"Why creationism bears all the hallmarks of a conspiracy theory"

The only hallmark of conspiracy that is pointed to is “demonizing and discrediting”, but science always tends to discredit certain portions of theories as it advances. Modern thermodynamics discredits “caloric”, general relativity discredits the “luminiferous aether”, Newtonian mechanics discredits Aristotelian. We do not a priori cast out any of these theories because their proponents discredited their predecessors and often mocked them.

Really, the reason that there is such mockery of evolutionists is because things stay in textbooks many decades after they’re discredited. To draw a picture, the smoke was still rising from the Civil War when Ernst Haeckel’s diagrams were discredited in Jena. I remember seeing them over a century later in books about evolution. In the same way, Piltdown Man was “discovered” in 1912, but carefully kept from examination at the British Museum until 1953, and guess what I read about in my paleontology books in the 1970s?

Also worth noting is that the author’s approach is, more or less, to “demonize and discredit” creationists by associating them with conspiracy theorists. It’s a pair of genetic fallacies worthy of any demagogue, personal attacks and guilt by association.

If evolutionists want to be taken seriously as scientists, they need to do a lot better than this.

This kind of mockery isn’t new. People laughed at Paul on Mars Hill because he had the nerve to believe Jesus rose from the dead.

…nothing new, but it’s rather telling IMO that the very article that accuses creationists of a conspiracy theory itself has….the exact same hallmarks, and that demonstrably. It’s one of those “you know, if you want to accuse someone of conspiracy theory hallmarks, maybe a mirror is in order.” kind of things.