Evolution, America, and the Pin-Headedness of Penn Jillette

Watching "Real Time with Bill Mahr" just now, I'm reminded of something I read recently: that only places like Turkey have more people who do not believe in the concept of evolution than today's United States.

Penn Jillette is one of the guests tonight and his argument is that all the people in the U.S. who "need" to know about evolution (as in scientists) do and the rest don't matter.

Say what?

Americans don't need to have any basis in science? Granted, we managed to "select" a president who does not understand the most fundamental and simplest foundations of science, but I'd like to think most American parents would hope that - and aspire to a reality where - their children will be brighter than George Bush.

While we may not know all there is to know about evolution now, it is NOT a "theory", no matter how hard the far righties try to turn Charles Darwin into the anti-christ. From DNA on down, we know evolution is real.

As a society, we cannot afford to have whole generations of people no more intelligent that George Bush and yes, even the so-called doctor Bill Frist. If we do, we're going to lose even more of our power and possibilities than we already have. And remember, George Bush has helped seriously usher in a time where adult children do NOT have a richer life than their parents (unless the child is a Bush or Cheney, for example). Do we want this to continue?

Penn Jillette should damn well no better than to make comments like that. But frankly, I stopped watching his Showtime program, "Bullshit", because he also ridicules government culpability in the attacks on September 11th, 2001 as well as global warming. So I suppose you could say I do not believe in Penn Jillette even though I know evolution and global warming are indeed real. "Bullshit" is apparently not just his show's title, it also represents Jillette himself.