IT'S ONLY A THEORY, AFTER ALL

If you and I had a nickel (with inflation, a quarter) for every time we've heard this about Darwin's work, people would be writing for us. In some parts of U.S. society, fundamentalist influences have ruled the day for so long that there has been practically no decent teaching about natural selection, science and the Bible, or even beginning biology. Add to this that many people didn't like science the first time around in school, and you have a powder keg just waiting to blow.

For many of those I've engaged in conversation, "theory" equals "guess" equals "no support in my reality, and I'll fight with you on this." The major difficulty I have with that attitude is that "my reality" does not address some rather obvious evidence that Darwin was on the right track. There are mountains of evidence that the world is billions of years older than the 6,000 or 10,000 years some biblical literalists accept. The fossil record does support change in populations over millions of years, and a recent study even suggests that shorter-term exposure to specific conditions may cause genetic materials to develop internal reproductive responses. Darwin may NOT have walked on water or given policy to God, but he WAS a believer, a minister of the gospel, and a first-class scientist.

We have seen in several different states-Pennsylvania and Kansas topmost on my list-recent efforts to legally redefine the curricula leading to student learning in biology in the public schools. Most science teachers seem to have been mortified to learn, in one case, that they were ordered to read a disclaimer from the school board before teaching materials that might somehow connect students' minds to evolutionary science. It seems, sadly, that most of the flak against such science has come from various conservative elements of the Christian churches.

There was a time when most of the knowledge gathered by humankind was kept and protected by the churches against that day when it might see the light of day again. If recent news stories are accurate indicators, the churches are actively fighting the dissemination of "ideologically incorrect" knowledge on the grounds that our children ought to be "properly" taught. Can a technological society absorb and render impotent this kind of attack on reality?

What's that you say? "This stuff is all made up"? The kinds of infighting we see around the country indicate that many people have taken the easy way

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