'Fuzzy thinking:' an evolving debate.

The United States as a literacy problem. More precisely, it has three. It is estimated that I percent of all Americans cannot read at all. A second segment of the population - an estimated 20 percent - can read, but does so with little real comprehension. On top of that, there is an uncomfortably large percentage of Americans who have no trouble reading but just don't bother to keep up with significant developments on the issues that should ground our nation's political thinking: science, economics and the law for example.

Let's face it, most people finish high school or college and never attend any additional formal schooling. This can amount to a whole half century passing during which we are not required to learn a single new fact or idea. If we want to continue our learning, we discover most mid-sized cities have only one newspaper, network news is only 22 minutes and 26 seconds long, (and is loaded with fluff growing at a rapid pace), dross tops the best-sellers lists and most cable networks offer reruns of old sitcoms. In summary, learning where to learn is itself a challenge.

While taping Bill Buckley's "Firing Line" special on evolution and creation last month, I had the sinking feeling that even many PBS viewers might have such a limited amount of post-college/high school science training that the anti-evolution side might seem to actually make sense.

For example, Buckley's team kept attacking "Darwinism." This is a classic fallacy of logic known as "attacking the straw man." Darwin, of course, has been dead for about 115 years. His was the first word on the theory of evolution, not the last. Many major additions to the idea of natural selection have occurred since his death. My opponents defined "Darwinism" in a way that pleased them, set up that straw man and attacked it, not the actual theory of evolution.

The reality is that at least three major new regimens of science have confirmed the basics of Darwin's theory. Gregor Mendel's pea plant experiments (these we did learn about in high school) showed us the mechanics of how traits are passed on to future generations; radiocarbon dating showed us that the earth is billions, not thousands, of years old, and cell history shows that gorillas, chimps and us have the kind of similarity in DNA that supports us having a common ancestor. The supposedly "incomplete" fossil record is being filled in every year with representatives of new species.

In stuffing his "straw man," one of my opponents in the debate relied on a work published in 1966, as if his library hadn't made any purchases of science material during the past 32 years. Now, I am not a scientist, and I didn't even try to play one on TV. But I know enough to realize that you can't make decisions about curriculum in schools if you are operating as if Darwin himself is the last word on the subject of evolution anymore than if you act as if history stopped in 1925.

Church-state separation advocates also recognize this problem of "arrested development" when they hear the Religious Right citing a footnote from an obscure case or an act of Congress in 1831 to justify their arguments. The law, opponents point out, changes. The Religious Right is certainly free to argue that the law shouldn't have changed, but they make themselves seem ridiculous when they build a case on principles that have been superseded. (In another recent PBS show - this one on religious school vouchers - my debate opponent kept reading from an Ohio trial court decision upholding vouchers. The problem is, that ruling has already been overturned by an appeals court. This prompted me to inquire if, in his regular legal practice in Texas, he usually relies on cases that have been overruled.)

Here's another fallacy of logic I encountered during the "Firing Line" debate: guilt by association. I find it simply nonsensical to be told that because some people who believe in evolution are atheists, that evolution is inherently an anti-religious idea or that it is not possible to believe in both God and evolution. This line has been adopted by Philip Johnson, a University of California at Berkeley law professor and one-man army bent on destroying the teaching of evolution in public schools.

Johnson sets up a false dichotomy. It is illogical to assert that it is impossible for a person to accept both a divine creative initiative (a theological belief) and the Divine's use of evolution as the mechanism of achieving a purpose. People like Johnson do not understand - or simply refuse to accept - that the realm of religion and the realm of science are asking different questions and that religious faith is an experience altogether distinct from scientific evidence.

The next time you hear someone bemoaning the quality of "the public schools," ask him or her what they think about the quality of "continuous learning." Yes, children need to be able to do math in order to work. However, we adults had better keep up with the disciplines that inform public policy if they are going to be genuinely informed voters. Otherwise, we fall right into the same snares of fuzzy thinking that have already claimed so many of my debate opponents on PBS.

Barry W. Lynn is executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.