Drew's got em all bunched up.

While I respect Drew's arguments, and question The New York Times' and Time's motives and characterizations, the fundamental point remains clear: questioning the teaching of the Theory of Evolution in schools is backdooring the teaching of Creationism. Because, after all, when one theory evaporates, something generally takes its place. What's the only other option, besides Intelligent Design, that explains it all? Mmmhmmm. You guessed it: creationism.

Darwin's Origin of Species while optimistically titled, has been presented over the years as a theory. It also happens to be a theory that cannot ever be proved until someone provides us mere human beings with an accurate timeline of just what occurred on this planet, how it happened and when it happened. I'm not saying that there aren't problems with Darwin's work: there are. However, we simply do not have an acceptable theory to replace it. It just happens to be the one that makes the most sense, hence its wide acceptance in the scientific community.

The problem occurs when creationists try to make hay with the "theory" business, knowing that no one can ever prove them wrong. This is their silver bullet that cuts right through the bullshit. And, to my mind, it's a logical fallacy that has no end. They conveniently ignore that "Creationism" is a theory as well.

This debate is about which unprovable theory should be taught in public schools.

I present, for your consideration, the game of "Which Scenario Is More Likely":

That God created everything in six days, took the seventh to kick back and slurp some brewskies. He then created man, and so he wouldn't be lonely, took one of man's ribs and created woman around it. Then he told man and woman never to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge because it was off-limits. The Devil---conveniently in the form of a serpent---tempts woman into eating the fruit. Subsequently, she lures man into eating it as well. God boots them from the Garden of Eden and sends them off into the wilderness, considerably bewildered as to why these ungrateful wretches had countermanded his order.

Or...

The Earth is one big puddle of primordial, carbon-based goo. The essential elements for life are there. Nothing happens for a long, long time. We don't know what, but something eventually sparks life. One celled creatures appear and everything evolves over millions of years. Features on everything and everyone that are useful are propagated into the next generation by means of choosy reproduction.

Now to judge which scenario is more likely, I give you Occam's Razor as your yardstick. Using Occam's Razor, which dictates that the simplest explanation is almost always the correct one, which scenario seems more likely to you? Knowing that both options seem fantastic and beggar belief?

I choose evolution.

While I don't buy it exactly as Darwin presented it, it does make sense. Technically speaking, you could probably lump me in with the Intelligent Design people. I think God was the spark to the goo.

And I'm Catholic. I am a direct beneficiary of this "give them a choice" business that creationists are trying to install as the standard, because it was what I was taught in the Catholic schools I attended. Darwinism was a "theory." We were supposed to believe in creationism, but just to make sure we had all the options, Darwinism was presented in the course materials. It was confusing, to say the least. What earns you brownie points with the priest does not earn you the same number of points with your science teacher. I can tell you from experience that we all pretty much leaned toward Evolution at the end of those science classes and you would have had to have been a nitwit to think otherwise. We just kept our mouths shut in religion class when the subject was raised.

If you want your kids to learn about creationism, fine. Great. That's wonderful. Just don't insist they learn it in the public schools. It's disingenuous in the extreme to think that Darwinism is so easily discounted simply because it's a "theory." You're simply going to have to do more work than that to disprove it. The genie's out of the bottle: just try and shove that beast back in. It won't work.

This move is intellectually dishonest in that it claims to be honest. It claims to offer "choice" for students. Until someone comes up with something better, well, there shouldn't be any choice on this one because one version of our origins relies upon God and the other relies upon empirical evidence and more than a bit of educated guessing. God---anyone's God---does not belong in a public school that is paid for by everyone, even people who don't believe in God, or people who believe in a different God. Church and State are separated in this country for a friggin' reason and this is the way it should remain. If you really want your children to learn creationism in school, well, might I suggest that you enroll your child in a parochial school? I would recommend the same thing if you want your child to pray in school.

There is simply no room to maneuver on anything religious based in the public school system, because if you start letting religion in, where does it stop? Where is that line drawn? We Americans have this lovely habit of assuming everyone is a Christian. While Jews share the same story of creationism with Christians, what about the Hindus? What about the Muslims? What about the Bhuddists? And so on and so forth. If a strictly Christian version of creationism was eventually put into place, well, whose version of the Bible would be used to teach this theory? The Evangelicals? Or the Catholics?

This country was founded by Christians who had been persecuted for their religious beliefs by other Christians. Once you bring religion into it, it's darned hard to get it out again.

UPDATE Drew comments further in the comments section and over at his blog. Go Read. I comment further as well, in the nifty comments section right below!

Posted by: Kathy at 03:38 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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