I heard the creationist preacher; he said:
“Evolution is constantly forging ahead
and we learn more and more every day;
from Darwin’s first thoughts, it’s developed at length
to a theory possessed of great scope and great strength —-
which is why we should throw it away.”
“By dint of research that is terribly clever
the theory is finer and better than ever
and should be dismantled for scrap;
Since Darwin first published, it’s grown more profound,
and more accurate, evidenced, detailed and sound,
which proves that it’s totally crap.”
“It’s a truth that is known to the fundie elect
that every step forward is twenty steps back:
if someone grows wiser in every respect
then this proves that he doesn’t know jack.”
And I marveled to hear as he prated at length
of how progress must indicate weakness, not strength
‘til I felt I had something to add.
“If it’s true what you say”, I exclaimed with delight,
“that in getting much righter, we cease to be right
then all modern science is bad.”
“How foolish I feel to have spent my time cheering
advances in science, design, engineering,
that ought to have caused me to curse
if only I’d heeded creationist sages —-
since things have improved since the late Middle Ages
it’s clear that they must have got worse.”
“For nothing was ever improved by improvement;
no theory that’s strengthened will last very long;
to go forging ahead is a retrograde movement;
and things we’ve corrected are bound to be wrong.”
“The chemists have grown more precise and exact,
thus proving that nothing they say is a fact:
(it was better by far to be vague);
and every improvement in medicine teaches
we ought to go back to blood-letting and leeches
and die of the bubonic plague.”
“In math we’ve been having unbroken success
which informs us we’re doing it wrong, I would guess
and proves, as one has to suppose
that it isn’t as good as in ages of yore —-
let’s return to the way that we did it before
and count on our fingers and toes.”
“For every improvement’s a form of decline
and every advance is a shameful retreat;
when you’re making no progress, you’re doing just fine,
but a victory counts as defeat.”
“In physics, we’ve come very far, very fast,
which proves it was better in ages gone past
before Einstein and Pauli and Bohr.
You can keep modern physics —- I hope the whole lot’ll
be scrapped, and we’ll just resurrect Aristotle
and not use our brains any more.”
“And so” (I went on) “in biology too,
since it keeps on improving, what else should we do
but hearken and heed to your call
to set aside science, and blindly subscribe
to the primitive myths of an ignorant tribe
which never get better at all.”
“Increasing in wisdom’s the mark of a fool
and every advance is a form of regress.
In science, let’s follow this excellent rule:
there’s nothing that fails like success.”
By Dr Adequate on EvC
