Chasing Darwin

I have an undeniable soft spot for Pat Robertson. While these are words I never thought I would utter, his level of general goofiness has gone from mortifying to having high entertainment value. At the moment, he's warning the members of a Pennsylvania town that they have voted God out of office when they replaced a school board advocating "intelligent design." I hadn't realized that He met the residency requirements to make it on the ballot in the first place.

First of all, I thought that we had settled the whole evolution question the better part of a century ago. I guess I was wrong. However I find this advocation of "intelligent design" distressing for another reason: those teachers inclined to actually teach it well are precisely those that will skim over evolution.

In high school, my brother Daniel got sent to a Baptist military boarding school the year that he took biology. By the end of the year he could make a "creation ball" but the full extent of what he knew about evolution amounted to the law of the jungle. Once he hit college, he asked me to explain to him exactly what evolution is. Luckily he's a history major, but it scares me to think that a generation of American scientists may find themselves in the same boat - not knowing a thing about the most accepted origination theory until they reach their baccalaureate studies.

In the meantime, I hope every parent takes their child(ren) aside and ensures that the school system is teaching them what they need to know. Whether it is evolution, civics, history, art, languages or grammar. In this era of "teaching to the test" and "no child left behind," I believe parents, mentors and role models ought to ensure that today's kids get a full education. It's just a shame that they don't seem to be able to get it in school.