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Creationists Want Equal Airtime on 'Cosmos' (Original Post) circlethesquare Mar 2014 OP
Okay! Air The Flintstones movie after each episode. nt Walk away Mar 2014 #1
And people in hell, that doesn't exist, want ice water. Hassin Bin Sober Mar 2014 #2
Equal time for Flat Earthers? Sorry; Science doesn't work that way zebonaut Mar 2014 #3
The counter argument to science is ignorance. Vox Moi Mar 2014 #4
Tyson is not ignoring creationism, he taking the basic precepts apart Gothmog Mar 2014 #5
The best response to creationists who demand airtime . . . markpkessinger Mar 2014 #6
 

zebonaut

(3,688 posts)
3. Equal time for Flat Earthers? Sorry; Science doesn't work that way
Wed Mar 26, 2014, 12:38 PM
Mar 2014

But if they want to submit to a scientific peer reviewed journal ; feel free

Gothmog

(145,119 posts)
5. Tyson is not ignoring creationism, he taking the basic precepts apart
Wed Mar 26, 2014, 05:39 PM
Mar 2014

Tyson is not ignoring creationism, he is taking the basic precepts apart and apply science to these concepts http://thinkprogress.org/culture/2014/03/25/3418425/creationism-is-getting-a-lot-of-time-on-cosmos/

Actually, Tyson is deliberately and straightforwardly giving a whole lot of time to creationism. Why did we have to sit through the history of the eyeball? Creationists love to argue that the complexity of the eyeball disproves evolution. Note how he talked specifically about how the eyeball isn’t actually this perfect mechanism, but something that works well enough for what we need it for, but not as well as it does in fish — the whole idea that the eyeball is a perfect, too-complex thing is a creationist argument.

Another example: Why did Tyson spend so much time explaining the similarities and differences in how polar bears have evolved through natural selection vs. how dogs have changed in the time we’ve been breeding them for certain traits? Because creationists acknowledge that changes within species happen. They just like to pretend like one kind of organism couldn’t really have brought forth another kind of organism.

Tyson isn’t ignoring creationism. Creationists wish Tyson were ignoring creationism. Tyson is instead standing on creationism’s home turf and playing by their rules. (Every episode we’ve seen so far has contrasted the Church’s approach to these issues with science’s approach. I’ve read some complaints that Cosmos is too much in love with that old story where everything happens in Europe until white people arrive in the Americas and then some stuff gets to happen here too. But I think that complaint also misunderstands that the history of Christianity as its taught to American Christians is, by and large, that story — everything happens in Europe until some stuff starts to happen here). Tyson is taking creationists’ claims deadly seriously, and showing all the ways they’re wrong....

What creationists are upset about is that it’s not a discussion that bothers to treat their ideas like they have any scientific merit. After all, any good scientific question should eventually lead to an answer that generates more questions. Creationism short-circuits that process, instead arguing that there’s an end to questions — that, eventually, you can drill down enough to get to God — God did it or God willed it to be. No more questions needed.

That just can’t be a valid scientific approach. And, so far, week after week, that’s been the subtext to Cosmos.

I really love the way that Tyson is handling these issues which is why the creationists religious nutcases are so upset

markpkessinger

(8,392 posts)
6. The best response to creationists who demand airtime . . .
Wed Mar 26, 2014, 08:48 PM
Mar 2014

. . . is to remind them that it was their buddy Reagan who rescinded the Fairness Doctrine that the FCC used to observe with regard to issues deemed to be 'controversial,' and that therefore, nobody owes them any air time.

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