How 19-year-old activist Zack Kopplin is making life hell for creationists
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A young man who is not trying to enact change through destruction, hyperbole or negativism. Nor is he simply trying to build "awareness". He is trying to actually change things in his state by using rational discourse, reasonable publicity and rallying both popular and distinguished support.
You're implying that there even is a debate there, where there hasn't been one for a very long time.
He saw a problem, he saw that no one was fixing the problem, so he set out to disrupt the status quo and fix it himself.
And it looked about right, and if he was off by one it's completely irrelevant, so quite rightly no one put any thought into making absolutely sure that the numbers were exactly right.
-edit, and by those groups I mean creationists. I don't know why this was downvoted.
Obviously they are wrong, but I think if most of the evolution-deniers truly understood the modern theory of evolution, and understood that it is separate from abiogenesis, I think they wouldn't have a problem with it.
I think you're giving way too much credit to science deniers. There's no amount of physical evidence that can fairly compete with the argument of "well, the creator of the universe wrote this book and it has to be correct"
A lot of the same people don't believe in climate change for the same reason, that is, they don't think it's supported well enough by evidence. I think that makes this subset of evolution-deniers skeptics at heart (At least for some things). Beginning from first principles, I think skepticism is a great attitude with which to teach science. I think a lot of these people could be taught, given willingness to learn, and an absence of mistrust of science in general, which a lot of them have been unfortunately taught.
I'm reminded of the great example of gaps in the fossil record. If you find a fossil that's in the middle of the two end points of the gap you make things worse, because now you have TWO gaps in the fossil record.
Ranting aside, I have no idea how to deal with this phenomenon in a constructive way.
I am the son of a fundamentalist minister. For a time, I was also a Christian. I'm now an atheist.
Take it from me: you're wrong. I've been there. There is literally nothing you can say to them. Their belief system is invested in it not being true. It's like the quote attributed to Upton Sinclair: 'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.'
I once stood in my doorway and pitied Einstein et. al, smugly thinking that for all their "human wisdom", they weren't able to grasp these "universal truths of God as made manifest through creation." Me, who dropped high school physics. So you see, there's another element to the denial. It allows less intelligent people to think they have something over "these intellectuals."
I am still a Christian, but I now understand and accept the scientific method as the best way to understand the physical world. I simply choose to also believe that there are unprovable and unfalsifiable things that exist beyond the physical realm.
That's fine and all, but why are these people getting jobs as science teachers where they will have to teach this theory that they believe so wrong? Even if they have the book knowledge down pat (Which honestly I doubt. Not believing in evolution if you've been fed distortions and lies your whole life is one thing, but not believing it if you actually have an accurate mental model of it is an entirely different animal...), how could they possibly be good teachers? Unless they are also great actors, I don't see how they could possibly impart that same essential enthusiasm for science that good science teachers do.
> In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. <hypothesis: stars are created here. some 60 odd billion years go here, giving plenty of time for starlight to reach the earth> > 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
[Also, not really interested in getting into discussions of which scenario is more likely or whether I'm a fracking idiot. I just wanted to point out that I find it an intellectual curiosity that many creationists get so hung up on the young earth thing, since I'm not convinced that a 60 billion year old earth & biblical literalism are mutually exclusive.]
Anyway, the problem with taking Genesis 1 as a historic record is the greatest misinterpretation of the Bible, and created so much trouble for creationists.
If you're a catholic-style "theistic evolution" type, then I suppose that is another thing. I'm mostly just curious how you stretch a non-evolution creation/development of life out over more than a couple thousand years. Catholics do it by just calling evolution "divinely guided" or whatever. Of the origin thoughts that involve deities, "young earth/no evolution" and "old earth/theistic evolution" seem the most logical to me.
From there, people can arrive at common ancestry all on their own.
Consider this very modern-sounding quote:
>> "For who that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars? and that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life? and again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from the tree? And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally."
That was written by Origen of Alexandria, probably around 250 AD (part of http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf04.vi.v.v.ii.html ). I've found sentiments of that nature are common among very ancient Christians, as well as among Jews of the same era.
"Let there be light" pretty clearly suggests that light didn't exist before that.
That would make sense if they didn't want to replace it with creation. This is a good opportunity for them to learn how science works. It doesn't even matter if evolution is wrong -- that doesn't make creationism right.
Nice try.
Understanding evolution requires understanding some of the subtleties, a bit of game theory, speciation, and so on. They need to understand that while mutations are random, survival on average is not.
Without that understanding, it comes down to "so we just evolved from monkeys? My grandma isn't a monkey!", which is rightfully a stupid idea to believe in. So given their lack of knowledge of what evolution is, they have a perfectly logical stance.
1) Your comment is politically loaded
2) Your comment contains little actual content outside the political payload.
I've learned more about the theory of evolution from the [Index of Creationist Claims](http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html) than from almost any other source (and I studied primatology).
You become convinced of nothing so strongly as when you study the flaws of its critics.
This is the kind of thing I expect to find elsewhere (and do, in fact, look for this sort of content there). HN is a niche site for hackers, entrepreneurs, and money folks. No need to bring excessive religious topics/debates here - keep that on reddit/etc.
I was ready to dismiss this as pure fear-mongering, but when you think about it, there's something to it. Would you want to trust your life to a doctor or medical researcher who, for non-scientific reasons, refuses to consider the main organizing principle of all life sciences?
Obviously, if you teach them side by side, anyone with half a brain will sooner or later realize that creationism is simply bullsheet, which is probably why these people want to silence the inconvenient (for them) truth...
This popular image says it all: http://punchkids.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/science_vs_f...
No, that's not how it works. By that logic we also would have to teach about ghosts, dwarfs, <stroke>astronomy</stroke>astrology, or just claims made by other religions or folklore. There's a reason we teach our children sciences. They are objective, observable, testable, falsifiable, etc. We want a rational society, not despotism.
It is not science and it's not a question of beliefs.
You should not lie to kids. By telling them about creation in science classes, you lie to them.
I guess I value your opinion, but I do mind, and I have the establishment clause of the first amendment of the United States Constitution with me.