Posted on 06/25/2007 5:55:14 PM PDT by Alien Syndrome
In the United States the old but bitter debate between evolution and creationism is heating up again.
Three of the Republican presidential candidates do not believe in evolution and a high-tech creation museum recently opened in Kentucky.
Much of the debate has been fuelled by a book claiming the Grand Canyon, one of America's most well-known landmarks, was carved by Noah's flood rather than erosion.
Every national park has at least one gift shop - usually more - selling t-shirts, snow domes, mugs, postcards and books.
At the Grand Canyon you will find books on the canyon's history, the canyon's animals and even the canyon's deaths.
One book, Grand Canyon: A Different View, contains the following excerpt:
"Grand Canyon is not just an icon of beauty. It is a solemn witness to the mighty power of God who is not only the omnipotent creator of all things but also the avenging defender of his own holiness."
It is amazing to think a humble river was able to carve such a mighty canyon. Of course, a geologist will tell you that reflects the power of time rather than the power of the river - the canyon is millions of years old.
But Grand Canyon: A Different View presents a different perspective.
The book is compiled by Tom Vail, who has been guiding rafting trips down the Colorado River for 25 years.
He says for the first 15 years he was an evolutionist.
"In 1994 I became a Christian and started looking at the canyon as my book says, from a different view, and I started exploring the creationist model of the formation of the canyon," he said.
"What I found was all those little questions I had as an evolutionist had answers, and pretty logical answers as I looked at it."
Mr Vail's book is not some cheap pamphlet. It is a full colour coffee-table book, featuring expensive paper, sophisticated layout, spectacular photos, scientific language and lots of quotes from the Old Testament.
Not surprisingly, it is generating debate.
The gulf between creationists and mainstream scientists is as wide as the canyon itself.
The American Geological Institute and other groups demanded the book be removed from the national park.
The debate only fuelled sales of the book and Tom Vail says there is plenty of evidence inside the canyon to back his belief.
"We see some very large folding in the canyon where sedimentary layers, which are laid down horizontally, have been curved or carved in big bends, some of them 300 feet tall, and this is done without cracking the rock. How do you do that with hard rock?" he said.
"I'm definitely going against the tide here, but when you look at the evidence, there are major flaws in the dating methods, for example.
Much to the horror of mainstream scientists, creationism seems to be making a comeback in the United States.
A multi-million dollar creation museum recently opened, at least three of the Republicans running for President do not believe in evolution and Tom Vail's rafting trips are welcoming customers from as far away as Australia.
Opinion polls suggest 43 per cent of Americans believe God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years. Only 14 per cent believe humans evolved without divine involvement.
One of the recent bird/dinosaur fossils was found to be
a hoax...even National Geographic magazine ran with it
for a while, then had to retract their statements. I
think this was in the late 90’s or early 2000’s.
Some of the drawings of Ernst Haeckel(sp?) in his famous series
of the embryological development of different species
were found to have been falsified. Even as early as 1972
my textbook on embryology recognized that the drawings
left much to be desired. I think one can remember the
phrase “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny”...I don’t
think that concept and it’s proof(the drawings) are taught
anymore, cause later research has shown that there are
great differences if the embryos of different species
at the same “stage”, and the drawings were glossed over
to make the theory of “orp” seem true.
Not that it really matters, but that’s a total of three
...can anyone remember any more off the top of their head?
So, you claimed there were hoaxes all over the place and you can't come up with more then two?
But what about that Chinese "hoax"? That was a fraud by a local Chinese fellow trying for a few extra bucks for his fossil. That fooled National Geographic for a while, but scientists quickly sniffed out the fraud and exposed it. To try and claim that as a "hoax" by evolutionary scientists is absolutely incorrect. It was scientists who detected the fraud.
As for Haeckel, here is what appears to be a straight story. Make as much hay of that as you want.
Lets have all the rest of the hoaxes! Bring them on (if you can).
How do you define "competent science?" Is it only that which is explicitly stated in the Bible?
Can we retain the current model of the universe, or do we have to go back to Ptolemy's epicycles? Do we have to reject the Apollo missions, the Martian Rovers, all the numerous probes that have supposedly been sent out to study the solar system? The Bible says all that stuff out there is just lights - how can men or machines land on and study a speck of light? All that space stuff must just be a hoax, right?
A few weeks back there was a poster on another thread who stated that scientists can't prove the Sun converts hydrogen to helium by means of nuclear fusion, because no one has landed on the Sun and brought back a sample. (Link). His rejoinder was that the current knowledge of the Sun was "a figment of some eggheaded geek's hypothesizing about crap imagined do (sic) to his lack of testosterone." Does that fit your definition of "competent science"?
And that's just basic astronomy and stellar mechanics. I haven't even mentioned fields like chemistry, classical and modern physics, medicine, etc. Is it "competent science" to condemn modern medicine as a tool of Satan, as has been done by some posters here? Maybe we should just go back to drilling holes in peoples' heads to let the evil spirits out. Hey, that's how it was done in the Dark Ages.
There was one I just saw on FR recently, I think within the last week or so. Some guy in England? Maybe Dave knows. I think it was an article he pinged.
I’d pay $12 to see that movie.
If evolutionists are doing so much damage to this country, why wait around for some future awakening that may never even happen in the first place? The longer you wait, the more damage they do to this country, right? Sounds to me like you believe they need to be silenced, one way or another, and sooner rather than later.
Oh, He could have. But if He did, He lied about it. On the other hand, is He not capable of creating everything exactly as He said He did?
The Darwin gang from the antifreeper site are here again showing their classy act. Check out the keywords. Their collective IQ is about a 4
Biblical creation fact:
Genesis 1
1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
There's absolutely no excuse for using such personal insults. I''ve come to know this person through personal emails, and she is a very fine person indeed.
If someone doesn't agree with another poster's point of view, then take it up on the debating floor.
This however, is simply childish, and not worthy of someone who calls themself an adult...least of all an educated adult.
Creationism isn't science any more than astrology is science.
The various scientific theories for evolution are explained in the science classroom. And I might point out that science is taught not as an absolute unlike your religion. Scientists continually run experiments and look at observations to either confirm our hypothesiss or disprove the scientific theory.
Creationism can be taught in the school and scientists such as me won't complain. However, it must be taught in the philosphy or religious classroom and not the sceince classroom since ID/creationism make initial absolute conclusions prior to running any expernments.
In a sense creationism is like global warming. They’re both religion. They both totally ignore the scientific method of fitting your conclusion to the observations, but rather they start with the conclusion, and work backward ignoring or trying to discredit any facts that don’t fit with ther belief. Neither one can stand up to the light or reason. Their supporters try to shout down the opposition frequently insulting those who disagree with them. And above all they’re both wrong.
That much? I’ve come to expect that sort of thing from DC from what I’ve seen on my forays there. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see it spill over here.
I guess that’s what being a highly educated scientist type does to you?
How can it be determined that creationism is wrong using a system that is always self-correcting, meaning that what was previously taught was wrong? How can you use something that's wrong, or you're never sure is right, to disprove something else? The only way to demonstrate something is wrong, is to use something that is true or right. Since we've been told that science isn't about truth, then there must be something else. What is it?
Hey Compadre, it was intended for you. You did post #2 didn't you? Or was it the other BipolarBob.
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