I get it, I really do. Evolution should be our issue. It's a classic example of intelligence, progress, and empiricism vs. closed minded, reactionary medievalism. We're sooooo right, and they're sooooo wrong, it hurts, HURTS to see school boards teaching creationism in biology classes. It's EMBARASSING to see polls that show 45 or whatever percent of people think people we created, as is, 100,000 years ago.
But it is not, I repeat, IS NOT our banner issue. Evolution is a tar baby, one the right knows we can't resist walking up and giving a good smack, and one they love to see us struggle around in.
They want us to punch the tar baby, we need to burn it down.
Why? Follow me over the jump, please.
First, reasons evolution should be taught in science:
- It was a revolution in scientific thought. Darwin's theory is a moment in intellectual history on par with Newton's discovery of the elementary laws of physics.
- It's a scientific theory, based on empirical evidence and constantly examined, reexamined, and re-jiggered. It's where the action is for a whole boatload of practicing biologists, paleontologists, and scientists in related fields (say geology).
- It's the underpinning of much of the modern view of the world. From drug manufacturing to sci-fi, the concept of evolution has allowed us to make conceptual leaps that have revolutionized modern life.
Clearly it's very important.
Now, what is "intelligent design"? Modern fundies know better than to try and squeeze Adam and Eve into Bio class. Instead they espouse "Intelligent Design," a pseudo scientific theory. ID has the following tenets, among others: (check out the cool book Strange Creations by Donna Kossy for overviews of this and all sorts of wacky/scary ideas about where we came from!)
- Limited alteration is possible within a species.
- Gaps in the fossil record indicate that no species has ever evolved into another. (Like they're expecting to find a Fiji mermaid or a monkey with Merv Griffin's head or something.)
- Physical structures (like eyes) are to complex to have been the result of incremental evolution. After all, they say, what's the use of half an eye?
- Similarities between species are evidence of intelligent design. We all tend to categorize, why wouldn't God? We make all chairs pretty much alike, whether we're going to put them in cars or around the dinner table. Of course God would give all plant eaters big molars and all meat eaters sharp teeth. And of course DNA of similar species would be similar, since they all come from one creative mind.
They have a couple of related beliefs too, dealing with the age of the world:
- Earth features like mountains and canyons could easily be caused by catastrophic flooding.
- Carbon dating is flawed; due to faulty estimation of the amount of time old bones and other fossils have been exposed to the air.
Intelligent Design, though it is, at some level, scientific, is based on junk science. Scientists have debunked all of the claims above, but the IDers conveniently ignore that. It's the classic he said/she said that we all found so painful in the presidential campaign. Just like with global warming, they use the inherent improvability of science to argue that evolution is "under attack from scientists," and present their theory as a valid alternative.
And the really crappy thing is, it doesn't matter that we're right and they're wrong.
Why doesn't it matter? It doesn't matter because only a very small segment of the population actually needs a good knowledge of evolution to function day to day. If you're in a field that deals with plant or animal taxonomy, evolution makes things make a lot of sense, but you can still do your job as long as you don't get into why similar species are similar. Same with drug research, or experiments on fruit flies. Intelligent design was carefully created to explain just enough to get 99.999999999% of the population through their days without trouble.
People only get into the nuance of what they need to know, and most people just don't need to know much about evolution. Attempts to educate beyond people's needs generally fall on deaf ears. I imagine that even many of the pro evolution folks in the recent polls don't really understand evolution. They just know what they need to know.
So no matter what we do, there's really no winning the argument on fact. And we have a lot to lose arguing with these people about God.
We've already seen that the right doesn't really care about fact when they make an accusation. We can be right, and Christian as hell, but if we make evolution our wedge issue, as some have argued, we're going to be tarred as anti Christian. We'll be the people who hate God SO MUCH, that are so committed to turning children away from God, we can't even stand a scientific theory that doesn't even mention Him.
So downside, downside. It's an argument that we can't win. Anyone who cares enough to be convinced already knows the truth about evolution, the rest know what they need to get through their lives. And it's an argument that opens us up to all kinds of attack.
BUT! Wait! There is danger. We can't just let these people teach our kids junk science. That's a waste of money and time, and a disservice for kids who want to learn real science. And it does even greater damage. If people don't understand how science works (constant research to test your theories) they won't support it when it comes time to allocate money for grants, scholarship, and other worthy science goals. That's what scares me. I already know that half the country is kind of dumb (by definition, half the population of the world is below average!). They aren't going to learn science, but they do have a say in how science is treated by the government.
So it's important that we don't give up the fort, but what do we do?
This is the quintessential grass roots fight. These battles take place in school boards and state committee meetings. The right used issues like this to train an incredible grass roots army. That work bore fruit for them on November 2. The good news is that it's pretty easy to get on a school board. We can use these battles in the exact same way. If every single person on DailyKos ran for local office, we would put this issue to bed within the year. There are too tricks:
- Treat it as a science issue. We don't want to teach our kids junk science. Focus on the scientific method, not on the origin of humanity.
- Treat it as a local issue. It's much easier for 10,000 of us working locally to influence school boards that it would be for one or two politicians working nationally.
- Go for the textbooks. They can't teach it if it's not in the book!
Framing isn't just about changing a label; it's about picking the terms of the battle. In this case, the right wants us to take our best shot. We should, but our best shot isn't what they think it is! Don't punch the tar baby, burn him down!