Why people believe in evolution, *not*

Do you want to know why people believe in evolution? Read evolution denying Christian, Wayne Jackson. Here we have in one concise document all the contorted rationalizations you could possibly imagine for *not* believing in evolution.

http://www.christiancourier.com/articles/567-why-people-believe-in-evolution

Wayne Jackson, is an expert propagandist. What he churns out are classic pieces built around the strategy of “turnspeak”. Turnspeak is a technique of deliberately confusing issues by turning the truth upside down. Jackson attacks Darwinians, but then the claim is weirdly made that the Darwinians are actually the attackers. Black becomes white and white becomes black. Joseph Goebbels, the NAZI propaganda genius is credited with inventing the technique. A variation of turnspeak is the use of disingenuous descriptions that seem to conflate opposing positions into advocacy. It’s easier to persuade others to agree with an argument for something rather than against something. For example “pro marriage” and “protection of marriage” really mean anti-same-sex marriage. Pro life really means anti-abortion. Paranoid propagandists like Jackson seek to create their own version of reality so they can ward off the unwelcome truth of actual reality. Jackson’s Christian Courier web site is a monument to his delirium.

A facebook member, Prince St. Cyr follows the Christian zealots and is an expert in analyzing propaganda of practitioners like Wayne Jackson that are part of the assault on reason. St Cyr informs us:

“One of the impressive things about paranoid literature is the contrast between its fantasied conclusions and the almost touching concern with factuality it invariably shows. It produces heroic strivings for evidence to prove that the unbelievable is the only thing that can be believed. … Respectable paranoid literature not only starts from certain moral commitments that can indeed be justified but also carefully and all-but-obsessively accumulates “evidence.” The difference between this “evidence” and that commonly employed by others is that it seems less a means of entering into normal political controversy than a means of warding off the profane intrusion of the secular political world. The paranoid seems to have little expectation of actually convincing a hostile world, but he can accumulate evidence in order to protect his cherished convictions from it.”

Why should anyone care about Wayne Jackson and his writing? Isn’t he too far off the wall? Jackson matters because he has so many followers and they represent a dangerous segment of our population. The enemies of reason, which is what we are talking about here, are passionate about spreading their propaganda and they enjoy political power and have money funneled to them by wealthy patrons. They represent a malignancy in our collective body politic and they have succeeded in making ignorance fashionable and desirable. Recall Joe the plumber? Sarah Palin‘s preposterous candidacy for vice president revealed exactly how virulent the malignancy grew in the waning days of the Bush administration. We may have gone into remission, but the cancer is still there. Just tune to the Fox network or the many Christian zealots on radio and television.

We should care because as Charles Darwin said: “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.” We care because the lies and half truths of Jackson’s propaganda are easily believed by people who have been systematically turned away from rationality and reason. They have been methodically robbed of the training they need to see through the lies. Worse yet, they can be influenced to vote and to support the systematic assault on reason. They disrupt public meetings, and divert public money into court battles such as the Dover case and the countless challenges that arise around Christian holidays that involve Christians openly challenging the separation of church and state.

In Texas, the State Board of Education is chaired by a radical literalist Christian who constantly seeks to introduce his flavor of religion into the science curriculum and now into the social studies curriculum.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123777413372910705.html”

The Texas Board of Education will vote this week on a new science curriculum designed to challenge the guiding principle of evolution, a step that could influence what is taught in biology classes across the nation.

The proposed curriculum change would prompt teachers to raise doubts that all life on Earth is descended from common ancestry. Texas is such a huge textbook market that many publishers write to the state’s standards, then market those books nationwide.

“This is the most specific assault I’ve seen against evolution and modern science,” said Steven Newton, a project director at the National Center for Science Education, which promotes teaching of evolution.

Christians are angered or distressed when anyone states the obvious: that they are deluded. But as a final example of turnspeak, here is Wayne Jackson concluding his article:

“People do not believe in evolution because they have been led there by solid evidence. They are stampeded into the Darwinian community by superficial, emotional, and personal factors. They only delude themselves when they think otherwise.” A golden nugget of turnspeak.

Translation:
People believe evolution because it is based on solid evidence. They cannot be stampeded into the Darwinian community by superficial emotion and personal factors in the manner that Christians are stampeded into Christianity. Darwinians do not delude themselves like Christians delude themselves.

According to Gallup only about 12% of Americans accept the scientific arguments and mounds of data as proof that natural forces are sufficient to explain evolution. No supernatural intervention is required. The widespread acceptance that a supernatural force has to be behind evolution can only be regarded as a national disgrace because it exemplifies how willing people are to embrace the wild rationalizations of propagandists like Wayne Jackson. Charles Darwin gave humanity one of the most elegant and brilliant intellectual achievements ever created by a human and his theory is routinely and stupidly dragged through the mud and mire of Christian and Muslim propaganda.

American understanding of science and the scientific method is woefully lacking and the proximate cause is a deliberate program of propaganda directed towards intellectuals, the public schools, and in particular the appreciation of science and reason. The propaganda merchants are literalistic evangelicals that clearly understand the relationship between education level attained and the acceptance of fanciful supernatural beliefs. The more education you have, the less apt you are to accept dogma and superstition as guides to living. The problem is that people opposed to education and rationality indoctrinate their hapless children with their backward outlook and beliefs. You do not see such ignorance in Japan, Canada, or the secular democracies of the world. Unfortunately, the Muslims are just as adamantly opposed to evolution as our hillbilly theologists.

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