Creeping Creationism  

George Monbiot has a good article out on the creeping creationism (which is in danger of evolving into some sort of predatory mind-numbing force that won't stop until western civilisation collapses) that is afflicting the Anglo-saxon world. The Chinese and Indians must be having a good laugh at us.

I'm still baffled as to why modern day conservative parties seem so determined to put a medieval social structure back into place in the West. Surely the lesson to be learnt from the age of colonialism is that technologically backward, socially petrified societies are easy prey for more dynamic, knowledge oriented ones ?

Issues like the spread of bird flu (now reported to have reached the Urals) would seem to be insoluble for a literal creationist / evolution denier - what do they see when they come across things like virii that evolve over periods of time that a single person can observe ? Insist that it can't be happening ?

Monbiot also drops a reference to Joseph Campbell's "Hero With A Thousand Faces", which is worth a read (especially for those who take their mythology too seriously).

All is not lost in America. When George Bush came out a couple of weeks ago in favour of teaching “intelligent design” – the new manifestation of creationism – the press gave him a tremendous kicking. The Christian Taliban have not yet won.

But they are gaining on us. So far there have been legislative attempts in 13 states to have intelligent design added to the school curriculum. In Kansas, Texas and Philadelphia, it already has a foot in the door. In April a new “museum of earth history” opened in Arkansas, which instructs visitors that “dinosaurs and humans did co-exist”, and that juvenile dinosaurs, though God forgoet to mention it, hitched a ride on Noah’s Ark. Similar museums are being built in Texas and Kentucky. Forty-five percent of Americans, according to a Gallup poll last year, believe that “human beings did not evolve, but instead were created by God … essentially in their current form about 10,000 years ago.”

And not just in America. Last month the Catholic archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Christoph Shönborn, asserted that “any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science.” He appears to have the support of the new Pope. Last week the Australian education minister, Brendan Nelson, announced that “if schools also want to present students with intelligent design, I don’t have any difficulty with that.” In the UK, the headmaster of one of Tony Blair’s new business-sponsored academies claims that evolution is merely a “faith position”.

The controversy fascinates me. This is partly because of its similarity to the dispute about climate change. Like the climate change deniers, the advocates of intelligent design cherry-pick the data that appear to support their case. They ask for evidence, then ignore it when it’s presented to them. They invoke a conspiracy to explain the scientific consensus, and are unembarrassed by their own scientific illiteracy. In an article published in the American Chronicle on Friday, the journalist Thomas Dawson asserted that “all of the vertebrate groups, from fish to mammals appear [in the fossil record] at one time” and that if evolution “were true, there would be animal life fossils of particular animals without vision and others with varying degrees of eye development … Such fossils do not exist.” (The first fish and the first mammals are in fact separated by some 300 million years, and the fossil record has more eyes, in all stages of development, than the CIA).

But it fascinates me also because natural selection is such a barren field for the fundamentalists to till. For 146 years Darwinian evolution has seen off all comers. There is a massive accumulation of evidence – from the fossil record, to genetics, to direct observation – which appears to support it.

Weirdly enough (I love synchronicity, if you'll allow me a pseudo-scientific reference of my own), this same Thomas Dawson referred to in the quoted section has a different article out that caught my eye today called "How Serious is Peak Oil?", which is at the gloomier end of the spectrum (though it doesn't mention dieoff). Clearly peak oil is an easier concept to grasp than evolution (although maybe his blinkers are ideological, and as the bible is silent on the topic of peak oil he might feel able to rely on other tools like evidence and analysis).

Gas and oil are the only two products deemed useful at this time for transportation use. Other biomass products are too bulky to be practical. We live in a world of plastics and nearly all of our plastics are made from oil derivatives. We will undoubtedly relax our environmental restrictions so that coal can be used for heat and to generate electricity. Coal plants too, require investment and time to come to fruition.

Without an alternative source of energy, commercial airlines will become nearly obsolete. They are already losing money and filing for bankruptcy. In order for them to survive, the government will have to either subsidize them or nationalize them.

People will be looking to move nearer to their work and schools. Unnecessary travel will be cut to a minimum. Trains, buses, and underground public transportation will become more popular. Electricity will become very expensive along with home-gas and heating oil. It is said that brownouts and even blackouts will become commonplace. This prediction may overstate the case, as the escalating price of electricity will also curtail its use.

As the price of energy rises, so will the price of nearly everything that we eat or buy. Shipping costs will quickly double, as will the cost of packaging with plastic. Fertilizers and insecticides to produce food will more than double. Supermarkets will raise prices at first, and soon will offer a much smaller variety of product. Everything in our lives will have a much higher cost. Consumers around the world will have to tighten their belts.

It is not difficult to see that these inflationary conditions can quickly lead to a recession that may easily feed upon itself. An ensuing world depression is not out of the question. At about the same time that we have depleted our excess oil supply, we are also depleting our water supplies, and the topsoil needed to raise crops. Prospects of “the good life” for our children are not looking up.

(Sorry if you find any of this fundamentalist bashing is a bit offensive Peaknik - it's not intended to be a swipe at Christians in general)