Reflections on Creationism: Dr Dino

I wrote the following a few years back:

I was introduced to young earth creationism in the rudest manner possible. A local high school teacher in Indiana told me that a ‘famous’ creationist was going to speak at his school. Furthermore, this person was going to rally the community to teach a ‘balanced approach’ via a 3-day seminar at a local Baptist church. I had heard that there were still people (long after the Scope’s trial) who still found fault with evolution, but I thought these were a small fringe group that perhaps suffered from isolation during reproduction. Thus, I walked into the church with mild curiosity and in good humor.

What I heard over the next three days was overwhelming. The speaker, one “Dr.” Kent Hovind, harkened me back to my 18th birthday when I went to buy my first car. The car dealer talked so fast and was so convincing that I started into a contract to buy a mustang convertible with pinstripes, rust-proofing, decals and a whole bunch of other unnecessary stuff while working a minimum wage job. Fortunately, my credit was so bad that financing could not be arranged. Hovind was even smoother than the car salesman and far more successful at selling his ‘product’ to a captive fundamentalist crowd. The people attending that conference were called to arms and for the next few months, I was involved in efforts to stop book banning in Terre Haute Indiana and a constant battle with creationists that I’ve been fighting ever since.

I hope to give you a glimpse inside the crevo (creation-evolution) debate and a glance into how, like the immortal cells of Henrietta Lacks, the debate never dies. Florida is about to undergo revision of education standards and the demons of fundamentalism are stirring!

---Surprisingly, nothing has changed since I first went to battle with ye-creationism. There are no new arguments though there are new faces making the old arguments and for the most part, creationists prefer to politic their cause rather than bring it to the scientific literature (no surprise there!).

Cheers

Joe Meert