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Darwin Evolving Into A Tricky Exhibit
rbochan writes "The new Darwin Exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History
has 'failed to find a corporate sponsor in the United States because American companies are anxious not to take sides in the heated debate between scientists and fundamentalist Christians over the theory of evolution' according to articles at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Telegraph, and The Register. The $US3 million needed for the exhibit was met by private charitable donations."
I guess some zealots just won't trust anything that comes from Apple. Sad, really. :)
Seriously, I don't know many Christians, even young-earth creationists, who'd actively go after companies that promoted this exhibit. Jerry Falwell's group might bitch a bit, but they do that anyway.
From the Register article:
Absolutely shameful. I'm almost ashamed to be a Christian...and I'm definitely ashamed of being an American. Exactly when was it that my country decide to abdicate rationality in favor of wanton superstition, reprehensible pseudoscience, and gross ignorance? Or was America ever rational to begin with?
I may sound rather strident on this issue, but as you'll understand, this hits rather close to home. You see, in my church there is a Sunday school class where ID is being taught as a viable alternative to evolutionary theory. Every time I hear the teacher talking about such intellectually bankrupt concepts as 'irreducible complexity' I want to scream, but I'm not sure how to approach this without alienating the rest of the church. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
What about making a balanced exhibit that companies CAN support without losing business, and letting people viewing the exhibit come to their own conclusions? I personally would find a Scofield/Darwin/Coppe exhibit to be very enlightening- even if I think the evidence behind Darwin (Spontaneous Genesis) and Coppe (Intelligent Design) would knock Scofield (Young Earth Creationism) all hollow (but then again, that's how it should be isn't it, since this is in historical order of theories proposed?)
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
None of the high tech companies can belly up to the bar and pick up the tab? That's just sad. I especially think the biotech companies have a duty to pick sides here. Where would some of them be without genetic engineering, proof of evolution if I've ever seen it? Genzyme, Biogen I'm looking at you! Or a company like Intel. What are christians going to give up computers because a chip maker sponsored the right side of the debate? Not after what the Vatican just said. So a small handful of fanatics clinging to dogma are going to push us all around with threats of boycots. I believe that's part of the definition of terrorism.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
Unfortunately, you're in the minority. The aggregate spending by religious extremist rednecks most likely far, far exceeds that which you (and other intelligent people) spend. Even if you'd deal with a company that helped fund such an exhibit, it is quite plausible that they'd lose many times that gain if there were a boycott by the religious factions.
You are correct about the most long-lived civilizations placing an emphasis on education. That has been shown historically time and time again. Such civilizations fail when their focus switches from education and development towards combat and religious extremism.
It may not be a pleasant idea at first, but many academics should consider leaving the US for greener pastures. Many European and Asian countries would gladly welcome true scholars from America who wish to advance knowledge, rather than fool around with religious fundamentalism. The standard of living will most likely be acceptable, and the cultures often far more becoming of scientific progress.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I am quite embarrased to count these people in my faith. Also I would like to point out that the pope has stated that the Bible is completely compatable with evolution.
I think what you're searching for here is "anonymous donors," which is silly. Hell, even here in Boston we have the Hayden Planetarium and the Mugar Omni Theatre - fantastic features of the Boston Museum of Science that were built and are supported by the foundations which they are named after. The only reason these philanthropists can do what they do is because the causes they support feature their names prominently, and the notariety filters back to them in the form of support, assistance, and respect by the public. ,p>
The money has to come from somewhere, and outside of an independently wealthy individual who seeks nothing but the ability to see these kinds of spectacles on display to the public, something needs to be provided in exchange for or in appreciation of the funding received typically. You'll have a hard time finding people, no matter how generous they may be, who are willing to displace a large chunk of their finances for no recognition. They sponsor these events for the same reason companies do.
show me a bacteria that has become a fish
Go fishing.
Catch a fish.
There you go.
(Okay, that was a flip answer. Here's a serious one.)
The timescale for major evolutionary change in multicellular life is so enormous that we're not going to see bacteria evolving into fish. However, I've noticed that when creationists use this argument, which turns up in many different forms, they have no idea how diverse microbial life actually is. When you say "they evolve, but they remain a bacteria," I think you have no idea just how different from each other various forms of bacteria actually are. There's more difference, in fact, between various strains of bacteria that we have observed evolving into each other than there is between a fish and a human being.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
He had an anti-religious agenda? Great! I like this guy more and more! I mean, we all know that religion in all it's forms is a bunch of bullshit. Staggering, blatant bullshit. Bullshit of the highest order!
I hope these Christian idiots cry out more and more because we're finally starting to see what these people really are. The more they bellow out, the more intelligent people will just shake their heads and move on with their lives. This will be the death-nell for religion and it's about time. It's time for these idiots to grow up and stop believing in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and God and for them to STAY THE FUCK OUT OF MY LIFE. I was one for tolerance. For letting people do what they wish and believe in what they wish in the privacy of their own homes. But now this minority...yes they're in a minority...of Christian assholes is now effecting my life, and in a very negative way.
It's time we take anyone that's religious and start treating them as if they had a mental illness. Stop giving these morons any air-time. Who the fuck cares if Billy Graham(and no, I don't care if I spelled his name right) had a vision about this country. If you have visions, that's an illness! Don't you get it? If God talks to you, you need to be on medication.
Yes, I know I'm going to be modded down to flame or troll or whatever. I don't care. I'm sick of this shit.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Sadly, this is nothing new. KCET, the producing station of "Cosmos" series almost went bankrupt back in the 80s because they had a hard time securing corporate underwriters for that series.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Please don't blame/insult the rednecks. Generally the religious extremists think they are above the rednecks. On top of that, my cousin who has talked about himself being a redneck is the least religious extremist on my mom's side of the family besides me. My father's side of the family is mostly Catholics, so they've got the religious side down, but apparently the pope has come down on the side of evolution. My mom's side was Catholic, but have mostly scattered to various apparently unaffiliated churches.
As an aside, intelligent design has many interesting philosophical points, and that's where it belongs, philosopy, not biology. Unfortunately Philosopy education in the United States is poor as well, which contributes to the problem.
I don't think he's talking about ordinary individuals using a large chunk of their finances, but something along the lines of a fundraiser: many people donating, say, $5-100 -- a few generous people donating more, but most donating rather small amounts that simply add up. If pledge drives work for PBS, why can't something similar work here?
Liberty in your lifetime
There is no point arguing in support of evolution if you haven't taken the time to even look at the claims of your opponents. IDists make a distinction between micro- and macroevolution and see the evolution of bacteria in response to antibodies, for example, as an example of microevolution at work. If you don't know this then you make yourself look as much of a fool as them. (Well, maybe not quite as much of a fool, but a bit of a fool anyway.)
China is commonly estimated to have been unified around 2000 years ago, with records existing of (possibly concurrent) kingdoms in China going back to possibly 2000 BC.
Before and maybe during this time, there existed city states and small settlements, which given the size of the landmass were likely to be linguistically, culturally and ethnically diverse.
If you call that kind of entity a society contiguous with unified China, then you might as well call pre-historic Europe a society contiguous with the Roman Empire. However I think it makes more sense to make the distinction, and say that what we think of as Chinese civilisation today dates back either 2000 or at most 3500-4000 years.
With regards to holes. There's lots of articles written by detractors of evolutionary theory that talk about all sorts of holes and having read them, the holes *THEY* talk about are merely holes due to their own ignorance having not read up on the subject they're critisizing. I've read so many articles citing topics on which evolutionary theory has not given answers then picked up several books in my shelves and found answers to those topics. The main flaw seems to be in thinking natural selection IS evolutionary theory, but it's not. Sexual selection is a prime example of an area the detractors seem to have no knowledge of (i say this based on their arguments i've read on the web and in books). I've seen these same ignorances wildly quoted as holes again and again. Promoting the idea of Intelligent Design by playing on peoples ignorances just doesn't seem very christian to me.
Anyway, since when is a hole in one theory any proof of another. Most Intelligent Design arguments are based on this most simple of logical fallacy. A hole in evolutionary theory does not in any way make creationism any more likely!
And to compare evolutionary THEORY to Intelligent Design being a THEORY is equivocation and another obvious logical fallacy.
The oldest science I have direct experience with comes in the form of Qigong which is an ancient medicinal discipline dating back to at least 4000 years ago. Then again, the modern "scientific" medical community has laughed derisively and dismissed 4000 years of such "science" as nonsense. Things have begun to change recently largely do to the preponderance of anecdotal evidence citing dramatically improved health that correlates with Qigong. As a scientist, I am not saying it is causal; I am just saying there is enough of a correlation that people have stopped laughing.
So China has had a scientific tradition for 4000 years, in which case, they may win the prize for longest lasting scientific civilization, or if you are one of the derisive laughers they are just barely stepping into the scientific world and Europe with only a couple hundred years headstart which is nothing to a civilization that has spanned 4000 years. Then again, many different governments have come and gone in China in that time. Has the society survived that? I'd say that as a nation, the Chinese have had a continuous cultural identity that entire time so, yes.
As far as intelligent design goes, these people are not saying that the scientific method is crap. Not as far as I can tell, and if some are, they are the minority idiots that no one needs to worry about because they are so incapable of rational thought they are not likely a threat to anyone other than themselves. The smart people that support intelligent design are just saying that they believe there are gaps too large in the evolutionary path to be accounted for by Darwinian evolution, as in: over time mutation and natural selection lead to species differentiation in harmony with the organisms habitat. They are not saying that science is crap. They are saying that they feel there are gaps in science that need to be accounted for and are not yet.
I think every scientist worth his or her salt would readily acknowledge that there are gaps all over the place in science. That is what drives us to further discovery. Our curiosity about that gaps. And the intelligent design people are right, if they are saying there are gaps in evolutionary theory. Damn right there are. Did Darwin figure out every evolutionary trick up Nature's sleeve in his lifetime? Have we filled in all the gaps in a couple hundred years, keeping in mind that Nature has been playing this game for hundreds of millions of years at least? No way.
If we some day find a periodic genetic record of a protozoan evolving into homo sapiens, then yes, we could certainly make a very conclusive argument. But I think anyone will agree that it is absurdly improbable that we can do that. Which means that scientists have to take a leap of faith just like any religious person. Every theory or law of physics is a leap of faith. "What if this is true," asks a scientist. Then they go devise real world experiments to show conclusively that the supposition is true. Intelligent design people are saying that Darwin's theory is not supported by enough real world experiments to show a protazoan evolving into you.
Can't really argue with them. Any scientist that discounts God because there is no experiment to conclusively demonstrate existance is as dumb as a person discounting science because it does not conclusively show that my Great^10^100 Grandfather was an amoeba.
I don't think anyone can deny evolution. No matter whom you talk to. But there is a fundamental difference in evolution. There is macro-evolution and micro-evolution. Micro evolution is the evolving on an animal to better adapt to its habitat. Albeit for a food source, or in the example of the snoe shoe hare turning white when winter comes, and back to its natural fur color for the summer. That's Micro-Evolution.
Macro is the thought of a monkey growing feathers, lighter bones, and now flying and being reclassified as a bird, or a new species. (not that stupid gliding monkey.. still a monkey.. see the difference?)
There is no example of animals do that, nor are there fossil records. That IS a big gap.
But that's not the outlying issue of creationism... Yeah yeah.. you get the whole adam, ever crap.. whatever.
The final though on creationism is: Who created all this? Or more so, how did it get here? It is regretfully a chicken or egg type of scenario though.
How was the universe created? Big bang... Ok... from what? Atoms? Ok.. where did they come from?
It will keep falling back to "where did they come from?" Rocks, particles, gas, atoms.. etc. Had to be formed somehow, and somewhere, and didn't just appear magically right? Or did they?
Creationism is bigger then some fool put a fish on this earth... It's putting a theory to (if you agree or not) how all this got here.
As a scientist, you keep going back on how it was all created... but eventually you will hit a point when you ask yourself "How did it get there, and where did it come from?" that you can no longer answer scientifically, or at least with what you and I can understand in our current patterns of thought.
One day we will be able to answer it... one day. But until then.....
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
Not trying to get in the whole debate, but I am tired of people acting like there is no such thing as a Christian who happens to believe in the fundamentals of the Bible and who also happens to be a scienties. They are not mutually exclusive.
But, my favorite is the last line: As for myself, I trust the God in the bible much more than I'll trust any group of scientists alive today.
You believe the obscure ramblings of desert tribesmen, as transcribed through the Romans and various medieval zealots, over the sincere--if sometimes flawed--explorations of scientists? Really?
Well they got a few things right, notably electricity, computational machines, and the other dozen or so failures of science that allowed you to post such a flawed response in the first place.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
Last time I asked Johova Witness' at my door whether slavery was inherently wrong, one walked away pissed, and the other said "No".
Bird flu: Doesn't exist at the moment in a form that can be passed from human to human. The fear is the virus will mutate to gain this ability.
Poodles: Weren't around at the beginning of time, and now they are. Most other breeds of dogs we see on the street are the same. Many of the varieties of flowers in your garden likewise came into existance in recordable history, some within the past 50 years.
Can I reduce the argument against evolution to something as flippant as likening it to refuting the existance of poodles?
On ID theory, it seems like very little new ground is uncovered than was in William Paley's teleological Watchmaker analogy http://members.aol.com/plweiss1/paley.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy of 1802, and of William Derham's of 1696.
There are several fossils linking small dinosaurs with birds. You won't ever find a monkey turning into a bird though - they've got the wrong bones. Maybe a tiny, light monkey could evolve first.
You want a monkey that'll fly? Not going to happen with the current crop. What about a monkey that learned to walk upright and made a complex civilisation? Got good records there, but still no perfect fossil line.
You could look at the evolution of whales from mammals not unlike dogs. Lots of fossils there too.
The problem with a perfect fossil record is that bones don't last so well. Only ones that are fossilised last more than a few thousand years, and there are few of those that are found.
As to the Big Bang theory - the theory is that time itself was produced from the event. Asking what happened before it isn't a real question, because there was no time for it to happen 'in.' It's hard to think about, but there's no reason why such complex issues should make sense to us without study.
After the event, matter coalesced out of the energy, as did the fundamental forces of the Universe. There are good theories describing how that occurred as well.
Creationism is more concerned with the "Why" than the "How", which is where Science comes in. The problem we have is when a Creationist states how things occurred, which inevitably conflicts with Science at some point.
In related news, according to this article, the University of Kansas will be offering a course on ID and teaching it the way it should be taught; as religion not science. Needless to say the ID proponents are none too happy.