Not Qualified to Comment

The image above came to my attention via the blog God of Evolution.

The sign really does help make an important point about scientific matters.

If you not only aren't sufficiently informed about biology to know that evolution does not claim that humans descended from babboons or any other species currently in existence, but you also don't grasp the difference between ancestors and descendants, then you are not qualified to comment on such a question.

I wonder, however, how many people who read this sign will recognize this, and will seek scientific information elsewhere. You need to actually know a language well, in order to tell whether someone else is speaking it well. And you need to know something about science to spot when someone is offering you pseudoscience.

And that's the big danger in the time we live in. If you start your process of gathering information by turning to charlatans, you may never realize that you have chosen deceivers as your authorities.

And of course the theology and Biblical interpretation reflected in the words on the sign is every bit as bad as the science and the word choice. Does this person not think that God made baboons? Does he or she not think that the descendants of entities created by God, through whatever process, are still themselves creations of God?

That religious voices may not be qualified to comment on matters of science or wording should be no surprise. But when they spout religious nonsense, it may not surprise anyone either, but it definitely should disappoint.