From: Taner Edis Subject: American creationism Message-ID: <9302220012.AB00491@lll-winken.llnl.gov> Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 14:48:50 EST BC: "I believe we were put here for a purpose." P: "Nonsense... We're here simply because we survived." [...] BC: "OK, how do you explain love?" P: "Give it up, kid -- if we aren't here to survive -- we wouldn't have survived to be here!" BC: "Lousy logic is a lot more palatable if you sloganize it." (dialogue in todays Sunday comic strip, "B.C.") Yesterday, I speculated that the center of gravity of creationism may shift to the Islamic world. Just a few hours later, our homegrown American variety of scriptural literalists demonstrated that they'll do their best to junk my prediction. I'm referring to the two-hour CBS special, "The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark." I hope that somebody, especially among those associated with regional skeptic groups, captured it on tape (I don't have a VCR). CBS has been pushing "specials" promoting creationism, life-after-death, UFO's, ghosts etc for at least a year now. This one, however, may have been the most audacious piece of propaganda of them all. It was wonderful, at least if part of your attraction to skepticism is to be able to observe human perversity and high weirdness. The program never let up, never became boring -- my mouth was wide open most of the time, when not occupied with cries of "WHAT?" I can't fully summarize the program, what with so many "Professor of ___ology" types reassuring us that they can demonstrate that the literal Noah story is viable in all its details (no affiliations shown, and many of the names were recognizable as prominent creationists: C. Baugh, H. Morris, son and arkeologist J. Morris, and a host of people sounding like they were from fundamentalist colleges). All sightings and sighting legends are brought up, and dressed up as being quite credible, including old standbys like the one about some from the Russian army entering the Ark just before the Revolution. The program just overwhelms the viewer with so many "eyewitness" accounts and what not, including at least four by people still alive. One, for example, is a Palestinian Christian living in California, claiming to have entered the Ark and retrieved a piece of wood, displayed to the camera (no tests on it being done is mentioned). Unfortunately, his companion fell into a crevasse with all the photographic evidence. A Turkish reporter for a religious right newspaper (Islamic) tells why he thinks that an angular dark spot near the summit he photographed from below is the Ark. We get really multicultural: Armenian boys, British explorers, etc. etc. They even think they know the exact shape of the Ark, like a huge wooden pencil box. These days it's supposed to be broken in two, after a 19th century earthquake. They explain at length how there would be no problem with its seaworthiness, how the animals would have made it to the Ark from all over the world (instinctive search for a safe place), how it would be no problem for a staff of eight to take care of the animals in the Ark for a year, why only about 20000 pairs of animals on board could account for all the animals we see today (all 300 or so dog breeds come from the same stock, so...), how whales and fish live happily in the waters..... OK, I've seen almost all of these claims before, but it can be presented pretty powerfully on TV -- and these guys had a decent budget. They present a model Ark being tested in a water tank (while I'm screaming "it doesn't scale, you fools" at home) with waves, to demonstrate how the Ark could withstand the Deluge. They have fancy graphics, high tech investigative devices, satellite imagery. Reproductions of the current state of the halves of the Ark. Polygraph testing of an eyewitness. Very occasionally a token skeptic shows up to say it's impossible, without explaining in detail why, and is promptly rebutted by a calm and efficient Professor-Of-The- Appropriate-Science explaining how it can be done. Oh, they also had a bunch of actors play out a made-for-TV version of the Noah story, special effects, scoffing corrupt unbelievers and all. The most impressive part was one I didn't know about before. I'd seen the creationist idea of equating the Biblical firmament to a vapor-cloud canopy around the Earth, but somehow they convert it to part of the deluge by calling on a meteorite impact (they must have been following the dinosaur extinction theory). Even better, they have a theory (demonstrated with some *very* impressive graphics) to explain all the water released from the "fountains of the deep." You see, once upon a time, we had hydroplates instead of tectonic plates. The antediluvian Earth's crust was supported on a layer of highly pressurized water, perhaps at up to 10 miles underneath the surface. One day a crack arose in the surface (maybe because of our meteorite), and because of the pressure, this widened very rapidly. A huge crack encircling the globe developed in the course of about 24 hours (they imply that they can calculate these things), with all this water (about half the volume of the present oceans) spewing out of it. The spray was like a heavy rain. As an extra benefit, the pressurized water rapidly eroded the sides of the crack, sending immense quantities of mud all over the place. This laid down all our sediments and caught many animals by surprise, freezing them in death, as the fossil record shows. The hydroplates slid around very fast on their water beds, until the water was depleted or they ran into each other, creating mountains and ocean trenches. The mid-Atlantic ridge is shown, and it is suggested that this ridge, encircling the globe, is the remains of the original global crack. All of geology in a few days. It goes on and on. But I also can't help getting curious -- they are so eager to find a scientific, purely naturalistic scenario that would make the story of Genesis literally correct. It is as if they try to buy a literalism that can be taken seriously at the cost of any role to play for their God. He is unemployed, or behind the scenes, but presumably he acts in mysterious ways. Anyway, I've spent too much time raving about creationists this weekend. Maybe I should watch basketball, or listen to Satyagraha or something. Taner Edis