In the sense that Creationism is basically a fairy tale, it is appropriate for children. Unfortunately, it's not treated like that. It becomes part of an indoctrination that discourages critical thinking, and there is no question to me that such indoctrination is abuse.

I took my small family to DC a few weekends ago to visit the various Smithsonian museums, and I really fell in love with the Human Evolution exhibit at the Museum of Natural History. I would highly recommend anyone living on the east coast or travelling near there to visit, it's just extremely well presented and very accessible to everyone, both children and adults.

I was especially surprised at the end of our walk-through to see that the thing was funded by David H. Koch. It literally blew my mind, I guess just because of the nonsense that his sons have been up to for the past few election cycles. It seems to me that those two are responsible for funding so much ignorance, and yet their father funded this magnificent exhibition... I don't know, just weird.

>> ^KnivesOut:

I took my small family to DC a few weekends ago to visit the various Smithsonian museums, and I really fell in love with the Human Evolution exhibit at the Museum of Natural History. I would highly recommend anyone living on the east coast or travelling near there to visit, it's just extremely well presented and very accessible to everyone, both children and adults.
I was especially surprised at the end of our walk-through to see that the thing was funded by David H. Koch. It literally blew my mind, I guess just because of the nonsense that his sons have been up to for the past few election cycles. It seems to me that those two are responsible for funding so much ignorance, and yet their father funded this magnificent exhibition... I don't know, just weird.


Actually, David H. Koch is one of the two Koch brothers currently funding republican candidates. It wasn't his father who donated the exhibit, it was him. It does seem odd that a guy who has used his vast fortune to deny climate change also gives big donations to Nova and the National Museum of Natural History. I kind of doubt he's even dumb enough to sincerely be a climate change skeptic. I think he just cares more about being an ultra rich guy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_H._Koch#Education

@entr0py that's even stranger than I thought. I don't even know how to feel about it.

>> ^PostalBlowfish:

In the sense that Creationism is basically a fairy tale, it is appropriate for children. Unfortunately, it's not treated like that. It becomes part of an indoctrination that discourages critical thinking, and there is no question to me that such indoctrination is abuse.


I would not want my kids to be read the kinds of "fairy tales" found in the Bible. The Grimm tales are dark enough, without adding incest, genocide and mass genital mutilation to the mix. The Bible is more like Ovid's Metamorphoses; an important piece of literature you don't put into small children's hands.

Carl Sagan was Bill Nye's professor in college?! BAD. ASS.

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Friday, August 24th, 2012 12:38pm PDT - promote requested by RhesusMonk.

BILL BILL BILL BILL BILL

BUT, JESUS!

>> ^KnivesOut:

I took my small family to DC a few weekends ago...


Is your family bigger than a breadbox?

Thank you Bill

>> ^hpqp:

>> ^PostalBlowfish:
In the sense that Creationism is basically a fairy tale, it is appropriate for children. Unfortunately, it's not treated like that. It becomes part of an indoctrination that discourages critical thinking, and there is no question to me that such indoctrination is abuse.

I would not want my kids to be read the kinds of "fairy tales" found in the Bible. The Grimm tales are dark enough, without adding incest, genocide and mass genital mutilation to the mix. The Bible is more like Ovid's Metamorphoses; an important piece of literature you don't put into small children's hands.


Yeah they don't make children read those stories. I'm sure there's one church somewhere that does but everyone I've ever talked to that had a "Churchy" upbringing never heard about that side of the bible. Death yeah, but watch tv today and you get tons of death, so it's not really that big of a deal.

The two most popular Bible stories for kids after the baby Jeebus one are the Garden of Eden/Creation story (hello incest) and the Noah and the Flood story (hello incest and full-scale genocide). Am I wrong?
>> ^Yogi:

>> ^hpqp:
>> ^PostalBlowfish:
In the sense that Creationism is basically a fairy tale, it is appropriate for children. Unfortunately, it's not treated like that. It becomes part of an indoctrination that discourages critical thinking, and there is no question to me that such indoctrination is abuse.

I would not want my kids to be read the kinds of "fairy tales" found in the Bible. The Grimm tales are dark enough, without adding incest, genocide and mass genital mutilation to the mix. The Bible is more like Ovid's Metamorphoses; an important piece of literature you don't put into small children's hands.

Yeah they don't make children read those stories. I'm sure there's one church somewhere that does but everyone I've ever talked to that had a "Churchy" upbringing never heard about that side of the bible. Death yeah, but watch tv today and you get tons of death, so it's not really that big of a deal.

>> ^hpqp:

The two most popular Bible stories for kids after the baby Jeebus one are the Garden of Eden/Creation story (hello incest) and the Noah and the Flood story (hello incest and full-scale genocide). Am I wrong?
>> ^Yogi:
>> ^hpqp:
>> ^PostalBlowfish:
In the sense that Creationism is basically a fairy tale, it is appropriate for children. Unfortunately, it's not treated like that. It becomes part of an indoctrination that discourages critical thinking, and there is no question to me that such indoctrination is abuse.

I would not want my kids to be read the kinds of "fairy tales" found in the Bible. The Grimm tales are dark enough, without adding incest, genocide and mass genital mutilation to the mix. The Bible is more like Ovid's Metamorphoses; an important piece of literature you don't put into small children's hands.

Yeah they don't make children read those stories. I'm sure there's one church somewhere that does but everyone I've ever talked to that had a "Churchy" upbringing never heard about that side of the bible. Death yeah, but watch tv today and you get tons of death, so it's not really that big of a deal.



There was never any incest or genocide the way that they tell them. It matters a lot how you present the stories.

^ Don't forget Sodom and Gamora (rape and genocide), which leads to Lot and his daughters (incest). Also, the story of Job (torture of a good man and the murder of an entire family over a bet between cosmic beings) is pretty fucked in the head. No, no, children definitely read and know these stories.

I'd go so far as to call the Noachian Flood episode as attempted speciecide.
>> ^hpqp:

The two most popular Bible stories for kids after the baby Jeebus one are the Garden of Eden/Creation story (hello incest) and the Noah and the Flood story (hello incest and full-scale genocide). Am I wrong?

In the sense that Evolution is basically a fairy tale, it is appropriate for children. Unfortunately, it's not treated like that. It becomes part of an indoctrination that discourages critical thinking, and there is no question to me that such indoctrination is abuse.
>> ^PostalBlowfish:

In the sense that Creationism is basically a fairy tale, it is appropriate for children. Unfortunately, it's not treated like that. It becomes part of an indoctrination that discourages critical thinking, and there is no question to me that such indoctrination is abuse.

Does anyone else think that Bill Nye has the right facial features to play a very convincing Abraham Lincoln?

Anyhow, I know that I am on sacred ground here at videosift, so instead of arguing with you, or the video, I'll just say why I believe in Creationism.

No, it's not because I believe the bible. Unlike many of the Christians that you know, I was not raised in the faith, or any faith, and I converted later in life. My default position was agnosticism, and I was a firm believer in evolution and the old age of the Earth. When I became a follower of Jesus Christ, I automatically didn't ditch those beliefs. I assumed, probably like many atheists turned Christian, that these things were absolutely proven scientifically and there was no room for doubt. Therefore, I further assumed that where the bible differed from the conclusions of science, either the bible was wrong, or it had to be looked at metaphorically.

I was very comfortable with this position, and would have remained there if I hadn't been challenged about the accuracy of this belief. What I found out was that my assumption that science was correct and evolution from universal common descent was absolutely proven was not based on my understanding of the theory, or the evidence behind it, but rather my cultural indoctrination into it.

If you grew up in a secular home like I did, then you might know what I am talking about. It's what they teach you in school, first of all. All of the textbooks you read about science support this theory, and so do your teachers. It's all over the culture as well. It's in the books that you read, the movies that you watch, and the music that you listen to. It's in conversations, it's in euphamisms, basically, it's everywhere. It's always presented to you as a proven fact and you have no reason to ever question it. I had no idea, really, that so many people (40 percent of our population) do question it.

In any case, I started investigating it. I studied the history of how this theory came to be accepted as truth, the evidence that supports it, and how it interrelates with many different branches of science. What I was shocked to find, and I do mean shocked, was that the absolute proof of the theory that every authority in my life who taught on these things told me was there, wasn't there. What I found was that, when it came to the evidence, sooner or later you came upon a giant assumption (read: leap of faith). What I found was that the case for evolution was not resting on a bedrock of proof, but rather a mountain of circumstantial evidence.

The only logical conclusion at this point was that if I was going to continue to believe in evolution, I would have to take it on faith. Instead of doing that, I decided to put my faith in the bible instead. So I changed my mind because of the evidence, not in spite of it.

Now, I said I am not going to argue with Bill Nye, but I will address a point that he brought up. Specifically, deep time. Deep time is the fundamental assumption which much of modern science is built upon, but what is the proof for deep time?

Well, the first proof that is usually brought up is radiometric dating. When someone hears "radiometric dating" they associate the very mention as conclusive proof, as if the rock being dated had a timestamp on it, and radiometric dating just reads it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Radiometric dating has a few assumptions built into it:

1. Constant decay rate
2. Ratio of daughter to natural
3. Beginning conditions known
4. No leaching or addition of parent
5. No leaching or addition of daughter
6. All assumptions valid for billions of years

If all of those assumptions are valid, the date can be trusted. The problem is that there is no way to determine whether all of those assumptions are true or not. And that is, if there were just one date. The experiment actually gives a range of dates, which is then further interpreted by what is called "field relationships" between the rocks. There are many technical problems with this, but I won't get into them here. There is also the problem that different dating methods give different results for the same rock, and that when we measure things we know the age of, we get incorrect dates. If we get incorrect dates for things we know the age of, why should we trust the dates it gives for things we don't?

So, it's not so cut and dry. Evolution should be questioned; after all, that's how new theories are made. If you want to teach children that evolution shouldn't be questioned, then you are teaching them something antithetical to science. What it comes down to is what is true. You can argue creationism vs evolutionism all day long. You can know it's true simply from the bible. What proves the bible to me is that when I gave my life to Jesus Christ, He sent me the Holy Spirit to dwell within me, and He supernaturally changed my life and made me a new person. The bible says this is exactly what will happen, and it did happen. It proves that what Jesus said is true, which validates the Old and New Testament, since Jesus personally validated all of the major facts of the Old Testament. Intellectually, I can pick these theories apart, but in the end, God proves Himself. It is nothing you have to speculate about because God will personally demonstrate it to you.

>> ^shinyblurry:

blah blah blah

>> ^bobknight33:

In the sense that Evolution is basically a fairy tale, it is appropriate for children. Unfortunately, it's not treated like that. It becomes part of an indoctrination that discourages critical thinking, and there is no question to me that such indoctrination is abuse.
>> ^PostalBlowfish:
In the sense that Creationism is basically a fairy tale, it is appropriate for children. Unfortunately, it's not treated like that. It becomes part of an indoctrination that discourages critical thinking, and there is no question to me that such indoctrination is abuse.



I can tell from the repetition that you like me.

Sticking our head in a hole in the ground like that is also charming.

Reality has a well known liberal bias.

>> ^bobknight33:

In the sense that Evolution is basically a fairy tale, it is appropriate for children. Unfortunately, it's not treated like that. It becomes part of an indoctrination that discourages critical thinking, and there is no question to me that such indoctrination is abuse.
>> ^PostalBlowfish:
In the sense that Creationism is basically a fairy tale, it is appropriate for children. Unfortunately, it's not treated like that. It becomes part of an indoctrination that discourages critical thinking, and there is no question to me that such indoctrination is abuse.



Look, if you're gonna troll, can you at least attempt to do it with something approaching originality? I know that wit, style, or class are way to much to hope for, but the least you could do is make up your own unfunny bullshit.

Christ, you're pathetic.

Hopefully, it far less than a couple centuries before the view of creationists are a significant minority viewpoint in our culture as it is holding back our future as Mr. Nye said.

To the creationist who spent a lot of time writing up his beliefs. Yes, it does take a "leap of faith" to accept current scientific theory. However, science never claims to be 100% correct unlike the teachings of most religious fundamentalists. Most time in science is proving current theories wrong, and adapting our scientific model to fit new theories. That is the strength of science. So if you can't accept the current theory, great! Come up with some other PROOF for our existence instead of buying into a cult that has no proof. They have assumptions based on a 2000 year old fairy tale, and the feeling "in their heart" that is it true. For me I need more repeatable/accurate proof than that to accept a theory. Sure, in all of recorded history, we look at C12 decay rates and they have been accurate, but instead of coming up with repeatable proof on why C12 isn't accurate, let's just instead assume that they are completely wrong. Looking at just the proof human fossils, the theory of evolution writes a more clear picture to me of the origin of our species than the origin of our species as described in a book. Supposedly, this book is somehow considered divine knowledge by some. Even though, it was written long before we had any understanding of virii, bacteria, or the microbiological world. Doesn't sound very divine or all knowing to me. It was the best explanation that a primitive people had to explain and live in the world around them. Which modern science and culture should be long past.

If it is the bible we're talking about, if you live in today's government, you already accept certain elements as out-dated and irrelevant. Unless you still stone people for adultery, worshipers of other religions, or disobeying their parents. Or if you think that the animal should be stoned in a bestiality case. Or you think that someone looking at a woman menstruating will cause your eyes to bleed. I've hope you've "grown up" from those archaic beliefs. Why is species origin any different?

What I normally tell creationists and other anti-science viewpoints, is that if you don't believe in science, don't believe in medical science either. Stay in a church praying to your creator when you get sick or need modern medicine to improve your chances of survival. I'm sure your creator will save you...

Science is a democratic constitution, changing and being changed as new realities present themselves.

Religion is Sharia Law, unchanging and brutal.

A common condescending view many evolutionists seem to be taking over creationists these days. I guess my first question to Bill would be, who are you to tell people how to raise their children, if what they are doing is fine by the law? The second question would be, do you have any proof that believing in creation always leads people not to think innovatively?

Wernher von Braun was a Biblical creationist and one of the original rocket scientists, even working [edit: chief architect] on the Saturn V which took the recently deceased Neil Armstrong to the moon. A single example and there are many others.

Seems like he might not be abiding by the empirical method.

Yes, yes it is.
>> ^shinyblurry:
No, it's not because I believe the bible.

>> ^qfan:

I guess my first question to Bill would be, who are you to tell people how to raise their children, if what they are doing is fine by the law?

Well, aside from being a well-respected science educator, he's also a private person and thus entitled to an opinion. The same way that religious people seem to think they should be able to tell other people not only how to raise their children, but what their children should be taught in science class.

Bill is entitled to his opinion, the religious are entitled to theirs and we are entitled to judge them for their opinions.

>> ^qfan:

The second question would be, do you have any proof that believing in creation always leads people not to think innovatively?
Wernher von Braun was a Biblical creationist and one of the original rocket scientists, even working [edit: chief architect] on the Saturn V which took the recently deceased Neil Armstrong to the moon.

If Von Braun had believed in a biblical theory of "intelligent falling" instead of gravity, his rockets wouldn't have gotten far. If he had actually studied the science, his conclusion might have been very different, but there's not a lot of call for evolutionary science when designing rockets, so he basically ignored an area of science that conflicted with his belief system because it didn't affect his work. You can be damn sure he benefited from the study of evolution though, given it's the backbone of a lot of medical research.

Dear religion,

Fuck off and die.

Sincerely,
Sane people

>> ^qfan:
I guess my first question to Bill would be, who are you to tell people how to raise their children, if what they are doing is fine by the law?

I'm sure his answer would be "I'm not telling people how to raise their children, I'm giving my very valid view on children and religion because the man on TV asked me to."

>> ^shinyblurry:

...


Well, Jesus told me that evolution is true and the bible contains absolutely nothing that wasn't known to humans living in the middle-east 2000 years ago.

So, YMMV.

@shinyblurry said:
1. Constant decay rate
2. Ratio of daughter to natural
3. Beginning conditions known
4. No leaching or addition of parent
5. No leaching or addition of daughter
6. All assumptions valid for billions of years

If all of those assumptions are valid, the date can be trusted. The problem is that there is no way to determine whether all of those assumptions are true or not. And that is, if there were just one date. The experiment actually gives a range of dates, which is then further interpreted by what is called "field relationships" between the rocks. There are many technical problems with this, but I won't get into them here. There is also the problem that different dating methods give different results for the same rock, and that when we measure things we know the age of, we get incorrect dates. If we get incorrect dates for things we know the age of, why should we trust the dates it gives for things we don't?

Uh, things like constant decay rate is fare more than an assumption, and it certainly requires no form of faith to be believed in. Sure , we werent standing by actually watching the decay taking place for billions of years, but you know we have things like chemistry and physics where people have studied the properties of atoms and particles and figured out mathematically, and confirmed experimentally, the stability of different isotope-configurations This isnt a mystery or magic anymore, people know this stuff. Read some quantum chemistry that Kent Hovind didnt write.

But suppose, for the sake of argument, that it was a bit of an assumption to say that decay was constant, lets just linger with that idea for a second. We see some decay happen, and we assume its contant backwards in time. well what would be the alternative? Well, a non-constant decay, of course. The problem is just that we have no information, that is, no evidence, that the rate of decay has ever, or even can, change. Worse still, since there is no evidence, we cant say how the rate has changed. Is it decaying slower and slower, (which would imply a younger universe) or faster and faster (which would imply an even older universe) or does it fluctuate wildly? There is of course no way to tell, except to concede that there is no evidence for any of these three scenarios. According you Young Earth Creationists, the earth is something like 6-12000 years old, which would mean a MASSIVE, impossibly weird and complicated, and seemingly undetectable deceleration in the rate of decay of all known elements. Worse still, in order for the math to work out, all the different elements would decelerate at different rates, for some, again, inexplicable reason. And again, without this being detected by todays best scientists.Talk about making assumptions, about having faith All in order to make a magic book remain magic.

Oh well.

But of course, thats just be beginning, because it just so happens that the assumption we made (that the rate of decay is constant) lines up pretty damn nicely with other known facts about the universe, like how big it is, what stars are made of, how massive they are how long they have burned, how the whole universe is expanding, how tectonic plates move, how animals evolved, how fossils were buried by Satan to fool us all laid down in order over the eons, genetic diversity and the relationships and relatedness of all living things. It all pans out pretty fucking nicely to an emerging picture of a universe thats 13.72 billion years old, and an earth that is about 4.6 billion years old.

But I guess all these aligning scientific facts make the baby jesus sad and must be ignored, or at least made out by believers to be "based on faith" (The very thing that, by definition, underpins the entire worldview of a believer!) So that they can dismiss it because its just faith. Oh the irony, it burns.

@ChaosEngine "Well, aside from being a well-respected science educator, he's also a private person and thus entitled to an opinion. The same way that religious people seem to think they should be able to tell other people not only how to raise their children, but what their children should be taught in science class."

Side note: Being well respected doesn't mean his views are truth. Though yes, perfectly fine to have an opinion. I'm not disputing that.

What's in dispute is that he's telling parents not to share their beliefs with their own children. So we're not only telling creationists they can't share their views publicly in school, we also tell them that they can't share their views in private with their own children. It's extraordinarily dangerous thinking in the free world. These are private people who wish to raise their children with their own values. Bill is publicly preaching to parents (unlike those parents who are privately teaching their children) not to share what they believe in, all the while saying "When you're in love you want to tell the world about it." The man is amazingly hypocritical and sadly without an ounce of realisation about it.

He says "We need scientifically literate people...". The thousands of scientists that believe in creation are also literate in science, even in the evolutionary aspects, except they choose not to believe in evolutionary theory. Science is a method. Nothing more, nothing less. Creationists aren't ignoring science at all, they are ignoring evolutionary theory. Bill says "We need engineers, people that build stuff, solve problems...". The example of Wernher Von Braun puts this point to rest.

@ChaosEngine "If Von Braun had believed in a biblical theory of "intelligent falling" instead of gravity, his rockets wouldn't have gotten far. If he had actually studied the science, his conclusion might have been very different, but there's not a lot of call for evolutionary science when designing rockets, so he basically ignored an area of science that conflicted with his belief system because it didn't affect his work. You can be damn sure he benefited from the study of evolution though, given it's the backbone of a lot of medical research."

You're confusing a lot of things here. First you say he ignored an area (evolution) that conflicted with his belief "because it didn't affect his work", then go on to say "You can be damn sure he benefited from the study of evolution". Von Braun, "For me, the idea of a creation is not conceivable without invoking the necessity of design,” “It is in scientific honesty that I endorse the presentation of alternative theories for the origin of the universe, life and man in the science classroom. It would be an error to overlook the possibility that the universe was planned rather than happening by chance." http://www.thespacereview.com/article/656/1

Bill says that denial of evolution is unique to the US (which is already a very questionable statement in itself), then goes on to say that the US is the most technologically advanced nation (with a grudging acceptance that Japan might be slightly ahead). Again, another questionable statement and slightly elitist I might add So if denial of evolution is holding the US back, why is it the most technologically advanced? You could word it another way... denial of evolution and technological advancement do not correlate with one another.

>> ^qfan:

Side note: Being well respected doesn't mean his views are truth.

Agreed. On the other hand, the unassailable mountains of evidence for evolution means his views (at least on evolution) are truth. Or at least as much as it's possible to have any scientific "truth".


>> ^qfan:

Though yes, perfectly fine to have an opinion. I'm not disputing that.
What's in dispute is that he's telling parents not to share their beliefs with their own children. So we're not only telling creationists they can't share their views publicly in school, we also tell them that they can't share their views in private with their own children. It's extraordinarily dangerous thinking in the free world. These are private people who wish to raise their children with their own values. Bill is publicly preaching to parents (unlike those parents who are privately teaching their children) not to share what they believe in, all the while saying "When you're in love you want to tell the world about it." The man is amazingly hypocritical and sadly without an ounce of realisation about it.

He's not saying parents can't tell their children about creationism, he's saying they shouldn't. You can dance around the issue all you want, and believe in creationism, the tooth fairy or santa claus, but there comes a time when you have to grow up and accept reality. Right now, there's no debate about evolution, simply because there is no valid competing scientific theory that even comes close to matching the evidence. That I have to even spell this out is pretty sad.

>> ^qfan:

He says "We need scientifically literate people...". The thousands of scientists that believe in creation are also literate in science, even in the evolutionary aspects, except they choose not to believe in evolutionary theory. Science is a method. Nothing more, nothing less. Creationists aren't ignoring science at all, they are ignoring evolutionary theory.

There might be "thousands of scientists that believe in creation", but they represent a tiny percentage of the overall scientific community and almost none of them work in relevant fields. You wouldn't ask a plumber about aeronautical engineering, so don't ask a physicist about biology.

And if you ignore evolutionary theory, you are ignoring the science of biology. You are cherry-picking which evidence you accept because it doesn't fit your world view.

>> ^qfan:

Bill says "We need engineers, people that build stuff, solve problems...". The example of Wernher Von Braun puts this point to rest.

I have already conceded that you do not need to understand evolutionary biology to build rockets.

>> ^qfan:

You're confusing a lot of things here. First you say he ignored an area (evolution) that conflicted with his belief "because it didn't affect his work", then go on to say "You can be damn sure he benefited from the study of evolution".

If you're going to quote me, at least do me the courtesy of doing it fully and in context. What I said was:
>> ^ChaosEngine:

You can be damn sure he benefited from the study of evolution though, given it's the backbone of a lot of medical research.


I meant that Von Braun benefited from the study of evolution in the same way that every other human in the developed world did, through better medicines. It didn't really affect his work, but it did affect his life.


>> ^qfan:

Von Braun, "For me, the idea of a creation is not conceivable without invoking the necessity of design,” “It is in scientific honesty that I endorse the presentation of alternative theories for the origin of the universe, life and man in the science classroom. It would be an error to overlook the possibility that the universe was planned rather than happening by chance." http://www.thespacereview.com/article/656/1

So what? He was wrong about evolution. Big deal. Newton was one of the greatest minds of all time and he got time wrong. Science marches on, and I'm confident that Von Braun if he had the time and inclination to really study it, would eventually have accepted the facts of evolution. And if he still chose to ignore the evidence because it didn't fit his world-view, well, that's sad, but it changes nothing about the truth of evolution.

>> ^qfan:

Bill says that denial of evolution is unique to the US (which is already a very questionable statement in itself), then goes on to say that the US is the most technologically advanced nation (with a grudging acceptance that Japan might be slightly ahead). Again, another questionable statement and slightly elitist I might add So if denial of evolution is holding the US back, why is it the most technologically advanced? You could word it another way... denial of evolution and technological advancement do not correlate with one another.


It's not unique to the U.S., but it's more prevalent than any other developed nation. What he's saying is that the U.S. should know better.

Denial of evolution in and of itself is bad, but it's symptomatic of the larger issues of anti-intellectualism and non-rational thought. The people who made the U.S. the most technologically advanced nation are not the same people that believe in a talking snake.

Besides, he's talking about potential. Maybe somewhere in the bible belt the next Alexander Fleming is having their future taken away from them because they are being lied to (intentionally or not) by their parents and/or preachers.

To the creationist who spent a lot of time writing up his beliefs. Yes, it does take a "leap of faith" to accept current scientific theory.

I appreciate that you can admit it. After investigating the issue, I decided the leap was too great if it was between that and Gods word. I'm sure that seems funny to you, but have you considered the philosophical implications? If you are already committed to naturalistic materialism, like most atheists, of course you are going to believe there *has* to be a materialist explanation, therefore the circumstantial evidence I cited is going to look a lot more persausive than it actually is. You might even admit that it is not proof of anything, but surely it is pointing in the right direction. You can see the issue a lot more objectively if you are not automatically committed to materialist explanations.

However, science never claims to be 100% correct unlike the teachings of most religious fundamentalists. Most time in science is proving current theories wrong, and adapting our scientific model to fit new theories. That is the strength of science. So if you can't accept the current theory, great! Come up with some other PROOF for our existence instead of buying into a cult that has no proof.

What you're doing here is creating a false dichotomy between science and religion. I don't have to choose one or the other. Science has nothing to say on the question on whether God exists. It may conflict with the bible on certain issues, but as I wrote above, I didn't change my mind because of what the bible said as true. I directly said I was willing to modify my understanding of biblical truth if scientific theories conflicted with it. The actual reason I changed my mind was because of a lack of evidence.

As far as whether there is evidence for Christianity, there is quite a bit. Some of the most compelling, I think, is fulfilled prophecy. However, God gives revelation to those who are seeking Him. Only God can reveal Himself to you.

They have assumptions based on a 2000 year old fairy tale, and the feeling "in their heart" that is it true. For me I need more repeatable/accurate proof than that to accept a theory.

I don't expect you to believe in God without any proof beyond personal testimony. As I said, God reveals Himself to those who diligently seek Him.

Sure, in all of recorded history, we look at C12 decay rates and they have been accurate, but instead of coming up with repeatable proof on why C12 isn't accurate, let's just instead assume that they are completely wrong. Looking at just the proof human fossils, the theory of evolution writes a more clear picture to me of the origin of our species than the origin of our species as described in a book. Supposedly, this book is somehow considered divine knowledge by some. Even though, it was written long before we had any understanding of virii, bacteria, or the microbiological world. Doesn't sound very divine or all knowing to me. It was the best explanation that a primitive people had to explain and live in the world around them. Which modern science and culture should be long past.

It's interesting then that the Israelites completely ignored the science of their time and were inspired to invent hand washing and quarantine procedures which, when followed, kept people from getting sick. It was almost as if an all-knowing God knew about germs and gave His people understanding which helped them avoid infection. These things were "discovered" by science thousands of years later. Had people been following Gods rules of sanitation that entire time, millions of lives would have been saved. Far from primitive, they were ahead of their time by millenia.

If it is the bible we're talking about, if you live in today's government, you already accept certain elements as out-dated and irrelevant. Unless you still stone people for adultery, worshipers of other religions, or disobeying their parents. Or if you think that the animal should be stoned in a bestiality case. Or you think that someone looking at a woman menstruating will cause your eyes to bleed. I've hope you've "grown up" from those archaic beliefs. Why is species origin any different?

Have you ever read the bible? Do you understand the differences between the Old and New covenants?

What I normally tell creationists and other anti-science viewpoints, is that if you don't believe in science, don't believe in medical science either. Stay in a church praying to your creator when you get sick or need modern medicine to improve your chances of survival. I'm sure your creator will save you...

As I said, I believe in science. What I don't believe in is the theory of deep time, or evolution by universal common descent.

>> ^Ferazel

But suppose, for the sake of argument, that it was a bit of an assumption to say that decay was constant, lets just linger with that idea for a second. We see some decay happen, and we assume its contant backwards in time. well what would be the alternative? Well, a non-constant decay, of course. The problem is just that we have no information, that is, no evidence, that the rate of decay has ever, or even can, change. Worse still, since there is no evidence, we cant say how the rate has changed. Is it decaying slower and slower, (which would imply a younger universe) or faster and faster (which would imply an even older universe) or does it fluctuate wildly? There is of course no way to tell, except to concede that there is no evidence for any of these three scenarios. According you Young Earth Creationists, the earth is something like 6-12000 years old, which would mean a MASSIVE, impossibly weird and complicated, and seemingly undetectable deceleration in the rate of decay of all known elements. Worse still, in order for the math to work out, all the different elements would decelerate at different rates, for some, again, inexplicable reason. And again, without this being detected by todays best scientists.

Are these the worst scientists then?

http://www.futurity.org/science-technology/decay-detector-gives-solar-flare-alert/

You should be careful not to let yourself become blinded by conventional wisdom. Why shouldn't you suspect that decay rates could change? Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.


Talk about making assumptions, about having faith All in order to make a magic book remain magic.

Oh well.

It doesn't sound like you read my comment. I changed my mind, not in spite of the evidence, but because of it. I was perfectly fine with being a theistic evolutionist.


But of course, thats just be beginning, because it just so happens that the assumption we made (that the rate of decay is constant) lines up pretty damn nicely with other known facts about the universe, like how big it is, what stars are made of, how massive they are how long they have burned, how the whole universe is expanding, how tectonic plates move, how animals evolved,

Yes, you're right, it lines up just fine with all of the other giant assumptions that have been made about how the Universe was formed, because they are all predicated on the basal assumption of deep time, and conversely, they are all used to support that assumption of deep time. It's quite a racket they have going, where the evidence is interpreted by the conclusion. Last time I checked that wasn't science.

how fossils were buried by Satan to fool us all laid down in order over the eons, genetic diversity and the relationships and relatedness of all living things.

Do you know the geologic column doesn't actually exist in reality? It doesn't sound like you do, if you think it's all laid down in a neat little order like you see in the text book. The truth is, the geologic column is entirely theoretical. You don't find it anywhere on Earth. What you do find is various layers here and there, and what they assume is that layer a is the same as layer b if they find the same fossils in them. The depths you see in the various layers of the column does not reflect reality. You can find Cambrian fossils 10 feet down in some areas, so if you went by physical depth, you can say in some instances Cambrian was planted last and not first. The amount of circular reasoning employed to describe the geologic column is astounding.

Another question is, do you understand flood geology? Please read what we actually believe before you criticize it:

http://creationwiki.org/Flood_geology


It all pans out pretty fucking nicely to an emerging picture of a universe thats 13.72 billion years old, and an earth that is about 4.6 billion years old.

But I guess all these aligning scientific facts make the baby jesus sad and must be ignored, or at least made out by believers to be "based on faith" (The very thing that, by definition, underpins the entire worldview of a believer!) So that they can dismiss it because its just faith. Oh the irony, it burns.

As I said to someone else, if you're already committed to materialist explanations, it doesn't sound like a big leap. To someone who isn't so committed, it is a bigger leap than it might appear to you. I was willing to reinterpret my understanding of Gods word for what science had to say, and still am, but not for a mountain of circumstantial evidence and a just-so story to tie it all together.

>> ^BicycleRepairMan

@shinyblurry, just stop. When you bring up such obvious nonsense as "flood geology", it makes it really hard to take you seriously.

Honestly I'm not even going to bother to refute this bullshit (although it's trivially easy to do so), but then again, I'm not going to prove that the Easter Bunny doesn't exist either.

>> ^ChaosEngine:

@shinyblurry, just stop. When you bring up such obvious nonsense as "flood geology", it makes it really hard to take you seriously.
Honestly I'm not even going to bother to refute this bullshit (although it's trivially easy to do so), but then again, I'm not going to prove that the Easter Bunny doesn't exist either.


I'm not really convinced that you understand the subject matter well enough to refute me, and what I've written so far is really just a superficial commentary on the underlying technical problems of these theories. I would also note that it is intellectual honesty that compels us to understand something before we pass judgment on it, and if you are going to call the creationist model "obvious nonsense" before understanding it, not only is that intellectually dishonest, but also willfully ignorant, which doesn't really seem to support the tone of your post.

@shinyblurry said
It's quite a racket they have going, where the evidence is interpreted by the conclusion. Last time I checked that wasn't science.

...and to see an exampe of such a racket, check the flood "geology" link.

Seriously, you cant see the blinding irony in your own words? So, things like radiometric dating, fossils, geology, astronomy, chemistry, biology are all just parts of a self-perpetuating racket confirming each others conclusions in a big old circlejerking conspiracy of astronomical proportions.. well, lets assume then that it is. So they are basically chasing the foregone conclusion that the universe is over 13 billion years old and that life on this planet emerged some 3,6 billion years ago and has evolved ever since. But where did these wild conclusions come from? Who established the dogma that scientists seems to mindlessly work to confirm, and why? And why 13,72 billion years then? Why not 100 billion years, or 345 million years?

The thing is, what you have here is an alleged "crime" with no incentives, no motivation.. Why on earth would all the worlds scientists, depentently and independently and over many generations converge to promote a falsehood of no significance to anyone? it might make some kind of sense if someones doctrine was threatened unless the world was exactly 13.72 billion years old. Or if someone believed they were going to hell unless they believed trilobites died out 250 million years ago.. The thing is, nobody believes that.

The truth is pretty much staring you in the face right here. The conclusions of science on things like the age of the earth emerged gradually; Darwin, and even earlier naturalists had no idea of the exact age of the earth, or even a good approximation, but they did figure this much: It must be very, very old. So old that it challenged their prior beliefs and assumptions about a god-created world as described in their holy book. And thats were nearly all scientists come from: They grew up and lived in societies that looked to holy books , scripture and religion for the answers, and everybody assumed they had proper answers until the science was done.If scientists were corrupt conspirators working to preserve dogma, they be like Kent Hovind or Ken Ham. Ignoring vast mountains of facts and evidence, and focus on a few distorted out-of-context quotations to confirm what they already "know".

>> ^shinyblurry:

I'm not really convinced that you understand the subject matter well enough to refute me, and what I've written so far is really just a superficial commentary on the underlying technical problems of these theories. I would also note that it is intellectual honesty that compels us to understand something before we pass judgment on it, and if you are going to call the creationist model "obvious nonsense" before understanding it, not only is that intellectually dishonest, but also willfully ignorant, which doesn't really seem to support the tone of your post.


Oh sweet irony, I'm being called wilfully ignorant by a young-earther.

I'm not going to refute you. I don't need to; @BicycleRepairMan has already done an excellent job of it.

Besides, you might want to learn to read; I didn't call creationism obvious nonsense, I called "flood geology" obvious nonsense. Creationism isn't even nonsense, it's just bullshit. It's a fairy story and believing it is the very definition of wilful ignorance.

@ChaosEngine

Oh sweet irony, I'm being called wilfully ignorant by a young-earther.

I'm not going to refute you. I don't need to; @BicycleRepairMan has already done an excellent job of it.

An excellent refutation? He cherry picked one sentence out of my reply, a reply where I had demonstrated the fallacy of his argument from incredulity by proving his assumption of the constancy of radioactive decay rates was nothing more than the conventional wisdom of our times. Is this what passes for logical argumentation in your mind? He posited a fallacious argument. I exposed the fallacy. He ignored the refutation and cherry picked his reply. You seem to be showing that in your eagerness to agree with everything which is contrary to my position that you have a weak filter on information which supports your preconceived ideas. Why is it that a skeptic is always pathologically skeptical of everything except his own positions, I wonder?

@BicycleRepairMan

...and to see an exampe of such a racket, check the flood "geology" link.

Seriously, you cant see the blinding irony in your own words? So, things like radiometric dating, fossils, geology, astronomy, chemistry, biology are all just parts of a self-perpetuating racket confirming each others conclusions in a big old circlejerking conspiracy of astronomical proportions.. well, lets assume then that it is. So they are basically chasing the foregone conclusion that the universe is over 13 billion years old and that life on this planet emerged some 3,6 billion years ago and has evolved ever since. But where did these wild conclusions come from? Who established the dogma that scientists seems to mindlessly work to confirm, and why? And why 13,72 billion years then? Why not 100 billion years, or 345 million years?

The thing is, what you have here is an alleged "crime" with no incentives, no motivation.. Why on earth would all the worlds scientists, depentently and independently and over many generations converge to promote a falsehood of no significance to anyone? it might make some kind of sense if someones doctrine was threatened unless the world was exactly 13.72 billion years old. Or if someone believed they were going to hell unless they believed trilobites died out 250 million years ago.. The thing is, nobody believes that.

The truth is pretty much staring you in the face right here. The conclusions of science on things like the age of the earth emerged gradually; Darwin, and even earlier naturalists had no idea of the exact age of the earth, or even a good approximation, but they did figure this much: It must be very, very old. So old that it challenged their prior beliefs and assumptions about a god-created world as described in their holy book. And thats were nearly all scientists come from: They grew up and lived in societies that looked to holy books , scripture and religion for the answers, and everybody assumed they had proper answers until the science was done.If scientists were corrupt conspirators working to preserve dogma, they be like Kent Hovind or Ken Ham. Ignoring vast mountains of facts and evidence, and focus on a few distorted out-of-context quotations to confirm what they already "know".

Not only was your prior argument fallacious, but I refuted it. Now you're ignoring that and cherry picking your replies here. Seems pretty intellectually dishonest to me? In any case, I'll reply to what you've said here. I was going to get into the technical issues concerning why scientists believe the Universe is so old, and the history of the theory, but so far you have given me no reason to believe that any of it will be carefully considered.

Instead I'll answer with a portion of an article I found, which was printed in "The Ledger" on Feb 17th 2000. It's interview of a molecular biologist who wanted to remain anonymous

Caylor: "Do you believe that the information evolved?"

MB: "George, nobody I know in my profession believes it evolved. It was engineered by genius beyond genius, and such information could not have been written any other way. The paper and ink did not write the book! Knowing what we know, it is ridiculous to think otherwise."

Caylor: "Have you ever stated that in a public lecture, or in any public writings?"

MB: "No, I just say it evolved. To be a molecular biologist requires one to hold onto two insanities at all times:
One, it would be insane to believe in evolution when you can see the truth for yourself.
Two, it would be insane to say you don't believe evolution. All government work, research grants, papers, big college lectures -- everything would stop. I'd be out of a job, or relegated to the outer fringes where I couldn't earn a decent living.”

Caylor: “I hate to say it, but that sounds intellectually dishonest.”

MB: “The work I do in genetic research is honorable. We will find the cures to many of mankind's worst diseases. But in the meantime, we have to live with the elephant in the living room.”

Caylor: “What elephant?”

MB: “Creation design. It's like an elephant in the living room. It moves around, takes up space, loudly trumpets, bumps into us, knocks things over, eats a ton of hay, and smells like an elephant. And yet we have to swear it isn't there!”

Here are some selected quotes:

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

Richard Lewontin

"In China its O.K. to criticize Darwin but not the government, while in the United States its O.K. to criticize the government, but not Darwin."

Dr. J.Y. Chen,

Chinese Paleontologist

Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic."

S. C. Todd,
Correspondence to Nature 410(6752):423, 30 Sept. 1999

"Because there are no alternatives, we would almost have to accept natural selection as the explanation of life on this planet even if there were no evidence for it."

Steven Pinker,
Professor of Psychology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA., "How the Mind Works," [1997]

"Biologists are simply naive when they talk about experiments designed to test the theory of evolution. It is not testable. They may happen to stumble across facts which would seem to conflict with its predictions. These facts will invariably be ignored and their discoverers will undoubtedly be deprived of continuing research grants."

Professor Whitten,
Professor of Genetics, University of Melbourne, Australia, 1980 Assembly Week address.

"Science is not so much concerned with truth as it is with consensus. What counts as truth is what scientists can agree to count as truth at any particular moment in time. [Scientists] are not really receptive or not really open-minded to any sorts of criticisms or any sorts of claims that actually are attacking some of the established parts of the research (traditional) paradigm, in this case neo-Darwinism. So it is very difficult for people who are pushing claims that contradict that paradigm to get a hearing. They find it hard to [get] research grants; they find it hard to get their research published; they find it very hard."

Prof. Evelleen Richards,
Historian of Science at the University of NSW, Australia

Speaks for itself, I think..

Not only was your prior argument fallacious, but I refuted it. Now you're ignoring that and cherry picking your replies here. Seems pretty intellectually dishonest to me?

Alright, Ill answer your "refutations" then:

"Why shouldn't you suspect that decay rates could change?"

If you read my post, I explained why : Because there is no evidence that suggest it is changing, and no known physical mechanisms that can produce such change. The moon could suddenly start orbiting the other direction relative to earth tomorrow, but there is no signs, no evidence, that suggests or implies that it will, and also physics dont allow it unless it is pushed or pulled by some very large force etc.
Bottom line, change in the decay rate is an assumption of something for which there is no evidence. Thats why scientists dont waste their time suspecting this.

As for the line "absense of evidence is not evidence of absense". Well thats a poetic thing and all, but its not really true when you think about it for a little bit: for the most part, this is how we exclude things from our reality, and separate what is real or not. It is perfectly consistent to say "I really dont think this thing exist" while remaining, in principle, open minded. There might be green hairy monsters hiding under my bed, I can never know for absolute certain, but I dont THINK so, the absense of evidence convinces me there are none.

The same is true in say, particle physics, there may be thousands of different "higgs-bosons" of different kinds doing all sorts of crazy shit in physics, but again, in the absense of evidence... you cant just build your ideas around fantasies.

Do you know the geologic column doesn't actually exist in reality?
Are you alking about illustrations of the geologic column? Then yeah, I'm aware that it doesnt look like that in real-life, but the term is definately real, and yes, erosion and things like that can expose old layers to fresh air, this is of course well know in biology and geology. When I say fossils are layed down in order, I dont mean that they are all physically on top of eachother, but that the dating of the layers match with the kind of animals found in that era. IE: there are no "fossil rabbits in the pre-cambrian" as one biologist replied when asked what would truly disprove evolution.


Caylor: "Do you believe that the information evolved?"

MB: "George, nobody I know in my profession believes it evolved. It was engineered by genius beyond genius, and such information could not have been written any other way. The paper and ink did not write the book! Knowing what we know, it is ridiculous to think otherwise."

Hahaha, if that was said by an actual molecular biologist capable of finding his own ass, I'll eat my hat. This is so obviously Creo-speak from here on to hell. The first thing an actual biologist would do would be to question the use of the word "information" (I'm assuming he's asking about the information contained in DNA) in this context. Because we refer to DNA as a language and "it contains all the information needed to assemble a human" and so on, Creationists think of DNA as some sort of literary masterpiece, it seems. The truth is of course that its 4 acids spelling 95% repetetive gibberish intersped with some interesting bits that code for proteins and do actual useful stuff.

They also seems to think that (perhaps because they believe it themselves) humans existed from the get-go, and that DNA somehow evolved inside us or some shit like that. (Like one creationist who asked Richard Dawkins how we humans peed before our penises and vaginas evolved..) Anyway, like our penises, our DNA is of course much older than humans themselves, We are simply the latest iterations of a nearly endless line of attemps by nucleic acids to clone themselves by way of making an animal that does the reproduction.

I highly suspect that interview was faked by creationists , but even if it wasnt, it'd just mean that there's a molecular biologist out there who doesnt know fuck all about molecular biology and hold some strange beliefs, and he's wrong. Simple as that.


You then have the obligatory list of quotations, and what can I say?.. I can see how you think these are somehow indicating a plot or something against creationist, but honestly this is just plain quotemining.

>> ^shinyblurry:

"Because there are no alternatives, we would almost have to accept natural selection as the explanation of life on this planet even if there were no evidence for it."
Steven Pinker,
Professor of Psychology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA., "How the Mind Works," [1997]

You love this quote, don't you? I searched for it on google and fuck me if the first page or two isn't almost all you regurgitating this at every opportunity.

Now, here's the thing. You haven't read this book. Because if you had, you would have seen the next line.

"Because there are no alternatives, we would almost have to accept natural selection as the explanation of life on this planet even if there were no evidence for it. Thankfully, the evidence is overwhelming. I don't just mean evidence that life evolved (which is way beyond reasonable doubt, creationists notwithstanding), but that it evolved by natural selection."

But hey, let's ignore that bit. Let's live in shinys fantasy delusional that there isn't an almost overwhelming preponderance of data backing up evolution. Pinker would still be right. Why? Because there are no valid competing scientific theories. Literally. That's it. It's the only game in town. No-one has come even remotely close to explaining the diversity of life on this planet without evolution.

Intelligent design is not a theory. It fails almost every criteria.

So seriously, enough with the bullshit.

I really don't understand why you bother. Shiny has proven time and time again that he's either incapable of understanding anything outside of his magic book, or he's nothing but a troll. I vote for the second, but the net effect is the same. You're wasting your time.>> ^ChaosEngine:

>> ^shinyblurry:
"Because there are no alternatives, we would almost have to accept natural selection as the explanation of life on this planet even if there were no evidence for it."
Steven Pinker,
Professor of Psychology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA., "How the Mind Works," [1997]
You love this quote, don't you? I searched for it on google and fuck me if the first page or two isn't almost all you regurgitating this at every opportunity.
Now, here's the thing. You haven't read this book. Because if you had, you would have seen the next line.
"Because there are no alternatives, we would almost have to accept natural selection as the explanation of life on this planet even if there were no evidence for it. Thankfully, the evidence is overwhelming. I don't just mean evidence that life evolved (which is way beyond reasonable doubt, creationists notwithstanding), but that it evolved by natural selection."
But hey, let's ignore that bit. Let's live in shinys fantasy delusional that there isn't an almost overwhelming preponderance of data backing up evolution. Pinker would still be right. Why? Because there are no valid competing scientific theories. Literally. That's it. It's the only game in town. No-one has come even remotely close to explaining the diversity of life on this planet without evolution.
Intelligent design is not a theory. It fails almost every criteria.
So seriously, enough with the bullshit.

>> ^hpqp:

>> ^PostalBlowfish:
In the sense that Creationism is basically a fairy tale, it is appropriate for children. Unfortunately, it's not treated like that. It becomes part of an indoctrination that discourages critical thinking, and there is no question to me that such indoctrination is abuse.

I would not want my kids to be read the kinds of "fairy tales" found in the Bible. The Grimm tales are dark enough, without adding incest, genocide and mass genital mutilation to the mix. The Bible is more like Ovid's Metamorphoses; an important piece of literature you don't put into small children's hands.


Having read through Metamorphoses, I can honestly say I found far less basic ethical transgressions present than in the Christian Bible. Modern day societal value inconsistencies were about equal between the two books, assuming one accounts for the differences in length.

Now don't get me wrong here, I don't consider myself a literary historian, but when spending a day sick in bed one will find Wikipedia taking them in strange directions.

>> ^Murgy:

>> ^hpqp:
>> ^PostalBlowfish:
In the sense that Creationism is basically a fairy tale, it is appropriate for children. Unfortunately, it's not treated like that. It becomes part of an indoctrination that discourages critical thinking, and there is no question to me that such indoctrination is abuse.

I would not want my kids to be read the kinds of "fairy tales" found in the Bible. The Grimm tales are dark enough, without adding incest, genocide and mass genital mutilation to the mix. The Bible is more like Ovid's Metamorphoses; an important piece of literature you don't put into small children's hands.

Having read through Metamorphoses, I can honestly say I found far less basic ethical transgressions present than in the Christian Bible. Modern day societal value inconsistencies were about equal between the two books, assuming one accounts for the differences in length.
Now don't get me wrong here, I don't consider myself a literary historian, but when spending a day sick in bed one will find Wikipedia taking them in strange directions.


I agree 100% about the nonequivalence in moral transgressions. My point of comparison between the two was more how they both are cultural milestones whose influence permeate much of human artistic production and in that sense are an important part of adult cultural baggage, but not childhood teaching tools (Ovid perhaps more for the wtf-ishness).