Evolution in the News - Neanderthals and Georgia.

Science Daily News reports on the findings of the largest and most comprehensive study on the question of whether Neanderthals were incorporated into the Homo Sapien lineage or were a separate species. The conclusion:

The study found that the differences measured between modern humans and Neanderthals were significantly greater than those found between subspecies or populations of the other species studied. The data also showed that the difference between Neanderthals and modern humans was as great or greater than that found between closely related primate species.

Hence, Neanderthals were a different species who lost out in the evolutionary struggle.

In other news, Georgia's silly law removing the word "evolution" from the teaching of evolution has generated they typical buzz among "skeptics" and "freethinkers." (See, for example, John Scalzi's Post.) Now, obviously, I'm fascinated by evolution and I accept the the theory of evolution as an explanation for what really happened in "deep time." I've had my share of debates with "creationists." I agree with most of Scalzi's observations about the proper way of challenging science. And, definitely, I find that the arguments of creationists have a "fingernail scratching on chalkboard" effect on me.

Why, then, do I get the same "fingernail on chalkboard" feeling about the anti-creationists? What is it about the people who seem to envision themselves as latter day Clarence Darrows manning the lonely barricades against the hordes of ignorant creationists. Pharyngula, for example, with respect Georgia's "rub the serial numbers off of evolution" approach writes:

Why does being a Republican party member have such a strong correlation with this kind of nonsense? I know that there are reasonable Republicans out there: why aren't you loudly shouting down the lunatic wing of your party?

Well, why should I? Because evolution is the prime center of Pharyngula's worldview? Who cares? People managed to live for millenia without any idea of evolution and if, tomorrow, evolution were replaced by a paradigm shift in favor of "space men zapping life into existence," how would anyone's life change? The very next day people would wake up and find that the highways are jammed. Lights would light. Dogs would bark.

Likewise, Three-Toed Sloth proproses a faux-federal initiative that would deny funding to school districts which dissent from the received orthodoxy of evolution. What's next? Marking dissenters with large red "C"s? Denying work visas to anyone who fails to sign a loyalty pledge to evolutionary orthodoxy?

Don't get me wrong. I favor the teaching of evolution because I'm philosophically in favor of Truth, which is one reason why I found the DaVinci Code so obnoxious. But, you know, all kinds of untruths are being shoved down my kids throats at their public schools every year, such as the moral neutrality of homosexuality and the idea that because they're "white" or, as my daughter was led to believe, "English," they are the direct heirs of southern slave owners. ("You're not English," I pointed out to my daughter, "The English were the people who didn't emancipate your ancestors until the 1820s and who drove your ancestors to America where they were drafted into the Union Army to fight the people who owned the slaves.")

Likewise, I have to take my time and money to make sure that my children learn the truths that are of central importance to their cultural tradition. But when it's my core beliefs that are involved, I find that people allied with Pharyngula have created a paradigm that preempts my core beliefs. So, why should I get excited when it's something that the secular left uses to bash the people they hate most, the fundamentalist Christians?

Another reason for my indifference to dissent about evolutionary education is that the very people most exercised by dissent by creationists also regularly post bumper stickers on their care that say "Question Authority" and write histrionics about the stifling of free thought and such-like. Yet, when they are confronted for the first time by such dissent to their cherished beliefs, they start reaching for social control mechanisms like ridicule and denial of funding. It looks like hypocrisy. It looks like a narrow minded attack by the elite members of society on a minority group. It looks like thought control.

And a final reason for my indifference is that evolution has won. No one seriously thinks that evolutionary theory can ever be read out of social consciousness. Too many cultural metaphors are wrapped up in the worldview of evolution. Books on evolution will be published and get wide acceptance for the foreseeable future. Information about evolution will inevitably spread because people like myself find the subject true and fascinating and we'll spread it by relaying the latest findings on, for example, Neanderthals. Outside of provincial areas, evolution has won the hearts and minds of society in general. That's not going to change and if tolerance - I repeat tolerance - means that those with an investment in creationism be allowed to find a formula for reconciling their faith with science, well, then in the interests of tolerance, shouldn't they be allowed to do so.

Ah, to heck with creationists. Fire up the auto da'fe.