A few weeks ago Cary McMullen, a religion editor for a Florida newspaper, put forth what he termed a compromise solution for evolution education: that parents should be allowed to excuse their kids from learning about evolution if it contradicts their religious beliefs.
We exchanged a couple of (what I thought were) thoughtful, reasonable emails on the topic. I pointed out why I don't think his solution will help in the long run. All in all, I thought we had a productive exchange of views.
Guess I was wrong. Here's what he had to say about the response to his solution:
"In my experience, the pro-science faction has shown a scorn and intolerance equal to anything I have seen on the anti-evolution side. 'If we let these people opt out,' seems to be the thinking, 'then ignorance - and the ignorant - will win.' "
Sure, the voices on both sides get strident. Scientists and science defenders get mighty tired of being lied to and lied about.
Of far greater concern is whether Mr. McMullen truly recognizes that the point of education is to combat ignorance.
Just as the antidote for prejudice is association with The Others, and as surely as my antidote for despair is prayer, the cure for ignorance is education.
We wash our hands more rigorously during cold and flu season, and we vaccinate our kids against disease. Likewise, giving kids the facts about evolution will help prevent them from succumbing to the talk-radio version of evolution that some Christian sects love to hate.
Perhaps Mr. McMullen is unaware of this muddled, incoherent collection of sound bites which talk radio hosts and some ministers pass off to trusting listeners as the theory of evolution. As Ed Hume notes:
Talk Radio Evolution also tells us that man evolved from monkeys (which supposedly makes no sense because, if true, why are there still monkeys?); that evolution has never been observed; that scientists are covering up the flaws in evolutionary theory in order to disprove God; and that belief in godless evolution engenders immorality, a survival of the fittest, anything-goes mentality that, among other things, inspired Adolf Hitler to launch the Holocaust.
This grotesque version of evolution represents the real thing just as much as a tarted-up old prostitute resembles a radiant young bride. Yet it's this dim reflection of evolution which science teachers must be able to shatter if there is any chance of those students gaining a true understanding of what evolution is - and what it isn't.
Mr. McMullen worries that parents will pull their kids out of the schools if evolution is taught. Let them pull. If they want to home-school their kids, that's their decision. If they want to teach their own kids their bastardized versions of science, that's their right as parents.
However no one, regardless of religious belief or state of unbelief, should be allowed to dilute or pollute REAL science education in the public schools.
Ignorance is easily curable. Willful ignorance, not so much.
posted by Cheryl Shepherd-Adams
