gave us their “five races of man” fable, which described how various ages of humanity were carved by the gods from gold, silver, bronze, and iron (of which we belong to this latter category.) The Tibetans have a story of the mangases, nasty beaked monsters which hunted humans in the days before there was a sun.
Most Creationists are quick to laugh at these “alternative” explanations, while blissfully ignoring the fact that all of these tales, from Genesis to the Greeks, from Amaterasu to Adam, have the exact same amount of evidence to support them:
None.
This doesn’t mean these stories don’t serve some value. Mythology classes, cultural heritage studies, and even philosophy are perfect stages for these subject matters. But with no evidence other than a tale from a book, it isn’t science. If a copy of the Lord of the Rings were unearthed two thousand years from now, it wouldn’t be terribly rational of that future civilization to use the Balrog-of-Morgoth chapter as a scientific explanation of the world.
The evangelical mindset (which is one of the main pieces of coal trying to fuel resurrected Creationism) has gleefully grasped at the school of newspeak championing “alternatives.” But unless they want all the creation myths from all the world’s cultures stealing biology class-time, then having ID taught as a “competing theory” to evolution is shameless proselytizing. In fact, it’s like challenging the historical view of the Revolutionary War with the baseless opinion that extraterrestrials defeated Britain for us.
Not only do Creationists demonstrate an ignorance of scientific inquiry’s method and nature, but they promote political ideology over science. In fact, many Creationist-ID groups like the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Center claim upfront that beliefs rooted in blind faith should be considered on even ground with science. Therefore, believing that the world is populated by vampires, unicorns, or aliens; believing that the Earth is balanced on the back of a cosmic tortoise; believing that the world is flat; believing that giant wombats control fashion-trends… each of these beliefs requires no evidence whatsoever. Simply believing it makes it valid.
Scientific evidence isn’t and shouldn’t be concerned by belief. If evidence builds to make a case, if repeated observation and experiment strengthen that case, it is entirely irrelevant if it offends someone’s theological glassware. Not so long ago, it was immoral to claim the Earth went around the sun. Galileo found himself branded a heretic for what his own observations and calculations had shown. We now know he was correct.
The same should go for any scientific debate, from global warming to cloning. The agendas of conservative, liberal, or any other party should never be a consideration in science.
Kansas’ recent decision is heartening, yet the fact that we’re still having these debates 82 years after the shameful Scopes trial in Tennessee should highlight the need for serious educational funding in the United States. It also underscores the desire of so many Creationists to turn America into a western version of Iran.
Happy Birthday Darwin, indeed.
Since 1999, Kansas has been a chief battleground of the modern Creationist movement. They don’t like to call it Creationism anymore; religious conservatives are well aware of the beating it took in the 1980s, so they’ve bought new wrapping paper, a shiny new ribbon, and a new sales-pitch. Behold, they say. We peddle Intelligent Design!
Under the most basic scrutiny, though, that wrapping paper dissolves to show the familiar face of the Biblical Genesis story. And this may be why in recent months ID is getting so many slap-downs. In December, religious conservatives in Georgia’s Cobb County abandoned their four-year-long legal battle against Darwin. In November 2005, voters in Dover, Pennsylvania ousted school board members who had also been trying to push religion into scientific classrooms under the ID Jolly Roger.
To a civilization like ours which claims to be an advanced one, there should be no mystery here. Modern Creationism-ID fails the most basic of scientific tests. It inputs supernatural claims that rely on blind faith. It decries how incompatible modern science is with Biblical teachings, and rants about how students should be exposed to alternatives to evolution.
Of course, there are lots of alternative explanations to evolution. There is the Nordic tale of how all of humanity sprouted from the maggots of a frost giant. There’s the Chinese egg of chaos, out of which the Earth hatched. The Greeks gave us their “five races of man” fable, which described how various ages of humanity were carved by the gods from gold, silver, bronze, and iron (of which we belong to this latter category.) The Tibetans have a story of the mangases, nasty beaked monsters which hunted humans in the days before there was a sun.
Most Creationists are quick to laugh at these “alternative” explanations, while blissfully ignoring the fact that all of these tales, from Genesis to the Greeks, from Amaterasu to Adam, have the exact same amount of evidence to support them:
None.
This doesn’t mean these stories don’t serve some value. Mythology classes, cultural heritage studies, and even philosophy are perfect stages for these subject matters. But with no evidence other than a tale from a book, it isn’t science. If a copy of the Lord of the Rings were unearthed two thousand years from now, it wouldn’t be terribly rational of that future civilization to use the Balrog-of-Morgoth chapter as a scientific explanation of the world.
The evangelical mindset (which is one of the main pieces of coal trying to fuel resurrected Creationism) has gleefully grasped at the school of newspeak championing “alternatives.” But unless they want all the creation myths from all the world’s cultures stealing biology class-time, then having ID taught as a “competing theory” to evolution is shameless proselytizing. In fact, it’s like challenging the historical view of the Revolutionary War with the baseless opinion that extraterrestrials defeated Britain for us.
Not only do Creationists demonstrate an ignorance of scientific inquiry’s method and nature, but they promote political ideology over science. In fact, many Creationist-ID groups like the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Center claim upfront that beliefs rooted in blind faith should be considered on even ground with science. Therefore, believing that the world is populated by vampires, unicorns, or aliens; believing that the Earth is balanced on the back of a cosmic tortoise; believing that the world is flat; believing that giant wombats control fashion-trends… each of these beliefs requires no evidence whatsoever. Simply believing it makes it valid.
Scientific evidence isn’t and shouldn’t be concerned by belief. If evidence builds to make a case, if repeated observation and experiment strengthen that case, it is entirely irrelevant if it offends someone’s theological glassware. Not so long ago, it was immoral to claim the Earth went around the sun. Galileo found himself branded a heretic for what his own observations and calculations had shown. We now know he was correct.
The same should go for any scientific debate, from global warming to cloning. The agendas of conservative, liberal, or any other party should never be a consideration in science.
Kansas’ recent decision is heartening, yet the fact that we’re still having these debates 82 years after the shameful Scopes trial in Tennessee should highlight the need for serious educational funding in the United States. It also underscores the desire of so many Creationists to turn America into a western version of Iran.
Happy Birthday Darwin, indeed.
Print
Email
