Who do we shoot?

Here's one of my favorite scenes from John Ford's film adaptation of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Muley and his son confront The Man who has arrived to evict them from their Oklahoma farm. Muley, played by John Qualen (the condemned sad sack fom His Girl Friday), clings to his shotgun:

MULEY: You mean get off my own land?

THE MAN: Now don't go blaming me. It ain't my fault.

SON: Whose fault is it?

THE MAN: You know who owns the land -- the Shawnee Land and Cattle Company.

MULEY: Who's the Shawnee Land and Cattle Comp'ny?

THE MAN: It ain't nobody. It's a company.

SON: They got a pres'dent, ain't they? They got somebody that knows what a shotgun's for, ain't they?

THE MAN: But it ain't his fault, because the bank tells him what to do.

SON: All right. Where's the bank?

THE MAN: Tulsa. But what's the use of picking on him? He ain't anything but the manager, and half crazy hisself, trying to keep up with his orders from the east!

MULEY: (bewildered) Then who do we shoot?

A host of demagogues these days are eager to answer Muley's question. "Want to know who to blame?" they ask, "We'll tell you."

"Shoot the Mexicans," says Lou Dobbs. "Shoot the lazy blacks on welfare," says Grover Norquist. "Shoot the atheists," says James Dobson. "And the gays," adds his chief politico, Tony Perkins. "Shoot the Islamofascists," say Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and the rightwing bloggers. "Shoot 'em all," says Fox News.

None of those suggestions, of course, are of any use to Muley or to his contemporary counterparts, because none of those scapegoats are really the source of their problems. But the demagogues don't give a rat's ass about solving Muley's problems. Their only concern is making sure that he keeps his shotgun pointed somewhere else, somewhere that doesn't threaten the status quo.

Such demagogues are con artists. And they're good at it. But recognizing that is where things get tricky and difficult to talk about.

Good con artists are difficult to prosecute. This is true, in part, because getting conned is viewed differently than being the victim of other forms of crime. There's a sense of shame, or at least of embarrassment, on the part of the victims, so they're less likely than other crime victims to report the crimes. Con artists know this, and they exploit it -- sometimes compounding that embarrassment by working a con that relies on the mark's greed or chauvinism or some other trait they are unlikely to be proud of and thus making the victim feel complicit in their own victimhood.

It's never easy to tell someone they're being conned. "You've been hoodwinked. You've been had. You've been took," Malcolm X said. "You've been bamboozled." But nobody wants to hear that, even if it's true. Especially not if it's true. It sounds too much like, "You've been a sucker." Or even, "You've been stupid." It seems to add insult to injury so people reject both the message and the messenger. Even if that means continuing to subject themselves to the ongoing injury of the scam. They are, after all, accustomed to it.

Consider, for example, the state-run lotteries. These "games" (scratch-off cards? What joyous fun!) are exempt from federal truth in advertising laws because they aren't fair games -- the pay-out is woefully disproportionate to the odds. Having to explain that the state-sponsored lottery is a stacked deck and a bad bet would likely result in fewer people "playing" (Wheee!), and thus a reduction in the revenue from these lotteries.

That exemption and the lotteries themselves are con games. Yet no politician is ever going to say that. To say that would cost that politician votes across the board. Those who don't waste their money on the lotteries would realize that such a politician was threatening to cut off a sleazy-but-significant source of state revenue that doesn't cost them a penny. That would mean, for them, either an increase in taxes or a reduction in services -- not a popular message. Those who do "play" the lottery would interpret "You've been hoodwinked" as "You're stupid," and that's not going to win many votes either.

The demagogue/con-men wouldn't be sitting idle, either, if some recklessly principled politician were to take such a stance. They would attack that politician as, of course, an "elitist," portraying her or him as sneering and condescending to the salt-of-the-earth, just folks, red-blooded Americans of the heartland. "You've got a chance to keep your farm, Muley," they would say. "You just need to win the lottery. But those elitists don't want you to have that chance. ..."

That cry of "elitism" always follows any attempt to cast light onto what Rick Perlstein calls "The Big Con." A chorus of such cries greeted Thomas Frank's book What's the Matter With Kansas? That book offers an insightful look at how the scapegoating of "liberal elites" has become an integral aspect of maintaining the Big Con. It was thus bitterly ironic, but not at all surprising, that the scapegoaters seized on its publication as a chance to attack Frank as an "elitist" or "limousine liberal." "You see that, Muley?" the demagogues said. "He thinks there's something wrong with you. We like you just the way you are."

This brings us, of course, to Barack Obama and the ridiculousness of the past week here in the Keystone State. At a fundraiser in California, Obama was asked, in essence, "What's the matter with Pennsylvania?" His answer echoed much of Frank's analysis:

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. ...And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

That is, among other things, an astute summary of many of the bugbears and distractions the demagogues employ in order to keep the red states red and the shotguns pointed somewhere else.

It was entirely predictable that the demagogues would respond to Obama the same way they responded to Frank. "Elitism!" they cried, tripping over themselves in their best attempts to convey offendedness, desperately trying to brand Obama as a "latte liberal." (The fact that the epithet for a prominent candidate of mixed-race heritage turned out to be "latte" is, of course, a wholly innocent accident of alliteration and it would be wrong to read anything more into that.)

"Then who do we shoot?"

Muley's question is still, more or less, the question asked by every dispossessed, disenfranchised and desperate American family, by everyone whose life seems to be a series of long-odd, low-payout gambles in a rigged game.

We need to be able to talk about this. The Muleys of this world have been ill-served. They've been hoodwinked. They've been had. They've been took. They've been bamboozled. And they will continue to be treated the same way until we find a way to address this honestly.

So we need to be able to talk about this. We need to become the kind of people who are capable of talking about this. If the past week is any indication, we're not there yet.

Comments

[Ole Fowdie]

This is the first time I have ever read your blog, and I must admit that it is refreshing. I like the fact that you will talk evenly about the left and the right. I like the name slacktivist, though it reminds me a bit of JR "Bob" Dobbs...

[Tonio]

An excellent book about the ID controversy in Dover is Matthew Chapman's "40 Days and 40 Nights." It became obvious during the court proceedings that ID was an attempt to dress religion in a lab coat.

I have not seen Ben Stein's "Expelled." I'm concerned about the advertising's use of "Big Science." If I heard that phrase from someone like Robertson or Dobson, I would suspect it of being anti-Semitic code.

I suspect it's an unwillingness to face the possibility that the human race is not the apex of Creation, the final, finished, perfect product.

I've hear one fundamentalist Christian state that explicitly. He claimed that evolution means that humanity is "nothing special."

[McJulie]

This sort of "elitism" name-calling really grates my cheese.

When one millionaire calls another millionaire "elitist," I am not suddenly impressed by the populism of the first millionaire. The accusors always seem far more pandering than the accused.

The system is designed to reward people for their behavior--if you work hard, and at jobs that most people value, you will be able to get the things you value.

Hmm... if you really believe that, Mabus, it readily explains other beliefs you have that I disagree with. However, I think a very quick survey of the real world reveals this premise to be faulty.

The system is designed to make some people a lot of money -- to enable capital to move around and consolidate so that some people are able to make bucketloads of it. That is simply the nature of a capitalist system. If individuals get rewarded for hard work, that is entirely a side-effect.

There is no particular correlation in any industry between hardness of individual work and money earned by that individual. And I'm not sure how to define "hard work" anyway. Does it mean diligence? Number of hours? Efficiency? Skill level? Breaking a sweat?

Further, our system is not designed to -- nor does it -- reward the laborer more than the investor. This discrepancy has become even more pronounced under the Bush administration, but it existed anyway. Wages from labor are taxed at a higher level than wages from investment. The entire financial planning industry is based around the idea that a person doesn't become rich from income alone. And the very idea of retirement presumes that it is possible to live comfortably on income from investment, not labor.

Jesu has already pointed out the problematic nature of "at jobs that most people value."

[Tonio]

epic LARPing of the RapeBear script...Rape-Swan

Fred Davis, although your post is excellent, would you explain those cultural references? Either I'm too old (41) or too out of touch with modern pop culture, or both.

[hapax]

Actually, biology class is an excellent place to teach about intelligent design, if you've got strong enough teachers.

No. It is not.

There is nothing to "teach" about soi-disant "intelligent design." The "theory" has zero intellectual content. Inasmuch as it exists as a coherent position at all, it consists entirely of attacks (I can't even call them "criticisms", because they are either ill-informed whinging based on an inadequate or outdated understanding, or [more commonly] outright lies) against isolated out-of-context snippets of a complex, coherent, well-established, repeatedly-demonstrated, and mind-bogglingly useful theory that underpins ALL of modern biology.

What you are suggesting is the functional equivalent of a geometry class wasting precious educational time on "teaching the controversy" about the value of pi based on various Biblical passages.

Dismissing it with "it's foolish" is perhaps kinder than ID deserves.

[Bruce in South Florida]

The greatest con man in theater history, Harold Hill, wasn't the villain in "The Music Man" - it was the anvil salesman who kept telling everyone in River City that they were being ripped off.

[konrad_arflane]

Connie: One quick note about what to say instead of "that's foolish" when confronted with arguments for ID: "that's a false dilemma". The thing is, every single argument put forth in favour of ID is actually not - it's an argument against evolution. Whether it's a specific (evolution couldn't have produced the blood clotting cascade or the bacterial flagellum) or general (usually: evolution cannot produce "complex specified information" or "irreducible complexity") argument, it tries to disprove evolution and then claim victory - but that's a false dilemma. There are (in principle) any number of alternative explanations that the arguments don't adress at all, and they make no positive claims for ID itself.

Apart from that, the actual arguments are generally plain wrong (the specific) or incoherent (the general), but that's the kind of thing that takes a whole lot of work to explain (and understand, for that matter).

Mabus: there are a couple of problems with your arguments. One that ought to be trivial is that "no man is an island" - in particular, one does not choose one's level of basic education, nor one's family connections (which can very well make the difference between getting or not getting a job commensurate with one's qualifications (or for that matter between getting a suitable job or one that is actually beyond one's qualifications, but nobody can do anything about it because your uncle owns the company...)).

And:

The system is designed to reward people for their behavior--if you work hard, and at jobs that most people value, you will be able to get the things you value.

That fails to take into account that, with the current distribution of wealth, the jobs that "most people value" are frequently a lot less lucrative than the jobs the richest few percent of the population value. IOW, it may have been true once, but once you put it into a recursive loop and let it run for a few generations, the basic conditions are changed significantly.

[Chris]

Oh how I hate the "teach the controversy" argument. If you took it to its logical conclusion, science lectures should rightly spend so much time discussing about creationism/ID, Flat Earth, diseases being caused by demonic possession, epicycles, and Thetans crawling around on people, that there wouldn't be time to learn any real, non-thoroughly-disproven-and-disqualified science.

Other people have already said what I wanted to say to Mabus, so I shan't add anything.

@Josh: Which liberals say to "shoot all the foreigners who take your jobs"? Because if they call themselves liberals, I'm not sure they know what the word means.

[Jake]

Actually, biology class is an excellent place to teach about intelligent design, if you've got strong enough teachers.

It really isn't. To clarify, I wasn't advocating that science teachers "teach intelligent design," but rather that science class is a place to mention that some aspects of society have a problem with science.

[Geds]

I have not seen Ben Stein's "Expelled." I'm concerned about the advertising's use of "Big Science." If I heard that phrase from someone like Robertson or Dobson, I would suspect it of being anti-Semitic code.

Rumor has it that they were overjoyed when Stein signed on because they were able to say, "Hey, we've got a Jewish guy to be our frontman. That will make this a lot more acceptable." Either way, the whole video is complete B.S. from what I've been able to gather. I read a story on a blog about a month ago from one of one of the scientists from the video getting kicked out of the screening and raising hell about it(here's a good overviewExpelled. I pretty much figured that out the moment I saw the use of "Big Science" and everything that's come up since has confirmed that suspicion...

I suspect it's an unwillingness to face the possibility that the human race is not the apex of Creation, the final, finished, perfect product.

I suspect that, too. Of course, I grew up reading Arthur C. Clarke instead of doing my Bible studies, so the notion that it's not just possible, but inevitable that we'll evolve never really scared me. In fact, it's something that I try to bring up when the topic arises, but the human race has been evolving and causing its own evolution throughout its history. Whenever people get all uppity about "playing god" by genetic manipulation and whatnot, I tend to shrug and think, "We've been playing god ever since we figured out that whole agriculture thing."

Either I'm too old (41) or too out of touch with modern pop culture, or both.

It's got nothing to do with being too old. I'm 26 and have no idea what the hell that meant...

[Geds]

Dammit. Preview is your friend...

[hapax]

Geds: I'm 26 and I have no idea what the hell that meant.

So, did Duane take the Notebook with him when he left?

[Jesurgislac]

Oh - and "the system is designed to reward people for their behavior" is definitively not true in any system which allows people to transfer wealth to their children. A system which purely rewards people for what they themselves have done must (a) provide the same standards of healthcare, education, and food to all children - and (b) take everything that a person dies possessing: a 100% "death tax" which does not permit any legacies or any significant transfer of wealth/property down the generations. Bill Gates is as rich as he is today not only by his own unaided efforts, but because he began life with a million-dollar trust fund left him by his wise selection of wealthy parents and wealthy grandparents.

[Jon]

Expelled Exposed has a lot of good information about the many flaws of the movie Expelled, including salient background information on some of the ID proponents who the film claims were "expelled" for simply expressing their belief in ID, well-documented refutations about some of the claims the film makes about evolution, and the fairly shady way in which they managed to get people like Richard Dawkins to agree to be interviewed. I spent most of my day there on Friday as I waited for some LB Friday goodness.

[Fred Davis]

Rape Bear, and rape-swan is a reference ot that thing where Zeus tunred into a swan and...yea.

[Tonio]

Rape Bear, and rape-swan is a reference ot that thing where Zeus tunred into a swan and...yea.

I'm embarrassed that I didn't recognize those - I'm a Greek mythology buff.

[Praline]

Does anybody here have an extensive knowledge of recent Christian history? Because I'd like an answer to this question: why is it that so much time and energy is being expended promoting Creationism when it carries no practical benefits?

Opposing abortion, for instance, might have tangible results: the laws could change, abortions would be stopped (or rather, driven underground). But supposing Creationism did get taught everywhere? The price of fish remains unaffected. Nothing would happen. Apart from a battle for theory, getting Creationism taught would profit its believers nothing in the real world.

I can think of a few answers. One, obviously, is that on philosophical grounds, evolution challenges the Bible's literal inerrancy, hence it's a battle for control of history, and thus of thought: science is a threat to Biblical literality, and evolution is a staging-ground.

But then, other Biblical assertions must be equally vulnerable to scientific disproof. Why is nobody protesting that scientists argue that the X chromosome is bigger than the Y, when the Bible states that Eve was made from Adam's rib and so surely women should have the same chromosomes as men, or else smaller ones, bits having been broken when the rib was removed? Why aren't they objecting to astronomy, which challenges the description of the world as God made it just as thoroughly? Creationists are furious about people studying Darwin, but I don't see them campaigning against space exploration or blackening the names of Armstrong and Aldrin, even though there's a moon-landings-were-staged crackpot conspiracy already up and running. Such objections are equally fundamental and equally silly, but I don't see anyone making them. Why is evolution the chosen battle ground?

It seems to me that one reason is precisely because it's so inapplicable. We live in a PR age, and the battle against evolution theory is primarily a publicity stunt; you don't have to accomplish anything tangible, you just have to pit one theory against another, which is less uncomfortable than manning the barricades. 'They think you're descended from a monkey!' is a suitably soundbitey battle cry, so possibly it's just an easy way of maintaining visibility without having to do anything that contributes to society in a practical way.

But why evolution? How did it get started? Who chose it? Was it the Scopes Monkey Trial, or before then? And why not astronomy, or something else? Anybody who has information on this, please, educate me. :-)

[patter]

Don't recollect if this is where I found it, but this column is a summary version of "Deer Hunting with Jesus." -- recommended for extra credit.

[Jon]

@Praline: I think that the fact that it often contradicts the inerrancy of the bible is the main point of the general opposition to science. As to why evolution has been chosen specifically - and I think that it's basically a first major battle and that other fields and theories would be up next if evolution were to fall; there are plenty of creationists who attack the various other areas you list - I believe it's because it contradicts the notions of original sin and the "fallen world."
The underlying belief is that in the beginning, humans and the world they had been given dominion over, were "perfect." When Adam and Eve sinned, they tainted that perfection and brought about all of the evils of life in this fallen, imperfect world.
Evolution assaults that notion, in their view, stating that we started out imperfect and began moving towards perfection over time. If we are "merely" animals that have managed to evolve, that eliminates all notions of humanity having spurned God and the perfect state in which we lived, thus eliminating the dogma of original sin and all that it entails.
That's just an off the top of my head best guess, though it is something that I think about a lot.
I suppose also that evolution seems like an "easy" target in contrast to some other fields of study. Many fields have concepts that can't be distilled - and distorted - quite so easily as evolution. With evolution, there is often a knee-jerk emotional response from the average person upon hearing someone say "They think that your grandfather was a monkey!" or some other such nonsense. Astronomy, for example, doesn't really have any core assumptions that can be so easily distorted and manipulated with the aim of getting a gut-level reaction.

[Ursula L]

Because I'd like an answer to this question: why is it that so much time and energy is being expended promoting Creationism when it carries no practical benefits?

Well, it is a way for the fiscally irresponsible wing of the Republican party to give lip-service to the desires of the socially/religiously conservative wing of the Republican party, without acutally costing them anything.

Establishing biblical social justice of the type Fred promotes would cost money. Making abortion legal would cost, in terms of the medical care for women with botched illegal abortions. Creating a social services program that would involve actual sex education, distribution of contraceptives, and generous benefits for women who have children, which might actually reduce abortions, would cost money.

Talking about creationism? Cheap. And if you have a population that hasn't been taught to think critically, it is easier to fleece them on other issues.

It's part of the larger con - an "issue" that gives nothing to those in need, but feeds into insecurities that will keep people focused on things other than the fact that they're being exploited.

[josh]

@Josh: Which liberals say to "shoot all the foreigners who take your jobs"? Because if they call themselves liberals, I'm not sure they know what the word means.

In a word, protectionists. They are mostly associated with the Democrats and American 'liberals'.

[Jon]

Oh yeah, and what Ursula L said. I was looking at the issue through the paradigm of the "true believers," and not that of the politicians pandering to them, though that is, of course, another major component of the whole mess.

[indifferent children]

> This overgeneralization is no different from conservatives who try to assign common motivations for all liberals who hold certain positions.

I, for one, am glad that Democrats have finally learned that "sloppy" generalizations that flow, beat exact and fully-qualified statements that sound pedantic and wooden. It would be better if the electorate valued truth and accuracy more than sound bites, and if wishes were horses beggars would ride.

[Geds]

Why aren't they objecting to astronomy, which challenges the description of the world as God made it just as thoroughly?

Not to be glib, but Christianity kind of lost that argument with Galileo and Copernicus...

Jon is probably mostly right, as is whoever brought up the relative newness of Darwin's theories. Evolution is a challenge to the entire Christian story and we're only now figuring out that Darwin's theory of evolution is not only observationally useful, it is also predictive. We can look at the animals which exist now, apply Darwin to them and say, "According to Evolutionary Theory we should be able to find fossils with characteristics X, Y, and Z." We're finding them, but that fact isn't trickling down quickly enough. So you have the people who say we don't have the "missing link" between ape and human, so nyah, nyah, science is wrong. Nobody who's making that argument seems to realize that scientifically rigorous explanations of evolution don't need the man-ape thingy simply because we have a hell of a lot of weird fish-frog thingies and sea borne mammals that have the underlying bone structure of a hand/paw under their flippers (dolphins, for the record). We have "missing links" all over the place, but according to the evolution detractors we should be looking for one specific missing link that we may never find and until we find it, they're right and science is wrong. It's stupid.

Meanwhile, I once had a friend who thought Ken Ham had some good ideas tell me that natural selection actually proves the Biblical account because we're seeing decreasing biodiversity, which would be the suspected result of a corrupted creation. It took me a while to realize just how well-constructed that particular bit of misdirection is. It sounds really stupid to the person not versed in creationism, though, so that requires explanation.

In short, we're losing biodiversity because humans keep killing stuff. We're the perfect predator for our system, but we've overhunted and disregarded the collateral damage that our effects have had on the world we live in. If you look at this from the evolutionary perspective, it's really no different than a group of wolves that find a big herd of deer somewhere, then decide they're living the good life, hunt to their hearts content and have lots of little baby wolves only to start dying off when the little baby wolves grow up and find out that there weren't that many little baby deer. So the wolves die off, the deer repopulate and everything waxes and wanes if the system is closed.

Humans constantly adapt in order to become the perfect predator for all environments. So human history has been one of near constant waxing on one side and mostly waning on the other. From the perspective of the person who takes it as a given that things were once perfect but now they aren't, this makes perfect sense. Everything is dying off because we sinned and we're cursed. As with any really good lie, though, this idea is close enough to the truth that it can be passed off as such and the indoctrinated won't listen to those on the outside who are saying, "You're being lied to."

It's like that infamous video with Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort where Comfort attempts to use a can of soda as an analogy to a banana to prove that god made everything perfect for humans. The banana as the yellow fruit that comes in bunches at the grocery store was a product of intelligent "design," but that was humans cultivating something to be pleasing to humans over a long period of time. The end result both of a horticulturalist's intentions and Ray Comfort's stupidity end up in the same place, so you could make the argument that either one is right, but only one makes sense to an educated audience.

Darwin is relatively easy to attack at the moment because most people only know of Evolutionary Theory through the sound bites. Those who wish to discredit Darwin have mostly done so by disconnecting Natural Selection from Evolution, dissembling about the meaning of "theory" and distorting anything and everything about how we actually got to be us, specifically the fact that we humans have been intelligently designing a lot of stuff without the help of any sort of deity for thousands of years.

As for the question of why they do it, it's pretty simple. Science is a threat to their variety of religion. I do believe that science and religion can co-exist, but science and fundamental religion cannot. Since the proponents of Intelligent Design and whatnot believe that they have the only true religion, they cannot exist in the same space as Evolution, so they set out to destroy it.

The Church's response to Galileo is instructive in this. The powers that be said that the universe was ever-increasing perfection once the surface of the Earth ended. So according to that system, other planets were just perfect spheres, set out as pretty lights in the sky. Galileo came up with a telescope, looked out and said, "Hey, look at all those craters and stuff." This threatened that concept of perfection, so the Inquisition tried to get him to shut up. That reaction only served to delay the inevitable (specifically because it so freaked Copernicus that his totally insane, heretical stuff about a heliocentric system didn't get published until after he died). Fundamentalism is fighting a similar delaying action against Evolution. I believe that Behe and Ken Ham and producers of Expelled can see the writing on the wall and that's why they're trying to raise as much hell as they can while people will still listen. If the human race makes it through to 2500 and our descendents are still learning about us as we learn about our ancestors, they'll probably look back on the evolution debate the same way we look at the Galileo story.

Whew. That's a lot of text. Sorry...

[connie]

knighthawk: "I don’t know if there’s a god, and you don’t know, regurdless of the sparkely feelings you may have expereinced during revival." I think I have been confused with someone else: nowhere did I state that I belong to some flavor of Protestantism that indulges in revivals. I am not, nor have I ever been, a Protestant. Perhaps I should stop using my name and take on a nickname in order to avoid the confusion.

"You suspect there’s a god, but until you can offer concrete proof, all arguments springing from your assumption god is a reality are suspect, due to the fact you can’t prove you under lying argument." Genetic fallacy. My argument stands or falls on its own merits, not on my religious beliefs. You do not have to believe in Priestley's god to learn about oxygen or hydrogen chloride, and you do not have to believe in Faraday's god to use his Law of Induction.

J: "scientific communication usually doesn't work by having individual scientists publish books...critique each others' work in the pages of scientific journals " You're right. Any explanations and critiques should be taken from scientific journals, not mainstream books.

Kodiak: "You've based your point of view on faulty expectations" No. I've based my point of view on the fact that whether a court is forbidding evolution or creationism or algebra to be taught, the ban is bad. I am in favor of more education, not less. The "Thou shalt not teach X" is what I disagree with. I do not know enough about X to make a judgment: although I've taken numerous chemistry, geology, and physics courses at university, I'm a history teacher, not a biology teacher, but my experience with biology teachers is that they know their field well enough to explain what intelligent design is to a class of teens. If you do not have that same faith in biology teachers, then I understand why you wouldn't want intelligent design mentioned in science class.

"you expect a whole lot from others when you aren't willing to put in any effort on your end" True. I am not a biologist. I don't care about the Origin of Species or the origins of American Idol. I don't care. I have no dog in this fight. Whether intelligent design is ever taught in any public school in the future does not effect me. It does effect the children who will pass through those schools. If it isn't taught, those children-now-adults will be the ones to ask if they feel a lack of education when the issue is in the news again (and it will be). I already feel that lack. Let me quote myself: "I wish I had had to learn when I was younger so that I would not be ignorant as an adult."

chris: 'Oh how I hate the "teach the controversy" argument.' I would have chosen different words if I had known that 'teach' must involve many hours instead of 'outline the basic argument, then explain why it isn't science.' My fault for sloppy vocabulary. I am in good company, though, Obama himself admits to using poorly-chosen words occasionally.

[Tonio]

The underlying belief is that in the beginning, humans and the world they had been given dominion over, were "perfect." When Adam and Eve sinned, they tainted that perfection and brought about all of the evils of life in this fallen, imperfect world.
Evolution assaults that notion, in their view, stating that we started out imperfect and began moving towards perfection over time. If we are "merely" animals that have managed to evolve, that eliminates all notions of humanity having spurned God and the perfect state in which we lived, thus eliminating the dogma of original sin and all that it entails.

Thanks for the clarification, Jon. Followup question - why is the original sin doctrine such a critical issue for creationists? Probably because the doctrine is the premise for other doctrines about the Resurrection and salvation. Is it possible to have Christianity without either of these? I would say so, based on my experience with Unitarian Universalism.

[Jesurgislac]

Connie: Kodiak: "You've based your point of view on faulty expectations" No. I've based my point of view on the fact that whether a court is forbidding evolution or creationism or algebra to be taught, the ban is bad. I am in favor of more education, not less.

"One of those things is not like the other."

Evolution is a basic theory underpinning so much scientific research/discovery of the 20th/21st century that to decide that "evolution doesn't exist" would mean, well, we'd go back to the 19th century.

Algebra is basic to mathematics.

"Creationism" is a half-assed religiously-inspired bit of nonsense, that no respectable educational system in the world should bother to teach. If it's been in the news recently, a civics or a modern studies class can cover why some nutcase Christians want to roll the biological sciences back to the 19th century, and why the Republican Party is supporting them in this endeavor. It's a political studies question: why are this brand of Christianity so important to the Republican party that they are willing to risk destroying science teaching in US public schools for a generation? Or, why is science teaching in US public schools so unimportant to the Republican Party that they're willing to trade it for voting support from the religious nutjobs?

What it is not is a scientific question.

I would have chosen different words if I had known that 'teach' must involve many hours instead of 'outline the basic argument, then explain why it isn't science.' My fault for sloppy vocabulary.

Yes.

[Spalanzani]

Jesurgislac: "Evolution is a basic theory underpinning so much scientific research/discovery of the 20th/21st century that to decide that "evolution doesn't exist" would mean, well, we'd go back to the 19th century."

Heck, wasn't Origin of the Species published around 1850? So really, it'd be going back to the early 19th century. Even worse.

[Jon]

Tonio: Followup question - why is the original sin doctrine such a critical issue for creationists?

Well, if we hadn't done something to piss off God, then it would follow that we don't deserve to be punished - whether in this vale of tears or in Hell after we die - which would mean that God is, well, to put it mildly, a jerk.
After all, it would amount to a question of "Why is God picking on us poor ignorant monkeys?" if there is no specific slight against Him that can be pointed to.
Of course, there are other ways of viewing the issue of bad things happening to good people and etc., but the notion of original sin is what they've latched on to, or perhaps I should say that they cling to.

[MikhailBorg]

Well, if we hadn't done something to piss off God, then it would follow that we don't deserve to be punished - whether in this vale of tears or in Hell after we die - which would mean that God is, well, to put it mildly, a jerk.

Given that God set things up specifically to ensure that we'd commit the original sin, his jerkitude is not yet out of the question.

[Jesurgislac]

Spalanzi: Heck, wasn't Origin of the Species published around 1850?

1859.

[Jeff]

The greatest con man in theater history, Harold Hill, wasn't the villain in "The Music Man" - it was the anvil salesman who kept telling everyone in River City that they were being ripped off.

Not on your tin-type, Brucey-boy. That flim-flam artist broke hearts from here to Des Moines. He's not the villain by the end, but he's still an anti-hero. Note that he's still planning on leaving town until the tryst on the bridge.

[Tonio]

After all, it would amount to a question of "Why is God picking on us poor ignorant monkeys?" if there is no specific slight against Him that can be pointed to.

What do you mean by "picking on"? Are you referring to suffering not caused by humans?

Of course, there are other ways of viewing the issue of bad things happening to good people and etc., but the notion of original sin is what they've latched on to, or perhaps I should say that they cling to.

And what is their motivation? I suspect the notion that there is no deliberate plan or intention behind the "bad things" may terrify them. But I'm open to other explanations.

[Jon]

Given that God set things up specifically to ensure that we'd commit the original sin, his jerkitude is not yet out of the question.

True enough, but they ("they" being generic creationism-supporting fundies) tend to be able to overlook that aspect, and they can still say that it's our, or rather, our progenitors', fault that we failed this test that God set up for us.
And for the record, I'm not talking about my own way of thinking, just my interpretation of what I've been able to glean from lurking on various fundy sites and reading Chick tracts and etc.
From their perspective, ultimately God, being God, simply can't be a jerk because He's kind and loving (after all, the bible says so), and so what if He's killed a bunch of people and condemned them to eternal punishment? Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...

[Jon]

What do you mean by "picking on"? Are you referring to suffering not caused by humans?

Yes. Plenty of suffering results from "Acts of God," and diseases, and so forth.
As for their motivations...well, your guess is probably as good as mine, though I would say that if we start from the proposition that there is some inborn (or learned) need that humans have to explain the unexplainable, which frequently gives rise to a belief in some sort of guiding force or god, and if one feels the need to believe that said god is benevolent, then one has to find some way to justify the bad things that this benevolent god either allows to happen or deliberately makes happen.
Thus, you end up thinking "Well, we must have done something to deserve it."
Again, this isn't my way of thinking, so I'm not sure how much insight I can really provide.

[kodiak]

"you expect a whole lot from others when you aren't willing to put in any effort on your end" True. I am not a biologist. I don't care about the Origin of Species or the origins of American Idol. I don't care. I have no dog in this fight. Whether intelligent design is ever taught in any public school in the future does not effect me. It does effect the children who will pass through those schools. If it isn't taught, those children-now-adults will be the ones to ask if they feel a lack of education when the issue is in the news again (and it will be). I already feel that lack. Let me quote myself: "I wish I had had to learn when I was younger so that I would not be ignorant as an adult."

Ok, there's my real problem. Particularily as you say that you are a teacher, your comment shouldn't be "wish I had learned that back when I was in school" it should instead be "wish I had learned to learn when I was in school" as that concept seems to have passed you by. It doesn't take much time or effort to learn the why of important political issues, it's getting easier every day with blogs and online reporting.

I don't want false statements being passed onto school children as facts. I don't want them to be taught the flood theory of geology or creationism in any of its forms or that pi = 3 . It doesn't serve any useful purpose to put knowledge in and then immediately remove it. Instead, let's teach them how to learn.

I had a great history teacher in highschool. He was constantly teaching us how to evaluate things, teaching the difference between facts and opinions (so crucial in the study of historic events), teaching us the difference between objective and subjective truths (i.e. the century begins at 1900. why? because arbitrary dates can be useful in pinning down a time-line, totally subjective, but used all the time by everyone), teaching us to think about and evaluate our sources (does the research/footnotes support the point the author is making? do the conclusions they are drawing from it make sense?).

That's what children should be learning, and if they learn those skills, they will be able to face all the problem sets that they come across later in life. School should be about giving children the tools they need to approach their lives. In some cases that's an understanding of the causes of the world wars, in others it's learning how to solve 2x + 1 = 3. But in all cases the point is not that some half-remembered class on a sunny day when they would have rather been outside comes back to them. It's that they keep the necessary skills to evaluate what's in front of them.

(and in some cases that will get to the point that the legislate against the snake oil that seems perrenial in the USA, and I have no problem with that)

[hapax]

Praline: But why evolution? How did it get started? Who chose it? Was it the Scopes Monkey Trial, or before then? And why not astronomy, or something else? Anybody who has information on this, please, educate me. :-)

Actually, this is something I *fairly* well informed on -- but rather than run the risk of being a Poster Who Explains, I would point you to Peter Bowler's *excellent* EVOLUTION: THE HISTORY OF AN IDEA, which in some four hundred pages gets to the real meat of the issue.

Short short short version: Anti-science folks are anti-SCIENCE. They picked on evolution because they thought it was an issue they could win on, because a) in the first half-century or so, the theory was on pretty shaky grounds and b) there is a visceral emotional reaction to the notion that humans just Ain't All That.

[hf]

We have "missing links" all over the place,

Better than that. We can just look at living organisms. Here, as I just found out recently, we have "ring species" consisting of many small groups that have developed small differences from their neighbors -- each group in the chain can produce fertile offspring with their closest neighbors, but if those at opposite ends of the chain meet they cannot interbreed due to their greater cumulative differences. This means the two ends would unambiguously count as 'two different species' if the links in between all died out. So much for the difference between "microevolution" and "macroevolution".

[hapax]

Connie: I am in favor of more education, not less. The "Thou shalt not teach X" is what I disagree with.

So, as a history teacher, you'd be happy if your school board mandated that you teach Ping-Pong, taxidermy, and Klingon in your history classes -- AS history?

Because that's what the Dover case was about, since you didn't even bother to follow the links. Not that "Thou Shalt Not Teach X" -- but "Thou Shalt Not Force Teachers To Teach That X Is Really Pink (especially if government-mandated support of Pink happens to violate the frickin' Constitution)"

I'm sorry if you're not really a troll, just ignorant of the basic facts -- but it isn't really a surprise to me that folks are assuming the former.

[Steve]

The thing that completely boggles my mind about this one was this: isn't it the media elites yelling the loudest about Obama's elitism?

I live in Pennsylvania...and my favorite moment in all of this was when, right in the middle of the "controversy", there was a front page story where they interviewed local people and they generally said "Barack is right. We are bitter. For the reasons he cites."

The worst moment was last week when I sat with my wife in the ER waiting room for 6 and a half hours...and all the TV's were set to Fox News. The manufactured condescension made me want to vomit. (My wife's vomiting was real.)

[Geds]

why is the original sin doctrine such a critical issue for creationists? Probably because the doctrine is the premise for other doctrines about the Resurrection and salvation. Is it possible to have Christianity without either of these? I would say so, based on my experience with Unitarian Universalism.

But, see, them Unitarians aren't Real, True Christians.

The original sin doctrine is just one part of the big logic circuit upon which the fundamentalist stripe of Christianity rests. Here's the set-up:

Given 1: There is a god.
Given 2: That god is good.
Given 3: We are here because that god made us.
Given 4: Our purpose is to glorify that god.

There is a general understanding that the god who made us would want us to be happy. However (and this gets to the point of Darwin's realizations and eventual abandonment of religion), we have ample evidence that we are not happy. The world is messy and that whole predator/prey thing makes stuff suck. It's impossible to avoid the whole problem of suffering, which is why that particular question was at the root of my own dechristianization.

Anyway, if god is good, then god made everything to work in perfect sync and happiness, because that's what the Bible tells us (BTWTBTU for short). Our own observations of the world tell us that there isn't actually happiness and harmony, so something must be skewed. We find out that it got skewed when the very first people screwed up and we were all incapable of ever being good again, BTWTBTU. However, this creates the problem that you now have to deal with a petty asshole of a god. God is good and loving, as we know, and eternally damning (ahem) 6000 years worth of people, not to mention forcing all the little animals to grow big fangs and eat each other is just damn mean. So it's all our fault that there are predators and prey, because somehow our sin was such an offense that the entire universe had to suffer because of it.

To go back to the set of givens. First, there's no reason to glorify a god who is absentee or just a jackass if no compelling reason is given (say, like Aztec myth, where the sun would stop shining if sacrifices weren't made). Second, the argument that god is good and wants us to be happy doesn't actually hold up to the suffering part of the equation. Therefore, the suffering has to be the fault of something external to god. The only way to balance the equation is to blame creation. That's where the snake oil part comes in. You convince people that the only way out of the suffering is to do what god says. For the authoritarian system, that means, "Do what we say." But since the reward/punishment cycle can't possibly come to a satisfactory conclusion without direct visitation from the other side, the followers have no choice but to keep following the rules and blaming themselves for suffering.

The other options are to admit that god is an ass or flat doesn't exist or to say that god loves everybody, thereby creating Unitarians and putting Jesus on the same level of other wise teachers and prophets. That, fundamentally, is bad for business. It also means that all of these people who were storing their hopes in Heaven have to wake up and say, "You know, this is my only shot," and get on with their lives. Admissions of wasted time and misdirected snobbery would surely have to come next.

On some level, and this is where I am right now, it's saddening, but it's easier to let people hold on to their delusions. I wouldn't really wish my existential crisis of the last year or so on anyone, especially someone who isn't equipped to deal with the reality of the whole thing. I just have to face facts. I'm a lousy evangelist...

[kodiak]

Not that "Thou Shalt Not Teach X" -- but "Thou Shalt Not Force Teachers To Teach That X Is Really Pink

see, and that's why I generally lurk... I can't make my points in such a concise pithy manner no matter how hard I try!

hats off to you sir (or madam as the case may be)

[Geds]

Here, as I just found out recently, we have "ring species" consisting of many small groups that have developed small differences from their neighbors

Yeah, ring species are fascinating. I learned about them within the last year or so with this really cool diagram of some lizards in California. The explanation ended with, basically, "Now if we take this picture and put it on a timeline instead of a map, we can see the underlying principles of the process of evolution."

It was a mindblowing transition. Thanks for reminding me of that, hf.

[hapax]

Geds, I don't argue that your summary is how Original Sin is often taught in Protestant denominations of the fundamentalist stripe.

But that's not why the idea was formulated, nor why I (and many others) still find it compelling.

The basic question is not "If God is good, why doesn't God see to it that I am happy?"

but

"I know what makes me happy, so why don't I do it?"

The first is a theological question. The second is an anthropological (or possibly psychological) one.

You may (and many do) disagree with the answer that the doctrine of Original Sin provides. But be aware that the insane results of trying to apply an answer to the second question to the first question is not the fault of the answer.

[Jesurgislac]

Hapax: "I know what makes me happy, so why don't I do it?"

Because causing sexist, pontificating bores to die horrible and lonely deaths is illegal in the UK.

we started out imperfect and began moving towards perfection over time.

That doesn't even remotely resemble the actual modern theory of evolution. Evolution is away from, not towards -- species are "pushed" away from maladaptive mutations, and adapt to their environments quite quickly in terms of geological time. Then the environments change or a novel mutation appears, and the organisms have to adapt again.

Biodiversity (measured in terms of number of different species, though it's Actually More Complex Than That*) is currently falling because we keep killing stuff. There's another, much slower phenomenon in which biodiversity (measured in terms of number of phyla) has been dropping for the entire history of life on Earth. That's because after each mass extinction, all life is descended from the survivors.

*EVERYTHING in biology is Actually More Complex Than That. Biology deals with vastly more complex structures than anything in any other science, after all.

[balt]

Hapax, Jake:

See if you can discern the difference between these two sentences:

"History class is a great opportunity to teach about Facism."
and
"History class is a great opportunity to teach Facism."

It's interesting that you both interpretted my statement the same way. I'm not advocating "teaching the controversy." I'm advocating teaching that ID is unscientific, and explaining why it's unscientific. Because the real goal of teaching science in high school shouldn't be teaching mere facts (they can Google facts), but instead teaching how science is done. It's important that students believe in evolution because their own reasoning and understanding leads the inevitably to the conclusion that evolution exists because they understand how science works, rather than simply expecting them to believe in evolution because it is another fact handed down to them by an authority figure.

But none of that is teaching ID or even "teaching the controversy."

[Tonio]

econd, the argument that god is good and wants us to be happy doesn't actually hold up to the suffering part of the equation. Therefore, the suffering has to be the fault of something external to god. The only way to balance the equation is to blame creation. That's where the snake oil part comes in. You convince people that the only way out of the suffering is to do what god says. For the authoritarian system, that means, "Do what we say." But since the reward/punishment cycle can't possibly come to a satisfactory conclusion without direct visitation from the other side, the followers have no choice but to keep following the rules and blaming themselves for suffering.

Such tortured reasoning strongly resembles the mindset of an abused spouse or child. I doubt that this is coincidence.

[jamoche]

If it isn't taught, those children-now-adults will be the ones to ask if they feel a lack of education when the issue is in the news again (and it will be)

Well, it wasn't taught to me - at least not in science class, though I think we covered the Scopes trial in History - and I feel no lack of education as a result. Though I suppose if I wanted to be on Mythbusters, having been taught a lot of stuff that wasn't true might come in handy - and I do admit, being on Mythbusters would be very cool.

[Jesurgislac]

balt: It's important that students believe in evolution because their own reasoning and understanding leads the inevitably to the conclusion that evolution exists because they understand how science works, rather than simply expecting them to believe in evolution because it is another fact handed down to them by an authority figure.

Yes, I agree: that's important. Too important to waste any time at all in a science class teaching kids about a half-assed religious attack on evolution.

I'm advocating teaching that ID is unscientific, and explaining why it's unscientific.

Why advocate wasting time in a science class teaching them specifically about one religious attack on science? The place for teaching children about religious attacks on science backed by politics is in history classes or civics classes.