A Nation Divided

A bit from Crooks and Liars about the PBS special Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial, about Kitzmiller vs Dover School District. The program has been getting a lot of play in the blogosphere (well, on the left, anyway), but this struck me:

. . . it literally pitted “friend against friend, and neighbor against neighbor” within the small community that serves as a microcosm of an America still divided over evolution.

For some reason, the phrase "divided over evolution" just stuck out. I sit here asking myself "How can that be?" Of course, it's not so hard to figure out: those who oppose the teaching of evolution represent an ideology that renounces empirical evidence in favor of belief, and the belief is itself an element of obedience to outside authority. I don't really understand that -- my dad was a science teacher, and you'd better believe I got a full dose of thinking rationally when I was a kid. He's also a major sceptic. (All things considered, it's odd to think of my father as a product of the Enlightenment, but there you have it.)

The anti-science crowd makes a big deal about evolution being "a religion," and a doctrine promulgated as "orthodoxy," which is, of course, specious. Science is a self-correcting system of thought that bases its laws and theories on what we know objectively. Scientific orthodoxy is simply the result of overwhelming evidence. It's subject to change as new evidence comes to light, which is why we can never say that a scientific theory is "proven." You can't prove anything in science, you can only disprove its opposite -- there's always the possibility of new evidence. That's what makes science so exciting.

In the case of Kitzmiller, it's instructive that the creationists' "expert witnesses" admitted that ID is not science. The thinking seems to be -- spot me on this -- that their beliefs should trump everything else, which in a pluralistic, secular nation is a little bit beyond arrogant.

Of course, it doesn't help that this kind of unthinking, incurious obedience is being exploited by a group of politicians disguised as "religious leaders" simply in order to accumulate political power. I think their followers should be ashamed of themselves for being so gullible, if for no other reason.

But I still find it incredible that the country can be "divided" over evolution. We might as well be divided over gravity.