On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life
...and Ben Stein's political concerns are quite appropriate. It is astonishing to listen to ordinary people discuss evolution, and to observe the context in which the subject is raised. The one context is...
Christianity.
You see? There has arisen an odd dichotomy [1] between Christianity and Evolution. And people understand religion to the extent that it is false, and understand evolution to the extent that it is the proof of that falsehood. Lesson over. Ordinary people can only understand things in an oversimplified way. Part of the job of the elite is to determine how things are simplified.
In fact, the implications of evolution, and especially its offshoots like sociobiology are in extreme contradistinction with an entire class of laws and shibboleths and received wisdom----shortly, anything that champions egalitarianism or sings "We shall overcome" when that overcoming means a quashing of the superior by the inferior through unnatural means. I posit that "unnatural" means are inherently temporary, and so require constant maintenance--which is what Stein is doing.
In fact, the implications of evolution, and especially its offshoots like sociobiology are in extreme contradistinction with an entire class of laws and shibboleths and received wisdom
This, then, is the basis for societal construction? The apeish mandate of kill or be killed is the last word, simply by virtue of it being the only word for most of history?
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life
...and Ben Stein's political concerns are quite appropriate. It is astonishing to listen to ordinary people discuss evolution, and to observe the context in which the subject is raised. The one context is...
Christianity.
You see? There has arisen an odd dichotomy [1] between Christianity and Evolution. And people understand religion to the extent that it is false, and understand evolution to the extent that it is the proof of that falsehood. Lesson over. Ordinary people can only understand things in an oversimplified way. Part of the job of the elite is to determine how things are simplified.
In fact, the implications of evolution, and especially its offshoots like sociobiology are in extreme contradistinction with an entire class of laws and shibboleths and received wisdom----shortly, anything that champions egalitarianism or sings "We shall overcome" when that overcoming means a quashing of the superior by the inferior through unnatural means. I posit that "unnatural" means are inherently temporary, and so require constant maintenance--which is what Stein is doing.
[1] http://www.northernsun.com/images/thumb/2214.jpg