Being ignorant is bad enough. Being willfully ignorant in today’s world of instant access to information is not acceptable. Being willfully ignorant and knowingly and intentionally spreading deceitful information to anyone foolish enough to listen or vulnerable enough to be preyed upon is just disgusting.
Case in point: Ray Comfort.
It’s bad enough that he’s taken advantage of copyright expiration in order to release his own “version” (PDF file) of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, complete with a deceitful, ridiculous, willfully misleading, and partially plagiarized introduction.
And it was bad enough that he decided to distribute them on various university campuses (in an attempt to, as creationist idiots put it, encourage schools to “teach the controversy,” i.e. teach both the fact of evolution and religious, completely baseless, and non-scientific creationism in Biology classes. THERE IS NO CONTROVERSY, though, no matter how hard creationists try to frame it in those terms.)
And now, although I didn’t think it possible, he’s sunk even lower. He’d scheduled the distribution for tomorrow, but, in order to avoid some of the planned counter-protests and/or evade those who might attempt to engage the creationists in debate/call them on their nonsense, he and his minions decided to distribute them today instead. Sorry to be so crass, but what a cowardly, lying motherfucker. What a vile, sneaky, deceptive, awful person. Goddamn.
At least the NCSE has created a useful site in response to and in an attempt to counter his nonsense.
If you want to collapse in a fit of laughter while simultaneously despairing at the depths of human ignorance, be sure to watch this, if you’ve never seen it before (Ray really likes bananas.):
It’s like a real-life Monty Python skit! And the sexual innuendo is just creepy. It’d be one of the most hilarious things ever if there weren’t an astounding and disheartening amount of people who actually believe this nonsense. These individuals are a huge and frightening threat to the future of the American educational system. And once these people start to achieve political power and influence (as some of them unfortunately already have), we’re in serious trouble.
Hopefully, most university students will just laugh off and immediately dismiss Comfort’s ridiculous nonsense. But there are certainly some who won’t, which indicates the American educational system’s serious failure to or unwillingness to teach critical thinking skills. Failing to teach these skills does students a great disservice and results in their inability to achieve a comprehensive education. (Not to mention that a student who was raised in a religious environment, especially a strict one, will most likely have a harder time developing such skills, as critical thinking is inimical to and threatening to religion and religious belief.) And there are also students who will be vulnerable enough or insecure enough to think that this dangerous inanity deserves even the least bit of consideration.
Ray Comfort knows this. He knows that many people lack even the most basic of critical thinking skills. He knows that there will always be vulnerable people who will gladly swallow his bullshit. And he unashamedly exploits this to the hilt, knowingly spreading misinformation in order to further his religious crusade.
A lying, vile coward indeed.
