380 Evolution? The Fossils Say YES!
the availability of 24/7 news channels and unlimited Internet access, these people only read
and listen to what their church approves of and are made to feel very guilty if they expose
themselves to any media that might challenge their beliefs.
The scientific and educational community has despaired for years about how to make
the evidence for evolution plainer or the message clearer to the creationists so they can learn
the truth about evolution. If Taibbi is right, however, none of it makes a difference. Hard-
core creationists are deeply embedded in this belief system and isolated from any outside
information, and no improvements in the quality or quantity of evidence or how we commu-
nicate it will reach them. When they are exposed to evidence, they will ignore it or dismiss
it or try to rationalize it away. Most of the time they will avoid being exposed to challenging
ideas in the first place. We’ve seen this over and over throughout this book. A classic example
is an interview posted on YouTube between Richard Dawkins and creationist Wendy Wright
(just Google those two names and it will be the first hit). For most of us, it’s excruciating to
watch. Over and over again, Dawkins patiently and gently shows examples of transitional
fossils to the creationist, and over and over again she just repeats the mantra, “There are no
transitional fossils.” No amount of evidence could ever reach a person so thoroughly indoc-
trinated and brainwashed by creationism.
Instead of trying to reach people who are deep in the creationist cult, our efforts are bet-
ter spent reaching people who may have been raised as fundamentalists but are beginning
to open their minds and listen to evidence that was once forbidden to them. Based on the
hundreds of letters and emails I received and on the reviews of the first edition of this book
on Amazon.com, such people were the audience that this book reached most effectively. The
hard-core creationist community never even bothered to attack or take notice of this book
when it first appeared in 2007, and they ignored it for years afterward. But those people who
were uncertain about what to think and were fence-sitting between fundamentalism and sci-
ence were reached effectively, and they responded very positively.
Bit by bit, this will be the way that we can slowly erode the creationist hold on people: by
reaching those who are beginning to open their minds and question what they were taught.
Thanks to the Internet and books like this, it’s much easier than ever to do so. When I grew up
in the 1960s, there were no books disputing or debunking creationism or explaining evolution
clearly, let alone books that challenged religion. I was searching hard for such resources as I
began to doubt my Presbyterian background and look for answers in my community. It’s still
that way in many small towns in America today. But thanks to the Internet, even the most
isolated person can now find all the evidence needed with just a few clicks of a mouse.
Although many rank-and-file creationists may sincerely believe these ideas because
their leaders tell them to, and they’ve never heard of or read other sources, many of the
leaders themselves may be exploiting creationism for power and money. We’ve all heard the
accounts of hypocritical evangelists who turned out to have feet of clay, from Jimmy Swag-
gart to Jim Bakker to the recent case of the Rev. Ted Haggard. The creationist leaders also
have their share of crooks. The most outrageous is Kent Hovind, who called himself “Dr.
Dino” (even though he has no experience in dinosaurs or paleontology and his “Ph.D.” was
bought from an online diploma mill) and even built a Dinosaur Adventure Land theme park
in Pensacola, Florida, to promote creationist ideas. He just finished doing a 10-year sentence
in the Federal Correctional Institution in Florence, Colorado, for cheating and lying—to the
IRS. Their creationist ministries give men like these lots of money and an enormous influ-
ence over a lot of people, and it’s no surprise that they abuse the privilege.