Creationist lies in the Pioneer Press

Les Lane made a comment on my site about an op-ed in the Pioneer Press. The thing is supposed to be a "rebuttal" to a lovely piece by Lisa Peters that I praised earlier this month. It isn't. It's standard creationist hackwork, a compendium of cliches and lies that we have all heard repeatedly.

Creationists have a real advantage when doing this kind of thing. They can lie brazenly, and in a single short sentence declaim something with absolute confidence that is nothing short of an outright fabrication, and it would take me an hour to adequately dissect their words and show how fraudulent they are. Take, for example, the title of the op-ed:

Evolution is a theory in crisis

It's a lie. Here, this guy, Bob Hazen, has written a fairly long piece in which he makes assertion after assertion, and he has the gall to start it with a bold lie as the title. Here I am, trying to make an honest and thorough reply to the article, and I'm finding it hard to look past the title. Shouldn't I just wad this newspaper up and throw it in the trash, not bothering to reply to such garbage? Yes. Unfortunately, it's the editors of the Pioneer Press who should have instantly canned this kind of crank nonsense, so we, the informed readers, are stuck with the pointless chore of plodding through, making note of the foolishness therein.

You see, evolution is not in crisis. It's a healthy, active science, inspiring investigators and guiding research in the field and the lab. The theory is supported with near-unanimity by biologists; the few who disagree are generally crackpots and people driven by an unscientific religious agenda. The only people who claim it is a "theory in crisis" are creationists, who want to pretend there is honest doubt where there is none.

Continue reading "Creationist lies in the Pioneer Press" (on Pharyngula)