Even though I believe that religious zealots of all stripes are going to get us all killed eventually if we don’t stop them first, I’d be more than happy to let these people believe their Creationist fairytales if they weren’t out there trying to break into the political sphere for the purpose of mandating that this junk be taught in science classes. When was the last time you even THOUGHT about evolution prior to the the Tea Party and the Duggar’s Cartoon Comedy Hour? Because even back in the old days (before Reagan), I’m sure there were plenty of Americans who believed in Creationism, but they weren’t out there suggesting it be taught in school. There was a place for teaching that stuff, it was called “church”. Remember when people were actually tasteful and when they were private about their beliefs? They may have believed in Creationism then, but they sure as hell didn’t think it was going to win the Cold War.
The mental capacity to reason is naturally available to all. Reason is a powerful instrument by which one is able to guide one’s life. Each of us has capacity to reason. I mean, people throughout history were able to reconcile their religious beliefs with scientific evidence/fact. Waaaaay back in the 17th century –  a time when scientific questions were mostly answered by appeal to ancient authorities and folks thought fossils were moonrocks – a guy named Nicolas Steno was bold enough to trust his own eyes, even when his observations differed from traditional doctrines and flew in the face of his own religious views. Deeply devout, Steno was raised a Lutheran and later became a Roman Catholic priest and a leader of the Counter Reformation, but he never stopped questioning its teachings. He made comparative theological studies, including reading the Church Fathers and using his natural observational skills to decide which teaching – Lutheran or Catholicism –  provided more sustenance for his mental inquisitiveness. Besides discovering the salivary gland and the tear duct, Steno’s landmark theory was that the fossil record was a chronology of different living creatures in different eras, which was a sine qua non for Darwin’s theory of natural selection.
Terrifying “Palaeoart” dates way back to the early nineteenth century and while it draws on a tradition of biblical imagery and conventions established in natural history, was developed in the context of momentous geologic discoveries. While the idea of representing different stages in the earth’s history was influenced by the tradition of depicting the “days of creation” recounted in the Bible, awareness of the great Age of the Earth was evident. The sole definite indicator of an ancient animal’s size and shape, obviously, came from fossil records, the skeletal remnants determining how the bones articulate, the animal’s structure and mobility. Where the skeleton ends, speculation begins. Fossils were initially understood as the remains of antediluvian creatures destroyed as a result of the Biblical Flood, but the idea of a single catastrophic flood was also being challenged by the indisputable geological record. Increasingly systematic approaches to geological research established the importance of careful recording of stratigraphy and it became apparent that different layers were characterized by different fossil remains. Scientists began reconstructing extinct creatures from fossil remains and popularized the use of skeletal reconsritfction illustrations.
As a kid, we had children’s science book. One illustration haunted me even more than that Life with Archie issue where Betty has the evil teddy bear. I remember it because it basically ruined my life. It was a timeline of the Evolution of Man that began in the primordial ooze; monstrous sea creatures, fanged and terrible, their shrieking skulls gliding through the inky black goop, then slithering onto the land and standing upright; the coils of fanged and grinning sea serpents, slithering legless ghouls crawling from the shells of a hideous giant turtle whose flesh it has been eating; the ghastly Edestus who rather than lose its teeth, had new teeth that pushed the old teeth out of the mouth so the gums and teeth would protrude out of the mouth like a pair of monstrous scissors; the Bothriolepis’ sediment-filled gut, grubbed in the mud, with a heavily armored head fused with the thoracic shield; the snake-like mosasaurs; the 60 ton megladon – monstrous and crocodilian; the creepy, jawless predecessors to the most disgusting of all beasts – the slime-spewing  hagfish – which when captured secrete copious gluts of microfibrous mucus, which expands into a gelatinous goo which when combined with water enables them to tie themselves in an overhand knot. All the apocalyptic images of prehistoric creatures as terrifying monsters with ghastly atmospheric effect. I don’t want to believe that stuff existed either. Those images infected me with a lifetime terror of the sea and what lies beneath. I don’t want to have been a Dunkleosteus. When I see a crocodile slithering around in Florida swamps like it was the primordial soup, I want to die.
This is how I like my dinosaurs. Pink, cuddly and with collars.
Fair is what we see, Fairer what we have perceived, Fairest what is still in veil. – Nicolas Steno, 1673