|
Post by coolplanet on Feb 6, 2014 1:53:25 GMT -5
Skip to minute 12
|
|
|
Post by thedirtman on Feb 11, 2014 8:10:41 GMT -5
I think I'll try to take this on without watching. Evolution vrs. Creation. One must be right and one must be wrong. Right?
Creation is untestable. Evolution is not a response to the questions most people feel about spirituality. Evolution is knowledge we gather through science. We used to have less facts, and some day we will have more facts, but fundamentally nothing changes except that we become aware of our place in the universe.
Evidence of evolution is not evidence against creation, and likewise evidence against evolution does not mean that creation is supported. Suppositions along these lines create false dilemmas, or false dichotomies. The two are not clearly in opposition, nor can they support one another.
Here is the real realm of possibilities:
1. Creation may not be real and evolution may not be real. 2. Creation may be real and evolution may not be real. 3. Creation may not be real and evolution may be real. 4. Creation may be real and evolution may be real.
Which is more true I have little personal opinion. The false dichotomy is real.
|
|
|
Post by thedirtman on Feb 15, 2014 15:28:47 GMT -5
I might watch this debate after all. Watch the Christian Right Argue Over Whether the Earth Is Really 6,000 Years Old—By Chris Mooney| Sat Feb. 15, 2014 3:00 AM GMT How do we know that Bill Nye won the creationism debate with Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis earlier this month? Simple: The Christian Right is now airing its grievances over the outcome publicly, with one of its top leaders saying the debate made Christians look completely out of touch. Via Right Wing Watch, here's a video from last week of televangelist Pat Robertson blasting the idea that the Earth is only about 6,000 years old, as Young Earth creationists like Ham assert. "There 'aint no way that's possible," explains Robertson, noting that anyone working in the oil industry can see as much as they drill through layer after geological layer to extract ancient hydrocarbons. "You can't just totally deny the geological formations that are out there," Robertson continued. "Let's be real. Let's not make a joke of ourselves." Watch Robertson's comments above. But that's just the beginning: Ham then responded to Robertson and raised the stakes further on Facebook. "Pat Robertson is so misinformed and deceived," Ham lamented. "Sad that so many will believe him." Ham later continued: Oh, that God would convict and open the eyes of Christian leaders and Christian college and seminary professors, so many of whom are as uninformed and deceived as Pat Robertson. God have mercy. The truth is that Ham did make a joke of himself, actually arguing at one point that lions were vegetarians before Noah's Flood. Such are the intellectual contortions required of Young Earth creationists who seriously want to insist, against not just biological but also geological and physical evidence, on an Earth that is younger than its oldest living tree. Robertson, meanwhile, is no paragon of rationality: This is the same guy who asserted, in response to Walt Disney World's "Gay Days," that "I don't think I'd be waving those flags in God's face if I were you ... It'll bring about terrorist bombs; it'll bring earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor." And yet here, he comes off as the voice of moderation. Indeed, Robertson even seems to embrace a form of theistic or "progressive" evolution that is not necessarily incompatible with scientific understanding. This suggests that, if nothing else, the creationism debate was highly disruptive of the evolution-creationism status quo. Just maybe, there will be enough upheaval on the Christian right to trigger a serious reconsideration of their attacks on science education across the country. (Wishful thinking, we know.) www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2014/02/pat-robertson-ken-ham-dinosaurs
|
|
|
Post by coolplanet on Feb 16, 2014 18:45:40 GMT -5
I might watch this debate after all. Watch Bill Nye Explain Climate Change to GOP Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn—By Chris Mooney Sun Feb. 16, 2014 9:05 AM GMT www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2014/02/bill-nye-marsha-blackburn-climate-meet-the-pressBill Nye is getting good at this. Fresh off a mega-debate that embarrassed Young Earth creationists and led to none other than Pat Robertson denouncing their views, Nye appeared on Meet the Press today to debate Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), a global warming "skeptic." On the air, Blackburn, who is vice-chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, denied that there is a scientific consensus on climate change and argued that "you don't make good laws, sustainable laws, when you're making them on hypotheses, or theories, or unproven sciences." (There is indeed such a scientific consensus; at one moment, host David Gregory had to correct Blackburn on this point.) But Nye rebutted her with some simple science lessons that made a lot of sense—noting that going from 320 to 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, something Blackburn called "very slight," is actually a very big change in percentage terms (Nye said 30 percent; it is actually a 25 percent increase). At the same time, Nye also hammered home a compelling message centered on patriotism. "As a guy who grew up in the US," he said, "I want the US to lead the world in this....The more we mess around with this denial, the less we're going to get done." The key gotcha moment in the debate came when Nye called out Blackburn for failing to lead on the climate issue. "You are our leader," he said to Blackburn. "We need you to change things, not deny what's happening." "Neither he nor I are a climate scientist," Blackburn noted during the debate. But as Nye observed, only one of them is a politician, whose job is to use the best information that we have at our disposal to make the world work.
|
|
|
Post by thedirtman on Mar 19, 2014 8:12:23 GMT -5
Bill Nye's words from the debate has been put to video with music. It's doing well on the internet. Does anyone know if this is his closing argument?
|
|