Still waiting for their thumbs

February 11, 2009 by lestro

by lestro

I no longer wonder why the rest of the world laughs at us or why we cant seem to make any headway in science and math when compared with the rest of the world. From Gallup today:

It has been a testable theory for 150 years and not a single experiment has ever contradicted the basic principles of Darwin’s theory, despite him predating DNA and genetics, which has only gone on to confirm Darwin’s theory.

I know this because I watched Nova last night, which was all about the Dover School Board trial in which a federal judge (appointed by president Bush) ruled that “intelligent design” was NOT science and had absolutely no right in a school, especially a science class.

During the case, they proved that the not only is intelligent design not science, it is literally re-packaged creationism. They did this through researching the popular ID text book “Of Pandas and People” and found old drafts in which the authors literally replaced the word “creationism” with “intelligent design” in their definition following a court case saying creationism can’t be taught in schools.

It was a fascinating episode. You can watch the whole thing here. It is two hours, but it really, really lays out the case for not only what constitutes science, but why Darwin’s theories not only hold up but are stronger now than when he proposed them. It also details how creationists tried to manipulate the national argument (and on this, some might say, they appear to be winning).

But still, the demographics of the Gallup poll show that as education increases, belief in creationism oops, intelligent design goes down. One can only presume this is because once you are exposed to what science actually is, there is little room to deny evolutionary theory.

Or maybe it just takes a bit more of an evolved brain to understand that faith in god and belief in evolution are not necessarily mutually exclusive things.

But I have to say, it’s the “no opinion” people that irk me. Open your goddamn eyes, people. Evolution is like gravity – it may be a theory, but let go of your damn keys and they will fall to the floor every time. How can you have no opinion? That’s just ridiculous.

But as Bill Hicks says, you ever notice that the people who believe in creationism look really unevolved?