Creationism fanning out

Creationism is getting a lot of press these days, mainly due to the publication of Going Rogue, Sarah Palin's book (which I doubt she wrote). Before the presidential campaign she was a creationist, but stopped being one, sort of, during it, and now that that has all blown over, she is again a creationist. Whatever one thinks of her honest belief, it is a clear reminder of how important this issue is in America right now.

The US and Turkey stand as shining lighthouses in the darkness that is evolution. They are at the forefront of the battle, but there are other places where creationism is about to get a foothold.

The Cameron in this cartoon is David Cameron, leader of the British Conservative party, but it might has well have been Kirk Cameron.

There has already been bitter controversy over the policies of some existing Academies sponsored by prominent Evangelicals such as Sir Peter Vardy and Bob Edmiston, both of whom have made significant donations to the Conservative Party.

Mr Edmiston, a Pentecostalist who sponsors two Academies in the West Midlands with a strongly Christian ethos through his Grace Foundation, has donated more than £2.2 million to the Conservative Party since David Cameron became leader.

Predictably, the supporters of teaching creationism in schools are conservatives. Tony Blair may have had such leanings as well, being a born-again fundie, I hear, but that seems to be some form of weird political anomaly. What we can know with rock-solid certainty is that the tories are the ones who would allow creationism to be taught in schools, when they can:

While emphasising that his schools would make no “attempt to proselytise”, Mr Edmiston has criticised the theory of evolution, saying: “If you tell people they are descended from monkeys, how can you expect them to behave like anything other than monkeys?”

That supposed to be a criticism of evolution? How can people like this get elected. Don't tell me, I know how. But you know what I mean. (While no ancestors of our were monkeys (but that's an unimportant detail here), who says we have to behave like our ancestors? Is there some law that says so unbeknownst to me?)

Back in America, Todd Wood, a young-Earth creationist I wrote about earlier, reiterates his firm belief in a ~6,000 year-old Earth, while at the same time acknowledging that the theory of evolution is not in crisis, but has lots of evidence to show for it.

"The creation-evolution debate is a propaganda war in which nobody cares what the truth is,'' [this is completely false; biologists that I know care very much what the truth is, and that's why they are interested in the topic - not because of politics (only) /BØ] Wood says during a lively and thoroughly entertaining conversation. "I am a scientist. I get up every morning seeking the truth. It's just that I'm not motivated by the same things that motivate evolutionary biologists.

"I want to know why there are so many different species of salamanders. I want to know why flightless birds live only in the Southern Hemisphere. I want to know why there are so many marsupials in Australia, and so few everywhere else. They think I'm out to discredit evolution, but I'm not. I'm out to scientifically prove a set of information that I know by faith.''

He may be a scientist, but methinks he's not a very good one. He may go about his day doing science the way a non-creationist colleague would, but in his mind things aren't happening in a very consistent way.

I am totally and completely convinced that what I believe is true, but that doesn't mean I understand it. I think they do see me as crazy. They think I'm a little off . . . and maybe I am.''

[See me nodding in agreement.]