How Am I Still Surprised by this Stuff?

"No, it wasn't some drawn-out process of evolution that took millions of years - everybody knows it was a talking snake and a tree!" --David Cross

I am fucking miffed, and I'm gonna rant...

Yesterday, in perhaps the least surprising statement of his second administration, President Bush declared his support for the presentation of "intelligent design" as a viable alternative to the theory of genetic evolution in public educational institutions. [Here's another source] You know... that theory of genetic evolution that has been accepted by the scientific community for 80 years because it has been repeatedly proven through both simple observation and its coherence with testable/verifiable hypotheses to be... um... more fact than theory? Right. That theory of evolution.

Anyway, salvation-ranching luddite that he is, America's highest elected biology-class dropout has predictably gotten in line behind a miniscule and deservedly marginalized group of "reputable scientists" to inject some down-home bible thumpin' back into the nation's educational system.

Now at this juncture an intelligent design theorist would doubtlessly point out that the bible has no place in the "debate," as intelligent design requires only the will/action of an undefined "intelligence" in the development of biological complexity/diversity. So is the "fact" that it's just as likely that a magical, extra-dimensional pink unicorn shit out the first fiery germ of creation after drinking a milkshake of pixie juice and happiness as it is that Jesus is behind the complexity of cellular development supposed to make me more or less worried? You know what we do with theories that are "possible" but not "provable?" We talk about them in philosophy class. Or they appear in comic books. The central flaw of intelligent design arguments is that they are, when you get down to it, even more "anything goes" than string theory, but without the math to back them up.

Whatever the beliefs held by intelligent design's few academic proponents, the President's motives are crystal clear. This attack on science and rationalism is perfectly in line with Bush's steadfast conflation of the public and the ecumenical. In other words, his blatantly unconstitutional disregard for even the appearance of church/state exclusivity is old news. But allowing his belief in mythical beings to influence public educational policy is downright fucking scary. Next public school students will be required to rebuild Noah's ark to spec before they can pass woodshop.

(As for the science, I don't claim to be anything more than casually conversant in evolutionary biology. You should really decide for yourself. Here's an extensive debate from Natural History Magazine that covers a bit from each position.)

We now return to our regularly scheduled zany highjinks...