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Creationism Conference at Michigan State University Stirs Unease
sciencehabit writes "A creationist conference set for a major research campus — Michigan State University (MSU) in East Lansing — is creating unease among some of the school's students and faculty, which includes several prominent evolutionary biologists. The event, called the Origins Summit, is sponsored by Creation Summit, an Oklahoma-based nonprofit Christian group that believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible and was founded to "challenge evolution and all such theories predicated on chance." The one-day conference will include eight workshops, according the event's website, including discussion of how evolutionary theory influenced Adolf Hitler's worldview, why "the Big Bang is fake," and why "natural selection is NOT evolution." News of the event caught MSU's scientific community largely by surprise. Creation Summit secured a room at the university's business school through a student religious group, but the student group did not learn about the details of the program—or the sometimes provocative talk titles — until later.
Why isn't there a designated place for bullshit like this?
So don't go. Let them wallow in their beliefs.
Sounds like a good grounds to reconsider and reject them to me. Give them a refund and tell them to go book a venue elsewhere.
BACKDOOR STRATEGY
We may have been banned from the classroom,
but banned does not mean silenced. By book-
ing the speakers, and renting the facilities, we
still have an impact.
Creation Summit is visiting major college and
university campuses throughout the country,
bringing world renowned scientists before the
students. Scientists with tangible proof and
viable evidence. Many, for the first time ever,
are discovering that the Bible is true – That
science and Genesis are in total agreement,
and if Genesis 1:1 can be trusted . . . . .
so can John 3:16.
http://www.creationsummit.com/
I think everyone should read Ecclesiastes, it affirmed my lack of belief in Christian dogma. (or any religion)
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
The concern is over the appropriateness of the venue. Since Creationists by and large reject major branches of science, allowing them to have a "conference" at a university seems wildly inappropriate.
As to refuting the Creationist's claims, some people have dedicated years just to that; www.talkorigins.org
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I say there are really 3 valid responses to creationists for an atheist.
1. Ignore them. It's a waste of time.
2. Listen to their premises and reject them for being logically inconsistent.
3. Listen to them and convert.
Getting uneasy and yelling at them is a serious waste of time. It won't get you anywhere. It also make you look like a jerk.
Let them believe what they want. It OK to have a debate, but if they start getting belligerent then respectfully remove yourself from the conversation.
I follow those guidelines for all free exchanges of ideas. I doubt MSU will allow this to get out of control. There is a lot of things that happen at my university that I don't agree with, but they don't affect me, so I let it go.
So what? It is use of a publicly available space. No matter how bizarre their beliefs, these folks have a right to assemble and speak (assuming they paid the rental fees!).
If the conferences are open to the public, then the appropriate thing to do would be to attend and laugh. Treat it like the comedy club act that it is, and get a good chuckle. If question and answer is permitted, follow the rules of proper debating and ask reasoned questions. Bonus points if you are actually a believer and use biblical/theological sources to tear apart the spurious claims of these extremists.
The problem with this statement is it presupposes the need to treat what are essentially ridiculous theories which fly in the face of science as if they were a legitimate opposing viewpoint which should be considered.
This is blatantly denying actual science to prop up your own religious beliefs.
And that is not something you do in a university.
If you want a venue to have your creationist aired, go to your church.
No, because the creationists are essentially irrational people who simply say "I reject your reality and science and substitute my own hocus pocus".
You can't intellectually refute someone who doesn't actually rely on logic or facts. At all. And giving them the benefit of debating them is pointless.
They have no evidence other than their belief, which is in opposition to observable facts.
You might as well have a reasoned discussion with a two year old.
Facts and logic are completely irrelevant to people who understand neither, and assume that the things they believe hold as much value as things which we can prove.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I think I've found the place to book my next neo-Nazi homeopathic phrenology conference.
From TFA:
University officials say they have no plans to interfere with the event. “Free speech is at the heart of academic freedom and is something we take very seriously,” said Kent Cassella, MSU’s associate vice president for communications, in a statement. “Any group, regardless of viewpoint, has the right to assemble in public areas of campus or petition for space to host an event so long as it does not engage in disorderly conduct or violate rules. While MSU is not a sponsor of the creation summit, MSU is a marketplace of free ideas.”
The university is going to let the crackpots say whatever they like, and then ignore them. Which is as it should be.
You can't play chess if your opponent insists on playing checkers with the same pieces. There are rules that govern rational debate; through the correct application of these rules we can come closer to the truth. If one side doesn't follow the rules (for instance, they consider "but it says in the bible that x" a valid argument), a debate is impossible. That's why you can't debate creationists: they're not playing by the same rules.
It is impossible to win an argument with someone who defends their delusions with the claim that "God planted the evidence for evolution to tempt you."
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Creation Summit secured a room at the university's business school through a student religious group
So this has nothing to do with science, critical thinking, debate, or academic discussion. This is an 8-topic 1-day masturbation session technically located at a college that can later be rolled into propaganda and touted as a hallmark of the legitimacy of "creation science" despite an overwhelmingly scientific concensus to the contrary. Its sole purpose is to re-enforce validity for communities of homeschooled kids, backwoods churches, and easily exploited students around campus.
This isnt being held in a student center because that would invite public opinion and attract unwelcome and highly critical dissent. Its not being held in a lecture hall because the topic of discussion isnt academic. and it sure as shit doesnt get time in the biosciences buildings because the hardware store would run out of pitchforks before the presenters could ever get approval.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I am saddened by these sudden cries for censorship. I should note that I believe in evolution. I believe that most Christians do, too; for example, the Catholic church in the 1950 stated that there was "no intrinsic conflict between Christianity and the theory of evolution". But if someone has a belief that is different from the mainstream, let them present it. If it's convincing, others will believe if. If it's not convincing, they will convince no one else.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
Calling a proposition "ridiculous" in no way refutes it. It sounds like you're emoting frustration at not knowing how to engage in a debate on the topic.
Now I think you're starting to zero in on a proper focus of the debate. And if it's debatable, a university may be a reasonable place for the discussion.
You're doing nothing to refute my conjecture that the university community is incapable of rationally debating the creationists' claims.
Simply calling the other party "irrational" in no way invalidates their claims. Remember, the main purpose of a public debate is to convince the audience, not the other debater, that your position is right. If you think the other party holds an irrational view, that should help you, not hurt you, in convincing the audience that you're position is the correct one.
You're going to have a hard time making a concrete case that the creationists are doing that. Every belief system has axioms, including yours. During a debate, you can try to show that a creationists' axioms are unreasonable, or his reasoning from them is flawed, but that kind of discussion is totally appropriate to a university setting.
You're painting with a very broad brush. If I didn't know better, I might conclude that you're incapable of engaging in the debate properly, which absolutely reinforces my main point in my earlier post.
Probably that, despite all the oddity, the cosplay, the heated discussion on whether this or that imaginary figure is more powerful and all the other stuff that appears scary to an outsides, I do not know a SINGLE fantasy geek (over the age of 10, at least) who'd consider anything of his favorite fantasy real, or even having an impact on their life.
Let alone letting their fantasy creation dictate how they should lead their lives...
Huh? Yeah, but the ones that do do get sent to the insane asylum. But that's the big difference here. If I say I have an imaginary friend and he tells me how I have to live my life, I get sent to therapy. Do it with 2000 other idiots and you have a cult, with 2,000,000 you have a religion. And then it's a-ok suddenly for some reason.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If you applied that at a University, all of the Liberal Arts would be out, and STEM would be the only thing left.
Evidence based study of a Shakespeare Sonnet? Pottery and graphic design? Film criticism and Foreign language courses?
There is a broad range of subjects between hard objectivity of STEM and pure conjecture of Creationism. And those have a place in the Uni as well.
So does Creationism, if it is related to religious studies which examine belief systems
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Frankly, I think Hitler's religious views, indeed the religious views of all the leading Nazis, is irrelevant. Few of them ever got their hands directly bloody murdering Jews, Gypsies and the like. It was all their God-fearing Lutheran and Catholic subordinates who did the dirty work. The underlying motivations of Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler and the other leading figures are interesting in certain perspectives, but to me, the most horrifying part of the Holocaust isn't that the leadership possessed some "out there" beliefs, but that ordinary men and women, who under other circumstances would have been considered your average citizens, no better and no worse than anyone anywhere else in the world, could be so easily manipulated into viewing people that they had lived side by side with for generations as vermin who needed exterminating.
I have two observations to make on that topic; one factual and one anecdotal.
The factual observation is that the Holocaust, while engineered by Hitler and his inner circle, was in fact the product of centuries of anti-Semitism to be found throughout Christendom. The chief difference between the Nazis and Isabella and Ferdinand was the latter did not have Zyklon B at their disposal, and thus had to use more mundane methods to get rid of the Jewish populations within the borders they ruled. The number of pogroms dating back to the earliest days of Christian dominance of Europe suggest that the Holocaust wasn't some outlier, but rather the culmination of anti-Semitic beliefs and sentiment.
The second observation is anecdotal. When was a teenager, my best friend's family had originated in Germany. Only one of his father's siblings; his youngest aunt, was born in North America. The rest had all been born in Germany before and during World War II. One day I was visiting my friend, when his grandfather, a very nice man, came up to us and told us "Whatever you hear from other people from Germany about what went on before and during the war, don't believe anyone who says they did not know. We all knew what was happening. We knew whole families were disappearing, that people who were outspoken were gone in the morning. Anyone who tells you they were ignorant of what was happening is lying."
It has stuck with me for many years, and it is chilling, because it suggests to me that many people I know personally, in the same circumstances, might turn their back on such conduct, and indeed, might allow their prejudices of any group to be built up to the point where that group is dehumanized. At that point, you don't even care what happens to them, and can bury your head in the sand with ease.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.