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Bill Nye warns: Creation views threaten US science

49 points by bcl 14y ago

waterlesscloud 14y ago
To play devil's advocate, can anyone provide a clear, concrete example of how it hurts science if the man in the street believes in creationism? This doesn't seem like an issue that it makes rational sense to get up in arms about. It seems emotion-driven to me, ironically.
- scott_s 14y ago
  Because that man's taxes fund scientific research.
  - cli 14y ago
    Also, that man has some say in the direction of science policy through his (congressman? representative? What is the correct US term?).
    - jff 14y ago
      Both terms are correct, based on the 2-house model we have.
    - derleth 14y ago
      > congressman? representative? What is the correct US term? We have Senators in the Senate and Representatives in the House of Representatives; both can be called Congressmen or Congresswomen, but that term is more usually reserved for Representatives.
- siglesias 14y ago
  Perhaps the idea that God gave us the planet to exploit for its resources and animals to treat however we want, thus we shouldn't care about overtaxing the oceans and gas supply, granting animals rights, or concern ourselves with global warming, which God wouldn't let happen.
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    A lot of Christian churches actually support a type of environmentalism under the idea that God gave man stewardship over the earth, which comes with the responsibility to keep it up. It's His creation, after all (under this belief).
    - siglesias 14y ago
      Undoubtedly. I didn't intend to generalize.
- davidism 14y ago
  The "man on the street" has a kid, a potential scientist. But instead of fostering curiosity about the way things work, instead of promoting the use of logic to understand his surroundings, the parent teaches the child "the Bible says so, and that's enough." Now we have one less potential scientist.
  - kazoolist 14y ago
    ... or the kid's parents believe in creation but don't fit some ignoramus stereotype, and the kid comes to believe that the creation reveals the glory of a Creator (eg. Psalm 19), and accordingly this fosters curiosity about the way things work, and the kid becomes a scientist.
- Shenglong 14y ago
  It hurts science because it's wrong. I'm not trying to be a jackass here, but believing in creationism is the same as saying "I believe acceleration at the Earth's surface is exactly 10 km/s^2 because it says so in the Bible." (it doesn't... I hope) It discourages scientific criticism of ideas. When you are taught a scientific fact or theory, you are always welcomed to, and often encouraged to question it. "Why is acceleration 9.81m/s^2? How do I know that it is true as of right now? If I carry out my own experiment, will I see this?" When you listen to the "word of god", this is no longer the case. You know it's right because someone, thousands of years ago, apparently said it is. Yes, it can waste tax dollars - but we can always make more dollars. An innovative generation that can carry on mankind's survival? That's a little more important.
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    How many discoveries in the past (and even in the present) were made by people who believed in Creationism? Why didn't that belief stop them from advancing science? Why would it now do so?
    - ako 14y ago
      Back ten, there wasn't a good scientific explanation for evolution. Now there is. Back then, believing in creationism, didn't mean rejecting science. These days, If you still believe in creationism, it means that you reject science.
    - famoreira 14y ago
      This is a list of famous thinkers/scientists who were also christians. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_thinkers_in_science http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_thinkers_in_s...
      - Alex3917 14y ago
        Science has practically been a branch of Christianity for the last 1,000 years. It's only since Reagan that science has essentially been hijacked by new atheism and private industry.
- Pkeod 14y ago
  Emotions are not in conflict with rational behavior; they cause rational behavior. It hurts because it is not just one man out there who is willfully ignorant about reality. There are a very large number of people in the US who believe that the world is only 6,000 years old, that everything is going to end any day now, that the environment isn't really worth protecting because of that, and by extension that it's not really worth doing anything meaningful. The religious people still vote, and their votes shape our policy. If their churches tell them to vote one way, and they do, the authority of the religiously fueled motivations highly define the results.
- gareim 14y ago
  Because sometimes the man in the street has an effect on others. Consider textbooks. Sometimes (like in Kansas 1999), creationists can control enough of the governing body for state textbooks that they can eliminate core ideas of evolution. I don't care what someone believes, but they shouldn't push unverifiable beliefs on impressionable kids.
- AJ007 14y ago
  As a child I went to private schools that taught creationism. I can't speak for how creationism is taught in other schools, but in the schools I attended it was nothing but a complete denial of science. It took me a while to figure that one out. Science fits together. When you deny the existence of biological evolution, decide the earth is under 10,000 years old, and say there is no such thing as the big bang, you end up with huge gaps in the scientific explanation of the universe. Once you do this, the world and the universe it sits in transforms from a place of logic and explainable order to one of superstition and chaos. If the earth is 10,000 years old, how is the Milky Way galaxy 100,000 light years in diameter? If there is no biological evolution, is genetic science a pseudo-science? Creationism taught in others ways is little better. This type of thinking destroys IQs.
- patio11 14y ago
  It seems emotion-driven to me, ironically. It is entirely a signaling/tribalism question. For example, I get asked whether I'm a creationist on a fairly regular basis by people who a) are aware that I'm religious and b) want to figure out whether that means I should be on the Enemies List. I'm not creationist, so I get marked down as Whee You're A Fellow Scientist (TM). It is not obvious to me that my views on, e.g., the Resurrection would merit that conclusion, but that is not the issue the two tribes picked to wage ultimately meaningless squabbles over. (Ironically, actual creationists have been pretty tolerant of me not being creationist. My guess is this is because I do not go out of my way to soulcrush them while screaming "I am a threat to your entire way of life.")
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  I believe it is more nuanced than that, if you understand how science works, then you cannot believe a literal interpretation of genesis, thus if you do believe in a an earth that is less than 10,000 years old and humans appearing 10,000 years ago, then you didn't learn science correctly. Then based on that reasoning, (and this is the nuanced part), you may find your self opposed to things which are based on scientific investigation and a risk to the community. The most popular example is vaccination risks and benefits. One of the problems is that people are told that to believe in science means you cannot believe in God, and they have a strong belief in God so of the two they toss science rather than God out of their life. Its a poor choice. EDIT: I, like patio11 apparently, believe in both God and science. So its possible :-).
  - patio11 14y ago
    Observe: you have constructed a tribe out of whole cloth, described them as The Other, and made anyone who carries an arbitrary signifier of membership into that tribe into your automatic enemy. Rationally speaking, if you're very vexed about vaccinations, you should ask whether someone is in favor of vaccinations, rather than attempting to guess their opinion on vaccinations by asking something orthogonal. If someone is opposed to vaccinations, it matters to you little whether that is because they're in the Tribe of UnScience (as evidenced by being biblical literalists) or if they're, e.g., against vaccinations because they're strict vegans and morally opposed to anything which might, at any point, involve an animal protein.
    - ChuckMcM 14y ago
      Fair point, attempting to respond to the parent question which was specifically "How it hurts science." My claim is that science is at its heart reasoned debate, and that belief in creationism is a rejection of reasoned debate, so it hurts science's ability to inform. Typically a counter example in creationism is to question dating methods, but without any reasoning as to how the dating methods are inaccurate (beyond the inaccuracies recognized by the community). Your counter example of animal proteins based on a preference for Veganism is fine, but if I showed you that the vaccination process never came close to an animal protein would you still reject it? And in rejecting it would you reject the entire herd immunity thesis or are you limiting to rejecting a belief in the efficacy of the vaccine on your personal health? Understanding reasoned debate is critical to understanding science and the process by which it comes to hold its beliefs. If you reject that then you both reject learning something new and the ability of science to be strengthened by your doubts.
- thaumaturgy 14y ago
  I think I can provide a strong argument for it. Will that be OK? First, can we agree that creationism is a religious doctrine, and thus it's OK to frame this roughly as a debate over the role of religion in science? Because, within that frame, Greta Christina has already made a more articulate argument against religion than I could [1]. The short of her argument is that because religion requires belief in improvable things, that makes it "uniquely armored against criticism, questioning, and self- correction". And what are some of the most basic principles of science? Criticism, questioning, and self-correction. If the man on the street were to believe, say, that relativity was wrong, that the world was flat, and that it was actually supported on the back of a giant tortoise, what would that imply about their ability to reason on other topics? Is it wrong to conclude that, for example, they would believe similar fairy tales in fields like economics, politics, social justice, and environmentalism? The one thing that all of those fields have in common, which makes them more vulnerable to religious principles than other fields of science, is that their support is controlled almost entirely by a democratic population. So, if you have a large population which believes in creationism -- and therefore can easily ignore all of the overwhelming evidence for evolution in a field of concrete scientific study -- then you likely also will have a large population which believes that the country should close its borders and wage wars against people of other faiths. The default response to such policies is to try to overwhelm it with facts. You say, "these economic policies haven't worked in X, Y, or Z countries in time periods A, B, or C" ... but the problem is that you're dealing with people who place no stock in things like facts. (If you're jumping to argue that I'm wrong to draw this correlation, you should be prepared to handle the example of Romney and one of the most fact-challenged campaigns in the history of U.S. politics.) I think there are lots of other good arguments too, like the fact that it's hard to attract the world's top scientific and engineering talent to a country full of crazy people, which means that you can probably kiss your industrial leadership goodbye. But, honestly, that's not my argument. For me, widespread belief in creationism is bad for society because it's a gateway belief system to lots of other really bad things. (Aside: it looks like I get to take up the mantle of Science Evangelist this evening on HN; how much the poorer HN is for it.) [1]: http://www.alternet.org/print/story/143912/the_top_one_reason_religion_is_harmful http://www.alternet.org/print/story/143912/the_top_one_reaso... -- by the way, I am not at all a militant atheist. In fact, I don't even describe myself as an atheist any more due to the current religious-like fervor of New Atheism. I have no problem with people who hold religious beliefs. However, she makes a compelling point that is appropriate as a reference here.
vyrotek 14y ago
I've always been curious about how we date things so far back. It's one of those things which I wish I could understand better. Does anyone have a good resource on carbon dating or other modern techniques that are used today? Also, has anyone ever scientifically argued that perhaps our dating techniques are incorrect? Could there be natural ways for the system to be thrown off?
- toufka 14y ago
  There are of course ways to argue about the accuracy of these techniques. What's fun is that it doesn't matter which technique you use - the numbers turn up the same no matter what. That's why this 'science' thing is so cool. Measure the error rate of polymerase in lab (the protein which makes your DNA). Calculate the percent difference ("error") between humans and chimpanzees and you can get a ballpark number for the length of time it took for the species to diverge. It's astounding that these numbers end up quite similar to the numbers you get when you find bones, compare the isotope of carbon in it with the known decay rate of Carbon-14, and the ratios of it in our ecosystem. And these numbers correspond quite well between any elemental analysis we know. Have you ever told a lie? (we'll pretend you have for argument's sake) You know how quickly and difficultly it is to create a story that accords with the lie? And yet somehow telling even the most outlandish of true stories causes not even a momentary fluster? Everything just fits together. Were evolution or such things based on a single finding - then sure, be skeptical. But when evidence from a geologist, a physicist, a geneticist, a radiologist, a biophysicist, and many more all arrive at the same conclusion using wildly different techniques - then be much much less skeptical. Each user of each technique knows its error and precision. Some techniques can get you +/- a million years out to 100 million years, some +/- a decade out 1,000 years - some +/- a second out 3 days. Or for polymerase - +/- an event every .0001 seconds. But while each idea may be tenuous on its own - they all work in tandem to draw something really powerful. The most robust of these concepts span from the picosecond to 13 billion years - from the picometer to 13 billion light-years. It's fantastic. 200 years ago it was more like the millimeter to the kilometer, from the millisecond to the century.
- jff 14y ago
  In the case of carbon dating, plants take in carbon-14 from the atmosphere. Carbon-14 is radioactive and decays at a known rate. Once a plant dies, the carbon-14 begins to decay. By finding the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 and carbon-13 in a sample, we can estimate how long it has been since the sample died. Since animals consume plants directly or indirectly, they also take in carbon-14 and can thus have their ages estimated in a similar fashion.
Shenglong 14y ago
I had the pleasure of meeting Bill Nye about three years ago, where I told him that as a kid, he was my scientific inspiration. I never imagined at that point, that he'd still be fighting my battles, even now.
tonetheman 14y ago
What I would prefer is to have creationism taught in a religion class. I do not care if my kid knows about it. I just do not want him to think that any real scientist even comes close to believing in it. And I know some people do not believe in carbon dating and that is fine too. But the facts as we know it point to us not being plopped down on the earth instantly as the bible suggests. Teach the facts, let the other stuff be taught in a class on religions or mythology.
kefs 14y ago
The Creation Museum's response is laughable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-AyDtD6sPA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-AyDtD6sPA
Alex3917 14y ago
I've never understood why out of all the things broken in the US and in education specifically people get so worked up over this one issue. Evolution is one of the easiest concepts to understand in all of science. Literally all it takes is a ten minute YouTube video to explain it to a fourth grader. As such, while clearly evolution should be taught in schools, I fail to see how students are significantly harmed if it isn't. The fact that these kids come communities where most of the parents are really dumb has to be hundreds of times more damaging than not getting a day or two worth of lecture. (And as an aside, I would bet money that the percentage of religious folks who have a good understanding of the main arguments in favor of evolution is about 10x as high as the percentage of 'science-oriented' folks who have a good understanding of all the philosophical concepts referenced in the wiki article on intelligent design.)
- pat2man 14y ago
  Claiming that evolution is wrong implies that all science is wrong. If you don't teach the basic scientific principles to young students it gets harder and harder to convince them of more complicated topics. You get into a science vs religion debate where no one wins and the students always loose.
  - PakG1 14y ago
    Whoah, whoah, whoah. Newtonian physics can be easily explained and understood without knowing anything about evolution. The same for basic chemical reactions. The same for mitochondria. And the same for various more complicated topics. Let's not debate the debate well, but let's not get hyperbolic.
    - derleth 14y ago
      > Newtonian physics can be easily explained and understood without knowing anything about evolution. As a set of equations handed down from On High, yes. As a living field that's part of modern physics and has relevance to becoming a productive member of the society we're trying to build, no. Science isn't dogma. It's all connected by the spirit of questioning and challenging authority.
ianb 14y ago
This is a good critique of the form of Bill Nye's anti-creationist screed: http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2012/08/bill-nye-demonstrates-how-not-to-persuade-a-creationist/ http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2012/08/bill-nye-demonstrates-how-... The form of his argument only encourages the conflict. He clearly feels contempt towards creationists, and even towards those who sympathize with them. As soon as you've shown contempt you've given up on convincing anyone of anything, and are just cheering on your side. A serious attempt at promoting evolution would emphasize how you can resolve the tension between the theory of evolution and a strong belief in Christianity and The Bible. (There's no reason to pretend this is a general issue, it's a Christian issue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_support_for_evolution#Support_for_evolution_by_religious_bodies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_support_for_evolution#...) I'm not a Christian, so I can't write something more authentic than what Bill Nye might (though I damn well could write something less offensive). But I can imagine what the intellectual tensions are. I made an attempt (https://plus.google.com/104537541227697934010/posts/TnMt9WgfJq6 https://plus.google.com/104537541227697934010/posts/TnMt9Wgf...), something like: To convince someone of evolution, as a Christian, I'd want to emphasize a reverence for the world as God created it, that He teaches us through the world around us, and that learning from and of that world could never be in contradiction with His word, in the Bible or as shown to us through our faith. The world is full of contradictory messages and lessons, we can't always expect to decide that one is right and another is wrong. I'd want to probe how the person has chosen to resolve the tension between Bible-as-fact and Bible-as-historical-document. For example, the Bible in many places talks freely and without condemnation about slavery, and clearly this does not fit with a modern understanding of Christian morality. I would hope that the person has seriously considered this problem and come to a resolution. I would hope to find a way to fit evolution, and ongoing scientific discovery in general, into that intellectual template. Some Creationists might claim, for instance, that something as complicated as the eye could not be made through the incremental changes of evolution – it had to be designed. But this is a terribly limited notion of God. Could not God create a mechanism that would lead to the design of His choosing? Is there a mechanism so complicated that He could not conceive of it and create it? There is a story of creation in the Bible. It is not a recipe of how to create a world. It is a message given to us to explain the world, a world that we cannot ever fully know. We've found tensions in that story. Consider for instance dinosaur fossils. Some people have considered this and read Genesis, and decided that dinosaurs must have lived in the Garden Of Eden, or been wiped out by the Great Flood. Does the Bible say this? No. There is more in the world than is in the Bible. Does the Bible talk of electricity, or about germs? No. Would we try to create a Biblical basis for this phenomena? No. The Bible covers the entirety of the creation of the Earth in one chapter, would we expect it to be comprehensive? It is our burden to resolve the world we see with the Bible as written. Some decide to ignore the world. This is a lazy approach, God did not give us the world in all its fullness just for us to ignore it.
deleted 14y ago
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- jlgreco 14y ago
  >The first thing Scientists NEED to do is stop being so passive when it comes to dealing with Creationists. >Why not just educate Creationists? Because it doesn't work. This I think is not universally true. Some creationists are not in that deep, and a calm gentle education is all they need. Some. It's not nice or pretty, but I absolutely think some people really need harsher treatment than many are willing to give in order for anything to get through. I was fortunate that a few people in my life were willing to put in that effort. It took people I respected intensely being very very blunt with me for me to finally start to listen.
- bsphil 14y ago
  I was never a "fundamentalist" or anything that could be described that, but I was strongly religious until about 17-18 years old. However, I always had a nagging problem with biblical stories because I was also a good student and had trouble resolving the inherent conflict between those two realities. I tried since probably second grade to come up with an explanation that made sense in both worlds. Maybe that was only because I grew up in a particularly open-minded Lutheran church. It wasn't until I got older and was in confirmation classes in middle school that the assistant minister admitted that Christians literally believe the Earth is a few thousand years old. They were always very open to everyone, but they also begrudgingly concluded that homosexuality was a sin when I was in high school Sunday school classes. Incidents like that really helped to jar my personal beliefs and for the first time ever, honestly question what I believed to be true. Up until then, I partially did believe and partially did what people said. It took a lot of self-reflection (over several years) to realize that my beliefs were a direct result of being told what is "truth" in the religion that everyone I knew was a part of. I've been bringing this up in discussion with three of my friends as I was going through that period, and as a result of their own self-reflection, two have become atheist and one is more or less fed up with organized religion. It's a hard thing to face, and I can't get too upset that people react so defensively when the things they so adamantly and unquestionably believe are questioned by someone else. All I'd ask is that people make an honest effort to step back and evaluate why and how they came to their faith. Very smart people have done some amazing things while also being religious (Issac Newton basically invented modern calculus to explain the gravitational fields of the solar system and their interaction, yet was religious and an alchemist). Based on the trends of demographics, I think this issue is likely going to sort itself out over time. The only concern is how fast it will go and how much will we delay the progression of knowledge. Long-term trendlines mean far less to the person who is stuck waiting for a turn. You won't be able to berate believers into changing their minds with facts and counterarguments, regardless of their validity. That's not how the human brain works. As an aside, I just went to a wedding this weekend and got my first direct exposure to a religious event in a couple years now. Having been gone that long, the entire process felt a little creepy. Particularly when everyone kept saying "lord hear our prayer" in unison, out in the middle of the wilderness by a river. Very cult-like, but I had never thought of it that way when I was a member.
drucken 14y ago
"...according to a June Gallup poll that found 46 percent of Americans believe God created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago." The rest of the world, even developing countries, look on with astonishment while the US undermines itself after more than 500 years since the Enlightenment!

49 points by bcl 14y ago

To play devil's advocate, can anyone provide a clear, concrete example of how it hurts science if the man in the street believes in creationism? This doesn't seem like an issue that it makes rational sense to get up in arms about. It seems emotion-driven to me, ironically.

scott_s 14y ago
Because that man's taxes fund scientific research.
- cli 14y ago
  Also, that man has some say in the direction of science policy through his (congressman? representative? What is the correct US term?).
  - jff 14y ago
    Both terms are correct, based on the 2-house model we have.
  - derleth 14y ago
    > congressman? representative? What is the correct US term? We have Senators in the Senate and Representatives in the House of Representatives; both can be called Congressmen or Congresswomen, but that term is more usually reserved for Representatives.
siglesias 14y ago
Perhaps the idea that God gave us the planet to exploit for its resources and animals to treat however we want, thus we shouldn't care about overtaxing the oceans and gas supply, granting animals rights, or concern ourselves with global warming, which God wouldn't let happen.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  A lot of Christian churches actually support a type of environmentalism under the idea that God gave man stewardship over the earth, which comes with the responsibility to keep it up. It's His creation, after all (under this belief).
  - siglesias 14y ago
    Undoubtedly. I didn't intend to generalize.
davidism 14y ago
The "man on the street" has a kid, a potential scientist. But instead of fostering curiosity about the way things work, instead of promoting the use of logic to understand his surroundings, the parent teaches the child "the Bible says so, and that's enough." Now we have one less potential scientist.
- kazoolist 14y ago
  ... or the kid's parents believe in creation but don't fit some ignoramus stereotype, and the kid comes to believe that the creation reveals the glory of a Creator (eg. Psalm 19), and accordingly this fosters curiosity about the way things work, and the kid becomes a scientist.
Shenglong 14y ago
It hurts science because it's wrong. I'm not trying to be a jackass here, but believing in creationism is the same as saying "I believe acceleration at the Earth's surface is exactly 10 km/s^2 because it says so in the Bible." (it doesn't... I hope) It discourages scientific criticism of ideas. When you are taught a scientific fact or theory, you are always welcomed to, and often encouraged to question it. "Why is acceleration 9.81m/s^2? How do I know that it is true as of right now? If I carry out my own experiment, will I see this?" When you listen to the "word of god", this is no longer the case. You know it's right because someone, thousands of years ago, apparently said it is. Yes, it can waste tax dollars - but we can always make more dollars. An innovative generation that can carry on mankind's survival? That's a little more important.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  How many discoveries in the past (and even in the present) were made by people who believed in Creationism? Why didn't that belief stop them from advancing science? Why would it now do so?
  - ako 14y ago
    Back ten, there wasn't a good scientific explanation for evolution. Now there is. Back then, believing in creationism, didn't mean rejecting science. These days, If you still believe in creationism, it means that you reject science.
  - famoreira 14y ago
    This is a list of famous thinkers/scientists who were also christians. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_thinkers_in_science http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_thinkers_in_s...
    - Alex3917 14y ago
      Science has practically been a branch of Christianity for the last 1,000 years. It's only since Reagan that science has essentially been hijacked by new atheism and private industry.
Pkeod 14y ago
Emotions are not in conflict with rational behavior; they cause rational behavior. It hurts because it is not just one man out there who is willfully ignorant about reality. There are a very large number of people in the US who believe that the world is only 6,000 years old, that everything is going to end any day now, that the environment isn't really worth protecting because of that, and by extension that it's not really worth doing anything meaningful. The religious people still vote, and their votes shape our policy. If their churches tell them to vote one way, and they do, the authority of the religiously fueled motivations highly define the results.
gareim 14y ago
Because sometimes the man in the street has an effect on others. Consider textbooks. Sometimes (like in Kansas 1999), creationists can control enough of the governing body for state textbooks that they can eliminate core ideas of evolution. I don't care what someone believes, but they shouldn't push unverifiable beliefs on impressionable kids.
AJ007 14y ago
As a child I went to private schools that taught creationism. I can't speak for how creationism is taught in other schools, but in the schools I attended it was nothing but a complete denial of science. It took me a while to figure that one out. Science fits together. When you deny the existence of biological evolution, decide the earth is under 10,000 years old, and say there is no such thing as the big bang, you end up with huge gaps in the scientific explanation of the universe. Once you do this, the world and the universe it sits in transforms from a place of logic and explainable order to one of superstition and chaos. If the earth is 10,000 years old, how is the Milky Way galaxy 100,000 light years in diameter? If there is no biological evolution, is genetic science a pseudo-science? Creationism taught in others ways is little better. This type of thinking destroys IQs.
patio11 14y ago
It seems emotion-driven to me, ironically. It is entirely a signaling/tribalism question. For example, I get asked whether I'm a creationist on a fairly regular basis by people who a) are aware that I'm religious and b) want to figure out whether that means I should be on the Enemies List. I'm not creationist, so I get marked down as Whee You're A Fellow Scientist (TM). It is not obvious to me that my views on, e.g., the Resurrection would merit that conclusion, but that is not the issue the two tribes picked to wage ultimately meaningless squabbles over. (Ironically, actual creationists have been pretty tolerant of me not being creationist. My guess is this is because I do not go out of my way to soulcrush them while screaming "I am a threat to your entire way of life.")
- deleted 14y ago
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ChuckMcM 14y ago
I believe it is more nuanced than that, if you understand how science works, then you cannot believe a literal interpretation of genesis, thus if you do believe in a an earth that is less than 10,000 years old and humans appearing 10,000 years ago, then you didn't learn science correctly. Then based on that reasoning, (and this is the nuanced part), you may find your self opposed to things which are based on scientific investigation and a risk to the community. The most popular example is vaccination risks and benefits. One of the problems is that people are told that to believe in science means you cannot believe in God, and they have a strong belief in God so of the two they toss science rather than God out of their life. Its a poor choice. EDIT: I, like patio11 apparently, believe in both God and science. So its possible :-).
- patio11 14y ago
  Observe: you have constructed a tribe out of whole cloth, described them as The Other, and made anyone who carries an arbitrary signifier of membership into that tribe into your automatic enemy. Rationally speaking, if you're very vexed about vaccinations, you should ask whether someone is in favor of vaccinations, rather than attempting to guess their opinion on vaccinations by asking something orthogonal. If someone is opposed to vaccinations, it matters to you little whether that is because they're in the Tribe of UnScience (as evidenced by being biblical literalists) or if they're, e.g., against vaccinations because they're strict vegans and morally opposed to anything which might, at any point, involve an animal protein.
  - ChuckMcM 14y ago
    Fair point, attempting to respond to the parent question which was specifically "How it hurts science." My claim is that science is at its heart reasoned debate, and that belief in creationism is a rejection of reasoned debate, so it hurts science's ability to inform. Typically a counter example in creationism is to question dating methods, but without any reasoning as to how the dating methods are inaccurate (beyond the inaccuracies recognized by the community). Your counter example of animal proteins based on a preference for Veganism is fine, but if I showed you that the vaccination process never came close to an animal protein would you still reject it? And in rejecting it would you reject the entire herd immunity thesis or are you limiting to rejecting a belief in the efficacy of the vaccine on your personal health? Understanding reasoned debate is critical to understanding science and the process by which it comes to hold its beliefs. If you reject that then you both reject learning something new and the ability of science to be strengthened by your doubts.
thaumaturgy 14y ago
I think I can provide a strong argument for it. Will that be OK? First, can we agree that creationism is a religious doctrine, and thus it's OK to frame this roughly as a debate over the role of religion in science? Because, within that frame, Greta Christina has already made a more articulate argument against religion than I could [1]. The short of her argument is that because religion requires belief in improvable things, that makes it "uniquely armored against criticism, questioning, and self- correction". And what are some of the most basic principles of science? Criticism, questioning, and self-correction. If the man on the street were to believe, say, that relativity was wrong, that the world was flat, and that it was actually supported on the back of a giant tortoise, what would that imply about their ability to reason on other topics? Is it wrong to conclude that, for example, they would believe similar fairy tales in fields like economics, politics, social justice, and environmentalism? The one thing that all of those fields have in common, which makes them more vulnerable to religious principles than other fields of science, is that their support is controlled almost entirely by a democratic population. So, if you have a large population which believes in creationism -- and therefore can easily ignore all of the overwhelming evidence for evolution in a field of concrete scientific study -- then you likely also will have a large population which believes that the country should close its borders and wage wars against people of other faiths. The default response to such policies is to try to overwhelm it with facts. You say, "these economic policies haven't worked in X, Y, or Z countries in time periods A, B, or C" ... but the problem is that you're dealing with people who place no stock in things like facts. (If you're jumping to argue that I'm wrong to draw this correlation, you should be prepared to handle the example of Romney and one of the most fact-challenged campaigns in the history of U.S. politics.) I think there are lots of other good arguments too, like the fact that it's hard to attract the world's top scientific and engineering talent to a country full of crazy people, which means that you can probably kiss your industrial leadership goodbye. But, honestly, that's not my argument. For me, widespread belief in creationism is bad for society because it's a gateway belief system to lots of other really bad things. (Aside: it looks like I get to take up the mantle of Science Evangelist this evening on HN; how much the poorer HN is for it.) [1]: http://www.alternet.org/print/story/143912/the_top_one_reason_religion_is_harmful http://www.alternet.org/print/story/143912/the_top_one_reaso... -- by the way, I am not at all a militant atheist. In fact, I don't even describe myself as an atheist any more due to the current religious-like fervor of New Atheism. I have no problem with people who hold religious beliefs. However, she makes a compelling point that is appropriate as a reference here.

vyrotek 14y ago

I've always been curious about how we date things so far back. It's one of those things which I wish I could understand better. Does anyone have a good resource on carbon dating or other modern techniques that are used today? Also, has anyone ever scientifically argued that perhaps our dating techniques are incorrect? Could there be natural ways for the system to be thrown off?

toufka 14y ago
There are of course ways to argue about the accuracy of these techniques. What's fun is that it doesn't matter which technique you use - the numbers turn up the same no matter what. That's why this 'science' thing is so cool. Measure the error rate of polymerase in lab (the protein which makes your DNA). Calculate the percent difference ("error") between humans and chimpanzees and you can get a ballpark number for the length of time it took for the species to diverge. It's astounding that these numbers end up quite similar to the numbers you get when you find bones, compare the isotope of carbon in it with the known decay rate of Carbon-14, and the ratios of it in our ecosystem. And these numbers correspond quite well between any elemental analysis we know. Have you ever told a lie? (we'll pretend you have for argument's sake) You know how quickly and difficultly it is to create a story that accords with the lie? And yet somehow telling even the most outlandish of true stories causes not even a momentary fluster? Everything just fits together. Were evolution or such things based on a single finding - then sure, be skeptical. But when evidence from a geologist, a physicist, a geneticist, a radiologist, a biophysicist, and many more all arrive at the same conclusion using wildly different techniques - then be much much less skeptical. Each user of each technique knows its error and precision. Some techniques can get you +/- a million years out to 100 million years, some +/- a decade out 1,000 years - some +/- a second out 3 days. Or for polymerase - +/- an event every .0001 seconds. But while each idea may be tenuous on its own - they all work in tandem to draw something really powerful. The most robust of these concepts span from the picosecond to 13 billion years - from the picometer to 13 billion light-years. It's fantastic. 200 years ago it was more like the millimeter to the kilometer, from the millisecond to the century.
jff 14y ago
In the case of carbon dating, plants take in carbon-14 from the atmosphere. Carbon-14 is radioactive and decays at a known rate. Once a plant dies, the carbon-14 begins to decay. By finding the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 and carbon-13 in a sample, we can estimate how long it has been since the sample died. Since animals consume plants directly or indirectly, they also take in carbon-14 and can thus have their ages estimated in a similar fashion.

Shenglong 14y ago

I had the pleasure of meeting Bill Nye about three years ago, where I told him that as a kid, he was my scientific inspiration. I never imagined at that point, that he'd still be fighting my battles, even now.

tonetheman 14y ago

What I would prefer is to have creationism taught in a religion class. I do not care if my kid knows about it. I just do not want him to think that any real scientist even comes close to believing in it. And I know some people do not believe in carbon dating and that is fine too. But the facts as we know it point to us not being plopped down on the earth instantly as the bible suggests. Teach the facts, let the other stuff be taught in a class on religions or mythology.

kefs 14y ago

The Creation Museum's response is laughable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-AyDtD6sPA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-AyDtD6sPA

Alex3917 14y ago

I've never understood why out of all the things broken in the US and in education specifically people get so worked up over this one issue. Evolution is one of the easiest concepts to understand in all of science. Literally all it takes is a ten minute YouTube video to explain it to a fourth grader. As such, while clearly evolution should be taught in schools, I fail to see how students are significantly harmed if it isn't. The fact that these kids come communities where most of the parents are really dumb has to be hundreds of times more damaging than not getting a day or two worth of lecture. (And as an aside, I would bet money that the percentage of religious folks who have a good understanding of the main arguments in favor of evolution is about 10x as high as the percentage of 'science-oriented' folks who have a good understanding of all the philosophical concepts referenced in the wiki article on intelligent design.)

pat2man 14y ago
Claiming that evolution is wrong implies that all science is wrong. If you don't teach the basic scientific principles to young students it gets harder and harder to convince them of more complicated topics. You get into a science vs religion debate where no one wins and the students always loose.
- PakG1 14y ago
  Whoah, whoah, whoah. Newtonian physics can be easily explained and understood without knowing anything about evolution. The same for basic chemical reactions. The same for mitochondria. And the same for various more complicated topics. Let's not debate the debate well, but let's not get hyperbolic.
  - derleth 14y ago
    > Newtonian physics can be easily explained and understood without knowing anything about evolution. As a set of equations handed down from On High, yes. As a living field that's part of modern physics and has relevance to becoming a productive member of the society we're trying to build, no. Science isn't dogma. It's all connected by the spirit of questioning and challenging authority.

ianb 14y ago

This is a good critique of the form of Bill Nye's anti-creationist screed: http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2012/08/bill-nye-demonstrates-how-not-to-persuade-a-creationist/ http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2012/08/bill-nye-demonstrates-how-... The form of his argument only encourages the conflict. He clearly feels contempt towards creationists, and even towards those who sympathize with them. As soon as you've shown contempt you've given up on convincing anyone of anything, and are just cheering on your side. A serious attempt at promoting evolution would emphasize how you can resolve the tension between the theory of evolution and a strong belief in Christianity and The Bible. (There's no reason to pretend this is a general issue, it's a Christian issue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_support_for_evolution#Support_for_evolution_by_religious_bodies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_support_for_evolution#...) I'm not a Christian, so I can't write something more authentic than what Bill Nye might (though I damn well could write something less offensive). But I can imagine what the intellectual tensions are. I made an attempt (https://plus.google.com/104537541227697934010/posts/TnMt9WgfJq6 https://plus.google.com/104537541227697934010/posts/TnMt9Wgf...), something like: To convince someone of evolution, as a Christian, I'd want to emphasize a reverence for the world as God created it, that He teaches us through the world around us, and that learning from and of that world could never be in contradiction with His word, in the Bible or as shown to us through our faith. The world is full of contradictory messages and lessons, we can't always expect to decide that one is right and another is wrong. I'd want to probe how the person has chosen to resolve the tension between Bible-as-fact and Bible-as-historical-document. For example, the Bible in many places talks freely and without condemnation about slavery, and clearly this does not fit with a modern understanding of Christian morality. I would hope that the person has seriously considered this problem and come to a resolution. I would hope to find a way to fit evolution, and ongoing scientific discovery in general, into that intellectual template. Some Creationists might claim, for instance, that something as complicated as the eye could not be made through the incremental changes of evolution – it had to be designed. But this is a terribly limited notion of God. Could not God create a mechanism that would lead to the design of His choosing? Is there a mechanism so complicated that He could not conceive of it and create it? There is a story of creation in the Bible. It is not a recipe of how to create a world. It is a message given to us to explain the world, a world that we cannot ever fully know. We've found tensions in that story. Consider for instance dinosaur fossils. Some people have considered this and read Genesis, and decided that dinosaurs must have lived in the Garden Of Eden, or been wiped out by the Great Flood. Does the Bible say this? No. There is more in the world than is in the Bible. Does the Bible talk of electricity, or about germs? No. Would we try to create a Biblical basis for this phenomena? No. The Bible covers the entirety of the creation of the Earth in one chapter, would we expect it to be comprehensive? It is our burden to resolve the world we see with the Bible as written. Some decide to ignore the world. This is a lazy approach, God did not give us the world in all its fullness just for us to ignore it.

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jlgreco 14y ago
>The first thing Scientists NEED to do is stop being so passive when it comes to dealing with Creationists. >Why not just educate Creationists? Because it doesn't work. This I think is not universally true. Some creationists are not in that deep, and a calm gentle education is all they need. Some. It's not nice or pretty, but I absolutely think some people really need harsher treatment than many are willing to give in order for anything to get through. I was fortunate that a few people in my life were willing to put in that effort. It took people I respected intensely being very very blunt with me for me to finally start to listen.
bsphil 14y ago
I was never a "fundamentalist" or anything that could be described that, but I was strongly religious until about 17-18 years old. However, I always had a nagging problem with biblical stories because I was also a good student and had trouble resolving the inherent conflict between those two realities. I tried since probably second grade to come up with an explanation that made sense in both worlds. Maybe that was only because I grew up in a particularly open-minded Lutheran church. It wasn't until I got older and was in confirmation classes in middle school that the assistant minister admitted that Christians literally believe the Earth is a few thousand years old. They were always very open to everyone, but they also begrudgingly concluded that homosexuality was a sin when I was in high school Sunday school classes. Incidents like that really helped to jar my personal beliefs and for the first time ever, honestly question what I believed to be true. Up until then, I partially did believe and partially did what people said. It took a lot of self-reflection (over several years) to realize that my beliefs were a direct result of being told what is "truth" in the religion that everyone I knew was a part of. I've been bringing this up in discussion with three of my friends as I was going through that period, and as a result of their own self-reflection, two have become atheist and one is more or less fed up with organized religion. It's a hard thing to face, and I can't get too upset that people react so defensively when the things they so adamantly and unquestionably believe are questioned by someone else. All I'd ask is that people make an honest effort to step back and evaluate why and how they came to their faith. Very smart people have done some amazing things while also being religious (Issac Newton basically invented modern calculus to explain the gravitational fields of the solar system and their interaction, yet was religious and an alchemist). Based on the trends of demographics, I think this issue is likely going to sort itself out over time. The only concern is how fast it will go and how much will we delay the progression of knowledge. Long-term trendlines mean far less to the person who is stuck waiting for a turn. You won't be able to berate believers into changing their minds with facts and counterarguments, regardless of their validity. That's not how the human brain works. As an aside, I just went to a wedding this weekend and got my first direct exposure to a religious event in a couple years now. Having been gone that long, the entire process felt a little creepy. Particularly when everyone kept saying "lord hear our prayer" in unison, out in the middle of the wilderness by a river. Very cult-like, but I had never thought of it that way when I was a member.

drucken 14y ago

"...according to a June Gallup poll that found 46 percent of Americans believe God created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago." The rest of the world, even developing countries, look on with astonishment while the US undermines itself after more than 500 years since the Enlightenment!