Restrain the monkeys: Keep Intelligent Design out of the classroom
The Utah State Senate has begun its general session of 2006 and will be soon debating Senator Chris Buttars'(R) infamous Senate Bill 96: “Public Education – Instruction and Policy Relating to the Origins of Life.” This is a bill that would change how our public schools teach biology in a fairly fundamental way. Admittedly, I have become a little weary of the whole debate. Not for lack of interest, though. After all, I could quote the final sentence in Darwin’s “Origin” word for word at 17, read every major Darwin biography and named my dog after Gregor Mendel.
I think for me, maybe it’s the premise of this whole worn-out affair: That this evolution/intelligent design problem is a rational debate, when really, deep down, we know it’s ruled by passion. We are not rational. “Deal with it,” as my good friend counsels me when I complain with endless elaborate reasons why math is so horrible that I am throwing it all away for a career pouring cement grave slabs in the Northwest territories. A rational being would see the day-in-day-out doldrums of a four-year degree as a means to an end, a goldmine at the end of a rainbow. Of course, we all have something that blows the rational circuits in our brain. It would be nice to say rational behavior is what separates us from the monkeys – sorry, try again later. Monkeys … maybe that example digs up more passion than we can handle right now. How about dogs?
My dog was passionate about garbage (and cats and birds and female dogs). He would get into the garbage and I would punish him over and over and yet, still I would come home to garbage on the floor and find him hiding in the darkest corner, shivering with terror and I would think, “He knows it’s REALLY bad to get into the garbage, yet it continues?” This mystery lasted a while, until one day he swaggered past me in the kitchen, gave me the, “Hey, what’s up dude with the thumbs” nod, and proceeded to walk right up to the garbage, drop his head right in and choke down a ball of old rice, then walk back to the living room. Then, it hit me as I looked at the clean floor around the garbage can. His simple little passion-overridden brain had concluded that only the dropping of the inedible evidence to the floor constituted a punishable act. Eating some nice mouthfuls with no spillage was totally cool because nothing bad ever happened. “Eating things … GOOD! Dropping things … BAD!” He just lives in the here and now. He doesn’t make important connections between more than two events and neither did I as a dog trainer. So, we both have passion.
Maybe it is just thumbs that separate us. I often look at him as he anguishes over the smooth, round surface of the brass door knob, the portal to indulging all his passions. I know he envies my thumbs because his whole world of walks, car trips and dog food are all inextricable tied to this, my one trump card. Sometimes I imagine what would happen if he suddenly grew thumbs and the hair stands up on the back of my neck as I envision Gregor at the lead of 2,000 dogs letting themselves in and out of every house with feline odor or canine estrus. I can see the over-sexed, blood-stained pack coming to a tragic end in a hail of bullets as they tear down Main Street. Whew! I like reality better. So, maybe the most important difference between man and beast is restraint.
Restraint comes from comprehending the consequences of one’s actions. Although we are passionate, most of us humans are tempered by restraint, most of the time (or with the help of medication). Indeed, it is our pursuit of knowledge that aids us in comprehending consequences, like making meaningful connections between more than two events. In the end, it amounts to control over our future, as the geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky penned in his book, “Mankind Evolving: The Evolution of the Human Species.”
“By changing what he knows about the world, man changes the world he knows. And, by changing the world in which he lives, man changes himself. Evolution need not be a destiny imposed from without; it may conceivably be controlled by man in accordance with his wisdom and values.”
Hmm. We get all caught up in the past, but maybe this serves to remind us how pure science, what man “knows about the world” can affect our future self-determination. By using this rigorous method to explore and learn from our surroundings, we can gain an advantage over our passions and direct our thumbs to some kind of better life. But this tool falls apart when we pollute the scientific method as we mix in the passions, religion or beliefs that ought to be used as a separate tool to guide our knowledge.
Intelligent Design? Why is it not breaking news in peer-reviewed journals like science or nature or evolution? Because it is not science, that’s why! Deal with it! If the next generation has any chance at making informed decisions in this complex world; of coming up with advances as important as antibiotics and the micro-processor, we better teach the scientific method right, and keep S.B. 96 where it belongs: On the pulpit and out of the classroom.
To contact Senator Buttars:
dcbuttars@utahsenate.org
Senator D. Chris Buttars
319 State Capitol
Salt Lake City, UT 84114
Phone: (801) 538-1035
Fax: (801) 538-1414
John Goodell is a columnist for the Utah Statesman. Please send any questions or comments to
jmgoodell@cc.usu.edu.