January 20, 2005
Thursday

"This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."

The preceding quote is from a sticker placed in public school science textbooks in Cobb County, Georgia. The county school board adopted the sticker after a woman, who believes in creationism, petitioned the board. The courts ordered the stickers removed following a lawsuit filed by a man who believes the stickers violate the separation of church and state because they condone religion. I think it is a poor argument. I don't see any words in the quote that even hint at religion.

The last time I checked, evolution was still a theory, although there seems to be a lot of evidence to support Darwin's hypothesis. However, even an uneducated person like me knows that we validate scientific theories by conducting experiments to disprove the hypotheses. All of the evidence I have seen attempts to prove the theory of evolution, not challenge it. Anthropologists seem to consider every new set of hominid bones they discover as a new link in the evolutionary chain that ended with Homo sapiens. It is almost as though their goal is to prove that we descended from apes, not that we did not.

Personally, I do not think we descended from apes. I think we came out of the ocean as a lower life form. I place whales at the top of the intellectual ladder. Whales can communicate around the world without using cell phones. Their environment is more beautiful and diverse than anything man has built, and they do not attempt to change it. Whales seem to get along with each other quite well. They do not divorce. They protect their young much better than man does. They are perfectly content with their lives.

Okay, some whales do have problems with beaches, and, once stranded, they tend to lose their sense of direction. However, no one has proven that whales have done this throughout history. I have not read any reports of paleontologists discovering huge caches of fossilized whalebones from a prehistoric mass stranding.

Therefore, I ask the question. What is wrong with believing that God created the whale, but allowed man to evolve?

Getting back to Cobb County's evolution theory stickers, you may think that uneducated religious fundamentalists populate the county. You would be wrong. Cobb County's per capita income is more than 25% higher than the United States average, and that buys many Ford F-150 pickup trucks and six-packs of Budweiser beer.

Bob Ciminel lives in Roswell, Georgia, and works for the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations.  Bob is also a conductor on the Blue Ridge Scenic Railway.


ciminel@sitnews.us

 

Bob Ciminel ©2001 - 2005
All Rights Reserved

Post a Comment         View Comments
Submit an Opinion - Letter

Sitnews
Stories In The News
Ketchikan, Alaska