Americans: Dumb and proud of it

It seems the Christian right has its panties in a knot because Neil deGrasse Tyson, the host of the rebooted Cosmos series, won’t include creationism in his show. His SCIENCE show. Yes, I’m shaking my head too, but it’s true. In 21^st century America, we have a substantial portion of the population that cannot distinguish between science and superstition.

Treating creationism seriously in Cosmos would be like including unicorns in a documentary about animals. As a clever writer in Salon pointed out, why not cover other more interesting creation myths like the ancient Greek or Egyptian versions? We all know the bible story backwards and forewords.

You know your country is in trouble when your House Committee on Science, Space and Technology is packed with climate change deniers, Luddites and creationists. The confounding thing is that Christian fundamentalists seem to relish their ignorance. Just watch five minutes of Pat Robertson’s 700 Club if you don’t believe me. We don’t need to be smart or even make sense. We’ve got Jesus.

We (American voters) have to take some of the blame for this as we continue sending imbeciles like Michele Bachmann, Darrell Issa and Steve King back to Washington. Maybe we should have a national intelligence requirement (IQ over 70?) for voting. Seems like we need to do something before we dumb ourselves down to the point of extinction.

Debating creationists is an exercise in futility

I didn’t watch the debate last night between Bill Nye the Science Guy and Ken Ham the Creationist Guy. Based on today’s reactions, however, it sounds like the results were what you would expect, no minds were changed and both camps retreated to their respective corners feeling they’d won.

I have a lot of respect for Nye and his valiant attempts to take the science versus creationism battle directly to the enemy, but I have to agree with the large number of scientists who oppose these kinds of events as they only lend unnecessary credence to those who believe in the supernatural origins of the universe.

There really can’t be a traditional debate between scientists and creationists because they have two fundamentally opposing viewpoints that prohibit any form of agreement about anything. The creationist’s one and only source for their position is the bible, which they believe is divinely inspired. If I, as a scientist, don’t believe the bible came from a supernatural source, we are debating from different universes that have none of the same touch points. From the scientist’s standpoint, you might as well be basing your arguments on Aesop’s Fables or Mother Goose stories. And if you’ve ever tried to engage the cheerful Mormon robots who knock on your door, you know they’re coming from a far different galaxy than the one in which you live.

The always brilliant Dr. Richard Dawkins has this to say about debates with creationists. "Inevitably, when you turn down the invitation you will be accused of cowardice, or of inability to defend your own beliefs," Dawkins wrote in a 2006 article entitled Why I Won’t Debate Creationists. "But that is better than supplying the creationists with what they crave: the oxygen of respectability in the world of real science."