Lets start off with an excellent quote from the homepage of No Answers In Genesis,

“Creationism is not the alternative to Evolution - ignorance is”

“No Answers In Genesis” as you might imagine, is an old website devoted to refuting Ken Ham’s nonsensical Answers in Genesis

Speaking of that guy, I should have wrote this right after the recent Bill Nye vs Ken ham debate, but I wasn’t able to get around to it at the time. This however sums up what went on with the debate pretty nicely.

Mr. Nye will have one minute to rebut “Yabba Dabba Doo.” #creationdebate pic.twitter.com/REYWTCUTnD

— Tim (TPO) (@tpobserver) February 5, 2014

Contrary to whatever creationists, including Ham will tell you, creationism isn’t science and never will be, while evolution is science. The evidence for evolution is so overwhelming that nearly all scientists accept it. Creationists of course deny this reality and even try to convince us that evolution is not science.

On the other hand, despite what creationist may say, they can’t back up just about any of their claims with actually evidence. In the instances when we can test their claims, they pretty much always turn out to be flat out false. Here’s just one example. If the fanciful myth of Noah’s Ark for were true, all animals should have dangerously low genetic diversity like the Cheetah. Ironically in order to try to explain how all the animals alive today could have come from just one male and one female that survived the great flood, creationists have embraced a ridiculous type of hyper evolution. Or rather, super evolution as cdk007 calls it.

Yet despite this fact, creationism often gets taught in US public schools, at the tax payer’s expense. The good news is that this isn’t constitutional. The courts have repeatedly struck down laws designed to cast doubt on evolution in American schools. Since creationism is not only anti science, but a religious belief, masquerading as science, promoting it with public funds, violates the Establishment Clause. Despite the fact that under our constitution they’re not allowed to do it, they’re doing it anyway. They’re trying to get around the supreme court rulings by funneling money to private schools, through vouchers as Julie Crothers points out,

Indiana’s rapidly expanding voucher program, which funnels millions of taxpayer dollars into private schools, now funds some Christian schools that teach creationism or intelligent design.

Laws and court rulings limit what the state’s public and charter schools can teach in science classes based on separation of church and state challenges. But the curricula of private schools that enroll voucher students haven’t reached the courtroom.

The rapid growth of the program opens the door to an unanswered question: Can local private schools continue to teach intelligent design and creationism with state-funded voucher money flowing into the schools?

We need scientists to develop cures for diseases that threaten our lives and new technology to help solve our problems. But if people don’t understand science or are not interested in science, where will those scientists come from? If large numbers of people in the United States believe creationism over real science, it threatens our future.

Creationism of course isn’t unique to the United States, although here it seems to be the most widespread. No Answers In Genesis, awhile back compiled a list of articles debunking Australian creationists. Creationism is a problem in Australia to this day. US Creationists may even try to use the tactics used by Australian creationists to successfully pervert science education over there, here in the US.

Creationism takes many forms in addition to the Christian young earth version that we are used to here in America or in Australia. Intelligent Design is just one example.

Plus Christianity is not the only religion with adherents who reject the science of evolution. There is Islamic creationism. Many Muslims reject evolution as well, and what they believe is just as nonsensical as what Christians who reject evolution believe. One prominent Muslim creationist is Harun Yahya.

More exotic to most Westerners, is Hindu Creationism. In addition some Native Americans reject evolution, in favor of their tribal creation myths. Recently a group of Native American creationists interfered with an Archeological dig. But all forms of creationism, no matter what form it takes, and what creation myths people are trying to convince you are fact, are total hogwash. I’m not a scientist, but I can tell you based on what scientists have said, creationism is always pseudoscience. Wherever it is creationism is regarded as science by a large number of people, you have a large number of ignorant people.

Evolution is not incompatible with the idea of God. I don’t know who first said that, but its true. You can be a religious person and accept that evolution is a scientific fact. You don’t need to reject God to accept evolution, unless you insist that for God to be real, every single word of your “sacred texts” must be literally true. Evolution doesn’t threaten God. If there’s a God, he created all life on Earth through evolution.

However, rejecting science en mass threatens the future of our species. Just look at climate change denial. Many species may go exitint due to human activity not to mention the negative effects on human health caused by man made climate change. Lets not also forget rise in sea level that threatens coastal communities.

Lets also not forget the harm caused by the anti Vaccine movement. Just look at all the people who should have lived, but died because they didn’t get vaccinated.

In addition, here in the US we need good science education if we are to continue to compete with the rest of the world. Creationism doesn’t help anyone except those who profit from selling creationists materials or those who want to create a theocracy based on their religious beliefs. We need to continue fighting to keep creationism out of our schools and continue to promote the genuine science of evolution, regardless of how anyone may feel about it.