It's easy to scoff at other human's rights when you're in the majority that decides the value affixed to those rights. But what if you weren't?

Whites are already minorities, both by corruption and deliberately erasing American principles and history. Or didn't you notice that Whites are exempt from equal protection under the law ("hate crimes") when the assailant(s) are Black? Either everyone has the same rights or no one has any rights. And right now, you know as well as I do if you utter anything a minority finds offensive in 'polite' company--including demonstrable facts--our vicious, retarded 'multi-cultural' society-keepers will escort you to the street. And really, what is a "minority" anyway? Women outnumber men and yet the former remains a minority. Whites are already minorities in California. There is no "reverse affirmative action" there.

Let me put it in a way that might pique your sensibilities. It's only a matter of time before white people are no longer the majority in the US. I'm just assuming you're white, by the way. So, let's say Latinos and Hispanics make up the majority vote in ten years or so: let's say it's the year 2022.

And let's say they think you should pay trillions in foreign aid for South America and Mexico, and so they vote that as national policy. And let's say they think the US should protect interests in that region, so they send a lot of the poor, disenfranchised whites (who in this version of the future now make up the majority of the military) to be international defense for places like Mexico and Guatemala and Brasil and so on.

And they start to talk how they're the indigenous people of the Americas, and white people are just trespassers who staked their claim via conquest and war.

This is a retarded argument; I know you didn't create it, but yeah, it's out there, and "they" will believe anything as "they" have never been taught differently. These "clever" lefties who claim Whites were trespassers in primitive centuries the world over is ridiculous. Back then there were no unified nations with solid borders, language and culture in the New World to invade, just warring Indian "nations". They forget that England and France, countries filled with White guys--were at war with each other for centuries. And let's not forget all the Asian nations, each one a cultural gem...that wants all other Asian peoples destroyed. The Chinese and Japanese are mortal enemies, and neither likes Koreans.

Within years, you and your family are deported to Denmark - that is if any of you survived the civil war. And what if you lose the right to protest, or vote, or the right of Habeas Corpus? Who will stand up for you? Those already oppressed who were once in the majority? Or would you want some Libertarian-Latino to recognize your rights because you are a living, breathing human being?

If Mexican and African minorities are the future for America, I don't expect any respect of Whites' rights, or right to exist, just like now. There's a whole poor-me victimization industry out there. They create enemies (and excuses) out of whole cloth.

If you want a glimpse of America's fucked-up future, look at Mexico. Mexicans are fine people and Mexican immigrants who assimilate have enriched America, yet somehow their original cultural model in Mexico is simply fucked, an entire nation with enormous natural resources yet run by kleptocrats and drug lords. Anyone concerned with American 'plutocracy' should view the shit going on down yonder.

You sort-of asked but I'm telling you--all of you--anyway. When the White American population falls below 50%, it's Game Over for American principles. America in 2050 will be an even bigger parody of what it is now. Detroit is the future of America. Brokeass idiot California is the future of America. Americans all over are voting with their feet right now. They're leaving liberal meccas and moving to business-friendly states with low taxes (don't expect to hear anything about it on CNN or MS-DNC). But it can't last. Soon there'll be nowhere to run.

I've already made peace with the idea that there will be a civil war, hopefully States against the federal leviathan. And I fully expect DC to turn a war of principles into a racial thang to save its ugly ass.

This isn't about racial "superiority" in the slightest, but if you'll direct your attention to the screen, which races have invented the most advanced tech, including the best kinds of government (so far)? Don't answer that, you'll just be nailed to the cross of tolerance.

I'm Jewish (by blood, not faith) so I figure I'm screwed anyway. I guess I can scooch to Israel. Observe that many of the new kickass technologies were invented by Israelis, while Silicon Valley is stuck holding its dick with eco-green bullshit. "Next year in Jerusalem!" Nice and peaceful over there.

Really, I don't overly give a shit any more. The wrong people now control schools that shouldn't even exist, so the generations coming up are ignorami. The wrong peeps run most of the media and entertainment that arguably appeal to the worst sides of humanity. Freedom is hard work. Who wants that?

Getting angry at me for telling the truth will just waste your time. I already know how you FEEL. Those loudly announcing that neurosurgeons and witch doctors are cultural equals in the name of multicultural tolerance now run the show. And when the show ends they quietly go see the neurosurgeon.

Libertarian ethos ain't gonna save us. Neither will socialism. Mayhap it would be better if the world ended next year.


>> ^blankfist:

>> ^quantumushroom:
You can't hold a trial for a vermin who declares war on an entire society, hell, an entire civilization. It's as moronic as trying to "understand"--in the moment--the socio-cultural-economic motives of someone trying to kill you in an alley.
All we had to do was threaten to level mecca and the 'good' muslims would've turned his raggedy ass in by September 13th, 2001.
War works.

Of course we can hold trial for someone who declares war on entire societies. Yes, very much so. We can hold trial, or at least attempt to hold trial, for anyone. And we should.
It's easy to scoff at other human's rights when you're in the majority that decides the value affixed to those rights. But what if you weren't?
Let me put it in a way that might pique your sensibilities. It's only a matter of time before white people are no longer the majority in the US. I'm just assuming you're white, by the way. So, let's say Latinos and Hispanics make up the majority vote in ten years or so: let's say it's the year 2022.
And let's say they think you should pay trillions in foreign aid for South America and Mexico, and so they vote that as national policy. And let's say they think the US should protect interests in that region, so they send a lot of the poor, disenfranchised whites (who in this version of the future now make up the majority of the military) to be international defense for places like Mexico and Guatemala and Brasil and so on.
And they start to talk how they're the indigenous people of the Americas, and white people are just trespassers who staked their claim via conquest and war. Within years, you and your family are deported to Denmark - that is if any of you survived the civil war. And what if you lose the right to protest, or vote, or the right of Habeas Corpus? Who will stand up for you? Those already oppressed who were once in the majority? Or would you want some Libertarian-Latino to recognize your rights because you are a living, breathing human being?

I'll have to check that out. Come to think of it, I have noticed that conservatives do sometimes tend to take obvious sarcasm, metaphor or irony literally. I hadn't noticed that as a trend before. Weird.

In reply to this comment by peggedbea:
i just watched waiting for armageddon.......

1. i now understand where the sudden hysteria about nazi's came from .... the aryans persecuted the jews like multiculturalism, feminism, and atheism are persecuting the white christian male.... therefore "progressivism" is a total assault on white men because it seeks to include people of other races, genders, and creeds ... if we give pell grants and scholarships for hispanic women to go to college, there will be less room for white men.....

2. postmodernism is apparently the biggest threat to liberty... because the "postmodernist" doesn't take words literally, but rather digs for symbolism... so postmodern christians are more liberal and symbolic with their interpretation of the word of god, and literalism is dying out... these people aren't really christians... and when words lose their meaning, people die... postmodernism is killing people


all the women in this documentary seemed absolutely terrified. all the men seemed to have erections. my heart is screaming and shrinking and swelling and bleeding and leaking in the juxtaposition of all that fear and sadness and death and joy and repressed inappropriate arousal.

i just watched waiting for armageddon.......

1. i now understand where the sudden hysteria about nazi's came from .... the aryans persecuted the jews like multiculturalism, feminism, and atheism are persecuting the white christian male.... therefore "progressivism" is a total assault on white men because it seeks to include people of other races, genders, and creeds ... if we give pell grants and scholarships for hispanic women to go to college, there will be less room for white men.....

2. postmodernism is apparently the biggest threat to liberty... because the "postmodernist" doesn't take words literally, but rather digs for symbolism... so postmodern christians are more liberal and symbolic with their interpretation of the word of god, and literalism is dying out... these people aren't really christians... and when words lose their meaning, people die... postmodernism is killing people


all the women in this documentary seemed absolutely terrified. all the men seemed to have erections. my heart is screaming and shrinking and swelling and bleeding and leaking in the juxtaposition of all that fear and sadness and death and joy and repressed inappropriate arousal.

There is nothing religious about Christmas tress, well, rather, nothing Christian. If anything, the Christmas tree is about multiculturalism. I don't like Christmas tress personally. I don't like the Catholic guys attitude, he is being defensive and divisive. Even so, he is right, get over it. The key to being multiculturalism is to be exposed to stuff you don't believe in. I think it would be cool if I wish someone a merry Christmas, and then he wishes me a happy kwanzaa or Ramadan or something. That is what we are shooting for I think, not everyone having to leave their faith at home because of the atheist, that hardly seems fair to anyone. Trees and decorations and essentially passive, like any billboard or sign, it can be easily dismissed. The world both of these people want to build, though, frighten me. One wants to build a world of intolerance, and the other, a world of sterile, disingenuous devoid of any true personal expression. Both are a hell of sorts.

>> ^Pprt:

Never knew Asgard was chock full of Africans... I see multiculturalism must taint Norse mythology now.
How ridiculous we've become.


There was also an asian dude!

Never knew Asgard was chock full of Africans... I see multiculturalism must taint Norse mythology now.

How ridiculous we've become.

http://fjordman.blogspot.com/2005/02/muslim-rape-epidemic-in-sweden-and.html and this is already five years ago!

Excerpt: The article quoted a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo (note: her name is Unni Wikan) as saying that "Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes" because Muslim men found their manner of dress provocative. The professor's conclusion was not that Muslim men living in the West needed to adjust to Western norms, but the exact opposite: "Norwegian women must realize that we live in a multicultural society and adapt themselves to it."

From a report in 2005: 66% of assault crimes and 80% of sexual crimes in Sweden are committed by foreigners, among which "those from North Africa and Western Asia were overrepresented."

(the über pc article: http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=2683&date=20051214)

You obviously have never lived in a multicultural neighbourhood. If you did you'd realize that the chinese family where you buy your plants from want to enjoy their lives, the Iranian couple who own the funky restaurant on the corner love to see their regular cusomers of any faith,race or whatever come through the door as long as it's a friendly face, or the Caribbean place selling rotis. Take your narrow minded fear mongering back where you came from.>> ^Pprt:

Do you think it is possible that an enemy exploit your weakness? What if this weakness is so glaringly obvious because it is your sole sense of national pride?
Accepting things that are completely alien to our civilization and contrary to Western principles is NOT enriching.
There is absolutely no net "attribute" in allowing men to force women to cover themselves with sheets when going outside, there is no betterment of our social institutions to allow sexism to creep back, there is no advantage in harboring the most hateful preachers on the planet and there is certainly no altruism in encouraging the returning shackles of religious fundamentalism.
This "community center" is an obvious attempt to show that no matter what our sensibilities are, we will ALWAYS put them aside in order to demonstrate a deep and unrelenting "respect" for absolutely anything under the sun except ourselves.
Remember that if you believe in "everything", you essentially believe in nothing.
<div><div style="margin: 10px; overflow: auto; width: 80%; float: left; position: relative;" class="convoPiece"> geo321 said:<img style="margin: 4px 10px 10px; float: left; width: 40px;" src="http://static1.videosift.com/avatars/g/geo321-s.jpg" onerror="ph(this)"><div style="position: absolute; margin-left: 52px; padding-top: 1px; font-size: 10px;" class="commentarrow">◄</div><div style="padding: 8px; margin-left: 60px; margin-top: 2px; min-height: 30px;" class="nestedComment box">One very great attribute that the US and Canada can brag about is that they've been the best at bringing people of different cultures into normality within society. For many decades. Now for political points these right wing politicians from the states want to score points by demonizing a minority. </div></div></div>
<div><div style="margin: 10px; overflow: auto; width: 80%; float: right; position: relative;" class="convoPiece"> Pprt said:<img style="margin: 4px 10px 10px; float: right; width: 40px;" src="http://static1.videosift.com/avatars/default-s.png" onerror="ph(this)"><div style="position: absolute; margin-top: 1px; right: 52px; font-size: 10px;" class="commentarrow">►</div><div style="padding: 8px; margin-right: 60px; margin-top: 2px; min-height: 30px;" class="nestedComment box">I think the major distinction here is that mosques are known to NR hotbeds of Islamic fundamentalism all over the western world, from the Czech Republic to Australia.
Churches (minus one in particular I'm sure someone would point out were it not for these parentheses), as far as I am aware, have never been accused of recruiting paramilitary forces or plotting murder.
There's a reason noone would've objected to a Bhuddist temple... it's not prejudice, it's having your head out of the sand.
</div></div></div>

@blankfist

I would agree that Denmark is not a melting pot - but neither is Canada, and I like it up here. Multiculturalism can be tricky, but it is ultimately a rewarding atmosphere (IMHO). I'm not sure what you mean by closing of borders - most countries I listed do allow for immigration. If you mean open borders as in 'come on in, all of you', I would oppose that. I think immigration is great, and I think more is better - but I do think it has to be controlled in a manner. I don't want Rwandan genocidal collaborators or 'reformed' warlords getting into Canada (although some have been found here). I'm opposed to some of the controls in place now (such as a minimum bank account balance or priority for educated refugees - a part of me thinks the countries African Medical Doctors are emigrating from may need them more than we do). Ultimately, I don't think immigrants should have to beg to immigrate into the west if they are not criminals or misfits - but we do have to control for criminals and misfits.

Regarding Native Americans and conditions on reserves - I see the same thing up here (with both First Nations - thats what we call Native Canadians - and Inuit alike). I do not see a causal relationship, but combined with historical injustices, oscillations between Government heavy-handed interventions and neglect, financial mismanagement by 'leadership', corruption, and the viciously reinforcing poverty cycle I'd say you're right. I've got friends I grew up with who see no need to put the pipe down and get off their asses to make a living if the government is providing social housing and social assistance checks. In Canada (I dunno about down there) there is also an entire 'Aboriginal Industry' of 'well-meaning' white folks who makes loads of money fighting for the Indians while buddying up to corrupt leadership and enriching themselves, thereby prolonging the problems we face.

These problems are multi-faceted and complex, and I do think self-reliance is a necessity. However, yanking out the welfare platform many rely on is not the solution. Ultimately I'd rather that people come to appreciate the dignity and virtue of a hard days work without dropping them all in the gutter to see who climbs out because the truth is many won't make it. We want the same thing - healthy, vibrant, independent people with broadened horizons, but I think it would be cold comfort to withdraw the safety net on principle when so many folks, old and young, only know the lifestyle they've been surrounded by their whole lives.

@NetRunner - ^Read that. What Blankfist says rings true in my experience. I wouldn't say the welfare state caused the problems, but in a manner they are prolonging and intensifying problems that already existed. However, this does not render general arguments in favour of a semi-socialist state or a welfare system moot any more than the experiences of marginalized Americans renders arguments in favour of Democracy moot. They are but examples of a broader systems, and as such I remain a pinko-feminazi-communist.

I sympathize with your POV, but while I have not always had the best textbooks in school, I have actually had a few outstanding history teachers that went way beyond the textbooks. So I can say I have had good history classes in grade school.

I agree that politicians should not make decisions about this type of curricula, but for as long as I can remember, this has been the case. And not only politicians, but most ignorant politicians of the lot -- locally elected, fundamentallist, Harper Valley PTA-like politicians.

The way I see it education is a heavily political domain, since many see its purpose as indoctrination.

>> ^NordlichReiter:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/longde" title="member since April 8th, 2009" class="profilelink">longde
When have you ever gotten good history in public schools, any cultures history? See the Texas School Board on history books to understand what I mean. These are people who aren't even Historians making decisions on what should be in History books.

I didn't know other ideas of the cause of WWI until I saw a comedian talk about the Assassination of Franz Ferdinand; or the idea that Oil played a role in WWI. I also did not know the real reason behind the "blowback" in Iran (which we are still seeing take place to this day); which was caused by what is now British Petroleum and the CIA (Which was known as the Office of Strategic Services) see Mosaddegh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
The US cannot have effective history classes unless the truth is told. Truth be told half of our international (And Domestic. Don't forget about The Gulf Spill) problems are because of the need for Oil, but that is beside the point. My main argument is that teaching multiculturalism has the same problems as teaching true history.
What we are seeing in this Ethnic Studies law is the exact same shit we are seeing in Aron Ra's video above. Politicians should not be making decisions about what history should be taught. I would differ to Historians with PHDs from Major Universities.

@longde

When have you ever gotten good history in public schools, any cultures history? See the Texas School Board on history books to understand what I mean. These are people who aren't even Historians making decisions on what should be in History books.



I didn't know other ideas of the cause of WWI until I saw a comedian talk about the Assassination of Franz Ferdinand; or the idea that Oil played a role in WWI. I also did not know the real reason behind the "blowback" in Iran (which we are still seeing take place to this day); which was caused by what is now British Petroleum and the CIA (Which was known as the Office of Strategic Services) see Mosaddegh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

The US cannot have effective history classes unless the truth is told. Truth be told half of our international (And Domestic. Don't forget about The Gulf Spill) problems are because of the need for Oil, but that is beside the point. My main argument is that teaching multiculturalism has the same problems as teaching true history.

What we are seeing in this Ethnic Studies law is the exact same shit we are seeing in Aron Ra's video above. Politicians should not be making decisions about what history should be taught. I would differ to Historians with PHDs from Major Universities.

Multiculturalism is such a thin-ice skating-lake... The question is: What classes are replacing the "ethnic" classes? Multicultural classes? No classes? (There also comes to mind that now many teachers there could lose their job or part of their income, or that the whole thing could be just to save money.)

What's with the "Multiculturalism: A dangerous oxymoron" at the end?

Read the article, and I gotta say, I'm a bit surprised. Some details and emphases might have been lost in translation, but I was still almost unable to grasp why this article seemed exceptional to you, demon_ix. This is because on your (I'll say brief, but it's also been quite prolific) stay here on the Sift you've displayed great intelligence, empathy, multicultural awareness and a wealth of knowledge on a variety of issues as well as popular culture. I feel like I can identify with you easily. So yeah, to me this article comes off as a piece which was written by somebody whose IQ must be noticeably lower than yours and whose form of expression leaves much to be desired. Then there was the paragraph gwiz already highlighted, which is probably the worst example of culturally insensitive journalism (apart from Fox News) that I've seen or read in months, possibly years.

In the end though, while I've been sort of nit picking on the details, I guess the national (&international) sentiment was the centerpiece of the story, right? I suppose nobody had nailed this down until today, had they?

Chapter 1 courtesy of the http://richarddawkins.net/article,4217,Extract-from-Chapter-One-of-The-Greatest-Show-on-Earth,Richard-Dawkins---Times-Online

Imagine that you are a teacher of Roman history and the Latin language, anxious to impart your enthusiasm for the ancient world — for the elegiacs of Ovid and the odes of Horace, the sinewy economy of Latin grammar as exhibited in the oratory of Cicero, the strategic niceties of the Punic Wars, the generalship of Julius Caesar and the voluptuous excesses of the later emperors. That’s a big undertaking and it takes time, concentration, dedication. Yet you find your precious time continually preyed upon, and your class’s attention distracted, by a baying pack of ignoramuses (as a Latin scholar you would know better than to say ignorami) who, with strong political and especially financial support, scurry about tirelessly attempting to persuade your unfortunate pupils that the Romans never existed. There never was a Roman Empire. The entire world came into existence only just beyond living memory. Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, Catalan, Occitan, Romansh: all these languages and their constituent dialects sprang spontaneously and separately into being, and owe nothing to any predecessor such as Latin.

Instead of devoting your full attention to the noble vocation of classical scholar and teacher, you are forced to divert your time and energy to a rearguard defence of the proposition that the Romans existed at all: a defence against an exhibition of ignorant prejudice that would make you weep if you weren’t too busy fighting it.

If my fantasy of the Latin teacher seems too wayward, here’s a more realistic example. Imagine you are a teacher of more recent history, and your lessons on 20th-century Europe are boycotted, heckled or otherwise disrupted by well-organised, well-financed and politically muscular groups of Holocaust-deniers. Unlike my hypothetical Rome-deniers, Holocaustdeniers really exist. They are vocal, superficially plausible and adept at seeming learned. They are supported by the president of at least one currently powerful state, and they include at least one bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. Imagine that, as a teacher of European history, you are continually faced with belligerent demands to “teach the controversy”, and to give “equal time” to the “alternative theory” that the Holocaust never happened but was invented by a bunch of Zionist fabricators.

Fashionably relativist intellectuals chime in to insist that there is no absolute truth: whether the Holocaust happened is a matter of personal belief; all points of view are equally valid and should be equally “respected”.

The plight of many science teachers today is not less dire. When they attempt to expound the central and guiding principle of biology; when they honestly place the living world in its historical context — which means evolution; when they explore and explain the very nature of life itself, they are harried and stymied, hassled and bullied, even threatened with loss of their jobs. At the very least their time is wasted at every turn. They are likely to receive menacing letters from parents and have to endure the sarcastic smirks and close-folded arms of brainwashed children. They are supplied with state-approved textbooks that have had the word “evolution” systematically expunged, or bowdlerized into “change over time”. Once, we were tempted to laugh this kind of thing off as a peculiarly American phenomenon. Teachers in Britain and Europe now face the same problems, partly because of American influence, but more significantly because of the growing Islamic presence in the classroom — abetted by the official commitment to “multiculturalism” and the terror of being thought racist.

It is frequently, and rightly, said that senior clergy and theologians have no problem with evolution and, in many cases, actively support scientists in this respect. This is often true, as I know from the agreeable experience of collaborating with the Bishop of Oxford, now Lord Harries, on two separate occasions. In 2004 we wrote a joint article in The Sunday Times whose concluding words were: “Nowadays there is nothing to debate. Evolution is a fact and, from a Christian perspective, one of the greatest of God’s works.” The last sentence was written by Richard Harries, but we agreed about all the rest of our article. Two years previously, Bishop Harries and I had organised a joint letter to the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

[In the letter, eminent scientists and churchmen, including seven bishops, expressed concern over the teaching of evolution and their alarm at it being posed as a “faith position”at the Emmanuel City Technology College in Gateshead.] Bishop Harries and I organised this letter in a hurry. As far as I remember, the signatories to the letter constituted 100 per cent of those we approached. There was no disagreement either from scientists or from bishops.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has no problem with evolution, nor does the Pope (give or take the odd wobble over the precise palaeontological juncture when the human soul was injected), nor do educated priests and professors of theology. The Greatest Show on Earth is a book about the positive evidence that evolution is a fact. It is not intended as an antireligious book. I’ve done that, it’s another T-shirt, this is not the place to wear it again. Bishops and theologians who have attended to the evidence for evolution have given up the struggle against it. Some may do so reluctantly, some, like Richard Harries, enthusiastically, but all except the woefully uninformed are forced to accept the fact of evolution.

They may think God had a hand in starting the process off, and perhaps didn’t stay his hand in guiding its future progress. They probably think God cranked the Universe up in the first place, and solemnised its birth with a harmonious set of laws and physical constants calculated to fulfil some inscrutable purpose in which we were eventually to play a role.

But, grudgingly in some cases, happily in others, thoughtful and rational churchmen and women accept the evidence for evolution.

What we must not do is complacently assume that, because bishops and educated clergy accept evolution, so do their congregations. Alas there is ample evidence to the contrary from opinion polls. More than 40 per cent of Americans deny that humans evolved from other animals, and think that we — and by implication all of life — were created by God within the last 10,000 years. The figure is not quite so high in Britain, but it is still worryingly large. And it should be as worrying to the churches as it is to scientists. This book is necessary. I shall be using the name “historydeniers” for those people who deny evolution: who believe the world’s age is measured in thousands of years rather than thousands of millions of years, and who believe humans walked with dinosaurs.

To repeat, they constitute more than 40 per cent of the American population. The equivalent figure is higher in some countries, lower in others, but 40 per cent is a good average and I shall from time to time refer to the history-deniers as the “40percenters”.

To return to the enlightened bishops and theologians, it would be nice if they’d put a bit more effort into combating the anti-scientific nonsense that they deplore. All too many preachers, while agreeing that evolution is true and Adam and Eve never existed, will then blithely go into the pulpit and make some moral or theological point about Adam and Eve in their sermons without once mentioning that, of course, Adam and Eve never actually existed! If challenged, they will protest that they intended a purely “symbolic” meaning, perhaps something to do with “original sin”, or the virtues of innocence. They may add witheringly that, obviously, nobody would be so foolish as to take their words literally. But do their congregations know that? How is the person in the pew, or on the prayer-mat, supposed to know which bits of scripture to take literally, which symbolically? Is it really so easy for an uneducated churchgoer to guess? In all too many cases the answer is clearly no, and anybody could be forgiven for feeling confused.

Think about it, Bishop. Be careful, Vicar. You are playing with dynamite, fooling around with a misunderstanding that’s waiting to happen — one might even say almost bound to happen if not forestalled. Shouldn’t you take greater care, when speaking in public, to let your yea be yea and your nay be nay? Lest ye fall into condemnation, shouldn’t you be going out of your way to counter that already extremely widespread popular misunderstanding and lend active and enthusiastic support to scientists and science teachers? The history-deniers themselves are among those who I am trying to reach. But, perhaps more importantly, I aspire to arm those who are not history-deniers but know some — perhaps members of their own family or church — and find themselves inadequately prepared to argue the case.

Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact. The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eye witnesses to the Holocaust. It is the plain truth that we are cousins of chimpanzees, somewhat more distant cousins of monkeys, more distant cousins still of aardvarks and manatees, yet more distant cousins of bananas and turnips . . . continue the list as long as desired. That didn’t have to be true. It is not self-evidently, tautologically, obviously true, and there was a time when most people, even educated people, thought it wasn’t. It didn’t have to be true, but it is. We know this because a rising flood of evidence supports it. Evolution is a fact, and [my] book will demonstrate it. No reputable scientist disputes it, and no unbiased reader will close the book doubting it.

Why, then, do we speak of “Darwin’s theory of evolution”, thereby, it seems, giving spurious comfort to those of a creationist persuasion — the history-deniers, the 40-percenters — who think the word “theory” is a concession, handing them some kind of gift or victory? Evolution is a theory in the same sense as the heliocentric theory. In neither case should the word “only” be used, as in “only a theory”. As for the claim that evolution has never been “proved”, proof is a notion that scientists have been intimidated into mistrusting.

Influential philosophers tell us we can’t prove anything in science.

Mathematicians can prove things — according to one strict view, they are the only people who can — but the best that scientists can do is fail to disprove things while pointing to how hard they tried. Even the undisputed theory that the Moon is smaller than the Sun cannot, to the satisfaction of a certain kind of philosopher, be proved in the way that, for example, the Pythagorean Theorem can be proved. But massive accretions of evidence support it so strongly that to deny it the status of “fact” seems ridiculous to all but pedants. The same is true of evolution. Evolution is a fact in the same sense as it is a fact that Paris is in the northern hemisphere. Though logic-choppers rule the town,* some theories are beyond sensible doubt, and we call them facts. The more energetically and thoroughly you try to disprove a theory, if it survives the assault, the more closely it approaches what common sense happily calls a fact.

We are like detectives who come on the scene after a crime has been committed. The murderer’s actions have vanished into the past.

The detective has no hope of witnessing the actual crime with his own eyes. What the detective does have is traces that remain, and there is a great deal to trust there. There are footprints, fingerprints (and nowadays DNA fingerprints too), bloodstains, letters, diaries. The world is the way the world should be if this and this history, but not that and that history, led up to the present.

Evolution is an inescapable fact, and we should celebrate its astonishing power, simplicity and beauty. Evolution is within us, around us, between us, and its workings are embedded in the rocks of aeons past. Given that, in most cases, we don’t live long enough to watch evolution happening before our eyes, we shall revisit the metaphor of the detective coming upon the scene of a crime after the event and making inferences. The aids to inference that lead scientists to the fact of evolution are far more numerous, more convincing, more incontrovertible, than any eyewitness reports that have ever been used, in any court of law, in any century, to establish guilt in any crime. Proof beyond reasonable doubt? Reasonable doubt? That is the understatement of all time.

*Not my favourite Yeats line, but apt in this case.

© Richard Dawkins 2009