False Controversy II: Evolution Education
Continuing my previous vein I am now going to address the false controversy surrounding Evolution, and its teaching in schools. The ideas behind biological evolution have existed since first postulated by the Greek philosopher Epicurus. The mechanism behind evolution though was not established until the 18th and 19th centuries by the work of Jen-Baptiste Lamarck and Charles Darwin. The hypothesis of species transmutation was accepted by most scientists well before Darwin’s Origin of Species. The role of Darwin’s work though, much like Newton’s Principia Mathimatica, was creating a cogent theory for the mechanism by which evolution occurs. After over one hundred and fifty years of experimentation and research the scientific theory of biological evolution has been clarified and tested to the point of being accepted scientific fact.
There is a movement though to silence the teaching of this one scientific truth in schools, because it goes counter to a literal translation of the creation story of the Bible. This faction puts forth a counter hypothesis that they call Creation Science or Intelligent Design. At issue is that creationist theories are in no way scientifically based, but instead fallacious attempts to spread confusion and uncertainty about evolution sciences and promote a supernatural idea behind the origin of life over the a scientific one. This would be a harmless exercise by zealots if their ideas were not reported in the media as a valid counterargument to evolutionary theory. Because their opinion is given equal weight to scientific facts, they are able to confuse the issue and create a controversy where there truly is none.
Creationists use a number of disinformation tactics to spread their agenda in the media, commonly they throw up a number of red herrings based around incorrectly used established scientific laws. One of these is the incorrect use of the second law of thermodynamics to claim that the self-organizing nature of evolution is impossible without supernatural influence because of entropy. This is incorrect because the second law of thermodynamics describes closed systems only and biological systems by their very nature are open systems. Open systems allow for self-organization and increasing complexity over time.
Another fallacy that is used by the creationist movement is an appeal to ignorance claiming that macro-evolution has never been directly observed. By macro evolution I refer to the change of one species to another species through natural selection. This though is an incorrect assertion as DNA evidence and the fossil record show species evolving from one form to another over millions of years. Part of the claim is there are gaps in the fossil record which creationists believe do not adequately show how one class of animal has evolved into another class (such as reptiles to birds). But there are thousands of already described fossils and ancient species, some of them are what are known as transitional species because they are members of one class of animal which have traits of another class of animal (such as the bird like archeoptryx). And there are millions of undescribed fossils sitting in basements of universities and museums around the world waiting their turn to be classified and placed into the fossil record. Even though hundreds of transitional species exist in the fossil record, with each new discovery creationists move the bar into the new smaller gap demanding it be filled to prove that evolution occurs. In effect the creationists are using Zeno’s dichotomy paradox to supply themselves with an endless number of missing links to deny existing evidence.
If the media did not give this false controversy equal time as if creation science was actual science there would not be as much confusion in the public about evolution. And there would not be as many ambitious politicians trying to replay the Scopes Monkey Trial at their local school board meeting. The fact is these people have an agenda to get their religious beliefs taught in public schools on the tax payer’s dime. Attacks against the education of evolution are nothing but attempts to get Christian evangelism’s foot in the door of the school house. We need to reject the promotion of agenda driven pseudo-science in the media as valid counterarguments to scientific fact. When the media lends credibility to lies and worthless rhetoric it fails in its role as the informer of the voting public… and Democracy fails when the public is not properly