"A Man's a Man for all that!" - Rabbie Burns

"Religion? No thanks. I prefer not to outsource my brainwashing."
Trying to get your average Joe creationist to understand the phrase scientific theory is as hard as getting a fish to enjoy mountaineering. Its an unimagined world for them - it requires a complete reversal of their normal modes of thinking and being. The fact that humans could explain the complexities of this world without a creating God is a world view they cannot grasp. It's like asking a tuna if it appreciates the view from the top of Mount Everest.

Mar 10, 2010

Dumb and Dumberer Creationists are scary

Its hard to know whether to laugh out loud or be really scared by the complete dumbness on show in this video of a group of creationist students and their teachers visiting a museum.

Among the gems of complete dumbness on offer is a "paleontology" teacher telling students that dinosaur fossils were laid down during the "late stages of Noahs Flood" and claiming they are around 4,000 years old. There is also a "Biology teacher" telling students that giraffes didnt evolve but were created directly as "giraffe types" using giraffe genes.

The scary thing is that these students aren't from some theocractic third world state but from the US - supposedly the leading state in the world. There are thousands and thousands of students at religious campuses in the US who are being taught such drivel which makes me wonder just how long the US will retain its pre-eminent position if this is the sort of stupidity they allow in their education system.



7 comments:

nick said...

Unfortunately there are many people in many countries who happily believe fashionable nonsense because they lack the analytical skills to see all the contradictions, illogicalities and absurdities. Probably because they've been exposed to schools and religions that favour received opinion over freedom of thought.

Marf said...

It's simple: the US won't. The economic and cultural powerhouse of the world is shifting toward Asia, India specifically.

Rummuser said...

The US already has. So has the UK. How will these two great countries get out of the total mess that they are in, financial, health and education plus an ever increasing debt burden, will depend on how quickly they face up to the reality that they are doing things wrong.

Ryan said...

But why *do* we have so many fossil layers laid down all over the earth? Its obvious that fossils aren't preserved when a layer of sediment is laid down slowly (the bones that sit in slowly deposited layers tend to disintegrate before they can be preserved.) Perhaps you don't trust the Noah narrative, but the presence of worldwide layers tend to indicate some kind of worldwide catastrophe, and I don't see why that couldn't have been a flood just as easily as a worldwide swath of volcanic eruptions. Or maybe both. What other plausible explanations are there?

Me said...

What is your evidence that fossils would not be preserved in sediment that was laid down slowly?

Fossilisation is actually a rare event anyway - but slow sedimentation in anaerobic conditions wouldnt be a bad start.

I dont trust the Noah narrative because its simply that - a narrative, a story. A story made up by primitive people which no doubt incorporated folk memory of actual local flood events and was part of their stories that helped them make sense of their history and their world.

There are worldwide layers - the iridium rich layer at the KT boundary is one example. It marks the end of the dionosaurs.

You seem to understand little of actual geology however or how different layers and types of rock are represented around the world. You may want to do a bit more reading before you make pronouncements on well establshed science.

Ryan said...

I was actually agreeing with you, that there are indeed worldwide layers. And I further agree that for fossils to be preserved, we need sediment to be laid down in layers in anaerobic conditions, for instance in deep sea levels. So now then we've agreed that there is great evidence that layers of sediment were laid down, uniformly, worldwide, underwater, simultaneously. In layman's terms, wouldn't you call that a flood?

Me said...

By Worldwide layers I was referring to the Iridium layer - known to be from meteorite origin.
The sedimentary layers are not worlwide in the sense you are referring to. There are clearly different sequences of sedimentary layers in different places - some relating to marine and some relating to more localised freshwater events.
If you are suggesting that there is some unfoirm worlwide sedimentary deposit of a single age then you are completely wrong.

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