This Is More Like It, Mr. Keller

by tristero

Normally, in articles like this one, another dispatch from the front lines of the extreme right’s War On Brains. a quote packed with the usual lies of the extreme right is reproduced without context or fact checking. This gives the reader the impression that the facts are basically right and therefore what the fanatic is saying may be a reasonable, even if unusual, opinion to hold:

“I got tired of people calling me and saying, ‘Why is my kid coming home from high school and saying his biology teacher told him he evolved from a chimpanzee?’ ” Mr. Buttars said.

This time around, however, the reporter, Kirk Johnson, was permitted to be a genuine reporter and report the whole truth, not just be a quote puppet. The very next paragraph reads:

Evolutionary theory does not say that humans evolved from chimpanzees or from any existing species, but rather that common ancestors gave rise to multiple species and that natural selection — in which the creatures best adapted to an environment pass their genes to the next generation — was the means by which divergence occurred over time. All modern biology is based on the theory, and within the scientific community, at least, there is no controversy about it.

Yes, exactly. The only thing that’s remarkable about this is that this kind of apropriately critical attitude is rare. The lies that the extreme right and radical christianists spew out as a matter of course can only be stopped from polluting the discourse if they are met immediately and head on.

This article has the right idea. Someone might wanna inform their colleagues at the Book Review that reviewers and essayists, too, are obligated to know enough about their subjects to separate fact from fiction and not be seduced into a bogus equivalence of value by rightwing lies no matter how confidently asserted.