Episode Details

You may have heard that when an ostrich perceives a threat, it responds by sticking its head in the sand. The implied logic being that it no longer sees the danger, so it no longer feels threatened. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

It turns out that this phenomenon isn’t true. It’s a myth!

It seems to be our misunderstanding their first response to a distant threat: lay down low with their head and neck stretched out on the ground  — they’re pretty tall birds, so a lower profile might avoid detection. But if that distant threat is foolish enough to make itself an imminent threat, it can quickly find the ostriches opt for plan B: their powerful legs and 4-inch claws can immediately eviscerate the threat. They can even kill a lion!?

Nonetheless, that metaphor is in our language. It’s even got a name: “Ostrich Syndrome.” You can look it up in the Urban Dictionary. And defense lawyers have “Ostrich Defense” listed in their playbooks … “my client was completely ignorant of the criminal activities of her associate.”

So this is the metaphor we chose for this week’s topic: when certain Young Earth Creationists find modern science contradicts their literal reading of the Bible, especially the book of Genesis, they choose to simply reject the scientific data; which doesn’t make the problem go away, it just means they can hide cozily in their little world. It’s an eye-catching metaphor, and admittedly a provocative one. And what is this podcast series if not provocative? But please know that we don’t mean it in a derogatory way.

This week, we wanted to talk to people who feel justified in rejecting science when they think it conflicts with the Bible.

But we’re not looking for merely personal opinions here: we want to talk to people who are qualified to judge the scientific data and give strong, scientifically-defensible reasons for why and how they feel they can interpret the data differently than do experts in the field. Using an analogy that came up often in the episode: if we’re a National League baseball team looking for a pitcher, we’re not interested in talking to pe