PUZZLED? Don’t Be; Take Back Our Language.

I’m Rick James, Bitch

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“To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect,” Jones [Judge making ruling] concluded. “However, the fact that scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.”

Susan Jacoby: The Age of American Unreason. Random House: New York, 2008. Pp. 29. (In reference to Court Finding Re. creationism in public education.)

We offer the following. Copernicus’ theory was a complete and sufficient explanation of the observable astronomical phenomena of the time, given his contemporary tools of observation and analytic methods. The cosmologies of pre-christian cultures in the Fertile Crescent found flaming chariots arcing through the sky to be complete and sufficient explanations for their observed experience. Today’s religious extremists would use the apparent incompleteness(?) of Darwin’s thought to reject the entire body of evidence proving that evolution takes place. They would not only reject it themselves, but would expel it from our teaching curriculum. They might settle for using it to “wedge” (remember Darwin’s “wedge” analogy?) creation “science” into our schools.

Copernicus’ theory, and those of, say, Newton and Einstein, have proved to be incomplete and insufficient explanations of our entire, observable reality, partly in light of the scientific “progress” they engendered. They are still valid. Needless to say, creationism provides a coherent, credible, complete and sufficient explanation for nothing –precisely nothing- in our observed reality. It is faith; as such, it stands proudly, precisely and solely on the fact that it bears no connection –none- to observed reality.

The Roman Church painfully and reluctantly acknowledged the validity of Copernican science. They even permit it to be taught in Italian schools! Newtonian mechanics and Einstein’s observations of special and general relativity seem to be accepted and acceptable science. (Or maybe not; maybe that stuff isn’t taught in our dumbed-down public education system but only in those high-brow egg-head intellectual schools up East, and is not presently targeted by the creationists.)

Einstein’s observations demanded further development of the theories (and observations) of Copernicus. Thusly, the “incompleteness” of Copernican astronomy is proved. (What business do these people have trafficking in “proofs,” anyway? Why do we bother to endure this tripe?) Before long, will this be used to thrust the geocentric “theory” of astronomy into our classrooms, alongside the heliocentric astronomical “theory?”

“Instead, I write in my notebook, Faith is belief in something you have absolutely no reason or right to believe in. Mentally, I list: faith in God, faith in the church, faith in your spouse, faith in the next sunrise, faith in motions of the stars themselves. Then I write: Faith is beyond thought. Faith is an absolute certainty of something that is so patently absurd you could never justify it to anyone who didn’t already have the same faith.”

Gerald N. Callahan, Ph.D: Faith, Madness and Spontaneous Human Combustion: What Immunology Can Teach Us About Self-Perception. New York: Berkeley Books, 2002. Pp 162

A Certainty of Something So Patently Absurd: Gerald Callahan

“Instead, I write in my notebook, Faith is belief in something you have absolutely no reason or right to believe in. Mentally, I list: faith in God, faith in the church, faith in your spouse, faith in the next sunrise, faith in motions of the stars themselves. Then I write: Faith is beyond thought. Faith is an absolute certainty of something that is so patently absurd you could never justify it to anyone who didn’t already have the same faith.”

Gerald N. Callahan, Ph.D: Faith, Madness and Spontaneous Human Combustion: What Immunology Can Teach Us About Self-Perception. New York: Berkeley Books, 2002. Pp 162