Response to Ebert...

Boy, you sure like to open up the can 'o worms once in a while, don't you?

My God, I wish I could hold my tongue on politics and religion. Its probably why I'm teaching at a public school for peanuts. (Which I love. So there.)

I've been teaching evolution for ten years now and writing a dissertation on the effect of cosmological beliefs on science achievement. I also have a son who could have benefitted from embryonic stem cell research, for which Bush cut federal funding. It frustrates me to no end when my students ask me if I "believe" in evolution or creation. People present these two options as if they are equally valid ideas with intellectuals debating both sides, like whether conservatism has been disastrous every time it has been implemented in this country. The evolution "debate" should not be considered controversial in this country. We should not use words like "believe." We should use the word "accept" when describing evolution.

Creationism (Or Creation-Science or Intelligent Design or Whatever New Name Given to The Same Old Idea) holds no evidence whatsoever. It is as scientifically valid as astrology or the "evidence" that Neil Armstrong was really on a sound stage in Nevada. All evidence points to evolution. No evidence points to special creation.

I have drawn a Venn diagram (two interlocking circles) on my dry-erase board, one circle labelled "Evolution" and the other labelled "Creation." I put the word "observation" in the middle, because both sides use observation to support their cause. But that's about it. In the "evolution" circle, I put words like "evidence," "fossils," "falsifiability," "consensus," and "measurement." In the creation circle, I put words like "faith," "anecdotes," "miracles" and "stories." On this very journal, I got into it with someone named Tyler D.. (This was before the Ben Stein thing.) Tyler actually thinks that the Grand Canyon is evidence of the Great Flood. The worst part about that whole debacle with Tyler is that anyone who reads what Tyler D. wrote can tell that he is an intelligent, thoughtful person. Only in America would someone as smart as Tyler refer me to a site that informs me that people had dinosaurs as pets.

This being written, consider the legacy of George W, Bush, as it pertains to science.
George W. Bush is either:
A. So monumentally intellectually incurious as to have never listened to any of his biology professors at Yale and Harvard.
Or...
B. So soul-less that he is willing to appeal to the Christian Right by saying he thinks creationism should be taught alongside evolution, even though he knows it shouldn't.

My suspicion is the latter. Which is even worse. We are all going to pay big time for the last eight years.
I wish more people would have spoken out from the beginning. Look where that has taken us?