by: Ian March 19, 2001
Anyone who's ever spent time arguing with young-earth creationists will probably have been impressed by the tenacity with which they hold on to their views, even when faced with arguments which apparently ought to tear their position to shreds. Scientific illiteracy plays a part, of course, but that could be remedied if they could just be persuaded to read a few books. The essential part of the stability of their beliefs seems to be the Orwellian mindset - the sometimes unconscious control and
suppression of thoughts which would threaten their received holy wisdom.
"True believers" of all faiths and creeds are capable of this, but creationists seem to be able to turn it into an art form. From their point of view, they have every reason to do so. They have an omnipotent, omniscient, infallible being breathing down their necks. In "1984", the punishment for thoughtcrime was vaporisation, removal from history. The punishment awaiting creationists if they change their views is an
eternity in hell, something not even Big Brother could arrange. And god doesn't even need a Thought Police, although some of the more extreme groups worshipping him like to have one.
So young-earth creationists (YECs), rather than calling into question the literal truth of the Garden of Eden or Noah's Flood, prefer to ignore sciences which might lead them astray. Or as Orwell put it, "Orthodoxy means not thinking - not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."
Some YECs go further, and attempt to provide a "scientific" explanation for the Genesis legends. A few have even become celebrities in creationist circles. It might be stretching the metaphor a bit far, but you could think of these circles as being structured along the lines of "the Party". On the outside are the proles (aka
those-who-have-not-yet-been-saved). They don't really count, and can be left alone as long as they don't challenge the Party, which they won't as long as they're kept
ignorant, and if they come out with something like, "Well, how did we get here? I mean, we couldn't just have been created by chance," then they might even be considered for membership of the Outer Party, unless of course they believe in evolution.
The Outer Party members can be likened to the ordinary members of the various churches which support the YEC standpoint. Their loyalty should be unquestionable, as should their acceptance of Party propaganda. Tell them what they want to hear, and they'll go with it. Then you have the active "creation scientists", the Inner Party, who define "creation science" doctrine, and in return are given various privileges (book sales, lecture tours, etc.). They therefore have another vested interest in
keeping their views in the minds of their followers, although, in accordance with the principles of doublethink, they would never admit that.
It should go without saying that there's nothing scientific at all about "creation science". In fact, it turns the scientific method on its head by starting with its conclusion - that the bible is literally true - and trying to construct theories which would justify this assumption. In doing so, it flies in the face of a number of scientific theories which have excellent, physical evidence to back them up, but why should that count for anything when you're preaching "the Word of God"? "The
heresy of heresies was common sense."
It's nonetheless interesting to see the ingenious, if fundamentally ridiculous, explanations which can be invented to explain various phenomena which contradict the YEC dogma, the number of intellectual hoops they will jump through in order to preserve their precious, untouchable "truth". It's in its own respect a survival mechanism. "Thoughtcrime does not entail death; thoughtcrime IS death."
On the other hand, it's also depressing to see how easily such spurious "explanations" can be sold, often literally, to a credulous audience with insufficient knowledge of the subject matter to see the gaping holes in the arguments.
The main tactic is to criticise mainstream science, particularly evolution. It's often referred to as "atheistic evolutionism", even though the vast majority of people who accept evolution as valid are not atheists. In the blackwhite creationist world, disproving a contrary theory is often seen as equivalent to proving your own.
Science, however, goes on evidence, and the evidence FOR creationism is either non-existent, or is being kept hushed-up by the very people who ought to be shouting it to the rooftops. Obviously, it's easier to pick holes in a theory which has massive evidence in its favour than to deal with the dearth of evidence for another - did someone say doublethink?
Even if evolution were proved to be false, or at least so seriously flawed that it would have to be fundamentally overhauled, the YECs still have the masses of other evidence for the age of the universe to contend with, before they can hope to lay any possible claim to the "truth". How do they do that? Simple. They make it up as they go along.
"We make the laws of nature." - O'Brien to Smith in the Ministry of Love.
Some of the more common alternative creationist hypotheses which are supposed to refute scientific studies:
Fossils, etc.? They got killed and buried during the flood, which also automatically sorted the bones so that you'll never find a trilobite in the same rock layer as a T-Rex. "Have you ever seen those bones, Winston? Of course not. 19th-century biologists invented them. Before man, there was nothing."
Light from distant objects? God created the light beams in transit, or the speed of light changes over time. "The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them."
Well, how convenient. Unfortunately, none of these claims has been backed up by experimental evidence, and those which could be refuted have been. Still, it all helps the crimestop mechanism necessary to avoid hell; it might look to an objective observer like the universe is old, but it obviously can't be. "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
The creationists' Inner Party members are notorious for their selective memories. Inconvenient evidence is ignored on the debate/lecture/book circuit, and unfounded claims made and repeated, even when they have been refuted in previous debates involving the same creationist. (Duane Gish's bullfrog proteins argument is just one case among many.) The Ministry of Truth is alive and well, it seems.
The same (usually straw man) arguments seem to keep turning up again and again. If a creationist tries to convince you that the universe is actually quite young using the moon-dust argument, or that humans and dinosaurs co-existed using the Paluxy footprints example, you can safely say that these are no longer used, even by "serious" creationists, as they have been tried and found wanting.
Don't expect to get anywhere when pointing this out. One creationist replied to the discredited Paluxy footprints that, "they haven't been sufficiently discredited to me"! And they probably never will be. Provide him with 6 tonnes of evidence against his belief and he'll ask for 7. Give him 8 and he'll ask for 10, and say that he always asked for 10. He could get a job in the Ministry of Plenty. Others have had their
arguments refuted, accepted this, and then a few weeks later come back with exactly the same argument, as if the original correspondence had never occurred. "That was doublethink. [...] If he could have been sure that O'Brien was lying, it would not have seemed to matter. But it was perfectly possible that O'Brien had really forgotten..."
There's also some disagreement among creationists as to whether Java Man was an ape or a human. (According to creationist dogma, it has to be one of the two. Transitional forms are not allowed, and therefore do not exist. The Newspeak word would probably be "unform".) But perhaps any type of disagreement or dissent is to be welcomed, however narrow the room for manoeuvre.
So what's the problem? If people want to believe that stuff, why not let them? People should be allowed to believe what they want, shouldn't they? Yes, they should, but they shouldn't be allowed to restrict the access of others to knowledge just because it goes against their dogma. You can't force people to learn, but you shouldn't restrict the opportunity for them to do so. But this is precisely what creationists are trying to do in the USA at the moment.
Faced with the constitutional prohibition of teaching religions in public schools, creationists have had to resort to trying to remove those parts of science which conflict with their totalitarian ideology from the curriculum. Kansas was the first, sad example of that tactic being successfully put into practice, unless you count the infamous Alabama biology book insert.
Now Kansas schoolkids will have to learn about evolution as an extra-curricular subject. This is bad news for those of them who might have wanted a career in life sciences, whether or not their parents are creationists. Kentucky has just banned the use of the word "evolution" in schools. It's now to be called "change over time". "It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words."
Kansas and Kentucky are still a long way off becoming theocracies, thank god. It's not as if copies of The Origin of Species are being burned in the streets, or that pi is going to be redefined to be precisely 3. But it's a sad and disturbing development when science teaching is held hostage by a few fundamentalists, and should not be treated with complacency.
There's a clear political agenda behind the creationists' attempts to have their legends included in the science curriculum. It's an attempt to bring down genuine science and replace it with the acceptance of their particular doctrine, or else. It's to get us "back to god", in the sense that they, the chosen few, understand it. The methods are
irrelevant, as long as they're effective, and the consequences are potentially disastrous for science education.
Most people, as polls have shown, don't actually know what evolution IS, what evolutionary theory says. This makes it even easier for creationists to get people to reject it. Claims such as "Evolution says we came about by pure chance", "Evolution rejects God", or "Evolution violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics", while absurd, are more easily swallowed when the person hearing them doesn't recognise that they're being sold a straw man version of the theory. (It would also help if kids could be taught to recognise flawed arguments in general; Creationist websites,
whose primary aim is to debunk evolution, are so full of straw men that they're a potential fire hazard.)
The easiest way to get away with bullshit is to make sure the people don't know they're being bullshitted. It's a generally accepted method in any totalitarian movement; ignorance among the general population is the dictator's strength.
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