From Megan McCardle at Bloomberg:
In the ultra-liberal enclave I grew up in, the liberals were at least as fiercely tribal as any small-town Republican, though to be sure, the targets were different. Many of them knew no more about the nuts and bolts of evolution and other hot-button issues than your average creationist; they believed it on authority. And when it threatened to conflict with some sacred value, such as their beliefs about gender differences, many found evolutionary principles as easy to ignore as those creationists did. More.
Couple things here: Let’s assume that “creationists” means something a creationist might at least recognize.
Hey it’s not a quibble. Atheist mathematician Peter Woit and anti-ID biology prof blogger PZ Myers have both been labelled in some quarters as “creationists” (here and here).* So I clarify: I mean people who think that at least some life forms appeared as an act of divine creation. That’s the traditional meaning.
Most creationists actually know more about evolution than McCardle’s liberals. Of course they do. If one truly believes fatuous effluvia from pop sci mags, one needs no reasons other than: It’s me. It’s here. It’s now. It’s in. It’s cool.
The intellectually serious doubter needs fact-based reasons. And in this case, reasons are hardly in short supply. Darwin’s followers have spent so much time stamping out dissent, they haven’t noticed the looming pile of contrary evidence, let alone done much to address it.
Additional semantic note: Based on experience, I profess astonishment that there are still people around who believe that today, liberals are anti-authoritarian. Most anti-authoritarian causes of any reach or depth today are not liberal (in the usual sense of leftist or progressive).
At one time, liberals were low authoritarians, but now that they have embraced utopian politics, they certainly do not mind imposing their views and values on everyone.
But the creationists still know more about evolution than they do, and always will. Because they want to know, that’s why.
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* Both these guys got pegged as “creationists” for dismissing currently popular science circus bandwagons. That should tell many people more than it probably will about where things are really headed.