The Crafty Attacks on Evolution

The New York Slimes ^ | 23 January 2005 | EDITORIAL

[rdb3]

January 23, 2005

EDITORIAL

The Crafty Attacks on Evolution

ritics of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution become more wily with each passing year. Creationists who believe that God made the world and everything in it pretty much as described in the Bible were frustrated when their efforts to ban the teaching of evolution in the public schools or inject the teaching of creationism were judged unconstitutional by the courts. But over the past decade or more a new generation of critics has emerged with a softer, more roundabout approach that they hope can pass constitutional muster.

One line of attack - on display in Cobb County, Ga., in recent weeks - is to discredit evolution as little more than a theory that is open to question. Another strategy - now playing out in Dover, Pa. - is to make students aware of an alternative theory called "intelligent design," which infers the existence of an intelligent agent without any specific reference to God. These new approaches may seem harmless to a casual observer, but they still constitute an improper effort by religious advocates to impose their own slant on the teaching of evolution.•

The Cobb County fight centers on a sticker that the board inserted into a new biology textbook to placate opponents of evolution. The school board, to its credit, was trying to strengthen the teaching of evolution after years in which it banned study of human origins in the elementary and middle schools and sidelined the topic as an elective in high school, in apparent violation of state curriculum standards. When the new course of study raised hackles among parents and citizens (more than 2,300 signed a petition), the board sought to quiet the controversy by placing a three-sentence sticker in the textbooks:

"This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."

Although the board clearly thought this was a reasonable compromise, and many readers might think it unexceptional, it is actually an insidious effort to undermine the science curriculum. The first sentence sounds like a warning to parents that the film they are about to watch with their children contains pornography. Evolution is so awful that the reader must be warned that it is discussed inside the textbook. The second sentence makes it sound as though evolution is little more than a hunch, the popular understanding of the word "theory," whereas theories in science are carefully constructed frameworks for understanding a vast array of facts. The National Academy of Sciences, the nation's most prestigious scientific organization, has declared evolution "one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have" and says it is supported by an overwhelming scientific consensus.

The third sentence, urging that evolution be studied carefully and critically, seems like a fine idea. The only problem is, it singles out evolution as the only subject so shaky it needs critical judgment. Every subject in the curriculum should be studied carefully and critically. Indeed, the interpretations taught in history, economics, sociology, political science, literature and other fields of study are far less grounded in fact and professional consensus than is evolutionary biology.

A more honest sticker would describe evolution as the dominant theory in the field and an extremely fruitful scientific tool. The sad fact is, the school board, in its zeal to be accommodating, swallowed the language of the anti-evolution crowd. Although the sticker makes no mention of religion and the school board as a whole was not trying to advance religion, a federal judge in Georgia ruled that the sticker amounted to an unconstitutional endorsement of religion because it was rooted in long-running religious challenges to evolution. In particular, the sticker's assertion that "evolution is a theory, not a fact" adopted the latest tactical language used by anti-evolutionists to dilute Darwinism, thereby putting the school board on the side of religious critics of evolution. That court decision is being appealed. Supporters of sound science education can only hope that the courts, and school districts, find a way to repel this latest assault on the most well-grounded theory in modern biology.•

In the Pennsylvania case, the school board went further and became the first in the nation to require, albeit somewhat circuitously, that attention be paid in school to "intelligent design." This is the notion that some things in nature, such as the workings of the cell and intricate organs like the eye, are so complex that they could not have developed gradually through the force of Darwinian natural selection acting on genetic variations. Instead, it is argued, they must have been designed by some sort of higher intelligence. Leading expositors of intelligent design accept that the theory of evolution can explain what they consider small changes in a species over time, but they infer a designer's hand at work in what they consider big evolutionary jumps.

The Dover Area School District in Pennsylvania became the first in the country to place intelligent design before its students, albeit mostly one step removed from the classroom. Last week school administrators read a brief statement to ninth-grade biology classes (the teachers refused to do it) asserting that evolution was a theory, not a fact, that it had gaps for which there was no evidence, that intelligent design was a differing explanation of the origin of life, and that a book on intelligent design was available for interested students, who were, of course, encouraged to keep an open mind. That policy, which is being challenged in the courts, suffers from some of the same defects found in the Georgia sticker. It denigrates evolution as a theory, not a fact, and adds weight to that message by having administrators deliver it aloud. •

Districts around the country are pondering whether to inject intelligent design into science classes, and the constitutional problems are underscored by practical issues. There is little enough time to discuss mainstream evolution in most schools; the Dover students get two 90-minute classes devoted to the subject. Before installing intelligent design in the already jam-packed science curriculum, school boards and citizens need to be aware that it is not a recognized field of science. There is no body of research to support its claims nor even a real plan to conduct such research. In 2002, more than a decade after the movement began, a pioneer of intelligent design lamented that the movement had many sympathizers but few research workers, no biology texts and no sustained curriculum to offer educators. Another leading expositor told a Christian magazine last year that the field had no theory of biological design to guide research, just "a bag of powerful intuitions, and a handful of notions." If evolution is derided as "only a theory," intelligent design needs to be recognized as "not even a theory" or "not yet a theory." It should not be taught or even described as a scientific alternative to one of the crowning theories of modern science.

That said, in districts where evolution is a burning issue, there ought to be some place in school where the religious and cultural criticisms of evolution can be discussed, perhaps in a comparative religion class or a history or current events course. But school boards need to recognize that neither creationism nor intelligent design is an alternative to Darwinism as a scientific explanation of the evolution of life.

[shubi]

Your anti-gay hatred is not Christian.

Gays are sinners like the rest of us. They are precluded from taking leadership positions in the Church under 1Tim.

Other than that you should be loving them and praying for them to change and find Christ.

If you continue to spout this hatred, I am going to compile your hatred and send it to the Moderators to have you banned. You are not doing Christians or Freepers any favors with this venom.

[hawkaw]

I agree with your position. Its too bad that this db has such smart people on it who refuse to understand how basic science is practiced.

[shubi]

Hitler was a pagan cultist, who used Christian thought to control people, similar to the con men who promote creation science/ID nonsense.

[rdb3]

We are not looking down our noses at you, we are holding your ignorance of science in utter contempt. We are wondering why you want to promote a cult that turns seekers away from Christ. We are wondering why you want to hurt our country and prevent it from being the haven for faith and modern scientific investigation it used to be.

Uhhh... </puzzled>

[gobucks]

Interesting summary - I wouldn't have thought Tamerlane's actions played the role you discussed here.

What History book would you suggest, say freshman college level that discusses all this?

[gobucks]

They don't act like Christians, they hurt people instead of help them, and they attack things that make our country great, harming the education of children and turning people from Christ.

Yeah. Really eeeevil people those Creationists ... and such terrible influence too they have, harming the kids, turning people away from Christ.

So, just curious, which scripture would you cite to 'gently rebuke' creationists?

[Reuben Hick]

I see nothing wrong or devious about the teaching of evolution. If you think it undermines faith, then the faith wasn't that strong to begin with.

That is no different than saying "I see nothing wrong or devious about exclusively teaching homosexuality. If you think it undermines your sexuality, then your heterosexuality wasn't that strong to begin with."

[shubi]

Get thee behind me Satan.

[shubi]

Homosexuality has little to do with being a faithful Christian.

What anyone outside the creationist cult can clearly see is the abosolute fear creationists have that they are not really Christians, so they bind together telling each other they are right in their views, despite the majority of Christians telling them they are not in the body of Christ.

[shubi]

Trying to make people believe nonsense like thousands of animals on a boat floating around for a year to save life on Earth, turns people away from Christianity.

They quickly come to the conclusion that being a Christian involves terminal stupidity.

[rdb3]

Trying to make people believe nonsense like thousands of animals on a boat floating around for a year to save life on Earth, turns people away from Christianity.

They quickly come to the conclusion that being a Christian involves terminal stupidity.

Okay.

[gobucks]

Hitler was a pagan cultist, who used Christian thought to control people, similar to the con men who promote creation science/ID nonsense.

Interesting, but that part about 'Christian thought' ....; I think you could be a bit more accurate, no?

Perhaps you have encountered this comment of Hitler's during your homework:

"Christianity is the worst thing that ever happened to mankind," he declared during an after-dinner rant in July of 1941. "Bolshevism is the illegitimate child of Christianity. Both are an outgrowth of the Jew."

from Hitler's Forgotten Library: The Man, His Books, and His Search for God.

[gobucks]

ping to the above...

The more I see Hitler being used to bash Christians, the more and more suspicious I'm getting about the real motives behind these folks.

Talk about animated...

[shubi]

Hitler used Christian symbols and Biblical sounding language to make the religious Germans, of which there were many before WWII, think he was with them.

[shubi]

You are assuming that your brand of religion is Christian.

[WildTurkey]

The evolutionists sometimes successfully theorize on the mechanics of matter, but on what designed it, they are abjectly in the dark.

There you go again!

[judywillow]

Interesting summary - I wouldn't have thought Tamerlane's actions played the role you discussed here.

What History book would you suggest, say freshman college level that discusses all this?

You definitely want to have a copy of Jack Weatherford's "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" around.

That apparently was on the NY Times bestseller list for a while and in fact the Washington Post ran a thing for several months prior to the change of millenium asking who was the "Man of the Millenium", i.e. the single man whose life had the most influence over the history of the last thousand years. I remember people claiming it had to be Washington or Jefferson, or FDR, or Martin Luther, Isaac Newton... I told the people where I worked at the time there was only one man that fit the description and that was Genghis Khan and two third of them didn't know who Genghis Khan was much less what I was talking about.

Tamerlane, near as I can tell, is less well understood than Genghis Khan and I don't really know of any one book to tell you about as a starting point. Like I say, Genghis Khan opened the land trade routes for the first time in centuries and they were open for around 150 years before Tamerlane shut them down again, and then Europeans set about reopening them on the oceans, which was basically the beginning of the modern age.

I'd never really understood how the Mongol empire fell apart as quickly as it did, particularly in China, and apparently the beubonic plague may have been the single biggest part of the answer to that as Weatherford describes. The Mongols got heaved out of China around 1370 and Russians achieved their first victory over the golden horde around 1388 at the famous battle of Kulakovo which Russians still celebrate as "Zadonshchina", and then the golden and white hordes reunited and ran roughshod over Russia and Russia would have probably lain there under the Mongol yoke for another two centuries when Tamerlane stepped in towards the end of the 1300s and absolutely crushed the golden horde leaving nothing there at all.

At that point, southern Russia and the territory which had been controlled by the Mongols at Sarai began to be called "dikoye polye", or 'wild fields', and Poland and Lithuania began to look like major kinds of countries on maps for another few decades expanding into those areas, until Russia recovered from all the devastation and began to reassert itself. Jews in particular migrated into Germany and Poland in those times to escape the chaos.

All of that was, as I mentioned, the end of the trade routes overland and the beginning of the great age of European sailing.

[judywillow]

The more I see Hitler being used to bash Christians, the more and more suspicious I'm getting about the real motives behind these folks.

Hitler gave lip service to Christianity; his real religion was evolutionism as I've noted and as Sir Arthur Keith described.

[Right Wing Professor]

Hitler gave lip service to Christianity; his real religion was evolutionism as I've noted and as Sir Arthur Keith described.

Yeah, right. He was a baptized Catholic, he asked for and drew support from Christians, he made statements that he was doing God's work; and the Holocaust he brought about was just the last in a long series of mass extermination attempts against the Jews conducted by European Christians, starting in the Middle Ages, continuing with the Spanish Inquisition, Martin Luther's tirades the Jews, the pogroms of central and Eastern Europe, etc.

But despite the open admissions of the man who instituted it, and the long historical trend it continued, it was a scientific theory that caused Nazi-ism and the Holocaust.

Some links:

Hitler appeals for support from his fellow Catholics.

This link has some nice quotes from Mein Kampf.

"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.""My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.

-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)

(Cited in the above link)

The anti-Semitism of the new movement [Christian Social movement] was based on religious ideas instead of racial knowledge.

- Mein Kampf, ibid.

As a general account of why and how Germans participated in the Holocaust, and how it fit into the (stongly Christian) German cultural tradition, I recommend Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners".

[Right Wing Professor]

The more I see Hitler being used to bash Christians, the more and more suspicious I'm getting about the real motives behind these folks.

So what are the motives of people who use Hitler to bash a biological theory?