The real creationist agenda

I stumbled across a very telling quote today. The Grauniad ran a piece about John Mackay, an Australian creationist who is visiting England in order to show his support for forcing religion on people and forcing the taxpayer to pay for it (hat tip to Red State Rabble for the link). In the article is a quote from Kurt Wise, author of In Six Days: Why 50 Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation.

The quote goes:

"[i]f all the evidence in the universe turns against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the word of God seems to indicate. Here I must stand."

If you don't get why it's so ominous, read it again carefully, and think on this:

Can a person who feels this way accept anything less than total victory? Could this person be happy with "teaching the controversy"? Would he be content with a brief aside in science class about how some won't accept evolution as fact? How about "opposing viewpoints"? A section of the syllabus dealing with creationism as an idea?

What about, when you get right down to it, "equal time"? Is this person, who openly admits that he rejects all evidence that doesn't fit with his religion, going to be happy with his religion being presented as equal to evolution?

In a word, no.

Such a person is not likely to be happy until every trace of evolutionary theory is wiped from the schools, the libraries, from the world.

Sure, they tell you they just want kids to get a well-rounded education, that things should be fair. But fair isn't even on the agenda.

And we can see how good Mr Wise's word is by his quote. All the evidence in the universe already does point to evolution and yet, he wasn't the first to admit it.

Now will he, apparently, ever admit it.

It reminds me of a show that I was unfortunate enough to catch the arse-end of on one of the US religious television networks. On the show was a self-described "paleontologist" who said that, although he's willing to admit that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that humans and dinosaurs lived together (and, failed to admit the absolute mountains of evidence that they didn't live together) he still believed it was true because of what he called "scriptural evidence."

It's the same thing. Evidence is irrelevant. What's real doesn't matter. Whether or not evolution is true is immaterial because the creationists don't care - they already have their Truth and nothing can change their perception of that.

And, in the face of that, is meaningful dialogue between scientists and creationists even possible?