In the world of news, science never trends high in the headlines. There was a flurry of news coverage surrounding the landing of the Mars Curiosity rover on the red planet’s surface (have you seen the video? It’s awesome), but that’s pretty much it.
When you get down to it, science is most often in the news, not because of an appreciation of the latest scientific achievements–for example, last week NASA discovered that there at least 2.5 million supermassive black holes scattered throughout the universe and recorded video of an eruption on the surface of the sun–but because certain parties make headlines for their antagonism toward scientific inquiry and, most especially, science education.
In keeping with this unfortunate trend, recently in the world of science news, Bill Nye (the Science Guy) made headlines with his front-page YouTube video, Creationism Is Not Appropriate For Children:
“And I say to the grownups, if you want to deny evolution and live in your world, in your world that’s completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that’s fine, but don’t make your kids do it because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. We need people that can—we need engineers that can build stuff, solve problems.”
That’s just a brief excerpt from the two and a half minute video. Which, in and of itself, did not make headlines. No, it was the flurry of angry rebuttal videos and the malicious rumor of Bill Nye’s death on Twitter that made headlines. A modest number of headlines.
The point Mr. Nye makes in the video is neither extreme nor unreasonable, in fact, it’s very reasonable: You are free to believe whatever you want, no matter how demonstrably untrue your beliefs may be, but don’t force those beliefs on other people. Not a bad message to send to those parties (you know who you are) who have invested considerable resources in compromising science education in American classrooms, hawking unscientific nonsense like “intelligent design” to be taught alongside evolution in schools.
Intelligent design cannot be taught as an “alternative” to evolutionary theory, because intelligent design is not a scientific theory, it’s a theological argument (which, as a rule, does not rely on fact of any kind). A scientific theory is not the same as the colloquial word, “theory” (as in, I have this theory about people who think evolution is still up for debate).
A scientific theory begins as a hypothesis based on a measurable observation, that is then rigorously tested, verified, revised and retested, then submitted for peer review… there are standards, is what I’m saying, and intelligent design was never put to those standards.
So why do people have such a problem with evolution? Commonly, I’ll hear the argument of “I don’t believe in evolution because it contradicts my spiritual/religious beliefs,” or worse, “why should I believe in evolution? It’s just a theory.”
Neither of these arguments is compelling on any reasonable basis:
Saying you don’t believe in the theory of evolution is like saying you don’t believe in heliocentric theory (Earth orbits the sun), or gravitational theory (if you jump from a very high place, you’re going to fall), or germ theory (bacteria causes disease, not demonic possession).
You can not-believe in these things if you want, but it’d be kind of insane to try (so please don’t try to jump from any high places. I can promise you it won’t end well).
Ironically, religion has a history of staunch opposition with all of these theories, but now they are universally accepted truths. Because that’s what scientific theories are. They aren’t things you can debate on philosophical or spiritual grounds: they are verifiable facts about the universe around you, and to deny these facts is the same as denying reality.
And yet, there are still those who persist in denying evolution theory in this country, committing intellectual suicide and conspiring to trick the rest of us into drinking their Kool-Aid.
And it’s working, to an alarming extent: because of their efforts, we have transformed from the nation who first put man on the moon and treated scientific advancement as a point of national pride into a country that lionizes ignorance and vilifies science–even though our future as a nation (as a species) depends upon science and technology now more than ever.
Watch the Bill Nye video here:
NASA’s footage of an eruption on the surface of the sun:
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Apolitical is a blog that covers current events, politics and culture. We’re bringing the world at large to the Malibubble, one post at a time.
