The alternative to perfect science is.....make shit up?
Science denial is a curious thing. The amount of denial involved in hardcore Creationism is troubling when you consider how many people go for it.
Mostly that's down to lack of education. Most of the science deniers don't really know the science they deny. Mostly I find they don't really know the basics of what evolution even really is, let alone what evidence we have for it. Ignorance is at least understandable. Denial, though...
So many different fields of science converge to support evolution. You can always find a handful of cranks, but there is a consensus among specialists in many areas that all point to the same thing. Biologists know the body is an imperfect machine that's more "duct-taped" than designed. Archaelogists know the Earth is way older than 6,000 years. Cosmologists and Astronomers know the universe is vast and way way way way way older than 6,000 years. Carbon dating, radiometric dating, the fossil record, molecular evidence, the speed of galaxies moving away from each other, the mutation of virus strains, the study of social behavior and DNA of apes...how far must the list go? How many different lines of evidence in completely different fields does one need to be convinced?
Skepticism is a good thing, and Creationists take a skeptical approach to the sciences. That's good on the surface. But when you get down to the details and see just how many alternate lines of evidence support each other and support this, you have to go back to them and ask what their alternate explanation is for all of that evidence that points in one direction. It goes a little something like this:
A: Carbon dating is unreliable. Astronomers are mistaken in interpreting red shift. Biologists misunderstand genetic drift.
B: Really? Hmmm. Well then, what is the real explanation for all they observe?
A: I'm glad you asked! It's all explained in this handy book hobbled together by ignorant desert people thousands of years ago.
B: *forehead slap*
That's an inconsistent application of skepticism and of standards. Because science isn't absolutely 100% foolproof, etched in stone, unwavering and sure of itself, people greet it with skepticism. Fine. You should! All scientists do. But then you don't apply the same level of skepticism to a book with a talking snake, magic tricks and a zombie as its main character? That's horribly inconsistent and it's intellectually dishonest.
If a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, what does that make a foolish inconsistency?
Labels: creation vs. evolution, science
