To Evolve or Not

President Bush, as many of you know, made a little comment endorsing the teaching of Creationism in schools to balance out the teaching of the theory of evolution. Which, of course, sparked a few comments of my own.

One of the problems most creationists have is the inability to tell the difference between the THEORY of evolution and the FACT of evolution. They're two different things. One, the fact, is that creatures evolve on a micro scale, i.e. that critters develop new traits based on the needs of their environment. There is no space for argument in this. You can even run experiments to force the evolution of certain traits.

Then there's the theory of evolution, that takes this fact and extrapolates it on a macro scale, saying that man evolved from lesser organisms. A very strong theory, but still a theory.

I suppose if public schools are going to teach important scientific theories, as they need to, the theory of evolution is one they need to teach. Creationists would then say that it's only fair to include creationism. Only, if you get right down to it, few if any creationists will accept creationism as a theory. Their belief is based entirely on faith without a shred of science, making it fall outside of the realm of theory and questionable as part of a public education curriculum, except possibly as part of religious history.

It seems so cut-and-dried, doesn't it? Yet the battle rages on, comparing apples to oranges (or, more accurately, apples to air) as if teaching a well accepted scientific theory is the same as teaching a Western religious doctrine. Sure, it could be true just as much as anything else, but as long as the very supporters don't see it as a theory, how can you expect to teach it as one? Whole hog or none.