You can lead a Creationist to water...

The News-Gazette now has a weblogs page. They don't have much of the newspaper online, but they have some links to local blogs. I was poking around in the ones they to which they currently link, and came across this amusing exchange between a U of I senior and a creationist putting up flyers all over campus. His replies to the creationist are remarkably well-written and thought out. I've read quite a few undergraduate (and even graduate) writings, and you'd be surprised at how bad the writing is. It's always good to see someone in the science able to put a sentence together.

The problem is: you can't have a rational argument with a creationist. They're not coming from a rational mind-place. They've already made up their minds; they know the way the world was put together, and anything that disagrees with their Biblical worldview is, by definition, wrong. Oddly, that's what puts science at a disadvantage. Science needs hypotheses, experiments, data, and all that stuff, while creationism just needs the Bible. Anything fact in dispute with creationism is just part of the evil, athiest conspiracy to either "force God out of our schools" or "force God out of our society."

OK, I guess you can argue with a creationist. You can't debate one. Their position is primarily an emotional one. There is no fact or fossil or theory that can get them to change their view, which is why creationism is inherently un-scientific. (Don't get me started on misuse of the word "theory.") That's why their arguments are usually directed at school boards and laypeople rather than the scientific community. The belief doesn't hold up under scientific scrutiny (Evolution is just a theory. Life is really complicated; it had to be designed.), but it sounds good. The problem is that sound-good, feel-good soundbites don't a scientific theory make.