Andy Rooney_ 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit - Andy Rooney [107]
There have been no more than a handful of people who have contributed as much to mankind’s knowledge of itself as Darwin did. No one who has read any of what he wrote could question his brilliance or his dedication to searching for the truth. His two-volume book The Origin of Species would surprise any member of the Kansas Board of
The Flat Earth in Kansas 235
Education who undertook reading it. It seems likely none of them ever has.
“Natural selection is continually trying to economize every part of the organization,” Darwin wrote. “If, under changed conditions of life, a structure, before useful, becomes less useful, its diminution will be favored, for it will profit the individual not to have its nutrient wasted in building up a useless structure.”
This is merely one paragraph on page 183 of Volume I, but it summarizes Darwin’s theory of natural selection and his belief that all living things change as they adapt themselves to flourish or decline under the conditions they encounter. He points out that the tallest giraffes survive the droughts because, even if they are only two inches taller than others, they can reach higher branches for food.
Darwin himself was more aware of the possibility he could be wrong than anyone on the Kansas Board of Education. He laid out some ways he might be wrong in Chapter VII of The Origin of Species. It runs for fifty-six pages and is called “MISCELLANEOUS OBJECTIONS TO THE THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION.”
There are scientists who doubt the broad implications of his conclusions about the origin of mankind but no scientist of any stature doubts the authenticity of his work. For “educators” in Kansas to eliminate study of it from their school curriculum is stupidity. Teach kids to doubt it if they wish, but teach it and let them decide.
Darwin always inspected his own motives and the possibility that he was wrong.
“From my early youth,” he says, “I have had the strongest desire to understand or explain whatever I observed—that is to group all facts under some general laws. These causes combined have given me the patience to reflect or ponder for any number of years over any unexplained problem.
“I have steadily endeavored to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved by me, as soon as facts are shown to be opposed to it.”
The single biggest difference between those who believe that God created everything at one specific time in history and those who believe everything evolved from one simple cell over millions of years is that scientists like Darwin are willing, even anxious, to find evidence that will prove them to be wrong. Creationists are looking only for the elusive evidence that God did it.
I have mixed feelings about Kansas. The most time I ever spent there was at a political convention and Kansas City was wonderful on that occasion. On one other occasion I was filming a story in Manhattan, Kansas, and was invited to dinner at someone’s home. It was the single most inedible meal I have ever faced and I learned, toward the end of it that our host, the woman who prepared it, taught a class in cooking at Kansas State University. I tell you this so you’ll know I had negative feeling about education in Kansas even before the Board of Education banned Darwin.
Surrendering to Paris
Paris is a special city in my life, considering I’m not much of an international traveler. I first saw Paris on August 25, 1944, the day the city was liberated from the Germans by a combination of French and U.S. troops. I entered it across the bridge at St. Cloud. We had reached St. Cloud the night before, and the tank commanders decided to wait until morning to make their final drive into the city.
Two German Army trucks, loaded with soldiers, tried to cross the bridge in our direction