Creationist Cousins - Baba Brinkman

Creationist cousins, they’re my relations, I love ‘em

But when they talk about Jesus and Revelations and Judges

I’ve gotta take it up with them

‘Cause there’s a better explanation for the place that we come from, okay?

Creationist cousins, they’re my relations, I love ‘em

But at the dinner table we get on some crazy discussions

I’m always questioning their basic assumptions

And saying, «yes I believe we came from monkeys, okay?»

That’s the idea that most enrages Darwin’s detractors

The idea that we came from ape-like ancestors

Some people still question this, and say: «If we came from

Monkeys, then how come there’s monkeys still in existence?»

Allow me to illustrate a similar instance

I’m descended from Dutch Calvinist immigrants

Who came to Canada in the 1950s

And I still have second cousins who live in the Netherlands

But they’re not my ancestors;

they’re my relatives

Since we have common genetic elements

Inherited from our great grandparents

That’s just three generations back, but here’s the relevance

Three thousand generations back, human beings all have

Common ancestors, so really we’re all relatives

Which also means all relationships are relatively incestuous

Further back we have common ancestors with chimps

And gorillas and elephants and plants, and billions

Of years back our ancestors are all single-cellular

But what I find incredible isn’t this principle

Of unity of common descent, that’s just elegant

What’s incredible to me is that some of my living relatives

Still believe the earth was created about seventy-odd

Centuries ago — around the time of the Egyptians

By a benevolent God and that this same God

Is currently manipulating the elements

And that evolutionism is devilish

Did I mention that I was descended from Calvinist fundamentalists?

Well, I still have cousins as dedicated representatives

Approximately twenty percent of them

And at the dinner table we debate statistics

And those debates get kind of interesting

They go like this…

Creationist cousins, they’re my relations, I love ‘em

But when they talk about Jesus and Revelations and Judges

I’ve gotta take it up with them

‘Cause there’s a better explanation for the place that we come from, okay?

Creationist cousins, they’re my relations, I love ‘em

But at the dinner table we get on some crazy discussions

I’m always questioning their basic assumptions

And saying, «yes I believe we came from monkeys, okay?»

I say, «Creationism is unscientific

Ninety-nine percent of practicing scientists accept evolution

As the best explanation we have for living systems

Why?

Because there’s overwhelming

And they say, «Baba, science isn’t run by consensus

That one percent is quite significant

Those are the who have found signs

Of intelligent design, but whenever they try and

Publish it in the mainstream literature

Besides, your presuppositions are materialistic

Maybe all that evidence scientists say they’ve collected

Just empirically proves that God wants our faith to be tested!»

So then I say, «But that means your benevolent God

Is perpetrating a massive intellectual fraud!

So either evolution is the victim of a frame job

Which explains all of its predictive successes

Or we have to separate God from the scientific method»

And that’s when my sister steps in

To defend a different kind of creationism — Cultural creationism

Also known as «social constructivism» or «post-modernism»

She says: «Baba, the Western scientific method

Is just as subjective as every other cultural tradition

Except it’s just better at pretending to be objective

Because, like, all behaviour is socially constructed

And mostly, it just promotes injustice

And, like, gender roles have nothing to do with genitals

They’re just a way for men to control women’s goals

And try to turn us all into Playboy centerfolds

Haven’t you heard about that tribe in the Amazon

Where the woman does the man’s jobs and hunts and plants the crops

And brings home the food for the man to wash?

Um, I can’t remember exactly what that clan is called

But I know it’s a published fact

Because I read about it in my Women’s Studies class

And it proves that gender is a socially constructed act

So how does sociobiology explain that?»

And all I can do is come back with more statistics

About the high percentage of indigenous

Societies where polygamy is prolific

And about human sexual dimorphism

And the different reproductive investments between men and women

Which of course then gets my religious cousins offended

Because it doesn’t credit Genesis with our humble beginnings

And, let’s just say, the discussions are endless

But it isn’t about who is impartial;

no one’s impartial

It’s about how much evidence you can marshal

And how you deliver the parcel

And when my relatives argue, I have to have faith

That we can reach the genuine article in a rational way

That’s a different kind of faith than my cousins have

In divine creation, but hey, to all of my relatives

And fellow primates, I say

If it makes you feel better, go head and pray

In fact, here’s how I pray in a secular way

I say, «I have creationist relatives and relative apes

And I wish them all happiness, whatever their faith

And I wish myself patience, since I relish debates

Let us all be respectful and still tell it straight»

Creationist cousins, they’re my relations, I love ‘em

But when they talk about Jesus and Revelations and Judges

I’ve gotta take it up with them

‘Cause there’s a better explanation for the place that we come from, okay?

Creationist cousins, they’re my relations, I love ‘em

But at the dinner table we get on some crazy discussions

I’m always questioning their basic assumptions

And saying, «yes I believe we came from monkeys, okay?