I submitted the following response to the Republic:

Re Steve Benson's cartoon of May 31st slandering creationists: imagine a world without: a) the scientific method; b) electric generators; c) electric motors; d) rockets; e) computers; f) antiseptic surgery; or g) MRI. Such is the world of Steve Benson. For this greatly-abbreviated list is just some of the benefits from the efforts, in whole or in part, of creationist scientists: a) Francis Bacon; b) Michael Faraday; c) Joseph Henry; d) Wernher von Braun; e) Charles Babbage; f) Joseph Lister; and g) Raymond Damadian. The fact that the AZ Republic is willing to print Mr. Benson's ignorant bigotry is a black mark on your newspaper. Would you have printed it if the banner was "Legal immigration - so simple-minded, a Mexican can understand it"? How about "Religious tolerance - so simple-minded, a Muslim can understand it"? Of course you wouldn't; those banners wouldn't be politically correct. But it is safe for you to smear creationists.

Mr. Benson's depiction of creationists as simple-minded, knuckle-dragging Neanderthal flat-earth-believing hillbillies from the back hills of Kentucky is not even close to the truth. But, of course, in propaganda, Cohen's Law holds sway: "What really matters is the name you succeed in imposing on the facts - not the facts themselves." The membership page of the Creation Research Society website states: "Since the CRS is a scientific society governed by scientists, voting membership requires an earned postgraduate degree in a recognized area of science." They have 600+ voting members with Master's and higher science degrees. (I am a member of the CRS, although not a voting member.) The Answers in Genesis website lists hundreds of historic and contemporary creationist scientists (http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/bios/). How does Mr. Benson's educational achievements stack up against evolutionist-turned-creationist Dr A.E. Wilder-Smith's 3 earned doctorates in the sciences? Dr Wilder-Smith wrote over 30 books, among which is the excellent allegory "He Who Thinks Has to Believe".

Mr. Benson's "Exhibit A" for the simple-mindedness of creationists is the idea that dinosaurs and people lived contemporaneously. If that is not the case, Mr. Benson, what was it that caused multiple societies around the world to have "dragon" "myths"? What was it that ancient peoples saw that caused them to draw dinosaur-like creatures on cave walls? What was it that the pre-Columbians saw that caused them to make a vessel with a recognizable dinosaur as a handle? Ditto for the Thais, Vietnamese, Chinese, Ecuadorians, Dogons in Africa, etc, etc. How did dinosaur and human foot and handprints get in the same strata? Where did the fossilized human finger come from in rock strata (erroneously) dated as being 100 million years old?

In this case, the simple-minded one is Steve Benson. He, and most people who believe in evolution, believe in it because it is the only thing that they have ever heard. They have never investigated the other side, rejecting it out-of-hand because "everybody knows" it's wrong. On the other hand, most creationists (including many former evolutionists) have studied both sides of the issue and concluded that the known facts of science fit the Bible's account of creation and Noah's flood. Which group is the simple-minded ones - the group that made a decision based on hearing both sides of the issue or the group that made a decision based on being indoctrinated in one side only? Mr. Benson links creationists with belief in a flat earth. The simple truth is that had Mr. Benson been alive back in those days HE would have been a flat-earther because that was what "everybody knew" to be true. It was Bible-believing Christopher Columbus who set out across the Atlantic knowing that the earth is round because it says so in the Bible.