Decline and Fall

Via Stranger Fruit.

Labels: conservatism, humor, reason, religion, science

Mike the Mad Biologist has a post up about the fundamental dishonesty of the Creationist leaders. Money quote:

It took me a while to realize that the 'professional creationists' were not intellectually honest either. I am not referring to those who follow them, or those who are simply not very knowledgable about evolution. I receive emails asking me about evolution and creationism (particularly issues related to microbiology), and, believe it or not, I answer them politely (if not always quickly...).

Everyone can be misinformed, ignorant, or simply have not thought things through correctly. What I will not tolerate is willful ignorance. Creationist leaders and spokesmen are willfully ignorant. How many times do they have to be told what scientists mean by a theory? How many times will they misstate the basics of evolutionary theory, such as claiming that natural selection is a tautology? The list goes on and on. These creationists have heard the evidence-based rebuttals of their false arguments many times.

Quite true, as far as that goes. I cannot believe that the people at Answers in Genesis or the Discovery Institute have seriously considered the arguments against their position. There's just too much evidence to the contrary.

But what of the masses who follow them? Are they maliciously ignoring the evidence and fitting facts to their worldview? The answer is both yes and no. That they selectively cherry-pick evidence and arguments cannot be denied. But is it malicious? I don't think so.

Marx has often been quoted saying that "religion is the opium of the people." The corrollary to this is not often stated, however. As much as Marx believed that religion is the illusory happiness of the masses, his program merely substituted another belief in its place, rather than eliminating the need for opiates altogether. His insight was that no matter what, the people will always seek something to believe in. I define this something as ideology. (To be fair, he seems to have believed that Communism would eliminate this need, but that's the problem with ideology, and opiates: they're terrible at seeing themselves for what they actually are.)

Why do I bring up Marx in this context? To make a point about malice when arguing for logically indefensible points: as much as those of us who value intellectual honesty want to believe that our position is widely held, it isn't. We are as blinded by our belief in reason as a panacea as the fundamentalist Christian is by his belief in biblical inerrancy. It's not malicious to succumb to the temptation to see the world through your own narrow perspective, it's human.

Don't take this as one of those relativist "science-is-just-a-belief-system-like-all-the-others" arguments that one occasionally hears from post-modernists and fundamentalists (see the Sokal Affair for more on this). The scientific method has developed the clearest, most rigorous check on bias that has ever been known. Science is superior to ideology precisely because it acknowledges the bias problem and has put procedures (peer review, reproducibility, falsifiability) in place to counter it. But scientists and their fellow travelers (I'm one of the latter) do have a tendency to be blind to the extent to which the rest of the world doesn't think the way do, which is to say they proceed from different values and assumptions.

So what is to be done about the problems with ideology? Continue making the arguments, continue to show where professed Christians bear false witness in order to make their arguments, and persevere until the idea that the universe is only 6,000 years old is as antiquated as the idea that the earth is the center of the universe. But I don't think we should hold out too much hope for the ultimate tiumph of reason: as soon as one myth is shattered, a new one takes its place. My prediction is that people will be more inclined toward silly beliefs in aliens, horoscopes, crystals and biorhythms as their reliance on biblical inerrancy falls to the wayside. But it could be anything, really.

Labels: creationism, reason, religion, science

The history of Creationist thought, link via PZ:

Labels: creationism, humor, science

Best quote I've seen in a long time:

I can sum it all up in three words: Evolution is a lie.

Thanks for brightening my day, Stupidity Tracker.

Labels: creationism, reason, religion, science

The truth is that this is a shameless, perhaps quixotic, attempt to influence the internet powers-that-be by shaping the results of google searches via the tried-and-true methods of google bombing. But it seems like fun and it's for a (relatively) good cause, so why not? Truth is, more people should read the truth.

(More people should read The Science Creative Quarterly too, but that's another story.)

Labels: reason, science