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[edit] Engaging Creationists: A Conspiracy of Dunces and Trolls

I love a good debate. When you have two capable groups discussing all sides of an issue, it can illuminate areas of perspective never before considered; yield new insights and break through the wall of ignorance and prejudice. Usually a debate has the objective of seeking truth by performing an autopsy on an issue, stripping away the skin, pushing aside non-essential organs and identifying the causes and effects.

If "Sandra the Astrologer", a new-age 50-something living in Oregon who publishes a web site offering peoples star charts and horoscopes, requested a debate with M.I.T. professor Stephen Hawking on the nature of the universe, would she have a chance of participating in such a roundtable?

If Bob, the likable New Mexico-native, Lithium-prescribed master storyteller of tales of his alien abduction and subsequent visit to the planet Zircon, wanted to debate NASA chief Michael Griffin, who holds multiple PhDs and other degrees in everything from electrical engineering and applied physics to aerospace engineering, what is the likelihood of this event transpiring?

So why then would someone like Kent Hovind, a fundamentalist evangelical preacher with a minimal flock of followers, whose education primarily consists of a degree in "religious education" from a now-defunct unaccredited diploma mill be able to sit down and contain a long string of prominent and respected scientists and mainstream educators on various television and radio appearances?

And why is there a seemingly endless stream of religious and politically-motivated, yet specifically uneducated "expert pundits" parading around online and in mainstream media taking on some of the world's most respected and capable scientists and educators?

Yes, it's funny and amusing. It was funny and amusing, the first hundred times news of creationists having the audacity to challenge atheists that they could prove God exists using their own logic. It was even more amusing the first hundred times a respected scientist engaged an uneducated, layperson, religious figure over the nature of space, time, history, biology, chemistry, genetics, archeology and evolution. Like watching a six-year-old using a set of Legos to show Werner Von Braun the proper way to make a rocket ship.

Now it doesn't seem as amusing. It seems kind of sad, and more importantly, it seems like many respected scientists are falling for a trap set by evangelicals designed to give their irrational claims an air of respectability.

Respected scientists and other freethinkers are getting trapped and exploited to achieve the opposite of what they intend. They're not introducing the rational, scientific side of an issue. They are pawns in a game. They are the intellectual equivalent of Pavlov's Dog. They are serving as examples for fundamentalists to cite the legitimacy of their religious campaigns by means of "controversy." The virus of superstition and mythology, which previously could only sit outside the science building and make squeaking noises that were mostly ignored, has now walked in the front door and into the classroom of many science curriculums across the country, not because it is a viable "alternative" to existing theories that have held up to centuries of scientific scrutiny, but instead because of an implication that these faith-based ideas are credible because so many respected scientists feel inclined to discuss them, hence the "controversy" is substituted for actual evidence, and the trolls win.

Here's what Richard Dawkins has to say about the issue:

I couldn't agree more. Giving any attention to creationists is like sharing the stage with KKK members or Nazis. They had their time in the sun. It's over. We're not learning anything new from them. They just need attention and publicity and they'll troll anyone and everyone to get it. Their presence and influence in society should be beneath the margin of common sense. Any time one of us engages them, we elevate their ridiculous, illogical agenda. It's not worth it. So even if you win the debate every single time, which isn't surprising, you make their side stronger and create the illusion that the battle is tough and worth fighting on both sides. And you lose the war.