There are so many ideas creationists imagine their opponents to adhere to.  As I have explained before a lot of them are not part of evolution theory.  Additional ones are not part of present-day science at all.  Take for example claims of perfection.  Scientist have not made any claims of perfect knowledge for generations.  They know their ideas have flaws but consider creationism even more flawed.  This is partially due to different views on what consists a flaw.  Partially this is because they actively search for flaws in their own ideas as well as those of others.  This in contrast with creationists which just take it for granted they own ideas are perfect.

There is however a tendency among creationists to think a problem is unsolvable because they themselves can’t come up with any solution.  This only demonstrates their defiance in imagination since a lot of others can come up with solutions.  Many problems creationists believe to be unsolvable are actually in the process of being solved.  Others have already been solved sometimes in the 19th century!

Some more ideas not part of science:

Atheism is simply denying the existence of God or any gods for the matter.  Some scientists do this while others don’t have any opinion.  A considerable fraction of scientists is actually religious.  Then they have a form of religion which work independently of how physical reality is.  This form of religion requires a certain amount of inborn talent.  I suspect a lot of creationists are lacking this talent.  That would explain why they are so obsessed with physical reality having to be in a certain way for their “personal relationship with God” to be valid.

Classism is believing different social classes to be essentially different.  Social classes large enough to form a breeding population have existed for far too short for such differences to evolve.  Moreover, the ruled always outnumber the rulers many times over.  Since beneficial characteristics tend to become more common over time this would suggest the lower classes to be biologically superior.  Claiming the opposite is just an excuse for minoritarianism.

Communism arose trough misaimed admiration of Karl Marx and – to less extent – his collaborator Friedrich Engels.  Not only was The Communist Manifesto published eleven years before The Origin of Species.  Karl Marx’ book Capital was published after it but shows little or no influence from evolution theory.  I don’t even think there were any connection between Karl Marx and Charles Darwin.  The claim there were, is a result of human error.  These two are now known to have corresponded with two different people.  These two peoples’ letters were inherited by the same person who mixed them up.

Eugenics as traditionally imagined is based on misunderstandings of evolution theory.  Eugenists believed that humans having predicable characteristics would be something good.  Evolution theory actually teach individual variation is good for the species.  Greatly overestimating the pace of human evolution did not help their case either.

Greed is the will to acquire possessions which scientific research is not very conductive to.  As I have pointed out before scientists are not as well-paid as some people think.  The association between science and greed is due to the ambiguity of the word “materialism”.  When applied to science it means the idea of matter being all there is.  This idea has been abandoned in favour of energy being seen as more fundamental.

Homosexuality is thought of by creationists as homosexual behaviour.  In other words, having sex with someone of the same gender.  There is no connection between such homosexual behaviour and evolution theory.  In fact, scientists are struggling to explain it.  The only person I know to have promoted homosexual behaviour was Isaac Asimov.  He suggested it as a method to prevent overpopulation.  At least at the time he may not have realised most people simply don’t want to.

Nazism is characterised by mystifying of the nation combined with heavy prejudice.  To the extent the original Nazis adhered to evolution theory they had probably misunderstood it.  Present-day science gives no support for the idea of groups being essentially different.  In fact it says it is impossible to make people as internally homogenous as such prejudice presuppose.

Racism is based on assuming traits of local culture to be biologically inherited.  Modern science has thoroughly disproven this idea.  Present-day biology in fact teach humanity is one biological race.  There are correlations between biological decent and a considerable number of physical characteristics.  However, these are either neutral or only advantageous in some environments.

Satanism is commonly thought of as literal worship of the Christian Devil.  I don’t think anyone at the accuracy of his or her senses would actually do so.  The very idea was made up by a medieval clergyman in a failed attempt to explain the motivation of non-Christians.  He had no idea of the limits of the humanly possible.  All he had to judge non-Christians by was rumours coming from their enemies (and as such likely false).  He then imagined ill will aggravated by reverse Christianity.  Such a belief system has never been practiced at least not in organised form.

Social Darwinism was actually made up by Herbert Spencer.  He mixed up social success with evolutionary success.  The latter is only counted by someone’s number of surviving children.  The way society is organised there is nothing preventing the rich and famous from dying childless.  Changes promoted by him would not select for “fitness” (whatever you think it is) but for wealth.  The rich would keep their maladapted relatives alive while the poor would risk death from pure random chance.  Those would be the results of abolishing welfare and forbidding charity.

Modern science really works genuinely different from creationism.  We can’t take it for granted we already know everything we will ever need to.  A good analogy is the skill to track animals across the landscape.  It did not come into existence all at once though divine revelation.  Neither was it all found out by a single person who subsequently become worshiped as a god.  Instead, it arose through careful observations and open-ended discussions.  The skill may even have been partially lost over time only to be rediscovered by the same methods.  Capacity to develop new skills this way eventually enabled modern science.  Unfortunately, this happened after millennia of habitual abuse of power resulting in anti-science movements.

 

Uploaded on the 1st of December 2023.