Creationists will practice empiricism, but don't have to like it

by Aleister
Published: Monday, February 12th, 2007

KINGSTON, R.I. - Doctoral candidate Marcus Ross, at the University of Rhode Island, produced a doctoral dissertation last year about the spread of some aquatic reptiles during the Cretaceous period. The problem? These creatures all came and went before the creation of the world.

A rarity, Dr. Ross is both a paleontologist and a young Earth creationist, taking the bible as historical fact and maxing out the age of the Earth at 10,000 years. This has caused a rash of controversy, as members of the scientific community balk at how Dr. Ross could possibly reconcile his beliefs with the dogma of scientific rigor. His answer? He doesn't.

"I just keep the science separate. It's like I'm a fiction writer. I take tons of data obtained from carefully studying fossils, and, using them, write a story that must be true to within a 5% margin of error, but is, of course, all make-believe, as it contravenes Scripture. If it weren't for scientific rigor lending me that 5% uncertainty, I wouldn't be able to summarily dismiss the most likely explanations, the ones that I have spent my entire professional life developing, as fantasy."

"That's not in his paper, by the way," said Dr. Jim Boggridder, a Rhode Island professor. "He does good science. He doesn't mention that he thinks its wrong."

"I never endorse any of the dates as correct, though," added Ross.

Young Earth creationists are a rarity in science, but Ross is not unique. There is a larger debate raging across the Earth Plane as to whether students of secular institutions should be exposed to religion-based theories. Dr. Michael Dink at Texas Tech is firmly against even the implicit use of such theories. "If you are a scientist," he said, licking the last of the pus from the neck-hole of a decapitated infant, "you do science and subscribe to its philosophies. You don't toss in untenable nonsense like God." At this, he spat, then dropped his dead infant into the garbage disposal. "As anyone knows, science and religion are mutually exclusive and everyone has to pick a side. It's like Republicans and Democrats."

Dr. Ross and his creationist predecessors have drawn not only the ridicule of the Earth Plane's scientific community, but also that of the faculty of Malebolgia University. "It's strange how they never think to do something as simple as ask someone who was there," remarked Dr. Yshgguh Lnh'dae, professor of anthropology at MU. "There are several professors here who were around for the Creation of Earth, and, though communication was slower then, most will place it around 12,000 years ago, after a couple billion years for it to cook and cool. I really don't know what those Earth kids are thinking."

It is common knowledge among Hell's denizens that there were never any dinosaurs on Earth. Lucifer did plant the fossils as a practical joke, at around the same time as the Fall of Man. Nobody knows where he got them, but the gaps in the fossil record show where he got lazy about it, not having anticipated the size of the job. At a conference several thousand years ago, before the Torment was established, the Prince of the Fallen was heard to remark that it was "mind-blowing" how God would do work on that scale for six days without rest. "When does he spend time with his family?"

"Studying here has been an eye-opening experience for me," added Charles Darwin, a doctoral student at MU. "I actually thought that I was making up this evolution nonsense; it was just reasoning and rhetoric. But it really happens all the time. You can watch it from here."

"God has better things to do than keep tabs on what reproduces with what," said Dr. Lnh'dae. "He's not a pervert."