Related to our exciting discussion about young earth creationism a couple of weeks ago is this article about a congressman from Georgia who gave a speech claiming, “there are a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth.” He found out that scientific data as a scientist, so there.
He also said that “All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell.” Maybe someone told him that Sheldon isn’t the funniest character on the show, which really would be a lie straight from the pit of hell.
A few years ago the same guy said that Obama was going to start a Marxist dictatorship just like Hitler did.
It’s the kind of stuff that makes politics so entertaining in America, and shows the problem with some beliefs isn’t their truth or falseness, but the company you have to keep while believing them.
Based on the comments on the previous posts, young earth creationism has something inherently to do with homeschooling, but since I could never figure out the connection let’s talk about libraries instead.
Let’s talk about a different kind of book challenge than usual. I propose a hypothetical challenge to how a book might be classified.
What about a book teaching young earth creationism as science rather than as a belief based on an interpretation of the holy book of one of the world’s religions? Where should it go? Religion or Science?
The problem isn’t that young earth creationism might be wrong. The problem is that it isn’t scientific. Our scientific congressman may have found some evidence as a scientist, but if you already have a belief, only look for evidence to confirm it, and ignore any evidence that refutes it, you can find evidence to support any belief.
That’s what most of us do for beliefs all the time. We start with something we believe and then select the evidence that supports the belief. It’s very human, but it’s not very scientific.
Nobody looking at the evidence who didn’t start with that particular religious belief would think the earth was 6,000 years old. Have Hindus or Buddhists evaluate the evidence and see how persuaded they are. Even the young earth creationists themselves admit they start from the creation account in Genesis and then go from there.
Apparently one of the most influential books on young earth creationism is The Genesis Flood: the Biblical Record and Its Scientific Implications. This book has sold 200,000 copies and a lot of people believe it has something to do with science. Where do libraries stand? According to the WorldCat record, libraries that have this book shelve it either in the BS or the 220, which are both call numbers for religion in LC and Dewey.
Another book I saw listed in the Conservapedia entry on Young Earth Creationism is Evolution: the Fossils Still Say No!, which you can tell from the exclamation point in the title is a really scientific book. Where do libraries keep the book? Either in the BL or 213, both still religion rather than science. By the way, the entry partly plagiarizes the Wikipedia entry. How desperate do you have to be to plagiarize from Wikipedia?
The partly plagiarized Conservapedia entry also lists two “peer-reviewed journals” that the Wikipedia somehow failed to find: the Creation Research Society Quarterly and the Journal of Creation, both classified in both LC and Dewey as religion journals.
So far, so good. Some people have a religious belief about the age of the earth and libraries buy books and journals created by and for these believers and shelve them in the religion section of the library. Everybody gets some representation in the collection.
Other books on the origins of the universe and the earth might be shelved elsewhere. For example, Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution is at QB or 523, both call numbers for science books. I’m assuming this is a popular book on the topic given the 1800 or so libraries that own it. Or another book, Richard Leakey’s Origins: What New Discoveries Reveal about the Emergence of Our Species and its Possible Future, an even more popular book shelved at GN or 573.
But what if a patron wandered into a library that had both Origins plus Evolution: the Fossils Still Say No! and demanded that Evolution…! be shelved in the Gs or the Qs or the 500s near the other books. They’re all scientific books about the origin of the universe and human life, right?
Better yet, since both of the Origins books are evidently false from the perspective of the young earth creationist, why aren’t they in the fiction section instead of the science section?
How should librarians respond to this challenge? There’s the bureaucratic response that LC or Dewey just place the books there. Local librarians don’t make up the classification scheme.
Of course, some librarian somewhere decided to classify Leakey’s Origins in GN and 573 and another chose to classify Evolution…! in religion. Could they have been wrong?
Then there’s the argument that any books talking about creationism are religious, so they go into religion. Maybe, but most creationists aren’t young earth creationists, and many of them find the scientific account of cosmology and geology and evolution compatible with their religious beliefs.
However, they don’t necessarily write books on creationism as science, but most of the creationist books, no matter how gussied up with scientific terms, are probably going to talk about Genesis at some point. Basing a belief in book of the Bible is religious.
That obviously wouldn’t satisfy the young earth creationist, though. Would librarians then have to go into a broader defense of their classification schemes and the ways librarians interpret them? It’s not like anyone would say classification schemes are perfect, and they’ve been criticized from all corners.
Classification schemes impose order on reality. In a way, we decide what reality is. Librarians may follow the general consensus of educated people, but it’s still them making the call on whether something is science or religion, and the decision is clear: creationism isn’t science, even though some people might claim otherwise.
Librarians are supposedly ready to defend books against challenges, but are they ready to defend the order they’ve imposed on reality?
Some of the people who voted for that congressman are probably able to read, and some of the readers probably use libraries. Why shouldn’t they challenge why Origins is in the science section rather than the fiction section and Evolution…! is in the religion section instead of the science section?
If given this challenge in your library, what would you do?