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Texas Creationist Museum Facing Extinction
gattaca writes "A small Texas museum that teaches creationism is counting on the auction of a prehistoric mastodon skull to stave off extinction. The founder and curator of the Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum, which rejects evolution and claims that man and dinosaurs coexisted, said it will close unless the Volkswagen-sized skull finds a generous bidder. 'If it sells, well, then we can come another day,' Joe Taylor said. 'This is very important to our continuing.'" Meanwhile, the much larger Creation Museum in Kentucky that we discussed and toured when it opened last year seems to be thriving.
'If it sells, well, then we can come another day,' Come again?
I don't want Karma, I just want to be a smart ass. All in favor, mod me up.
Hate to be the one to break it to y'all, but evolution is pretty much just a theory too. Theory as in, not fact. (My pastor has a really good explanation of this.) What makes it better than proposing Creationism?
Think about it.
Has any fellow European of mine ever come across any serious creationists? Is this solely an American phenomenon?
... no one buy it!
Two states where I'm pretty sure you could find arguments against evolution just by looking at the local populace. I guess if they don't believe in evolution they don't feel the need to do so themselves.
today is spelling optional day.
Lets just hope it didn't procreate first!
If I bid on that fossil those creationists better start playing ball. Jesus descended from a fish and although he spread love and happiness to his diaspora of disciples he probably was the kind of person who would punch you in the arm every thirty seconds while you talked to him face to face. Jesus was a land of contrast.
I'm a Christian of the preterist nature. I believe in evolutionary forces as part of God's creation. I don't believe in a 6000-year old Earth (neither do most Jews who hold the Old Testament in a different way than many Christians do). I also think the debate of evolution versus creationism is really repugnant and a waste of time when there are so many other things we can be spending our time on (we meaning "us Christians.")
I can't even begin to count the billions of hours wasted by Christians in living life in ways completely counter to what our God teaches us. Look at the battle over the 10 Commandments, laws of the Israelites' God that have been countermanded by Christ's teaching to a much more simpler set of rules (completely love God first, completely love others second). And yet, when we dig deeper into the "Why" of modern Christian thought, we come up against the same problem that I see in those who are pro-government: we need "leaders" and we need "rules" and we need "penalties" to keep us in line.
What has happened to the powerful individual in today's society? Evolution versus creationism is a debate that strikes at the heart of my question: why is it that we need "teacher-leaders" to stick to a specific standard, rather than what the individual kid in a unique place in their specific city/society needs to be taught? I can't even understand why science is taught to ALL children, along with higher level maths, when the kids today can barely count, let alone read or speak properly. I had a 20-something in my town use a calculator at a checkout line 2 weeks ago when I gave her $21.01 for a $6.06 charge. Unbelievable.
Creationism and evolution are both articles of faith, and really have no purpose for MOST students. Then again, I truly believe that even High School is worthless for 70% of society considering what it is churning out.
...either smite them with bankruptcy or send a saviour to the auction, their accountant has been weighing their sins and thinks a press release might help. /ducks
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Holy dog shit! Only steers and creationists come from Texas...
.... and this guy doesnt look like a steer to me!
Theory means something different in the language of science than it does in everyday speech. All of science is theory. Gravity is a theory. The 'law' of supply and demand is a theory. Theories do not pretend to be fact, but good theories accurately predict outcomes. It doesn't matter whether they are true or not, they provide us with information. Creationism is not a theory because it can not be used to predict useful information. Theories can never be proven 'true' but they can be proven not to predict things correctly. As creationism makes no predictions that can be shown to be false, it can not be disproved like a real theory can. Therefore, it is useless mental masturbation. Evolution is not, it makes useful predictions, and so far, all of them have been shown to be true. So evolution has utility, whereas creationism has none.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Score one for reality...
Does their Planetarium at the bigger museum have the sun revolving around the earth?
The KY Creation museum isn't too far away from here and everyone that I've talk to that has gone or wanted to go hasn't done so out of religious belief but out of morbid curiosity or think it's funny. Their success is the same as that of the bearded lady, or so it seems to me. Once people get over the initial shock and humor it'll fade into obscurity.
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
I sometimes wonder about the wisdom of giving free publicity to organizations like these. From my standpoint they represent an institutionalized mental illness- that of denying reality. Denying reality is certainly akin to "doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result".
I do understand the religious issues that fuel these kinds of organizations. But it has always seemed to me that since "truth" is central to any religious belief, that an attempt to derail truth through ignorance or outright deception was a horrible "sin".
With the way organizations like this adhere to biblical writing, one might be able to accuse them of having a book as "god" rather than the apparently supernatural "God of the Gaps" most people seem to engage in their spirituality.
The inerrancy of God seems plausible to me. The in inerrancy of a book seems like sheer insanity.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
If it fails, then I guess that's evolution - it wasn't fit to survive in its environment. Perhaps some nice creationist being will be kind enough to make them survive market forces.
bang goes my karma... again...
Couldn't this story have waited until AFTER they had to close?
The funny part about the original CNN article I read on this said that Heritage Auction Galleries estimated the age of the thing to be at around 40,000 years old. At least the musuem guy is letting smarter people sell the thing.
How can they sell this skull as a 40,000 year old artifact if they claim it's less than 6000 years old?
"...which rejects evolution..."
"Rejects evolution" has lots of possible senses, and I'm wondering if the museum asserts:
a) Rejects that evolutionary processes occur
b) Rejects that evolutionary processes exhaustively explain human existence
c) Rejects the premise that evolution leads by logical inference to an atheistic position
Anyone know what specifically the museum asserts? My usage subset above, in my mind, ranges from "indefensible" to "very reasonable"--and on the basis of "rejects evolution" alone I'm not sure what an appropriate response would be.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
It's about 35 miles from me on the road to Lubbock. He has some really nice fossils, but his interpretation is just plain weird. He built a huge human leg bone to show people what the "giants" would have looked like. The problem is he didn't take into account the strength of the bone and simply scaled it up to giant size. The local schools take classes on field trips to see the museum, I need to ask the high school kid that works for me what they are told when they visit. Knowing the teachers around here they teach this stuff in their class, it's shame really.
The Popes have said evolution is largely correct.
I sincerely hope that all the real natural history museums have the sense not to bid on this. Not only would they be funding an institution that opposes and mocks them, they'll be passing up the opportunity to buy the mastodon skull and everything else that this "museum" holds at bargain prices when it goes bankrupt.
Did Creationist Museums and Humans actually co-exist?
(god, I hope this shit isn't still about in a 1000 years).
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
into something like a museum of human gullibility, a museum of political credibility or some other absurdity.
"is counting on the auction of a prehistoric mastodon skull to stave off extinction."
Makes for a nice lead in, but the large gold nugget that is also being auctioned off, and expected to bring +USD$1 mil., will do a considerable bit more staving if you ask me. I can understand how a restored mastodon skull paper-weight would grab more attention leading up to said auction, however.
Say you are a legitimate museum/educational institution capable of purchasing this skull.
Do you:
a) Purchase the mastodon skull to preserve an excellent fossil and put it on display for educational value, including its true age?
b) Allow this absurdity and insult to rational intelligence that is a Creation Museum die?
Oh great and powerful wikipedia, what say ye? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory
My wife teaches middle school science. One of the curriculum requirements is for students to understand what theory and law means in science (not as detailed as the link, the kids are only 12). Oh, yeah, and she teaches in KY a few miles from the creationist museum. Ironic, eh?
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
They're starting to push it here too, albeit rather quietly for now. I noticed some bias in that direction when watching some TV programs. Though it should be noted that our most important TV stations are abused nearly daily by the pope or other religious personalities who deliberately violate our constitution by telling common people and the government what they want to be done. Other EU countries will have different mileages, I hope.
thou shalt not kill. as soon as that one is broken, it's all DOWnhill from there. get ready to get real. let yOUR conscience be yOUR guide. you can be more helpful than you might have imagined. there are still some choices. if they do not suit you, consider the likely results of continuing to follow the corepirate nazi hypenosys story LIEn, whereas anything of relevance is replaced almost instantly with pr ?firm? scriptdead mindphuking propaganda or 'celebrity' trivia 'foam'. meanwhile; don't forget to get a little more oxygen on yOUR brain, & look up in the sky from time to time, starting early in the day. there's lots going on up there.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071229/ap_on_sc/ye_climate_records;_ylt=A0WTcVgednZHP2gB9wms0NUE
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080108/ts_alt_afp/ushealthfrancemortality;_ylt=A9G_RngbRIVHsYAAfCas0NUE
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/opinion/31mon1.html?em&ex=1199336400&en=c4b5414371631707&ei=5087%0A
is it time to get real yet? A LOT of energy is being squandered in attempts to keep US in the dark. in the end (give or take a few 1000 years), the creators will prevail (world without end, etc...), as it has always been. the process of gaining yOUR release from the current hostage situation may not be what you might think it is. butt of course, most of US don't know, or care what a precarious/fatal situation we're in. for example; the insidious attempts by the felonious corepirate nazi execrable to block the suns' light, interfering with a requirement (sunlight) for us to stay healthy/alive. it's likely not good for yOUR health/memories 'else they'd be bragging about it? we're intending for the whoreabully deceptive (they'll do ANYTHING for a bit more monIE/power) felons to give up/fail even further, in attempting to control the 'weather', as well as a # of other things/events.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=video+cloud+spraying
dictator style micro management has never worked (for very long). it's an illness. tie that with life0cidal aggression & softwar gangster style bullying, & what do we have? a greed/fear/ego based recipe for disaster. meanwhile, you can help to stop the bleeding (loss of life & limb);
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/28/vermont.banning.bush.ap/index.html
the bleeding must be stopped before any healing can begin. jailing a couple of corepirate nazi hired goons would send a clear message to the rest of the world from US. any truthful look at the 'scorecard' would reveal that we are a society in decline/deep doo-doo, despite all of the scriptdead pr ?firm? generated drum beating & flag waving propaganda that we are constantly bombarded with. is it time to get real yet? please consider carefully ALL of yOUR other 'options'. the creators will prevail. as it has always been.
corepirate nazi execrable costs outweigh benefits
(Score:-)mynuts won, the king is a fink)
by ourselves on everyday 24/7
as there are no benefits, just more&more death/debt & disruption. fortunately there's an 'army' of light bringers, coming yOUR way. the little ones/innocents must/will be protected. after the big flash, ALL of yOUR imaginary 'borders' may blur a bit? for each of the creators' innocents harmed in any way, there is a debt that must/will be repaid by you/us, as the perpetrators/minions of unprecedented evile, will not be available. 'vote' with (what's left in) yOUR wallet, & by your behaviors. help bring an end to unprecedented evile's manifestati
"..."The Word" is inerrant in the Bible, but the Bible is not The Word!"
I have seen the Light and the Light is not bright!
Inerrant is as inerrant does, Brother! Amen, pitipat and don't sit down!
The real question is why a creationist museum would use a tool of the devil, meant solely to lure people in to rejecting the idea that the Earth was created around the same time as the Predynastic period in Egypt as its centerpiece. I'd ask Kent Hovind but he's going to be in jail for tax evaison until 2015 or so.
Think of it as evolution in action...
-- L. Niven
Why not.... for once that dada21 doesn't mention Free Markets anywhere. :)
The reality is that some (read: a lot) of people need leaders to reach their full potential. Some need leaders just to get through the day. The same goes for "rules", though I do agree that "penalties" are often not the optimal way to get someone to do (or not do) something. Furthermore, a 1-1 teacher-student relationship for basic education is inefficient and impossible. As for what basic education is, consider the ever expanding body of human knowledge: in order to function at a basic level, you need to know more than you did 200 years ago.
As for your statement that creationism and evolution both being articles of faith, or that they have no purpose for most students, I'd argue that that's complete and utter nonsense. Evolution is a fact. The theory of evolution explains the why on a scientific level, while creationism explains it by assuming the bible is infallible. The purpose of both is to understand the world around you, which is critical for being an independent and powerful individual. Your argument that it is irrelevant for most students indicates that you believe that most students (and people, if you believe in life-long learning) need leaders to guide them through the world.
It seems even you understand that the powerful individual, as described in various American Myths, is the exception rather than the rule.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
This XKCD followed by this one.
Creationsists: The universe doesn't care what you think.*
*Please follow that statement by imagining me pointing and laughing, derisively, at you; for at least several hours (e.g. hahahahahahahahahahahahaha...and so on).
Evolution is a silly idea propped up by priests of science with big names and bigger egos. You don't belive it, fine, you're "unscientific", a "moron", and "just plain wrong".
Creationism is a silly extension beyond what the Bible says. You don't believe it, fine, you're "anti-God", a "moron", and "just plain wrong".
Every single Bible says God created the heavens, the earth, every and every thing else (have fun proving/disproving that this is actually what happened), but nowhere does it indicate what time table is to be used, just "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Period. It may have been one minute or 70 quadrillion eons before the next sentence.
Both camps are exercises in futility, extremism, and name-calling.
I can see why people would reject evolution. For one thing, as was pointed out by an earlier articled linked to by slashdot, it's counterintuitive. It is not consistent with our every day experience, or at least not with aspects of our experience that we recognize as having those qualities. Secondly, it can be very hard to keep up with. There are aspects of evolution that are rock solid. They're facts about things observed in the laboratory. Then there are things that are highly plausible, such as that we got here through this mechanism. But when you start making claims about specific things that "must" have occurred, you're on damn shaky ground. When humans left Africa, or IF they did, has been revised more times than I can count. When we and chimps branched from our common ancestor keeps getting revised. Now, that's all well and good, except for the fact that any time the layman comes into contact with these theories, they're STATED AS FACT. Ever watch the Discovery channel? Ever notice how none of the dinosaurs have feathers? And yet no mention is made of the fact that we now know that they do and that the original notion that they were scaly was based on assumption (we didn't have good evidence either way). Let me reiterate: Scientists tend to make bold fact-like statements about science that should never be stated that way, because they just fucking don't know! It's no wonder people think scientists are arrogant. They make bold statements and think they're right. Then they change their minds and think they're right. Scientists are never wrong! Isn't that convenient. Perhaps it's not fair to say, but the fact is that evidence supporting specifics of evolutionary theory are trivial compared to the kind of certainty we have about things like physics, chemistry, and biology of living organisms. Yet those, as with any science, are inherently uncertain. Evolutionary biologists need to get off their high horse and admit that they're stabbing in the dark.
That being said, what I cannot understand is why you would want to invoke a much more ridiculous hypothesis like creationism. It's not even a hypothesis. It's not science. It's not falsifiable. Ok, so it's certain and unchanging. I can understand that. But there's no objective evidence for it. Or at least, the evidence there is does not point in the direction of creation than any other alternative, so choosing creationism is arbitrary. So, when it comes down to it, many people probably choose creationism for two reasons: (1) tradition, and (2) because the scientists leave them feeling like a chump who trusted them, just to be betrayed when the scientist changed his mind (while being completely apologetic about having been wrong).
See, scientists are role models. Yes, I realize that they're just presenting the hypothesis that best fits the evidence (sometimes; sometimes they have personal or political agendas), but they need to be damn careful about how they present their theory and explain better their uncertainties and alternative explanations.
Oh, and the scientists who try to use evolution to disprove God are just as screwed up as the creationists who try to use God to prove evolution. God and evolution are not mutually exclusive.
If one looks at the history of the argument, it came to prominence around the time of WWI, and mostly starts as a critique against Social Darwinism.
It also serves as a critique against the Nazi belief of the Master Race, and so on.
In this regard, I suspect then the reason it's mostly an American phenomena has to do with the social structures we live under. In much of Europe, there still is a monarchy even if it is relegated to ceremonial status. So there's a inherent acceptance that some people are born just better than other people. The exact opposite condition is true in America, as rather there is a kneejerk reaction against any suggestion that having the right parents makes you better.
This is obviously over simplifying it, but in discussions I have had with evolution opponents, this is the heart of the issue even if most cannot articulate it or do not understand it themselves.
See, evolution does work...
Dr.E.
Eric Aitala
www.f1m.com
I can't think of any logical reason you would pay with $21.01 for something that costs $6.06
They go bust, then someone buys the property and makes a true science museum of it. That would be a wonderful example of evolution at work.
I'd call it the "Ha Ha Science Museum"
if you do not believe in evolution, then please reject using all antibiotics, vaccines, and antivirals. All of these depend on evolution of microbes. I think that this would be the best use of a darwin award.
Sadly, the rest of us will see evolution at its best(worst?). Major Bacterias are gaining antibiotic resistance.
I mean that silly skull can't be older than 6,000 years, obviously not worth much. ;)
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
It's obviously not a day over 6000 years old.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It means scientific theory, not something ai thought about while have a few bears with my buddies.
Evolution is real, it makes predictions, is falsifiable.
There are warehouses of evidence.
Plus, your pasture should probably actually study the history of the Bible. It becomes very obvious, even at a cursory glance, that Genesis isn't a literal book; Which would explain why Genesis I and II contridict each other about creation.
Gravity is also a Scientific Theory.
Evolution isn't an attack on religion, it's just another piece of evidence that the Genesis creation stories are a fable. Also, getting hung up on the creation stories MISSES THE POINT.
I suggest you read your Bible, cover to cover. Take some notes.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
See this reprint of an 2006 article published in Science, in particular this graph.
Basically, only Turkey does worse than the U.S. in terms of what fraction of the public accepts that humans evolved from earlier species of animals.
> I had a 20-something in my town use a calculator at a checkout
> line 2 weeks ago when I gave her $21.01 for a $6.06 charge.
> Unbelievable
Perhaps she was calculating the odds that a seemingly educated customer would make a big deal about getting 95 cents instead of 94.
Once Mike Huckabee is elected president and amends the Constitution to "be with GOD" it will be my sworn duty to hunt each of you down and have you burned at the stake for your heretical treason.
Scaring children with hell is fun!
Worship me, or I will torture you forever, love, God.
--
And oh, if you look it up, actually, the Winter solstice is the reason for the season.
Why do creationists only believe in the 9 commandments? I thought they wanted to get through the gates of heaven, yet seem only to want instead to bear false witness. What a useless bunch of hypocrites and thats no theory its a fact!
As for theories, you seem not to understand that in science theories, like the "theory of natural selection" that are most useful to scientific understanding are hypotheses that have been tested repeatedly and found to be highly predictive. Theories survive in science only if scientists can not disprove them and instead find that "the facts" are rather explained by them or are constitent with them despite many independent tests.
Darwin's theory is so valuable scientifically, because it explains virtually ALL of modern biology and indeed forms the basis of what we know in biology. There are NO FACTS about Biology that are inconsistent with Darwin's theory of natural selection, except perhaps antiquated ideas Darwin may have had about the precise mechanisms of how characterisitcs of organisms are inherited. However, these do not repudiate the main tenants of his theory.
If you get sick you might prefer to see someone who is trained in medicine, which is based on biology and an understanding of how natural selection has created the human body rather than your local pastor or witch doctor. Of course, the choice is yours, since afterall you may think there are 100's of virgins up there waiting for you.
Best of luck in your choice.
There are three meanings of theory, and people frequently misunderstand them.
..." This is the meaning that creationists usually think they are arguing against. But in science, it is never correct to use theory in this sense, though even scientists speaking casually often use it like that. The correct word for this in science is "hypothesis". It is certainly not the correct definition for the phrase "the theory of evolution".
(Theory defitition 1): "supposition" or "hunch". This is the use in the sentence "If my theory is correct, then
(Theory definition 2): "a description of a process that explains observed facts". These vary in their degree of supportability, and sometimes, multiple warring theories are supported to different degrees by existing experiment. For example, there are at the moment multiple theories about what process gives matter mass. Examples: The theory that matter is atomic, i.e. not continuously divisible. The theory that natural selection coupled with variation leads to evolution. The theory that particles have mass because of their interaction with the Higgs field.
(Theory definition 3): "a body of knowledge and understanding that supports much other past and future work"; it describes an entire framework of internally consistent principles, understanding and data. Meanings used in this sense:
* Atomic theory (the understanding of the structure of the atom and it's constituent particles and interactions that underlies all of nuclear science and chemistry)
* Evolutionary theory (the understanding of how organisms and species give rise to one another, and the genetic mechanisms thereof that underlies all of biology)
It's instructive to note that evolutionary theory and atomic theory are approximately equivalent in terms of evidentiary support and use in their fields. Both arose as type-2 definitions around the same time (mid 19th-century), supplanting prior theories (matter is continuous, God created all organisms at one time and they have been unchanged since then). Both have since then become into type 3 theories that completely underly the relevant fields (chemistry, biology).
Religious fundamentalists don't understand the difference between these definitions, and they think evolution is a "type 1" theory, more properly called a hypothesis. It is not. Evolution is the entire framework of over a century of biological research. Attempting to understand research in biology while rejection evolution is like attempting to understand chemistry while rejecting the atom. Or attempting to understand higher math while rejecting arithmetic. It's flat-out ludicrous.
(This is a repost of my statement from the last time we had this debate. I will keep reposting it, hoping to educate a few people eventually.)
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
that's too bad. survival of the fittest i guess.
wait, that sounds familiar
The early christian church inherited their metaphysics from the plantonists, as anyone who has read Augustine's 'Confessions' knows. The emphasis on unchanging enternal and transcendent forms in Christian metaphysics is really a hold-over from the greek pagan influence upon the early christians, just as the emphasis on telology and final causation in physics was a hold over from Aristotle's metaphysics and epistemology. Now final causation and telology was purged from physics by Descartes, and telology and final causation and unchanging forms was purged from biology by Darwin. A real christian - one who understands its intelectual history - knows that evolution is the proper christian view of biology and that creationism and unchanging forms in biology is pagan. There is no necessity to interpret the 'each after its own kind' from genesis in accordance with Plato's or Aristotle's metaphysics. Unfortunatly most creationism advocates or lay christians know little of the intellectual and philosophical history of their own religion, and they end up looking like dumb-asses to those people who do. MB Foster's article sheds some light on the purge of telology in physics (and I would claim that Darwin does for Biology what Descartes did for physics): "The avoidance of final explanations by the physicist is not cited as a fact, but prescribed as a rule. The scientist, he [Descartes] says, ought to abjure the search for final explanations because the purposes of God are in-scrutable. This argument is an enthymeme of which the premises to be supplied are that nature is created by God, and that the activity of creation is not directed by an intelligible purpose. So that Descartes' prescription to the physicist is based upon the metaphysical implications of Christian dogma." See The Christian Doctrine of Creation and the Rise of Modern Natural Science M. B. Foster Mind, New Series, Vol. 43, No. 172 (Oct., 1934), pp. 446-468 Use JSTOR or http://www.hotlinkfiles.com/files/871262_6rahe/mbfoster.pdf%5Dmbfoster.pdf
"Any I missed?"
Yes, the commandent against bearing false witness.
>>Creationism makes no predictions.
This just simply isn't true. Creationists make predictions all the time, and they are often simpler, more accurate and require less precise asteroid collisions to make them true.
For example, in this paper, Dr. Humphreys makes predictions for the strengths of the magnetic fields for Uranus and Neptune, well before these magnetic fields were measured by the Voyager spacecraft. His predictions were "right on," whereas the predictions of evolutionists were not.
Article
Also, helium diffusion shows the earth to be 6000 years old. The levels of helium found by an evolutionist third party sent to an evolution-believing lab were correctly predicted by creationists, because they assumed that 6000 years worth of helium would have been lost.
Article
There is plenty of good science (repeatable experiments) being performed by incredibly intelligent people that would tend to disprove facets of the theory of evolution. Looking at all the evidence relating to a theory is what my science book described as good science.
Not looking at some of the evidence because you don't like it smacks of medieval "earth-is-flat" behavior. The last time we did that, it took us 1200 years to advance science. That period was called "The Dark Ages". The only difference is that it is now the scientific community that burns heretics at the stake of career ruination...
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
I think I got it. The powerful desire for creationists. If evolution does not exist there is no reason you can't marry your sister, or first cousin, etc...
The fact that you yourself are ostensibly unable to comprehend the idea of "faith", which underpins all religions, doesn't mean that anyone who holds religious beliefs is "uneducated" or "right on the bottom". In fact, I'm sure there are a lot of people who are much more intelligent than you are, who much more thoroughly understand evolutionary theory than you do, and who are much more generally enlightened and educated than you, but who still hold religious views which might properly be called "creationist" views.
There's a lot of this sort of bigotry--apparently rooted in insecurity--on Slashdot. In the end, though, you end up looking more like an ignorant, black-or-white thinker than the people who you intend to mock, but whose views to choose to caricature rather than actually understand. That's not to say that there aren't some hard-core "creationists" who are irrational, but they are certainly a minority amid a sea of people who are more-or-less intelligent than you but who believe in God, and you don't allow for that at all. That's why you sound like an idiot to me.
Funny their vaunted fossils will likely end up in the hands of those they've sworn to oppose.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Salesperson: "That's $1.89"
Dilbert: "Just for simplicity, I'll give you $7.14. As an Engineer, I feel a professional responsibility to make things easy for people"
Salesperson: "...carry the three??" (as he counts with his fingers)
...
Hell, just saying "how Europe thought before that whole Darwin guy showed up" should be enough. Given that you seem to believe that prior to Darwin's theory of natural selection, all European scientists were young-Earth creationists who believed that species were eternally unchanging; I'm not sure that you should be criticising others for lacking knowlege of history...!
Suffice to say that that was most definitely not the case. Google 'Lamarckism', for example, and 'orthogenesis'.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Not everyone who questions evolution is a biblical, 6-day, creationist.
...
c) Rejects the premise that evolution leads by logical inference to an atheistic position I don't think anyone has ever seriously asserted that accepting evolution necessarily implies atheism. Even Dawkins, outspoken atheistic evolutionary biologist that he is, doesn't try to assert that (he only uses evolution as evidence that it is not *necessary* to invoke a deity in order to explain the universe_.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
someone should nominate them for Darwin's award.
I think I figured it out. Both are right - the Creationists and the Evolutionary followers. I argue only about the time scale. Assuming both are right, that is, life is 6000 years old and 4 billion years old, how can it be? It is possible if the scale of time, that is, how long is a year?, how is a second measured?, different from each other. If you take the time taken by the Milky Way to rotate once around its axis as a year (why not?), well, then the Earth is, sorry for the pseudorandom number, 10 years old. Taking the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom as one second is JUST ONE WAY of defining time. I hope this solves all the misunderstanding.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
I am what many here would consider a "creationist." I have a personal relationship with God and think that the evidence at hand shows that this world and everything on it wouldn't be here if it weren't for a designer of some sort. To the news from this article I have the following to say:
GOOD! CLOSE THE DOORS, DESTROY THE JUNK "SCIENCE!" PLEASE!
This kind of person isn't a "fundamentalist" or "creationist" or any of the so called "conservative" labels; this kind of person is one thing and one thing only: Stupid. They are the kind of person that upon finding yourself allied with them you find yourself looking for anti-stoopid soap. The only thing you have to say to them is, "GET OFF MY SIDE!!!"
Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. I cannot wait for that idiotic waste of real estate to have it's doors closed permanently and the pertinent materials sold off to *real* museums and institutions of higher learning.
I have no tag line
OK, I give up. I can't take the disconnect anymore. I am officially calling it quits on the religious denomination of my upbringing. Help me get started on picking a new denomination: what's theologically similar to Southern Baptist but doesn't insist on provably incorrect biology?
No, atheism isn't an option. I still believe in God and Jesus, but I believe that they're getting pretty pissed at people insisting that the sky is hot pink because they're misinterpreting an allegorical passage as factual.
How about it, Slashdot? Which church welcomes scientists?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I prefer using (EOM) to (NT) due to the Microsoft NT operating system.
-- Boycott Shell
until they go under then buy it off the auction for 20 bucks.
--- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.
Mrs. Garrison: Now I, for one, think evolution is a bnuch of BULLCRAP. But I've been told I have to teach it anyway. It was thought up by Charles Darwin and it goes something like this: [goes up to a large poster of evolution and begins pointing things out with her pointer.] In the beginning we were all fish. Okay? Swimming around in the water. And then one day a couple of fish had a retard baby, and the retard baby was different, so it got to live. So Retard Fish goes on to make more retard babies, and then one day, a retard baby fish crawled out of the ocean with its [waves his left hand limply] mutant fish hands... and it had buttsex with a squirrel or something and made this. [points to a rodent] retard frog squirrel, and then that had a retard baby which was a... monkey fish-frog... And then this monkey fish-frog had buttsex with that monkey, and... that monkey had a mutant retard baby that screwed another monkey and... that made you! So there you go! You're the retarded offspring of five monkeys havin' buttsex with a fish-squirrel! Congratulations!
as much as i would love to purchase this skull for a local museum, this place needs to close. Its time these morons realize evolution is correct.
Which is a pretty good argument for why there is no designer (first comment has permalink). Monotremes are really, really, *really* weird creatures. They branched off from other mammals *very* early, way before the placental/marsupial split. They have bits and pieces of pre-mammal, for instance from the Wikipedia article:
I mean, 10 sex chromosomes? Bits of bird DNA? Talk about a throwback, or at least something that managed to evolve to the modern day from something that wasn't-quite-a-mammal, at least as we think of them today.
I agree, there is no designer.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
This constant harping that, "Evolution is just a theory" shows a dire lack of scientific understanding. The common usage of "theory" as something that is just a guess is wildly inaccurate from a scientific standpoint.
Theory, noun: a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances
Hypothesis, noun: a tentative insight into the natural world; a concept that is not verified
Evolution is a theory in the above sense. Creationism is a hypothesis. There is a gaping chasm between the two. Evolution is well-supported by existing empirical evidence. It is, as all scientific "truths" are, the best explanation we currently have of the facts that we have observed. As with all scientific explanations, Evolution encourages continued research and revision as new data are discovered. Creationism, in addition to lacking the external evidence that Evolution enjoys, restricts the incentive to continue research and to revise the hypothesis over time.
In short, Evolution explains the observed facts as best we can at this time. It remains open to revision as new data are discovered. It does not purport to be "true for all time", and, in fact, no scientific explanation can make such claims.
Volkswagen is the biggest auto manufacturer in Europe, so that must be one heck of a skull! Or did they mean a VW model? Which one?
Beauty is in the beholder of the eye.
Look, the willingness to believe a far fetched story that has no substantiation apart from a single book, the only provenance of which is questionable at best and the authority of which relies essentially on assertion by those who have the most to gain from it, is, to be kind, unbelievably stupid. Particularly when there's significant evidence that the account presented in the book is, at very least, deeply flawed, if not outright fictional.
There is absolutely no virtue to being willing to ignore rational arguments in favor of soothing traditional stories passed down from the ages. It's not bigotry, it's calling it what it is - a lot of stupidity.
Which is not to say that people who believe it are stupid, merely that they believe stupid things. And that's the central flaw in the argument that you present. Just because people who are smarter than I believe stupid things doesn't mean that those things aren't stupid. For example, James Watson (one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA) is clearly an intelligent man who's made significant contributions to science, and who still holds the idiotic belief that some races are naturally more intelligent than others owing purely to genetic reasons. The man? Smart. The belief? Stupid.
The only thing you're doing is according a specific bit of irrational stupidity a privileged place.
Also, not all religions depend on faith. Buddhism springs to mind.
How can it act apparently instantly across great distances that even photons can't reach as quickly?
It cannot. If the sun disappeared this instant the Earth would continue in orbit under its gravitational field for 8 minutes more: the time it takes light to travel from the sun to the Earth. In fact, rather ironically, it is the theory of relativity which, in its general form, explains gravity that also requires that information is never transmitted faster than the speed of light. So far from gravity having instantaneous action at a distance, the study of gravity has shown us that nothing can have instantaneous action at a distance...at least if you you like to have cause precede effect.
Most museums, even onces dedicated to fairly trivial subjects, have a mission to educate people about their subject. It seems to me that the Creation Museum might be the only museum who's mission to actually actively uneducated people. Their mission is that visitors will leave dumber than they were when they came in.
I'm embarrassed, I live only a few miles from the Creation Museum (luckily on the Ohio side of the river).
The Problem of Induction.
Grue and Bleen.
Theory, as used in science.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
to show me the artfacts. I really am not interested in the beliefs of its curator
In Texas, I do recommend: http://www.creationevidence.org/ It's small, but you'll at least get to see some things that will make you think presented by some people that do believe in science.
of what the bible says I would not have any troubles with believing god made the earth in 7 days... I figured it is all about *believing* no matter how absurd the claims are
In the book of Joshua, that 'the sun stood still in the midst of heaven'. From this verse, and a few others, many groups (from the Catholic chuch in the middle ages to certain Baptist sects today) feel that the Sun orbits the other, and saying otherwise is going against the word of (their) god.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Atheism is not a religion, it's just the lack of belief in deities. It is the default position. There is no doctrine, ritual, or morality associated with a lack of belief.
No, Agnosticism is the lack of belief. Atheism is the active belief that God does not exist. Hence Agnosticism is the 'default' position in that they have made no decision about the existence of God and could be swayed either way by evidence. An Atheist, on the other hand, actively denies the existence of God without proof of his non-existence (lack of evidence of existence is NOT the same as proof of non-existence).
This is why militant Atheists are just as intolerant and bigotted as fundamental Christians. When you are unwilling to accept even the possibility that you may have some things wrong you are very unlikely to find the truth.
http://greenobyl.com/ please.... think of the children!!
...some people seem to feel the need to fill it with whatever garbage they can find to put in it. And there just wasn't much knowledge on that bookshelf when the Holy Bible was authored.
Science does use some placeholders (i.e., they make educated guesses based on the best research at the time), while things like macro-evolution are still theories, there are still compelling pieces of evidence that point to it occurring systematically.
One such example involves our equine friends, who seem adept at blurring species lines. Consider that nobody who's remotely competent and familiar with these species would confuse a zebra, ass, and horse with each other. But yet any of these species can produce hybrids in any combination with the others. Some of the hybrids are fertile...not very fertile, but fertile in somewhat uncommon instances. The old Latin idiom that translates, "When a she-mule gives birth", is roughly equivalent to the modern expression, "Once in a blue moon". That is to say, the Romans recognized that mules could produce viable offspring, just not very often.
Now that in itself doesn't mean much. For a species to macro-evolve into another, it has to change *and* procreate successfully (and subsequent generations must also have some ability to do the same). But what this does point to is an extreme degree of genetic similarity that would indicate a rather recent macro-evolutionary divergence. These equines seem to have shared a common ancestor in the distant path, they grew apart from each other, and the sum-total of micro-evolution that occurred in each population over time resulted in three distinct species, that are too far apart to be defined as one species, but still close enough to retain a high degree of social and genetic compatibility.
Of course, the placeholder comes in because science has no examples of such a common ancestor. No such fossils have been discovered, and quite likely won't be (fossilization is an extremely uncommon occurrence, and the chance of weathering or excavation ever exposing any given fossil from its entombment in the Earth's crust are even more remote still. But until more is discovered about how these equids are so similar, yet distinct, a good scientist would just install a best-guess placeholder and make it clear that's all it is. The Creationist reaction seems to be to come up with a relatively bizarre explanation that involves an extreme degree of magical thinking, which also has no logical basis, no supporting evidence whatsoever, and could not be reached as an independent conclusion by someone who hadn't been taught the specifics of the Creationist's religion. There's no room in science for that sort of garbage.
I hope I live to see the day when the majority of adults in the USA give up the magical thinking of religion (c'mon, invisible friends who have special powers and quirky, psychotic personalities are for kids!), and realize they can reason things out and reach halfway reasonable conclusions. Another Museum of Willful Ignorance going out of business is an encouraging sign.
Great job by Taylor and his team on casting the footprints in the limestone creek bed, but how loony do you have to be to come to the conclusion that the size 25s next to the dino tracks HAD to be a giant human?
He should stick to casting and model-making, and leave the thinking and research to the TRAINED PROFESSIONALS.
Haven't creationists ever noticed that the only people who don't believe in evolution are...creationists? I don't believe there is such a thing as a non-creationist non-evolutionist. Just sayin'.
My debut novel AMITY now available: http://jeremydbrooks.c
Eccentric Irish billionaire makes offer for Mastodon skull that would save museum: cgi-times.co.uk/article.pl?sid=07/07/24/174240
Make it a T-Rex skull, and *I'll* bid on the damn thing.
You have no IDEA how much English lacks and the Texans are inventing!
Slovenian, for example, doesn't just have plural and singular, they have dual! That's ok, though, cause Texans have got us covered:
ya: second person singular
y'all: second person dual (just two)
all y'all: second person plural.
Yeah!!! Go texas!!!
I hate those fucking hicks.
Pure politics that's the nature of Creationism. When you have a federally tailored and controlled education system and when that system is vulnerable to and controlled by to lobby manipulation, Creationism is what you get.
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This is where all religions fail, and why atheism is NOT a religion. It is not for the atheist to prove the non existance of anything. To prove non-existance of anything is an impossible task and is therefore an unreasonable request. No, it is the person who believes in god who is burdened with the task of proving his existance. If he really does exist, then there should at least be the possibility of providing that proof. A task which to date no religion has been able to provide.
Now, more than a century later, we find another tree, one Darwin never suspected - that of DNA.
Well, technically, the graph of DNA inheritance is a directed, acyclic graph, but not a tree. A tree is a special case of a DAG where each node has at most one parent. Those of us who reproduce sexually have two parents, and so likewise do our DNA sequences.
It surprises me how many christians there are on a website that I consider pretty intelligent.
As a student of genetics and bioinformatics I'm struck by the incredible beauty and complexity of DNA replication and the incredible redundancy, junk DNA (95% of DNA), and self-correcting ability that allows for a high degree of resistence of mutation. It all seems too convenient.
What also strikes me is how complex the process is. Occam's razor and Murphy's Law[FOOTNOTE] tend to indicate that self-replication should favour:
* simple one step processes over complex multistep processes
* simple simple molecules over huge multipart multifunction molecule
* compact molecules over molecules that are spread out
* self-replicated undifferentiated structures that are continuous sheets (e.g. sheets of crystals ) rather than localized highly specialized molecules that form larger even higher specialized meta structures the form even larger and higher specialized meta structures that eventually make people and animals.
Howver the opposite happens. It doesn't make sense, but that's the way it is. It's not a black or white picture as you suggest. Once you accept that somehow the processes are put in place and that somehow replication of the meta structure called "animals" is as important as the replication of the simple molecules, you end up with evolution. But it's a big assumption to assume that existence are so convenient as to allow life to exist without a cause. This is especially the case when life appears to be the only highly complex, highly hierarchal, compound in the universe. For the most part, Occam's razor and Murphy's Law[FOOTNOTE] are pretty good guides for molecular chemists.
---
[FOOTNOTE]
Yes, I know Murphy's Law it's not a scientific principle, but it's obvious that more complex molecules should break down more often than simpler ones.
A couple prank journalists made a gonzo expedition to the opening of the Cincinnati Creation Museum in _Let There Be Retards_.
--
make install -not war
Some scientists are finally able to create new life from inanimate matter. They approach God and say, "we don't need you anymore, we can create life, too", and they challenge him to a test where they will both create living beings from dirt. God agrees and the challenge begins. A scientist reaches down and grabs a handful of dirt, to which God replied, "No cheating, get your own dirt".
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
What we have here is people using science to support their religious claims. This "museum" is chock full of "evidence" that their fundamentalist cosmology is correct. They put on the trappings of science to give authority to their religious ideals of biblical infallibility, inerrancy, and literalism.
These claims of infallibility are at the heart of what makes religious systems tick; without it religion becomes more of a safe social club with little memetic virulence. These claims of absolute knowledge are the very currency of religion, and this is why science and rationalism threaten all current metaphysical, spiritual, and moral institutions.
Since the churches don't have power in modern civil governments anymore, they can't force retractions using torture, imprisonment, and death. This is simply a different tactic, and it won't work.
Also, it seems to me that slashdot is more agnostic than atheistic, in that we think these wild claims people make about God are pretty fuckin' silly! Or pretty fuckin' scary. Although I'm sure many of us have read and agreed with Dawkins and Harris, we cannot completely rule out the idea even though we find it extremely unlikely.
You know things are shaky when mods-on-crack mod more appropiately than mods-on-god.
It's bad enough that Americans refuse to adopt the sensible Metric system, but it's worse that they refuse to reject superstition and idol-worship.
Actually, maybe not adopting the superior Metric system is worse.
Humans like to have answers. So when we think of questions about our origin, or the nature of the world/universe, we will assign answers. As we progress, our answers tend to have more factual basis.
Long ago, humans saw the sun and the moon in the stars in the sky, and thought that there must be some god/gods/magical-force moving those objects around.
Also long ago, at the start of written history, the answer to "where did we come from" was "my grandfather can trace his ancestors back though many generations, and according to the story, all the way back to a time of the magical creation of the world".
But now we know quite a bit more about how planets work, how biology works, how physics work. These are the result of logical and scientific reasoning.
Religion often holds on to ideas after the ideas contradict logic.
I would suggest you upgrade your beliefs. The creation story you are talking about is based on logic that is a few thousand years old.
Our answers are not perfect now. But they keep getting better. Perhaps if 5000 years, if you believe the whole of science as it existed in 2008, you would likely be viewed as superstitious.
I guess the museum just wasn't intelligently designed.
Stuff that starts pointless flamewars between thirteen year old idiots about how religion is teh stupid in order to get hits that generate ad revenue.
I see that everyone else responding to your post has taken a fully allegorical view of this part of Genesis. That's one interpretation that's open, and it's true that to understand the meaning of the Fall you have to think of it in terms of what our human nature is like and not only as an isolated historical incident. However, I'd like to point out that evolution does not preclude the existence of a literal individual Adam (and Eve), though obviously some elements of the story (like Eve being created from Adam's rib) have to be taken symbolically.
The first man and woman, in the biblical sense, need not have been the first biped humanoids or even the first Homo sapiens sapiens. The biblical story would seem to indicate that they were the first humans who could understand good and evil and be morally responsible for their actions, and it attempts to explain this to us. Our moral accountability, not our cranial sizes or our use of tools, are what distinguishes man from animal.
Evolution doesn't rule out taking Adam to be the literal father of all mankind, either. Our most recent common ancestor cannot have been more than 60,000 years ago based on Y-chromosonal studies, and is very likely to have been less than 8,000 years ago.
This is not a signature.
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If there were a closed system, we would experience no effects from it and it would experience no effects from us. Therefore we would have no way of knowing of its existence. All we can say we can name or know of is our system i.e. our universe- things which affect us. Our universe counts as a closed system by definition- if something else were to be able to affect us we would count it part of our universe.
....that creationism nonsense has suckered so many. I used to be very tolerant of religion: believe what you like as loong as you don't inflict it on me. But now, I see blind faith as the true enemy of reason and truth and i don't care which blind faith you're talking about. They're all dangerous once the "faithful" abandon reality in favour of whatever nonsense they choose to believe. Look at where blind faith too Bush and his followers. They were SURE there were WMD in Iraq......never mind there was no proof of any WMD. They just KNEW. The same goes for creationism, where the incredulity of the believers is used as "proof" to support their contention. "The universe is so complex, it can ONLY have been created!". Crap.
Only boring people are ever bored.
Creationist museums are like museums of human stupidity, we must save them, and encourage more of them, they are quite educational.
There is a theory which explains the facts of evolution.
But of course they are just facts, and not beliefs.
You can choose faith and beliefs, I'll choose facts and knowledge.
Cynics require facts and truth, the naive accept beliefs, and trust faith.
truth = fact, certainty, reality, actuality, veracity, verity
faith = confidence, trust, reliance, conviction, belief, assurance
Einstein or the Pope? Sorry the choice to me plain as to who to listen to.
OK great, but the Bible was written by men whose idea of a year was pretty much the then-layman's equivalent of "the time it takes for the Earth to complete one orbit about the Sun." Same thing for the day.
I've read the book of Acts, and i remember no such passage.
Would you mind giving a little more details?
Prove it.
There is a God. He just doesn't like Creationism.