Darwinism and the new Political Correctness

In case you’re just tuning in, a federal court settled the case of Selman v. Cobb County on Wednesday. The ruling mandates the removal of the silly stickers that the Board of Education had slapped on biology textbooks, which read as follows:

This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.

Bonus points if you can spot the comma-splice.

So why is this sticker so offensive? After all, it’s factually correct. Theories are not facts, but deductions based on experiment and observation. By their nature, they are often subject to being disproven. Bear in mind that Hoyle’s Steady State model of cosmology held sway for quite some time in opposition to the Big Bang model.

Well, it’s not that the sticker itself is inaccurate; the problem lies with the intent behind placing it in science textbooks. The Christian Right has buried its hooks so deeply in our educational system that, as recently as 2002, biology teachers who didn’t believe in Darwinism would routinely tear pages describing it out of textbooks with impunity. Depending on what teacher your kids ended up with, they may have missed being taught about one of the most important and influential theories in the field.

This mirrors an experience I had at North Cobb high school in which several books I had borrowed from the school library had been defaced with black magic-marker. Someone had taken it upon themselves to blot out words, sentences and even entire passages they had presumably found to be offensive. When I brought this to the attention of the librarian, she picked up the copy of The Stranger, looked disdainfully at it, dropped it back on the counter and said, “well, these books have alot of filth.”

There are two types of people here: those who are disgusted by that, and those who nod their heads and agree. Guess who’s been on a campaign to tailor your children’s education to fit their own moral agenda?

I can’t believe I’m actually writing a “think of the children” rant, especially when I consider that retort to be a cowardly and cheap rhetorial ploy. This is something that really bears consideration, though.

Cobb County has historically had a real problem realizing it’s in the 20th century, much less the 21st. This is the county that passed the notorious ordinance condemning homosexuals, and a Ku Klux Clan Grand Wizard named Dent Myers still operates a business in downtown Kennesaw with a sign posted over the door reading, “no children, no niggers.”

When this mentality is restricted to a few hillbillies on the outskirts of town, it’s one thing. When it’s being held by the moneyed elite at the highest positions of policymaking, it becomes a real threat. That’s where we are now.

The Christian Right have made real inroads in suburban America. They routinely rally at city and county zoning meetings to make sure we have churches on every street corner and that nothing resembling an “adult” business is able to keep its doors open. They’ve been pushing for prayer in schools for as long as I can remember, and they’re doing their best to ingratiate their specific model of faith into everyone’s education. Do some reading on intelligent design for an idea of just how sneaky they can be.

This isn’t 1956, but they’re doing their best to make sure it looks that way. Following the passage of House Bill 179, superintendent Cathy Cox tried to have the word “evolution” struck from all state science books. Thankfully, there was enough of a furor that she relented.

Since they couldn’t deface or censor, they settled for this. After all, it’s just a sticker, right? It’s not factually wrong, so what’s the issue?

The issue is intent, in this case, the intent to seed doubt and create dissent. It now becomes easier for little Billy to stand up in class and cast a shadow on a century of research by saying, “my daddy says we didn’t come from no monkeys. This sticker in the book says that evolution ain’t the truth.” It’s tough to respond to something like that.

Of course, once evolution’s out of the way, how do we explain things? Well, glad you asked! See, we all know that it’s bad mojo to try cramming Creationism down students’ throats, so how about we dress it up in “science” and call it “Intelligent Design?” Nobody questions anything anymore, so if we call it science, then science it must be, right?

Even when it’s politically-motivated, poorly-researched and fraudulently presented, it gets the approval of the President. After all, he’s a big fan of fundamentalist hegemony.

In the 1990’s, Political Correctness was the doctrine of the day. According to the liberal left, nobody was ever wrong, everybody was the same, and there was certainly no such thing as evil in the world. Fast-forward to the 21st century, and the balance of power shifts. The Christian Right, who’ve been waiting in the wings, sieze the opportunity and reverse things completely. “You’re with us or you’re against us” became the mantra of the day, and now we’re hearing God mentioned at every possible opportunity.

And that’s not just God we’re talking about, but the fundamentalist, judgemental Southern Protestant (and most definitely White) God. Krishna, Allah and others need not apply.

I’m not sure which is worse. In fact, there’s really no discernable difference. It’s simply a matter of the idealogy in power forcing its own moral agenda on society, and it starts at the bottom with indoctrination at the earliest levels of education.

The real cost in all of this is education itself. Our children aren’t being taught any sort of critical-thinking skills, and they’re being force-fed a diet of regimented memorization and rote political inculation. In 1990, I was at Jacksonville University when a professor showed us a survey of Duval County high-school seniors in which 70% of those tested couldn’t locate Florida on a map of the world. The majority believed that humans and dinosaurs coexisted at some point in the past, that sound travelled faster than light, and few could name more than three planets in the solar system. How exactly are we supposed to compete in the global market?

They don’t teach civics in school anymore. Have you stopped to wonder why? Skim through your kids’ books. Check their homework once in awhile. Talk to their teachers. Find out what your children are really being fed in our schools.

Collin Purrington is among the many educators who have been watching this whole thing, and he’s come up with a few alternate disclaimers for textbooks, of which this is my favorite: