Angry rant of the evening: Evolution debates

I found myself researching something on evolution tonight in order to continue a discussion with WO that came up this weekend, and I found myself infuriated that I’d let myself become involved in another shitty evolution vs. intelligent design discussion. Pardon the poor grammar, but I’m a bit worked up.

Would you care to know why I stringently dislike debates about evolution and intelligent design? Because it’s all dogma. People quote that evolution is a “a fact and a theory”–this is a direct quote from Talk Origins–when I think most quasi-educated folk know good and well that no theory is ever a fact. It’s all dogma, and it’s the same religious fervor on the evolutionists’ side that they accuse the intelligent designers of, it’s just that the evolutionists get that extra oomph to their superiority complex by saying, “Ooh, look what such and such a lab has produced.” It’s that *fervor* that’s distasteful in such a debate, because it smacks of a vendetta and personal involvement in the issue at hand, as though our personal lives are made even a bit different by the idea that evolution has graduated from a hypothesis to a theory (by the words of the late Pope, no less!) or from a theory to a… well, since since folks are calling it a fact, we’ll go with that.

It’s just silly.

I’m all for a good intellectual debate (I engaged in such a one this very weekend), but pretending that the debate means you’ve got a chance to Prove That Science (or Pragmatism) Is Right [to some unenlightened individual] when that individual isn’t asking out of curiosity (rather than actively standing against you in the debate) is just silly. You’re either preaching to the choir or falling on deaf ears, and those that would be honestly interested in hearing arguments from one side or the other are most likely (if they’re intelligent), going to see the superiority complex built up on either side as plain as day and be turned off by the sheer arrogance involved.

(And before anyone starts on that “You don’t think people’s minds can be changed??” shit they like to toss out: no, I don’t think people’s minds will be changed by someone standing over them pointing out how wrong they are. There are different ways to go about that, and conquering isn’t going to do it [which makes me think about another discussion I had fairly recently in which the topic of discussion was conquering black culture to force integration into white culture… Just… don’t ask.].)

Religious debates bore me unless they stay within the realm they are intended (debating issues within the Bible, in the context of the Bible, knowing it only makes a shit of a difference to those that believe in the Bible *and* belong to such-and-such sect of Christianity). Hell, they often bore me then, too, but at least most of the people involved have a better chance of understanding the scope of the debate.

Give me something to debate about where people are *thinking* instead of quoting from their favorite websites evolutionistsrule.com or inteldesignheartsgod.org.

Evolution as a theory/hypothesis/fact; I don’t give a damn, but get the hell out of my face with that dogmatic shit.

Got any other questions about my stance on evolution?