These are strange, devolutionary times, with moves underway to crank back the calendars and clocks to the 1800s and earlier. One of the movements is to plant religion back inside public schools, to ensure that Creationism is taught alongside science.
We could also stand around in the parking lot, pretend to be running a competitive race with the rest of the world, too -- but, why bother with that? We can do make-believe right inside schools, cut right to the chase!
Who would have been able to foresee a time when one would have to defend scientific fact and thought from superstition and fables and storytelling, when we would have to defend the public schoolhouse from mass haunting by religion?
Next thing you know, we'll have to defend the use in schools of those other tools of the devil, the math tables, plus, the alphabet. Can we devalue intellectual currency any more than we have?
Ironically, no doubt, Creationism bills periodically popping up in state houses are linked in some oddball Evolutionary way with attempts to airbrush slavery and Native American genocide from the history textbooks, to otherwise perk up the image of conservative, Christian, Republican viewpoints. Talk about a whitewash!
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Evolution is hardly a threat requiring such over-the-top mania and combative action. Evolution is not that close a friend, come right down to it: It moves much too slowly for hopeful adaptations, for one thing. We evolve our technologies -- now changing our planet -- far faster than we upgrade our wisdom, and leave Evolution in the dust, every single time.
Evolution is hapless. It cannot grant us new lung fibers helping us to survive breathing back in all the CO2 and soot we've been belching out. It cannot give us the timely gills we might need up ahead, when we've submerged under the polar melts. Evolution has -- so far, anyhoo -- been helpless to fully defend itself from all us yahoos, hell-bent to see how much we can take apart down here, how much we can make come really unglued.
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OK, folks, you can let out a few "Holy Cows!" now and again, but, please -- no sacred cows in the Science Pavilion, they not allowed inside, not allowed in the discussions, no sacred cows inside. It's just how science works, how they do their double-checks, replicating, and Q-A...
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We are pattern seekers, a fine Evolutionary tool, and a great match with a bigger brain and opposable thumbs. Those skills helped us get this far down Evolutionary Road. Let's hope we spot some great patterns for survival, for solutions to all the problems we keep making.
Evolution is mum, even as we now start to ask, "Nice we're out of the literal swamps, but, how do we keep from stewing alive in these figurative swamps we keeping making for ourselves?"
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What's all the hubbub, bub? Why all this push to get harmless scientific thought out of the schools, and all the hurry to get superstition back in there? Good question. Asking questions, expressing curiosity about the world around you -- these are the beginnings of knowledge. Keeping good track of the trial and error explorations is one simple way to view science.
Evolution is as threatening as a baby's grasp on your finger. What's all the crazed rush to launch the invasion of religion, to get religious thought and Creationism beach-headed in the public sector, secular classrooms?
Evolution is not EVIL-loo-shun, come on now. If you think so, then you're probably terrified of an out-of-control, Hubba-Bubba bubble-gum bubble -- one of those it-got-too-big-now-what pink, bubble-gum clouds. Yeah, it'll be messy when it blows, but we probably won't be needing any HazMat shock troops, no Civil Defense atomic fallout shelters, no over-reactions, right?
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The great American philosopher, Bugs Bunny, once asked, straight up, "What's all the hubbub, bub?" In the cartoon, Bugs was addressing a gremlin who'd been whacking away at a large bomb on which Bugs had been reclining.
The gremlin replied to the question by saying, "These blockbuster bombs don't go off unless you hit them juuuuuuuuust right." So, Bugs hops down, takes the mallet, takes a swing at the bomb, to make it go off --then, mid-air, halts his swing a hair short of the detonator, before the triggering blow is struck, screaming, "What am I doing?!"
May we all have the presence of mind to emulate Bugs, to stop our swinging motions before we hit the sweet spot, before we blow ourselves to kingdom come, before we can recover.
Religion in public schools?
There's a clamoring vote on the floor, for us all to practice saying, "What am I doing?!"
So, eeehhhhhhhhh, whaddya say, doc?
Points of interest: The National Center for Science Education -- Defending the Teaching of Evolution and Climate Science: http://ncse.com/
