There are a lot of things in this world that piss me off; you'll be able to read about most of them eventually, but for the moment I'll just lump a few of them together under a common heading: zealots. Chances are if you lump any bunch of people together under one label you'll be doing a sizeable percentage of them a misjustice, but seeing as I can't think of a nice example of zealotry at the moment, I'll go right ahead.
Zealots, you see, aren't people who like debate. To my mind, you shouldn't enter a debate unless you're willing to be proved wrong instead of right, so what our overzealous chums do is they preach. In fact, now that I think of it, preachers are usually zealots and, by extension, assholes. Let's look at a few.
When you heard about the Kansas rednecks banning evolution1, you laughed, didn't you? If you live outside the US, you probably said to yourself something along the lines of 'only in America', and sneered about it in the pub that night. Well, guess what? You'll see them where you live pretty soon. And it won't be a laughing matter then.
Again, generalising is bad2, but it's a fair bet that if you examine the origin of any half-assed, crackpot idea that builds up a couple of thousand followers worldwide, it'll have 'made in the USA' stamped all over its ass. A corollary would be 'what the US starts, the world will follow. However stupid the idea.'
But what's so bad about creationists? Aren't they allowed their feeble opinions? Of course they are. But like holocaust deniers, these chaps aren't interested in fact. They're pushing an idea, and if you disagree you're a tool of Satan. There are countless web pages denouncing the evils and inaccuracies of evolutionary theory (apparently, the second law of thermodynamics means it's impossible for life to form from mere molecules. And the speed of light is apparently infinite, but is only limited while in the confines of our solar system. And there were dinosaurs on the Ark).
Creationists work in a specific way: they take one aspect of science, and imply that this invalidates the entire field. Never found a fossil that, by itself, proves beyond any doubt that evolution is a fact? Then all paleontologists must be wrong3 about everything. Found a scientific paper that showed how a previous theory on dating the K/T boundary had an error? Then no scientist has a clue as to the age of the Earth.
Let's imagine a room, which is empty except for a man sitting naked in the corner. A security camera shows another man entering the room waving a knife. Two minutes later, police enter the room to find the first man dead of multiple stab wounds in his back, while the security camera shows the second man running from the room, his hands covered in blood.
Pretty straightforward, eh? Not to a creationist. "Aha," he'll say. "Where's the proof that he did it?" You point to the security tape. "But that only shows him entering and leaving the room. All we know is that he was in there. We don't know that he was involved in any way." You point to the fact that the room only has one entrance. "You're blinded by your short-sighted training into refusing alternative explanations that don't fit into your tiny, close-minded system". You ask for an example.
Grinning in triumph, our creationist chum whips out a book. This book is a bowdlerised edition of a bowdlerised translation of an old, hand-copied book written in latin, itself a tenth-generation copy of a Greek translation, which seems to be selections from the Aramaic original. And this copy states clearly that it's entirely possible for multiple stab wounds to appear spontaneously in someone's back. Therefore, the argument goes that we should give equal time to the two theories.
Curiously, though, they're reluctant to devote some of that time to non-Christian creation myths. The argument goes that this is a scientific theory, and that we can't prove that the world wasn't created in six days a few thousand years ago. But shouldn't the 'creation' time in schools be divided so that equal time is given to each myth? Why should children be given the Christian version, and not told that it was equally likely that Atum the Sun God masturbated, and the resulting emission formed the Nile delta?
But this essay is not intended to prove that creationists are wrong; that fact is readily apparent to any thinking person. No, I merely wished to convey some of the annoyance I feel for this hapless bunch, fooled by an inability to appreciate probability into thinking that miracles do happen. My main concern is not that they'll convince anyone, but that they'll convince enough people in authority that shit like the Kansas decision will happen again. They're immune to the huge mounds of evidence, convinced that they have god on their side. Assholes.
I also get pissed off by: asshole evolution espousers who insist that everything in the universe is a direct consequence of evolution, and anyone who asks questions critical of this fact are ignorant fools. They give real scientists a bad name, and ammunition to the Enemy.
Better make sure: are you a creationist?