No Such Thing As Evidence

One thing I have pretty much given up on is trying to convince religiously-based conservatives of anything.

I spent a lot of time, in earlier years, presenting clear and simple evidence for the science of evolution. I think my books were pretty good in this regard. But I was not trying to convince creationists. They know they are wrong, and creationism is just a way of them influencing other people to be their followers.

I have also spent a lot of time presenting clear and simple evidence for the science of global warming. I briefly thought I might convince some “climate skeptics” that they were wrong. But they already know they are wrong. “Climate skepticism” is just their way to influence other people to be their followers.

More recently, millions of people refuse to believe that there is any such thing as the covid pandemic. Some of them run state governments. Here in Oklahoma, the Republicans have repeatedly proclaimed that a mask mandate is just as bad as Hitler’s Holocaust. They ignore all medical evidence.

To religious conservatives, there is no such thing as externally-verifiable truth. This became abundantly clear during the Trump years. Trump’s followers believed, and still believe, that He won the election of 2020. Their evidence? None, other than the fact that He says so. I deliberately gave the God-capitalization to the pronoun.

The religious conservatives have always been half-hearted in their beliefs. When the preacher Rice Broocks visited the University of Illinois, before he became a cofounder of a major church, he publicized that he was going to speak about creationism, but he asked the audience to release him from this topic, so that he could talk more about all the miraculous healing that God was doing through his hands. When I contacted the leader of the Heartland Institute, asking him for evidence regarding some of his claims that global warming was a hoax, his personal email response to me was, “Snore.” I’m not sure what that means, other than that he has no time to answer any questions. He was too busy hoodwinking people into believing him.

But with the covid epidemic and the Trump campaign, religious conservatives have abandoned all pretense at presenting evidence. The total absence of evidence does not show them they are wrong but is simply proof that Satan is so good at hiding their evidence that nobody can see any of it. I heard a preacher claim, a couple of months ago, that Joe Biden stole 41 million votes. Where is the evidence for this? None. To them, the absence of evidence is evidence that they are right.

And not only right, but the very rightness of God. Religious conservatives are blasphemers, who believe that Donald Trump creates truth by saying it. Here in Oklahoma, I see their flags and stickers all over the place. And they have stockpiles of automatic weapons. They do not hide this fact.

There is no point in trying to convince anyone on the political right. They already consider themselves to be incapable of error, as inerrant as God Himself.

When I stood in line last summer at a state agency, a Trumper started telling us that the covid epidemic was caused by dirty Mexicans coming over the border, or else (he was unclear) Biden invented it as an excuse to take away our freedoms. I had to struggle to suppress my desire to raise my voice. He insulted me by saying that my extensive studies, leading to a Ph.D. in biology, were less important than his wild guesses.

Further evidence of their blasphemy is that they not only despise anyone who does not believe them, but they particularly despise their fellow Republicans. To Trumpers, Biden (and especially that colored woman who is his vice president) is an infidel, but moderate Republicans like Liz Cheney are heretics. Heretics are always worse than infidels. Shi’a extremists hate Sunnis worse than they hate Christians.

I continue to write about evolution and global warming, not to try to convince right-wing blasphemers, but to educate people who already know the truth but appreciate discovering new evidence. Only the people who already know about evolution and global warming and the pandemic and that Trump lost, only these people, are delighted to learn new things.

And as a science educator and writer I really enjoy helping sincere people understand the world better, and that is my only goal and the only reward. In a way it is a relief to not have the burden of convincing anyone.