Evolution

On the subject of politics (ha ha, gotcha), I keep seeing things which remind me of the heated debate (well, heated in some circles anyway) about evolution. Why is there a debate? Al Franken tells a wonderful story in one of his books (yes, I know, Al Franken, I must be a horrible liberal, but for the purposes of this story, it doesn't matter) about a member of the Religious Right, a firm believer in Creationism as spelled out explicitly in the Bible, who was a big fan of Jurassic Park. He tried to explain that you couldn't have it both ways, but she wasn't listening, possibly because she thought the whole "dinosaur" conceit was simply fictional. It's not, but perhaps she wasn't stupid, merely myopic.

In any case, there should be no scientific debate about evolution. It is a scientific fact. Note that I'm not talking about Darwin; I'm just talking about the simple, scientifically verifiable fact that life changes over time through genetic mutations. Whether you believe that "survival of the fittest" explains this, or whether you believe that the changes are due to a giant purple kangaroo who lives in the center of the Earth and occasionally makes mistakes in transcription, things change. If you don't believe this, then you have no business calling your "theory" scientific, because it isn't based on scientific reality.

I have a great deal of respect for things which aren't based in scientific reality, because scientific reality is, for the most part, boring, tedious, slow, and unimaginative, much like most of religion. But that is beside the point. Demanding that Creationism be taught as a scientific alternative to Darwin is selling Creationism short; it's not science, nor should it be. If you believe that God made the Earth in 6 days about 6000 years ago, that's not science, it's belief, and while I respectfully disagree, I wouldn't ask you to change your beliefs simply because they fail to fit the science. Many beliefs do.

But all of this is beside the point, because Creative Design or Creationism or Darwin are all just theories or beliefs, which either fit or do not fit the fact that evolution is a fact. Darwin is not. If you want to debate Darwin, by all means, but you cannot engage in a scientific debate about evolution, because it's not a theory. It's a fact.

The problem arises from the fact that people view "Darwin's Theory of Evolution," as being a theory that describes a theoretical change which might possibly be occurring. False. Darwin's Theory is a theory relating to evolution, which attempts to explain a possible mechanism by which this fact (evolution, in case you fell asleep somewhere back there) occurs. By the same token, Jerry Falwell could publish Falwell's Theory of Evolution wherein he theorized that evolution was an illusion, explaining away the fact that things change. But it wouldn't do to call that Theory evolution, now would it?

A further illustration: the sky is usually blue. Such has been the case for as long as people have looked at it, and probably since before that. No one would call me a theorist if I published a paper saying that the sky was in fact yellow. They would disagree because it failed to fit the facts. If I published a holy book wherein I stated that the sky only looks blue to sinners, and anyone who saw it as blue was therefore going to Hell, some people might believe me, and it might be true. But this would not be science. What would be science is if I, as many people throughout the ages have done, published a paper wherein I tried to explain WHY the sky was blue. This Theory of Sky Blueness could be judged as science, because it merely attempts to explain the facts, not dispute them.

I don't want to get too meta about this, because it's really not worth it. Debating whether evolution should be taught in schools is like debating whether students should be taught to draw a blue sky; both are facts, and school, at least public, governmentally-funded school, is about facts. The government is no more obligated to provide equal time to Creationism than it is to provide equal time to the Amish, who, I'm sure, feel strongly about many things taught in school. Equal time for belief is not something guaranteed in the separation of church and state. If that were the case, I might successfully lobby to have my kangaroo taught in school.

But, if the government wants to teach Darwin, it needs to make clear both that Darwin is not the only boat racing and Darwin and Evolution are not the same thing at all. So teach evolution. We let them teach that hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water, don't we?

To be fair, I should point out that I am biased. I believe that the Earth was created seventeen minutes ago, and that all of recorded and unrecorded history is merely a collective hallucination. Disprove that with science!