WARNING: FANCY BOOK LEARNIN' MAY CAUSE EMPHESYMA
By now everyone has read – and expressed the requisite amount of educated, cosmopolitan scorn toward – the Georgia "Evolution stickers" that a court has recently ruled cannot be included in textbooks.
This replaces the controversial but popular "We ain't had no lynchin's 'cept for them nigger boys that had it comin'" sticker
Don't get me wrong, posting any such notice that material in a textbook is inaccurate is prima facie ridiculous. If something in the book is wrong, don't give it to your children. If you have no evidence other than an opinion to "disprove" parts of the book, shut the fuck up. "God created everything" is a cop-out, not a theory. When I was 5 and I asked my dad how electricity is made, he told me it was magic. It was amusing, but more importantly it was a cover-up for "I don't know." When learning about the true origins of electricity later in life, I hardly expected the "It's magic" theory to get equal time.
But aside from the surface aspects of the issue, the amazing part about this story is that there is so much hoopla over the contents of science textbooks in Georgia. Georgia has some of the worst schools in the nation, was the last state to have unprosecuted lynchings, and has one of America's highest illiteracy rates. And don't forget its top-10 teen pregnancy and spousal abuse rates. Honestly, what the fuck are these idiots' children even absorbing from their textbooks?
Those who bother to graduate high school before getting a job at Jiffy Lube or Farm & Fleet are probably oblivious of 99% of the material presented to them in their academic lives. You could issue textbooks that state man originated on Saturn and flew here on winged intergalactic unicorns and it wouldn't matter. The entire "southern culture" is so anti-education, so willfully ignorant, and so stuck in the past (the Scopes trial was eighty fucking years ago and they're still debating evolution) that it literally makes absolutely no difference what these people are "taught." So long as the society in which these people live reinforces the idea that beliefs supersede facts or empirical evidence, they're going to remain the backward, mongoloid retards of America and there's nothing any textbook can do to halt (or propogate) that.
I mean, for Christ's sake, people. We're talking about a place called Cobb County in rural Georgia. If that doesn't make banjos fire up in your mind over images of the General Lee racing down dirt roads with Sheriff Coltrane in hot pursuit, you're giving them too much credit. Fuck'em all. Let them teach phrenology for all I care. They couldn't possibly come out any dumber.
January 19th, 2005 at 2:36 pm
Your caption on the photo has a slight typo–I believe it's "WHAT had it comin'", not "THAT." I only spotted it because I believe it's also the state motto.
January 19th, 2005 at 3:47 pm
*intergalactic
Fix it before some uppity Georgian cam whore tries to argue your intelligence based on a typo.
January 19th, 2005 at 3:50 pm
People in Georgia don't have internet access outside of Atlanta. In fact, I believe Cobb County just got its first telegraph line.
January 19th, 2005 at 6:27 pm
Cobb County is actually a suburb of Atlanta. It's only about 20 miles away.
January 19th, 2005 at 7:22 pm
I stand behind my apparently geographically-inaccurate remarks.
January 19th, 2005 at 7:43 pm
*standing clapping*
January 19th, 2005 at 10:43 pm
Just to be clear I am a hyper liberty type, I smoke dope, drink shroom tea, love to travel the world, memorized the bill of rights when I was 9, started reading socrates at the age of 10. I live here in Chicago, my best friends look like a rainbow parade, and include notable chicago artists from some of the most "extreme" scenes.
I consider Facism discusting, I hated Lenin…the only founding fathers I really liked were Franklin and the lesser known Mason (the real source of Jeffersons supposed "genius").
So, I'm gonna ask a question….Have you ever read Darwins "Origin of species"? I recomend the 6th edition. Did you know Darwin believed in God? (I don't, but that's another matter). As a matter of fact, his beliefs were suspiciously like those of the intelligent designers. Whom I also disagree with, but once again that is another matter.
Another question….have you read the textbook in question? I have, I became interested in it after first reading about this, and had a friend of mine (whose mother is jewish, and his father is black, he is from Chicago, and her personally finds Atlanta, where he now live, far less rasict than Chicago in point of fact.)
I found the book interesting, because although I am a staunch "evolutionist", I found myself disagreeing with a lot of the specifics of the theory as presented in the test. As I disagree with many of Darwins specifics. (for instance, I believe there are at leat 3 mechanisms, one-slow adaption into a niche, 2-extreme environmental stress causing large leaps, and 3-mutation due to environmental )
One of the things that bothered me about this particular text is that it presented Evolution, and very old theories concerning it as fact, not as constantly questioned and updated theory. As a matter of fact, it struck me as if was not presented as science at all, but as a religon, in exaclty the same way a baptist presents creationism.
So, as you can guess, I am not bothered by the sticker as much as you.
As towards the other comments. Have you ever heard of something called prejudice? I think you have a very bac case of it, as a matter of fact, you remind me of someone….hmmmmm…..lets see….wait….I remember…..DENNIS MILLER.
Really great, hate as an arguement, yep that will so those southern folks won't it, yessiree…..hate is deifintiely the way to go, I mean what better emotion is there than hate. Yea…..
January 19th, 2005 at 11:04 pm
My apologies for the typos, I have to admit, I was a bit upset after seeing you turn yourself into a blue state Rush Limbaugh. Isn't one of them enough….better yet isn't one too much? When exactly did hate and talking trash become the best we liberals could do? Unless you agree with National Review that we liberals have nothing to offer and should just surrender in the culture wars.
Maybe that is what you believe.
January 20th, 2005 at 5:11 am
Darwin didn't just believe in God, he was training to be a priest at the time he sailed to the Galapagos.
I think it's perhaps a little unfair to say that you disagree with Darwin as to the causes of evolution. Anyone whho does a biological science will. Because we've had a couple off hundred years of theory and fact since then. The 3 methods of evolutiona and speciation mentioned in Skeptikos' post are not something you're likely to observe in a few small populations over a series of months.
The Origin of the Species is surprisingly untainted by religion. You have to remember, this was the first time evolution had ever been mentioned. So yes, it may seem a little outdated. But to say it's similar to intelligent design? Not exactly a reasonable accusation. It's the very beginnings of a theory. It may be a little rough.
So I don't think just the fact that you disagree with Darwin gives you the right to the superior tone you've taken. You may know more about evolution than he did, but only because you've got 200 years of other peoples work to back you up. Plus the shroom tea's got to help.
January 20th, 2005 at 7:53 am
Take people who are impossible to reason with and hate ceases to be an unreasonable method of approaching the argument. We have never been able to reason with that part of the nation. The only reason slavery and segregation are no longer in practice is because we went down there armed to the teeth and forced them to stop.
January 20th, 2005 at 10:30 am
ps – No, I haven't read the textbook in question. How many of the parents that advocated this sticker have read it as opposed to just making a knee-jerk reaction to the fact that the it doesn't say "Human beings were created by God; all else is heretical speculation"??
Yes, Darwin believed in God. But unlike the dolts who push this anti-evolution agenda that ceased being relevant two centuries ago, he didn't use the fact that he believed in God as a cop-out. Evolution didn't end when we grew thumbs. Guess what? I believe in God. And I believe God created humans inasmuch as God created everything. But I also happen to not be retarded and/or 6 years old, so "God made this!" isn't a sufficient answer for everything or an excuse to avoid….you know….learning and stuff.
Yes, we know these people believe God created everything. That does not mean it is an answer. To anything. Saying that God made humans is an answer is like saying "God made gravity" is an answer that would excuse one from learning that the planet has an iron core that rotates to create a magnetic field.
January 20th, 2005 at 11:18 am
I'm not a scientist, and know little about current theories of evolution. i also hang out with alcoholic obese middle aged male engineers (no rainbow). That said:
Yes Darwin believed in God. But – I was always under the impression what was intense about On the Origin of Species wasn't that it introduced "evolution" (which is hardly mentioned in the text) – which as an idea phrased as "species change over time by God's will" was already getting into circulation among scientists if not the educated class – but how much it excluded the necessity of God being in the picture.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but what was (and still is) scandalous about the book is how based in materialism it is; the degree to which natural selection is blind and random and dependent not on God, but on the contingency of chance events (are long necks on animals Just? depends on the trees – move 100 miles in another direction and then they may not be).
Framing a language, a way of thinking, which could explain change that explicitly excluded God (or 'intelligent design') in favor of materially based chance events is what seperates Darwin from these ID folks in Georgia. Or so I thought – I'm willing to be schooled in the subject (just not in Georgia).