Wednesday, December 21, 2005

 

Sometimes the good guys finish first

Ladies and gentlemen, we live in a rough, tough world. Evil smugglers transport disease-ridden puppies across the border to sell to unsuspecting parents. Our President defends wiretapping of just about anyone in the pursuit of . . . internal security, I guess. And P Diddy still has a media empire.

Not a pretty place.

But sometimes, folks, the good guys win. Sometimes, the forces of evil and ignorance don't triumph. Superman really does knock Lex Luthor around; Batman sends the Joker back to Arkham Asylum; and Captain Marvel makes a really horrid pun while defeating Dr. Sivana.

And some days, something good happens in the state of Pennsylvania. Like the fools who back "intelligent design" go down in flames like the Hindenberg, only in a court of law. Read about it here:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-evolution21dec21,1,4393563.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Hopefully, a domino effect results from this. Hopefully, my backwards home state of Ohio follows suit. Kansas, too. And all the other red states that got behind this. Shucks, did I mention that a Bush-appointed conservative judge kicked this one to the curb? I love it.

Now, I'm a peaceful guy. Far be it from me normally to pile on when someone's lost in a such a public, disastrous, and humiliating way. But these intelligent design morons really got my dander up. So a little more piling on is deserved.

The thing that most ticked Our Man in LA off about the whole intelligent design debate, if it can be really considered one, is the way that its proponents used it as a way to defend and shield their own ignorance and the educational ineptitude in our American schools.

It's not that I don't believe in God. I do. I even occasionally believe in the supernatural. But look, just because a large percentage of people in the United States think that God must have created the complex biological systems of humans, plants and animals doesn't mean that evolution, which has a good deal of scientific backing, can't be taught. Or has to be taught alongside ancient religious ideas and mythology.

Consider this. A large percentage of the American population also believes that the sun revolves around the Earth, even though scientifically, we've proven this not to be the case.

Or this. More than a few folks in this great land of ours think the world is 6,000 years old - a conclusion you might come to if you use the Bible to take us back to that first day of creation.

Sure, Clarence Darrow knocked these ideas down nearly 100 years ago. But here we are again. And you know what? Even if a bunch of lugnuts believes this, it shouldn't be taught in our public schools. Because the rest of us know better.

In America, you have the right to be an idiot. It's protected by law. And I support your right to be as big a fool as you choose to be. But we also have the right to call people out when they're being stupid. That's protected, too. And we should have the foresight and brains to keep the stupid stuff out of our schools.

If a man dresses in a chicken suit and howls at the moon, that's cool. We have the right to suggest this might not be the best use of the man's time, but I'd fight for him to be allowed to do it. I'm just not sure I want it in my public schools. Teaching science. In Ohio.

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