Richard Zurawski

I have noticed over the past few months, the persistence, of biblical proportions, of the creationists/intelligent design folk. I makes me shake my head in disbelief, literally, at how skilled are these people at manipulating the media and keeping their ridiculous premise in the media spotlight. You may have noticed, as I have, it is with increasing frequency that on Fridays during the Science Files, AK and I have to yet again address and readdress the calls from this group again and again pushing the agenda of the religious right to get what is so resolutely a religious, old testament, American perspective into the consciousness of public. They are very skilled in their manipulation of the air time, and media time translates into ears and brains tuned into this wasteland of a topic.

The platform of the religious pseudo science creationists is this. One. Create the impression that Evolution is unproven. Two. The teaching of Evolution is harmful. Three. Be fair, teach creationism. Four. Keep the agenda before the media to create the impression that there is indeed a controversy among scientists.

Now, yet again, will address each and every point, come up with arguments as to why this agenda is harmful, stupid and wasteful. But in this short blog, I would not be able to do each argument justice. So here is the solution. I will over the next few months, touch on the each point and use it as the heart of a individual blog. That way I can keep the blog succinct and not create a media spotlight which the creationists so crave.

Let me start with this. To be a scientific argument, something needs to adhere to scientific method. That is the way all science works, whether it is electromagnetic dynamics or quantum physics. You collect the information, all the information, look for a pattern (called a theory), then test that pattern, look for the ability of that pattern to be able to predict and test it against that scenario, collect more information and modify the pattern to fit the new data. Its called scientific method and it is the most incredible, powerful, brute force of logic and reasoning that we humans have within our arsenal. If a theory does not pass these tests, it is discarded and another theory is created that better fits.

Creationists, on the other hand, begin with an a priori idea, look for the evidence, if there is any, to support the idea, ignore the information that doesn’t fit and aggressively attack any other idea that points out the flaws of the creationist agenda. Stick to your guns no matter what and argue, argue, argue. Anyone who is in possession of an intractable teenager is all too familiar with the last part of this method. It sets an either or situation, and by ignoring the facts that don’t fit, makes the ideas seems tight and clean and accurate.

So right from the get go, creationism fails the science test, by stepping outside the milieu of scientific method. You can prove anything, absolutely anything if you are selective about what you chose to admit as fact and evidence. Try it. All conspiracy theories, from Elvis to 911 use this method. It makes for some fabulous arguments, but never helps solve or truthfully explain anything.  Creationism is based on the christian old testament, which in turn draws much of its mythos of creation from the Babylonian creation text the Ennuma Elish, a beautiful tome that gives insight to the mysticism we were all trapped in before scientific method came to being during the Renaissance. We could have used pagan, polytheistic or even science fiction texts as a starting point and pushed the whatever theory emerged from that polyglot, in the same way. Velikovsky, Hubbard and von Däniken all did this with great success and financial reward.

As my part in thwarting the religious right hijacking agenda, as far as the Science Files is concerned, I will not play into the hands of this manipulative group by ever, ever talking about creationism on the air again. The media spigot, is off. No airtime. End of story.