Pediatric neurosurgeon and a creationist
Ben Carson is a young-Earth creationist. He is not some wishy-washy “evolution is real but God directed it” Intelligent Design proponent. He believes the Earth was created in 6 days some 6,000 years ago. Ben Carson is also a world-class pediatric neurosurgeon. In 1987, he became the first person in history to successfully separate siamese twins joined at the head. When he was just 33 years old, Carson became the Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery, the youngest major division director in Johns Hopkins’ history.
If rejecting evolution is so catastrophic and destructive to your intellectual ability and renders you scientifically inept everywhere in your life…how did Ben Carson separate those twins? How did he pass all those medical exams? How did he have such a successful career?
If we had to, I wonder what we scientists would say to people like Ben Carson; to the hundreds of scientists skeptical of evolution. Would we actually argue that practicing scientists cannot reason scientifically? Luckily for us, we don’t ever have to say anything to them. Luckily for us, we’re allowed to ignore them and act like they don’t exist. We can conveniently wash away the millions of people who reject evolution but still become doctors, engineers, computer programmers and, yes, scientists. If anyone else casually ignored data they simply didn’t like, we would angrily brand them unscientific. Why is it okay if we do the same?
As much as we might pretend otherwise, people like Ben Carson and Henry Schaefer do exist. They are real human beings. Whether we like it or not, rejecting evolution does not necessarily affect your cognitive ability. As a matter of scientific fact, you can reject evolution and still become a scientist. We should stop suggesting otherwise.
So the next time you want to mock or ridicule creationists, pause for a moment and ask yourself: How many siamese twins have I separated recently?
