More creationist nonsense from Ben Carson: why we didn’t come from a “slime pit of promiscuous chemicals”

September 8, 2015 • 12:15 pm

I’ve already written at length about Republican Presidential candidate Ben Carson’s creationism (see here), which is even odder coming from a neurosurgeon. But of course we know that among all those who use scientific information, doctors and engineers are among the most likely to be creationists. Carson has also equated homosexuality with bestiality and pedophilia, although he later apologized for his “poorly chosen words.”

But such idiocy doesn’t seem to turn off Republicans; in fact, it seems to inspire them. While a lot can change between now and a year from November, at this moment Carson is nipping at the heels of Donald Trump for the most popular GOP candidate. One would think that with the election looming, Carson would ratchet down his ridiculous young-earth creationism. But one would be wrong.

Right Wing Watch gives the audio and transcript of a four-minute “Faith & Liberty” interview that Carson gave in 2014, in which he raises all the young-earth creationist tropes: the earth just looks old because God made it look old (why would he do that?), that natural selection can’t explain the evolution of complex features like an eyeball or a kidney, and so on. RWW reports:

In a “Faith & Liberty” interview posted last week, potential GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson discussed his rejection of the theory of evolution, arguing that the science of evolution is a sign of humankind’s arrogance and belief “that they are so smart that if they can’t explain how God did something, then it didn’t happen, which of course means that they’re God. You don’t need a God if you consider yourself capable of explaining everything.”

He claimed that “no one has the knowledge” of the age of the earth “based on the Bible,” adding that “carbon dating and all of these things really don’t mean anything to a God who has the ability to create anything at any point in time.”

Carson pointed to the “complexity of the human brain” as proof that evolution is a myth: “Somebody says that came from a slime pit full of promiscuous biochemicals? I don’t think so.”

He said evolution is unable to explain the development of an eyeball: “Give me a break. According to their scheme, it had to occur over night, it had to be there. I instead say, if you have an intelligent creator, what he does is give his creatures the ability to adapt to the environment so he doesn’t have to start over every fifty years creating all over again.”

The rest of the interview decries the “persecution of Christians” and the prevalance of Obamacare, with Carson praying that God will show the “people of low information” the flaws of Obama’s plan.

But talk about people of low information—Carson is their poster boy! His rejection of evolution means one of three things: that he’s blinded to the facts by religion (which means that he can’t be an objective President), that he’s simply ignorant of the massive evidence for evolution (which means that he won’t be a good President), or that he’s lying to cater to the many Republican creationists (which means he can’t be an honest President).  I don’t think he’s lying; rather, he’s sworn by his faith to ignore the scientific facts.

It is incumbent on the press—and I hope they do this—to press Carson incessantly on his opposition to evolution. It’s not just that it’s a bad sign that a President doesn’t accept evolution, but that it shows how blinded to reality his religion has made him. It’s a character flaw, and it’s time that we stop seeing a President’s religious beliefs as beyond criticism.

Here’s a 2014 podcast by the Discovery Institute in which Carson disses evolution. I find it frightening. What’s even worse is that he accepts natural selection but denies evolution! Have a listen it’s short (9 minutes and 42 seconds):

73 thoughts on “More creationist nonsense from Ben Carson: why we didn’t come from a “slime pit of promiscuous chemicals””

  2. In this regard he just like Michael Egnor, better known as Egnorance, the Long Island neurosurgeon who rejects evolution, and climate change among other items. Egnor began polluting several blogs over at Patheos and Freethoughtblogs with his inanities a few weeks and has now been given the heave ho at several of them.

    1. Yikes, I’ll make sure to avoid him if I ever need surgery.

      On another note, where are all the skeptics today, the hottest September 8 in the region in the last 98 years? They seem to have great fun pointing out the cold during the winter. Even their incorrect claims have no consistency to them. One would expect this to be irrefutable proof of global warming in the Inhofe playbook.

  3. I think many on the right think that if they like Carson it means they are not racists. Many of them are fooling themselves in this regard.

    1. I must confess to only just having discovered that he’s black.
      I’m sure this will greatly offend many Republicans. I hope it really sticks in their communal craws.

  5. What is it about Obamacare that has the Rethuglicans squirming like they have impacted hemmerhoids? Sure, it involves a tax increase, but that is something they rarely even bring up. It does add a cost to what employers pay out for insurance of their workers, but they have had to make many such adjustments before.
    Further, the design of Obamacare is not that different from government paid health care that republicans have proposed.
    So one is puzzled.

      1. And iirc Carson even said the ACA was worse for black people than slavery. This guy is a dangerous blinkered loony cuckoo. Or as one of my favorite German idioms colorfully expresses: er hat ein Vogel in dem Kopf.

        1. This guy is a dangerous blinkered loony cuckoo

          So, a shoo-in for the nomination? In addition to the obvious issues that the Republicans have to use a black skin to cover up their ingrained racism.

          1. The trope invoked is “kookoolander”.

            Also there is no evidence of special creation. Which unlike Evolution, it claims how nothing became something. Only the claim is specious and gives a nonlocal super intelligent entity that is outside of the said universe, did it with what…? Since energy can neither be created nor destroyed, how does their Black Box mechanism work? How did it come about? So where does he get off saying Evolution fails in this area and they succeed? No one really questions him closely on this is why.

            I’d like to grill him on his positions and his lack of knowledge of the Evolution he disses.

            Billion of years, millions of life forms to get it to work right. Any failures die out. Still a mystery to them since it appears magical yet no magician…

          1. Thanks for reminding me of the Vogel im Kopf expression, which I had not heard or thought of in years. I will be using it soon on my Honduran friend at the gym,who speaks some German, accompanied by the universal finger circling the ear;-)

  6. There is no level on which any of those quote from Carson make any reasonable sense.

    This is “your brain on religion.”

    1. I just refuse to believe that anyone can be that ignorant. I’m thinking it’s all a calculated con. All the republican candidates know the biggest component of their base – the ones who are sure to get up out of that chair and vote – are the ignorant Christians (if that’s not an oxymoron). Once they’ve cornered that market, they just have to say a few nice things for the business interests. As soon as the winner enters the general election, most of this trash talk will subside quickly into the background so that the rest of the party and a few independents will be willing to hold their noses jump in.

      1. Carson has been saying this kind of stuff since long before he was a candidate. I have no doubt that he is a True Believer.

        1. You may be right, but, if true, the degree of obtuseness is breathtaking. Especially for someone who succeeded through medical school and had a career as a brain surgeon.

      2. Better study psychology to understand how someone trained in science and medicine can believe magical things.

        1. I’m hypothetically accepting of the psychological possibility, just reluctant to finally admit people can be so corrupted. It’s easier to believe in a vast right-wing conspiracy.

  8. carson strikes me as a kind of idiot savant, because his knowledge outside of neurosurgery appears nonexistent.

    in today’s gop, that makes him like sarah palin, an empty and willing vessel to be filled not with facts and history but propaganda and ideology.

    1. Compartmentalization is what humans can do so that they could hold six impossible things in their heads and still function.

  9. He claimed that “no one has the knowledge” of the age of the earth “based on the Bible,” adding that “carbon dating and all of these things really don’t mean anything to a God who has the ability to create anything at any point in time.”

    This has always bothered me about the idea of the omnipotent deity being Good. If god hasn’t created a world we can know consistently, how can we know anything? In fact, how can we know that what the Bible says today is the same thing it said yesterday? It sounds to me more like a Trickster god. I realize, of course, it is just more special pleading, but it is hardly convincing.

    2. Jehovah is a Thunder Deity of the ancient Hebrews given even more power. To stop idolatry no images are made.

  10. So Carson says:

    “If there is a mutation it tends to lead towards degeneration rather than improvement.”

    Whew, good, glad we don’t have to worry about all those flu viruses and multiple other pathogens evolving resistance due to favorable mutations.

    Oh wait. Yes we do. We really, really do and have to spend huge amounts of money and time combating this fact. You’d think this would be a clue to Carson’s thinking in downplaying the real world effect of mutation in the alteration of populations over time.

    But wait, on the other hand he DOES seem to get it, saying: “I fully accept the concept of natural selection, it seems perfectly rational and perfectly reasonable and you can document it.”

    Well then what the hell is he talking about in downplaying the role of mutations in evolution ‘adaptation.’ If he understands and accepts the concept of natural selection he knows it works on selecting beneficial mutations.

    He even, of course, gives it a Christian spin: “if you have an intelligent creator, what he does is give his creatures the ability to adapt to the environment so he doesn’t have to start over every fifty years creating all over again.”

    Ok, so what IS that mechanism by which this God-given “ability to adapt” occurs, that allows change in populations over generations? If it’s not natural selection acting on (among other things) mutation, what is it?

    This man just doesn’t seem to tie together his claims in any logical fashion.

    1. He doesn’t “believe in” evolution because his religion has told him not to, and he trots out the arguments they’ve given him to oppose it, but the rational part of his brain is fighting through and recognizing that it’s real.

      It shows the damage religion can do to even the most intelligent child when it is brainwashed early enough.

      1. While I can believe religion can have neuron rewiring effects on the human brain, I still have to say I think he’s just too smart not to know he’s talking crap. All the R candidates are essentially singing the same tune, yet in past election cycles, before the T party and such, there was much wider diversity. Look at the way many candidates rose to the bait when Trump spewed some new ultra-wacky positions. This has got to be political advisers telling him what sells in the current R-gestalt. I may be wrnog, but to me it’s the simplest explanation.

        1. I think a lot of them are just spewing positions that advisers have told them test well – I agree with you there. I’m not so sure about Carson – I think he’s sincere in what he says – wrong and misguided, but I think he genuinely believes the verbal diarrhea. I too could be wrong of course,

    2. They still say that they are the same bacteria so it isn’t Evolution unless it is “micro Evolution” but not “macro Evolution” though that is their designates, not biologists.

  11. One would think that with the election looming, Carson would ratchet down his ridiculous young-earth creationism. But one would be wrong.

    This year’s GOP primary is like the Seinfeld episode where George Costanza gives up on regular attempts to date and just does exactly the opposite of what he thinks should work..and it works. We have the two least qualified candidates doing politically crazy things…and gaining popularity. At least for now. I still think that by the end of thus, um, episode, everything will have returned to normal and the George Costanzas of politics will again be dateless.

    1. But I truly believe that if either Carson or Trump wins the nomination they won’t be able to win a Dem in the general election. And if I’m wrong, Canada is only a few hours north of here. I wish it was easier done than said.

  13. “Give me a break. According to their scheme, it had to occur over night, it had to be there. I instead say, if you have an intelligent creator, what he does is give his creatures the ability to adapt to the environment so he doesn’t have to start over every fifty years creating all over again.”

    I know Carson is severely confused on selection, but here he also seems confused on creationists beliefs/religious texts. Give us a break.

    1. Dr. Carson wants to be the first black physician elected as president. And to run in the Republicans you have to make sure you follow doctrine. Any of them that believes their science training is correct, they have to ignore.

    2. He ascribes the creationist worldview to biology, and adaptation to ID.

      I think the man isn’t confused; he’s a calculating psychopath.

  14. If only I could put a smile on one face by saying: An engineer here! who is also an atheist, agnostic, humanist, evolutionist (which is the same for me as saying “gravitationist”) and 100% skeptic. Ah! … and Hispanic. I would share also that in my tiny meat-space I happen to know some other engineers who tend to gravitate toward the nerdy-rationalist side, but some physicians deeply poisoned by religion or woo. Yes, I know, mine is a sample of a few people and therefore not scientific or valid, but I always wonder if medical doctors have something in common with pastors and preachers: dealing with broken humans in desperate search for hope. Of course, in the case of Carson the explanation has to include his need for votes from a crazy religious population.

  15. “It is incumbent on the press—and I hope they do this—to press Carson incessantly on his opposition to evolution.”

    True, and they should no less press any Republican candidate, and other candidates, on the matter. Any bets on whether they’ll be asked during (what nowadays passes for) a debate, (replete with the interruption of audience applause and whoo-hoo’s).

  17. This interview is actually from a year ago – not that that changes how bad it is, but at least to report it accurately. I actually wrote a transcript of the full evolution part on my site for anyone who doesn’t want to listen to the recording.

  18. Lmao

    “Do you find that particularly disconcerting coming from the scientific community… challenging a man of your stature?”

    “Nope. Historically, people have done pretty outlandish things… They think they know everything.”

  19. Lmao

    “Do you find that particularly disconcerting coming from the scientific community… challenging a man of your stature?”

    “Nope. Historically, people have done pretty outlandish things… They think they know everything.”

  20. I’ve an inkling that anyone one who speaks incessantly about “slime pits of the promiscuous” and compares consensual sexual activity between adults to bestiality and pedophilia has some major kinks in the Freudian steam pipes of his own libido. We may want to put Dr. Carson on scandal watch.

    That’s just an inkling, mind you; I don’t claim any special experience or insight w/r/t kinky libidos. 🙂

  21. I am a British casual observer of the US election campaign and I find it hilarious to hear hypocritical politicians pandering to the superstitious, bringing back memories of Burt Lancaster’s performance as Elmer Gantry the big tent evangelist.
    I suspect they as much belief in what they say as I have, do they perhaps go home at night, have a martini and laugh themselves silly when watching re-runs of their latest performances and the swooning fans?

  24. Listening to Carson makes me wonder if he really can be quite so lavishly ignorant – that chat with Discovery Inst. contained possibly the largest concentration of utterly moronic, ‘why-are-there-still-monkeys?’-style creationist arguments I’ve ever heard crammed into such a short period of time, the kind of stuff you’d hear from a crazed street preacher.

    It made me wonder this: how is it that even the dumbest evolutionist knows pretty much all the creationist arguments, and all their flaws and contradictions, and yet creationists like Carson don’t seem to know of a single argument against their own position?

    1. I’m aware that the question relies on a pretty big assumption – that this lying, craven shit is being honest about the extent of his ignorance. However, if he’s just pretending to be an ignorant clod he’s doing a very convincing job of it.

      1. Yeah. I keep hearing people say that he is smart. I’m not seeing it. He seems like an idiot to me. And I’m pretty sure I am not saying that because he disagrees with me. His reasoning skills seem sloppy and, well, really poor. And to top it off he is overly sure of himself. A walking, talking Dunning Kruger demonstration.

        1. Smart people can be made less smart by following certain things like nonsense as part of their mind set. It actually lowers their intelligence by suppressing it. Scary no?

    2. This is exactly why it’s so baffling to me that belief in creationism has remained nearly constant, especially given the Internet resources available now. The environment in which I attended school here was certainly such that the facts about evolution could be hidden (which they were from me for a long time), but what amazes me is that once the facts are obtained and one listens to both sides of the “debate,” it is obvious who is lying. No scientist makes any of the claims about evolution that creationists pretend that they do and every creationist makes precisely the claims that scientists rebuke. There’s not a shred of honesty in the creationist arguments, never mind supporting evidence.

      When I learned what evolution actually entails, I was embarrassed to have ever argued against it. A lot of creationists are smart people; I can’t understand how they persist in spouting this nonsense. Like others on this thread, I find it extremely hard to believe someone like Carson is not familiar with how thoroughly debunked his talking points are. This may not be true of the average Joe with no formal education who has only heard about evolution through unreliable secondhand sources, but for Ben Carson? Give me a break.

      1. I am still waiting for Creationists to stand on their own two legs and deal from their point-of-view without mentioning Evolution at all. Just write it like a text book sans any digs at Evolution which makes up so much of their diatribes. Also they can inform us of how all those disparate plants and animals and ecologies existed at the same time on Earth as they postulate it. How could they have interacted and yet the fossil record keeps them to discrete separate times and ecologies. Many in the very same places. That alone would fine to see if they could pull it off. Without the bash Evolution crutch, could they really get their fantasy to work like science while it apes science’s language? I just don’t think they will pursue it since the kind of detail they would have to do would be monumental. Since it also has to fit the evidence as given and accumulated over 200 years.

        I can wish can’t I?

        1. That was a pretty big sticking point for me even when I believed all the creationist tropes–why would God make all these creatures? Think about the creatures that live in the depths of the sea, miles below where the sunlight can penetrate, and then think about the things down there we haven’t discovered. Why put all that life there (and elsewhere on the planet that went undiscovered by humans for millennia)? Part of the Creationist message is that animals were put here for us to have dominion over them and use them for our benefit. That seems pretty far fetched given our ignorance about the sheer amount of animals in existence for most of human history.

  25. But of course we know that among all those who use scientific information, doctors and engineers are among the most likely to be creationists.

    Again, we know no such thing. See this discussion from a few days ago.

    1. I’ve met a lot of atheists in software engineering (of course my field has the distinction of not even being considered real engineering). This is of course all anecdotal too, but the data we do have shows a correlation between education and acceptance of evolution. Based on this, I think I’m in agreement to you that we need some hard data to refute what the default assumption should be–that engineers are college educated, college educated people are more likely to accept evolution, thus engineers as a whole are. It does seem that a lot of engineers are very outspoken about seeing design in “God’s creation” but it could just be that the ones making the most noise.

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