Just After Darwin Day...

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

You really have to feel sorry for kids living in the world's last remaining superpower, don't you?

I mean, it is not their fault that they get fed on junk food from Macdonalds that gives them an obesity problem, is it?
And now, people who are old enough to know better want to bring in legislation that will ' teach the controversy' in schools, and develope their 'critical thinking'... yeah, right !!!

Oh, before I forget, have a link:-
http://www.secularnewsdaily.com/2011/02/11/%E2%80%98science-guy%E2%80%99-speaks-out-bill-nye-says-nay-to-anti-evolution-crusade-as-bills-pop-up-in-the-states/

Now, the obligatory opinion....

The fact is, there is no controversy regarding biological Evolution in science. Scientists are people who go into the field and into the lab and do their own original research and make their own discoveries and publish the findings for peer review among people well qualified in the same and in related fields, and the consensus among the scientific community is that the Earth is billions of years old and that our species has been around for a lot longer than the 6,000 years allowed for by a literal reading of the book of Genesis.

OTOH, Craetionists turn out overwhelmingly to be people who quotemine and misrepresent the findings of others, and then go on to copypaste the claims on Creationist websites. Rather than doing original research and making ground breaking discoveries like 'Lucy', the big names in Creationism, people like Kent Hovind, Duane Gish and Ken Ham simply sell their books and videos to make money off of a gullible audience. These websites, and the related books and videos advertsied thereon, are packed with misrepresentations and inaccuracies - and sadly, this is what some adult Americans actually believe to be true.

In a recent discussion on Facebook, the following comment was made-
Marcus Clark What they don't tell you is that "Lucy" is not only a compilation of bone fragments of multiple bodies but likely of multiple species. These bone fragments were also collected over a rather large area. By doing a little "digging" you'll find that "Lucy" is a total farce.

And this was cited as ' evidence'

Marcus Clark
http://www.forerunner.com/forerunner/x0714_lucy_fails_test.html
and
http://www.trueauthority.com/cvse/lucy.htm
and
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2004/0825lawrence.asp
...and
http://www.apologeticspress.org/rr/reprints/truthlucy.pdf
just to show a few.See more

However, as this crushing refutal shows, the original claim was misrepresentation - nobody claimed that the 1973 find was part of the Lucy skeleton, (except the creationists , of course) and the guy who discovered Lucy was quite clear that the knee joint find was from another individual, albeit of the same species - A aferensis.

Go take a look -

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/knee-joint.html
Saturday at 12:53

Now, if this ever comes up in class, how many teachers of the creationist persuasion are going to show both sides of the case, and how many are going to do a good job in demolishing guys like Hovind, Ham and Gish? How many Creationists are actually honest?

It does not bode well for the future of the USA when an agenda driven by the Religious Right gets taught as fact in the classroom. I hope that American kids will get a good deal for once and that this legislation will be rejected for what it is, a cunning plot to bring Creationism into class - but I am a realist. I know how many Americans believe in Creationism, and that many of these will sit on School boards, and have a vote in State politics. People do have a right to be wrong if they choose, it goes with the turf in a democratic nation. However, I don't thiink that these people are making a choice that willbe good for their kids or their country's future if they allow Creationism into the class room.

Comments

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

This is also a very valid point , and I am glad you raised it in this discussion. It further underlines another major flaw in Creationism.

They use their own jargon that flows directly from their own flawed and faulty logic.

For example, they do actually use the word 'Darwinism'm - as in 'Richard Dawkins is a Darwinist'. Religion is a belief system , and it is right to speak of 'Calvinists' and 'Wesleyans' in matters of religion. however, nobody doing science actually ' believes' in the same way that theologians approach 'belief'.
A scientist might *accept* a certain theory, but will amend it or even abandon it completely if something better comes along. Scientists did not 'believe in' Isacc Newton - or in Michael Faraday or even Einstein. Scientists accepted these men's theories and talk about them those terms. We talk about gravity, about elecricity and evolution , not "Newtonism", or "Faradayism and "Darwinism". Even politicians and philosophers can talk about "Marxism" and "Keynsian Economics" - but science is not about people, it is all about ideas.

If Creationists want to engage the scientific community in presenting their ideas, they have to understand that Science does not work like Philosophy or Theology, and should not insist on framing their debate in teological terms.

The fact that some of the most renowned names in Evolutionary Science were men who were also chrisytians did not stop them making such important discoveries. For example, the father of Genetics was Gregor Mendel, a Catholic monk. Dr. Francis Collins, who lead the Human Genome Project, is also a practicing Christian. There is nothing that stops a person of the Christian faith making important scientific discoveries - however, some Creationists seem to take the view that one has to be a Creationiist to be a real Christian. To me and many others, that does not sound like good theology, never mind good science.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

"This is also a very valid point , and I am glad you raised it in this discussion. It further underlines another major flaw in Creationism.

They use their own jargon that flows directly from their own flawed and faulty logic.

For example, they do actually use the word 'Darwinism'm - as in 'Richard Dawkins is a Darwinist'."

Scientists refer to Darwinianism, etc. too, it's not an unusual term or way of using words.

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

from my experience, this tends to be in comparison to other people's theories on Evolution and the mechanisms involved.

I can't honestly recall anyone else's name being attached to a whole branch of science. I have always seen referrred to as ' Genetics' , and not 'Mendelism', for instance - and i don't see why Evolutionary biology gets to be named after Darwin when people like Mendel, Gould, and so many others have made really significant contributions to it after Darwin's death.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Copernican geometry, newtonian physics. I could probably think of a few more. Heisenburg uncertainty principle?

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

All of these are examples of a subset, or a group of ideas within the main framework of the subject.
Newtonian physics, yes. likewise all your other examples.
But Newtonism ? Copenicanism ? Faradayism ?

I doubt it. Similarly, I doubt if anyone outside the creationist camp calls it
"Darwinism" - but show me a bona fide example and i will concede that it happens.

The point is, though that they also use terms like ' macro/ micro evoloution' - seriously, if i can walk to the end of my garden , why can't I use the same means to get as far as the local post office? By the same token , if creationists are willing to concede that a wolf can morph into a great dane *and* a dachshund within a few thousand years, why not accept that in a few million yrs, a very ancient creature could have given rise to cats, dogs and bears?

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

I think the main reason is just that evolution has been such a controversy compared to other things. You hear Maoists for instance, or Stalinists, because those were big issues. I think maybe you might have heard of Copernicans back in the day if it flowed off the tongue better. I don't know of other scientific subjects that are quite so controversial these days as evolution though.

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

maybe, maybe not - but listen next time a bunch of scientists meet and itroduce themselves...

"hi, I'm Bill and I'm a geologist - what did you major in ?"
"Oh hi, I did Mendelism"
"That's cool, I studied newtonism , myself..."
No, I don't think so.
it's more like "I did genetics" and "I studied physics".

It is more about that ' Darwinism' rolls off the toungue better than 'modification through descent' and it drags a scientific theory into the realms of philosophy and faith.

I could take Creationists a bit more seriously if they had more people on board who were real scientists doing real science.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

"It is more about that ' Darwinism' rolls off the toungue better than 'modification through descent' and it drags a scientific theory into the realms of philosophy and faith."

No, you're really inventing a dispute here which doesn't exist. The term 'Darwinism' is frequently used in scientific discourse (http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_q=darwinism&num=10&btnG=Search+Scholar&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_occt=title&as_sauthors=&as_publication=&as_ylo=&as_yhi=&as_sdt=1&as_subj=bio&as_sdtf=&as_sdts=5&hl=en), as are a host of other such terms. You might have a case in objecting to the historical inaccuracy of associating such things with individual people, but the evolution of language is rarely rational. But there's no creationist conspiracy here.

"I could take Creationists a bit more seriously if they had more people on board who were real scientists doing real science."

Surely they do. No one disputes that, for example, Behe is in fact a scientist and has in fact conducted scientific research. But this isn't a relevant metric. Its abuse in the media and courts notwithstanding, science doesn't in fact work by a principle that X is scientific where you can find a scientist who believes X.

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I am suprised at all this.
But , as someone who believes in the principle of looking at observable reality and changing my mind on things when I need to, I take your point.

actually, it would be very nice if we could have a common ground that we can communicate through, because I get the impression that a lot of Creationists simply don't get what evolotion is really about.

For me, it is populations that evolve, not individuals.
Evolution is about the origin of Species, not the origin of Life - that is Abiogenesis, not Evolution.
Ii can accept the concept of Newtonian Physics, and would argue that if you say 'Darwinism' then you mean nothing more or less than what darwin proposed inhis lifetime. you are not talking punctuated equilibrium or genetics, because these were not Darwinian concepts.

Tell me, do biological evolutionists or even chaps like that awfully aggressive atheist who wrote 'The God Delusion' use the term ' Evolutionist'?

Also, yes, Behe is someone who does qualify as a scientist, and yet he has failed to convince a Conservative Christian judge that ID is in fact a scientific theory. Even so, even a lay person like me can accept that he has a certain claim to real credibility that Hovind and others lack.Are there more people like him within the Creationist community that you can name?

Is there a proper Creationist theory out there - a real detailed explanation of all the data in terms of the Creationist understanding of the world, on a par with Darwin's "Origin of Species"? As someone who is willing to discuss with anyone on the other side of the aisle, ii am always willing to concede a point if it is truly shown to be the case, as you have done with 'Darwinism' as a proper scientific term.

As I understand it, science works when one can explain phenomenon by a proposed mechanism. to me, the only logical explanation is that natural forces created the world around us. yet, natural forces cannot explian values, ethics and such questions as why we are here. for that , we must turn to philosophy and theology. therefore I would call myself a Theistic Evolutionist. I think tha god did it, but using the natural forces in the universe, not a huge amount of miracles to produce the world around us.

But that's based on what I know so far. you show me something new, and I might well change my mind.