Sunday, December 19, 2004

Follow-up on the christian science fair.

I thought this was interesting enough of a topic to post as a new post....

At 8:29 PM, Clupbert said…

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6713443/ I think you should read this article. I am not saying that I believe the earth was created 10,000 years ago, but to say there is conclusive evidence that men came from apes and stuff would be wrong. Even scientists admit it is still just a theory, and you should read some things that say just how possible this is to have genetic mutations millions of times in a relatively finite time of 17 billion years. Until evolution becomes a law, and not a theory, I think it is ok to discuss opposition to it. Again go to that article. Even that famous atheist philosopher recently came out saying that he now concludes that an intelligent creator must have created the universe, and he is a very very very educated man. PS I'm not christian.


this was in response to the christian "science" fair.

The problem i had with it wasn't the event of a christian science fair, but that there was no science in the christian science fair. One of the winners won by showing her uncle was not a monkey, by showing he didn't like bananas. This is not science, this should have got an F if it was for a grade. Why? Because that is like me proving the world is flat by giving you a map printed on paper.... what kind of science is that?
Let's teach our kids to argue and think, instead of coming up with a witty (wrong) answer.
(p.s. I am a christian)

8 comments:

Clupbert said...

Oh give me a break. Look I wasn't at the fair, but that's not all you talked about in that post. Here let me quote you for you.

"ok here is the deal:
Scientists, you find out how the world works.
Religious folk, you tell us how to live a moral life.
Let’s not mix the two, because when we do it becomes a mess of nothingness.

the left is intolerant and extremist, the far right is making a false science that they think is helping their cause.
where do the smart people hide?... I like different ideas, let’s just think through them first. I guess that’s why I have my friends, they have viewpoints that aren’t blatantly wrong (they might be different than mine, but they aren’t stupid viewpoints)."

You said not to mix the two: science and religion. I would say that that statement is not limited to the fair, but of course you just made a general statement trying to make me look like an ass. You know for a fact that you didn't just talk about the fair, let's admit it... I was just saying we can be open to religious interpretations because they didn't necessarily conflict with science. Here is a good example of what I'm talking about. http://www.christiananswers.net/catalog/bk-ct.html And I mentioned I am not christian because you claim that "far-right" religious people only believe in that stuff and I am not far right and don't have a fundamentalist christian agenda. I just have an open mind that maybe the Bible is a more accurate historical record than people think. Thanks for the post, it was in very poor taste you ass.

Ookami Snow said...

^_^, sorry you took it in such the wrong way. I didn’t mean for it to be mean to you, it was just my quick response to it since i am watching the Packers/Jags game. (maybe i should be more careful with the comments on my blog?)

Anyways, by separating religion and science i mean lets not let science get in the way of religion and religion get in the way of science.


I do agree that the Bible has more truth than many people think (we were talking about this at dinner one time). People call the cities in it a myth only to uncover them later. I think the Bible is truthful, but i would not use it as a science book.

Sorry that my post got you so worked up... i didn't mean for it too, and thank you for following up with you thoughts, it is good to hear all sides of the story.
(Oh please don't call me, or anyone, names, that isn't nice.)

Clupbert said...

Fine by me. I just thought it was kind of whack to take my comments out of context.

Ookami Snow said...

I didnt want to have to repost my initial post, i figured most people would have know about that post, so i thought it wasn't needed.

Here is the text about the elementry school winner from the web site:
1st Place: "My Uncle Is A Man Named Steve (Not A Monkey)"
Cassidy Turnbull (grade 5) presented her uncle, Steve. She also showed photographs of monkeys and invited fairgoers to note the differences between her uncle and the monkeys. She tried to feed her uncle bananas, but he declined to eat them. Cassidy has conclusively shown that her uncle is no monkey.

Anonymous said...

Okay I'm sorry but that's just bs. You can NEVER prove the theory of evolution EVER. Does that mean it didn't happen? NO. You also can't prove the theories of relativitiy, but a lot of things make them look correct. Also it's not like we came out of apes exactly... the split was from a more ape-like creature around 1.8 million years ago (I forget the exact date). So where in the Bible do they describe the Austrolopithecines? Homo Erectus? Neoandrothals? Did those come before or after Adam and Eve? Were they God's failed experiments? What do we learn from assuming that the Bible is correct? If we didn't "come from apes", why do we share so much genetic similarity to them? Why is there a near perfect progression that matches evolution in the development of so many body parts and the brain? I know I know... God decided to put the other humans and the dinosaurs on the earth to "test our faith"... Why would the Bible rather than Native American, Indian, or African creation stories be correct? Of course the Bible is based on history, these people weren't writing out of their asses. That doesn't mean the Bible IS history. That's like saying the novel Gettysburg is truly what happened. Sure some of the things might have happened, but its a story to describe interesting events and teach us about the world. Sorry I'm just so tired of people's lack of actual knowledge about the FACTS of evolution... I've been dealing with this crap since I was in grade school (a Catholic grade school) and it makes me crazy. (p.s. I'm a Christian depending on who you ask... :))

Anonymous said...

So by 1.8 million years ago I actually meant 5.8 million years ago when the first hominid is dated to (it may be slightly older). I had to look it up... it was bugging me.

Clupbert said...

reasons.org has all of those answers

Anonymous said...

Reasons.org is a load of bullshit that makes huge logical leaps and ridiculous presumptions. It seems like the people who wrote the articles for that site failed to actually read the articles which they were citing. For example, the article on the molecular clock. They cite an article from the Journal of Molecular Evolution which "proves that the molecular clock is wrong" and thus evolution fails. I imagine the authors of the article they cite would pass out if they saw how out of context their work is being taken. The conclusion of the original article studying the molecular clock in the Perissodactyla does not say that the molecular clock is all wrong and should never be used but rather cautions that it should be used with care and using multiple calibration points. Now here's a novel concept... evolution does not require the molecular clocks accuracy nor the accuracy of any dating techniques to be an accurate theory. Sure it helps, but the exact dating of things is less important than the relative dating of things (which is much more accurate). You claimed that the cite had arguments for the hominid evolution. So here's their basic argument... People argue about the exact evolution of Homo sapiens from earlier homonids thus evolution didn't happen. What the fuck? Okay so anthropologist can't decide if we were the same line as Homo erectus or not... but they pretty much agree that there is a fairly clear evolution from one homonid form to the next, maybe not distinguishing which lines were terminal and which led directly to humans, but they can still create a pretty good pattern. The website also has an article comparing natural origins to the creationist origins. Here I'll summarize that article for you... no primordial soup=creationism. They basically say that because the origins are not clear that it demonstrates creationism and creationism is provable from the predictions it makes. Forgive me but I must be reading the wrong Bible story. Isn't this the same story that creates all animals and plants and everything in 6 days? Oh I get it it's not all of the Bible that's true just the bits that we want to focus on... So they give us the age of the earth and the fact that at one point there were small less complex creatures that were present without more complex life... So how did those less complex creatures become complex creatures? Did God just get bored with the little protozoans and create man one day? Don't remember that in the Bible either. Also if there is good evidence for any homonids prior to Homo sapiens, what the hell happened to them? Why weren't they mentioned in creation? Were they the true Adam and Eve? Eve the austrolopithecine. (By the way... we now know that females came before males, sorry) Sure there is no conclusive proof that man came from apes, but there's a hell of a lot of evidence that points in that direction. The thing that makes me the angriest about that crap site is that they make all of these jumps from this aspect of evolution looks to be wrong to this proves creationism. Another thing that drives me nuts is this whole thing about evolution can't be true because there's no slow progression of development (which is of course proof for creationism). There's not a person out there studying evolution who would tell you that it is characterized by slow steady change. It's all punctuated equilibrium. There are slow periods of very little change and rapid times of extensive evolution. For example, the Cambrian explosion is not particularly troublesome for evolutionary theory... perhaps the lack of intermediate forms of things, but new genetic research indicates that mutation of single gene can cause a mutation in multiple gene expressions. Let's think about some examples of human gene expressions. Slight variations in hormone (estrogen specifically)levels in the uterus during develop can completely alter the brain organization of an infant. A masculine (XY) baby can have a female brain (including sexually dimorphic brain regions) from this estrogen influx. If something so subtle as a slight increase in estrogen can completely change the brain, why couldn't this be possible for other aspects of development as well, including genetic expression? Many diseases are genetically transmitted, for example auto-immune diseases, but they remain latent until a stress reaction produces the genetic expression of those diseases. There is no reason to believe that changes in environment, which would have produced varying stresses, could not similarly have caused gene expression in animals which then may or may not have been adaptive. Reasons.org does not give a single logical reason that evolution is a false theory... they do present some challenges to mechanisms of evolution especially in the origins, but they clearly do not refute the basic core of evolution.