Looking For Conformity

For John, BLUF:  The Author, Adam Gopnik, wants the impossible, or failing that, a Democrat, whose prejudices he accepts.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Writing in The New Yorker on 19 February, Writer Adam Gopnik takes on Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker♠ and his refusal to answer a question given him by a British Reporter, in London, about if he believes in Evolution.  The article, "The Evolution Catechism", can be found here.

As a sort of space clearing move, Mr Gopnik writes like a Roman Catholic, or someone raised as a Roman Catholic.  He uses Roman Catholic references and illusions.  Not that Mr Gopnik would necessarily understand the difference, but Governor Walker is an Evangelical.

Here is Mr Gopnik's argument:

But the notion that the evolution question was unfair, or irrelevant, or simply a “sorting” device designed to expose a politician as belonging to one cultural club or another, is finally ridiculous.  For the real point is that evolution is not, like the Great Pumpkin, something one can or cannot “believe” in.  It just is—a fact certain, the strongest and most resilient explanation of the development of life on Earth that there has ever been.  And yet, as the Times noted, after Walker’s London catechism, “none of the likely Republican candidates for 2016 seem to be convinced.  Former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida said it should not be taught in schools. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas is an outright skeptic.  Senator Ted Cruz of Texas will not talk about it. When asked, in 2001, what he thought of the theory, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said, ‘None of your business.’ ”

What the question means, and why it matters, is plain:  Do you have the courage to embrace an inarguable and obvious truth when it might cost you something to do so?  A politician who fails this test is not high-minded or neutral; he or she is just craven, and shouldn’t be trusted with power.  This catechism’s purpose—perhaps unfair in its form, but essential in its signal—is to ask, Do you stand with reason and evidence sufficiently to anger people among your allies who don’t?

OK, so we know that Mr Gopnik didn't vote for President Obama.  Or for Hillary Clinton for Senator.  Neither is famous for telling the truth to the public.  They are, in Mr Gopnik's words, "just craven, and shouldn’t be trusted with power".  In a word, politicians.

But, let us go to the question of if you believe in Evolution.  I wonder what Mr Gopnik includes in that question?  For example, does he include Eugenics?  That was big in Evolutionary thought at one time and I fear could be again.  Especially if those who believe "climate change" is both man-made and bad for "nature" and human population must be reduced and refined gain the political upper hand.  Then there is the problem of new insights maintaining the idea of evolution but giving it new paths, like has recently happened to the Big Bang, which apparently (according to some) never took place.♥ 

Let us be honest.  Evolution is the way the science seems to point.  That is fine with me.♦  However, we need to be careful in how we apply it in public policy.  I would hope that Mr Gopnik would be quick to condemn the US Supreme Court ruling in Buck v Bell.  I think by 1927 Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was beginning to slip.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  For readers of The New York Times that would be Mr Scott.
♥  I blame Msgr Georges Lemaître for foisting the Big Bang off on us.
♦  And with the Roman Catholic Church.  Way back in 1950 Pope Pius XII said (Humani Generis) to use your brain and evaluate the data, but remember, each of us has a soul from God.