Q: How many things can a creationist get wrong in a single article?

A: All of them.

R. Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has a long article on Meyer's publication, titled Panicked Evolutionists. He gets everything wrong, right from the title onwards.

The theory of evolution is a tottering house of ideological cards that is more about cherished mythology than honest intellectual endeavor. Evolutionists treat their cherished theory like a fragile object of veneration and worship--and so it is. Panic is a sure sign of intellectual insecurity, and evolutionists have every reason to be insecure, for their theory is falling apart.

It's always a bit discombobulating to find a creationist damning evolution as a "mythology" and "object of veneration and worship", as if those are terms of scorn to a Southern Baptist. That really is no fair. We academics are so finely attuned to irony that it sidetracks us somethin' terrible.

But to force myself to address his point rather than the subtext, he's wrong on all counts: biologists aren't panicking over creationism, nor is the theory of evolution showing any signs of weakness. Rather, we're mostly disgusted at the fact that a strongly supported scientific principle is being attacked by political creatures who are misrepresenting the theory. Mohler gives us an excellent example of using bad logic and bad science to pretend that an ideological cartoon has a legitimate scientific foundation.

Continue reading "Q: How many things can a creationist get wrong in a single article?" (on Pharyngula)