Evolution of the Red Neck
Every now and then we are reminded of the vast cultural gulf between western civilizations like Massachusetts and Oregon on the one hand and Islamic theocracies on the other, like Kansas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Louisiana.
I might have included Alabama in that category, too, except that Alabama hosts five foreign car companies who contribute so much money to their senators that — except for their conspiracy to destroy the American auto industry and thus the manufacturing base of the Great Satan — in other respects they behave more like 19th century robber baron capitalists.
As for Kansas, et. al., people there vote on values (down with gays, down with stem cell research, down with reproductive rights, down with separation of church and state) which they call “Christian;†but as any fool can plainly see (as Snuffy Smith used to say), there’s nothing remotely Christian about any of that.
They want a theocracy, and they’re creationists, just like all but one of the other Muslim theocracies. In Louisiana, even the governor is a creationist.
He’s also an exorcist. You can’t be too careful in Louisiana.
The latest scourge of evolution emerged last year with publication of The Atlas of Creation by Muslim creationist Adnan Oktar, who goes by the nom de plume Harun Yahya (yah, yah, we know).
Of course there is no official Muslim position on evolution – at least not yet. The Koran uses a six-day story of creation adapted from the Old Testament, which adapted it from others — but believing in creation is very different from believing in creationism. The two are often confused, and creationists feast on the confusion, pretending with mock outrage that non-creationists don’t believe in creation. Of course that’s true of a few of us – like me – but that’s the way I was created, and there’s no atheist god to complain to.
But back to the evolution of the red neck.
Surveys in various countries show that the U.S. trails Kazakhstan in its understanding of evolution. Depending on the pollster, 40% to 60% of Americans accept evolutionary science, while over 70% of Kazakhstanis say evolution is “true†or “probably true.†The rest of the Muslim world is more like Oklahoma. In Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Egypt, over 50% of people said evolution “could not possibly be true.â€
We don’t have accurate figures for Kansas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Louisiana, but we would expect them to be similar (although each has some enlightened parents, teachers, scientists, and ACLU lawyers who regularly win court cases against ignorant school boards).
And in fundamental science as in primary elections, you have to be careful about which pollster you’re hearing from. In a Zogby poll, 67% of Americans were reported as opposing the teaching of evolution. But how was the question posed?
They asked if people agreed that biology teachers should teach Darwin’s theory of evolution, but also “the scientific evidence against it.”
As if there were any scientific evidence against it. As if there were an iota of scientific evidence that supported creationism. Somebody at Zogby has an agenda – not an omen to inspire confidence in a polling organization.
The only qualm I have about evolution is that it doesn’t account for “the reverend†James Dobson of Focus on the Family. An ordained monkey? Theoretically, he evolved from early primates, but how can we explain his backward slippage down the evolutionary tree while the rest of the species was inventing science? Discovering the answer to that paradox may shed some light on how entire states can move backwards — like Kansas, where creationists have twice been thrown off the State Board of Education, but like resistant bacteria they keep coming back.
Currently (since February of last year) Kansas is back on the side of science. Good thing, too, because Kansas State University was in the running for a $400 million federal facility – worth $3 billion a year to the state economy – to research emerging (ie, evolving) animal diseases that might be used in terrorist attacks. That could have been very embarrassing, locating an advanced biological research institute in a state that was officially on record as debunking the whole basis of modern biology.
But the creationists were ejected, the research facility will be built (KSU beat out Georgia and Texas, who maybe should take the hint), and we can now take Kansas off the list of benighted theocracies.
I’ll have to go and post that news as a comment on Yahya.com. In the real Atlas of Creation, a red neck just turned blue.
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As my husband is won’t to say, “Those who are against evolution, seem quite comfortable with devolution.
Comment by Mrs D. — December 22, 2008 @ 4:29 pm
Exactly! Richard Dawkins sells very few books to Baboons.
Comment by Al — December 22, 2008 @ 7:24 pm
PS
I coined a term for this phenomenon. After the three billion year march of evolution, the outbreak of reversions to creationism is The Great Leap Floorward.
Comment by Al — December 22, 2008 @ 7:26 pm