on Evolution

Score one for science and zero for creationism in Texas.  The Texas Board of Education voted unanimously to reject any creationist supplements to its science curriculum.  This is quite a change for this notoriously "right wing" school board.

Evolution has been coming under attack ever since Darwin (and his predecessors) proposed the concept.  The fight between teaching school children we were created by magic or we were created by a complex biological function seemed to finally come to an end with the Scopes "Monkey" Trial.  Evolution won.

When I was in high school, I saw a film which tried to explain evolution.  The animation presented showed a fish that sprouted legs, walked onto the beech, then became a lizard which eventually turned into a bird.  The animation took about three minutes.  Despite the fact the narrator said this conversion process took millions of years to accomplish, most of the other kids sitting at my table shook their heads and whispered things like, "I don't believe a fish can turn into a lizard", or "I've never seen a fish jump out of the ocean and turn into a bird".  Although the biology teacher was adept at his subject, I really don't think he was ever able to fully explain evolution to these kids.  And I believe he was probably better at it than the majority of teachers out there, which may explain why so little of the population understands the theory today, or even what the word "theory" actually means.

Too much CSI has dumbed down the word "theory", making it something like a shot in the dark or merely a guess.  I'm not over exaggerating the importance of Darwin's theory when I state it is the underpinning of all our understanding of biology.  Evolution is the umbrella process that incorporates "survival of the fittest", "natural selection", and "mutation".  Without those parts, biology is relegated to "it works by magic".

So I celebrate the Texas Board of Education and hope the teachers really teach the theory so that kids can actually learn it and understand it.  Otherwise in a few short years we're going to see more polls showing the American people overwhelmingly believe magic is the best way to explain our origins.