No, the debate over evolution is not really about a scientific idea. It is just one part of a struggle over how Americans understand the world. At issue is this: Will we continue to be a reality-based society, or not?

Placing our understanding of reality in the hands of purveyors of belief -- whether they are political ideologues, religious zealots or corporate spin doctors -- would mean that we have decided to believe what we choose, rather than rely on factual evidence. Unless compelled by facts, people rarely choose to revise comfortable assumptions or to make sacrifices. America’s conversion into a belief-based society would mark the beginning of an inexorable slide into delusional thinking. Some could argue that this process is already well-advanced.

Before the invasion of Iraq, neoconservative members of the Bush administration disparaged "reality-based" diplomacy as quaint and old-fashioned. An unnamed senior official was quoted as stating: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."
The disastrous course of events in Iraq following our "victory" there has proved the folly of allowing belief to pre-empt attention to facts. Any society that believes it is immune to the basic workings of cause and effect is doomed to decline.

Relying on science to understand reality and to predict consequences does not diminish religion. For almost all people the world around, religion fills existence with meaning and provides moral instruction on how to live. Neither evolution, nor the fact that the earth is not the center of the universe, nor any other once "blasphemous" finding of science, threatens religious faith.

Those who condemn science in the name of religion have a terrible record, ranging from medieval Christian clerics who plunged Europe into the Dark Ages, to contemporary Islamic extremists who reject any conclusion that conflicts with their interpretation of the Koran. How could the United States even contemplate surrendering our understanding of the world to purveyors of belief? That surrender will have begun if we allow a trumped-up debate between science and non-science -- evolution and intelligent design -- a place in our education system. The stakes could not be higher.

Piece as sent out by Writers on the Range, early September 2005