Sarah Palin Doesn't Understand the Difference Between Mythology and Science

I'll ignore the ever amusing "which member of the Palin household is actually pregnant" debate, and the even more fun "did McCain do ANY due diligence before choosing Palin?" debate since they're being covered extensively.  The issue that's far more important is the Creationism debate.

From Wikipedia - The word mythology refers to a body of folklore/myths/legends that a particular culture believes to be true and that often use the supernatural to interpret natural events and to explain the nature of the universe and humanity.  This is a clear description of Creationism, or the belief that a God created humanity and the Earth out of nothing.   

In Norse mythology, Odin and his fellow gods created humans out of 2 tree trunks.  In Greek mythology, humans were created out of clay by the gods.  Yet no one actually teaches those two theories as science because they're clearly just as crazy as the idea that some single God created humanity out of nothing. The wikipedia definition of Science is:  Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge" or "to know") is the effort to discover, and increase human understanding of how the physical world works.  It's not about taking ancient books and confusing them with actual facts.

However, GOP VP choice Sarah Palin actually believes that we should teach Christian mythology in the classroom, and I don't mean in the ancient literature class.  In both a televised debate, as well as in interviews, Palin declined to answer on whether she believed in evolution, and then went on to say that creationism should be taught in school, ignoring the 1987 Supreme Court ruling banning the practice, as well as ignoring the concepts of intelligence and common sense.

It's frankly just pathetic for the top country in the world to be putting forth a major party candidate with such religious zealot views - is it any wonder the US continues to fall behind the rest of the world in Science knowledge?   There is MYTHOLOGY which we learn in Literature class, and then there is SCIENCE which we learn in science class - and Sarah Palin doesn't understand the difference.   

The good news is that there is a clear choice in November - vote for ignorance & mythology or vote for knowledge and science - hopefully the US will make the right call.

 

Comments

[vc]

Quoted for truth: "It's frankly just pathetic for the top country in the world to be putting forth a major party candidate with such religious zealot views - is it any wonder the US continues to fall behind the rest of the world in Science knowledge? "

It's not just pathetic, it's disgusting.

[spanky]

At least she won't get into office, and eliminate capital gains, among other tax increases. And then when all those happy Meez shareholders cash in - they'll be handing most of it over to Obama and gang... :)

[Jon]

At least three problems with this post:

One, its false. See, e.g., http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWJkY2JlMmU3MjMyZmRkNDExM2Q3MDg1YzExYmZiMTQ=

Two, the president has little control over education (an occasional state and mostly local issue) and therefore no control over school curricula. So who gives a shit what their views on creationism are? This only matters in gubernatorial and school board elections. Reagan believed in creationism and it never came up in 8 years in office. Same with Bush Jr. and probably Carter. Palin has done nothing to advance creationism in her 2 years in an office where she does have influence over school curricula, so why would she push creationism in a job where she has no influence over curricula?

Three, even if for some reason you do care, there are so many more issues where the president does have influence, that to base your vote on one where he doesn't is, well, absurd.