I usually don’t discuss the evolution/creation debate because I’m not a scientist and I honestly don’t know exactly how God created the earth and everything in it. However, I read this in a transcript of an interview on msnbc with Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and found it to be irresistably hubristic:

“Today, I’m happy to report that they don’t burn people at the stake if they claim that Earth goes around the sun, or that there are other stars that might have other planets that themselves could have life.
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What were the consequences in the mid-1800s of saying you didn’t believe Darwin? There weren’t any, really. But today, with biotech companies, there is no understanding of biology without the theory of evolution. And so if you say, ‘I don’t believe the theory of evolution, I think we were all specially created,’ you must understand the consequences of it to your own employability.

Now if you don’t want to become a scientist, then maybe it doesn’t matter. Fine. There are plenty of professions that do not involve scientists. But as I said, the emergent economies are going to be scientifically and technologically driven, with biotech front and center. If you’re coming in saying that there was Adam and Eve, you’re not going to get past the front door. Because they can’t use your knowledge base to invent the next vaccine, the next medicine, the next cure for cancer. That knowledge base does not track into discoveries we know are awaiting us in the halls of biotech firms”

So, pardon me for speaking at all since I am not a Darwinian biologist, but what is this man saying?

1. Religions, especially Christianity, must adapt themselves to scientific thought because science is the highest truth.
2. If you don’t accept Darwinian evolution, you’re out of a job and you are not allowed to participate in scientific discussion or discovery. In order to discover a cure for cancer, you must be a Darwinian. No active persecution here; nobody gets arrested. However, you must understand that in order to participate in the “emergent economies,” you will be required to check your brains at the door and toe the party line.
3. Galileo wasn’t allowed to publically discuss the idea that the earth moved around the sun, and today’s biologists aren’t allowed to discuss seriously the possibility of intelligent design.

So who’s under house arrest now? OK, so I exaggerate, slightly. You just aren’t allowed to invent anything or get past the front door of a biotech company. I am happy to report that they don’t burn people at the stake for believing that there was an Adam and an Eve.