Thought I'd jump in about now...
Anyone want to participate? What do people think about this recent drive toward creationism in our schools?
I was unaware of any "recent drive toward creationism" in the school system, but if I were to make a guess, I'd say (assuming it is true) that its probably some kind of political backlash from the neo-conservatives in this country.
What do you think of this site?
Pseudo-science, plain and simple. These guys are attempting to use the tools of science to prove or justify their religious beliefs. They already have in their heads what they believe the "conclusion" to the experiment or observation should be. Last time I checked, the conclusion is the final stage of the scientific method; not the first.
Thus, pseudo-science.
Are there any creationists out there?
Depends on your definition.
I haven't seen the site (yet) but I consider myself a Creationist/evoluntionist. Mainly because I see that the "day" quoted in the bible (KJV) can equal to hundreds of thousands to millions of years to us.
In my opinion, and I mean no offense by this, the major problem with that position is that it is heavily revisionistic. Some people have a tendency to project modern scientific knowledge and discoveries onto the "ancients' writings". They are, in essence, revising the common understanding of these texts to fit in with our modernist worldviews.
The dilemma is that
no one that read the Bible up til the time evolutionary theory was highly refined would have interpreted one of the "days" as meaning anything other than a single solar day --- including the earliest readers of the text and probably the authors themselves. They all thought it was just a regular ol' day. Then, suddenly, when we find out the universe is actually *billions* of years old, some then decide that each "day"
really means an epoch or era. Curiously, however, these ideas of God creating the universe via evolution were
never articulated until science had
already explained what evolution was in the first place!!
This, in my opinion, also has a slight tinge of pseudo-science --- but it is an understandable position.
Oh yeah...these are the guys who apparently have a painting in their lobby showing one of Noah's sons feeding the animals...including, it seems, a stegosaur.
Yep. Almost as ridiculous as those "sculpts" of human footprints-within-a-dinosaur's. The joys of scientific creationism are endless.
Scientifically, there is no support for the explanation that God intervened at all with evolution. It is absolutely untestable. The anthropic principle stands on faith alone and is completely inductive.
This assumes that the creation of humankind required some kind of special intervention in the first place. Who's to say that evolution itself is simply not "God-in-action" (so to speak), thus completely negating the need for a special intervention (what, God's gonna intervene on himself??)???
Well that's because *sometimes* science doesn't recoginize God.
Well, the scientific community (as an academic field) doesn't recognize "God" as a scientific "fact" at all. However, there are many individuals within that community that do believe in God; this is usually independent of their careers as scientists, though.
Mebbe my beliefs are too simplistic for science and aren't going to hold up to scrutinity but far as I'm concerned that doesn't really help out in my own personal salvation. It just confirms things that I know base on faith alone, anthropic or not.
Technically speaking, you don't "know" anything based on faith. You believe based on faith.
About 7 years ago, my then girlfriend (now wife) were on a vacation to Washington DC. We were touring the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. We were standing by one of the diorama's of early humans around a fire pit. We almost couldn't believe it when a man a bit older than we were (early 30's) told a youngster with him (I am assuming his son) that "This never happened. It is all made up. God created Man".
That really isn't that surprising. Many people in the world still think like that.
That absolute literal translation of the bible is still being taught and believed in our country.
Its being taught in a lot of other countries, too.
And too many of us do not understand that Science is self correcting ... whereas Faith is not.
He's got a point there.
P.S. The web site is garbage ... the article I read treated Noah and the Flood as fact when discussing how DNA can store and disperse the genetic material after such a catastrophic event. By treating DNA as fact, in the same sentence as treating 'The Flood' as fact belies any credibility.
I'm inclined to agree.
However we have the most ill concieved notion of early man. First of all, they had a better diet and actualy did live longer.
This must be your own pet hypothesis, then, because I've taken numerous anthropology and biology classes and none of my professors expressed that kind of idea.
Regarding diet, early man usually went long periods of time without eating at all. When they managed to kill (or find) a large animal, they would usually gorge themselves and then go for more periods of time without eating. I doubt that was very healthy.
Regarding the lifespans, its fairly evident the further back we go the shorter people actually lived. Particularly, considering all the diseases (hee: no medicine yet) and chaotic elements they had to deal with.
Secondly, and this is what I find most interesting, the language they used was by far more complex than ours.
This is also a false assumption. Comparing homo sapien sapiens to our earlier ancestors gives ready proof that we have a higher level of communication developed.
Even the Eskimos (Inuit) have about sixty words for snow
The Inuit aren't "early man" they are a still-existing homo sapien culture.
yet we continualy dumb down fully confident we are the most advanced peoples to ever walk the earth.
Yes, and we have numerous words for a single concept as well (often things like money, sex, and violence). So what??
These are cultural differences on the horizontal scale that do not prove a "higher" level of communication one way or another. Also, for all your claims that the Inuit have a "higher language" than us, they were not the ones that established a worldwide informational "web" (which you're using right now).
My point is that the whole "ugh ugh err err" caveman mentality is absolutly false.
I suggest taking some anthropology courses, friend. The Inuit are not cavemen.
And, also, that mentality is quite accurate (when compared to our own understanding of language). Although, it does become overtly caricaturized by the media.
OK, so some guy decides that a lot of animals look like each other and there for must have turned into each other over time. Ya, sounds like a real nifty idea.
You obvioulsy have a very limited understanding of the scientific method, or the particular evidence used to support evolutionary theory.
No reasoned thinker could possibly come to the conclusion that homo sapiens are an accident of the universe. We are a part of the universe, drawn from all of that which has come before us, and all of the powers in the universe acting upon that which preceded us.
*nods* Yes, I agree.
Laterz.
unfortunatily...I couldn't find a smiley face for complete stupidity.... 
