Friday, January 23, 2009

Of Devils and Dinosaur Bones

I always thought that saying "The devil buried those fossils!" was a caricature used to mock the creationist position. I never realized that it was actually, seriously considered. Ok, I am using the word 'seriously' rather loosely. The video can be viewed here. The relevant section occurs at 4:43.

The audience member that raises the question is espousing a purely young earth creationism view. Surprisingly, the ID advocate agrees with him. This further muddies the common pool they share together. How can ID ever be seen as a valid, secular scientific theory when their proponents always make these sorts of backwards, religious comments. I guess it's simply easier than designing experiments and slugging it out in the lab.

So Satan buried those bones and fiddled with our DNA so that it only appears evolution has taken place? Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothese-la.

What of disease and emergent antibiotic resistance? I must admit. I kinda like this one. It makes medical microbiology a holy enterprise. Ladies and gentlemen, we are not curing disease, we wrestling the devil. Now that sounds exciting.