Loose grip on reality

If you are not a scientist and you completely disagree with a fundamental theory of modern science, chances are you have what I call a loose grip on reality. I think the epitome of a modern loose-gripper is the young-earth creationist. Let's compare him with his historical analogue.

Yes, it's scary how many parallels you can draw between today's young-earth creationists, and the geocentric nuts of the 1600s. Consider:

1. How do you know the earth revolves around the sun, and not vice versa?


2. How do you know the earth is 4.5 billion years old, and not 6,000?

Which question do you think you can answer better? My guess is that most young-earth creationists have no idea how we know the earth revolves around the sun. And yet, everyone accepts this as fact. Why? Probably because their church gave up on fighting it!

Of course the earth's place in the universe is central to modern astronomy, so to speak. But then again, the earth's age is fundamental to modern geology, paleontology, molecular biology, dendrochronology, genomics, physical anthropology, astronomy, physics and archaeology, amongst other sciences. And that is why I think young-earth creationists have a loose grip on reality.