Smackle Wrote:

TaylorSan Wrote:"Only about half of Americans accept evolution"

Just curious - where is this information is coming from?

Well, I quoted two polls, but in case you want to read the whole thing...

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/su...3/5788/765 (Requires subscription)

http://www.gallup.com/poll/14107/Third-A...heory.aspx

I uploaded the zipped first article here for the sake of open discussion.

Evil_Dragon Wrote:"God made Adam and Eve on the same day as land animals. So dinosaurs and people lived at the same time."
"Originally, before Adam sinned, all animals - including dinosaurs - were vegetarian"

Wha..

It sounds crazy, but the Bible makes brief references to such things. Bible says it, somebody out there will take it literally. The logic goes like this:
The genealogies in the Bible only go back around 6000 years, which indicates/implies the earth is only that old(humans created on the sixth day). Which means dinosaurs can't have lived longer than ~6000 years ago, meaning they must have been around at the same time as humans. As further evidence, there's a description of a bizarre creature that sounds very much like a dinosaur.
The vegetarian thing is mentioned briefly. The idea is that when God made the world, it was "good" and therefore there was no sin, no death, no suffering. So, of course, the animals weren't killing and eating each other until after sin entered the world.

IceCream Wrote:the truly disturbing thing about it is not (the scientifically trashed) theories... if someone wants to have faith in the bible, that's up to them. It's even possible to beleive in what the bible says as metaphor which gestures towards other things, which leads to much stronger interpretations anyway. Its the presentation of it as Scientific Fact, and the actual lies that are told about real science. "We all have the same facts, we just interpret them different ways"?!?! ummm no. We have evidence and methods to determine the age of things. Really really really indisputable evidence. The dinosaurs did not exist 4000 years ago.

i swear, everyone who is not stupid should do their bit for the evolution of human beings and have 6 kids.

Blasphemy against science? I find it somewhat disturbing that some people cling to science the same way others cling to religion. Is it so wrong for them to look for evidence of what they really believe is true? Does it really matter if someone doesn't believe in macro-evolution or whatever? Most people(including people that believe in evolution) don't look into the details behind the theories and just blindly accept what they are inclined to. I don't think it harms anyone. I understand both sides of the creation-evolution debate, but I don't see how it really makes a difference either way. Personally, I think everyone is crazy.

yukamina Wrote:Does it really matter if someone doesn't believe in macro-evolution or whatever? Most people(including people that believe in evolution) don't look into the details behind the theories and just blindly accept what they are inclined to. I don't think it harms anyone. I understand both sides of the creation-evolution debate, but I don't see how it really makes a difference either way. Personally, I think everyone is crazy.

It greatly affects public schools, because they are constantly pressured to teach Creationism. Also, it affects the political climate in some places:

(for example)

Believing in evolution is sometimes painted as a "left-winged" or "liberal" thing and therefore, un-American.

@yukamina - I believe that IceCream wasn't speaking of a 'blasphemy' against science but was emphasizing that it's problematic in its undermining of rational thought, the discouragement of testing hypotheses and basing one's perspective about physical facts about the world around us on empirical evidence, and especially so to institutionalize this as if the Bible and science textbooks share the same bailiwick and criteria for acceptance.

I think that it might be easy to glance at the scientific standards people take for granted, and it's worthwhile to propose scientific literacy and critical thought ('science' is already big on this sort of thing, so it's a matter of safeguarding it in that sense, against religious bias and journalistic misrepresentation/misinterpretation and bad scientists, etc.), but it's hard for me to think that the world would be a very nice place if religion and science were intermixed and placed on equally dismissed 'doesn't really matter' footing, as the former thrives without the latter in the worst ways.

Evolution is one of the lynchpins of modern thought, even if its details and overt status is taken for granted by many and the mechanism of its process is implicitly assumed to be true, especially for those who benefit from the specialization and work of others who apply elsewhere the same rational, evidence-based method that engendered the emergence of evolution as an essentially unassailable theory--things that might not exist if one takes it so much for granted that taking it for granted itself or outright mindless anti-intellectualism is considered harmless.

Wow, I just reiterated, in shoddier form, the same generic arguments that have been making the rounds for eons. 気持ち悪い。

yukamina Wrote:

IceCream Wrote:the truly disturbing thing about it is not (the scientifically trashed) theories... if someone wants to have faith in the bible, that's up to them. It's even possible to beleive in what the bible says as metaphor which gestures towards other things, which leads to much stronger interpretations anyway. Its the presentation of it as Scientific Fact, and the actual lies that are told about real science. "We all have the same facts, we just interpret them different ways"?!?! ummm no. We have evidence and methods to determine the age of things. Really really really indisputable evidence. The dinosaurs did not exist 4000 years ago.

i swear, everyone who is not stupid should do their bit for the evolution of human beings and have 6 kids.

Blasphemy against science? I find it somewhat disturbing that some people cling to science the same way others cling to religion. Is it so wrong for them to look for evidence of what they really believe is true? Does it really matter if someone doesn't believe in macro-evolution or whatever? Most people(including people that believe in evolution) don't look into the details behind the theories and just blindly accept what they are inclined to. I don't think it harms anyone. I understand both sides of the creation-evolution debate, but I don't see how it really makes a difference either way. Personally, I think everyone is crazy.

Not at all... by saying, "if someone wants to have faith in the bible, it's up to them", i was trying to point to that kind of idea. It's not "faith" that bothers me in the slightest. I even agree (to some extent), you pick the one that suits your world view best and follow it.

It's the outright lying about scientific reasoning, and the presentation of religious ideas as scientific fact that bothers me. In the museum, they indicate in a lot of places that there is scientific evidence for this and that bible story, that there just simply isn't. They aren't presenting religion as faith, they are presenting it as alternative scientific fact. For those people who haven't been introduced to or don't yet understand real scientific method, of course that is going to interfere with their understanding. In order for someone to be able to freely choose what to beleive, or to try to come to some reconcilliation of religion and science, the truth MUST be presented on both sides. There are many true scientists who are also religious. I don't think that such a division is really as necessary as fundamental christians beleive. But even if it was... it still should be presented as faith, and not "alternative science".

yukamina Wrote:Is it so wrong for them to look for evidence of what they really believe is true?

Yes it is. People should base their beliefs on the evidence they find. Not base the evidence on what happens to be their beliefs for whatever reason.

Since we are on the topic of religion, I thought I'd share this link:

The title is a bit misleading but in the video scientists discuss about the Quran's scientific discoveries of human embryo development and mountain orogeny.

@yukamina

Related article that shows why it's important to accept scientific views.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010...potent.ars

"Once a subject has decided that a given topic is off limits to science, they tend to start applying the same logic to other issues. "

So once people decide that Science can't explain evolution, then they're more likely to believe that it doesn't explain other stuff, like GW and that can lead to bad decision making etc.

yukamina Wrote:I don't think it harms anyone.

Aside from what the others said, I came to the realization that these people don't believe in evolution and the constant changing of the Earth that is progressing in a logical, explainable way. It made me think, how could they even begin to debate climate change, how to preserve the environment and so on? Even if most people who have accepted (or 'believe' as you put it) evolution did so blindly, something I don't fully agree on at least regarding the citizens of my own country, it would at least be an assumption that is based on actual scientific fact and is much more useful for trying to understand the world and planning for the future.

And if everyone's crazy, tell me, what does that make you?

Thanks for the pics.

That museum was a really a big joke.

As a Christian Muslim with Shintoist tendencies I am patently offended by this topic, the links posted in it and the majority of responses. I would think men and women of your intelligence could find less offensive and controversial topics to debate.. SMACKLE.

That is all.