paleonet ID/Creationism vs. Evolution

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>"Not to belabor this ID/Creationism v. Evolution discussion, because I
>fear
>that it might be annoying those outside of the US,"
>
>I totally agree with you! Here in Europe we do not suffer such
>Creationism v. Evolution discussions.
>However, this last weekend's The Guardian Magazine showed clearly
>links between our Prime Minister Tony Blair and a radical
>non-catholic Christian that is trying to take over boarding schools!
>
>By my time in USA, I tend to think that USA people either are very
>knowlegable in various fields; or very ignorant  indeed due to
>theirsocial and Education system lack of more pragmatical. There is
>not middle ground in that sense. Also, their questions seem to be
>very technical and supported by regulations, constitution, etc.

This mentality is a result of our historical beginnings during the
Enlightenment.  Part of the "Age of Reason" included a rejection of
cultural tradition in favor of a logical (and therefore ahistorical)
way of doing things.

This radical rejection of historical tradition by a faction of the
patrician class and other ideologues (e.g. Thomas Paine) has induced
a series of religious 'revivals' through the 19th and 20th centuries.
<http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/civilwar/01/burned.html>See.

Darwin's (and Huxley's) agnosticism was made possible in England by
an intellectual system that had begun rejecting the primacy of a
deity's role in ordering Nature, one could argue, with the signing of
the Magna Carta, which threw out the divine right of kings.  The
later divorce of the 'history of humankind' from 'the history of
Nature' only distanced the deity from the proceedings.

The attempts by school boards and other local officials to excise the
legacy of the Enlightenment (e.g., evolution, literature that is
frank about sexuality, history that is honest about past political
events and social movements) takes place when liberally-educated
citizens either refuse to find time to take leadership positions in
their local communities or they simply abandon them for economic or
social reasons.

I find it ironic that most of the religious zealots pushing the
reactionary agenda are actually technically educated (doctors,
engineers, businesspersons etc.), which is to say that they owe the
sophistication of the knowledge base that underpins their professions
entirely to the principles of the Enlightenment, the philosophy of
which they reject!  They are engaged in shameless (because it is
unknowing) cultural cherry-picking.

Our president has a master's in business (there is little indication
that he paid much attention during his liberal-arts education at
Yale) and is a midlife convert to fundamentalist Christianity, so we
get a lot of rhetoric from him that supports the cultural position of
those who reject the Enlightenment legacy.  This rhetoric has been
backed up by some actual action (cuts to the NSF budget, lame to
non-existent funding of "No Child Left Behind" programs, perilous
appointments in the EPA and Department of Agriculture), but all of it
is reversible.

Yours in indigo,
Bill
-- 
-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
William P. Chaisson
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Rochester
Rochester, NY  14627
607-387-3892