The Indigestible

So a local columnist in the daily paper, Jim Hinckley, decided to show his ignorance.

To question openly the theory of evolution in this, a modern, enlightened society freed from the superstitions of religion, is little more than a public proclamation of ignorance.

After all, evolution is an established scientific fact. On the other hand, is it?

Yes. Yes, Jim, you public embarrassment. Evolution is an established scientific fact.

One of the primary problems with evolutionary theory is its very foundation.

How did nonliving chemicals become life?

If this were possible, how did a “simple” life form develop into something more complex?

Here Jim just displays his ignorance of, oh I don’t know, perhaps the last 40 years of research, or what “deep time” means. Now I know Jim, or at least I know who he is. He’s old enough to know better than to be silly in this way. But he gets sillier.

Evaluation of what constitutes a “simple” life form even from a naive, unscientific standpoint illuminates the need for an incredible amount of faith to accept evolution as established fact.

Which is bizarre, since his entire article is a clear essay on naivete and unscientific principles, and especially the need for blind, unthinking faith.

Certainly it’s true that we know, for instance, a lot more about the planet Saturn than we do about how proteins collide and curl. But does our ignorance require us to propose a God of the Gaps to explain it all? Hardly. It’s just as rational to suggest that Santa magicked it all from his bag of toys.

If evolutionary theory has transcended the realm of science, could it be deemed a religion if, at its foundation, was faith, and if those who questioned this faith, were branded as heretics?

No.

No, Jim.

Because faith requires absolute dogmatic adherence to received truth.

Science quests, re-evaluates, seeks, and reformulates constantly under pressure of observed reality and tested results.

There is no religion which can stand under science. Religion is not science. Hence, obviously, science is not religion.

Evolutionary fact has indeed transcended the realm of science, just as 2 + 2 = 4 has transcended the idea of prayer. This is because some facts, such as the laws of physics, aren’t theories in any but the most technical of ways; they are fundamental bedrocks of nature and reality. Saying evolution is “just a theory” is tantamount to suggesting that the sphericity of Earth is a nice but impossible idea.

Ah, and then Jim’s bullshittery begins to spread thick. Watch as he lays the classic, inane schoolboy’s argument about the nature of god and faith.

However, no debate on the subject would be complete without contemplation of what the results would be in a society that blindly accepts evolutionary theory and follows it to its logical conclusion.

We would have a society where some men are more equal than others, where we would be doing a service to that society by eliminating the inferior, and the flawed.

We would have a society where there would be legal and moral justification for this elimination.

We would have a society where the criminal could claim to be the victim.

Right. Evolution, the fact, does away with evolved social laws, according to Jim. The classic stupidity rendered by a man who, apparently, would be a Nazi or rapist or thief, if he were not cowed into place by his domineering god.

Well played, Jim. But sadly, utterly and totally wrong.

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