Meanwhile, the Cincinnati newspaper The Enquirer brings us this delightful story about what a smashing success the Creation Museum has been:
Inside, visitors will walk through the Garden of Eden, see dinosaur bones, and watch the solar system unfold as “evidence of God's creativity.”
All of it supporting the idea that God created Earth in six days, that the planet is just 6,000 years old and those dinosaurs traveled on Noah's Ark to survive the Great Flood that created the Grand Canyon.
In the six months since the museum opened, more than 265,000 people have toured the facility built by Answers in Genesis, a nonprofit evangelical ministry. Answers had predicted it might draw 250,000 the first year.
The museum will double its parking lot by next summer.
Charming.
Revealingly, the museum has been a considerable boon to the economy of Northern Kentucky:
No matter who is coming, they are spending money in Northern Kentucky, filling up their gas tanks, eating at restaurants and staying in hotels. That has led to an estimated $10 million influx into the local economy, according to the Northern Kentucky Convention and Visitors Bureau.
It really says something about the sickness of the culture through much of the Midwest that a monument to pseudoscience and credulity could be a major boon to the local economy. Ask yourself if a similarly equipped natural history museum placed in the same location could draw anything like the crowds of the Creation Museum. Religious fundamentalism thrives in small, isolated towns where there is little else beyond going to church to do.
There is one place where I agree with the viewpoint of the museum:
“Genesis is written as what's called a narrative history,” said Looy, who is also co-founder of the ministry. “It's not like the poetry you would find in the book of Psalms, there are some parts of the Bible you don't take literally because it's poetic, but the book of Genesis is not a poem, it's not an allegory, and the writer of Genesis wrote straightforward history.”
This, I agree with. People who cavalierly dismiss Genesis as an allegory, or a fable meant to teach certain vague spiritual truths simply are not being honest to the text. The idea that the days in Genesis one were intended as twenty-four days is by far the most reasonable interpretation of what is written.
Of course, for most of the lengthy article, the only critic who is mentioned is a spokesperson for the American Atheists. He offers some worthy thoughts, but his sole qualification for doing so, as described by the article, is his atheism. Heaven forbid the article's writer should make it clear that the museum is an abomination to scientists, whether religious or not, or for that matter anyone who cares about things like facts or logic.
Right near the end, physicist Lawrence Krauss is given a few lines in which to vent:
Krauss, who has toured the museum, doesn't think that it will change anyone's mind.
“It's really meant to validate the beliefs of those people,” he said, “and make them feel comfortable in the lie that somehow science supports this.”
Krauss said the museum may confuse people, especially children who are too young to have learned science. He said anything that prevents people from learning about science is dangerous because the world will need science to solve problems including global warming, energy needs and even national security.
“It's full of lies, the world isn't 6,000 years old whether you want it to be or not,” he said. “And you shouldn't have to lie about the world to believe in God.” (Emphasis Added)
Well said, but I'm afraid I can't agree with that bold-face part.
The issue is not that someone knowledgeable about science will go in understanding the evidence for evolution and come out a fire-breathing creationist. Rather, it is the people who have never really thought carefully about the subject, who go out of curiosity or because a friend roped them in, we have to worry about. Such people rarely consider the possibility that such slick and expensive propaganda could possibly be wall-to-wall nonsense. Where there's smoke, there's fire, right?
Furthermore, the success of the creation museum leads to favorable press coverage, such as this article or the Times article discussed in the previous post. That leads to young-Earthism being a ubiquitous and accepted part of the social discourse. If the polls are to be believed, fully half the country is already in thrall to this garbage. Add in a lot of neutral to favorable press coverage and you bet people are going to start being persuaded. If not of full-blown YEC, at least of the idea that this is something that needs to be presented in science classes.
I'm afraid this sort of thing really makes me very pessimistic. It has been wisely said that against stupidity the Gods themselves toil in vain. People on the pro-evolution side of this issue often fret about the best way of approaching people with the truth about science. There is much hand-wringing about whether Richard Dawkins, say, helps or hurts the cause, or how we can make evolution palatable to religious people.
Folks, it's time for the bucket of cold water. The success of the creation museum and other similar efforts are not the result of snideness from Dawkins or Hitchens. It is not the result of poor framing by scientists, and it is not the result of a failure to understand science on the part of Americans.
People might be confused about the specifics of evolution, but they understand the really important part. The part where humans evolve from ape-like ancestors, and more primitive sorts of life before that, by natural selection, in defiance not only of the creation story in Genesis, but also of any sense of a how a loving God creating the world with humans in mind would behave. People don't like that. End of story.
The fact is that if the courts ever step out of the way we will have some sort of creationism taught in virtually every school-district in the country. Frame your way out of that. We're one Supreme Court justice (and the right case, of course) away from having it found constitutional to teach this dreck in public schools. If, as seems a distinct possibility, we have President Giulliani in January of 2009, I'm afraid I see little hope for keeping the forces of darkness and ignorance from finally getting what they want.
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That's kind of been already done, though there are more sites out there.
Then there's the Talk Origins site Index of Creationist Claims and 29 Evidences for Macroevolution and, of course, No Answers in Genesis
I'll hold you to that one Jason ! However, I'm not optomistic.
We've had some good news here in Northern Ireland recently. Some of the local schools in the Lisburn City council area (the council passed a motion requesting local schools teach intelligent design in science classes) have told the council to get stuffed. Have a look at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGF2AxlQsYE
The proposals were made by a YEC.
Good news from the Giant's Causeway as well. The entire rights of the site have been handed over to the National Trust by Moyle district council, hopefully preventing any creationist display (the YEC's refer to an article by Tas Walker of AiG) at the propsed new visitor's centre. This campaign is being instigated by a local church group, Dunluce Christian Fellowship:
http://www.dunlucechristianfellowship.com/?page_id=63
http://www.dunlucechristianfellowship.com/?page_id=65
http://www.dunlucechristianfellowship.com/?page_id=64
I'm sure all this sounds very familiar.
I'll hold you to that one Jason ! However, I'm not optomistic.
We've had some good news here in Northern Ireland recently. Some of the local schools in the Lisburn City council area (the council passed a motion requesting local schools teach intelligent design in science classes) have told the council to get stuffed. Have a look at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGF2AxlQsYE
The proposals were made by a YEC.
Good news from the Giant's Causeway as well. The entire rights of the site have been handed over to the National Trust by Moyle district council, hopefully preventing any creationist display (the YEC's refer to an article by Tas Walker of AiG) at the propsed new visitor's centre. This campaign is being instigated by a local church group, Dunluce Christian Fellowship:
http://www.dunlucechristianfellowship.com/?page_id=63
http://www.dunlucechristianfellowship.com/?page_id=65
http://www.dunlucechristianfellowship.com/?page_id=64
I'm sure all this sounds very familiar.
Seriously? There are two narratives that contradict each other. Not to mention that "biblical literalism" is a thoroughly modern phenomenon which didn't exist until the 19th century.
This is, to be blunt, wrong.
First off, the text itself has an obvious structure. It's written in sections, which mirror each other, and is highly repetitive. This is plain to everyone reading the text. It even has a refrain at the end of each section: "There was evening, and there was morning."
I think it's very hard, even for a modern reader, to miss that there's a kind of poetic thing going on here, even if it's not "poetry" proper. "Narrative history" almost always doesn't have a fine-grained structure like this.
Secondly, and most importantly, both this, and Looy's comment that it's in response to, show a very strong post-Enlightenment bias. Hear me out before hitting "reply", and I'll try to explain what I mean by that.
Genesis was written at a time in history when the sort of precision that you expect of a modern historian or scientist simply wasn't done. No Middle Eastern reader of 2,500 years ago would have read this as a scientific account of anything for the simple reason that no culture of the time and place was that literally-minded.
(Incidentally, a good example of this is Matt 27:9-10 which is often thought of as a misquote by readers only familiar with modern rules of citation.)
Note that I'm certainly not claiming any special place for Genesis in this. I'd say the same about any piece of mythology written sufficiently long ago.
Maybe I've just read too much Joseph Campbell, but for some reason, I seem to find this obvious where a lot of other people that I know don't. The "inerrant" vs "wrong" distinction only matters if you think that the concept of "inerrancy" makes any kind of sense when it comes to mythology.
I really think these religious nuts need to stay away from science. It is one thing to believe in things that cannot be scientifically proven (such as the existence of God)... it is entirely different thing to try and rationalize such beliefs with science... and do it poorly. Then they try and convince others by confusing them with what sounds like science. It really is just one big exercise in ignorance... and the infectious way in which it spreads.
Este "Museo de la Creación", al igual que el Creacionismo "Científico", el "Diseño Inteligente", la Geología "Diluvial" y la Arqueología "Bíblica", no son más que intentos desesperados para reemplazar a la Ciencia por Dogmas Religiosos Pseudocientíficos. Siento mucha pena por los Estadounidenses que realmente piensan y tienen formación científica, porque tienen que soportar toda esta basura.
It's pretty damn obvious from the writings of any given period that belief in the literal existence of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, etc. has been around for a long time. The Gospel writers and the apostle Paul clearly spoke of these characters as if they were real. Paul bases a whole theology on Adam's "original sin", for crying out loud: "Since by man came death..." yadda yadda yadda. He thought this crap was real. A lot of people through time have merely taken it for granted that the Bible describes real events, and never felt the need to insist explicitly on literalism.
Explicit biblical literalism is a "thoroughly modern phenomenon" because it has only been in recent times that such beliefs have faced a serious and very public challenge from science. You don't find the Venerable Bede or Albertus Magnus repeatedly insisting on explicit biblical literalism because there weren't a hell of a lot of people around back then saying Adam and Noah weren't real. But you do later find John Calvin and Martin Luther denying Galileo's claims because they contradict Joshua 10:14, Psalm 93:1 and Ecclesiastes 1:5.
Genesis as a not literal history has been around for an extraordinarily long time. Read "The Literal Genesis" by Thomas Aquinas. He interprets the repetition of the story of the creation of Man to mean that the first time the seed of what would be Man was created and it later became what was actually Man (sounds sort of like evolution doesn't it?) From the Jewish perspective, literal readings are extremely modern and are often pulled from fundamentalist Christianity than any other source. You won't find scholars like Rashi talking about a genesis as literal history either.
Sure you can disagree with their interpetations, but considering the non-literal meanings have been promoted by the top religious scholars from 1000 years ago does put a damper on your thesis that non-literalism is a modern creation.
Jason Rosenhouse said,
The ballyhooed, grossly overrated Kitzmiller v. Dover decision has gone to the heads of the Darwinists and made them overconfident. Many people are unaware that two other decisions against evolution disclaimers, Freiler v. Tangipahoa Parish and Selman v. Cobb County, came close to being overturned. Freiler came within a single vote of being granted an en banc (full court) appeals court rehearing and within a single vote of being granted Supreme Court review (4 votes are required for SC review). In an oral hearing, the appeals court judges in Selman indicated that they were leaning towards reversal but they then vacated and remanded the decision because of missing evidence and the case was eventually settled out of court. However, keep in mind that these three cases were all evolution disclaimer cases -- criticisms of evolution were not actually taught. The arguments in favor of evolution disclaimers are much stronger than the arguments in favor of teaching criticisms of evolution because the disclaimers may be viewed as just a way of reducing offense to people who are offended by the teaching of evolution -- in the words of the judicial "endorsement test," the disclaimers make those people feel less like "political outsiders."
In the semi-fictional movie "Inherit the Wind," one of the questions that the defense attorney (Drummond) asked the prosecutor (Brady) was why a day in creation should necessarily be of 24 hours length before the sun was created.
Jason Rosenhouse:
I am reminded of David Brin's essay, "Should Democrats Issue a New 'Contract with America'?"
"People might be confused about the specifics of evolution, but they understand the really important part. The part where humans evolve from ape-like ancestors, and more primitive sorts of life before that, by natural selection, in defiance not only of the creation story in Genesis, but also of any sense of a how a loving God creating the world with humans in mind would behave. People don't like that. End of story."
This was the mantra of the late Stephen Jay Gould in one of his essays. As he stated it, if the scientific community had agreed that humans alone were specially created while all other animals arose through the forces of evolution, there would probably be little or no opposition to teaching it.
"Ask yourself if a similarly equipped natural history museum placed in the same location could draw anything like the crowds of the Creation Museum. Religious fundamentalism
thrives in small, isolated towns where there is little else beyond going to church to do."
An interesting post save the above quote. Answers in Genesis is hardly "isolated" It's 5 minutes from the Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Airport. Heck, it's as close to my address in Cincinnatias the Costco I go to.
Cincinnati has a wonderful Natural History Museum, housed in Union Terminal (a National Historic Landmark). It's 20 minutes from the creation museum. The Omnimax is showing "Sea Monsters, a Prehistoric Adventure." http://www.cincymuseum.org/
Cincinnati is not a "small isolated town" where there is little to do beyond "going to church", as your post implies.
Heck, the Northern Kentucky area is one of the fastest growing regions in the country. It's not the sticks.
Now, I expect an apology to the Queen City of the West. Or else face our wrath.
(ok, we actually don't have a lot of wrath. But we may come to your house and make you eat our chili)
bsci,
You can go farther back than Aquinas--at least all the way to Christian church fathers Justin, Irenaeus, and Augustine (and others). Though none of them had scientific evidence forcing their hands, each argued that the days in Genesis One were not literal 24 hour periods. In short, they would certainly disagree with Jason's claim that "The idea that the days in Genesis one were intended as twenty-four days is by far the most reasonable interpretation of what is written." And their writings dispute the canard that people are only now abandoning the literal 24 hour view because science leaves them no choice.
Here's an interesting comparison:
The Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta, is one of the world's great natural history museums. It is located in a town of 8000 about 80 miles from the nearest big city (Calgary). There were a total of 360,000 visitors in 2006.
Does anyone know of a similarly situated natural history museum in the US?
heddke, Thanks for the correction. I meant Augustine not Aquinas. That's why I couldn't find the direct reference to Aquinas and "Literal Genesis"
Here's a sample Augustine quote on this topic
http://books.google.com/books?id=_s0kIgD0nCcC&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=augusti…
If the link doesn't work, it's from John Hammond Taylor's translation of literal genesis on pages 186-187
"He who is before the ages created the beginning of ages, in what we may call the germ of the root of time, He created man to be formed later in due time" The full quote has more detail, but I'm not pasting everything here.
Heddle-
"heddke" is a pretty weak alias don't you think?
Jim,
Heh. I misspell my own name quite often. I try to spell check the posts, then I paste them in, then, depending on what computer I'm on, quickly fill in the ID text fields and hit post. I can't say how many times David Heddle has come out Dsvid Heddke -- although dropping my first name has reduced the frequency by roughly 50%. Maybe I should just use "h".
"Folks, it's time for the bucket of cold water. The success of the creation museum and other similar efforts are not the result of snideness from Dawkins or Hitchens. It is not the result of poor framing by scientists, and it is not the result of a failure to understand science on the part of Americans.
People might be confused about the specifics of evolution, but they understand the really important part. The part where humans evolve from ape-like ancestors, and more primitive sorts of life before that, by natural selection, in defiance not only of the creation story in Genesis, but also of any sense of a how a loving God creating the world with humans in mind would behave. People don't like that. End of story."
And this is why I find myself persistently annoyed by that argument. Dawkins and the like are made easy scapegoats for the failure of scientists to convince most Americans about evolutionary biology. The fact that the problem really is religion means it is all the more insurmountable, which is not a comforting thought.
T. Bruce McNeely said ( November 26, 2007 10:44 AM ) --
Is it on the Trans-Canada Highway? You've got to remember that there is only one main highway across Canada, the Trans-Canada, and that 90 percent of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border. So anyone driving across Canada would have to come close to the museum.
Ian-
I was referring to the most reasonable way of interpreting the text of Genesis One. The conlfict with Genesis Two is a separate issue. The history of biblical literalism likewise has nothing to do with any point I was making. The text of Genesis One seems perfectly clear to me. You are free to discard it if you wish, but you are not free to alter what it plainly says.
Pseudonym-
With all due respect, you are talking through your hat.
That there is a refrain at the end of each day of creation hardly changes the text from history to poetry. And I suspect that the Ancients would simply have taken the text at face value. It is an unambiguous accounting of specific actions taken by God in a particular temporal sequence. When it says on Day X God created Y, I very much doubt that an ancient reader would see that as poetic.
Wes-
Well said!
bsci-
I didn't say nonliteralism was a modern creation. I said that the interpretation of Genesis One provided by the YEC's is the most reasonable one based on the text, and, in fact, is far more reasonable than things like Day-Age creationism (which really is a modern interpretation).
Anonymous-
My impression is that evolutionists have not grown overconfident in the wake of Kitzmiller, we are merely happy that a large bullet was dodged. Of course anti-evolutionism is alive and well, and as I said in the previous post, no one has any illusions about how tenuous is the wall keeping creationism officially out of science classes.
As for why we might be talking about 24 hour days before the Sun was created, perhaps because the intent was to provide a model for the Sabbath. Just as God worked for six days and rested on the seventh, so too should humans behave that way. It rather lacks punch to say that since God worked for six periods of indeterminate length and then rested for a seventh period of indeterminate length, so too should humans.
Louis-
The isolation I was referring to was that of Kentucky generally. Its nice that Northern Kentucky is growing so rapidly, but they are starting from such a low level of development that rate of growth is not the most important thing. The fact is that Kentucky, like most of the Midwest states, have a few major population centers but are composed largely of small towns well isolated from each other. Such towns, because of their isolation, are breeding grounds for fundamentalism. It is a lot harder to maintain so rigid a faith when so many people around you come from entirely different backgrounds.
And being near Cincinnati is hardly the same thing as being in Cincinnati. Glad you thought the post was interesting otherwise.
Heddle-
You're very taken with the idea that you can find a handful of people throughout history who suggested that the days in Genesis are something other than 24 hour days. Personally, I find their views interesting only from an historical standpoint. They are in no better position than anyone else to decide what the text means. The simple fact remains that if the intention of the writers of Genesis One was to convey the story of God performing specific actions in a specific sequence in a way that parallels human conceptions of time, then they chose a very natural and obvious way of writing. If there intention was to write an allegory about God's dominion over the world, or to convey the idea that God created over an indeterminate stretch of time, then they chose a way of writing that seemed tailor made to cause confusion.
Jason,
Heddle and I aren't quoting a handful of random people through history. Augustine was labeled a saint for his intellectual contributions to Christianity. It ideas were central to centuries of Christian thought and his works were repeatedly copied by hand for almost a millenium. His ideas were part of the mainstream and not the fringe.
From the Jewish perspective, Rashi is one of the most famous and significant postbiblical people in the religion. Nachmanides and others also have commentaries citing non-literal views, but I'm not making a compilation here.
The simple fact is that the non-literal meanings have been around and accepted for a much longer period than young earth creationism. YEC was an anti-intellectual movement that is less than 2 centuries old. The direct reading might make the most sense to you, but it's also anti-intellectual when taken in the broader context of the rest of the bible and commentaries. It's a silly comparison, but what you're saying is like saying the most obvious interpretation of Walt Whitman's "Oh Captain, My Captain" is about a dead ship captain.
Re Rosenhouse
Long days is not the only theory of old earth creationism (OEC).
1. There is also a group of OECs who interpret the gap between the first sentence of Genesis and the rest as an indeterminate length of time (4 billion years?).
2. There yet another group of OECs who claim that there is no reason to interpret the text as implying that the 6 days of creation are consecutive days. Thus they claim that there could be long periods of time between the days. I believe this notion was first proposed by the disgraced evangelist Jimmy Swaggart.
Kentucky has nothing to do with the midwest.
bsci-
That Augustine and the other folks you mention were important and influential scholars is not at issue. But you have little basis for your claim that nonliteral readings have a longer history than literal ones. Much of Augustine's writing on this subject, in fact, was directed towards people too committed to a particular, dogmatic interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis, especially those who itnerpret Genesis in a way that is contradicted by the best scientific information available. If nuanced, nonliteral interpretations were the order of the day, I doubt he would have written with such vigor on this point.
Your comparison to Walt Whitman is inapt. O Captain, My Captain is obviously a poem, and is obviously connected to important events of the time. Not so for Genesis One, which reads like history and gives an accounting that makes perfect sense when taken literally.
The fact is that recent polls have shown that close to fifty percent of Americans accept the young-Earth interpretation of Genesis. Not fifty percent of Christians, mind you, but fifty percent of Americans. Apparently they are unimpressed with Augustine's view of the matter. Are all of those people being foolish and anti-intellectual? Or are they simply reading a text and understanding it for what it says?
It is not anti-intellectual to read Genesis One and think it is talking about 24 hour days. The anti-intellectual part comes when you say the testimony of Genesis is more important than any other evidence on the subject that might come to light.
bsci-
I'm not about to devote too much time to early Christian scholarship, but it seems to me that the large masses of converts/believers in the early days would have been largely illiterate. That is to say that their view of the world outside their direct knowledge would have been essentially mythology or literal interpretations of analogy. In fact, this would have been a characteristic quality of almost all pre-moderns. If what you say is true about a non-literal Genesis One interpretation then it would have had to have been taught to them by the handful of Augustines. This view would not have come naturally to them. Now you have 2 problems: were there really that many Augustines out there spreading the word to the base because I would need to see more than you have presented that this was the mainstream view, & why would you have the holy writ related in such a way that could only be misinterpreted by its intended audience (the meek).
I assume that our YEC troll, Mr. Jon S is making plans to visit the museum, if he has not already done so. Should be his coup of tea.
Jason:
Here's what you said, again:
That's what I (and, thankfully, a bunch of other people here) are arguing is wrong. I don't disagree with the first part: Genesis 1 isn't vague. But neither is it obviously "literal" in the modern sense for the simple reason that "literalism" in the modern sense is, well, modern.
I concede that to you, the literal reading of Genesis may well be the most obvious, but with all due respect, you are not a person living in a pre-scientific era. That's a good thing for you, by the way, but I think it probably makes you unqualified to interpret mythology. (Also true of me, for the record.)
I think that Jim has a good point here: Until not very long ago, most Christians, and indeed most people, were illiterate. The question of whether or not a "literal interpretation" was common or in the majority amongst Christians is almost meaningless. Most people had no need to think about it.
(Some further research has turned up a few religious historians who argue that "literalism" as we know it today was virtually unknown before Protestantism and its "sola scriptura". I don't know if that's true, but it's an interesting thought.)
So we have to look at what theologians said.
First off, it's been pointed out that the first recorded appearance of a Christian theologian taking a passage in Genesis metaphorically is in the Bible itself! Galatians 4:22-26, to be precise.
This list of quotes is also quite interesting for the amount of variety of interpretation by ancient Christian scholars. None came up with a modern scientific viewpoint, but it's unreasonable to expect that they would.
However, I think that all of this is moot.
First off, the whole idea of Creationism (or, for that matter, ID, which, as we all know is really just Creationism) doesn't make any sense except in response to real science. In an era when there was no better explanation for how the stars were formed, how the Earth came to be, or for biological diversity, or whatever, then you can't blame someone for taking what they believed to be the best available explanation a little too literally.
Secondly, and most importantly, Christianity was really the first religion which was not tied to a single ethnic group, a single state (or, indeed, any government) or a single philosophy. It has always adapted to whatever culture it came into contact with. You can see it happening even before the Bible was finished being written, with Paul of Tarsus adapting Jewish philosophy for the Greek world.
Or to put it another way, the one thing that distinguishes Christianity from previous religions is its willingness to change.
This is why I'm optimistic that Christians will help to defend science education, which is the fight that I think is the most important. I do feel bad for those in the US "Bible belt", but thankfully, that attitude is mostly confined. ID, as a movement, is pretty much unknown outside of one (admittedly large) region of the United States. If it wasn't for scienceblogs, I'd have never known about it.
actually, much of Augustine's work was directed to non-Christians as he formerly was. In a way we was trying to allow the bible to be acceptable to pagan philosophers. His success wasn't in being an outlier among Christians, but being a conduit for allowing others to find accessible rationalism within Christianity.
I know the Whitman example wasn't greatly, but I hope the point came across. There are certain works that are completely connected to the commentary and events of the time. Much of the bible fits into that category.
Jim is correct that most early converts were illiterate/uneducated. The early church's solution to this was to forbid the masses from biblical interpretation or even directly reading the text. That way the masses wouldn't be able to make incorrect interpretations. One of the major changes of the protestant reformations was the translation of the bible into native languages along with the permission for the masses to be allowed to read the bible. Permitting individual interpretations only started with Reformation and the most radical change was with the American fundamentalist movements of the mid-1800's which allowed "commoners" to have personal interpretations of the bible. This anti-intellectual movement was the start of modern YEC. The fact that so many americans believe it is a statement to the success of this movement and the poor quality of science education in the US. (I am not a scholar in this area and I'm not christian so some of my chronology might be wrong here)
As for calling Augustine an outlier, can you find any formal Catholic document, historical or current, that advocates young earth creationism?
Um, Buddhism?
(Unless you define Buddhism but not Christianity as a "single philosophy", which may be a bit myopic.)
Most religions, especially the ancient ones, cross-pollinated with other each other. A big reason the Jews and Christians had problems with the Roman Empire was that unlike the polytheistic religions of the time, they were monotheistic and couldn't be assimilated into the conquered territories because they refused to accept the Roman gods as other religions did. They were persecuted specifically for their non-adaptability.
Then, when Christianity had it's day in the Dark Ages and was the state sanctioned religion of all the countries of Europe, it "adapted" to other cultures by usually killing them. (Latin America, Native Americans, Asia, etc.) And now that it no longer rules Europe as it once did, it's inability to adapt has resulted in it's serious decline there.
Furthermore, all of the world's "Great" religions today have significant numbers of converts on multiple continents. I see nothing unique about Christianity in this respect.
How about we get someone to go and take a picture of or write down every arguement made by the creationist museum that is errant, (or at least ever errant arguement made by someone giving a "museum" tour - they do have those, right?), and then we post them on a website with the correct responses to that arguement, so anyone that goes to visit it (like I know I will if I am ever up that way - I love good comedy) can simply destroy everything that the tour guide says. It would at the very least make for a fun time.
Folks, it's time for the bucket of cold water. The success of the creation museum and other similar efforts are not the result of snideness from Dawkins or Hitchens. It is not the result of poor framing by scientists, and it is not the result of a failure to understand science on the part of Americans.
Much criticism has been aimed at Dawkins and Hitchens for talking about "those" Christians as if they represented Christianity. Now we see, once again, how ubiquitous "those" Christians are. (The first time we saw it was the success of The Passion of the Christ.) I always knew it - having grown up around it.
The real elitists are the "moderate" Christians, in part because churchgoers are fleeing the mainstream churches in droves (due in part to the mainstream churches' embrace of evolution), but also due to social class. These "moderate" Christians who criticize Dawkins and Hitchens are just out of touch with real Americans, who really really believe all this stuff. They aren't academics, they aren't too well informed about science or evolution, and they believe in angels, they believe in demons, they believe in creationism. Dawkins and Hitchen are right. These creationists are the face of Christianity in America. I always knew it. I escaped it, and the elitist believers never encountered it.
windy: Yes, you have a point about Buddhism. Perhaps I should have said "theistic religion" rather than "religion"?
Even then, though, Buddhism took a few hundred years to spread beyond India. Christianity was beyond the Jewish world within a few decades.
I maintain that Christianity has probably been the most adaptable of all religions, or at least it was until it got "in charge" in Europe. (That's a whole other topic; being here, I obviously don't believe in religious establishment, so I'm certainly not going to defend that as a virtue.)
By "adaptation", I obviously don't mean that it could merge with other religions. I merely mean that it could easily adapt to other locales and ethnic groups.
I'm confused.
Did man live with the dinosaurs or not?
YEC ==> YES
Science ==> NO
OEC ==> maybe?
and just how "OLD" is this earth? and what was god doing witht he aninals before he created man if it was billions of years?
was god lonely? or was he a "furry"?
Answers in Genesis has covered both this story and the one in the New York Times. Naturally, they are very appreciative of The Enquirer article:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2007/11/26/recent-media-covera…
describing the newspaper as being very fair and balllanced etc. But it's not just in the US that belief in a young Earth is prevalent. This is what is happening here in Northern Ireland:
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=921071912432
Does that church service not look familiar ? I'd say uncannily similar to that part of the US that jason has mentioned.
Still, I'm sure Jason said, in one ofd his excellent reviews of the museum, that he hoped that attendences would fall off maybe after a year or so. Looks like you were wrong on that one Jason, unfortunately. The success of Ham's museum is worrying and should be a wake-up call to scientists not only in the US but through out the world.
Peter-
Well, the museum has only been open for six months or so. I guess there's still hope!
Embarrassing...
Instead of repeating the same evidence to creationists, just link them to videos- visual aides always help them.
Why teaching creationism is an awful idea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYphna9UTCk
Transitional fossils- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4GdZOlPrX8&feature=PlayList&p=F9729F67C…
http://www.youtube.com/user/DonExodus2
Thank You.
RESPONSE TO THE CREATIONIST LIES:
The Creationists have a very special combination of ignorance and pedantry that features distinct from other pseudo-scientific. First mix all, as if the same thing: Big-bang, Abiogénesis and Biological Evolution. Then, from one course to another course, pseudo-scientific pseudo-scientific, and finally scientific texts Transliterate, taking them out of context to say what they want to say. Of course, thinking that all these tactics are misrepresentation of real science.
The Big Bang as the Abiogénesis and biological evolution are completely different things. The First and Third are properly tested scientific theory, however, is the second phase of scientific hypothesis, with a set of assumptions Rivales compete with each other. The only common thread they have is the philosophy of that party: naturalist, materialist, mechanistic and transformed. But, of course, that creationists do not know, or deliberately ignored. I doubt very much that teach in the Church, in Sunday schools or universities Creationists.
The Big Bang Theory has the following evidence: large-scale homogeneity, Hubble diagram (Expansion of the Universe), cosmic background microwave radiation, fluctuations in the cosmic background microwave radiation, Light element abundance, Structure Long Scale of the Universe, Age of the Stars, Time dilation in the Brightness of Supernovae, Evolution and Distribution of Galaxies, etc .... Introducing the following problems: Horizon, Flatness, Age of globular clusters, Magnetic monopoles, dark matter and dark energy, etc ...
Scenario Abiogenética tries to explain the origin of organisms from non living matter and has the following models (none of which requires a "supernatural being"): Miller-Urey, Fox, Eigen, Wachstershauser, World RNA world of Iron-Sulfur, Bubbles, Autocatálisis, Clay, Gold, World of lipids, polyphosphates, Ecopoiesis, Panspermia, etc ... Very few scientists, like Nasif Nahle of Biology Cabinet Organization, Abiogénesis think that evolution and are same, because they consider that the first would involve the chemical evolution. While Creationists "Scientific" Creationists and Intelligent Design, insists not have anything to do with spontaneous generation of antiquity.
For more than pseudo-scientific Creationists say it, the slow pace of geological change could not have been sufficient to produce the present diversity of organisms in a period between 6,000 and 10,000 years, (no matter how many "created kinds" or baramines is up) the age of the earth and the universe as many Creationists "Scientists" (Morris & Witcomb, 1961, Morris, 1970-1974; Barnes, 1971; Humphreys, 1989, etc ...), as are the alleged "apparent age" that God Judeo-Christian gave the universe, alleged flaws in radiometric dating, the growth rate of world population, if the Earth's magnetic field decay, the alleged decline in the speed of light, the deposition of ocean sediments and geology "diluvial" the impossible in order hydrodynamic fossils, etc ... The techniques of modern geology to estimate ages confirm that the age of the Earth is between 4.200-4.600 billion years old, more than enough time to cover the development of modern forms of life from primitive ancestors. According to Schopf (1968), the oldest fossils of organisms that have an apparent cellular structure has been dated at 3200 million years and were found in Onwerwacht Series of South Africa, consisting of bars (the type of bacteria) and spheroids (of type of Cyanophyta) coal, which are preserved in flint and other fine-grained sedimentary rocks. In the Gunflint formation FerrÃfera of Ontario, Canada, which has a length of about 1900 million years (Precambrian and lower middle) found the type of structures Cyanophyta (some of which are stromatolites) and structures such as those bacteria. In the formation of Bitter Springs in Central Australia, with an age of 1000 million years have been some fossil eukaryote, which appears to be algae and fungi. Fauna oldest multicellular animals is known is that of EDIAC Hills, in South Australia, about 680-700 million years (Upper Precambrian), which consists of a fully soft bodied animals, some of which are very similar to present or celenterados (medusoides and Pennatulacea), annelids, echinoderms and bodies of unknown affinity.
On the Theory of Biological Evolution I will make a short list (though I doubt you understand):
I. Evolution is a unifying concept of biology: The Theory of Evolution (Lat. Evolve: unrolling or deployment), enables us to understand the immense variety of life forms that exist on the planet. Evolution is the cumulative change in the characteristics of populations or organisms, which appears in the course of successive generations related by descent. The Theory of Evolution is the origin of all forms of organisms that now exist and opposes the religious myth of Special Creation, which says that each "kind" (Baramin) agency was created supernaturally and as such is not, by therefore related by descent with any other. Establishing a difference between the old concepts of evolution and the scientific study, relatively modern, the mechanisms of evolution (gradual, Saltacionismo and neutral).
1. Lamarque (1809): according to Count Jean Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829), the characters acquired during the development of an organism are inherited. It was thought then that in plants these changes were the result of the direct effects of the environment. In animals, a change in the environment cause a change in the needs of the animal, causing the production of new structures to meet those needs. Further development of these structures or their disappearance after many generations was explained by the theory of use and disuse. Unfortunately for this hypothesis, the effects of the use and disuse are restricted to the somatic tissues, so it was discarded.
2. Darwinism(1858-1859): Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) & Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), independently proposed the same theory on the origin of species by natural selection produced by the action of slight variations of different kinds selection, therefore, those species best adapted to survive.
2.1. Artificial selection: original part of a few species of useful plants and animals, human beings have produced great number and variety of races selected by the breeding and reproduction of those individuals who possessed the most valuable.
2.2. Natural Selection: It is the essential part of the Darwinian explanation of the causes of evolution, and is based on the following propositions:
A. Overproduction of offspring: Each species produces more offspring that can survive to maturity. Because of its exponential increase in the number of individuals of a species tends to be extremely large but the population remains roughly constant, remaining the number of individuals of each species nearly stationary under normal conditions, because the disease, competition, climate, etc ..., eliminate a lot of individuals, which shows that much of the offspring in each generation should perish.
B. Variability and Change: Among all individuals and species variations exist, all ranks, among the offspring. Given this variation, some individuals are better equipped for the struggle for existence than others.
C. Competition or "Struggle for Existence": As more individuals are produced that can survive, among them competition for food and space. The struggle for existence is the result of the high rate of reproduction of most organisms, with little variation in individuals adapted to natural conditions are eliminated, while those who have played and continue to exist favorable. There is competition among offspring for resources essential for life, eg food, space, habitat. The success of this struggle for existence must decide which survive and which disappear.
E. Survival to reproduce or transmit hereditary characteristics: The offspring with the combination of the most favorable conditions are to survive and reproduce, passing on those characteristics of the next generation. Natural selection, or the action of the environment on inherited variations that will result in the preservation of individuals with favorable variations and the elimination of those with unfavorable variations. The less gifted, as most will die young, unable to reproduce.
2.3. Sexual selection: that the competition in the choice of partner, eg fights between males, females exercised by choice, etc ... will determine who favored the union.
3. Neolamarquismo: modification of the evolutionary hypothesis of Lamarck, which asserts that the characters are inherited the principle of specific differences. Was held, inter alia, by Trofim D. Lysenko (1898-1976) in the former Soviet Union against the "Bourgeoisie Darwin", supported first by Stalin and then by Khrushchev, but when the latter was deposed, the Soviet leaders re classical genetics and Neodarwinismo.
4. Neodarwinism or Synthetic Theory of Evolution (Julian Huxley, 1942) are well known to modern interpretations of Darwinism, based on that knowledge to combine the theory of natural selection with Mendel's laws, the Chromosome Theory of Inheritance The Population Dynamics and Molecular Biology.
A. Laws of Mendel (1866): announced by Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-1884) are the governing characteristics of living things.
a. Mendel's first law (Law of Segregation): asserts that Alelomorfos are segregated. Are segregated in meiosis members of the pairs of homologous chromosomes and halves the number of chromosomes passing to each gamete.
b. Mendel's Second Law (Law of Settlement Independent): The random distribution of the alleles of the gametes. In fertilization, the random union of 2 gametes of different sex, meet the crew of chromosomes (and therefore genes) from the 2 parents, leading to production of individuals with different gene combinations.
B. Chromosome Theory of Heredity (Walter Theodor Boveri & Sutton, 1902): The chromosomes, which are filamentous bodies that consist of DNA and protein in cell nuclei containing all genes ultramicroscópicos arranged linearly, from which depends the development of character of an individual.
C. Mechanisms that introduce variability in the DNA which can be:
C.1. Mutations: gene mutations show that the changes of a gene from one allelic form to another, or heritable changes in the sequence of chromosomal DNA (chromosomal rearrangements also occur), both processes have resulted in alterations of the envelope gene (and therefore of characters) that are transmitted to succeeding generations. The gene is altered from the previous alelomórfico. Mutations can be:
d. Point mutation or gene: 1 affecting single nitrogenous base (only 1 nucleotide) which are produced by substitution (or Transitional Transversión), insertion or deletion.
e. Multi-site mutations or chromosomal they affect the structure of the chromosome in regions more or less extensive, are produced by duplication, Investment Deletion or Translocation.
f. Genomic Mutations or karyotypic they affect the number of chromosomes due to errors during the formation of gametes.
C.2. Mobile genetic elements: DNA sequences are capable of moving from one cell to another, even between different species, or within a cell, and multiply them by:
d. Viruses: Viruses are able to insert its genetic material into the genome of the host cell by altering its structure, eg, provirus, Oncovirus, etc ...
e. Bacterial plasmid: small circular DNA segments capable of autorreplicarse the same way as the bacterial chromosome.
f. Genetic Elements Transpose, transposons or jumping genes: discrete DNA sequences that can move to other areas of the genome of the cell, randomly inserted sequences, or intergenerational regulatory genes. May be bacterial or eukaryotic transposons.
C.3. Emergence of new functional genes: sometimes happens that a single gene causes early during evolution of a multigene family located on different chromosomes.
D. Population genetics: evolution occurs whenever there is a change in gene frequency (allele) of the population, even if the change has no visible effect.
E. Natural Selection: The Evolution by Natural Selection has been produced by mutation, not by direct mutation, natural selection eliminates many mutations are harmful, but preserves that are useful .. Most mutations are deleterious, disrupting the mechanism of embryonic development of the organism, but a small group of them are really the raw material of evolutionary change.
F. Gradualism: The great changes that occur during speciation (macroevolution) are the result of minor changes that accumulate over long periods (microevolution).
5. Neutralist theory of molecular evolution (Motoo Kimura, 1967): The mutations are harmless pieces that the genome acquired over time. These are harmless genes spread across the population through random genetic drift. Since they do not alter the functioning of proteins, beyond the effects of natural selection.
6. Theory of punctuated equilibrium (Niles Eldredge & Stephen Jay Gould, 1972): The lines change little during most of its history, but this calm is occasionally punctuated by rapid speciation.
II. Evidence of Evolution: the concept of evolution is a cornerstone of biology and well-grounded.
A. Paleontology: Fossils are remains or traces of animals and plants disappeared. Groups, with transitional forms, such as plants, Progimnospermas and Pteridospermas (transitional forms between pteridophytes and gymnosperms), Las Benettitales, Pentoxylales and Caytoniales (shapes which relate to the Gymnosperms and Angiosperms) in animals The Crosopterigios and Ichthyostégidos (with transitional forms between fish and amphibians), the Antracosaurios and Seymouriamorfos (intermediate forms between reptiles and amphibians), the Therapsidos (which are called "reptiles mamiferoides" for obvious reasons), the Maniraptores and Arqueornitas (with a clear transition Reptilian-Ave), etc ...
As far as the persistent or pancrónicas (the "living fossils"), as B. Melendez (1977), firstly, they have changed, but little, and in them the speed of evolution has been lower than in other organisms. Second, evolved very rapidly, before reaching the state where they are. The reality is that evolution is not constant for different systematic groups, either for yourself over time.
B. Comparative anatomy and morphology: if the agencies are in fact linked, it is logical to assume that the more closely the relationship between any two species, the greater the number of common characteristics that they possess.
1. Counterpart bodies (Gr. Homos: same + layman speak): When we found in various body structures that have the same origin and identical structural roots in the development, and are built using the same basic plan, saying that such bodies are homologous OQUE possess homologous similarity, without considering whether they are similar in appearance, or performing similar functions. Homology is a fundamental similarity, structural equality of an organ or part in a class of organisms compared to other unit, which is a community of ancestors.
2. Similar bodies (Gr. Analogy: Relation): When different agencies are structures that look the same and have similar functions but differ in structural plan and its origin, we say that showers are analogous structures, or who have similar similarities. The analogy is the similarity of traits or external functions, but no plan or structural origin.
3. Bodies vestigiales (Lat. Vestigium: fingerprint or other): These are small bodies degenerate, but that correspond to organs, once useful, they were fully developed, which have ceased to be, which is proven by the fact that homologous organs those are still depending on other related agencies.
C. The Comparative Embryology: The embryology, the study of the stages of development of individual organisms, but is a special branch of biology, is closely related to comparative anatomy. The issues covered and the evidence provided by the embryology are divided into 2 categories:
C. The Comparative Embryology: The embryology, the study of the stages of development of individual organisms, but is a special branch of biology, is closely related to comparative anatomy. The issues covered and the evidence provided by the embryology are divided into 2 categories:
1). The similarities between embryos of different groups and the similarities between groups of embryos "superior" and adult groups "inferior." The similarity between embryos of different animals is the closest resemblance between the adult animals.
2). Some characters are preserved in the ancestral ontogeny of descendants, this persistence can be an aid in the interpretation of evolutionary relationships.
The accumulation of genetic changes in organisms from diverse evolution modifies the pattern of development in embryos of higher vertebrates.
D. Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Comparative Physiology: The fundamental similarities between the physiological properties and functions of organisms, provide evidence for evolution.
l). Serum is more similar to vertebrates coming in distant vertebrates.
2). The sequence of amino acids in proteins such as hemoglobin and cytochromes show greater similarity in species nearby.
3). The largest proportion of the nucleotide sequences of DNA is identical in closely related organisms.
4). The universality of the genetic code is a decisive evidence to assert that all living things are related. The few exceptions confirm important events, such as the generation of the eukaryotic cell by endosimbiosis (Theory Endosimbiótica of Lynn Margulis, 1970).
E. Taxonomy: the assignment of organisms to the taxonomic categories, it is not arbitrary, is based on the fact that different species have characteristics in common, more or less numerous, and can be assembled in small groups or large, according to degree of relationship homologies determined by other means.
F. Ecology: the adaptation of organisms to particular patterns of life, have 2 points, on the one hand, there is perfection in a great many functions and adaptive structures, and the other species are observed imperfectly adapted to their environment or without adaptive features would be desirable.
G. Biogeography: The animal and plant species are not universally shared, and hardly any one species is in all parts of the world where conditions are appropriate for their existence. The geographical distribution of organisms, is not arbitrary, but reflects a pattern, and it supports evolution.
1). Areas that have been separated from the rest of the world for a long time, have a flora and fauna of these specific areas (endemic).
2). Each species is created only once (as their home).
3). From this center of origin, the species expands until a stop barrier.
III. Conclusion: The vast majority of biologists, serious, accept the theory of Darwin-Wallace as the best general explanation of evolution. Disagree mainly due to better understanding of some key biological processes, unknown at the time, but discovered by recent research, such as neutrality and punctuated equilibrium, but the fact of evolution in itself.
For more than Creationists strive to the contrary, the terms evolution and Darwinism are not necessarily synonymous, although they are often used as such, many biologists reserved for the second explanation given by Darwin of the causes of evolution.
Intelligent Design is a recycling of the English theologian William Paley, creator of the famous analogy of the maker of watches, "If we find a pocket watch in a field, Paley wrote in 1802 - we can immediately infer that it was not produced by natural processes acting blindly but by a designer human intellect. By the same token, he reasoned, the natural world contains abundant evidence of a supernatural creator. "To be finalized, I should say that both the logical fallacies of the universe well tuned, the irreducible complexity of biochemistry Michael J. Behe (1993) Specific and complex information of William A. Dembski, have been widely challenged by scientists like Ken Miller and Francis J. Ayala, among many others. The "intelligent design" is just an imaginary creature that lives in the minds of the followers of "Delirio Ininteligente.
The creations are deeply dishonest and liars, first wanted to prohibit the Theory of Evolution, then said that creationism is a science, then admitted it is a religion, but arguing that evolution is a religion of "Atheist Dogma-materialist," and finally invented the monstrosity of Intelligent Design. Moving from a "hand, robbed of drowning" to another. They go to the four winds advocating the "fall of the evolution," counting one by one the "scientific" dissidents to "Darwinian Orthodoxy", and Mint shamelessly to the faithful of their churches, saying that there is a greater consensus among scientists "supporting Intelligent Design, Creation and the Flood Special Universal. Or talk of failure in convincing the courts of the United States.
Creationists are liars, and the only thing that interests them is faithful gather to sell books, collect their tithing, and visit their "Museum of Creation."
But in the end (as I have written many blogs), the Creationists have reason, as the principal scientific''evidence''against the evolution in general and humans in particular, can be found at: Genesis 2 , 7''Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the earth, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man was living'', because in the minds of creationists instead found much Brain, but much powder ...
PS: This reply, I'm already standardized, more or less modifications to Blogs and personal emails, replying to lies and half truths of the Creationists in general, and I must say that so far none has responded satisfactorily, except with a lot of religious and pseudo-scientific jargon.
Phosphoros.