I read the Pravda article linked above, and it is a tour de force of the same old creationist canards that were all thoroughly debunked long ago, but continue to be trotted out year by year as though they somehow now might get a rematch in the scientific arena and win.

The author details are here: "The author, Babu G. Ranganathan, is an experienced Christian writer. Mr. Ranganathan has his B.A. degree with concentrations in theology and biology. As a religion and science writer he has been recognized in the 24th edition of Marquis Who's Who In The East. The author's articles have been published in various publications including Russia's Pravda and South Korea's The Seoul Times."

My first question, then, is this: how does being an "experienced Christian writer" provide one with the credentials to make such bold claims about science (though unsupported) as the article makes? He has a BA, with concentrations in theology and biology--and he publishes in newspapers. What about peer-reviewed scientific literature? Has he produced any of that? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say no.

(And while double-majoring or double-concentrating, which part of campus did he spend the most time on, I wonder? I've got a guess . . . )

I'm not saying that Ranganathan is a bad scientist. Instead, I'm saying that he is no scientist at all. And he is bad.

Ranganathan is in the exact same position as the interviewer in the cartoon video I linked at the end of my earlier post. His strategies range from outright denial of evidence that has been presented time and time again, to repetition of the same mistaken claims, to basically putting the fingers in the ears and shouting "lalalala" while the opponent attempts to make things clear.

The danger of such articles is that people who are scientifically illiterate (and most of the population is) will not know the difference between such claims and the claims of actual scientists who work in the field. Those people then go on to take positions on school boards and elsewhere, like in government, sometimes with vague or not-so-vague ideas in their heads that a religiously ordained apocalypse is on the way, and we'd better hurry it along . . .

That kind of thing makes me shudder, not snicker, at some (not all, and not you) believers.

Herring405