In normally liberal Connecticut,voters recently returned a creationist to the state school board for the first time. In Illinois, the Republican candidate for governor will be a Darwin doubter. In Christian universities in Virginia and Colorado, students study the “myth of evolution” as part of degree courses. Last month some of them took part in an annual trip to Washington to view — and debunk — fossils on display at the Museum of Natural History. Lauren Dunn, 19, from Liberty University, dismissed as arbitrary the age of 210 million years given to the Morganucodon rat. “They put that time to make up for what they don’t know…”
The Smithsonian's Morganucodon Rat
It’s been a long time since I recovered from the “Creationism” bug (must be in the American water system, kinda like that … whatever that is in the Mexican water system, which also got to me during a trip down there…), and I was just starting to make a an uneasy peace with the born gain bible-thumpers whose contribution to this country has been complex to say the least, but in many ways positive.
Since life is complicated, and since I don’t have all the answers, and since Christians have often shown inspirational courage defending this country, which has provided great opportunities and freedom to this particular atheist, I have tried to be understanding of their idiocy, and spin it away as some sort of necessary evil.
But I am starting (starting!?) to fear that those who see them as not an eccentricity, but a genuine danger, may be right.
This is the moral equivalent of war on science, and gosh darn it to heck (sorry ’bout the language), as they say in Minnesota, I’m so mad, I might have to say something.
First, estimate how many people can really understand scientific theories anyway.
What, maybe 5%? Now of that 5%, how many will not be able to reach a reasonable conclusion on this issue? For the 95% who really can’t understand such theories anyway, who cares? More important for them is just to be good citizens. So long as what they believe doesn’t conflict with that goal, we should be fine. (Adjust percentages to suit yourself. The point remains)