This nonsense is, of course, usually peddled by creationists, who are desperate to have their particular brand of infantile heresy validated, because they want their hatreds and bigotries validated by a divine cosmic version of Donald Trump. At bottom, the specimens in question are the sort who want their narrow, parochial and white vision of the future to be realised (it’s almost exclusively white conservative evangelicals who peddle this garbage online, and the subset thereof who are also wannabee Klansmen).
So, let’s take a look at where REALITY says that Genesis 1 is bullshit, shall we?
[1] The idea that Planet Earth was purportedly “created” before the Sun, clashes hilariously with all the findings of modern astronomy, with respect to star and planet formation. EVERY space based telescope photograph of planet formation, involves accretion from a disc of matter left over AFTER the formation of a parent star.
[2] There’s the little problem of how one can have a “day” and “night” before the Sun was “created”, given that the very terms “day” and “night” are DEFINED in terms of whether or not one’s particular part of the Earth’s surface is being illuminated by the Sun. I’ll leave aside the fact that the polar regions are a special case, due to the axial tilt of the Earth, because complications such as this will simply confuse the average mythology fanboy.
[3] We have the fatuous assertion that plants were purportedly “created” by the cartoon magic man of this mythology before the Sun existed to power photosynthesis. Not too much of a problem if the requisite steps occurred only 24 hours apart. But anyone who wants to argue that “day” means “time period of several million years” in their apologetics is in deep shit with this one.
Even so, this is known, once again, to be farcically wrong by anyone who paid attention in basic science classes. See [1] above.
[4] The order in which various living organisms are asserted to appear in the mythology in question, is roundly flushed down the toilet by the fossil record. The assertion that birds appeared before land animals is roundly destroyed by the fact that fossil land animals date back to the late Devonian Era, around 360 million years before present, while recognisable bird fossils don’t put in an appearance until the late Jurassic, around 150 million years before present.
Furthermore, the evidence tracing bird ancestry to theropod dinosaurs is robust, both from palaeontology and from molecular phylogeny - this latter discipline wouldn’t even exist if creationist assertions were something other than the products of their rectal passages.
Likewise, whales didn’t put in an appearance until the Eocene, and thanks to molecular phylogeny, we have learned that whales were derived from a branch of the Artiodactyl land mammals. Indeed, the first clues to this were provided by the British biologist George Henry Faulkner Nuttall, way back in 1904. This was the year in which he published the results of using the serum antibody reaction test, otherwise known as the precipitin test, as a means of determining phylogeny. I cover that litte gem in more detail in this post in another thread, and allude more briefly thereto in this earlier post.
On the other hand, fish date back all the way to the middle Cambrian, if you include such clades as the Agnatha, whilst the earliest recognisable members of the Osteichthyes (bony fishes) date to the Silurian. The idea that these diverse clades were magically poofed into existence simultaneously is a non-starter among those who paid attention in science classes.
[5] The goat herder mythology in question, neglects to mention entire phyla of living organisms, concentrating instead on whatever happened to be noticed by some goat herders in the Middle East. This is of particular relevance to me, as an invertebrate zoologist, who finds it amusing that the 1.2 million insect species known to science don’t even have a footnote devoted to them.
No mention either of Chelicerates, Myriapods, Molluscs, Crustaceans, the Cnidaria or Echinoderms, and that’s just the phyla containing organisms that are naked eye visible. I haven’t even touched upon the numerous phyla containing microscopic organisms, such as Diatoms and Desmids.
Nor have I mentioned yet such phyla such as the Tardigrada, members of which boast the impressive ability to survive in the vacuum of space in relevant scientific experiments. Nor the plethora of organisms with wacky body plans from the Ediacaran and early Cambrian fossil biota, such as Halucigenia, Anomalocaris and Wiwaxia.
[6] we have both rich data from palaeontology and molecular phylogeny, informing us that humans appeared over a 5 million year period, after a common ancestor with chimpanzees underwent a population split, followed by divergence of the split populations resulting ultimately in a series of allopatric speciation events. That whole business involving a woman allegedly being cloned from a man’s rib can be dismissed by all serious commentators.
Quite simply, the creationist specimens who peddle the “Genesis is real science” garbage, are in the fatuous position of claiming that if reality disagrees with their goat herder mythology, then reality is wrong and their goat herder mythology is right. This is the level of absurdity that is involved here.
Then of course, we have the fact that the piss-stained Bronze Age nomads who scribbled this cretinous mythology, were incapable of counting correctly the number of legs that an insect possesses. If they couldn’t even exhibit some basic connection to reality, with respect to an issue as mundane as this, why should we trust them, when they assert that all manner of fantastic magic entities exist, and all sorts of fantastic magic events happened?
But perhaps best of all, is the assertion I refer to routinely in my posts, that is perhaps the most absurdly farcical of all, that appears in this turgid collection of bad Middle Eastern fairy tales. Namely, the assertion that genetics is controlled by coloured sticks, an assertion that is so ludicrous, that one cannot help but wet one’s pants laughing, the moment that the existence thereof is realised.
This assertion was, of course, utterly destroyed by a 19th century monk, when he launched modern genetics as a properly constituted scientific discipline. The foetid and excremental apologetics that are peddled, by the few creationists who dare to tackle this embarrassment head on, usually serve to demonstrate solely that said specimens do not understand how basic genetics works. Much amusement can be had by rubbing their noses in this on a public forum such as this, though the specimens in question tend to be completely bereft of any capacity for shame, let alone any tendency to correct their fatuous errors.
Instead, being exposed in this manner, usually makes the creationists in question double down on their infantile lies, no matter how much they’re digging themselves into an inescapable pit of their own foolish construction, all the way down to the magma. While doing so, they are, of course, totally devoid of any sense of self-awareness, or of any capacity for realising even the most basic, elementary facts.
Central among those facts being, and I offer emphatically no apologies for what follows, that the specimens in question are roundly deserving of every last atom of scorn, derision and ridicule propelled toward them, which I regard as being best propelled in their direction by a relativistic railgun. They are, to borrow terms from P. J. O’Rourke, goo-goo clusters and moon pies. To borrow from the comedian Lewis Black, what we have here is a clinical psychotic delusion - these people are stone, cold, fuck, nuts.
Upon first learning of the existence of creationists, my astonishment very quickly morphed into fulminating contempt, because they deserve it. Not only are they utterly duplicitous deniers of reality, their effect upon society being retrogressively venomous, but they allow the same unibrow, bolt through the neck mentality to permeate into every part of the human sphere, and pollute said human sphere with their lumpen, choleric species of pathogen.
As one observer wrote, when covering the topic of the Orange Scrotum, the reason we British regard the swamp dwellers in question with barely concealed disgust, is because they don’t even possess the most elementary sense of humour. This makes them utterly alien to us, in the true revulsion at the xenomorph sense. Of course, there is a colossal overlap between the creationists and the delusional MAGA cultists - I can’t think of a creationist immediately that doesn’t also want to be part of the Tangerine Harkkonen’s human centipede.
The specimens in question think that ‘humour’ consists of spiteful and mean-spirited comments about the vulnerable, of the sort that was exemplified by Cheetolini’s hideously obscene mocking of a disabled individual. This, of course, they carry over to pretty much every arena of discourse, which is why the creationists are so fond of crass, infantile and mendacious caricatures of scientific postulates - anything they don’t understand becomes something to throw rocks at - or, more frequently, excrement. Shit flinging is the one talent they possess.
It is, indeed, a searing indictment of the mindset in question, that Aristophanes, writing comic plays nearly 26 centuries ago, exhibited a more refined and sophisticated understanding of comedy than the modern day creationist and MAGA cultist. Yes, Aristophanes frequently visited the territory of ribaldry and sexual innuendo, but the important difference to notice here, is that he was punching up, not down. He was aiming his barbs at the abusively powerful, the vainglorious rich and the pretentious poseur. Lysistrata is perhaps his best known work, and I would rate it as one of his most subversive of conservatism and conformity for its own sake, as well as being a damning indictment of war, particularly when prosecuted for ignoble ends. His reading of sexual politics was also astute in that work, but the lessons arising therefrom are properly for another thread.
But once again, I digress. While it is tempting to speculate what Aristophanes would, were he alive today, make of the combination of creationists and MAGA cultists, and how some such as myself would love to see such a satire, the fact remains that the degeneracy inherent in both, is at once frightening and repulsive to observe.
It’s interesting to note, however, that one of the most vituperative critics of these specimens, again was of ancient historical vintage. Presciently, Augustine of Hippo not only anticipated the emergence of such reprobates back around 400 CE, but penned possibly one of the most scaldingly caustic repudiations thereof. Not least, because his attack centred upon the fact that they brought scorn and ridicule onto the very Christian religion, that these specimens claim to adhere to - an object lesson in the futility of blind assertions, of course.
It is instructive, since upon checking, I haven’t quoted that excoriation of Augustine’s in full here, to remedy that deficit, for the sake of completeness, as it is also apposite to the supposed “scientific validity” of Genesis, viz:
When a Dark Age theologian is exhibiting more sagacity with respect to the subject than you are, you must surely know that you’re not merely in error, but absurdly so.
If the reasons for my contempt are not by now obvious, then it’s possibly because you are one of the wilfully ignorant and pathologically duplicitous creationist specimens, that I’ve been describing. The genuinely intelligent readers here will understand in an instant.