It's already happening

I haven't read Ken Miller's new book, Only a Theory, as yet, but the magic of the intertubes has allowed me to see his recent appearance on "The Colbert Report." Like PZ already noted I think Miller steamrolled over Colbert to make sure he got his talking points across (which is practically a necessity if you feel you need to get all your statements in before the 6 minutes is up) but what I found most interesting was Colbert's last question about what we would do if creationists co-opted the language of evolution. Although the question was posed as a hypothetical it is something that is already occurring.

Efforts to get creationism recognized as a valid scientific idea (regardless of what form it might take) have failed so far. (And rightfully so!) It's clearly religiously motivated and has no scientific evidence to back it up, making phrases like "theory of intelligent design" laughable. The present strategy, instead, has been to deceive the public into thinking that places like the Discovery Institute are better equipped to tell people about evolution than the rest of than actual evolutionary biologists. A recently released creationist textbook, Explore Evolution, tries to mask itself as a book about evolution, stating that it wants to create an "understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of modern evolutionary theory." Nowhere is creationism mentioned, the language focusing only on evolution, and so it is clear that creationists are already trying to co-opt the terminology of evolution to suit their own ends. (Michael Behe's The Edge of Evolution follows this trend, searching for the "limits of Darwinism" and then stating that creationism is the only available alternative.)

Such tactics may or may not be successful in the long run, but Colbert (in his tongue-in-cheek way) did bring up one of the most important points in this controversy. Good science will win intellectual debates hands down (to quote the bumper sticker "We have the fossils, we win."), but the creationists seem retain a large amount of influence because their cause is clothed in the language of "fairness" and "academic freedom." (See here, here, here, here, here, and here) These buzzwords seem to carry a lot of weight and can make wording convincing responses difficult. Academics are good, freedom is even better, so put the two together and you have a winning combination, right?

A close reading of the bills that have come up to date reveal that the picture isn't so rosy; the purpose of such legislation is to allow teachers to bring religion into the classroom if they choose to do so. Rather than making creationism a required part of science classes the bills aim to allow teachers who are already are creationists to teach their beliefs to their students, a bit of a departure from the warning labels on textbooks that were all the rage a few years ago. This sort of thing is already going on in some places, legislation or not, but the bills would open the gates to let more teachers tell their students that the earth was created 6,000 years ago. (Some might object to this statement, saying that the bills are being pushed by ID advocates and not young earth creationists. This may be true, but young earth creationists are taking full advantage of the same legislation. It's all nonsense no matter which brand you choose.) Indeed, the legislation is better understood as being about "freedom to bring religion into the classroom whenever there's a part of science we don't like."

The prevalence of these bills seems to be closely tied to the conservative ideal of small government. If half of America believes in creationism, then that's what should be in schools where people want it regardless of whether it's good science or not. If people in a community really want psuedoscience in their schools, who can say they are wrong? This is where the idea of "fairness" comes in, although it should be noted that the people demanding that science curricula be "fair and balanced" are not calling for other creation mythologies to be taught in the classroom (if someone wanted to make sure Odin got his due in science class I'm sure most people wouldn't care). Even though they feel that they have the absolute Truth, creationists will happily appeal to relativistic notions if it means that they can sneak Noah into the geology section of a science course.

These conditions make the prevalence of creationism so frustrating. Much like debates between scientists and creationists the issue isn't about evidence or the validity of your statements; it is an argument in which rhetorical devices matter more than the actual science. I definitely hope that people keep working to strike down creationism wherever it pops up, but the present social climate of the country makes it seem that we are going to continue to have to fight no matter what science reveals.

I think I'm going to go back and read Christopher Toumey's God's Own Scientists. I found it to be an especially valuable work, particularly since it focuses on the people who do believe in creationism and is not a point-by-point refutation of their claims. Recognizing that a fair number of my friends and acquaintances believe in creationism (to varying degrees) also makes me think twice before I make too many assumptions about creationists as a group. It's easy to go off on a rant here where I can generally expect positive reinforcement for bashing creationism, but what would they say about my arguments? What are the reasons that they accept some science but reject the parts of it that they personally don't like?

I am genuinely disgusted by people like Jonathan Wells and Ken Ham who I feel step beyond being ignorant of science and are deceitful in their tactics, but what about people I know who believe some of the same things (or get their concept of what evolution is from people like Wells and Ham)? I don't necessarily know the answers to these questions because the topic doesn't come up very often. This isn't because I keep quiet (it's nearly impossible for me not to talk about some interesting new thing that I learned or about science in general) but because I am usually not engaged by people I know who disagree with me. My remarks are usually tolerated but I would have to be entirely oblivious not to feel the tension. Regardless of their relative silence, however, I don't want to let what some creationist leaders are doing color my opinion of people I know. I unequivocally disagree with them about evolution but I refuse to let that disagreement define my relationship to them.