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The Don't Know Nothing Party, and How it Evolved

Here we are, right in the middle of the 19th century, still arguing about evolution!  I had thought that was pretty much settled even before Darwin published, On the Origin of Species, just in time to get there before everyone else did, but I was wrong!

It isn't the middle of the 19th century.  It just seems like it.  With the recent exception of Jon Huntsman, all the Republican candidates for the Presidency try to avoid admitting that absolutely everything has evolved, or even specifically denying it.  Huntsman says, "Call me crazy!", not because he believes he is crazy, but because he knows his party believes it is crazy.

How is it possible for anyone living in the 21st century to be blind to evolution?  Do they not take new antibiotics because the bacteria evolve fast enough to produce strains resistant to the old medications?  Do they not understand that the weeds in their gardens evolve, producing plants that are resistant to the old herbicides?  Maybe fundamentalists don't have weeds in their Edens!  Have they never wondered why bird feeders have narrow slots to retain the niger seed so that only birds whose beaks have evolved to be narrow can get at the seed?  Do they not wonder how all of us descendants of Adam and Eve (or is that Lucy?) have become Black, and Brown, and Somewhat Pink?

We are still arguing about evolution!  We could as well be arguing whether the earth is flat, or whether it is the center of the universe!  Is Hell a hole under our feet?  Are there golden mansions up there in the sky?  Can we cure epilepsy (a conflict of brain signals) by consigning it to a herd of hogs?  When did anyone last walk on water, or ride off into heaven on a chariot?

But we are selecting candidates for the Presidency on the basis of whether their heads are firmly anchored in the 1st, or 10th century (or even the 10th century B.C.)!

Of course people used to think the earth was flat, or that starvation or tornadoes were God's punishment for believing in the wrong gods, or for working on the Sabbath, but people used to believe that the stork brought babies, too, and that gremlins fouled up the gearbox.

I am going to look into that business with the "Know Nothing Party".  I wonder what the connection is; how it evolved.


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