Thinking Critically 


Check out this mindless opinion piece at the illustrious OpinionEditorials.com, entitled "Parents, Teach Your Children to Think Critically about Evolution." I've come to ignore random ramblings like this that are printed every day in newspapers all across the country. They're generally from completely uninformed people repeating things they've heard in Sunday School. But this one is one of a new type: It seems the Reverend Jonathan Wells has published "unanswerable" questions about evolution that are being repeated by everyone from so-called adults down to children in science classes. Now, questions aren't bad, of course, but these are giving these morons a false sense that they are on firm ground when mindlessly spouting off. Which is ironic because the above author's piece begs that children be allowed to think critically, while spewing propaganda that she's obviously never even researched. No, it's not thinking critically - if that were done, these questions wouldn't appear anywhere.

Instead, I've seen these questions in about ten different places in the past 48 hours, almost verbatim. You can find a list of them here, along with their rebuttals. There are some classics there, including the old "Cambrian Explosion" myth, and one overwhelmingly silly question asking why artist renditions of ape-like men are used to justify man's evolution.

Now check out this article from the Christian Science Monitor. It goes into great lengths about Intelligent Design and the troubles it causing all across the country. From a retiring school teacher in Kanasas:
The path has been a rougher one for John Wachholz, a biology teacher at Salina (Kansas) High School Central. When evolution comes up, students tune out: "They'll put their heads on their desks and pretend they don't hear a word you say."

To show he's not an enemy of faith, he sometimes tells them he's a choir member and the son of a Lutheran pastor. But resistance is nevertheless getting stronger as he prepares to retire this spring.

"I see the same thing I saw five years ago, except now students think they're informed without having ever really read anything" on evolution or intelligent design, Mr. Wachholz says. "Because it's been discussed in the home and other places, they think they know, [and] they're more outspoken.... They'll say, 'I don't believe a word you're saying.' "
But these mis-informed morons persist. Rev. Wells is a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, the organization that pushes the Intelligent Design meme that many are so taken with. You'll not very often get someone who's well-schooled in the Institute's talking points to admit this is really Creationism dressed up as "science" - no, you'll get the line that this is just scientific theory that the mainstream scientists are keeping from knocking down their evolutionary house of cards. Just THE MAN, holding you back. Which is complete crap, of course.

But as the article about shows, it is about religion. Everyone knows it, and one side is desperately trying to hide it. Thinking critically my ass. It's about not thinking at all. 

 

Posted: Wed - May 4, 2005 at 04:34 PM          

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