The anti-evolution creationists often bristle at being characterized as “anti-science”. They are insulted. Why they aren’t “anti-science” at all. They’re just anti-“bad”-science. They support “good” science and have no problem with it, so they say. And they know the difference

We see these objections to being characterized as anti-science all of the time on one of the internet’s “premier” gathering places for anti-evolution creationists, Free Republic (FR). The Dishonesty… err, umm … the Discovery Institute, ICR, AiG, the discredited Dover School Board members, and the rest of the anti-evolution crowd aren’t much different. None of them are anti-science. How dare you say they are.

The fact is, their hatred of evolution, science, and anyone that challenges their attacks on Evolution is one of the only things that keeps them together. If not for that, they’d probably be calling each other idiots and morons while slitting each others throats, ripping each others hearts out, and condemning each other to eternal damnation. That’s why some anti-evolution forums need special rules for their religion sub-forum “discussions” and “debates”. LOL.

Each group of anti-evolution creationists attacks science in their own way for their own reasons. In some cases that should read “each individual anti-evolution creationist”. Most of them don’t agree with each other on many of their religious beliefs and superstitions and on what is and is not “good” science. The geocentrists, the YECs, the OECs, and the IDers are some of the obvious divisions, and there are many, many subdivisions — probably even more than there are Christian sects.

Each of them picks and chooses and attacks the parts of accepted and established science that they think challenges their dearly held religious beliefs and superstitions. The geocentrists attack more of established science than the rest. The YECs come in a very close second, attacking physics, chemistry, astronomy, genetics, geology, anthropology, and many other sciences in addition to biology. The OECs don’t really know what science they accept and don’t. They just think the notion of a 6000 year old earth is obviously nutty and some of evolutionary theory is probably true. They don’t want to look foolish, so they are more moderate in their attacks. The IDers, the ones at the Dishonesty Institute at any rate, try to stay above all of this because they want to be much more selective in where they attack established science. The DI IDers restrict their attacks to evolution, generally, and in many cases they try to be specific about it (flagellums and IC, for instance).

Basically, it’s a great big disparate conglomeration and coalition of kooks, cranks, crack pots, assorted religious extremists, and pseudo-science promoting charlatans with widely varying and conflicting religious beliefs and superstitions who have beefs with some part(s) of established science, mostly for religious reasons. In some cases they are just con men and hucksters out to make a buck off the foolish and gullible. In many cases, the basis for their attacks goes beyond religious beliefs into a general anti-intellectualism. Each of them individually tries to refute and challenge whatever parts of science they don’t like for whatever reasons.

Yet they all bristle, become flustered, and vehemently deny it when they are lumped together and collectively characterized as anti-science. Each of them thinks this is inaccurate in their particular case because each of them agrees with and promotes whatever parts of science do not conflict with their religious beliefs and superstitions — that is, the parts of science they “choose” to accept based on their essentially arbitrary religious and/or superstitious criteria. They are just presenting another point of view, you see, and the only reason 99.9+% of the world’s scientists ignore them is because they are “godless athi-evos”, or something like that. Oh, and they are all going to hell and will suffer for eternity – pass the BBQ sauce.

The thing is, the various members of the anti-evolution mob rarely, if ever, challenge the other creationists about the science they choose to accept or reject. They are rarely ever critical of each other about the science they say is “good” or “bad”. In the rare cases they are there’s a mildly dissenting comment (“well, I don’t buy the earth is 6000 years old”) followed immediately by an olive branch (“but if it works for you, shrug, and Praise the Lord”), and then it’s dropped. Now there’s some hard hitting constructively critical scientific analysis and argument for you. Personally, I’ve rarely seen even that on FR, or anywhere else.

And yet the YECs reject an awful lot of established science. If the IDers and OECs were true to their claims to be science “supporters”, they’d disown and distance themselves from the YECs. They don’t. And then there are people with no real education who wield red crayons and think they are smart enough to challenge hundreds of years of work done by dedicated hard working scientists by simply drawing red circles on photos of skulls, pointing, and saying “Look! Look! Look! It’s fake! It’s fake!” (and yes, I have really seen this done, on many occasions). But you won’t see a challenge to the YECs’ 6000 year old earth coming from people like that either.

Well, if they are all “science supporters” where they think the science is “good”, where they think science has it right, and where they think the science is solid, why aren’t they challenging the other anti-evolution creationists where they disagree on what is and is not “good” solid science? How can the DI IDers, who claim to support almost all of established science, stand to see the YECs trash centuries of solid science and say nothing about it?

It’s because all of their objections to science are religion based and they don’t really care about science at all. If they truly are science supporters, I challenge those among them who claim they are not anti-science and who do not think the earth is 6000 years old to take on the YECs, as enthusiastically and aggressively as they challenge the “evos”, for trashing centuries of solid science. Of course, it will never happen. And that’s because they don’t really care about science at all, much less about “good” science. They are just defending their privately held religious beliefs and superstitions against what they view as challenges from science.

And that’s why they are all anti-science.