Posted on 09/20/2005 7:02:45 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
ITHACA, N.Y. - Lenore Durkee, a retired biology professor, was volunteering as a docent at the Museum of the Earth here when she was confronted by a group of seven or eight people, creationists eager to challenge the museum exhibitions on evolution.
They peppered Dr. Durkee with questions about everything from techniques for dating fossils to the second law of thermodynamics, their queries coming so thick and fast that she found it hard to reply.
After about 45 minutes, "I told them I needed to take a break," she recalled. "My mouth was dry."
That encounter and others like it provided the impetus for a training session here in August. Dr. Durkee and scores of other volunteers and staff members from the museum and elsewhere crowded into a meeting room to hear advice from the museum director, Warren D. Allmon, on ways to deal with visitors who reject settled precepts of science on religious grounds.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Self-replicating molecules are fairly easy to produce. It's just basic chemistry.
Then answer my original question - when do evolutionists MOB places where creationism is taught?
I have a feeling they sought out this museum to harangue the staff. Every museum has its share of kook-visitors, pains in the asses who show up to complain about such things as idolatrous Catholic iconography, too many nudes, modern art, too many paintings by men, not enough art by women, art that is sexist, art that is homophobic, too much Eurocentric art, idolatrous Buddhist art.....ad nauseam
Why is it that when you want to insult someone you call them religious?
Or are you praising them for having faith. I can never get straight whether faith is a good thing or a bad thing.
Argh. I've seen this debate so many times, and it amazes me that the fundies cannot accept that some people - MANY people - believe that evolution is the process that the Creator used to create. Belief in evolution does not equate atheism. What is it about this that is so difficult to understand? You don't have to agree with it. Why can't you accept that it's what many people believe?
Good argument, but I still say God created the Heavens and the Earth.
Bzzzt! Wrong! "Faith" is believing in the unseen and unexperienced. Science accumulates data on the observable and testable.
Furthermore, the more science has advanced the more it has validated the Bible.
Your opinion, which you are indeed entitled to.
The next major advance in science was by Einstein who himself believes God must be behind everything. The greatest mind in quantum electro-dynamics, Feynman, also believed God must be behind physics because he could not believe how certain universal constants came to exist without Him.
One must define one's terms. Einstein was deliberately vague on his religious beliefs, as is Stephen Hawking. With regard to Sir Isaac Newton, one must consider the times in which he lived. So, did/do these men define "God" as a discreet celestial entity, or perhaps something altogether different? Go ahead and crawl into their minds. I'll wait for your answer.
I feel a nasty wet feeling on my scalp. I hpothesize a seagull is flying overhead. Hey presto, a new religion is born.
Cosmology is in total disarray since the latest scientific dogma about the expanding universe has been totally destroyed by learning that galaxies are accelrating away from each other, not the reverse as the dogmatic science of our high school textbooks had previously taught us
Huh?
The expansion of the universe had been taught pretty much since Hubble. Could the problem be that you weren't paying attention to what they taught you?
The next major advance in science was by Einstein who himself believes God must be behind everything
Einstein specifically denied believing in a personal god. You're quote mining.
The greatest mind in quantum electro-dynamics, Feynman, also believed God must be behind physics because he could not believe how certain universal constants came to exist without Him.
"I have a feeling they sought out this museum to harangue the staff."
Yah think? I'm always amused by such behavior. There they are in a museum, surrounded by evidence of evolution, and they are haranguing some volunteer docent about creationism.
Surely there is a better, more scholarly, way to debate creationism v. evolution. I guess these folks haven't found that way, so they make fools of themselves.
You are so far removed from reality that it's frightening.
trample = discuss, question, challenge, refute
and vice versa
There, fixed.
"Good argument, but I still say God created the Heavens and the Earth."
No problem. The Theory of Evolution says nothing about either subject. You'd have to go visit the cosmologists about that topic. Evolution scientists only address speciation. Cosmology isn't their thing.
It's a common mistake.
Not always true. I've also seen it taught as observation, evidence, and testing of hypotheses.
Science relies on observation, evidence, and testing of hypotheses. A very clear distinction.
It also relies on a lot of speculation and there are uncertainties and controversies that often never get mention in the mainstream media that cloud the line between knowing and speculating. I've watched more than a few shows on the various cable documentary channels that show recreations of dinosaurs and other creatures using impressive computer graphics that give the impression that we know everything about these animals. In reality, the entire reconstruction is based on a few bone fragments that someone could hold in one hand and a whole lot of speculation about not only how the animal looked but how it behaved. In fact, science is built on even more fundamental yet unproven assumptions (e.g., the repeatability of experiments) that can encourage a researcher to ignore evidence that points in a direction that's different from the conventional wisdom on a matter that's considered settled.
In theory, science is about observation, evidence, and testing of hypotheses. Fair enough. But in practice, there is a whole lot of speculation, guessing, assumptions, and, well, dogma. And there are plenty of scientists who shift from testing their hypotheses to advocating them and it's unfortunately not uncommon to find scientists who should know better building arguments on logical fallacies because they've shifted from testing their hypotheses to defending their hypotheses in much the same way that they complain the creationists do.
I agree, with the reservation that much of what we have today in Scripture concerning Creation is allegory.
CHRIST!!!!!! He cannot be the PEFECT flesh if the story of evolution is.
..... when she was confronted by a group of seven or eight people, creationists eager to challenge the museum exhibitions on evolution.They peppered Dr. Durkee with questions about everything from techniques for dating fossils to the second law of thermodynamics, their queries coming so thick and fast that she found it hard to reply.
After about 45 minutes, "I told them I needed to take a break," she recalled. "My mouth was dry."
Am I the only one who sees this behavior for what it is? This is a group of people intentionally entering a museum for the purpose of disrupting the presentation of scientific information that the disruptors find offensive. They aren't there to learn anything, and they surely aren't there to change the mind of the retired biologist.
What these cretins are doing is tantamount to a biology professor walking into the disruptor's church and tossing a turd in the Holy Water.
The proper response to these people is to throw them out of the museum, and arrest them for trespassing if they return. If they want to preach their insane version of science, let them build their own museum.... or better still, let them spew it in their church, from whence this abomination of science came.
I don't know a whole lot of creationists, but we had Michael Behe come to my college and speak on intelligent design. A whole bunch of evolutionists showed up and asked him questions -- behavior you obviously consider MOBBING.
Unless you're a libertarian who does not believe in any government role beyond law enforcement and the military, everyone agrees that education is a legitimate role of government. Public education is supposed to help ensure all the voting citizens out there are well-informed and have a proper understanding of our system of government. It is also important that the public has a good understanding of basic science, since so many issues today involve scientific matters. (E.g., nuclear power; stem-cell research.) So it is only reasonable that science museums, which play a significant role in educating the public, should be supported by the NSF (whose mission is to support scientific research as well as science education).
The NSF and the large government role in scientific research and education are an outgrowth of WWII. In WWII we discovered how tremendously important science was to our national security (in the Manhattan Project, the B-29 project, and cryptanalysis). After WWII, Vannevar Bush wrote a famous report, "Science: The Endless Frontier" that predicted the modern world we now live in, and outlined the role of government to get there. On October 4, 1957, Sputnik reinforced the importance of the United States maintaining scientific and technical superiority. It is no less important that the US maintain scientific superiority today. Science education is a critical part of this equation: Currently, we are importing a large fraction of our scientific talent. This cannot go on forever since China and India are now developing to the point where it is more attractive for their talent to return home. We must cultivate our own talent. This includes using scientific education, such as museums that can capture the imagination and excite children about science.
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