Types and motivations of anti-evolution creationists

[TXlib]

I've been reading the talk.origins archives a bit lately, and had a few creation vs. evolution debates on a conservative forum.

It seems to me there are basically three flavors of anti-evolution creationist:

1. Passive accepter
   Passive acceptance results typically from accepting the teachings of authority figures with little to no further thought on the matter. This is typically coupled with ignorance (perhaps blameless) of the scientific method, critical thinking skills, and basic science. Within this category there exist two subgroups:
   
   
   
   • intellectually curious
     The intellectually curious passive accepter is typically young, and his access to knowledge has been tightly controlled by authority figures (parents, pastor, etc). This person will follow up links offered by evolutionists, read books, and educate himself on the underlying facts.
     
     Depending on the nature of his faith (fear-based, or inspiration-based) strength of faith, and origin (internal or external, i.e. - dependent on confirmation from others), the intellectually curious passive accepter will react to an education in the underlying science either by accepting evolution (and probably simultaneously rejecting religious fundamentalism, and possibly religion in general), or by becoming a paranoid nihilist.
     
     
   • intellectually uncurious
     The intellectually uncurious passive accepter is much more likely to be swayed by a persuasive, charismatic speaker than by the factual evidence. Appeals to authority and appeals to the masses will have weight, as will flat-out misinformation and lies, if delivered authoritatively enough. This person, if engaging in an evolution vs creation debate, will not be motivated to read past the the debate itself; he won't follow up links supplying further evidence, or expend energy to educate himself on the underlying science. He is either afraid that further knowledge will weaken his faith (and may progress to a paranoid nihilist) or he may simply be serenely confident that his pastor/parents/bible say creation is right, and that's good enough for him. Anybody who truly, honestly believes in biblical inerrancy and in creation over evolution will spend their entire life in this category.
     
   
   
   
2. Paranoid nihilist
   The paranoid nihilist is probably suffering a crisis of faith. He is extremely fearful of death (fearing either non-existence or eternal hellfire), and clings desperately to the bible as a drowning man to a life preserver. He wants to believe the bible is true, and that god is real, but has serious misgivings. He views scientific theories of origins as temptations against faith, and constructs elaborate, illogical explanations to explain them away. He depends on confirmation from others to maintain his faith, and seeks to convince others, by any means, that any scientific theory of origins (evolutionary mechanism theory, cosmology, abiogenesis, etc.) are "just theories" and "faith-based" -- and wrong. This person is most likely either to attempt to pass an anti-evolution law, or eat a bullet.
   
   
3. Shameless huckster
   The shameless huckster holds advanced degrees in fields completely unrelated to science, or even completely fraudulent degrees. He may not even care at all about creationism, and may privately believe he is wrong. But he has a product to sell -- seminars, books, tapes -- and a captive, gullible, perhaps desperate, audience to whom he can peddle his snakeoil. He's not concerned about the truth -- just how much money he can make off his dupes.
   

I plan to expand this into a longer article on the motivations and goals of creationists, so I'd appreciate serious comments, and suggestions for improvement.

[XemaSab]

1. Lots of people

fit this: "clings desperately to the bible as a drowning man to a life preserver," without fulfilling the rest of the convictions of the paranoid nihilist.

Lots of anti-evolutionists see the Bible as being the literal truth of God, and if one part is proven false, the whole thing falls apart, so they're emotionally invested in things like "proving" the historical accuracy of the account of, say, Noah's Ark and the flood, or other parts of the Bible that real Biblical scholars have long since given up on, because if one part's not true, the whole thing is called into question.

[Tux]

2. Throw out the baby with the bath water

Buddhist writings are full of myth and fantasy. Dhammapada is the most basic and core of them that has no serious amounts of fantasy yet Buddhist writing, despite the flying, divine hearing and sight, etc, has a lot of wisdom, therapy (Buddha tried to solve suffering), and good ideas. Why throw out the whole thing when one thing in the Bible is proven wrong? Most of it was attempts by ancient people to make sense of the universe.

[XemaSab]

3. Exactly

HELLO????

Jesus spoke in parables. What makes you think the whole thing isn't full of parables?

(The Noah's ark story was stolen from the Sumerians, and the original is JUST PLAIN WIERD. Full of very odd sexual behavior, and arguing gods.)

[Warpy]

4. True believers don't see it that way

and are completely invested in the notion that it is the inerrant word of their god as written down by ancient scribes who were giants. They desperately want to find a big boat stuck on the side of Mt. Ararat and they desperately want the universe to be proven to be only 6,000 years old. They are literalists and parables are lost on them because they are unwilling to or incapable of sitting down to figure out what the lesson of any particular story might be.

When I was working in neurology, one of the cognitive skills we used to assess was whether or not a head injured patient could correctly interpret a proverb. I argued that it wasn't indicative of much if he couldn't, since I felt that there were a lot of people out there who were incapable of it and I demonstrated my point by asking a few literalists I knew who worked in other disciplines. They were unable to figure out anything but the most obvious, and things like "a stitch in time saves nine" or "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" baffled them.

Literalists are horribly limited people when it comes to abstract reasoning, and it doesn't do any good to try to talk them out of being literalists. They're hard wired that way.

Showing them that the bible is a collection of parables, not to be taken literally, terrifies them for this reason.

[Tux]

6. Education may not do it

But why can't they allow the rest of us accept it as what it is? They do seem to be hard-wired or even a cognitive failings during development. We can't do true research since that'll be seen as persecution.

From my experience, it maybe a lack of intellectual or emotional development.

We just don't know for certain but at least we can fight them off once we get the numbers.

[TXlib]

5. So how would you amend my classification scheme?

[XemaSab]

7. Add another number maybe?

True Believers

[TXlib]

8. I think I have that covered

Intellectually uncurious passive accepters. To them, the authority of the bible and their church is good enough. They're not interested in learning about the science underlying evolutionary mechanism theories, what the evidence that led to it is, and why the conclusions we have drawn from that evidence is reasonable, and creation speculation is not supported by the evidence.

I'm not talking about theistic evolutionists, people who reconcile their faith with what is scientifically accepted; rather I'm talking about people who espouse specific creationist ideas (i.e. literal creation in seven days, young earth, literal world-wide flood, literal fall from grace)... these bible-based hypotheses are falsifiable, and are, in fact, falsified by the evidence.

People who are True Believers of such literal creation hypotheses are either ignorant of science, the scientific method, and/or elementary deductive logic, or are intellectually dishonest.

I'm afraid I can't come up with a more charitable explanation for this category; the most even-handed characterization of people who believe pure nonsense, who have demonstrated that their ideas are not based in reality, and not only continue to believe nonsense, but try to push it in public schools under force of law is not going to appear even-handed to those people.

[Warpy]

11. I provided a third alternative to

"People who are True Believers of such literal creation hypotheses are either ignorant of science, the scientific method, and/or elementary deductive logic, or are intellectually dishonest."

They're quite incapable of wrapping their brains around the scientific method because they're simply not capable of much abstract reasoning. They can take measurements and construct things, but they can't follow a simple syllogism or do much truth testing; they can recite but not compose.

It's a curious sort of intellectual blindness that has no element of dishonesty at its core. It's also a type of blindness that is incapable of knowing its own limitations.

People with this innate limitation gravitate toward something that gives them absolutes and a clear set of instructions. Any threat to this scheme drives them completely around the bend because they know they can't cope without it.

[TXlib]

12. That's interesting.

It didn't occur to me that some people (unless retarded) simply might not be able to think in anything other than literal terms. This might explain those who only accept as evidence data gathered firsthand with nothing to extend or enhance your five senses, the kind of people who write things like "Were you personally THERE?" and "If you know how it all works, then go create life", and honestly think that's a valid rebuttal.

Do you have any web resources that address this? It must be a fairly significant fraction of the population thus impaired, excuse me, 'differently-abled'.

[XemaSab]

13. I'm not sure that a lot of these people

can be termed totally intellectually uncurious. People like "creation researchers" seem very creative in concocting "proof" of Biblical events. But I do that it's a small fraction of all fundies.

[TXlib]

14. Problem with creation researchers

is that they're ignorant of the scientific details, or dishonest. They repeat claims that have been proven untrue (and in some cases, that they have privately acknowledged they knew to be untrue). They manufacture quotes that were never said. They don't respond to the scientific theories -- they create strawmen of what the theories say, then attack the strawmen.

It is not possible to be a true believer in literal creation without being (a) ignorant, (b) intellectually dishonest, and/or (c) suffer from some cognitive defect.

[XemaSab]

15. Well yeah

You can get videos online that PROVE a young earth by way of the Mount Saint Helens eruption! :-)

[Modem Butterfly]

9. Dumb and dumber

:7

Just being a wise-ass.

I've never thought much about what sort of people are creationists or why. But I do believe that creationists must not be very secure in their beliefs if they limit their god to the literal word of Genesis.

[TXlib]

10. My goal

I want to put forth a constructive classification scheme that will help me, and others who wish to advance science and diminish nonsense, to determine what sort of creationist we're dealing with, and what debating/teaching styles would be most effective (and whether there's a point in debating them at all, if the goal of debate is to change the other person's mind).