tags: science, geology, Grand Canyon, religion, creationism, humor, funny, streaming video
The Grand Canyon is such an icon of the Earth's geological history, of slow and steady uplift, erosion, submergence and deposition, that the creationist crowd thought it essential to tackle it head on. So they have come up with an explanation as to how it might have got there in a world created only 6,000 years ago. Their attempts to squeeze this majestic testament to natural processes into bronze age mythology are not just clumsy, they're the stuff good comedy is made of [10:03]
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I want to tell you about a great new book that has one forgivable flaw, which I’ll mention at the end. But first, a word from Bizarro Land. This is about the Grand Canyon.
I would think that the Grand Canyon would be the last thing that creationists would point to as proof of a young earth (…
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…
Gary Trudeau sticks it to the creationists in today's Doonesbury. The topic of the day is the sad fact that the U.S. National Parks Service sells in its Grand Canyon gift shop a book that offers a Biblical chronology for the world's creation, a fact that makes it very hard to explain how the canyon…
Rob McEwen has left a comment on a post that has slipped way down the page, and as it's worth responding to and fisking in some detail, I thought I'd bring it up top to answer it.
Pre-script: Turns out this guy left this same comment, word for word and breathless exclamation point for breathless…
This is a nice way to learn geology. 2 parts fun, 1 part real science.
For one horrible moment I expected to be watching an ID production. Thankfully not.
One could go a little further than this short, and point out how the Creationists are poster children for the dangers of reasoning from analogy. Analogies have their place - in conveying some key points of an idea, laying the ground work for a teaching experience, etc. i.e., their usefulness is descriptive. Not prescriptive. Mixed in with starting from analogy is starting from unexamined and erroneous statements and using them as axiomatically TRUE for the ensuing "proof". Yes, they say "if A then B", but then studiously ignore the fact that their A is actually and demonstrably FALSE, instead taking it as proof that B is TRUE.
Now I think of it, I do not recall them ever using a construct other than "if A then B". Maybe it sounds too close to English? Maybe the others (constructs) do not? What part of A -> B is it that they miss?
The stupid - it deluges!