MODERN TIMES
Art Hobson
ahobson@uark.edu
NWA Times 5 July 2008
The arrogance of
creationism
Creationists
are at it again, throwing monkey wrenches into science education. Fundamentalists portray their latest
ploy, being played out in Louisiana, Florida, Missouri, Alabama, and Michigan,
as legislation to protect "academic freedom." Their legislation has a good chance of
passing in at least one of these states; if it does, creationists will be encouraged
to introduce it all over the country.
Courts will probably eventually find these laws unconstitutional, but in
the meantime America's low standing in science education will have been further
eroded.
The
language in these bills is modeled on a statute drafted by the Discovery
Institute, a prominent creationist think tank. These bills single out just a few scientific principles that
fundamentalists find objectionable, most notably biological evolution, for
"critical analysis" by public school science courses.
Creationism
is like a mutating virus. During
much of the previous century, Christian fundamentalists mimicked today's Middle
Eastern Moslem fundamentalist brigades by banning educational topics that
conflicted with their own literal reading of the Bible. When courts found this to be an
unconstitutional advocacy of religion in public schools, creationists concocted
new laws requiring "creation science" to be taught whenever evolution
was taught. When courts ruled that
creation science was religion dressed up in pseudo-scientific clothes,
creationists invented something called "intelligent design" that
purported to be a properly scientific and non-religious alternative to
evolution. But in a famous 2005
case in Dover, Pennsylvania, a federal judge ruled that intelligent design is
not a "valid, accepted scientific theory" and is "grounded in
theology, not science."
Now
comes the latest creationist variation:
legislation singling out evolution as a topic which must be subjected to
"critical thinking" in the classroom. It sounds innocuous, and certainly any real educator will
support teaching students to think critically. But fundamentalists have never been interested in critical
thinking, and singling out evolution is especially perverse because evolution
is entirely non-controversial among scientists. This special treatment is a ploy to allow such
pseudoscientific malarkey as intelligent design equal time in public
schools. Teaching intelligent
design as a serious alternative to evolution is like teaching a flat Earth as a
serious alternative to a spherical Earth.
It's
a sad commentary on superstition in our culture that, when polled, about 50
percent of U.S. adults claim to believe literally in the Biblical account of
Earth's creation. I've often
wondered how these Biblical literalists react to the frequent news items that
contradict their world view. For
example, last month in Utah archeologists discovered a batch of
150-million-year-old dinosaur bones.
But a literal reading of the Bible puts Earth's creation at less than
10,000 years ago. For liberal
Christians who understand that the Bible is a spiritual book rather than
literal history, such questions pose no problem. But what about literalists?
Among
the massive evidence for evolution are numerous examples of the historically
observed evolution of new species--a separate group of biological organisms
that can interbreed with each other to produce fertile offspring. One example is the speciation of the
Faroe Islands house mouse in less than 250 years after humans brought the creature
to the island. Two new species of
goat's beard wildflowers appeared near Pullman, Washington, having evolved from
three species of these flowers that were introduced to America early in the
twentieth century. A new species
of mosquito evolved in the London Underground during the past few decades.
There
are many examples of transitional species between major biological groups. Scientists recently discovered a fossil
with features intermediate between those of a fish and a four-legged animal. It had gills, scales, fins, and
probably spent most of its life in the water, but it also had lungs, a flexible
neck, and a sturdy fin skeleton that could support its body on land. This animal lived 375 million years ago
in far northern Canada, and is thought to be a common ancestor of all
four-footed land animals and therefore of us since we evolved from four-footed
animals. Other transitional
fossils document the evolution 330 million years ago of large amphibians from
four-footed animals; the evolution 230 million years ago of dinosaurs from a
lineage of reptiles; and the evolution 155 million years ago of birds from a
lineage of dinosaurs.
The
evidence for human evolution is especially impressive. The fossil evidence stretches over six
million years and includes more than 20 different species of two-legged human
ancestors since we branched off from the apes, leading gradually from ape-like
creatures to Homo sapiens. Genetic
dating that traces the genetic similarities between humans and apes also points
to a divergence six million years ago.
Specific human genes are known to be currently evolving under the
influence of Darwinian natural selection.
Like true believers everywhere, creationists are among the most arrogant of humans, for they assume that they know, for sure, how life developed on Earth. Good scientists never claim to know anything for sure, because they recognize that scientific knowledge comes from observation of nature, and it is always possible that observations might falsify any scientific principle. But creationists are interested only in trying to prove their own pre-conceptions, and not in open-mindedly consulting with nature. It's arrogant to base one's supposed knowledge of the creation and development of life on mere beliefs, on words in old books and on the pronouncements of various authority figures, rather than consulting honestly with nature. It's also hypocritical, for creationists surely believe that nature is God's creation and thus, by refusing to acknowledge nature's obvious evidence of evolution, creationists deny their own faith.