THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN

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opinion

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2014 HEALTH SCIENCE

PAGE 4

Mental health needs Religious can accept evolution; more attention, funds creationism harmful to biology
s history has shown, tragedy often brings about change. But with the string of recent shootings in the United States, one root cause is too often ignored: Americas failing approach to mental illness. Mental health facilities have had their funding subjected to relentless budget cuts, forcing them to cut back services or close. Compounding the problem further, an unenlightened cultural stigma placed on mental illness compels those suffering from mental illness to tough it out rather than seek the help they need. Americas approach to mental health is broken and in dire need of redress. According to the National Alliance on Mental Health, six percent of all Americans are classified as having a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia and extreme bipolar disorder. Despite the staggering need for mental health services, research conducted by the Treatment Advocacy Center in 2013 found that crisis intervention teams and mental health courts, which allow qualifying criminal defendants to receive community-based mental health treatment rather than simply being thrown into jail, are available to fewer than half of all Americans and even fewer Kansans. The lack of these essential services has led to those with serious mental illnesses being thrown into prison rather than receiving the treatment they need. According to the Treatment Advocacy Center and the National Sheriffs Association, this lack of services has led to three times more seriously mentally ill persons in jails and prisons than in hospitals. While Kansas has recently made an attempt to ameliorate the problem by reopening a closed facility, much work remains to be done. This lack of services leads to the issue of too few inpatient

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By Jesse Burbank

Send your FFA submissions to 785-289-8351 or kansan.com

Thank you, Bill Self, for your support of Michael Sam. Your support goes a long way in ending intolerance. Im thinking about joining the Olympic ice skating team in 2018...over the past week Ive become pretty good at sliding on the sidewalks w/o falling! I wonder if a sky picture of campus would look like an ant farm, with all the snow trails... I may or may not have, but denitely did, cause a small re in the underground microwave. The only time I make the UDK is when I get arrested. No, man with long board. There will be no longboarding on campus today, theres snow, ice, and disgruntled students. Forget the your/youre dilemma. Im starting TO see TOO many issues with to/too/two. Okay FFA, a half page on a border collie and only a page of black and white opinion section. The snow days must have been ruff. Editors note: That was a paw-ful pun... I love how an article on marrying young came out the day after Bill Selfs daughter got engaged! Winning! If KU doesnt do their sidewalks the city of Lawrence cant give me a ticket for not doing mine. Either Im going crazy or my dog just said Rock Chalk when I walked in the door. Props to the girls still wearing their high-heeled hooker boots while theres snow and ice. Not only are you brave, but you look good doin it! There is no way to say have a nice life without sounding like a sarcastic prick. This really bothers me. Great, now that appy bird is gone what am I supposed to do during class? Ladies, if you twist your hair in class and I see it... Im cutting it!!! So... A half-hour exam equals a half hour of studying... Right? To the guy doing Isometrics in his underwear in front of the mirrors at the rec: stop being an attention whore and do that at your home. Its so cold Im gonna freeze my face off! This whole class is watermelon licking. Well alright.

facilities where treatment can be provided. Further research from the Treatment Advocacy Center revealed that there are now only 14 beds available in psychiatric hospitals for every 100,000 Americans. The current statistic represents a 92 percent drop in available beds since 1960 and a 14 percent drop since 2005. Kansas also contributes to this shortage, and is listed by the organization as having a serious bed shortage. The centers recommendation for minimally adequate care is 50 beds per 100,000 people. This is especially pressing for the Lawrence community, which has no inpatient mental health facilities. Finally, the United States must tackle the intense social stigma placed on mental illness if it hopes to better the situation. If people feel as though revealing their suffering will transform them into an outcast and alienate them from others, they will choose to go on suffering in silence rather than seek help. This suffering then feeds destructive behaviors of isolation or violence. America continues to ignore the pressing issue of mental health at its own detriment. Without proper treatment available, millions more will continue to live life defeated and alienated by a system that wont help them and a society that doesnt understand them. We as a community and as a nation must work to avoid such tragedies. Jesse Burbank is a freshman from Quinter studying history and political science.

remember learning about evolution in biology class. My high school science teacher gave a short preface, telling us that he was only teaching a theory and by no means trying to challenge anyones religious beliefs. Other than that, science never presented itself as a problem to me. Most of the time, we Muslims do just fine balancing science and faith. Islam has a rather interesting relationship with science. Science flourished at the peak of Islamic civilization, in particular, the Arabic-speaking regions of the Middle East and North Africa. For example, the mythological constellations are Greek but the stars are Arabic. Religiously speaking, words related to the root word for knowledge are some of the most common in the Quran. Science was, and still is, important for determining the timing and geographical direction for rituals. Just learning about the world means reflecting upon Gods creation. Islam is not the only religion that takes little issue with science. According to MITs Survey on Science, Religion and Origins, only 11 percent of Americans belong to religions that reject evolution and the Big Bang. The Scopes Monkey trial has ended for

By Garrett Fugate

opinion@kansan.com

most organized religions in America, including for the Catholic Church. In the words of Pope John Paul II, The Bible tells you how to get to Heaven, not how the heavens go. According to a Gallup poll in 2012, 46 percent of Americans still believe that the creation stories in our Bible and Quran document what historically happened. People arent doing their jobs right: teachers, scientists, religious leaders and, perhaps, politicians, too, such as the Religious Right. Thanks to an elective course, I read Donald Protheros Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters. The reading came at an opportune time when I was still trying to make sense of this apparent war I was supposed to have as a believer in God and as a lover of science. Prothero directly addressed the evolution versus faith dilemma: One of his main ideas is that creationists dont really understand evolution and mistakenly equate it to atheism when it has noth-

ing to do with statements of belief or unbelief. To those who hold fast to creationism, I would first ask them to look back at what their religion actually says. They might be surprised. Secondly, evolution is no more a choice of belief than gravity; its absolutely necessary to the progress of science and our survival on this planet. Lastly, creationism not only harms science, it also harms religion: If I were studying paleontology and my place of worship claimed it knew more about it than my professors, what do you think this would do to my faith? On one hand, creationism demands an impossible conflict between science and religion. On the other, it promotes an extremely simplistic theology. Believing that the universe was created in the same way we would make a television is an affront to God. It also does a disservice to the kind of spirituality many of us need in our technology-centered 21st century. Just as science keeps up with our scientific curiosity, religion must also stay relevant as much as it remains an important aspect in our species spiritual lives. Garrett Fugate is a graduate student in the School of Architecture from St. Louis

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