Evolution Is Like Pork

My thoughts on the occasion of Earth Day and the March for Science.

Why does everybody know that Jews do not eat pork, and why does anybody care?  It seems to be a big deal.  It did not used to be a big deal.  Pork was not a big deal among the Jews in that the pig was not singled out, among all other ritually unclean animals, as being uniquely unclean.  The pig, not specifically named and along with other animals, merely falls into that category of animals with a split hoof that do not chew their cud.  That's it.

There is nothing special about the pig, except that for the long centuries that Jews lived among their Christian hosts in central and eastern Europe, pork was the chief distinction in the dietary habits of Christians and Jews.  And people tend to notice differences, no matter how small, no matter how meaningless.  And such differences, the less meaningful the better, are frequently the focal points of bigotry and violence.

So now, let's think for a moment about the debate over teaching evolution in the schools.  Why do we do it?  Is it because evolution is true and important?  I doubt it.  Taxation is true and important, and vastly more relevant to the lives of most Americans, but we don't teach that.  Think of it this way, would an auto mechanic be better at his work because he was taught the theory of evolution?  A tax accountant?  A lawyer?  Not even physicists and electrical engineers would be better at their work for knowing about evolution.

Pretty much nobody needs to know the theory of evolution, except biologists.  So educators are making an awful big deal of a subject that is irrelevant to most people.  They talk about the teaching of evolution as if every public school child is a budding research geneticist.  This is preposterous, and it requires some thought.

One of the main arguments for the teaching of the theory of evolution in the public schools is that American citizens should know something about the principles of science.  I agree with that, but that is an argument for a general science curriculum, not for evolution.  Not even for biology.  Not only does biology not need to be part of a general science curriculum, but if you are teaching biology, evolution should not be part of the biology classroom.

The study of biology does not begin with evolution.  Rather, you have to explore a lot of elementary biology before you have any hope of making sense of evolution.  This is quite like the teaching of the theory of relativity in physics.  Physics does not begin with relativity.  Rather, you have a lot of work to do in physics before you can hope to understand relativity.

Absent a good scientific foundation in physics, relativity is just catechism.  And, absent a good scientific foundation in biology, evolution is just catechism.  So here is the position in which we find ourselves.  Educators insist on teaching a subject that is

(a) unnecessary for their stated aim (conveying the principles of scientific thinking),
(b) irrelevant to the lives of the vast majority of Americans, and
(c) in the wrong place in the curriculum if you do insist on teaching biology;

And they are hysterical about this.  If we do not teach evolution in the schools, they say, we would descend into medievalism.  Hardly, so what is really going on, here?  Since the teaching of the theory of evolution does not make sense on its own terms, I feel free to speculate.

I believe that evolution is a central issue in the debate over public education because it is the chief distinction between Christians and socialists.  In other words, there is nothing in Christian doctrine that conflicts with, say, the laws of thermodynamics, or relativity, or quantum mechanics.  Christians do not object to factoring polynomials or to the double-angle formula in trigonometry.  Christians have no problem with any part of the general curriculum, and with no part of the science curriculum---except the theory of evolution, a theory that is wholly irrelevant to everybody except that minuscule fraction of the world population that is occupied with research in biology.

I should add that the people who care about the theory of evolution least of all, and understand it least of all, are the Leftist educators who so shrilly insist upon it.  If Leftists actually understood the theory of evolution we would never hear that race is a social construct, and we would never, ever hear that gender is a social construct.

Clearly, the theory of evolution is important to the Leftists not for the science of it, but because it is a central part of their war on Christianity in particular, and on Judeo-Christian civilization in general.  The theory of evolution is the chief distinction between Christians and socialists in just the way pork was the chief distinction between Christians and Jews in Medieval Europe.  And, just as pork was the focus of anti-Jewish bigotry in Medieval Europe, the theory of evolution is the focus of anti-Christian bigotry in 21st century America.

And that is how evolution is like pork.