How Come Smart People are so Dumb?

Disclaimer: The two things I don't want this blog to be are political and theological, I am posting this mostly as a commentary on the inability of people in society to see the middle ground on a "grey" topic. Comments are welcome, but I am neither promoting or damning either side.

This morning while getting ready to come to school I saw a news story on the latest court battle involving teaching evolution in schools. This time it is in Georgia. The article is here. The basis of the battle is that parents and legislators who are opposed the teaching of evolution want a warning lable placed on text books stating the evolution is only a theory and should not be treated as fact. Those in favor of evolution view this as an endorsement of religion in public schools and they feel it undermines the lessons being taught.

My personal feelings are these: Why can't creationism (or intellegent design if you prefer) and evolution co-exist?

Here is my rational: Evolution is based on the thought that if selective pressures are placed on a large enough population, individuals who have gained advantageous traits through random mutation will survive and eventually dominate the population. Based on the various environments and breeding paterns the exact traits in any given location may differ for organisms derived from the same "parent" species. That is to say, if there is an earthquake that opens a huge canyon that divides a population of squirls in half, and one side of this canyon is lush and tropical, and the other is dry and arid, after a million years, the two sub populations of squirls may have gained different traits on not resemble each other much even though they arose from the same original founders.

There is still plenty of room for a higher power here. The mutations that arise in a population may not be, in fact, random. A higher being could bestow a few choice individuals with these natural advantages. Also, maybe a higher being is what applies the selective pressure, i.e. someone starts the earthquake, or causes drought, or makes it hot. Also, selection of a trait is also based on breeding paterns, there is room for a controlling force to direct selected individuals to mate and choose which of the two sets of genes each parent possesses gets passed down to the progeny.

This is exactly how i present evolution and creationism to people who are very staunchly in one camp or the other. For those who are very strongly opposed to the thought of higher beings then they can just ignore the driving forces and assume all is under the control of biology, chemistry and physics.

If this still offends anyone who has strong feelings on either side i'd like to hear why (this is not an invitation to flame me). If a strong logical argument could be made from either side it may pursuade me change my personal views on how this all works.