Courtesy of Mike the Mad Biologist.

You know, for a long time, I didn't really understand why evolution "mattered", from a pragmatic standpoint. I mean, yes, it's always better to be right than to be wrong, but what with evolution taking many many times the human lifespan to do anything remotely interesting, it seemed like it might be very good at answering abstract hypotheticals, and not very good at doing anything practical. Not that there was anything wrong with that, since I happen to be a big fan of abstract, impractical intellectual pursuits. But, so far as I could tell, if you wanted to disbelieve in evolution, the worst that would happen is that those of us who are actually interested in reality would make fun of you, and that would be so far as it went.

And this is one of the problems that those of us on the reality-based (that is, "right") side of the argument face: evolution is a pretty complex subject, and most people who aren't in the relevant field only understand its most basic parts. And one consequence of this is that it doesn't seem like there's much at stake.

I suspect that fewer people would be fooled by anti-evolutionary pseudoscience if they understood what the principles of evolution really were (or, for that matter, what science really is).

So here it is, here's why it matters: Avian flu evolution. If evolution doesn't happen, then we have nothing to fear from the avian flu. Flu vaccines can be developed only by understanding how viruses evolve.

I see a lot of very angry, very wrongheaded bumper stickers these days of the form "You CAN'T be a christian and believe in (thing the religious right disapproves of)!" as if they were declaring themselves the sole arbiters of God's will. These bumper stickers piss me off.

But what the hell. I'll say it: You CAN'T be a creationist and believe in vaccines.

Well, actually, you can. It's not logical, but it's the way things are. See, most of the people on that side of the argument don't really have a systematic way to structure their beliefs. They're just a random assortment of facts. They don't believe in evolution, and they think those of uis who do are doing Satan's work. But they won't bat an eyelash at benefiting from things that can only work if evolution is true, because it's advantageous for them to do so. This is one of the reasons we need theologians on our side in this argument: they don't believe in rationality, so a logical argument isn't going to work (at least, not in the usual way).

But it's a place to start. It's a thing to bring up. When a creationist friend mentions their concern over avian flu, tell them that creationism precludes the possibility of an avian flu epidemic. It's a place to start.