The Hairless Apes of Kansas

This is one of the best bits of writing about creationism/ID/evolution that I have seen, and it is by our own 3 Quarks columnist, Justin E. H. Smith, in Counterpunch:

Compared with the campaigns against abortion and homosexuality, the other two members of that trifecta of Godlessness, evolution may seem unimportant. The first two concern judgments about what is right and wrong, whereas with the latter it is only a matter of truth and falsehood. But it is precisely in debates about what is right and wrong that people should be taking up sides based on preference. When it comes to true-or-false questions, the traditional assumption has been that it does not matter what you prefer; all that matters is what the evidence imposes.

What is most troubling about creationism is how easily its defenders elide it with moral issues that invite us to take up positions based on things like principles. A society that outlaws abortion is just mean-spirited, but not for that reason delusional about the nature of reality; one that supresses a good scientific theory and replaces it with a fairy tale is simply retarded. And I mean this in the very literal sense that it is stunted, held back, left at the intellectual and emotional level of a three- year-old. Creationists would have all Americans frozen at that innocent stage where kitsch coloring books with scenes of smiling hippos on Noah's ark, available at Christian supply stores (did Christ, by the way, need 'supplies'?) throughout the country, seem to provide an adequate account of origins.

The advance of creationism, in short, is among the surest signs that in the US truth is increasingly something that is decided upon by preference-based convention, rather than something that is imposed, like it or not, by reality. And what is preferred in this case is infantile submission to the authority of the men who control church, school, and state.

More here.  [Look for Justin's first column at 3QD on Monday.]