Anti-Evolution Georgia Lawmaker Attributes Theory to Jewish Mystics

If the Bible is the "infallible word of God", that means there's a [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament]firmament[/url] above the earth with water on the other side, and when it rains it's God opening a trapdoor in the firmament to let water in.

So all those satellites and space shuttles and whatnot we've fired into space would've hit some kind of solid wall if this were true.

Also, there's no such thing as God.

I'm guessing this politician wants to keep science education in Georgian public schools on pretty much the level it was on when [i]he[/i] came through. I'd also love to know where he went to college, [i]if[/i] he went to college, and what he majored in.

The course of his thinking not only sidetracks Charles Darwin in particular, and secular rationalism, in general, but it misses the obvious target: Ancient Greek philosophy. Darwin revived the theory of evolution and amended it at a time when science was finally becoming good enough to provide substantial evidence for the theory. But the [i]idea[/i] that all life on earth is derived from simpler forms of life, by a purely natural process, is as old as the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers. They worked it out by reason and reflection long before the dawn of modern science.

I'm thinking [URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaxagoras]Anaxagoras[/URL] was one of the better proponents of "atomic" materialism; although, David Hume was quite convinced that the charges of atheism against Anaxagoras (ironically) were false.

People like this Georgian politician, I'm guessing just aren't educated enough to even be in the conversation, and those who [b]are[/b] reasonably well-educated still bend to the will of a largely ignorant public. Nice the way he blends anti-intellectualism and anti-semitism into a single stupid punch. The "Jewish Conspiracy Theory" folks must love him.

Oh yeah, I'd also be willing to bet that his hack theory--attributing the idea of evolution to Jewish mystics--is traceable to some new agey literature that blends spiritual concepts with scientific jargon, while understanding neither. "Kabbalah" is now the province of people who were into channeled entities and crystal healing, just last week.

Until people proved otherwise, it was believed that maggots were spontaneously generated by rotting meat, and rats and mice were spontaneously generated by filth. It sounds stupid now, but until some guy in the 15th century covered some meat with a fine cloth that flies couldn't land on and linked flies crawling on the meat to the appearance of maggots, abiogenesis was the prevailing theory. Just because an idea is old doesn't mean it's right.

And you don't have to be very smart to get elected. The only prerequisite is that a majority of voters check your name, on purpose or by accident.

[QUOTE=Spike;932037]Just because an idea is old doesn't mean it's right.[/Quote]
Certainly that. But isn't it ironic that the idea of evolution [i]predates[/i] Christianity, even though the better organizing of proofs only begins during the Victorian age? Just because an idea is old, also doesn't mean it's wrong.

But why is it that some ideas are held to the heart with no regard for evidence, or the lack of it? It can only be the obvious, that we are not wholly rational beings. I know that I am not. I know I have my private corners of hope, dread and superstition. I even have vivid personal experiences that ratify certain categories of non-rational knowing, things that forever elude the grasp of science (I've known at least one or two genuine psychics, for real). BUT, I don't [i]discount[/i] science and rationality altogether, or toss them aside flippantly as just one more form of discourse competing for cultural hegemony.

Today we have a rash of anti-rational ideologies, from the revival of fundumentalist forms of ancient religions, all the way to the extremes of postmodernism and cultural relativism. Even the more sophisticated anti-rationalists, those who claim to be anthropologists or cultural studies gurus or whatever, are people who wouldn't want milk without pasteurization, dentistry without anasthetic, or surgery without sterile instruments, yet they heap scorn on the centuries of natural philosophy that finally blossomed into modern science ... and at the cost of torture and death for many of the innovators.

Science has its martyrs. But where are the monuments for Boethius or Giodorno Bruno? Where is any building as large as the Crossroads Christian Church--a gigantic compound a couple of miles from me--but dedicated to the life and works of Voltaire, Denis Diderot, and Sir Francis Bacon? I want to live in a world where the progenitors of the Renaissance and the 18th century enlightenment mean as much to as many people as the image of a crucified rabbi means to others. We're clearly in a dark age when that balance is off.

[Quote]
And you don't have to be very smart to get elected. The only prerequisite is that a majority of voters check your name, on purpose or by accident.[/QUOTE]

I'd say that being [i]very smart[/i] is even a barrier to getting elected. Unless you're a genuinely political animal, good all your life at hiding any opinion that might upset the majority of your potential constituency. No person, of any gender or any race - but openly atheistic - stands any chance at all for the U.S. presidency, for example, regardless of real qualifications.

Vig have you written a published book yet. What's it called?

[QUOTE=veryhungryhobo;932376]Vig have you written a published book yet. What's it called?[/QUOTE]

No, not yet. Place your order now and I'll see what I can whip up. Meantime, you might like to read some Richard Dawkins. His book, [i]The God Delusion[/i] provided some of the fuel for my latest rant.