Cosmos and Creationism

A writer at Think Progress says that Cosmos is, indirectly, giving a lot of time to creationist ideas, despite the creationist critics demanding equal time (for nonsense vs sense, apparently).

http://thinkprogress.org/culture/2014/03/25/3418425/creationism-is-getting-a-lot-of-time-on-cosmos/

By discussing standard creationist arguments about the impossible perfectibility of the eyeball, for example, or denying that one species (dogs) can evolve from another (wolves).

Tyson isn’t ignoring creationism. Creationists wish Tyson were ignoring creationism. Tyson is instead standing on creationism’s home turf and playing by their rules. …

If the ways he’s critiquing creationism weren’t so interesting, his focus on just going through their arguments, dismantling them one after the other, would be tedious. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that this is an incredibly thorough discussion of creationism. Creationists are getting the discussion they claim to wish to be having.

What creationists are upset about is that it’s not a discussion that bothers to treat their ideas like they have any scientific merit. After all, any good scientific question should eventually lead to an answer that generates more questions. Creationism short-circuits that process, instead arguing that there’s an end to questions — that, eventually, you can drill down enough to get to God — God did it or God willed it to be. No more questions needed.

That just can’t be a valid scientific approach. And, so far, week after week, that’s been the subtext to Cosmos.

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