September 2005 Archives

I was actually wondering how long it would take Richard Dawkins to respond to President Bush's absurd assertion that Intelligent Design should be taught alongside Evolution in American schools. About two weeks is the answer, but at last we have it. Dawkins and Jerry Coyne have authored a piece in today's Guardian Newspaper which, unfortunately, has gotten bumped to third place on the front page.

The Katrina and Baghdad stampede stories naturally take centre stage. Which is a shame - because the debate concerning America's shocking slide to the right and wilful return to medieval ignorance should be one of the most important debates of the next decade.

When the democratically elected President of the world's richest and most heavily armed nation is actively campaigning to have ignorance, superstition and implicitly racist bilge placed on the school curriculum, it's time to sit up and take notice.

"Intelligent design is not an argument of the same character as these controversies. It is not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one. It might be worth discussing in a class on the history of ideas, in a philosophy class on popular logical fallacies, or in a comparative religion class on origin myths from around the world. But it no more belongs in a biology class than alchemy belongs in a chemistry class, phlogiston in a physics class or the stork theory in a sex education class". - Dawkins and Coyne

Dawkins and Gould

The arguments are complex. On one side we have the Darwinists. On the other, Creationists. They prefer the term 'Intelligent design' these days, but I find myself wanting to puke every time that I hear it. It stinks of marketing and re-branding. And bullshit.

A couple of years ago, the late, great Stephen Jay Gould (the fellow Darwinist that Dawkins spent so much time butting heads with) made the extraordinarily simple observation that to compare Creationism and Evolution was to entirely miss the point: they are 'studies' (and I'm being generous in asigning that term to Creationism) of entirely diffferent things.

"'Creation science' has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and because good teachers understand exactly why it is false. What could be more destructive of that most fragile yet most precious commodity in our entire intellectualy heritage -- good teaching -- than a bill forcing honorable teachers to sully their sacred trust by granting equal treatment to a doctrine not only known to be false, but calculated to undermine any general understanding of science as an enterprise?" - Stephen Jay Gould

Creationism is a method to explain the origins of life. Evolution is the study of the process of life. If ignorant, redneck, banjo-plucking mongs want to pick a fight with somebody then they should do so with those propogating theories concerning the formation of the universe, big-bang theorists and quantum physicists.

What are you really scared of?

This leads us to make a simple, but often overlooked observation: the objection which white America has to evolution is really nothing to do with the removal of God from the playing field.

The objection stems from the creationists' horror at what evolution really tells them: that they and the people that look like them, are not the master race. Black, white, yellow or brown, evolution cares not. It is concerned with the tree of life and rejects the progressive ladder concept with which rich, white men have comforted themselves for centuries. Evolution threatens their world view and must be attacked with all force.

Find out more:

One side can be wrong - Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne

'Let's Leave Darwin Out of It' - Stephen Jay Gould