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« The Truth Will Cost You Your Job | Main | #7402 of This Does Not Appear to Be a Joke, But Could Be »

April 24, 2004

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But they don't want the same terms of debate-what they want is a privileged place. I run into this all the time in the creation/evolution wars, where the religious right will tell legislators that they just want fairness and representation in the science classrooms, but when told that a fair representation of creationist ideas in a biology class would consist of 5 minutes of scathing, contemptuous dismissal of their fact-free nonsense, they will turn around and demand protection from such criticism.

Right. Exactly. What they really want is not equality of treatment but equality of respect, which isn't possible in a scientific way. I think they know this, since they often frame their arguments not in scientific terms but in terms of the "pernicious" effects of believing in evolution; i.e., "If people believe we're descended from monkeys, we'll all act like animals." Superficially, their argument is that modernity is bad, but really what it comes down to is they feel discomfited by the concepts that challenge their prejudices.

Same old story, same old song and dance.

"Wouldn't we be better off if everyone was a Christian?"
Yeah, just like the reformation.

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