My HUGE problem with creationist thinking (re: Which version of creationism)

Well generally those well educated in TOE do not need to ask such questions. Researchers themselves are aware of the controversies generally. It is about the how, when, where and why of TOE.Here is a new wart. You remember Ardi, the famous human relative that threw brain size tied to bipedal walking and knucklewalking ancestry in the bin.Well some researchers now do not think Ardi is human at all but an early representative of the African great ape.We're Sorry - Scientific AmericanJohn Sanford discusses how evolution is impossible due to entropy, all the taxons are a mess, particularly back past the family rank where a whole heap of kinds have been thrown together. Really to show all the warts would require a book, not a post.It is not 150 years of refined detail. Seriously it is 150 years of an evolving theory that could not even predict the Y chromosome disparity in humans and chimps. You have evo researchers privvy to the same research disagreeing on major reasoning at times.eg, bird ancestry. After 150 years evolutionists have more questions then they have answers. Don't you think?http://www.sciencedaily.com/...ases/2010/02/100209183335.htmWhat is not being taught is that TOE is far from being proven, despite 150 years. In fact TOE was far more believable 20 years ago, when fossils were missing.It is not about teaching any creation model as a fact either. It is about presenting the basis for all sides and the refutes also in a balanced way, so the community can choose individually for themselves how much weight they place on any model and if TOE is actually based on science.

What theory is being taught as fact?

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002

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Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969

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Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

Please define "kind".

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It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds
soon I discovered that this rock thing was true
Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil
Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet
All of a sudden i found myself in love with the world
And so there was only one thing I could do
Was ding a ding dang my dang along ling long - Jesus Built my Hotrod Ministry
Live every week like it's Shark Week! - Tracey Jordan
Just a monkey in a long line of kings. - Matthew Good
If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist! - Get Your War On
*not an actual doctor

Agreed. The exception being when trying to assess the ignorance of a creationist.So when I ask for what warts you see in the Theory of Evolution you come back with: So this is some great wart that calls all of evolutionary theory into question? This examination and learning of new detail?Your own personal emotional hyperbole is more apt. Pity Dr. Sanford. A great scientific career ended with a decent into religious dementia. We have seen this before. He offers nothing but unsubstantiated assertion in his latest fantasies. His Mendel's Accountant computer model was made, as with most creationist models, with a pre-determined, biblically-inspired result programmed in. He did not model the reality of the world.Such a waste of what once was a fine scientific disciplined mind. And why would you expect the Theory to predict such a thing? This is again a refining of the detail of one of the many vectors of genetic evolution not some deficiency of the overall theory.And, since you are so familiar with this subject, you should recognize that the speed of Y-chromosome evolution in chimps and its divergence from human these past 6 million years is another evidence of the Theory's efficacy. And a wonderful thing it is. As more answers come and even more questions arise the Theory becomes ever more robust and accurate.The more we question and learn the more your poofing god hypothesis is shown to be hopelessly wrong. You have learned nothing and remained stagnant for some 2500 years. How would you know what is being taught about the Theory? Are you enrolled in such a course of study?As for the Theory being "far from proven," it never will be. This is science, not religion. Everything is open to new facts. Unlike religion, we learn, not just regurgitate a creed. That's sounds like a high minded ideal. Too bad it is a subterfuge.You have no model let alone one with anything even approaching the level of fact and the explanatory power of the Theory. Science is not a popularity contest. Reality is not dependent on what the community believes.Your only goal is to proselytize fresh young minds away from reality and into a mind-numbing, dictatorial, uncritical allegiance to a myth. Edited by AZPaul3, : making an edit ... obviously.Edited by AZPaul3, : some more edit.

Well of course not. Science teachers won't knowingly lie to children just to further your whackadoodle religio-political agenda.

Oh, really? Do you also have a problem when they teach gravity as fact to you? Did they mislead you when they taught gravity as fact and was this also a misleading representation of the status quo?

I think that you are deliberately misleading the readers here when you state that. No real scientist has ever stated that Ardi was human. Could you provide a link to any scientists that’s ever described Ardi as human?What scientists have stated is that they think that Ardi is a recent human relative.

Goddidit is not a model. So, your proposal is basically that if any crackpot claims that the earth is flat, it should also be considered people in the street?I don’t think you realize that scientific facts are not decided by people in the streets, but by scientists following the scientific method.You know, what is accepted as a fact is that 1 plus 1 equals 2. If some crackpot decides that 1 plus 1 equals 3, it won’t be discussed as maths in any maths classroom, but will just be laughed off. You propose that this crackpot should be given equal time in maths classrooms with the findings of real mathematicians who know what they are doing.Then you also propose that another crackpot who decides that 1 plus 1 equals 4 should also be given equal time, so that the community can choose individually for themselves what the answer is.People go to school to get educated in the real world, not to decide which crackpot is ‘right’.In biology, the theory of evolution is accepted as a scientific fact. Just like 1 plus 1 equals 2 is accepted as a fact in maths. Anyone who differs from facts, can only be a crackpot. No need to consider the rantings of crazy people.

I'm not sure where it happened, but we're seriously off-topic. The opening post poses a question for creationists, let me rephrase it in my own terms:Let us say we decide that we should teach creation stories in science class. Which one or ones should we teach.I think Mazzy has already provided his own answer in Message 96: In other words, Mazzy doesn't want to teach any creation stories, he wants to teach what he believes is wrong with evolution. So now we're discussing what we think is wrong about what he thinks is wrong with evolution, but that's not the topic of this thread.If people would like to discuss what's wrong with evolution, then it would probably be better if they did that in a thread devoted to evolution rather than education. There are a number of threads over in the Biological Evolution forum, or someone could propose a new topic over at Proposed New Topics.I'm not moderating this thread, this is just a suggestion, but I'll post a note over at Report Discussion Problems Here 3.0.Regarding the portions of the discussion that are on-topic, Mazzy mentioned God a couple times. I wonder if he thinks introducing explanations that include God into science classrooms is appropriate?--Percy

Hi Chuck and welcome to EvC. I've read that book and I have to say that I found it pretty thin gruel. McGrath keeps asking rhetorical questions, when the answers are right there in the book he's critiquing. It's very odd.The reason I'm posting though is just to note one small point; The Dawkins Delusion is not a critique of Dawkins' views on evolution. It is a direct critique of The God Delusion. It critiques Dawkins' atheism, not his views on evolution. The Blind Watchmaker is not an atheist screed. It is about evolution. It criticises creationism, but doesn't have much to say about the wider view of religion.Bearing this in mind, The Dawkins Delusion seems an odd choice to answer The Blind Watchmaker, especially since McGrath, a former molecular biophysicist, is an Theistic Evolutionist, not a creationist.McGrath may disagree strongly with what Dawkins has to say in The God Delusion, but he would doubtless agree with much of The Blind Watchmaker. In fact, here is McGrath on evolution and faith;

quote:

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{Interviewer} So somebody can be a Christian and believe in evolution?

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{McGrath} Yes, they can. Evolution is not, by definition, atheistic. Darwin saw his theory as reconcilable with the Bible. He struggled with his Christian faith towards the end of his life but that was because his daughter had died very young, not because of his ideas on evolution.

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Some Christians will be uncomfortable with the idea of believing in evolution, particularly because it raises the question of how to interpret the early chapters of Genesis. That's a very big issue in its own right. All I can say is that, with complete integrity, there are many Christians who see evolution as illuminating the way in which we understand Genesis and as giving us an enhanced vision of how God brought the world and humankind into being. People can make evolution atheistic but it doesn't have to be.

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Source; Page not found – Christian EvidenceMutate and Survive

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On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

Well worth critiquing in my book. While it can be critiqued on many levels, the one thing I see rarely mentioned is the failure of militant atheists to put religious belief in a human context. They think religious belief is something that anyone living in the modern age should be able to cast aside, but they never seem to notice that immersion in a technical society has little effect on belief in weird things. There is huge variation among people, but one of the qualities very common to people is belief in things for which there is no evidence, and this includes not just religion but ESP, UFOs, ghosts and on and on.The militant atheists have to recognize that belief in things that aren't there is never going to go away - it's part of what makes us human. Even in a spaceship traveling to Alpha Centauri there would be such people. Doesn't one of the astronauts in the United States space program believe something pretty weird?--Percy

I nearly replied in detail to the highlighted bit of your reply. I think it looks like a good discussion topic...

As Percy points out in Message 114: Teaching what's "wrong" with the evolutionary aspect of biological science isn't at all the same thing as teaching what creationism is about, in just the same way as teaching art students what's "wrong" with Renaissance painting isn't the same thing as teaching them about cubism or performance art.So for the sake of furthering this discussion, could you please provide some sort of outline or list of specific topics about creationism that you think should be taught in the biology classroom?

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Your beliefs do not effect reality and evidently reality does not effect your beliefs.
-Theodoric

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Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Steven Colbert

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I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
- John Stuart Mill

Mazzy, and other creationists who are arguing against the idea of humans being related to apes, please watch this video from a self confessed Roman Catholic. The Biologist shows the accuracy of which we share our genetic makeup with the other great apes. Please note this is beyond similarity that can be dismissed as "all made in a similar way", the best way to explain such similarity and specific placement is evolution.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXdQRvSdLAsEdited by Ohruhen, : No reason given.

Mazzy, and other creationists who are arguing against the idea of humans being related to apes, please watch this video from a self confessed Roman Catholic. The Biologist shows the accuracy of which we share our genetic makeup with the other great apes. Please note this is beyond similarity that can be dismissed as "all made in a similar way", the best way to explain such similarity and specific placement is evolution.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXdQRvSdLAs