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The President and the Professor
 President
Bush has propelled the subject of
evolution onto the cover of Time magazine. He favors the idea
of “intelligent design,” which holds that life evidently comes
from a Creator rather than a long series of
accidents.  And
he supports parents who don’t want Darwinism to enjoy a monopoly in
public schools.
He’s quite right, of course.
When all is said, Darwinism remains mere speculation. It presupposes that
the entire universe is physical, period. But what if there is more to it? What
if mind is more than the peculiar matter of the brain? Why should we rule out
the possibility that human reason reflects something divine in the very
nature of things?
This is one of those ideas that
drive liberals nuts. But why should there be any controversy about whether
parents should control their children’s education? Because liberals are
afraid that parents might insist that their children learn the wrong stuff.
Such as religion.
That would violate the separation
of church and state, as, I suppose, would teaching public-school pupils that
the Declaration of Independence is correct about the self-evident truths that
all men are created equal and that the Creator who did the creating has
endowed us with unalienable rights. Imagine what would happen if everyone
believed that! The next thing you know, someone might ban slavery, and then
where would we be?
The American Republic was
founded expressly on what liberals deride as “creationism.” If
you don’t like it, maybe this country is wrong for you. I certainly
wouldn’t want to make anyone feel unwelcome here, but there it is.
But let’s hear the other
side of the story. Time quotes Steven Pinker, the noted
Harvard psychologist, who reminds us, “In practice, religion has given
us stonings, inquisitions, and 9/11.” Not to mention pedophile priests!
So who needs it?
![[Breaker quote for The President and the Professor: Defining the universe -- my way]](2005breakers/050811.gif) There
we have an excellent
one-sentence summary of the liberal’s history of religion. When I saw
the World Trade Center collapse, I had exactly the same thought:
“There goes religion again! No atheist would ever do a lousy thing like
that.”
But doesn’t morality get a
boost, at least, from religion? Professor Pinker again: “Morality comes
from a commitment to treat others as we wish to be treated, which follows
from the realization that none of us is the sole occupant of the
universe.” Thus the so-called Golden Rule derives not from religion, as
vulgarly supposed, but from science.
Before Darwin, we humans thought
we were the sole occupants of the universe, so we naturally had stonings and
inquisitions. Since Darwin, we have become much nicer. Except for guys like
Stalin and Hitler, who drew somewhat different lessons from evolution.
“Overcoming naive
impressions to figure out how things really work,” Professor Pinker
opines, “is one of humanity’s highest callings.” Highest?
Who says? Hasn’t Darwin taught us that words like highest
and lowest express the egotism of our species? And if you believe
that some beings are “higher” than others, you may wind up
believing that there is a “highest” being — God —
and start stoning those who are “lower.”
President Bush went to Harvard
too, and some might say that he emerged unscathed. I wouldn’t know
about that; I went to a minor college in Michigan whose most remarkable
product was a serial killer.
(Whether he was Darwinian or religious I can’t say.)
My point being simply that parents
should have the right to decide how their children are educated. Each of us
has not only unalienable rights, but also, according to three members of the
U.S. Supreme Court, the right to define the universe. Not just part of the
universe, mind you, but the whole thing. This principle, you’ll recall,
was formulated by Justice Anthony Kennedy.
That would seem to cover
evolution, would it not? Why should I have to teach my child that his remote
ancestor was a gorilla? It’s bad for discipline. When he gets old enough
to define the universe for himself, he may have his suspicions. Or he may
exercise his constitutional right to define himself as the sole occupant of the
universe, which he seems to believe anyway, in spite of everything I’ve
tried to tell him. Meanwhile, while I’m paying the bills, I’ll define
the universe.
Joseph Sobran |
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| Copyright © 2005 by the
Griffin Internet Syndicate, a division of Griffin Communications This column may not be reprinted in print or Internet publications without express permission of Griffin Internet Syndicate 
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