Roger Ebert on Creationism

Roger Ebert has branched out in a column for the Chicago Tribune on creationism. It has been called satire by at least one writer and, one suspects, Ebert wrote it to expose the truly strange perspectives of the YEC group. He lets the facade slip once:

Q. What about bones representing such species as Cro-Magnon Man and Neanderthal Man?

A. Created at the same time as man. They did not survive. In fact, all surviving species and many others were created fully formed at the same time. At that moment they were of various ages and in varying degrees of health. Some individuals died an instant later, others within seconds, minutes or hours.

This is an odd combination of "appearance of age" and the standard YEC arguments. I did rather enjoy his comment on the moose, which has been said to be a criticism of Sarah Palin's moose hunting:

Q. Why would God create such an absurd creature as a moose?

A. In charity, we must observe that the moose probably does not seem absurd to itself.

Ebert's original column on Sarah Palin is here. In some senses he reminds me of the late film critic Pauline Kael, who is reported to have said, when Richard Nixon was elected president "How can that be? No one I know voted for Nixon!" Nixon won the popular vote by over 23 percentage points. The venom against Sarah Palin seems to emanate from journalists and (now) film critics. They don't understand how anyone could like Sarah Palin because, like most of us at one point or another, they are prone to group think. Most of the people that I speak to about it feel fine about her or don't have much of an opinion.

A moose bit my sister once...