In a perfect world, we'd have no reason to pause over the language of Florida's Senate Bill 1854, which reads, in part:
Members of the instructional staff of the public schools... shall teach efficiently and faithfully... the following:
(a thorough presentation and critical analysis of the scientific theory of evolution.
"Critical analysis" ought to be a good thing. That's how the study of science is supposed to work. You examine a theory, search it for flaws, and if the theory holds up, you've both deepened your understanding and strengthened the theory's claim to veracity.
But Senate Bill 1854 was written by Sen. Stephen R. Wise, and he's a sneaky one.
In 2009, in an interview with the Florida Times-Union, Sen.
Wise identified himself as an ardent anti-evolutionist and said he
intended to get "intelligent design" taught in schools. "If you're going
to teach evolution," he said, "then you've got to teach the other side
so you can have critical thinking."
This gives us a hint of what
"critical analysis" might mean to Sen. Wise and what it might entail
if Senate Bill 1854 should become law. There are controversies worth
studying in the field of evolutionary biology -- most famously the
conflicting theories of "punctuated equilibrium" and "phyletic
gradualism." (The former holds that evolution happens in fits and
spurts, generally following on the heels of some cataclysmic
environmental change; the latter suggests that evolution occurs
more or less evenly over long periods of time. Scientists have duked
this one out for 40 years and now largely agree that evolution
probably happens both gradually and suddenly, depending on
environmental conditions.) But there is no scientific argument against
evolution, as such. There is no "other side."
It is clear that
Sen. Stephen Wise and his allies do not understand science or even
its terminology. "Evolution" is not a theory. It is a fact, demonstrable
in laboratories and in nature. (Even "speciation" -- the divergence of
one species from another -- has been empirically observed among certain
populations of sea gulls, salamanders, and warblers.) The only theory is
"evolution by natural selection" -- which is to say, it is theorized
that the fact of evolution is made possible by the action of natural
selection. There is a tremendous, incontrovertible amount of evidence to
suggest that this is the case.
"Evidence" is the thing in
science. In order for there to be an "other side" in a debate about
evolution by natural selection, there would have to be a theory other
than natural selection with its own arsenal of evidence. There isn't
one. "Intelligent design" is an idea, an opinion, but it has no evidence
to support it -- just the conviction of those who believe. Which isn't
science at all.
America is a nice place largely because
ordinary citizens, such as Stephen Wise, are responsible for shaping the
vast bulk of our public policy. Too often, however, we mistakenly
believe that the citizenry's authority confers upon it an automatic
wisdom and competence in specialized fields. Many individuals -- perhaps
even most individuals -- believe in some kind of "intelligent design." Unfortunately for them, reality is not a democracy, and the physical
facts of the universe do not rearrange themselves to conform to majority
sentiments. If they did, the sun would spin about a flat Earth, and
disease would be caused not by bacteria, viruses, or genetic error but
by imbalanced humours and the unlucky alignment of stars.
Yet
still the idea persists that one can examine an endlessly validated
scientific theory and dismiss it on grounds of incredulity. This
propensity was demonstrated in the Times-Union story, in which
then-Rep. Alan Hays explained that his skepticism of evolution by
natural selection was inspired, in part, by his training in dentistry. He
asked: "How can anybody study the human body and deny that it was
created by a higher power?"
Of course, the same was once said of the Grand Canyon, before geologists got their hands on it. Hays' point ignores the fact that those who have studied the human body most intently -- biologists -- are far more likely to believe in evolution by natural selection than those who have not.
Alan Hays is now in the state Senate -- a body that, like the human one, gives no indication of intelligent design. No doubt, he will have much to say about Senate Bill 1854. Stay tuned.
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