“1. Following the discussion on FR give me some insight into the YE (Young Earth) creationists minds. With all respect to you, there is a lot of ignorance.”
Disagreement is not ignorance.
“Evolutionism is not a single theory within a single discipline. It’s a nexus of material evidence derived from biology, physics (radioisotope dating), mathematics (probability and statistics), paleontology, genetics, and probably some more disciplines.”
Evolution is a single theory that has tried to co-opt these fields.
“These disciplines provide inputs that fit the theory of evolution and complement/corroborate each other. I have NOT seen any creationist discussing such facts in an exhaustive, non-ideological fashion,”
We do not believe your “facts” therefore we wouldn’t present them as such.
“so I think I can accurately extrapolate the observed level of knowledge to the likely level of education provided to their kids.”
You can extrapolate all you like. I have taught my children evolution and it’s shortcomings along with it’s mathematical impossibilities and its inability to produce the complexity of the code we see written in the genome of a simple animal much less a human being. We have discussed that life comes from life and that it is impossible without supernatural intereference for life to come from non life.
“2. For example, not understanding the mechanism of evolution (understanding, btw. usually means accepting, because the theory makes sense)”
Understanding does not mean accepting. I understand the Muslim religion but I do not accept it.
“makes it difficult to understand the mechanism of emergence of drug resistance,”
I believe in mutations and natural selection.
“and to propose strategies for combating it. I can claim some expertise with respect to this, because I contribute to several such projects (one as a collaborator, some more as the project leader). I would NEVER hire anyone spewing the kind of nonsense that can be found on some creationist web pages.”
So you can’t think of any jobs that require you to believe in evolution to actually do the job. You just aren’t willing to hire someone to work for you if they don’t believe in evolution.
“Not because I am mean, or because I want to promote atheism, but because the said nonsense is the evidence of unacceptable ignorance.”
It is not ignorant to be learned about a subject and reject it as inaccurate. I know all about revisionist history and I reject it. If I was quizzed on it, I could give correct answers on the test. I am not ignorant of it. I just don’t believe the test writers interpretation of it.
Fine. Want to discuss the subject of radioisotope dating with me? Primarily I do research, but there are also periods when I teach. So, let us imagine that I am supposed to evaluate someone's knowledge. What is the source of the radioactive carbon in the living organisms? What happens after the organism's death? What is the C-14's half life? What can be the practical use of this? What is the time frame for possible dating using this isotope? How does the accuracy correlate with numbers obtained using other methods? Et caetera. KNOWING the answers to these questions UNAVOIDABLY leads to certain conclusions, and these conclusions are NOT COMPATIBLE with the notion of a 6,000 years old Earth. Conversely, NOT KNOWING is, at certain level, called ignorance. I used the example of radioisotope dating involving carbon isotopes, but there are similar facts, independently leading to similar answers within other disciplines.
"Evolution is a single theory that has tried to co-opt these fields."
Nonsense.
We do not believe your “facts”
That's the whole point. Good night to you and other Discussants.