Can one reject the single most important idea in biology and yet still embrace science? Ronald Numbers, a former Seventh-day Adventist turned historian of creationism, says lots of people do. John Wilkins jumped on the Salon interview with Numbers first. But here's my money quote:
Well, most people who reject evolution do not see themselves as being anti-scientific in any way. They love science. They love what science has produced. It's allowed the conservative Christians to go on the airwaves, to fly to mission fields. They're not against science at all. But they don't believe evolution is real science. So they're able to criticize one of the primary theories of modern science and yet not adopt an anti-scientific attitude. A lot of critics find that just absolutely amazing. And it's a rhetorical game that has been played fairly successfully for a long time. In the latter part of the 19th century, when Mary Baker Eddy came up with her system that denied the existence of a material world -- denying the existence of sickness and death, which flew in the face of everything that late 19th century science was teaching -- what did she call it? "Christian science." The founder of chiropractic thought that he had found the only true scientific view of healing. The creationists around 1970 took the view that's most at odds with modern science and called it "creation science." They love science! And they want to partake in the cultural authority that still comes to science.
If creationists actually thought about the disconnect, they'd probably self-combust from excessive cognitive dissonance. But of course, they don't see it that way. They think they are entitled to reject whichever part of the scientific panoply that envelopes their lives while embracing the rest.
And I would argue the only way one can maintain such an attitude is to avoid learning about evolution and science in general. Which, of course, most of America manages to do quite well. If true, then the antidote is obvious: more and earlier mandatory science classes.
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They think they love science.
They are in thrall of scientific rhetoric, the power of numbers and formulae and graphs, the social authoritativeness of science, and the technological accomplishments - but they have no idea what science really is.
It has been said that the creationists want the standing of science without paying the dues:
Doing science.
Being open to the results no matter what.
Neither is easy.
They love science, but not the way science is achieved. Scientific practice, of testing ideas against evidence, is deeply contradictory to their own method of arriving at conclusions, which is roughly "if it doesn't contradict my doctrinal commitments, then it's OK science".
They don't love science, they love Jebus. Their scientific testing and thinking about science only consists of finding out what is written in their version of the bible about the subject. Creation Science indeed.
They don't love science - they love technology, the products of science.
The products of science are tested hypotheses. Technology is one of the applications of those hypotheses to our tool-making skills.
I know many Jewish scientists who are also religious, yet are using the scientific method to either prove or refute scientific hypotheses. The difference between them and the creationists is that the former do not believe in the literal meaning of the biblical word (the world was created in six days) as do the latter, rather, they understand that the bible is given to interpretation and that evolution could very well be part of what has the bible describes as 'creation.'
Creationists/IDists do indeed love science. They endorse it as much as they love the law: Only as long as the results fit their world view.