#36266: Dan S. — 08/18  at  07:32 AM
Darn, I was just about to write something like that . . .
I had this whole scenario with the Discovery Institute promoting the idea that a powerful Intelligence had helped the U.S. win the Revolutionary War - all in an attempt to overthrow materialistic history, which was undermining our nation's morality and sense of divine purpose with its silly blather about social, political, and economic "causes" . . .

Well, it's all for the best - I have to do the wash, anyway . . .

#36267: — 08/18  at  07:36 AM
"Do you think a nation as magnificently complex as the United States could come about through a random, undirected sequence of military engagements?"
heh heh. Teach the controversey! Let's get a panel of experts, say, an electrician, shipwright, economist and a man of God to help us decide these questions once and for all.
As always, PZ, great stuff.

#36272: Dan S. — 08/18  at  08:28 AM
"And remember — when some liberal revolutionist starts spouting off about imaginary events supposed to have taken place in 1776, all you have to do is look him in the eye and ask “Were you there?"

Since I've been arguing with DaveScot, etc. over at Uncommon Descent* over how science class should deal with more than observations of "living tissue," and that failure to observe a new organ evolve into existence in the lab is not even expected under evolutionary theory, this is quite appreciated.

*That this suggests that my actions do not show evidence of any sort of intelligence . . . well, yes . .

#36274: jre — 08/18  at  09:09 AM
Thanks, PZ! Sorry about the "Spawn of Beelzebub" thing in my e-mail. I don't know what came over me, though I have had a bad crick in my neck and a strong craving for split-pea soup lately ...

#36278: — 08/18  at  09:35 AM
Now that was funny.

I *am* a history instructor, and the scary thing is that we historians often encounter questions and comments not too far removed from these. Aside from the obvious Holocaust-revisionist types, we get deluged with claims such as "the Civil War wasn't about slavery," nevermind little historical things like the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850 and the fugitive slave act, the Kansas/Nebraska Act, Bleeding Kansas, Dred Scott decision, Charles Sumner's caning, Harper's Ferry, the writings of George Fitzhugh and James Henry Hammond ("slaves like being slaves!"), the founding of the Republican Party and the north/south split in the Democrats, the election of 1860, Radical Republicanism,abolitionism, free soil, etc etc etc ad nauseaum. I think of my early-American survey courses as "Debunking The 'Lost Cause' 101." And there are others: the Founding Fathers as fundamentalist premillennial dispensationialist-types (which would be a neat trick since modern fundamentalism, as I undestand it, was born in the 1920s, although it certainly had historical precedents in the Great Awakening (1740s), etc.), Reagan as the sole reason for the Soviet Union's collapse (internal rot, communist authoritarianism and inefficiency, etc, apparently had nothing to do with it), the "loss" of Vietnam as a result of protestors and the media. As George Pickett once said (paraphrasing) about the Civil War, when his fellow vets asked how the South let itself be defeated - "maybe the Yankees had something to do with the Union's victory."

OT, I love using history to debunk The Flood. Fun to ask how Egypt could have spent months under water, yet show no historical evidence of having done so.

#36279: just john — 08/18  at  09:38 AM
Re: " Darn, I was just about to write something like that . . ."

Hey, I still have dibs on "Song of a Kansas Defense Lawyer" in which it is pointed out that since the state has departed from science and since ballistics, the uniqueness of fingerprints, and much of forensic science in general are just THEORIES, you cannot vote to convict my client!

I promise I'll try to get it written real soon now. I've got the title and the "theory/jury" rhyme so far ...

#36280: — 08/18  at  09:40 AM
The sad thing is those questions are tame compared to some of the 'patriotic' histories that arch-conservative historians have been cranking out as of late. They claim they are answering the revisionist false histories written by liberal-commies when they are in fact the revisionists. The 'revisionism' they complain about was the conscious effort by most historians to focus society as a whole instead of just the 'great men'. Of course this makes the 'great men' look bad in their eyes. (The founding fathers were not perfect, oh no!) History should be as a-political as possible but these conservatives have no problem writing what amounts to fiction.

#36283: — 08/18  at  09:59 AM
I wasn't there, nor was Jerry Falwell. However, people like Madison and Jefferson were there, and wrote it all down, in English no less.

#36285: — 08/18  at  10:31 AM
me2i81, those documents supposedly writen by Madison and Jefferson have very strange spelling sometimes. I am sure that those are all later forgeries by the children of evil librul-demo-commie children!

#36286: — 08/18  at  10:48 AM

#36278: Bokanovsky Process
we get deluged with claims such as "the Civil War wasn't about slavery," nevermind little historical things like the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850 and the fugitive slave act, the Kansas/Nebraska Act, Bleeding Kansas, Dred Scott decision, Charles Sumner's caning, Harper's Ferry, the writings of George Fitzhugh and James Henry Hammond ("slaves like being slaves!"), the founding of the Republican Party and the north/south split in the Democrats, the election of 1860, Radical Republicanism,abolitionism, free soil, etc etc etc ad nauseaum.

That's just your opinion!

Snort. Oh boy, I crack me up.

#36288: — 08/18  at  11:04 AM
PZ, as an historian myself, I must say I appreciate this post.

Trackback: Ten Questions to Ask Your History Teacher about Revolutionism Tracked on: The Panda's Thumb (66.15.48.88) at 2005 08 18 12:28:18
Those darn dirty Revolutionists...

#36320: — 08/18  at  03:38 PM
Sammy,

Ain't it the truth. Heaven forbid that we historians suggest that history is the creation of more than a few ubermenchen, that perhaps the remaining 99.9 percent of the population might have made some important contributions. As for "liberal revisionism," anyone with professional historical training knows that America's liberals, from FDR to JFK, have been well-beaten, repeatedly, by historians from across the ideological spectrum. Also, I specialize in the history of postwar American conservatism - Goldwater, John Birch Society, etc etc - and all the "closeminded liberal history profs" always *love* my dissertation topic and at times seem to fall over themselves with interest (which is gratifying and humbling!) The idea that historians are liberals who ignore conservatives is bullshit, pure and simple. Indeed, recent history shows just how important they are, and the discipline has responded in kind (Ribuffo, Brinkley, McGirr, Goldberg, Blee, Nash, etc etc - you get the point!)

#36385: — 08/18  at  11:02 PM
As funny as these questions are, they're not very different from the tactics used by the Nazis who are trying to get another shot at exterminating the Jews and everyone else they don't like by denying the holocaust.

-jcr

#36405: Alon Levy — 08/19  at  07:00 AM
Well, can I at least deny that the American Revolution was about increasing the amount of liberty in the colonies, which it just wasn't?

#36422: — 08/19  at  09:33 AM
Ok, I'm convinced. The Revolutionary War never happened. Does that mean we in the so-called United States are part of the Commonwealth? Or even a province of Britain? Tony Blair would be some improvement over Bush as a leader, I suppose.

My anti-spam word is "virus", which reminds me: viruses have been seen to mutate into new species in real time in the lab. If I remember correctly, a virus that lives on E coli was changed into a virus that lives on Samonella by gradual shifting of conditions. So what's the Creationist/ID counter-argument to this example of directly observed macro-evolution?

#36455: — 08/19  at  01:32 PM
Really want to piss of a Neo-Con? Explain to them the gravity of the French involvement in OUR Revolution. Watch 'em boil and burn!!!!!

#36518: — 08/19  at  06:58 PM
Anyone who wants to weep for humanity should go read the reviews of "Lies My Teacher Told Me" and "The People's History of the United States" on Amazon.com

Trackback: Ten Questions to Ask Your History Teacher Tracked on: StructuredThought (65.19.157.20) at 2005 08 23 00:09:10
As a wonderful parody on criticisms of evolutionary theory from creationists, Jim Easter (liked through PZ Myers) posts this list of "Ten Questions to Ask Your History Teacher." These is the very same style of argument used by Intelligent Design...