Bush-League Science
So George Bush is on the edge of supporting the “scientific” theory of Intelligent Design, demonstrating in large letters why the religious right is not fit to rule. It is a all-points bulletin that the separation of church and state has grown very small. To think that a sitting president doesn’t know the difference between theology and science boggles the mind. Or worse, he does know the difference and is cynically playing to the religious right. How can we as a people have intelligent discourse if we can’t agree on the equivalent of whether the sky is blue or not?
The fact is (and it is a fact) that there are theories and then there are Theories. I have this theory, for example. I believe strongly that God doesn’t particularly care for Evangelical Christians (ECs). I can’t base this theory on much at present, but the thought popped into my head, and that might just be intelligent design at work. I mean, I don’t like them, so maybe this is a sign of His will, right? Now, is my theory true? How should I know? Only a blasphemer would dare to say what is on God’s mind. I can’t really test my theory, can I? So if someone calls my theory nutty and unworthy to be taught in, say, Bible school along with traditional studies, I can’t really refute them.
The difference between my theory with a very small “t” and scientific Theory (which damn well should have a capital “T”) is that we can test it against observation.
Scientific theories are not nutball theories that all too regularly pop into people’s heads, they are based on facts. They are the basis of almost everything we think we know. Darwinism is only a theory, but so is our explanation of why airplanes can hang in the air. I suggest you log on to the National Air and Space Museum’s site and check out a few of the theories of lift:
http://www.nasm.si.edu/exhibitions/gal109/NEWHTF/HTF513.HTM
Now, it may be that none of the current theories of flight are true, and the real reason airplanes float in the sky is that God holds them up with his pinkies. (In fact, I find the image comforting.) But here’s the problem: we can’t test for divine fingerprints. We are stuck with trying to explain real-world phenomena with real-world observation, and tests based on those observations. Are only alternative to this is to stop trying to explain our world and what we see in it.
Trying to explain our world using religion is not an option. Airplanes really fly, that’s a fact. We don’t have to turn to the Bible to establish that. And anyway, the Good Book has proven a truly rotten guide for scientific exploration. If it had been a good one, Galileo would not have suffered house arrest and the burning of his books. His “theories”, tested and retested, have proven true beyond any doubt, and Christianity’s objections have been found to be laughable. Religion has a long and sorry history of standing in the way of true science.
We can't have people running this country who either can't or won't govern from a rational, objective base. Without this — and the intelligent discourse that accompanies it — we will grow increasingly unable to function as a democracy. This declaration by Bush and the right should be more than a blip on the news horizon, it should be a core issue for the next election.
Picture the Conservative Mind
One of the joys of owning a motorcycle is that stores send you catalogues of parts, duds and paraphernalia. It's fun to look over all the little toys you can get for your baby. But there is the occasional page, like the one accompanying this entry that is utterly perplexing.
This example is not at all unusual, since you may be wondering. It’s a successful marketing arrangement, judging by how often you see versions of it. Anyway, take a moment and let your eyes soak in all the symbolism on this page, symbols juxtaposed without any sense of discomfort. So who are they targeting? There may be a moderate or a liberal out there with a keen sense of irony who would buy from this collection, but I'm going to take a wild stab these patches are not for them. No, we all know that these patches are meant for your basic garden-variety conservative, you know, the "guy with the confederate flag on his pickup" that Howard Dean hopes to attract to the Democratic Party.
Try to form a picture in your head. The guy who's buying from this page may be wearing the flag of the United States, the flag of those who wanted to tear the nation in two, and an iron cross, which, to put it frankly, is the sensitive guy's version of a swastika. Farther up the page, though not shown here, is a patch for Vietnam vets; didn't German soldiers get iron crosses for killing American servicemen in two world wars? It kind of makes you wonder just what about the United States these shoppers like, they who are so quick to wave the flag in our faces. As far as I can tell from these clashing symbols, they like everything about this country except its current makeup and form of government.
But I admit that's a little mean-spirited. Probably most of these folks buying these patches are pretty decent people (they like motorcycles for one thing). They probably just haven't thought it through. They wave the flag the way they wave giant foam fingers at football games. It's fun to take sides and shout. The conservatives have sold their image as tough guys, and we all love tough guys, don't we? Who are they going to root for, the side that wants them to stop and reflect on what they're doing and saying? Where's the fun in that?
The ability to live in the complete bliss of Contradiction is a strength of today's conservatives, from their denial of scientific method to their pick-and-choose reading of the Bible. The Republicans have learned that they can say one thing and do another. More than that, even caught red-handed doing "another", they can say "one thing" even louder and get away with it. No one's keeping them honest, because no one's thinking things through. I mean we the people, of course, but more than this, the Press.
The American Revolution Was a Liberal Revolution
The self-styled conservative super-patriots have appropriated every vestige of the American Revolution they have been able to lay their hands on. If I hear one more "founding fathers" or "framers of the constitution" from them, I think I'll spit. There were conservatives in revolutionary America, all right; they called them Tories, and they sided with England. Why? The Tories feared the loss of business opportunities and a break with tradition, just as conservatives do now. They weren't patriots, they weren't even sunshine patriots, they barely viewed themselves as American. Those who had the means got themselves back to the mother country to live out the remainder of their lives.
On the other side were those who demanded change. The American revolutionaries found ready intellectual ammunition for the cause from the most "secular" of the humanists, the English and French philosophers of the Enlightenment. This humanist view of the world was the very square the framers used to square-up the edifice of our democracy. The language that Thomas Jefferson wrote into the Declaration is theirs. Incidentally, many of these so-called "secular" humanists were God-fearing men; only the ignorant, the cowed or the radical think that humanism and religion aren't mutually supporting.
As are most revolutions, the American Revolution was prosecuted by liberals, people who were unafraid of change. (I'm the first to admit that not all revolutions have turned out so beautifully as ours.) Stick-in-the-mud, conservative types are not the ones seeking new and different ways of life; they're the ones trying to prevent this. The backbone of revolution is social change, and who would claim that conservatives are for that? Those American revolutionaries wanted freedom, the right to be treated as equals, secure homes and to worship God as they saw fit. Those are liberal values -- and if this sounds strange to you, it's because the ongoing demonization of liberals by the Right has been so effective.
Am I saying that today's conservatives believe the same thing the Tories did? No. What I am saying is that, often, yesterday's liberality is what we are conserving today. I'm saying that yesterday's liberal thinkers are the icons of today's conservative thinkers. Today, the conservatives are trying to destroy the liberals; if they succeed, what will our descendants be missing 150 years from now that will be worth conserving for their children?
