At least the evolution fight is keeping the legislators awake
By Anya Litvak
As the evolution controversy boiled in Kansas in front of a national audience, Missouri hosted its own simmering debate at the end of the legislative session. At issue: a bill proposed by Rep. Cynthia Davis (R-O’Fallon) calling for textbooks critical of evolution.
An evolutionary skeptic, Davis walked into her hearing determined to “get philosophy out of science.” Backing her were two rows of evolution critics from homeschooling families. “Ideas lead to actions,” cautioned Ann Ihms, who teaches chemistry to nursing students at Indiana Wesleyan University. Ihms maintained that evolution teaches that it’s part of nature to cleanse the gene pool—thus could lead to genocide. “If I’m from a monkey, I might as well act like a monkey.”
Evolutionists in the audience put palms to foreheads, but Davis, herself a pioneer of controversial analogies, was unfazed. Last December, she made national news when The New York Times quoted her comparing liberals to 9/11 terrorists because they’d hijacked the government. In April, she likened hospital deliveries to rape while pushing to extend the rights of unregulated midwives.
At the May hearing, she left the imagery to her supporters.
Mark Renaud of Perryville, Mo., testified that he did not want his children imagining that billions of years ago they began as amoebas and eventually hopped banana trees all the way to their mother’s stomach. Renaud advocated the theory of intelligent design, which attributes the organized complexity of life to a purposeful creator. Proponents of the theory bred tumult during the Kansas hearings, when they set out to convince the state Board of Education to mend its standards in their favor.
“I have brought with me two specimens,” Renaud announced, zooming a toy car across the table. As all could see, it was designed by a number of intelligent agents. Then Renaud upped the ante.
“My second specimen is far more complex, creative, self-propelled; it can make decisions, say ‘Yes, sir; no, sir.’ Nathaniel-Paul?”
“Yes, sir,” squeaked a voice from the back, and Renaud’s 7-year-old son came charging to the front to be submitted as evidence.
Robert Boldt, a freelance video producer and political activist from Jefferson City, testified that reputable scientists have long since stopped scratching their heads over evolutionary theory. But the arguments piled up on committee member Rep. Scott Muschany (R-St. Louis County).
“You say there’s no controversy, but here we are,” Muschany prodded Boldt.
“There’s a social controversy,” Boldt replied.
“Well, what other kind is there?” asked the politician.
Becky Litherland, former president of the Science Teachers of Missouri, spoke against the legislation on behalf of the organization. She said when she taught high school biology, her students started the course opposed to evolution—“but they didn’t know what it was.”
Evolution, which explains life’s diversity as a product of gene mutations and natural selection, has been called the most important biological theory by the National Academies of Science.
The bill did not make it out of committee. But Davis left smiling. “This is a movement,” she said. “This is not going to go away.”
