The Washington Post ran a brief, boilerplate, and unflinching editorial yesterday calling the latest round of witless yammering about "academic freedom" by creationists exactly what it is -- wounded, pitiful bellyaching that could probably fool no one with a pulse living outside the God-soaked U.S. (Well, I'm paraphrasing, but barely.)
This is one of those many issues in which those who agree have agreed since the beginning for reasons obvious to them, while those who do not are never going to change their "minds." This is one of many reasons why trying to meet creationists on some rhetorical or functional middle ground is pointless. They are like Stephen King's Langoliers -- they know only to munch, slice, and gobble their insatiable way through a world that left them behind but hasn't killed their spirit for ruin or slaked their hunger for darkness. It is therefore necessary to fight them, mock them, and not let the discomfiting level of intellectual incompetence in America become a source of personal angst. I mean, I would never allow such a thing to happen.
The comments contain the usual garbled complaints, phrase-bytes (e.g., "activist judges," "there is no Wall of separation in the Constitution," etc.) and lies, from the dolterati, whose dutifully unthinking and brainwashed representatives simply do not care that what the want taught to kids is rank nonsense and what they want ousted is scientifically unimpeachable.
I'm mostly okay with living in a country with a gruesomely high titer of ignorance both among the rabble and in the for Chrissakes educational system. but I'm not okay at all with their efforts to ruin things for people who prefer to operate within the constraints of the real world -- a perfectly comfortable place to exist once you get used to the idea that life isn't finite and there's no one living in your thoughts.
It's a wonderful fantasy to imagine every one of these tripe-bots being viciously mugged by the elusive avenger known as Mr. Reason in a brightly-lit alley on the way to the polls, but a fantasy it is.
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"wounded, pitiful bellyaching that could probably fool no one with a pulse living outside the God-soaked U.S."
Your paraphrase is better than the original.
Clearly, you are right arguing in any kind of rational manner with a creationist is an absolute waste of time - I have observed it again and again on the internet. So what we are dealing with is not an intellectual problem but an emotional one.
Maybe we need a group therapy web site where creationists can express their feelings, and are not allowed to talk about transitional forms.
In the meantime mocking and making them a laughing stock is probably as good a respone as any. But a minority mocking a majority may lead to cries of elitism and election of a compledte moron for president.
Posted by: sailor | May 21, 2008 2:07 PM
I am so stealing dolterati
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | May 21, 2008 2:11 PM
Langoliers? Langoliers? Huh.
Orcs. I think that's what you mean. Mindless, indentured minions of the forces of darkness and ignorance.
My current riposte to "activist judges" is to point out that it was "activist judges" who put Bush in the White House in 2000. The result is generally a lovely, baffled, bewildered silence.
Posted by: Warren | May 21, 2008 2:52 PM
dolterati? Kevin you crack me up. I love reading your posts.
Posted by: writerdd | May 21, 2008 3:06 PM
"dolterati" is definitely a keeper.
Sailor: Maybe we need a group therapy web site where creationists can express their feelings, and are not allowed to talk about transitional forms.
It's called Uncommon Descent, where the dolterati suck up to Bill Dembski and try to pretend that the Designer is not God.
Posted by: J-Dog | May 21, 2008 3:17 PM
Actually, I think debating creationists can be a good exercise in patience, and in practicing your framing. If you are really listening to what they are saying, you can, sometimes, have a good intellectual debate. You probably won't convert them, and they probably won't convert you. I'm just not a big fan of lettign them run off at the mouth unanswered. too big a shade of Nixon's silent majority for me.
Posted by: Philip H | May 21, 2008 3:53 PM
I never had any delusion that the vast majority of people visit The Refuge for something other than Kevin's ability to turn a phrase. "Dolterati" is in the running to become this year's "truthiness".
Posted by: JimFiore | May 21, 2008 4:29 PM