Bill Nye has a video stating that it is not appropriate to present Creationism to children as science. The video has received some attention – 3 million plus hits.
This video has offended the people who keep telling us to indoctrinate children with Creationism science and to ignore the absence of valid science supporting Creationism (and to ignore the many other Creationisms that they do not agree with).
Creationism science is just misdirection, smoke, and mirrors. Real science does not need these tricks, but that is about all the Creationists have, so that is what they use.
There are some valid criticisms of the video, but they are not significant. The criticisms are just more distraction, smoke, and mirrors.
Denial of evolution is not unique to the US. Other countries do have this problem.
Is the problem of denial of evolution by biologists similar to what the problem of denial of tectonic theory by geologists would be?
There may be a lot of work that a geologist can do without understanding tectonic theory, but the geologist is limited by that ignorance of reality.
Similarly, there may be a lot of work that a can be done in biology without understanding evolution, but the Creationist is limited by that ignorance of reality.
My biggest criticism of the video is the Bill Nye keeps referring to believing in evolution. It isn’t about belief. It is about understanding.
We can believe in evolution, but still not understand evolution.
Belief suggests something that is unchanging.
Science is continually changing.
This is not a flaw. This is a strength.
Creationism science is not a real science, because it is just an attempt to find evidence to support a bias.
Science is an attempt to explain the way the world works.
The more we learn, the more we realize that we do not know.
There are no forbidden questions.
Creationism is a false answer trying to use evidence to pretend that that it is not false. This is like a kid who guesses at an answer in math class, but does not show the work, then tries to make up some work later on, as if he really had a clue.
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Is there a complete lack of a genetic mechanism that allows organisms to gain genetic information to go from simple to complex, as Georgina Purdom, PhD suggests?
Unfortunately, this video is no longer on YouTube, but here is one that includes a lot of what the “scientists” claim and explanations of the problems with these anti-science claims.
DNA and genetic mutation are the mechanisms.
She also suggests that the science of evolution is purely historical – that we cannot test evolution. We cannot test macroevolution, but we can test microevolution.
We can show that evolution does occur among bacteria. Creationists used to deny this, but now there are Creationists who will admit that there is microevolution, but still deny that evolution is possible on a larger scale.
Some Creationists still deny even microevolution, but we have done such a great job of providing the evidence by our overuse of antibiotics that microevolution is hard to ignore.
This had been the claim that there is no evolution, which has devolved to there is microevolution, but definitely no macroevolution.
This is an example of changing the argument (moving the goalposts), rather than admit that the argument has no validity at all.
OK. You caught us in a bogus claim, but be fair. Give us another chance.
Science keeps making progress in explaining the world, while Creationists just keep making excuses for their failures.
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Then Georgina Purdom, PhD makes the statement that observational science confirms the literal history in Genesis.
Please, please, please – provide some of that evidence.
She has already decided which Creationism she wants to teach as science, but where is her evidence that her Creationism is the right one.
Correction (5/16/2019) – Many of the links in the table below are no longer to creation myth sites. Wikipedia has a page listing just over 100 creation myths. I am not going to repeat them here. Wikipedia is good at keeping links, and other information, up to date.
List of creation myths at Wikipedia.
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Image credit.
We could spend a lot of time teaching all of these forms of Creationism. We don’t even have to specify which holy book is the source of the Creationism science. We can just number them to minimize discrimination against any particular Creationism.
Science? Evidence?
The important part is to preach the strengths of the Creationism science and the weaknesses of evolution.
But that is not the way science works.
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Creationists also used to deny that there was any possible relationship between humans and other animals.
Humans are not animals!
As we have learned more about DNA (DeoxyriboNucleic Acid), it has become almost impossible for Creationists to continue this lie. There is no evidence that we are not animals.
We are clearly related to other animals.
The most obvious proof of our relationship is our almost identical DNA.
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I agree that Bill Nye’s video is not perfect. I expect that Bill Nye would admit that, too.
Not perfect is not the same as not good.
Do Creationists have any clue about science? Part I
Do Creationists have any clue about science? Part II
Do Creationists have any clue about science? Part III
Do Creationists have any clue about science? Part V
Do Creationists have any clue about science? Part VI
Do Creationists have any clue about science? Part VII
The Age of the Earth – Do Creationists have any clue about science? Part VIII
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I have been told that I am an animal.
CCC,
Teddy bear? 😉
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Is that an issue? Why?
Whether it’s a problem to be called “an animal” all depends on context…
So now we’ve been reduced to using the opinion of Bill Nye as an argument against the teaching of Creationism? I’ll keep the argument about the issue itself in the discussion in the comment section of the Part II of this series, however, let’s examine Mr. Nye. Bill Nye is infamous for several public mishaps in which he voices his myths about nuclear power, global warming, climate change, etc. Nye often cites facts that are flat out wrong, or studies he has fabricated to further his agenda. He stated during the Japanese tsunami last year that the Three Mile Island reactor here in the US was still up and running, a fact most high school students could recognize as wrong. In the same interview Nye went on to show his ignorance about nuclear power through several other fabrications of how a nuclear reactor worked.
This is one example in dozens of times he has been wrong on subjects he takes to the public. Call it smoke and mirrors if you will, Rogue, but if you’re trying to qualify the man as an expert and use his opinion as though it means something his ignorance is relevant to the situation.
As for the video itself:
Starts off with a tone natural to him: falsehood without evidence: The bit about the US being the only place that doubts evolution. Seriously? No one else on Earth has ever voiced a Creationist view or argued against evolution? Oh, wait…
Oops. (((Hey Rogue, I’m still learning the quoting… How would I format the links like you did if I needed to?)))
Even then, is evolution denial a “problem” here in the US? I support the scientific theory of evolution, Rogue does, my high school biology teacher did, my college microbiology teacher did, my neighbor does, the mailman does, Ole Yeller probably would have too if he hadn’t come down with rabies.
Show me statistical evidence that evolution denial is rampant even in the US.
“The US is the most technological advanced nation”
2007 study by IBM and the EIU showed US tied second in this category. That’s one of several thousand studies on this subject, most of which show the US trailing in many areas.
“Largely because of the general capital we have, the understanding of science”
For a man that’s saying we’re anti-science because Creationism is rampant that’s an odd statement.
“Your world becomes fantastically complicated when you don’t believe in evolution”
As Rogue points out, it’s hard to believe or not believe in a fact. I’m not real sure what Nye is shooting for here. Does he mean life is complicated when one believes in some form or fashion or Creationism? What part? Life is complicated if I believe a deity created the world initially? How?
“If you try to ignore that (talking about fossil records, etc.)”
As Rogue and I are discussing in Part II, Creationism can simply mean the person believes life began by divine creation and has evolved from there. Who is ignoring the fossil records? What percentage of Creationist believe the Earth is 7,000 years old? An off-shoot sect will always exist. No one needs to associate the views of a few idiots with the views of the main group.
“If you want to ignore evolution and go with everything you’ve observed in the universe”
What? So an average persons observation would lead them to believe evolution is false? Even I disagree with that statement, he’s contradicting his entire speech.
“We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers in the future”
We could use some now too. Turn in your voter ID card Mr. Nye.
“Another couple centuries that world view just won’t exist”
Because in 2,000 years that world view hasn’t change, but it will in the next 200? Just like his climate views that because the last few years have been the hottest on record, that’s an isolated incident in the millions of years we’ve been around and must be a result of global warming.
I guess the world view won’t exist anymore since the world is ending this year because of the Mayan calendar.
“There is no evidence for it.”
There is no evidence for half the things Nye says, it doesn’t stop him from spouting off at the mouth and parading around as an expert.
You see, Nye is a scientist. That means his conclusions are based on evidence, logic, and critical thinking. Creationists are not scientists, and their conclusions are based on interpretations fed to them by people who make their living telling stories, originally from imaginings that bear no relationship even to what they consider the fundamental documents from which they imagined them–filtered through people whose income comes to them from telling such stories.
In science, it doesn’t really matter whether or not the guy is charismatic. What matters is if he logically applies analysis to actual data, producing a rational connection that withstands analysis by other scientists. So go ahead and hate him; I doubt he cares.
You do realize, do you not, that you are not being asked to take Bill Nye’s opinion as fact. No scientist will ever ask you to take his opinion as fact. He will encourage you to use your own logic and critical thinking skills to review the evidence and reach your own conclusion. All a scientist asks is that you analyze data critically to reach a logical conclusions.
This is how scientists determine what is true: Start with observable evidence, and work toward conclusions. This is how creationists determine what is true: Start with a conclusion, and twist the data to fit.
Fiona Mackenzie,
But if Creationists allow their children to learn about difficult things, such as evolution, they are afraid that they will not be able to control them. Independent thought and free will are often seen as the enemy.
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Conspiracy theorists in general work by trying to make the data fit the conclusion.
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In a sense, they are correct they won’t be able to control them. But the problem is that they want to control them. Once you go down that path and your kids realize that you hid information from them and actually lied to them, it often doesn’t end well.
MV,
We have the same problem with drug laws. We create all sorts of stories about drugs that are false, but when our children are old enough to realize the truth, we expect them to continue to trust us.
We are not protecting our children.
We are protecting our anxieties.
We seem to keep increasing our dose of our anti-anxiety treatment.
If we were to educate our children, rather than scare them with monster stories, we could maintain their trust and help them to protect themselves from things that are dangerous.
We do not appear to trust others to make intelligent decisions.
That is a bad decision.
We are teaching them that we cannot make smart decisions.
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In a recently published piece in Americans United regarding government support of religious schools (the so-called “voucher system”), the head of such a school said, “We don’t teach things like critical thinking, that just confuse the children.”
Fiona Mackenzie,
Those are not the kind of people who should have anything to do with education.
We need to be providing age-appropriate material to students in a way that they can understand it. Critical thinking is essential to education at all ages.
The irony is that introducing Creationism to science classrooms is viewed as critical thinking. It is just criticism without thinking.
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The problem, of course, is that once people begin to think critically…well, religion doesn’t come out all that well. Institutions bound to churches fail at science because they are aware that their believes don’t hold up to scrutiny, so they (a) fail to teach students to pick apart and evaluate data; and (b) conceal from them truths that their religion can’t explain.
Fiona Mackenzie,
I know some people who are great at critical judgment, but are also religious.
I am more interested in getting people to think critically, than in expecting that there will be any particular result.
I expect people to disagree with me on various issues, if they are thinking critically. I expect those disagreements to be much less than with those who do not think critically.
If people think critically and also find some value in religion, but do not feel compelled to impose the values of their favorite preacher on others, then I don’t have any problem with their religion – Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Jew (religious as opposed to ethnic), Wiccan, et cetera. They are all the same to me as long as they do not try to use the government to promote their interpretations of their favorite preacher’s interpretation of their holy book.
Even when using the same holy book, many of these preachers will have tremendously different interpretations, so clearly it is not the word of God that people are following, but only the word of Preacher X.
Should the government be involved in promoting the interpretation of Preacher X?
Even supposing that a bunch of preachers agree on an interpretation, should the government be involved in promoting the interpretations of Preachers S, E, and X? Oh my, those preachers spelled a dirty word. 😳
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Never mind, Texas. Every ten years your state gets together and rewrites textbooks to leave out uncomfortable science and history, and make them adhere more closely to the ever-developing Texas Christian myth. I particularly like that John Calvin (the Dominionist) was the ethical and moral guide to the Colonies and the early United States [never mind that he never even saw the New World]; Thomas Jefferson was just some guy whose name doesn’t appear anywhere in the text except on the list of Presidents.
That’s okay for Texas. It’s just that in some states, we like what our kids learn to be a little more tied to reality.
How about the simplest, teaching creationism, a story with no hint of fact or basis except in fundie religions?
Again, show me *evidence*. I know of no Texas Board of Education decision that states schools must teach Creationism, condones or encourages Creationism, or even that specifically allows Creationism to be taught. Where are you getting your information?
I have not heard people inside the religious education cabal refer to introducing creationism as “critical thinking.” In fact, they shrink when they hear the phrase inside their institutions.
In my opinion, nobody who cannot stand to look at, who shrinks from disagreement with his preconceived notions is fit to come within shouting distance of children.
It was a topic of discussion throughout the nation for six or eight months–whether textbooks should print known information or fantasy–and whether they should be edited to make rich texans look good at all costs. You can’t have missed it…
If you followed the catastrophe that was the most recent Texas textbook commission, you would not need to ask. It was an exercise in medieval religious domination of government, and worse. [Did you know that we never really had slaves in the U.S.–well, maybe a couple, incidental to the molasses trade, but most of the black people were grateful to be here and have jobs. You may thank the Texas textbook commission for that insight.]
TexasMedicJMB,
No reduction.
I didn’t address this until the Creation Museum responded.
The response video from the Creation Museum is what I wrote about.
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If you are going to make those claims, you need to provide some sort of evidence.
The claim that he has fabricated studies to further his agenda requires proof or a retraction.
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Ignorance or fabrication?
According to Wikipedia –
As I wrote –
Why is it that conspiracy theorists criticize imperfection of scientists as fatal flaws, but defend the opinions of their spokespeople as inerrant?
Science is not perfect, but it is better than every alternative we know of.
Scientists don’t claim that science is perfect, but denialists/conspiracy theorists point to problems with science as evidence that their nonsense is legitimate.
Ivory Snow states that it is 99 44/100% pure. Should we avoid it because of that admission of imperfection?
Is a different soap, of unknown purity, any better because it does not admit its imperfections?
Of course not, but that is what denialists and conspiracy theorists claim.
Science keeps improving.
Conspiracy theorists keep coming up with excuses.
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You are as inaccurate as Bill Nye in your statements. I already addressed his minor inaccuracies.
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Yes.
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As you can see from this graph on Wikipedia from New Scientist from 2008.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Views_on_Evolution.svg
Asked about the statement Human Beings, as We Know Them, Developed from Earlier Species of Animals
40% of Americans state that it is true.
40% of Americans state that it is false.
20% of Americans state that they do not know.
40% evolution denial is rampant evolution denial.
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Our science standards are too low. We need to raise those standards.
Bill Nye is a little too patriotic. String him up!
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Why?
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Look at all of those Creationism myths to choose from.
Then there are all of the excuses that need to be made for all of the failures of Creationism to explain reality.
Why do we have a tail bone that is the same as the tailbone of other vertebrates?
Clearly, this is only intelligent design to people who do not understand intelligence.
There are many things about life that do not make sense, but require some kind of excuse go on forever. We have to come up with a bunch of bogus explanations or become comfortable with ignorance.
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Technically, it can, but I have made it clear that I am not referring to that. I am only referring to Creationism that contradicts evolution.
40% evolution denial is rampant evolution denial.
Bill Nye is also talking about the evolution denialists.
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Bill Nye said – And I say to the grownups, if you want to deny evolution and live in your world that is completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that’s fine.
Why do you rewrite what he says?
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He seems to be doing a much better job of understanding science than you are.
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I agree that Bill Nye is overly optimistic about human progress.
Those are the points of our agreement. Bill Nye is too patriotic and too optimistic about our future.
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WHY do Texans like John Calvin? Because he taught that god already decided whether you would be rich or poor, it’s his will, and if you are rich and you feel bad about or (gasp!) do something to help the poor, god will be very annoyed with you. See how that works? You keep all your money to yourself while people die around you, and you get to feel VIRTUOUS about it. Something like today’s oilmen.
Remind me how I made an argument about John Calvin please?
I thought I was talking about the Bill Nye article. As Rogue put it, you’re using smoke and mirrors to distract from the original issue.
What I wrote was about the flawed response to Bill Nye by the Creation Museum. I included some comments about Bill Nye to provide context.
You made the focus of your comments your animosity toward Bill Nye.
Does that make you the pot or the kettle?
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TexasMedicJMB,
Nice ad hominem fallacy to start things off.
That statement is factually incorrect. Creationism requires a Divine Power to GUIDE or DESIGN organisms, not merely “begin life”. If you believe that humans evolved from lower mammals, who evolved from reptilians, on down to microbes, you do NOT believe in Creationism (or Intelligent Design) as the term is commonly used. You’re no more a creationist than Westboro Baptist Church are real Baptists (no insult intended by that comparison).
You are correct in that abiogenesis (i.e. “life from non-life” or the origins of life) is unproved; but evolution doesn’t talk about abiogenesis Evolution only applies to already formed life, it says nothing about the origins of life.
Creationism states that a Divine Power not only created life; but also created it in the forms that it has today, either in the forms on Earth now (Young Earth Creationsim aka “six days to create the Earth) or by directly guiding “microevolution” rather than relying on time and random mutation (so-called Old Earth Creationism or Intelligent Design).
mpatk,
There are some who view Creationism as their God creating the universe in which life developed. There are others who view it as creating the universe and life. Neither group denies evolution, but they believe that flawed creatures could not have come about on their own. they believe that flawed creatures are proof of the existence of a much less flawed being who doesn’t need to be explained. The imperfect is impossible without a Creator, but the perfect just pops into existence, or is it that the existence is popped into being by the perfect Creator.
Imperfection is proof of perfect creation.
Wikipedia goes into detail on the varieties of Creationism that even I am happy to avoid. 🙂
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism
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You are absolutely correct that the creationism category is broad. It doesn’t just apply to those who believe the Earth was created in the last few thousand years.
However as you said, not denying evolution is very different from accepting or understanding it (however you would like to phrase it). In general, believing in Christianity is incompatible with evolution. For instance, you have organizations like the Catholic Church that say they accept evolution but yet believe in things that are disproved by it. Other denominations and religions have similar issues. This is further evidenced by Pew Research polling where only about 20% of the US population believes that a god had hand in human development.
The primary reason that evolution is opposed is that its conclusions contradict religious belief.
MV,
Please provide some examples of what the Catholic Church states is true, but is disproved by evolution.
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Again, please provide some examples.
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http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1107/polling-evolution-creationism
I think you left out the word not.
More people answered that God created humans in their current form, than by evolution, and both of those categories are larger than those who answer that God had nothing to do with evolution.
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It seems that evolution contradicts some preachers’ interpretations of the Bible, but nothing else.
Pi also contradicts the Bible, unless you allow for a certain amount of error on the part of those who wrote the Bible.
How much of a fudge factor do we assume for the Bible?
The Earth doesn’t move.
The moon is a light, rather than a reflector of light.
In that case, the literal interpretation arguments lose credibility.
Is that a problem with the Bible, with those who interpret the Bible in the many different ways they interpret the Bible, or are we supposed to view these as metaphors, or something else?
Should we use the interpretation that is most popular to impose religious laws on those who do not believe in that preacher, or in those preachers, who claim to know what God meant?
Occasionally, someone will kill his/her children and claim that God told them to. Why do we trust these preachers more than we trust the killers? Clearly, the killers are much more devoted to their faith.
Should we trust Pat Robertson and his ilk, who claim (after the fact) that some natural disaster is God’s punishment for whatever they happen to be upset about at the moment. Often it is the sex, but they do seem to be obsessed with what other people are doing sexually.
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I’ve always thought of it as “Theistic Evolution” as opposed to “Evolutionary Creationism”; and that the argument about a First Cause (“unmoved mover”) could be separated from Creationism v. Evolution. Maybe it’s from school, where I studied under some brilliant scientists who were also devout Christians. They may just have been better than most at keeping their faith/belief separate from their work in science.
As an aside, the devout Christian who ran the university’s radioisotope dating laboratories had some…er…strong…things to say about Young Earth Creationists. 🙂
…and that’s why I tended to avoid philosophy classes in college. 😛
mpatk,
I don’t really care what we call evolution that began with God, as opposed to evolution that did not.
I am only really interested in the science, which does not take a position on God.
On the other hand, the more claims the Creationists make about things that are impossible with evolution, the more embarrassment as they are proven false, yet people keep listening to these preachers of nonsense.
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Mpatk:
As Rogue replied, there are some Creationist who view the subject as God creating the universe that life developed in. That’s the category I’m arguing.
None taken, sir (ma’am?).
You are correct, that’s the point I’m trying to get across is that Creationism can allow for the origin of life presented as a religious opinion. I’m with you on the form of Creationism that contradicts evolution is inaccurate and misleading.
Thanks for a good reply.
It’s actually a study published in 2006 (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9786-why-doesnt-america-believe-in-evolution.html), and I can’t find in the New Science article itself when the data was actually obtained. So you’re basing the definition of rampant off an undated, unknown study size, unknown sample group from a partisan magazine pushing an agenda from 2006.
You rip medical practices to shreds that are based off any one of those criteria all the time.
He’s saying we’re highly advanced because of our understanding of science, yet saying anti-science is rampant. It’s hard to have it both ways.
What failures? As for the tailbone, I fail to see how that ties into Creationism. You and I have hashed out the definition of Creationism, I understand you’re against the forms of anything that contradict science. My opinion all along has been you can have a Creationist view that still conforms to evolution, you’ve yet to show me a reason that’s anti-science. The opening line for Creationism on Wikipedia is “Creationism is the religious belief[1] that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic God.”
Where does that leave the tailbone issue? The mainstream Creationist idea only states life was created by a supernatural being. The claim isn’t that humanity exactly as it is now came about magically one day. There are plenty of fossil records to show the evolution of human.
You’re attacking the beliefs of a small group of people parading around as intelligent Creationist, using “smoke and mirrors” as you put it earlier.
Please stop, I’ve conceded to you in several post the viewpoint that contradicts science is wrong. You keep bringing up the contradiction of evolution issue and that is not the mainstream view of Creationist.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding your above comment then. Again, not trying to be dense. It seems like you’re attacking Creationism in it’s mainstream form by the tailbone comment, if you’re not, elaborate a little for me and we’ll go from there. The Creationist view in the above quoted form doesn’t have to make excuses because it never states anything that would contradict your tailbone reference.
Thanks for the catch. He kind of stutters right there and I misunderstood what he said, what you typed clarifies his point. No misquoting was intended.
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TexasMedicJMB,
You and Rogue do seem to be arguing past each other with regards to Creationism; but I think that you’re missing Rogue’s main point:
Do you think that the Divine Intervention aspect of Creationism should be taught in a science classroom?
Nobody here is saying that Creationism or belief in Divine Intervention can’t be taught in the appropriate place; the problem is that places like the Louisiana school in the last blog entry teach about God creating the world in science classes. Statements that a supernatural entity (or entities) created the Life, the Universe, and Everything (TM) is not science; not because it’s unproved but because it CAN NOT be proved.
TexasMedicJMB
I chose that because it is convenient and similar to what I have seen in other polls.
Here is a collection of a bunch of polls on evolution from the Pew Research Center.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1107/polling-evolution-creationism
As you can see, denial of evolution is rampant.
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With large part of the US denying science and large parts of the US supporting science, it is not at all a contradiction.
The science denialists oppose science, and regularly try to oppose scientific research, claiming that their preachers’ interpretation of some part of the Bible forbids whatever they don’t like.
Those who understand science are able to increase our understanding of science in spite of the obstacles from the science denialists.
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Why would a perfect being screw up something made in his own image by putting an atavistic tail in?
Why would a perfect being have an atavism?
Why would a perfect being have such an obvious imperfection?
Creationists have no sensible explanation, but evolution explains that our evolutionary ancestors had tails.
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So why are you defending this anti-science nonsense that does not remotely conform to evolution?
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If you read some more, there is a description of the many varieties of Creationism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism#Types_of_creationism
They even include percentages that follow several different preachers’ interpretations of the Bible.
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The tailbone is explained only by evolution.
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There are many different versions of Creationism.
The more common kind, according to the numbers cited by Wikipedia, is that there was no evolution.
Why do you have so much trouble recognizing how widespread this nonsense is?
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Again –
The more common kind, according to the numbers cited by Wikipedia, is that there was no evolution.
Why do you have so much trouble recognizing how widespread this nonsense is?
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I am attacking Creationism in its most numerous varieties, because that is the denial of evolution.
Perhaps you did not notice that only one Republican candidate for President of the US stated that he agreed with evolution.
Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Ron Paul, and Rick Santorum think that 6 Day Creationism should be taught as equal theories with evolution. They do not appear to understand that only one is a scientific theory.
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OK.
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You have not provided any evidence that Bill Nye has intentionally misrepresented science.
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Rogue, Mpatk:
Thank you both for your replies and discussion.
I’ll grant there is a ton of seemingly vestigial structures in several species. Interestingly, I learned the human body even carried a bit of vestigial DNA and proteins. If this discussion has done one thing it’s been to put me through Biology class again.
However, the tailbone isn’t even explained by evolution, much less “explained only by evolution”. Correct me if I’m wrong, but there are no fossil records that link us to an organism with a tail. Evolutionary progression would show a human relative with a tail structure that had later relatives minus the tail until eventually turning into the modern day human.
Religion doesn’t explain the tail, but neither does science.
I had honestly never realized there was a large following of this until we started discussing this topic. Maybe I had higher expectations for humanity. The Pew Research study you referenced is, admittedly, a bit disturbing. It also references a Gallup poll that was more in-depth that came up with similar results. The 6 Day Creationism bit bugs me due to the fact there is a Biblical verse in the book of Peter that said something to the effect of “One thousand days in your eyes are but one day to God”. The 7 days of creation weren’t supposed to be a literal 7 days (my opinion), it’s odd people believe that when the Bible even says God transcends time.
Where are you getting that from? Maybe I’ve missed some research, but I didn’t think a direct link had ever been established to a confirmed human ancestor having a tail.
If that’s the case then no, Creationist don’t have an answer, and neither does science.
I get bored pulling 48’s. 🙂
Three of those names you mentioned speak for themselves. Bachmann is an idiot, Rick Perry I’m ashamed to say came from Texas, and Paul needs to just stay in his house smoking his weed. Santorum was a guy I actually liked, and no, I wasn’t aware he ever voiced a Creationist view, thanks for pointing it out. I won’t drag out a political discussion, but Obama has made plenty of anti-education policies and statements himself. So has most every recent president for that matter, but that’s a discussion for another time.
Intentionally? Maybe not, but ignorance isn’t an excuse either when you try to pass yourself off as an expert. If I elect to cardiovert a NSR because I somehow thought it was SVT that’s my fault. I’m supposed to know cardiology because I’m a paramedic. Nye should know his science before he blabbers falsehoods out over the airwaves.
Mpatk:
For the most part, no. However,
I’ll still hold to the fact a private school has a right to teach what they will without interference of anyone else. We don’t have to agree with what they teach, but we do have the duty to allow their freedom to express, teach, and learn the ideas they wish.
I’ll keep the discussion for the public funding bit in the Part II discussion.
TexasMedicJMB,
There is live evidence.
Many mammals have tails of varying lengths. Humans are mammals.
We share evolutionary traits with other mammals.
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We have the same tailed ancestors as other mammals, up until the point where we diverged from the same evolutionary path.
We have hair.
We have vertebrae.
We have mammary glands.
We share many evolutionary origins.
It is by not looking at the evidence that we assume that science does not explain this.
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My point is that half of the people who were in the running, in one of the two main parties for the nomination for President, were in favor of teaching 6 Day Creationism and were receiving a lot of support for that position. This is not a fringe view.
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I think that most experts, who have made a lot of public statements, have made mistakes at some time. I know that I have made mistakes in some of my statements on podcasts.
You originally accused Bill Nye of using studies he has fabricated to further his agenda.
I don’t see any justification for that statement.
Again, this was not about Bill Nye, or about Bill Nye’s video – this was about the response from the Creation Museum.
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Bottom line: Science is observable. As soon as it gets mixed in with conclusions based on faith, it is no longer science. To consign children to this misconception of how knowledge is obtained is a horrendous abuse of their minds and their futures.
The twisting and, well, lying that goes into manufacturing what kids might take as consistency between science and religion [“Okay, we’ll compromise–god created everything and after that he created evolution,” etc.] cannot save creationist notions, or make them consistent with reality. Give your kids a break and let them learn how to analyze data for themselves.
Fiona Mackenzie,
Exactly.
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If we have to lie to teach, we need to reconsider the truth of what we are teaching.
This is the inerrant word of God, but it is just my interpretation (or my preacher’s interpretation) and there are many other interpretations. I need to use the power of the government to force my interpretation on you. Now we will explain the excuses that you will memorize for when you are faced with valid evidence that you are wrong. First – It’s just a theory.
If that is the way they teach science, I do not want to see how they teach ethics.
Honesty is much better than lies.
We need to oppose liars, even if they claim that God made them do it.
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