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Author | Topic: Reasons for Creationist Persistence | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
mjfloresta Member (Idle past 6022 days) Posts: 277 From: N.Y. Joined: |
Instead, the plan is to isolate the children into thought limiting Church Schools and Home Schools. That way the children can be kept in near total ignorance. Jar's above statement reflects what I perceive to be the concensus opinion of this site, that is, the idea that the Christian/Creationist paradigm somehow "keeps" such students in a state of ignorance resulting in an incapability to reason and perform, especially in the sciences. While the high reknown of "fundamentalist christian scientists" throughout the centuries bears witness to the absurdity of such a claim, it is not to antiquity that I want to turn, but to the present. As one who falls into both of Jar's favorite categories ("Fundamentalist Christian and Home-schooled student) my personal experience as well as those of countless friends and acquaintances categorically denies any such implication as a result of being raised with a pardaigm of "ignorance"... Although many similar claims have been leveled before - at me, at acquaintances, and at home-schoolers/christians at large..never is there any standard of measurement applied by those asserting the claim. HOWEVER, based on the traditionally-valued standards of academic success, I find these claims to be absolutely baseless and ad hominem in nature, as such claims are never empirically validated. Attention moderators: If such a response is deemed Off-topic, I'll gladly start a new thread
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mjfloresta Member (Idle past 6022 days) Posts: 277 From: N.Y. Joined: |
The essential characteristic of creationists is to be obsessed with subjects they're not interested in. Again, my personal experience argues otherwise. While it is true that there are many who poorly represent creationism, it is concurrently the case that there are many who legitimately practice (and represent) science AND advocate biblical creationism. In fact, I am personally aware of an extensive number of people who do exactly that, whether family, acquaintances, or professionals whom I have researched. The YECers at this site are constantly encouraged to study the topics they debate; That's should go without saying. Conversely, I would expect the Evo to refrain from blanket statements (many of them quite extreme (see Jar's terrorist reference above)) especially in light of the many creationists who both practice science, and are EXTREMELY interested in the subjects they're "obsessed with"...
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mjfloresta Member (Idle past 6022 days) Posts: 277 From: N.Y. Joined: |
I was thinking most of the creationists you get on message boards. The people who are just creationists 'cos they've been brought up that way are often neither obsessed nor interested in science. Granted. I'm just responding from the perspective of one who is legitimately fascinated by science AND who subscribes unequivocally to a creationist paradigm. Most of my close friends and acquaintances, adherents of creationism like myself, are practitioners of the sciences (in many fields) whose scienctific pursuit is not one iota less than genuine. Thus my perception of creationists at large (of whom I am one) is quite the contrary to that which is presented at large on this board..
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mjfloresta Member (Idle past 6022 days) Posts: 277 From: N.Y. Joined: |
And quite un-backed-up by any facts. We have creos telling us all the time that there are lots and lots and lots and lots of real scientists who are creationists. But we never see the list. Why are creationists so persistent in telling us about those creo-scientists, and so equally persistent in not telling us who they are? WHAT? You're going to choose to disbelieve me because I haven't provided the names of the my creationist friends and acquaintances that practice science? Get real. I'm not about to cite all of their names here for your pedandic pleasure. What I will do for you is cite a little context in which I make the claim. I am personally well-acquainted with no less than 30 practioners (and of course creationists) of science in fields ranging from: mechanical engineering, chemistry, biochemistry, thoracic medicine, genetics, bioengineering, neurology, paleontology, computer science, pharmaceutics, aeronautics..and more. My point, whether you want to believe me or not, is that I was raised in an environment where adherence to both science and creationist paradigms were practiced without conflict, ignorance, deliberate deception, or any of the other accusations oft leveled at creationists, especially here...
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mjfloresta Member (Idle past 6022 days) Posts: 277 From: N.Y. Joined: |
I've known it to go both ways, I guess, but I agree - it's improper to make sweeping assertions about the educational character of home schooled individuals. Right; sometimes our personal experiences are insufficient to extrapolate to a general description.
Ah, yes. The elusive creationist biologist. It'd be nice if we could ever get one here, particularly one who wasn't clearly suffering from senility. (I'm not calling you senile, I was referring to John Davison.) See the above reply to Ringo. I'm not trying to overstate the case by appearing to claim an overwhelming presence of "Creationist Biologists", but to merely relate my own acquaintance with those creationist biologists who do exist....unless maybe I am going senile (i'm losing my hearing, does that count?)...
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mjfloresta Member (Idle past 6022 days) Posts: 277 From: N.Y. Joined: |
Look, you can be a scientist in your day job and a creationist in private. Thanks for the permission...but i'll have to pass, thanks.
But it's inconsistent. It's like being a nurse for an abortionist as your day job, and then every day, after work, you go out in front of the clinic, pick up a sign, and join the protesters. Your private life works against your public life. I don't understand why anybody would subject themselves to that kind of psychic torsion. Not at all. It's the idea that man has a finite mind that can't necessarily grasp all truths.
That's ridiculous. I suspect this is simply a confusion about what "creationist" means. You're just using it to refer to people who believe in a creative God, right? No, there's no confusion. That's exactly my point. The evo, for the most part, doesn't even recognize that this type of creationist exists (one who practices science and believes in a literal creation). That ignorance lends itself to the conjuring of a quasi-strawman creationist (I say quasi-strawman because some "creationists" do promote the image) in place of creationists who do in fact practice science. It's this kind of ignorance that i'm trying to draw attention to.
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mjfloresta Member (Idle past 6022 days) Posts: 277 From: N.Y. Joined: |
RIGHT...so why don't you read through this thread and tell me if it reads more like an empirically supported research paper or an opinions page from the NY Times...
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mjfloresta Member (Idle past 6022 days) Posts: 277 From: N.Y. Joined: |
I remember when I first wanted to know about creationism, so I downloaded a whole book of 25 chapters to see what creationists had to say. And as I read it, I got more and more convinced that it was a parody. I was rolling about with laughter at all the really basic, childish mistakes. It had to be a joke. So I went back to the internet to see what creationists really had to say for themselves. Understood...
As a creationist and scientist, can you point me towards any creationist resource on the internet which is not full of crass errors? The top resources I prefer are those of Loma Linda University (a seventh-day adventist university) and their Geo-science Research Institute...
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mjfloresta Member (Idle past 6022 days) Posts: 277 From: N.Y. Joined: |
I don't even know what you want...
Are you asking me for the names of my acquaintances? How many names would satisfy you? The thirty or so that I know? The five hundred + on the DI list? However many pro-creation scientists actually exist? Or are you just trying to annoy? Edited by mjfloresta, : No reason given.
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mjfloresta Member (Idle past 6022 days) Posts: 277 From: N.Y. Joined: |
... and that you can circumvent that limitation by slavish devotion to a holy scripture held to be inerrant in all things? I'm the one who proposed man's finiteness. How now am I circumventing "that limitation"?
You're inconsistency is showing. If you want to embrace uncertainty and tentativity, as befits a scientist, then evolution, the scientific model based on the best evidence available, is the way to go. Embracing the religious dogma of creationism, which asserts a monopoly on eternal truths (that need not be verified - "just trust us" says the creationist), is not consistent with the ethods you've described above. I think uncertainty and tentativity are perfectly coherent with the notion of a finite mind, so no problem there...
Yet these are the only ways creationism can be supported. I suspect many of your "friends", particularly the biologists, would be quite dismayed to learn that you're smearing them all across this forum, asserting that they hold such counterfactual ideas such as 1) the idea that mainstream scientists, particularly biologists, are all members of a grand conspiracy to fabricate vast amounts of fraudulent data in order to suborn Biblical "truths"; Who's smearing who? I've never made this claim, nor have I asserted that my acquaintances have made this claim. DID I EVER SAY THAT??????
2) the idea that a 2000-year-old holy book written by shepherds and moneychangers is somehow more authoritative on biology than biologists, considering that it asserts, among other things, that locusts have only 4 legs, that goats are born with spotted coloration because their parents ate and drank near spotted reeds, and that a man can ride around inside a whale for three days and nights; Once again, YOUR ASSERTION, NOT MINE. I've never made these claims on behalf of my acquaintances. {qs3) that representatives of all known animal species can fit in a space the size of three boxcars and be used to repopulate the Earth - in only decades - after a deluge that extinguished all other life on Earth, and that the descendants of 8 people would, after only 5-6 generations, be sufficient in number to have populated all the civilizations of the ancient world.{/qs Yet again, your words placed in my mouth...are you serious?
No adherent to those beliefs could possibly be a successful scientist, except so far as they check those beliefs at the laboratory door. It's impossible to produce legitimate science chained, as creationists are, to an unyielding, counterfactual ideology. Unless your understanding of their beliefs is skewed by misunderstanding in which case the slander is on your part, not mine... Just one question; Why the quick degradation into baseless accusations?
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mjfloresta Member (Idle past 6022 days) Posts: 277 From: N.Y. Joined: |
From Wikkipedia on the Salem Hypotheses:
The validity of these hypotheses is debatable, as neither has actually been subjected to experimental rigor. The first description makes no comments about the engineering disciplines, nor engineers themselves; rather, it describes an ALLEGED link between those who see themselves as both scientist and creationist and the posting of scientific credentials to claim credibility. (my bold)
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mjfloresta Member (Idle past 6022 days) Posts: 277 From: N.Y. Joined: |
I am referring to creationists who are skeptical of the ToE (some are OEC, some YEC). The OECers do not necessarily (many don't) subscribe to a global flood or other aspects of YEC.
Thus I am referring to (scientific) skeptics of evolution, some of whom are also religiously skeptical of evolution, but others who aren't.
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mjfloresta Member (Idle past 6022 days) Posts: 277 From: N.Y. Joined: |
ok
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mjfloresta Member (Idle past 6022 days) Posts: 277 From: N.Y. Joined: |
Insufficiently specific. All scientists are skeptical of evolution, as all scientists are skeptical of all models, waiting until evidence has been presented before accepting the hypothesis. I think given the context that my choice of words was sufficiently lucid; But for your sake, I'll modify it to "doubtful of evolution"...better?
Well, wait now. You said that your friends didn't believe in the 6000-year-old Earth or the Noaic flood. You certainly whined pretty loudly and accused me of putting words in your mouth when I told you that's what creationists believed. My point was that you were assuming positions that I had never taken. Furthermore, you attacked those [i]assumed[/qs] positions as if they were the basis for my skepticism (disbelief) and that of my acquaintances, when in fact, our skepticism is scientific in nature. It's no different than when a creationist attacks evos as being humanists and atheists. It's a mis-direction from why the evo actually believes in the theory...
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mjfloresta Member (Idle past 6022 days) Posts: 277 From: N.Y. Joined: |
Crash's reply already posed the right question, but just in case, let me reemphasize by asking it again in a specific way. Are you really saying that you have friends and acquaintances who work in any of the biological sciences while rejecting the unifying theory of all of biology? Or who work in any of the geological sciences while rejecting all geological evidence of an ancient earth? Or who work in any of the astronomical sciences while rejecting all cosmological evidence of an ancient universe? *AND*...(and this is the most important part)...who also believe that the earth was created just a few thousand years ago and experienced a world wide flood around 4000 years ago that wiped out almost all life? To elucidate: Yes, I have friends (and family) who work in the biological sciences (and paleontology) who reject darwinian evolution (if that's what you meant by the "unifying theory of all biology.") AND as I pointed out to Crash, some are YECers, a few are OECers. That's not the point. The point is their skepticism of ToE as practicing scientists.
Anyway, if your answer to those questions is "yes", then send your friends and acquaintances here, please!!! We'd love to meet them! Believe me, i've been begging and pleading...
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