Darwinian Strongarm Tactics in Russia

Strongarm tactics, mockery, and intellectual suppression by advocates of Darwinian theory aren`t limited to the United States; here is a story from Mosnews about a Russian student being forced to leave the country because of a lawsuit filed on her behalf which seeks to end compulsory Darwinism in the schools. It seems Maria Shraiber has been under constant assault by the brave `seekers of truth`, receiving threatening letters and suffering discrimination by teachers and others in her high school.

The old Soviet Union made Darwinian theory the `official truth` and required that Darwinism, and Darwinism alone, be taught in schools. It was the official intellectual buttress of the Marxist experiment (with a brief respite for Lysenkoism) and should have fallen with the rotting corpse of Soviet oppression, but somehow managed to maintain a stranglehold in the new Russia.

The suit by Gospozha (Miss) Shraiber sought merely to overturn the ban on teaching alternatives to Darwin, not to suppress the theory, yet the slaboumni (weak minded) in her high school harassed the poor girl until she was forced out of the country.

As her father stated;

``Darwin only presented a hypothesis that has not been proved by him or anyone else``, Shraiber said. ``Therefore, we think that when schools impose that theory on children as the only scientific option, they violate the human right of free choice.``

Of course he`s right; Natural Selection failed the very tests which Charles Darwin himself suggested to falsify it. The fossil record still has yet to disgorge the bounty of transitional species which Darwin boldly predicted would be discovered. The basic premise itself cannot be laboratory tested in any meaningful way. It still requires a leap of faith.

So, why should this be force-fed to students as conclusive science? It is the accepted theory, true, but the Geo-Centric theory of the universe was once the accepted theory, too; we should be glad it was challenged. Testing is the key to science, and faith belongs in the province of religion. It strikes me that many of the more vociferous advocates of Darwin have confused the two.

I find it interesting that Russia, with her unique cultural heritage, is having the same fight over this as we here in the West are engaged in; it suggests that Darwin`s theory was at the root of something more than biological science. Furthermore, the tactics employed by Darwin`s defenders, whether here in America or in the land of Rus, share a similar belligerent streak. Intimidation, mockery, and suppression of argument have no business in science, and the fact that they have been injected into this argument speaks volumes about the nature of what is really being fought over.