Via the DefCon blog comes that news that Texas governor Rick Perry has appointed a creationist to head the Texas State Board of Education.
I’ll give you a moment to clean off your screen. Yes, you read that right.
At first I thought, "No, not even a politician in Texas could possibly do something that dumb, that contrary to reality, that horrifying to their kids. DefCon Blog must have gotten it wrong!"
And then I did a few searches. DefCon Blog got it right. According to the Dallas Morning News:
Texas Freedom Network president Kathy Miller … noted that in 2003, Dr. McLeroy was one of four board members who voted against proposed high school biology textbooks because he felt their coverage of evolution was “too dogmatic” and did not include possible flaws in Charles Darwin’s theory of how life on Earth evolved from lower forms.
That is straight out of the creationist tactics notebook. In case you’re not sure, the article goes on to quote McLeroy:
“It is wrong to teach opinion as fact,” he said.
Pssst! Someone needs to tell him it’s also unconstitutional to teach religion as science.
Here is an Op-Ed talking about McLeroy’s appointment as Board chair:
In 2001, McLeroy and a majority of the board rejected the only Advanced Placement textbook for high school environmental science because its views on global warming and other events didn’t comport with the beliefs of the board majority. The book wasn’t factual and was anti-American and anti-Christian, the majority claimed. Meanwhile, dozens of colleges and universities were using the textbook, including Baylor University, the nation’s largest Baptist college.
In 2003, McLeroy voted against approving biology textbooks that included a full-scale scientific account of evolutionary theory.
Here is a letter McLeroy sent out to his fellow State Board of Education members:
My Personal Confession
Given all the time in the world, I don’t think I could make a spider out of a rock. However, most of the books we are considering adopting, claim that Nothing made a spider out of a rock.
I don’t think I share a common ancestor with a tree. However, most of the books we are considering adopting, claim as a fact that we all share a common ancestor with a tree.
Brilliant! This guy doesn’t understand the most basic principles of biology, and he’s going to chair the State Board of Education. And hey, if he doesn’t understand something, why should it be taught at all?
Here is Don McLeroy’s own website, from the Favorite Quotations section:
The belief seems to be spreading that intellectuals are no wiser as mentors, or worthier as exemplars, than the witch doctors or priests of old. I share that scepticism.
Think that one through for a moment, folks. The new head of the Texas State Board of Education is an anti-intellectual. Note: he didn’t say this himself, he is quoting someone else; but it’s clearly a quotation he agrees with.
You can rail all you want and complain that I write too much about anti-science in the form of religious fundamentalism, but you would be wrong. I can’t write about this enough. It’s a disease, a virus, and now the brains of millions of schoolchildren in Texas are at risk. Worse, Texas (along with California) has an unusually large influence on what textbooks get used in the rest of the country, because they are such a large market for the publishers. If this antiscience, anti-intellectual, anti-reality man gets to help choose what textbooks go in Texas, then you parents out there who are reading this in New Hampshire, in Wyoming, in Oregon, in Virginia — your own kids are at risk here too.
Fighting this stuff is important.
Fight.
And I leave you with this thought, unless we do something about it…
Science in Texas:
July 25th, 2007 at 8:55 am
Oh, and before I am accused yet again of being anti-religious: read this first.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:13 am
It’s hard to be surprised about this. Texas is the stupidest place on earth.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:24 am
Oh the stupid, it burns, it burns.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:24 am
I can’t say I am surprised in the least. Perhaps us people in California can convince the good folk at CalTech to make giant death ray and rid us of the burden that is Texas, once and for all.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:27 am
I couldn’t agree with your emphasis on the importance of fighting these kinds of developments. All to often people skirt these issues and consider them unimportant but they effect the education of millions of people and generations to come. I think one could quite accurately state that decisions like these will shape the future of mankind.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:29 am
>>> Texas is the stupidest place on earth.
So we combat anti-science bigotry with more bigotry. Wonderful. You’ll really appeal to the masses with that approach. I know, let’s get Penn & Teller to call the people of Texas a bunck of f******* douchebags. That’ll win their hearts and minds! Wheeeee!
I don’t mean to be a grouch (as much as I *do* enjoy it), but this is a peeve of mine.
Re: picture
If the mouse represents science, then can’t the mouse transform into a giant mecha robo-mouse?
>>> It’s a disease, a virus,
“Meme” is the word you are looking for.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
July 25th, 2007 at 9:31 am
I live in Houston. Sorry- but Texans are just as smart and just as dumb as people in any other state.
(Some) Texans are however infected with some pretty bad ideas that have ramifications for the rest of the country.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:33 am
BA, are posts being held in some kind of moderation. For, unlike the problem I reported yesterday on your new style blog. Where on posting I get the regex error and on reposting it I get the wordpress, ‘you have posted this once’ error message. Now I still get both the regex error and the wordpress dual post error, but, when I go back to the blog I posted to and do a hard or soft refresh, unlike yesterday, my post is not there. While reporting the problem encountered this is more of a test to see if this post will make it through this time, unlike my previous post.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:37 am
Phil – You might not be anti-religion I am. (I think you are and are being politically correct). Doesn’t matter if I’m right about you or not.
What matters is that religion is a scourge on humanity. They believe in nonsense and I would put the number of people who claim to be religious just to “fit in” at 80+%.
I believe that 1 + 1 = 2. I don’t have to think about it. I don’t have to convince myself. I don’t operate outside of that simple truth.
But people who “believe” in their gods don’t live like people who have faith. They live like people who hope it’s true and they’ll find salvation. Actually a lot of them live like total dirtbags and think they can say a few magic words to make into the kingdom of heaven (which doesn’t exist, btw).
The “god” in the old testement has the maturity of an 11 y/o. Is that supposed to be the same god that created the entire universe? How much sense does it make that some entity can create this beautiful, wonderous, unimaginably huge existence and then turn around and ask for kids to be burned on an alter to “please” him or turn people into pillars of salt because they pissed him off. What a freakin jerk!
Want to know what a piece of crap god is? Here’s a good place to start:
http://www.evilbible.com/
July 25th, 2007 at 9:38 am
BA, that one made it, the only way I can make a post is to submit once and get the Regex ID: 18261 error message. Click back and do a refresh, where I see my post is still in the entry box waiting posting. I then click submit again and get the WordPress duplicate post error. Click Back and do a hard refresh and the post then appears. If I change that procedure in any way, the post refuses to appear.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:41 am
While condemning creationism isn’t necessarily anti-religious, it is attacking a religious doctrine that is most definitely anti-intellectual. Without the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy–that the Bible is the literal and inerrant word of God–then we would have very few creationists to worry about.
It is possible to believe in inerrancy and not be a young-Earth creationist, but you have to abandon any simple, literal reading of Genesis to the point that young-Earthers will pour as much scorn on you as they do evolutionists.
And creationists aren’t even consistent in their own beliefs about the inerrancy of the Bible. Where are all the calls for the reintroduction of slavery? Why are supporters of the death penalty (for Biblical reasons) so squeamish about stonings and beatings, which are just as Biblical? Why aren’t they calling for all the gays and lesbians to rounded up and put to death? Why do we always hear that homosexuality is an abomination but never that lying is condemned in just as harsh terms? Why do they rant on and on about the Ten Commandments (most of which are unconstitutional, by the way) and yet we never hear them quote from the Beatitudes (you know, blessed are the meek, the peacemakers, etc.)? One could go on all day.
The doctrine of biblical inerrancy is a sham, practiced properly by almost no one. “We believe the Bible” is just a slogan used as an excuse not to use one’s brain when faced with tough questions about morality, faith, and the world around us.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:44 am
Amazing.
But, unfortunately, unsurprising. The creationists have infiltrated the Republican party so completely that their beliefs are becoming mainstream and acceptable, even to the point where someone who is so hostile to intellectual pursuit is put in such a position of responsibility.
Yes, fight this crap. At every level, at every opportunity.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:44 am
You’re using the same rhetoric they use to get your point across. It’s all about “the children”, or in your case the children’s brain
I highly doubt that fighting rhetoric with rhetoric is effective by any measure……
July 25th, 2007 at 9:53 am
Isn’t Texas the state where a state government official, stumping against the issue of Spanish as an official state language said something like,
“If English was good enough for Jesus Christ is should be good enough for Texas.”
Yeah, I thought so.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:53 am
John Philips: Me too but I just hit submit a second time for the double submit error, then the post goes through.
I wonder how the Reconstructionists(read: fundi christians) would feel if our muslim population were as adamant about making Islam the national religion as are the fundi christians.? Isn’t it strange that these two religions, derived from Judiasm, are so aggressive in promoting their interpretaion of the old testament, while most Jews are in complete agreement with our emperical interpretation of reality? I guess humanity has a long way to go before reason triumphs over magic,,,but the Jews give me hope,,,
Gary 7
July 25th, 2007 at 9:55 am
It always amazes me that the US cannot shout these yahoos down. Is there another western country that would even consider someone with those sorts of views for a senior education post?
While i agree that people should be free to think, or not, as they see fit, I certainly believe that some thoughts do disqualify you from some activities. Believing in the literal truth of some ancient mythology should disqualify you from leading educational institutions, for example, and I can’t see how such a disqualification would not be beyond reproach. Believing that invisible spirits talk to you should probably be a reason to be disqualified from being in charge of weapons, particularly weapons of mass destruction, and so forth.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:58 am
I must say I feel for all the Americans having to fight this poison, here in the uk we have very few fundamentalists so are spared this insanity, mostly, for the moment. I do happen to know that a creationist school has opened up in Gateshead near Newcastle Upon Tyne, with the approval of our own christian whack job ex pm Tony Blair. Unfortunately this Gordon Brown character that has succeeded in wheedling his way into power is similarly deranged. I look to the future of Britain , as an atheist, with dread. As to the education of our youth I give you this true quote Phil and all that it implies: last year I explained to a young man of 23 yrs at my workplace what stars where. Yes, really, I had to do this. His response was this… ”So those stars in the sky, you mean they’re not really small, they’re just really far away.”
wow.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:59 am
I don’t think…
I can agree with that.
July 25th, 2007 at 10:11 am
I’ve lived in Texas nearly my entire life, and while I won’t say that it’s the stupidest place on Earth, because I don’t know that to be true, I will say that there are an incredible number of ignorant, poorly educated, religiously dogmatic, intellectually non-curious and just plain *dumb* people in Texas.
I’ve been in public science education (astronomy) at a major Observatory for about 10 years now, and I’ve seen little if any improvement in those 10 years. Rather, it seems as if things are getting worse.
Our governor (“governor good hair)” is not known for his intellectual prowess, nor was our former governor, now our president. It appears as if the governor religious nut doesn’t fall far from the governor religious nut tree here in the lone star state.
I don’t know how things are in, say, Vermont when it comes to backward people, but working here where I do, my colleagues and I are always quite surprised when we do meet a visitor to the Observatory who is simultaneously intellectually curious, well read, not a religious nutbag, interested in science education, and a Texan.
If I knew for a fact that all states had the same ratio of zealots as Texas (or at least the south) does, I would be much more dismayed and most likely start planning my exodus to Canada or Scandanavia sooner than later.
July 25th, 2007 at 10:11 am
“Given all the time in the world, I don’t think I could make a spider out of a rock. However, most of the books we are considering adopting, claim that Nothing made a spider out of a rock.”
It’s pretty much a given that when people criticize Evolution, they show just how ignorant of the basics they are.
July 25th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Ugh! I’m going to have to add this to the top of my list of reasons not to ever move to Texas! Actually, this would be a sufficient reason all by itself So much for my list!
I think I’m going to be sick…
July 25th, 2007 at 10:25 am
“I don’t think I share a common ancestor with a tree.”
Well mate, you sound like a plank to me…
July 25th, 2007 at 10:29 am
“It always amazes me that the US cannot shout these yahoos down.”
Too many fundies in positions of power, it seems. I share Tony J’s concern for UK schools. While for the most part, despite teaching religion, our schools generally don’t let it interfere with teaching good science, our esteemed leaders fondness for faith schools makes monitoring fundamentalism problematic. Vardy’s Gateshead school being a case in point. Eternal vigilance and all that.
Blair and Brown are both bozo’s. Cameron on the other side is also a fan of faith schools. Maybe we’re screwed.
July 25th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Sadly, part of the problem I feel is that a lot of people would agree with this part. of what he said.
>Given all the time in the world, I don’t think I could make a spider out of a rock. >However, most of the books we are considering adopting, claim that Nothing >made a spider out of a rock.
>
>I don’t think I share a common ancestor with a tree. However, most of the books >we are considering adopting, claim as a fact that we all share a common >ancestor with a tree.”
Not because they are being wilfully ignorant or trying to overthrow science but simply because they were taught about evolution very badly. I have had enough conversations with otherwise intelligent people about this and they all don’t really get evolution. Somewhere, somehow the message gets corrupted into the drivel above.
Also is it me or does this view seem to be at the moment confined to people of similar cohort. If so then the problem should go away if we can keep science teaching free from religion.
Of course having berks like him in charge of education isn’t going to solve the problem, but then again neither is belittling those that don’t yet get it. It is a fine line to walk, but step over it and you will most likely lose people to creationism.
July 25th, 2007 at 10:59 am
So, what can we do?
July 25th, 2007 at 10:59 am
I live in Texas and I heard about this about a week ago. I’m writing a letter to Rick Perry and distributing it wherever I can.
The other thing that bugs me about McLeroy is that he advocates “abstinence only” sex-ed, to the exclusion of actually informing young people about the dangers of unwanted pregnancies and STDs like AIDS or HPV.
If repeating “abstinence only” qualifies as sex education, then telling a toddler “Just hold it!” qualifies as potty training.
July 25th, 2007 at 10:59 am
I nearly choked on my very tasty bran muffin. Then I came about and thought “Well, it IS texas.”
I don’t know, it’s sorta sad that I expected that coming from these folks. It’s a sad, sad thing. I pity the students of Texas.
July 25th, 2007 at 11:05 am
Brian, I saw the abstinence-only nonsense on his site and even had it in an earlier draft of this post, but took it out because it wasn’t part of the main thrust about creationism and science. But it certainly shows that this guy is way our to the right of reality.
July 25th, 2007 at 11:11 am
BA, you’re 100% correct that the big danger here is that textbooks used nation-wide are in danger. Texas and California are the two biggest purchasers, and most textbook publishers follow their curriculums, and then add in other stuff to make the books match as many states as possible. If you’re at all interested in this problem, I strongly suggest reading: “The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn” by Diane Ravitch – it’ll blow your mind.
Due to the fact that textbook publishers want to sell their books in as many states as possible, our students are getting these huge textbooks with shallow coverage of many, many aspects of a subject, rather than books that are strongly focused. So what happens is that instead of learning an aspect of a subject indepth, then moving on the next year, kids learn many different skills to a more shallow degree, and then they have to review it every year. Time is wasted. In Japan, for example, there is a national curriculum that covering comprises about 2/3 of the school year – there is one set of textbooks and in first grade, certain topics are covered indepth, and then in second grade other topics, etc. They don’t have to review every year because all the kids covered the same stuff, and covered it well. The other 1/3 of the year means that the local school boards or teachers can add additional material that they think is important. But all the kids are covering the same basic information at the same time. But here in the US we’re trying to enforce national guidelines through testing, while allowing each state to have its own curriculum. And we’ve all seen how well THAT is working. And the textbooks publishers trying to make sales is just making it all worse.
Rant over. Sorry, I’m a beginning teacher, so this stuff is front and center for me.
July 25th, 2007 at 11:12 am
If you would like to know the type of theocratic culture these knotheads have planned for us, check out Iran.
14th century thinking with a different name for their God; that’s about it.
July 25th, 2007 at 11:20 am
I’m from Texas and I have seen a lot of those people. They don’t have any basic science knowledge and dismiss what they don’t know. The SAD thing is they will tell you that you don’t know anything about the bible and dismiss what they believe. They don’t deserve what science has brought to our daily life: petroleum, medicine, and the machine that prints their bible!
July 25th, 2007 at 11:23 am
Arg! This makes me sad. I live in Texas so this is pretty bad news. Wish there was something I could do…
July 25th, 2007 at 11:23 am
Im shocked. The idea of children being “taught” in environments like this is just too terrible.
July 25th, 2007 at 11:24 am
I have lived all my life in Ohio, and I do remember that, although I had heard of evolution while in high school, it wasn’t until I got to a university (in a biology curriculum) that I finally got into a course on evolution. That course on evolution changed everything for me at the time. For a long time after that (years), although I understood the biology, I continued to believe in a creator, and tried to intellectually reconcile that with what I had been taught about science. In retrospect, understanding evolution, or science in general, does not automatically convert one to no longer believe in what you have been brainwashed to believe from a very early age. It’s compartmentalization within the brain, or as Steven Jay Gould once said, non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA). Compartmentalization is what many otherwise brilliant and gifted scientists still do today.
My point is that I am surprised and dismayed that I was “insulated” for so long in high school from a well-developed science that had been around for well over a hundred years. I wonder how true this is of many secondary level schools in America. If so, the problem is more widespread than we might yet imagine, and a serious one. Is anyone aware of any credible research that has been done on this? What do people on school boards around the country believe about science and science education? How many school boards are headed or dominated by YECs, and what influence do they actually have over science education? My guess is that the results would frighten many of us.
July 25th, 2007 at 11:26 am
Remember the movie Idiocracy? … This is how it starts…
My post linking to yours.
Cat likes the picture.
July 25th, 2007 at 11:26 am
Hey, Texas is a great place with great people. I have many friends there and people in texas don’t appear to be dumb to me. It would be like saying all Americans are dumb becuase the elected George Bush… it’s also a great place to live. Had to get that off my chest.
July 25th, 2007 at 11:34 am
Thanks, BA, for this alert to us Texans. Dr. McElroy views do not represent the majority of either scientists or Christians in our state.
His ATM evolutionary arguments are sad…
http://home.att.net/~dmcleroy/Textbooks/Historical_Reality.htm
July 25th, 2007 at 11:42 am
[...] sick as I type this. Anyone interested in the fight against Creationism should check out a post on Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy blog. Texas: Doomed. Great write up by Phil and a sad state of affairs for science and school [...]
July 25th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Honestly, the older I get I’m beginning to think that Texas is really no different than anywhere else in the world. The ratio of intelligent people to morons is probably representative of other places. It’s just a bigger place so when something stupid happens in Texas there’s more of a chance for the region to catch a bad rap.
For the people asking “what can I do?”, raise awareness. Write letters to the editor of your newspaper, write your congressman, get involved with your kid’s PTA, start your own blog for that matter! The fate of Reason itself is at stake, and with every time superstition overpowers Reason, the world becomes a little bit dumber. Fight the good fight, dammit.
Love your blog, Phil.
July 25th, 2007 at 11:46 am
I don’t feel so bad about growing up in Kansas anymore. Now, stab and twist until the stupid is dead.
July 25th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Your picture depicts a “survival of the fittest” scenario..
Implied in the picture.. science is the mouse.. I.D. is the cat..
The mouse is barely intelligent, knowing only the baser nature of life.. food, and reproduction. Also very prone to “pavlov” type persuasion…. also multiplies rapidly, carries diseases, is quick in its judgements, and is a considered a PEST by exterminators. Spends most of its day pooping, or running around in and endless pointless wheel, and squeaking to itself in rambling profusion… i.e. much like the cirucular reasoning that evolutionists engage in ad nauseum.
The cat on the other hand displays emotions, demonstrates intelligence, short and long term memory, individuality, and even has a form of social struture/status among fellow felines. The cat takes care (kills) the PEST by planning a modus operandi and executing it with a precision that sometimes defies the ‘laws’ of physics….and then spends the rest of its day sitting in quiet contemplation and meditation.
The summation of your article should say “EVOLUTION in Texas : Doomed”… since we all know science is the study of observed phenomenon… and the TESTING in the LAB of OBSERVATIONS, not speculations….
Albiet true that when you get rid of a lot of the “specultions”… most of your socalled “science” goes down the tubes… that is to say.. your textbook of “factual science” would get a LOT smaller.
July 25th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Mike J, you’ve got me confused….are you saying that science is a PEST and religion is the hunter? Do you go further to say that science is futile and circular in it’s thinking while religion is based on individuality and intelligence? I need to know if you’re really saying that or your whole post is reeking with sarcasm and I just didn’t detect it.
Because wow, if you feel that way….I’m at a loss for words. And I’ve read a lot of things on this board/site that have made me scratch my head but none have prompted me to write before.
July 25th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
I wouldn’t have thought that my first BA Blog post would be here, but I just couldn’t resist.
I went to a religiously affiliated school, and they were quite willing to teach evolution there. In fact, it was encouraged thinking – side by side with theology.
More than half my extended family lives in Texas so I feel I can’t bash it too much, but banning something because you don’t understand it is just plain wrong. I should provide an incentive to study it more and become better aware.
As Brian T. (almost wrote “Brain,” sorry about that!) says, we have to raise awareness, and just hope that there are enough people out there who will see that a disaster is looming so that a change can be made.
July 25th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Ironically, MikeJ just demonstrated his complete lack of understand of what “survival of the fittest” means in terms of evolutionary biology.
Par for the course for IDists, naturally.
July 25th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Welcome BlondeReb3,
The verdict is still out on how hard Dr. McElroy will push his views. He may have tempered some since 2003, since he did receive some backlash from eminent scientists, such as Weinberg at UT (where McElroy obtained is MD)…
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid:178247
“Perhaps the brightest star was UT physicist and Nobel Laureate physicist Steven Weinberg, who told board members that they should see their responsibility as analogous to that of judges who would not admit purported evidence of “witchcraft” to the consideration of a jury, any more than the board should ask students to determine the current scientific consensus in biology. Weinberg said the knowledge embodied in evolutionary theory reflects the “overwhelming consensus” of biological scientists.â€
July 25th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
I’d like to thank MikeJ for confirming everything I have written about him in previous posts.
And George, reading the link to McLeroy’s views on evolution you provided above, I don’t think he’ll ease off much. He published that sad tract in 2003. At least he doesn’t think the Sun revolves around the Earth… and that is the best thing I can say about him.
July 25th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
Back in Ann Arbor, I served as the fearless leader of an anti-Moral Majority group called Voice of Reason. I did battle with creationists on campus and debated one in a U of M tabloid.
I recall that back then, in the early/mid ’80s, Texas tried to bully textbook publishers into dropping the very mention of “evolution” from science texts. The size of the Texas market forced publishers to cower.
California’s Superintendent stepped up and let publishers know that if publishers dropped evolution, they could kiss California’s market goodbye. California is the nation’s largest textbook market, so California quashed Texas’ anti-science initiative.
I decided I could work in a state like like California.
July 25th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
I shudder to think about the quality of science education my neices and nephews will receive. Of course, my sister (their mother) will certainly approve…
July 25th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Mike J – If you have kids, are you going to proudly urge them to fight and die in wars for Bush, Cheney, Jesus and Oil? (I presume your reasons, as the troops themselves, many from lower income families; have a variety of other reasons for being in Iraq and Afghanistan.) That’s what it’s really about: Creationism is a political agenda hiding behind dogmatic religious posturing. Its long term purpose is to nurture a generation devoid of critical thinking and devout enough to believe more than think. They can then be molded into unknowingly servile masses that endorse and obey whatever agenda the far-right promotes.
July 25th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
tacitus said: on 25 Jul 2007 at 12:15 pm
Ironically, MikeJ just demonstrated his complete lack of understand of what “survival of the fittest†means in terms of evolutionary biology.
Par for the course for IDists, naturally.
—
Uh,
Natural Selection… er.. survival of the fittest… er.. predator vs. prey = survival of the fittest.. which bogus angle should I be taking on that pic?
I’ve got it…mutations… yeah… mutations over time… and just to be safe.. every 20 years or so we’ll add another billion years to the equation… because over time, through changes in DNA the first mammals who were “mice like creatures who survived the exinction of the dinosaurs by living under ground” Holt Biology c. 1997 actually changed into the feline depicted in Phil Plaits choice of picture.
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# Chris Pon 25 Jul 2007 at 12:02 pm —
“are you saying that science is a PEST and religion is the hunter? Do you go further to say that science is futile and circular in it’s thinking while religion is based on individuality and intelligence”
–
I say that EVOLUTION (and phils false lumping in as ‘science’) is the PEST.
Read the definition of science from dictionary.com…
Evolution is a theory, or I say a Hypothesis… it is not in the testible catagory… and has NOT been physically observed… read it and weap everyone… evolution cannot be lumped in as “science”…
Rather it is “theoretical science”… much like “theoretical physics” it must be PROVED… and thus falls into theoretical sciences, not ACTUAL REAL science.
sci·ence [sahy-uhns]
–noun 1. a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences.
2. systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.
3. any of the branches of natural or physical science.
4. systematized knowledge in general.
5. knowledge, as of facts or principles; knowledge gained by systematic study.
6. a particular branch of knowledge.
7. skill, esp. reflecting a precise application of facts or principles; proficiency
As for the “circular reasoning” that I’m referring to…
I’m talking about the Geologic column and the fact that IT is the foundation of Evolutionary dating and geologic dating… and because it is FALSE .. any underlying hypothesis based upon that foundation is FALSE.
If you have NO idea what I’m talking about w/ respect to the geologic column… i.e. Dating the layers of Rock/Strata by index fossils… and then turning right around and dating the index fossils by the layers of rock they are found in…
You will quickly see that dating fossils by the rocks, and rocks by the fossils is an insane way to try to determine the age of things.
Some will say that we use radio-carbon dating or isotope dating.. but when you look these methods up.. guess what they use as the “key” to determine the “age range” to use… yep.. they use the false geologic column based upon circular reasoning.
When you submit a rock, fossil etc.. to have it isotope or radio carbon dated, they always ask you where you found it… what layer etc..
People have given recently deceased SNAIL shells, and falsely told the “daters” where they found it… the live snail shell was dated 15,000 years old…
When you date anything using isotopes or carbon dating, a large range of numbers are actually produced… some very young.. some “billions” of years old… the “daters” then look at where you said you found the object, and PICK the date which closest matches the geologic column.
So to give a longwinded answer to your question.. I AM INDEED referring to YOUR “evolutionary science”.. which ironically isn’t really science at all.
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July 25th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
# Chipon 25 Jul 2007 at 12:37 pm
Mike J – If you have kids, are you going to proudly urge them to fight and die in wars for Bush, Cheney, Jesus and Oil?
————-
Dude, I voted for Harry Brown in the 2000 election, and John Kerry in 2004.. when I lived in missouri I voted for Carnahan (D), and when I moved to Boulder in 2005 I voted independent across the board where I could and Democrat for governor, and senator..
This is the problem that I actually ran into Phil Plait w/ as well.. when I made the suppostion about Eris and Dysnomia… he labelled me as Right wing… phil can be a block head sometimes ;^) , but other times he’s right on about political things…
this is where YOU come in… just because I don’t “believe” in evolution like YOU believe in it… does that mean somehow i’m against the troops, or right wing or whatever?!
My best friend.. the best man in my wedding, joined the marines last year … my father was in the US Navy in Korea and Vietnam.. I served in the Navy for 4 years 1994-1998… So where do you , phil, or anyother armchair liberal-general-at-arms get off talking down to me, or any other “creationist” from your faux-ivory tower of intellectual superiority… when you can’t even acknowledge (or for that matter realize) that you’re side engages in circular reasoning, and ad-hominem attacks based upon ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
You know, its funny, phil never retracted the “right wing” comment about me, despite me revealing my voting record when it comes to “political parties”… and you will, most likely , never recant the “jesus, oil,” crap that you cling on to like a childhood blanket.
so have a nice day..
July 25th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
“I do happen to know that a creationist school has opened up in Gateshead near Newcastle Upon Tyne, with the approval of our own christian whack job ex pm Tony Blair.”
TonyJ, the Council of Europe has issued a very good draft resolution titled “The dangers of creationism in education” http://assembly.coe.int/main.asp?Link=/documents/workingdocs/doc07/edoc11297.htm
It will not be a binding policy for the EU member states, but it might be worth drawing the attention of our European MPs to it.
July 25th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
So let me see if I get this straight:
In Texas, students can be taught about all the creationist theories (and let us remember that Christianity is only ONE of MANY) but they will not be taught about the scientific methodology used to develop evolutionary theory nor will they be taught what generations of scientists have proved about our evolution through repeated trials.
Sorry, but it sure sounds to me like the witch doctors will now be welcomed in to the school to teach while the bio-chemists will be barred at the door.
And does this also mean that since the religious sects are driving the state sponsored education, paid for by the taxpayers, that the taxpayers can now turn around and teach biology in Sunday school? Seems only fair to me!
July 25th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
>>> here in the uk we have very few fundamentalists
Ha ha ha! Good one!
Oh, wait, you meant strictly *Christian* fundamentalists.
To be honest, I’d rather deal with the occasional idiot creationist than the occasional idiot bomb.
Anyway:
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1728235,00.html
And isn’t there a “creationist school” in Middlesbrough? Or did I dream that?
July 25th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
If there was ever a horror film made strictly for scientists (and I mean REAL scientists) THIS would be part of the plot.
It’s amazing the work done by scientists to allow us to better understand the world (and universe, for that matter) should be undone by the people we put in charge.
That should not be allowed to happen.
A new Dark Ages looms ahead if this stuff continues to spread.
It MUST be stopped.
“Evolution is a theory, or I say a Hypothesis… it is not in the testible catagory… and has NOT been physically observed… read it and weap everyone… evolution cannot be lumped in as “scienceâ€â€¦ ”
Three words for you MikeJ…
WRONG. WRONG. WRONG.
July 25th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
# The Bad Astronomeron 25 Jul 2007 at 12:23 pm
I’d like to thank MikeJ for confirming everything I have written about him in previous posts
—————————–
I have disclosed my voting history for your review in this forum, a comment which I see you did not approve or have deleted… I have voted Democrat in the 2004, and 2006 elections in Missouri and Colorado respectively. In 2000 I voted for independent Harry Brown of the “green party”. I beieve in a womans right to choice, and fully support the idea of social security.
I don’t however believe in Evolution.
Please consider this a fore-warning of legal action if you do not retract your slander of me in print form.
Do you know what “legally liable” means? Especially in the printing/publication industry (which you indirectly yet, legally belong to)… you need to do some research on the blogger Deb Frisch, and how she was taken to court and sued to retract her fraudulent blogging which she presented as fact…
From dictionary .com
li·a·ble [lahy-uh-buhl]
–adjective 1. legally responsible: You are liable for the damage caused by your action.
Trust me Phil, Deb Frisch demonstrated that bloggers are NOT covered by Section 230 of the communications decency act.. because you , as blog owner have said these false things about me being “right wing” etc..
Take the false information, or all information about me down, or I will be contacting legal representation.
Since we both live in Boulder it won’t be too hard for our laywers to meet.
Its up to you.. leave the lies about me up, or take them down, but to further dig your hole deeper, when I was proved right about Eris and Dysnomia (by mike brown himself broadcast on the science channel), and when I make known my voting record to dispell the “myth” that I’m a right winger.
these days, to call someone a “political right winger” can be considered “damaging”… especially when I don’t approve of the republican agenda one iota.
Do the right thing for once Phil, and retract your statements.
July 25th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
[...] Phil Plait does a good assessment of this, and he ends with: It’s a disease, a virus, and now the brains of millions of schoolchildren in Texas are at risk. Worse, Texas (along with California) has an unusually large influence on what textbooks get used in the rest of the country, because they are such a large market for the publishers. If this antiscience, anti-intellectual, anti-reality man gets to help choose what textbooks go in Texas, then you parents out there who are reading this in New Hampshire, in Wyoming, in Oregon, in Virginia — your own kids are at risk here too. [...]
July 25th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Well,
First of all, I lived in Dallas 22 years and loved Texas. I think your comments about the religious being anti-religious shows your ingnorance. Some of the most prominent scientist working at the moment are Christiians. Some have become Christians as they do their research. One such reseacher is Drl Carl Baugh. (http://www.creationevidence.org/cemframes.html)
Maybe you should try reading some of the work of these guys. You might get an education (who knows)
Meanwhile, I am going to be complimenting Rick Perry for his GREAT choice!
July 25th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
As if Texans weren’t dumb enough. Ah, but science is just witchcraft. Burn the witches! Burn the witches!
July 25th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
“did not include possible flaws in Charles Darwin’s theory”
It seems perfectly reasonable to fully teach a Theory. Including any possible flaws.
“it’s also unconstitutional to teach religion as science.”
You seems to have pulled this out of nowhere. I don’t see where any of the people you are insulting are advocating that religion be taught. They are not even forbidding Darwin’s theory. Thay are not even claiming it is flawed. They are simply demanding that all aspects of the theory, including possible flaws, be taught. My science teachers were not creationists and they always mentioned possible flaws in every theory they taught.
Sounds very reasonable; its almost intellectual.
July 25th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
shut the hell up… wah wah wah, lets bitch and moan some more…
If you dont like the influences of the school board, how bout you take a moment out of your busy lives and teach your kids something yourself
July 25th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Is it my imagination or is the amount of global stupidity going up exponentially each year?
At this rate we’ll have devolved back into monkeys by 2020.
July 25th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
I’m from Texas. I’m an atheist. I am going to kill myself. (bang, I just died).
@ the Texas is the stupidest place on earth guy: Kansas is worse. (I like to think so).. and I have 142 IQ from tickle…
July 25th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Just exactly what do they teach at The University of Texas Dental Branch? I find it hard to imagine how someone believing what he does ever qualified as a DDS….
July 25th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Mike J, you keep proving you don’t understand science. A “theory” is a tested, and peer reviewed. Evolution is seen on a small scale constantly, and we can see evidence of it in fossil records. The “theory” arguement is used by people with no technical background with no understanding of the scientific process. You are flat out wrong in your understanding of scientific terminology. No concessions, you are wrong. To use the “theory” arguement, Gravity is just a theory, so is relativity. Heliocentric theory, the kinetic theory of gases, and quantum theory are also just theories. A scientific theory is not philisophical and not open to debate. If you really want to see evolution in action, all you have to do is look at Drug Resistant diseases, They mutated and survived the drugs, voila natural selection.
July 25th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
I live in Austin, which is a moderate, if not liberal place (in Texas!). I love it here and I think this is the only place I could live in Texas. However, I highly doubt we can be comforted in any way that there are some outspoken thinkers.
I had the experience of going to the UT Natural History museum a few weeks back where they had an exhibit on evolution. It was small, but represented what I have seen in my school studies and in my own reading. Overall I was pleased with it, so I decided to leave a comment at the suggestion box, which also happened to display the comments of past people. I was absolutely blown away at the number of comments refuting the evolutionary evidence not to mention with pretty shocking language. The most frightening was the fact that many of the comments appeared to be written by children. They made similar arguments such as “I am not related to a monkey. I don’t look like one”. While this may have been from the fact that the display had children compare hand size and facial features to different apes, I have seen this in other settings too. Perhaps there are pamphlets being distributed somewhere that tells creationists to push this point? Regardless, the comment log book shook me up a bit, and gives me even more reason to contest this appointment.
Even if you are complacent with accepting evolution, creationists desire to push this view out of existence and replace it with a false one(my own opinion). Worse, they are willing to fight for this right, ironically similar to the passion of those Muslim people many creationists also misunderstand and spew hatred towards. Please do something about this, regardless of if you are in Texas or not. Write to Perry. Write to your congressman. Write to anyone you know. Help Texans that care, because there are many more that don’t.
As a final note, I will say that I made various drawings of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and submitted them for the comment book : ).
July 25th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
Personally I don’t understand the basis of the belief that creationism should be taught in a biology class, and why it’s gotten as far as it has.
People such as this believe that science is anti-religious, evolution in particular. But the truth is science cannot be pro or anti religious — it is beyond it’s scope. Science deals with knowledge gathered through observation and experimentation, and only makes predictions, theorys, laws that can be supported or dis-proven by observation. As such, God as an intangible being, or any thing that is beyond our view is beyond the scope of science.
Since biology is a science class it should only teach children the theories of science, whether they be fact, ‘guesses’ or completely wrong (of course I would hope this would be in the absence of something better). Teaching Creationism in Biology is like teaching ancient Egyptian in English class.
July 25th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
“It’s a disease, a virus…”
I do not appreciate the way you refer to Christian philosophy. This sounds like the words of Hitler about the Jews. Are you going to suggest that Christians shouldn’t be given the same opportunities in public life? Don’t you trust that our system of government is designed so that wise men and women can debate the issues and make the best decisions? It doesn’t mean mistakes aren’t made, but if the people don’t like what someone’s doing, they boot him out. You need to understand that it is every person’s right to make their own choices and believe how they want. Your kind of thinking will have all of us Christians in concentration camps within 20 years. Perhaps you would like to see that happen.
July 25th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Speaking of creationism… from my blog today (cambler.livejournal.com):
From MSNBC – LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy – Pope Benedict XVI said the debate raging in some countries — particularly the United States and his native Germany — between creationism and evolution was an “absurdity,†saying that evolution can coexist with faith.
The pontiff, speaking as he was concluding his holiday in northern Italy, also said that while there is much scientific proof to support evolution, the theory could not exclude a role by God.
“They are presented as alternatives that exclude each other,†the pope said. “This clash is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.
MY COMMENTS:
Okay, look, Ben, it’s simple: creationism says that everything we see and know was created, in-state, some 6000 years ago. That claim simply cannot co-exist with evolution. It’s flat-out not possible.
Unless you’re prepared to back-off of the 6000 year Young-Earth claim, it’s a non-starter. And even if you are prepared to accept the billion-year timeline, how are you going to explain away the fact that creationism claims that mankind was created, in-state, in the form of Adam and Eve? That claim, also, is flat-out not compatible with modern evolutionary theory.
To say that evolution can coexist with faith is to say that evolution is, indeed, true, and perhaps God touched the whole thing off, billions of years ago. But the Bible claims otherwise, Ben, and I don’t hear you saying that it’s wrong.
You can’t have it both ways, Ben.
July 25th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
I’m not from Texas, but if I were from Texas I’d be demeaning the best text books in Chemistry and Physics possible. Lets see this guy attempt to ruin these subjects via the Religion debate.
July 25th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Mike J
While most here do not agree with you, including myself, you sound like a smart guy. Now, the legal threat is childish and if you have any legal sense whatsoever you will know that just about every judge in America would throw out a libel/defamation case that involved any journalist calling someone a “rightwinger.” Accusing someone of being a rightwinger is all a matter of perception; to some green party or socialist party members, a moderate Democrat might be a rightwinger. Joe Lieberman, a former life-long Democrat, was repeatedly called a rightwinger during both his last primary and general campaigns. This label, and many, many others, is part of politics. If you don’t like it, don’t play.
July 25th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
MikeJ: ” I don’t however believe in Evolution.”
Then what do you believe in?
MikeJ: “I say that EVOLUTION (and phils false lumping in as ’science’) is the PEST. ”
Why do you think that it is a pest?
MikeJ: “Evolution is a theory, or I say a Hypothesis… it is not in the testible catagory… and has NOT been physically observed… read it and weap everyone… evolution cannot be lumped in as “scienceâ€â€¦”
Evolution is a theory, and has been proven time and time again. If evolution didn’t occur, wouldn’t we have had AIDS, SARS, etc. since the Fall?
MikeJ: ” sci·ence [sahy-uhns]”
It does have the words FACTS in there, which religion does not.
MikeJ: ” Some will say that we use radio-carbon dating or isotope dating.. but when you look these methods up.. guess what they use as the “key†to determine the “age range†to use… yep.. they use the false geologic column based upon circular reasoning.”
They don’t use geologic column data for radio-carbon or isotope dating; you’re simply mistaken.
MikeJ: ” People have given recently deceased SNAIL shells, and falsely told the “daters†where they found it… the live snail shell was dated 15,000 years old… ”
That’s because it’s not meant for biological material.
July 25th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Is it my imagination or is the amount of global stupidity going up exponentially each year?
At this rate we’ll have devolved back into monkeys by 2020.
July 25th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
“intellectuals are no … worthier as exemplars, than the … priests of old.”
Well, at least McLeroy is skeptical of priests…
(I wonder who he thinks wrote and compiled the bible.)
July 25th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
hey CafeenMan, in reply to your post, understandably you are upset, but I find it slightly ironic that you claim religion is totally false but yet make a religion out of not being religious if you know what I mean.
July 25th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Hey Mike J. Have you ever heard of Frivolous Litigation? They can end in Firm sanctions and requirement of reimbursement for defendants fees, as well as for the opening of possibility for countersuit and pursuit of damages.
Also, Did you actually read the Deb Frisch case? She used vulgar terms and in many cases repeatedly stalked and harrassed her victims. She specifically called people “Vermin” and “cowards” and harrassed them impersonating an NPR reporter in one incident. Furthermore, she had a repeated record of harrassment on the University of Oregon campus. “Right Wing” is not damaging under the law, it doesn’t associate you with any illegal groups or illicit behavior. I would suggest reading case details and notes. Instead you choose to follow the typically american sue happy culture and threaten legal action without proper knowledge of the cases you are referencing. Bringing up the Deb Frisch case is an improper and otherwise unjustified analogy. Oh ya, and for the record she also called an attorney “Guilty of Malpractice”, “Grossly incompetent” and “A Denver Shyster with a faux-phallus around his neck”. To a lawyer these are potentially damaging statements to his career. That’s Libel.
Furthermore, You have consistently proven you do not understand basic science concepts, like what a theory in the scientific community is. It is peer reviewed and tested and stands up to scientific scrutiny. If you read the Dover case trial conclusions you will find that all ID points were countered by biologists and determined to be inconclusive and in some cases deliberately false. If you really want to see evolution in action and Natural Selection just look at tuberculosis over the last 100 years and the evolution of XDR-TB. As incomplete treatments allowed mutant survivors of TB to spread the disease began to become immune to more and more treatments. This didn’t happen overnight it happened over many years and gradual changes in the TB Bacterium. God didn’t one day create XDR-TB, this is evolution in action.
July 25th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
I heard that Mike J steals candy from small children.
(MJ- you can sue me too. In fact- Anyone called Michael J. including Michael Jackson and MJ Fox has my permission to try suing me for my libelous remarks, which lower the status of MJ’s everywhere.)
July 25th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Just to show that many Christians also think this is absurd, here is an interesting read…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19956961/
Hard to believe the Catholic church would actually be the progressives on anything, but here you have it. The leader of over 1 billion Christians supports evolution and thinks we are obligated to do something about global warming. I am not a devout Catholic myself, but I learned of evolution from biology classes at a Catholic school and learned of Genesis in religion class, where it belongs. I don’t think anyone there, including the religion teacher, ever gave a second thought to actually taking Genesis literally. Growing up in predominately Catholic South Louisisana, I didn’t even have any idea people actually believed the earth is 6000 years old until I left!
July 25th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
I am from Texas. I opposed the both Iraq wars. I did not vote for W, even the first time. All the previous just to get out of the way the unrelated nonsense written by some in here.
We also home school and advocate the separation of government and schooling.
My 2 oldest sons take a Stanford Standarized test and score way above their peers. My oldest’s scores have been higher than 90 percentile and his SAT and ACT are high enough to be at the lower range of merit scholarship.
We are creationists. Oh, the horror.
Don’t live in Texas? Butt out. We already got too many people moving in from liberal utopias elsewhere.
And the Bush family are a bunch of blue-bloods Connecticut.
July 25th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
MikeJ,
How did you get everything so mixed up? Parents? Teachers? Brain-washing mentor?
Science, may be observational, but if we were to ignore the theories we wouldn’t have any more science to observe.
To use evolution as an example, or Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, we observe it at a deep level in nature. Since you are so familiar with real science, I’m sure you’re familiar with the Journal – Science Daily.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070712143300.htm
I mean, some theories have had very little proof (ie… i dunno, let’s say creationism)… But some, like relativity, circuit theory, or computational algorithm theory – are you suggesting that we just do not teach kids about these, because they are theoretical? And, even if you are, why stick creationism in?! How would you just let them not know about our best, most logical findings (thats what a taught scientific theory is.)
Scientific theory, is a crucial aspect of science – not some separate entity that you try to describe in attempt to make yourself feel better. Without it, there is no science.
At a certain point, many theories have become the accepted understanding of a scientific situation after scientific observation and testing – something you claim the Theory of Evolution has not had.
The Theory of Evolution describes how an animal species would slowly develop, through many generations, as the forces of nature allowed for certain survival traits. Now, how about the “observation” and “laboratory testing” that takes place in DNA analysis of various species, both in terms of preserved remains and presently found species?
It seems that you are a corruptly minded individual – possibly trying to make it seem like they are an educated scientist when you are not that at all.
July 25th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
I have opposed both Iraq wars. I did not vote for W, not even the first time he ran for POTUS.
I think that Governor Rick “good hair” Perry and the Lt. Governor David “Did Worst” Dewhurst have been a disaster for Texas. Only that the Democrats would have been a worse catastrophe. Now that I dispensed with some of the unrelated nonsense that some hav written.
If you are not from Texas, butt out. We already have too many individuals from liberal utopias elsewhere trying to import what they escaped.
We advocate the separation of government and schooling.
We home school.
Our two oldest sons take the Stanford Standarized Test every year and score very high. Since they began taking the SSTs they have always scored 3 to 4 grades above, ie post high scool comptency. My oldest son scores consistently above 90 percentile and his brother is close behind. My oldest SAT and ACT scores have placed in him in the lower range for a Merit Scholarship.
And we are creationists. Oh, the horror.
July 25th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
It doesn’t amaze me to see how ignorant people are time and time again
Since when does religion eliminate the facts of science? The true FACTS of science are few and far between….whats wrong with saying “Well, this is an IDEA we have, but its not 100% set in stone yet because….we are still learning about it”…..IE: Evolution
Heaven forbid if someone take a sceptical and thought provoking perspective on something (such as science OR religion for that matter)
Nothing in this world, NOTHING….can be proven to be 100% true, any scientist can tell you that…even if its 99.9999999% proven to be right…there is still that chance, that it will be proven wrong….
If you believe in ultimate fact, if you believe in 100% anything, then you are failing to understand the subjectiveness of reality
Science or Religion, pick your poison
If anything, they should teach the repurcussions of ideas such as how people can spin SCIENCE OR RELIGION to pursue personal needs….Darwins theory on the origin of species lead to the ideas of genetics, and Galtons Hereditary Genius……combined, this lead to Social Darwinism, the idea that “small companies” will fail to thrive, leading to big bussiness’s success during the rail road tycoon days of the late 1800′s – early 1900′s, giving way to social programs and Eugenics, the sterilization of the blind and the diseased……
Sadly, though most people are unaware, The United states started its own Eugenics programs in the early 1900s, sterilizing alot of African Americans, Poor, sick, and seen as “genetically unfit” people, in 27 states….
Meanwhile, in the high anxiety climate of Central Europe (Germany), Adolf Hitler and the Socialist movement (Nazi Party), implemented thier own (adopted) policy of American Eugenics on the “unfit” and “disease barring” Jewish population….leading to Genocide, and the death of millions of people around the world
So, people like to blame religion as the center fold for the deaths of millions, people like to believe that World War II was a ‘religious’ war, because of the religious implications and the targeting of Gods Chosen “The Jews”…..but in reality, it was a scientific one, an evolutionary one….the Jews were singled out as a race hiding behind a religious guise (as identified by Hitler), and were believed to be genetically inferior…..and Germany needed to be rid of the “cultural bearers” the “seedy and greedy merchants” that polluted thier country with impure genetic mutants…
Also, let us consider the development of the A-bomb….a scientific breakthrough!!! One bomb wipes out millions and atomic radiation pollutes the area on civilians in Japan…..
Thats score TWO for science!!!!
Sadly enough, the majority of the soldiers in WWII that fought for the United States were….wait for it…..Christians……
So the God loving God fearing Christians had to go in and wipe the ass of the power hungry, evolution loving scientists, because yes, eugenics and ‘survival of the fittest’ and ‘hereditary genes’ helped ensure that the rich could use all thier assets to create monopolies and control the work force….
wait….thats score THREE for science…..
nah, lets blame it all on religion cause its easier to do
everyone likes to say science is good, and religion is bad, for whatever reasons they can muster…..but in reality, there are pros and cons to everything, so think about the WHOLE PICTURE
July 25th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
[...] I’m now living in a state where the Governor thinks that a creationist is just who we need running the schools. Absolutely wonderful. I’d say more, but the Bad Astronomer did a much better job. [...]
July 25th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
My apologies for the duplication. It did not seem that the first reponse had posted.
July 25th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
I’m a science educator in Texas. This news was very disappointing. I know that my students won’t be receiving any of the creationist rhetoric he manages to get inserted into the curriculum. They’ll have to fire me before I teach mythology in my science classroom.
July 25th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
There’s nothing wrong with creationism. In fact, even many people who believe in evolution also believe in creationism on some level (ie where did the big bang come from).
“Pssst! Someone needs to tell him it’s also unconstitutional to teach religion as science.”
Actually it’s not unconstitutional to teach religion as science. Seperation of church and state means that the government can’t impose a particular religion on it’s citizens. there is no part of the constitution that says schools can’t teach religion as science.
Why is it a bad thing to present different views of an arguement? Are you all that concerned that evolution can’t hold up to creationism?
Evolution doesn’t hold all the answers. There’s still LOTS of unanswered questions and holes in the theory, but few are ever taught in the schools. For example, there’s not been a single transitional fossil found, with the millions of fossils that we’ve found. Also, how do we account for the same traits/abilities being evolved almost identically multiple times?
July 25th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
I would like to say, I live in Texas right outside of Dallas. This sickens me beyond reason. I want my kids to grow up and understand science, where we came from and where we are going. I for one don’t know if there was an overall creator of everything. I do know that we are not going to go anywhere without science and trying to puzzle things out.
I think that this is more of the Religious Right Wing sect of our goverment trying to force more of their beliefs on the public. I think if they want to do this leave it to the proffesionals standing behind the pulpit and let our children learn what they are supposed to in school. Not fill our school books with mythology that has no scientific fact.
Sorry it just gets me when people start trying to force religion or anything else they think that we all should believe in down my throat. This is not what I voted for…
July 25th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
Phil
Great post! Please keep fighting the good fight against backward thinking and anti-science.
Mike J
Radiological dating uses the halflife of an isotope to establish timing based on natural abundance as a start point and the cessation of isotope replenishment on cell and animal death. The geological column is used as a means of corroboratory evidence which itself was independantly determined by the same methods. So your circular reasoning is actually faithful application of the scientific method
Also why post the definition of science if you want to claim evolution doesn’t belong there? Even being extremely anal about the definition of science all I can say is I can’t experiment in evolution. I can observe its effects through the fossil record which shows successive changes to anatomy as a function of time (which is covered above). Evolution is knowledge gained through systematic study. How is that not science?
I’d suggest that you don’t know what science is all about.
You observe an effect, you either simultaneously observe the cause or you form a hypothesis about the origin of the effect and you set out to prove said hypothesis through further observation or experimentally. You may succeed you may fail, but if you succeed it you should be able to predict the outcome of an experiment which relies on this principle.
Here the initial observation is that there are many species in existence, and some fossils appear similar to living creatures. Darwin proposes the theory that evolution is the cause of this. Further observation involves finding more fossils.
Here the prediction is that I will either find a fossil (A) which is younger than fossil (B) and show a continuing trend away from fossil (C) which is older than (A). Or I will find C having already collected A and B.
Is this pattern repeatable and predictable? YES! This has borne itself out thousands of times. If that isn’t science perhaps you’ll kindly inform us of what your view is.
July 25th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Like the non-creationists have been doing such a good of a job prior?
July 25th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Frazw: So, when the Cosmos and the Earth formed there were no isotopes? Is that your assumption?
July 25th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
The first story I heard on the news this morning was that, in the wake of the ridiculous “No Child Left Behind” legislation, schools have pared down other courses in favor of math and reading (the two benchmarks used to get funding under NCLB). Unsurprisingly, science was one of the subject areas noted.
I wonder who among the next generation of biblical literalists will be able to run the corporations, the governments and the schools without the need to outsource jobs to other countries that take education as a matter of importance rather than of confirmation of faith.
July 25th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Per BA… “At least he doesn’t think the Sun revolves around the Earth… and that is the best thing I can say about him.”
I suspected you would find his comparision of evolution theory to Heliocentrism (your arena of knowledge) rather silly. Heliocentrism isn’t even a valid theory any longer (the Sun is not the center of the universe and orbits are not circular with epicycles), so McLeroy had both theories labeled incorrectly! [Tycho's model was arguably better until parallax was found.] Further, had he been around in the late 1500′s, what are the chances Dr. McLeroy would have approved the anti-religious Copernican Theory? [Insert colorful phrase or hyperbole here.
]
Your reason for concern is certainly justified. It is likely his appointment will not be a good thing for Texas science classes. I hope we are both wrong, of course.
July 25th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
When the cosmos were created no because isotopes require the formation of nuclei which at the point of the big bang had not formed.
By the time the earth had formed yes there were plenty of isotopes to go around
July 25th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
As a person who grew up in Texas, I wouldn’t worry about creationism sneaking into text books. Why? Well, not a whole lot of students read text books. It’s one of many reasons why there are so many dumb kids coming out of high school who can’t read or write above a 3rd grade level.
There is also a ‘No child left behind’ policy in our schools now, this means text books and lessons are geared towards passing standardized tests. If creationism isn’t on the test, it’s not going to be a focus in class rooms.
July 25th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Robert Alexander said “Perhaps us people in California can…”
If you wish to pass yourself off as being of superior intelligence to those of us who live in Texas, I suggest you rewrite this sentence using we instead of us.
July 25th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Don’t think the last attempt went up so again…
At the beginning of the cosmos, i.e. the big bang there were no nuclei so isotopes didn’t exist.
At the beginning of the earth there were plenty.
The natural abundance of each will have been different in comparison with today but it is easy to extrapolate backwards if the halflife is known.
July 25th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
I often see people go “I don’t/I do believe in evolution”…
Hey, excuse me, but evolution isn’t a matter of BELIEF. It’s a well supported scientific theory. Facts don’t require beliefs and are NOT beliefs.
July 25th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
criminy – and my daughter will be school-age in a very few year. One of the very last things I want happening is to have one of these right-wing f***tards trying to sneak the bible into her schoolroom. If I want her to learn about religion, I’ll take her to a church of some sort.
I think it’s time to call in The All-Powerful Flying Spaghetti Monster to smite them – or, stain their Klan robes at the very least.
Oh – and if ya’ll do decide to build some sort of death-ray to wipe Texas off the map, can you at least give those of us who don’t drive white pickups a heads-up so we can skeedaddle first?
July 25th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Hey – Mike J is Mike Janitch. I remember you. You deleted some of *my* comments from *your* blog. I remember you making all kinds of ridiculous arguments in favor of young earth creationism. What, you’ve converted to ID now? Or is “ID” merely a cover so that you aren’t immediately attacked for your ridiculous young earth creationist ideas? Now you’re claiming to have voted for democrats? Here’s a link for everyone to read – it’s the Bad Astronomer’s earlier post on Mike Janitch’.
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2006/09/14/neo-con-twist-on-xena-eris/
Unfortunately, Mike has cleared his website, so I can’t link to his earlier argument that astronomers *really* don’t know that the sun is powered by nuclear fusion. He claimed that the idea was merely dreamed up.
July 25th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Wrong.
That doesn’t make it right.
The Supreme Court disagrees with you. Fortunately, their opinion is the one that counts.
Because one side is clearly, and demonstrably, wrong.
Let’s find out. You present your evidence, and we’ll present ours. As soon as you get some, that is.
Standard creationist crap that’s been spouted and debunked forever. Get it through your head, even if you could completely disprove evolution, it doesn’t support creationism in the slightest. Period.
July 25th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
[...] 25th, 2007 by tinyfrog [via The Bad Astronomer] Texas governor Rick Perry has appointed a Don McLeroy (creationist) to head the Texas State Board [...]
July 25th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
First… Whether you believe in the creationist or evolutionist concepts, in the end we all have to have faith that God had a hand in it.
Secondly…. For the deeply religous. Beware of those who teach you by interpeting the word of God to meet their own narrow minded convictions. Remember the false prophets!
Finally, who are we to determine the how, why or in what manner in which God created us. All we need to know, is that he gave us “free will” to determine and reason our existance and relationship to him. I believe there is more evidence to support the concepts of evolution while still believing in God and the holy scriptures.
Remember…. With God.. A day is like a million years and with God, time is a concept that He has not yet given us the ability to fully understand. You just have to have faith that all will become known to you when He feels the time is right.
July 25th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Well, I guess when I have kids I’ll have to move. So Texas is out, Kansas is out, Oklahoma will probably go if it hasn’t already. Is Colorado still safe? I’ve always thought I might like to live there.
July 25th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
It’s a shame that someone that believes in something so fundamentally wrong would be running public schools. Maybe he should put warnings on the Pythagorean theorem because it is “just a theory”. Please don’t be so quick to condemn all republicans or Christians for this. Yes, YECs are very likely to be republican. But, I am Catholic and went to Catholic school and *not once* was I taught anything other than evolution. Then again, Catholics are hardly considered evangelical. Those with kids, pay close attention to what the schools are teaching them, science especially. Don’t be afraid to teach things contrary to the school’s teacher.
/soapbox
July 25th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
>>last year I explained to a young man of 23 yrs at my workplace what stars where. Yes, really, I had to do this. His response was this… â€So those stars in the sky, you mean they’re not really small, they’re just really far away.â€
wow.
I am a born again Christian, old-universe creatiionist, and *I* almost wept to hear this.
July 25th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
“…and did not include possible flaws in Charles Darwin’s theory of how life on Earth evolved from lower forms.”
Which other scientific fields would you say discussing possible flaws in the existing model would be an unacceptable exercise?
That is, after all, -the very basis of all scientific progress-.
Overall, though, nice straw-man rant, if a little less successful at hiding the overt bias than most.
July 25th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
“First… Whether you believe in the creationist or evolutionist concepts, in the end we all have to have faith that God had a hand in it.”
- Why? Who says so? Your book? The one that was written in the iron age by nomadic tribes who believed in demons, a flat world, and the sun circling the earth? Just think, the “dark ages” were the far future to these people. They had no means or knowledge of explaining the events of nature.
“Secondly…. For the deeply religious. Beware of those who teach you by interpreting the word of God to meet their own narrow minded convictions. Remember the false prophets!”
- OK, so how about “real” prophets. Do you actually believe that another human being “channels” with deities?
“Remember…. With God.. A day is like a million years and with God, time is a concept that He has not yet given us the ability to fully understand…”
- And you KNOW this how? Where’s your evidence?
Why is it that apparently intelligent people, who would demand facts from doctors, accountants, and businesses of all kinds simply accept what some ancient tribes slammed together into a book? A book that was translated over and over and over again. We don’t even know who was or wasn’t behind the grassy knoll, and that’s in our lifetimes.
All I ask is that you keep an open mind – just once – and actually read Richard Dawkin’s book: The God Delusion; actually step through the logic and the clear evidence presented there. I know you won’t, but there’s always hoping…
July 25th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
@ Jaime,
I’m hoping you let your wife handle the english and science lessons for your kids. Give you more time to focus on the libertarian poly sci lesson plan.
July 25th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
I just wanted to be the 100th comment.
July 25th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
@ Jaime,
I’m hoping you let your wife handle the science and english lessons for the kids.
July 25th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Rephrase that as “Republicans in Texas are bunch of &*@(@*&@ douchebags”
If you like you can leave “in Texas” off.
July 25th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Let it be said for the record, I never solicited Phil Plait, or his attention…
Phil Plait came to MY blog, which was listed under “personal” no less.. and cherry picked a comment/supposition I made about Eris and Dysnomias naming process.
He then went on to Huffington Post, and labelled me as a right wing fanatic etc… as most people know.. huff po gets about 1,000,000 readers a day if not more… all because I made (a CORRECT) supposition on some stupid planet naming process by a bunch of astronomers who I really could give two craps about…
So Phil Plait does fit the description of Deb Frisch.. he came to my blog, misrepresented the angle I was approaching Eris and Dysnomia, and then without fact checking my political beliefs he went on to syndicate a column across several internet sites (huff po, pharyngula and several others) in which the “headline” of their “story” called me all KINDS of names.
So frivality doesn’t really cross my mind when I go back and read the stuff he wrote about me… if he was challenged to PROVE what he said about me in court, he’d lose bigtime… all i’d have to do is produce my college thesis, voting record, or other various manifestos that I’ve written over the years to prove I’m not right wing.. thats for sure..
Or you could just ask my wife or my friends.. heh.
July 25th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Please direct the “no transitional fossils” crowd here
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
There is also a rather nice example of what creationist predictions on fossils would be given their biblical explanations and of course how they match up with reality.
Can I just ask why it might be that as more scientific evidence supporting the theory of evolution arises, the creationists pull more unreasoned magic out of the hat?
Hey I’d be the first to admit I’m was a little disappointed when I realised magic wasn’t real as a kid but now when I see a magic trick that I don’t know the secret behind I can marvel at the spectacle created but I love finding out how its done. I don’t invent new magic to cover up the fact I really know how its done but don’t want to believe.
P.S. Why if God can have existed forever can the universe not? Why must the universe have come from somewhere? Our mind is configured to perceive our own finite world and lives. Is it not possible the mere inability or unwillingness to truly accept the concept of infinity is the reason we are even having this debate? I must however say I’m glad we don’t because that makes a good scientist (but unfortunately also a creationist).
July 25th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Thanks for the excellent link CS I will read this lengthly document at my leasure, I will post this small part of it to give the people in America a small taste of what Europeans face, :
40. Today, creationists of all faiths are trying to get their ideas accepted in Europe. As a result, we have seen several initiatives from these various movements on the Eurasian continent in the last few years, with schools apparently the main target. The beginning of 2007 saw an offensive by the Turkish creationist Harun Yahya, who sent his last and very lavish work, entitled “The Atlas of Creationâ€, which claims to denounce the deception of the theory of evolution, to a large number of French, Belgian, Spanish and Swiss schools. In France, the Ministry of Education, after consulting specialists, immediately reacted by expressly calling for this work to be removed from the resource centres of the schools concerned as the book met none of the quality requirements laid down for classroom teaching.
I trained as a teacher myself, this really matters and you are right CS we should start fighting this mess now.
July 25th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
[...] the Governor of Texas (Rick “the dick” Perry) has appointed a creationist to head the Texas State Board of Education. This is not good. Soon texas is going to require [...]
July 25th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
It could be worse
he could have been a political appointee at NASA
Now why does that idea sound familiar
I do wonder if some nominally on the side of faith are picking the right battles, one of the other reasons I disliked what the ID movement were doing, they were becoming persecutors and thus loosing hearts and minds. Some would rather win arguments than souls, which is an easy trap to fall into.
July 25th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
MJ, if you’re going to “produce your voting record,” you’d better do a lot better than In 2000 I voted for independent Harry Brown of the “green partyâ€. , since no such person ran on no such ticket in 2000. Someone named Harry Browne, who is decidedly not an independent, ran on the Libertarian Party ticket in 2000. I know, because I voted for him. You may remember, if you think really, really hard, the name of the person who ran on the Green ticket in 2000, because it sort of ended up affecting the entire presidential election.
For someone who makes claims to intelligence, you might want to consult Google from time to time.
July 25th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Whooaa.
Hey maan, for those of you who think that Texas is ‘stupid’ you probably should go back to school and learn which state developed the integrated circuit.
If it were not for ‘Texas’ then your computer would still be a dinosaur. And we’d all be still using 110 Baud acoustic modems to dial up unix boxes and using gopher and veronica to search for info rather than the lovely digg and google.
So don’t blame the state – its not our fault that our politicians have been brainwashed somewhere else with dreams.
I don’t understand why… but a scientist can prove that a+b=c yet a creationist will come back and respond with that “no.. A+B didn’t equal C… C was always there, it was just made to look like A+B made C”.
Chew on that a bit
DigitalHippy…maaan.
July 25th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
The point of the theory of evolution is that it is predictive. You can breed animals, conduct horticulture to improve the yield of crops.
Evolution occurs, it’s irrefutably true. Genetic engineering works. The HOX genes from a fruit fly are the same as for a worm and a human. We are all 80% banana and 97% chimp whether we like it or not, and censoring some books will not make the damnedest bit of difference.
Denying evolution is as absurd as trying to dismiss the colour ‘green’ as a matter of opinion.
It’s distracting that the Texans want to ban teaching evolution, because the theory of evolution doesn’t say anything about the state of actually *being* human though, or how we’re to behave now that we are here – and that’s exactly where religion does have something important to say.
Religions teach how to behave towards other people, and how to treat yourself with respect. There is a desperate need for that message to be heard in todays world, in my opinion.
The sooner governers in Texas wisen up and stop denying the patently obvious, unnecessarily banning books and interfering with biology classes, the sooner Religious messages will regain some credibility and authority in the domain where they can actually improve people’s lives.
July 25th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Thanks for this post. I live in Texas and am a college student. After reading this I am pretty much ashamed of living here. Thinking about printing up this article and distributing it across campus. What would you think?
July 25th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
[...] of Education. I’ll give you a moment to clean off your screen … futurama sex hentairead more | digg [...]
July 25th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Man, I love your posts, but your comments section is really starting to bloat.
July 25th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
> You can rail all you want and complain that I write too much about
> anti-science in the form of religious fundamentalism
I would love it if that’s all you wrote about, Phil!
July 25th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
#
# Quiet_Desperationon 25 Jul 2007 at 12:59 pm
>>> here in the uk we have very few fundamentalists
Ha ha ha! Good one!
Oh, wait, you meant strictly *Christian* fundamentalists.
To be honest, I’d rather deal with the occasional idiot creationist than the occasional idiot bomb.
Anyway:
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1728235,00.html
And isn’t there a “creationist school†in Middlesbrough? Or did I dreram that?
Thanks for the link Quiet_Desperationon
maybe I am slightly out of touch with the degree of peril we are really in here. I used to teach by the way, in part in a predominantly muslim school in Birmingham
I used the word fundamentalists carefully, we do live in a moderate society still, compared to others, although there are cultural islands within our inner cities that have appeared in the last 25 years that are prone to fundamentalism. I did not discern between christian fundamentalistm , islamic fundamentalism or any other theological strain of the condition. They really are as dangerous as each other, the
illusion that you should tolerate christian fundamentalism in someone because you guess that the chance that he or she will strap a bomb to themselves and light the blue touch paper is a mistake, there strategy is a little different, that’s all. Remember that these issues are more important to them than their own lives, atheists often forget this.
I judge the uk still moderate by the way, illustrated by a friend of mine whom I now work with, his name is Yagda, he’s from Kurdistan. One of the many risks he used to have in Iraq, one reason he moved to the uk is that he is also an atheist. In the UK I and he risks nothing by being one. Back in his native country he could not discuss this openly for fear of being beheaded. Oh and yes, Creationists are not idiots, neither are fundamentalists, it is quite possible to have a degree in engineering
and believe you will receive forty virgins in heaven if you martyr yourself, to paraphrase Sam Harris. The human minds power to delude itself really cannot be underestimated.
July 25th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
This is a good thing, it makes all educational credentials from Texas null and void.
July 25th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
God, I can’t even stand to read the comments sometimes, though. Also, Mike J IS HILARIOUS!!!!
July 25th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
how bout that…….another moron in charge. great. =/
July 25th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
I lived in Texas for almost nineteen years, and I can say with confidence that Texas is a great place to be from, if you catch my drift.
July 25th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
July 25th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Creationist sci-ants must be correct. (its in a popular published book-that means its correct—-right..?) It is a sad state and the rest of the world is laughing at America when this crud happens.
July 25th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
I’m guessing Texas is seeing an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect: the phenomenon wherein people who have little knowledge think that they know more than others who have much more knowledge.
July 25th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Just to add my $0.02, FACTS are FACTS. Believing in something doesn’t make it so. Majority opinion cannot change FACTS.
In the words of Anatole France:
“If 50million people believe in a dumb idea, it is still a dumb idea.”
Fight the good fight.
July 25th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
“How stupid are you people? Mutations are NOT beneficial. Genetic mutations are 99% fatal, period.”
No, genetic mutations are far more than 99.9% neutral. Even if you don’t accept junk DNA, most proteins are extremely tolerant of mutations. Only a relatively small number of nucleotides coding the protein have any serious implications for its function and many of those that do can accept some mutations without any problem. Futher, cells often have multiple copies of a gene or multiple redundant pathways that can take over if one protein is rendered useless.
Of those mutations that are not neutral, some are beneficial, some are detrimental, but most are beneficial or detrimental depending on the circumstances. Cystic fibrosis helps protect against tuberculosis, sickle cell anemia helps protect against malaria, etc. Purely beneficial or neutral mutations are pretty rare, most mutations are either somewhere in-between or outright neutral. Evolution is merely a mechanism to make the more beneficial mutations under the current circumstances more common and the less beneficial under the current circumstances less common.
If a mutation, or an existing trait, make an organism more likely to survive, then it is more likely to pass on the gene and thus the gene becomes more common (barring some freak accident that wipes out the gene). If a trait makes an organism less likely to survive, then the opposite happens and the gene becomes less common. If the mutation is neutral, as is almost always the case, then it will likely spread just through chance and very well might provide the raw material for a later beneficial (or detrimental) mutation.
July 25th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
To paraphrase Steven Weinberg, with or without religion, smart people can behave intelligently and dumb people can be stupid; but for smart people to be stupid—that takes religion.
What (if anything) can people outside of Texas do about this travesty?
July 25th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
I was born in Texas and have currently lived here for 15 years. Although I don’t accept or understand some things that people do, I don’t go about labeling people, being a science teacher, I know how to see people by who they are, not where they are from. That said, I dislike the fact that some label Texas as being “the stupidest place on Earth,” where really it’s not the state, it’s the random individual that does not meet the norm for being “well liked.” Every state in the country has them. Anyway, just to prove the point that not all people in Texas are “stupid,” take into account the following people, whether it’s politics, sports, music, film, etc. they have made an impact in Texan society as well as the American society.
-Oveta Culp Hobby
-Howard Hughes-produced Hell’s Angels (1930), Scarface (1932) and The Outlaw (1943).
-Eugene Wesley (Gene) Roddenberry-produced “The Lieutenant,” which is said to have inspired the classic toy, “G.I. Joe,” and created the classic TV series, “Star Trek.”
-Arthur John (Jack) Johnson (1878 -1946) was the first black, and first Texan, to win the heavyweight boxing championship of the world.
-Nolan Ryan- one of baseball’s greatest players
-Mildred Ella (Babe) Didrikson Zaharias-named Woman Athlete of the Half-Century.
-Scott Joplin – African American composer and pianist, called the “King of Ragtime.”
-Willie Nelson-do I need to say who he is? I don’t think so.
-Roy Orbison- Have you heard of a movie titled “Pretty woman?” yeah, he wrote the song with Bill Dees. Singer, songwriter, and rock ‘n’ roll legend
- ZZTop-rock band
-Lance Armstrong-all of you know who he is
-Tina Turner
-Selena
-Barry White
-James Brown
-Lorenzo de Zavala
-Dwight D. Eisenhower
July 25th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
If, “God” forbid, you got hurt and needed surgery, would you want a doctor who studied and understood the science of modern surgical theory and practice in a real medical school? (Yes, there are theories applied to medicine and surgery based on years of application.) Or would you prefer a doctor from a school where “beliefs” opposing surgical practice are given equal footing, where surgery is termed “only a theory” and where “faith in miracles of healing” was an equal part of the curriculum?
I’m not saying you should only want an atheist doctor, not at all. A church-going surgeon is just fine with me. I’m saying that an Intelligent Design co-opted Creationism, pretending to be equal to science is not a really a religious or scientific stance. It is a rightwing political masquerade that has very little to do with anyone’s past voting record, Democratic or Republican. (Though what the Republican Party has morphed into in recent years is more inclined to make use of it.) Creationism is fake.
P.S. What happened in Texas reflects on the whole country to the rest of the world.
July 25th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
mike j…so your first post…is based off a picture.?…and thats the best you can do? and then you seemingly want to go into a flame war with everyone else on here? and then try to threaten legal action? you are a very funny man. you can’t and won’t be able to do anything here. the best you can do is get your voice heard. thats it. and yes you were able to do it. We are very sorry you dont believe in science. the understanding of the world….but first, let me show you a fossil. it will blow your mind!!!…and maybe, read a book. with facts. have a good day being upset, and hating anyone that doesn’t believe in your version of the facts.
July 25th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
I’m done fighting. It’s pointless, we can’t win. People will believe whatever they want, even if they don’t understand alternatives.
Spider from a rock? THIS GUY is the head of education in Texas?
…
Just…
…
Idiotic is an understatement.
July 25th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
tinyfrog: Well said!
July 25th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
*sigh*
July 25th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
For the person who said that they advocate the separation of the home and school…
The reason why we have an governed education system is because of this exactly.
You think just because your kids did well in a standardized test, that they are perfectly intelligent – despite the fact that you may or may not have (I really don’t know, but I can only assume that this is why you chose to keep them from regular school with classmates) left out crucial, accepted scientific (and perhaps more) knowledge about humans and life. You misinform, misrepresent, and try to dogmatically PUSH your beliefs exclusively.
It is not only unfair to your child but in fact to the general community as well.
At the end of the day you have to ask yourself this: what was wrong with the normal education system with accepted science as we know it and then just teach your kids “your side” and any other beliefs at home?
July 25th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
For those who say there is no way of testing evolution in the lab – you’re very wrong. You can direct the evolution of bacteria in a matter of weeks, mice in a matter of years, and dogs in a few decades. On the topic of dogs – do people who do not believe in evolution think that each breed of dog was created separately by God, or can they accept that all dogs have a common ancestor (some type of wolf)? If a few thousand years of human meddling can change a wolf into a chihuahua, why can’t a few billion years of natural selection result in the diversity of life we see today?
As for whether a doctor who does not believe in evolution should be allowed to practice medicine, I have two words for you: antibiotic resistance. This is probably the clearest evidence we have of short term evolution, and it has profound effects on healthcare here and in the rest of the world. If a doctor does not understand that over-prescribing antibiotics results in a selective pressure rendering those antibiotics less useful to the population as a whole, he should not be allowed to prescribe antibiotics. The same is even more true of anti-retroviral therapies, since you can witness the power of evolution in a single patient over the course of an HIV infection. Some people may say that the changes in these microorganisms does not count as evolution and can be accepted without accepting the larger interpretations, but there is probably a larger percentage genetic variation between HIV virions at the beginning and end of an infection in one patient than there are between humans and chimpanzees.
That said, here are the problems I see with how most people defend evolution. The way most popular writers describe evolution, it is almost unfalsifiable. Personally, I believe that is because it is true, but it does mean that “evolutionary arguments” for many things take on the form of a logic game rather than real science (it’s hard to prove “why” something happened, but when you use evolution in your argument people often take you at face value). So I was thinking about it, and here is my short list of things that could completely disprove evolution if they were to be observed…
1) Spontaneous generation of life out of non-life… This is something that evolution does not explain (and can never really explain – you need heredity before you can use evolutionary arguments). That said, scientists assume that such an event is exceedingly rare and if it has happened again since the origin of life, the nascent life would be quickly overwhelmed by creatures already in existence. Should, say, a frog grow from a bit of sterile mud left in a closed environment, this would pose a serious problem for evolution.
2) A species giving birth to a completely non-related offspring… Think of a goat laying an egg and giving birth to a chicken. Changes are supposed to happen on large time-scales (even punctuated equilibrium models). Obviously, this example only works if it is a natural event – not caused by bored scientists or some kind of strange species of parasitic chicken (think Aliens).
I’m sure people can think of a few more, but these are the only ones I could come up with off the top of my head. Otherwise, evolution is an inevitable result of heredity + genetic variation + variation in viability.
The thing that gives me the biggest problem with the theory of evolution is not the theory itself, but what came before it. Once you have a single prokaryotic cell, it is easy to imagine how the rest of the diversity of life could come into being. How you get that first cell is what bothers me. I’m familiar with the RNA world hypothesis, but how do you get from that to cell membranes, and from there to DNA? The complexity of life outside the cell is nowhere near as tough a question for evolution to explain as the complexity of life inside the cell. The worst part is, whatever proto-organisms came first, they didn’t leave any traces. :-\ I doubt we’ll ever have a definitive answer for that one. That said, I doubt it was due to the will of God or the magical unicorn over my shoulder that only I can see or hear….
July 25th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Aaron said:
Mutations are NOT beneficial. Genetic mutations are 99% fatal, period.
Do you have a citation for that number? Nothing I have ever read about genetics would support that. Is there some reason a chimp gene cannot mutate into a human gene? Or vice versa?
July 25th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
this is absolutely horrible…..there’s no ‘rosy’ way for me to try and look at this. if he were one to keep his personal beliefs out of his decision making policy, i would still be nervous. but someone that finds fault with the teaching of evolutionary biology as science is not open-minded enough for me to feel comfortable letting hi dictate policy that will shape the minds of the future adult citizens in the state i share residency with. frankly, how can i feel comfortable when the sanctuaries of education are contaminated with dogmatic teachings of another building not zoned on school district property for the observation of separation of church and state. with all the money creationist’s interests maintains and generates…..why not set up an independent school system, completely separate from the public one, and offer anyone that wishes to attend scaled tuition based on income of parents, offering free tuition to those that cannot afford to pay anything. they could teach whatever version of science that they saw fit….and give anyone that wants a career in science the opportunity to transfer to a public school that adopts the teachings of those theories that are tested by and stand up to the scientific method and peer group analysis…..
thankfully, i do not have children yet, but for all of my friends that do, is there anything i (we) can do to either reverse this decision, or notably protest and/or petition the governor, or fellow concerned citizens of this state? any input would be greatly appreciated. thank you for your time, and for bringing information such as this to our attention. it’s a real good thing you do for all of us.
….may your logic and reason always prevail in your endeavors….
-j
July 25th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
…..no way?!?!….
…..this is absolutely horrible…..there’s no ‘rosy’ way for me to try and look at this. if he were one to keep his personal beliefs out of his decision making policy, i would still be nervous. but someone that finds fault with the teaching of evolutionary biology as science is not open-minded enough for me to feel comfortable letting hi dictate policy that will shape the minds of the future adult citizens in the state i share residency with. frankly, how can i feel comfortable when the sanctuaries of education are contaminated with dogmatic teachings of another building not zoned on school district property for the observation of separation of church and state. with all the money creationist’s interests maintains and generates…..why not set up an independent school system, completely separate from the public one, and offer anyone that wishes to attend scaled tuition based on income of parents, offering free tuition to those that cannot afford to pay anything. they could teach whatever version of science that they saw fit….and give anyone that wants a career in science the opportunity to transfer to a public school that adopts the teachings of those theories that are tested by and stand up to the scientific method and peer group analysis…..
thankfully, i do not have children yet, but for all of my friends that do, is there anything i (we) can do to either reverse this decision, or notably protest and/or petition the governor, or fellow concerned citizens of this state? any input would be greatly appreciated. thank you for your time, and for bringing information such as this to our attention. it’s a real good thing you do for all of us.
….may your logic and reason always prevail in your endeavors….
-j
July 25th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
How can we put an end to this ridiculous and way too long chapter of human history.
Disgusting and appalling.
July 25th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
[...] Board of Education. I’ll give you a moment to clean off your screen … animated X Menread more | digg story RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI Cartoons Fans Lounge [...]
July 25th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
I think a couple of people here have made a very good point, namely that the poor teaching of evolution is (at least part of) what is driving this.
If kids are only taught a basic, high-level overview of evolution rather than a solid, in-depth curriculum then it is hardly surprising that these kids should grow up to be adults who doubt evolution, or are easily swayed by the (flawed) arguments of creationism.
Personally, I grew up in Texas, and went to public school. I got a decent grounding in science, but only because I was a geek (well, nerd at the time) and spent a lot of time reading science and science fiction.
I also remember vividly my zoology class in college (also in Texas), when the prof talked about the evolution of the heart–from two to three to four chambers. Ironically, as an atheist, it was one of the only times in my life when I actually pondered the possibility of a Creator, as I had a hard time reconciling the seeming leaps in complexity of hearts in different animals with a naturally-occurring process.
I think that shows both that even at that point (at Texas A&M, BTW) evolution wasn’t being properly covered/explored, and that it is quite possible for the unknowns in evolution (because, despite the fact that evolution itself is understood, there are still many questions to be answered) to overwhelm someone–especially anyone who is looking for certainty.
I also had the privilege of working for Baylor College of Medicine in Houston for a few years. I can definitely say that not everyone in Texas is dumb. There are some very, very smart people at BCM. And I have personally seen quite enough genetic evidence to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that evolution is solid fact.
July 25th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
“It is wrong to teach opinion as fact.”
Then learn about what you’re talking about and stop repeating misinformed opinions.
July 25th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Richard said, “Religions teach how to behave towards other people, and how to treat yourself with respect. There is a desperate need for that message to be heard in todays world, in my opinion.”
To which I would add a quote from Robert Heinlien:
“Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other sins are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful–just stupid.) “
July 25th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
The only way to oppose this foolishness is to take the gloves off and strike literalist Christianity at its weakest point…the New Testament. itself
Whosoever insists the New Testament is literally true can be debunked with contradictory Bible quotationis regarding its most central theme, the resurection.
There are a dozen blatant discrepancies between the four gospels which, if memorized, suffice to dumbfound any bible thumper.
See the link.
July 25th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
A different George said:
“I suspected you would find his comparision of evolution theory to Heliocentrism (your arena of knowledge) rather silly. Heliocentrism isn’t even a valid theory any longer (the Sun is not the center of the universe and orbits are not circular with epicycles), so McLeroy had both theories labeled incorrectly! [Tycho’s model was arguably better until parallax was found.]”
Yeah Copernicus put epicycles on his circular orbits. Tycho Brahe, perhaps the best pre telescope observational astronomer, rejected a moving earth because he could not detect stellar parallax. Johannes Kepler took Brahe’s
observations and deduced what is now called Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion, with what is now called the first law being that the planets move around the sun in ellipses with the sun at one of the foci.
From that point on, Brahe’s model was not “arguably better”. Brahe’s observations with Kepler’s geometry argued against the Brahe system which was not much like by anyone anyway except for Tycho Brahe.
By the way the first accepted stellar parallax determination was by
Friedrich Bessel in 1838. The Brahe system was long dead by the.
George Martin
July 25th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
You must first know the Bible to convincingly debunk it. Here is a list of non-trivial contradictions about the supposed ressurection.
monotheism.us/the_risen_jesus.html
July 25th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Contact form for Rick Perry:
http://www.governor.state.tx.us/contact
It’s bad when blowdried ex-carsalesmen ex-Democrats make all Texans look like idiots.
Christ on a crutch. Makes me wanna’ go choke somebody.
July 25th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
[...] certainly applies to a news story I stumbled across today: Texas has appointed an anti-intellectual creationist as the head of their schools board. A school head who thinks education is a bad [...]
July 25th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
I am utterly amazed by how people claiming to be scientists have become sooo religious. Like little Dickie Dawkins prancing around and shadowboxing strawmen and Carl Sagan ridding the world of superstitious witch-doctors. The smug and deaf are full of passionate intensity.
Francis Bacon and Charles Darwin would be rolling in their graves if they could see how pig-headed modern self-styled “defenders of the great god ‘science’” have become.
http://www.netcrucible.com/blog/2007/07/06/gores-cult-of-reason/
July 25th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
I am utterly amazed by how people claiming to be scientists have become sooo religious. What a bunch of irrational zealots! Like little Dickie Dawkins prancing around and shadowboxing strawmen and Carl Sagan ridding the world of superstitious witch-doctors. The smug and deaf are full of passionate intensity.
Francis Bacon and Charles Darwin would be rolling in their graves if they could see how pig-headed modern self-styled “defenders of the great god ‘science’” have become.
http://www.netcrucible.com/blog/2007/07/06/gores-cult-of-reason/
And don’t get me started on the idiots in Texas. I have no idea WTF he is talking about “spider from a rock”, but if he takes a literal interpretation of his Bible it will say that people are made from dust — which is at least as strenuous on credibility.
As rewarding as it may feel to a testosterone-charged young “scientist” to debunk these morons, that’s all it is — hot-headed little boys trying to make momma proud. Chasing around misguided religious nuts has nothing to do with science or truth. It’s actually shameful, unseemly, and indicates poor upbringing. Proclaiming that you are right and advocating strenuously on your own behalf is not science. Science advances one funeral at a time, and no doubt in another 150 years you will all look like ignorant superstitious morons in comparison to what our descendants know. Show some humility and focus on hastening the next funeral in science, rather than these zealous witch-hunts.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
I don’t think we are any more doomed than that little chipmunk, I watched the video on youtube, it got away. People are very alarmist these days, but there has been a lot of human history and I don’t see it coming to an end in the next decade or so because of the choices made by one governor. If you are such a firm believer in natural selection than I suggest you let nature take its course.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
A good frontline documentary,…and that’s how it led to this.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/view/
July 25th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
Hi George,
In a sense, I believe I am correct in saying that the Tychonian model, when tweaked with elliptical orbits, is the prefered model used by NASA for low Earth orbit satellites. This is the geocentric model (not an absolute Geocentric model, however).
You are correct that the Tychonian model fell out of favor prior to the discovery of parallax, but it was the discovery of parallax by Bradley (1729) that confirmed what the Copernican model had predicted. [Bessel was the first to use parallax to measure distance to stars]Oddly, stellar abberation was discovered before 1729, but was not respected.
Copernicus’ Heliocentric theory had something much appreciated back then and today: elegance. [Long before Galileo, the Church scholars appreciated it and easily accepted it without the hint of a ban (thanks greatly to the Lutheran's preface).]
Tycho’s model likely came across as ad hoc and more of a compromising model. Ockham’s razor would surely favor Copernicus, admitedly, so from this point your view is “arguably correct” too. Both views can be argued, which is why I selected that word rather than a more absolute term.
What I find ironic about all this is how powerful individuals within the Church of the 17th century elected to ban Copernicus’ Revolutionibus, after over 60 years of acceptance, due to dogmatic, religious views, and yet it is Heliocentrism that Dr. McLeroy elected to use as his example case of how a good theory should look. Ug, he is clearly on the side of the dogmatic hard-heads that would have canned the Copernican theory! He would have done it then, and he is doing it now, or at least it did in 2003.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
I meant to end with “or at least he did in 2003″.
Also, does anyone read down 163 relpies?? I feel like I’m a the bottom of a cave.
July 25th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
As someone who is writing an article you were extremely biased. You shouldn’t let your opinions get in the way of your writing.
July 25th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
You’d think that someone with the acute legal knowledge of MJ would know that slander is spoken and libel is printed, that truth is pretty much a rock-solid defence to either, and opinion is protected free speech in most civilized countries. That means that someone can call you a 2-bit tosser, but they can’t say that you molest children. One is an opinion, the other is a libel.
As mentioned by someone else, the justice system has grown weary of what they call “frivolous and vexatious” litigation, and have been coming down hard on people who sue groundlessly in the hope that the defendant will simply buckle under the risk of the expense of a defence. Judgements against plaintiffs of such cases have resulted in t plaintiff being assessed the defendant’s costs AND court costs.
You are demonstrably unaware of the scientific method, the meaning of “theory” in the scientific sense, and about how radio-carbon and similar dating methods work. In fact, you’re more than “unaware” you are flat-out wrong.
July 25th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
@Jamie,
You home school. Why do you care about any board of education? I care about the Texas board because they steer textbook publication for the country, as several people have pointed out. As far as I can tell, I’ve got more stake in this than you do. Although, sadly, less representation.
Not to worry, though, I doubt you could pay me enough to move to Texas.
July 25th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
>>> the illusion that you should tolerate christian
>>> fundamentalism in someone because you guess that
>>> the chance that he or she will strap a bomb to
>>> themselves and light the blue touch paper is a mistake,
I know. I was just being snarky.
The big relisious nonsense here in Los Angeles is the great Cardinal Mahoney who spent his entire term hiding and protecting child molesting preists. The man is like Senator Palpatine incarnate, and even looks like him.
July 25th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
Is a “2-bit tosser” a person with only four stupid thoughts?
July 26th, 2007 at 12:08 am
Wow, okay. The other Eric lives in the same state I do had has the same religious views (none) that I do.
I can’t help but think I’m posting in my sleep.
July 26th, 2007 at 12:28 am
A number of people have asked: what can we do? All we can do is promote learning–actual, secular learning. It takes a little thought and time to understand the principles of evolution; it can’t be boiled down to a bumper-sticker statement, like a religious slogan. Even ‘survival of the fittest’ isn’t the whole story.
There are a lot of misunderstandings about the basic ways that evolution works; some of them presented by anti-evolution arguments in this thread. My co-author and I have recently published a book debunking these ‘myths’; ‘The Top Ten Myths About Evolution’. It’s written for a high-school educated peson, but not dumbed-down, and has hundreds of references for further reading. It’s been endorsed by Ann Druyan adn the Ameican Association for the Advancement of Science, among others. You can get it (or read a sample chapter) at http://www.toptenmyths.com.
RE the statements about radiocarbon dating, the use of fossils in geological dating and so on above, in this thread, they are simply wrong. There are several types of radiometric dating, and while each has an error factor attached, the reason for that error factor is understood; not only that, but nobody dates a site by one method and one date; we (I’m an archaeologist) use multiple, independent methods to date a site, not self-referential methods. Lo and behold, they end up giving use good estimates of ancient dates. Radiocarbon methods are easily testable: get a piece of wood from a certain reign of a certian pharoah, send it to a lab in Australia, who have no idea whatsoever what the gram of wood you’re sending them ‘should’ date to, then send dates to other labs, equally ignorant of the ‘appropriate’ date and guess what? The dates come back pointing to the same date, 2112BC or whatever it is. The idea that radiometric dating methods are fundamentally flawed is just wrong. They have been shown, time and again, to work.
Cheers
CM Smith
Dept of Anthropology
Portland State University
Portland, Oregon
July 26th, 2007 at 12:33 am
Is it too late to give Texas back to Mexico?
July 26th, 2007 at 12:45 am
“Pssst! Someone needs to tell him it’s also unconstitutional to teach religion as science.”
Where in the constitution does it ever say that it is unconstitutional to teach anything? Actually it is quite the opposite.
It is constitutional to teach anything you want. You are taking separation of Church and state wholly out of context.
July 26th, 2007 at 12:56 am
I don’t know whats worse, hearing that a creationist is going to be head of the Texas State Board of Education, or reading all the degrading replies about Texans in these posts.
I’ve lived in Texas, California, Oregon, New Mexico, Utah, and North Dakota. Other than the climate and some accents, people are the same everywhere. There are good people, bad people, Christians, atheists, scientists, educators, politicians, and apparently people who think they are better than others because they have different beliefs. One step forward, two steps back…
July 26th, 2007 at 1:36 am
It is clearly incorrect to call all of Texas stupid.
Just more than half of Texans are proven to be stupid, the rest we can’t say anything about.
More than 50% of Texans voted for this moron governor!
Stop pretending that it’s some big accident that he got there, or that a list of all the brilliant scientists and engineers that came from Texas make up for the fact that the Governor is elected by the people, and the Governor chose this charlatan/moron (pick one) as head the Texas State Board of Education.
July 26th, 2007 at 1:37 am
It astounds me that in this day and age in developed nations, many religions still require the suspension of logical deduction and reasoning. How truly sad.
July 26th, 2007 at 2:00 am
[...] and friend of the Discovery Institute, Don McLeroy, to head the Texas State Board of Education. Phil Plait is not amused. But isn’t this part of the grand Republican and Texan tradition of promoting gross [...]
July 26th, 2007 at 2:00 am
[...] I’m now living in a state where the Governor thinks that a creationist is just who we need running the schools. Absolutely wonderful. I’d say more, but the Bad Astronomer did a much better job. [...]
July 26th, 2007 at 2:01 am
OK, I apologize about the Mexico thing. But how about this one.
THERE IS NO DEBATE.
My understanding is ….Evolution is a working theory which explains multiple layers of scientific observations in many different fields.
ID is…. the contension that any holes left in Evolution can only be accounted for by an intellegent designer, this in my opinion is a “non-observation”.
Or in other words there is no theory which is actually observable which implies ID is a better explaination for the data than Evolution.
However, a person who believes in god could also believe he created the universe, but no current scientific evidence indicates this was accomplished by any means other than the “Big Bang” and the ” Process of Natural Selection”.
Teach ID in Theology or Philisophy. When Scientist come up with a theory of Intellegent Design which is well supported by scientific evidence and extensively reviewed by their peers. Then we’ll have a debate.
July 26th, 2007 at 2:08 am
Stuart,
I am not sure that when the govenor was elected, it was known who he would appoint to head the Board of Education. So by your reasoning, 100% of Texans are stupid for not being able to predict the future.
I bet there is a logical fallacy with some cool latin name that covers that…
July 26th, 2007 at 2:21 am
Been watching a few clips on YouTube with debates involving Christopher Hitchens…maybe Perry is “Texan” enough for a public debate, or better yet he can now send his poodle McLeroy for a verbal mental spanking? Is this the reason why Hitchens started in the “South” promoting his new book “God is not Great, How Religion poisons everything”?
Actually this appointment by Perry should make a good case study on how this brainiac McLeroy will NOT change much in the Texas educational system?
Most good teachers, in Texas as well as all over the USA, will still promote critical thinking, explain logical fallacies, & remind the students that there was a sound reason the framers of the Constitution insisted on a separation of Church & State.
Bible thumpers are now starting to get a backlash for their insistent vocal moral views. Nice to see the intellectuals & Scientist coming out of the closet of late! Time to tip the scales back to the center again.
KB
July 26th, 2007 at 2:27 am
[...] Bad Astronomy Blog » Texas: Doomed Think that one through for a moment, folks. The new head of the Texas State Board of Education is an anti-intellectual. Note: he didn’t say this himself, he is quoting someone else; but it’s clearly a quotation he agrees with. (tags: biology creationism education evolution government politics school science) [...]
July 26th, 2007 at 2:46 am
Gee, less than a day and we’ve already got fundies talking nonsense about evolution just cuz duh, dey don’ get it an’ don’ like it, bozo’s who STILL don’t understand why the seperation of church and state prohibits religion being taught as science, bozo’s who conflate evolution with Communism, Nazi’s and Eugenics, despite the fact the Nazi’s and Communists wouldn’t have taught it and eugenics kinda flies in the face of genetic variation and can people EVER learn that the study of how science works doesn’t make it responsible for the uses to which it is put?
Rant. Sorry.
While I guess a creationist has as much right to be in power as anybody else (debatable on grounds of education/sanity I know) considering their abysmal track record, It’s not unreasonable under the circumstances to be concerned that they might do something stupid, like oh, say insert dumb creastionist material into the curriculum.
I smell another trial. Which would be fun. Because the fundies would lose. Again. Just like they lost every other. Because they never ever learn.
Note to fundies. Do NOT, repeat DO NOT confuse my use of the word ‘creationism’ with ‘religion’. I’m sure if you have a brain, you will figure out which of those is bad and which ain’t.
July 26th, 2007 at 3:50 am
[...] New Texas education chief is a creationist No wonder many sites are saying “Texas is doomed”. Frikkin’ DOOMED! [...]
July 26th, 2007 at 4:10 am
“It is wrong to teach opinion as fact,†– they already do. i.e. english poems
July 26th, 2007 at 5:45 am
A New ‘Dark Ages’ in Texas?
The sad thing is, there’s likely going to be a generation that doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know…
This is tantamount to child abuse – child neglect, certainly.
–
July 26th, 2007 at 5:53 am
Oh the irony. Here in the responses to an article about ignorance we find it in great abundance.
Jesus loves you.
July 26th, 2007 at 6:25 am
I just changed my nick. Used to be The_German. But someone else is using The German. There is confusion enough in the world
As an outside observer and none American I have to say something:
Do not worry to much! the American society has prooved several times it is able to overcome “dark periods” by itself. This is the big strength of your country which you should not underestimate. Especially as a German I always admired that part of the American culture very much. We failed 2 times. Last time with really bad consequences for the rest of the world.
You will make it also this time!
(Looking at your countries foreign policy of the last 40 years, well my admiration is quite limited. But that is another story..)
Andre
July 26th, 2007 at 6:34 am
Someone should take care of this error message!
July 26th, 2007 at 6:53 am
I really hate living in this state. I also have to apologize because I actually live in the same hometown that George W. Bush grew up in.
So sorry.
July 26th, 2007 at 7:39 am
[...] Education. I’ll give you a moment to clean off your screen … wonder woman outfit costumeread more | digg [...]
July 26th, 2007 at 7:52 am
Mike J.: Evolution is a theory, or I say a Hypothesis… it is not in the testible catagory… and has NOT been physically observed…
Actually, it has been observed, and continues to be observed. We’ve watched one species change into another multiple times, both in the field and in the laboratory.
Mike J: Some will say that we use radio-carbon dating or isotope dating.. but when you look these methods up.. guess what they use as the “key†to determine the “age range†to use… yep.. they use the false geologic column based upon circular reasoning.
Obviously, you have no idea how radioisotope dating works. It’s as simple as counting the atoms, waiting for a bit, then counting the atoms again. No appeal to the geologic column is necessary to derive an accurate radioisotope clock. Furthermore, no test we have been able to come up with has changed the rate at which those clocks tick.
Mike J: When you submit a rock, fossil etc.. to have it isotope or radio carbon dated, they always ask you where you found it… what layer etc..
Right. To make sure it wasn’t contaminated. You do understand that rocks don’t exist in isolation, don’t you?
Mike J: People have given recently deceased SNAIL shells, and falsely told the “daters†where they found it… the live snail shell was dated 15,000 years old…
Cite, please. (Note that this is also analogous to using a calendar to time a 100-meter dash, and perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised if dates are way off.)
Mike J: When you date anything using isotopes or carbon dating, a large range of numbers are actually produced… some very young.. some “billions†of years old… the “daters†then look at where you said you found the object, and PICK the date which closest matches the geologic column.
Cite, please. (You do realize how expensive it is to date a sample, right? If this is the way dates are derived, why would the people who pay for this method stand for something so unreliable?)
JC: I think your comments about the religious being anti-religious shows your ingnorance. Some of the most prominent scientist working at the moment are Christiians.
He didn’t say “Christians”. He said “creationists”. There’s often a difference.
JC: (http://www.creationevidence.org/cemframes.html)
Maybe you should try reading some of the work of these guys. You might get an education (who knows)
All of the arguments under the “Evidence” tab at this site have been long debunked.
Try reading this and getting educated yourself.
Wesley: I do not appreciate the way you refer to Christian philosophy.
He didn’t say “Christian”. He said “creationist”. And even though you are allowed to think as you like, you may not simultaneously be able to hold any post you like.
lets be honest: whats wrong with saying “Well, this is an IDEA we have, but its not 100% set in stone yet because….we are still learning about itâ€â€¦..IE: Evolution
Nothing. But if you have the slightest inkling about how science works, that’s already a given.
lets be honest: Darwins theory on the origin of species lead to the ideas of genetics, and Galtons Hereditary Genius……combined, this lead to Social Darwinism
That people will use theories as justification for horrific acts is not an indictment against the theory. A theory attempts to explain how things are, not as we wish they were.
Should I begin a list of the atrocities committed in the name of Christianity?
Matton: For example, there’s not been a single transitional fossil found, with the millions of fossils that we’ve found.
I don’t know who told you that, but it’s an out-and-out lie. We have more transitional fossils than we know what to do with. (The evolution of the whale from a land mammal, for example, is amazingly complete.) Here’s a small sample.
From mammal to primate: Cantius, Palaechthon, Pelycodus, Purgatorius.
From reptile to mammal: Biarmosuchia, Haptodus, Procynosuchus, Varanops.
From reptile to bird: Coelophysis, Compsognathus, Deinonychus, Oviraptor.
From amphibian to reptile: Hylonomus, Limnoscelis, Paleothyris, Proterogyrinus.
From fish to amphibian: Cheirolepis, Eusthenopteron, Osteolepis, Sterropterygion.
Usually, once we pin down where and when a transition took place, we know where to look, and the transitional fossils start pouring in.
Matton: Also, how do we account for the same traits/abilities being evolved almost identically multiple times?
Why do you think this is a problem for evolution? If it evolves once, why can’t it evolve again elsewhere?
July 26th, 2007 at 8:09 am
Aaron said:
“Mutations are NOT beneficial. Genetic mutations are 99% fatal, period.”
This is a commonly repeated creationist lie: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB101.html
July 26th, 2007 at 8:31 am
Just to throw this out there – THEORY has a very different meaning in science than in common vernacular – it is something we actually teach in school. In science, a theory is an explanation for observed phenomenon, and it is particularly weighty. While theory in everyday conversation means a thought or guess, theory in science is far, far stronger than a guess. For instance, we teach the theory of plate tectonics.
July 26th, 2007 at 9:04 am
I have a proposition. Those of you who don’t believe in evolution, put your money where your mouth is. Sign a legal document which states that your own children or elderly relatives will only receive one flu vaccine shot during their lifetime. After all, it’s not like the flu virus actually EVOLVES into other drug resistant strains constantly, right? They shouldn’t need another shot when the next flu season rolls around, according to your opinion.
Are you so certain that you would be willing to risk the well being, and perhaps even the lives of your loved ones?
July 26th, 2007 at 9:22 am
“It is clearly incorrect to call all of Texas stupid.
Just more than half of Texans are proven to be stupid, the rest we can’t say anything about.
More than 50% of Texans voted for this moron governor!
Stop pretending that it’s some big accident that he got there, or that a list of all the brilliant scientists and engineers that came from Texas make up for the fact that the Governor is elected by the people, and the Governor chose this charlatan/moron (pick one) as head the Texas State Board of Education.”
By that same logic, you could say the same for all Americans for electing Bush (or worse even, for electing him twice). It’s easy to point fingers and laugh when it isn’t your family, but I, like many of my fellow Texans, am writing a letter to my governer to tell him of my concerns, just like you would be (I would hope anyway) if it had happened in your state. Texas is a great state, with a rich history, but it’s made more than a few mistakes as a whole, like this one. Show me a state that hasn’t made any serious mistakes, and I’ll show you one that has no history.
July 26th, 2007 at 9:30 am
@BrianT.
playing devils advocat for a moment:
The resistant strains have all been created by HIM. They do not evolve they’ve been there from the beginning. We unworthy sinners that we are do not deserve a life safe from these desease because Adam ate the apple
You cannot argue with them. God is allmighty. So he can do everything at anytime. If something contradicts their claims in the end they always can say: “Who are we that we think we can understand everything HE is doing”.
It is not falsifible. Discussions with them are futile.
Andre
July 26th, 2007 at 9:36 am
>>> I also have to apologize because I actually live in
>>> the same hometown that George W. Bush grew up in.
Why? Are you his secret illegitimate dad or something?
>>> Is it too late to give Texas back to Mexico?
Why not. They’ve already taken Southern California.
And anyone expecting *me* to apologize for *that* has a long wait ahead of them.
July 26th, 2007 at 10:11 am
Why Evolution favors Creationist
One of the most amazing facts of life that have occurred to me is the basic principal that Evolution favors those people who do not believe in it over those that do believe in it. I’m sure that got your attention. Now here’s why.
Obviously Evolution favors the individual who is most successful at passing on their genetic information to the largest number of descendants. Who has more kids, a highly educated non-religious person who uses birth control and believes in abortion rights, or a right wing religious nut who believes in abstinence only teaching (thus ensuring that their kids get pregnant at an early age) and that abortion is wrong (thus ensuring that those same kids are stuck with the results of abstinence only education) and that God commanded them to procreate. The right wing religious nut does, thus Evolution favors the right wing religious nut. The fact that we are intelligent enough to understand Evolutionary Theory obviously makes us an evolutionary dead end as we will be overwhelmed by the ever increasing number of people who believe in religion over education.
Be afraid.
July 26th, 2007 at 10:12 am
Stuart said:
> More than 50% of Texans voted for this moron governor!
Your ignorance is showing. In the 2006 Texas Gubanatorial election, there were 5 candidates. Rick Perry won with a hair over 39% of the vote. Democrat Chris Bell had almost 30% of the vote. Two Independents (Carole Keeton Strayhorne and Kinky Friedman) took another 30% between them (18.1% and 12.4%). The Libertarian and write-ins got less than 1%.
http://www.uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?fips=48&year=2006&f=0&off=5&elect=0
Furthermore, as any issue in politics goes, the issue is more complicated. A fair number of Republicans are such because they are fiscally conservative. They vote on financial issues, i.e. government spending. They don’t vote based on religious lines. That said, there are a large number of Texans who do vote on religious lines, and Perry probably got the bulk of those votes.
And as a Texan, I take exception to all the comments calling Texans morons. As a whole, we’re no worse than the rest of the country. Yes, Texas politics leaves something to be desired, but at least there’s little chance Perry will go on to the Presidential race (unlike our last governor).
July 26th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Andre,
I know that the hardcore nutters can’t be swayed by reason or logic. My previous wager is aimed at getting the attention of the evolutionary fence sitters, who are in danger of being swayed by creationists in the absence of solid science to refute their nonsense.
The fence sitters on any issue can most defintely see the light. For example, I had a co-worker tell me that she was wondering whether the moon landings were faked. She saw that awful show that Fox put together. Since she’s a graphic designer, she didn’t have much of a scientific background to refute the show and she was left misinformed and in doubt. I asked her if she had a few moments for me to explain why the conspiracy theories don’t hold up. I patiently explained each argument, making sure not so sound like a condescending twit. Afterwords she thanked me for setting her straight and helping her to learn.
I think the same thing can happen with the evolution “debate”. If only I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say on an online forum, “I was brought up religious, but when I got older I realized it didn’t make sense, so I started figuring it out for myself.”
People in general, and yes, even large groups of them, are smarter than religious leaders want them to be. The problem is the crowds buy into the idea that they could never be very smart, and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
July 26th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Calling Texans stupid because of their elected leaders’ choices is the same as calling Americans stupid for the actions of our current national administration. Please be advised that the same chasms exist between people and their state’s legislative decisions as they do with their country.
So those of you not from Texas, please keep your one-line insults completely devoid of any meaning to yourselves. Those of you from Texas, please write your congressmen, and express your vehement disgust with these latest developments.
July 26th, 2007 at 10:37 am
@MS; I sure do as you stated, after all, English is my 2nd language.
July 26th, 2007 at 10:37 am
[...] Board of Education. I’ll give you a moment to clean off your screen … scooby doo quotesread more | digg [...]
July 26th, 2007 at 10:49 am
As a resident of Texas, this is why my 8-week old daughter will be in private school or home-schooled.
There are an enormous number of people doing home-schooling in Texas and part of it is nonsense like this, which goes on all the time
The good thing is that the Texas school district are very independent. So if he tries to ram his creationist nonsense down people’s throats, he’s going to have a fight on his hands.
July 26th, 2007 at 10:54 am
Separation of government and schooling. If the government did not control schooling this would not be as big an issue. It is all about control. You want control, the other side wants the control.
My wife is a very smart and amazing woman. She has a Master’s in Aplied linguistics. I know I married well above my level.
And about the isotopes: at what point in time did the decay of an atom become possible?
July 26th, 2007 at 10:55 am
You are right about insulting Texas on the basis of being morons. They are, indeed, no worse off in that respect than most other places in the country (or the world for that matter). I will however call the majority, meaning the 61% who did not vote for Perry – and the much larger portion of the overall populace who did not vate at all, apathetic.
While there is as large a gulf between the minds and actions of state level elected officials and their public as there is between federal level and the public there is a much smaller scale involved in the state level system. I can guarantee you that a couple of hundred thousand phone calls and letters directly to the governor expressing outrage at this would result in action. I’ve seen it done on other issues – alebeit in California. The most excellent case in point being what resulted in the succesful recall of a sitting governor for energy shenanigans (and other things) in California. (*Note, I’m not saying this was neccesarily the best course of action – but it certainly was action resulted from public outrage. I’ll leave history to decide if it was a good thing or not*) The people of Texas – the majority of whom probably do not agree with this action need only pick up the phone, dial 411 and ask for the Governors office in order to make an impact. Press 3 buttons, spend maybe 20 minutes of your day, and you can make a difference here…. but I can almost guarantee that it won’t happen. Why? Because unlike the power issues CA had this does not have an immediate and powerful impact on the quality of life of your average Texan. The impacts of a decision like this will be felt 10 or more years from now when a generation of Texans has no understanding of one of the most important scientific discoveries mankind has ever made and by then there will be little that can be done about it.
So no, Texas is not full of morons, just apathetic people with a severe case of short-sitedness… much like the rest of the country.
If the issue isn’t something that hits hard it the pocket book or keeps turning off your power randomly then you can bet people won’t be stirred to do anything about it.
July 26th, 2007 at 11:01 am
This has nothing to do with control, science is NOT fact. Evolution has large gaps. Creationism has large flaws. Creationism should be taught as an alternating theory.
Science cannot explain where the matter for the big bang come from? Science likes to say that the matter “just was”, hmm sounds like a religious answer to me.
Stupid nerds.
July 26th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Ok Texans, I agree that calling you morons is inappropriate and inaccurate. I will however call most of you, and indeed most people everywhere, apathetic.
This is something easily corrected by the judicious application of outrage and technology. The technology is the telephone, the outrage should be yours. The phone number needed is this one: (512) 463-2000 or this one: (800) 252-9600. Those are the numbers to, respectively, your Governors main switchboard and the Citizens Opinion Hotline.
Letters are fine, but they take effort – something most poeple won’t readily invest. E-mail is good but easily ignored. A couple of hundred thousand phone calls on the other hand… that tends to get peoples attention. The best thing, of course, would be to do all three… but really, the phone is usually the fastest route to satisfaction from a politician.
So, if you’re a Texan and outraged by this, call up your Governor and let him know. Then do it agian tomorrow, and the next day and the next until change happens. Then have everyone you know who feels the same do the same. It’ll take 5 minutes of your day but it may make a huge difference in the future of not only your state, but your world. By taking that 5 minutes you lose nothing, but stand to make yourself heard and your state a better place for trying.
July 26th, 2007 at 11:13 am
Yes, I am aware that dropped a p from applied.
July 26th, 2007 at 11:14 am
Yes, I am aware that I dropped a p from applied. Sorry.
July 26th, 2007 at 11:39 am
I spent about 5 months in Texas doing some door to door government work. While I wouldn’t say Texans are more stupid than other states, I would say they are definitely more ignorant.
I did question the rational of why a shocking number of Texans would drive a brand new Lincoln Navigator, H2, or other bloated vehicle, while living in a dilapidated unsanitary shack that could barely be called a home.
It is true what they say everything is bigger in Texas, vehicles included. This rule also goes double for the people.
I was also struck by how anyone with more than about an acre of land had a personal trash dump. Simple pick a little ravine or ditch out back and fill it with garbage. Read the fine print next time and you will find that the slogan really says “Don’t mess with Texas, we do it ourselves.”
I also have a hard time respecting any people who consider “hog-dogin” a good, fun, family activity, even if you are kind enough to keep inviting me to come along. Look it up.
July 26th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Jobe, you said,
“This has nothing to do with control, science is NOT fact. Evolution has large gaps. Creationism has large flaws. Creationism should be taught as an alternating theory.”
On the contrary, science is BASED on fact. Gravity is a fact. Electricity is a fact. The speed of light is a fact. Evolution is a fact. Biologists use the exact same scientific method to organize animal species as astronomers use to catalog stars.
How many time to we have to go over this? Creationism is NOT SCIENCE! It cannot be taught as an alternative to science. Creationism does not follow the scientific method. It is not repeatable in a lab, nor observable in the field. You simply cannot put a Creationist Hypothesis to the test. It fails every time.
I have no problem with teaching Creationism in a philosophy class, a bible class, or a religious studies class. But it has no place in a science class of any kind.
You also said,
“Science cannot explain where the matter for the big bang come from? Science likes to say that the matter “just wasâ€, hmm sounds like a religious answer to me.”
Actually, you are uninformed. The topic of how the big bang occurred was talked about on this very blog recently. What happened before the Big Bang?
B-)
July 26th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Howdy from Texas. Believe it or not, not everyone down here is a redneck. I moved from the Northeast to go to graduate school and have taught science to incoming university freshmen as well as to upper level students. I will agree there is a great deal of scientific illiteracy among many students here, but I don’t see it as being any different from the students I have taught in New England. The only real difference is that Texas is a huge state that can take more than 12 hours to cross, while the Northeast states are much smaller. Therefore more New Englanders have been outside their home state than Texans.
The biggest issue with attempting to teach biology, evolution and genetics to the students is that they know the drill; they know what they have to learn to pass the tests, but don’t care about the philosophy behind it. They will continue to believe whatever it is they learned from their parents, pastors, etc regardless of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. These students will maintain that creation is a “fact” and that evolution is “only a theory.” The entire Scientific Method is marginalized, even by students majoring in biology, biochemistry and genetics.
And there is still a cultural attitude where people introduce themselves as “my name is so-and-so and I just love the Lord.” The emphasis is on appearing to be more religious than your neighbor. This culture exists very much in the political arena, where politicians believe they have to appear pious in order to gain more votes. And of course, if someone disagrees with the pious politicos, those people are “damned liberal hippies.”
Am I disappointed, yet again, by another of Gov Perry’s decisions? Yes. Am I surprised? Not in the least. Will his decision stop me from teaching the Scientific Method? No.
However if I’m required to teach any story of creation I’ll pick the one I want to teach. And incoming students will be required to read the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
July 26th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
I whole-heartedly agree that the theory of evolution must be taught in schools. It is an extremely influential idea that has shaped the study of science for over a century. However evolution must be taught as just that: an idea. Evolution is an idea that in no way can be used to explain the “Origin of Species”. Many people simply believe (and ardently advocate) evolution because they can not bring themselves to believe in creationism, or that they may somehow be accountable to a “God”. This makes it very easy to constantly promote evolution without keeping up with current research.
I am a Bioengineer, and throughout both my schooling and studies I have come to the conclusion that evolution can not explain how living things “randomly” appeared on this Earth. Look at how specific protein structures are made and used. Then take a math class. It would take over a million times the currently accepted age of the universe in order to correctly and randomly FOLD even the simplest of proteins (a process that must happen for a protein to work) even given that the exact right amino acid sequence has been linked together. An no, I didn’t learn this from some “creationist propaganda”, I learned this fact in a college-level biochemistry class. Interestingly enough, evolution was also taught in this very class.
Scientists now days seem to hold so dearly to their acceptance of evolution that they are simply turning a blind eye to the huge holes that are constantly being found in it. Hmm…what else does this sound like? In my opinion, evolutionists are just as radical as the “right-wing” religious zealots who they constantly berate.
Do we teach creationism in schools as science? I don’t think so. Do we teach evolution in schools as science? No. What do we teach? We do the mature thing…admit that we don’t know, and strive to find the answer instead of defending a broken theory.
July 26th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
Considering California has more hate groups than Texas (http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/hate.jsp), I suppose it isn’t any wonder why a Californian would want to build a “death-ray” and commit an act of genocide.
However, all ranting aside, there are plenty of us Texans that are appalled by this appointment.
July 26th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
[...] notes stream into Texas from scientists and educators. P. Z. Myers at Pharyngula, Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy, the guys at DefConBlog, and Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars, all cry the blues, and [...]
July 26th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Dan, you said,
“I am a Bioengineer, and throughout both my schooling and studies I have come to the conclusion that evolution can not explain how living things “randomly†appeared on this Earth.”
Is it possible that the scientific method used to discover that life on this planet evolves over time simply has not found enough evidence to explain how life began? Could it be that in the early stages of the earth’s existence, when life began, the continents were still experiencing massive geological events which destroyed such evidence? And regardless of those answers, the scientific methods used to support evolution are the same methods used to support every other field of science, like chemistry, physics and astronomy.
Then you said,
“Scientists now days seem to hold so dearly to their acceptance of evolution that they are simply turning a blind eye to the huge holes that are constantly being found in it.”
Can you please name one “huge hole” that has been found recently that in any way disproves all of the rest the 150 years of evidence for evolution? Because, in order to completely disprove a Theory, you would have to prove that every bit of it is wrong. Otherwise, any “holes” that you find simply add to the strength of the Theory once those holes are filled. That’s part of the scientific method.
You also said,
“Do we teach creationism in schools as science? I don’t think so. Do we teach evolution in schools as science? No. What do we teach? We do the mature thing…admit that we don’t know, and strive to find the answer instead of defending a broken theory.””
You haven’t been paying much attention. Some states have been trying to teach creationism in schools as an alternative to science. Google “Kansas schools evolution” and see what comes up. We absolutely teach evolution in schools as science, just as we teach that the world is round and that animals breath oxygen, but only as long as we prevent the mis-education of our children by our government, which is what started this little debate.
B-)
July 26th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Well, I’ve now read through everything, refreshed, repeat about 4 times. There’re probably 4 new topics on the blog by now.
I am a Texas resident (not the other MichaelS Texas resident who posted earlier in the topic), though I am currently stationed in Tucson. It saddens me when things like this happen, but pretending they happen only is Texas is not just wrong, but it misses the bigger picture; all your base will belong to them if you just sit around, pointing and mocking everyone else.
To Dan, Jobe, and others with the same argument: Evolution explains the origins of the species once life started. There is no need or reason for it to explain that initial seed. Similarly, the Big Bang explains the origins of the stars, galaxies, planets, etc. from a super-singularity, and has no need or reason to explain where the singularity came from.
Of course, just because we don’t currently have a working, well-established theory explaining those origins doesn’t mean some mysterious being magicked everything into existence, and it certainly doesn’t mean a specific concept of that mysterious being did it.
July 26th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
“Do we teach creationism in schools as science? I don’t think so. Do we teach evolution in schools as science? No. What do we teach? We do the mature thing…admit that we don’t know, and strive to find the answer instead of defending a broken theory.â€
I apologize for the wording of this paragraph. I was not stating that we don’t currently teach creationism or evolution. I was proposing a solution to the current problem; my solution being that we do not teach either as science. As for evidence of the “holes”, I argue that the whole time line of evolution is not possible. People argue rightfully that the “young-earth” position can not coincide with evolution. I assert that even the currently accepted age of the universe is not long enough to randomly generate life. Too much has to happen too perfectly, and as scientists further understand the nuances of life, it constantly becomes more and more complex.
Finally, the scientific process absolutely can not support evolution. The scientific process involves a hypothesis that can be tested multiple times with observable results. Yes, species adapt. Yes, mutations can aid the survival of a species. But, can a species of a lesser form gain enough genetic material to constitute a completely separate species (sometimes multiple mutations in a single gene…an event with absurdly small odds)? Please tell me when this has ever been tested, and RE-tested using the scientific method.
July 26th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Jay said:
> I spent about 5 months in Texas doing some door to door government work. While I wouldn’t say Texans are more stupid than other states, I would say they are definitely more ignorant.
Really? Have you done a survey of, say, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, West Virginia, Idaho, Montana, and Utah? What exactly is your point of comparison? Are you judging rural against rural, or rural against urban? Are you looking at inner city gang neighborhoods?
> I was also struck by how anyone with more than about an acre of land had a personal trash dump. Simple pick a little ravine or ditch out back and fill it with garbage. Read the fine print next time and you will find that the slogan really says “Don’t mess with Texas, we do it ourselves.â€
I’ve personally seen the same practice in Arkansas and Oklahoma. I suspect you’re seeing the difference in mindset of poor rural vs. urban.
Dan said:
> Evolution is an idea that in no way can be used to explain the “Origin of Speciesâ€.
You appear to be talking about the origin of life rather than the origin of species. The biogenesis issue is still an open question. And no, Creationism does not provide a scientific answer. Science is about explaining the mechanism of how it occurred. Saying “God did it” does not tell how God did it.
> Many people simply believe (and ardently advocate) evolution because they can not bring themselves to believe in creationism, or that they may somehow be accountable to a “Godâ€.
I have no idea where you’re getting this crap. I cannot bring myself to believe in creationism, because creationism is explicitly in conflict with evidence. Creationism is a doctrine of independent origins of each species and that species are static (unchanging). This is manifestly untrue, shown by agriculture, horticulture, and animal husbandry as well as genetics. As for accountability, I know no one who professes they chose atheism to avoid accountability to God. Every single atheist, agnostic, and religious skeptic that I know came to their position by finding the concept of God (by whatever definition) to be unsupported by the evidence of the world. Not a single person I know chose atheism out of fear of “going to hell” or so they could choose behaviors incongruent with Christian teachings. In fact, I have seen plenty of people stubbornly retain their belief in God and profess christianity despite their actions being incongruent with teachings. Given that prisons are full of self-identified christians, it is rather obvious that people are very good in general at rationalizing away whatever behavior they wish to avoid that accountability. One hardly needs to choose evolution to do so.
And once again, I must stress that creationism does not mean christianity, and evolution does not mean atheism. Evolution makes no claim as to the premise of whether god was involved, it only discusses the mechanisms of biological change. One does not need to cease believing in God to accept evolution.
July 26th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
Man, reading through all of this took at least two hours, but it was worth it.
All I can say to Phil is, excellent article. To those of you, like me, who support him, the arguments and links that you have put up have increased my knowledge of how to deal with creationists ten fold. Thank you. To those of you who support creationism, I pity you, and beg you to see reason. To Mike J, if you dislike Phil, quit replying to this blog. It’s irritating, and I’m sure the entire BA community would come crashing down upon you with legal help for Phil if you tried anything stupid.
Again, thank you all for giving me yet more weapons to defeat the creationist… lie. Many more battles to fight, many more wars to be won.
Cheers!
July 26th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
OK, let me add in my 2 cents worth, because that’s about all it’s worth. Evolution, when it comes to flame wars, is always considered as a whole. Whereas when arguing whether it or Intelligent Design are worthy sciences there must be an understanding that Evolution is proposed to be happening on two distinct levels. Micro-evolution, which science has observed just about everywhere, is where a species changes or mutates and beneficially adapts to its environment, vis-a-vis the flu virus resisting antibiotics. Macro-evolution, however, is the concept of a species developing into an entirely distinct new species over a long period of time, which science has yet to give evidence of.
I think you will find if you approach the argument with intellectual honesty that nearly all solid proponents of Intelligent Design do accept micro-evolution, but reject macro-evolution. The flame wars only suffice to blur the argument, which is, in fact, what many proponents of macro-evolution wish to do.
July 26th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
When you compare Bush’s face to other primates you can’t possibly think anything BUT that some of us evolved from other primate…Bush and apparently the people that run Texas didn’t guite make the evolutionary step. F__cking morons…they deserve every calamity that nature (I mean GOD) sets upon them.
July 26th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
When you compare Bush’s face to other primates you can’t possibly think anything BUT that some of us evolved from other primate…Bush and apparently the people that run Texas didn’t quite make the evolutionary step. F__cking morons…they deserve every calamity that nature (I mean GOD) sets upon them.
July 26th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
[...] Education To Be Led By Sunday Shool Teacher Dr. Don McLeroy Another peek above our garters to the Bad Astronomer Dr. Phil Plait for giving us the heads up on this and to Dr. P.Z. Myers of Pharyngula, who has also now posted about [...]
July 26th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Texas Board of Education To Be Led By Sunday Shool Teacher Dr. Don McLeroy…
Another peek above our garters to the Bad Astronomer Dr. Phil Plait for giving us the heads up on this and to Dr. P.Z. Myers of Pharyngula, who has also now posted about it.
It seems that Governor of Texas Rick Perry has appointed a certain Dr. Don McL…
July 26th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
There are a lot of badly unscientific things that people teach with the name “evolution” on them. Lots of them are along the lines of evolution as “progress”, suggesting that we’re gradually getting “better” and better all the time, or that we’re somehow “fitter” than monkeys because we’re more intelligent, or other people suggesting that strong people killing off weak people is how evolution works so we should not only do that but feel proud about ourselves for doing so. Some days even the theory that we’re smarter than other apes doesn’t look real defendable…
I haven’t seen the textbook in question, so I don’t know if it’s good solid science or not. It’s got a couple of obvious tactical errors – using a liberal term like “environmentalism” as opposed to “conservation” puts you on the wrong side of the political divide instead of getting the farmers on your side, and anything that touches “global warming” needs to be extra-careful about what it says. Not only is the scientific knowledge about climate change evolving rapidly (:-), so it’s hard to do it well and still remain accessible to kids, but the whole concept is strongly in opposition to the *real* religion of the current Republican Party, which is the oil business.
July 27th, 2007 at 1:50 am
[...] Texas: Doomed Say it ain't so! [...]
July 27th, 2007 at 3:02 am
Jobe, you said,
“This has nothing to do with control, science is NOT fact.”
Did you know that the computer you are working on is based on this NOT fact stuff? It is funny all of you guys use computers, DVD players and whatever ignoring the fact this things only work because the universe is as it is. (Without quantum mechanics no semiconductors and no lasers). It is really strange how you accept the one thing as fact, arguing that the other thing is not
Dan you said,
It would take over a million times the currently accepted age of the universe in order to correctly and randomly FOLD even the simplest of proteins (a process that must happen for a protein to work) even given that the exact right amino acid sequence has been linked together.
Based on what calculation?
I am not a bio-engineer, I am a physicist. But very often in probability considerations it is forgotten that billions and billions of processes take place simoultaniously. It is not putting together one thing at a time and than the next and so no. Consider thousands of billions trials and errors (mabey on billions of possible planets in the universe). I think the odds will be different then.
There is a similair argument when creatonists are talking how amazing it is that everything in the universe (natural constants) is tuned so fine. If the constants would be differnt it would not work.
Of course not. We are only here and able to think about it because it is like it is. If it would be a different universe no one would be there to think about. Same is true for the randomly folding of that proteins. We don not know about these zillions of times it went wrong.
Recently I have read an article in the German issue of the “Scientific American”. It was called the “Wyatt Earp effect”. Isn’t it amazing how Wyatt Earp could survive about (not sure about the number) 100 gun fights without ever being hurt significantly?
No it is not amazing. If he would not have survived we would not know about him. Same as we do not know the nameles hundreds or thousands who were killed after the first ore the 10th gun fight.
Always be careful with probability considerations!
Another example:
You get blindfolded in a cab. The cab driver drives you and at every intersection he throws a coin and depending on that drives left or right. He is doing this a 100 times. After that you pay him and get out of the car. Where ever you are now, odds have been 1 : 7,9 x 10E31 against ending up exactly there! (I don’t know what a number with 31 zeros is named).
@BrianT
Yes I know what you mean, therefore in the next newsletter I prepare for the company I work I will mention Phils site for help with debunking the moon hoax. Recently it came up here in Germany.
But sometimes it is really frustrating. It’s like years ago when in the small town were I live I had a discussion with a fire fighter who was telling me Nitrogene is toxic. I had no chance. He was the expert, he learned that because he was a fire fighter. Pointing out that I have a degree in physics (and therefore basic chemistry knowledge) just lead to the discussion that those scientific egg heads learn nothing in school or university. He didn’t even believe me that the atmsophere we are breathing is to almost 3/4 consisting of nitrogene.
I gave up then.
Andre
July 27th, 2007 at 4:11 am
Just wanted to point out that being “anti-intellectual” isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
I’m pro-data, pro-fact, and pro-science… but I’m definitely “anti-intellectual” insofar as I’m not going to believe someone just because they have a title or a degree.
Being an official “intellectual” doesn’t make you any less prone to errors or stupidity, as the article itself shows.
July 27th, 2007 at 5:54 am
@RvLeshrac
In pronciple you are right! But if someone has a degree in for example chemistry and the other guy has one in history I would always believe the guy with the history degree when it comes to historic topics.
I mean if you fall ill, you usually see a M.D, not a car mechanics? Of course a title or degree does not mean someone cannot fail or have a wrong conception of reallity. But usually it gives you a clue on what subjects the guy is more credible.
AndreH
July 27th, 2007 at 5:58 am
Chris H
All ID proponents reject macro-evolution on religious grounds. What precisely is the barrier that stops micro-evolution leading into macro-evolution? Never heard of transitional fossils?
July 27th, 2007 at 6:10 am
Jaime: And about the isotopes: at what point in time did the decay of an atom become possible?
As soon as there were atoms. There is a certain probability that a given atom will decay into another atom within a certain amount of time. This is true of all atoms that have more than two nucleons. (Some suggest that even protons have half-lives, but as far as I know, all attempts to find that half-life have been fruitless.)
Jobe: Creationism should be taught as an alternating theory.
No — because creationism (especially in its young-Earth form!) is clearly, absolutely, demonstrably false. It doesn’t even qualify as a theory, because it doesn’t explain the facts.
Dan: I assert that even the currently accepted age of the universe is not long enough to randomly generate life. Too much has to happen too perfectly, and as scientists further understand the nuances of life, it constantly becomes more and more complex.
So how much time would be required? Please, show your work. Let us see if your arguments are worth serious consideration.
Chris H: Macro-evolution, however, is the concept of a species developing into an entirely distinct new species over a long period of time, which science has yet to give evidence of.
We’ve observed the changing of one species into another (speciation, or “macroevolution”, if you prefer). Directly. In historical times, in all sorts of organisms — from single-celled bacteria (Helacyton gartleri) to mosquitoes (the molestus form of Culex pipiens) to plants (Primula kewensis) to deer mice (Peromyces maniculatus) to greenish warblers (Phylloscopus trochiloides — they’re birds) to bees (Hoplitis (Alcidamea) producta).
My personal favorite is Helacyton gartleri. It’s now a bacterium. It was Homo sapiens — a woman named Henrietta Lacks.
There’s also a nifty report in Britton-Davidian et al.’s article “Rapid chromosomal evolution in island mice”, Nature, volume 403, p. 158, which details six instances of speciation in house mice on Madeira within the past 500 years, thanks to nothing more than geographic isolation, genetic drift, and chromosomal fusion.
This is especially interesting to me because of the following (somewhat unrelated) genetic fact: the biggest genetic difference between chimps and humans is a chromosomal fusion. During this 500-year period, some of those poor mice suffered nine chromosomal fusions. What possible mechanism could there be to allow nine chromosomal fusions in mice, but prevent chromosomal fusions in human ancestors?
You might also want to try reading “Observed Instances of Speciation” by Joseph Boxhorn; or “Some More Observed Speciation Effects” by Stassen et al.; or “At the Water’s Edge” by Carl Zimmer; or “Darwin’s Cathedral” by Wilson; or “Lying Stones of Marrakesh” by Sterelny; or “Sex and Death” by Sterelny and Griffiths.
The fact of the matter is that small changes can accumulate into large ones. If you have evidence that change will stop at some arbitrary barrier, please present your evidence. Otherwise, we’ll have to call the idea that “macroevolution” does not occur mere speculation, since speciation — and, by extension, increasing separation of all species — is fully consistent with what we’ve observed thus far.
July 27th, 2007 at 6:10 am
@RvLeshrac
You are right, you should be skeptic about a guy with a degree in physics if he talks about history.
But if you fall ill, you go to an M.D. not a car mechanics.
A degree or title does not make you infailable (is this proper English?) but it tells something about credibility in a certain field.
@ Darth Robo
Exactly what I wanted to say!
Andre
July 27th, 2007 at 6:16 am
Was not able to post,
trying my old nick (changed it yesterday to avoid confusion) AndreH
@RvLeshrac
You are right, you should be skeptic about a guy with a degree in physics if he talks about history.
But if you fall ill, you go to an M.D. not a car mechanics.
A degree or title does not make you infailable (is this proper English?) but it tells something about credibility in a certain field.
@ Darth Robo
Exactly what I wanted to say!
Andre
July 27th, 2007 at 8:21 am
Hey! on-line again? The page was not accesible for about 2 hours!
Andre
July 27th, 2007 at 8:45 am
Another thing is that all this creationist [bad word deleted by The Bad Astronomer] does leak out of the US into other parts of the world. For instance, something like a year ago here in Russia some moron schoolgirl (actually more like her dad) actually tried to sue her school for teaching evolution as the only theory of human origin (and the famous “I’m gonna sue your ass” attitude is not nearly a common thing in Russia!). Not surprisingly, she didn’t win the lawsuit, but even our Secretary of Education and Science did for a moment agree that “perhaps, some competition between the theories taught in schools wouldn’t be bad”. Clearly removing any leftover doubts over his competence in both Education and Science…
And oh yes, the girl didn’t even claim having read “The Origin of Species”, not to mention any modern books on evolution. Well, at least, that was honest.
Somebody do something, or _everyone_ is doomed. May the Flying Spaghetti Monster bless you with His Noodly Appendages!
July 27th, 2007 at 8:57 am
Don’t Mess with Texas… It’s not nice to pick on retards
July 27th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Lets all enjoy our freedoms while they last, because in 50 years the US will have become the Christian version of Iran.
July 27th, 2007 at 9:17 am
[...] To Be Led By Sunday School Teacher Dr. Don McLeroy Another peek above our garters to the Bad Astronomer Dr. Phil Plait for giving us the heads up on this and to Dr. P.Z. Myers of Pharyngula, who has also now posted about [...]
July 27th, 2007 at 9:19 am
you know… the people making decisions about these things don’t reflect the views and opinions of all Texans… if i read everything correctly, this guy was appointed, not elected, to the SBE. so, saying how dumb Texans must be as a result is insulting and plain wrong. i certainly don’t support much that perry does, this included.
i was born in Texas and have never lived anywhere else, and i will admit that there are a pretty fair share of ignorant people in Texas, though i agree with the above sentiment that it very well may be equal to the ratio elsewhere, but being a pretty large state (constantly under scrutiny), it’s more visible here. there is a pretty fair share of our state made up of intelligent, educated, and open minded people. the dumb ones are usually just louder.
beyond that, just because someone incapable of understanding education has been appointed to the board doesn’t mean that the educators of our great state will just lie down and stop teaching. as long as they don’t send someone in to monitor every science classroom across the state (which will never *ever* happen), teachers will still teach what they were taught, what they accept as fact, and what they feel is appropriate. that’s the great thing about “adopting” textbooks… we don’t *have* to use them. most teachers have an abundance of resources that they’ve procured over time with which to teach their classes (speaking as a teacher myself). so, using this as an excuse to bash Texas and speak out about why it’s not a good idea to live here is ignorance in itself.
Thanks, BA, for bringing attention to this subject. It’s definitely something that needs to be put in the spotlight to keep people from being completely ignorant.
July 27th, 2007 at 10:14 am
It is so frustrating to me that scientists, educators and others have to waste so much energy and time fighting against the stifling ignorance of people who cannot or will not muster the imagination and open-minded curiousity to explore and learn concepts beyond their ludicrous and limited fear based religious beliefs.
If these words seem arrogant and elitist, so be it, not all thinking and beliefs are equal. Creationism and ID do not qualify as rational objective knowledge. They are ideology driven, biased, closed ended, with outcomes and conclusions pre-decided. If their “facts” do not support their faith based beliefs then they are rejected. That is not science, nor it is honesty and utilizing the intelligence humans are capable of.
It mystifies me also why it is so repulsive to them that evolution shows that all life is related by origin and process. Why is deep time so threatening? I feel no less respect for my humanity and the worth of others by accepting that I am descended from other “simpler” life forms. To me such amazing interconnections is much more “spiritual” and deeply satisfying than any religious dogma that places humans as some type of seperate, special creation divorced from the rest of life.
Such illusionary biases I believe are a part, but not all, of why we do not do a better job of protecting and preserving the environment. The Earth and other life is seen as nothing more than “sin-corrupted”,unrelated objects, beneath us, seperate from us.
I pity these mediocre minds who have such myopic, fearful and small views of life and the universe. If they wish to remain stagnating in some medieval religious fantasy world, then fine, but don’t use decietful politics to drag down the rest of us with you into your fortress mentality of darkness and ignorance.
Many of us desire something more rewarding, invigorating and uplifting…to use human freedom,curiosity,intelligence and tools to try to better understand the incredibly rich complexity of the universe we evolved in.
July 27th, 2007 at 10:37 am
MattFunke: thank you for your response.
So, what is the probability that when the Earth formed there were no isotopes?
July 27th, 2007 at 10:54 am
It is so frustrating to me that scientists, educators and others have to waste so much energy and time fighting against the stifling ignorance of people who cannot or will not muster the imagination and open-minded curiousity to explore and learn concepts beyond their ludicrous and limited fear based religious beliefs.
If these words seem arrogant and elitist, so be it, not all thinking and beliefs are equal. Creationism and ID do not qualify as rational objective knowledge. They are ideology driven, biased, closed ended, with outcomes and conclusions pre-decided. If their “facts” do not support their faith based beliefs then they are rejected. That is not science, nor it is honesty and utilizing the intelligence humans are capable of.
It mystifies me also why it is so repulsive to them that evolution shows that all life is related by origin and process. Why is deep time so threatening? I feel no less respect for my humanity and the worth of others by accepting that I am descended from other “simpler” life forms. To me such amazing interconnections is much more “spiritual” and deeply satisfying than any religious dogma that places humans as some type of seperate, special creation divorced from the rest of life.
Such illusionary biases I believe are a part, but not all, of why we do not do a better job of protecting and preserving the environment. The Earth and other life is seen as nothing more than “sin-corrupted”,unrelated objects, beneath us, seperate from us.
I pity these mediocre minds who have such myopic, fearful and small views of life and the universe. If they wish to remain stagnating in some medieval religious fantasy world, then fine, but don’t use decietful politics to drag down the rest of us with you into your fortress mentality of darkness and ignorance.
Many of us desire something more rewarding, invigorating and uplifting…to use human freedom,curiosity,intelligence and tools to try to better understand the incredibly rich complexity of the universe we evolved in.
July 27th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Jaime: So, what is the probability that when the Earth formed there were no isotopes?
What? Do you know what an isotope is?
Here’s a hint: your question is exactly equivalent to, “What is the probability that when the Earth formed there was no matter made of atoms?”
The answer is “arbitrarily close to zero”, since when the Earth formed, one assumes matter made of atoms was involved. The question in radioisotope dating is not “Are there isotopes?”, but “What kind of isotopes are there?”
July 27th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Jaime,
What are you trying to say? It is exactly because there were isotopes in the earth when it formed that we can use them to date materials found in the earth. Perhaps you do not understand how radiometirc dating works?
July 27th, 2007 at 11:24 am
Quick note: By “involved”, above, I mean sometime before, during, or after the formation of the Earth.
July 27th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Will this go through?
Andre
July 27th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
I cannot post! (Or the posts show up with hours of delay) This is frustrating. I am leaving
Andre
July 27th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
silly season…
“…read the part about “…the Bible is inerrant;”)”…
July 27th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
[...] Via the Bad Astronomy Blog [...]
July 27th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Chris H said:
> Evolution, when it comes to flame wars, is always considered as a whole. Whereas when arguing whether it or Intelligent Design are worthy sciences there must be an understanding that Evolution is proposed to be happening on two distinct levels. Micro-evolution, which science has observed just about everywhere, is where a species changes or mutates and beneficially adapts to its environment, vis-a-vis the flu virus resisting antibiotics. Macro-evolution, however, is the concept of a species developing into an entirely distinct new species over a long period of time, which science has yet to give evidence of… The flame wars only suffice to blur the argument, which is, in fact, what many proponents of macro-evolution wish to do.
That is because the “micro-evolution vs macro-evolution” dichotomy is not a scientific distinction. This is a distinction generated from and promoted by creationists, who cannot refute the solid evidence of intraspecies change, so fall back to the more complex “change of kinds”, where “kinds” is a loose term somewhat biblical in character (reference to Noah and the Ark), but without having a defined level of hierarchy in modern taxonomy.
This “change within kinds” argument has merit on the face because everyone is able to see how “a dog coming from a wolf is still basically the same kind, a wolfish animal”. Nevermind that a Chihuahua is a very funny looking wolf. But in order to stand by this argument, the proponents of this argument must discount findings that contradict it, such as transitional fossils. Like Tiktaalik. They will find any reason they can to argue it fits into one or another category of classification, brushing over the fact that it exhibits a mix of traits of fish and amphibians. It neatly matches what would be expected of something becoming an amphibian from a fish, and was found where it was predicted to be found. But to a creationist, it cannot be a transitional fossil, because that would clearly be a violation of the supposed restriction on evolution of “kinds”.
So instead creationists raise the bar, and demand “more convincing” evidence. They want a documented evolutionary change dramatic enough to warrant the description “change of kind”. They want an unbroken lineage to show type of mouse grow wings to become a bat, or a line of bears spend so much time in the water they start to grow flippers like a walrus. They want live human witnesses to the scale of change that takes a millennium to achieve.
Bill S said:
>… using a liberal term like “environmentalism†as opposed to “conservation†…
“Environmentalism” is a liberal word?
AndreH said:
> Jobe, you said,
> “This has nothing to do with control, science is NOT fact.â€
> Did you know that the computer you are working on is based on this NOT fact stuff?
Respectfully, I think you are misunderstanding the point Jobe was trying to make. Jobe was using the term “fact” to make a distinction between observed data and the explanations that science attaches to the data. To some extent, Jobe is correct. Science is not just the collection of data, the accumulation of test results. Rather, science includes the attributing of explanations to those results, explanations that can be tested by further investigation. In that sense, the explanations are not “facts”, and are subject to change based upon deeper study.
However, Jobe does seem to have a misunderstanding about the nature of science. Or perhaps it’s a difference in the use of the words “Evolution” and “Creationism”. Creationism has two parts. The philosophical aspect of Creationism is the claim that “God did it”, that God was the cause. The scientific element of the claim is the proposed mechanism of how God did it. It is the mechanism position that is scientifically invalidated. Scientifically, Creationism is a claim about the independent creation of each life form type (i.e. species or “kind”) and static life forms. This scientific claim is inconsistent with everything we know about biology. Evolution is the descriptive principle of change over time from common ancestry. This is derived from multiple lines of study, from the fossil record to agriculture and horticulture to genetics. The problem is too many people take the issue to be about the Philosophical argument, and then project onto Evolution the alternate Philosophical position – God was not involved. Despite what some early proponents of Evolution said, Evolution does not make this claim. That is a Philosophical conclusion drawn by some people from the evidence of evolution, but it is not inherent in the principles of Evolution.
The Philosophical arguments have no place in a science classroom. The scientific arguments being evaluated against their merits, creationism does not stand up and evolution does. Ergo, Creationism does not belong in the science classroom.
July 27th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
RvLeshrac said:
> Just wanted to point out that being “anti-intellectual†isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
> I’m pro-data, pro-fact, and pro-science… but I’m definitely “anti-intellectual†insofar as I’m not going to believe someone just because they have a title or a degree.
I think this is another example of differing use of terminology. If an intellectual is a reference to snobbish pride, to celebration of title, degree, or rank over substance, then your point has merit. But an alternate use of “intellectual” is someone who celebrates intelligence, admires knowledge, and strives to learn. This makes an anti-intellectual someone who is prideful of their lack of knowledge, leery of that “book lernin’”, someone who celebrates being a C student and labels anyone who strives for better to be a “nerd”. It is this sense of “anti-intellectual” that I think Phil is addressing.
July 27th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Michael Barrett:
IME, the evidence suggests that that distinction actually belongs to Florida: Elian Gonzales, the 2000 election, Kent Hovind and Dinosaur Adventure Land, spammers (clustered in Boca Raton), etc., etc.
July 27th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
You’re missing the worst of the story.
The guy rejects biological Darwinism. He can do that if he wants. It’s suppose to be a free country. He may make some people suspicious of his mental capacity, but that’s his right too. I’ve got my share of crackpot theories, and so do any number of people who accept biological Darwinism.
At the same time, however, the guy accepts and even promotes the idea of social Darwinism.
These two ideas conflict not just on the scientific side. They conflict on the religious side. If he claims to be a religious person, a follower of a merciful Jesus who preached against discrimination against the poor, he’s got to follow it all the way. He does not.
If he’s going to misuse his position to teach everyone religion instead of science, we should at least require him to have his religion straight.
July 27th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
MattFunke – You ask me to show my work on how much time would be required. Obviously, due to a lack of knowledge as to exactly how life “works” I can not give you even a ball-park estimate. However, I can show you the steps I have taken to come to the conclusion that the currently “accepted” age of the Universe (~14 billion years) is still not long enough for random processes to generate life. While there are many factors that have led me to this conclusion, I will only expand (briefly) on one.
I will use my previously mentioned example of proteins. Proteins are needed for life to function. Without proteins, cells can not replicate (proteins are used to duplicate DNA and RNA). On a side note, the replication of DNA and RNA is essential for the theory of evolution to exist, because this is how traits are passed from generation to generation. Proteins are made up of a collection of amino acids (made up mostly of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and some other elements…google it if you’re more interested). Like I mentioned earlier, just having the correct sequence of amino acids does not constitute a viable and useful protein. They must be folded into the correct shape to function. One mis-fold can, and in most cases does, result in a completely worthless protein that is quickly destroyed. So what makes proteins? Other proteins. This brings up the obvious question: If proteins are required to build proteins, where did the original ones come from? Is it plausible to assume that they randomly formed? No, and here’s why.
To randomly make a protein, this must happen:
1) Amino acids must randomly form.
2) They then must become attached to eachother in an exact sequence (the simplest of which are still on the order of a few hundred )
3) The sequence must then be correctly folded.
4) The resulting protein must function in a way that it can produce other proteins (or it would just form, and then degrade, leaving us with no more proteins!)
The odds of any of the four steps are EXTREMELY small. As AndreH pointed out, yes these processes may be taking place at the same time in a billion different places all over the globe. However, all 4 must take place in the same location for any of this to work. For those who want some numbers, #3 holds up the process quite a bit. This is because it takes a protein approximately 1 second to fold. It is this time constraint that places the random correct folding of a protein on the order of millions of trillions of years. Also #1 has yet to be scientifically observed (Miller’s experiments in the 50s have been rejected by the scientific community since the 80s…although they are still taught in school as “evidence” of life randomly appearing on Earth). #2 is not a matter of two amino acids just bumping into eachother. A facilitated chemical reaction within a medium of the correct pH must occur. #4 is another requirement which dramatically decreases the odds. The end product must be useful or this whole process was for nothing.
I hope this clarifies my position. If anyone can tell me how this could all work without at least all 4 of those steps occurring, please let me know. As it stands though, I am 100% convinced that 13.7 billion years is not enough time for all 4 of these steps to randomly simultaneously occur within the same location in the universe.
July 27th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Dan,
There’s an immediately visible flaw in your reasoning. You are taking an end result product – protein folding – and applying an understanding of how it’s done today in order to extrapolate how unlikely it would be to occur randomly at some arbitrary point in the past. Currently, we see that protein are made by proteins – it’s the most effecient way for it to happen as far as we can tell. It is a highly complex process to be sure. It is not the only way for it to possibly happen though and there is nothing that says the first protein to fold into useful structures had to come into being the way they do now.
The process for creating and folding proteins that we see now is itslef a product of evolution. It didn’t simply spring fully formed into action one day any more than the earth did. Do we know what processes led to the current highly succesful startegy we see today? No. Are we likley to ever see record of it? No, as it was likely too small a process happening on to fast a scale to leave any good evidence behind after a biliion or 3 years. Does that mean that we cannot confidently extrapolate that it occured and even come up with viable models as to how? No, that is what science does after all – makes testable predicitions about things. do we have any viable alternative for how protein folding could have started? Not yet (although my reading is abit out of date on that point and I could be wrong!) but the evidence certainly supports that a knowable, no mystic answer is out there.
Oh, and as for probablitily that life like we see here could occur in a mere 4.6B years… well, I think your calcualtions may have left out a couple variables. First is that life evolving into a self sustaing and replicating form with a robust and mutable base like DNA/RNA is not a happenstance that we could, for purposes of probability, link to just our planet. You have to link it to the entire cosmos. Considering the vast size of the cosmos – we already know there are more galaxies in the universe than there are stars in the Milky Way. When you do the math for the number of potential planetary systems you get very, very big numbers. Mind bogginly big – even by astronomical standards. So…. in a universe this size, with that many potential places with a chance for life like ours to form at any time in the last 15-16B years…. the odds are very nearly 100% that it WILL happen…and more than once at that. So, yes, the odds that it would happen here are the cosmic equivalent of winning the lottery but just like in the lottery somebody has to eventually win. In this case it was Earth and, by extension, us.
July 27th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Dan your a bioengineer? Maybe then, you should be familiar with basic concepts such as aminio acid creation through the combination of different gases all available during the early stages of the earth, combine that with massive solar energy due to a developing atmosphere and you claim that its impossible?
well lets look at the sheer number of particles in the universe and how long 13.7 billion years actually is. There are a billion seconds in a thousand years, the earths mass is 5.9742 e 24 kg, thats just the earth start looking at all the particles in the universe and that number goes up a lot, thats a lot of particles bumping into each other. way more than a trillion in a second. plus things happen on the quantum level in matters of attoseconds. 1 attosecond is to a second as a second is to 1 billion billion years. You obviously don’t have a good concept of the scale of time. you need to go retake your stats class if you honestly think that its not statistically possible that somewhere in the universe the right combination of amino acids were formed. The scale you are talking about is massive, bigger than anything we could even possibly ever model on earth to give even an inkling of a representation. The difference in scale from a quark to our sun doesnt even begin to describe the scale.
July 27th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Sorry to break it to you guys… You can’t come out saying ‘Texas is stupid’ without looking like a fool yourself. Maybe if you were educated you would know that there are a lot of stupid people…Everywhere. There’s just as many idiots in California or New York as there are in Texas. Only reason you guys jump on the ‘I hate Texas’ bandwagon is because either 1) you’ve never been there and go off the whole cowboy/ fake cowboys idea(ie. George Bush; who’s not from Texas btw) or 2)you’re an idiot yourself and don’t really realize how many idiots surround you. Honestly in my 9 months of living in California(northern) I’ve seen much more red necks here who are racist as hell and people tend to be more about themselves, than my 12 years in San Antonio, Texas. Don’t mean to rant, but it’s just annoying when ignorant people discriminate.
Anyway, The United States is going to Hell in a hand basket. You don’t appoint someone who is extremely biased and uneducated on the Board of EDUCATION. Just like you don’t appoint an old-man who doesn’t know sh!t about the internet to be one who controls the laws for it…
July 28th, 2007 at 10:09 am
oh yes, texas doomed. a democratically elected governor appointing a creationist to the head of the Texas State Board of Education.
let’s not give the people what they want. let’s oppress their beliefs because it doesn’t fit in with our secularist, godless agenda.
you people are SAD.
July 28th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
MattFunke: Simple question. When the Earth formed were there isotopes? Your answer was yes.
What kind of isotopes were there?
In what percentages/ratios?
How do you arrive at an estimate?
How does it affects radiometric dating?
July 29th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
If what the people of Texas(or anywhere for that matter) want is institutionalized ignorance founded on magical beliefs and delusions then that is indeed really sad and pathetic.
July 29th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
I don’t care how many inbred yahoos in Texas oppose the teaching of Evolution. Creationism is a lie, it is un-Christian, and it is treason against the United States of America. So take your devil worship and shove it; I’ve had it up to /here/ with hearing blasphemies shouted in the name of my savior.
July 29th, 2007 at 11:33 pm
Why do people resist evolution and promote creationist or I.D. agendas? Because the latter makes people special. The chosen of the creator. The former just makes us really smart animals (apes I guess).
It’s all about the ego. And it’s way simpler than learning about evolution. Critical thought is not exactly promoted by those who champion the creationist agenda. Believe, or else. That’s all that matters.
The sad thing is that a good grade-school science curriculum should prepare students for higher education. This just handicaps them. It is sad.
What’s next? Classes on how to detect witches?
July 29th, 2007 at 11:33 pm
Finally! A place other than Kansas that’s being stupid! I was getting sick of everyone dissing Kansas while everyone in Kansas without any clout dissed the school board. Now I get to dis someone else!
July 30th, 2007 at 3:38 am
I hope the roconquistadors get Texas back in Mexico soon.
July 30th, 2007 at 6:07 am
Dan: You ask me to show my work on how much time would be required. Obviously, due to a lack of knowledge as to exactly how life “works†I can not give you even a ball-park estimate.
But surely, you have the proper understanding of probability (and, one would assume, the concept of expected value when it comes to random events) to assert that 4.6Gy is not enough. If you can show that the expected time required is, say, 150Gy and why, we could see whether you raise legitimate concerns or whether there are holes in your argument that should be addressed.
On the other hand, if you’re just going to state that 4.6Gy is not enough because you, personally, can’t understand how it could be possible, why should we take your argument seriously?
(It should be pointed out that there is a famous statistical fallacy, known as the “sharpshooter’s fallacy”, that uses the same information to construct and test the hypothesis in order to make statistical statements.)
However, I can show you the steps I have taken to come to the conclusion that the currently “accepted†age of the Universe (~14 billion years) is still not long enough for random processes to generate life. While there are many factors that have led me to this conclusion, I will only expand (briefly) on one.
Dan: They must be folded into the correct shape to function. One mis-fold can, and in most cases does, result in a completely worthless protein that is quickly destroyed.
One must ask, then, how likely it is for a mis-fold to occur, and how quickly the mechanisms that can generate a protein can make a new one and “try again”. (Do they even have to wait the full second it takes for a protein to fold itself?)
Dan: So what makes proteins? Other proteins. This brings up the obvious question: If proteins are required to build proteins, where did the original ones come from?
Proteins currently build proteins. But are proteins the only way to get proteins? Are there other chemical or biological means to get them?
Dan: 1) Amino acids must randomly form.
Amino acids have been found in deep space — on comets, of all places! It doesn’t seem like the formation of amino acids is too unlikely, though I’ll freely admit ignorance on this front.
Dan: 2) They then must become attached to eachother in an exact sequence (the simplest of which are still on the order of a few hundred )
Is that the simplest protein that can exist (never mind functional)? Do all of the amino acids have to be in sequence at once, or can even a defective protein replicate (allowing natural selection to enter the picture)?
Dan: 3) The sequence must then be correctly folded.
4) The resulting protein must function in a way that it can produce other proteins (or it would just form, and then degrade, leaving us with no more proteins!)
Do the same mechanisms that would degrade an incorrectly-formed protein operate under all circumstances (not just in modern cells)?
Doesn’t the idea that “this protein must work correctly or it will be destroyed” suggest to you a strong selection process for the right kind of proteins?
Dan: The odds of any of the four steps are EXTREMELY small.
Perhaps, as you have listed them, they are. However, I don’t see that the way that you have listed them is the only way things must have occurred before natural selection can take place; and once that happens, more effective and more complex proteins can be formed over time.
Dan: A facilitated chemical reaction within a medium of the correct pH must occur.
What is the correct pH? It must be some range… what range are we talking about? And is that simply an artifact of the fact that proteins are currently as complex as they are, or is this something that affects all proteins?
Dan: The end product must be useful or this whole process was for nothing.
Right. Meaning that that protein won’t replicate, which only means that other proteins will out-compete it.
Jaime: What kind of isotopes were there?
In what percentages/ratios?
How do you arrive at an estimate?
How does it affects radiometric dating?
Let me turn the question on its ear. Consider: there are no isotopes on Earth with half-lives shorter than 80 million years at detectable levels (other than ones that are constantly replenished). Every single element has isotopes that no longer occur naturally on the Earth. What does that imply for the age of the Earth?
In addition, not all radiometric dates go back to the beginning of the Earth. Different things can “reset” the clock — a metamorphic heating event, for example. However, it’s pretty easy to tell when a rock has been contaminated; some methods of dating, like argon-argon, simply won’t give a date at all if the sample has been disturbed.
What are the odds that different aging methods (using different isotopes — there are well over forty of them) would agree? How about different parts of the same rock? How about different rocks across the Solar System? How about the fact that dates derived this way agree pretty well with dates using non-radiometric methods (ice cores, tree rings, etc.)? Why do laboratories competing against one another for all-too-limited resources and money agree, rather than showing one another up as fraudulent or assuming too much?
Is it really reasonable to expect that these dating methods are pretty consistently off by a factor of 10,000, 100,000, a million, or more — using dating methods where the margin of error is typically a few percent?
July 30th, 2007 at 6:14 am
Jaime: What kind of isotopes were there?
In what percentages/ratios?
How do you arrive at an estimate?
How does it affects radiometric dating?
Sorry, Jaime — let me answer your question more directly.
We arrive at an estimate for the original isotopes by looking at the ratios of the same element in its stable form. Admittedly, there’s an assumption involved — that the rock won’t have been formed with wildly different chemical compositions all over itself at the outset — but it seems to be a pretty reliable one; there are over forty different methods that use all sorts of different elements and different isotopes with different decay rates that can be used on the same rock, and they agree with one another.
July 30th, 2007 at 6:17 am
Hey, Dan. You’re looking at the word “random” from a human perspective. Many things that happen in the universe are NOT random, and follow the laws of science. An example of your kind of “chance” – life doesn’t happen when 99.99% of the time when solar systems form. But 0.01% of the time, it does. The fact that a variable is involved doesn’t necessarily mean “random”. That still means there’s plenty of life somewhere out there in the universe. I made those percentages up, but you get the idea. That’s basically what the Drake equation is about.
By the way, the Urey-Miller experiments, while not a perfect proof of abiogenesis, they weren’t “rejected” by the scientific community. In fact, they are planning to repeat the experiment, with some modifications. But uh, I guess you didn’t know that.
Even if you were right about your ideas of “protiens forming by chance”, what alternative would you have proposed instead? “POOF – Goddidit”?
July 30th, 2007 at 8:19 am
David said:
“oh yes, texas doomed. a democratically elected governor appointing a creationist to the head of the Texas State Board of Education.
let’s not give the people what they want. let’s oppress their beliefs because it doesn’t fit in with our secularist, godless agenda.”
There is a big misunderstanding if democracy is interpreted as “giving the people what they want”
Therefore most modern democracies have a constitution, something like a supreme court, separation of the legislative, executive and judicative.
The constituion shows the limits of what will be given to the people or not. The rest is to make sure someone is there to watch it.
Andre
July 30th, 2007 at 8:37 am
Matt Funke said: (It should be pointed out that there is a famous statistical fallacy, known as the “sharpshooter’s fallacyâ€, that uses the same information to construct and test the hypothesis in order to make statistical statements.)
Matt can you shortly explain or give a link about the “sharpshooters fallacy”. I wonder if this might be the same as what I shortly read about the “Wyatt Earp Effect”. Thank you.
Irishman says: Respectfully, I think you are misunderstanding the point Jobe was trying to make. Jobe was using the term “fact†to make a distinction between observed data and the explanations that science attaches to the data. To some extent, Jobe is correct. Science is not just the collection of data….
Irishman I agree what you have said about the theoretical/philosophical background of science and the difference between fact and explanation. But I am pretty sure that Jobe did refer to “scientific facts” in the meaning of observations when he made his statement.
Andre
July 30th, 2007 at 10:05 am
AndreH,
I beleive Matt was referring to the appropriately enough nam,ed “Texas sharpshooter fallacy”. No, I did not make the name up – it’s mereley a conicidence with the title of the post.
See here for details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy
July 30th, 2007 at 10:37 am
This will be my last post.
MattFunke, thank you for your responses. I really appreciated that last responses; straight forward.
To some in here: Look at the sarcam and outright hostility (hatred?) displayed.
It was an interesting read, though.
July 30th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Stark: I beleive Matt was referring to the appropriately enough nam,ed “Texas sharpshooter fallacyâ€.
Yup. That’s it.
I was just trying to say that your reasoning cannot be considered valid if these are the only steps to it:
(1) I perceive that it is a rather remote probability that this fully-formed and fully-functional protein arose by chance.
(2) Therefore, the protein did not arise by chance.
That may be. But this chain of logic ignores the idea that there may be some mechanism that caused the protein to arise after a series of steps. There need to be things you can test to find out whether the probability is what you think it is (especially in a biochemical realm, where things don’t exactly bounce off each other in random combinations that are expressible with the same basic mechanics used to analyze die rolls or card decks). In a nutshell, you can’t use the same argument to construct your premise, your test, and your conclusion.
(Of course, there may be reasons why certain mechanisms that would have allowed it to form from simpler compounds wouldn’t work. But here’s the idea: before we can even accept statement (1), we have to know why the protein had to arise fully formed and fully functional.)
July 30th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Oh god I’m so ashamed to be a native Texan…
/me stabs himself with a Spork.
What do you expect when all the smart people work in the private sector?
The idiots get elected and appoint more idiots to help spread the infection.
The marching morons advance a full stride…
Someday they will invent a cure for stupid people but until then we must continue to vote them out of office.
July 30th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
“Given all the time in the world, I don’t think I could make a spider out of a rock. However, most of the books we are considering adopting, claim that Nothing made a spider out of a rock.â€
Has anyone asked this guy to point out where the text book states this? It seems to me that he has not read the text book and is basing his comments on something he heard in church.
July 30th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
@Stark
thank you for the link.
Andre
July 30th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
@Andre
You’re welcome, and sorry for the horrific typos. I was on my way to a meeting (thus too hurried to proofread!) and had not yet had my coffee!
July 30th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
I find it interesting that while I was attending Baylor University in the mid 1980′s, it was there in Religion 1101 that I was taught by Dr. Baird that the original text for Genesis was written in Hebrew. In Hebrew, the word for ‘day’ had two meanings. One was 24 hour period. The other was an ‘indefinite period of time.’ He taught that during the thirteen translations of the text to the known King James Bible, the ‘indefinite period’ meaning was cast aside for lack of a comparable word.
Unfortunately too many religious people make the mistake of limiting their god. They make the mistake of forgetting that for anything immortal a human’s day is a mere blink of an immortal’s eye. Imagine how many human years it would take for an immortal to feel a year had passed – for time is relative. (remember when you were five and it took FOREVER for Yule – Christmas – to get here?) But minds can’t conceive of this or work properly while closed.
Not all of us in Texas nor even those of us who actually are true native Texans are dumb, stupid, conservatist, or even Christian. And trust me, not all of us voted for Governor Perry in the least. He got lucky with so many independents running against him, splitting the vote and paving his way into office.
But par for the course, and I fear it will be ‘King’ Dubyah who fraks us over first.
July 30th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
[...] and friend of the Discovery Institute, Don McLeroy, to head the Texas State Board of Education. Phil Plait is not amused. But isn’t this part of the grand Republican and Texan tradition of promoting gross [...]
July 31st, 2007 at 9:40 am
What can we do? Here are some suggestions…
(1) contact politicians and government officials in TX, making your concerns and views known. I’m not from TX, so maybe somebody else could provide info about specific individuals to contact.
(2) support National Center for Science Education, whose mission is to defend the teaching of evolution in public schools:
http://www.ncseweb.org/default.asp
(3) Spend a little time visiting some professional scientific sites that provide strong background to the science behind evolution, info for educators, and other resources:
http://www.evolutionsociety.org/
http://nationalacademies.org/evolution/
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/
As a college professor, every year at the beginning of class I ask my students to write (anonymously) whether they believe in evolution or not. Then I ask them to define evolution (what they do/don’t believe in). Most people can’t do this, or are completely misguided about what evolution means.
July 31st, 2007 at 10:05 am
[...] is NOT science, it is religion disguised as science. read more | digg [...]
July 31st, 2007 at 10:23 am
C-Nic: As a college professor, every year at the beginning of class I ask my students to write (anonymously) whether they believe in evolution or not. Then I ask them to define evolution (what they do/don’t believe in). Most people can’t do this, or are completely misguided about what evolution means.
That’s an excellent idea. Most of the time, in defending evolution, I find myself battling irrational ideas like “evolution seeks to replace God” or “evolution was the justification for Communism” or “evolution can’t explain how life arose on this planet”. Getting all of that nonsense cleared out of the way straight off would remove many of those misconceptions right off the bat, as well as potentially prepare some people to think differently about evolution than they have become accustomed to.
July 31st, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Just a link & quote for you, Phil:
http://www.hannity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=267261&page=2
“…most atheists I see attacking do not differentiate. They speak about religion in broad brush strokes, in fact 100% of the time I see atheists attack religion I can tell that it’s aimed at YEC and the like, but it’s not spoken that way. Other people take what’s being said literally, which creates this feeling of being attacked.
Phil’s Bad Astronomy blog is a great example of this behavior.”
Thought you’d want to see that.
July 31st, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Dan, you say that you have “come to the conclusion that the currently “accepted†age of the Universe (~14 billion years) is still not long enough for random processes to generate life”.
With all respect, you seem to have a very confused idea of statistics and for the frequency for extremely unlikely events to happen, given enough participants.
To take a very simple case, in the UK’s National Lottery 6 numbers are drawn at random from the set of integers between 1 and 49, which means there are 49!/(6!*(49-6)!) combinations of numbers (the draw order doesn’t matter). That means that the winning chance is 1 in 13,983,816 or approximately 1 in 14 million. It also means that an individual buying a ticket every week stands a very good chance of winning the lottery at least once in about 269,000 years. Impossible odds you would say, yet nearly every week one or two lucky punters win it.
Now let me put it another way. The dominant process in the sun, or in any star, consists of a chain of reactions called the proton-proton (pp) chain. The first reaction (I won’t bother you with the rest) involves the fusion of two protons torn apart from hydrogen atoms at the centre of the sun, through violent collisions at many millions of degrees Kelvin.
To fuse, the two colliding protons must approach each other to within the extremely tiny distance of 10 to the power of minus 15 m, to overcome the strong electromagnetic charges that repel like charges.
But that is not all, because simultaneously one of the protons must decay to a neutron and a positron. This highly improbable circumstance leads to an extremely low reaction rate: only one reaction per particle in about 14 billion years! Fortunately for us, in the sun there is a vast supply of protons available, so that in fact countless such reactions occur every millisecond.
There are a further three complex reactions in the pp chain, resulting in an extremely tiny release of energy, 4.2 times 10 to the power of minus 12 joules. It is this tiny release of energy that provides the sun’s radiant energy and which makes the sun shine. But according to your reasoning, Dan, which is based on a poor grasp of statistics, Texas should be in eternal darkness.
July 31st, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Insulting the residents of Texas detracts from any argument that you are basing on a scientific approach. I have lived in several U.S. states, and Texas is the best one by far. So I will probably live here for the rest of my life (look up Katy, Texas) The director of the Education Board should be removed, since it is the responsibility of the parent(s) to introduce spiritual, religious and moral ideology. Even people (like me) who believe in God understand that “If it walks, talks and acts like a duck, it’s probably (99.999% probability) a duck.”
August 1st, 2007 at 4:32 am
Dan:
>> evolution must be taught as just that: an idea.
Evolution is a scientific theory. It makes testable predictions.
Creation is not a scientific theory, because there is no way to test it. It is just an “idea”.
The “flying spaghetti monster” has been proposed to be equally valid as “intelligent design”. If you disagree, I’d like to know why.
>> Many people simply believe (and ardently advocate) evolution
>> because they can not bring themselves to believe in creationism
>> or that they may somehow be accountable to a “Godâ€.
Why would they be so unimaginative? Evolution is not the only alternative to the Christian God. Many other gods have been worshipped over the centuries, and some of them are party guys who don’t hold you accountable for anything.
>> I have come to the conclusion that evolution can not explain how
>> living things “randomly†appeared on this Earth.
You are deliberately misrepresenting the evolution theory. Evolution postulates that the development of living things is not random – it is guided by the environment.
>> It would take over a million times the currently accepted age
>> of the universe in order to correctly and randomly FOLD even
>> the simplest of proteins
Once again, you are assuming that the process must be random.
August 1st, 2007 at 5:18 am
David: let’s not give the people what they want. let’s oppress their beliefs because it doesn’t fit in with our secularist, godless agenda.
It’s not a matter of godlessness or “secularism” for me. I’ve stated before on these forums that I have no issue with God; in fact, my faith in Him is quite strong. (And lest you point out that faith without works is dead, I serve at my local church frequently — among the children and as an occasional guest preacher. You want links to my sermons? Talk to me about godlessness after you’ve heard them.)
I do, however, have an issue with people ignoring fact and misrepresenting the truth in order to support a personal delusion that makes them feel better. I have even more of a problem when they insist that others ought to consider it valid and teach it to their children, even though it is clearly, unequivocally, demonstrably false.
(This is different from having faith, which is believing in the unprovable. This is believing in things in spite of the evidence against them.)
That is why I don’t want this guy running the Texas State Board of Education. At a minimum, he has the ability to remove honest teaching; at worst, he has the ability to supplant honest teaching with half-truths and complete fabrications, all in the name of a faith I embrace and a God I worship. No one deserves that… especially not our kids.
(For the record, I was a young-Earth creationist for most of my life. It seriously messed up the way I thought science was done, which has hurt me in my chosen career — both in studying it academically and in performing it professionally. Once I embraced the evidence, things became a lot easier… and I could also embrace intellectual honesty, which is an enormous relief.)
Ian: Why do people resist evolution and promote creationist or I.D. agendas? Because the latter makes people special.
I agree. That way of thinking seems to be the case with a lot of conspiracy theories, or ideas that invoke a conspiracy theory — like Moon hoaxers or 9-11 conspiracy theorists. (I lump young-Earth creationism in there because it needs a conspiracy to explain why evolution has survived for so long: It’s all those nasty atheistic scientists, who disallow any attempt at publishing a scientific paper that would show evolution to be invalid.) The conspiracy theorist seems to believe, deep down, that he has insight others lack. He is special, for he has the ability to see through the nonsense surrounding so many other people, and he understands the way things really are.
Ian: Critical thought is not exactly promoted by those who champion the creationist agenda.
Oh, no, absolutely not. And worse, they phrase things so that you believe that you’re the one thinking, giving facile arguments that sound plausible on the surface. This sort of thing seems to be all over so-called “intelligent talk shows” and the like. If you can make people think they’re thinking, they’ll believe that they’re clever and love you. But if you make people actually think, their murderous hatred for you will surprise you with its intensity.
August 1st, 2007 at 6:48 am
Matt Funke
Thank you for your intelligent and thoughtful comments on this forum. I consider myself an agnostic who does not believe in the traditional forms of religious faith (I don’t think we have found God, if such an entity exists) but your statements show that there are some religious believers who are critical thinkers and accept and understand the importance of science in our society.
In reference to the post above about harsh criticism of Young Earth Creationists as being implied as criticism of all believers, I agree the distinction should be made clear. That is where my frustartion is principly directed because those fundamenatlist believers seem determined on taking human culture backwards into an age of suffocating ignorance, darkness, superstition and placing extreme limitations on human knowledge and freedom
August 1st, 2007 at 7:13 am
MattFunke wrote:
“If you can make people think they’re thinking, they’ll believe that they’re clever and love you. But if you make people actually think, their murderous hatred for you will surprise you with its intensity.”
– That’s brilliant. I’m going to steal it.
August 1st, 2007 at 8:12 am
[...] 1 August 2007 Thoughts? Posted by ihearttheastros under Wondering Is science in Texas going to be a thing of the past? [...]
August 1st, 2007 at 8:58 am
Kids actually pay attention to their biology teachers? Buahahahahaha nothing to fear here folks. As rebelious as american kids are, this will be a historical backfire against the christian right-wingers that will deplete their ranks faster than you can imagine.
August 1st, 2007 at 10:14 am
C-Nic: That’s brilliant. I’m going to steal it.
I’d be honored if you did, sir.
For what it’s worth, I see a lot of parallels between young-Earth creationism and its stance and reasoning and the Catholic Church’s position on heliocentricism in Galileo’s day. Both defended their positions with appeals to certain interpretations of the Holy Writ; both had “reasons” why the opposition was wrong that fell apart upon serious investigation; and both seemed willing to take concessions, at times, if people would instead espouse the idea that certain things merely looked as if they might give evidence for the unfavorable theory.
The difference seems to be that there’s no torture now. Depending on whom you ask, I suppose.
Even after the whole heliocentricism debacle, some in the church haven’t learned to change their attitude towards science. More’s the shame, too, since Augustine — a Christian far deeper than you’ll find in many circles, who predates us by centuries — saw the same problem in his day:
Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, … and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.
August 1st, 2007 at 9:39 pm
[...] Good-Hair has decided to appoint a creationist to the Texas Board of Education. If our system wasn’t screwed up [...]
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Because unlike the power issues CA had
California didn’t have power issues. It had an Enron issue, which manipulated the grid and the market to drain the state of cash. Oddly enough, they were based in Texas.
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:34 pm
For all those who say that “Texas is the stupidest place on Earth”… Stupidity is without predjudice. You will find unintelligence in every corner of our troubled planet. So please…do not be as ignorant as to proclaim that all from Texas are stupid. Thank you.
“Texas could live without the United States, but the United States could not live without Texas!”
-General Sam Houston
August 3rd, 2007 at 12:01 pm
I think the guy is being a little melodramatic… no… A LOT. I’m a creationist, BUT I believe God could do anything in anyway he desired when this universe was formed… he is GOD after all. As for Darwin’s theory vs. creation theories… there needs to be an even balance
in our educational system. For years creation has been forbidden to be taught in our school… now that a politician who is a creationist gets into office and wants to add the creation theory to text books along with adding some ‘flaws’ to Darwin’s theory, this guy is
flipping out. The way I see it, this appointed politician is simply trying to even the playing field. Some people need to simply get a grip!
BTW… there are ignorant people all over the world, not just in Texas. Look in your own back yard… or even in your own households!
August 3rd, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Dirk,
I appreciate that your argument was much more rational and well-stated.
However, you have to understand that the difference is that the Theory of Evolution – like other theories in courses taught by the public education system – is based on large amount of “reasoning” and “findings”…
I’m sure you understand that things that do not even come close to having those things, nevermind being the second leading theory (as you called it, “trying to even the playing field”, as if they are the two possibilities of scientific merit), do not belong in the classroom – these are “beliefs” and that should be a matter and choice of the home.
I’m sure you can understand where I’m coming from.
- Raj
August 4th, 2007 at 1:39 am
Raj,
Then leave them BOTH out of the text books for that matter. Theory such as Darwin is not fact because it hasn’t been physically observed. IF theory is to be taught or even written in educational text books, it should only be in higher education, not lower.
Actually, now that I think about what all has been recently discovered just in the astronomical world… leave all theory out period… its too costly to the tax payers to constantly have the text books changed! Even things that scientists have ‘thought’ they knew how things worked and were suppose to be fact… they’ve come back and stated, “Well… that’s not exactly what we ‘meant’ to say”.
Dirk
August 4th, 2007 at 2:59 am
@Dirk
Oh, no not again. You should reread the complete post. About what scientific theories are and that it is the nature of science changes are made to this theories to account for new observations.
About the physically observation of evolution was also said a lot. It has been observed.
If you refer to cosmology: WE know, that this theories are not finally determined yet.
Modern Cosmology is about lets say 70 or 80 years old. It took about several hundred years from observing magnetism and electricity until Maxwell came a long and found a theory that explained it all.
The very same is true for Newtons gravition to explain the movement of the stars and planets. Scientists accept that they may be wrong. And Cosmology is very difficult because we cannot do experiments.
But: There is Relativity, Quantum MEchanics, Electromagnetism, Gravity (which is more or less part of the first one).
All of this theories have been tested and tested again. Even the weirdest predictions they make have all been prooven so far. So we know it are very good theories which are valid to describe the things.
(Still it is possible there might be ammendments to be made some day). The good thing about them was it was (mor or less) easy to put up cruxial experiments in the lab to test them. For cosmology this is not possible. We only can observe, not experiment.
Evolution has also lots of findings and observations (see the blog above).
Based on this theories we built the technology we use to day: Atom Clocks, GPS, Lasers (DVD players), Semiconductors, (Computers).
Whatever. You use them, but you say well my GPS works, but I don’t believe the scientce behind it is correct. (Its the same science that describes the movement of stars and galaxies). And of course we use genetic engineering which is also based on findings which support evolution.
In opposite to all these dogmatic politicians, religous preachers and what ever scientists ADMIT THEY CAN BE WRONG. But just because it is admitted that a theory is fallsifible does not mean it is false!!!!
We shall teach in the class rooms what we know (the observations), the theories (SCIENTIFIC THEORIES) that account to explain this knowledge, and how this theories can be proofen or falsified.
Oops, sorry for the long post.
Andre
August 4th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Did you have a specific point to your exhausting post Andre?
August 4th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Yes,
1.)I just wanted to point out that the arguments that you have used have already been discussed in the blog above.
2.)And I again wanted to explain what scientists mean when they talk about a “theory” in opposite to the maning of the word theory in our daily language.
3.)I wanted to point out, that it is the strength of science (not the weakness) that theory are subject to change and it sometimes takes decades until it is finalised (depending on the subject)
Andre
August 4th, 2007 at 11:55 am
I forgot
4.) A big part of our daily used technology works based on the very same theories that tell us about the development of this universe on small scales and large scales (i.e. Relativity and Quantum Mechanics).
Andre
August 4th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Dirk,
If anything in this physical world can be thought of as “theory” it is religious belief and creationism. If you worry about taxpayer money being wasted on publishing changing theories then start with the arrogant presumption that teaching subjective religious beliefs has any place whatsoever in science classes.
It is creationists and religious believers who must finally come to terms, that in the universe we live in, almost nothing is certain and unchanging, not even your so-called unshakable belief in some supernatural being.
The rational beauty of science is it’s open way of seeing the universe as it is, because it tries to function without paying homage to pre-ordanied conclusions, illusions and wishful thinking.
Science in it’s best form is open to constant revision and the search for more facts, not black/white,dogmatic, rigid,absolute “truth” but consenual agreements based on the best available information and provisional “truths” and “approximations of truths”. Accept it or not, as far we know for now, that is the way the universe is…open and changing…period.
Th universe does not revolve around humans, Christians, Islamists or Americans or any other nationality.
In this universe that has been changing, yes “evolving” for billions of years, it is incredible hubris to believe that we have the corner on absolute truth, especially philosophical truth, in our infintesimal part of an immense 13.7 billion light year cosmos, especially when it comes to something as subjective and unsubstaniated and varied as religious faith.
Dirk, this is the 21st century,it is past time for creationists to put away their fantasy toys, their silly fears and superstitions, grow up and use the intelligence that modern “evolved” humans are fully capable of.
Try it, who knows you may even grow to like it.
August 5th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
[...] I’m now living in a state where the Governor thinks that a creationist is just who we need running the schools. Absolutely wonderful. I’d say more, but the Bad Astronomer did a much better job. [...]
August 6th, 2007 at 3:04 am
Perhaps someone should also point out to Dirk that teaching creationism violates the separation of church and state law. Evolution is science. Creationism is religion. Evolution doesn’t say: “there’s no God” but it does make useful scientific predictions. Creationism doesn’t. So your appeal for a “level playing field” is nonsense. Religion and science are two separate subjects. Unless anyone can tell us exactly what the uh, “theory” of creationism is.
Until then, if creationism should be taught in schools, then so should EVERY other religion. But I don’t think many creationists would like that idea…
August 6th, 2007 at 6:17 am
[...] I’m now living in a state where the Governor thinks that a creationist is just who we need running the schools. Absolutely wonderful. I’d say more, but the Bad Astronomer did a much better job. [...]
August 6th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
[...] and reality-based thinking. But now, as reported in The Charleston Post & Courier, they join Texas in what I can only think of as utter stupidity: State lawmakers shot down a request for extra [...]
August 7th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
I like living in Texas, but this is the state that brings you the Creation Evidence Museum (humans lived at same time as dinosaurs) less than a half mile away, on the same road as Dinosaur Valley State Park (dino tracks in the river bed).
http://www.creationevidence.org/cemframes.html
August 8th, 2007 at 5:05 am
And this it the site that debunks Creation “evidence”, including the dino’s with humans tracks.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/paluxy.html
August 9th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
[...] I posted about Don McLeroy, a creationist who the Texas governor just appointed to head the State Board of [...]
August 10th, 2007 at 10:21 am
[...] I’m now living in a state where the Governor thinks that a creationist is just who we need running the schools. Absolutely wonderful. I’d say more, but the Bad Astronomer did a much better job. [...]
August 13th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
[...] Texas:Â Doomed Texas:Â really, really doomed [...]
August 13th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
EXPANSSION,QUANTUN,THEORIES,ARE EXPOSED AS FOOLISH AND IRRATIONAL. BE THE JUDGE
We will look at the theories of evolution in their two main foundations: the expanssion of the universe, and the quantun or microorganisim. To understand it with reason,thee first subject we are confronted with is God.Let us read a few verses from the Bible. Psalm 14:1 of the Old Testament says, “The fool has said in his heart,/There is no God.” This sentence may also be translated as “The fool does not want God in his heart.” The result of saying this can be found in the second sentence of the same verse: “They are corrupt; they do abominable deeds.”Let us also take a passage from the New Testament. Hebrews 11:6 says, “For he who comes forward to God must believe that He is.”THREE KINDS OF PEOPLEWhether you claim to be a Christian, a non-believer, or a seeker after truth, we will start by examining the subject of God. In this respect the world is divided into three camps. The first is that of the atheists who do not believe in a God. The second consists of the agnostics. They have no sure knowledge about the deity. On the one hand, they dare not say there is no God, but on the other hand, they are not clear if God does exist. We belong to the third category of those who believe in God.PROSECUTIONIs there a God? I will not try to say yes or no to this question. Rather, I will make this place a law court. I will ask you to be the judge, and I will be the prosecutor. The work of a judge is to make decisions, to approve or disapprove the truth of statements; the work of a prosecutor is to present all the evidence and arguments that he can possibly gather.Before we proceed, we have to be clear about one fact: all prosecutors are not eyewitnesses of crimes. They are not policemen. A policeman may personally witness an event, whereas a prosecutor obtains his information only indirectly. He places all the charges, evidence, and arguments collected before the judge. In the same way, I shall present before you everything that I can possibly find. If you ask whether I have seen God or not, I would say “no.” I am reading or demonstrating what I have gathered. My job is to search for facts and to call for witnesses. You are to arrive at a conclusion yourself.QUALIFICATIONSMany people assert that there is no God. As a prosecutor I ask you first to check the qualification of these people. Are they qualified to make such claims? Are those who assert that there is no God moral or immoral? Do not just listen to their arguments. Even robbers and swindlers have their arguments. Of course, the arguments support them as robbers and swindlers. The subject of their arguments may be very noble; they may talk about the state of the nations and the welfare of society, but their opinions cannot be seriously considered. They are not worthy of passing such judgments. If a man is upright in his conduct and moral judgment, we can give credibility to his words, but if not, his words lose their credibility. This is especially true when it relates to the question of deity. It is interesting to note that the moral standards of men are directly related to their concept about God. Those who admit their own ignorance have a passable standard, while insistent atheists invariably have a low level of moral responsibility. I do not claim to know all atheists, but of the several thousand that I know, none of them possess a notably commendable morality. You may tell me that there was once a moral atheist, but if there was one, he is dead. Or you may tell me that there will be a moral atheist, but whoever he may be, he is not here yet. At least we can say that for now, we do not know a moral atheist.NO ATHEIST IS MORALOnce at a gathering at the University of Nanking, I remarked that no atheist is moral. There were many students on the campus who did not believe in God. They were greatly offended by these words. The next day, while I was speaking, they came and shuffled their feet in an attempt to distract me and the audience. The next day when they came again, they made funny gestures and faces at me and carried on continuously throughout the speaking. On the fourth day the vice-president of the university, Dr. Williams, came and said to me, “We had better change the place of meeting. These students are infuriated by your assertion on the first day that atheists are not moral. Today they are not going to use their feet and lips only; they are going to use their fists. I heard that they will be waiting at the entrance of the hallway and will jump on you when you step in.” I went along with the arrangement and conducted the meeting at another place. On the way to the meeting I walked alongside many students and listened to their conversations. Although many did not agree with me and felt uneasy about my preaching, they wanted to come back. One among them remarked, “Mr. Nee said that people who have no God have no sense of moral responsibility. This is perfectly right. How can anyone with moral decency shuffle his feet and jest while others are delivering a speech? Yesterday they caused such a disturbance in the meeting, and today they are going to come to fight. This is surely not what an honorable person would do. There is no doubt that those who do not believe in God do not have moral decency. Let us go to the meeting regardless of what they plan to do.”Once a young man told a preacher, “When I was young, I seriously believed in God. But now that I am in college. I can no longer believe in Him.” The fifty-year-old preacher patted the young man’s shoulder and said, “My son, you do not believe in God anymore! Let me ask you a question: Since you have been converted to be an atheist, have you advanced morally? Has atheism helped you become better? Has it made your thoughts cleaner or your heart purer? Or did it make you just the opposite?” That young man felt ashamed. He admitted that he had gone downhill morally since his denial of God. The preacher pressed on: “I am afraid that you are not really saying that you believe there is no God, you are just hoping that there is no God.”DO NOT JUDGE ACCORDING TO HOPEMany people are not really convinced that there is no God; they merely hope so. They would rather that there were no God in the universe. For them it would be much more convenient in respect to many things.I myself was one of those people. When I was a student I claimed that there was no God. Although I was extremely strong in my claim, something within me seemed to be protesting and saying, “There is a God.” I knew deep in my heart that God exists. But my lips refused to admit this so that I could have an excuse for sinning. By declaring the nonexistence of God, going to sinful places was justifiable. If there were no God, I would become bold to sin. When you believe in God, you dare not do certain things. When you do away with God, you feel free to commit the worst sins without any fear whatsoever. If you sincerely hope to raise your moral standard by asserting the nonexistence of God, then your arguments are still plausible. However, the only reason men claim that there is no God is for an excuse for lawlessness, immorality, license, and indecency. For this reason, their whole argument is not worthy of consideration. The question is, “Are you qualified to claim that there is no God?” If your hope is merely for an escape from justice, you have lost your ground already.IS MAN THE GREATEST?One day a young man came to me and said, “I do not believe in a so-called God. Man is the greatest. He is the noblest among all creatures. There is no God in this universe; man is everything.” We were sitting opposite each other. After hearing what he said, I stood up, went to one side of the room, stooped down, and gazed at him intently. I said, “You are really great!” Then I walked to the other side of the room and looked at him from another angle. “That is right,” I said deliberately; “You are great! In Kiangsu province there are thirty million who are like you. There are at least four hundred million of your kind in China. The world contains only two billion who are the same as you are. Do you realize that during the last few days there has been a flood in the south? The dykes along the river are in jeopardy. The whole population in Hsing Hwa with more than two hundred thousand people have been recruited and rushed to the dykes in a panic. They are carrying earth with them to reinforce the banks. The repair work is still going on.”Suppose that the world is recruited to hollow out the sun. A hole is drilled through the surface, and everyone has to remove a load from the inside. Assuming that no one will be burned to ashes, do you think that they can do the job? Even if all the people themselves were inside, they would not fill up the sun. That is not all. If you put several hundred planets the size of Earth inside and started shaking it, you would still find that the sun would be very empty inside. How many suns are there in the universe? Do you realize that the number of solar systems is in the hundreds of millions?”HOW VAST IS THE UNIVERSE?I then said to the young man, “And here you are! You have not even walked through the whole earth, and yet you consider yourself greater than the whole universe. Let me ask you, do you know how vast the universe is? Take light for example. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. Try to calculate how far light travels in one minute, or one hour, or a day, or a year. There are some stars whose light takes three thousand years to reach us. Go and work out how far they are from us! And you think you are so great! I would therefore advise all atheists and young men alike to admit the incompetency of man not only morally, but intellectually and academically as well.”CAN MAN EXTEND BEYOND THE BOUNDSOF TIME AND SPACE?Another time when I was in Kaifeng, I met another one of those young, stout atheists. I walked up to him and patted him on the shoulder, saying, “I saw God today!” He stared at me in curiosity and demanded a further word. I replied, “You are God! If you know that there is no God, then you have to be God.” He asked for an explanation. I said, “Since you are convinced that there is no God, you must have traveled over the whole earth. If God is not in Shanghai, He may still be in Nanking. You must have been to both places. That is not all. If God is not in Nanking, He may be in Tientsin. You must also have been to Tientsin. But you cannot draw this conclusion simply by being in China; God may be in another country. So you must have been to every country on this earth. If God is not in one place, He may be in another. Therefore, you must have traveled throughout the world. One never knows if God is hiding at the North Pole or the South Pole, or in the woods or wilderness somewhere. So you must have combed through all those regions as well. If God is not found on earth, He may be found on the moon. You therefore must have been to the moon. God may also be on other planets or in outer space. This means that you have traveled through space and all the other galaxies as well. If you can say that there is no God, it must mean that you have traveled throughout the whole universe. If this is the case, you must be God yourself.”This is not all. Even though you know that God does not exist in Shanghai today, how about yesterday? Perhaps God will come tomorrow. You say that you know there is no God today, but what about last year? And how do you know that God will not come next year? You say that there is no God this year, but what about a thousand years ago? Very well, you must be an everlasting one who knows everything about the past and future. You have to be a being beyond time and space. You must be in Tientsin and in another country at the same time; you must be omnipresent from the east to the west, from the North Pole to the South Pole. Who else but you can be the very God? If you are not God, you can never be qualified to say that there is no God.”THE EVIDENCESome will immediately step back and say, “I have never said that I know there is no God. One can never tell whether there is a God or not.” Well, if you cannot give a conclusion, I will ask witnesses whom I consider trustworthy to present arguments to you and prove the existence of God. Again let me say this, you are the judge, and I am the prosecutor. I am presenting only the evidence before you. Decide for yourself if there is a God.THE UNIVERSEFirst, look at nature, the world that is before our eyes and every phenomenon in it. We all know that scientific knowledge is the rational explanation of natural phenomena. For example, there is an observed drop in the temperature of a patient. The drop in temperature is a phenomenon, and the explanation for it is scientific knowledge. When an apple falls from the tree, it is a phenomenon. Why does an apple not fly into the air? The explanation for this phenomenon constitutes knowledge. A man with knowledge is a man who has the proper explanations.ONLY TWO EXPLANATIONSThe universe displays countless phenomena of diverse forms, colors, shapes, and nature. We cannot fail to notice these phenomena before our eyes. The explanation for all these phenomena is known as knowledge. All thoughtful persons have only two explanations as far as the origin of the universe is concerned; there is no third explanation. You have to take one or the other of them.What are these two explanations? The first says that the universe came into being through natural evolution and self-interaction; the second attributes its origin to a personified Being with intellect and purpose. These are the only two explanations presented by all philosophers of the world. There is not a third one.Where did the universe come from? Did it come into existence by itself or through chance? Or was it designed by the One from whom we derive the concept of God? You have to think and then make a decision about it. Everything that is by chance has certain characteristics. I would suggest you list all of these in a detailed way, the more the better, and then compare all the phenomena of the universe with your list. Alongside of this make another list of the characteristics which, in your opinion, would be prominent if the universe were created by an intelligent Being. Now by a simple comparison of nature with your two lists, it will be easy to draw a reasonable conclusion.CHANCE EVENTSWhat are the characteristics of things that come about by chance? First, we know that they are unorganized. At the most they can be partially integrated. They can never be totally organized. One can achieve a specified goal by chance once, but he can never achieve a specified goal by chance all the time. Anything that comes together by chance can only be integrated partially, never totally. For example, if I throw this chair to the other side of the room, by chance it may come to rest at a perfect angle. If I do the same with a second chair, it may also lie neatly beside the first one. But this will not keep on happening with the third and the fourth and so on. Chance can only provide partial organization. It does not guarantee total integration. Furthermore, all random interactions are aimless, disorganized, and purposeless. They are without order and structure; they are loose, formless, disorderly, and not directed toward any meaningful purpose. Briefly, we can say that the characteristics of chance events are disharmony, irregularity, inconsistency, purposelessness, and insignificance. We will write down these four characteristics on our list.CONSISTENCY AND ORGANIZATIONNow let us compare the things in the universe with these characteristics. Take, for example, the human being. He is carried in his mother’s womb for nine months and delivered; he grows up and eventually dies. This cycle is repeated for every single individual. Consistency can be observed. It is not a wild game of chance. Again, look at the sun above your head. It does not exist purposelessly. Rather, it has its purpose and significance. Look at the moon, the stars, and the myriads of galaxies through your telescope. Some stars have their own planets. They all follow definite tracks and patterns. They are all organized. Their manner of motion can be calculated and predicted. The calendar in your hand is derived from them. Even next year’s calendar can be printed before this year is past. All these show that the universe is organized, consistent, and purposeful.MICROORGANISMSLet us turn to the micro-world. Take a thin slice of wood. Put it under a microscope and observe its grain and structure, all meticulously regular and rhythmic. Even a blade of grass and the petal of a flower are finely fashioned. Nothing is unorganized or confused. Everything is disciplined and functional. All these things witness one fact to you: the universe, with its macro and micro aspects, is purposeful and meaningful. Can you say that all these came into existence by chance? Surely you cannot.IS IT OCCUPIED?Once I was preaching the gospel with a co-worker of mine in a village. On the way back we were extremely thirsty. There was neither a teahouse nor stream for us to get water. In fact the whole area was uninhabited. After walking for a while we came across a thatched hut. We went to the door quickly and knocked. For a long time there was no answer. We thought that no one lived there. When we opened the door and went in, we found that the floor was swept clean. In one of the rooms was a bed with nicely folded sheets. There was a teapot on the table, and the tea in it was still warm. I said, “Surely someone must be living here. All the arrangements indicate beyond doubt that this place is occupied by someone. We should not drink this tea. We must get out quickly or else people will think we are thieves.” We walked out and waited for the owner to return.By observing the arrangements of the house, we concluded that someone was living there, without having seen the occupant. In the same way, we know that God is there by the arrangement of everything in the universe, although we cannot see Him. Every single phenomenon of nature is so balanced, organized, meaningful, and functional. You may say that they come by chance, but it is impossible for me to believe that chance is its sole originator. The Bible says, “The fool has said in his heart,/There is no God.” Only foolish people can say in their hearts that there is no God.CHANCE OR DESIGNThe universe has to be created by Someone with profound wisdom, vast knowledge, and intricate design. If you cannot accept the concept of random formation of the universe, you have to admit that it was created by such a God. There cannot be a third explanation. The choice is left to you. You have to decide if the universe came by chance or whether it was created by God.A DEMAND AND ITS OBJECTOne witness may not be enough. I will call in another. This time we will consider man’s heart. Before doing so, we should also observe one fact: wherever there is a desire, there must first be an object for that desire. For example, an orphan who has never seen his father naturally has a desire for a kind of paternal love. I have asked many people who were orphans, and they all have felt this irrepressible yearning. By this we can see that every desire of the heart arises out of an object in the world.As human beings we have a need for social belonging. We need companionship and mutuality. If you put a boy on a deserted island and he grows up alone, he still has the yearning for companions, for beings like himself, even though he has never seen a human being. This yearning or desire is the very proof that somewhere in the world there is something known as “man.” At a certain age, man begins to think about posterity; he starts desiring children and grandchildren. This is not a mere fantasy. This desire stems out of the existence and possibility of offspring. Hence, where there is desire, there is an object for that desire.THERE IS GOD IN THE HEARTDo we have any desires other than social identity and self-propagation? What other cravings do we have? Deep in everyone there is a craving for God. Whether they are highly civilized races, such as those among the Caucasians, or the ancient civilizations, such as the Chinese civilizations, or the African natives and uncultured aborigines, they all have a common craving –God. As long as they are men, they have a yearning for God, no matter what race or nationality. This is a fact. You cannot argue against it. Everyone is seeking after God. Everywhere man is craving for God. This is very clear.By applying the principle that we just mentioned, we can see that since our heart feels the need for a God, there must necessarily be a God in the universe. Since there is a need for God in the heart, there must be the existence of God in the universe. If no God exists, we would never have such a craving in our heart. We all have an appetite for food. In the same way, we all have an appetite for God. It would be impossible to live if there was only an appetite for food but no food. Likewise, it would be impossible to live if there was a capacity for God but no God.NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT GOD?Once an atheist rudely rebuked me in a loud voice: “You said that a man has the psychological need for a God. But there is no such thing, and I do not believe in it.” I said, “Well, do you mean to say that you never think about God? In fact, even while you were talking, you were thinking about Him. This indicates that you do have a capacity for God. There is no one who has never thought about God. He may try not to think much about Him. Since this thought is in you, there must be such an object outside of you.”THE WORDS AND THE HEARTA young man once came to me to argue about God. He was vehemently against the existence of God. He gave me one reason after another for saying that there is no God. As he was enumerating the various reasons why God should not exist, I listened to him quietly without saying a word. Then I said, “Although you insist that there is no God and support yourself with so many arguments, you have lost your case already.” He said, “What do you mean?” I went on to explain: “Your mouth can say as much as you want about there not being a God, but your heart is on my side.” He had to agree with me. Although one can give all sorts of reasons in the head, there is a belief in the heart that no argument can defeat. A stubborn person may give a thousand and one reasons, but you can have the boldness to tell him, “You know better in your heart that there is a God. Why bother to look for evidence outside?”Now what would you say? After looking at nature and the universe, after checking with your inner feeling, it is up to you to decide whether or not there is a God. But you should not be irresponsible; your attitude must be sober because everyone has to meet God soon. One day you will all stand before Him. Everything concerning yourself will be laid bare. On that day you will know God. But now is the time for you to be prepared. We should all be prepared to meet our God.
posted by SOWER @ 6:42 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
Saturday, August 4, 2007
CONSIDER THIS SCIENTIFICALLY AND OBJECTIVLY
I shall begin by assuming that the issue of God’s existence is settled. We all believe that there is a God. As those who desire to know the truth, we must go one step further to find out what kind of God He is. God is the greatest Unknown. We must spend some time to find out about this unknown One. The next step now is to know what kind of a God He is.
In the past few thousand years man has been inquiring about the nature of God. Is He kind or is He righteous? Is He indifferent towards us, or is He extremely interested in human affairs? These types of questions are the direct cause of all human religions. What is religion? Religion is man’s inquiry about God and his explanation of Him. Through these explanations, different men have arrived at different concepts about God. What kind of God is He? This is a big question. It is also a very serious question. We have all given our thought to this subject at one time or another. The question might even have occurred to our little mind when we were five years old. All men, educated or ignorant, have been intrigued by this question. It comes naturally after some contemplation and observation.
But a person trying to speculate about God is like an ant attempting to understand a human being. It is extremely difficult for the little creature to try to realize our life, nature, and mind. In the same way it is impossible for us to try to comprehend God. For this reason, in the past few thousand years, all kinds of people, theologians and philosophers alike, have done much thinking about Him. What has God been doing all this time? Has He been indifferent to us or has He tried to reveal Himself to us? What is God’s attitude? Do you think He would say, “I am God and have nothing to do with human beings. I do not care what you think about Me. I shall stay in heaven as God. Let the mortals be ignorant!” Or do you think He has a desire to reveal Himself to man and visit him?
When I was in India, I saw some people lying naked on beds studded with nails. Some walked with bare feet on burning coals. These people devoted a great deal of energy to seeking after God. What has God done to them? Did He hide Himself and take no notice of them at all? Has He not kept Himself as a perpetual mystery? This is a great question. We have to consider it scientifically and objectively in order to find out what God is like.
A few years ago I spoke on a similar subject to some medical students in an auditorium in Cheloo University. I said that man is an organism with a life. God also is a life. Man’s life is higher than that of the lower animals, and God’s life is even higher than that of man. I asked the students, “Since we realize that all living organisms have some common laws and express some common traits, can you name them?” Different ones then started to bring up different points. At the end we summed up the discussion in this way: all living organisms contain two common characteristics. You can call these characteristics their common expressions or their common laws. First, every life wants to preserve itself. It tends to reproduce itself. There is the ability to produce posterity, to continue its own life. Second, every life wants to have fellowship with other lives. It cannot stand being by itself. When a man cannot find fellowship with another human being, he goes to dogs, cats, fish, or birds and makes friends with animals. All living creatures desire fellowship.
Based on these two characteristics of life, namely, the preservation of itself and fellowship with others, laws of human government are instituted. For example, the death penalty reflects a convict’s desire to preserve his own life; punishment comes in the form of taking away and terminating such a life. This is the way to inflict suffering on a life. Imprisonment, as a less serious punishment, cuts him off from having fellowship with others. This reversal of the life principle becomes then a suffering for him. From this we see that punishment is applied according to the principles of life.
With these two chief characteristics in mind, let us turn to the life of God. God is an organism of a higher order than human beings. He is naturally governed by this law of life. We can know God by the characteristics and distinctive features of His life. From this we can deduce whether or not God wants to have fellowship with man.
There are two kinds of religion: religion based on natural concepts and religion based on revelation. Natural religion starts with man as the center. He is the one that is seeking after God and studying about Him. What then is revelational religion? Revelational religion comes directly from God. He is the One who comes to reveal things to us. Man’s thoughts are often useless fancies. God’s revelation alone is trustworthy. Christianity is different from all other natural religions in that it is a religion that comes from revelation. Christianity begins from God. It is God who comes to seek out man, rather than man who seeks after God.
I will not try to persuade you to believe in Christianity or to read the Bible. I will only make a few suppositions. We will treat the subject in the same way as if we were solving a problem in geometry. We will start from the suppositions and then deduce our arguments step by step. We will examine our reasonings to see if they are sound and if our conclusions are logical. As in mathematics, with some problems we work forwards, while with others we work backwards. At any rate, in the end we should be able to tell whether or not a supposition is justified.
We have to make a few suppositions. The first one is that God exists. This in fact has been covered by us already. We have agreed that there is a God. He is a Being who has a purpose.
Second, we assume that God has a desire to reveal Himself to man. If God wants to reveal Himself to man and if He wants us to know Him, how does He do it? In what manner can He be made known to us? If He speaks to us through thunder or writes to us through lightning, we will not be able to comprehend His message. How then does God make Himself known to us?
If He is to reveal Himself and if He wants us to know Him, He necessarily must do it through human means. What then are the common ways that men communicate with one another? First, they do it through speaking and second through writing. All means of communication, whether telegraph, telephone, sign, or symbols, are all included in these two categories. If God is to manifest Himself, these are the only two means for Him to do so. For the present we set aside the aspect of speaking; we will see how God communicates with us through writing.
If God reveals Himself through writing, of all the volumes written by different people throughout the centuries, there must be one book which is divinely inspired. This is a very crucial test. If such a book exists, it proves not only the existence of God, but it contains His written revelation to us as well. Is there then such a divinely written book?
In the search for such a book, let us first mention a few basic principles. Suppose I want to order a book from a publisher. If I can tell him the name and author of the book, there will be no trouble getting it. If, however, I forget the name and author of the book, I can describe the characteristics of it to the publisher, such as the contents, size, color, binding, etc. The publisher will then search through all his books and locate the volume I want. God has one book in this universe. How do we find it? We have to know its characteristics first. If there is any book that has been written by God, it must meet certain conditions or have certain qualifications before one can say that it is from God.
Let me put forth a few propositions. If there is a book written by God, it must first of all mention God. It must tell you that it is from God and that its author is God. This is the first qualification. Second, it must carry a moral tone that is higher than what we commonly know. If it is a fabrication, it can at the most be on the same level as man. Third, if there is such a divine book, it must tell us about the past and the future of this world. Only God knows clearly what occurred in the past and what will happen in the future. Only by telling us these matters will we know Him as God. Fourth, this book must be simple and available so that all may be able to secure and understand it. If there were only one such book in the world, then only a very few people would be able to see it. It would not pass the test unless it is a book accessible to everyone. In the United States there is a group of people who claim to have a book from God. It is engraved in gold and contains only twelve pages. Such a book then would not be accessible to the Chinese. God would never write to us a book at which we could not look.
Now the matter is simplified. Let us repeat these four conditions once more. (1) If such a book exists, it must tell us explicitly that its author is God. (2) It must carry a high tone of morality. (3) It must give a detailed description of the past and the future of the universe. (4) It must be available. Let us pick out some of the more important writings throughout human civilization and check them against these qualifications to see if any meets our requirements.
We will start from books that are generally considered to be good. Let us take the Chinese classics of Confucius. They are immediately disqualified under the first requirement, for none of them claims to be written by God. They do have a high tone of morality, but they fail to give the origin and destiny of the world, the universe, and man. This does not mean that they are worthless books; it means that they do not contain the qualifications we want. They are not what we are looking for.
Let us go to the classics of other cultures. There are numerous volumes of famous writings, but none of them passes the first test. They are all clearly written by man. They may be masterpieces in philosophy or morality, but they are not written by God, nor are they divinely inspired. We have to set them aside.
There is a book in India called the Rig-Veda. It once dominated Hinduism. However, it does not claim to be written by God.
Another book called the Avesta, written by a Persian named Zoroaster, is also extremely influential in the Middle East. It does not claim to be from God either. Moreover, its moral tone is not especially commendable.
Let us come to the Koran of Mohammedanism. This is the closest one we can find. It tells us that it comes from God; it meets the first requirement. However, it does not fulfill the second requirement, for its moral tone is too low. The heaven it describes is full of lusts and flesh. God could never write a book with such licentiousness and immorality. Hence, this book does not pass the test of morality.
After searching through all the books, you have to come finally to the Bible. If God desires to communicate with man, and if He does so through writing, then this is the only book that can pass the four tests. Hence, this must be the book God has for man.
What does this book say? In the books of the law in the Old Testament, it says, “Thus saith the Lord,” at least five hundred times. Other books in the Old Testament repeat the phrase about seven hundred times. In addition to the references in the New Testament to the speakings of God, the Bible has more than two thousand claims of divine origin. If God has no intention of communicating with man, we can forget about this book. But if He does communicate with man through writing, then this book has to be of immense value. Can you find another book where God is claimed as its author that many times?
We have to see if the Bible meets the second qualification. Let us take a look at its moral tone. Everyone who has studied this book confesses that it carries the highest moral standard. Even the sins of the most noble persons are recorded and condemned without mercy. Once a strong opposer of the Bible was asked by his son, “Why are you so strong against the Bible?” He answered, “If I do not condemn it, it will condemn me.” This book does not let us get by easily. The human concept is that all sexual acts outside marriage are considered as fornication. The Bible, however, says that even an evil thought is fornication. Human morality condemns an act of killing as murder, but the Bible condemns a slight hatred in the heart as murder.
We consider a man who lets his enemy get by without paying vengeance as forgiving. But the Bible charges man to love his enemy. How high is its moral tone, and how low we are before its standards! You cannot help but admit that it presents the best ethical code for humanity.
Furthermore, this book describes in detail the past and future of the universe. Once a friend told me that he could believe in everything the Bible says except the parts in Genesis and Revelation where it talks about the origin and destiny of the heavens and earth. I told him that if this is indeed a book from God, it must, of necessity, contain these matters. If the Bible did not contain Genesis and Revelation, it would be the same as any other book, and we would have to look for another book; it would not be the one we want. But the past condition of the world and its future destiny are recorded here. Hence, the third qualification is also met.
What is the circulation of such a book? Last year (1935), more than two hundred million copies were sold. Can you name another book that has such a high circulation rate? This statistic, moreover, is not limited to just last year; every year the number has remained approximately the same. In one sense this book is very popular. In another sense it is like a thorn in your hand; it pierces you. This book gives you a headache. It creates an unspeakable uneasiness within man. It even causes man to oppose it. In spite of this, its annual sales are still over two hundred million.
Furthermore, this book is translated into more than seven hundred twenty languages. In every country and among every race, there is a translation of this unique book. It is extremely easy for anyone to obtain a Bible anywhere in the world. If the Rig-Veda were God’s book, then more than half of the world would perish due to a failure in obtaining it. Even if you put the Rig-Veda in my hand, I would still be unable to understand it. If only the educated ones can contact God, then I am destined to go to hell. If only the Indians have the opportunity, we Chinese, as well as other races, are out of hope. If God speaks through the Rig-Veda, then where can we find that book? Maybe we can only find the original copy in the London Museum. And even that may not contain the original meaning of God’s revelation to man.
This is not all. The Bible contains sixty-six books and it is divided into the Old and New Testaments. It was written by no less than thirty people. The span from the time the first book was written to the time when the last book was finished is more than sixteen hundred years. The places where they were written are also different. Some were written in Babylon, some in Italy, some at one end of Asia Minor, others at the other end of the Mediterranean. Furthermore, the writers themselves differed in their backgrounds. Some were lawyers; some were fishermen. There were princes, and there were shepherds. All these writings by men of different backgrounds, languages, environments, and periods are put together. The amazing thing is that it is still a complete book.
All those who have had some experience of editing know that in order to put together a few articles written by different authors, it is necessary for the authors to be of comparable level of academic achievements and viewpoints. Even when the academic standard and viewpoints are similar, there will still be conflicts and contradictions when you put five or six articles together. But the Bible, though complex in contents, contains history, poetry, laws, prophecies, biographies, and doctrines and was written by so many different ones at different times and under different circumstances, yet when you put them together, they surprisingly run as one continuous volume. There is no conflict or contradiction. They are written in one breath.
If you read this book carefully, you have to admit that God’s hand is behind all the writings. More than thirty people of varied backgrounds and ideas in different times and places wrote these sixty-six books. When you group them up, they link together as if they were written by one individual. Genesis was written about fifteen hundred years before Christ, and Revelation was written ninety-five years after Christ. There is a time span of sixteen hundred years. One talks about the beginning while the other projects the end of the world. Yet whatever begins in Genesis is concluded in Revelation. This amazing feature cannot be explained in human terms. Every word of it has to be written by God through man. God is the motivating One behind the whole composition.
There is another remarkable thing about this book. In itself it is a book that gives life. Yet countless numbers of people have lost their lives for its sake. There was a time when anyone who held this book in his hand would immediately be put to death. The most powerful empire in history was the Roman Empire. There was a time when this empire summoned all its forces to destroy this book. Everyone who possessed it would be inhumanly persecuted and later killed or burned. They wiped out thousands of people and burned countless copies of the Bible. They even set up a monument at a place where they killed Christians. On it was the inscription: “Christianity is buried here.” They thought that when they had burned all the Bibles and removed all the Christians, they would see Christianity lying there beneath their feet. But it was not long after that when the Bible came back again. Even in a country like England, which has already accepted Christianity as its state religion, you can still find tombs of martyrs for Christ if you visit different places there. Here and there you can find places where the Bible was once burned. Or you may come across a tombstone that tells you that such and such a person tried so hard and wrote so many books in his life to oppose the Bible. One place may tell you that the Bible was once burned there, and another place may tell you that Christians were once killed there. One signpost may point you to a statue of martyrdom, and another may point to a site of Bible burning.
Why is it that so many people have tried so hard to oppose this book? Why is it that men would pass by other books, but would either oppose this book with every fibre of their being or would put their whole life to the stake for it? There must be something extraordinary here. Even if you do not believe that this is God’s word, you have to admit that there is something unusual about this book.
This book seems to be very simple and easy. If you consider it from the historical point of view, it tells the origin of the universe, the earth, the plants, human beings, how they established their kingdoms, and how they will eventually end. This is all. There is nothing special about it. Yet it has been handed from generation to generation for centuries. Today it is still with us. Moreover, if you do not confess that it is truth, you have to conclude that it is false. You can disregard many books, but you cannot ignore this book. Nor will it ignore you. It will not let you go. It demands a verdict from you. It will not pass you by.
Another remarkable thing about this book is that almost half of it is prophecy. Among the prophecies, almost half of them are fulfilled. The other half are for the future and await fulfillment. For example, it predicted the fate of the nations of Moab and Ammon and of the cities of Tyre and Sidon. Today when people talk about big cities, they mention London and Shanghai. Then it was Tyre and Sidon. They were two chief cities of the ancient world. The prophecies concerning these two cities were all fulfilled. Once I was in the Middle East. For some reason I did not visit those two places. However, I bought two pictures of those cities. It amazed me when I looked at those pictures. I could not help but believe in the Bible. It was prophesied that if these two metropolitan cities did not repent, they would be destroyed and devastated. Their land would become hills of rocks and pebbles where fishermen would come to dry their nets. In the pictures that I bought, there was nothing but fishing boats and open nets on the shore. This is only one small fact that proves the reliability of biblical prophecy.
If you compare past events with the prophecies in the Bible, you will find that they all correspond one with another. For another example, take the birth of Christ. Isaiah prophesied concerning a virgin with child a few hundred years before Christ actually came. Later, He was born indeed of the virgin Mary. The prophecy was accurately fulfilled. As the prophecies concerning the past have been fulfilled, so the prophecies concerning the future must also be fulfilled.
If God desires to communicate with man, He must do so through common human channels of communication. He must use the human language or human writings. In other words, there must be a book in the world that is a direct revelation from God. If such a book does exist, it must contain the four criteria we mentioned. Now we can say that such a book is found. This book tells us that God desires to have fellowship with us. He speaks to us through this book. Through it God is no longer an unknown Being. We can now know Him. This book is the Bible. I hope all of you will read it.
posted by SOWER @ 9:02 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
THIS IS A SERIOUS MATER, IS HE CRAZY? A LUNATIC?A LIAR? PLEASE YOUR VERIDICT.,
God desires to reveal Himself to us. He does so through means that are comprehensible to man. These are namely written and spoken language. We have seen how God reveals Himself through writing. Now we want to take a look at His revelation through speaking.
Suppose that you have had correspondence with a person for many years; however, you have never seen him. Naturally, you would want to know him more by having some direct acquaintance with him. Full understanding of someone cannot be achieved merely through writing. Direct contact gives a better chance. It seems as if communication through speech is of a more intimate and thorough nature than writing. When spoken language is added to written language, communication becomes enhanced. If you take away either of the two, you have a gap. Of course, if you take away both, communication is completely voided. Effective communication is always carried out by these two means.
If God’s intention is to reveal Himself to us, He must of necessity do so through speaking. But how does God speak? Does He trumpet from the heavens? If so, we would all be frightened to death. We would all run away. No one would dare to listen. There is a chasm between Him and us. He, being so high and great, would drive us away from His holiness. How then does He speak?
THE WINTER ON THE MOUNTAIN
Let me relate to you a story. One winter I was staying on the mountain Lu-shan, recovering from an illness. It was immediately after the war, and there was practically no one living on the mountain. In the vicinity of my dwelling, one could hardly see anyone all day long. I am a quiet person by nature. This kind of environment was very appealing to me. Not only was it quiet there, but the weather was cold as well. From morning till dusk, all I saw was a boy who came three times to deliver my meals. At the beginning I was quite at ease. But after a while, even a person like me began to feel lonely.
One day after lunch I went to take a nap. There was a balcony outside my bedroom window. When I woke up I saw some little creatures gathering around the balcony. Bits of my meal had been dropped there, and the birds were busily chirping around them. As they hopped around, they chirped and made many cheerful noises. I said to myself, “All right. Since I cannot find any human beings, I will try to make friends with these little birds.”
I rose up and went out to greet them. But in an instant they all flew away. An idea came to me. I took some of the leftover rice and began to arrange it in rows, with only a few grains in the first row and gradually increased them towards the entrance of the doorway. I hid behind the door and watched them coming. Soon they gathered around again. I said to myself, “This is my chance.” I walked out and began to make friends with them. But the minute they saw me, they all scattered. Some perched on the branches of the tree across the balcony and stared at me, as if trying to determine what my intention was. Every time I approached them, they flew away, and every time I walked away, they came back. This went on a number of times.
I wanted to preach to the birds. I wanted to tell them, “Little birds, I have no special intention in doing this. This is winter on the mountain, and food is scarce. I have enough food with me, and I just want to share it with you. Please be at peace and come down. I only ask that as you eat, I can sit among you. I want to listen to your songs and watch you playing. Come. Let us be friends…” But the birds would not come. They did not understand me. I had to give up.
Later I had a certain realization within. I began to preach to myself. I said, “This body of mine is too big. If I could shrink from five feet eleven inches to the size of a bird, and even change myself into a bird, they would not be alarmed by my presence. I could then tell them my heart’s intention, and we could spend the winter on the mountain Lu-shan together.”
We have a similar problem today. If God remained God, we could never understand Him. If He talked to us in His language, we would be altogether lost. If God wants to reveal Himself through speaking and have fellowship with man, He must shrink Himself to such a degree that He and we are the same. Only then would He be able to speak to us and tell us of Himself and of the mysteries of the universe. Only then would we be able to understand Him.
Has God become a man to reveal Himself through His speaking? Let us again use the method of supposition. What if God revealed Himself through the human language? What if He became a man and fellowshipped with man? The implication is tremendous here! It would mean that in this world, among all the human beings throughout history, one person was not merely a man, but God as well! If it is granted that God became a man, there must be a mortal who was also divine. We need to find out about this One.
This is a thorny task. But we will employ the effective method we have adopted—namely, setting down a few principles. Then we will search according to these qualifications and directions. We want to base our evaluation on what manner of life a person should possess and what qualifications he must have if he is God.
The first condition that this person must fulfill is that he must claim to be God while he is on earth. He cannot be apologetic about it. He must declare boldly that he is God. Only then can we know who he is. Without this declaration, we have no way to guess his identity. Hence, a declaration is our first qualification.
Second, the way this person came into the world must be different from ours. If I said that I am God and yet was born in the same manner as every other mortal, my words would carry no force. If on the other hand, I dropped down from heaven, my assertion would be taken seriously. The way this person comes into being must be extraordinary. He must come in an absolutely different fashion; otherwise, his words will not carry the necessary weight.
Third, this man must bear a moral standard that is far above that of all other human beings. He must have God’s holiness, and his life must bear the mark of God’s righteousness. For example, if I became a bird and lived in exactly the same way as other birds, without showing them anything extraordinary, I could not convince them that I was actually a man. If God is to become a man, His moral behavior must be of the highest quality. This is the only way that we could identify Him as God.
Furthermore, if a person is God, he must necessarily be able to perform things which no mortal can do. If he can achieve what we cannot achieve and know what we do not know, we can say that he is truly God.
Lastly, this person must be able to tell us the divine purpose concerning man. What was God’s purpose in creating the universe and man? How does He take care of human pains and sorrows? What is the origin and ultimate solution of everything in the universe? What should our attitude towards God be? All these he must reveal to us. Unless this one shows us what we do not see, we cannot say that he has shown us any revelation.
We will set down these five conditions and put the whole of humanity to the test. Let us find out if someone meets the five requirements. Such a person would surely be qualified to be God.
The first person to put to the test should be yourself. Of course, you are not God, because you have never claimed to be God. Nor have I ever claimed to be. So that rules out you and me. Very well, now we will introduce Confucius. If you read his books, you will find that he did conduct a very moral and proper life. But he never claimed to be God either. Hence, he fails in the first step.
What about Sakya Muni, the founder of Buddhism? Not only was there an absence of the claim of divinity, but his philosophy itself is void of deity. He did not believe in the existence of God. Since he had no God, he cannot be God either.
Next, go to Mohammed. He believed in God. But he never claimed to be God. He called God Allah and himself the prophet of Allah. If you go through every person in history, you will discover that no one ever claimed to be God except One. That One was Jesus of Nazareth. He claimed to be the living God. No other person put forward such a claim.
How can Jesus of Nazareth claim to be God? Before going on, we have to pause for a moment to seriously consider the matter. It is not a light thing to claim to be God. A person who makes such a claim falls into one of three categories. He must belong to one of these three categories; he cannot belong to all three. First, if he claims to be God and yet in fact is not, he has to be a madman or a lunatic. Second, if he is neither God nor a lunatic, he has to be a liar, deceiving others by his lie. Third, if he is neither of these, he must be God. You can only choose one of the three possibilities. If you do not believe that he is God, you have to consider him a madman. If you cannot take him for either of the two, you have to take him for a liar. There is no need for us to prove if Jesus of Nazareth is God or not. All we have to do is find out if He is a lunatic or a liar. If He is neither, He must be the Son of God. These are our three choices. There is no fourth.
What did Jesus of Nazareth say about Himself? In John 10:30 He said, “I and the Father are one.” We need some explanation here. In the Bible the invisible God is called the Father. The Son manifests and expresses the Father. What is hidden is the Father, and what is expressed is the Son. The Son is the One who can be seen and touched. Behind, you have the Father. In front, you have the Son. The two are actually one. They are the two sides of the same reality. When we talk about two, we refer to the fact that one is hidden while the other is revealed. When we talk about one, we say that the revealed One is just the hidden One in manifestation. This is the biblical interpretation of the Father and the Son.
Therefore, when Jesus of Nazareth one day said, “I and the Father are one,” it was a statement that no one else could make. This man was saying in reality that He and the invisible God are one entity. He is God and God is He. God is the invisible Father, and He is the manifested Son. The Father and the Son are one! Who can this One be that made such a claim? Is He a madman? Is He out to deceive us?
After Jesus spoke such a word, what reaction do we see? “The Jews again took up stones that they might stone Him. Jesus answered them, I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of these works are you stoning Me? The Jews answered Him, We are not stoning You for a good work, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a man, are making Yourself God” (vv. 31-33). The Jews understood very well that Jesus’ words meant that He claimed to be God. After hearing these words they wanted to stone Him to death. A claim was made by Jesus, and an accusation was charged by the Jews, both of which concerned His divinity. Was Jesus insane? Did He speak pure nonsense just to cause people to kill Him? Or was He a swindler setting up some kind of a scheme? If so, what was He trying to gain? Was He trying to gain death?
Perhaps we will go back a little bit to the earlier parts in the Gospel of John and see what it says there. John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” Why has no one seen God? It is because God is invisible. Jesus said that He was the only Begotten of the Father; He expressed the invisible Father. When you see the only Begotten, you see the Father.
Again He spoke concerning Himself, “And no one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended out of heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven” (3:13). Have you ever heard anyone say such words? I cannot say, “No one has been to Shanghai, but he who comes from Shanghai to Tientsin, even I, Watchman Nee, who is in Shanghai.” If I say so, I would be gibbering nonsense. But Jesus was speaking a heavenly language. He said that He came out of heaven and is still in heaven. What can a person be if he can be in two places simultaneously? Either he is God or he is a lunatic or he is a liar. If you have not yet believed in Christ, please give a verdict to this issue. Who is this man?
Let us read John 3:31-32: “He who comes from above is above all; he who is from the earth is of the earth and speaks out of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all. What He has seen and heard, of this He testifies, and no one receives His testimony.” He said that He came out of heaven and was above all. After a while He said the same thing again. Let us see what is the purpose behind these words. He came to preach the things of heaven, but no one received His words. He mentioned words like “heaven,” “above all,” “out of heaven,” etc. What kind of man was He? Confucius never said this. Neither did Sakya Muni or Mohammed. Was Jesus of Nazareth a madman, a liar, or the Son of God?
John 5:17 says, “But Jesus answered them, My Father is working until now, and I also am working.” He always put Himself in the same place as the Father. Verse 18 says, “Because of this therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath but also called God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.” When we read His words now, we may consider them to be ordinary remarks. But the Jews knew what He was saying. They knew that He was making Himself equal with God. The words in fact meant that God is His Father and He came to express God. The invisible One is God, and the visible One is He. Therefore, the Jews sought to kill Him. What should we do about such an unusual person?
John 6:46 says, “Not that anyone has seen the Father, except Him who is from God, He has seen the Father.” Here the word is clearer. He said that no one other than Himself has ever seen God. Only He knew what the Father is like. I can only say with soberness and reverence that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God. Read John 8:18. What did He say? “I am One who testifies concerning Myself, and the Father who sent Me testifies concerning Me.” The question in verse 19 is most interesting: “They said then to Him, Where is Your Father? Jesus answered, You know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also.” Have you seen what He was saying? They had seen Him, yet did not know Him. Of course they would not know the Father either, whom they had not seen. If men knew Him, they knew God. Who is He then? If knowing Him equals knowing God, is that not the same as saying that He is God and God is He?
Read John 8:23: “And He said to them, You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.” The preposition “from” in this verse is ek in Greek. It means “out of.” That is how it should be translated. He said, “You are out of this world, but I am not out of this world.” This man claimed to be from above; He did not come out of this world. Who can He be?
The Jews were confused. They were totally bewildered. Who was this man? The ancestor of the Jews is Abraham. They boasted of being the descendants of Abraham in the same way the Chinese boast of being the offspring of Hwang-ti. The name Abraham was highly venerated among the Jews. Now they brought out Abraham. Please read John 8:53: “Are You greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets died too. Who are You making Yourself?” How did Jesus answer them? Was He greater or smaller than Abraham? In verse 56 Jesus said, “Your father Abraham exulted that he would see My day, and he saw it and rejoiced.” What is this? Even Abraham had to look forward to Jesus! Hence, verse 57: “The Jews then said to Him, You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” Now please pay your attention to Jesus’ answer in verse 58: “Truly, truly, I say to you, Before Abraham came into being, I am.” Tell me who this man is. If I told you that before Hwang-ti was, I, Watchman Nee am there, you would immediately write me off as a lunatic. Some of you would say that I am a liar. The words Jesus spoke made Him either a madman, a liar, or God. There can be no fourth alternative.
We have to read on. In John 10:37-38 Jesus said, “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, even if you do not believe Me, believe the works so that you may come to know and continue to know…” Know what? The clause following is very crucial. It is a big statement: “…that the Father is in Me and I am in the Father.” Who then is this man? He said that He was in God and God was in Him.
Passages like the above are numerous in the Bible. I shall mention one more. Read carefully John 14:6-7: “Jesus said to him, I am the way and the reality and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and henceforth you know Him and have seen Him.” It says clearly that if you know Jesus of Nazareth, you have known the invisible God. Why is this so? It is because He is God.
One of the disciples was confused. John 14:8 says, “Philip said to Him, Lord, show us the Father and it is sufficient for us.” Philip was asking to be shown the Father who had been mentioned again and again by Jesus. Verse 9 says, “Jesus said to him, Have I been so long a time with you, and you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how is it that you say, Show us the Father?” Here Jesus made it very plain that to see Him is to see God. He made no apology about it. He is God. There is no need to see the Father anymore. If you see Him, you see God!
Who is Jesus of Nazareth? What would you say? Is He merely the founder of the Christian religion? Is He merely an example of self-sacrifice and humanitarianism? Is He a social reformer? Is He an advocate for universal love, peace, and freedom? Listen to what He said about Himself. He said that He is God. What is your conclusion? Is He a lunatic or a liar? Is He a hoax, or is He God? This is a vital question.
Can He be a madman? If you read His biographies in the Gospels and observe His life and manner, you will realize that not only was He sane and sound, He was very sober and firm. If there is a perfectly sound person in this world, He has to be the One. His mind was clear, and His mentality was alert. If you study His deeds and words carefully, you have to confess that His thoughts are very logical and consistent, and His manners are most comely and appropriate. To opposing ones He only needed to reply a few sentences, and their arguments against Him were defeated. He did not have a trace of madness in Him. A madman could never have done what He did.
Then is He a liar? A liar always lies for a profit. If there is no profit to be gained, what is the purpose of lying? Why was Jesus crucified? For no other reason than that He claimed to be God. At the last judgment, the hour when His release or crucifixion was to be deliberated, He was examined as to who He was. What was His answer? He said that the Son of Man would be seen sitting on the right hand of the Majesty on high, descending on the clouds in glory (Matt. 26:64). Even then He claimed to be God. As a result, He was crucified on the cross. Is there a liar who would sacrifice his life for his lie?
Once I met a person who wanted to talk with me about our faith. He read some books about Jesus and admitted that Jesus had a high standard of morality. He could consider Jesus as a perfect man, a model for humanity. But he could not believe that Jesus is God. I said, “If you admit that He has a high standard of morality, then He at least is not a liar. If you agree that He is not a liar, then you have to accept His claim of divinity as truth. He repeatedly asserted that He is God. If you admire His morality, you have to recognize His divinity as well. Jesus of Nazareth is God!”
Please read John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Verse 14 says, “And
August 16th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
[...] voted in 2001 to reject the only advanced placement environmental science textbook proposed for Texas high schools. Baylor University in Waco used the same [...]
August 17th, 2007 at 5:07 am
Wow. Wouldn’t it have been easier just to say “GODDIDIT!” ?
“CONSIDER THIS SCIENTIFICALLY AND OBJECTIVLY
I shall begin by assuming that the issue of God’s existence is settled.”
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
August 24th, 2007 at 1:11 am
I am the product of the Texas education system, but thankfully I have been out of it for a good 15 years. I turned out alright and no longer live in Texas, but I do keep up with news from Texas and this really bothers me. I still like Texas and the people and I know there are a lot of smart people in Texas, unfortunately Rick Perry is moron and a Governor at the same time. I’m sure science will prevail in the end.
August 24th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
[...] you may remember, Governor Rick Perry of Texas has appointed a very, very unqualified man by the name of Don McLeroy [...]
October 11th, 2007 at 7:01 am
[...] read more | digg story [...]
October 23rd, 2007 at 8:00 am
I’ve lived in Texas and several other states, and I am convinced that as a whole Texans are VERY stupid. They believe in things, not because they’ve found those beliefs to be true, but b/c they were told what to believe. It is true that most things are bigger in Texas, and that’s true except for the brains. People here are HUGE, and I mean fat. Not everyone, but health doesn’t seem to be as important here as it is around the world. “ford, built for texans, by texans” whoelse says that? I swear Texans are so conceited for no reason. After having Dallas named the 3rd ugliest city as far as people go, hopefully that’ll knock some sense into them. I’m not in school here, but I’m planning to transfer. I transferred here from a UC school in California, and I can honestly say that their education is lacking. The kids here really are stupid, and very dependent upon their parents for years and years after they’ve left the home. Let’s not mention the big religious kick that Texans are on. You know the “Bible Belt” runs thru Texas, which I find hilarious, because of all the places I’ve ever lived, Texas is the one place I refuse to start a family. I WILL NEVER raise my children in Texas. Their religion is a joke. They only abide by it when convenient, but when faced with adversity, they quickly abandon all religious beliefs in order to accomplish their personal goals. How can you be a holier than thou Christian yet be a racist? After having lived in Texas, Cali, NY, MO, TN, and a bunch of other places, I’ve concluded that Texans in general are some of the DUMBEST people on earth, and the worst part is that they have no idea.
November 13th, 2007 at 11:37 am
what time
November 16th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
[...] argue? – but both Missouri (read the part about “…the Bible is inerrant;”) and Texas have dropped their collective IQs [...]
November 29th, 2007 at 11:20 am
[...] the science blogger community jumping on this issue. Defcon appears to have broken the news. The Bad Astronomer correctly points out that Texas has a disproportionate effect on the school book industry, so this [...]
December 27th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
I have healed without invoking gods name and have prayed when I am troubled. I have caused what is written in the bible to change and believe that man kind will become extinct.What if the power of prophecy is the power to decide the future ? It may not simply be the power to predict .If I am A prophet will I choose to save mankind Or would I rather see all men die because I do like what they believe in.
February 4th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
I live in Texas. I’m not from here. I can tell you that most (not all, certainly) but about 80% of Texans are, indeed, so incredibly stupid that the rest of the country should start engineering a way to be rid of this hellish affiction on the gene pool. Texans are blindingly stupid in ways too various and baffling to begin to describe.
April 20th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
[...] Phil Plait, The Bad Astronomer posted this a while ago [...]
May 26th, 2008 at 1:29 am
[...] worried that the perfect storm is brewing here. Here is why Phil Plait thinks that Texas is doomed: I’ve talked before about the guy that’s the head of the State Board of Education. His name is Don McLeroy, and [...]
May 26th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
[...] I’ve talked before about the guy that’s the head of the State Board of Education. His name is Don McLeroy, and [...]
April 18th, 2009 at 9:39 am
[...] but still quite understandable. It gives a good idea of what abiogenesis hypothesis look like – not a spider out of a rock nor lightning strike in a mud puddle forming a complete modern cell, but something a bit like a [...]
May 9th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
for some reason, whenever I try to do a “thumbs up” I just get sent to a blank page: “…stumbleupon.com/submit”
anyone have any idea why?
May 9th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
@sower
TL; DR
July 30th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
CafeenMan,
EvilBible.com is Dead
Large portions of evilbible.com have been considered, dissected and declared fallacious on very many levels.
Two examples of this fact are as follows:
Whilst besmirching the Bible for allegedly commanding rape evilbible.com, for some odd reason, neglects to mention the most relevant biblical text related to the biblical view of and law about rape. Why this omission? Who knows, but it would certainly have gotten in the way of a good session of emotive expression of prejudice—it would have discredited evilbible.com to reference this most important text. Indeed, those annoying little facts have an annoying way of getting in the way of good fallacious assertions.
Whilst besmirching the Bible for allegedly commanding human sacrifice evilbible.com, for some odd reason, neglects to mention that the Bible does not command but condemns human sacrifice. Evilbible.com, for some odd reason, neglects to mention that when the Bible reports that human sacrifices did take place they were carried out by Gentile Pagans who were not worshiping the God of the Bible but various false gods. When “Jews” were performing human sacrifices it was only when they turned away from the God of the Bible and joined Gentile Pagans in worshiping various false gods. Yet, in typical militant activist atheist fashion, evilbible.com does not condemn Gentile Pagans but only condemns the Jews.
Some of the resources provided in the original post are as follows:
http://atheismisdead.blogspot.com/2009/07/evilbiblecom-is-dead.html
February 12th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Here is a song about Texas that sums it up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9sZJghx_lE