I know a
creationist; she is one of the nicest people I have ever known. We had been
friends for a long time before I realized she was a creationist. But I came to realize that we couldn’t talk on the subject of
evolution although I did try more than once before giving up on the subject. She, of course believes that evolution does not exist. Among many arguments I used to convince her otherwise was the statement that evolution has been observed to occur. I cited a number of examples; this seemed to sway her not at all. I could not understand how this could be possible. She is still a friend though we speak seldom now; still we do have the occasional
lunch.
Her friendship lead me to research creationism, I reread my back issues of the Skeptical Inquirer, and searched the Web, looking for new insights, what I came to understand was that despite trying to give creationism a scientific basis from which to attack evolution; creationists are not using rational arguments. They cannot be swayed by evidence. Given this understanding it seems a pointless waste of time to argue with them. Unfortunately, in their zeal creationists are prepared to do grave harm to those of us who believe in science and education, their efforts on many fronts to legislate and control education require us to waste efforts better spent elsewhere to counter them.