Creationist Plans to Eventually Backfire

The Washington Post has an interesting article on creationist schools taking field trips to natural history museums that acknowledge the reality of evolution. In particular, they focus on a group from the ultraconservative Liberty University that visits the Smithsonian to marvel at the dinosaur fossils. Of course, the ultimate goal of these trips is two-fold. On one hand, these schools want to instill a feeling of us vs. them in their students—to paint themselves as the victims of a vast anti-Christian, Darwinist establishment. On the other hand, they want to show how their idiotic belief in a 6,000-year-old earth can be shoehorned into actual scientific discovery. But the key motivation here is simply the fact that looking at giant dinosaur skeletons is cool. And this is where I think the efforts of creationists will ultimately backfire. No matter what stupid thing you believe about the origins of life on this planet, the real discoveries of science are undeniably cool. You can be told God winked the universe into existence and then went for a nap, but that can’t stand in the way of the awesome power of a brontosaurus skeleton or pictures of a distant nebula. Those of us in the evidence-based community not only have reality on our side, we also have wonder and awe. It’s kind of nice to feel so optimistic. Read the whole thing for yourself here.