I'm Right! You're Wrong! Schsnawww!

Tolerance is a bit like sex-Everybody says they practice it a lot more than they do, and it seems everyone else is doing more exotic things with it than you are. I've always felt that being a scrawny nerd makes you naturaly suspicious of tolerance; too often, it seems that people stop attacking, say, Asians, because that's racist, and start attacking Computer Nerds instead, because Computer Nerds aren't a race and mindless violence is great, because everyone says so (Mindless violence is also a bit like sex-It's somewhat less interesting than everyone gives it credit for, although admitedly I have no experience of either one). The fact that you're still bunching a group of people together for an arbitary reason, of course, means that this is pretty much as intolerant. I admit it doesn't seem that way, though, if only because I'm terrified I've just written a Racist Slur without meaning to. For God's sake, don't think I want you to attack Asians. Or Nerds.

I bring this all up because I was on Answers in Genesis, the well-known Creationist website ( http://www.answersingenesis.org . Don't go there) today, to see if I could use a quote for my essay on evolution. Boy, I'll never make that mistake again. The place is hideously, rampantly intolerant, and seems to regard the concept of Atheism as others might regard the concept of marrying Noel Edmonds. It's not the articles that I mind (although I found the criticism of the use of the word "evolving" to describe Bird Flu, because even though it was, in fact, evolving, it might make the public think they came from an ameoba somewhat baffling) although there do seem to be a rather large number of logical fallacies hovering around. What bothered me were the cartoons. They're for children, and deign to educate them. Looking through them, it seemed the only thing they could possibly educate them to be was unbearably smug psychopaths. The "humour", such as it is, involves such japes as several people who don't believe in God being crushed to death, or, in a witheringly funny exchange, a boy commenting that Evolution must be wrong because Science can't predict the weather, the punchline presumably being that he doesn't understand Chaos Theory, and is an idiot. I was shocked. Honestly. Creationism claims to be a moral force-and, indeed, AiG blames Evolution for being responsible for pretty much all the evils in the modern World today-but to show such evident glee in the idea that the Scientists are wrong, and they're going to Hell, and look at this stupid man in a white coat, Ho Ho frikin' Ho-is about as moral as announcing you're going to deliberately abort some babies, set fire to them, and throw them at Mormons for fun. Because Science is ultimately where all the intolerance is aimed at, you know. Accused of being hideously powerful, it's always seemed to me to be one of the weakest things in the World, constantly sniped at and manipulated by people who don't understand, and sneer at people who do. And yet the ideal of Science, and the point of Science, is to fight for it to survive, to rip it and mould it into something that doesn't care what you say will happen, or has happened because it has a pretty good idea itself. Which is an idea you won't accept, because all the best ideas in Science are ones it's a struggle to accept. Some of the worst, too.

Which isn't to say they're wrong at AiG, of course, although empirical evidence and philosophy suggest they probably, and in cases certainly, are. It's to try and get them to take the cartoons down, and to stop with the "We're right and they're wrong!" sctick in absolutely every article on the site. Because Intolerance is nothing but sneering, in the end, and even sneering at your enemy is the sort of thing that has a habit of blowing up in your face, especialy, despite how hard it is, when you're supposed to be loving the poor guys.