Katha Pollitt What's The Matter With Creationism Analysis

Katha Pollitt’s What’s the Matter with Creationism? is based on a poll on peoples belief in evolution. She argues that educated people should be more likely to believe in evolution and rants about how ridiculous it is that the percentage of people is the same between college graduates and the rest of America. She does not do a very good job of persuading her intended audience due to her lack of restraint of opinion. She degrades the people who don’t believe in evolution, which funnily enough discredits a few of her resources.

The start of her essay poses a question that leads into her thesis, but doesn’t get addressed until the second paragraph. When she does address her main concern, she does it well. Directly after that, though, Pollitt

uses a sentence to try to emphasize the gravity of the situation. To accompany her claim that it is horrible how many people believe in evolution she says, “That’s right: 46 percent of Americans with sixteen long years of education under their belt believe the story of Adam and Eve is literally true.” This implies that the story of Adam and Eve is not true. This is not something she can prove false. When saying this she is not proving anything and is using mockery to substitute for evidence.
Yet again in her next paragraph she opens with a good source but then states her unneeded opinion bringing into question the validity of her source. She uses her husband, a sociologist, to state that the outcome of the poll might’ve been caused by identity not actual convictions. The problem is that right after she mentions that he doesn’t really mind the results of the poll she declares her annoyance with that. Because she follows her accreditation directly with negative reinforcement of her source it can be confusing to her readers.
The specific part of her essay that mentioned the ridiculousness and ignorance of belief in the Adam and Eve story also discredits another source she uses later in the essay. She quotes Kenneth Miller who is a practicing Catholic. If she is using the fact that he is catholic to show that even a man of religion agrees, then she is implying that he must follow Catholic beliefs as well as believe in evolution. Catholicism has a base story of Adam and Eve as well. This means that she thinks that part of what he believes is ignorant, therefore, why would the reader want to hear what he thinks about other topics? If Pollitt would have left her judgement and mockery out of the paper she would actually have seemingly good sources. She quotes her husband, a sociologist, a professor and Catholic against creationism, and the director of an evolutionary biology program. Overall her sources are not bad, it is what she does with them that should be avoided.
One of her strong arguments brought by many sources is in response to her statement, “Think what the world would have to be like for evolution to be false.” She says, “Almost every scientist on earth would have to be engaged in a fraud so complex and extensive it involved every field from archaeology, paleontology, geology and genetics to biology, chemistry and physics.” The argument is a very good one, but she should not use the word “fraud” because it would not necessarily mean that, it could mean that they were mistaken.

Were the scientists of the day when they thought the earth was false frauds? No, they were misled because of a lack of complete

information.
She also uses another sentence like this that is an assumption later when she quotes Kenneth Miller. He mentions, “…99 percent of all species that have ever existed have gone extinct.” This is only true if we have concluded that there is no other life on any other planet in the galaxy. We do not have enough information nor do we have the resources to back that, so we cannot assume this is true.
To go along with her use of assumptions to persuade, she makes the mistake of employing too many degrading remarks of her audience.

Pollitt is using these remarks to make it seem as though the people that believe in evolution are quite obviously false. The problem lies in the fact that, in order to cause a change in the poll and persuade those that don’t believe to change their minds, she needs to appeal to her audience. She is defeating her own purpose by making remarks such as, “If ‘recurrent flooding’ really gets going, you may wish you’d booked a cabin.” (In the replica of Noah’s Ark) Pollitt also says, “…58 percent of Republicans are creationists, although that does explain a lot.” and, “why so many think it (being a good Christian) means refusing to use the brains god gave you.” These are a few of the comments from her essay that show her complete disgust of creationists, which are her main

audience.
Pollitt fails at capturing her audience’s attention by using her harsh opinion and lack of logic. In her focus on so much speculation of these people she defies her own standpoint of people needing to use their own brain and be logical. She doesn’t provide any evidence as to why evolution is true other than having other people that testify it is true. If she is trying to prove how appalling it is that so many people believe in creationism, then why are there no facts to support her “logic” of the severity of the situation?

The unpleasant language and lack of evidence, paired with poorly phrased sentences shows her ignorance, therefore contradiction of herself. Pollitt’s further contradiction bleeds into her sources when she belittles their credibility with her inappropriate statements. Whether her belief that evolution is true or not, the essay itself is not effective and mimics a rant rather than a solid argument.