Ok this has to do with the knuckle draggers that keep saying the earth is only 6,000 years

[mrcheerful]

old. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't rocks eroding in nature a measureable event? By the way has anyone ever explained to these nuts that dinosuar bones aren't bones but rock castings of bones? The bones decayed a long long time ago and mud that they were laying in covered said bone making a mold of the bone. Or is it something scientists figure everyone with a 3rd grade education would know? By the by, another thing over looked by nuts is that until the last 108 years man has had very little long lasting effects on nature, well on nature that couldn't be killed off that is, so is this another example of people thinking that nothing has changed? Just a few questions I never had Wing nuts answer. Then again if questions involve thought are wing nuts able to think?

[Turbineguy]

1. Facts and science don't matter

it's what you believe that counts.

That's why I'm glad Hilary Clinton calls me every morning to remind me to breathe.

[Vanje]

22. Facts and science are tools of the devil

The devil invented facts to tempt people of weak faith.

[Kazak]

2. Won't work, requires reason...

They've abandoned reason.

[DS1]

3. dinos were just put there to test your faith

[Occulus]

15. Do they ever realize how big a liar that makes their god? n/t

[Elwood P Dowd]

4. Noah cut down a few trees and built an ark that could handle 2 million animals.

Amazing isn't it????

:crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy:

[jeff30997]

5. O ye, of little faith!

Peoples were living with dinosaurs!You never watched The Flintstones? :P

[Angry Mollusk]

6. You do realize the right wing thinks that science=Satanism

No matter what science can prove, the right wing Christian loons will dismiss any findings as the work of Lucifer!

[Sarah Ibarruri]

7. What's scary is that there are real scientists who are Bible-banging creationists

And they make up fake science as they go along. That scares me!

[HuffleClaw]

8. i would guess that maybe 2% of christians take that stuff literally

i've never met anyone who actually believed in the ark, let alone the lunacy about 'no dinosaurs'

[pop goes the weasel]

10. you must live in some place other than the US

Or you've managed to avoid any conversations about science.

Try reading this article in The Nation. It shows that the level of science knowledge in the US is dismal.

[MedleyMisty]

11. So why believe in the rest of the Bible?

I've never understood how people decide which parts of it are true and which aren't. If it's just a collection of nice little inspirational fictional stories, why can't we just treat it like any other work of literature?

[Der Blaue Engel]

12. Then you never met anyone from the church I grew up in

There are a huge number of xians who believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible. They're called Fundamentalists.

They even have "scientists" who "debunk" such things as dinosaur bones and carbon dating, and come up with elaborate explanations for how the Earth once had a giant canopy of water in the outer atmosphere that collapsed, causing the Flood, and that God destroyed early civilizations because they'd started creating human-animal hybrids.

There's so much more nonsense that I can personally vouch for large numbers of xians absolutely believing, but it makes me tired just thinking about it.

[Warren DeMontague]

18. Apparently, there are enough out there to warrant a mulit-million dollar "museum" in Ohio.

http://www.creationmuseum.org/

Although, to be fair, they admit that dinosaurs existed. They just think Jesus was ridin' around on 'em.

[Turbineguy]

24. Interesting guess

since the bell curve would place the probablility at 2.2% (2nd standard deviation negative).

[dysfunctional press]

25. you must not get out much...

A LOT of people believe the noah's ark bit. granted, the no dinosaur/6,000 year old earth stuff may not be as widespread- but in the u.s., PLENTY of people fall for noah and his impossibly big wooden boat, hook line and sinker.

[Realityhack]

27. Check out some poll numbers.... then guess again.

[truth2power]

9. Most of those people don't understand metaphor...

which is a higher order thinking skill, BTW.

[GaYellowDawg]

13. It is not a matter of evidence.

These are people who identify themselves (whether they act like it or not) as people of faith before anything else. These are the kind of people who say, "I want my spouse to love God more than me."

Their particular brand of faith is absolutely rigid. They believe that every single word in the Bible is literal, inerrant truth, and their way of making meaning of the world is to fit everything in it into that framework. Nothing else matters - not fact, evidence, argument, contradictions, or anything else you can think of. If something does not fit into that framework, it is dismissed either as irrelevant or as Satan's work.

With the standard that they have set, absolute literalism and inerrancy, fundamentalists have a faith like obsidian - extremely hard, yet brittle. For them, doubt in any portion of their framework, no matter how subtle or miniscule, threatens to shatter the entire thing, and take a huge chunk of their perceived self-image with it. A fundamentalist who has lost his/her faith is literally never the same person again, and that carries a tremendous frisson of horror for the fundamentalist, who believes that his/her framework and damnation are the only two options.

This is why the fundamentalist denies the evidence for an old earth, denies the evidence for evolution, denies any possiblity besides the "young earth" creation event. To them, the alternative to complete belief is damnation; therefore, within their framework, the irrational denial of solid fact and evidence is a perfectly rational act of self-preservation. They no more want to hear something that causes them doubt in their version of faith than one of us wants to be shot.

[ruiner4u]

14. easy answer...

they think Satan put all that "evidence" on earth to confound and befuddle people away from G-d's all knowing grace...


:puke:

[0rganism]

16. Start with a phenomenally high tolerance for cognitive dissonance...

Some of the "knuckledraggers" you refer to have PhDs in physics, biology, and geology. They devote an amazing amount of time and effort, often well-funded by those less credentialed but more profitable, to inventing "scientific" apologetics for their point of view.

They'll run studies for years on things like "hydrological sorting" to explain how all those trilobite fossils got deposited in sedimentary layers below most of the dinosaurs in the "Noahic floods". They'll wander in the wilderness talking of how light itself must have slowed down a thousandfold over time to explain our ability to see distant stars. Some of the shit they come up with is interesting in its own right, not at all for what it predicts about the universe but rather for what it says about the people who engage in "godly" counter-science.

However, do not underestimate them. The majority of people in America do NOT believe evolution happened in the absence of divine intervention, in some quantity or other. That seed of doubt, that inability to conceive of life as progressing naturally on its own, is leverage for evangelists to turn the general population against science.

Then you get stuff like the "creation museums" springing up around the country, and "controversial material" stickers attached to biology textbooks. Watch out! The people who should be able to answer those basic questions from your OP to your satisfaction are sitting on your local school boards and at the PTA meetings. How many do you think would like to ban the cornerstone of modern biology from public schools altogether?

[Warren DeMontague]

17. The rocks all eroded rapidly during Noah's Flood. The dinosaur bones were planted by Satan.

And God really, really, reallllllllllly hates critical thinking. :crazy:

[bluedawg12]

19. You can try the comparative religions argument- this is basically a fundy

view of ID or creationism.
One can believe in God and understand the theories of evolution.
One cannot understand God.
One should not “believe” in theories one should strive to understand them question them and refine them.

Here is my over view of what this so called debate in education is about:

First, science does work on making an observation, asking a question about it, formulating a hypothesis, then a theory, then testing that theory with observable, reproducible data.

Religion and faith are a deeply personal experience and as such require a suspension of interrogation and acquiescence or giving over of ones self to the experience of faith.

Where is the so called conflict between Biblical Creation and scientific theories about the universe and evolution?

Biblical creation concept requires an acceptance of the Bible verbatim, a “fundamental” acceptance of the Bible literally word for word.

Read Genesis and see how the universe was first made and how over seven days it was all finished. Literally, in seven days.

This view also requires that we accept that the universe and world were all created just over 5,700 years ago, starting with the Hebrew reckoning of time.

Science estimates the Big Bang around 13 billion years ago, not 5,700 years ago.


http://www.jewfaq.org/calendar.htm

Quote
“Judaism 101
The year number on the Jewish calendar represents the number of years since creation, calculated by adding up the ages of people in the Bible back to the time of creation. However, this does not necessarily mean that the universe has existed for only 5700 years as we understand years. Many Orthodox Jews will readily acknowledge that the first six "days" of creation are not necessarily 24-hour days (indeed, a 24-hour day would be meaningless until the creation of the sun on the fourth "day").

For a fascinating (albeit somewhat defensive) article by a nuclear physicist showing how Einstein's Theory of Relativity sheds light on the correspondence between the Torah's age of the universe and the age ascertained by science, see The Age of the Universe. http://aish.com/societywork/sciencenature/Age_of_the_Universe.asp”

“The Torah doesn't say every second, does it? It says Six Days. How would we see those six days? If the Torah says we're sending information for six days, would we receive that information as six days? No. We would receive that information as six million million days. Because the Torah's perspective is from the beginning looking forward.

Six million million days is a very interesting number. What would that be in years? Divide by 365 and it comes out to be 16 billion years. Essentially the estimate of the age of the universe. Not a bad guess for 3300 years ago.-http://aish.com/societywork/sciencenature/Age_of_the_Universe.asp”


We have discussed this topic here before and I said then and I say now, that this creationist conflict is manufactured.

Why do I say that.

First, let me please state that one may or may not “believe” in a God, or a certain theology- that’s a religious matter.

But, it is not a question of “believing” in evolution or Darwin.

I don’t “believe” in any theory, I either accept and/or understand the science behind it or I don’t.

Faith is about belief.

Science is about understanding.

I don’t believe in Einstein. I don’t believe in E=MC^2. I sort of understand it and I know I understand that certain scientific consequences of that theory are verifiable, such as the atom bomb.

So one understands scientific theories, hypotheses, or laws, but does not “believe” in them, can’t, it would not be science it would be faith.

Second, this is about accepting certain theologic writings as interpreted by man.

The people from whom these writings originate, Jewish people, have studies their own scripture for a long time and learned people of that faith have debated these writings for a long time. Not simply saying here is what it says, end of topic.


Quote
“The creation of time.

Each day of creation is numbered. Yet there is discontinuity in the way the days are numbered. The verse says: "There is evening and morning, Day One." But the second day doesn't say "evening and morning, Day Two." Rather, it says "evening and morning, a second day." And the Torah continues with this pattern: "Evening and morning, a third day... a fourth day... a fifth day... the sixth day." Only on the first day does the text use a different form: not "first day," but "Day One" ("Yom Echad"). Many English translations make the mistake of writing "a first day." That's because editors want things to be nice and consistent. But they throw out the cosmic message in the text! Because there is a qualitative difference, as Nachmanides says, between "one" and "first." One is absolute; first is comparative.

This verse might imply that Rosh Hashana commemorates the creation of the universe. But it doesn't. Rosh Hashana commemorate the creation of the Neshama, the soul of human life. We start counting our 5700-plus years from the creation of the soul of Adam.

We have a clock that begins with Adam, and the six days are separate from this clock. The Bible has two clocks.

That might seem like a modern rationalization, if it were not for the fact that Talmudic commentaries 1500 years ago, brings this information. In the Midrash (Vayikra Rabba 29:1), an expansion of the Talmud, all the Sages agree that Rosh Hashana commemorates the soul of Adam, and that the Six Days of Genesis are separate.

Why were the Six Days taken out of the calendar? Because time is described differently in those Six Days of Genesis. "There was evening and morning" is an exotic, bizarre, unusual way of describing time.

Once you come from Adam, the flow of time is totally in human terms. Adam and Eve live 130 years before having children! Seth lives 105 years before having children, etc. From Adam forward, the flow of time is totally human in concept. But prior to that time, it's an abstract concept: "Evening and morning." It's as if you're looking down on events from a viewpoint that is not intimately related to them..http://aish.com/societywork/sciencenature/Age_of_the_Universe.asp”


Why is this argument contrived?

It is cast as a war of beliefs: You either believe in God or you believe in Darwin.

That is a false premise.

Again one is a matter of belief and does not require and cannot require understanding, God is unknowable.

The other is a matter of gaining understanding and belief in science would mean that efforts to gain understanding stop when we “believe in a theory or law”.

It is cast as a war of beliefs because then it can be cast as a war between science and religion.

There is no war between science and most religions.

For example, the article from Judaism 101 and the other from http://aish.com/societywork/sciencenature/Age_of_the_Universe.asp.

Also, Christians, among whom Catholics are counted, can accept evolution. The difference is when it comes to man. The Church says man is a special creation. A philosophical point of view reflecting the Church’s view that man has a special relationship to God and to his/her fellow man.

The Pope's Message on Evolution
In October of 1996, Pope John Paul II issued a message to the Pontifical Academy of Science reaffirming the Roman Catholic Church's long-standing position on evolution: that it does not necessarily conflict with Christianity.

http://www.cin.org/jp2evolu.html


“Today, almost half a century after the publication of the Encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition of more than one hypothesis in the theory of evolution. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favour of this theory.

What is the significance of such a theory? To address this question is to enter the field of epistemology. A theory is a metascientific elaboration, distinct from the results of observation but consistent with them. By means of it a series of independent data and facts can be related and interpreted in a unified explanation. A theory's validity depends on whether or not it can be verified, it is constantly tested against the facts; wherever it can no longer explain the latter, it shows its limitations and unsuitability. It must then be rethought.”


Quote
“http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-god.html

God and Evolution
by Warren Kurt VonRoeschlaub

Doesn't evolution contradict religion?

Not always. Certainly it contradicts a literal interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis, but evolution is a scientific principle, like gravity or electricity. To scientifically test a religious belief one first must find some empirical test that gives different results depending on whether the belief is true or false. These results must be predicted before hand, not pointed to after the fact.
Most religious beliefs don't work this way. Religion usually presupposes a driving intelligence behind it, and an intelligent being is not always predictable. Since experiments judging religious beliefs cannot have predictable results, and may give different results under the same circumstances it is not open to scientific inquiry. St. Augustine commented on this in _The Literal Meaning of Genesis_.

Evolution is based on the scientific method. There are tests that can determine whether or not the theory is correct as it stands, and these tests can be made. Thousands of such tests have been made, and the current theories have passed them all. Also, scientists are willing to alter the theories as soon as new evidence is discovered. This allows the theories to become more and more accurate as research progresses.
Most religions, on the other hand, are based on revelations, that usually cannot be objectively verified. They talk about the why, not the how. Also, religious beliefs are not subject to change as easily as scientific beliefs. Finally, a religion normally claims an exact accuracy, something which scientists know they may never achieve.

Some people build up religious beliefs around scientific principles, but then it is their beliefs which are the religion. This no more makes scientific knowledge a religion than painting a brick makes it a bar of gold.

Does evolution contradict creationism?

There are two parts to creationism. Evolution, specifically common descent, tells us how life came to where it is, but it does not say why. If the question is whether evolution disproves the basic underlying theme of Genesis, that God created the world and the life in it, the answer is no. Evolution cannot say exactly why common descent chose the paths that it did.
If the question is whether evolution contradicts a literal interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis as an exact historical account, then it does. This is the main, and for the most part only, point of conflict between those who believe in evolution and creationists.


Q4. If evolution is true, then isn't the whole Bible wrong?

First let me repeat that the underlying theme of the first book of Genesis can't be scientifically proven or disproven. No test has ever been found that can tell the difference between a universe created by God, and one that appeared without Him. Only certain interpretations of Genesis can be disproven.
Second, let us turn the question around. What if I asked you "If the story of the prodigal son didn't really happen, then is the whole Bible wrong?" Remember that the Bible is a collection of both stories and historical accounts. Because one part is a figurative story does not make the entire Bible so. Even if it did, the underlying message of the Bible would remain.

3. Evolution and God
Q5. Does evolution deny the existence of God?

No. See question 1. There is no reason to believe that God was not a guiding force behind evolution. While it does contradict some specific interpretations of God, especially ones requiring a literal interpretation of Genesis 1, few people have this narrow of a view of God.
There are many people who believe in the existence of God and in evolution. Common descent then describes the process used by God. Until the discovery of a test to separate chance and God this interpretation is a valid one within evolution. “



What about the third major religion in the world. Islam?

They too are part of the fundamentalist revival in the world.

Quote
Islamic creationism is the belief that the universe (including humanity) was directly created by God as explained in the Qur'an or Genesis. While contemporary Islam tends to take religious texts literally, it usually views Genesis as a corrupted version of God's message. The creation accounts in the Qur'an are more vague and allow for a wider range of interpretations similar to those in other Abrahamic religions. Several liberal movements within Islam generally accept the scientific positions on the age of the earth, the age of the universe and evolution. The center of the Islamic creationist movement is Turkey where polemics against the theory of evolution have been waged by the Nurculuk movement of Said Nursi since the late 1970s. At present, its main exponent is the writer Harun Yahya (pseudonym of Adnan Oktar) who uses the Internet as one of the main methods for the propagation of his ideas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_creationism



So, if science and religion are two separte systems: one a faith system and the other an emperic system. If two of the major religions on this planet, Judaism and Catholicism can accept the scientific theories of evolution with out finding them at "war" then who is causing the debate?


Quote
The intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign that calls for broad social, academic and political changes derived from the concept of "intelligent design."<1><2> Chief amongst its activities are a campaign to promote public awareness of this concept, the lobbying of policymakers to include its teaching in high school science classes, and legal action, either to defend such teaching or to remove barriers otherwise preventing it.<3><4> The movement arose out of the previous Christian fundamentalist and evangelistic creation science movement in the United States.<5>

The overall goal of the intelligent design movement is to "overthrow materialism" and atheism.

Its proponents believe that society has suffered "devastating cultural consequences" from adopting materialism and that science is the cause of the decay into materialism because science seeks only natural explanations.

Science is therefore atheistic, the movement's proponents claim.

Proponents believe that the theory of evolution implies that humans have no spiritual nature, no moral purpose, and no intrinsic meaning. The movement's proponents seek to "defeat materialist world view" represented by the theory of evolution in favor of "a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions".<3>

To achieve their goal of defeating a materialistic world view, advocates of intelligent design take a two-pronged approach.

Alongside the promotion of intelligent design, proponents also seek to "Teach the Controversy"; discredit evolution by emphasizing "flaws" in the theory of evolution, or "disagreements" within the scientific community and encourage teachers and students to explore non-scientific "alternatives" to evolution, or to "critically analyze" evolution and "the controversy".

The Discovery Institute<9> is a conservative Christian think tank that drives the intelligent design movement.<10> The Institute's Center for Science and Culture (CSC) counts most of the leading intelligent design advocates among its membership, most notably its program advisor Phillip E. Johnson. Johnson is one of the movement's most prolific authors and the architect of its "wedge strategy" and Teach the Controversy campaign.

The Discovery Institute and leading proponents represent intelligent design as a revolutionary scientific theory.<11><12><13><14> The overwhelming majority of the scientific community,<8> as represented by the American Association for the Advancement of Science,<15> the National Academy of Sciences<16> and nearly all scientific professional organizations, firmly rejects these claims, and insist that intelligent design is not valid science, its proponents having failed to conduct an actual scientific research program.<8> This has led the movement's critics to state that intelligent design is merely a public relations campaign and a political campaign.<17>

The movement's de facto legal arm is the Thomas More Law Center. This has played a central role in defending against legal objections to the teaching of intelligent design in public school science classes, generally brought on First Amendment grounds. The center has also participated as a plaintiff to remove legal barriers to the teaching of intelligent design as science. Similar legal foundations, the Alliance Defense Fund and Quality Science Education for All (QSEA), have also litigated extensively on behalf of the movement.--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_Design_movement”

[bluedawg12]

20. Or understand the political roots of ID

There is no dispute between religion and science, really.

This is a political dispute masqaurading as a science vs. theology issue.

The rely on people's basic decency and strong support for their faith and they rely on obfuscation, because it takes so much time to get to the bottom of it all.

But now with the internet- we can dig deep quickly.

Funny, I am a product of a Catholic/Christian education for over 30 years of study and the ID isse never reared it's head. Then all of a sudden it seemd to appear. I wonder why?

I always say: follow the money.

"The Discovery Institute<9> is a conservative Christian think tank that drives the intelligent design movement.<10> The Institute's Center for Science and Culture (CSC) counts most of the leading intelligent design advocates among its membership, most notably its program advisor Phillip E. Johnson. Johnson is one of the movement's most prolific authors and the architect of its "wedge strategy" and Teach the Controversy campaign." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_Design_movement

Who is PE Johnson? Because, he was never mentioned along with Thomas Aquinas, when I was studying?


Quote
Phillip E. Johnson (born 1940) is a retired UC Berkeley law professor and author. He became a born-again Christian as a tenured professor. He is considered the father of the intelligent design movement, which criticizes the theory of evolution, and promotes intelligent design, as an alternative. Johnson also denies the predominant scientific view that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is the sole cause of AIDS (see AIDS reappraisal).

Despite having no formal background in the biological sciences, Johnson has become a prominent critic of evolutionary theory. Johnson popularized the term "intelligent design" in its current sense in his 1991 book, Darwin on Trial. He remains one of the best known advocates for intelligent design, and is considered the founder of the intelligent design movement.

Johnson is best known as one of the founders of the intelligent design movement, principal architect of the Wedge Strategy, author of the Santorum Amendment, and one of the ID movement's most prolific authors.

Johnson describes the wedge strategy thusly:

"We are taking an intuition most people have (the belief in God) and making it a scientific and academic enterprise. We are removing the most important cultural roadblock to accepting the role of God as creator." Johnson, Enlisting Science to Find the Fingerprints of a Creator. The Los Angeles Times. March, 2001.
"Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools."<10>
"This isn't really, and never has been a debate about science. It's about religion and philosophy."<11>
"So the question is: "How to win?" That’s when I began to develop what you now see full-fledged in the "wedge" strategy: "Stick with the most important thing" —the mechanism and the building up of information. Get the Bible and the Book of Genesis out of the debate because you do not want to raise the so-called Bible-science dichotomy. Phrase the argument in such a way that you can get it heard in the secular academy and in a way that tends to unify the religious dissenters. That means concentrating on, "Do you need a Creator to do the creating, or can nature do it on its own?" and refusing to get sidetracked onto other issues, which people are always trying to do."<32>
The objective is to convince people that Darwinism is inherently atheistic, thus shifting the debate from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the non-existence of God. From there people are introduced to 'the truth' of the Bible and then 'the question of sin' and finally 'introduced to Jesus.' <33>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_E._Johnson

Read about the Discovery Insititue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_Institute

Read about: the institute's founder and president, Bruce Chapman and Harvard roommate George Gilder

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

Quote
Chapman became active in politics through the Seattle Young Republicans, and became a member of the United States Republican Party. He was elected to the Seattle City Council in 1971. In 1975, he was appointed Secretary of State for the state of Washington. He campaigned for the office of Governor of Washington in 1980, but ultimately did not win the Republican nomination.

Chapman was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the position of Director of the United States Census Bureau and served in that role from 1981 until 1983. Between 1983 and 1985 he was Deputy Assistant to President Reagan and Director of the White House Office of Planning and Evaluation. From 1985 to 1988 he served in the appointed position of United States Ambassador to the United Nations Organizations in Vienna. His portfolio included nuclear proliferation, refugees, economic development, and the control of narcotics.



Read about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gilder

Quote
George F. Gilder (born November 29, 1939, in New York City) is an American writer, techno-utopian intellectual and co-founder of the Discovery Institute. His 1981 bestseller Wealth and Poverty advanced a practical and moral case for capitalism during the early months of the Reagan Administration.

In the 1970s Gilder established himself as a critic of feminism and government welfare policies; he argued they eroded the "sexual constitution" that socialized men as fathers and providers. In the 1990s he became an enthusiastic evangelist of technology and the Internet through several books and his newsletter the Gilder Technology Report.

Gilder bought the conservative political monthly magazine The American Spectator from its founder R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. in summer 2000. The magazine had been experiencing financial difficulties arising out of its investigation of the Clintons, the Arkansas Project, supported by conservative philanthropist Richard Mellon Scaife. Gilder switched the magazine content from politics to technology.<11>

Experiencing his own financial problems in 2002 almost two years later<12> Gilder sold the Spectator back to Tyrrell.<13>


It's fine to discuss politics and religion, but I don't want my faith nor my understanding of science to be controlled by political operatives- not from the right- not form the left.

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

Quote
Support for Richard Nixon
Scaife gained notoriety for making an end-run around weak campaign finance laws to donate US$ $990,000 to the 1972 re-election campaign of President Richard Nixon. Scaife was not charged with a crime, but about $45,000 went to a fund linked to the Watergate scandal. Scaife later said he was repulsed by the scandal and refused to speak with Nixon after 1973. Following Duggan's suicide and then Watergate, Scaife shifted his political giving from politicians' campaigns to anti-communist research groups, legal defense funds, and publications.


Opposition to Bill Clinton
Scaife's publications were substantially involved in coverage against then-President Bill Clinton.

Scaife was the major backer of The American Spectator, whose Arkansas Project set out to find facts about Clinton and in which Paula Jones' accusations of sexual harassment against Clinton were first widely publicized.
In a 1999 series of articles on Scaife and foundations that support conservative causes, the Washington Post named a close Scaife associate, Richard Larry, and not Scaife himself as the man who drove the Arkansas Project.



For any one intrested here is a quick look at evolution theories. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution

[bluedawg12]

21. Ask them what part of science they would be willing to discard?

Funny, how we all probably agree about freedom and love of this country but somehow come at it from around a different angle.

Let me say this about teaching evolution as a theory. At least we have stopped saying we “believe” in it.

Yes, that’s the basis of science is re-examining it again and again. But since evolution biology is not really one theory- not since Darwin- it’s now a group of sciences, which should we re–examine?

Here are some of the principles of science that go into the theory of evolution of species:

Heredity.DNA structure.
Genetic variation and Population genetics.
Mutation
Recombination
Horizontal gene transfer
Population genetics
Mechanisms: There are three basic mechanisms of evolutionary change: natural selection, genetic drift, and gene flow.
Gene flow
Adaptation
Co-evolution
Co-operation
Speciation
Extinction
...
What should we re-examine? Heredity? Should we stop looking at the genetic basis of say breast cancer?

Should we stop trying to understand how environmentally induced mutations cause lung cancer?

Do we really want to pretend that genetics is a theory when common bacteria respond to anti-biotics, go through a process of natural selection and mutation and develop into a superbug like the recent infections of MRSA in young athletes?

Frankly, I don’t give a flying-gerbil that a scientist cannot draw a turtle with four elephants on his back, as long as he/she can help identify and reverse the disease process causing my mothers dementia, or your child’s autism, or my nieghbors lung cancer.

We haven’t “cured” all disease because there is no such thing as “disease” there are many diseases and many cancers and all of them are being worked on by “big science” it’s still our last best hope, to quote another SF writer.

It's very fashionable to be against science and scientists these days- and as self defeating as it was when I ran across strident left wing anti-American youth in the 1960's. They seemed stuck on stupid.
......

Here’s what alarms me about ID or CS:

It’s anti-American. It's self interested politics-at it's worst and most destructive- by a few of the cynical intellgencia.

Yup. It does not protect religion it wants to impose one religious view ( more poiltical than religious) on others. It promotes sectarian division in this great nation.

Unless, of course someone wants to tell me that being a Catholic is not a worthy faith?

Or that religious sectarianism has worked out so well in other countries?

It is anti-science, by calling people into a distracting war to defend “their” faith against sham attacks from “science” it creates a silly stereotype of science and scientists as secularist, materialist, humanist...etc.etc.

Well let’s look. America’s strength has been built on innovation, science, and technological strength.

Bell, Edison, Ford, the Manhattan Project, Microsoft, off world space travel. If we don’t encourage young people to study science ( “you scientists”) and math and engineering, we will not remain a pre-eminent power in the world for long.

We already lag behind other nations in the sciences, let’s not, as a great nation, rot from with-in, with an adulation for mindless celebrity and fame and money and a distrust of our own brains and ingenuity and sell our future for sectarian division.

These political operatives who push ID and CD, tell me, how will that help your kid get a job in an ever competitive world market?

Will teaching ID as a science help them keep their job from going to overseas engineers and scientists?

Will ID help them find a cure for cancer, or any of the hundreds of disease that have a genetic component and future treatment?

Oh no, it’s not the mention of our Creator or Genesis that is vexing, like I said, I have been taught that at schools I chose to go to as a kid. It’s the dumbing down of people by attacking science and thus attacking our future.

What did these 60 year old relics, that’s who concocted this stuff in the 1990's, not theologians not biologists, what did these cynical baby boomers ever do for you, me or your family?


Should we teach Creation and Genesis? Yes. Somewhere. I got mine in a parochial school, if kids go to public school, they can learn this in church or shulll programs- or gee, at home.

One of my most favorite courses was comparative religions in college. I had been exposed to my particular dogma for many years by then, and the Jesuit that taught this opened my eyes further- to have respect for other faiths.

But, when I went to chemistry or biology, we had enough to do to learn the basic science materials with out some artificial controversy on top of the periodic table.

[Quantess]

23. Fantastic post! Superb!

:applause:

[MedleyMisty]

26. Why should we teach Creation and Genesis?

I mean, if you believe in it and want to tell your kids about it, okay. But as someone who grew up completely free of religion, I don't see why it needs to be taught to all kids. If you're taught myth as if it's reality, are you going to be able to understand and accept the reality of science? Maybe some people can, but as we can see just looking around at fellow Americans - it's not possible for everyone. Most people who see myth as reality see science as a threat to their view of the world and fight it tooth and nail and also want to shape public policy based on myths - like teaching Creationism as if it's reality in public schools.