Canada can haz fundies, too. Oh yayz.
Note to Canadian Minister of State for Science and Technology, Gary Goodyear: you're doing it wrong.
In case you missed it, Goodyear was asked by one of those damn librul media types if he believed in evolution; his reply was spectacularly awful: "I don’t think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate". Hey, Gazza, the question was about evolution. Which isn't a religious belief.
Not surprisingly, the excrement impacted the turbine. Goodyear then issued the most convoluted "clarification" imaginable that merely reinforced the suspicion that he really doesn't understand evolution (even though he apparently does believe in it after all. Or something).
And now those nasty reporters are being accused of conducting a witch hunt. A person's religious beliefs are off limits, you see.
Except. They're not. Not when they impinge on your ability to do your job. The arguments being put forth in Goodyear's defense are an exercise in Missing The Point. So, on the off-chance that anyone stumbles in here (I expect I'm preaching to the choir, as far as my flist is concerned):
1) If a journalist suspects that a politician holds an unpopular, controversial, or inappropriate position on an issue, they are not engaging in a witch-hunt to call them on it. They are doing their job. There is no war on faith. Christians are not persecuted. Being crucified or thrown to the lions is persecution; being asked pointed questions related to your ability to execute the duties of your public office is not.
2) For all I care, you can believe that the world sits on the tail of a god called Qxt'nkorpl that takes the form of a giant space badger, and that the best way to ensure economic growth is to kill butterflies as a sacrifice to Qxt'nkorpl's wife-grandmother Yyyy. Until, that is, you take an official public position with some say, however slight, in finance, cosmology or ecology. Because then your beliefs become a problem. They conflict with your portfolio, and I, as your employer, want to know about it.
3) Science has reserved the word "theory" to mean something quite particular. It is not synonymous with the way Joaquin, that waiter at the Southern Sun*, uses the word "theory"**. So please stop saying that evolution "is just a theory". It is ingenuous at best. Or, as Inigo Montoya put it: "I do not think it means what you think it means".
4) There is no controversy to teach. Not a scientific one. Just a politically manufactured one, and that isn't something worth teaching. If KKK-sympathizing wackos take over your local board of education, will it be OK to teach holocaust denial in history? After all, there's a controversy now, so let's teach it, right? Wrong. Because there's no debate among historians -- those that matter in this regard -- that the holocaust happened. Get it? There is no debate in science as to whether or not evolution happens. Or whether or not the Theory of Evolution (gross morphological change due to the accumulation of small genetic mutations acted on by natural selection) is the best scientific explanation for the wide variety of evolutionary phenomena observed by biologists. What's that you say? You have 700 "scientists" who have bravely signed a statement against evolution? Good for you. First, are they actually practicing scientists in a field even vaguely connected to biology? (no, mechanical engineers, smart though they may be, do not count). Second, the statement they signed is very vague, and some signatories have recanted their support after seeing what it has been used for. Third, and most significantly, I can show you more than 700 scientists with the name Steve (or a variant thereof) who have signed a completely unambiguous statement supporting evolution. Oh, and fourth, can you show me 700 people who reject evolution without any religious motive? 700? Heck, show me 70. Bottom line: 99.9% of biologists accept evolution as a fact and as a (scientific) theory; when those with religious motives are taken out of the equation, the number is more like 99.9999%. (And bear in mind that the remaining 0.0001% may well believe in Qxt'knorpl or that the CIA is stealing their root vegetables on alternating Thursdays.)
5) Yes, science can be wrong. This has happened in the past. So how do we know that it's not wrong about evolution? Good question, with a good answer: evidence. An e-fucking-normous pile of evidence. Evolution is one of the most well supported theories in the history of science. It passes Scientific Method 101 with flying colors (then comes back the next semester to teach it). F'rinstance: Darwin hypothesized descent with modification based on empirical observation (ie we look a bit like our parents); a century later we discover the mechanism: DNA. And since then, the DNA evidence in favor of Darwin -- and against divine fiat -- has just kept piling up. Human Chromosome #2. Check it out one day. It's freaky. And suspiciously like two joined ape chromosomes. IOW, exactly what you'd expect from random mutation (if humans and apes had shared a common ancestor) and exactly what you wouldn't expect from an intelligent designer. "Science has been wrong in the past" is not a catchphrase to wish away anything you find inconvenient; scientists work with evidence and they have a pretty good idea where the evidence points; they have a pretty good idea which concepts are solid and which are a working hypothesis at the moment.
6) There are many other fallacious "objections" raised against the Theory of Evolution. None of them hold up. Most of them are based on strawman ideas of what the theory says. Please read up a little before spouting off. The ToE does not say that a frog will give birth to a goat, or that a fish will grow legs (or that people will evolve by walking in/on the sun, Mr Goodyear). It has nothing to do with the Big Bang, nor the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. There is no fundamental difference between "micro" and "macro" evolution, any more than the difference between counting to 10 and counting to 10,000. There is no conspiracy of evil scientists who demand adherence to an evolutionary dogma. There are transitional fossils (technically all of them, but even "half-this-and-half-that"/"missing link" ones, too). Speciation has been observed. Man did not "come from monkeys". Evolution does not have an end goal, it just happens. Evolution is not purely random, because of a little mechanism called natural selection. Is any of this getting through?
7) In summary: evolution is an observed fact and a solid scientific theory supported by shedloads of evidence. When dealing with science -- as, for example, a Minister of the Crown, a Senator, a science teacher, a member of a Board of Education, and so forth -- you need to accept that evolution is science. End of fucking story.
OK, I needed to get that out. However, as it happens, a fella called John Moore already said it far more eloquently. Check it out. He is the sharpest chisel in the shed, it seems. Sadly, the other chisels appear to be sledgehammers, levels and a ball of putty (see the other editorials linked from Moore's***).
*Those in Boulder understand what I mean. If not, substitute the name of another local brew pub staffed by stoners with scruffy facial hair.
**As in "dude, have you ever wondered if, like, everything we thing has, like, been thought before? I have this theory, right, that all thoughts are, like, part of, like... well, you know beer? Like how everyone likes beer, right? Yeah, well, the thing about beer..."
***If you dare. Your stupid meter might explode, though. You have been warned.
In case you missed it, Goodyear was asked by one of those damn librul media types if he believed in evolution; his reply was spectacularly awful: "I don’t think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate". Hey, Gazza, the question was about evolution. Which isn't a religious belief.
Not surprisingly, the excrement impacted the turbine. Goodyear then issued the most convoluted "clarification" imaginable that merely reinforced the suspicion that he really doesn't understand evolution (even though he apparently does believe in it after all. Or something).
And now those nasty reporters are being accused of conducting a witch hunt. A person's religious beliefs are off limits, you see.
Except. They're not. Not when they impinge on your ability to do your job. The arguments being put forth in Goodyear's defense are an exercise in Missing The Point. So, on the off-chance that anyone stumbles in here (I expect I'm preaching to the choir, as far as my flist is concerned):
1) If a journalist suspects that a politician holds an unpopular, controversial, or inappropriate position on an issue, they are not engaging in a witch-hunt to call them on it. They are doing their job. There is no war on faith. Christians are not persecuted. Being crucified or thrown to the lions is persecution; being asked pointed questions related to your ability to execute the duties of your public office is not.
2) For all I care, you can believe that the world sits on the tail of a god called Qxt'nkorpl that takes the form of a giant space badger, and that the best way to ensure economic growth is to kill butterflies as a sacrifice to Qxt'nkorpl's wife-grandmother Yyyy. Until, that is, you take an official public position with some say, however slight, in finance, cosmology or ecology. Because then your beliefs become a problem. They conflict with your portfolio, and I, as your employer, want to know about it.
3) Science has reserved the word "theory" to mean something quite particular. It is not synonymous with the way Joaquin, that waiter at the Southern Sun*, uses the word "theory"**. So please stop saying that evolution "is just a theory". It is ingenuous at best. Or, as Inigo Montoya put it: "I do not think it means what you think it means".
4) There is no controversy to teach. Not a scientific one. Just a politically manufactured one, and that isn't something worth teaching. If KKK-sympathizing wackos take over your local board of education, will it be OK to teach holocaust denial in history? After all, there's a controversy now, so let's teach it, right? Wrong. Because there's no debate among historians -- those that matter in this regard -- that the holocaust happened. Get it? There is no debate in science as to whether or not evolution happens. Or whether or not the Theory of Evolution (gross morphological change due to the accumulation of small genetic mutations acted on by natural selection) is the best scientific explanation for the wide variety of evolutionary phenomena observed by biologists. What's that you say? You have 700 "scientists" who have bravely signed a statement against evolution? Good for you. First, are they actually practicing scientists in a field even vaguely connected to biology? (no, mechanical engineers, smart though they may be, do not count). Second, the statement they signed is very vague, and some signatories have recanted their support after seeing what it has been used for. Third, and most significantly, I can show you more than 700 scientists with the name Steve (or a variant thereof) who have signed a completely unambiguous statement supporting evolution. Oh, and fourth, can you show me 700 people who reject evolution without any religious motive? 700? Heck, show me 70. Bottom line: 99.9% of biologists accept evolution as a fact and as a (scientific) theory; when those with religious motives are taken out of the equation, the number is more like 99.9999%. (And bear in mind that the remaining 0.0001% may well believe in Qxt'knorpl or that the CIA is stealing their root vegetables on alternating Thursdays.)
5) Yes, science can be wrong. This has happened in the past. So how do we know that it's not wrong about evolution? Good question, with a good answer: evidence. An e-fucking-normous pile of evidence. Evolution is one of the most well supported theories in the history of science. It passes Scientific Method 101 with flying colors (then comes back the next semester to teach it). F'rinstance: Darwin hypothesized descent with modification based on empirical observation (ie we look a bit like our parents); a century later we discover the mechanism: DNA. And since then, the DNA evidence in favor of Darwin -- and against divine fiat -- has just kept piling up. Human Chromosome #2. Check it out one day. It's freaky. And suspiciously like two joined ape chromosomes. IOW, exactly what you'd expect from random mutation (if humans and apes had shared a common ancestor) and exactly what you wouldn't expect from an intelligent designer. "Science has been wrong in the past" is not a catchphrase to wish away anything you find inconvenient; scientists work with evidence and they have a pretty good idea where the evidence points; they have a pretty good idea which concepts are solid and which are a working hypothesis at the moment.
6) There are many other fallacious "objections" raised against the Theory of Evolution. None of them hold up. Most of them are based on strawman ideas of what the theory says. Please read up a little before spouting off. The ToE does not say that a frog will give birth to a goat, or that a fish will grow legs (or that people will evolve by walking in/on the sun, Mr Goodyear). It has nothing to do with the Big Bang, nor the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. There is no fundamental difference between "micro" and "macro" evolution, any more than the difference between counting to 10 and counting to 10,000. There is no conspiracy of evil scientists who demand adherence to an evolutionary dogma. There are transitional fossils (technically all of them, but even "half-this-and-half-that"/"missing link" ones, too). Speciation has been observed. Man did not "come from monkeys". Evolution does not have an end goal, it just happens. Evolution is not purely random, because of a little mechanism called natural selection. Is any of this getting through?
7) In summary: evolution is an observed fact and a solid scientific theory supported by shedloads of evidence. When dealing with science -- as, for example, a Minister of the Crown, a Senator, a science teacher, a member of a Board of Education, and so forth -- you need to accept that evolution is science. End of fucking story.
OK, I needed to get that out. However, as it happens, a fella called John Moore already said it far more eloquently. Check it out. He is the sharpest chisel in the shed, it seems. Sadly, the other chisels appear to be sledgehammers, levels and a ball of putty (see the other editorials linked from Moore's***).
*Those in Boulder understand what I mean. If not, substitute the name of another local brew pub staffed by stoners with scruffy facial hair.
**As in "dude, have you ever wondered if, like, everything we thing has, like, been thought before? I have this theory, right, that all thoughts are, like, part of, like... well, you know beer? Like how everyone likes beer, right? Yeah, well, the thing about beer..."
***If you dare. Your stupid meter might explode, though. You have been warned.