Does the FIL in the OP not believe evolution is real, or does he just think both sides should be taught? I’m not sure what the “other side” in the OP even refers to. For example, my ultra-Catholic (but not so conservative) father believes evolution is real, but that it is guided by god. So, god created life in the first place, then allows for evolution.
The problem is that in the USA the other side is supposed to not be the god of the bible, but an “Intelligent Designer”.
Dropping god was needed in the attempt to “tech the controversy” in schools, I do not think Catholics would appreciate to drop god, their position fits more with evolution science as IIRC the official point from the church is that physical evolution is real, but the human soul is not.
I have a better example. After all it is in liberal quarters such as Boulder and Berkeley that massive quantities of parents are ignoring lots of scientific consensus, insisting on going with their own beliefs, and refusing to get their kids immunized.
(Not that this isn’t happening in other places, but it is more prevalent in liberal areas and among liberal people.)
Confronted with this, they will point to a generated false controversy and then insist that their beliefs are paramount. Never mind that others are getting sick from their actions. There are recent threads about this.
And this extends to many things, frankly, to unfortunate conspiracy theories held by some African-Americans about crack and AIDS, to the moon landing crackpots, to the 9/11 truthers. I would chalk this up to an unfortunate flaw in our national character except that my travels have shown me numberless other examples worldwide. This is a general human trait.
It might be unfortunate that the OP’s father rejects evolution (which, incidentally, I accept pretty readily). It’s as bad or worse that some liberals reject immunization - at least rejecting Darwin won’t kill a baby in the same neighborhood. Frankly, I don’t know what to do about it except to chalk it up to human nature - an interesting by-product of liberty.
The alternative would likely be worse - while looking things up for this post I discovered that the faked moon landing theory seems to have been part of the Cuban school curriculum at one time.
snip.
Same difference. If you let one in, you let them all in or none. I think it’s easy to see that those insisting on teaching intelligent design would be pretty pissed if their children had to learn a unit on how the world was formed from the body parts of the giant Ymir for example. Or the idea of an extraterrestrial intervention seeding life, or being responsible for the sudden explosion of humanity and culture, etc…
Since there is no evidence for any of these ideas they have no place in the science classroom. Teach them in social sciences if you must, but they are not equally valid to proven fact.
Perhaps it’s because William F. Buckley was intelligent, dignified, and respectful of those with opposing viewpoints, whereas today’s standard-bearers of Conservatism (Limbaugh, Beck, et al) are none of the above.
I wonder if it is fair to blame this entirely on the movement though. it seems to me the media bears a lot of the blame in encouraging flash over substance to garner ratings in this respect.
I have never gotten any sense of any particular political ideology being associated with the anti-vax movement, nor any particular locations like Boulder and Berkeley. Can you point to any evidence whatsoever that the anti-vax movement is somehow associated with liberals?
Fair enough – and of course the Left has Michael Moore as their resident knee-jerk whack-job.
But for whatever reason, you don’t tend to see hordes of liberals joining in lock-step to parrot every insane thing Moore ever utters. It’s difficult (if not impossible) to quantify, and not that there isn’t such behavior on both ends, but my observation is that right-wingers tend to display far more willful ignorance and obstructionism than lefties.
I agree with this. Let’s remember two things:
First, Firing Line aired on PBS with support from foundations - it never made a dime. While it was great television in many ways, it wasn’t commercially successful television any more than National Review is a commercially successful magazine.
Limbaugh, Beck et al have to earn their keep. Buckley never had a problem with Limbaugh while he was alive - he knew he filled a different role.
Secondly, there are still thoughtful interviews and debates out there - they just aren’t on TV, generally. Peter Robinson of NR runs a very thorough interview series on their website - while the guests are generally conservative, the interviews are very in depth, and the guests are influential (Antonin Scalia was a recent interviewee). There are also great lib/con debates at http://bloggingheads.tv/.
Get off it.
I, for one, am sick and tired of hearing ignorant bullshit like this spewed from every liberal orifice available. We have our fringe, and just like our crazy cousin in the attic, we don’t talk about them until they start jumping up and down and shaking the ceiling. Gee, just like the libs.
If your old man has decided to not believe in evolution, it’s not because of the right in general; we believe in it. Instead of braying like a jackass caught in a barbwire fence, try asking your old man why he has chosen to change his beliefs. I agree, it’s not a logical change, and I’m willing to bet that he’s been listening to Cousin Lenny in the attic.
But shut the fuck up with the broad-brush painting, already.
Nonsense. It’s simply undeniable that there is a concerted effort to combat evolution going on in America today. To suggest that it’s a bunch of individuals individually coming to a conclusion about evolution is simply moronic.
It’s also inescapable that the concerted effort to combat evolution is inextricably linked to the political right wing. These people are nearly entirely socially conservative. If you are right wing but not socially conservative, you cannot really cry foul - you all collectively made your bed with these people. Don’t like it? Then combat the holy alliance you’ve made, not outsiders calling you on it.
According to Christopher Buckley, Rushbo doesn’t seem to realize this.
Priceless.
Now, there are conservative anti-vaxers too, just as there are liberals who deny evolution. But there should be no question that in certain liberal quarters the anti-vax movement has special appeal. Does this necessarily invalidate the broader movement? Not at all, any more than a few deniers of evolution should threaten a broad conservative movement.
But the problem is that a pretty good percentage of the population doesn’t even have the expertise to evaluate the primary research that the scientists rely on as the basis of their argument. For example, Richard Dawkins in The Greatest Show on Earth, offers plenty of examples and evidence for the way that scientists understand evolution, and for the way that evolution works, and i’m sure you’d probably consider a reading of Dawkins and similar works to be a reasonable basis for forming an opinion?
But someone reading Dawkins and forming an opinion is still, in many ways, at the mercy of a more generalized confidence in the competence of the scientific community, and of Dawkins himself. That’s because Dawkins synthesizes a whole lot of more specialized material, much of which has itself been synthesized from even more specialized studies published in technical scientific journals.
I don’t have the academic and technical background to understand all the individual studies and experiments that make up the scientific basis for an understanding of evolution. Nor do i have the time to spend reading every journal article on the various aspects of evolutionary biology and other similar fields. I am, therefore, in a very real way, at the mercy of a certain confidence in the weight of scientific opinion on the matter.
Perhaps i didn’t make clear in my post that i believe people should do some reading, and should attempt to arrive at an understanding of the subject. But that reading does not need to be The Origin of Species. And the reading we do still relies of confidence in the community of scientists.
The prominence of recent debates over evolution, including things like the teaching of evolution and creationism in the schools, means that there have been some very good journalistic pieces in newspapers and in popular science magazines summarizing the most important aspects of the scientific evidence for evolution. Also, organizations like the Union of Concerned Scientists publish information about it on their website, and other prominent institutions like UC Berkeley also detail the current thinking in a way that non-specialists can understand.
But, as i suggested earlier regarding Dawkins, accepting these summaries and these attempts to explain evolution in plain language still relies on a belief in the weight of scientific opinion, because most people don’t have the training or the ability to evaluate the primary source research on the subject. When i said that my confidence in evolution was based in confidence on the scientific agreement on the matter, i wasn’t simply saying, “Well, i know most scientists believe in evolution, so it must be true.” I was saying, “The reading i’ve done on the subject has convinced me that most scientists have good reasons for concluding that evolution is true.” But i don’t kid myself that having read even Darwin and Dawkins makes me an expert on evolution; i’m still relying on the expertise of others.
“A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.” Alexander Pope.
BTW, Marin County voted 73% for Kerry and 78% for Obama, and has a reputation for new-age theories and personal behavior.
Mr. Moto I agree that the fringe should not characterize a movement, but do you really think that the numbers of ultra-hippy, anti-vac, super libs is even remotely equivalent to the numbers of the religious right in the conservatives? The difference is proportions, and level of acceptance among the larger group. Most libs try to distance themselves from the loons, nearly all that I’ve spoken with would prefer they associate elsewhere politically. I can’t say that I’ve heard the same from the right. Instead I tend to get a sort of sort of embarrassed admiration that the person I am speaking with wishes they had the convictions of the rabid right. That certainly isn’t meant to color everyone on the right, but I see a lot more of that than I do on the left.
I wonder if you see how it is that your evidence is a complete fail, vis a vis your claim? Do you need me to point it out, because it is blindingly obvious.
ETA: Okay, I’ll spare you the suspense. If you’re going to claim that there’s a relationship between two variables, you can’t just point to one end of one distribution (or one group) and talk about the level of the other variable.
Here, you don’t even bother to give any comparisons to any rates any where else. You’ve just pointed to what you want to claim are liberal enclaves, and talked about what the rates of immunization are there. What in hell do you think this even shows?
BTW, do you realize that one of your own cites talks about the contribution of religious convictions to anti-vax feelings, as well as the role of people like Phyllis Schlafly in the debate? I’d say you’ve got all kinds of FAIL going on with your effort here.
OK, i’m officially nominating this for the laugh-out-loud paragraph of the year, or maybe the Unintended Irony Award.
The very idea of you, Starving Artist, invoking William F. Buckley in making a call for “intelligent, dignified discussions of opposing viewpoints” is perhaps the most hilarious thing ever to grace these message boards.
I don’t like Buckley’s politics, but his intellect was never in question, and neither was his influence in bringing together the traditionalist and the libertarian factions of American conservatism to form a reasonably cohesive and quite influential intellectual movement.
Which brings me to the crux of the issue here:
I have no hesitation is saying unequivocally, Starving Artist, that if William F. Buckley were a member of this message board, he would want nothing to do with you or with the vast majority of your arguments. If he were at a gathering with you, and you made some of the same arguments you’ve made here, he would look down that patrician nose of his, sniff a little, and probably move to the other side of the room. You would embarrass the hell out of him, precisely because you lack every single facet of the intellectual engagement and rigor that he brought to his ideology. You’re a cartoon; you are the anti-Buckley, the type of person from whom he was trying to rescue conservatism.
Just silly. The right has abandoned its old role of being a voice of caution in case we move too fast, to being a bunch of people who care nothing at all about facts or reasoning. From creationism, to death panels, to supply side economics, you just make shit up with no regards to reality. You want to use religion as a cudgel to support your utterly baseless beliefs, and you think evolution challenges religion, so you attack evolution. This is the new face of conservatism: a stream of falsehoods, hatred, and prejudice but all OK because it advances your cause of creating an American Taliban.