I recently had a run in with some anti-Darwin YEC (Young Earth Creationists) I am a card carrying "Grumpy Old Atheist Fart" and as I get older my capacity to put up with the tawdry dribbling of the wilful ignorant gets less and less.
In a perfect proof of Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies i was sent this
"However, the Western nations have not learned the lessons of the horrific wars and genocides this century. Evolution is today entrenched in our universities even more than it was in Nazi Germany. "
and a sentence later not satisfied with reductio ad hitlerum, Darwin is up to his evil ways again 150 years after his death.
.. our report of the Columbine High School massacre documents the on-going effects of evolutionary thinking in the young
This load of advanced gobshitery set me to thinking and I believe I can now reveal that YEC's have adapted the standard Scientific Method the orginal one goes like this
1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.
3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.
And this has evolved (ooops sorry strike that) stayed the same into the YEC METHOD which goes like this
1. Observe the scientists observing Phenomena, look grumpy, pray a bit, blame Darwin for the Holocaust.
2. Start mining "The Sunday Sport" and "The National Enquirer" for phenomena that could be useful later on. "Aircraft buried under 1000 years of ice" is a good one.
The startling news that the Piltdown Man was a fake is another. Stop looking grumpy and try looking saintly for a while, grow a Moses-esque beard, pray some more, twiddle thumbs and wait for a scientist to publish something you don't like. Blame Darwin for Columbine, Pol Pot,the third world debt and the disappearance of Orange Smarties.
3. Have a good long pray, fleece some true believers of a few more quid, wonder why scientists bother with all this work since they are wrong all the time ... blame Satan ... Jesus tells you that Darwin IS Satan and he hid his horns using genetic manipulation.
4. Form a "ministry", start a web site, make a documentary about how Darwin IS actually Satan . Prove beyond doubt that Darwin's Beard is a portent of the end of times. Form a hypothesis that affirms that the Man and, consequently, the Earth, is in the centre of the creation, prove hypothesis using bible verses ,repeal Copernican celestial model because Copernicus was a Catholic and very probably a relative of Darwin and therefore the second cousin twice removed of "the beast" .. underline this by showing their beards were VERY similar.
5. Ban Science for being always wrong, co-opt the Orange Order as the NEW Protestant Inquisition, burn Richard Dawkins at the stake even if he does recant.
