Saccularina sp.
1 week ago
Thursday, October 2, 2008
What Do Sarah Palin & Ricky Gervais Have in Common?
Shortly after Sarah Palin delivered her rousing speech at the Republican National Convention, I received a gloating e-mail from my Republican father about his party's "home run." Although I responded with concern that her religious zealotry committed her to the denial of established scientific facts, he suggested that this concern was premature. It was true that she advocated creationism in previous campaigns, but I had to admit the possibility that that she had changed her mind since. I decided to withhold further slander until she made her latest views clear. Well, here they are.
Her "teach the controversy" perspective suggests that, at best, she views the first few pages of the Old Testament as an equally meaningful perspective on life as decades of intense study by thousands of other evolutionary biologists. We all know, however, that her true ignorance runs much deeper: "teach the controversy" is merely cover for those who view evolution as a hoax and Genesis' account as literal truth. Now that her zealotry has been confirmed, I hope she'll consider following Ricky Gervais example by expressing her views more directly.
PS - It gets better! The LA Times ran a story a few days ago which quotes Palin saying "dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time." Note to Gwen Ifill: Please ask the candidates about dinosaurs at the debate tonight. Don't give Palin a chance to spin her "teach the controversy" BS by asking a general question about evolution, just come right out and ask about the dinosaurs!
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3 comments:
"Teach the controversy" is fundamentally dishonest, because in actual SCIENCE there just isn't one. There is a controversy in public opinion, but that's the end of it. It's not our job to talk about public opinion, and it's completely irresponsible for a science teacher of any sort to give the impression that the ideas espoused by creationists are in any way scientific hypotheses. Those ideas are non just non-science, they are at their deepest level anti-science, since including them in the debate goes against the very foundation of how science operates.
For those who suggest that perhaps that means a reworking of science is in order that takes the ideas of faith into account and gives them some weight over and above that given to observable fact, guess what? That's how we tried to understand the world for centuries, back in a lovely period we call the Dark Ages. I'd rather not give them a second go, thanks.
Darn it, that was supposed to say "not just non-science".
Dinosaurs and humans walked the earth at the same time? Interesting...
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