Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) joined the ranks of leading Republicans condemning evolution last week. On Bill Maher’s show, Kingston was asked directly if he believed in evolution and announced “I believe I came from God not from a monkey so the answer is no.”
Kingston rejected the notion as absurd that a “creature crawled out of the sea and became a human being one day.” Well, this may be a problem with how he was taught evolution. That particular creature did not become a human, but I accept that he was generalizing. He does not, however, view the Bible (Genesis 1:27) as generalizing when it says “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
By the way, a recent study showed that there are still plenty of high school biology teachers who take the same view. Thirteen percent admitted in a study that they advocate creationism over evolution and a majority of high-school biology teachers avoid taking a position between the two.
Kingston is also in good company in his party. Three of the 10 candidates (Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, who later dropped out, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, and Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado) have even publicly proclaimed that they did not believe in evolution in the Republican Presidential Primary in 2004.
Source:TPM
My holy book tells me that the sun does not rise in the morning or set in the evening, rather it is permanently fixed in the sky. Because of this steadfast belief, I do not turn on the headlights on my car, as they are never needed because the sun is always shining! It’s awful that the Devil has caused accidents when I’m driving, oddly, between the hours of about 7pm and 5am. The Devil has taken various members of my family from me due to the accidents that he has caused during those hours. Also, he has turned the government into his tool, as various police officers try to suppress my religious beliefs by telling me to turn my headlights on, even though I know that it is sunny! I am such a victim for my beliefs!
———————
But seriously… I often wonder, if a creationist is diagnosed with either cancer or a viral disease, how can they tolerate receiving modern medical treatment for those diseases? Those treatments are rooted in the theory of evolution. Shouldn’t they reject most of these treatments because they are “baseless”?
Also, if a creationist were put in charge of oil/coal exploration by a big “energy” company, how would they proceed?
Basically, the theory of evolution proves its utility every day, saving lives and heating our homes. You can go off on all sorts of very reasonable, fact-based tangents in arguing against creationism, but the simple usefulness of the everyday applications of the theory of evolution may be the strongest argument.
—————–
I hope everyone is familiar with the idea of the Flying Spaghetti Monster:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
(It’s a great idea meant to parody the “teach the controversy” BS. If you’re going to put a version of Christian creation mythology up as comparable to actual science, then you need to also teach about the concept of the Flying Spaghetti Monster as the creator of all life.)
May ye be touched by his noodly appendage!
Bill Schmalfeldt
“the congressman’s primordial ancestry can be traced directly to the Walliserops trifurcatus, a spiky, crawly thing that lived in the Middle Devonian period, about 390 million years ago.”
I believe you have mistaken the ancestry of the congressman. In reality, his primorieal ancestry can probably be traced to the Wassillasis trifectarus, which encompases the pawlentica, the mormoromnerus, and the huckaberrinia species of … Gosh, I can never remember that name, but it’s not nearly that old.
Woosty’s still a Cat,
Mrs. Garrison – LOL!
Many people that think they know the theory of evolution only have the faintest clue. It does not suggest that monkeys were mans ancestors but that we descended from the same common ancestor. In theory everything did if you go back far enough. Most high school teachers don’t know this so why would we expect the general populace. Most Christians have not read the bible. (anyone of hundreds of versions) They repeat what they are told to repeat.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv-4951KlXg&w=480&h=390]
Michael Erikkson:
I thought you might be interesting in this article I just found:
http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/01/us-teachers-dont-teach-evolution
“From tomorrow’s issue of Science, a new paper describing the great divide between creationism’s court losses (every major US federal court case in the past 40 years) and a paradoxical decline in classroom teaching of evolution, scientific methods, and reason itself.
Based on data from the National Survey of High School Biology teachers, the authors estimate that only 28% of all biology teachers consistently teach evolutionary biology, while 13% explicitly advocate creationism or intelligent design. The remaining teachers they deem the cautious 60%:
The cautious 60% may play a far more important role in hindering scientific literacy in the United States than the smaller number of explicit creationists. The strategies of emphasizing microevolution, justifying the curriculum on the basis of state-wide tests, or “teaching the controversy” all undermine the legitimacy of findings that are well established by the combination of peer review and replication. These teachers fail to explain the nature of scientific inquiry, undermine the authority of established experts, and legitimize creationist arguments, even if unintentionally.
The authors note that more high school students take general biology than any other science course, and that biology will be the only high school science class for up to a quarter of all US graduates. Yet 72% will get no schooling in evolutionary biology or a wobbly version of it: “absent, cursory, or fraught with misinformation.”
The authors suggest that scientists and scientific organizations address the problem:
■By continuing participation in federal law suits, since federal courts effectively limit the ability of state and local governments to endorse nonscientific alternatives to evolution
■By requiring evolution courses be taught to teachers in training, since those who teach evolutionary biology are more likely to have completed a course in evolution (and feel more confident teaching it) than those who don’t teach it at all, or who teach it ambivalently:
They add:
More effectively integrating evolution into the education of preservice biology teachers may also have the indirect effect of encouraging students who cannot accept evolution as a matter of faith to pursue other careers.
The paper:
■Michael B. Berkman and Eric Plutzer. Defeating Creationism in the Courtroom, But Not in the Classroom. 2011. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.1198902″
Michael Eriksson,
You hit the nail on the head when you said any biology teacher who teaches creationism should be shown the door. However, in too manh parts of the country creationism is becoming the norm.
This Rep. was correct that he was no monkey because he isn’t smart enough to be considered a monkey.
The truth of evolution in the main (i.e. excepting areas like a possible “God of the gaps”) is so solidly proven that a biology teacher who does not make this clear to his students should be summarily fired. There are two issues at hand (which, I stress, do not necessarily apply to representatives):
1. A biology teacher who does not consider evolution true must be considered a failure in either his knowledge of biology or his capacity for rational and scientific thought.
2. As a teacher, he has a duty to not willfully misinform his students (where “misinform” should be judged on scientific evidence and consensus where such is present).
@Anonymously Yours
Balance should be taught to the degree that the conflicting views are still possibly true. (Notably, there are many issues that are still under debate or that are inherently matters of preference and perspective.) Certainly, critical thinking is a far more important thing to instill in children than evolution.
The hitch, however, is that we here do not have a legitimate conflict: Not all opinions are created equal and not all opinions can or should be given equal space.
And Gibbon was no monkey either!
But seriously, what mespo and Mike S. said. Theocracy isn’t just the worst form of governance simply because “belief” is no way to run the business of society, which by definition and to be a successful survival strategy must be based on empirical fact. Theocracy is the worst form of government because this is a lesson history repeats loudly and often. Our Founders chose to make this country have a secular government for a reason, namely, that they had heard history’s lesson and learned it well.
G*d does as much working THROUGH as by Creation…in fact, after the basic act of creation, G*d would not even have purpose if there were no evolution.
I hope G*d can get the Republican entrenched mindset to evolve….
Kingston appeared to me to be embarrassed to have to say it. I doubt he believes it, but in his district he’d be “dead meat” if he ever strayed publicly from his faux fundamentalism. The Christian fundamentalist movement, as with all fundamentalism, represents a scary force in the U.S.. Its’ intertwining with corporatism and faux conservatism has been a major cause of the country’s decline and its citizens misery. These views are of course laughable, but our scorn must be tempered by the fear that there is a possibility that these fools could take over. Mespo’s quote of Gibbon illustrate what happens when the cynicism of political expediency (Constantine) uses an irrational, but emotionally charged belief, to consolidate power.
I watched Bill Maher Friday night – my daughter had to ask me what I was laughing so hard and so loud over. Kingston reminds me of Major General George E. Pickett (played by Stephen Lang) in “Gettysburg”:
Major General George E. Pickett: Sirs, perhaps there are those among you who believe you are descended from a ape. I suppose there may even be those among you who believe that I am descended from a ape. But I challenge the man to step forward who believes that General Robert E. Lee is descended from a ape.
James L. Kemper: Hear, hear!
Brig. Gen. Richard B. Garnett: Not likely.
I think Kingston needs to come into the here and now, not the there and was.
“As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we may hear without surprise or scandal that the introduction, or at least the abuse of Christianity, had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of military spirit were buried in the cloister: a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers’ pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity. Faith, zeal, curiosity, and more earthly passions of malice and ambition, kindled the flame of theological discord; the church, and even the state, were distracted by religious factions, whose conflicts were sometimes bloody and always implacable; the attention of the emperors was diverted from camps to synods; the Roman world was oppressed by a new species of tyranny; and the persecuted sects became the secret enemies of their country. Yet party-spirit, however pernicious or absurd, is a principle of union as well as of dissension. The bishops, from eighteen hundred pulpits, inculcated the duty of passive obedience to a lawful and orthodox sovereign; their frequent assemblies and perpetual correspondence maintained the communion of distant churches; and the benevolent temper of the Gospel was strengthened, though confirmed, by the spiritual alliance of the Catholics. The sacred indolence of the monks was devoutly embraced by a servile and effeminate age; but if superstition had not afforded a decent retreat, the same vices would have tempted the unworthy Romans to desert, from baser motives, the standard of the republic. Religious precepts are easily obeyed which indulge and sanctify the natural inclinations of their votaries; but the pure and genuine influence of Christianity may be traced in its beneficial, though imperfect, effects on the barbarian proselytes of the North. If the decline of the Roman empire was hastened by the conversion of Constantine, his victorious religion broke the violence of the fall, and mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors.”
(…)
“The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. … In discussing Barbarism and Christianity I have actually been discussing the Fall of Rome.”
~Edward Gibbon
I think Gibbon forgot to mention anti-intellectualism.
From Bruce Springsteen:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQwKxPbwKEs&w=480&h=390]
Yet further evidence that …
Mankind has not evolved an inch from the slime that spawned him.
Aren’t they supposed to teach a balance so that the children can learn to make a choice? I suppose I dreaming…..but I’ll ask Alice….when she’s 10 feet tall….
Actually, Professor Turley, he’s correct. He’s NOT descended from Monkeys. We at WorldNutzDaily have conducted extensive research (which can be seen here that determines the congressman’s primordial ancestry can be traced directly to the Walliserops trifurcatus, a spiky, crawly thing that lived in the Middle Devonian period, about 390 million years ago.
This, of course, has sparked the interest of our WorldNutzDaily science team, and we are wondering how many OTHER Southern Bible Thumper Lawmakers who deny evolution are ALSO descended directly from this horrid creature.
We’ll present our results at some future time. We have a lot of airport bathrooms to visit in our data collection efforts.