You mean a Jesus horse with a saddle?
My take on this is that they think from their own experience in terms of how they view their religion. They believe their every aspect of their religion as a matter of faith. Their prophets are infalliable and their holy book is the literal world of God.
And they think those scientists/rationalists/those with critical thinking are work the same way they do, except our religion is science. So they think that if they can somehow discredit our prophet, then the whole thing comes tumbling down. If every word of a holy book is the literal truth, and you find contradictions or flaws - you risk your entire view being shattered. Similarly, if they think they can somehow point out an instance of our equivelant to a holy book (in this case, say, irreducible complexity or a gap in the fossil record) they think that the flaw will cause our faith to collapse.
Creationists have way more interest in Darwin than the so-called Darwinists do.
It’s silly and misguided because people who are skeptical, rational, and invested in the methodology of science don’t think like they do - which is exactly why they’re not like them.
Interesting analysis, SenorBeef – hadn’t thought of it like that, but you’re right.
I think it’s worth considering the role of social pressure and groupthink in science, especially in narrow disciplines, but you can overstate it. Remember, there’s nearly as much social pressure to come up with something interesting and critical. And, on the mortgage-payments argument, that’s why they have tenure – so they don’ t have to worry about that kind of thing when they’re making scientific arguments.