libertarianlunatic

In my last post, I mentioned how the whole debate about whether evolution should be taught is really our fault. I stand by that. Somewhere in the past 150 years, we sorta forgot to do what disciples of Newton, Euclid, Pythagoras, etc have done for hundreds of years. A debate about knowledge renews itself every year, every time a new student enters the halls of knowledge. It is our duty and ours alone to show them why they must ascribe to that theory. We must show them the evidence, starting from Lyell's gradualism and ending with the work of Sewall Wright and Dobhzansky, who were the last two population geneticists worth a damn. We must show them the patterns elucidated by Cuvier, by Horner, by the Leakeys, by Eldridge and Gould. Demonstrate why evolution. Such is the methodology of science education. It is not enough to tell them "Let it be so." No other science discipline forgets this. We do.

And in another fit of egotism and shortsightedness I'm watching two otherwise very fine blogs make the mistake of alienation once again. From Evolution Blog we hear that 'The Conservative Assault on Evolution Continues'. Way to tar and feather the whole bunch of us. Pharyngula, another daily visit of mine, often has posts criticizing the Bush administration on the same page as diatribes about the ID scandals. Darksyd writes some of the best evolutionary histories I've seen. SHort, sweet, to the point, well illustrated. All in all masterpieces. At least his criticisms of Bush and the new 'conservatives' (who scare me as well to be honest) are more logical, and less demagogue-ish; I often agree with many of them.

But once again, these have the (intended or not) consequence of conflating liberalism with evolution. Now, I realize that most of the ID/Creation pushers tend to lie on the right end of the scale. But, first thing, lets use our great brains for a bit. Does conservatism naturally lead you to be anti-evolution? Hmmm, economic theories that are almost identical to behavioral ecological ones. Nope, not there. Personal responsibility? Survival of the fittest? Nope, no conflict there. Looking through the basic tenets of the conservative movement, at least fiscally as well as a considerable amont of social stuff, I can only find strong ties and similarities between Evolution and Ecology and the Conservative worldview.

So what is actually causing the fuss? Oh, there we go, hardline Christianity. So does being christian automatically make you conservative? Not according to Howard Dean et al. With their "well if you believe in helping the poor, you'd be a democrat," spiel. So looks like it's time to use those great big brains of ours that allow us to 'see the truth'. Correlation does not imply causation. Remember that little lesson reiterated in pretty much every course in science or statistics you ever took? There's a correlation between being Christian, creationist/ID, and conservative, sure. But is there a logical link between them? Not especially.

But with so many of our fine Evolutionists unable to spot the difference between correlation and causation, should we really expect those on the other side of the debate to? You post bits of liberal politicking alongside bits on evolution. They see the correlation. They may start to think "Hmm, causation?" If evolution becomes in their minds a 'liberal' idea, then they'll be EVEN more averse to it. Doesn't agree with their religion OR their politics? Better to continue to fight against it then.

As those in evo so often do, we can look to Darwin's own words for advice yet again:

Upon reading Origin, Karl Marx asked dear Charles if he would endorse the Communist Manifesto (or Das Kapital, I forget). Darwin replied that while he was honored by the invitation, he'd rather not have his name or his work associated with such an inflammatory political piece.

I wish some of you would think about that for a bit. Myself, i'm as fiscally conservative as they come, and while I live a socially conservative life, I'm fairly liberal in that respect on a lot of issues. Enough that "small l" libertarian is a better title for me than Republican, and enough that I refused to vote for Bush. I'd go so far to say that my fully evolutionary outlook not only encouraged that stance, but continues to reinforce and support it day in and day out. Once again I can't overstate that we're in this quandary because we're bad at our jobs. We never presented the evidence to the Christians, never gave them a reason to believe us other than the fancy letters after our names (well i don't have any yet, but you get the idea). We alienate them, and then we confuse them by continually presenting weird links between liberalism and evolution/ecology that on the face of them don't make much sense. I'll confront that issue in another post though.