This is a good example of how scientists and science-lovers should deal with creationists. And that is not to deal with them, at least in debates and meetings.

A while back, religious students at Michigan State University announced that they would hold a one-day “Origin Summit,” a meeting about creationism at a public university. That was legal because the summit was actually organized by a student religious group (The Baptist Collegiate Ministry), which has the right to book rooms on campus for its own activities. According to a piece by Mark Joseph Stern in Slate, though, the students didn’t have much to do with the conference, which was organized by Outside Influences. (Could it be. . . . Satan?)

“The Origin Summit“‘s speakers and program are shown below; note the distinguished lineup. Sadly, I have never heard of any of these scientists or science educators.

That’s a rather pugnacious program, and includes attacks on the Big Bang (really?) and on Rich Lenski’s well-known experiments on bacterial evolution. They also played the Hitler Card, i.e., Hitler’s genocides were strongly influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution. (For the definitive refutation of that ridiculous canard, see my colleague Bob Richards’s essay, “Was Hitler a Darwinian?“, free online. Hint: the answer is “no.”)

What the creationists really wanted was a debate, in particular a debate with MSU philosophy professor Rob Pennock, a well-known opponent of intelligent design and author of what I think is the best anti-ID book, Tower of Babel. Pennock also testified for the prosecution in the famous Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District et al. case, a case in which ID was resoundingly trounced as “not science.”

Pennock wouldn’t bite, and good for him. As Slate reports:

The summit’s website asks whether Pennock’s arguments can “withstand the scrutiny of debate” and suggests that he’s too cowardly to stand up for evolution.

The summit had one thing right: Pennock refused to respond to its request. But it wasn’t out of timorousness. “Scientists have already shown that there is no substance worth debating in these old creationist challenges to evolution,” he told me. Evolution is fact, creation is fiction, and there’s just no point in pretending like there’s a real scientific debate between reality and fantasy. I asked Pennock whether he was alarmed by the conference.

“It’s a sign of how desperate creationists have become,” he said. “[T]hey have to make schoolyard bully taunts, blame evolution for Hitler, and raffle a free iPad (‘Must be present to win’) to try to create a controversy and draw an audience.”

The rest of the Michigan State scientists also refused to engage, though of course they were peeved that such a stupid event could take place on a respectable campus. But it’s the Baptists, Jake!

Thwarted in their attempt to validate the conference with a debate, the summit leaders might at least have hoped for an attention-grabbing outcry among scientists at the school. There, too, they were foiled. Once MSU’s science professors caught wind of the event, they collectively decided to ignore the conference and refuse requests for comment. (Indeed, no professor would speak to me until I promised not to publish a story before the summit occurred.) The summit leaders were counting on the school’s scientists to criticize the conference and give them free publicity. So the scientists kept their mouths shut.

Kudos to my colleagues at MSU! The only pushback by Team Science was a pro-evolution table at the conference organized by some students. But faculty resolutely refused to either engage or attend. In the end, it wasn’t much of a win for the creationists:

The summit’s leaders were expecting an uproar, but MSU’s scientists, unlike Bill Nye, refused to take the bait. To debate creationism and evolution, they realized, was to imply that evolution is plausibly disputable. To ignore creationist calls for debate, on the other hand, relegates the theory to lowest rung of evangelical pseudoscience, where it so obviously belongs.

Ultimately, thanks to the university’s emphatic silence, the conference drew fewer than 100 attendees, according to Baskett—only about one-third of whom appeared to be younger than 30. There were no debates or shouting matches, and the creationists were, by all accounts, gracious and civil. A handful of MSU students sat in out of pure curiosity, Pennock told me, including a resolutely pro-science graduate student who studies evolutionary microbiology. At the end of the event, the student won the iPad raffle.

“Chance?” Pennock asked, “or a sign from above? You be the judge.”

My advice to all, and that included Bill Nye, who I think erred in debating Ken Ham, is to not engage creationists on a public platform, and that means in conferences or debates. Issues like the worthlessness of creationism are not decided by rhetoric, but by thoughtful contemplation. I fight creationism not by talking to its advocates in public, which only gives them credibility, but by criticizing their ideas in articles and book reviews, which can be read at leisure. But I do this as little as possible, and only when they’ve said something that, I think, needs rebutting. My strongest critique of creationism was not in fact a critique, but an exposition of the massive and irrefutable evidence for evolution, laid out in WEIT.

As this country becomes more secular, creationism will disappear of its own accord, for its umbilical cord is religion. There are virtually no creationists who aren’t motivated by religious origin tales, and when those tales lose credibility (granted, it will take a long time), creationism will no longer be with us. The IDers and creation-mongers know this, so they try to pump life into their movement by seeking the credibility and visibility of debates with scientists.

Don’t engage them, at least in person.

h/t: Alexander and others