On "Believeing" in Evolution

Who Doesn't Believe in Evolution? According to Crooks and Liars, three presidential candidates: Sen. Sam Brownback, Rep. Tom Tancredo, and Gov. Mike Huckabee..

But I'm not here to make fun of their willful ignorance and arrogant anti-intellectualism. I'm here to critique the way that Democrats, Progressives, Liberals, Scientists, and thinking people in general think and talk about evolution

First, I don't believe in evolution and you shouldn't either. At least not any more than you believe in gravity.

It is not a question of belief. I accept evolution as a scientific fact. For over one hundred years, the scientific community has modified and refined the idea that organisms evolve over time. Every piece of evidence, every experiment or observation has reinforced the basic idea that 'survival of the fittest' is the mechanism by which new species come into being.

Every time we say that we believe in evolution, we put a scientifically demonstrable phenomenon in the same category as religion. This is dangerous. The forces of deliberate ignorance are already trying to have the 'religion' of secular humanism removed from schools.

Fundamentally, while 'belief' may be dictated by authority, knowledge can only be discovered by inquiry. In the pre-rational era, religious institutions could dictate scientific fact through theology and dogma. Ask Galileo. Evolution is not a mystical, un-provable process (like transubstantiation) that must be taken on faith. We shouldn't treat it or talk about it as if it were.

Evolution Belief Framing