Intelligent Falling

Back on the soapbox. The Onion came up with a good one recently that parodies the 'debate' over evolution: "Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity with New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory". Like all good satire, it's close to the actual events.
The approach taken by religious anti-scientists is to take some principle, which although it has a vast body of evidence and proof supporting it, focus on one aspect that is unknown or not completely understood, and use that to refute everything about the principle. Of course they don't apply the same standards to their own positions.
Matt Hayden has some good posts on this subject in his blog. Here's an excerpt from one post:
"So, because the workings of technology are opaque, some people accept it as 'magic' or something like it. And the unwillingness to engage the world on an empirical, inquiring, 'how-does-it-work?' fashion leads to braod acceptance of belief systems that bear no relationship to reality. Who, in their right mind, believes that Jesus' mom was a virgin, really? Or that Mohammed literally had a flying horse? Or that a whole group of people descended from a group of desert dwellers in the near east three millenia ago are the chosen people of god? Indeed, who accepts that there is a beneficient deity at all? Who believes that a statue really has magical powers to heal, or whatnot? Well, obviously someone does. The Jesus-believers are in a war with the Mohammed-believers. Wherever there is religion, there is war. And there is no reason for any of it....just 'my words are better [holier, more sacred, more correct, addressed to the right mighty cloud-being, et cetera] than yours. That's sad. Human beings have a marvelous capability for reason when and if we elect to use it. But when we as a species fail to encourage - indeed, require - reason as the basis for governance and general interaction, we do destruction on a staggering scale. It just takes an act of will to ensure that children are taught to value experience before dogma, and that dogma is invariably suspect, no matter how trustworthy the source."
The Daily Show has devoted this entire week to their exploration of "Evolution Schmevolution", to hilarious effect.