Just After Darwin Day...
14/2/11 09:15![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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talkpoliticsYou 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.
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.
(no subject)
Date: 14/2/11 22:54 (UTC)A lot of fast food places actually aren't too bad with their menu. Chik-fil-a is an excellent example in that they have actual eclectic items like carrot-raisin salad, fruit cups, and chicken soup.
I'm the type of guy that when I go out and eat I get a steak with steamed vegetables so I know how to balance out a meal. And really, I can live just as well on fast food for lunch as anything else.
Like today, I went into a sit-down place and had a brisket with fries. For dinner tonight I'll probably have some oranges, yogurt, or maybe some vegetables. Nothing too heavy as the brisket did the job.
I could argue how eating out is unhealthy is I just extrapolated that one meal to the entire day. But that'd be unfair to the people who made me my lunch as there wasn't anything patently unhealthy about it to begin with.
Really the whole issue is that fast food is cheap, poor people like cheap, and people overall do a pretty poor job of limiting themselves when cheap and fast get together.
But the enemy isn't fast food. The enemy is people not understanding how to balance what is available to them for their best benefit.
(no subject)
Date: 15/2/11 02:25 (UTC)The problem is when it becomes an everyday thing or when it's not being balanced out with more substantive non-processed nutrition in other meals. Even if you're staying below the daily calorie requirement, eating a ton of fast food or processed food still isn't good for you. For example, pretty much everything besides salad that you can order from a fast-food place is front-loaded with sodium, even the soups and the cold-cut Subway-type sandwiches are. Taking in that much sodium on a day-to-day basis is horrible for you. It's not strictly a fast-food thing, though; if you're eating ramen noodles on your couch at home every night you're getting way too much salt, too.
I think the enemy, tbh, is laziness when it comes to food. People get home from work and they don't feel like bothering with something they can't get from a drive-through or something that takes more then 10 minutes to prepare, so they order fast-food or nuke something from the freezer section and as a steady diet, that stuff just isn't healthy. It's fine sometimes, but if you're eating it every day then no, it's not good for you.