Would it be best for evolutionists to just ignore creationsts?

[Man of Faith]

That extraordinary time spent trying to teach them what creationism usually involves ignoring the facts they are presenting to you.

The facts aren't in dispute in the discussion. It's the interpretation of the facts.

 

[Matthew78]

In my opinion, it's extremely foolish to ignore creationists. Look what's happened: scientists and science educators have ignored creationism and creationists, hoping that it will make creationists go away. It hasn't. Scientists and science educators will try to insist that there is no conflict with science and religious beliefs, including fundamentalist religious beliefs.

Come on! Enough with this baloney!

Instead of ignoring creationism, scientists and science educators need to go on the aggressive. Creationism doesn't need to be ignored; it needs to be destroyed. Students need to be shown that creationism is bad science at best and antiscience at worst. Science educators try to pretend there's no conflict between science and religious fundamentalism. Scientists have not waged war on religious fundamentalism. Here's a newsflash for science educators: WAKE UP! Scientists have not declared a war on religious fundamentalists but the religious fundamentalists have declared a war on science! It's similar to a jihad. Quit pretending it doesn't exist!

Here's the solution: scientists and science educators need to declare a full-scale war on creationists. Fight back! Fight aggressively although not necessarily dirty. Expose creationism as Christian apologetics trying to dishonestly mask itself as being science. But more is required. Scientists and science educators need to declare a war on religious fundamentalism itself! Creationism and creationists won't go away until religious fundamentalism dies in this country and abroad. It's time to get tough. It's time to get vicious. Take off the gloves, put on some brass knuckles, and throw some hard punches!

Expose creationism for its dishonesty. Expose it as a branch of Christian apologetics and expose Christian apologetics for its inherent dishonesty in trying to pretend that it's a discipline of honest intellectual inquiry when it's nothing but dishonest spin-doctoring, pure and simple.

It's a tough road to take but it's about time scientists, science educators, and people who are passionate about science and scientific skepticism to grow some guts and fight rough!

 

[outhouse]

In my opinion, it's extremely foolish to ignore creationists. Look what's happened: scientists and science educators have ignored creationism and creationists, hoping that it will make creationists go away. It hasn't. Scientists and science educators will try to insist that there is no conflict with science and religious beliefs, including fundamentalist religious beliefs.

Come on! Enough with this baloney!

Instead of ignoring creationism, scientists and science educators need to go on the aggressive. Creationism doesn't need to be ignored; it needs to be destroyed. Students need to be shown that creationism is bad science at best and antiscience at worst. Science educators try to pretend there's no conflict between science and religious fundamentalism. Scientists have not waged war on religious fundamentalism. Here's a newsflash for science educators: WAKE UP! Scientists have not declared a war on religious fundamentalists but the religious fundamentalists have declared a war on science! It's similar to a jihad. Quit pretending it doesn't exist!

Here's the solution: scientists and science educators need to declare a full-scale war on creationists. Fight back! Fight aggressively although not necessarily dirty. Expose creationism as Christian apologetics trying to dishonestly mask itself as being science. But more is required. Scientists and science educators need to declare a war on religious fundamentalism itself! Creationism and creationists won't go away until religious fundamentalism dies in this country and abroad. It's time to get tough. It's time to get vicious. Take off the gloves, put on some brass knuckles, and throw some hard punches!

Expose creationism for its dishonesty. Expose it as a branch of Christian apologetics and expose Christian apologetics for its inherent dishonesty in trying to pretend that it's a discipline of honest intellectual inquiry when it's nothing but dishonest spin-doctoring, pure and simple.

It's a tough road to take but it's about time scientists, science educators, and people who are passionate about science and scientific skepticism to grow some guts and fight rough!

lol a man after my heart lol

one thing this forum taught me is that would not be as effective as you might think



60% of the students and teachers believe in creation in the usa. if you go all out you dont get through to them they just put up their gloves higher and swing back.

 

[Noaidi]

Creationism fights within the public and political arena, not the scientific arena. The public arena includes our schools. For the sake of our students, we can't afford to ignore it.

 

[javajo]

I am just an old man, but I was taught both theories all my life and so I studied both. With all due respect to all involved, I actually found, "in the beginning, God..." made the most sense to me. Even the 3/4ths of the world covered in water and the deep basins that now exist in the ocean seem to possibly point to the Great Deluge of Noah. I love science, especially when I can experiment on things here and now and come to logical conclusions and prove a theory to be a law. But with historical type science, trying to explain something from long ago is more challenging and depending on one's perspective, different conclusions are drawn.There are even many scientists who once were evolutionists but now question the theory and many who have become creationists. I hate to see a war over such ideas from either side. I don't think people on either side are stupid, but all the fighting is.

 

[Madhuri]

Lol, you can't ignore them.

 

[Photonic]

I am just an old man, but I was taught both theories all my life and so I studied both. With all due respect to all involved, I actually found, "in the beginning, God..." made the most sense to me. Even the 3/4ths of the world covered in water and the deep basins that now exist in the ocean seem to possibly point to the Great Deluge of Noah. I love science, especially when I can experiment on things here and now and come to logical conclusions and prove a theory to be a law. But with historical type science, trying to explain something from long ago is more challenging and depending on one's perspective, different conclusions are drawn.There are even many scientists who once were evolutionists but now question the theory and many who have become creationists. I hate to see a war over such ideas from either side. I don't think people on either side are stupid, but all the fighting is.

FYI, evolution and the beginning of the universe/life have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Perhaps you should go back to studying, you seem to have missed a few things the first time.

Also to the "great flood" I would like to respectfully point out that there is not enough water on the planet to cover as much volume as stated.

 

[Man of Faith]

In my opinion, it's extremely foolish to ignore creationists. Look what's happened: scientists and science educators have ignored creationism and creationists, hoping that it will make creationists go away. It hasn't. Scientists and science educators will try to insist that there is no conflict with science and religious beliefs, including fundamentalist religious beliefs.

Come on! Enough with this baloney!

Instead of ignoring creationism, scientists and science educators need to go on the aggressive. Creationism doesn't need to be ignored; it needs to be destroyed. Students need to be shown that creationism is bad science at best and antiscience at worst. Science educators try to pretend there's no conflict between science and religious fundamentalism. Scientists have not waged war on religious fundamentalism. Here's a newsflash for science educators: WAKE UP! Scientists have not declared a war on religious fundamentalists but the religious fundamentalists have declared a war on science! It's similar to a jihad. Quit pretending it doesn't exist!

Here's the solution: scientists and science educators need to declare a full-scale war on creationists. Fight back! Fight aggressively although not necessarily dirty. Expose creationism as Christian apologetics trying to dishonestly mask itself as being science. But more is required. Scientists and science educators need to declare a war on religious fundamentalism itself! Creationism and creationists won't go away until religious fundamentalism dies in this country and abroad. It's time to get tough. It's time to get vicious. Take off the gloves, put on some brass knuckles, and throw some hard punches!

Expose creationism for its dishonesty. Expose it as a branch of Christian apologetics and expose Christian apologetics for its inherent dishonesty in trying to pretend that it's a discipline of honest intellectual inquiry when it's nothing but dishonest spin-doctoring, pure and simple.

It's a tough road to take but it's about time scientists, science educators, and people who are passionate about science and scientific skepticism to grow some guts and fight rough!

This is good because the more people study and debate creationists, the more they realize that they are right and they use the same science that everyone else does. The debate is really about ideology. What is a person’s starting point, the Origin of the Species, the Bible, or something else. And from that starting point, the scientific data is interpreted.

 

[LuisDantas]

What is a person’s starting point, the Origin of the Species, the Bible, or something else. And from that starting point, the scientific data is interpreted.

True enough, once one allows for the fact that Origin of the Species was created from observed facts instead of revealed.

And that is exactly why you are wrong in stating earlier that creationists' claims are scientifically sound. They aren't, not by any measure.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

This is good because the more people study and debate creationists, the more they realize that they are right and they use the same science that everyone else does.

I've never found this to be the case. Every time I've investigated a creationist claim, I've found that where it conflicts with the Theory of Evolution (or other science, such as plate tectonics, cosmology, anthropology, etc.), there's a scientific error built into the creationist argument... or more often, several scientific errors.

The debate is really about ideology. What is a person’s starting point, the Origin of the Species, the Bible, or something else. And from that starting point, the scientific data is interpreted.

That's true to the extent that we formulate hypotheses and then evaluate them against the evidence, but I think the key difference is that when we're talking about the origins of life, those who make their starting point the Bible are (IMO) usually reluctant to actually evaluate their claims, and unwilling to abandon them when they come up short against the evidence.

But surely you can acknowledge that the starting point for the Origin of the Species wasn't the Origin of the Species, right?

In fact, the Origin of the Species was the Bible. Darwin was studying to become a minister when he started collecting beetles in his spare time, and that start, in his desire to find the relationships between different species as part of "God's Creation", is what eventually wound up leading him to the Theory of Evolution.

 

[Man of Faith]

I've never found this to be the case. Every time I've investigated a creationist claim, I've found that where it conflicts with the Theory of Evolution (or other science, such as plate tectonics, cosmology, anthropology, etc.), there's a scientific error built into the creationist argument... or more often, several scientific errors.


That's true to the extent that we formulate hypotheses and then evaluate them against the evidence, but I think the key difference is that when we're talking about the origins of life, those who make their starting point the Bible are (IMO) usually reluctant to actually evaluate their claims, and unwilling to abandon them when they come up short against the evidence.

But surely you can acknowledge that the starting point for the Origin of the Species wasn't the Origin of the Species, right?

In fact, the Origin of the Species was the Bible. Darwin was studying to become a minister when he started collecting beetles in his spare time, and that start, in his desire to find the relationships between different species as part of "God's Creation", is what eventually wound up leading him to the Theory of Evolution.

If being short of evidence is enough to abandon a claim, the ToE should have been abandoned as soon as The Origin of the Species was written. Talk about being short of evidence, Darwin couldn’t even see inside a cell and all the so called evidence for evolution that evolutionists put forward today came after the book was written. Darwin was right to some degree. But what led him to abandon God for a naturalistic explanation was the death of his daughter. He began to questions his faith after that and decided to come up with a natural explanation for the diversity of life, leaving God out. And that's what we have today, a theory that requires any supernatural being to be left out, so naturally scientists have to support the theory of the day.

Like I said he was right to some degree. The creationist at the time thought that all life forms were created as they were, when the creation was actually done in a mediated design style where creatures are designed to adapt and change to environmental pressures. And if you are going to say that the starting point of The Origin of the Species wasn’t The Original of the species, then I can claim the starting point of the Bible wasn’t the Bible.

 

[Man of Faith]

True enough, once one allows for the fact that Origin of the Species was created from observed facts instead of revealed.

And that is exactly why you are wrong in stating earlier that creationists' claims are scientifically sound. They aren't, not by any measure.

I agree that The Origin of the Species was created from observed facts, however everything in The Origin of the Species isn't from observed facts. The observed facts, that animals and plants adapt and change to enviormental pressures, led Darwin to imagine and speculate the rest of the theory, which hasn't been observed and doesn't follow the scientific method, and is really just a model of how we got here, not a scientific theory.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

If being short of evidence is enough to abandon a claim, the ToE should have been abandoned as soon as The Origin of the Species was written.

Sorry - bad choice of words. When I said that creationism "comes up short" against the evidence, I meant that the evidence actually disagrees with the creationist claims much of the time.

It's not just a matter of not having evidence to back up your claims; it's that the evidence actually disagrees with your claims.

Talk about being short of evidence, Darwin couldn’t even see inside a cell and all the so called evidence for evolution that evolutionists put forward today came after the book was written. Darwin was right to some degree. But what led him to abandon God for a naturalistic explanation was the death of his daughter. He began to questions his faith after that and decided to come up with a natural explanation for the diversity of life, leaving God out. And that's what we have today, a theory that requires any supernatural being to be left out, so naturally scientists have to support the theory of the day.

The death of his daughter wasn't what led Darwin to Evolution. He drew his famous "tree of life" sketch in 1837, and described the development of his theory of natural selection as "my prime hobby" in a letter in 1838, which both occurred before he got married (1839) and before his daughter was even born (1841).

He had published some of his preliminary findings in journals prior to his daughter's death in 1851, and apparently his essay that was read at the 1858 Linnean Society meeting along with Wallace's paper on natural selection was written in 1844, again, before his daughter died.

It wasn't his daughter's death that pushed him into evolution; he had been working on that since he got back from the Beagle. The thing that pushed him to publicize his theory was his knowledge that Alfred Russell Wallace had come to nearly the same conclusions, so Darwin would lose credit for his life's work if he waited and be seen as a "Johnny Come Lately", even though he actually came up with the theory first.

Like I said he was right to some degree. The creationist at the time thought that all life forms were created as they were, when the creation was actually done in a mediated design style where creatures are designed to adapt and change to environmental pressures. And if you are going to say that the starting point of The Origin of the Species wasn’t The Original of the species, then I can claim the starting point of the Bible wasn’t the Bible.

I don't really see how this is relevant. My point was just that if you're going to claim that people only believe that the theory of evolution is true because they've read Darwin, then this leads to the question of why Darwin believed the theory, because he didn't have the Origin of Species to read and take his ideas from.

 

[Tristesse]

If being short of evidence is enough to abandon a claim, the ToE should have been abandoned as soon as The Origin of the Species was written. Talk about being short of evidence, Darwin couldn’t even see inside a cell and all the so called evidence for evolution that evolutionists put forward today came after the book was written. Darwin was right to some degree. But what led him to abandon God for a naturalistic explanation was the death of his daughter. He began to questions his faith after that and decided to come up with a natural explanation for the diversity of life, leaving God out. And that's what we have today, a theory that requires any supernatural being to be left out, so naturally scientists have to support the theory of the day.

Like I said he was right to some degree. The creationist at the time thought that all life forms were created as they were, when the creation was actually done in a mediated design style where creatures are designed to adapt and change to environmental pressures. And if you are going to say that the starting point of The Origin of the Species wasn’t The Original of the species, then I can claim the starting point of the Bible wasn’t the Bible.

Why do you continuously mention Darwin? The theory isn't his any longer. It's changed and adapted since his time, but it's changed towards where the evidence is.

To me it doesn't matter whether Darwin was an atheist or a fundamentalist christian, if he's right he's right. He did get a few things wrong like genetics. But on a whole the theory stands or falls on it's own merits and it's not dictated by who says it.

 

[camanintx]

This is good because the more people study and debate creationists, the more they realize that they are right and they use the same science that everyone else does. The debate is really about ideology. What is a person’s starting point, the Origin of the Species, the Bible, or something else. And from that starting point, the scientific data is interpreted.

That's funny, because the more one uses science to study biology, the more likely they are to support the Theory of Evolution.

Why most scientists support the theory of evolution

 

[Photonic]

This is good because the more people study and debate creationists, the more they realize that they are right and they use the same science that everyone else does. The debate is really about ideology. What is a person’s starting point, the Origin of the Species, the Bible, or something else. And from that starting point, the scientific data is interpreted.

I'll let you in on a little secret. Even if the origin of species hadn't been written, even if Darwin hadn't existed, do you know where our understanding of evolution would be?

Almost in the exact same place.

 

[Man of Faith]

Sorry - bad choice of words. When I said that creationism "comes up short" against the evidence, I meant that the evidence actually disagrees with the creationist claims much of the time.

It's not just a matter of not having evidence to back up your claims; it's that the evidence actually disagrees with your claims.


The death of his daughter wasn't what led Darwin to Evolution. He drew his famous "tree of life" sketch in 1837, and described the development of his theory of natural selection as "my prime hobby" in a letter in 1838, which both occurred before he got married (1839) and before his daughter was even born (1841).

He had published some of his preliminary findings in journals prior to his daughter's death in 1851, and apparently his essay that was read at the 1858 Linnean Society meeting along with Wallace's paper on natural selection was written in 1844, again, before his daughter died.

It wasn't his daughter's death that pushed him into evolution; he had been working on that since he got back from the Beagle. The thing that pushed him to publicize his theory was his knowledge that Alfred Russell Wallace had come to nearly the same conclusions, so Darwin would lose credit for his life's work if he waited and be seen as a "Johnny Come Lately", even though he actually came up with the theory first.


I don't really see how this is relevant. My point was just that if you're going to claim that people only believe that the theory of evolution is true because they've read Darwin, then this leads to the question of why Darwin believed the theory, because he didn't have the Origin of Species to read and take his ideas from.

To be fair what I said was the death of Darwin’s daughter is what caused him to abandon God in view of a naturalistic explanation of the diversity of life and how mankind got here. Sure he was working on different theories before the death of his daughter but those didn’t necessarily have to leave God out as a creator. His final published work did, which was eight years after the death of his daughter.

Darwin saw something that the creationists of that day didn’t see, I agree. He saw that life forms changed because of environment pressures. But that doesn’t mean that the Bible was wrong, it just means that people misunderstood what the Bible supported. The creation story in the Bible doesn’t say that all life forms were created as they are today, it says that life forms were created and then they were told to go and multiply and fill the earth. In order to do that they need to adapt and change to the earth’s many different eco-systems.

 

[Man of Faith]

Why do you continuously mention Darwin? The theory isn't his any longer. It's changed and adapted since his time, but it's changed towards where the evidence is.

To me it doesn't matter whether Darwin was an atheist or a fundamentalist christian, if he's right he's right. He did get a few things wrong like genetics. But on a whole the theory stands or falls on it's own merits and it's not dictated by who says it.

When the schools stop mentioning him, so will I.

 

[Photonic]

When the schools stop mentioning him, so will I.

So you admit to not really having much substance to your argument against him.

 

[Man of Faith]

That's funny, because the more one uses science to study biology, the more likely they are to support the Theory of Evolution.

Why most scientists support the theory of evolution

The more a scientist climbs the ladder and gets funding from political liberal sources the more they are not going to let any type of creation escape their lips. It's not a good idea to bite the hand that feeds you.