Creation Wiki and “Anticreation”
Wednesday, October 17th, 2007
As if Conservapedia weren’t bad enough, there’s also something called Creation Wiki. Why do they need two? Were the creationism articles in Conservapedia not ignorant enough, so they had to create a separate site to make even stupider claims?
I visited Creation Wiki today in search of something to make fun of, and there it was on the home page! Their article of the day is called “Anticreation”.
Introduction
The article starts with:
A recent Newsweek poll found that about 91% of the population in the United States believes in God…
OK, that number is a bit higher than I’d like, but what’s really important is the type of belief. As long as most of them aren’t fundies, we’re OK.
…and 48% believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years.
NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! Most of them are fundies!
Remember, that’s 48% of Americans, not 48% of the theists. If you want to know what percentage of theists are young-Earth creationists (YEC), you divide 48 by 91 to get ~53%. That means the majority of theists in this country are YEC fundies! That doesn’t even include the other branches of fundie-dom that also reject science and reality, such as the old-Earth creationists.
I’ve suddenly become even more demoralized than I was before. But let’s slog on:
Despite these high numbers, we find the views of creationists are mocked by the media…
That’s because they’re mock-worthy, you retard! Just because roughly half the population believes in something that contradicts virtually every known fact, it doesn’t make that belief any less stupid.
…and actively discriminated against in public schools.
It isn’t discrimination. Schools are in the business of teaching facts. Go get yourself a fact, and the schools will consider teaching it.
A number of organizations and even the National Academy of Sciences (a US national government agency) actively oppose creationism and lobby to keep these views from being taught in public schools.
Yes. I just explained why. Weren’t you listening?
Most, if not all, such groups are motivated by a philosophical opposition to biblical creationism…
No. They’re opposed to fantasy. It doesn’t matter what type or where it comes from.
…and counter with arguments derived from naturalistic scientific research.
That’s because the only way of finding out how the Universe works is by naturalistic scientific research. What do you want them to use? Tarot cards? Why not? They’re as credible as your Bible.
The rest of the article is mostly summaries of other articles, so instead of reading the short versions, let’s jump straight to one of those articles.
Anticreation in Public Schools
This article begins with:
Perhaps no place is anticreation sentiment more apparent than in the US public school system.
That’s as it should be. We’re trying to avoid slipping into a second Dark Ages here!
Today Christian teachers are afraid of letting their faith be known and pray only in secret.
What??!!!! “Oh, help me! I’m a Christian! I’m the persecuted majority!”
I think what the author really means is that teachers are afraid of discussing their religious beliefs in the classroom, and they pray only in private (instead of leading class prayers).
Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union…
These articles are always very quick to include their ultimate bogeyman at every opportunity: The ACLU!!
…quickly move to sue any school district if it’s reported that a teacher is introducing intelligent design concepts.
Because that’s creationism, and creationism is religion. Haven’t we been over this already?
Numerous examples have also been documented where educators were discriminated against simply because of their views about God, which never made it into the classroom.
There’s no immediate citation for this statement, but there are a few (not “numerous”) examples later in the article, which I assume is what this refers to.
This anticreation movement has been furthered by government agencies, such as the National Academy of Sciences…
That’s phrased as if it’s a bad thing. It’s bad that a government agency is doing its job?
…which has gone so far as to published [sic] booklets discouraging the teaching of creationism.
That better not be true. They’d better be doing more than just “discouraging” the teaching of creationism. They should be flat-out demanding that the schools not teach it.
Government policy is also in place to prevent those who believe in God from receiving teaching certificates.
There is no citation for this statement either. There is a link to a Washington state web site, but it says nothing about preventing theists from receiving teaching certificates. I guess all the author has to do to look credible is to provide a link. He must hope that people don’t actually click it, but its mere presence makes the statement look credible.
The next section is called “Discrimination of Educators”. It gives a bunch of flimsy examples. Let’s look at just a few:
University of Idaho president Timothy White, issued an edict recently proclaiming that it is now “inappropriate” for anyone to teach “views that differ from evolution” in any “life, earth, and physical science courses.
How is that discrimination? Evolution is the fundamental principle of biology. It has to be taught.
Three days before graduate student Bryan Leonard’s dissertation defense was to take place Darwinist professors at Ohio State University accused Leonard of “unethical human-subject experimentation” because he taught students about scientific criticisms of evolutionary theory.
That sounds like an appropriate charge. It is unethical experimentation. You have no idea how messed up people become when they start believing myth as fact.
High school teacher Roger DeHart was driven from his public school simply because he wanted his students to learn about both sides of the scientific debate over Darwinian evolution.
He was clearly unqualified. There is no scientific debate over evolution.
Biology professor P.Z. Myers at the University of Minnesota, for example, recently wrote this about anyone supporting intelligent design or even just questioning modern evolutionary theory: “Our only problem is that we aren’t martial enough, or vigorous enough, or loud enough, or angry enough. The only appropriate responses should involve some form of righteous fury, much butt-kicking, and the public firing and humiliation of some teachers, many school board members, and vast numbers of sleazy far-right politicians.”
Hey, they spelled his name right! (I’m only including this one in a shameless ploy to try to get a plug on Pharyngula.)
The next section is called “Anticreation Government Policy”. It seems to be related to the out-of-place footnote mentioned above. It has something to do with Washington state not wanting to pay for somebody’s divinity education. Seems like a reasonable church/state separation issue to me.
That’s the extent of these two Creation Wiki articles. As expected, they were short on facts and long on deception.
