Believe me when I say I can take any subject and pretty much tie it back to a political argument. It's not hard because the state has ensconced itself into every facet of life.
A friend of mine recommended that I read The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins. It seems that Dawkins' primary beef is that 40% of Americans don't buy evolution. He explains that this is the primary purpose of writing his book. And that's a fine reason indeed. If you have a viewpoint you want to get across, write a book and help people understand.
But that's not why Dawkins is misguided. You have to ask yourself, why is it so important to Dawkins that everyone accept evolution as fact? Well, that's where I get political. Dawkins wants science to be pure. He wants it to be free from pseudo science. And on that, we both agree. But he believes that the only way to do it is to convince the general public to accept evolution. And that's where I disagree. Science shouldn't ever depend on a majority.
If science can only be done by consensus, there will always be conflict. So the solution is to get away from the need for consensus. I'm talking about general consensus, not consensus within science itself.
If you don't get away from consensus, you have to turn to indoctrination. But it shouldn't matter if 50% + 1 of the general public accept one conclusion over another. You can present the general public a mountain of evidence, yet they believe what they want (see OJ trial). Science should be unfettered by general consensus. If the evidence leads a certain place, science should follow that evidence, even if 100% - 1 person believe otherwise.
The problem is that science is funded primarily by government and coercion. Grants come with strings attached. But even if the strings don't affect the outcome of scientific research, a moral problem still exists. The moral problem is that the funds were obtained by violent means.
Government should not be involved in research. It should not do science. There needs to be a separation of science and government, but instead there's a lobby. Research should be funded voluntarily. Political angles always surface. The scientists who do the research that tends to leads to pro-state political outcomes will successfully lobby the funding while the research that leads away from pro-state outcomes will get ignored.
There will always be piles and piles of money waiting to go somewhere. Some of it goes into war. Some of it goes into major economic sectors. But even what's left over for scientific research is huge.
The above is a problem even assuming there is no fraud in scientific research. But imagine what kind of money-pit could happen if research is falsified for a time just to get at that cash-cow. Nobody is surprised when fraud is found in the commodities industry. If "Big Oil" or "Big Iron" is caught with its hand in the cookie-jar, it's almost expected and they get a slap on the wrist. So why would scientific research free from the same scrutiny and suspicion?
There is another gentleman named Dan Dennett who has similar but not identical misguided ideas about education. Dennett is a little less of a prick about it than Dawkins. Where Dawkins would beat people over the head with scientific research, Dennett's approach would be to beat people over the head with all other religions.
Their ideas might be different, but both approaches on dealing with their ideas are identical. They both pine over the democratic implication of ignorance. They both want to take their appeal directly to children, bypassing the parents because they know better.
Dennett claims he wants the parents involved but then asserts that children must be taught all facts in all religion, possibly against the wishes of the parents. I'm sure there are some parents that are totally in favor of this idea. There are some who would rather home school their children, at great expense, to avoid it. Dennett wants to mandate his curriculum policy even for the home schooled.
Both Dawkins and Dennett want to teach their overarching philosophies regardless of what parents value. Check it out, and listen to their recommended tactical political policies:
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/113
While Dawkins outright attacks religion, Dennett fanes support for it:
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/94
I highly recommend you watch both of the above. It is where education is headed whether you like it or not. The only solution is to abolish government schools. These nutjobs will continue to assert their dastardly policies piggybacking scientific research to get there.
By the way, I'll put anybody on the intelligent design side of the discussion into the "nutjob" category if they are trying to mandate national policies for education too. I know they exist. None of it is valid if the goal forced curriculum. Both sides of the origins debate are trying to leverage public opinion and that's what I object to.
As for the true science itself, I have no objection to it. If you want to research evolution by natural selection, do it. Have fun. It is certainly compelling science. And if you want to teach a curriculum on the same, do it. Offer your curriculum to schools that want to teach it. But don't force it on people by offering it as a national policy. If you have the truth, it should be self-evident. You shouldn't need the violent apparatus of the state to get what you want.
Note: This is a repost from Jul 18, 2016.