Re: A word about science (re: Creationism)

Bob Hoesch (HoeschB@fws.gov)
Fri, 13 May 1994 10:59:53

>>Just how would you "properly deal" with Creation Scientists in this
>>country? Send them to a nice, well-run concentration camp? I'm always
>>amazed by the virulence of pluralist liberals who believe themselves
>>perfectly rational toward people who disagree with their fundamental
>>assumptions. (I count myself both a pluralist and a liberal, by the way.)
>>Many folk adore diversity until they actually meet some. Bashing
>>fundamentalist Christians must be the only safe form of bigotry left--but
>>it's as ugly as any other kind. Especially when filled with class
>>superiority, as it so often is. What exactly is wrong with having
>>political aspirations or political power in the land of the free? If
>>you're really as frightened by these worried folk as you claim, then
>>out-argue and out-vote them. Don't sneer at them for being irrational and
>>superstitious. We all are in our varying ways. As GBS remarked, there
>>are degrees of nonsense so extreme that it takes an educated man to
>>believe in them.

>i don't have a problem with fundies -- i've known some who were really okay
>people -- but i *do* have a problem with fundies who want to tell me how
>to live and what i can and can't do. it pisses me off that pat robertson
>and his god-squad can get into office and start "returning amerika to
>its religious roots" (conveniently ignoring the constitution, of course).

I don't think this is the point at all. "Creation Science" has (some would
say *is*) a political agenda which has as its explicit goal the inclusion of
Bible-based creation stories in public school science classes, where it would
be placed next to Darwinian evolutionary theory as an alternate explanation of
origins.
Never mind that Darwinian evolutionary theory doesn't explicity address
origins in the first place...

For all practical purposes Fundamentalist ranters and ravers who
talk of "taking over" the government can be ignored. The "Creation Science"
faction is a genuine concern because they have learned from past mistakes and
are now keeping a low profile, working at the level of individual school
districts and boards. Let me be candid and say that I loathe Pat Robertson's
political persona/agenda as much as you, but I think at worst this is a
distraction from the real problem.
How about if we all tone down the rhetoric and flame baiting?

Bob Hoesch
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory
Ashland, OR
HoeschB@fws.gov