Academia, Politics, Society

Akin Disproves Evolution

Sen. Claire McCaskill’s gift of Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) is a gift that simply keeps on giving. Previously Akin alienated the GOP leadership and most of the known world with comments that, in cases of legitimate rape, women often do not get pregnant because “the female body has ways to shut that whole thing down.” He also claimed that doctor routinely performed abortions on women who are not pregnant. Now, at a Tea Party meeting in Jefferson City, Missouri, Akin has said that that there is no science behind evolution. Akin sits on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.

Akin’s remarks not only leave doubt about his knowledge — or ability to understand – science but also what he considers “the thing” that he is supposed to do in Washington:

I don’t see it as even a matter of science because I don’t know that you can prove one or the other. That’s one of those things. We can talk about theology and all of those other things but I’m basically concerned about, you’ve got a choice between Claire McCaskill and myself. My job is to make the thing there. If we want to do theoretical stuff, we can do that, but I think I better stay on topic.

Of course, such comments could be used by some to disprove any evidence that we have evolved intellectually. Frankly, whenever I hear Akin speak recently I too begin to doubt evolution in the human species.

Notably, Akin sits on the committee with Rep. Paul Broun, the chairman of the House Science Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight. Broun made headlines this month with the following statement: at the 2012 Sportsman’s Banquet at Liberty Baptist Church in Hartwell, Georgia on September 27th, he said this:

God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the big bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell. It’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior. You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don’t believe that the earth’s but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says.

As many of you know, I have shown equal disregard for both of the main parties that hold a monopoly on power in the United States. Indeed, the low quality politicians that we see in both parties is the very danger of all monopolies — once protected from competition, the quality of a product declines. The political monopoly in this country is the ultimate example of that phenomenon. What we need is a Sherman Act for politics, starting with the eradication of the electoral college and the establishment of a new rule on general elections.

As for Republicans, I have many friends from that party who are intellectual and honest. These characters are destroying the credibility of their party which often appears anti-intellectual and anti-science.

262 thoughts on “Akin Disproves Evolution”

  1. Blouise, You have a point but just because one is from the working class does not mean that he or she favors policies that are favorable to the working class. I have found the opposite to be true on many occasions. Sarah Palin and Joe the plumber come to mind

  2. “so in this context I mentioned biological evolution applies to multi-cellular biological evolution, and human social evolution is covered by sociology.”

    I’m sorry, but that’s just wrong. Microbes evolving are part of biological evolution as is anything involving human evolution. I know this because evolutionary biologists study microbes AND humans.

    If you’re going to keep asserting they should be separated out, it’d sure help your credibility if you explained what the difference is and why it matters. Your hand wavy pseudo-science babble is unconvincing.

  3. SwM,

    The point is getting more working class into office. Would you rather have a millionaire lawyer or a millionaire businessman as President? Some choice.

    “The working class is the backbone of our society, a majority of our labor force and 90 million people strong. If millionaires were a political party, that party would make up roughly 3 percent of American families. … in government, almost no one with personal experience in working-class jobs has a seat at the table. Their absence … has real consequences. Former businesspeople in government tend to think like businesspeople, former lawyers tend to think like lawyers, and the few former blue-collar workers tend to think like blue-collar workers. Social safety net programs are stingier, business regulations are flimsier, tax policies are more regressive, and protections for workers are weaker than they would be if our lawmakers came from the same mix of classes as the people they represent.”

  4. Rafflaw:

    If you read my post more carefully, you will not that I said:

    “The hate and disrespect coming out of Biden was too disturbing for me to watch.”

    This is not a statement which neither requires proof, nor which can be proved. I was not comparing Biden to Ryan, Republicans, or anyone else. I simply stated that I personally found Biden offensive on that evening. This is a personal feeling which, as is the case with all personal feelings, is unprovable. You feel what you feel, it simply is.

    For the record, I agree with many of your points. However, I believe it is neither accurate nor fair to broadly categorize all of the people in any group as “the same”. Any group is made up of individuals, each of those individuals is unique. Some will have good ideas, some will be extreme. In my opinion, there are good ideas and, rational people, on both sides of the aisle – and there folks with extreme points of view on both sides of the aisle.

    It is my feeling, again, my feeling, that Biden exhibited the level of vitriol that affects many in our country. Friends and family can not even discuss politics any more without extreme emotion. The most common way for our news channels to “discuss” an issue is to have one person from each “side” shout and talk over each other. What does that accomplish? What do we learn from that? How does that move us forward?

    In my opinion, this country is in a very dangerous place. No country with our debt to GDP levels has ever survived without a major currency crisis. The entire Western world is in a similar situation. We will need to listen to good ideas on both sides of the aisle if we are to find our way out of this.

    If we are to survive as a nation, we must improve the level of dialogue in this country and I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes:

    “Dialogue – Assuming the answer lies somewhere in the room and that each of us has a piece.” Through cooperation only, will we find the solutions to our very serious problems.

  5. idealist707 1, October 15, 2012 at 5:04 pm

    Dredd,

    Thanks. Hope theý listen. It is very complex in reality but can be explained as you do.
    Why do you need a god when you have nature, of which we know so little.

    Beddy bye, And don’t fight the microbes. You can’t live without them.
    ======================================================
    Watch this so you can dream well:

  6. Dredd,

    Thanks. Hope theý listen. It is very complex in reality but can be explained as you do.
    Why do you need a god when you have nature, of which we know so little.

    Beddy bye, And don’t fight the microbes. You can’t live without them.

  8. Gyges 1, October 15, 2012 at 12:24 pm

    “There is abiotic evolution, microbial evolution, biological evolution, and human social evolution.”
    ———————————————————————————–
    Wait what? How on earth are microbes and humans NOT part of biological evolution?
    ======================================
    What you wrote “microbes and humans NOT part of biological evolution” is not what I wrote.

    In context please.

    Abiotic evolution is covered by cosmology (evolution of machines), microbial evolution is covered by microbiology (evolution of single cell entities), so in this context I mentioned biological evolution applies to multi-cellular biological evolution, and human social evolution is covered by sociology.

    Semantics. All of those categories of evolution are complex in and of themselves.

    The definition and therefore the application of “evolution” always needs to be examined in context:

    ev·o·lu·tion … noun

    1. any process of formation or growth; development: the evolution of a language; the evolution of the airplane.

    2. a product of such development; something evolved: The exploration of space is the evolution of decades of research.

    3. Biology. change in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift.

    4. a process of gradual, peaceful, progressive change or development, as in social or economic structure or institutions.

    5. a motion incomplete in itself, but combining with coordinated motions to produce a single action, as in a machine.

    (Dictionary). The Akinoids habitually conflate “everything evolution” into muddy water rather than considering the unique processes and dynamics at play in the vast cosmos, as well as on the Earth and other planets.

  9. ID, You’re correct about the press looking for sound bite headlines. You can tell the scripted lines in debates that play to that myopia.

  12. Gyges 1, October 15, 2012 at 2:18 pm

    …

    Behavior is absolutely selected for. What makes you think that it isn’t?
    ======================================================
    Recent revolutionary science:

    More problematic is the reality that the human genome is still a vast catalogue of the unknown and scarcely known. The Human Genome Project’s most startling finding was that human genes, as currently defined, make up less than 2 percent of all the DNA on the genome, and that the total number of genes is relatively small. Scientists had predicted there might be 80,000 to 140,000 human genes, but the current tally is fewer than 25,000 — as one scientific paper put it, somewhere between that of a chicken and a grape. The remaining 98 percent of our DNA, once dismissed as “junk DNA,” is now taken more seriously. Researchers have focused on introns, in the gaps between the coding segments of genes, which may play a crucial role in regulating gene expression, by switching them on and off in response to environmental stimuli.
    …
    … some 90 percent of the protein-encoding cells in our body are microbes … 99 percent of the functional genes in the body are microbial … exchanging messages with genes inside human cells … microbes cohabitating our body outnumber human cells by a factor of 10, making us actually “superorganisms” that use our own genetic repertoire as well as those of our microbial symbionts … We just happen to look human because our human cells are much larger than bacterial cells … no matter how you look at it, it’s high time we acknowledge that part of being human is being microbial … Microbes may indeed be subtly changing our brain early on — and for what purposes we cannot yet say … the mere fact that microorganisms can shape our minds brings up many more questions about how humans develop their identity … these findings call for a complete re-examination of human physiology and immunology. Attributes that were assumed to be human traits have been shown to result from human–microbe interactions.

    (One Man’s Junk Gene Is Another Man’s Treasure Gene?). Recent research which discovered actual “molecular words” in the language of microbes also discovered that “microbes make the rules for multi-cellular development (Microbial Hermeneutics – 2). See video by Dr. Bassler to the group of scientists at the end of the post.

  13. Blouise, Romney is worth 250 million. Obama has made a few million on his books.

  14. As long as “millionaire candidates” are the only choices offered, we will continue to get poor/mediocre representation.

    “The 2012 election offers us a stark choice between two very different approaches to economic policy. But it’s still a choice between two Harvard-educated millionaires. Even in an election that is supposed to be about the future of our economy, we don’t have a working-class option in the voting booth.

    It’s time for citizens who care about political equality to start investing in working-class candidates. We know how to do this. In 1945, the House and the Senate were each 98 percent men. In the decades since, party leaders and interest groups have deliberately recruited many female candidates, and today women make up 17 percent of Congress.

    If the old boys’ club isn’t invincible, the Millionaires Party probably isn’t, either. Changes like these aren’t rocket science. They just take a little hard work.” (NICHOLAS CARNES)

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/opinion/sunday/which-millionaire-are-you-voting-for.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

  18. FairlyBalanced, McCaskill is the catholic in the race. While Aiken draws support from the far out catholics that also like Ryan and Santorum, his main support is from evangelical christians.

  19. There was a character who Rozanne Rozanne O’Dana made fun of on Saturday Night Live many years ago. “Helllooo Tooooddd!
    This guy did not grow up under a cypress tree in Swamp East Missouri but in fact lived in a huge manion in a rich suburb and went to a prep school. So, he is not of the genre of “went in dumb, come out dumb too..” He knows better and is talking this stuff for the anti woman vote. Mizzoura has a lot of Catolics and he is working that angle.

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