I’m trying to get back into blogging regularly, and I’m going through some older posts I never completed, so this is a little late, but still worthy of getting out there. The creationists are at it again: Bizarre Legal Thinking on Evolution and Creationism. What he said. I would respond with a biting rebuttal myself, but someone else has already done it, probably better than I could: All Epistemologies Are Not Created Equal. The key is here, right from the beginning:
Jacob Bronowski used to say that the greatest discovery of scientists was science itself. The scientific method, with its resolute search for causation, its refusal to cower before tradition and authoritarianism was responsible for the great advancement of humanity over the past centuries. Obviously scientists have not always lived up to these standards, but those who have took man to places he could only have imagined before (and not even imagined very well). Central to this accomplishment is science’s refusal to be satisfied with magical explanations of phenomena. Magic, after all, is not an answer—it’s the feeling of satisfaction without answers. It’s the willingness to tolerate a big blank spot in one’s understanding of the universe.
Creationists, of course, can’t stand the fact that science has prevailed over magical thinking, and that, as a result, we teach science and not magic to our children. They want equal time for unscientific appeals to supernaturalism. Moreover, they want their acceptance of magic to receive the same respect that rigorous scientific discourse receives.
Which, of course, it does not deserve.
I love this article! I found the story when released to be the biggest joke I had ever heard. I got a good laugh and moved on. Thanks for showing that I could laugh again at the story.