Assault on Science Spreads

Objectivist Center ^ | 2/3/04 | Edward Hudgins

[RJCogburn]

The assault on science that I discussed in my January 30th Report from the Front unfortunately is not confined to bookstores at the Grand Canyon.

Proposed curriculum guidelines for Georgia schools suggest that the word “evolution” not be used. It would be replaced with “biological changes over time.” The Georgia Education Department already omits much material referring to the Earth’s age and the relationship of various living organisms to one another. (Yes, if governments didn’t own and run schools, bad ideas might be better confined. But unfortunately that’s not the case.)

State Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox maintains that the basic ideas of evolution can still be discussed but that the curriculum revision removes a “buzzword” that causes controversy. Of course, this is a “buzzword” only to those creationist crusaders who—nearly 80 years after the Scopes trial—are still obsessed by an urge to censor the study of the origin of species.

What are they scared of? Why does this truth so frighten them? Some seem to believe that if we do not acknowledge that humans are special because God created us, then there is no basis for ethics and moral anarchy will rule. As Dostoevsky wrote, “If God is dead, all things are permitted.” This belief, of course, reflects a profound misunderstanding of the nature of ethics. As Ayn Rand shows, the need for an ethical code arises from the fact that our survival and flourishing require us to exercise our free will and rational capacity—to focus our minds, to choose to think. And it is just the creationists’ failure to do this—their refusal to seek and acknowledge the truth—that leads them both to reject evolution and the mountain of evidence that confirms it, and to reject rational self-interest as a basis of morality.

Sometimes profoundly irrational ideas might lie dormant, confined to some obscure corner of a culture. But since ideas have consequences, they are apt to break out like a virus with terrible consequences. It is thus necessary that we continue to fight to establish a rational culture or its irrational opposite could be our lot.

[ETERNAL WARMING]

The assault on science that I discussed in my January 30th Report from the Front unfortunately is not confined to bookstores at the Grand Canyon.


WHAT science? Evolution is nothing but THEORY. No science backing it up.

[Dimensio]

Evolution is nothing but THEORY. No science backing it up.

If there were no science backing it up, then it wouldn't be a theory.

[jennyp]

WHAT science? Evolution is nothing but THEORY. No science backing it up.

Yeah - There'd be a lot better science coming out of America if only our scientists would stop coming up with all those darn THEORIES! =:-D

[jennyp]

Dere's too much theorizin' goin' on out dere! </Senator Hollings voice>

[Clock King]

Excellent!

[JudgemAll]

Typical progressist delusions of persecutions. They cannot accept choice of study, but only want to impose their studies. They cannot accept that there is a law of the people and a law of materials, separate from each other, no, to them, the law of the materials should also determine who can be punished or praised. In other words, man is not client of this Earth but this Earth becomes client of man...

[CobaltBlue]

CB's theory on why evolution is rejected in the Bible Belt(worth what you paid for it - no charge).

Darwin started writing in the 19th century, when the United States was still struggling with slavery and its aftermath. The "Descent of Man" was published in 1871.

At that time, it was widely perceived in the South that blacks looked, acted, and smelled like apes. Dehumanizing black people was convenient for their consciences, because nice people wouldn't treat other human beings the way they treated black people, and they knew it.

Along came Darwin, who pointed out that mankind's closest relatives are apes, which is indisputable, but also that we are directly related to apes, which was intolerable to Southerners who hated blacks.

This is what really scalds and burns them. How can they hate the detestable ape-like blacks when they are so closely related to them?

Jesus Christ, of course, was blonde and blue-eyed, which only enhances his adorable nature. If you don't believe me, take a look at Southern Baptist portrayals of Him.

Blacks are like apes. Apes are Bad. Blonds are Good. Thus, being related to apes is intolerable.

I'll bet you a dollar to a donut that if you scratch a creationist, this is what you'll find hidden in the deepest recesses of his or her mind.

[CobaltBlue]

Oh, theory #2, which I don't really think is as true as theory #1. Amazingly literal-mindedness. Some people are just that way.

There are a lot of otherwise reasonable people who have idees fixes, and you can't throw them off with dynamite. They've got their teeth and jaws into it like a pit bull and they won't ever give it up.

This is why you have otherwise intelligent men (it's almost always men, isn't it?) spending their entire lives trying to prove that they've found Noah's ark, or that the parting of the Red Sea really happened just as it was described in the Bible.

They start with the conclusion and then search for facts to prove it, dismissing those which don't fit the theory.

Which is exactly the opposite of the scientific method, as you know.

[Paul C. Jesup]

I would debt real money that Edward Hudgins would be cheering if NYC did the same thing on evolution that Georgia is doing.

[Ben Chad]

Good zinger!

[PatrickHenry]

A Festival of Anti-Darwin Harpies AND Rand-Haters all in a single thread. Anti-Science meets anti-reason.

Anti-science is anti-reason. This thread was inevitable. That sound you hear is the simultaneous bursting of clogged arteries in thousands of unused brains. Enjoy the moment.

[Jeff Gordon]

How does that work anyway!?

Ignorance is bliss.

[Jeff Gordon]

Only the code established by God has authority over our lives.

I have a question about that code. Maybe you can provide an answer...

The code in Lev.15:19-24 tells me that I am not allowed to touch a woman while she unclean due to her period. The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offence. How do you deal with this particular code established by God in your day-to-day life?

TIA

[Freebird Forever]

How does that work anyway!?

What color hair did the milkman have?

[Doctor Stochastic]

This attitude (which I had heard bandied about during the middle of the last century) may help explain the emotional response against the "out of Africa" theory of the spread of the proto-humans. Of course, new evidence could change the current thinking about human migration. (The Chinese seem to want to refute the OoA idea even more than most.)

[templar]

Personally i dont see evolution and creationism as being mutually exclusive of each other. teach both.

They do both seem to be based on faith in certain premises. Neither side will see it that way though.

[Modernman]

Only the code established by God has authority over our lives.

Our legal code was written by men, but it still has authority over our lives. The Hippocratic Oath was written by pagan Greeks, but it still has authority over the lives of doctors.

[Modernman]

How does that work anyway!?

What hair color does the mailman have? :-)

[Aquinasfan]

The Objectivists can't tell the difference between science and philosophy. Sometimes I wonder if Rand read Aristotle at all.

[Modernman]

Jesus Christ, of course, was blonde and blue-eyed, which only enhances his adorable nature. If you don't believe me, take a look at Southern Baptist portrayals of Him.

I love it. It's probably painful to a lot of fundamentalists that Jesus looked a lot more like the average Middleasterner than the average Midwesterner.