In studying the creationist movement about ten years ago I learned about one of the more irritating tactics, in which they’d train elementary students to pepper science teachers with inane questions like, ‘were you there!?‘ and not sit down until the teacher capitulated or changed the subject. Our class even had the opportunity to spend a long afternoon debating with a hotheaded representative from Eagle Ministries in Co. Springs, a group whose mission is to brainwash college-bound parochial school kids in order to prevent ‘modern ideas’ like evolution and women’s lib from getting through.
An Australian named Ken Ham has apparently decided to take that strategy and bump it up a notch:
WAYNE, N.J. — Evangelist Ken Ham smiled at the 2,300 elementary students packed into pews, their faces rapt. With dinosaur puppets and silly cartoons, he was training them to reject much of geology, paleontology and evolutionary biology as a sinister tangle of lies.
“Boys and girls,” Ham said. If a teacher so much as mentions evolution, or the Big Bang, or an era when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, “you put your hand up and you say, ‘Excuse me, were you there?’ Can you remember that?”
“Sometimes people will answer, ‘No, but you weren’t there either,’ ” Ham told them. “Then you say, ‘No, I wasn’t, but I know someone who was, and I have his book about the history of the world.’ ” He waved his Bible in the air.
For any teachers reading this, the easy answer to that question is to ask what the kid would do if somebody killed a family member. Would he or she just give up? After all, they weren’t there. Use forensic science as a teaching tool for the scientific method in general.
From the same article, some hope:
Hundreds of pastors will preach a different message Sunday, in honor of Charles Darwin’s 197th birthday. In a national campaign, they will tell congregations that it’s possible to be a Christian and accept evolution.
Ham considers that treason. When pastors dismiss the creation account as a fable, he says, they give their flock license to disregard the Bible’s moral teachings as well. He shows his audiences a graphic that places the theory of evolution at the root of all social ills: abortion, divorce, racism, gay marriage, store clerks who say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.”
Damn straight it’s treason. Kids will have a hard time holding the line if equally-faithful friends don’t see science as a threat. Good news, then, that the latest Pope has unequivocally come out in favor of modern science, although to many evangelists Catholicism is one small step removed from paganism. Ham, of course, took the same line as religious fundametalists the world over. Anything less doctrinaire than his medieval viewpoint might as well be worshipping an ovoid streambed pebble.
Ham’s obviously a tool, but he represents a powerful constituency:
Bills that would allow or require science teachers to mention alternatives to evolution have been introduced in Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma and Utah. State boards of education in Kansas and Ohio adopted guidelines that single out evolution for critique. The governor of Kentucky used his State of the Commonwealth address to encourage public schools to teach alternative theories of man’s origins.
A national conference for science teachers in the spring will focus on helping them respond to creationists’ challenges. In an informal survey, the National Science Teachers Assn. found that nearly a third of its members felt pressured to play down evolution.
Ham’s dream is to increase that pressure.
Speaking of organized, don’t miss this account of how the religious right took on the religious left and won.
Richard Bottoms
Good thing no one has been voting to put in power the people who will do their best to back these nuts up legislatively or judicially.
Wait a minute…
Gary Farber
“…although to many evangelists Catholicism is one small step removed from paganism.”
Or no step at all. (I love the linked Van Nattan site; such loons.)
ppGaz
but Richard, please no not ask the blog owner to correct his voting behavior. That would be rude.
capelza
I’d love to go to a church service when this guy starts spouting off about the Creation…get up and holler “Were YOU there?”
Ancient Purple
I love how someone puts the word “evangelist” in front of their name and, suddenly, they are experts in any field.
Pooh
I’m really, really, really surprised that more people of faith aren’t speaking out about being publicly ‘represented’ by these loons.
Pb
Tim F,
Hell no, see above: obviously God was there. Therefore, what you need to do is pray until you know in your heart what God says about the case. If it’s good enough for Our President, it should be good enough for a court of law. Now all we need to do is reform the criminal justice system, so that information derived through prayer (divine hearsay, if you will) is admissible evidence, and priests can be called on as expert witnesses…
EL
This should definitely help with the SOTU announced goal of increasing the next generation’s expertise in science and math. /sarc
Seriously, spend time tearing down science and muffling scientists, imply -as Rush and his ilk do – that they are all frauds, and then expect kids to rush into the field?
Krista
That’s absolutely sick in the head. Hello,what am I going to believe…actual concrete physical proof of dinosaurs, or a book that’s been translated, re-translated, and re-interpreted by wingnuts like Ken Ham over the last two millenia?
People like that are seriously, seriously disturbed.
S.W. Anderson
It’s stuff such as this that has me referring to our current predicament as the New Dark Age.
Maybe the most aggravating part of it is how many gullible people are willing to fund the activities of characters like Ham.
Michigan I wouldn’t have guessed for this nonsense, but Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma and Utah come as no surprise.
Am I some kind of anti-Christian lefty? No, not at all. Part of what I was taught about faith as a child was to be really discerning about those claiming to know and relay the word of God. Specifically, at any given moment many more people are presenting themselves as doing that for reasons largely unholy and often commercial.
CaseyL
The thing that just amazes me about the fundie view of the universe is how small and boring it is.
God made everything, God knows everything, God predicted everything, everything is going according to God’s plan – the end of which is foreordained, so there’s no point to trying to end war or world hunger or poverty, because it’s all going to end in an Apocalypse anyway.
No mysteries to solve, no discoveries to exclaim over, no fascinating parallels to find or paradoxes to figure out. No startling sense of kinship when you first look into a great ape’s eyes and the ape looks back at you, no sense of delight when you learn that even octopi are capable of intelligent reasoning and have distinct personalities – no sense of connection with anything else on the planet, much less in the greater cosmos.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, the afterlife fundies decree is so banal it defies sanity. Gazing upon the naked face of God and praising Him for all eternity? That’s it? (At least the Mormons try for something a little more interesting – though the prospect of getting one’s own universe to do exactly what Heavenly Father did with this one, no variation in game plan or end result permitted, is kind of like inheriting an auto company from Dad and knowing you can never do anything with it but make Model Ts exactly the same way he did.) I’m sorry, but Hell does sound more interesting – at least most of my friends, and the more fascinating people who’ve ever lived, will be there! And Satan is supposed to be a witty fellow…
ppGaz
Casey, great post.
Tad Brennan
Waving bible in the air:
“You see, this book was written thousands of years ago by God!”
“Were you there?”
stickler
Today, it’s
creationismIntelligent Design, tomorrow it’ll be the heliocentric universe.Actually, that’s a good point, now that I think of it. Ham claims the creation story is to be taken literally (not that the Son of God spoke in parables all the time, or anything). So a good response would be to ask him about the earth rotating around the sun. ‘Cause the Old Testament isn’t very clear on many scientific issues — but on that one, it’s plain as day that the “sun stands still in the skies,” if I recall.
He’d have to deny the whole NASA thing. Right?
Krista
Casey – that was fantastic. Don’t be surprised if that eloquent rant winds up making the e-mail rounds.
Tad Brennan
you know, we already knew that the right-wing is obsessed by Leninist tactics (see Powell’s invocation of the Leninist Strategy, and Alito’s, and D. Horowitz’s–it’s like a private obsession of the far right-wingers).
Now what we have is something even better: pure Maoism, circa Cultural Revolution. Teachers shouted down by children chanting simplistic slogans. Scientists disciplined for knowing things. Soon we’ll just close the biology departments and get rid of all of the intellectuals altogether.
Thanks, right-wingers! First you ape Lenin, and now it’s Mao!
Pooh
Casey, that’s awesome.
Reminds me of something I read somewhere in the discussion of the ID Wars, along the lines of a religious person shouldn’t support the ID vs. Evolution dichotomy because it inherently reduces the role of god. The more we learn, the less is irreduciblt complex, and thus the less god did. Of course if you are just anti-knowledge, full-stop, that presents less of a problem.
Zifnab
But that would be entirely unfair. Questioning scientific theory is totally legit in a free speech society. Questioning indoctrinated faith? Why that would be Christian persecution and you’d be no better than those damn Communists.
And besides, any teacher crazy enough to pick a fight with an 8-year-old son of a wealthy evangelical might as well put a gun to her career. She’ll be tarred, feathered, and run out of the town for trying to violate an innocent child’s sacred belief in Christ Our Savior In Whom All Things Were Made And Who Hide Dinosaur Bones Among Us To Weed Out The Unfaithful.
CaseyL
Thanks, y’all. It does boggle my mind, quite honestly.
Leonidas
It’s amusing how certain all of you seem that creationism is wrong and evolution is right. How can you be so completely sure of something for which there is no proof? You mock creationism and ID as “faith-based” but I suspect that most of you take evolution on faith.
CaseyL
Smarter trolls, please.
stickler
Man, this is low-hanging fruit.
So I will pass it by in dignified silence, imagining how wilfully ill-educated someone must be to have missed the entire Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Space Age.
Ah, science. In my little world, co-existing with my Christian faith in total harmony.
tb
Evolution is a fact. It’s as well supported by the evidence as anything in science.
The evidence is readily available for anyone who wants to take the time to study it.
EL
I don’t mock the “faith-based,” it just has no place in science. It isn’t faith that convinces me evolution is the theory that best explains the evidence – it’s the evidence itself.
Ham is a YEC (Young Earth Creationist – believes the earth is only 6,000 years old.) What about carbon dating? What about the fossil evidence? What about the DNA evidence? There’s huge amounts of evidence for evolution, better than for the theory of gravity, or many other scientific theories.
stickler
I wonder: if Mr. Ham or Mr. Leonidas gets infected with an antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria, would they look in the book of Leviticus to find a cure?
Would they plug their ears as their doctor explained how bacteria became antibiotic-resistant in the first place?
Zifnab
What bothers me isn’t the doubting of scientific evidence. You can doubt all you want and you’ll eventually be left with very little to cling to.
What bothers me is that certain creationists can be so totally WRONG. Doubting the origin of the earth isn’t nearly as bad as pegged it on the 6000 year old marker with evidence that is so flimsy it’s laughable, and ranting for hours against the existance of dinosaurs as though they were some vast conspiracy. When someone gets in my face about how they have absolute proof that God exists, that they have scientific evidence of Jesus’s immaculate conception, or how the Holy Spirit’s existance was well-documented by every famous scholar from Aristotle to Hawking… they’re just lying.
That’s what bothers me the most.
Richard Bottoms
Could be worse. They could be part of our the Democratic party instead of being Republicans.
Eat it biatches.
Richard Bottoms
I figure people like John and Tim get upset that Democrats and liberals in particular have snobbish we’re better than you attitude. But come on, really?
It’s 2006 and these people have control of your party.
Which is frankly, pretty stupid and by extension makes anyone who votes for this party while the bible thumping hicks controll it kinda stupid too. Actually more stupid because you KNOW these people are lunatics and yet the president is all into this born again brand of nonsense.
Come on you can tell me.
What do you REALLY tell yourself these days when you pull the ‘R’ lever?
That you’ll regain control before the big Roe vs. Wade, dinasours are 6,000 years old crash? When the big business Republicans finally say, hey even the tax cuts aren’t worht my kid being taught this crap you’ll do what exactly?
That Democrats are so completely out of the mainstream that you have to vote for Bizarro Superman to run things.
Cause dude, that’s whack.
So, you have my deepest sympathy. Not. I know we have to prtend not to be laughing at you, cause that would be rude. But really we are.
John Stewart. Ted Koppel. All of us.
You you may squeeze out one more election, just one more before the 3,000 dead soldiers and the next monumental fuckup and Roe buries you for good.
Andrei
Tim is not a republican. John added him to the authoring of BJ specifically because he found Tim’s reasoning to be a balance of center-left to John’s center-right. IIRC.
I just wish Time would convince Peter Daou to always counter one of John’s posts with one of his as part of the seesaw that is The Daou Report.
Ancient Purple
Right. Because none of us ever took a science glass, looked at the evidence, and made our own decisions.
I don’t know faith in evolution because I know the science behind it. Let’s say, for fun, that evolution turns out to be wrong. So what? No. Really. So f’ing what? Human have been wrong before and humans will be wrong again. But so what if we are wrong on evolution?
Additionally, what if you are wrong on creationism? Again, so what? Is your God so angry, vile and waiting to get his jollies by smiting you because you didn’t believe in creationism?
Zifnab
He drowned Louisiana, gave Ariel Sharron a stroke, and blew up the Twin Towers because we failed him as believers. You think creationism is too small for his all-might wrath?
Beej
Oh, for God’s sake! Haven’t you figured out yet that you can’t argue with these far-right fundies? Whatever your arguments, they have the topper: “It says so in the Bible” For any of them to ever admit that the Bible might, just possibly, be wrong about a few things would shake the very foundations of their lives, and they’re not about to do that.
I have an old poster which reads, “For every complex problem, there’s a simple solution. And it’s WRONG!”
This is, essentially, the fundies’ mantra. They don’t want to do the hard, messy work of actually trying to figure out why things happen as they do. They want simple answers to complex problems. They find them in their concept of an inerrant Bible. You’re not going to shake that with analysis, or argument, or reason. The most you can do, and we’d better get busy doing it, is contain them and keep them from hijacking Christianity and the body politic. They already have one hell of a good start on that.
Incidentally, the rant above applies to the rank and file and a few of the leaders. Many of the so-called leaders of this movement have motives which actually have very little to do with Christianity, and a whole lot to do with power and money. You want to fight this? Follow the money trail. I’m betting it leads to some very unsavory places.
Candidus
Well golly, what good are their opinions if they weren’t actually there? Doesn’t advocating evolution without having any first-hand experience with it make them chickenteachers?
Richard Bottoms
Wise choice. These days I hear a lot of Republicans aren’t Republicans. At least the ones who were for competent governance and rational thought.
John’s going Libertarian so that nullifie his vote.
Life is good.
kdaug
stickler, you nailed one of my personal gripes.
Among the most irritating, hypocritical things about the right wing anti-science evangelicals is their willingness to use the fruits of science (medicine, technology, etc) while denying the authenticity of the basic foundation of science they’re based on.
We should IMPOSE their “faith” in their lives. End the hypocrisy. Don’t believe in evolution? Fine, no vaccines for you. No gene-based therapies. (Don’t get me started with stem-cells) Back to the mud huts. Live off the grid. When they get sick, leaches and prayers. Call it “Self-selection”.
After all, faith without works is dead…
Pb
kdaug,
Indeed. At least the Christian Scientists are being intellectually honest within their faith, as it were. And, they save a bundle on health insurance!
Pooh
Putting on my amateur economist hat, this is the reason that the corporate right and the religious right can form an alliance. See, generally speaking when you develop a new technology, you only learn about the good things it does. Once you put it into widespread use, often times you find that there are some very significant negative externalities involved (things like pollution or anal leakage), which have the effect of increasing the actual cost of producing said good or service. For the producer, knowledge of these second order costs is bad for business, and must be squelched in the short term. In the long run, keeping up with innovation is hard, and if you are ahead now, why not just go into a stall and run out the clock?
TM Lutas
First of all, a student that won’t follow classroom instruction needs to be pulled out of class and disciplined appropriately until reformed or expelled. Even if the teacher’s an out and out communist and advocating the violent overthrow of the US, disrupting the class in this fashion isn’t the way to go.
Now I looked at Ham’s Wikipedia page and I have to say that it’s very, very sketchy as to what he actually believes, much less who he votes for. The LAT article says he doesn’t get involved in political fights.
Now I take exception to the use of the term evangelist in the following phrase:
“Good news, then, that the latest Pope has unequivocally come out in favor of modern science, although to many evangelists Catholicism is one small step removed from paganism.”
The plain fact is that evangelists are those who speak out and carry the word of God to the people. Every christian denomination worth its salt has evangelists, certainly including Catholics. Perhaps what was intended was evangelicals? Then again, I haven’t heard that this guy Ham is one of those either.
Now any serious “where you there” pissing contest has to include the question of “where you there when the Bible was written”. If the Bible you hold in your hand has been significantly altered, it’s not much of a divine history book. There are plenty of ancient Bibles that have been found and it’s pretty clear that christian fundamentalist of the young creationist stripe are generally using Bibles significantly different from the original. This line of attack is not available to all. Check with your local pastor as to your own Bible’s provenance.
Finally, one bit of this silliness is extremely vulnerable to scientific correction and that’s the necessary idea for young creationists to assert that time is a constant. Time is variable and we’ve got modern experiments that prove it. Synchronize two atomic clocks, loft one high up on a long distance airplane ride or even better, in orbit. When returned, the clocks are no longer in sync. Time passes at different speeds depending on where you are in a gravity well. Now if God isn’t bothering to keep time the same here and now by what authority do we bind him to a 24 hour day in Genesis? We simply don’t.
Tim F.
TM,
Thanks for a post with which I agree 100%. I probably should have said’fundamentalists’ rather than ‘evangeslicals;’ being Jewish I was thinking about which would analogize best to the strictest sects of Hasidim, and of course fundamentalism is more appropriate.
Mikey
Evolution is NOT a fact. And neither is ID. There is evidence that supports both theories to be sure, but both have their problems as well.
I hate evangelicals who go around spouting some emotion or belief they have as “proof” that God created the universe just as much as the next person. However, there is some logic behind the theory of intelligent design, just as there is with regards to evolution.
If a person makes any absolute statement such as “evolution (or ID) is fact” or “evolution (or ID) is false”, the only thing that person has shown is that they lack credibility on the subject.
Cyrus
Leonidas, I agree with you completely. And it’s not just about this, it’s about everything in a book that some so-called “scientists” and “intellectuals” doubt. I mean, come on, you and I both know that Frankenstein’s monster existed, even though most people think they know better. How can they be so completely sure of something for which there is no proof? They mock people who know you can stitch corpses together and bring it to life with lightning, but I suspect most of them trick or treat.
Zifnab
Evolution is a scientific fact in that it is a crucial building block and foundational assumption of a number of medical procedures and scientific studies. As has been previously stated numerous times, you want your virologists and bacteriologists working under the assumption that bacteria and viruses mutate over time (or “evolve”) in response to their environment.
The fundamental problem with ID and faith based science is that it produces nothing but theories and paperwork. Evolution produces technology. Evangelicals produce hot air. Never has there been a medicine, a medical procedure, or a technological development based on the theory “God did it.”
Even if you can somehow prove to me that evolution is “just a theory” or better yet “wrong”, vaccinations will continue to work, gene-therapy will remain in practice, and stem cell research will continue. What ID proponent can make that claim about derivatives of his research?
D. Mason
Alot of people seem to have confused evolution with Evolution. The former simply means that things evolve and that’s pretty much undisputable. The later is the theory of evolutions history and the big-bang all rolled into one and packaged as a pseudo-religin … You know, believe or you’re a heretic to “science”. Rest assured, Evolution is not science fact. Sure there is a healthy body of evidence to support the big-bang, but there is PLENTY that stands in its way. One example is universal expansion, pretty much the lynch pin of the big-bang. If you wind the clock back a few million years, taking into account the rate of expansion, you will find that planets must have somehow emerged from stars in which they were formerly engulfed. Just a small plot hole, nothing to see here. My point isn’t to trash darwin or evolution or even the big-bang, I’m just trying to say that it’s not as cut and dry as many of you would propose.
It’s a classic us vs. them setup. No different than two religions squabbling over whos god is tougher. It’s very possible that both sides of the argument are off by a mile yet the debate still rages on. Who said irony is dead?
Joel B.
Evolution does not predate Medicine…mmkay.
In fact, the very essence of good medicinal practice is exposited very early where?, hmm…let’s think about this. I’ll let you guess. That’s right it’s in Exodus and Leviticus, where all sorts of laws for good hygeine are promulgated and are pretty much the first exposition of good rules for governing behavior to prevent illness, look at the subjects that are clean and unclean, quarantining of those with contagious skin diseases.
But do we talk about that? NONONONO…as though Louis Pasteur was an evolutionist. HE WAS NOT! Kind of disturbing isn’t. That modern medicine is predicated on…CREATIONISM????. This should be the Oh Poop moment for hard core evolutionists. In fact, it was Pastuer’s opposition to the idea of spontaneous generation that led him to many of the medical discoveries he made. A tenet that the origin of life exposition of Evolution depends on. And best support for is that “well it had to happen, because we’re here. And that’s science??!!!
Look, Evolution has very little utility to the fields of medicine or anything else. Granted dealing with changing strains of bacteria is dealing with evolution and mutation, but that does not support the origin theory of Evolution. No bacteria or virus, has ever become anything other that a bacteria or virus, so to repeat, Evolution, does not grant any benefit that modern Creationism does not already accept.
Lastly, I know probably everyone here things Ken Ham, and YECs must be idiots, good for you. Because I’m sure you’re so bright. But, try reading some article at Answers in Genesis, maybe you already have, they tend to, if nothing else, be quite interesting. Challenge yourselves, after all, I’ve read through most of everything talk.origins or No Answers in Genesis offers, all of which, I do not find more compelling than the word of God.
SeesThroughIt
JoelB, can we assume that you have not had any innoculations of any sort?
TM Lutas
Scientists, when being careful with their language and not just knocking back a few at the local bar, maintain that evolution/Evolution is a theory. It also happens to be the leading theory on how life got to be the way it is with the most actual evidence behind it.
There are some interesting alternatives out there. Before they get taught in the lower grades, they really need to have more than provocative thought questions laid out by biologists like Behe. There needs to be a real effort at finding actual candidates for irreducible complexity and other artifacts of design that can withstand concentrated efforts to explain for a period of years (at least).
Science, if it calcifies into political orthodoxy, is worthless. Only if it remains open to new evidence while insisting that the new evidence is actually scientific will science retain its value and fulfill its promise.
Ham is playing a different game entirely, propaganda and psychology, not science.
Joel B.
Did you even read my post? It should be Evolutionists who have to give up Medicine to be “consistent.” (Something I would not and do not demand from them.) The individual thought of as the “father of modern medicine,” believed in God’s creation, and did not accept the idea of Evolution or spontaneous generation? The individual who developed the vaccine for Rabies did so, while disbelieving in Evolution. The idea that Evolution is a foundation of modern ‘applied’ science is wrong.
Apparently you did not comprehend my point. That doesn’t really surprise me, Evolutionists are great at missing the point to apply the dig. Let me try again, modern medicine and creationism can and do co-exist just fine.
tb
It is indeed a fact. Did you follow the link I provided that explains this?
tb
Joel B.
Referring to Gould, saying “Evolution is a fact” or Talk.origins, is more than likely not going to convince anyone. And rightly so, Evolutionists can claim all they want that Evolution is a Fact ad nauseam, but saying it doesn’t make it so. Anymore than crying from the top of my lungs that Creationism is a fact, Talk.origins, or Gould are as always very short on specifics, half the time there answers far too perfunctory, “well it happened that way so it must be that way.” How do you know? “Because that’s the only explanation.” Other than like Creation? “Creation is not a theory creation is not science!” What a fun conversation to have really. I enjoy it so.
Evolution rests on so many I don’t knows…it’s annoying to hear anyone proclaim it as fact just because. Look, does the Bible really bother you, creationism that bad? If you really want to disprove it, create some half-human half animal monstrosity and prove that man is not special in God’s creation, there, I’ve given you a blueprint as to something that would shake most believers in creationism, Not fossil heads with “artistic renditions” of how the rest of the “evolving” creature would look.
Dave Ruddell
You see, since Pasteur didn’t believe in evolution, and since Pastuer made useful discoveries, evolution is wrong. Or something.
Joel B.
Dave,
I did not say that. My point is that utility and “belief in evolution” are not correlative. One can be a creationist and horror of horror, still develop useful science on Medicine.
In fact, one of the interesting things that many have noted see the Wikipedia entry on the “Salem Hypothesis” is that many creationists tend to be engineers. Although the hypothesis is largely untested many non-creationists seem to accept it. My point being, that the people who actually “make science work” do not have hang-ups being creationists. They are not incompatible.
tb
I’m directing you to the evidence. If you won’t read it, I can’t help you.
There’s a little more to it than that. See evidence for details.
There are enough specifics to occupy you for the rest of your life. Start here. For more evidence than is contained within a single website, see books
Creationism is not science, and you can’t teach it in science class. But believe whatever you want.
Creationists must provide affirmative scientific evidence for their ideas. So far it’s been totally nonexistent.
Cyrus
That’s a very unscientific viewpoint. (Not that you care, obviously.) Science’s idea of truth comes from… the world, logic, the evidence of our senses, something along those lines. It’s religion that relies on the “father of” mentality that you’re trying to discredit Evolution (TM) with. Ever hear the phrase “cult of personality”? There’s a reason you’ll never hear “school of personality” used the same way. The religious side of this debate are the only ones claiming that the other side sees the world they do. Just because Pasteur might have been wrong about some things doesn’t mean he was wrong about the things that made him important, and it certainly doesn’t mean that his way of approaching problems was wrong.
Also, you’re sort of right that evolution isn’t the foundation of modern medicine (nobody besides you gave it credit for being the foundation of all applied science), but it depends on your meaning of the word “foundation”. If you’re just using it in a chronological sense, then you’re obviously right. Would calling evolution the “keystone” of biological science (holding it together) or “Rosetta stone” (making sense of what is otherwise gibberish) be less offensive to your delicate sensibilities? Because it’s both of the above.
You don’t like Gould, but you haven’t explained why he’s wrong. If evolution is not a fact, then neither is gravity or quantum mechanics or plate tectonics. And while a definition of “fact” that excludes the above might be more impregnable than the current one, it would be limited to personal opinions and mathematics, so it’s pretty useless.
Mikey
What an ignorant comment. See here for several good articles.
Joel B.
Tb,
I have read more Talk.Origins than I should ever ask anyone to be subjected to. I’m telling you, I didn’t find it very convincing at all. If you go in wanting to believe you will, if you curious or questioning, you’ll probably come out the other side feeling the same way. Talk.Origins I’ve read, I’ve also read a great deal of the creation wiki, a lot of which I think is interesting.
Like I said linking to T.O. is not convincing to me. It just isn’t, neither is linking generically to books at Amazon going to do much.
Creationism may or may not be science by whoever gets to “define” science. I really don’t care if it’s science or not. I care if it’s true. Same thing goes for evolution. I don’t care if it’s science or not I care if it’s true. At this moment in time, I believe Creationism is true, evolution (little e) is also true. (Also referred to as speciation). Big E Evolution, I just don’t buy as true, I see it currently, as a dream a desire, something many people want to be true, because otherwise there’s a God, and that means we’re created and it creates a whole host of problems.
I don’t know if I’ve said this before on this site. But I’ll say it again if I had, I don’t really care which is true, if Evolution is true, fine, then I’m free of any sort of obligation, I get to live and then die, and make the most of it. I’m fine with that (in many ways I actually find this far more appealling than the prospect of being created.) If, however, Creation is true, than I have a design and purpose, if I do, and I choose to rebel against that purpose than I deserve much like a really annoying computer, to get my hard-drive formatted and reinstalled or whatever. If I fulfill my purpose though I can at least be faithful in doing that which I was created to do. Again I don’t really care which it is, but it is one or the other.
I just don’t see Evolution or Scientific Naturalism though as true, as a good explanation for a great deal many things, not in my life, not in the lifes of the people I know, not in the way the Bible comes to together and presents itself, in the way that the world itself has arranged itself.
A while back, there was an exhibit at the London Zoo, showing that men and women were “just another type of animal,” but you know what the amazing thing was, they were wearing clothes, even in such an environment, people wore clothes. Clothes to me have always been an odd sort of testament, but there it is, in everything man see in other, people wear clothes. Naturalistic explanations for this, just fall flat to me, that it was culturally imposed or any other explanation.
Mikey
Yes, I followed the link. The title says it all (although I did read further). The title says it’s BOTH a fact and a theory. How do you explain that? Well, the author explains it by redefining what a fact really is.
I’m going with the true definition of a fact – that something is indisputable. Evolution is certainly disputable.
Dave Ruddell
Cyrus, you’re using the good ol’ gravity defense, one of my favourites. I mean, we only have a Theory of Gravity right? So gravity isn’t actually a fact! Can any of you Gravitists point out a mechanism of how ‘gravity’ actually works? I didn’t think so! Now intelligent falling, on the other hand…
Mikey
Is your basis for believing something whether or not it produces technology? If so, Hitler’s experiments on Jews may interest you.
Joel B.
Cyrus,
I was not trying to discredit evolution through a “father of” approach, my desire was to discredit the idea that creationists should give up modern medicine to “be consistent.” My point was that creationists can and do develop useful science, and that medicine does not require Evolution.
If I exagerrated in expositing that some hold to the idea that Evolution is the foundation of all science I confess that I did exagerrate some. It is merely that it frequently appears to me as though some seem to cling so heavily to the idea that Evolution is vital to science, when really, excise Big E Evolution, and you really don’t change much in applied science.
Feel free to suggest that mutation and speciation (or even evolution) are extremely useful to modern science, and I’d readily agree. The origins theory of Evolution however, I don’t.
Gould, or Talk.Origins aren’t necessarily wrong, as much as they are just not convincing (I will admit to being more familiar with T.O. than Gould).
tb
He doesn’t “redefine” it. He defines what the term means in a real scientific context.
That’s not how it’s used in science.
tb
Joel, I don’t care what you believe. I’ve seen enough willful ignorance among creationists I’m not going to argue with you about it. The evidence is there if you choose to read it for comprehension.
Cyrus
First of all, the only people I’ve seen talk about evolution and the Big Bang rolled into one are creationists. Lots of sources on evolution make it a point to distinguish between evolution and abiogenesis, and biology has next to nothing to do with astronomy. I suppose they might all be lying when they make that claim, but you don’t provide any evidence of it.
You seem to believe that it’s just a matter of choosing one dogma or another to subscribe to, but it’s really not, at least not for everyone. There are some people who believe the material world is best described by a written tradition, or oral or cultural or whatever, and there are others who believe it is best described by conclusions drawn from what they [and similar thinkers] have observed directly. There is very little overlap between the two groups.
And I’ve only seen the distinction between big-E and small-e evolution made by people who disagreed with evolution or science in general, so forgive me if I don’t take it too seriously. When someone who believes in evolution agrees that macro- and micro-evolution really are different, I’ll stop laughing. (And if you think I should accept a premise in a scientific argument that few or no scientists believe, well, call me narrow-minded.) But as far as I can tell, it’s an artificial divide. The idea of macro-evolution just states that no new species can be created, right? Because it’s been observed. Or does it mean something else now? Micro-evolution should be called “evolution that we can’t fool ourselves about.”
Joel B.
Cyrus,
The idea behind the no new species, is not that there can be no new species, but that there can be no new kinds. This comes from the proscription in Genesis that animals reproduce after their kind.
Which incidentally, is compatabile with what was observed in the link you gave.
You’re right that lots of sources distinguish abiogenesis for good reason, evolutionists feel much more confident about evolution than abiogenesis, BUT if abiogenesis is not true then, prey tell how did they first thing ever get to the point where it could “evolve.”
stickler
Well, I’d be willing to bet that if you asked a scientist that question his answer would be “who the hell cares?” Since there’s no way to scientifically disprove a creation myth.
All these posts and nobody’s had the decency to mention the name “Scopes.” More’s the pity.
stickler
From that link, a taste of good ol’ H.L. Mencken’s writing. He was warning America of 1925 against the pernicious effect of the fundamentalists of his day. The warning still applies to the fools and scolds who are pimping ID today:
SeesThroughIt
Yeesh. I guess you don’t care about destroying credibility when you didn’t really have any to begin with, huh?
We do need better trolls around here.
Do you understand why there is no single cure for the common cold or why you get a new flu shot every time flu season rolls around? Hint: The diseases don’t stay the same year in and year out.
tb
From TO:
The theory of evolution applies as long as life exists. How that life came to exist is not relevant to evolution. Claiming that evolution does not apply without a theory of abiogenesis makes as much sense as saying that umbrellas do not work without a theory of meteorology.
Abiogenesis is a fact. Regardless of how you imagine it happened (note that creation is a theory of abiogenesis), it is a fact that there once was no life on earth and that now there is. Thus, even if evolution needs abiogenesis, it has it.
Joel B.
Do you understand why there is no single cure for the common cold or why you get a new flu shot every time flu season rolls around? Hint: The diseases don’t stay the same year in and year out.
Again, that virii change into slightly different virii doesn’t really say much of anything as to the idea of Evolution. Let the virii change into something wholly else, and then I’ll be much more readily willing to accept Evolution.
As to the monkey trial, Scopes and Inherit the Wind, serves as an excellent guidepost to the fact that even recent history can be radically reinterpreted to whatever ends the reinterpreter seeks. In many ways, fitting for something so intertwined with evolution.
Joel B.
And that tb is exactly why T.O. does not convice. “Abiogenesis is a fact. Regardless of how you imagine it happened (note that creation is a theory of abiogenesis), it is a fact that there once was no life on earth and that now there is. Thus, even if evolution needs abiogenesis, it has it.”
Riggghttt… way to prove Evolution. Abiogenesis must be true because it had to happen. Color me convinced. Do you not realize how weak of an argument that is.
Then the writer of T.O. shows complete ignorance as to the theory of creation calling it a theory of abiogenesis? Wait let’s see God is alive, God creates life, hmmm..sounds like life coming from life, No? Unlike Abiogenesis, which is life coming from non-life.
I love here how T.O. proclaims that Abiogenesis is a fact, just like it claims of Evolution. All that proves is that T.O. has one screwed up definition of fact. (Whatever I, the Evolutionist, believe to be true.)
tb
What the hell does that have to do with anything? Explain please.
stickler
Exhibit A for not engaging the troglodytes using “fact” or “science” or “reason.” They don’t buy it. They can’t understand the modern world and seem to be foaming with rage that the Enlightenment discredited blind religious dogma.
The Scopes Monkey Trial proved to mainstream America that wacko fundamentalists just couldn’t handle the modern world. These nutcases still can’t, even if they have learned to shower more often and not handle snakes while the rest of us are watching.
Look: if Genesis is to be taken literally, you’d better call NASA and get them to ditch the whole “heliocentric solar system” stuff.
Zifnab
Clearly, Mikey is a bit of a sick fuck. That’s about all I can tell. Perhaps he’s just got a bit of a skewed outlook on life.
SeesThroughIt
Are you sure you wouldn’t claim it was god performing a miracle? I mean, you’re basically asking for evolution to turn a fish into a bird here; you’re asking for the proof of evolution to be something that evolution doesn’t really do.
tb
He’s the one who called black people lazy in the Coretta King thread.
tb
Things changing into slightly different things is precisely what evolution IS. You’re demanding evolution do something no one claims it does.
Sojourner
How about the evidence that birds evolved from dinosaurs? Surely you wouldn’t argue that birds and dinosaurs are the same kind.
Beej
Hasn’t this been fun? Trying to use reason, analysis, and observable, testable evidence to convince a Genesis believer that evolution really is scientific and that the word “theory” means something different when talking about the scientific method than it does in parlor conversation is an exercise in futility. You see, all the canards that the creationists love to lay at the feet of the evil “evolutionists” you know, the ones about hating religion and being afraid you’d have to admit there’s a God if you gave up your “belief” in evolution? It’s really the Genesis believers who refuse to see anything but their belief in Biblical inerrancy. And there really is no way to change that, no matter how much evidence you muster.
That said, I’ll just say to Joel B. that most of the scientists I know (and working at a college, I know several)are perfectly comfortable with attending the church or synagogue of their choice on Sunday and teaching their classes about the FACT of evolution Monday through Friday. Not a single one would flatly deny the existence of God, and they are in no way afraid to look at creationist or ID evidence. There’s only one problem. There is no such evidence outside of a book that was written at least a million years after the creation of the earth to explain creation to a society which had little to no knowledge of how anything worked, including lightning, eclipses, and the human body. No, one doesn’t have to give up a belief in God to know evolution is fact, but one does have to give up a belief in “. . .the pretty poetry of Genesis.” (Quote courtesy of “Inherit the Wind”.
Moe
http://moethesleaze.blogspot.com/
Please visit and answer our question concerning your views on abortion rights.
Cyrus
New “kinds”? A species, as I understand it, is animals that can interbreed. But my link is to a bunch of animals that no longer interbreed. Or, if you will, “reproduce”. What does “kind” mean, if not that? Does it mean genus (or an even higher taxonomic classification), or does it mean morphology (shape), or what? If it means morphology, then of course you won’t see it. Evolution that people can observe in real time happens in organisms with short generations, which are necessarily small ones. And plants, which often look very similar. I’m sure there are differences in shape between some of the fruit flies that speciated in the lab, you’d just need a new microscope to see them.
So you’re saying that because a certain book doesn’t explicitly say something happened, and we have not observed it happening even though we wouldn’t expect to, it cannot happen?
Joel B.
Cyrus,
The best explanation I can think of as to how to describe a kind, is provided in the article that you linked to earlier. It is the folk taxonomy that individuals generally use to describe animal populations.
This is heavily associated with morphology, but again, then defense that “it’d take too long to see.” Even with the fruit fly, it would be to the point where the fruit fly is not something you would longer refer to as a “fly.”
I understand the current taxonomic discription of species, which is fine as far as taxonomy is concerned, using an after created definition of species though to show that kinds have change, I think to be insufficient.