Creationist critiques lack scientific evidence

I was thoroughly amused by Dustin Wales’ letter to the editor (published in the Nov. 30 issue), in which he laments that creationist critiques of the theory of evolution are “simply pushed under the rug as being anomalies and things that will be explained someday.”

Surely, if we are to be fair and open-minded, we ought to devote classroom time to teaching the controversy, right? Let’s encourage “critical thinking” and let the students decide for themselves.

Sadly, this is the legacy of a quarter century of assaults upon reason that has been the modus operandi of the conservative movement. Make up your own facts, then employ superficially convincing methods of argument, no matter how logically fallacious they are.

Wales implies that the ubiquitous acceptance of evolution in “public universities” is all just part of some pernicious government agenda. Yet I daresay that evolution is just as accepted at the more prestigious private universities, such as Harvard or Stanford.

Critical thinking is one of the core elements of the scientific method. Yet there are few alternative theories to mainstream science that have enough merit to warrant inclusion in a course curriculum.

It is simply foolish to believe that pre-enlightenment world views ought to be given equal footing with modern science. That is why a university teaches psychology rather than phrenology, astronomy rather than astrology, and chemistry rather than alchemy.

I suppose that we are supposed to be dazzled when Wales starts talking about “polonium radio halos” in rocks, or “helium diffusion rates,” or inconsistencies with Carbon-14 dating.

Apparently, it matters not that these creationist claims have been comprehensively debunked over and over again. For instance, the excellent Web site www.talkorigins.org has a section that features an in-depth investigation of the polonium halo theory, as promoted by its primary advocate, Robert Gentry.

As is often the case with creation scientists, Gentry does not even hold a degree in the scientific discipline (geology) in which he makes his claims. While Gentry’s arguments might be convincing to those who lack specialized knowledge, when a professional geologist examined Gentry’s conclusions, he determined that Gentry employed “selective use of evidence, faulty experiment design, mistakes in geology and physics, and unscientific principles of investigation and argument style.” Whoops!

Yet somehow this fails to register in the consciousness of the Christian conservative community, who remain convinced that Gentry’s theory is the damning piece of evidence that refutes evolution. I’ll leave it to the reader to see how “helium diffusion” and Carbon-14 arguments are shredded by real scientists.

It is tempting to simply chortle a bit and ignore the creationists as one would ignore somebody who believed that the Earth was flat. However, to let these fabrications, fallacies and falsehoods go unchallenged is to stand passively by while centuries of patiently accumulated knowledge is simply tossed aside.

To indulge the creationists their delusions entails consequences that are genuinely and tangibly harmful. Such rhetoric is corrosive to civil discourse.

Consider the case of Randolph Community College in Archdale, N.C., which offered a class titled "North Carolina History: Our Part in the War for Southern Independence.” Critical thinking was duly applied to the re-examination of history. Indeed, the teacher (who was a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans) posited that slaves were happy with their lives on the Ante-Bellum Southern plantations!

Because people of knowledge and learning have sought to placate and patronize the cachinnating know-nothings, it has come to this: Our cultural memory of events that took place not even 150 years ago is now being airbrushed to a fine patina, or erased entirely.

Twenty-five centuries ago, in classical Greece, there was a group of rhetoricians who came to be known as the Sophists. The search for truth was of no consequence to them.

Instead, they simply sought to prevail in an argument by scoring cheap debating points. The more arrogant among them would brag of their ability to “prove that black was white.” Indeed, the Sophists held that it was not necessary to have any knowledge of a subject, in order to give credible responses that pertained to that subject.

The greatest oratorical skill lay in entrapping and confusing their adversary; if that didn’t work, they would simply seek to drown out the voices of reason. These Sophists knew about the fallacies of argumentation and cynically employed that knowledge to argue falsely for their own gain.

Sadly, the more things have changed, the more things have stayed the same.

David Granik
Graduate Student

> Comments