Pajiba

So, 61% of Americans don't believe in the theory of evolution. My husband is a college professor. Let me tell you what most of his students know (or not).

Most cannot find the USA on a map of the world, despite the fact that it is MARKED ON THE MAP.

Most cannot name or find the world's big oceans despite the fact that they are MARKED ON THE MAP.

Most cannot name the first president of the USA.

These are college students.

Sounds like you're talking out of someone's ass, BWeaves.

How can you expect people in America to "believe" in evolution when it is not taught in schools. Even if it is taught, it is extremely broad and surprisingly devoid of facts and scientific evidence. I didn't really learn the principals of evolutionary theory until I educated myself by extensive reading on the subject outside of school.

BWeaves, technically we're not descended from apes, right? We share a common ancestor, from which the two species diverged. This is where the argument drives me to pound my head into a wall. Everybody loves them some science when it gives them plasma TVs and microwave popcorn, but challenge the Bible and all of a sudden it's "Not so fast..hold up that stem cell research..." etc.

I don't know why the two theories should be incompatible. Wouldn't an all-wise, all-powerful God have the foresight and the ability to instill in His creation a mechanism to adapt and evolve to meet changing environments and conditions?

I mean, presuming there's a God. That's what the argument is really about.

That still shot on the YouTube vid looks eerily like a skinnier version of me. It's creepy. And gross.

I believe I'm going to evolve into Paul Bettany. Hopefully I'll evolve with a better taste in women.

God created evolution.

Now get back to work.

Wait a minute. Where does the whole stork thing fit in?

That is so weird about America and evolution. I went to school in Honduras and Venezuela, two fiercely Catholic countries, and never, EVER did I hear any debate about whether evolution should be taught in schools. We just learned it. No one gave a damn. And this was 10 years ago.

We have not descended from apes, we ARE apes. It's just that we're the smartest hairless primates on the planet. We humans think we are SO superior.. but when you think about it, none of it is going to matter when the asteroid hits, or Global Warming turns the planet into Waterworld and natural selection weeds out those of us who are not gilled (Kevin Costner) or pirates (Dennis Hopper) or whoever else was in that so-called movie.

Well then I have to put my foot down. We can't be killing birds all willy-nilly.

Figgy - that's because it's really the Christian Right fundies who are at fault here, not Catholics. Mainstream Catholics have managed to reconcile the ol' creationism/evolution thing.

Didn't we address this on a Pajiba Love a couple weeks ago? Shame on Rowles for perpetrating the idea that this film can't secure a distributor due to hostility toward the theory of evolution (talk about intellectually dishonest, though he may claim it was tongue-in-cheek)

Don't quote me the stupid stats on belief in evolution. 60% of people that get asked these questions are fucking morons. I think they are selecting from the same population that gets on Leno's Jaywalking bit. Inferring from those statistics is as meaningful as watching Jay Leno.

This movie isn't getting distributed because it isn't marketable because nobody, especially people like me who believe in evolution, would go and see this.

And furthermore, does anyone seriously feel like the theory of evolution, in society or in school, is in any way under threat? It was a unit in my High School biology class, it is taught in our public school system and our Catholic schools, it is taught in college. These days it's the Creationists who get taken to court and have their theory thrown out of the classroom (as it should be; religion has no place in math & science classes, although I wish teachers were more comfortable talking about it- impartially- in history and literature classes) because it is Creationism that is the exception, the odd case that crops up and gets media attention as it is addressed.

Does anyone really feel that evolution is under attack? Anyone graduate high school in the last 20 years and have this as an issue in their school? Because there actually are meaningful things you could spend your time advocating for in the area of education reform, and getting your panties in a twist over evolution seems like one of the dumbest, Rush Limbaugh-esque things to get agitated about.

Yossarian: I think that depends on where you live in the country. I grew up in Massachusetts and this shit wouldn't fly there (and I'm not even from an enlightened part of the state). Mississippi, however? I'm sure there are educated parents there who think the creationism crowd is full of shit, but they're in the minority.

I actually can't believe this is a debate. It bums me out enormously.

I actually can't believe this is a debate. It bums me out enormously.

Then don't believe it. And don't let your derisive opinion of Mississippi and your imagination lead to jump to conclusions. Even in the South the majority viewpoint of teaching evolution and not teaching Creationism will hold. Now, that doesn't mean the schools are turning out reasoned, intelligent 18-year-olds who can articulate and support the theory of evolution, but then again the graduation rate is barely above 50% and most of these kids don't know basic math or geography so asking them to understand the workings of natural selection is a bit much.

People are stupid, but this is not the issue.

I teach a couple of college classes. In my lectures, evolution comes up. I had one student who was married to an Evangelical preacher who tried to debate me.

It escalated and I eventually told her: "I don't teach in your church, please do not preach in my classroom."

*feels the need to go watch Bill Hicks now*

I was very happy that today in Biology I had a 50 minute lecture on evolution, and no one blinked an eye.

"Even in the South the majority viewpoint of teaching evolution and not teaching Creationism will hold."

So you're comfortable with a slender - not overwhelming - majority not teaching creationism? I'm not. These are future workers and voters we're talking about here.

samantha

My problem all along is with people who speak as if evolution is the minority opinion and it is under fire from the Creationists. I just don't get this need for alarmist reactions and persecution complexes about how the whole world is going to hell in a handbasket (those tactics sound like the province of the other side of the argument).

I don't deny that there are some places in Mississippi where local school boards have attempted to get "intelligent design" into the classroom. My point is: They lost. They are loosing and they will lose. Evolution is accepted in the scientific and academic communities. It's the mainstream and the majority. Evolution is taught in classrooms all around the country. They is no need to get worked up repeating anecdotes about rouge teachers in backwater school districts who attempted to teach Creationism and got shot down or quoting meaningless statistics. An ounce of intellectual curiosity and an internet connection is all you need. This isn't the eighteenth century.

Most people aren't educated enough to articulate Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. But the problem isn't that the religion is interfering with science in public schools, it is that public schools and parents are failing, miserably, at educating those kids.

All this sound and fury about religion stepping on educations toes misses the real point.

http://creationmuseum.org/

Exhibit A

It should.

Fossils were scattered on the Earth by Satan, to mislead us. Keep up, will ya?

"Opiate" feels a little too elegant and sophisticated in the old adage; perhaps "Meth" instead.

What the hell? I went to a Midwestern/Appalachian Catholic school and was taught the theory of evolution in the 7th grade. (By the woman who'd later teach some of my science and religion classes in high school, no less.) She made it sound idiotic to not believe that at least some of it was true.

Eh, I'll probably see the damn movie if it ever becomes available in America. Paul Bettany's in it with weird hair. That's all I ever need to know.

I'm going to go beat up on some unborn fetuses or whatever it is we godless heathens do.

We also have the gay.

I'm a proud, card-carrying atheist in the mould of Dawkins (yes, I'm quite happily that anti-religion and utterly baffled by faith which seems to me misguided at best), the American (for which read, US) cultural obsession with religion and all the intellectual, political and other social normative baggage it brings seems incredibly odd to me as an Australian.

Religion is almost completely separate from education and politics here in Australia. The one person in our entire parliament elected on a pro-religion ticket is going to lose his Senate seat in a year because he's seen as nothing more than a religious fruitcake who envisions himself as a spoiler of legislation and imposer of fringe morals.

It's the same in education, no religion at all in public schools and in schools such as the Catholic school I send my daughter to (best facilities, best curriculum, best teachers) in spite of my atheist views, even there it's very low key and taught largely as ethics rather than theology.

I think there's more to be said, but I'll shut up now.

The knuckle draggers will not win in the end.

Except that they're outbreeding everyone else.

Again, this is my point:

"A lot of people here home school based almost solely on the fact that they don't want their kids taught evolution."

In Southwest Missouri and everywhere else evolution is taught in American public schools. Fringe groups try to inject religion and they are defeated. Parents that object to sound scientific theory being taught in public schools need to remove their children from public schools to avoid it. Unless you want to say that these parents don't have the right to raise their own children if you disagree with their beliefs (and trust me, you don't want to make that argument no matter how tempting it is to look down on these people) I fail to see what the problem is.

Evolution is not under attack. Many religions accept and support teaching of evolution. Catholic schools teach evolution. So what is with all the pro-atheist rah-rah and hostility?

"I'm going to go beat up on some unborn fetuses or whatever it is we godless heathens do."

Really? And I suppose the members of the Pajiba community who believe in god are going to go burn some science books and throw rocks at the weird kids. You do realize you are being just as small minded as the people you are criticizing, right?

Don't even get me started on Steve fu*king Fielding.

"Unless you want to say that these parents don't have the right to raise their own children if you disagree with their beliefs (and trust me, you don't want to make that argument no matter how tempting it is to look down on these people) I fail to see what the problem is."

As a family law practitioner, I'd say that parents who teach their children their "beliefs" to the exclusion of legitimate science are engaging in educational neglect, but I digress.

The problem is that we're talking about children - children whose parents and teachers are, likely, their entire world and may not have the wherewithall to look elsewhere for a proper education. Public schooling is, in part, a corrective for what's lacking at home and it's extraordinarily irresponsible to teach a well-established scientific FACT as a mere "theory".

I do think this is a travesty and an outrage, though you seem to think it's no big deal. I actually worry about children being brought up under these circumstances as I think they're being willfully deprived of fundamental knowledge, even though my own children and my children's friends will experience nothing of the sort.

I'm loving the Catholic shout-outs. I'm a practicing RC and am constantly trying to distinguish us from the crazies.

tinmo,

Oh, believe me, I laughed HARD at the monkey one. I first saw this website a long time ago and could.not.stop.laughing.

I just pointed out the "no life from non-life" one because it purports to contain some actual pseudo-science. "I put a charcoal briquet in a jar of water and left it in the sun. It didn't turn into life. Therefore the whole 'scientific' theory of how life began on this planet is wrong."

Back to the monkeys, have you seen any of the Kirk Cameron crazy come-to-Jesus videos? There's one in which he and his "co-host" (some other insane dude) take a chimp to lunch. They literally go to a restaurant with a monkey, and then demonstrate how he doesn't use the silverware and can't read the menu as proof that he's a lower form of life which could never have evolved into humans. It's... surreal.

I realize it may seem like I'm obsessed with this "creation science" stuff, but really a friend of mine just loves to send me random shit like the science fair site and the Kirk Cameron stuff. ("Yeah, sure, a friend... right...") And I can't resist reading/watching. And then I laugh for a while. And then I think about it. These people actually exist. And then the laughter turns to tears.

samantha t

This is getting further away from my original point, but...

I'd say that parents who teach their children their "beliefs" to the exclusion of legitimate science are engaging in educational neglect

Here's the problem with that. Why can't a religious person make the same claim: that people who raise their kids without religion are engaging of spiritual neglect? If someone even suggested that atheist parents should have their kids taken away because of neglect people would lose their shit. You can't start getting carried away with your own beliefs.

Public schooling is, in part, a corrective for what's lacking at home

Again, that is a problematic way of thinking. In fact, it is the same logic that those evil Southern Baptists are employing when they try to inject religion into the classroom. You don't get to editorialize. You don't get to go off book. Stick to the script, teach the lesson, but don't try to wage a war for hearts and minds in the classroom. It only leads down a slippery, ugly slope.

It's not that I think this is "no big deal" because I agree with you that it is unfortunate and it much worse when it effects children. I just disagree with the focus of all the outrage. Who are you guys really mad at here? What are you outraged about? Because it really seems like everybody wants to rail against religion in general and fundamentalists in particular as if they are somehow being oppressed. I also question the point of the original blog post which seems lazy and sloppy at best, and a cheap ploy to manufacture controversy and drive page hits at worst.

Creationism is not the mainstream in America. It is marginalized and it is not representative of America or the majority of religious people in America. It doesn't have any significant stronghold in our schools (and to suggest it is controlling Hollywood is laughable). And I really doubt it is negatively impacting the lives of the young women attending liberal arts colleges who are making all these comments. There are serious problems with these issues elsewhere in this world, but yours are not those problems.

Yossarian: I will never be as eloquent as you in expressing my thoughts (and that's not sarcasm, you truly do make some great points), but I'll just say this: you are obviously not from the four-state-area (corners of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas). This is a real issue here and creates a lot of derision among its citizens. I agree with a lot of what you say, particularly regarding the failings of the public school system in general, but to say that that the religious fanatics don't "hold any significant stronghold in our schools" is laughable if you're talking about this area. You should come visit sometime and see how many people here are STILL angry about prayer being removed from our schools, and how many of those people are teachers, coaches, school board and city council members...

The knuckle draggers will not win in the end.

Except that they're outbreeding everyone else.

True, Lainey but:
1) whose fault is that? (says the childless 36 year old divorcee)
2) We elites will need someone to do all of the grunt work. Keep em' docile and mindless I say.

Easily the best show on TV at the moment, I have to say I'm completely addicted to this show.

When I first read your article I did not really understand why it might be important. But as I think about it all it becomes absolutely clear to me and I understand that you are right. Thank you for this new ideas that you have given to me. Sarah-Ann

I wonder what 23 year old David Vamplew will do next, after winning the comp in London he is bound to go to the USA and win some of the bigger competitons

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