Red State Rabble

At times, the know-nothingism put so proudly on display by creationists and their upscale city cousins, the intelligent design "theorists," is enough to make even battle-hardened veterans of the evolution wars such as Red State Rabble wish we could turn our heads away, rather than witness the sad spectacle of some members of our species -- which we once thought was as good as any -- making fools of themselves.

A prime example is a post, "Evolutionists Going Ape over Intelligent Design," on the Conservative Voice website by Nicholas A. Jackson, Executive Director of Reform America, a non-profit Christian organization based in Columbus, Ohio. Nick's bio informs us that, "he spends time as a free-lance writer articulating the Christian viewpoint into our culture."

One of the viewpoints Nick is articulating into our culture is this:

Proponents of evolutionary theory have been advancing their cause, much the way King Kong woos the beautiful movie screen starlet, through brute force and intimidation. By using lawsuits, threats of lawsuits, personal attacks, misinformation, and half-truths proponents of Darwinian evolutionary “dogma.” advance their crusade against all things supernatural. With religious zeal and fervor the guardians of “science” have attempted to squelch any academic dissent to Darwin’s theories.

Let me first qualify what I mean by evolutionary theory. There is a difference between microevolution (intra-specific, which Creationists agree with) and macroevolution (particles to people, inter-specific changes). Creationists understand that genetic variation exists and animals undergo small changes (adaptations) in response to the environment. However, macroevolution asserts that a once distinct fully formed species given enough time (billions of years) could evolve into more complex species. Essentially, that particles can become people given enough time and the right circumstances (quite a leap of faith).

Intra-specific? Inter-specific? You don't suppose good ol' Nick means intra-species or inter-species, do you?

Can particles become people given enough time and the right circumstances? Isn't that just what happens to fertilized egg cells in a woman's womb? Doesn't it take about nine months for those cells to become people? If natural processes can make those particular particles into people in just nine short months, why is it so hard for Nick to imagine the evolution of single-celled creatures into people over billions of years?

Fortunately, Nick's piece isn't all dry science writing. It's larded with moments of unintended humor, too:

They [evolutionists] assert that anyone that even hints at a possible Creator or Intelligent Designer (emasculated Creator) [emphasis added, RSR] would bring us back to the Dark Ages, is a Neanderthal (to use an evolutionary term), or still believes the earth is flat.

Are we to believe that Phillip Johnson, Michael Behe, William Dembski, Stephen Meyer, Jonathan Wells -- poor old Casey Luskin, even -- are breaking God's balls? Emasculating him somehow?

What really gets under Nick's skin, though, is that us unscrupulous advocates of evolutionary thought and theory -- you know who you are -- want to "frame the debate as being between science and religion; that Darwinian evolution is 'scientific' and that ID is 'religious.'"

Don't worry, Nick has an answer that puts all you science types in your place:

The real battle is a war of worldviews between God’s authority and man’s autonomous reason. If man becomes the ultimate arbiter of truth, and is able to discern moral truth apart from God’s revelation, then man has become a law unto himself. This is lawlessness...

... man has enough evidence in Creation and within his own conscience, and they will have to give an account when they die. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness... "

For those rationalists among you who just don't get it, Nick is saying that evolutionists are goin' straight to hell. This was a disturbing thought for Red State Rabble until we realized that on the whole, we'd rather go to hell -- along with Huck Finn -- than go to the special place God must have reserved for those apostate ID "theorists" who have deprived him of his manhood.

The science vs. religion frame, you see, is utterly false. Our boy Nick just proved it, even if the logic is enough to make a chimp blush.