Slashdot Mirror
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.
So don't go. Let them wallow in their beliefs.
I'm all for it if it comes with a free bucket of tomatoes for the spectators.
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."
There is. It's called a Church.
/snark
(Sorry, non-idiot Christians.)
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.
That wouldn't let them leech of the university's reputation for fake credibility.
They'll be citing these talks later as "the talk by distinguished [bullshit title] R.Nut. given at Michigan State University", and let people assume this was a university condoned lecture.
MSU should be prepping their lawyers already, IMHO.
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.
I for one welcome an opposing opinion.
I think that if we've learned anything form the Ham vs Nye debate, it is that belief and science are two different things. One will be changed with arguments, the other can't.
In other words: religion is not an opinion.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
Where's a better place for a discussion which may introduce truth and actual intellectual debate? Maybe someone there will point out a real conservative viewpoint such as Augustine's from around AD 400 which by using the text of the Bible alone came up with the conclusion that a strictly (simplistic) literal interpretation was impossible and also never intended. Augustine also pointed out that some of the greatest damage that can be done to the Church is by scientifically-ignorant believers who attempt to lecture scientific experts about how the experts are wrong in their views.
Unfortunately for Christians, and just about every other group ever organized with a human membership component, ignorance at the adult stage is usually manifest in a self reinforcing mindset and not one welcome to instruction.
You nailed it
REASONED debate
Creationists admit they can NEVER be convinced
There went reason and debate
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.
Well, actually, since it's a public school that would otherwise allow rallies, Nazi's can, given they obtain the proper permits. See the National Socialist Party of America v Village of Skokie, among other decisions.
The Nazis cannot hold rallies there
Yes they can. Nazis, and creationists, have the same rights to free speech as anyone else. A public university has no right to be censoring speech. If the creationists went through proper channels to reserve the room, and paid the rental fee, it is unconstitutional for a public university to deny them access based on the views expressed.
Scientists aren't picking sides. That is the whole point. You develop a theory for how things happen based on collected evidence and derivations. If your hypothesis doesn't fit the data, it isn't valid.
It doesn't matter how much contrary evidence you provide against creationists. By their own definitions, they can never be falsified. How do you debate that?
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.
It's a very dangerous and slippery slope to stop allowing rented space on university campuses just because some people don't like the discussion. The moment it violates campus policy it gets pulled, but otherwise it's as good a spot as any for this sort of event. If you don't like it, don't go, or hold your own event in the conference room next door.
www.clarke.ca
Science does not believe.
Religion does not prove.
There is no Venn diagram overlapping the two.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
In other words: religion is not an opinion.
That may be, but it *is* a protected civil right in the United States. If you fuck with it, other civil rights like Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press could easily be fucked with next.
Let them have their conference. It doesn't hurt anyone, and fucking with it will only cause major headaches for everyone. Consider it a religious conference if it makes you feel better.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
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
University students are not children and should have the right to have penises down their throats if they want them. Both actually and metaphorically.
And your argument still sounds like its an excuse to call speech something other than speech so it can be restricted because someone doesn't like it.
We get it, Creationism isn't even science and it's crap. I believe that too. It is speech, however, and it is not a position that was simply created to annoy you or the faculty of a university. People do take it seriously, and although I don't expect you to, you should take seriously the fact that denying them the ability to discuss their views in public is probably worse than their ideas.
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.
Michigan State is an arm of the government. They take both state and federal money.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
When is the last time that a politician has tried to get history books rewritten to take City on The Edge of Forever into account? When's the last time that a school board voted to allow for the teaching that light speed could be bypassed using dilithium crystals in a warp drive? I doubt even the most hard-core Trek fan has seriously tried doing this. (And even if they did, I doubt they got any traction on it.)
I have no problem with people's religious beliefs. I even have my own religious beliefs. But the second that you try to set policy based solely on your religious beliefs, you are foisting them on other people who might have different religious beliefs (or no religious beliefs at all). This gets even worse when the religious belief-backed policy is favoring religious belief over science and even worse still when it tries to push science out of the science classroom because it challenges someone's religious beliefs.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
You mean behave like those people organizing the conference. Check.
I didn't see anything about a "Throw tomatoes at scientists" workshop.
Seriously, the best way to combat something like this is to just ignore it. Showing up to cause a scene and throw rotten fruit just gives them a reason to think their ideas are a threat. Unless you think they actually are.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
There are more Christians (by denomination) who don't believe in Biblical Inerrancy, and more English speaking Christians who don't beleive the KJV is the best or only correct translation, than vice versa. One of the big points people like Luther and Wesley claimed for the Protestant Reformation, was that the Bible was sufficient for grace - not infalliable, and particularly not an infallible guide to matters of ethics, science, or politics. It's a minority of spin-offs of spin-off churches that have adopted Inerrancy as a position, and in claiming all true Christians believe that, they are not just supporting Creationism (and Young Earth Creationism in particular), they are saying that a whole lot of the people who disagree with them are Heretics, That's just the sort of thing that needs exposed to the general public. This is precisely the problem with closing off Universities to such debates as creationism. Limit the debates to a particular someone's church, and how can there be any neutral ground to address the underlieing assumptions of the Creationists, and how does anyone expect anyone to change their mind if you can't address any of the underlieing assumptions?
Anne Coulter wrote a book about how many Christian denominations were not really Christian, because they tended to vote 'Liberal'. Should that claim and all related politics be off limits at universities and only debated in those churches that actually believe only Republicans are going to Heaven? Do we stop having televised debates between candidates until a sufficiently small percentage of churches are equating Republicanism with Jesus, and how small is sufficiently?
Who is John Cabal?