Tag Archives: evolution

Incomprehensible

The United States is rooted in the Enlightenment–an era that gave us empiricism and the scientific method. Our approach to government was forged by philosophers who extolled reason and evidence. We have always looked up to scientists, and scientists–who are best able to pursue their ideas in an open culture–have historically flocked to our shores.

“Yankee ingenuity” produced a constant flow of important inventions. Fulton gave us the steamboat; Samuel Morse the telegraph, Eli Whitney the cotton gin. Thomas Edison was credited with more than 1000 inventions. The Wright brothers gave us the airplane. The list goes on and on.

Americans were first to set foot on the moon.

Technology–from the telegraph to the IPhone, from the automobile to your television set– builds upon basic scientific principles. The  inventions and advances we take for granted would not have been possible had the country remained rooted in the superstition that characterized pre-Enlightenment Europe.  Just as the early colonists rejected the proposition that monarchs were divinely ordained, they were open to the example of men like Benjamin Franklin who engaged in empirical experimentation and scientific investigation.

Okay, I hear you saying. Well and good. What has prompted this particular rant?

I just read a recent survey of the American attitudes and beliefs.  It found that 39% of us believe in evolution.

At a time when we are spending billions of dollars on medical and biological research–all of which is based upon evolution–only 39% of Americans accept a settled scientific theory. Indeed, if political rhetoric is any indication, very few Americans even understand the difference between scientific theory–an explanatory framework constructed after painstaking empirical testing–and a wild-ass guess, which is the conversational use of the term.

Thirty-nine percent of Americans are scientifically literate–or at least scientifically literate enough to understand and accept the operation and importance of evolution.

There are many indicators of a nation in decline. The Creation Museum–where Adam and Eve saddle up their dinosaurs to romp through  a world created in its current form less than 10,000 years ago–may be the most significant such indicator.

And the most tragic.

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The New “N” Word

I learn a lot from my friends on Facebook.

Yesterday, a couple of people linked to a Slate Magazine report of a poll of Republican electorates in Mississippi and Alabama. The results were eye-opening, in more respects than one: by considerable margins, GOP voters in both states rejected evolution (66% in Mississippi, 60% in Alabama), and believed that President Obama is a Muslim (in Mississippi, only 12% said he was Christian, while 52% said Muslim and 36% were unsure; in Alabama, 14% said Christian, 45% Muslim and 41% unsure).

My first reactions were predictable. 1) A country that rejects science is a country in decline; 2) People who insist that Obama is a Muslim are probably are many of the same people who criticize him for attending a church where Rev. Wright was pastor–i.e., intentionally ignorant people; and 3) So what if he were Muslim? Being Muslim shouldn’t be any more out of the American mainstream than being Mormon or Jewish or Unitarian.

But of course, this isn’t about the comparative merits of different theologies. This is about pathology. It’s about the hate that dare not speak its name.

Another friend’s post hit that proverbial nail on its head. “Muslim” he wrote “is the new “N” word.”

We’ve come far enough in America to make the use of the original “N” word unacceptable, even among people who harbor very racist beliefs. We come far enough to actually elect a black President, and by a pretty substantial margin. That’s progress, and I don’t mean to diminish its significance.

But to dismiss the immediate and irrational response to that election and this President–to insist that every criticism of Obama is grounded in policy differences–is to ignore the elephant in the room.

The “birthers” and their ilk–the folks who insist that the President was born in Kenya, or that he is an adherent of a religion they have also demonized–are intent on labeling Obama as alien, as Other. But they don’t want to admit to themselves–or betray to others–the true source of that Otherness, or the real reason for their animus: the color of his skin.

At least they are true to their own beliefs: they haven’t evolved.

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Doubting Evolution

I am a big believer in science, but I must admit that human behavior over the past couple of weeks has made me doubt evolution.

First, we had the appalling eruptions during GOP debates–first, audience applause when Brian Williams prefaced a question to Rick Perry by noting that executions in Texas during his tenure far exceeded those in any other state; and second, shouts of “yes, let them die” when Ron Paul was asked whether uninsured people should simply be allowed to die.

Now we have the repulsive right-wing reaction to the execution of Troy Davis.

Callers to conservative radio shows last night defended that execution by insisting that the family of the murder victim “deserved closure.” Presumably, closure can come only from the death of another human being.  Now, I am not a supporter of the death penalty, for many reasons I won’t go into here, but even if one does support capital punishment, I cannot conceive of the “closure” that would come from proceeding with an execution where there is such substantial doubt of guilt. How can killing the wrong person provide justice or even retribution? How would executing a possibly innocent man be any different from the murder for which they are seeking vengeance?

Perhaps human evolution doesn’t always produce a capacity for compassion or empathy, but it should at least produce beings capable of a modicum of reason. These sickening displays of irrational blood-lust suggest that some among our human family not only haven’t evolved, they’ve regressed.

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