Hello, Twilly. Tell me, lad, are you rather new to this subject? Maybe a teenager or young adult who has recently converted to some bible-literalist Christian sect? Or someone who had previously belonged to such a sect, but only recently been turned on to "creation science" (the use of the 60's drug vernacular there was deliberate, BTW)? All this "creation science" stuff you're being fed is exciting, isn't it? All these new discoveries that will just blow those silly scientists away. Right?
Let me tell you a little story. Back in the early 1970's, a mall and mini-community was built in Orange, Calif, called "The City" (I'm operating without benefit of wikipedia here; by 1973 it was already well-established and was a bus node -- a lot of us made use of those buses due to the gasoline crisis). Somewhere in the late 1990's, the mall was razed and in its place they built "The Block".
Well, around 1990, a creationist opened a creationist fossil shop, "In the Beginning", in The City. That creationist also organized a short series of of amateur-night creation/evolution debate nights, wherein anyone who felt they had anything to say could get up and make a presentation. Since I had early knowledge of these "debates" I passed the word along such that the audiences seemed to be somewhat evenly divided -- a fact which I think led to the creationist organizer's decision to discontinue the event after a few times, since it didn't turn out to be the triumph that he had planned.
One night, a young creationist, maybe about 20 years old got up and announced that he had
new scientific evidence that was going to
blow the evolutionists away! Are you ready for this?
The speed of light has been decreasing over time. Immediately, half of the audience burst into uncontrollable laughter. And then they all tried to explain to that poor hapless creationist how utterly wrong he was. How Setterfield's claim wasn't new, but was already over a decade old. And had been refuted almost immediately, as well as a thousand times afterwards as countless clueless creationists would regurgitate his false claims in countless public fora.
The sad thing is that at that time I had not yet realized the effects of "creation science" on its believers. That once the believers of "creation science" came to realize how utterly bogus and false and deliberately deceptive "creation science" is, that the next lesson would then take effect: "if these claims are false, if evolution is true, then Scripture is a complete and total falsehood, God does not exist, and we should all become hedonist atheists." (which is, BTW, like "creation science", complete and utter bullshit). It's a double-whammy, because those same religious teachers who had been lying to them about "creation science" and lied to them about the consequences of evolution being true, also lied to them outrageously about atheism.
Yeah, that poor kid was completely blown away. You could see it in his face. He had no idea what had just hit him. I don't know what happened to him after that trauma. Was his faith completely destroyed, as "creation science" had taught him must be the consequence? I don't know. Did he instead go into even deeper denial (a friend at church once described to me his own fundamentalist experience and how he had to blind himself to so many things in everyday life until he just could no longer deceive himself constantly -- after having applied the Matthew 7:20 test on Christianity, he became an atheist and thorough humanist and was so much happier and spiritually fulfilled for it)? I don't know. And I'm sorry that I had not yet become aware of how "creation science" destroys faith.
Those "new" claims that you're being fed are decades old and were refuted soundly almost immediately. I've been following "creation science" since around 1981. Most of the claims date back to the late 1970's. You see, in the 1920's, the creationists won. They succeeded in banning the teaching of evolution from the public schools. In four states they even succeeded in enacting "monkey laws" that not only made the teaching of evolution in public schools illegal, but also carried the penalty of stripping the offending teacher of his teaching credentials for life. Any teacher who dared to teach evolution would be forever barred from teaching. Didn't affect the universities, who paid very little attention of the "controversy", but it did affect the high schools. Creationist pressure on local school boards and on the textbook publishers finished the job.
But then at the end of 1950's, things changed. Sputnik! Part of the "missile gap" was the "science gap", which needed to be closed by also closing the "science education gap". So now science education was a national priority! And actual scientists (instead of mere textbook hacks) started writing the textbooks. Like the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS), which was written by scientists and university professors and which had evolution as the cornerstone of biology, which it is. And when the BSCS books were mandated for use in Arkansas, one of those states with a "monkey law", a biology teacher named Susan Epperson was caught in a dilemma. If she refused to use the BSCS books, then she would be fired. But if she were to use them, then the "monkey law" would bar her from ever again teaching. So she filed suit and it went to the US Supreme Court, where the barring of the teaching of evolution for religious reasons was found to be unconstitutional. Which resulted in the striking down of all the "monkey laws", thus unravelling the creationists' triumph of four decades earlier.
So the creationists created a deliberate deception in order to get around the courts. That deliberate deception was "creation science", the claim that they have scientific evidence for creation and that it should be given "equal time" with evolution. And the claims that you have regurgitated here (fancy talk for "puked" or "barfed") are simply false claims that were created around that time and that were refuted almost immediately. The term used here is PRATT, which stands for (I never seem to be able to get that "p" right) "point refuted a thousand times". So now when you post yet another one of those deceptions and someone responds with "PRATT!!", you will understand what they are telling you.
The sad truth is that creationists have no such evidence. Epperson vs Arkansas was in 1968. In the subsequent four decades, creationists have been repeated asked, begged, to present their evidence. And to date, not a single bit of evidence FOR creation has ever been presented. Indeed, creationists have extremely strongly resisted efforts to get them to present any of that evidence that they would constantly claim to have. You can examine several topics in this forum wherein the creationists have been directly requested to please, please, please present their evidence. And none is ever presented.
You were directed to talkorigins.org . That is an excellent source from which to examine the truth about the creationist claims that you are being fed. Learn about those claims. Examine them. Seek the truth.
Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.
Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.
Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.
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