Of course, Jonathan Mason is right to suggest that finding scientific “facts” in the Bible is to misunderstand the Bible and science. As I commented elsewhere, most Christians do not read a Bible for scientific enlightenment, and most Christians (at least in the West) have no problem accepting basic theory and findings, including evolution. Even some scientists have Christian or other religious beliefs – the idea that science is some sort of atheist conspiracy is absurd.
Nevertheless, when he then writes that the countering point-by-point the 101 “facts” is ‘exercise in missing the point‘ probably itself misses the point somewhat of what it was I was attempting to do. Which in part was simply a rebuttal to some ludicrous claims advanced on behalf of science – and Christianity for that matter. Granted, it will forever lie in the backwaters of the internet. Granted, it won’t convince the religious fundamentalist (but then, it wasn’t meant to). Rather, it remains a mere academic exercise to sketch out exactly what’s plain wrong with such claims, because the truth does actually matter.
But then again, Jonathan’s comment does rather nicely reveal how out of the mainstream Creationism – Young Earth, Old Earth, Intelligent Design: pick your flavour – actually is: and that is a problem for Creationists, rather than for me.
It shouldn’t be forgotten that Creationism of all kinds isn’t as marginal as perhaps it should be, largely because of poor scientific education in the UK and US, and it’s well-funded campaigns, but in the UK at least it is easy to overstate the threat of Creationism to the education system (although there are a handful of schools that do try to teach Creationism) or society at large; or the existence of fundamentalist Christian Unions on every campus at unviersities in the UK; or tiny but vocal groups such as Christian Voice. Although it is perhaps because of this vociferous minority, and the harm that it does to the image of mainstream Christianity, the Church of England have had to go at lengths to show that it has no problem with Darwin in particular and science in general.
Jonathan in fact expresses an opinion which I have expressed myself. This “series” was in part a sort of homage to users on Youtube in particular, such as Thunderfoot, Potholer54 and ExtantDodo, all of whom do a fantastic – and illuminating – job in bringing real science to bear on Creationist claims. Yet one can’t help feeling that they and others like them are going for an easy target, merely the extreme end of the Creationist minority (not even ID-Creationism). To a certain extent, they are – as he would put it – exercises in missing the point. Who exactly takes the claims of Kent Hovind, Ken Ham, et al, seriously? Certainly not mainstream Christianity, as represented by institutions such as the Catholic and Anglican Churches, among others.
This blog never started out as some sort of rebuttal against religious claims – Creationist or otherwise – as such, and as far as rebutting the claims of Creationism is concerned (at least, the Young- and Old-Earth versions), I shan’t be returning to the issue in any detail on this blog. There are more sophisticated debates to enter into, other issues to discuss. But if the nothing else the exercise has shown me just how absurd the claims made by some people and organisations, for both religion and science, actually are.
