We on the Left should be concerned that the Right is using the current debate over the teaching of evolution as one more culture war distraction to polarize and pull focus from their militaristic and corporatist agenda. They have identified a strength (secularism) that is exploited as a weakness to unify their base through manufactured fear of repression. It is also used to divide the Left's traditional social coalition into warring camps of deists and atheists. As such, we on the Left should tread carefully and respectfully on this battlefield lest our focus be pulled away from the unifying elements of economic populism and responsible foreign policy that can be a formula for returning control of our country to its people.
As with gay rights and other "values" issues, the right has chosen to do battle in an arena that is largely philosophical and symbolic. Little of DIRECT practical importance would change if either side was ultimately and overwhelmingly victorious in the evolution/creationism debate. Everyone in the debate seems terrified of the other side filling their children's heads with crazy notions, while being distracted from unifying issues that have a more DIRECT effect on the vast majority of children: health care, the environment, access to higher education, energy policy, the economy and the expenditure of children's lives in support of arrogant foreign policy. The questions of when life begins or how it began are less important than how we keep life going in the best way possible. The creation of man is less relevant than the creation of jobs.
Even worse, the conflict between evolution and creation is largely contrived. Evidence of evolution has been used to "disprove" a deity by removing his/her fundamental role as a creator. However, many Christians have seen this information as changing the role of the creator, not eliminating it. Both theology and science adapt to a changing world and our understanding of it. Even within the Bible, we can see a change from "Eye for an eye" in the Old Testament to Jesus' admonition to "Turn the other cheek" in the New Testament. When information arises conflicting with a literal interpretation of scripture, the scripture is reinterpreted. While certain strains of Christianity have stubbornly held on to a specific narrow view of scripture despite all evidence to the contrary, many Christians throughout the centuries have seen scientific discovery as glorifying the majesty of God and clarifying our image of the deity rather than obliterating his existence.
The debate is driven by the Republican Noise Machine, but a respectful and rational response would dissipate the heat and change the subject. American schools are controlled at a local level and this debate should take place there. Keeping this debate at a national level and executing it as a war between science and irrationality only reinforces the Republican frame that we on the Left are ALL heathens committed to fighting God and destroying Western Civilization. Atheists and Christians both love their children. Take away the hate and they've got nothing. Big tent needed for a big country. Pick your fights carefully.
The current bogyman in this fake evolution/creation debate is Intelligent Design. Rather than taking an honest look at the argument, both sides have (by design) degenerated into an emotional shouting match that works to the edification of no one. Although the caginess of many Intelligent Design proponents should cast suspicions on their motivations, name calling and vitrol only serves to harden hearts and scare away potential allies.
Intelligent design should be looked at more as a hypothesis and a set of skeptical arguments rather than a demonstrable unified scientific theory. It exists primarily as a creationist foil to evolution by pointing out unanswered questions about our knowledge of the history of life, with some confusing logic and statistics thrown in to make it sound convincing. These exposed gaps can be then be filled either with faith that there is some completely materialist explanation (i.e. evolution), or with faith that a Deity directly and physically intervened during history to create life. It proves or disproves neither, although it is often promoted or attacked as if it does.
The fundamental unit of life is the cell, which is, basically, a complex self-replicating machine composed of organic compounds. While the chemical building blocks of life can be easily sourced to components and processes present during earth's younger days, how these building blocks were brought together to form cells is still a mystery. There is, as yet, no smooth, demonstrable transition from non-living chemicals to living cells. We can manipulate life in a test tube, but we cannot create it.
There are some organs that defy explanation or evidence that they are the product of specific direct intermediate transition stages that offer some advantage to the organism (irreducable complexity). Primitive photosensitivity is present in numerous extant species, but the eyeball is, like the cell, a complex piece of machinery. If any one part of the eyeball is not developed, the whole does not work as a piece of optics. The avian feather is another example of a deceptively complex machine for which there is no evidence or explanation for advantageous intermediate developmental stages.
In classic evolutionary theory, transitions between species are driven by random mutations. Mutations create "stronger" species with advantages that enable them to survive and reproduce more successfully than "weaker" species. Adaptation by mutation within species is clearly observable today when bacteria become resistant to antibiotics or insects become resistant to pesticides. However, almost all mutations are deleterious and given the rather abrupt transitions evidenced in the fossil record, there is a question about whether mutation alone is capable of producing the remarkable diversity of species on the planet.
The fossil record is extensive, dramatic and irrefutable, but it is also a puzzle with most of the pieces missing. The gaps in the fossil record and the inadequacy of fossils as a representation of history present unanswerable questions. Unlike other sciences that can demonstrate theories with reproducible experiments, the long time frames involved do not permit practical evolutionary biology experiments (other than conjectural simulations) that can demonstrate the evolution of complex organisms.
The final irony in all this is that the nonconservative movement which uses
Christian rhetoric for political purposes is based on a cruel
Economic Darwinism in which people are expected to
adapt or die.
Jesus taught compassion for the poor and needy - something that many conservative Christians
exhibit in their individual and collective actions, though not their politics.
If some way can be found to break the tribal bond between conservative
Christians and their corporate taskmasters, the Left would find an ally,
even if there was still disagreement on the origin of the species.
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