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Author | Topic: Should we teach both evolution and religion in school? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
dwise1 Member Posts: 5946 Joined: Member Rating: 5.5
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My initial reaction, emphasis added:
EWolf writes: ... here are two helpful sights that should give insight. The first sight attempts to address the state of children that are not yet at the age of accountability. What the hell is he even talking about? His word choice makes absolutely no sense at all! Or to paraphrase Inigo Montoya: "He keeps using that word. I don't think it means what he thinks it means." There are four words that he needs to learn:
Words have meaning! Ignoring that simple fact reduces one's writings to nonsense. Besides, I learned to read by recognizing words, not by having to sound out everything aloud in my head (ie, my lips do not have to move when I read), so egregiously wrong word choice only generates confusion (eg, "Your welcome." which always has me asking, "My [i]what?[i]")
1. Quotation from your link:
However, the Bible also indicates that children are incapable of making moral choices, so that they are automatically rewarded with heaven. So, in having babies killed, God is actually doing them a favor 2. According to that position, if a human being kills a child, that child is automatically rewarded with heaven (being incapable of making moral choices, apparently). The human being is apparently doing them a favour. In Eisenstein's classic Alexander Nevsky (1938 -- included in the world's 100 best motion pictures), the most unforgettable scene after the Battle of the Ice (on the ice of frozen Lake Chudskoe where the ice breaks under the Teutonic knights who then fall through to their deaths), is the slaughter of the babies. The Teutonic knights from Poland were accompanied by their Catholic priests. In the depiction of the massacre of Pskov, the priests would baptize the babies to make them Catholic and then immediately kill them (I seem to recall by throwing them into a bonfire). Similarly, we have stories of Catholic missionaries in newly conquered regions baptizing native babies so that they may be "saved" and then dashing their brains against the rocks in order to keep them from losing salvation by reverting to their savage ways -- please remind me again just exactly who the savages are in those stories. Ah, the incomprehensible mysteries of "Christian love"!
3. As a logical result of that position, infanticide is never a crime, and should in fact be rewarded. (You know, by the perpetrator being worshipped and fawned over and given 10% of everyone's wealth etc). I anticipate Texas passing another "right to life" law offering $10,000 bounties to vigilantes for every baby they can "save" by killing it. Of course, they would have to baptize the baby just before killing it, so they would have to be invested with powers to baptize. I'm sure that Internet sites will spring up where you could buy ordination in an on-line "church" in the same way that you can be ordained to perform marriages.
Personally, my view is that infanticide is never morally right. (In fact, it's about as evil as you can get). You seem to think it is morally acceptable - even laudable. As is my view too. Amazing how they can worship a book as being the ultimate source of all morality while it is actually so morally reprehensible.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5946 Joined: Member Rating: 5.5 |
Regarding the "moral character" of God, I just found the text for this Mark Twain quote.
From Mark Twain's Letters from the Earth, at the end of Letter VII (I apologize for any typos in my transcription):
quote: One should be careful what one wishes for, for fear of actually getting it.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5946 Joined: Member Rating: 5.5 |
Should religion be taught with evolution in schools? This issue may be better addressed by a discussion on whether religion should be encouraged in education or not. EWolf's ideas about education seem to consist of nothing but dunnage (a play on what I recall his original "nom de forum" to have been). If he were to have any clue, then he would know better to advance his "arguments." In Message 2004 I quoted briefly from the State Board of Education Policy on the Teaching of Natural Sciences found in the 1990 Science Framework for California Public Schools Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve; that policy statement superceded the 1972 Anti-Dogmatism Policy. In Message 2004 my citation (EWolf: do please note that word choice which is totally unrelated to the word, "sight"):
quote: Eleven years ago in this very same topic, in Message 133 I quoted that policy in full and quote it in full again here for EWolf's edification:
quote: In that same earlier message, I noted:
DWise1 writes: "Compelling belief is inconsistent with the goal of education; the goal is to encourage understanding." Students need to have some degree of understanding of science and scientific concepts. Including "creation science" detracts from that goal. Students are not to be compelled to believe in the subject matter, but rather to understand it. For example, in 1982 the US Air Force instructed me in Communism. Obviously, the intent was not to compel me to embrace Communism, but rather for me to know more about our opposing superpower (that was during the Cold War). "Creation science" "public school" materials explicitly and specifically seek to compel belief. Including "creation science" in the science classroom would obviously be contrary to science education. OTOH, it is very important for creationists that their children do learn everything they can about evolution. If they wish their children to be able to fight against evolution, then keep them ignorant of their avowed enemy and being grossly misinformed about that enemy will only guarantee their defeat. And the defection of their children to their enemy. We normals understand education's purpose to be for the student to gain knowledge and understanding of facts and ideas whether the student actually believes in those ideas or not. Hence we can study any idea without having to subscribe to that idea ourselves (eg, Communism, Nazism, fascism, Animism (spirits inhabiting nature), feudalism, all forms of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, flat earthism, polygenesis (the idea that human races each have seperate origins (eg, God created the "sub-human races" separately from Adam) and hence forms the basis for Nazi race theory and American racism), organized criminal practices). And of course practice follows purpose, so students are presented with factual presentations and analysis but are never coerced nor forced to subscribe to the ideas. One of the bottom lines is that the student is expected and encouraged to think. It appears that EWolf's inability to understand any part of education as delineated above is because creationists' "Christian education" has almost entirely different purpose and goals and hence, since practice follows purpose, entirely different methods. It should be noted that "Christian education's" purposes and methods are very much the same as practiced by most all other religions, cults, and ideologies (eg, Nazism, Communism, GQP-ism). Their bottom line is to dictate what the student must believe and to compel that belief; IOW, the student is forbidden to think and instead is forced to comply. The operative word for EWolf's "Christian education" is indoctrination. And because he and other creationists and fundies only think of education in terms of indoctrination, they accuse us of indoctrination too even though nothing could be further from the truth. In support of this, please consider the "public school edition" "equal time" "creation science" classroom materials, which always end by urging the students to decide between their "unnamed Creator" and "atheistic evolution" all while giving a very distorted picture of evolution and a glowing (and fact-free) picture of creation. IOW, they're using the public schools (a government agency) to proselytize. And to make matters even more muddled, they appear to have an inherent belief that in order to learn something you are required to believe in it. Yeah, I know, weird! That became very apparent in one on-line exchange I had with a creationist. Since practically every creationist I've encountered has demonstrated almost complete ignorance of evolution coupled with horrific misconceptions, I have very frequently (almost constantly) urged creationist to please, please, please learn something about evolution if for no other reason than to concentrate their anti-evolution efforts on evolution itself instead of wasting them on complete nonsense. This one creationist's response was absolute horror as he adamantly refused to learn anything about evolution: "Studying evolution would mean I would have to believe in it!" Complete and utter idiocy! And that is the kind of idiotic nonsense we have to deal with when dealing with creationists. So as for EWolf's two specific questions/"points": Should religion be taught with evolution in schools? Why? Evolution is taught in science class. Teaching religion in science class is completely inappropriate. And indeed, EWolf's rhetoric repeated refers to the religion that he would want to have taught as "Biblical truth." Hence, he wants to have the Bible itself, not just the deliberately crafted "Hide the Bible" deception which is "creation science", taught in science class. Of course not! What possible pedogogic purpose could that possibly ever have? The closest valid reason for teaching about non-science subject matter in a science class would be to show past ideas that have since been proven wrong in order to provide some history and historical context (eg, spontaneous generation, the caloric theory and phlogiston to explain heat transfer, geocentrism, flat-earthism (which wasn't an actual thing what with Eratosthenes having measured the earth's circumference circa 240 BCE)). But of course EWolf would then complain bitterly if we were to include the Bible in such a manner in the science classroom. The other reason for mentioning popular pseudo-scientific ideas would be to expose their falsehoods (which "creation science" consists entirely of). Of course, this would have the effect of exposing creationism as the complete fraud that it is, something which I doubt EWolf would actually want. And despite all the creationist talk of wanting "equal time" and "balanced treatment" and "our reasons for opposing evolution are purely scientific, nothing religious about it" (that being the central lie and deception of "creation science", which was deliberately crafted to deceive the courts and the public). And yet when an actual honestly run "Two Model" class was held, the creationists hated it and forced it to be shut down. Somewhere around 1980, two professors at San Diego State University, Roger Awbrey and Bill Thwaites, started a "Two Model" class. At that time, the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), then the cutting edge state-of-the-art YEC organization (they had literally created "creation science" and Flood Geology and were the foremost publishers of creationist "educational" materials) was still headquartered in nearby El Cajon and then in Santee, plus they had on their staff the leading professional creationists. Basically, whenever you were talking about creationism and creationist claims, you were talking about what the ICR said. Literally, guest creationists gave half the lectures and Awbrey & Thwaites gave the other half. Now, at many creationist debates it's traditional to have the audience vote on who won -- of course, since the audience would be packed with church groups along with other factors (eg, the creationist being far more experienced in these events and more polished through practice) the creationist would usually win the vote. Similarly, at the end of the semester the students would also vote for which side made the better case. Typically, science would win since now the students could actually examine and test the creationist claims. The campus Christian clubs kept protesting this course and I believe I was told also hold demonstrations against it. Finally, Admin grew tired of the ruckus and cancelled the course. So when they finally get a an actual two-model course in a school, the creationists oppose it. Now of course, in their presentations Awbrey & Thwaites would present the actual science that the creationists were misrepresenting, which means that they were responding to the creationists' claims -- I assume that the creationist was allowed to be present for those classes. In their presentations Awbrey & Thwaites could present what the creationists' own scientific sources (which the creationists had misquoted or misrepresented; AKA "quote-mined") actually said, a tactic that had been used very effectively against ICR VP Duane Gish in debate (overhead projection with two columns, on the left is what Gish said a source said and on the right is what it actually said). Also in one class Gish had repeated their false claim about the bombadier beetle (AKA "Bomby") that the two chemicals in its chemical defense would spontaneously explode when mixed, so Awbrey & Thwaites took beakers containing those two chemicals and mixed them together right in front of Gish in class (as well as in glass!) and no explosion. Gish mumbled something about somebody else having screwed up and misinformed him, but for several years afterwards Gish continued to use that same claim which he had admited in public to be false. Also, regarding those debate votes there is a story. In a report on a debate in Redlands, Calif, the reporter had surveyed the parking lot filled with Christian school and church buses and cars bearing ΙΧΘΥΣ fish and fundamentalist bumper stickers and he estimated that at least 90% of the audience arrived pro-creationism. At the end of the debate, creationism got two-thirds of the vote so the creationists declared a victory. But in reality they had lost about 23% of the audience (dropping from 90% to 67%), so they actually lost.
This issue may be better addressed by a discussion on whether religion should be encouraged in education or not. No, not encouraged, since that would involve government establishment of religion which is a clear violation of the First Amendment. However, that does not mean that it shouldn't be taught in the appropriate classes and in an appropriate manner. As the Science Framework says:
quote: Rather, the appropriate place to encourage religion is in the church, in the public square, and ultimately in the home. The authority to determine what religious instruction a child should receive resides in the parents and in the parents alone! Seeking to have the government take that parental right away from the parents is an abomination! Yes, the student should be made aware of and familiarized with the widespread presence of the evolutionary mindset. Just what the hell are you talking about? What "evolutionary mindset"? No such thing exists any more than there's an "electronics mindset" or a "muffin method mindset." All you're doing is repeating a fake bogeyman that was created to scare you. If you truly believe that there is such a thing, then you must present it and your evidence for it, and then be ready to discuss it. BTW, there is absolutely no inherent conflict between a supernatural creator god and evolution. An actual creationist believes that a Creator created the physical universe and hence the real world is as we find it because that's how it was created to be and to function. As such, there can be no conflict between that Creator and the findings of science. Conflict arises only when a creationist holds beliefs that are contrary to fact and hence believes that if the real world is actually as we find it then that disproves God. For example, John Morris, now-President of the ICR, stated "If the earth is more than 10,000 years old then Scripture has no meaning." Well, the earth is in fact very much older than 10,000 years, so according to him Scripture has no meaning, which I know from my Jesus Freak training is that same as saying God either does not exist or is totally unworthy of worship. Congrats, creationists, you have accomplished what even the most rabid anti-theist could never do: you have disproven God.
But if evolutionary teaching is to be seen as that of pure science, then why do scientists that support Biblical creation tend to be looked down upon? By "scientists that support Biblical creation" I take you to mean creationists. And particularly those of the "creation science" ilk. Practitioners of a deliberately created deception. Creationists are looked down upon because they are party to a political agenda that attacks science education, trying to damage it and even destroy it. They misrepresent what science is and teaches, often even to the point of outright lying -- while most followers, undoubtedly including yourself, know far too little to realize that they are peddling falsehoods, the better educated creationist know better and yet they zealously push the lies. That is especially true of the creationists with actual scientific training. So, what about their sorry misdeeds and malfeasance is not deserving of being looked down upon? I started studying "creation science" back around 1981, four decades ago. I sincerely wanted to learn what their evidence was, only to learn that it didn't exist. The more I looked into their claims, the more I could see them lying about science. Then I encountered their deliberate lying and other forms of gross and flagrant dishonesty. In all those four decades, I have never seen a creationist present a single valid argument nor truthful claim. Never! Nothing but lies and deception from hypocrites who claim to worship a god that is the personification of Truth. You keep paying lip service to "Biblical truth." Coming from a creationist, I recognize that as code for "even greater numbers of even more audacious lies." Thank you for your "Christian witness." Actually reading the Bible is what innoculated me from Christianity. "Creation science" provides me my boosters to keep me save from that false religion. Considering that about 80% of those raised in the faith grow up to run away from that religion as fast as they can, it is helping them as well.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5946 Joined: Member Rating: 5.5 |
... unless any of you may have any more unanswered questions. Yes, you did still never answer my question. Though I'm sure that it's entirely beyond your ability to answer, since you don't know the answer yourself:
DWise1 writes: Dunnage writes: Yes, the student should be made aware of and familiarized with the widespread presence of the evolutionary mindset. Just what the hell are you talking about? What "evolutionary mindset"? No such thing exists any more than there's an "electronics mindset" or a "muffin method mindset." All you're doing is repeating a fake bogeyman that was created to scare you. If you truly believe that there is such a thing, then you must present it and your evidence for it, and then be ready to discuss it. You keep blathering about this "evolution mindset", but you never say what it is supposed to be. Do you even know yourself? I doubt that very much. You are obviously just vomiting the BS lies that creationists keep feeding you, and then you return to eat your own vomit as a dog does. Which reminds me, you really should try to get around to reading the Bible. I don't mean the few selected verses that you're taught to memorize, but rather entire books or even just chapters from start to finish. You could start with the Gospels -- I always found wisdom in some of Jesus' teachings which contrasts sharply with what Paul did to everything. While you're reading the Gospels, watch for what Jesus has to say about hypocrites.
Atheism may only be professed based on denial. OK, so you are also abjectly ignorant about atheism. How sadly typical. Here's a bit of Scripture for you from Sun Tzu's The Art of War, Scroll III (Offensive Strategy):
quote: You are abjectly ignorant of both your perceived enemies and of yourself. At the very least, learn something about any subject that you wish to pontificate about. It's very pitiful to watch you stumble about blindly. But at the very least, we could have some fun. You are obviously a young-earth creationist (YEC). So pick a young-earth claim and present it for discussion. After all, it would be something that you wish to force on schoolchildren. And make it one that you actually believe.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5946 Joined: Member Rating: 5.5
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Scott D. Weitzenhoffer from his amazon.com review of Eugenie Scotts’ book Evolution Vs. Creationism: An introduction (2004):
quote:
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5946 Joined: Member Rating: 5.5
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My emphasis added:
Because there's conflict between the sights I found and shared and those you found and shared about teenage pregnancies, ... Uh, what the hell are you talking about? That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Even though it may be against your religion to do so, look it up! From the Merriam-Webster definitions for sights (including in the singular) -- slightly edited for format (but given your history of when pearls are cast before you I won't put too much effort into that):
quote: So then which definition of "sights" are you applying? Because none of them make any sense which plugged into what you've written. If you can find a dictionary that includes another definition for "sights" which does apply, then please provide it and a bibliographic citation of the source. I started out as a foreign language major so just out of curiosity, what is your original language? It is obviously not English. And you still have not answer the most basic questions your implied offer to; from my Message 2017: DWise1 writes: EWolf writes:
Yes, you did still never answer my question. Though I'm sure that it's entirely beyond your ability to answer, since you don't know the answer yourself:
... unless any of you may have any more unanswered questions. DWise1 writes: Dunnage writes: Yes, the student should be made aware of and familiarized with the widespread presence of the evolutionary mindset. Just what the hell are you talking about? What "evolutionary mindset"? No such thing exists any more than there's an "electronics mindset" or a "muffin method mindset." All you're doing is repeating a fake bogeyman that was created to scare you. If you truly believe that there is such a thing, then you must present it and your evidence for it, and then be ready to discuss it. You keep blathering about this "evolution mindset", but you never say what it is supposed to be. Do you even know yourself? I doubt that very much. You are obviously just vomiting the BS lies that creationists keep feeding you, and then you return to eat your own vomit as a dog does. Which reminds me, you really should try to get around to reading the Bible. So then, ¡yet again!, just exactly what is this "evolution mindset" you keep blathering about? What is it based on? Also, just what do you think that evolution is? Do you think that it conflicts with God? (HINT: it does not!) If you think that it does indeed conflict, then explain to us why you think that! Of course, we need much much more information from you before your yammerings can even begin to make any sense, but your answers to those few preliminary questions are the bare minimum we need. Of course, you being a creationist and my having had decades of experience with creationists inform me that if you are a typical creationist, then you have absolutely no clue what you are talking about. So do try to answer my questions. You might even learn something -- oh yeah, learning things is against your faith.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5946 Joined: Member Rating: 5.5 |
Percy to EWolf writes: You're ignoring the evidence and arguments in people's messages and just launching into more sermons. It isn't just PaulK you're ignoring, it's everyone. You can continue in this vein if you insist, but if you do then people will eventually cease attempting constructive discussion with you and you'll be faced with the expressions of frustration that you yourself caused. But you won't blame yourself, you'll blame them and their Godless ways. But what is his real motivation? What does he think he will accomplish by acting in a manner that appears to be deliberately designed to turn everybody against him and his false religion (as determined by the Matthew 7:20 Test)? Very often in the past I've asked that question of "what do you think you're trying to accomplish?" and never got a straight answer. But then ex-fundie Ed Babinski reposted a short article which I reposted here on 20 Feb 2020 in Message 442:
DWise1 writes: IOW, haven't our USA "persecuted and hated Christians" ever considered that the reason why people reacted so negatively to them is because those Christians' constant efforts at persecution and attacking other beliefs (which is the basis of proselytizing) make them very unpleasant to be around? And then to add insult to injury, once they have driven you to hating them for their behavior they insist that it's God that you hate. So how can that kind of conduct lead to successful proselytizing? A posting from Quora reposted by Ed Babinski on FaceBook last summer says that conversion is not the goal:
quote: This appears to be EWolf's motivation given both his bad behavior and the fact that he has already dropped bits of "you're all so mean to me, I'll just go off in a huff", especially during his little "brushing the dust off his sandals" display (not EWolf's words, but rather Jesus'). From your Message 2031: Percy writes: Not sights. Sites. As in websites. That's what he was trying to say? I thought he was trying to say "cites" which is not even a noun but only a verb.
Jesus H! Why can he not just write in English instead of making his scribblings even more indecipherable?
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5946 Joined: Member Rating: 5.5 |
I have not forgotten you. I ended in the hospital and will be back with you as soon as possible. Merry Belated Christmas! Of course the first conclusion we all jumped to as to what you were in the hospital for ... but that's neither here nor there nor even anywhere near the topic. The main thing is that you were able to get through it and out of the hospital. I understand you to be of retirement age as I am. My brother-in-law is a decade older than I am. He got rather sick for about a week towards the end of December and is only now recovering from it. I shared with him my own experience that the main problem with getting old is that if we get sick or injured it takes so long to heal, if ever. So work on getting well. Along those lines, I would suggest that you do not waste your time or energy continuing your efforts to discredit yourself and your own religion with mindless sermonizing. We've all heard that stuff before and, indeed, some of us could write far better sales pitches for that pig-in-a-poke (AKA "bill of goods"). Give that a rest since it would be a complete waste of your energy which is currently in short supply. Instead, concentrate on discussing the topic. You have left so many questions unanswered that you still need to address -- indeed, your switch to blatant preaching could only be interpreted as a failed attempt to avoid those questions or, as I pondered in my Message 2033, feeding your own persecution fantasy by deliberately provoking negative reactions in order to return to your church to complain how much we "hate God" (whereas the truth is that we just hate it when you [pl] pull that stupid crap). Please just turn your attention to that discussion. My most primary question for you, which I have had to repeat and which you have never even tried to answer, was last repeated in my Message 2032:
DWise1 writes: And you still have not answer the most basic questions your implied offer to; from my Message 2017:
DWise1 writes: EWolf writes:
Yes, you did still never answer my question. Though I'm sure that it's entirely beyond your ability to answer, since you don't know the answer yourself:
... unless any of you may have any more unanswered questions. DWise1 writes: Dunnage writes: Yes, the student should be made aware of and familiarized with the widespread presence of the evolutionary mindset. Just what the hell are you talking about? What "evolutionary mindset"? No such thing exists any more than there's an "electronics mindset" or a "muffin method mindset." All you're doing is repeating a fake bogeyman that was created to scare you. If you truly believe that there is such a thing, then you must present it and your evidence for it, and then be ready to discuss it. You keep blathering about this "evolution mindset", but you never say what it is supposed to be. Do you even know yourself? I doubt that very much. You are obviously just vomiting the BS lies that creationists keep feeding you, and then you return to eat your own vomit as a dog does. Which reminds me, you really should try to get around to reading the Bible. So then, ¡yet again!, just exactly what is this "evolution mindset" you keep blathering about? What is it based on? The rest of Message 2017 brings up several other questions raised by your bald assertions, a few of which I shall list here:
These are but a few questions that need to be addressed. They are very reasonable basic questions which promote discussion (whereas bald assertions only serve to shut down discussin). They are also basic questions that I have never ever seen a creationist attempt to answer in the four decades I have been studying "creation science." Indeed, creationists instead do everything they can to avoid those questions. My expectations of you are extremely low. Please surprise me.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5946 Joined: Member Rating: 5.5 |
In addition, while he and his fellow sheeple have been taught to worship that SOURCE, they also never bother to actually read that SOURCE. Instead, they mindlessly follow what their handlers tell them. For that matter, most often their handlers are themselves mindless sheeple doing the exact same thing, flocking aimlessly.
BTW, why did this sub-topic get put here? drlove has never participated in this topic, Should we teach both evolution and religion in school?. Wouldn't it have been more appropriate in a topic like Belief Versus The Scientific Method which he has spammed with 153 posts (amazing how prolific you can be when you simply leave out actual content)?
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5946 Joined: Member Rating: 5.5 |
Given Jzyehoshua's record, he might be back in a few years or a decade to read this. Until then, this is for the rest of us.
pandion writes: Of course, the Biblical kinds, what you replace with "Core Created Species," has no support in reality. You see, there is no evidence to support that superstition that would warrant its inclusion in any science curriculum. How do you explain sterility in interspeciary breeding? Why, if all species had a common ancestor, do we see animals even as closely related as horses and donkeys or lions and tigers produce sterile offspring? If they all had a common ancestor, why then does sterility result? This was a major issue for Darwin and he spent a whole chapter in "On the Origin of Species" trying to explain it away. First a minor point. Why place so much importance on Darwin having problems explaining patterns of interfertility? He also had problems figuring out heredity.But we have learned a few things in the 162 years since 1859 that Darwin didn't know, such as genetics. Indeed, since Darwin's attempts at explaining inheritance were disproven by the rediscovery of Mendel's work, creationists have a gold mine of mined quotes in which geneticists proclaimed that Darwinism had been disproven, whereas in reality genetics supplied the missing piece to the puzzle giving us neo-Darwinism ("... generally used to describe any integration of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection with Gregor Mendel's theory of genetics."). Please try to remember that science and religion operate quite differently: Whereas science keeps learning and increasing in knowledge as it builds on original ideas however incomplete those ideas were, religion keeps getting dumber and continually loses knowledge as its original ideas, which are deemed to have been perfect from the start, have nowhere else to go but to keep deteriorating and losing knowledge over time. Please stop trying to saddle science with religion's shortcomings. Why interspecial infertility? Because that is what happens when species become increasingly genetically different. Genetics, no magic required. If two species are closely related, then they should be genetically similar enough to interbreed, albeit to varying degrees (eg, fertile offspring versus infertile offspring), whereas the more distantly related they are then the more likely that they will be too dissimilar genetically. However, this creationist "idea" of "basic created kinds" (BCK, which you remonicker as "Core Created Species") is tied to misconceptions about "microevolution versus macroevolution" in which "micro" is defined as "variations within a basic created kind" implying very strongly that all members of a BCK should be able to interbreed -- heavy creationist reliance on the existence of hybrids supports that implication. The problem for creationists with their BCKs is that while they point triumphantly at reproductive barriers between BCKs, they turn a blind eye to reproductive barriers within single BCKs. For example, the "basic created felid kind" (corresponding with Felidae) consists of two subfamilies: Pantherinae and Felinae. There is a high degree of interbreeding possible within Felinae (see this list) and a high degree of interbreeding possible within Pantherinae (see this list), but there is almost absolutely no interbreeding possible between the two groups. Almost, because there has been one case of a pantherinae/felinae hybrid, the pumapard, a cross between a cougar (Felinae) and a leopard (Pantherinae). That greatly surprised scientists because they thought that they were too distantly related for that to happen. Also, the pumapard has a tendency for dwarfism being about half the size of the parents. So then, the "basic felid kind" which is supposed to be all interrelated (which they are) and able to interbreed (not quite, as follows), but they are divided into two groups, each capable to interbreed within their group but incapable of interbreeding with the other group. Within the same BCK, there's a reproductive barrier that you say should not be there, and yet there it is. So you decide that they must instead be two separate BCKs, but then there's that one case in which they were able to interbreed, so by your definitions they must all be part of the same BCK. But then there's still that massive reproductive barrier. How does your "creationist theory" explain that? Evolution explains it quite well, but your "theory" cannot. Hmm. Then there's also the "basic canid kind". Creationists point out how very compatible compatible wolf-like ones are genetically and how they can freely interbreed. However, there are a lot of other groupings within that "kind" with varying degrees of reproductive barriers. Two types of jackel cannot interbreed with the wolf-like canids. And other canids, such as South American canids, true foxes, bat-eared foxes, or raccoon dogs, also cannot interbreed with wolf-like canids. True reproductive barriers had evolved within the "basic canid kind." And what about the "basic worm kind" which has diversified far more widely (and yet are all lumped together by creationists)? What about the "basic insect kind"? What about the "basic fish kind"? What about the "basic bird kind"? Genetically-based reproductive barriers all over the place in direct conflict with the whole idea of BCKs. All of which raises a question in my mind. Part of zoology involves studying how those groups are related. How many creation-science types are also zoologists and how many of those creationist zoologists support "basic created kinds" and how do they go about doing that? (ie, do they maintain their scientific integrity or just dump it down the drain like so many other creationists do?)
How do you explain the lack of transitions and stasis in the fossil record inconsistent with Gradualistic Evolution? This issue was becoming so dangerous to Evolution that Gould proposed his theory of Punctuated Equilibrium a few decades ago suggesting evolution went really fast for short time periods to explain away this growing body of evidence. To start with, Darwin himself knew and stated that the rate of evolutionary change would vary, that it was not at a constant rate. The reason why he emphasized gradual change, even despite Huxley's objections, is because of another competing idea: saltation. Saltation ("jump") says that changes happen suddenly, such as the sudden appearance of an entire new complex organ or an entirely new species in one single generation. Judging from everything I've seen creationists say about evolution and speciation, they are still stuck in thinking about things in terms of saltation with one species giving birth to an entire new species in a single generation. Creationists think that evolution is saltation when in fact saltation is completely different from evolution. Saltation has an individual produce an individual of an entirely new species; eg, "a snake laid an egg and a bird hatch.", "why don't we see any chimps in the zoo giving birth to ape-men?", "when an individual has evolved into a new species, where will he find a mate (for which he would have to wait millions of years to come around -- as in BSCUTTER21's Message 1)?" All of which means, of course, that practically none of creationists' have anything to do with evolution! The thing about evolution is that its rate depends both on the interplay between evolutionary processes (which remain constant), the environment (which is subject to change), and how well (or poorly) the population is adapted to that environment (the most variable). And as it turns out, the exact same evolutionary processes (survival, reproduction, rinse and repeat) can result in rapid change, slow change, or no change (AKA stasis), so there is no need for any kind of mechanism to regulate the rate. Punctuated Equilibrium has almost nothing to do with rate of change except to argue that it's not strictly constant, but rather with sampling rates of fossils; it was used to explain the patterns we find in the fossil record. In geologic time, fossils of a particular "lineage" can be separated by thousands of generations making the changes appear abrupt, whereas in generational time the changes between each generation are still gradual. An article on a conference at which Punctuated Equilibrium was presented showed graphically that between periods of stasis there was still gradual change generation by generation.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5946 Joined: Member Rating: 5.5 |
quote: Just dare to even allude to that "why are there still monkeys?" claim to any creationist and he will start screaming bloody murder that you are just making that up trying to create a strawman and that no creationist would ever say something as incredibly stupid as that. The same thing with the "men have one rib less than women do because of Adam having had one of his ribs removed to create Eve" claim. And yet when Answers in Genesis (AiG) circa 2001 published their first (I think) list of "Claims We Wish Creationists Would Stop Using", that list included both "why are there still monkeys?" and Adam's Rib along with the old missing neutrinos argument (it used to be a problem for astronomers, but it did get solved). In order for AiG to feel the need to include those items in that list, that means that they were seeing those claims still being used. In the case of "why are there still monkeys", not counting having heard it growing up my first sighting of it in the wild was a call-in to a radio talk show in 1984 which featured creationist Duane Gish and humanist Fred Edwords as guests. Believe it or not, it was Gish who had to explain to the caller why that was wrong. Since then, I've observed it a few more times being used in earnest by creationists. Now we have yet another sighting of it in the wild.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5946 Joined: Member Rating: 5.5
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National Center for Science Education (NCSE) has traditionally been the national clearinghouse for tracking such activity. Late 1970's each state formed its own Committee of Correspondence and the NCSE was formed to coordinate their efforts -- that was shortly before I got involved. They especially tracked attempts to pass state laws. This past decade they've expanded their efforts to climate change education.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5946 Joined: Member Rating: 5.5
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And don't forget how the European colonization of the Americas led to the disappearance of all humans in Europe the moment the ships left port.
Ed Babinski just linked to this Discover Magazine article from a month ago, https://www.discovermagazine.com/...-why-do-apes-still-exist, on FaceBook. The article starts: quote: So add not only Tim Allen to that possibly-most-idiotic creationist claim, but also the 50,000 individuals who “liked” and 13,000 who retweeted it (I would assume that all the 13,000 twits/re-twits had also "liked", so we're sure of at least 50,000 fellow cretins). Even more evidence of the hypocritical lies from the creationists who proclaim that no creationist would ever make such a stupid claim. Kind of like racists who loudly complain that they're not racist. I have always interpreted that claim as being based on a gross misinterpretation of Spencer's "survival of the fittest" (not coined by Darwin, though he did include it in later editions). That phrase leads to a simplistic scenario in which one species out-competes another species for the same resources such that the less fit species dies out. More specifically, the scenario is one in which the newly evolved descendant species out-competes and replaces its parent species. In reality:
And more reasons why it's so stupid -- I have errands to run so I cannot spend more time on this. This whole "issue" is just further evidence that creationists have no clue what they are talking about. And that they really need to learn all that they can about evolution, especially if they want to oppose evolution. If they knew more about evolution then they could address evolution's actual problems and would know better than to use such utterly stupid claims as "why are there still apes?". Edited by dwise1, : changed subtitle
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5946 Joined: Member Rating: 5.5 |
New streamed interview recorded and posted on YouTube by Dapper Dinosaur: Leaving Young Earth Creationism with Talen Lee (in case utube tag below doesn't work):
Talen Lee is from eastern Australia. He was given a "fundamentalist" Christian upbringing and early education -- scare quotes on "fundamentalist" since there are so many different fundamentalist sects, most of whom denounce all other such sects as unChristian heretics. His first ten years of school was in a church school that used an American church educational series called "ACE" which, from what I gather, was a series of workbooks that had the kids sitting by themselves all day working through the lessons. From there he went to a public high school for his last two years. The result of his prior ten years of "schooling" was that he ended up not know anything. First day in science class the teacher drew something on the board and everybody would know, a water molecule, and he had absolutely no idea what that was supposed to be. He ended up having to spend most of his time just trying to catch up, which he was never able to do. His high school would periodically calculate every student's academic standing so that they would know what percentile they were in and he would always be near the bottom. But in the meantime, his YEC training was still kicking in during science class. As soon as the lesson would begin he would challenge the material exactly as we see in creationist videos where a Christian student completely owns the teacher with "hard questions". What he has since realized is that he was just keeping the others and (far worse) himself from learning and that everybody in that class hated him for it. When he did finally complete high school, he was almost literally unemployable because he didn't know anything and he couldn't do anything. Since that was around 2000 and the Rupture was going to hit any day now, he didn't see any need to prepare himself for employability. He didn't even know how to vote, because, you know, the Rapture. Over the next decade, he slowly came to his senses and deconverted. At the age of 30, he applied to attend university and they had to be honest with him by telling him that they couldn't even identify his first ten years of "education" as even being a school. So he first had to take courses on how to be a student. That is as far as I've gotten so far (1:07:00). BTW, the first few minutes of the video is the streaming image of "The interview will begin shortly", so be patient or skip ahead.
ABE: Starting around 1:10:50 he gets into how people remain sucked into their bubble, though the term used is "Christian replacement media". He describes how interlocking factors in their environment keeps them isolated and controlled in a way that makes them alienated from the world around them. This creates a very limited frame of reference that is not only very difficult but also terrifying to break out of. In many cases of those who do try to step out and learn something the other side, they end up quickly retreating and reradicalizing in a manner he describes as "brutal". Edited by dwise1, : ABE
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5946 Joined: Member Rating: 5.5
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DWise1 writes: eWolf writes:
... Should religion be taught with evolution in schools? Somewhere around 1980, two professors at San Diego State University, Roger Awbrey and Bill Thwaites, started a "Two Model" class. At that time, the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), then the cutting edge state-of-the-art YEC organization (they had literally created "creation science" and Flood Geology and were the foremost publishers of creationist "educational" materials) was still headquartered in nearby El Cajon and then in Santee, plus they had on their staff the leading professional creationists. Basically, whenever you were talking about creationism and creationist claims, you were talking about what the ICR said. Literally, guest creationists gave half the lectures and Awbrey & Thwaites gave the other half. Now, at many creationist debates it's traditional to have the audience vote on who won -- of course, since the audience would be packed with church groups along with other factors (eg, the creationist being far more experienced in these events and more polished through practice) the creationist would usually win the vote. Similarly, at the end of the semester the students would also vote for which side made the better case. Typically, science would win since now the students could actually examine and test the creationist claims. The campus Christian clubs kept protesting this course and I believe I was told also hold demonstrations against it. Finally, Admin grew tired of the ruckus and cancelled the course. So when they finally get a an actual two-model course in a school, the creationists oppose it. Now of course, in their presentations Awbrey & Thwaites would present the actual science that the creationists were misrepresenting, which means that they were responding to the creationists' claims -- I assume that the creationist was allowed to be present for those classes. In their presentations Awbrey & Thwaites could present what the creationists' own scientific sources (which the creationists had misquoted or misrepresented; AKA "quote-mined") actually said, a tactic that had been used very effectively against ICR VP Duane Gish in debate (overhead projection with two columns, on the left is what Gish said a source said and on the right is what it actually said). Also in one class Gish had repeated their false claim about the bombadier beetle (AKA "Bomby") that the two chemicals in its chemical defense would spontaneously explode when mixed, so Awbrey & Thwaites took beakers containing those two chemicals and mixed them together right in front of Gish in class (as well as in glass!) and no explosion. Gish mumbled something about somebody else having screwed up and misinformed him, but for several years afterwards Gish continued to use that same claim which he had admited in public to be false. I just found an article by Bill Thwaites (and dedicated to the late Frank Awbrey) which tells the story of their class, the only real two-model class I know of:
Toe to Toe with Young-Earth Creationists (February 26, 2016) quote: In the article, Thwaites recounts how he originally got involved with creationism, how he and Awbrey prepared for a debate with Drs. H. Morris (AKA "Hank") and Duane Gish (AKA "Duane") in which Hank and Duane refused to discuss many parts of their own position because "that's not part of the topic of the debate" (IOW, they weaseled out). Having done all that preparation, they decided to put it to good use and created their own two-model class as stated above. When the university finally approved the class:
quote: Hmm. The second half of the article consists of anecdotes from the class regarding the various creationists who provided the creationist lectures plus other creationists they encountered. Before that, Thwaites tells of they got lists of postulates to base their class on:
quote: There's lots more in that article, so do please read it.
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