I need to stop reading. The more I read, the more I concerned I get about the state of science and reason in our country. My friend sent me an article on a museum that offers dinosaur displays in a biblical context.
In the early 20th century, many creationist thinkers viewed Genesis as metaphorical, accepting that Earth formed over hundreds of thousands, even millions of years. But as society became more secular, and science offered an implicit challenge to fundamentalist beliefs, creationist leaders took a more literal line.
If you were to tell me that there was a scenario in which people from 100 years ago would find much of modern society intellectually backwards, I would assumed that there was some great catastrophe. Something along the lines of a massive meteor impact. But in this case, I suppose there are many who deem this “progress.”
For those of you who love four (five, six, and seven) letter words as much as I do, consider yourselves victims of biology. That’s right – foul language seems to be a biological imperative. And here I was, scared shitless that I was personally to blame…
After expressing some concerns in my previous post, about mankind’s giant leap backward, I read an article about how museums are training staffers to handle visitors who put faith before fact. According to the piece, just over half the people in the U.S. reject the idea that humans evolved from other species. In many respects, faith serves as placeholder for answers while we search for truth. Accepting truth does not mean letting go of one’s faith, but rather redirecting it. Because blind faith is not just scary, it is (ironically) blinding.
Faith can be a wonderful thing. Blind faith, however, is pretty scary to me. When I read that 2/3 of the people in the U.S. want creationism (now marketed as “intelligent design”) given equal time in schools, it concerned me. The Scopes Monkey Trials was decided (in favor of science) in 1925. In the years since, the country has made tremendous strides in both science and culture. Now, even as we deride theocratic governments that impede the modernization of their societies, it seems like we’re taking a step back.
It’s critical that we recognize what it means when we discuss the Theory of Evolution. To a layperson, a theory is an idea; someone comes up with a theory and then tries to prove it (or, as in the case of the creationist camp, takes it on faith and feels no strong compulsion to prove anything. In science, however, we substitute these words with hypothesis and theory. A hypothesis is a testable educated guess. If the hypothesis is confirmed by rigorous testing, it becomes scientific theory. Scientific theories are not speculation or conjecture, but rather something much closer to fact. For an excellent example of what keeps creationism from being a scientific theory, take a look at Professor Daniel C. Dennett’s excellent piece on the “science of creationism.”
In the early 1600s, Galileo was rebuked by the Church and its disciples for writing that our solar system was heliocentric. This finding was at odds with the religious dogma of the day, which supported a geocentric universe. (This thinking apparently came from an interpretation of Joshua (10,12): “Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, ‘Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon’”). 400 years later, some religious establishments are once again trying to decide what positions scientists can hold and defend. Two steps forward….one unfortunate step back.