What is Digg?314 Comments
- OneHine, on 10/11/2007, -24/+288It's easy to look at creationists and just proclaim them stupid, but I think their problems go deeper than that. For example, when they reject science because science keeps changing, what they completely fail to understand is that science changes because it keeps uncovering new facts, and that this process of improvement is what makes science great. Likewise, when they boast that their Bible hasn't changed, what they fail to understand is that beliefs that weren't very well-supported even when originally conceived only look ridiculous when contradicted by fact.
So what on Earth would possess a person to act like this? Briefly, it's because creationists have a completely different way of determining truth from rational people. A rational person says, "claim X is supported by facts, therefore I accept it as provisionally accurate" while creationists say, "God made claim X, therefore on the basis of God's ultimate authority, claim X must be the Truth". For a rational person, it doesn't matter if Hitler or Einstein declared that E = M*C^2, what matters are the observations that either support or disprove the claim. And since we obviously lack every fact, we accept that conclusions may have to be revised or even discarded in the face of new evidence. For creationists, what truly matters is the authority behind a statement--if they can find someone who they hold in high regard to support their beliefs, then their beliefs are true, end of story. And if someone changes their beliefs, it only weakens them as an authority, and thus weakens their ability to be a truth-giver.
If you spend much time in creationism/evolution debates, you can see this in action in several ways. For example, one of the most repeated statements by a creationist is that he is a creationist because "God said it, I believe it, that settles it". A less obvious example is that creationists will attack Darwin himself. They practically deify Darwin as the God of Evolution. And if, so their belief goes, they can show that Darwin was an immoral jerk, his authority is diminished, and evolution cannot be true since evolution's truth is based solely on Darwin's perceived authority. - Zippo, on 10/11/2007, -6/+149Earth, fire, air/wind, water... where's heart?
- rolandde, on 10/11/2007, -25/+129Yep, very apt satire.
Somebody should also do a gravity variant of it. The theory of gravity constantly keeps changing (Newton, Einstein, Anti-Gravity), so gravity cannot be considered a fact. Whereas the ultimate truth of angels pushing the planets and Sun is cannot change, so it should be considered a fact. Isn't being retarded fun :D. - Darkhacker, on 10/19/2007, -12/+109I live in Kansas. They never actually taught creationism in school. They decided that they were going to purpose other theories but then they revoked that decision before it ever went in to affect. I live in the suburbs of Kansas City. I don't know if the people out in western Kansas are sane or not. I know that the movie Jesus Camp did a lot of filming in Kansas.
As a Kansas resident, I would like to apologize for my state's stupidity and ignorance. Please realize though that not everyone is like that. I have plenty of atheist friends here. - cwalk, on 10/11/2007, -10/+89mirror (original source)
http://www.re-discovery.org/per_table.gif - SEMW, on 10/11/2007, -8/+72> Please people stop slandering creationists because they don't agree with you.
No-one is slandering anyone else purely due to beliefs, I assure you; the slander is for the deliberate lies, disinformation, logical fallacies etc. and the attempts to impress those beliefs upon others (for example, by mandating that they be taught in schools). For an example for the latter, see what TFA is parodying; for an example of the former, I need go no further than *your* *post*:
> For instance Carbon-14 dating is only good up to 60,000 years back, so your millions of years for the dinosaurs are not accurate.
Classic logical fallacy: take a provably true first statement ("Carbon-14 dating is only good up to 60,000 years back"), pair it with a desired conclusion ("your millions of years for the dinosaurs are not accurate"), and pair them to give the impression that the former statement implies the latter. When anyone questions the conclusion, give them a source for the first (true) statement. Genius!
Back in the real world, Carbon-14 is but one of many radiometric tests; some metrics accurate to over 60,000 years include Uranium-lead dating, Potassium-argon dating, and Rubidium-strontium dating. The tradeoff is typically that the greater age at which a test is reliable, the less precise it is; e.g. Uranium-lead dating can measure the dates of rocks up to 4.5 billion years old, but the age of a 3 billion years old rock is only accurate to the nearest two million years (which is actually pretty damn good). And, of course, if you have reason to doubt the outcome of one metric, there are many more to check it against. - rolandde, on 10/11/2007, -14/+74Nicely put. The interesting part is not the mechanism in which creationists use the Appeal to Authority (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority) fallacy over and over again (as you said, anybody who pays any attention to the evolution/creation debate is quite aware of this creationist fallacy), but rather why such an fallacy is so persuasive within the creationist circles? What is it within the upbringing/culture/tradition of religious people that makes them more prone to believing the most childishly funny things just because somebody important said so 2000 years ago?
If anybody knows of any books that deal with this subject matter, do recommend them. - gmprunner, on 10/11/2007, -13/+72"Whereas the ultimate truth of angels pushing the planets and Sun is cannot change, so it should be considered a fact."
I've been a Catholic all my life, and I've never heard of that theory before. Which isn't a bad thing, of course.
I'd like to make sure people know that not all Catholics/Christians are creationists; in fact, most of them, like me, aren't. Hopefully no one needs any reminding of that, but I'm just trying to help save someone from embarrassing themselves by making a swooping generalization that is totally false. - MioTheGreat, on 10/11/2007, -7/+55"Somebody should also do a gravity variant of it."
Like this? http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39512 - realclark, on 10/11/2007, -23/+71I don't think creationists should be allowed the fruits of the scientific worlds' labor.
- teevee247, on 10/11/2007, -7/+45Thank god we've come to our senses and worship a carpenter who lived 2000 years ago.
- Bart Simpson - JSorrell, on 10/11/2007, -5/+41The Solar System article on that site has a state seal that reads "SAT scores 49th in the nation." Comedic gold.
- atdigg, on 10/11/2007, -7/+40I like the "Truth is constant" for the Kansas table of the elements -- nice touch.
- eje211, on 10/11/2007, -3/+36@aMammoth
You're so right! And I think the same about math. I believe that addition and multiplication work, but I think that this whole "complex numbers" thing is just a myth. God made real numbers, so fake numbers don't exist. I'm not denying any math here. Also, my calculator can only display ten digits, so any value higher than ten digits must be irrelevant.
Also I believe in gravity, but that helium balloons shouldn't fly. And I believe in choosing theories a la carte, but only my selection is right.
(Sorry. This is a double post. I didn't use Reply the first time.) - Nutmegan, on 10/11/2007, -4/+34This website seems to have already been taken down by entropy.
- atdigg, on 10/11/2007, -4/+33Deep down everybody knows that Bible is full of *****, but people don't have the courage to admit.
- SEMW, on 10/11/2007, -3/+29@ Gothvanhelsing:
> My only question in evolution is the problem given to us in the Second law of thermodynamics.[...] Now if we apply that same model to the
> formation of the first living cell on the planet. It is so much more complex then a coffee cup that it never should of formed.
Ouch.
Sorry for posting two posts in a row, but after reading that, I felt I had to respond. The second law of thermodynamic is about THERMODYNAMICS. The 'entropy' it talks about is a statistical property that is precisely defined and can be calculated and measured. I feel the need to point out that if you change to definition of 'entropy' to be whatever you want it to be, the second law obviously no longer applies. And I'm afraid that vauge talk about complexity certainly counts. (Perhaps you're confusing thermodynamic entropy with informational entropy?).
Now, if we confine our talk to properly defined thermodynamic entropy -- what the second law is actually about -- the 'problem' becomes trivial; and your mistake becomes clear: the 2nd law applies to closed systems, but the Earth is not a closed system: the local increase in thermodynamic entropy on the Earth is made possible by a large decrease in thermodynamic entropy in the Sun. - akira117, on 10/11/2007, -5/+29I do too, but given that I currently live in WV I might get killed lol
- bysin, on 10/11/2007, -7/+31If your going to say parts of the bible aren't literal just because modern science and "facts" have contradicted its teachings, then the entire bible will eventually become a fairy tail.
I bet when it was written, they actually believed the earth was created in 7 days. Obviously now we know thats not the case, so you chose to throw out certain parts of the bible in order to cope with science. Eventually you will, just like the rest of us, throw out the bible entirely. - vuke69, on 10/11/2007, -4/+25"They attack something that they don't even understand. What do you call people like that?"
Rudy Giuliani? - unpurposed, on 10/11/2007, -24/+45Alright, it seems that Digg definitely needs a sane and moderate outlook on the interaction of religion and science.
I am a Catholic.
I believe in the science of evolution. In fact, I am attending MIT this year and will further my studies in this area.
Creationism is severely misguided. It is an attempt by the minority of extremist Christians to support their literal interpretation of the Bible. What they don't realize is that the Bible is really not literal at all. Granted, there are some passages in the Bible that are supposed to be interpreted literally and some that are supposed to be interpreted figuratively. For example, the story of Adam and Eve is meant to be interpreted figuratively, in order to grasp some of the key concepts of God and the way the Earth was created. This is not to say the Earth was actually created in seven days in the way described, but rather it is simply a story with symbolical meaning. There were no two people from which all humanity was created initially.
Now, the problem with Creationism is that some people can't grasp this idea and hold on foolishly to a literal interpretation of the Bible, which really doesn't work at all, especially since a lot of the stuff isn't meant to be interpreted as such. As a Catholic, I embrace the fact that religion and science interact to reveal truth in the world. There is nothing truly contradictory between evolution and religion, especially considering the fact that who knows what manner God works in. I choose to believe, as the majority of the Catholics and Christians I know, that God simply chose evolution as the preferred manner of the creation and proliferation of species. After all, aren't we supposed to believe that God can do anything?
Science (which I love, by the way) reveals the physical aspects of this world and universe. Religion reveals the spiritual aspects of it. There is nothing contradictory between them. However the contradictions arise when people believe way too much in either thing and completely ignore the other. The thing is that the vocal minority usually gets the most coverage (as most of you familiar with history know) and thus the majority of people begin to think that this is the way most people think. Which is wrong but alas, it's just natural for us to group things together and generalize. We need to realize that neither extreme is realistic in order to understand the whole "big picture."
Hopefully sane and moderate discussion will arise from this instead of the usual idiotic ramblings of those who do not wish to converse but rather bash. Thank you. - blackjack75, on 10/11/2007, -3/+24If you lived in a VW you could drive away.
- Neem, on 10/11/2007, -7/+25I want this on a shirt
- fantasticFlan, on 10/11/2007, -5/+23This is what happens: Creationists run for school board without talking about creationism. Eventually, by virtue of us not paying close attention to every school board election, there are enough of them to change the standards to include creationism, which they do. There's a huge blow-up, complete with national press coverage. Everyone who voted for the changed standards loses reelection, most of them in primaries, and the standards are changed back before they affect the students but after everyone decides we're all a bunch of idiots. Wait a few years and it happens again.
- tinfins, on 10/11/2007, -10/+27@ aMammoth
Radiometric dating isn't limited to carbon, fool. - fantasticFlan, on 10/11/2007, -5/+21"For example, if an evolutionist..."
Gotta stop it right there. "Evolutionist" is a term used mostly to try and equate evolution to a belief system.
Good sentiment though. - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -4/+20@bluebear: Yes it is a simple statement with a very complex answer which you did not answer. You just redirected the question.
"This makes sense when we are dealing with physical phenomenon - but does it make sense when applied to an immaterial being?"
Name one immaterial thing that is useful and has been shown to even exist.
"Is there such a thing as an emotional proof or (dare I say) spiritual proof - something that is convincing to one person because of their emotional or spiritual experience?"
That is not very strong evidence. That is singular personal experience. It may be powerful to a single person but that claim would validate Hinduism, Buddhism, Satanism, Voodoo and countless other religions.
"Such an "emotional proof" might be utterly convincing to the person who experienced it, but worthless to anyone else. Kind of like how one person can be in love and be convinced that their beloved is the most amazing person on earth, while everyone else is like "huh, whatever dude."
That is called delusion. The ability to self delude yourself using emotion without using reason despite evidence to the contrary.
"How do you prove that you're in love?"
Define love. What proof of Love do you want? Love as in the neuorphysiological sense or the philosophical sense. - fantasticFlan, on 10/11/2007, -4/+19@dotcommer
Kansas is not part of the South. - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -6/+21@Goth:
"My only question in evolution is the problem given to us in the Second law of thermodynamics"
Oh lord...you're still using this absurd argument. Don't argue using a law you know nothing about. The damn law applies in a closed system. Earth is not in a closed system. It does not take into account local order. Overall cosmic disorder may increased but local(ie the sun and galaxies) order can occur. This stupid argument has been torn apart so many times its getting old.
"So when time moves in a forward direction and one, breaks a cup of coffee on the floor, no matter what happens, in our universe, one will never see the cup reform. Cups are breaking all the time, but never reforming. Since the Big Bang, the entropy of the universe has been on the rise, and so the Second Law states that this process will continue to increase.
Now if we apply that same model to the formation of the first living cell on the planet. It is so much more complex then a coffee cup that it never should of formed."
Alright that is a retarded analogy. Earth is not a closed system. I can provide heat to the coffee cup and remake the damn thing. The first 'living' thing on Earth was likely not a cell but simpler. - Taedirk, on 10/11/2007, -4/+19@darkreign
50 states, 49th rank. 100% = 50*2. 98% = 49*2
Within the top 98% is an apt statement.
/Science. It works, bitches.
//So does math, but that's not an xkcd quote >.> - Dotcommer, on 10/11/2007, -16/+30The whole south is ***** up. They all need to be brought up to speed on what the world is like outside of their little bubble. Bury me? Sure, go ahead. But it doesn't matter because everyone is going to click "show comment" and read what I have slapped down on the discussion table.
- DeFex, on 10/11/2007, -4/+17http://www.planetdan.net/pics/misc/familyguyretarded.jpg
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -7/+20The vast majority of Creationist go out of their way to show that they know absolutely nothing about evolution. They attack something that they don't even understand. What do you call people like that?
- gcubedmd, on 10/11/2007, -3/+15Josh666
"Religion is a belief" ... WRONG. You can't just shorten the definition. Religion is a belief in supernatural, GOD, superhuman powers, deity, etc. Believing that 2+2=4 does not make math religion. Thus believing there is no GOD is NOT A RELIGION. - atdigg, on 10/11/2007, -7/+19Don't want your religion trashed get it out of science and schools, scientists don't tell priests what to say during the liturgy or to provide disclaimers during preaching.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -5/+17@oswalkkenobi: Ummm...in what way has an atheist shoved their beliefs in your face? Has someone knocked on your door or approached on your street lately? You come to an open forum with a headline specifically stating the topic of discussion and you're angry because atheist are criticizing your beliefs?
I agree. Believe whatever you want as long as religion keeps out of education and trying to change our secular government.
I agree. Creationism should be thought in class in comparative religion but it is sure not science. - DeskFlyer, on 10/11/2007, -7/+19http://i15.tinypic.com/669ri36.gif
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -10/+22@bluebear: Since they have yet to prove that God even exist, are their beliefs justified?
- cubeeggs, on 10/11/2007, -4/+15@wuthad
No, you are not a rational individual if you are a young earth creationist. - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -3/+14"So exactly how many evolutionists and or atheists have studied Creationism in any detail ? It goes well beyond what you might have heard."
Really? Tell me one useful thing about it. Is the basis of genetics? Pharmacology? Biology? Enlighten me.
"How many are up to visiting the Creation Evidence Museum, with an open mind? Creationism and evolution science can co-exist, as a post above said, one explains how and the other why."
So why are Creationist actively attacking evolution and science?
"Why be SO judgmental on a group of people doing what they believe is right? It's not like they are exposing the kids to toxic chemicals or drugs, just a different view point. You call yourselves open minded yet you ridicule these Creationists for being closed minded."
Sure they can believe whatever they want but they don't keep it to themselves. They try to claim is as science when it is myth. So their next step is to lie and attack science. Creationism is poisoning the minds of their children. Imagine your parents teaching you that gravity and chemistry is all made up by evil scientist.
"Going by these comments, I would believe the wrong people are being called hypocrites."
So if someone claims that the sun is a giant orange and is made of cheese, what are you going to do? Say "thats a valid idea."?
"Just as anyone can say there is no proof of God, this is no proof to the contrary."
Just as anyone can say there is no proof of Zeus, this is no proof to the contrary. - vuke69, on 10/11/2007, -4/+141) The actually is evidence that George Washington existed, the same can't be said for your imaginary friend.
2) If you are privy to some evidence that has eluded all of mankind, please do share, and we will gladly accept it. - eplawless, on 10/11/2007, -3/+13Believing that there is no tooth fairy is apparently also a religion? And... we worship... dentists?
- fantasticFlan, on 10/11/2007, -2/+12@teevee247
There are two Kansas Citys, one in Kansas and one in Missouri. It's basically one city divided by state lines. - vuke69, on 10/11/2007, -4/+13What you see as sciences possible flaw, the ability to change, is in fact, it's greatest strength.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -6/+15Sorry, but you don't know what the hell you're talking about.
- KlayBorg, on 10/11/2007, -3/+12How about we start teaching teapotism for one year too? Also the Creation story according to FSM? Or maybe the Australian Aboriginals creation story?
Its either all or none. None of which have any real evidence, whereas evolution has proper evidence and is widely accepted fact. - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -3/+11@ member57
Me. I have read at least 7 books by creationists, specifically purchased from the answers in genesis website. They have yet to present a sound argument, and not a one refrains from attacking a strawman of evolution. - teevee247, on 10/11/2007, -5/+13@ OswaldKenobi
Creationism should not be taught in any public school whatsoever, it is not a scientific theory, there is no proof for it other than some book... it is a religious matter and it should be reserved for a religious setting such as a church...
Why force your beliefs on an atheist child? - mushoo, on 10/11/2007, -8/+16toppgun
"I am from Connecticut and I admit we do have our faults, but I am certain we are one of the more sane states. I will not give an apology for my state because I believe it does not need to be given."
You ***** allowed Barbara Bush to spawn the commander in chief without even trying to stop it. - MioTheGreat, on 10/11/2007, -2/+10Shouldn't hydrogen move? Hydrogen so very rarely acts like an Alkali metal, Helium, on the other hand, acts like a noble gas.
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