Skip to main content

Readin', Writin', 'Rithmetic, and Runnin'

There are things we learn in school:  how to count, and read, and write.   Sometimes we learn how to sing, and to read music, and how to tie our shoes.  We learn the earth is a sphere with lots of water, and that the sun is almost a hundred million miles away, which is a larger number than we can think, except abstractly.

But how in God's name is it possible to go to school and not learn that the earth is billions of years old, and that it has evolved; that everything has evolved?  As my Mom used to ask:  were you standing behind the door when the brains were passed out?

Apparently, you cannot be a Republican candidate for public office if you actually believe what they taught all of us in school!  "No, well," you have to say, "evolution is just a theory that is out there, but you know, no theory has answers for everything, and who do you think created scientists and theories in the first place, anyway?  Tha's right!  God!  About 6,000 years ago, at the beginning!"

One might think it would be embarrassing to deny evolution, as it is embarrassing not to be able to read or write, or to think that the earth is flat, but apparently, it is a required condition if you want to run for the Presidency.  Jon Huntsman says he believes in evolution, and most of what scientists tell us is true, but that only proves that he is not a serious candidate for office!  I mean, really, we should have known!  Does he call us "folks"?  Does he drop his "g"s when he is talkin' to folks?

Evolution isn't a goofy, cockeyed proposition suggested by a mad hatter, somewhere.  It is simply what we know to be true:  life evolves!  We are not what we used to be!  Life continues to evolve.  The universe is huge, and very old.  It almost certainly began with a monstrous explosion, and we do not know what came before that.  We don't say it is a fact, yet, but it will be no surprise if we discover that life may have evolved in lots of places in the universe.  It is quite likely.

It ought to be no comfort to take refuge in a religion in order to deny evolution:  that would be a deliberate affirmation of ignorance.  "I do not believe in gravity, either.  My religion denies it!  Did you ever see gravity?"

No, and I never saw the Big Bang, either, nor an electrical field, nor a pound of anti-matter.

I have, though, seen politicians deny that they have an education.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Friends-- My step-father of 35 years died this morning. His name was Conrad Royksund. He was 86 years old. He was born into poverty on a farm near Puyallup, WA. He was the first member of his family to attend college and earned a PhD from the University of Chicago. He paid his way through all of that by fishing in Alaska. He spent his professional career as a college professor. I met him when I was just 3 years old and don't actually have any memories of my life befor e he was in it. He was intimidatingly smart, funny as hell, and worked his ass off. He taught me to meet people with kindness and decency until I was certain they could not be trusted. He taught me to meet ideas with carving knives until I was certain they could. I will remember him as one of the bravest, most curious, and funniest people I have ever met. He left this world with a satisfied mind. We are so grateful. Dan Hubbard
1 comment
Read more

The Sea is Rising

Let us just step back:  two hundred and fifty years ago, or so, the ships of England and Spain had drifted onto a whole new continent, as they saw it, from far north to a savagely cold south; pole to pole, as if there were such things. Millions of people already lived here, some of them still hunters and gatherers; some of them very wealthy, indeed!  Gold and silver stolen from the southern Americas funded Spanish and English dreams. There was land, lots of land, under starry skies above, rich land, and oil and coal and iron ore.  The whole western world learned how to build industries not on simple muscle power, but on steam and oil.  We farmed, too, of course.  All we needed was cheap labor--slave labor from Africa, mostly, so the ships came with slave labor.  Chinese labor built railroad beds where there had been rock cliffs. Europeans, long used to killing each other for good, religious reasons, brought their religious savagery with them.  Even when all they wanted to do w
Post a Comment
Read more

That's all we want: fairness! Not more guns and more war! Fairness!

The five police officers who were killed in Dallas are certainly not the officers who killed innocent citizens. There is more than enough tragedy to go around. "What is happening to our country?", Mari asked this morning. I had no answer.  We do have an answer.  We do not want to say it. There are lots of answers, all of them pertinent. We are a racist society, like most human societies. We are a society in the midst of enormous changes-- social, political, economic--and we do not know what to do about it. We are divided unsustainably into absurdly rich, and an enormous number of crumbling middle class families, and poor. We have guns everywhere; military guns, guns just for killing people, cheap guns, heroes carrying guns into churches and supermarkets, idiots who think guns ought to be allowed in bars and schools and ball games and beauty parlors and political rallies. Our political process is almost useless. There are good people in Congress, but there
Post a Comment
Read more