why is everyone so afraid of evolution?

I am escaping again this weekend, this time, I am off to visit some friends in Charlotte. Good times should be had.

I have been thinking about something for a few days, and I want to leave you to ponder and discuss this over the weekend; my friend deb sent me an article about a “Creationism Museum” that they are opening in Kentucky. And, in light of the recent “anti-evolution” school standards being overturned in Kansas (article), I thought it would pertinent for me to pose a question that I honestly and wholeheartedly want to understand.

Why do people that believe solely in creationism (i.e., that God created the world and all of the universe) have such a problem with evolution? (note that I did not say, “why don’t they believe in evolution”, I want to know why they have such a problem with it) Seriously. And I don’t want the typical, “people are blinded by religion” or the “people don’t want to challenge their beliefs with other ideas”; I already know that those answer the question. But to me, I just don’t understand how a museum, and laws preventing evolution being taught in school will make it any less true. With that being said, note that I am fine with people believing in whatever religion they want; I believe in one (some of it anyway), and I don’t see anything wrong with belief. I also don’t see anything wrong with NOT believing something, like religion, which is something based on faith anway.

But, with something like evolution, which we have millions of years of evidence for, I just believe it is sheer ignorance to ignore that, and then formulate your own methods of teaching children about the world around them (both are okay, if taught together). I have a problem with people forcing their religious beliefs on others (specifically when it comes to publicly funded schools and programs), and I totally believe that attempting to teach creationism or intelligent design in place of evolution is doing just that; forcing people to be taught one particular “religious theory” as to the creation and development of the world.

Now I know what you are thinking, but wait, duane, by teaching evolution, aren’t we doing that? The answer is no. Evolution is a scientific theory that is backed by MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of facts and evidence that only point to the one possibility that it did indeed happen. What I don’t see, is millions and millions of facts and evidence supporting religious explanations of the creation of the world, after all, isn’t the paramount principle of religion, faith?

I understand that people want their children to believe that God created the world, and that is the end of it, but doing so in a public school is wrong. Especially when you take away real scientific explanation (evolution), and replace it with religious propaganda. If you want to teach intelligent design and creationism, I am all for it, but either keep it at home/church, or call it what it is; religious opinion and a religious explanation of how YOU think the world was created.

What are your thoughts? Do you think evolution should be taught in school? As someone that holds a master’s degree and an undergrad degree in Anthropology, I honestly don’t understand how anyone can deny evolution, we literally have proven that we descended from the same ancestors as apes. We have proof. Irrefutable proof. So why is it so controversial? It is real, right? If I started going around saying that you shouldn’t eat at McDonalds because they use children in their chicken nuggets; just because I say it, does that make it true? I would need some evidence for the Health Department to go in, right? Well, that is similar to this. If you want to call religion science, I need some hard facts to show that it can actually be compared to science, because now, we are trying to compare stars and sheep. It just makes no sense to mask religion in science… and deny fact, does it?

What are your thoughts? Do you agree? Why, or why not? I’ll be back on Sunday to see what you had to say. Have a good weekend, kids!