tagged w/ Creationism
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The next major battle over evolutionary theory is likely to occur not in the United States but in the Islamic world or in countries with large Muslim populations because of rising levels of education and Internet access there, as well as the rising importance of biology, a scientist now says.
As with Christians and Jews, there is no consensus or "official" opinion on evolution among Muslims.
However, some of them say that the theory is a cultural threat that acts as a force in favor of atheism, says Hampshire College’s Salman Hameed in an essay in the Dec. 12 issue of the journal Science. This is the same beef that some Christians have with evolution.
A general respect for science in the Islamic world means scientists have an opportunity to counter anti-evolution efforts, such as the "Atlas of Creation," a glossy 850-page color volume produced by Muslim creationist Adnan Oktar who goes by the name of Harun Yahya.
Numerous university scientists and members of the media received copies of this book as an unsolicited gift in 2007.
"There is a standard narrative that science and Islam are compatible, but evolution is one thought that challenges this assumption," Hameed told LiveScience. "It's interesting to see how people respond to it and create their world view in response to that challenge."
--Continued here:The next major battle over evolutionary theory is likely to occur not in the United... more
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The poll was done by Teachers TV who emailed 10,600 education professionals, of which 1,210 responded. Because the survey is self selecting then only the teachers with the most hardened of views may have responded, so is it a fair survey?
"This poll data confirms that the debate on whether there is a place for the teaching of creationism in the classroom is still fierce," said Andrew Bethell, chief executive of Teachers TV. Is it really a fierce debate? Or is this just an unbalanced and skewed piece of research?The poll was done by Teachers TV who emailed 10,600 education professionals, of which... more
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R.Gervais stand-up on biblical creation.
I loved this....hope you enjoy it too. In case you are sensitive...please try to keep your sense of humor about you....it is for FUN!R.Gervais stand-up on biblical creation.
I loved this....hope you enjoy it too.... more
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"Sarah Palin believes in fossil fuels but not necessarily in fossils. This is no trivial matter. Of all the intense scrutiny Palin has faced in this campaign - not least on the matter of her wardrobe - nobody in America seemed much interested in asking her the dinosaur question.
That is: do you believe, or have you ever believed, that the world was created in the past 5000 or 10,000 years and that dinosaurs roamed the planet alongside humans?
Palin's political extinction may be only days away but somebody really should have asked this question of the woman who has advocated the discussion of creationism in the classroom; the woman who might have been a heartbeat from the presidency; the woman whom John McCain described as being among the "foremost experts in this nation on energy issues".
Well, we know that Palin believes in oil, especially the stuff she wants drilled in Alaska. But does the energy expert know where oil comes from? Does Palin, the daughter of a science teacher, know that the tiger in her tank is more likely a dinosaur - fossilised matter dating back a little further than 10,000 years? Add another 300 million years and she'd be getting warm.
During the 2006 gubernatorial debate in Alaska, Palin suggested schools could teach creationism as well as evolution. "Teach both," she said. "You know, don't be afraid of education. Healthy debate is so important and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both."
Both? So, once the kids rigorously and logically dispense with evolution, they can arrive at only one other conclusion … and here in Alaska we have both kinds of music: country and western.
Palin later qualified her remarks to say she would not push for creationism to be required on the state curriculum. She had only meant that debate should be allowed if the subject arose. "I don't think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class."
Similarly, schools could allow healthy debate on flat Earth versus sphere, or sexual procreation versus the cabbage patch.
An Alaskan music teacher, Philip Munger, recalls two encounters with Palin which he regards as important "in light of the possibility that she might some day soon be in charge of thousands of thermonuclear weapons".
In June 1997, Munger writes in a blog, he was directing a community band while Palin delivered an address for home schoolers.
"It was held at her church, the Wasilla Assembly of God," Munger writes.
"Palin had recently become Wasilla mayor … A large part of her campaign had been to enlist fundamentalist Christian groups and invoke evangelical buzzwords in her talks and literature.
"As the ceremony concluded, I bumped into her in a hall away from other people. I congratulated her on her victory and took her aside to ask about her faith. Among other things, she declared that she was a Young Earth creationist, accepting both that the world was about 6000-plus years old and that humans and dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time.
"I asked how she felt about the second coming and the end times. She responded that she fully believed that the signs of Jesus returning soon 'during MY lifetime' were obvious. 'I can see that, maybe you can't - but it guides me every day.' " The next time they met, Palin had switched to the less strict Wasilla Bible Church. By now people were beginning to encourage her to run for governor."
Scary."Sarah Palin believes in fossil fuels but not necessarily in fossils. This is no... more
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"The principal of Mount Vernon High School became frustrated by teacher complaints that freshman students needed to be re-taught 8th grade science.
During the fifth day of a hearing to determine whether 8th-grade science teacher John Freshwater will keep his job, a medical doctor also testified that pictures of marks on a student who says Freshwater burned him with a lab instrument were "superficial" second degree burns that could produce underlying damage.
Freshwater is accused of burning a student, teaching religion in his science class and failing to follow the district's orders. Freshwater says the district wants to fire him because he refused to remove a Bible from his desk.
Mt. Vernon High School Principal Kathy Kasler testified that e-mails, teachers' comments and a teacher's surveys of her students showed that some 8th grade science students were being taught creationism, the religious belief that a deity created the universe.
Kasler received an e-mail in August from high school science teacher Bonnie Schutte reading in part:
"Teaching creationism is illegal and the state Department of Education is looking for the names of schools who are allowing this to happen so that they can make an example of them."
On surveys given by Schutte students stated: "We learned different looks on evolution" and "I liked debating about creation and evolution."
"I find it extremely unfair to have to start each school year re-teaching students how science actually works," Scutte wrote. "Professionally, I'm very tired of this."
Kasler said she's known of complaints about Freshwater for about seven years, and that she asked the middle school to assign her daughter to another science teacher.
Freshwater's attorney, R. Kelly Hamilton, asked Kasler how far she took her concerns about Freshwater. She said she advised other administrators, but didn't do more because Freshwater was not her employee.
"If she had problems with somebody, based on her years of experience, and her leadership training, she certainly could have taken further action," Hamilton concluded.
Photographs of marks that Freshwater is accused of making on the arm of Zachary Dennis were analyzed by a Youngstown doctor, who called them "superficial second-degree burns."
Dr. David Levy, chairman of emergency medicine at St. Elizabeth Health Center said that such burns can cause underlying damage and can be more dangerous to children, whose skin is thinner and moister than adults.
Levy also said that since electricity passes through arteries and nerves, "chaotic rhythms" of the heart could result.
Hamilton asked Levy whether high voltage metal balls popular at some science museums, and used to make hair stand on end, would be any safer that the device Freshwater used.
Levy replied: "Not necessarily."
The hearing continues through Friday. Attorney scheduling conflicts could postpone the hearing next week.""The principal of Mount Vernon High School became frustrated by teacher... more
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A controversial creationist has offered 10 TRILLION Turkish Lira to anyone who can provide convincing fossil evidence of evolution. A controversial creationist has offered 10 TRILLION Turkish Lira to anyone who can... more
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rwylie
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added this
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3 years ago
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Recently, VP Candidate Sarah Palin made an extraordinary claim. "Yes", she said, "I have seen images of dinosaur fossils with human footprints in them!", a statement consistent with her attempts to get 'creationists' put on school boards. By definition, a 'creationist' believes that human beings were contemporary with dinosaurs.
A 'creationist' believes that human beings were contemporary with dinosaurs because 'creation' —they believe —took place just 6,000 years ago. Palin has long espoused 'creationism', a belief that Genesis is a literal history. If so, all creation took place over a period of seven days about 6,000 years ago, thus: the creationist believes that humans and dinosaurs co-existed. And not just in Jurassic park or Alley Oop comic strips.
The 'footprints' that were said to be human were not. That determination was made back by 1989. Claims that human tracks had been fossilized in pre-Tertiary rocks from other localities are "not considered credible by ... mainstream scientists' or 'major creationist groups". [See: The Paluxy Dinosaur/'Man Track' Controversy, Glen J, Kuban]
The idiotic idea that the universe is but 6,000 years old is easily refuted. Consider the known, proven distance to the Andromeda galaxy --some 2 million light years. That means that when we look up into the night sky and see Andromeda, we see it as it was two million years ago. We see the Magellanic Clouds as they were some 195 thousand years ago. If the Earth were but six thousand years old, the number of stars visible to Earth might be counted on our fingers and toes.
It comes down to this: if we can look up at the sky at night and see Andromeda, 'creationists' are wrong! Guess what! We can SEE Andromeda. It is the only Galaxy that is visible to the naked eye. If we had discovered no other object, we must conclude, therefore, that the universe is at least two million years old. Of course, there are many more objects that are much more distant than Andromeda and they are easily discerned by the Hubble telescope.Recently, VP Candidate Sarah Palin made an extraordinary claim. "Yes", she... more
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Real Time comedian Bill Maher and Borat director Larry Charles are men on a mission: to destroy society's blind faith in God. The medium they chose to convey their doctrine is not a dusty old book, but an entertaining documentary which highlights the ridiculous aspects of religion, hence its name, Religulous.
In an effort to spread their brand of enlightenment, Charles and Maher embarked on a romp around the world, questioning religious beliefs in the places they began and the palaces they paid for. The duo returned from their three-month pilgrimage with oodles of often-funny footage, much of it shot guerrilla-style as with Borat. Stringing interviews together with biting commentary and incisive footnotes, (to quote Kazakhstan's most famous fake export) they present their "cultural learnings" which they ultimately hope may "make benefit" of our "glorious" globe.
I chatted with Charles, who mastered absurdity while working on Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and took the opportunity to challenge a few beliefs of his own.
Click on link above for full interview.Real Time comedian Bill Maher and Borat director Larry Charles are men on a mission:... more
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Soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of the foothill town of Wasilla, Alaska, she startled a local music teacher by insisting in casual conversation that men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth created 6,000 years ago -- about 65 million years after scientists say most dinosaurs became extinct -- the teacher said.Soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of the foothill town of Wasilla, Alaska, she... more
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There was a time when we sought our answers in superstition....
Now is the time when we should use scientific methods, rational thinking and evidence to determine our way....
Anyone agree with me?There was a time when we sought our answers in superstition....
Now is the time... more
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www.copyright-free-photos.org.uk/wolves/02-grey-wolf.htm
copyright-free-photos.org.uk
http://www.tomdispatch.com/
Way back in September 2005, not so long after Katrina hit New Orleans and Americans discovered just what the Bush administration was — and wasn’t — capable of, environmental activist and author Chip Ward wrote a piece for TomDispatch, “Left Behind,” on “Bush’s holy war on nature.” In it he outlined just what that administration was, in fact, quite skilled at doing. He wrote, in part:
“During their time in power, Bush’s officials have worked systematically and energetically to undo half a century of environmental law and policy based on hard-learned lessons about how to sustain healthy environments. Strikingly, they have failed to protect the environment even when they could have done so without repercussions from special-interest campaign contributors. Something more is going on.”
[...]
The Evolution of John McCain
Why He Picked Sarah Palin, Carbon Queen
By Chip Ward
Despite the media feeding frenzy, we still may be asking ourselves, “Just who exactly is Sarah Palin?” Mixed in with the Davy-Crockett-meets-SuperMom vignettes — all those moose hunting, ice fishing, snowmobiling, baby-juggling, and hockey-momming moments — we’ve also learned that she doesn’t care much for her former brother-in-law and wasn’t afraid to use her office to go after his job as a state trooper; that she was for the “bridge to nowhere” before she was against it; that she’s against earmarks unless they benefit her constituents; that she can deliver a snappy wisecracking speech, thinks banning books in libraries is okay, considers herself a pit bull with lipstick, and above all else, wants to drill the ever-lovin’ daylights out of every corner of her home state (which John McCain’s handlers have somehow translated into being against Big Oil, since she insisted on a marginally bigger cut of the profits for Alaskans).
Oh, and — not that this is very important to Americans or the planet — she now thinks that global warming might possibly be human-made… sorta… though she didn’t before, despite the fact that the state she governs is on the frontline of climate change. And, of course, she’s a classic right-wing, fundamentalist Christian: against abortion — check; against same-sex marriage — check; against stem-cell research — check; favors teaching Creationism in public schools — check.
It's that last item, her willingness to put Creationism up against the teaching of evolutionary science in the classroom on a he-says-she-says basis, that's far more revealing of just who our new Republican vice presidential candidate is than we generally assume. It deserves the long, hard look that it hasn't yet gotten. Most Democrats and progressives tend to think of the teaching of Creationism as a mere sidebar item on their agenda of political don't-likes, but it's not. Sarah Palin's bias towards Creationism is a window into her political soul and a measure of John McCain's hypocrisy.
[...]
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174979/chip_ward_sarah_palin_s_holy_war_on_nature
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Brutal: Sarah Palin’s Record on Aerial Wolf Hunting
https://secure.defenders.org/
Have you ever heard of aerial hunting? It’s a brutal practice. Wolves are shot from low-flying aircraft or chased to exhaustion, then killed at point-blank range.
Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican nominee for Vice President, promotes this barbaric practice, exploiting a loophole in the Federal Airborne Hunting Act to allow private wolf killers to shoot down wolves using aircraft. To encourage the killing, she even proposed a $150 bounty for the left foreleg of each dead wolf!
We have to get the word out about this! Please watch this powerful new television ad by Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, and then share it with every wildlife lover you know:
http://actionfund.defenders.org/palintvwolf
More on Sarah Palin: http://wordpress.com/tag/palin-sarah/www.copyright-free-photos.org.uk/wolves/02-grey-wolf.htm
copyright-free-photos.org.uk... more
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A Turkish court has banned internet users from viewing the official Richard Dawkins website after a Muslim creationist claimed the content was defamatory and blasphemous.
Adnan Oktar, a household name in Turkey, has used hundreds of books, pamphlets and DVDs to contest Darwin's theory of evolution. In 2006 Oktar's publishers sent out a detailed book rejecting the theory of evolution.
Dawkins, responded to the book by stating on his website "Iam at a loss to reconcile the expensive and glossy production values of this book with the breathtaking inanity of the content".
Does the blocking of websites really have the effect of stifling reasoned debate?A Turkish court has banned internet users from viewing the official Richard Dawkins... more
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A senior professor at the Royal Society, Michael Reiss, has left his post after he made controversial comments on creationism.
He had said that it should be discussed in science lessons if pupils raised the issue.A senior professor at the Royal Society, Michael Reiss, has left his post after he... more
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rwylie
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added this
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3 years ago
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"Renowned scientist advocates a Science curriculum with space for Religion:
Recently a member of the Royal Society published a blog suggesting that Creationism should be included in the teaching of science in schools.
Michael Reiss, the Director of Education for the Royal Society openly suggested that science teachers should try to explain scientific theories such as evolution in a manner which accommodates the many religions of the general public, which mostly happen to be routed in Creationism.
As expected this resulted in a thorough flaming from his colleagues, and the call for his removal was immediate and resounding. The fact that he is the Director of Education for this important scientific organisation and is also an ordained Anglican priest has been called comparable to a “Monty Python Sketch” by renowned Biologist Richard Dawkins.
The move to have him dismissed was put forward by two Nobel Prize winners - Sir Harry Kroto and Sir Richard Roberts. Reiss’ argument rests on the premise that the majority of learners hold religious beliefs, and that the current scientific curriculum does not support the claims of Creationism.
He states that learners’ religious beliefs should be encouraged; however, having them encouraged within a scientific context has many scientists fuming."
"Renowned scientist advocates a Science curriculum with space for Religion:... more
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The Royal Society has backed the teaching of creationism in schools, kicking off what promises to be a spectacular row amongst the country’s top scientists.
The Royal Society director of education told the British Association’s festival of science in Liverpool that creationism should be examined in school science classes as a legitimate point of view.
Michael Reiss, who is both a professor of biology and a Church of England clergyman, took the position that with ten per cent of UK school children coming from families with creationist leanings, teachers should convey a message of “respect” for those beliefs while continuing to teach evolution.
Frankly I find this ridiculous. There are no religious children only children of religious parents. Why should we choose to indoctrinate our school children with religious ideology? Let them draw their own conclusions.The Royal Society has backed the teaching of creationism in schools, kicking off what... more
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Newsweek goes to Palin's church to get an idea of the story there and called it "unremarkable" except for the view. They really don't get to judgemental and try to give it a fair shot in this article. Its worth reading if you want to know all about Palin like most of us do.Newsweek goes to Palin's church to get an idea of the story there and called it... more
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Americans are divided over whether humans and other living things evolved over time or have existed in their present form since the beginning of time, according to a new poll.
People on both sides of that argument think students should hear about various theories, however. Nearly two-thirds of those in a Pew Research Center poll, 64 percent, say they believe "creationism'' should be taught alongside "evolution'' -- a finding likely to spark more controversy about what is taught in the schools.
In the poll by the Pew Research Center, 42 percent of those surveyed held strict "creationist'' views that "living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.'' Creationism generally refers to a literal reading of the Bible's story of the creation of man.
Almost half, 48 percent, said they believed humans have evolved over time. Some of those people, 26 percent of all those polled, said they believe evolution occurred through natural selection, and another 18 percent of all those polled, said evolution was guided by a supreme being.
To summarize, 42% of those polled believed only in strict creationism. 48% of our country believes in evolution, but only 26% believe that it was caused by natural selection. 18% believe that evolution is guided by a "supreme being."
Also, 64% of people believe in teaching both creationism and evolution in schools. Americans are divided over whether humans and other living things evolved over time or... more
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Self explanatory.. this is a good tool for visualizing the attack on the separation of Church and State.Self explanatory.. this is a good tool for visualizing the attack on the separation of... more
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Creationist groups are complaining that the newly-released Spore has an overly heavy emphasis on... you guessed it - evolution. Some groups are now even lobbying to get it banned, saying, "this entire game is propaganda aimed directly at our children to teach them evolution instead of creationism." Interestingly, TechDigest points out that the way in which 'evolution' works in Spore is actually far from how neo-Darwinism would explain it, and is much closer, ironically, to the Creationist model. Shiny Media's evolutionary biology correspondent explains:
"I understand that it's only a game and I would never criticise Spore for this but it did make me grimace and suck air through my teeth like a plumber doing an estimate on your bathroom to think of all the people out there who might think that Spore is an accurate account of how evolution works. "
"Several times in the Creature Stage I made huge differences to my beasties when I found they were getting the crap kicked out of them on the plains. I went from two-foot, blue spotted singing and dancing animals to giant green murder machines in one generation and it wouldn't have been a problem if you didn't then see one hatch directly from the egg of another."
"See now, for my money, this is a closer depiction of Creationism than Neo-Darwinist evolution. One of the classic reactions you get from someone who disputes evolution is "Yeah, but when have you ever seen a monkey turn into a man" or such. Of course, we all know that evolution is a very subtle process taking millions of years and so what Spore has done is represent a rather instanmatic Creationist version of how it's done."Creationist groups are complaining that the newly-released Spore has an overly heavy... more
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::: From Fog® :::
Creationism is fun to believe in!
Science and evolution prove NOTHING to me! God made us all 6,000 years ago!::: From Fog® :::
Creationism is fun to believe in!
Science and evolution... more
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