By Anthony Cefali
The Daily Cardinal
Happy belated birthday, Charles Darwin. Look how far we've come since you sailed around the world. Look how much we've learned about your elegant theory that explains how something as complex as a human being wrought with consciousness, morality and curiosity could share a common ancestor with every other living thing on this planet. One hundred and fifty years of human-guided evolution have passed, but social acceptance of evolution in America has not even made it onto land yet. If standards for science education are not set to eliminate the pedantic complaints of intelligent design, we risk further damaging the natural cycles of our planet as well as the education of future generations.
Recently, there has been a resurgence of the evolution-creationism debate at the state and county level. It is at this level that evolution is losing traction among the American people. The state of Wisconsin mandates the teaching of evolution, but the ultimate curriculum decisions are left up to the school boards. Because of perverse special interests, Darwin's theory is being emphasized as strictly a theory open for debate alongside the concept that we are all descendents of a man and a rib-woman. In Georgia, high-school biology textbooks must be labeled with a sticker stating, Evolution is a theory, not a fact,"" and it ""should be approached with an open mind."" Blanket statements like these only serve to cause students to mistrust evolution and their educators, not question it in a productive way.
Evolution, along with other academic endeavors, should always be approached with an open mind. As students, it is our duty to evaluate and debate our subjects to better understand them and possibly even to improve them. This is how we achieve scientific progress - through the constant revision of paradigms. But evolution has answered the questions of real science and should not have to answer to the arrogant skepticism of intelligent design. Darwin's concept of natural selection had plenty of philosophical holes upon conception, holes that we have since plugged up and continue to fill with the help of modern genetics and paleontology. Much to the chagrin of the scientific community, creationist thought persists and is even thriving in some respects.
The United States is pretty much the last bastion of intelligent design. According to a recent Gallup poll, only 39 percent of Americans believe in evolution, while at least 25 percent firmly do not. Since 1980, belief in evolution among adults has actually declined. In a modern age, we are furiously backpedaling. There is an innate fear that nothing happens when we die, so we overcompensate.
Proponents of intelligent design feed this insecurity with dishonest books, television programs and museums dedicated to restoring homocentric ideals. Somewhere along the line teachers became parrots of Darwinist falsities to be corrected by pastors and parents. Authority needs to be removed from the school boards and other powerful people who are carrying out special interests in the name of halting ""moral degradation"" and restored to the people with the facts - our teachers.
The truth is we are in control of evolution now. We are in the midst of the Earth's sixth mass extinction, and we are responsible for it. Life is resilient; it will always find a way to exist in any form it possibly can. But now, as the only sentient beings on this planet, it is up to us to guide evolution responsibly and with regard for our planet's future. Not being accountable for our actions and denying blatant facts in favor of comforting fantasy is destructive to the planet. And as Carl Sagan once said, ""In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.""
Anthony Cefali is a junior majoring in biology and English. Please send responses to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
