Wednesday, March 27, 2013

#484: Bill Belew


No, the Bill Belew in question is not the fashion/costume designer who died a few years ago, but a professional blogger who – among other things – writes about the “creationism vs. evolution debate” and declares that the creationist side won. Partially, one presumes, because of arguments such as Belew’s own “The fact of the matter is, evolution is still a theory. A theory is not a fact. It’s a best guess based on a whole lot of assumptions”. Yes, Bill is epically clueless about science in general, evolution in particular, and precisely what "scientific theory" means. He seems to find most of his arguments on Answers in Genesis (he even uses Dan Lietha’s illustrations). Apparently it is all about the starting assumptions (as per this one); apparently whether you are religious or an atheist determines how you’re going to end up – it’s all about the worldviews. It is, of course, interesting how creationists adopt postmodernist relativism when it suits them. It is less surprising how little such presuppositionalist fundies such as Belew knows about science, such as the fact that the main difference between evolution and creationism is that the first theory has plenty of evidence going for it whereas the second has none (if it is at all testable). And also: many scientists reject evolution, according to Belew. Because it would be better for his argument that way.

The reason he might merit inclusion in our Encyclopedia is that he claims to be immensely popular, having had up to a million hits on certain topics (he doesn’t actually verify this, and the fact that he’s so rarely mentioned elsewhere makes one puzzled). But here you go, Bill: An entry of your own, courtesy of the Encyclopedia of American Loons.

He also writes for the Christian Worldview Examiner.

Diagnosis: Ignorant denialists. Claims to have lots of impact, but his actual impact is unknown but probably rather limited.

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