…and this is a 
That Answers in Genesis crackpot, Terry Mortenson, is speaking on "Millions of Years" at the Creation "Museum". Those of us who visited that circus of charlatanry know that this is one of their obsessions — the idea that the earth is more than 6000 years old is one of the wrecking balls atheists use to destroy faith.
He's right, of course. It's a very useful tool. When fundamentalists tie their faith absolutely to a claim that is easily refuted, that contradicts the evidence, and that requires them to constantly escalate their denial and delusions in order to sustain their belief, it makes it really easy for atheists to demolish their religion. We don't even need to attack religion in the classroom at all — we just calmly lay out the facts, let the students work out the conclusions, and sometimes…it's epiphany time! They realize their pastor lied to them, or was just really ignorant, and suddenly their respect for Christian authority begins to crumble away.
It's not the atheist's fault, though. The lesson should be, "Don't lie to your kids," not "Silence the people who would reveal that you lied to your kids," or worse, "Lie harder."
This is not a lesson that Mortenson has learned. He is apparently planning to babble about revisionist history in his talk, claiming that the evidence for the age of the earth is the product of an atheist conspiracy among geologists.
To really understand what is wrong with belief in millions of years, we need to go back to the early 19th century and study the origin of this idea. This unique and interesting lecture, based on Dr. Mortenson's PhD research, will clearly show that the idea was not the result of just letting the rocks and fossils "speak for themselves" but rather comes from anti-Biblical worldviews (or philosophical assumptions) being imposed on the geological evidence. The talk explains the key men who helped develop the idea of millions of years, one of the geologically competent Christians who opposed those theories, and the subsequent consequences of the church's compromise with millions of years. Even non-Christians would find this lecture thought-provoking.
Hah! The only thought it would provoke in me is to wonder where they kept the straitjackets. Looney-tunes revisionist history is not thought-provoking in a good sense.
I actually spend a fair amount of lecture time on the early history of geology in my introductory biology course. One reason is that, if you talk to most people, you will discover this fallacious belief that evolution leapt fully-formed from the brain of Charles Darwin, and there's an anachronistic idea that ideas about the age of the earth, which are built on independent evidence from geology and astronomy, are somehow rooted in biology. It's not so! Darwin's antecedents had already laid the foundations in working out that the earth was old, that life had undergone many transitions, and that maybe species were mutable. Evolution was an inevitable conclusion of the evidence; Darwin and Wallace were just the clever fellows who managed to pull the whole story together.
I find it very useful to give students a quick overview of 18th and 19th century geology before we talk about Darwin, since the creationists in the classroom usually have this image of Darwin as Satan who foisted a false belief on the world because he hated god (hey, sounds like Terry Mortenson!). It's very useful to be able to show how views of the world evolved, not by ideology, but by the growth of a body of evidence.
Let's begin with Robert Hooke (1635-1703). He dabbled brilliantly in many things, but one subject of particular interest was the origin of these curious fossils that people kept digging up, which were thought to be either creatures turned to stone by some miraculous process, or were the expression of an intrinsic nature of stone to mimic life. Hooke examined the details of fossils microscopically, and determined that they had once been alive, and also worked out how the transformation had occurred — by the perfusion of minerals into buried or immersed dead organisms. He also examined the distribution of fossils; finding fossilized clams on mountaintops, for instance, says something about the prior state of that environment.
Most of those Inland Places. . . are, or have been heretofore under the Water. . . the Waters have been forc'd away from the Parts formerly cover'd, and many of those surfaces are now raised above the level of the Water's Surface many scores of Fathoms. It seems not improbable, that the tops of the highest and most considerable Mountains in the World have been under Water, and that they themselves most probably seem to have been the Effects of some very great Earthquake.
These conclusions were evidence-driven. Almost no one in the late 17th century would have been interested in opposing religion, so you can't pin that heresy on Hooke. He is simply describing the natural world and finding certain conclusions inescapable, including some to which creationists today still can't adjust — and note that he is writing this more than 300 years ago.
There have been many other Species of Creatures in former Ages, of which we can find none at present; and that 'tis not unlikely also but that there may be divers new kinds now, which have not been from the beginning.
And then there's Baron Cuvier (1769-1832) and Alexandre Brongniart (1770-1847) who studied the rocks of the Paris Basin. There were many quarries situated around Paris that cut deep into the hills to provide building stone, and they gave these two the opportunity to look into the structure of the rocks. They identified five major layers, and by examining the fossils, worked out what kinds of animals and plants lived there when the layers were deposited. They found that layers with saltwater species were interleaved with layers containing freshwater species — Paris had been under the sea at least twice!
Cuvier was not an atheist. In fact, he was even adamant that the earth was relatively young, but in a way that contradicts what Answers in Genesis would tell you. He had worked out that there were different assemblages of animals in each layer, and proposed an explanation: a series of ages, each very different, with the most recent major catastrophe occurring five or six thousand years ago (to bring it in line with the literal interpretation of the Bible) and sweeping away prior forms to allow for the flourishing of human beings.
It is certain that we are now at least in the fourth succession of terrestrial animals. The age of reptiles was followed by that of the palaeotheres [primitive mammals], then the age of mammoths, mastodons, and megatheria. Finally we arrive at the age of the human species together with domestic animals. It is only in the deposits subsequent to the beginning of this age, in turf-bogs and alluvial deposits, that we find bones all of which belong to animals now existing...None of these remains belong either to the vast deposits of the great catastrophe or to those of the ages preceding that wonderful event.
If you want someone who was willing to assert that the earth was very, very old, we have to look to the Scottish geologist James Hutton (1726-1797), who was accused of atheism for his ideas, but they were backed up entirely by hard-earned evidence. He postulated that the geology we see was created by multiple cycles of sedimentary deposition, volcanic uplift, and erosion, and he mapped and documented complex unconformities and intrusions that demonstrated that the history of the earth was complex and required great time for the formation and distortion of rock. He also found that the evidence of the time was insufficient to even show the history of the beginning of the earth, which is why he closed his book, Theory of the Earth, with the famous line, "The result, therefore, of our present enquiry is, that we find no vestige of a beginning,—no prospect of an end."
Again, his conclusion was dictated by the evidence, not some atheistic philosophy.
At the same time Cuvier and Brongniart were exploring the Paris Basin, William Smith (1769-1839) was walking all over England, building up his geological map. We know what his motivation was: it was economic. He worked in mines, and was eager to capitalize on the opportunities opened up by the Industrial Revolution. Railroad and canal cuts exposed the strata of English geology all over the place, and being able to assess good locations for coal mines was a profitable skill — much like petroleum geology now. Smith observed consistent features of geology, like the way rocks were layered, and what fossils were present in specific layers, and could see that a layer was a slice of time, and that each slice contained different animals (which led to his Principle of Faunal Succession). He worked out the first geological map of Britain on the basis of his surveying.
There is a pattern to geology: we can see that the strata are not purely local phenomena, but part of formations that often extend continent-wide. These strata also have a predictable order that reflects the timing of their formation. These observations are not reconcilable with the simplistic dogma of the creationists.
Charles Lyell was also an important geologist, who was also very influential on Charles Darwin. He was not an atheist, but rather, a devout Christian, which caused him considerable discomfort since he was never able to accept the full implications of Darwin's work. Lyell's key dictum was that the present is the key to the past, that what you needed to do was work out mechanisms in action right now and use those to explain what must have happened in the past.
Darwin himself applied this principle to estimate a minimum age for the earth. He knew from published observations that a rapid rate of sedimentary deposition was 600 feet in 100,000 years; he also knew that the known strata in England had a depth of over 72,000 feet, which implied that the earth had to be at least 12 million years old.
It's so widely accepted that even creationists use it — it's the basis for their arguments that the ocean sediments and moon dust say the earth is young. Unfortunately, the way they accomplish that is by either using the wrong numbers for accumulation or ignoring the multiple processes that affect the rate.
It is simply ludicrous to claim that 18th or 18th century geologists bent their interpretation to fit some imaginary godless worldview — in general, the scholars of that period were more concerned with avoiding conflicts with religion, since the majority of them were doctrinaire church-going Christians themselves. What led them to the conclusion that the earth was millions, and then billions of years old was the evidence, not their ideology.
And now, of course, the evidence is even more overwhelming, and it's mostly physics at its heart. Trying to salvage Bishop Ussher's weird numerological and biblical 17th century chronology in the 21st century by invoking the incomplete understanding of 19th century scholars is exactly the kind of inanity we've come to expect from creationists.
Humanities & Social Science
Physical Science
Comments
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | August 21, 2009 12:43 PM
That "whooshing" sound you just heard was PZ's excellent post sailing far over the heads of any and all creationists that read it.
Posted by: Mixter | August 21, 2009 12:49 PM
I thought this was an interesting read:
Naughty Christians who don't have a problem with actual science...
Mixter
Posted by: SC, OM | August 21, 2009 12:50 PM
This was good!
:D
Posted by: daveau
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August 21, 2009 12:55 PM
Anyone who thinks that Darwin had a preconceived notion about millions of years, would do well to read "The Voyage of the Beagle."
Posted by: Roameo
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August 21, 2009 12:56 PM
Thanks for the history lesson.
... now I kinda feel like I owe you for tuition damnit... Do you accept payment in Karma, hail maries or engrams?
Posted by: Anodyne | August 21, 2009 12:56 PM
Sure. Twist the data how you want just to make your side "right". The Chosen™ know that Satan has been tempting people since long before the 18th century. It doesn't take a genius to realize that The Dark One chose these "scientists" because they were easily manipulated. They thought they were Godly, but they were really just pawns of Satan. And now they will be in eternal torment for eternity because they sought this occult "knowlege". God is the only true source of knowledge! Anything research we may do is flawed, because we, as humans are flawed. Only God deserves to wear a lab coat. You stupid Atheists need to cast aside your religion of science and repent!
Posted by: Alyson Miers | August 21, 2009 12:57 PM
Do you ever notice how conspiracy theories end up looking an awful lot like theistic belief? The main thing is, a conspiracy theory is totally unfalsifiable. Any evidence against the theory is just appropriated as evidence for the effectiveness of the conspiracy. "They got to you, too! They're everywhere! Trust no one!" It's like, the conspirators are gods, and the lack of evidence of conspiracy is the "mysterious ways."
Posted by: recovering catholic | August 21, 2009 12:57 PM
For those who haven't read "The Map that Changed the World" by Simon Winchester, you're in for a real treat. It tells of William Smith's traipsing across the British Isles and his studies of geology that eventually led to his drawing of the remarkable map PZ posted. He endured many physical and financial hardships (in addition to being married to a nymphomaniacal wife) but carried on nonetheless.
(I knew that last sentence would convince you perverted Pharynguloids to get the book.)
Posted by: MikeMa | August 21, 2009 12:57 PM
Great article. Hope your students appreciate what you are giving them.
Minor correction in the 2nd the last paragraph: 18th or 18th should read 17th or 18th.
Posted by: Tilting At Windmills | August 21, 2009 12:57 PM
A smarter religion accepts that religion is about religion and not history, biology, or chemistry. When I went to Catholic school we were never taught in science class about ID except that it was a theory before Darwin. Of course, in religion class we were told that god guided things along, that he created the universe so it would end up with us, which is completely unprovable and doesn't contradict science. There is a thought in physics that claims that the universe can only exist if there is an observer so maybe it all will hold together in the end if you just let science be science. ;)
Posted by: Sastra | August 21, 2009 12:58 PM
Now that's just silly. There's a secret atheist conspiracy, all right -- but it's Young Earth Creationism! Not only do we make God testable, we do it in a way which falsifies it. Former believers then come over to the Dark Side in droves -- at least, the smart ones do, and those are the best catches. Now that agent Hovind is no longer active, agent Ham is doing double duty. Shhh. Mustn't let anyone know...
Last year I bought and read Simon Winchester's The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology. Very good indeed -- reads like fiction, and is aimed at the general public. I recommend it.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 21, 2009 1:03 PM
An under-acknowledged problem with the whole Ussherian effort is that it still requires historical knowledge to make the whole thing work. If you start with Genesis 5, you can add up people's ages and get a figure for how long the story takes. (Sort of like figuring out the internal chronology of Star Trek from offhand comments like, "The Earth-Romulan war was fought a hundred years ago.") This process is inherently fuzzy, because the Bible is a mashup of different stories. To quote a bit of deadpan snark by Roger Ebert, "We know that Noah was 600 years, two months and 17 days old when he sailed. Using that as a starting point and counting forward, Genesis tells us it lasted for 40, 150, 253, 314 or 370 days." But even if you could tell down to the day the time span between the Fall and the coronation of King Solomon, you still need historical data to say how long ago King Solomon lived. You're at an unstable equilibrium: you need the methods and the results of empirical inquiry to hook your Biblical chronology onto that of history, but once you let those methods into your head, you risk accepting the rest of what they have discovered.
Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM | August 21, 2009 1:04 PM
Six thousand years since Adam's "birth"--
The bible tells us so.
A few more days, the age of Earth;
P.Z., you ought to know!
The sediments were all laid down
As rivers ran their courses
And fossils deep within the ground
Are merely Jesus Horses!
The "old-earth" claim, a wrecking ball
Assaulting my belief,
Will never cause my faith to fall,
But always cause me grief;
I grieve for people everywhere--
It really gives me pains--
Who cannot bring their faith to bear...
And have to use their brains.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | August 21, 2009 1:04 PM
#6
Now that's how to Poe!
Posted by: JefFlyingV | August 21, 2009 1:04 PM
PZ excellent article, thanks for letting me sit in class today.
Posted by: Knockgoats | August 21, 2009 1:04 PM
There is a thought in physics that claims that the universe can only exist if there is an observer - Tilting at Windmills
[citation needed]
Posted by: wright | August 21, 2009 1:04 PM
A very clear summary of the historical science that led to our current understanding of the world. I grew up with that kind of reasoning, then became a Christian later in life.
After some 15 years, the wilfull ignorance of the Fundamentalists, among other things, caused me to regretfully shift back to atheism. What science and reason have revealed is more useful and appealing than religion, however comforting the latter once was to me.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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August 21, 2009 1:06 PM
Nothing like a PZ science post during lunch. Feed both the mind and body.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 21, 2009 1:07 PM
Familiarity with actual quantum physics FAIL.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | August 21, 2009 1:07 PM
What's great is that they figured out that the earth had to be at least hundreds of millions of years old without anything like radiometric dating.
Then that only lengthened the time earth has existed--because, of course, much of earth's sediments have been recycled into other sediments, the crust, or igneous and metamorphic rocks.
And astronomical dating methods confirm radiometric dating back at least 100 million years.
You know the young earth is bad if the IDiots don't adopt it, since they'd love to claim that not enough time for evolution existed. As it is, they tolerate young earth, because they care neither about truth or science.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Posted by: daveau
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August 21, 2009 1:11 PM
Seriously, take out the TM and throw in a few CAPS, and I'd have to read that more than twice to be sure. Hilarious.
Posted by: Dahan | August 21, 2009 1:13 PM
recovering catholic @ 8,
You beat me to it. I love that book. As a lover of science and an antique map collector, its nothing but win for me.
Posted by: Vito T | August 21, 2009 1:13 PM
You know ALL those guys were possessed by Satan, right?
There, consider yourself rebutted.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | August 21, 2009 1:13 PM
This is why I love this site...
Come for the science, stay for the smackdown of stupid...
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | August 21, 2009 1:20 PM
That and "atheists" was spelled correctly... dead giveaway.
Posted by: Cat's Staff | August 21, 2009 1:20 PM
I love it how creationists can't even bring themselves to say billions. I have heard them say many times that science claims that he Earth is 'millions' or 'millions and millions' or maybe 'hundreds of millions' of years old. Either they want to make their claim seem closer to reality, or they are hold overs from the days before radiometric dating was able to come up with a date of 4 billion years.
Posted by: John | August 21, 2009 1:20 PM
Ramen!!! PZ Ramen!!!
Posted by: oblate sphereoid | August 21, 2009 1:21 PM
As a regular reader,and a professional geologist for 25 years now, I thank you for this excellent overview of the history of geology and its role in the development of modern science.
And yes, The Map That Changed The World is an excellent book. I make geologic maps for a living, and I proudly stand on Smith's giant shoulders.
Posted by: Josh | August 21, 2009 1:25 PM
What an excellent post!
Thanks PZ!!
Posted by: James Brown | August 21, 2009 1:25 PM
Mormons believe in evolution.
The odd part about it is that if you ask a Mormon if he believes in evolution he will answer "Yes" 90% of the time but if you ask him if he was a product of evolution he will answer "No" 90% of the time.
Somehow this doesn't bother them and allows them to be at once for and against evolution...
Makes you head hurt to talk to them
Posted by: K-dub | August 21, 2009 1:29 PM
I imagine many of the astute readers and commenters here are already familiar with the book Measuring Eternity: The Search for the Beginning of Time, by Martin Gorst. But if not, I recommend it as an interesting and informative read about some of the people and questions referenced in this post.
That is all.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, OM | August 21, 2009 1:29 PM
When I saw Smith's map, I jump into the comments with the intent of recommending Simon Winchester's The Map That Changed the World, but I see that Sastra beat me to it. I'll add, though, that if you like audio books, Winchester is a very entertaining reader. I recommend all his books, but the other geology-heavy ones — Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded and A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906 — are particularly worth your time.
Posted by: HumanisticJones | August 21, 2009 1:30 PM
@30
Well of course they aren't a product of evolution. They came from Kobol by way of Caprica after the war with the Cylons. Everyone knows that.
Posted by: Mark Wisborg | August 21, 2009 1:32 PM
This was a glorious post! The history of science, particularly that of biology and geology, is quite interesting - in part because it completely destroys the creationist's idea that there's some atheistic conspiracy to keep evolution afloat with the other sciences. This post had the alacrity of something written by the late, great, Gould.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 21, 2009 1:32 PM
OK, just to deflect the accusation that I am a big meanie:
The best popularized introduction to quantum physics of which I know is Richard Feynman's QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter. This book is slim, accessible and largely still up-to-date; the only things I would add are that, yes, we did discover the top quark as expected, and that work since the 1970s on renormalization groups and effective field theory has somewhat drawn the fangs of the infinities mentioned in the last sections. (A technical treatment of this development is given in, e.g., Zee's Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell, but I do not know of a popularized text on it.)
Of the textbooks commonly used to teach quantum mechanics, Griffiths is probably the gentlest, and would I expect be accessible to those who conquered first-year calculus. (An old book by Silvanus P. Thompson, Calculus Made Easy, is a good introduction or refresher, and is freely available on the Intertubes.) I like Shankar and Sakurai at the more advanced level, and everything is somewhere in Cohen-Tannoudji if you can find it.
Posted by: Tilting At Windmills | August 21, 2009 1:35 PM
#16 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat
Posted by: Inanma | August 21, 2009 1:35 PM
Thanks for this great post. But sadly I cannot help feeling a little sad. Because all this great effort, all this time is wasted on debunking creationism. It's like launching a cruise missile to kill mosquitoes. Yes, It's very powerful and effective, but still it won't decrease the mosquito population.
Also there is a huge crowd of people that are not creationists, they believe in billions of years, but still have irrational beliefs. What about Muslims? They are very comfortable with the idea of an old earth.
I think creationists are easy targets. It's time to target the in-between that are both harder to convince and more numerous.
(I'm just underlining this point. I'm not saying that PZ doesn't do it.)
Posted by: Peter G | August 21, 2009 1:37 PM
I confess that I would find Mortensen's lecture extremely thought provoking. One thought springs to mind now. Why can some people not see the critical importance of establishing a universal health care system that includes mental health treatment? The necessity for this becomes clearer with every town hall meeting.
Posted by: Lynna | August 21, 2009 1:38 PM
Love geological maps! Thanks, PZ for posting Smith's map. I put "The Map that Changed the World" on my reading list -- thanks to Sastra.
This is a website I use all the time (geologists may find this old hat, but those with an interest, and little knowledge of the subject, will benefit if it's geological info on the USA that you're looking for);
http://ncgmp.usgs.gov/ncgmpgeomaps
Posted by: SLC | August 21, 2009 1:38 PM
Re Blake Stacey, Knockgoats, & Tilting at Windmills
I believe that the notion that the universe only exists of there if there is an observer to observe it has been attributed to the late physicist John Wheeler. It may, however, have been a snark on his part, based on an interpretation of quantum mechanics that the particles protons, electrons, photons and neutrons don't exist if they are not observed. This, in turn, is based on the proposal by Einstein, Rosen, and Podolsky that these particles don't have a spin direction until an experiment is performed to determine the spin direction (the basis of the theory of quantum entanglement). I don't think that this notion is currently taken seriously by the physics community.
Posted by: Tilting At Windmills | August 21, 2009 1:39 PM
#19 - Perhaps you might want to learn the meaning of things like ;) before posting on the interwebs. XD
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 21, 2009 1:43 PM
No, the Schrödinger's-Cat thought experiment does not imply that the Universe requires an external observer in order to exist. Flights of fancy based on nothing more than misinterpreting the word "observer" and throwing away all scientific context in favour of meandering vagaries "imply" such a conclusion. We have learned a few things since 1935.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, OM | August 21, 2009 1:46 PM
Ooops... I didn't mean to slight recovering catholic's mention of the Winchester book (@8); somehow my eyes just went to Sastra's shout-out (@11) first. Please forgive the oversight.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 21, 2009 1:49 PM
Wheeler was pretty good at the Totally Out There (TM) ideas — like his proposal that all electrons have the same mass and charge because they're all really the same electron, switching back and forth through time! Cue spooky music. . . .
Posted by: tsg | August 21, 2009 1:49 PM
You might want to read your own link:
Posted by: raven | August 21, 2009 1:50 PM
The creos usual lie is that scientists in general and geologists in particular think the earth is 4.6 billion years old because they are atheists in a conspiracy.
The fact is, the earliest geologists who determined the earth was old were almost all devout xians. To this day, roughly half of all scientists identify themselves as religious, mostly xians.
It isn't an atheist conspiracy. It is normal, intelligent people searching for and finding the truth about the real world. Something the creationists hate and fear because it contradicts their 2 pages of bronze age mythology.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | August 21, 2009 1:52 PM
in general, the scholars of that period were more concerned with avoiding conflicts with religion
Yeah, 'cuz the christians could still do a pretty good fatwa back then.
Posted by: Patricia, OM | August 21, 2009 1:53 PM
I'll bet you learned that from the Hamster or good ol'Tom. Nice.Posted by: strange gods before me | August 21, 2009 1:53 PM
Then your parents should have saved their money and sent you to public school, where you would have gotten a decent education.
Intelligent Design was invented in the 1980s by cdesign proponentsists. It's not yet 30 years old.
Posted by: JBlilie | August 21, 2009 1:55 PM
One of your most enjoyable posts, PZ. Thanks!
There's a fine book about William Smith: The Map That Changed the World by Simon Winchester. Highly recommended.
http://www.amazon.com/Map-That-Changed-World-William/dp/0061767905/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250877280&sr=8-1
Posted by: James | August 21, 2009 1:56 PM
For a fairly exhaustive historical narrative of the discovery of 'deep time' in geology, I would highly recommend Martin Rudwick's "Bursting the Limits of Time." Rudwick even goes a bit out of his way to show that these people were as religious as most everyone else was in that era.
Posted by: The Pint | August 21, 2009 1:57 PM
An excellent post, PZ. I'm a humanities geek, so I always appreciate it when reading scientific arguments laid out in terms that even a layman can grasp - although it doesn't take a genius to recognize that the Young Earth/God put fossils there to fool humanity! arguments are a total pile of manure. The somewhat storyteller tone of your post actually reminded me a bit of Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. I know, it's not a hard science book, but Bryon's got a knack for weaving a huge amount of facts regarding the history of science into one hell of an engaging story - which admittedly for people like me, makes it a bit easier to track how emerging fields of science and discoveries have influenced each other over and evolved. And really, the stories behind how some of the biggest scientific breakthroughs were made and the people who made them are fascinating in and of themselves.
Posted by: Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac | August 21, 2009 1:58 PM
Kinda funny story: My sister (extreme Mormon Christian) had a question at the dinner table, over a nice big chunk of meat... "How did Adam come up with all the names of the animals? Isn't it just amazing?"
Me and my wife, being the sole athiests in a family of strong christians, have learned not to laugh too loud when my family makes statements like this. It's just easier to look at each other and smile.
Anyway, while me and my wife were grinning over the stupidity of Adam Naming all the animals (in Modern English, nonetheless), Her 13 year old Son says, "Mom, Don't be stupid."
Now, this kid isn't the disrespectful type. Usually pretty quiet and keeps to himself. So for him to talk to his mother like this was irregular. But I was so happy to hear him directly question this Inane idea in front of the entire family.
Now, i'll just lie in wait until he realizes that Garth Brooks and Phil Collins ARE crappy music that he's been forced to listen to his whole life, and he'll come in search of the better music from the devil worshiping uncle of his, you know, with the "anti-authoritarian, evil" music, AKA, the GOOD stuff.
I just love these patently false claims that religion makes about science, it just makes my job as fact based person that much easier.
American Indians are decendants of Jews? False.
Adam Named all animals, in english? False.
Earth 6000 years old? False
Earth once orbited another star next to Kolob until Adam Ate from the apple, and god Tossed the earth to orbit the sun? That one's just funny.
Posted by: Greg | August 21, 2009 1:59 PM
PZ, I do believe this is one of your finest posts yet. Thanks.
Posted by: Tilting At Windmills | August 21, 2009 2:01 PM
#49 "Intelligent Design was invented in the 1980s by cdesign proponentsists."
ID as it is today is new but it has been around for a long time. The only difference is that ID tries to throw science around creationism but it is nothing more than creationism with a new name.
And if you are going to pick on my labeling something you could at least check your spelling.
Posted by: JBlilie | August 21, 2009 2:02 PM
Bill D @39:
I see I've been beat to the punch, at least twice! ;)
I agree about Winchester's other books: Good reading.
Posted by: lose_the_woo | August 21, 2009 2:04 PM
Excellent post PZ.
I think bringing up the historicity of notions that the Earth is very, very, old is an excellent approach. The creotards love to either ignore it or distort it. They know that the facts that exist in recent history are in direct conflict with their idiotic claims.
Posted by: Bobby-Joe | August 21, 2009 2:04 PM
The TRUE Christians™ of Landover is presenting another chance for you secularists to Get it Right® with our Merciful SAVIOR™ before He has you all tossed into the fiery pit of Hell in an unconditional act of Tough Love® He so famous for. We called it "Punctuated Smiting"; God creates an animal, sees the sinfulness of that animal He created in His Perfect Knowledge® and smites that animal, killing the entire species off in an instant! He then creates another species almost like it so it only looks like it evolved. That's why the earth only _looks_ old. God just goes around destroying and creating things at random constantly.
Read about it here you godless secularist.
http://www.landoverbaptist.net/showthread.php?t=10692
Praise Jesus!
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 21, 2009 2:04 PM
cdesign proponentsists is not a spelling error — or, at least, not one original to here.
Posted by: Absurdist | August 21, 2009 2:08 PM
So what does the Copenhagen Interpretation say? Doesn't it say something about measurement-"induced" reality?
Posted by: Anodyne | August 21, 2009 2:11 PM
@ 48/Patricia OM
I have no idea who those characters are. Are they posters here? or...?
Posted by: Shadow
|
August 21, 2009 2:14 PM
Well, Satan did hide all the fossils to test the faithful. After all, everything they need to know is in the hellish babble.
Posted by: strange gods before me | August 21, 2009 2:18 PM
That is like saying the early Christians were Marxists. You can identify many similarities, but it's a bizarre anachronism.
Intelligent Design is a modern reaction to the science of evolution. Good old fashioned creationism was a prescientific assumption that most people believed by default. They differ in that ID, being a reaction, proposes certain mechanisms by which evolution can not occur, like irreducible complexity.
People who believed in creationism hundreds of years ago were not necessarily stupid. Everyone who believes in Intelligent Design is stupid. You insult many scientists of yesteryear by lumping them in with a modern political movement.
Posted by: lose_the_woo | August 21, 2009 2:20 PM
When I started about 5 years ago really investigating this "atheist stuff" happening on the web, it struck me how much the religionists make shit up to patch up a previous lie/distortion/omission/knowledge gap. And they've gotten expert at it too...I'd say it's probably the most sophisticated thing they accomplish in terms of subject-matter expertise. They really know how to spin yarns. The thing is, they convince themselves that that the bullshit they just fabricated is true. It's like they think they can simply speak truth into existence. That's also why when they are forced to deal with claims that involve empirical evidence and data they fumble around clumsy uncoordinated idjits.
Posted by: SplendidMonkey
|
August 21, 2009 2:20 PM
news flash - Kristenbaum on Science Friday
Posted by: tsg | August 21, 2009 2:22 PM
Simply, yes. Schrödinger's Cat is a thought experiment to point out a weakness in that interpretation.
Posted by: SplendidMonkey
|
August 21, 2009 2:22 PM
(Kirshenbaum)
Posted by: Darren Garrison | August 21, 2009 2:24 PM
Book recommendation time.
I'm often thinking about toolkits of books to be provided to hypothetical Young Earthers willing to learn-- a small number of books written to be understandable by a lay audience that can provide a good, solid introduction to not only what science indicates but how and why the conclusions were reached. That often involves scientific biographies of the people who made the discoveries.
One of the standard Creationist arguments that we all have encountered is, of course, that age dating is a circular tautology-- fossils are used to date rocks and rocks are used to date fossils, and the ages are based on an assumption of evolution. A set of books I would suggest to address this issue includes:
The Map that Changed the World
http://www.amazon.com/Map-That-Changed-World-William/dp/0060193611/
and
Ages in Chaos
http://www.amazon.com/Ages-Chaos-James-Hutton-Discovery/dp/0765312689
and
The Dating Game
http://www.amazon.com/Dating-Game-Mans-Search-Earth/dp/0521893127/
after reading those, I'd toss in a couple of good books on paleontology, likely
Terrible Lizard
http://www.amazon.com/Terrible-Lizard-Dinosaur-Hunters-Science/dp/0805070877/
and maybe
In Search of Deep Time
http://www.amazon.com/Search-Deep-Time-History-Comstock/dp/0801487137
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 21, 2009 2:25 PM
The Copenhagen Interpretation says that (a) quantum states change over time according to a deterministic rule, and that (b) at the moment of a "measurement", the "measured" system settles into a new state corresponding to one of the possible outcomes of the measurement experiment. The choice of which possible state to enter is, in this view, made randomly. It's really begging for trouble, because it carves up physical processes into "measurement" and everything else, while the tools we use to "measure" things themselves are just large collections of atoms, each of which by itself would obey the ordinary quantum rules of behaviour.
The Copenhagen story, as it is often told, leads to harmful oversimplifications, and makes learning about things like "weak" measurements harder than it should be.
Posted by: lose_the_woo | August 21, 2009 2:26 PM
You know, that's a pointed, undiplomatic, insulting attack. Outstanding!
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | August 21, 2009 2:26 PM
Though Paley argued for Design with his Watchmaker Analogy and Hume argued against it.
While not called Intelligent Design it is essentially the same argument and one that is still drug out from Paley's grave and tortured by some ID folks.
ID has been around in the sense of those wishing to support their belief in God by trying to make the design argument. And there have been those opposing them far before the last few decades.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, OM | August 21, 2009 2:27 PM
The Pint (@52):
Funny you should mention that book in a thread containing so many shout-outs to Simon Winchester's work: I first "read" the audio versions of both Bryson's Short History and Winchester's Krakatoa on the same long cross-country car trip. Bryson and Winchester are two of my favorite nonfiction authors, two of my favorite audiobook readers, and two of my favorite populizers of science. Short History is Bryson's only book explicitly about science, but his travel books often provide a decent amount of science and science history as background material. This is especially true of A Walk in the Woods (about the Appalachian Trail) and In a Sunburned Country (about Australia). In fact, I think it may have been the science content of the latter that inspired him to write Short History. (BTW, I always recommend unabridged audiobooks, but in the case of Short History I prefer the abridged version, which is read by Bryson himself, to the unabridged, which is read by someone else. Bryson is that good a reader of his own work. Sunburned Country is, happily, read unabridged by Bryson.)
Sorry, didn't mean to turn this into a [audio]book-club thread....
Posted by: strange gods before me | August 21, 2009 2:30 PM
Undiplomatic, me? Never.
Posted by: DaveX | August 21, 2009 2:31 PM
Can I ask you all for a favor?
I really enjoyed reading this particular post, especially the bit about Hooke's conclusions. I enjoyed it because these historical questions look so basic, but it's fascinating to see how someone without our benefit of hindsight actually answered them. I think they might be a really good tool to use for teaching my kids.
Anyways, the favor-- where can I find more of this sort of material? (Especially online, thanks!)
Posted by: Sastra | August 21, 2009 2:32 PM
Blake Stacey #42 wrote:
This "flight of fancy" or Quantum Consciousness Theory could also be termed Spiritual Creationism. I think that, in its own way, it may be just as popular as traditional creationism, since a fair number of people who claim to "believe in evolution" only do so because they see evolution as the Cosmic Mind unfolding itself creatively as it manifests itself into progressive forms. Or so they repeatedly assure me.
Of course, rebutting this involves actually understanding physics -- and someone over in the 'Run away, Tom' thread is arguing that we should scrap the entire discipline of physics, since it's outlived its slight usefulness and turned into unproductive woo. We may have no ammunition, then. Heh.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 21, 2009 2:34 PM
I'm glad I haven't bothered keeping up with that thread. Grumble, grumble.
Posted by: Gyeong Hwa Pak | August 21, 2009 2:38 PM
Good History lesson PZ. I like how you lay down the facts as they are.
I find this to be a good way to combat creationist who can only argue by throwing falsehood upon falsehood.
Posted by: strange gods before me | August 21, 2009 2:40 PM
Reverend, Paley's argument never included that idea that naturalism was impossible, only less likely. He thought that would be enough. Today's IDers go much further.
By including all creationists from all eras in Intelligent Design, we play into their hands. Here's a thread about creationist geologists, who were doing real science. The ID movement shouldn't be allowed to claim these thinkers as their own. They're entirely different, because these scientists would most likely not have been immune to modern evidence if it could have been presented to them.
Posted by: MartyM | August 21, 2009 2:41 PM
Great post PZ. There are lots of juicy tid-bits I had not gotten elsewhere before. Thanks for that.
The only scientific rebuttal I haven't found is for the skeleton of the 36ft humans. Anyone have resources for that?
Posted by: Susannah | August 21, 2009 2:43 PM
Excellent post!
When I finally realized, after far too long, that I had been lied to, and worse, had passed on those lies to my children, this was a recurring source of anger. It wasn't as if science were just now discovering that the Biblical chronology was a bit off; this stuff had been known for generations! I had been purposefully kept in the Dark Ages; I was just now discovering simple facts everybody else had known back in my parents' and sometimes grandparents' day. Each "new" tidbit of info bore a date of publication: say 1920, 1883, 1790, 1932, etc...
(The same goes for Biblical studies; the "modernists" I had been taught to fear were writing in the 19th century.)
For shame!
Posted by: Grumpy | August 21, 2009 2:44 PM
In addition to the recommendation of James #51, I learned a lot from Gould's essays, "Hutton's Purpose" and "The Upwardly Mobile Fossils of Leonardo's Living Earth." The latter, in "Leonardo's Mountain of Clams & the Diet of Worms," shows how Leonardo da Vinci mustered evidence against Flood geology... in support of his own ridiculous theory. "Hutton's Purpose," in "Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes," shows how Hutton conceived of deep time to explain how God creates soil for farmers without the Earth being eroded to nothing.
Also, the theme of "Lie harder!" is reminiscent of something Fred Clark wrote on his Slacktivist blog the other day: "Maintaining such misconceptions in the face of uncooperative reality requires us to start filtering what we are willing to look at, to see or to acknowledge. We have to start pretending not to see all of the counter-evidence confronting us at every turn."
http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2009/08/goofi-videos.html
Posted by: lose_the_woo | August 21, 2009 2:45 PM
Wow. Is that in bible-feet, or normal standard measure?
Posted by: Sastra | August 21, 2009 2:50 PM
Anodyne #61 wrote:
Since Patricia hasn't responded, I'll answer for her. She's talking about some young earth creationists.
The "Hamster" refers to Ken Ham (of the Creation Museum), and "Good 'ol Tom" refers to Pastor Tom Estes (who is referred to in the 'Run away, Tom' thread that Blake is not following, which means we can't expect him to come in and kick the Angry Biologist's butt.)
Posted by: James Sweet | August 21, 2009 2:51 PM
This is what grinds my gears me the most about YECs... if you want to insist on a Biblical literalism of sorts (i.e. you insist all the stories really happened, but maybe some of the words used were metaphorical, just as in this paragraph, while I am speaking "literally" for most intents and purposes, I clearly do not actually have any "gears" being "grinded"), there are many ways to twist and bend the evidence, and equivocate, that are FAR less crazy than the idea that the earth is six thousand years old.
One thing I heard mentioned growing up is that idea that the six "days" of Creation might not have been 24-hour days, particularly since we're talking about friggin' God here. Maybe each one of "God's days" is a million-plus years. Then you can still view the Creation story as literally true without having to believe this absurd idea about the earth being six thousand years old. Granted, you still have to believe all sorts of other absurd things, and you have to ignore the fact that the Creation story is all upside-down and out-of-order when compared with how things really happened... but it strikes me as significantly less insane than the YEC position.
Theists throughout the years have been able to come to at least an uneasy truce between obvious reality and their own personal delusions. I'm not condoning that -- far better to just accept reality as it is -- but it's hard to believe the YECs are so lazy/stupid that they can't do at least that good...
Posted by: Noam GR | August 21, 2009 2:51 PM
I think the worst part is that these ideas spread to the general public and create the false impression of an honest debate. I have many friends who are not creationists or even religious, and yet believe that there really is a debate amongst scientists over evolution, or the age of the earth, etc.
It's important to remember that not everyone was lucky enough to have been educated, or at least pointed in the right direction when it comes to understanding science. Many people get most of their education from what they see on TV and read on the internet. How is the average person supposed to know whether to believe PZ Myers, Phd. or Kent Hovind, "Phd". These people train to look and talk like "experts" in the eye of the general public.
The only way to dispel these notions is through *real* science education at school. The science education we had in high school was laughable. At least the mandatory classes, there were special science classes for "university bound" students. I ask, why can't these classes be mandatory? Understanding the very basics of evolution really isn't that complicated. And I went to school in Ontario, Canada; I can't imagine the quality of science education in some of the more religious states in the US.
It's not enough to make students memorize the definition of "evolution", which is about all you get in highschool. You have to explain it... you know, *educate*.
--
http://noamgr.wordpress.com
Posted by: Kathryn | August 21, 2009 2:52 PM
If anyone's interested in pledging to help save a small museum where rural kids can see the evidence of evolution up close (the North Coast's Natural History Museum in Northern California, Humboldt County), here's the link:
Pledge your support to Save the Museum!
Humboldt State University plans to close the museum August 31st if the Board can't raise enough money and come up with a long-term plan. So far, we've raised over $40,000 in pledges (plus a trailer for office space).
Posted by: SC, OM | August 21, 2009 2:54 PM
I'm not. Your presence there would be much appreciated.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | August 21, 2009 2:54 PM
I don't disagree, but the design argument which is still important to the more modern "cdesign proponentsists" has been made for a while, long before the most recent backlash that you were pointing to.
I did not include all creationists nor would I ever attempt to do so. I specifically pointed to one, a very well known one even, that made specific design arguments in order to support his faith and one that had a well known critic. One whose argument is still used (and destroyed mind you) today. The argument of design by some higher power is not a new one and the argument is essentially the same one that is used today.
I understand your point and don't disagree with the idea that many of these men given what we know now could possibly come to a completely different conclusion than what they did then. That however does automatically mean that men like Paley would be included in that group. There surely were men then who were the supposed scientists of the day that would still seek to support their faith if they lived now even with all the modern knowledge and experience.
However, excusing everyone from the past for their lack of historical modernism (I think I just made that up) is doing us no service either. I see no problem pointing out that the IDers are still clinging to an old idea that as been debunked for hundreds of years.
/ramble off
Posted by: vk slater | August 21, 2009 2:56 PM
Thank you for the enlightening post PZ. Unfortunately it means that I have now added another five books to my TBR list - I don´t make enough money to support the habit and I don´t have enough years left to read them all.
I came to Pharyngula a few years ago (from a Guardian link I think) and have become a rabid fan. I extoll its virtues to all and sundry; wax poetic to a captive audience (my students) about the fabulous sea creature photographs and papers, which I have used to stimulate discussion and description; and have reinforced my love of science and reason, something I neglected for far too long when I was living the life expected of me.
Thank you also to the knowledgeable commenters who inform me, prod my imagination, make me laugh or drop my jaw in awe of their insights and prowess in expounding upon them, and who have introduced me to many, many websites I would never otherwise have discovered.
The connection with like-minded people (for the most part...)is a fabulous opportunity that I thought I would forever miss out on. Thank you to one and all.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | August 21, 2009 2:58 PM
Ooooooooohhhh!! He said it! *clap clap clap*
/Family Guy
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 21, 2009 2:59 PM
I'm trying to maintain lower blood pressure these days. Has the "Angry Biologist" actually looked at ongoing research in a field like condensed-matter physics?
Posted by: kamaka | August 21, 2009 3:04 PM
DaveX @ 73
Here's one for you "History of Wisconsin Geologists". One of my favorite reads... accomplishment, discovery, dogged determination, intrigue, petty jealousy and a great story of the development of a science. If you don't know of Increase Lapham, he's quite a guy.
www.uwex.edu/wgnhs/pdfs/orderpdf/GW18_Ordr.pdf
PS This almost 100 pages long.
Posted by: Patricia, OM | August 21, 2009 3:04 PM
Sastra - Thanks! I was busy packing eggs for market tomorrow.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | August 21, 2009 3:06 PM
Hmm. Then you probably do want to stay away from there... There's some serious projection and some frankly bizarre dismissal of an entire field of science going on... Just weird.
He's apologized once, albeit by following up with another direct dismissal in the same post. We're hoping he comes back off the ledge and backs off a fairly untenable position as soon as possible.
Posted by: strange gods before me | August 21, 2009 3:08 PM
Tilting At Windmills did; I'm trying to make my replies broadly applicable. Sorry for the mixup.
I specifically pointed to one, a very well known one even, that made specific design arguments in order to support his faith and one that had a well known critic. One whose argument is still used (and destroyed mind you) today. The argument of design by some higher power is not a new one and the argument is essentially the same one that is used today.Even so, Paley was not trying to dress up an already thoroughly falsified argument in a white lab coat. ID is not an attempt at science or even philosophy. It's just a modern conservative political movement. Paley's classical teleological argument shouldn't be retconned into today's politics.
Posted by: SC, OM | August 21, 2009 3:08 PM
Be at peace. Feynmaniac's there now, and in fine form.
Posted by: lose_the_woo | August 21, 2009 3:08 PM
Just a thought, is there such a thing as a Science History requirement? I don't remember one back in my day. Science class had very little teaching about its history and social perspective. It was all about, well, the act of doing science.
It seems to me that perhaps it may be an interesting idea to introduce at the grade-school level. So by the time a student makes it into their high-school science class, they have a pretty clear and solid understanding of the foundations of why science even matters.
The history and social aspects of science are more like an adventure story. It's an interesting and exciting read/lesson. Facts and stories can be introduced but at a very basic level. And they go back centuries before xtians and jebus. Leave the "hard stuff" for when the student has the academic interest and knowledge capacity.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 21, 2009 3:22 PM
Against my better judgement, I looked at the thread and left a quick remark absolutely bubbling over with optimism.
Posted by: CatBallou
|
August 21, 2009 3:24 PM
Thanks, PZ. Somehow it seems remarkable that this kind of work was being done as long ago as the early 18th century. I had no idea! And like many of the other posters, I've added Winchester's book to my reading list.
Posted by: MartyM | August 21, 2009 3:25 PM
#81
Yeah, claims like these. There are others, but some are blocked by my companies net blocker.
Posted by: CatBallou
|
August 21, 2009 3:25 PM
Thanks, PZ. Somehow it seems remarkable that this kind of work was being done as long ago as the early 18th century. I had no idea! And like many of the other posters, I've added Winchester's book to my reading list.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | August 21, 2009 3:30 PM
Schrodinger didn't understand cats. Any cat in such a situation would either end up dead, because he'd messed with the mechanism and triggered it; or be alive because he'd messed with the mechanism and destroyed it.
In either case the cat would first yowl to be let out of the box, then take a nap, then mess with things inside the box out of boredom, yowl some more to be let out if he lived, then finally find a way out of the box and go looking for something to do.
So the real question is; how badly is the mechanism damaged, and is the cat dead inside the box, or alive weaving about your ankles begging for food?
Posted by: Petzphur | August 21, 2009 3:32 PM
Great post PZ.
Thanks to whoever suggested "The Map that Changed the World".
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 21, 2009 3:33 PM
As Sam Black Crow says in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, "If they don't open the box to feed it, it'll eventually be two different kinds of dead."
There's also the important question of experimental accuracy.
Posted by: Greta Christina | August 21, 2009 3:34 PM
Excellent post, PZ. When believers --usually Christians or New Agers -- argue that scientists are biased against religion and spirituality and thus blind themselves to the evidence supporting it (that evidence usually being something along the lines of "I feel it in my heart"). this is the point I keep trying to make:
Scientists today are mostly non-believers. But this wasn't always so. In the earlier days of the scientific method, most scientists did believe in God and the soul and whatnot. In fact, a good amount of early scientific research focused on trying to determine the exact nature of the spiritual world. It wasn't until spiritual hypotheses came up empty time and time again, for decades and indeed centuries -- and materialist hypotheses proved fruitful time and time again, for decades and indeed centuries -- that scientists began to abandon religion.
To say that scientists are biased against religion is putting the cart before the horse. Scientists aren't biased against religion. Reality is biased against religion.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | August 21, 2009 3:41 PM
Granted, but whether it shouldn't or not, it is and its just as ridiculous now as it was when Hume addressed it. Paley's specific argument is the very basis of what the ID troops were / are armed with when they are set on science and scientists in their own version of a reenactment of the Charge of the light brigade. Whether the Generals of the ID movement truly care about trying to prove design or not (and I think they do) it is the ammo they are passing out to their troops. Paley's argument is bad whether it's being recycled or not. He shouldn't be excused just because his analogy has been rotting in some old storehouse and some modern wingnuts chose it as the cartridge for their weapons.
It's still an argument that can be refuted. Look at IC. Boom sorry your little rotor fail Behe. Addressing the political side of the ID movement is one part, a very important part, but doing so while ignoring their attempts at making scientific arguments is poor strategy. It comes off like we can't address their arguments. So attacking Paley's Watchmaker analogy and other historical arguments made by men who given what we know might be on our "side" is still relevant. If its at the risk of the ID movement being able to claim them as ID supporters, well fine. Their arguments do many times fit with what the ID people are asserting. Those men may not have been stupid, but their ideas are wrong.
So now that I've thoroughly confused the issue. There are two things here
The Political side of the ID movement and the psuedo-science side. Both need to be addressed.
I think I just argued myself in a circle.
Time for beer.
Posted by: adewey0 | August 21, 2009 3:46 PM
Thank you for the history lesson. As a high school science teacher here in southwestern MN, I am always looking for more information to give my students an accurate picture of science. The above info will definitely come in handy this year in my 8th grade earth science class.
Posted by: kamaka | August 21, 2009 3:48 PM
Time for beer.
Mmm..OK. How 'bout a Mojo IPA?
Posted by: tsg | August 21, 2009 3:49 PM
You make it sound like it's ever not time for beer.
Posted by: maureen brian | August 21, 2009 3:50 PM
Excellent, PZ, excellent!
For a closer look at the Smith map - with copious notes if you want them - try this site - from University of New Hampshire Durham and with fossil tables.
For the reading list I can commend Lisa Jardine's biography of Hooke. It's not all about the science but a fascinating introduction - amazon both sides of the pond so I won't link to either!
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 21, 2009 3:53 PM
Did someone mention beer?!
Posted by: Coragyps | August 21, 2009 3:56 PM
An original of Wm. Smith's map, maybe 8 by 14 feet in size, is on display at the Royal Geological Society headquarters in London. I liked it as well as the Magna Carta over at that big library they have there, and nearly as well as Murphy's Stout.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, OM | August 21, 2009 4:19 PM
T-shirt!!
Posted by: dNorrisM | August 21, 2009 4:22 PM
Blake and all:
I assumed the the "universe needs an observer" refers to the "strong anthropic principle"* rather than homeopathic Heisnberg.
*Interesting to Google, although I havn't made much sense of this.
I expect it is gibberish.
Posted by: The Pint | August 21, 2009 4:24 PM
@ Bill Dauphin, OM #71 -
Ah, a fellow-Bryson lover. I think I've read just about everything he's published. I love how he manages to take vasts amount of factoids and weave them into his essays in a very entertaining fashion - I always feel like I've learned quite a bit of new information after reading his books (and as a language geek, I love how he breaks down the evolution of language in The Mother Tongue). You're right that he incorporates a rather large amount of scientific research in his travel essays, which just goes to show that not only is it entirely possible for the average person to grasp basic scientific principles (although Bryson is clearly a highly intelligent writer!), but that science can actually be (gasp!) engaging, enlightening and down right hilarious.
Looks like I'll have move Winchester higher up on my To Read list, then!
Now, if only Bryson would give religion the same treatment as he did for science in Short History... I imagine the book (and the inevitable Jebus-crowd reactionary outrage) would be ridiculously funny.
Posted by: No BS | August 21, 2009 4:25 PM
Posted by: maureen brian #109
"For a closer look at the Smith map - with copious notes if you want them - try this site - from University of New Hampshire Durham and with fossil tables."
Ya beat me too it!
I have a tiled print of the map from that site. If you click on the map it takes you to a page that lets you DL the tiles. It cost me $70 to print this puppy. But I love it when company asks why I have a map of England in my living room.
Posted by: Discombobulated | August 21, 2009 4:38 PM
Thanks, PZ. You're really making an amazing set of posts this momentous Year of Darwin. Can't wait for the book. And hopefully reason will someday prevail over nonsense.
Thanks as always, Blake, for correcting much abused physics concepts, and for recommending yet another Feynman work that I've overlooked. mmm, QED goodness.
Thanks, The Pint, for recommending A Short History of Nearly Everything. It's bought and on its way in the post. From this thread, I have a couple of other books in the queue for soon purchase as well.
What a great post, and as usual brilliant comment thread. ❤ Pharyngula.
Posted by: MartyM | August 21, 2009 4:41 PM
MartyM:
Did you read your own link? Or even look at the pictures? It's a doctored photo.
"This photo was taken on 16 September 2000 at an excavation site outside Hyde Park, New York. It is part of the documentation of a sensational excavation under the Paleontological Research Institution and the Department of Geological Sciences at Cornell University. What the team of more than 60 scientists, students and volunteers under paleontologist Prof. John Chiment discovered was, however, not the skeleton of a giant human being, but the skeleton of a mastodon, an extinct predecessor of the elephant. Actually, the find included one of the most complete fossils of a mastodon and possibly a less-complete mammoth. The animals lived between 10,000 and 14,000 years ago.
http://www.graphics.cornell.edu/outreach/mastodon/aerial-views.html
Any other earth-shattering, mind blowing evidence you want to share?
Posted by: strange gods before me | August 21, 2009 4:45 PM
Surely so. I just think that when people like Tilting fail to make a distinction, it confuses the modern understanding more than it illuminates the historical.
Arguments like Paley's are actually still used by people who are teaching real evolution, like Ken Miller, but there the design is pushed back 14 billion years and applied to the fundamental forces.
Miller is using an "argument from design," but he's no IDer. Applying the label of ID too broadly would make it useless. But limiting it to the modern political movement helps the uninformed listener start to question why it was only just invented in the 1980s, and what's up with that.
Yay beer!
Posted by: Ian | August 21, 2009 4:50 PM
#78 The 36 ft human skeleton. Have a look at:
http://www.worth1000.com/contest.asp?contest_id=447&display=photoshop
The 4th item down may be what you want.
Posted by: Jeff | August 21, 2009 4:51 PM
It's a well-known fact that Isaac Newton and Robert Hooke hated each other's guts. I wonder what Newton's view on all of this was? I have no idea, but if someone knows....
Posted by: Susannah | August 21, 2009 4:52 PM
#101
The cat would be alive 8 times out of 9. The ninth time ... the cat would be alive because, "That was embarrassing. Therefore you didn't see it. Never happened."
Posted by: Maria | August 21, 2009 4:54 PM
mmmm... knowledge.
It's a beautiful thing.
Posted by: les | August 21, 2009 4:56 PM
Another nice geology book for the laity is John McPhee's Basin and Range; he does a great job of mixing science, history and personalities. He's done a couple of sequels on geology and geologists, described at http://www.johnmcphee.com/basinrange.htm (sorry for lacking HTML skills), and an interesting look at the geology and history of the Mississippi river and the Corps of Engineers, among other things--The Control of Nature. Good stuff.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | August 21, 2009 4:57 PM
Read #118, Ian. This isn't even a new fakery. Obvious fabrication and the actual photos are provided in #118.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | August 21, 2009 4:59 PM
I may have jumped the gun on you, Ian... you didn't state that you were providing photos that you believed were real.
Sorry if I did...
Posted by: JustinB | August 21, 2009 5:07 PM
Dammit, I need to pay more attention when commenting. The apparently self-deprecating post from MartyM at #118 was me not paying attention to what I was typing.
Marty, what is your "rebuttal" to the fact that the picture was demonstrably faked, and the link you posted is quite explicit about it?
I'm sure if you didn't have to contend with your work's internet filter you could find an article that didn't have all those pesky facts.
Also, please answer this simple question:
If there were, in fact, 36 foot humans, how do you explain...
.
.
.
.
(wait for it...)
.
.
.
.
PYGMIES+DWARFS?!?!?!
Posted by: MartyM | August 21, 2009 5:11 PM
#118 & #120
thanks...
I'm not saying I believe this nonsense (and no I didn't read the forum. I was doing a quick search for some site that alluded to this kind of argument.) I've seen this argument before. I remember a photo of a man standing in front of a supposed thigh bone that is 7 feet tall or similar. In all the anti-creationism books I have (which is a few, but not tons), none address this claim. It doesn't surprise me at all that the photo is doctored. This one in particular looks as real as Bigfoot or Lockness monster photos.
I've search TalkOrigins and couldn't find anything about it there (maybe they address it, I just couldn't find it at the time.)
thanks again.
Posted by: lose_the_woo | August 21, 2009 5:13 PM
Then what did they eat? Where are all the 8 foot chickens, and the 4 foot bananas? You know, the banana is an amazingly designed piece of fruit...
Posted by: SimonG | August 21, 2009 5:15 PM
Noam GR, #84:
I remember some years back an article on the IBM site about how to spot fake virus scares. (Can't find it anymore.) It was all fairly basic stuff and somewhat applicable to other tall tales; I particularly recall a dumb scare story about ANPR and traffic watch cameras which did the rounds in the UK a few times.
Anyhoo: is there anything similar about which would be applicable to pseudo-science - ID and all the rest - and perhaps consipracy theories?
Posted by: kamaka | August 21, 2009 5:16 PM
Then what did they eat?
The dinosaurs.
Posted by: JefFlyingV | August 21, 2009 5:19 PM
Celtic_Evolution that is some funny stuff that would make Ham's "museum". I thought it would be great to have a fossilized Bible found with a T-Rex in prayer.
Posted by: Lynna | August 21, 2009 5:20 PM
Les @124, I second your recommendation for John McPhee's book "Basin and Range."
And I'll add McPhee's "Annals of the Former World" in which he adds his own twist to the story with the help of geologist, David Love. Here is an excerpt:
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
August 21, 2009 5:21 PM
Eating dinosaurs. And washing it down with beer. Speaking of which...
Posted by: Josh
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August 21, 2009 5:24 PM
Great overview of the development of stratigraphy, PZ. The use of "strata" gives me minor fits because of issues with that word that I've ranted about before (and will spare everyone from), but in this case the use of the word doesn't detract from the essay at all (and, in fact, despite my hatred of it, might be the best word to use in this case). And it's the only nit that I feel like picking here. Well done.
I also throw my support behind both the Krakatoa book and the tale of William "Strata" Smith and the first real bedrock map. They're both good reads; the Smith book especially.
Posted by: kamaka | August 21, 2009 5:38 PM
Since we're doing book recommendations here, let me throw out a favorite.
"The Geology of the Lake Superior Region" by Gene LaBerge
The book's strong suit is it covers site-specific geology over most of known deep time. The book works as a good overview of surficial geology, and is just great at giving exact locations to go see for yourself.
Also, as I mentioned earlier, "History of Wisconsin Geologists" is very good, and is a free download, public domain and all.
Posted by: JustinB | August 21, 2009 5:38 PM
MartyM:
It seems to be pretty well refuted by even a cursory google search. A few links on the interweb seem sufficient.
Just out of curiousity, what are you reading in the way of "anti-creationism" books? To me it seems like the books that do the best job of dismantling creationist claims have titles like "Biology - A Guide to the Natural World" or "A Trip Through Time: Principles of Historical Geology".
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
|
August 21, 2009 5:40 PM
There's also Terry Pratchett's comment in Lords and Ladies: "A cat in a box can have three states: alive, dead, and bloody furious."
Posted by: Alan B | August 21, 2009 5:43 PM
I agree, this is an excellent way to show how evolution developed "naturally" from the developing science of geology.
PZ referred to James Hutton. One of the sites he investigated was Siccar Point in Scotland.
If anyone wants to go on a virtual fieldtrip to Siccar Point then the trip provided by Edinburgh University is excellent:
http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/undergraduate/field/siccarpoint/
For a more detailed explanation of the site and its importance:
http://www.thegcr.org.uk/Sites/GCR_v31_C03_Site1811.htm
Siccar Point is a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest - a UK classification) and is probably in the World Top 10 of geologically important sites.
Posted by: Lynna | August 21, 2009 5:50 PM
Just to add to the discussion about quantum mechanics, and to the occasional adoption of the quantum mechanics by woo of various kinds -- this has been going on for some time.
See "The Myth of Quantum Consciousness" by Victor J. Stenger, The Humanist, May/June 1992, Vol. 53, Number 3, pp. 13-15 Here's an excerpt:
Posted by: Josh | August 21, 2009 5:53 PM
Alan! How are you doing?
Posted by: Carlie | August 21, 2009 5:55 PM
MartyM, I'd suggest reading The First Fossil Hunters by Adrienne Mayor. She has a few pictures that show very clearly how mastadon bones can be mistaken for (and rearranged into) giant humans. In fact, she suggests that the myth of the cyclops may have arisen from mammoth fossils (there's this giant hole in the center of the skull, see...)
I start my evolution class out with a set of lectures much as PZ does. Starting off with geology, then building bit by bit with the evidence as to the earth being old, there being fossils in the earth, there being evidence for many cycles of different climates, etc. tends to head off the "Yeah? How do you know?" questions.
Posted by: Lynna | August 21, 2009 5:57 PM
Here's another comment on physics and woo. I'll paste in an excerpt below from the book "Voodoo Science" by Robert Park, Professor of Physics and former chairman of the Department of Physics at the University of Maryland.
Posted by: kamaka | August 21, 2009 6:02 PM
Lynna @ 140
Yah, instead of "this is some weird stuff we obviously don't understand yet."
Pehaps this is the foundation of all woo, an inability to cope with "we just don't know".
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
August 21, 2009 6:12 PM
Dang, Josh, you beat me to it. ;)Posted by: Feynmaniac | August 21, 2009 6:17 PM
PZ,
Isn't that a little redundant? 18th or 18th = 18th :)
(Yes, I do know what he meant).
</ pedant>
Otherwise great piece! Creationist do seem to have the false impression that geology was twisted in order fit "Darwinism". I'll point them here next time I see that.
Posted by: MartyM | August 21, 2009 6:20 PM
JustinB
thanks. I have the the Counter-Creation Handbook by Isaak and couldn't find reference in there. I also have some evo books - Coyne's WEIT (which I'm near finishing) and Prothero's What the Fossils say and why it Matters (which I haven't gotten to yet). A few others like Your Inner Fish (yet to read) and so on.
I thought it was a simple question. I've looked around for a scientific response, but obviously need to look a bit more. It just seems to me to be an opposite and equivalent rebuttal when creationists bring up Piltdown man and such. I'm just curious as to why it's not mentioned in the books I've read so far and doesn't seem to be addressed in the usual places like Talk Origins. Though not a big deal.
M
Posted by: The Pint | August 21, 2009 6:25 PM
Damn it, just when I think I stand a chance of making headway through the massive pile of books I need to read, I keep reading the comments and find even more recommendations that sound too intriguing to pass up. Thanks a lot, guys! ;-)
Posted by: Akiko | August 21, 2009 6:29 PM
Remember the nutcase right wingers will say something absurd over and over until people hear it so much that is no longer sounds absurd. Then they start to believe it and then it becomes a "fact". If they plant the seed that geologist, or scientists, are conspriing atheists who hate god and prove it by sneaking around trying to make the Earth seem older instead of just saying it out loud then after awhile people will start to believe it. I predict they will next say that a baby is not made from an egg and a sperm but implanted, fully formed, by the man and that biologists,gynocologists and OBs have conspired for years to convince the public that a child is not a product of just the man with the female as his vessel. They start this crap to keep morons busy aruging over nothing while they do as they please.
Posted by: JustinB | August 21, 2009 6:29 PM
MartyM:
I think I understand a little better what you're getting at.
I think the big difference here is that this was purely a photoshop hoax, more suited to debunking by snopes.com (Incidentally: http://www.snopes.com/photos/odd/giantman.asp) than a candidate for inclusion in a book trying to seriously address creationist claims.
If the hoax had involved an actual faked skeleton, I'm sure it would have been included.
Posted by: ornwen | August 21, 2009 6:40 PM
Great summary of the discoveries and theories that helped pave the way to accurately aging the Earth. Is there a book where these stories are together to form the foundations of geology and evolutionary biology?
Posted by: Shadow | August 21, 2009 7:00 PM
#102 & 138
From the cats I've raised the three states would be:
Alive (probably asleep)
Dead
Alive AND bloody furious.
I did like the part in Lords and Ladies where the elf opens the box and the cat "goes off like a Claymore mine." That's the kind of cats I've been around - nice even temperament (Is vicious a temperament?).
Posted by: Alan B | August 21, 2009 7:09 PM
#141 Josh & #145 Nerd
Thanks for asking. Waiting for my review consultation. Functioning OK but without the energy I would like. Any sign of any "flood geologists" on the old thread?
Recently did a bit of digging on palaeochannels and inverted topography. May put a summary up some time if anyone might be interested. Not aware of any clear examples in the UK, unfortunately. I would rather write from personal knowldege.
Interesting how others are finding geology is fascinating in its own right, to say nothing in providing a framework for understanding evolution.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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August 21, 2009 7:14 PM
Alan B #153
No, Alan, the fludologists have disappeared. Alan Clarke was banned for unspeakable perversion* and his lovely assistant, RogerS, dropped out of sight.
*I'd tell you want it is, but I can't speak about it.
Posted by: Ichthyic | August 21, 2009 7:16 PM
Is there a book where these stories are together to form the foundations of geology and evolutionary biology?
Prothero and Buell's "What the Fossils Say, and Why it Matters" would be one of them.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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August 21, 2009 7:19 PM
Nope, but it is still alive. Come bearing tunes (or your paleochannel data) though...Posted by: Gregory Greenwood | August 21, 2009 7:45 PM
"Hah! The only thought it would provoke in me is to wonder where they kept the straitjackets. Looney-tunes revisionist history is not thought-provoking in a good sense."
Come on PZ, now you expect creationists to understand biology, geology and history? Can't you see that you are being unreasonable? Like Mooney says, we should try to improve our 'communication' with fundies. Which means ignoring their staggering ignorance of science and respecting their tendency to misrepresent us as baby eating nazis in waiting. We should never expose their ignorance and bigotry.
Doing anything else would just be rude. And if we are rude why should anyone listen to the truth?
/accomodationalist snark off.
Posted by: Last Hussar | August 21, 2009 8:11 PM
I have just returned from a few days in Hampshire, spent mostly visiting Portsmouth. Walking from the Dockyard to the shops/parking/food etc a few hundred yards along the front we passed the 'Genesis Expo' a number of times on our travels. The third time we passed I remembered what this was- the outside makes great play of dinosaurs and fossils without actually mentioning anything YEC. (Actual quote- 'As featured in New Scientist')
On one walk past I threatened to go in- my (Christian) wife knows what I'm like when I answer the door to 'religeous persuaders'. She was intrigued- how could they have dinosaurs if they believed in literal creation? I explained about the fall etc and how all dinos used to be vege etc. She laughed at the (YEC) stupidity.
We had a tacit understanding- she wouldn't actually stop me going in, but I wouldn't spoil the holiday by going in. The time was far better spent in the Dockyard and museums (20 min in 'expo', followed by 20 mins arguing, or play on the nice simulators provided by the Royal Navy- no contest!)
.
Hold on...
... did someone mention Beer?
Posted by: Josh
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August 21, 2009 8:27 PM
Please keep us posted.
As point out by Nerd and 'Tis, we currently have two open delusionist positions. The thread lives, however.
Posted by: ChrisH
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August 21, 2009 8:32 PM
LH #158
Having grown up a few miles from Portsmouth I am thoroughly embarrassed by the thought of that museum opening recently. A part of me (the morbid half) wants to check it out, the sane part is glad that I'm never within 'can be bothered' distance. I imagine that I'd be escorted out if ever I went near it.
You definitely made a better call by going to the dockyard. The Royal Navy has some fun toys on display for people who are interested in boats, the military, or technology in general!
Posted by: Darren Garrison | August 21, 2009 8:51 PM
Posted by: Carlie | August 21, 2009 5:55 PM
"MartyM, I'd suggest reading The First Fossil Hunters by Adrienne Mayor."
Are you aware of Mayor's equally interesting more recent book, Fossil Legends of the First Americans?
http://www.amazon.com/Fossil-Legends-First-Americans-Adrienne/dp/0691130493/
(Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs is good, too, but not paleo.)
Posted by: Rey Fox | August 21, 2009 8:51 PM
DeluGionists.
Posted by: Josh
|
August 21, 2009 9:12 PM
I simply CANNOT spell today no matter what I do.
I quit.
Posted by: Sphere coupler | August 21, 2009 9:29 PM
Josh, if only spellcheck came on notebook paper I would be a genius.
A shout out to Allen B...good to see your words.
Posted by: recovering catholic | August 21, 2009 9:35 PM
MartyM--
I second the accolades for Neil Shubin's "Your Inner Fish". I've been teaching evolution for years, and studying it and reading about it for even longer, but I still found "Fish" totally engaging and impossible to put down. In fact, I think it would make an excellent required textbook for an introductory evolution course.
Bill Dauphin--you are a scholar and a gentleman, and judging by our shared taste in authors you and I are twins who were separated at birth.
Posted by: Patricia, OM | August 21, 2009 9:48 PM
Josh @163 - My grandmother used to tell me that my misspellings were not mistakes, they were the creations of a more inventive mind than Mr. Websters.
Posted by: Krubozumo Nyankoye | August 21, 2009 9:49 PM
I was admittedly a little surprised to learn from this post that you (PZM) use the approach of giving some background in geology for the foundational purpose of teaching beginning biology. I think it is an excellent approach. I wonder why a single semester course in introductory paleontology is not a part of the overall biology curriculm. Conversely I can see that it would have been valuable to have more than high school biology as 'background' when intending to pursue a career in geology. In other words, the cross disciplinary aspects of much of science in general are easily missed it seems to me. Even although we study chemistry, and physics and biology as the three major scientific subjects, most elementary chemistry hardly mentions physical chemistry and crystal chemistry which are very important in geology. I think it would be constructive to allow for more emphasis in general of the interdisciplinary nature of science.
My recollection is that history per se is taught with almost no mention of science at all, although in differeing forms it is as ancient as the central theme of most history which appears to be mainly politics. That is an over generalization of course because science does come up in world history over and over again but it is it seems to me not exactly treated as a thing in itself so much as just another occupation such as merchant, banker, general whatever.
When I had biology in high school (the last biology course I ever had), the subject of evolution was specifically omitted by the teacher because it was "controversial". That was it, literally a 20 second statement flushing the foundational theory of the whole science in one disparaging gesture.
A year or so later I read Origin of Species but did not really grasp its implications for biology as a science at the time, my loss. There was nothing in it I found all that remarkable except that at certain points the prose was eloquent, it just made sense. It was dense and the organization inobvious but cohesive enough to be a convincing argument even to one who did not really have much more than a curiosity as to what it said. I admit that I missinterpreted some of the key concepts, but I was operating in a vacuum. Luckily the past 40 years have not been without a steady supply of useful resources to fill the holes left by such education.
Bending myself back on topic I would like to suggest that in a condensed and summary way it might also be useful show that the question of age and the dating of things geological, involves a good deal of other sciences in addition to some foundational principles in geology. Particularly absolute ages, though there are indirect methods that pertain even to relative ages such as facies correlations based on minerals or petrography. Why absolute age dates are progressively less easy to derive from rocks of different origins, i.e. igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary. In addition it seems it would be necessary to point out that all radiometric dating is the result of an understanding of nuclear physics, why and how some isotopes are unstable and therefore decay.
I know I could go on adding to the list of things worth mentioning, just as in an introductory course in paleontology there should be a thorough discussion of what is known about heredity, biological organisms, and the biological (genetic) evidence of a deep history.
One last thing, just because it is a truism that shockingly never seems to occur to some people, even people I respect highly as scientists, and that is you are never going to grasp it all, you will never know all the details of your particular discipline, let alone whole fields, at best you will be able to sustain a mercurial sense of everything that is happening and if you are devoted and lucky, manage to focus on the key developments quickly enough to be half way fluent with them. So take that as a tall neat glass of bitter humility.
In our society that seems to value domination over cooperation, and egotism over cooperation, and selfishness over cooperation, perhaps the raw arrogance that allows one to blatently lie about reality is more strongly rewarded than the passive nature of doubt and acceptance of uncertainty. If so, the society is seriously broken.
The society IS seriously broken.
Sad to say, did someone mention beer?
Posted by: MartyM | August 21, 2009 9:53 PM
JustinB, Carlie, Darren Garrison, and recovering catholic,
thanks for the recommendation guys. I'm getting to all those, but am a slow reader.
FYI, here's the other claim I was referring to.
Cheers.
Posted by: MartyM | August 21, 2009 10:01 PM
then I found this response.
Posted by: Michael J | August 21, 2009 11:38 PM
Great story and it certainly punctures the balloon of the canard about dating methods being unreliable.
Posted by: Darren Garrison | August 21, 2009 11:42 PM
MartyM:
As long as we are helping you spend your money, I see that the excellent Only A Theory hasn't been mentioned yet:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001KVZ6RU/
Similar to (and as good as) Your Inner Fish.
And pretty much anything by Carl Zimmer or Peter Douglas Ward.
Posted by: SmilingSkeptic | August 22, 2009 12:08 AM
Not to lighten up the conversation a little bit, but when I read the "Lie harder" line, this movie poster flashed into my head:
http://www.cisfootball.org/holding/lie-hard.jpg
Posted by: nick bobick | August 22, 2009 12:10 AM
I've been thinking for some time that it would be great if each month, or quarterly, PZ would have an open thread where we could discuss books that we are currently reading. A sort of "What Are You Reading Now". I have suggested this to him in an email.
I think that many of the reactions to this blog post show that it could be a beneficial addition.
Posted by: Zetetic
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August 22, 2009 1:08 AM
Josh @ #163:
It seems to me like you spelled it correctly the first time!
;)
Posted by: Darren Garrison | August 22, 2009 1:24 AM
Nick Bobick:
Reading right now-- this:
http://www.amazon.com/Time-Machines-Scientific-Explorations-Deep/dp/038798416X/
Older book, but I'm cheap-- I wait for the low-priced used copies (I like getting library copies-- mylar covers on the dustjackets and, being science, almost nobody has touched them!)
When I finish that, the next book I'm thinking of picking from the stack(s) is The Oceans of Kansas (which is, again, an older book because, again, I'm cheap.)
http://www.amazon.com/Oceans-Kansas-Natural-History-Interior/dp/0253345472/
Posted by: Paladin | August 22, 2009 2:10 AM
You think earth is millions (or even *gasp* billions) of years old just because you're angry at god.
We all know better. It was created last thursday.
Posted by: Zetetic
|
August 22, 2009 3:58 AM
@ Paladin:
No it wasn't you god hater! It was exactly 2 minutes ago from....
Now!
No wait! From...
Now!
Yes that's it! I definitely have faith that's right!
;)
Posted by: foreign observer | August 22, 2009 5:54 AM
risking reppetition after so many unread posts, Wegener is a must in such a recount; that continents move (evolve) through time is a powerfull image incompatible with any literal bible interpretation
Posted by: nomuse | August 22, 2009 6:03 AM
I've been pondering the question of "Which side has the real scientists" recently (while engaged in the never-quite-dead Apollo Hoax debate), and a new rule of thumb occurred to me:
The side that polices their own, correcting errors, tussling over details, is probably the scientific side. The side that rarely attacks their comrades in arms, even though their stories are so different as to be in opposition, is probably the crazies.
Posted by: Aquaria | August 22, 2009 6:18 AM
Many people get most of their education from what they see on TV and read on the internet. How is the average person supposed to know whether to believe PZ Myers, Phd. or Kent Hovind, "Phd".
Critical thinking is the key. The problem of course, is that the parents who understand its importance teach it to their kids early on, while the ones who don't understand it don't teach it, or don't teach it well. That leaves the schools, already pressed enough from trying to teach other subjects...and dealing with a host of other problems.
Maybe it's time for a non-profit to come up with a PSA campaign aired during kids' programs that promotes basic critical thinking concepts. Start with something simple, like two kids arguing over whether or not the moon is made of cheese, and challenging each other to "prove" one of them right. So they start looking it up. Get the parents involved in finding and sorting out the evidence. Then work up to the logical fallacies. Stuff like that.
Posted by: Anri | August 22, 2009 10:49 AM
Aquaria sez:
"Maybe it's time for a non-profit to come up with a PSA campaign aired during kids' programs that promotes basic critical thinking concepts. Start with something simple, like two kids arguing over whether or not the moon is made of cheese, and challenging each other to "prove" one of them right. So they start looking it up. Get the parents involved in finding and sorting out the evidence. Then work up to the logical fallacies. Stuff like that."
Not a bad thought at all.
If I may step on the nostalgia train for a moment, there once was, some time ago, a tremendously popular animated children's cartoon that taught, episode after episode, that critical thinking was the key to your problems.
It was called Scooby Do.
Of course, any show that lasted as long as it did was going to jump both off of the rails and over the shark, but nothing has really stepped in to replace it (that I am aware of). I'm sure I wasn't alone in being depressed when the 'oh, wait, spooks *are* real after all!' paradigm shift happened in the later incarnations of the show.
(Just so no-one thinks this is a 'those were the days' post, most of the things I watched back then were utter crap, and many things since have been much better.)
Way OT, but I was just moved to post this.
Posted by: Jason | August 22, 2009 11:13 AM
Yay for geology!
Posted by: Michael Dowd | August 22, 2009 11:13 AM
Fabulous quickie overview, PZ. Thanks!
Posted by: Keith Douglas | August 22, 2009 12:27 PM
Tilting At Windmills: There is no such principle in physics.
Absurdist: The (extreme) form of Copenhagen is provably wrong.
James Sweet: The "god day" solution does get you out of one problem with taking the (sic) biblical narrative at face value, but there are others. In particular, the *order* presented is wrong.
lose_the_woo: Like so many things, the history of science if introduced would help if introduced and done right. If done wrong, as it is sometimes, it can make matters worse or at least be useless. For example, all the "postmodern" claptrap history of science. That's in the first category. The second is found in a lot of textbooks. An example there concerns the history of chemistry as presented in general chemistry books. It is often said that "atomos" meant "undivided" or "unsplittable" or something like that. No, it meant "not to be cut", originally, and then it becomes very tricky. The conventional interpretation is that the "atoms" were "indivisible" (which is another word in Greek) but there is a fair bit of evidence collected recently that perhaps it was originally meant to be "undivided", and subsequently "atomos" meant "*not* cut".
Greta Christina: It is also important to realize in the early modern period at least many of the semimal figures may have been theists, or even religious in their own private senses, but were *not* conventional believers. Newton, for example, was a (small-u) unitarian. Descartes only once attended church services as an adult - clearly not a conventional believer. Leibniz thought he could reconcile Protestants and Catholics (with his philosophy, of course). Boyle was a bit more conventional, but even he had unusual views about matter and such which might have raised a few eyebrows in more intolerant places. Galileo - if given the time I would defend this further - was also massively heterodox.
SimonG: Various versions of the "baloney detection kit" are worth it as a starting point.
Anri: The old Scooby Doo also pointed out (correctly) that appearances of the "supernatural" are actually hoaxes for *gain* on the part of someone, too. Pointing out that the gullible are often the victims of explicit scams is useful.
As for what PZ wrote to start this off, it illustrates quite well how science (and genuine knowledge) as a whole interlocks and mutually supports in a way that doesn't amount to "assuming the conclusion" like some claim. I encountered the "woo" attempt to do this recently: an "alternative medicine" book which tried so hard to rope in every system of religion, new age nostrum, etc. under one banner. Unfortunately, it was all "proof by assertion". ("And thus we find the XXX which is also known as the blah by the Hindus and the foo by the classical Chinese and ..." - never mind that these concepts were fundamentally different.) Ironically, this approach is the opposite of another one, the (mis)use of the Kuhnian "incommeasurability of paradigms" stuff.
Posted by: oca sapiens | August 22, 2009 12:34 PM
A very useful post, thanks again PZ Myers. In Italy, we'll just add Nicolas Steno - Steensen to Josh? - to the story.
And thanks to many Pharyngulites for providing sound arguments and much fun. Both needed. Local creationists have been quite conspicuous of late. They're having their first ever conference in Milan, Oct. 16-17, featuring American superstars, they said. Meanwhile they have recruited "da Pascal a Newton, da Mendel a Pasteur, da Alessandro Volta e Enrico Fermi". Sic: http://www.creazionismo.org/Articolo.asp?id=250
Posted by: Alan B | August 22, 2009 1:32 PM
#164 Sphere coupler. If Allen B is me, thanks.
#154 'Tis Himself
I'll spare you your blushes - I was still contributing when he got himself removed. I dropped out mainly because I felt I had little further to contribute at that stage.
#156 Nerd of Redhead, OM. How could I resist an invite to return? Beware Englishmen bearing gifts!
#159 Josh
Are you inviting me to return as Devil's Advocate ...? Could be fun ( ... maybe).
Posted by: pierocketofdoooooom99 | August 22, 2009 7:58 PM
nice post! i think that creationsts should read you.... maby the get a clue!
Posted by: Josh
|
August 22, 2009 8:14 PM
I care not why you return, my friend.
Posted by: Bacopa | August 22, 2009 9:53 PM
You left out Machiavelli and Hume. Machiavelli argued that human history might be eternal. Were it not for the offhand chance that The Church preserved Latin and Koine Greek we could not comprehend the ancient world. Hume argued that while human history is older than the bible states, history is probably not eternal as some European, African, or American empire would have crossed the Atlantic and maize would grow in Europe or Africa and wheat would grow in America.
Plato told a story about the creation in Timeaus, but it could have always been thus. Aristotle never spoke of a creation. Democritus and Lucretius taught there were multiple worlds and that each world came into being by the chance confluence of generative atoms which produced many monsters unfit to live which were selected out by lack of reproductive success. Only those kinds with workable combinations of traits came to breed true.
Lucretius also taught that humans descended from more robust but less intelligent ancestors. He also posited that there were "atoms of heridity", that traits could disappear in one generation and become prevalant in another. If he had only counted peas....
But Lucretius didn't get everything right. He was a flat-earther. Had no reasonable explaination why things fall. Aristotle's "natural place" model was much better and had a round earth.
Posted by: orion
|
August 25, 2009 1:04 AM
When I used to have this argument with religious fundamentalists, I used to give up in disgust, because you might as well have been arguing with a dining room table. Every argument would be countered with nonsense - until I discovered the secret!
According to creationist nonsense, its not just the Earth which is 6,000 years old, but the whole universe. But of course, we know the universe is billions of light years across - and we know that because we can measure it. And even creationists have no argument to counter that.
Of course, if the universe is only 6,000 years old, the light from even close stars (ie more than 6,000 light years away - and that's still in our own galaxy) would not have reached us yet, so we couldn't see them.
Ahhhh they argue - god stretched out the light from those stars just to fool us, just as he buried dinosaur bones and fossils to fool us (who knows why he did this, but its the best they can come up with).
But then, what about supernovas that occur in other galaxies? Those stars must have blown up even before the universe was created. So how or why did god stretch out the light from something that never existed in the first place? And of course, if 6,000 years ago god placed stars just so, why hasn't gravity caused the universe to collapse on itself?
Its about now they get really frustrated, pretty much the way I used to get frustrated with nonsense about dinosaurs and man coexisting.
Try it some time.
Posted by: Alan C | August 25, 2009 3:01 AM
And on the seventh day he went to the Pub.
Posted by: tubbolard | August 25, 2009 6:44 PM
way back a #1
I am a creationist and nothing went over my head here, understood it all.
Posted by: Smoggy Batzrubble OM4Jesus | August 25, 2009 6:57 PM
Dear Brother Tubbolard,
I too am a creationist, and I make a careful point of not understanding anything.
I fear, therefore, that if you "understood it all" and yet you still say you are a creationist, then you are either a liar (which would make Jesus very cross) or you are too blinkered and stupid to see the nose on your face.
Yours in concern for your incomprehension
Smoggy
Posted by: Eamon Knight | August 28, 2009 12:13 AM
Very belatedly dragging this thread back to the original topic....
I haven't read Mortenson, but I've been reviewing my pix from the Great CreoZerg, and I think I see where he could (in his own mind) get around PZ's history leson. As several exhibits in the Creation Funhouse make clear, it's not enough that these blokes were religious, not even that they were ever-so-devout Christians -- nothing less than a priori and unshakable commitment to Biblical literalism is good enough for AiG. To them, anything else is ipso facto "anti-Biblical".
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | August 28, 2009 12:17 AM
I doubt it.