Trojan Weasels
Geoscientist 22.08 September 2012
In late July, the National Trust bowed to pressure to rewrite the interpretation boards it had lately installed at the Giant’s Causeway, Northern Ireland, which acknowledged the existence – particularly in the Six Counties – of a Young Earth Creationist (YEC) view of its formation. The Trust had come under intense pressure from groups of Christian fundamentalists, and alas made the mistake of bending a little too far backwards in accommodating them.
Scientists must never forget that anyone is free to believe whatever nonsense they like about the world, for their freedom is also our freedom. But that is not to say that we should accept the claims of fundamentalist believers that their version of creation myth has equivalent ‘scientific’ claim upon reality - and public attention.
It could have been worse. Scientists could take comfort that the panels clearly presented a proper scientific explanation first and relegated YECs to a subsidiary section about myths. The problem arose, however, not because YEC beliefs were mentioned (though that was too much for some) but because the Trust did more than nod to the existence of YEC beliefs when it stated: “This debate continues today for some people, who have an understanding of the formation of the earth which is different from that of current mainstream science.”
The weasel words here are ‘current mainstream’. Without those words, the statement is unexceptionable. With them, the YECs attain everything they scheme for – namely, a clear implication that there exists a form of ‘science’ that supports the ridiculous idea that the world is only 6000 years old. To sow doubt where there is none is all they want.
Max Frisch’s classic 1958 play Biedermann und die Brandstifter – known in English as The Fire Raisers - is a parable about the Weimar Republic’s destruction by Nazism. In it, a complacent bourgeois family refuses to think evil of the lodgers in the attic, until it is too late and they find themselves collaborating in burning down their own house. The Trust’s careless concession, in two apparently harmless words, was what lets the fire-raisers in; for they played right into the hands of those specious casuists whose evil work tricks the ignorant into accepting the trespass of fundamentalism and dogma upon the rightful domain of science.
We would congratulate the Trust on its U-turn, were it not for our belief that it should not have been so naive in the first place.
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