Why Won't Creationists Learn?

[going to make some big generalisations and oversimplifications now..]It always kinda reminds me of the whole history of how science came into existence (or rather, was lacking before it came into existence). Before the 1500's - 1600's, people were just as intelligent as we are. Still, it didn't produce anything much of progress or worthwhile knowledge because some ingredients seemed to be missing. Somehow, there was this idea that the Bible was... "enough". The concept that something could be learned about natural phenomenons/objects by observing them (questioning them, like by doing experiments) seemed to be in a "judo hold" by a reigning absolute trust in Divine Revelation. It was not a case of scientific endeavour being beyond their mental capacities. But more a matter of, if we talk in terms related to your question, not acknowledging the need or possibility to learn.This seems to be mimicked on a personal level by (certain types of) religious fundamentalists. They have the Bible. That is simply enough to them, and they certainly can do WITHOUT anything that threatens the very reason why they can get along with a limited, simplistic (easily to overlook and therefore consoling) concept of reality.I also always feel like these kind of people have no concept of how fallible we intrinsically are; skepticism and science go hand in hand, and the scientific method I'm sure is partly the result of recognising human's unlimited capacity to self-delude. Only if you recognise that weakness, you understand that somekind of methodology that helps to eliminate this as much as possible, is necessary. And to be preferred over "intuition" (at least generally ;-) ),"predictive dreams" and "Divine Revelations". Extreme naivety in that department seems to be widespread in certain fundamentalist circles...

Hmmm... Yes, some people or groups of people certainly show that tendency. The irony is that, while in the Dark Ages it was caused by a simple lack of alternatives, it seems to be caused now by somekind of "overload". I really think some people just can't take the rate of change our current world goes through. I guess it's a combination of how education (even very good education) can't possibly hold up with everything, while at the same time there are more other information sources available (or even imposing themselves) than ever before. Just 30-40 years ago, the "information-filtering" was done by others. Now we have to do our filtering all by ourselves, while the choice is so much bigger and diverse. From totally unbiased, skeptic and accurate to the biggest nonsense, it's all out there. Without a proper basis, it becomes impossible to find signal through all the noise.