Local yokel disproves evolution?

No, just kidding. There was a letter to the editor in the News-Gazette the other day that was just so stunningly arrogant, misled, and flat-out wrong, that I couldn't resist responding here. Mr. Justin Bleich of Gibson City writes:

It has been proven many times that creationists appeal to the facts of science to support their view, while evolutionists appeal to the philosophical assumptions from outside science.

Creationists appeal to the facts of science? Um ... really? Maybe it's been proven in your Bible study group, Mr. Bleich, but among rational people, that's a load of hooey. Take this load of "proofs" for the existence of God. Go take a look through the literature sometime. You'll find lots of experiments, data, photographs, even. You won't find many creationists doing the same because they have no experiments. They have no data. They can only appeal to the ignorance and gullibility in their listeners and their religious beliefs.

When it has been proven that energy cannot be created or destroyed, how in the world would a single-celled organism, by chance, appear from nothing and eventually evolve into a multi-celled organism, like a fish?

What? Unless these single-celled organisms have internal fusion reactors, the creation or destruction of energy has nothing to do with evolution.

How, also, would this fish then evolve into a lion? Humans were not yet here to prove this.

I can't even tell if he's arguing that fish couldn't evolve into tetrapods like Tiktaalik because humans weren't around, or if he's arguing that if humans weren't around, nothing can be "proven." The latter, of course, would mean we can't know anything about astrophysics, geology, or who really built the Pyramids. After all, were you there? Did you know that it wasn't aliens with tractor beams coming out of their flying saucers?

Evolutionary scientists often use their assumptions to formulate the idea that nonliving organisms gave life to living organisms, and humans came from apes.

Um, huh? I'd love to find one of those "nonliving organisms" someday. I guess in his own incoherent way, Mr. Bleich is talking about abiogenesis, which has nothing to do with evolution.

Humans didn't evolve from apes! God, have these people learned nothing since the Scopes Monkey Trials? Mr. Bleich's assignment is to write "Humans and apes diverged from a common ancestor millions of years ago. One did not evolve from the other" one hundred times or until his crayon runs out.

Creation scientists have just as much right to our opinion as do evolutionary scientists.

No one is saying that creation scientists don't have their right to their opinion. Christian Scientists and modern geocentrists have the right to their opinion, too. They don't have the right to demand their weird beliefs taught in science classes as science.

The fact that rank ignorance survives even in this day and age frightens me. People like Mr. Bleich really want to drag us down back into the Dark Ages. And while he and his religious brethren are being so smug and self-righteous about their Godly beliefs, the rest of the world is going to pass us by in scientific knowledge.