{"id":3946,"date":"2010-03-19T08:52:45","date_gmt":"2010-03-19T13:52:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=3946"},"modified":"2010-03-19T09:38:34","modified_gmt":"2010-03-19T14:38:34","slug":"civilization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2010\/03\/19\/civilization\/","title":{"rendered":"inherit the wind: the next generation&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/images\/koch.gif\" alt=\"2010\" title=\"2010\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"400\" height=\"327\" border=\"1\" src=\"http:\/\/ehistory.osu.edu\/osu\/mmh\/clash\/Scopes\/Images\/Monkies.gif\" alt=\"1925\" title=\"1925\" \/>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\">When I saw this announcement of the Smithsonian Opening of the David H. Koch Hall, it seemed like a great reason to take a trip to Washington. <\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div align=\"center\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/discussion\/2010\/03\/16\/DI2010031602517.html?hpid=discussions\" target=\"_blank\">Smithsonian Hall of Human Origins  chronicles human evolution<\/a><br \/>          Washington Post<\/strong><br \/>          Richard Potts<br \/>         Director, Human Origins Program<br \/>           March 19, 2010<\/div>\n<p>         <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">The <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mnh.si.edu\/\">Smithsonian National Museum of  Natural History<\/a><\/strong> has opened a new 15,000-square-foot exhibition hall  in honor of its 100th anniversary. <a href=\"http:\/\/humanorigins.si.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>The David H. Koch Hall of Human  Origins<\/strong><\/a> chronicles human evolution over the past 6 million years&#8230;<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div align=\"justify\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"180\" vspace=\"4\" hspace=\"4\" border=\"1\" align=\"right\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sitemason.com\/files\/hXaEg0\/scopestrial.jpg\" alt=\"Clarence Darrow at the Scopes Trial\" title=\"Clarence Darrow at the Scopes Trial\" \/>But my next thought was obvious. In the last decade, the resurgence of fundamentalism, creationism,&nbsp; politicized religion, a renewed divisiveness on this topic that makes Dayton Tennessee&#8217;s Scopes Trial seem contemporary rather than historical, had me wondering how is the National Museum, the Smithsonian, going to position itself around these conflicts? As a younger person in a scientific field of endeavor, I thought of evolution and religion as dichotomous. As I&#8217;ve gotten older, that distinction seems to have waned for me. I came to see religion as one of the ways people make some personal peace with existence [personal existence] and what we call &quot;nature&quot; [the wonder of it all], and I lost interest in arguing with the other things that often accompany religions &#8211; laws, myths, explanations. <img decoding=\"async\" width=\"180\" hspace=\"4\" border=\"1\" align=\"left\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rachelheldevans.com\/assets\/images\/scopes_trial_0210.jpg\" alt=\"Wlliam  Jennings Bryan at the Scopes Trial\" title=\"Wlliam Jennings Bryan at the Scopes Trial\" \/>They didn&#8217;t seem to be at the center. And I came to see evolution as something more than theory, a scientific way of looking at the cosmic clock of geological time. But that&#8217;s a personal story, and certainly not a view held by a large segment of Americans. So when I was looking at the exhibit&#8217;s web site, I was interested to find this:<\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<div align=\"center\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">Human Evolution: Religious Perspectives<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\"><sup>The Hall of Human  Origins offers a welcoming place to explore one of the most exciting  areas of science, the study of human evolution. Despite strong public  interest in the science, however, many people find this topic troubling  when viewed from a religious perspective. Representatives of diverse  religious communities encourage a larger, more respectful understanding  of both the scientific evidence and religious belief.<\/sup><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div align=\"justify\">Which lead me to something called the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/humanorigins.si.edu\/about\/bsic\"><strong>Human Origins Initiative Broader Social  Impacts Committee<\/strong><\/a>, a diverse group of thirteen clergy who advise the exhibit and its docents on how to deal with this very issue.<\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<div align=\"justify\"><sup>Surveys on the public acceptance of evolution indicate that the  conflict approach continues to impede public understanding of scientific  methods and ongoing discoveries. Looking beyond that, however, the  wider variety of perspectives suggests that there is considerable  support for maintaining the integrity of religious understandings of the  world while embracing the factual basis of evolution, including human  evolution, at the same time.<\/sup><\/div>\n<div align=\"center\"><sup>&#8230;<\/sup><\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\"><sup>The exhibition is designed to provide a welcoming place where everyone can explore one of the most exciting areas of science &ndash; human origins &ndash; by seeing for themselves the fossil and genetic evidence. The Museum understands that visitors will bring to the exhibition many diverse perspectives, including those averse to the topic of evolution. The role of the BSIC is to offer support and advice regarding the public presentation of the science of human origins in light of potential responses by diverse faith communities to the subject of human evolution.<\/sup><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div align=\"justify\">How absolutely civilized&#8230;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; When I saw this announcement of the Smithsonian Opening of the David H. Koch Hall, it seemed like a great reason to take a trip to Washington. Smithsonian Hall of Human Origins chronicles human evolution Washington Post Richard Potts Director, Human Origins Program March 19, 2010 The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3946\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}