378 Evolution? The Fossils Say YES!
inconsistencies between our beliefs about ourselves and our behavior. As George Orwell put
it, “We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we
are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts as to show that we were right. Intel-
lectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time; the only check on it is
that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against a solid reality.”
All humans live with these conflicts most of the time, but in some cases the conflict
is extreme. Creationists’ entire sense of self and worldview are tied up in their literalistic
belief in the Bible, and anything that challenges or conflicts with it must be false, no matter
how strong the evidence. This explains the incredible mental gymnastics and twisted logic
and outright denial of the facts that are right in front of their noses. And that core belief is
extremely powerful in the mind of a creationist. Not only does it define who they are, but
they are even more concerned about salvation and going to hell. Mountains of evidence
about evolution will not shake them or make them pay attention, when they believe eternal
torture in the underworld is the alternative.
This kind of dogmatic, inflexible religious belief explains many aspects of their bizarre
behavior. Apparently, to the creationists, lying and deception are lesser sins than accepting
evolution, and they are willing to sacrifice their integrity in their crusade against what they
believe to be the source of all evils in the world. Their intellectual blinders are so strong that
they see only what they want to see and read only what they want to read in a quotation, all
in the name of their religious beliefs. To creationists, a literal belief in the Bible is essential to
their religious salvation, and everything else (including science) must be sacrificed so their
souls can go to heaven. A famous quote by Judge Braswell Deen (Pierce 1981:82) of Georgia
says it all: “This monkey mythology of Darwin is the cause of permissiveness, promiscuity,
pills, prophylactics, perversions, pregnancies, abortions, pornography, pollution, and prolif-
eration of crimes of all types.”
British reporter Bruno Maddox (2007:29) described the creationists’ attempt at reduction
of cognitive dissonance in his Discover magazine column, “Blinded by Science,” focusing on
his visit to the Answers in Genesis creationism museum in Kentucky. He wrote,
I find myself reminded of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s proposition in The Crack-Up, that “the test
of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same
time and still retain the ability to function.” Fitzgerald’s first-rate mind, of course, even-
tually stopped retaining its ability to function, and watching [creationist Jason] Lisle try
to reconcile the cutting edge of modern planetary physics with the offhand assertions of
a religious tract written thousands of years ago by an unknown assortment of bearded
semi-cave dwellers, I found myself wondering how long the poor chap has.For the record, I have even less patience now with the creationist agenda than I did
going in, because I now suspect that they don’t really believe the falsehoods with which
they are trying to flood the world. But at the same time I got the clear impression that
they don’t have any choice. I thought I was going to meet people who love God and
therefore hate science. What I found instead were people who love God but who have at
least a pretty serious crush on science as well, and thus find themselves in the Fitzgeral-
dian nightmare of waking up every day and trying to believe in both. They will—they
must—spend their lives, and brains, trying to think of ways that patently false ideas
can be made to seem, if not actually true, at least not quite so patently false. . . .