Piling up on an easy target

From The Questionable Authority comes another article on the exchange going on between Timothy Birdnow and P.Z. Myers.

In his article, Birdnow posted this:

...Consider the Permian Triassic Extinction, the so called "Great Dying", 250 million years ago,in which 9 out of 10 marine creatures and 7 out of 10 land creatures died. Before the Great Dying five phylla walked the Earth; insects, mammals, birds, fish, and reptiles. After the Great Dying we had the same 5.

...to which Professor Myers answered:

You should be aware that in those 3 sentences, you made 4 immense errors.

1. There are many more than 5 phyla; about 30.
2. Mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and insects are not separate phyla. The first four all belong to one phylum (Chordata) and the last belongs to another (Arthropoda).
3. There were no mammals or birds in the Permian.
4. There were no mammals or birds in the Triassic.

...to which Birdnow answered:

You are correct in that there are 30 total animal phyla; I was writing a piece to explain this concept to a general audience, and I included the chordates plus insects. You, as a revered Professor of Biology, may find my pique with my carelessness. Fine(after all, I`m not a biologist). Nonetheless, it does not matter to the argument wether there are 2, 8, 15, 30, or 2000 phila (ouch! my knuckles!); the point is that we there was no real crossovers between creatures. I suspect you understood my point, but quibble over it because you think you`ve got me. If it salves your ego to gloat, go right ahead! The fact is, the great point you think you scored was wide of the argument.

Reread Birdnow's response. Can you believe this? After being blatantly shown the errors of his writing he refuses to address them in any rational way. His answer pretty much amounts to "So what if I'm wrong? I'm still right, so nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah!"

Sad.

Even now, after years of perversely following the Intelligent Design/Creationism movement, I'm still completely baffled by the extent to which people cling to their willful ignorance and refuse to expand their knowledge in any way shape or form. God forbid they be ever proven wrong. Why let something insignificant as "the facts" get in the way of their right to spew nonsense?

And yet, even more baffling is the fact that these people are so resistant to any attempt to try to get them to expand their minds to be aware of the problems with their arguments. They'll still repeat the same arguments over and over, regardless of the fact that they're been debunked.

One of the lessons I learned from Christianity was that humility was a virtue truly worth its weight in Gold -- reading the chronicles of Christ's life and deeds underscored that for me. An important and crucial aspect of humility is admitting when you're wrong. Evolutionary Biologists are wrong about a lot of things many times -- it comes with the territory of being a scientist.

Supporters of Intelligent Design refused to acknowledge any problem with their statements. In their mind, they are never wrong -- only their opponents are. How is that scientific? Moreover, how can that ever be Christian?