At the close of his imperishable novel La Peste (The Plague), Albert Camus gives us a picture of the thoughts of the good Dr. Rieux, as the town of Oran celebrates its recovery from-its survival of-a terrible visitation of disease. Dr. Rieux determines to remain lucid and to “complete this chronicle,” in order that:
“He should not be one of those who held their peace but should bear witness in favor of those plague-stricken people; so that some memorial of the injustice and outrage done them might endure; and to state quite simply what we learn in a time of pestilence: that there are more things to admire in men than to despise.”
However…there is still the problem of the pestilence. The virulent bacilli are always lurking in the old texts and are latent in the theory and practice of religion.
While I’m not going to blame the ID movement for all of the US school systems’ problems, there’s a big issue that gets fairly unexplored: that of funding.
Academia is always notoriously short on funding and we have these folks who’re pushing their religious agenda (who should in fact, be donating all the millions of dollars they spend on this frivolous nonsense into the schools) contributing to the wreckage of today’s American schools.
We have these frightening statistics: that in 2006, 55% believed ‘gawd’ created humans in their present form. 27% think that ‘gawd’ used evolution to bring us to where we are now, and 13% think that it was an unguided process. Further down the page, I found it amusing that the statistics favor evolution among Internet users. Hmmm…I wonder if this is indicative of anything?
Despite constantly experiencing defeats in the courts (we’ll exclude Kansas from those, though it appears that there’s been a flip-flop as of last year), from Edwards v. Aguillard to the debacle in Dover, these people keep getting their asses handed to them.
But this doesn’t stop some ‘philanthropist’ millionaires from pitching in their ‘2 cents’. Money better spent feeding the poor and improving the schools, I might add.
The central point here is that this ridiculous polarization (especially of those vehement anti-evolutionists who obviously have little more than an abysmal understanding of the topic) is costing us, the US citizen, hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. Pretty much for a one-sided point of view that has rendered absolutely zero, zilch, nada (or any other word you might substitute for fucking nothing) in the arena of science.
On a personal level, I’d like our representatives in the government to pro-rate all the tax-payers’ expenses in regards to this ludicrous expenditure of our hard-earned money: let the creationists/IDiots pay out of their wallets. Let their tax money get spent on this foolishness. Hey! Howzabout anyone who ‘believes’ in evolution get a freakin’ tax cut out of this.
(I know, I know: it doesn’t work that way. I can wish, can’t I?)
Let’s forget all about the separation of church and state. Oh, wait, we can’t, can we?
I’ll top this off with an eloquent ending from Jerry Coyne (yet another evolutionist that creationists misquote), from his excellent article titled:
THE CASE AGAINST INTELLIGENT DESIGN The Faith That Dare Not Speak Its Name

"In the end, many Americans may still reject evolution, finding the creationist alternative psychologically more comfortable. But emotion should be distinguished from thought, and a “comfort level” should not affect what is taught in the science classroom."
As Judge Overton wrote in his magisterial decision striking down Arkansas Act 590, which mandated equal classroom time for “scientific creationism”:
“The application and content of First Amendment principles are not determined by public opinion polls or by a majority vote. Whether the proponents of Act 590 constitute the majority or the minority is quite irrelevant under a constitutional system of government. No group, no matter how large or small, may use the organs of government, of which the public schools are the most conspicuous and influential, to foist its religious beliefs on others.”

So, creationists? You want ‘intelligent design’ taught in the schools, alongside the proven methodology of evolution? Fine. You pay for it. But you would be better off contributing your time and efforts and cash to actually improving conditions (do spare me the ‘evolution is contributing to the weakening moral fiber’ refrain the lot of you gibber about: it’s old news), rather than harping about and combating a proven scientific fact that spans more fields than minutes you have in your attention span.
Till the next post, then.