I wish I had gotten around to writing about this while the topic was fresh but time just didn’t permit. Several years ago in Cobb County, Georgia, the school board voted that biology teachers must put stickers on the inside cover of all their text books stating that “evolution is a theory, not a fact.” Had these people bothered to read any books lately titled something other than the name of a dead apostle, perhaps they’d understand that scientists don’t throw words like fact around the way theologians do. A theory is a principle that has been tested repeatedly and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena. I’m not a scientist but I think this means that, for all practical purposes, a scientific theory is a fact. The only thing keeping evolution from becoming a fact is that scientists haven’t gotten around to checking Pennsylvania for humans directly descended from apes. I graduated with a few.
Why the Cobb County school board gave the stamp of approval to these stickers is obvious: to avoid an immediate lawsuit; and why the judge just recently overturned their decision and deemed the stickers unconstitutional is pretty obvious to anyone without a minister’s Bible-thumping fist halfway up his or her ass. The biggest question on my mind is why did this whole fiasco have to happen? Most modern world religions have come to terms and either adopted or adapted to evolution. They realize that evolution isn’t necessarily opposed to their religious views. Remember what you religious nuts say when bad things happen? Oh come on… you know the words! “The Lord works in mysterious ways.” What’s more mysterious than several million years of natural selection? People change their interpretations of the scripture all the time to support their own selfish needs and desires. You don’t even need to change anything to encompass evolution, so what’s the problem?
Besides, if we choose not to believe in science, what option does Creationism give us? Their solution is called Intelligent Design and, stated simply, says that the human body is infinitely complex and, therefore, had to be the work of an intelligent creator. Kierkegaard eat your heart out. If that’s what you want to believe, fantastic. Push it on your own kids for all I care. But keep in mind that all of the other mysteries of nature that were thought to be the work of God (or to be a god themselves), have been explained by science. Let the rest of us who aren’t shackled to dogmatism figure it out. We’ll fill you in when it ineviably happens, and probably point at you and laugh a lot too.
