On ‘Darwin Day,’ many Americans beg to differ | csmonitor.com — There will be a lot of Darwin stuff going on for this anniversary.
This Thursday, celebrations are under way worldwide to mark Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday. From Argentina to Australia, people are gathering for film screenings, quiz contests, and museum exhibits on “Darwin Day” – along with at least one “survival of the fittest” cake-eating contest.
In the US, though, Darwin remains a controversial figure. Two centuries after the famed naturalist’s birth, more than 40 percent of Americans believe human beings were created by God in their present form, according to recent polls from Gallup and the Pew Research Center – a view impossible to reconcile with evolution propelled by natural selection.
Such creationist beliefs lack scientific merit, educators say, and in classrooms evolution reigns supreme.
You have to wonder what is wrong with this picture if evolution has been taught in the schools without complaint for 50 or more years, how only 60-percent think it is true and 40 go with creationism which is not taught at all.
Others born on Feb. 12 listed here include, oddly enough, Abe Lincoln and footballer Lincoln Kennedy.
I wonder how far the idea for a holiday would get?
Is that anything like not recognizing an answer?
RBG
#121 – RBG,
I guess. Funny thing though. My question began with a why and your answer had nothing approaching any form of because or other actual explanation. It was more of an unrelated and delusionally non-fact based musing.
Well aside from that, let me answer in a different way then.
So you’re ok with the idea God could create a universe with more stars than grains of sand and all its associated physics from nothing, but are hung up on a number of biological processes because, for the life of you, you can’t figure out how God could have ever done it? You might want to get back to basics.
#115 RBG answered your question, but you are hopelessly unable to consider anything but your own musings.
RBG
#123 – RBG,
We’re so different that we’re talking past each other. I see nothing resembling an answer in either 115 or 123.
In 123, you make a false assumption about me. No, I am not OK with the idea of resorting to the supernatural rather than the natural, especially in these times when so much can be explained through the natural and so little by the existence of a god.
Why would a god who wanted to create humans here on earth, as described in the bible bother to create 10^11 galaxies and 10^22 planets just to put a particularly short-lived species (a mere 200,000 years and we’re ready to kill ourselves off) on one insignificant rock in the middle of nowhere?
No, I am not OK with the concept of a god created in our own image who is so wasteful with creation.
No, I am not OK with the concept of a god who would teach thousands of different names for himself to as many different groups of people and then tell each and every one of them to go kill all of the others.
No. Nothing about god makes sense.
As for going back to basics, one might say that to you who believe in fairy tales with absolutely no evidence to bolster them. Nothing about the god hypothesis is basic except for its obvious complete self-contradictions.
Turtles all the way down describes these best. You assume there must be a creator in order for there to be a creation and are then willing to take on faith that the creator needs no creator. Why?
Think!
Ok, apologies. You wrote
Why didn’t god use something other than DNA in some of the life on the planet?
And I read as “in life on another planet” or similar.
But the answer, of course, is why re-invent the wheel. You know of something that works better? That said
“Our planet may harbour forms of “weird life” unrelated to life as we know it… Weird life could even be living among us, in forms which we don’t yet recognise, he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Chicago.
“We don’t have to go to other planets to find weird life.
“It is entirely reasonable to expect we will find a shadow biosphere here on Earth.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7893414.stm
Again…
Why is the tree of life such an obvious tree? Why not have something truly different that fits in no category?
Archaea are pretty funny.
Why no wings that gives milk?
How about guts that fly? (insect wings originate from their guts.)
So already some of your objections have been removed and you now have more reason to believe in God with its but-don’t-buy-yet bonus of eternal life.
If God had multitudes of planets with similar intelligent life, meant to stay hidden, that would be another objection gone by the wayside. Again less waste than you imagined.
The mystery of the creator’s creator is as easy as the origin of the Big Bang.
RBG
#125 – RBG,
Ah Paul Davies, yes, there is a reason he won the Templeton Prize, not the Nobel Prize.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Templeton_Prize
But, in that article, he said nothing that gives you any argument for god. He did not find any non-DNA based life. As for what is truly weird, there’s some cool stuff down at the ocean floor near volcanic vents. Still though, it all fits neatly in the tree of life and thus far has all been DNA based. If any turns out not to be, it would be an argument for a second case of what the apologists like to call “abiogenesis”. I’m sure as a fundamentalist, you are familiar with the term. Two cases would not argue any more strongly for god than one.
It’s not true that the creator’s creator is as easy to explain as the big bang. The big bang at least may follow known laws of quantum mechanics which allow for and even require that matter pop in and out of existence at the quantum level. The early universe met this condition.
What would be required to explain a creator would have been a process for creating intelligence from nothing. No evolution. No selection. Just bang and there’s a god capable of creating universes at the rate of one a week.
As for multitudes of planets with intelligent similar intelligent life, good. Let’s look for them. Right now, the silence is deafening. Maybe it exists. At least we know of one case of life in the universe, so there is evidence of some life in the universe, which is more than I can say for god. However, it may be quite rare. We don’t know yet.
Even if there’s lots of it though, it sure as hell takes away any thought of god having us in particular in mind.
“It’s not true that the creator’s creator is as easy to explain as the big bang.”
No. Not “…as the big bang.” Rather: …as the origin of the big bang.” Like ET’s, it’s a tenuous faith-thing based upon other phenomena we see around us.
RBG
#127 – RBG,
The big bang was an enormous quantity of extremely simple stuff. A creator is an enormously powerful being of extreme complexity. It’s far harder to explain complexity than simplicity. Therefore, the big bang is A) a lot easier to explain than any putative creator would be and B) is supported by real evidence unlike any putative creator.
The creator hypothesis goes completely against Occam’s razor. There was something moderately difficult to explain. Rather than attempt to explain it, you postulate a being far more difficult to explain. It makes no logical sense at all.
As for extraterrestrials, I’ll believe in them when I see them, or when we get some evidence of them. Until then, they are no more more real than any creator. That said, we have no evidence of any supernatural being. We do have evidence of natural beings, at least here on Earth. So, even though there is no evidence of E.T.’s, they are more likely than supernatural beings.
Your “simple” event – where the big bang came from – is yet impossible to determine or explain. Yet you, nevertheless, think others should be able to explain something of “extreme complexity.” Do I have that right?
The case for the existence of ETs is all over the map by scientists and non-scientists alike. That might not be the best example to cite.
RBG
#129 – RBG,
I don’t expect perfect explanations. I’m just surprised you don’t even want to ask the question. You worship this creature and yet care nothing for his/her origins. This is typical of the religious. I have never heard a single religious individual question where god came from.
I am very curious about the origins of the universe. Scientists are searching for answers. Rather than setting up a religion, science tests hypothesis and tries to form rational explanations.
No. I don’t expect religions to answer questions. What shocks me is that they do not even ask them. Everyone I have ever heard question the origins of god was either an agnostic or a non-theist. Why would those who actually believe in such a concept not seek answers?
I don’t like DARWIN!
I won’t bring present!
I will have cake!
RBG, whatever unknowns there are concerning the origin of life and of the universe, they can’t possibly be as deeply troubling as the logical and moral contradiction of having to insist that the Creator whose evil atrocities are recounted in the Bible is actually good and loving and just.
If you want to believe in a creator, you should write a creation tale with a more sympathetic deity, possibly even worthy of worship. And if you do worship him, please don’t include animal sacrifices among your rituals — it traumatizes the children. Dance and have fun instead.
130 Mis Scott. Ok. I wonder where God came from? And now, I wonder what’s for lunch? That I can test.
Likewise, you hear a lot of the Big Bang. Nearly no one talks of before. They don’t even ask the questions.
132 Gary. That from those wonderful folks who brought you weapons of mass destruction: scientists.
I suspect “atrocity” is in the eye of the beholder.
RBG
RBG wrote, “I suspect ‘atrocity’ is in the eye of the beholder.”
Ah, perhaps you’ve inadvertently helped me see the true miracle of religion. Just when it seems truly impossible to justify the killing of innocent human beings, the Lord miraculously grants you blindness to his evil.
Like atrocity, the innocence of children is only in the eye of the beholder.
#133 – RBG,
130 Mis Scott. Ok. I wonder where God came from? And now, I wonder what’s for lunch? That I can test.
No. That you can just make up your mind about. Testing is something totally different. This may be the source of your misunderstandings of science.
Likewise, you hear a lot of the Big Bang. Nearly no one talks of before. They don’t even ask the questions.
Patently false. Many hypotheses exist for the pre-bang conditions. Some have suggested collisions of M or D branes. Scientists analyzing the WMAP survey have some ideas. Scientists working on loop quantum gravity have some ideas. Many of these are hard to test, as is your god hypothesis. Fortunately, scientists take on the task of testing with the same curiosity and determination that the religious folks of the world almost completely lack.
If you google (without the quotes) “pre big bang science” you will get a great many hits, 230,000 in my case. Many appear relevant. Here are a couple of good ones.
http://tinyurl.com/am2wzo
http://tinyurl.com/5w3wcw
Will this teach you the difference between science and religion? Will you realize that science encourages thought and experimentation while religion seeks to squash both? I doubt it. But, I’ll keep trying as long as you keep coming back.
M. Scott: Add up the people who know anything about the Big Bang and you will find that the percentage of the ones who actually talk about the pre-Big Bang is about equal to your “never heard a single religious individual question where god came from.” That’s the nearly no one I refer to.
Gary: Just when it seems truly impossible to justify the killing of innocent human beings, the Lord miraculously grants you blindness to his evil.
And speaking of blindness, check out scientists with their “neutral” scientific discoveries that neatly kill and cause suffering on a scale religious zealots can only dream about.
RBG
RBG wrote, “And speaking of blindness, check out scientists with their ‘neutral’ scientific discoveries that neatly kill and cause suffering on a scale religious zealots can only dream about.”
Quite true, however one stark difference between science and religion is that most scientists don’t claim that science is the ultimate spring from which flows goodness and love, with morality so unquestionably high that its benefits should be evangelized to the world. That places a special burden on believers who make that claim for their god.
Many religions, most notably Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, have often far outpaced science in the inspiration to do harm. Science can only win in the race to discover the means.
#136–RBG==I’ve never seen a gang of scientists use weapons against anybody. What the frick are you jabbering about?
Look closely and you will see religious and secular NON SCIENTIST using the fruit of scientific research for their nefarious deeds.
Science is a process, indeed neutral. It is people who are evil==those with an agenda. That in the main is religion and politics. If you didn’t have an agenda yourself, you would see that.
“before the big bang” == 130,000 entries
“before god existed” == 630 entries.
There are “theories” and ideas about what existed before the big bang. Most of the discussion about what existed before god existed are flat statements that the question doesn’t make any sense.
heh, heh. Case closed, just as are the minds and imaginations. I’m just waiting for the rapture.
#136 – RBG,
M. Scott: Add up the people who know anything about the Big Bang and you will find that the percentage of the ones who actually talk about the pre-Big Bang is about equal to your “never heard a single religious individual question where god came from.” That’s the nearly no one I refer to.
OK. Then how about citing some religious leaders (those who are in the business of religion) who actually discuss such topics.
And speaking of blindness, check out scientists with their “neutral” scientific discoveries that neatly kill and cause suffering on a scale religious zealots can only dream about.
I guess you consider agriculture a product of science. It is a technology, so probably close enough.
For my part, I might argue that the science is relatively neutral and that it is the technological products based on the science that may provide the means by which to kill and cause suffering. Often such technology is wielded by the religious, making it even harder to separate which one did the killing, the technology or the religion or even some other ideology, such as communism, fascism, eugenics, or idiots trying to implement the so-called “social darwinism” (which really shouldn’t have Darwin’s name on it at all since he specifically warned about the evils of attempting to form a society based on survival of the fittest).