While enjoying a late breakfast and reading the letters page of the Maine Sunday Telegram I came across a series of salvoes in the debate between evolution and intelligent design proponents.
I harrumphed a little into my toast and muttered something along the lines of "this will never do" after reading one particularly odd letter that seemed to suggest that if we dressed some gorillas in blue jeans the hair on their legs would drop out and the other Levi's-less apes would dwindle to obscurity (I wasn't sure which side that person was arguing; but I suspect given other random grabbing of wrong ends of sticks in the letter he was an 'intelligent designer'). I was getting ready to work up a good head of pointless steam and let fly a barrage of invective at the inanimate and mostly blameless "Insight" section of the Telegram when I was hit by a blinding flash of the obvious.
No matter how hard they yell, and how many of the credulous they convice, intelligent design advocates will still be wrong, and evolution will continue to take place. Ultimately, it matters not if 99.9% of humanity believes that all life was created last Wednesday by a bored Hungarian plumber called The Great Boraty Schink as belief and faith have no impact on the mechanics and functions of basic biology.
Therefore it is in the interests of the rationalists in society to actually encourage advocacy of intelligent design and creationism among the fantasist fundamentalists. Every evening they spend arguing at a school board meeting is an evening they spend away fom writing letters condeming gay rights. Every protest on the steps on the courthouse condeming the Scopes trial is time spent away from blockading the abortion clinic. Every afternoon spent chasing science teachers in order to try them as witches is an afternoon not spent dailing the number on the bottom of the screen during the 700 Club in order to give Pat Robertson money. Indeed, encouraging right wing nutcases to to take up the banner of intelligent design is second only to encouraging them to tour the country with a giganic granite rendering of the Ten Commandments in successfully wasting their time and keeping them out of causing real trouble.
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2 comments:
Excellent point. I am very much in agreement as to your strategy here, even though I myself do not very much care how the world was created or who thinks what. This goes along with my Fundamental Lack of Curiosity About All Things That Occurred More Than 500 Years Ago.
Outstanding. You should listen to Wes and move to Iceland with him: all those Viking sagas will be nothing but background noise as you get dtuck into the hot springs and aquavit.
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