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South Korea Surrenders To Creationist Demands On Evolution Textbooks
Med-trump writes "A petition to remove references to evolution from high-school textbooks claimed victory in South Korea last month after the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) revealed that many of the publishers would produce revised editions that exclude examples of the evolution of the horse or of avian ancestor Archaeopteryx."
There goes South Korea's lead when it comes to science education.
Why are we letting these people win over science?
"Mest" is the dutch word for "Manure".
Watch how South Korea's morality and productivity go up as they realize they're not intelligent monkeys but rather divinely created, purpose-built creations. Watch how God blesses them with insight into the creations he's made, allowing them to understand science in a way no evolutionist ever could imagine. Watch how mockers mock this post.
And here I thought that religious kooks are a poorly evolved subspecies found only in North America
--Udo.
This is like a plague. Here I thought that this sort of crap only happens in the American south.
Lets just hope this decision is very quickly repealed.
Lordy! WTF South Korea?
Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
Now I see... The mayans predicted this.. December 12th is the end of the world as we know it, as by that time, evolution will cease to exist as will we.....
Ok, I see these creation vs. evolution stories all the time, and we always assume the creationists are wrong, but what if they aren't? And why is it OK to have multiple points of view in the scientific community, unless you think that the world was created (by a higher power or other means).
No man is an island, But if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie them together, they make a pretty good raft.
This is also the country that believes in death by sleeping in a room with a fan.
... but it could be worse. At least it didn't "teach the controversy" by adding in Intelligent Design [s]lies[/s]alternatives, and just removed a few examples. It doesn't seem more than this.
For now.
My face: :(
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
40% of biology teachers agreed with the statement that “much of the scientific community doubts if evolution occurs”
In other news, much of the scientific community doubts that teacher education occurs.
Ezekiel 23:20
At least the US won't be alone in its downward spiral of idiocy.
Huh, whodathunkit - The rest of the world has religious idiots too!
That said, at least in the US, we regularly put ours back in their place - The churches, not the schools or courts. I'd suggest doing the same if you don't want the rest of the planet to view you as a nation of 3rd-world savages going around burning witches for stealing your penises and such.
the examples mentioned aren't accepted as valid science by evolutionists anymore either. Several items in the standard textbook 'horse' series are known to not be horses at all and archaeopteryx is known to be a full-fledged (pun intended) bird.
In South Korea, only old people know about science.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
In another words.... creationists that advocate that there's no proof for evolutionary theory are able to exclude such proof from textbooks. Is it just me who thinks this is fsck up logic?! "Hey, there's no proof"... Creationists find out there's proof, complains about being given more focus on evolution since there's proof and proof is removed from textbooks.... next it'll be: creationists exclaim (once again) "WHERE'S YOUR PROOF?!? THERE'S NONE!!!"..... Fscked up indeed.
--- Journals are boring; Go to my web page instead [nerp.net]
OK, because of my sympathy for your post I did follow this "go to my web page instead" link, expecting to find something fabulous given your /. number ;-)
Indeed, the page is empty.
Now maybe THIS is the message, some kind of Zen-like?
Herve S.
This has to be a parody. No Christian could possibly be that stupid despite the stereotype many people have about Christians.
I guess that Samsung will have to rename it's S2 Evolution smartphone. I know a lot of US Koreans and some of them can out thump our best homegrown bible thumpers,
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Whichever side of the origins debate one subscribes to, good riddance to the horse and Archaeopteryx examples!
The typical horse progression still shown in many textbooks is oversimplified and incorrect. The "horses" shown in the progression, particularly Eohippus, really belong on "branches" of a quite complex tree. I know I've personally met creationists for whom learning about the incorrectness of that picture was the turning point in their abandonment of textbook paleobiology.
Likewise, the Archaeopteryx is often criticized as a particularly weak example even by the most dedicated evolutionists. Archaeopteryx may yet be accepted as an early member of Avialae, but there just isn't sufficient evidence of that yet.
Most creationists on this planet are Hindu or Muslim, which if you've noticed are mostly in places other than North America. Furthermore, South Korea has quite a few evangelicals (even if they are outnumbered by "none of the above" and Buddhists at the moment). Should be interesting to see how this plays out.
Anyone intelligent considers competing theories side by side until one is proved. Any good theory should be able to stand on its own merit.
The fact that creationists are apparently so threatened by the theory of evolution as to conduct radical acts of censorship is a clear indicator even they secretly acknowledge that evolution theory has substance.
By their own ill-conceived actions, creationists are making it self-evident that creationism must be no more than a logically inconsistent nursery tale who's only market are those with low enough IQ to not be able to reason.
"Scientists" who believe in a young universe are only able to maintain their position through lies and bad logic. Most creationists have been deceived, so we can't call them liars, but YEC "scientists" are in a position to actually know better, and so it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that they are lying.
When we have two competing theories, we meticulously go through all of the evidence and see how each theory explains the evidence. In every case, the Talking Snake Theory of Creation either offers no explanation, or offers an explanation that is the opposite of what we find in the evidence. The Talking Snake Theory of Creation is falsifiable and in fact has already been falsified. It is only taken seriously by the deceivers and the deceived.
Many high school teachers still teach that a scientific theory "becomes a law" after testing, when in fact theories and laws are entirely separate things. Much is wrong with our science education in this country, I'm afraid, and bronze age fairy tales are only part of the problem. :(
...most creationists on this planet are Muslim or Hindu, and in case you haven't noticed, in Muslim areas, the mosque has enormous influence over not only the state, but places hard restrictions on academia in what conclusions they can and cannot reach.
If you have a national department of education that can set standards, then that department can be influenced and/or bought, with impact (potentially disastrous) to the entire system. Once upon a time, in the US, schools were independent neighborhood establishments. Some were crap, but the damage they did to kids was limited. A National Department of Education is like putting all your eggs in one basket, and hoping, against all historical evidence, that the basket will be safe, and/or that those in charge are wise, immune to political pressure and can be trusted.
Dammit. I moved to S. Korea because it had far less of the ignorant, science deniers than in America. Now the zombies are here, too.
From the wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death): "Fan death is a widely held belief in South Korea that an electric fan left running overnight in a closed room can cause the death of those inside". This was even reported by the Korea Consumer Protection Board (KCPB), a South Korean government-funded public agency, though outside South Korea it is generally considered a classic case of mass hysteria.
I think a certain country could use a more rigorous scientific curriculum.
A trail of bones millions of years long cant be right.
Our invisible sky being that grants wishes is the way.
Modern man wont last as long as any of the others, I have no doubt about that.
South Korea has a fairly strong Christian population. So I'm inclined to believe that there's a concerted global effort amongst certain Christian denominations. This can't be mere coincidence. My suspicion is that these groups are seeing religion's decreasing importance in modern society and these are last ditch efforts to keep themselves relevant.
Science, as always, is perceived as the threat so that's where the effort goes. They keep pushing religious beliefs to the forefront by suggesting that religious beliefs are as legitimate as scientific theory. It's the perpetuation of religion through ignorance.
Arguably there is a place in society for religion. And you might even be able to make a strong case for theology studies. But religion has no place in science. Not that they are mutually exclusive; you can be a scientist and religious. However, science is founded on principles other than faith.
I find this incredibly concerning, and yet another reason to take issue with organized religion. I will remind everyone, however, that the Vatican has accepted evolution as fully compatible with the Bible. So whoever is doing this, it's unlikely to be them. And anyway they've got more important things to worry about.
I feel as though this topic is not Slashdot worthy... its an old debate and very tired. I don't read slashdot to read junk like this.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No assumptions are made. We know for sure that it's bullshit pseudoscience.
All the anti-mystics could be wrong, Quetzalcoatl or Odin or Jehova or FSM could come down from the heavens and reveal himself, saying, "Most of you were all atheists to my particular religion but ha ha, turns out I was the right guess," and then whichever deity it is could explain how they created the world and initially seeded life, but then that deity would follow up with, "but how your creationists ever happened to randomly guess The Truth, I have no idea, for their ramblings and justifications were all total bullshit and I never ever revealed any of My Truth to them, nor did any of them actually look at what I did reveal, nor did they use coherent arguments for how what they observed even remotely suggested what they guessed had happened. They were incredibly lucky liars."
That's how bullshit creationism is. It could be correct, and it would still not be science.
And multiple points of view are totally fine, even if they do include "higher powers" but if you throw away all of
then it's not science. Evolution went through all of that. Creationism hasn't gone through any of it.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Silence is not the answer, says Dayk Jang. He is now organizing a group of experts, including evolutionary scientists and theologians who believe in evolution
We're never going to get anywhere if even an article that supports science uses this kind of bigoted language. Do scientists "believe in" gravity? Do scientists "believe in" relativity?
I don't understand why creationist must attack scientific facts. See I believe God created everything, I don't believe in a young earth. I believe that God created everything and set up the scientific principals that guide our lives (like Physics) so that we may understand his creation. If things didn't make sense and line up with science, I think this would cause more chaos then anything.
My pastor just preached on Genesis and I think made a good point (I was ready to walk out TBH is he was going to talk about young earth and stuff like that), he didn't protray Genesis 1 as a How/When but more of a Who/Why. Why we were created and who did it.
Also I think many people need to realize we are interpretting a book from an ancient language with only about what 1000 words (ancient hebrew) in it, to languages like English with Millions. God is about Faith. There is not enough evidence to prove nor disprove the existence of God. But things in my life and in nature make me have faith. Also, the probabilities of having all of this created by chance to be ridiculously small (IIRC I think throwing 50 yatzee's in a row has a higher probability happening than our earth being able to substain the life it has on it, and the 50 yatzee's in a row's probability is what most people would classify next to impossible, also I think if you take like 1million planets with 1million people each trying to throw 50 yatzee's in a row it's still in the probability most would consider next to impossible, anyways I forget the Math, and TBH doesn't matter,Faith is Faith) which tips me more towards God then away from Him. But that's just me.
I get why people attack Christians/Creationalist. Many are bigots, don't listen, do what I say not what I do, ignore evidence, refuse to listen to anything but agree'ing vewpoints, etc etc etc. But I'm not sure I would call many of them Christians to begin with. If more people who claimed to be Christian followed the 2 greatest commandments (first Love God with everything, 2nd Love neighbor as thyself) we might have a better reputation in the world.
Anyways, just my 2 cents.
The Moths that PROVE evolution! You know, the ones the "scientists" stuck to dead ones to black trees, because it turns out they only come out at night anyways, .... errr, yea, science never lies ... it, um, it was the photographer's idea....
We don't "assume" they're wrong. We know. For lots of reasons. I'm not a biologist or paleontologist, but I've read a fair amount about the topics and I've seen good evidence for evolution there. One of the best is also one that's fairly easy to check if you start looking into things. It's the "twin nested hierarchies". Books used to be copied by scribes, and (despite a lot of care) sometimes typos would be introduced. Later scribes, making copies of copies, would introduce other typos. It's possible to look at the existing copies and put them into a 'family tree'. "These copies have this typo, but not that one; this other group has yet another typo, though three of them have a newer typo as well, not seen elsewhere..." This is not controversial at all when dealing with books, including the Bible. Now, this process of copy-with-modification naturally produces 'family trees', nested groups. When we look at life, we find such nested groups. No lizards with fur or nipples, no mammals with feathers, etc. Living things (at least, multicellular ones, see below) fit into a grouped hierarchy. This has been solidly recognized for over a thousand years, and systematized for centuries. It was one of the clues that led Darwin to propose evolution. (Little-known fact: Linnaeus, who invented the "kingdom, phyla, genus, species, etc." classification scheme for living things, tried to do the same thing for minerals. But minerals don't form from copy-with-modification, and a 'nested hierarchy' just didn't work and never caught on.) Today, more than a century later, we find another tree, one Darwin never suspected - that of DNA. This really is a 'text' being copied with rare typos. And, as expected, it also forms a family tree, a nested hierarchy. And, with very very few surprises, it's the same tree that was derived from looking at physical traits. It didn't have to be that way. Even very critical genes for life - like that of cytochrome C - have a few neutral variations, minor mutations that don't affect its function. (Genetic sequences for cytochrome C differ by up to 60% across species.) Wheat engineered to use the mouse form of cytochrome C grows just fine. But we find a tree of mutations that fits evolution precisely, instead of some other tree. (Imagine if a tree derived from bookbinding technology - "this guy used this kind of glue, but this other bookbinder used a different glue..." - conflicted with a tree that was derived from typos in the text of the books. We'd know at least one tree and maybe both were wrong.) The details of these trees are very specific and very, very numerous. There are billions of quadrillions of possible trees... and yet the two that we see (DNA and morphology) happen to very precisely match. This is either a staggering coincidence, or a Creator deliberately arranged it in a misleading manner, or... universal common ancestry is actually true. (Single-celled organisms are much more 'promiscuous' in their reproduction and spread genes willy-nilly without respect for straightforward inheritance. With single-celled creatures, it looks more like a 'web' of life than a 'tree'. But even if the tree of life has tangled roots, it's still very definitely a tree when it comes to multicellular life.)
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
No they don't. And we know they don't really believe what they say because they don't put their money where their mouths are.
Finding oil is a very important and high-stakes issue for oil companies. Literally trillions of dollars are riding on it. Exxon's exploration budget alone is around $20 billion per year. When the chips are down and they need to find the most likely spots to drill - what kind of geology do they use? Flood geology, or mainstream? Which one actually delivers the goods?
Let's assume the Earth is only a few thousand years old. Where did the oil come from? Was it created in the ground with the rest of the Earth? If so, is there a way to predict where it might be found? Or perhaps it really did form from plankton (with a few plants and dinosaurs), but about 10,000 times faster than any chemist believes it could in those conditions? Any way you look at it, a young Earth and a Flood would imply some very interesting scientific questions to ask, some interesting (and potentially extremely valuable) research programs to start. How come nobody's actually, seriously pursuing such research programs?
Why don't creationists put together an investment fund, where people pay in and the stake is used as venture capital for things like oil and mineral rights? If "Flood geology" is really a better theory, then it should make better predictions about where raw materials are than standard geology does. The profits from such a venture could pay for a lot of evangelism. Why isn't anyone doing this?
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
I just see this as further proof that religion is dangerous and damaging to society, and should be banned outright in all forms, everywhere. If you ban every religion equally, then you can't claim inequality.
Honestly, as much of a dick as it may make me, I look down on people who believe in that nonsense. Use common sense and scientific evidence to form your opinions, and you will quickly see that religion is complete bullshit.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
The only way America will be able to compete is if we dumb the other countries down to our level.
South Koreans observe evolution in action every single day. Just google "Observed Examples of Speciation in Starcraft"
When someone presents a scientific idea, there are tests to prove it, and it can be disproven if those tests fail.
When someone presents and idea and says the proof is "God said so" or "God moves in mysterious ways", there is no test which can disprove it. Therefore it isn't science.
Or, to put it another way, science tries to understand how things work, religion takes them on faith and doesn't care how they work.
You may think of the idea of science as a religion, in that scientists have faith in the idea of testable and falsifiable ideas, but science itself is not a religion, it is the set of testable and falsifiable ideas.
Infuriate left and right
created by your local omniscient, omnipotent (from our point of view) superbeing. It can't be ruled out. At the same time, if it's true, it's simply not knowable. The aforementioned superbeing could add or delete information in our awarenesses at will.
So, if true, then it's not knowable. Actually, even if it's false, it's not knowable since you can't prove the negative.
Agnostics rule.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
This phenomenon may have started in the US, but they know very well they'll eventually reach some point of saturation in such a politically divided country. That's why creation science proponents are on an all-out assault on science throughout the world, especially in developing nations.
http://www.nwcreation.net/international.html
Oh, you thought it had something to do with missionary work and spreading the Gospel message? NO. These organizations (Institute for Creation Research, Creation Ministries International, The Discovery Institute, and a few other smaller ones) are big business. Look at their Web sites. From the very first page, they're either asking for donations or they're selling you their wares. Homeschooling textbooks, tracts, videos. Yes, the missionary work is integral to their purpose -- they need a wide audience of buyers. They're happy to do that too.
You aren't going to be able to counter this movement with any kind of science education. They have their own "science" now, any science from any other source will be viewed with tremendous suspicion if it conflicts with their view of creation. You need to work this at its source -- by educating people on the history of creationist thought, and the reasons *why* they believe what they do -- educate them on the *reason* why they have a certain *interpretation* of the Bible. If you're an atheist, you'll think it's easy enough, just discredit the Bible. But attacking a person's faith at its core is NOT going to help, it only adds fuel to the fire. So please DON'T take that approach. Seriously, it will make things much, much worse.
The only way forward is to educate Christians on creationism as a movement itself, in a way that is NOT abusive to their faith. Get people to learn specifically about the history of the three organizations mentioned above! There is a tremendous amount of dirty laundry there (see http://truecreation.info/ or the book Searching for Truth with a Broken Flashlight) Better yet, find respected Christians who they trust, who understand science -- and geology, cosmology, and evolutionary biology in particular. It can be done:
http://biologos.org/
http://truecreation.info/
http://theistic-evolution.com/
Books:
The Language of Science and Faith, Karl Giberson and Francis Collins
Origins: A Reformed Look at Creation, Design, and Evolution, Deborah Haarsma and Loren Haarsma
Searching for Truth with a Broken Flashlight, Michael Hawley
Beyond the Firmament, Gordon J. Glover
Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul, Kenneth Miller
The Passionate Intellect, Alister McGrath
I Love Jesus and I Accept Evolution, Denis O. Lamoureux
The Lost World of Genesis One, John Walton
Slashdot is full of people constantly whining about how stupid creationists are and how incredibly smart and enlightened evolutionists are. Did you ever stop to think that maybe the problem is how you incredibly smart and enlightened beings are trying to teach us "stupid creationists" the theory of evolution? The textbooks do a terrible job at it and I have yet to meet an evolutionist that hasn't talked themselves into a hole they can't get out of when debating their views with me. I'm perfectly willing to accept evolution, the problem is that I haven't heard an explanation of it that even remotely makes sense.
Public service notice: your beliefs are worthless. From a scientific standpoint, question *your own* assumptions first (it's a very Christian concept, ironically). For instance, let's assume your Yatzee notion is correct. What do you know about the universe that would make that a weak argument for your point?
Having faith in something means believing without evidence. I think there's something self centered about that. There's a suggestion that your beliefs are somehow more important than the truth.
Play Command HQ online
Also, "lying for Christ" is still lying and Jesus will send you to hell for it. ;-)
I do question, in fact went many years not believing because I couldn't accept a young earth view.
But how the universe actually began are theories there is no proof either way. There is significant evidence to suggest the big bang (or at least the theory allows to encompass all that we see/prove today without falling apart), however I can point to that and say that God start it, or you can point and say it just started.
I'm not sure science will every prove that there wasn't or was a creator that started the big bang.
So yes my faith does believe in something without concrete proof, but like I've said there are many things that tip me towards a God. I've seen people healed after being annointed prayed over by the elders that was supposedly uncurable, i've seen other things that support something beyond our comprehension. And with that said, and myself being tipped towards a God, I'm not sure that's self centered.
You could say that people believe that the big bang "just started" without intervention is by faith, since sure there's a theory but can't be proved (at least at this time anyways).
But I'm sure you'll attack all that or dismiss it. Which is fine. I'm comfortable with my beliefs to understand not everyone is going to believe or believe something different, and as free human beings that is your right. We all make choices in life about many things, this is one that I've made a choice to believe.
South Koreans were created by the Xel'Naga.
Scientists have to start explaining science in terms people can understand so they don't have to resort to burning witches. They could start with "Evolution was God's idea!"
Watch how North Korea's philosophical gains and standard of living go up as they realize that they're not just subjects of an infallible higher power but rather highly evolved, decision-making meme machines. Watch how unbridled studies reward them with more insightful students, allowing them to understand science in a way no Creationist could ever imagine.
Though I will say it is not great to believe in "Science" as infallible, as any good scientist could tell you.
Moderate Christians like you are the ones who open the door to more radical and extremist views of your religion by making it ok and tolerable to believe in superstition and ancient myths. Every airplane hijacking terrorist and abortion clinic bomber believe in their superstitions just as strongly as you believe in yours. Giving legitimacy and "respect" to your superstition implies that theirs deserve the same.
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
If we have to have the stupidity of religion dumbing down our country... it's great to hear it's been exported and now countries that would otherwise trounce us in terms of academic, scientific, technical, engineering, and mathematical achievement have one of the same handicaps flourishing in their corner of the world as we have.
Long live stupidity!!! Hooray!
Thanks for the response. I'll only add that if I don't believe that a god started by the big bang, it doesn't imply that I do believe that it started in some other fashion for which I also have no evidence.
Play Command HQ online
Just curious if you don't believe God started it, and it doesn't imply you believe that that it started in some other fashion, what does it imply then.
I mean if God didn't start it, doesn't it have to be started by some other fashion by just normal logic?
Okey-dokey. You now have a hypothesis. Now... what are some things you would do to test it? Boring standard geology expects oil to form where (a) lots of plant matter gets buried, and (b) a hard layer of rock forms over it to trap the oil as it develops. Given known climate in the past (e.g. knowing where continents have drifted) we can make some predictions about the most likely spots to find such conditions. Ancient shallow deltas and such are among the best spots.
But if 'Flood geology' is right and the environment was better for vegetation all over, then that would imply that there'd be large deposits of buried vegetation in places where 'standard' geology wouldn't predict them. And thus large, unexpected deposits of oil. Go ahead, put your money into testing this hypothesis. If you're as sure as you claim, you'll have more money to give to the poor!
Ask a petroleum geologist and (former) young-Earth creationist.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
I propose a simple solution for schools:
Present three popular theories:
1. Evolutionary theory
2. Creation story from Genesis
3. Pastafarian story of creation
Since none can be proven with absolutely 100% certainty due to missing evidence, teach critical thinking and logic instead, and turn this into an exercise in debate, hand the students an unbiased guide (or really, a balanced guide with each section written by "experts" in each respective theory, giving each equal weight) containing empirical evidence of each of the three theories, then assign each debate team one of the three positions (whether or not the members of that team agree with the assigned position) and prepare arguments for and against each theory. I think that given evidence and proper training in critical thinking and logic, you are teaching students to examine the evidence, think the problem through and arrive at the correct conclusion, i.e., you are teaching people to think for themselves. I think this approach would make everyone happy - or at least any rational person should be satisfied. Tell the irrational fools who would get "offended" to STFU and deal with it. :-)
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
What else can you expect from a ministry:
ministry [mnstr] ...
n pl -tries
1. (Christianity / Ecclesiastical Terms)
a. the profession or duties of a minister of religion
b. the performance of these duties
I don't believe science should be ministered.
- Holy crap, I've got MOD points! Who thought that was a good idea.
Adam and Eve did not have any kids BEFORE they were kicked out. They were supposed to be immortals living the two of them forever in Eden. Note that Adam and Eve were kicked out, not Adam, Eve and the kids.
So, how could god increase the woman's pain in childbirth if the only woman has never given birth?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Let's have the southern states decide what they awnt to teach in science all by themselves. that way we don't need to go abroad to find a third world country.
NT
I've met some of these nutjobs that revel in the mockery since they think it shows how they are being persecuted for their beliefs.
of Christianities war on women.
I always hear these numb-brained ID types make a statement as dumb as this: "If evolution is real, then we should expect to find transitional forms in the fossil record." They typically go on to make false or ill informed declarations that no such fossils exists, or if they so, they do not demonstrate an adequate level of change to satisfy them (read: show me MACRO evolution.)
It's important to point out three very real things that may help them better understand their incredible stupidity:
1. First: No, we should not "expect" to find transitional forms in the fossil record. In fact, we should not expect to find fossils at all. They are a very rare occurrence that only develop under extraordinary circumstances. Remember 5th grade, when your teacher talked about how hard it is to make a fossil (i.e., animal or plant must die in medium suitable to preserve it, not be eaten or destroyed by other organisms, survive any number of other natural impediments to fossil creation/preservation both physical and chemical over hundreds and thousands of years, etc..) Fossils are not an expected product of life on Earth. They are a surprising and rare outcome. Second: transitional forms are less likely to survive and reproduce long enough to impact the fossil record in a substantial way, severely lowering any reasonable the expectation of actually finding them. (You IDers from AL should already know about sterile children from banging your siblings.) The absence of transitional forms only supports the natural law of evolution. See this for a nice illustration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0
2. Despite the improbability of fossils, and the even smaller probability of finding "transitional forms" in the fossil record, they have been found and documented in striking numbers. You are simply ignorant of these facts, or choose to ignore the readily available evidence as simply not good enough to shake your faith... I mean "science," your own personal "science." My bad.
3. Fossils aren't the very best place to look for "transitional forms." The best place to look is in living organisms. The clear, unequivocal observation of MACRO evolution has been carefully preserved in laboratories for years now, particularly among bacteria. For example, E. Coli has and can easily be seen to evolve, at the MACRO level, into an entirely new species w/in 40K generations. These Petri dishes can and have been frozen and studied in detail - and they establish that evolution, even at the MACRO level, is an empirical fact, not a theory. Your problem isn't just with evolution - you really don't want to admit that bacteria are real animals undergoing real change. If you honestly believe this, however, why don't you abstain from vaccination? If you think evolution is a theory, test it out on yourself - refuse to inoculate yourself and your children. We look forward to your findings.
is that that is about the only way to evolve an eye from the earlier models.
I think the South Koreans have really hit on something here and those of us in Kansas had the opportunity a while ago and dropped the ball... Creationism is just the tip of the iceberg - if people begin really believing this crap let's feed them the whole enchilada! They need to reject long distance travel because it will eventually lead to massive fatalities as ships and planes fly off into space as they reach the edge of the flat Earth. And Galileo and Copernicus were just wrong - the Earth is at the center of the universe and everything revolvles around us. There are millions if not billions of dollars to be made revising all of those nasty science textbooks that have been infecting the minds of our youth for far too long.
Disregard Science, Acquire currency
Seriously. I'm sick and tired of all the lies laid down in Biology. It's fine to have a theory, but to reject a creator on the basis of an idea that can't be proven, is at best, hypocritical. The same people who blindly follow evolution and the assoicated theological beliefs, cannot be made to believe that evolution cannot be truely proven. Granted, Darwinian evolution shows some evidence for it, but it is fundamentally impossible to prove that creatures started as bacteria, and evolved, thanks to the Omphalos hypothesis. When you add to this vat Ernst Haeckel and his fraudulent diagrams (Which, I might add, we're still used in my highschool's textbooks a few years back), I don't know how this farce has lasted so long. It's fine to teach it, just like I was taught multiple theories for the formation of the moon, but that doesn't make it the end-all answer to life.
Expecting Nerdrage and Long Rebuttals,
A Young Earth Creationist, Slashdotter.
you should hear some of the crazy shit the believe!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_belief
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Pascal's wager has already been shown to be shit.
Yes (if we assume the big bang needs a cause) and this gets at the heart of my point. What you say is logically true, but I was talking about belief, not the truth. Let's suppose that some theories about the origin of the Universe are more true than others, but let's further suppose that I have absolutely zero evidence for any theory one way or another. Under those conditions I would choose to disbelieve each theory just as much as I disbelieve another.
I wonder how your own personal religious experiences (people being healed and so on), causes you to have an opinion about the origin of the big bang? What's the connection?
Play Command HQ online
I don't know the connection. The experiences/seeing things has tipped me on the side of a Creator. The bible when I study it preaches a lot of truth to me, and when the Savior of the faith says the 2 greatest commandments are love God with everything and treat your neighbor as yourself, i mean even if your not religious the world would do a lot better if more people followed the 2nd. So my point is I believe in the Christian God.
From that stand point, Moses says God created everything, so the logical conclusion is he started the Big Band (and maybe throughout the ages, tweaked things here and there, like gave Humans souls as he saw our evolution had reached a point to commune with Him and have that relationship he wanted from free will, but that's just conjecture he may not have tweaked anything, who knows).
I see what your saying, since at this point in time, nothing can conclusively say what started the Big Bang (if as you say it needs a cause, still don't understand how it wouldn't TBH), you don't believe in any of the theories. I get that.
TY for responding helped me understand what you were saying.
15 Questions for Evolutionists
Evolution: the naturalistic origin of life and its diversity
(The General Theory of Evolution, as defined by the evolutionist Kerkut, does include the origin of life.)
by Don Batten
How did life originate? Evolutionist Professor Paul Davies admitted, “Nobody knows how a mixture of lifeless chemicals spontaneously organized themselves into the first living cell.”1 Andrew Knoll, professor of biology, Harvard, said, “we don’t really know how life originated on this planet”.2 A minimal cell needs several hundred proteins. Even if every atom in the universe were an experiment with all the correct amino acids present for every possible molecular vibration in the supposed evolutionary age of the universe, not even one average-sized functional protein would form. So how did life with hundreds of proteins originate just by chemistry without intelligent design? See: 15 loopholes in the evolutionary theory of the origin of life (Summary).
How did the DNA code originate? The code is a sophisticated language system with letters and words where the meaning of the words is unrelated to the chemical properties of the letters—just as the information on this page is not a product of the chemical properties of the ink (or pixels on a screen). What other coding system has existed without intelligent design? How did the DNA coding system arise without it being created? See: The genetic information code points to an intelligent source.
How could mutations—accidental copying mistakes (DNA ‘letters’ exchanged, deleted or added, genes duplicated, chromosome inversions, etc.)—create the huge volumes of information in the DNA of living things? How could such errors create 3 billion letters of DNA information to change a microbe into a microbiologist? There is information for how to make proteins but also for controlling their use—much like a cookbook contains the ingredients as well as the instructions for how and when to use them. One without the other is useless. See: Meta-information: An impossible conundrum for evolution. Mutations are known for their destructive effects, including over 1,000 human diseases such as hemophilia. Rarely are they even helpful. But how can scrambling existing DNA information create a new biochemical pathway or nano-machines with many components, to make ‘goo-to-you’ evolution possible? E.g., How did a 32-component rotary motor like ATP synthase (which produces the energy currency, ATP, for all life), or robots like kinesin (a ‘postman’ delivering parcels inside cells) originate? See: The evolution train’s a-comin’ (Sorry, a-goin’—in the wrong direction).
Why is natural selection, a principle recognized by creationists, taught as ‘evolution’, as if it explains the origin of the diversity of life? By definition it is a selective process (selecting from already existing information), so is not a creative process. It might explain the survival of the fittest (why certain genes benefit creatures more in certain environments), but not the arrival of the fittest (where the genes and creatures came from in the first place). The death of individuals not adapted to an environment and the survival of those that are suited does not explain the origin of the traits that make an organism adapted to an environment. E.g., how do minor back-and-forth variations in finch beaks explain the origin of beaks or finches? How does natural selection explain goo-to-you evolution? See: Evolutionist Dr John Endler’s refreshing clarity about ‘natural selection’ has been largely ignored.
How did new biochemical pathways, which involve multiple enzymes working together in sequence, originate? Every pathway and nano-machine requires multiple protein/enzyme components to work. How did lucky accidents create even one of the components, let alone 10 or 20 or 30 at the same time, often in a necessary programmed sequence. Evolutionary
A way to make Kim Jong-eun look good.
S. Korea: "I found it! "
Thomas Merton.
I bought this house and you know I'm boss
Ain't no h'aint gonna run me off
Qualifications: I'm an academic here at a university in South Korea and also got my post-graduate degree here. I've been here for 10 years now. My major is Asian Studies (fwiw).
This is not surprising in the least. (South) Korea is a *very* Christian country underneath its modern veneer: it was one of the very few success stories that the European missionaries had in East Asia. (Ricci et. al. had basically come to an academic/intellectual impasse with the Chinese while trying to introduce their religion, while the Japanese either chased the missionaries away or cut their heads off—an effective deterrent.) Christian missionaries came rather later to Korea (Choseon) but found that their religion was "compatible" to a degree with Korean society's in-built sense of post-Confucianist conservatism and community, and therefore it slotted in well with Korean (Choseon) world-view at the time. Christianity had a *huge* impact on Korea(s) history in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Fast-forward and we now have the most Christian county in East Asia. South Korea is now the world's second largest source, after The USA, of 'foreign' missionaries. The passing of the above textbook guidelines is, unfortunately, not surprising in the least: the Christian lobby here in South Korea has a very powerful grip on politics, in particular on the ruling conservative Saenuri Party who are very dependent on their very conservative (and rural) electorate.
An interesting factoid: unlike other places in the world (?) it is not the Catholics who are the aggressive, "fire-and-brimstone" Bible-bashing Christians here in Korea, it's actually the Presbyterians (Protestants). The Catholics here (the minority) are actually quite laid-back, as I have experienced.
This is the downside of all those American missionaries plaguing other countries. While driving through Busan at night recently, I was struck by the multitude of lit up crosses indicating the presence of a Christian church. Clearly the looney side of American Christianity is being liberally spread over these innocent Asian cultures and it is sad to see that, being carried with it, is medieval ignorance about science.