Raw Story: Four states considering laws that challenge the teaching of evolution

[Corcaigh]

I tend to think the number of people lying w/ respect to creation vs. evolution on both sides of the debate is relatively small.

I don't think people like Joe Gibbs are lying.

Not lying, but starting from a place where they are unwilling to even contemplate something which may represent a reality which is different from their faith; sincere Creationists of this particular type know in their hearts that evolution must be false, so the scientific details are irrelevant. Thanks to the internet, nowadays they may even look for the refutation of evolution and find a creationist website that seems scientifically credible to them. But if this is pointed out as false, they'll typically move on unconcerned, because what ever science says is irrelevant to their particular theology.

[Predicto]

Not lying, but starting from a place where they are unwilling to even contemplate something which may represent a reality which is different from their faith; sincere Creationists of this particular type know in their hearts that evolution must be false, so the scientific details are irrelevant. Thanks to the internet, nowadays they may even look for the refutation of evolution and find a creationist website that seems scientifically credible to them. But if this is pointed out as false, they'll typically move on unconcerned, because what ever science says is irrelevant to their particular theology.

I know a kid who spent 4 years studying archaeology at a decent college. He graduated and actually got a job in his field. Unfortunately, he has been unable to reconcile all of the science that he learned studying archaeology with his deeply held core belief that the earth is only 6000 years old.

So he quit archaeology and is looking for a job in construction so that he doesn't have to try to reconcile the two. I am not making this up.

[twa]

because what ever science says is irrelevant to their particular theology.

Well since they believe in things not bound by our understanding of science it is only natural.

I'll never understand being dogmatic on the 6K though

[Corcaigh]

Well since they believe in things not bound by our understanding of science it is only natural.

It's more than that though. It would be relatively easy, as many Christian faiths have, to accommodate modern science in their world view.

Some ignore the position of science because their particular faith is more important to them. They know what they believe from their theology and that means the claims of science must be false. End of story.

Others go to ludicrous exercises in contortion, delusion and dishonesty in order to maintain the belief the their Creationism is an accurate description of the natural world.

[PeterMP]

In the fragment I referenced, Gibbs is arguing that beliefs have consequences and claims that not believing in humans being created by God would have undesirable consequences.

Gibbs makes two arguments in the clip:

1. That in the cases where we can with the most certainity define the orgin of a complex thing, the complexity is the result of a purpose and therefore that should apply to us/the universe.

2. That beliefs have consequences.

I tend to think the first is flawed, but not so much for scientific reasons (as fas as I know science has provided no information that would provide evidence for or against the exisistance of trickster god), but the second is reasonable in general not necessarily specifically in the manner he's arguing.

---------- Post added February-4th-2013 at 02:01 PM ----------

I know a kid who spent 4 years studying archaeology at a decent college. He graduated and actually got a job in his field. Unfortunately, he has been unable to reconcile all of the science that he learned studying archaeology with his deeply held core belief that the earth is only 6000 years old.

So he quit archaeology and is looking for a job in construction so that he doesn't have to try to reconcile the two. I am not making this up.

I've said this before, I know a girl that had a perfect 4.0 GPA as an undergrad. Got into a top 10 med school. Easily one of the best/smartest students I've ever met. Was fine with the big bang and evolution UP TO humans.

Then it was humans were placed on this planet 6,000 years ago or so. That other hominids might have existed and evolved prior to that, fine.

But humans were specially and specifically placed on the Earth 6,000 years ago.

Now, I don't understand that point of view, but she was always very honest in her opinion and understood the scientific problems with it.

She didn't lie and wasn't a lair.

[alexey]

Gibbs makes two arguments in the clip:

1. That in the cases where can with the most certainity define the orgin of a complex thing, the complexity is the result of a purpose and therefore that should apply to us/the universe.

2. That beliefs have consequences.

I tend to think the first is flawed, but not so much for scientific reasons (as fas as I know science has provided no information that would provide evidence for or against the exisistance of trickster god), but the second is reasonable in general not necessarily specifically in the manner he's arguing.

First argument is a fairly common one - things that look designed are usually designed by a designer, and therefore anything that looks designed must have a designer. I'm not going to waste your time pointing out everything that's wrong with this "common sense" argument.

The second argument is more interesting. I could agree that in some rare cases lying is appropriate when the truth would lead to highly undesirable consequences... but I would be very careful in using that line of thinking. I would certainly not use it to justify misleading people when arguing for creationism.

[PeterMP]

First argument is a fairly common one - things that look designed are usually designed by a designer, and therefore anything that looks designed must have a designer. I'm not going to waste your time pointing out everything that's wrong with this "common sense" argument.

The first argument has the strenght of being essentially an unrefutable argument. You can argue that mechanism X should/might be suffecient to explain whatever behavior, but that isn't evidence (or disproof) that mechanism Y wasn't the cause.

[alexey]

The first argument has the strenght of being essentially an unrefutable argument. You can argue that mechanism X should/might be suffecient to explain whatever behavior, but that isn't evidence (or disproof) that mechanism Y wasn't the cause.

I dont see it as a strength. An argument that invisible fairies come out of my behind every time I pass gas is also irrefutable

[Hitman21ST]

Assuming evolution is true, the chances that a male and female of a species both evolved within an acceptable time window and within a geographically close area of each other are so astronomically low that it takes just as much (if not more) of a leap of faith that Intelligent Design does.

Also, if the Big Bang is true, how are galaxies moving closer together? If there was one big explosion, celestial bodies should be moving away from each other. Faster moving objects would be further out from the apex, slower objects closer to it. But no two objects should be moving closer to each other.

[alexey]

Assuming evolution is true, the chances that a male and female of a species both evolved within an acceptable time window and within a geographically close area of each other are so astronomically low that it takes just as much (if not more) of a leap of faith that Intelligent Design does.

Gradual changes over many generations.

Also, if the Big Bang is true, how are galaxies moving closer together? If there was one big explosion, celestial bodies should be moving away from each other. Faster moving objects would be further out from the apex, slower objects closer to it. But no two objects should be moving closer to each other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

...

The Big Bang is a well-tested scientific theory and is widely accepted within the scientific community.

...

Before observations of dark energy, cosmologists considered two scenarios for the future of the Universe. If the mass density of the Universe were greater than the critical density, then the Universe would reach a maximum size and then begin to collapse. It would become denser and hotter again, ending with a state similar to that in which it started—a Big Crunch

...

Modern observations of accelerating expansion imply that more and more of the currently visible Universe will pass beyond our event horizon and out of contact with us. The eventual result is not known.

...

[Hitman21ST]

Gradual changes over many generations.

Which would lower the chances even more, because now you're saying that with every change, they still have to remain sexually compatible. Multiple generations of males and females (making gradual changes to their anatomy) with the same reproductive systems is even less likely than one big change. It's not like they could trial and error their reproductive systems. If even one change isn't compatible with the other, that species would be no longer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

Fair enough, and I've heard the "Big Crunch" idea floated before, but it's more than just galaxies coming together. Some are moving further apart, and some are moving closer together. For the Big Bang and Big Crunch to be feasible, the whole universe would have to be uniformly expanding or collapsing, which it isn't.

[alexey]

Which would lower the chances even more, because now you're saying that with every change, they still have to remain sexually compatible. Multiple generations of males and females (making gradual changes to their anatomy) with the same reproductive systems is even less likely than one big change. It's not like they could trial and error their reproductive systems. If even one change isn't compatible with the other, that species would be no longer.

Fair enough, and I've heard the "Big Crunch" idea floated before, but it's more than just galaxies coming together. Some are moving further apart, and some are moving closer together. For the Big Bang and Big Crunch to be feasible, the whole universe would have to be uniformly expanding or collapsing, which it isn't.

Males and females are not evolving separately. They are evolving together, and whenever a mutation renders a male or a female unable to produce offspring, that mutation dies out.

For Big Bang:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang#Observational_evidence

Now a little side note... When it comes to well established and widely accepted things like the evolution and the big bang, you can be sure that there are many very good reasons why these things have become well established and widely accepted. You really have to ask a lot of questions and do a lot of research. If something does not seem to work out then read more about it - you can can be sure that means you do not understand it. Many things are counter-intuitive and it took a lot of evidence for them to become established. Please, please don't claim to have disproved these things. You have to ask a lot of questions before you can start making statements.

[Hitman21ST]

Males and females are not evolving separately. They are evolving together, and whenever a mutation renders a male or a female unable to produce offspring, that mutation dies out.

I might not be understanding you, but it sounds like you're saying that a generation got together and essentially said to each other "Hey, I'm going to change my digestive tract (or reproduction system, respiratory system, whatever) so it now is like this, you do the same thing". And still, they have to remain compatible. One generation says "lets try this". It doesn't work, so the next generation tries something else. Is that what you're getting at?

For Big Bang:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang#Observational_evidence

Now a little side note... When it comes to well established and widely accepted things like the evolution and the big bang, you can be sure that there are many very good reasons why these things have become well established and widely accepted. You really have to ask a lot of questions and do a lot of research. If you do not understand how something works out then read more about it - you can can be sure that means you do not understand it. Many things are counter-intuitive and it took a lot of evidence for them to become established. Please, please don't claim to have disproved these things.

I never said I "disproved" evolution or the Big Bang. I'm pointing out things that don't exactly jive. And regarding the Big Bang link,

Precise modern models of the Big Bang appeal to various exotic physical phenomena that have not been observed in terrestrial laboratory experiments or incorporated into the Standard Model of particle physics. Of these features, dark matter is currently subjected to the most active laboratory investigations. Remaining issues include the cuspy halo problem and the dwarf galaxy problem of cold dark matter. Dark energy is also an area of intense interest for scientists, but it is not clear whether direct detection of dark energy will be possible.

Dark matter and dark energy are hypotheticals. They can't be proven to exist. Yet they are a very important crux of the Big Bang theory.

[Larry]

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[Hitman21ST]

I agree with you.

Which, I assume, is why I suspect that no one in the universe claims that species magically appear in bisexual pairs, out of complete nothingness.

But two completely separate members of the same species have the exact same ideas on what to evolve into, remain sexually compatible, one decides to evolve into a male, the other into a female, and they are in a reasonably close area to each other?

That's more feasible than believing God created mankind and every living thing?

[alexey]

I might not be understanding you, but it sounds like you're saying that a generation got together and essentially said to each other "Hey, I'm going to change my digestive tract (or reproduction system, respiratory system, whatever) so it now is like this, you do the same thing". And still, they have to remain compatible. One generation says "lets try this". It doesn't work, so the next generation tries something else. Is that what you're getting at?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection

I never said I "disproved" evolution or the Big Bang. I'm pointing out things that don't exactly jive. And regarding the Big Bang link,

...

Dark matter and dark energy are hypotheticals. They can't be proven to exist. Yet they are a very important crux of the Big Bang theory.

There are many very smart people who have dedicated their lives to studying these things. Every single one of them wants to make discoveries, get into books, get a Nobel Prize, and so on. Disproving existing theories is the way to do that.

You can be sure that unless you are a highly gifted individual who decided to dedicate a significant amount of time to studying these issues, you will only be in position to ask questions and get information. If something does not exactly jive, that means you can explore it further if you are interested. Please understand that many people, including me and you, are not in position to make statements about these topics. We can only ask questions and intake information.

[Hitman21ST]

There are many very smart people who have dedicated their lives to studying these things. Every single one of them wants to make discoveries, get into books, get a Nobel Prize, and so on. Disproving existing theories is the way to do that.

You can be sure that unless you are a highly gifted individual who decided to dedicate a significant amount of time to studying these issues, you will only be in position to ask questions and get information. If something does not exactly jive, that means you can explore it further if you are interested. Please understand that many people, including me and you, are not in position to make statements about these topics. We can only take information in.

I completely agree with you. I'm just asking that you not claim I say I'm "disproving" something when I see an apparent inconsistency and point it out.

---------- Post added February-4th-2013 at 09:50 PM ----------

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection

That accounts for variations within a species, but not for the entire changing of a species.

[alexey]

I completely agree with you. I'm just asking that you not claim I say I'm "disproving" something when I see an apparent inconsistency and point it out.

I guess I just don't see a reason to point out apparent inconsistencies in the digital age. If you see an apparent inconsistency in a well established scientific theory, that means you are not understanding something. It's a great starting point to learn stuff. The information is just a few clicks away.

[Hitman21ST]

I guess I just don't see a reason to point out apparent inconsistencies in the digital age. If you see an apparent inconsistency, that means you are not understanding something. It's a great starting point to learn stuff. The information is just a few clicks away.

So other people (not saying you did this, but just in general) can point out "inconsistencies" with Biblical passages and Christian theology, but I can't do that with evolution and the Big Bang?

[alexey]

So other people (not saying you did this, but just in general) can point out "inconsistencies" with Biblical passages and Christian theology, but I can't do that with evolution and the Big Bang?

Overly simplistic view of the Christian theology will fail to appreciate more nuanced arguments.

Overly simplistic view of established scientific theories will fail to appreciate available evidence.

[Hitman21ST]

Overly simplistic view of the Christian theology will fail to appreciate more nuanced arguments.

Overly simplistic view of established scientific theories will fail to appreciate available evidence.

Fair enough. I will agree to that. I'll admit that I'm not as researched as I probably should be regarding evolution and the Big Bang, and I can have the tendency to react emotionally at times. My thing is people (again, not you) have done essentially what I did regarding the topic at hand to Christian theology, and it maddens me.

[alexey]

Fair enough. I will agree to that. I'll admit that I'm not as researched as I probably should be regarding evolution and the Big Bang, and I can have the tendency to react emotionally at times. My thing is people (again, not you) have done essentially what I did regarding the topic at hand to Christian theology, and it maddens me.

It was nice of you to write "not you", but I should come clean - I did my share of that to Christian theology before I started seeing some depth Humans like to feel like we figured it all out :evilg:

[Hitman21ST]

It was nice of you to write "not you", but I should come clean - I did my share of that to Christian theology before I started seeing some depth Humans like to feel like we figured it all out :evilg:

Haha, very true.

I haven't been very active in this type of thread, mainly because I'm not as researched as I'd like to be. And this is probably doesn't need to be said, but I was just going off of what you've been saying in this one. Not being aware of your posting history, I wouldn't have known that at about you.

Honestly though, unless I can directly quote someone saying something, I'll throw in that "not you" to make sure that they know I'm not bunching them in with a group.

[DjTj]

But two completely separate members of the same species have the exact same ideas on what to evolve into, remain sexually compatible, one decides to evolve into a male, the other into a female, and they are in a reasonably close area to each other?

That's more feasible than believing God created mankind and every living thing?

You are fundamentally misunderstanding how evolution works. Monkeys did not evolve into humans. Tigers did not evolve into house cats. Cows did not evolve from buffaloes. There was never a pair of monkey parents who had human children. There was never a generation born that was sexually incompatible with the previous generation. As you point out, that would not make sense. That is not how evolution works.

What happened was that there was an ape-like creature that lived on earth millions of years ago. Some of these apes decided to live in trees while others decided to live on the ground. They were all sexually compatible with each other. But over time, the ground-dwelling apes had less and less interaction with the tree-dwelling apes. The tree-dwellers developed longer tails and prehensile toes. The ground-dwellers developed flatter feet and stronger legs and spines for walking upright. And after many thousands of generations of these two populations living apart, the tree-dwelling apes and ground-dwelling apes were no longer sexually compatible. Sexual incompatibility didn't happen in a single generation, it happened over thousands of generations and millions of years.

The DNA of modern animals shows this relationship. The difference between a monkey and a human isn't a small change in a few genes that happened in a generation; it is many different mutations that points to a group of common ancestors millions of years ago that became separated. We did not evolve in a direct line from monkeys; we are a different branch of the same tree.

What is more likely, that God placed this DNA into all of us to trick scientists into believing in evolution? Or that He designed a world with this ingenious process of evolution for differentiating species? I can't believe that God is trickster; that sounds like the work of someone else. If God give us reason and intelligence, it doesn't make sense that He wouldn't want us to use those abilities to make deductions and conclusions from our observations of the world. All the evidence points to evolution. Revelation doesn't get more clear than that.

[Hitman21ST]

What is more likely, that God placed this DNA into all of us to trick scientists into believing in evolution? Or that He designed a world with this ingenious process of evolution for differentiating species? I can't believe that God is trickster; that sounds like the work of someone else. If God give us reason and intelligence, it doesn't make sense that He wouldn't want us to use those abilities to make deductions and conclusions from our observations of the world. All the evidence points to evolution. Revelation doesn't get more clear than that.

The one thing that your depiction doesn't take into account is the mental capacities of said animals. A working knowledge of the universe and the ability to make those deductions and conclusions is one of the major things that separate us from the animals. Yes, we can teach apes, chimps, and some other animals sign language and/or basic math skills, but they don't learn those things on their own. That brain functionality isn't a process of evolution. While we are *genetically* a part of the same tree as monkeys, they don't have the same brain power that we do.

The thing that makes the most sense (to me, anyway) is the creation account. God made man. He didn't make an ape then have it over millions of years turn into man. He made man.