What really interests me in these threads is why JF and fundamentalists in general are so closed-minded about evolution.
They've staked everything, or what they perceive to be everything, on their faith that the Bible is the inerrant word of God. Once that step is made, nothing at all can be admitted that contradicts it. Some people manage to reconcile even very strong biblical faith with the idea that the book contains metaphor, and that its inerrant authority in spiritual matters was never meant to supplant scientific inquiry, or even that there is some mysterious way that both science and scripture will eventually coincide, making it possible to accept both at least tentatively, and await the unifying outcome. It seems that JF is unprepared for even this degree of flexibility, and his only option, however he dresses it up in the finery of tendentious pseudo-science, is to reject science itself. I will give JF the benefit of the doubt, and say that he is deceived, but I will not give the vociferous proponents of creationism on whom he relies that benefit. They are liars, desperate to discredit science at any price, including the violation of the most fundamental principles of honesty that they should be representing.
His signature line pretty well sums up the problem. Uncomfortable with the almost inevitable charge of rejecting science in principle and practice in favor of wilful ignorance, the only alternative is to redefine science to mean something else. Thus, he and the ratbag evangelists he seems to rely on for ammunition are not satisfied to say "evolution is bad science," but "evolutionists are not scientists at all." He feels free to accuse proponents of natural selection as liars, but bristles when the charge is returned.
JF's take on science really all boils down to this:
Science does not deliver perfect answers that accord with the scripture, therefore it is not science. Faith delivers perfect answers that accord with the scripture, therefore we will now call faith "science."
