In Praise Of Common Sense

Judge orders removal of evolution stickers from textbooks in Georgia school district

This is really Ground Zero in the ongoing "values debate". Notice how these things tend to happen in areas where rapid social change is almost always seen as cause for alarm. I hate the "Red State/Blue State" paradigm -- it's basically a purple country, but the way the individual political power structures operate in each state just happen to manifest themselves in that fashion. But it's always a "red" state where these things happen, obviously.

The thing is, there really shouldn't need to be much energy expended on getting rid of this nonsense. It's obviously a Christian Right stalking horse issue, and as such, the best argument against it isn't to say that creationism (or more specifically, Christian creationism) can't be taught at all, but that it cannot be taught as science, because it isn't.

Someone needs to step up and explain to these yahoos that the primary benefit of scientific education is learning scientific method -- theories, hypotheses, proofs and methodologies. Dogma simply has no place is science class, not because it makes Jewish or Hindu kids uncomfortable, but because from a scientific standpoint, it has no practical use. It obviates scientific method, it actively discourages exploration.

The other, more pressing, thing that needs to be explained to proponents of creationism and intelligent design is that we are facing a severe shortage of scientific minds in the next generation, as compared to India and China. We need more scientists; we need more engineers. The better India's economy and standard of living become, the fewer of their engineers become available to the American talent pool. Then what? Pick whoever hasn't been indoctrinated into wasting their time protesting that "Grandpa warn't no monkey"? We'll be lucky if we can even keep up that way, much less maintain any technological lead.

So if the school board Christians (and this is where the Republican Party has been simply masterful in maintaining grass-roots support, at the local level) want creationism taught, fine. Establish a comparative religion curriculum, make it a required core course, and give it a shot.

They won't do it, of course; school boards are already strapped as it is, and they just don't have the wherewithal to stuff something like this into their budget. And parents certainly aren't going to allow their taxes to be raised to fund it.

But it might be interesting to call their bluff from an angle that they may not have anticipated.