"They could be willfully ignorant"
This implies that they have some "hidden" agenda that this "willful ignorance" will help them to attain.
Would you like to elaborate on this?
This implies that they have some "hidden" agenda that this "willful ignorance" will help them to attain.Well, it's just that my experience with the arguments of garden-variety creationists tells me that most of them don't know much about science, but they trust that their religious leaders & religiously-inspired authors/lecturers do know what they're talking about and that they are telling them the truth.
Would you like to elaborate on this?
The creationists are convinced that morality & societal order depends on creationism being true, because their religious sects tell them that the natural world provides no objective criteria by which to judge people's actions as good or bad. If this is so, then there's no way to adjudicate disputes, and it'll always turn into rule by whoever's the most ruthless in pursuit of their goals. Therefore, "if God didn't exist we'd have to invent him".
When a person is motivated by such a (misguided) fear, that's a strong motivator for refusing to understand something that seems contrary to it.