Human Folly

There's a popular meme going around these days: Republicans are destroying the country because they're anti-science - just look how many of them believe in creationism!  It seems I can't turn on NPR these days without hearing someone else clucking over those ignorant Republicans and how their anti-scientism is ruining the country.

Indeed, the number of Republicans who believe in creationism is distressingly high.  Gallup reports that 58% of Republicans believe God created humans in their present form sometime during the past 10000 years. I wish the number were lower.

But interestingly, the number of Democrats who hold strict creationist views is also very high: 41%, slightly higher than that of independents at 39%. I guess anti-scientism is a bi-partisan affair.

I think this illustrates the folly of using a sentinel issue like evolution to judge the mental fitness of a group of people.  Any large group is going to have a lot of misguided people in it.  It's silly to indict a large group of people because many of them hold wrongheaded opinions about something or other, since it's practically guaranteed to be the case for any group you choose.

I'm not trying to justify creationism here, or say that because many Democrats believe in creationism, it's reasonable for Republicans to do so as well.  But my defense of my fellow Republicans also defends Democrats: any human group will be full of human folly.  It's human nature.

I bet that a few hundred years from now, historians will chuckle over other widely held but misinformed views our generation holds.  Just as we do when we look back and realize how profoundly our understanding of fields like astronomy, physics, and medicine has changed, even compared to a generation ago. Although we like to think of ourselves as enlightened and modern, future generations will think of us as old-fashioned and benighted.  Such is the nature of progress.

For example, did you know continental drift was considered laughable until the mid 1960s? The scientific establishment ridiculed and opposed the theory for half a century, starting in 1910.  As a child, my father grew up in a world where the leading geologists were 100% wrong on the fundamentals of their field, where they refused to acknowledge scientific evidence because of pre-conceived ideas.

I don't believe this very human error invalidates all the work geologists did before they came around.  During the same time geologists repudiated continental drift, they invented radiometric dating, which has been a fundamental tool in many fields of science.  Geologists may have held some wrongheaded beliefs, but they still changed the world for the better.

Even though we're probably all wrong about many things, I think as a society we can make progress.  Our ancestors managed to transform the world for the better, despite all the wrongheaded things they held dear, and I believe we can too.

So please, NPR and friends, stop wringing your hands about how Republicans are ruining the country because they're all too stupid to understand evolution.  Let's find common ground and solve our common problems, without the stereotypes and judgment. I have faith that over time, truth and reason will prevail.