October 1999 feature by Steve Hawley |
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On the Origin of Stupidity
Congratulations are in order for the decision of the State School Board
of Kansas to take one more step to remove Darwin's theory of Evolution
from the curriculum of it's schools. This is an important step and the
fallout from it should be quite astounding.
To understand this, one needs to understand some of the surrounding
details. To date, all attempts to add Creationism to state-sanctioned
curricula have failed. Creationism is, typically, a religious belief
and as such cannot be taught in a government run school as it crosses
the line of separation of Church and State. The wiley Creationists
adopted another tack: remove the testing of Darwinism from state
achievement exams as a discouragement from teaching the material.
In other words, if it ain't on the test, why should we spend precious
time covering the material?
In addition, virtually all mention of evolution has been removed from
the state-suggested standard curriculum. The justifications--and they
are nothing more than that, because if they were reasons we would see
some sign of reasoning--that I have read and heard in interviews
are all rely on the fact that evolution is theoretical and cannot be
proven.
This is precisely the kind of stupidity that is spontaneously generated
by groups of people. It is astounding and it is strong evidence to
corroborate something I've been thinking about.
You see, I have a theory. Actually, I have a great number of theories,
like the one about any given person's basis set of characteristics that
fully describe "the best pizza" are founded upon the most-consumed
pizza of their youth rather than some set of higher, inconvtravertible
standards, but this particular theory is not important. What is important
is the process of theory and the basis of the scientific method.
Because I have such a deep-rooted love for the process of theory, I find
myself deeply angered at this Kansasian affront.
I come up with theories all the time. It is an outlet for my imagination.
Most of my theories are incorrect and trivially so. I find the process
of disproving my more fanciful theories to be highly amusing. Just think
about the phrase "if you would entertain this idea" and you will find
one of my prime motivations.
A theory is a germ of an idea that is the basis for an answer to a
question, most commonly 'why' and 'how'. Within the scientific method,
a theory is just a hyposthesis until it is proven or disproven. Very careful
experiments are designed to do just that, and proof is rarely proof, but
instead corroborating evidence. From time to time, a hypothesis will make
it into the realm of accepted theory. Very few theories actually make it
into fact, and many accepted theories have been shot down. Science, as a
process, is self-regulating and continually revising as we continue to
learn more about all that surrounds us.
Evolution is an accepted theory on a small scale (ie, something that is
observable within a handful of lifetimes). The problem arises when
evolution is applied to the question "how did people come to be?" or
more generally, "how did life come to be on Earth?" We have corroborating
evidence, but there are no experiments that can be applied to time
already past. Therefore evolution on a macro scale is neither provable
nor disprovable.
Is this alone justification enough for its expurgation?
If it is, then I demand that the following topics and all associated
materials be removed from the Kansas curriculum as well:
Physics:
Kansas already removed the Big Bang theory, and while they're at it I
think they should also see about stripping Arno Penzias of his Nobel
Prize for finding corroborating evidence of the Big Bang.
Because something is unknown or unknowable doesn't make it inappropriate
to present to students. The actions of the state of Kansas have more to
do with the conflict of religious teachings with scientific thought. Work
should be done to resolve that conflict amicably. Stunting the
development of our children is hardly a reasonable resolution.
Gregor Mendel, a monk and, one would expect, a strong believer in God,
was able to resolve this conflict and was able to produce work that
supports Darwin's models as well as to be the basis for later work
by Watson and Crick. If you believe that this is insignificant,
remember that Watson and Crick figured out DNA structure which will
be the basis for disease treatment heretofore unseen on this planet.
Parents in Kansas, irrespective of your beliefs, if you do not
work to change this, you may very well be depriving the world of
the person who will remove diabetes,
Multiple Sclerosis, Down's Syndrome, Spina Bifida, and many other
cruel and possibly fatal afflictions from the human animal.
As I said earlier, I have a theory. It has to do with subatomic
particles. I think there is a subatomic particle of stupidity
which is inherently attracted to people. The force of attraction
is proportional to the square of the number of people involved.
This explains why a group of individually intelligent people are
incapable of deciding as group where to go for lunch and why the
ultimate decision comes more often from a single person standing
off from the group.
This theory also explains why a state board of education has been
duped by a minority interest and why parents are milling around
doing nothing to change this.
There is nothing I would prefer than to have this theory disproved.
Therefore, I leave it to you, Kansas: show me that I'm wrong for
the sake of the future.
Steve Hawley is software engineer, blinded early on by Science.
in the junk drawer
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