The key word is, of course, "schools". The devout Creationists appeal to the authority of their Sunday schools; the believing biologists appeal to the authority of their graduate schools. Granted that the level of discourse is strikingly different; but who can ignore or deny the fact that a great many myths and dogmas, some of them quite dangerous, destructive and superstitious, are also inculcated into credulous young minds in both undergraduate and graduate university science departments. It is also not surprising to find that these ideas are often defended with the same obstinacy, the same intensity of denial, the same rigidity, as one finds in persons who sincerely believe that Bible stories are a superior guide to the nature of the universe than 2 centuries of extraordinary labors on the part of hundreds of scientists around the world. .
One way to reshape the argument, one that may prove more successful in the long run, is to admit that, over these same two centuries, science has also contributed (perhaps even more than religion!) its own share of pointless, silly and even ruinous quasi-religious creeds to shackle human economic and political activity, thought and understanding. Such a gesture of humility, (rare enough in the scientific community) , would lift the anger and anxiety from Creationists who smart at the implication that they are stupider, more ignorant, or even more superstitious than scientists. By admitting that they are just as insecure and addicted to the worship of authority as the religious types, the scientists could open to dialogue to a frank discussion of the psychological roots of dogmatic belief and fanaticism. .
The huge scope of the catastrophes caused in the last two hundred years by the misapplication of pseudo-sciences, puts the scientific world order on the same level as the great scourges in the name of religion: the Inquisition, the wars of religion of the 16th and 17th centuries, the massacres of Shiite and Sunni, the savage pograms everywhere in the world. Who can deny, for example, that psychiatry, either in the form of the alienist heroic therapies ( electric shock, insulin shock, lobotomy), or of the many diverse off-shoots of psycho-analysis, has brought immeasurable harm to mankind? Who can seriously dispute that ideas such as Oedipus Complex, penis envy, polymorphous perversity and repression are every bit as silly (even "stupid"), as a literal belief in the virgin birth, the creation of the universe in 7 days, or Noah's Ark? .
In my opinion one has to consider Karl Marx a major economic thinker; yet who can deny that various dogmatic interpretations of Marx's ideas have served as the basic of some of the most ruthless and tyrannical regimes in history? And even the Nazis claimed to base their racist ideology on a field of science, eugenics, that was very fashionable within the scientific community for a century or so before Hitler came to power. Indeed, eugenic ideas still abound today in a variety of guises. One need only recall Larry Summers, the president of Harvard himself, casting doubt on the capacity of the female brain for mathematics. .
The list is very long. Most scientific "myths" are harmless, though no less childish or silly than the Bible stories: Deconstructionism, Panglossian evolutionary psychology, behaviorism (and its sinister off-spring, behavior modification), supply-side economics, string theory .....
Imagine if the biologists were to say to the Creationists: .
"Look: we, too, fall victim to delusions. That you believe in Bible stories does not make you babies; we too have believed in Chomskyan linguistics, string theory and IQ tests. We have forced mental patients and disturbed individuals into the care of quack therapists; we have wrecked entire economies by so-called Marxist and Milton Friedman models; we have ruined lives and careers by the imposition of educational systems based on absurd intelligence and aptitude tests. .
"We have done all these things, we are no better than you are but, yes, Bible stories cannot compete with the theory of evolution in explaining so many features we see in the world around us. They cannot tell us about DNA; they cannot explain the earth's geology; nor can one extrapolate from them to create a reliable description of the geology of Mars or other planets; they cannot assist us in the search for medicines to cure diseases, on the basis of the similarities in animal structure in related species; they cannot provide a mechanism for the development and transformation of species, a phenomenon that can be seen daily in numerous habitats around the world. They cannot answer questions they were not designed to answer. .
"There are various moral codes in the Bible, not just one, and it is right to take the principal ones seriously. Science can indeed be faulted, perhaps, for being unable to provide such codes. Let us therefore, once we have leveled the playing field, trade off our insecurity and embarrassment, our mutual need to cling to authority and dogma, and, as beings sharing a common humanity, search together for reasonable solutions to the world's urgent crises and mysteries." .
I am arguing for a "win-win" approach to dealing with Creationism. One has to give the other side something to save face, something important that can be considered a genuine victory. A frank admission of the horrors committed in the name of science should sufficiently disarm at least enough of the Biblical fundamentalists to remove the threat they pose to education and to the advancement of knowledge.