Bill Nye, The Science Guy, Says Creationism Is Not Appropriate For Children

[Dimederwin]

Hooo Boy here we go again. One short comment then I am done. Evolution must also be taken on faith, because there are holes in the theory that one could herd a dino through. Yes it has a basis in science, but there are huge gaps in the theory that one must take a leap of faith to connect x to y. That is why it is a THEORY not a FACT. Now y'all continue, but play nice.

I, too, will only post once as I see this topic is already kind of volatile. I agree, evolution must be taken on faith, and does have holes.

As for me, science(of all types) is my favorite subject. It is something that I study greatly from many sources not just from those that are considered Christian. I, also, discuss them with friends at great depths. Both need faith to believe to some extant. Evolution, I believe, is on more shaky ground than creationism. Some of the reasons I believe this are because of information science, DNA, and quantum mechanics.

I want to add one more thing to respond to what I normally hear after I mention something about my believe to someone new. They usually go to the proven age of the earth. The problem with this is you can not prove the age of something you can only infer it, and the dating methods used have some major problems. There are other things that restrict the age of the earth and suggest a young earth, such as the magnetic field weakening or equilibrium of carbon-14 reached in the atmosphere. Surprisingly, I would say the methods used to come up with the age of the universe to be more accurate than the age of the earth. To sum up what I believe is a young earth with a probably old universe(billions of years), this is a problem unless you understand time dilation, that time is not constant. After that understanding, it actually starts to make a lot of sense.

There are many other things that I have researched. I do not want to get into a scientific debate on the forums here, but if anyone is curious about something they can PM me to ask.

 

[ewoksrule]

take your hijacks that way ----------------->

reboot of the OP,

What do you think about the video and the fact it has gone viral? Every major news site has posted on it. It is all over facebook. How would you respond to a Facebook post where a friend shares the video and all their friends "like" it? Would you stay silent or use as an opportunity to open discussion and witness?

Any good thoughts on THAT topic?

Certainly Odale's fruit fly experiment is full of holes and has no merit but take that rebuttal to another thread please.

 

[The Mighty Gerbil]

Whether you believe in evolution or not my issue is they did teach or at least infer the cause of evolution as "random" factors, at least in my school. Random basically has two definitions and the one that it is usually understood to mean is inappropriate to science.

1. Proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern.
Science should not be able to make this statement, ever, due to it's lack of absolute knowledge. Furthermore you are literary teaching children their existence is meaningless by making it.

2. Unknown, unidentified, or out of place.
This is what they should say but this definition of random is obscure at best. They need to ditch random and straight forwardly say "we don't know all the factors involved".

Furthermore I don't know why a "theory" (which you cannot test) needs to ever be taught in grade school. I don't think you can expect grade school students to fully distinguish between theories and facts because you slap a single cautionary word on it. I can remember when they taught the "theory" that a meteor wiped out the dinosaurs then modified it later to they evolved to birds. Point is stop teaching "theories" to children there is plenty of testable science, math, grammar and history to teach independent of them.

 

[Wolfeman]

Human ego is plain. We tend to believe the first thing we are taught and then defend it vigorously and passionately. This is because we don't want to be wrong about something and we don't want the people we trust to be wrong about something. (It is also why sexual preferences being genetic and not a choice is taught in preschool in most school districts)

Teach something shaky early and often and it becomes much more stable even when it has no legs to stand on. Make it even more concrete by attaching the stigma of "science has proven this" (it hasn't but the lie makes it more believable) and "only uneducated people believe otherwise" and you have a poor theory that becomes fact.

 

[Pheonix28]

My Thoughts on the video? Bill Nye is antique. He USED to be someone. It doesn't surprise me, and it shouldn't surprise anyone. As for not teaching creationism, it's his own bias, and that's all it is. He's a once-popular "scientist" and nothing more. ^.^

(trying to get the topic back on subject and off evo/cre)

 

[Icthus]

Most scientist at best are socially awkward. They have little to no grasp on how society works or what drives it. Some even have a disdain of "social science".

They also have a huge blind spot for their own theories. They abhor the unsure.

These things lead to silly statements like the one Bill uses in the video.

To tell any family, Christian, Hindu, Taoist, Animist or any other belief system not to teach their children something is simply wrong. As long as the faith system or lack there of it, does no harm to other individuals or cultures, they are free to teach what they believe.

Bill Nye is preaching h8 and must be banned. <that was sarcasm>

 

[Neirai the Forgiven]

My Thoughts on the video? Bill Nye is antique. He USED to be someone. It doesn't surprise me, and it shouldn't surprise anyone. As for not teaching creationism, it's his own bias, and that's all it is. He's a once-popular actor and nothing more.

Fixed. Emphasis mine.

 

[Pheonix28]

Fixed. Emphasis mine.

Haha... Thus the quotes around scientist.

 

[Patriot]

This video is going viral. It is all over my facebook friends feeds, but not in a positive way. Everyone is agreeing with it. What do you all think? Are you using this to make a stand or do some of you agree with the video?

He ends it saying that in a few centuries no one will hold the view of creationism, there is no evidence for it. .


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHbYJfwFgOU

Bill is entitled to his opinion. I am entitled to reject his opinion. It only becomes an issue when he attempts to force his opinion on me. As he has not yet done that I pass this off as yet another evolution proponent merely blowing hot wind about my Neanderthal ways.

 

[SergeantDerp]

Soooo you believe that and cant prove it. Here believe this theory I cant prove instead. Lol! These arguments always crack me up. Though it is kind of sad in a way, people without God really seem to have nothing to look forward to. Must be lonely.

 

[RyanB]

I don't think this will add fuel to this fire, trying to add some water, so I apologize if it does...

My feeling on this is that Bill Nye is touching on a common "false dichotomy" of pitting Evolution versus Creation. This is used both by atheists (as he does here) and by Christians (to disregard evolution) as saying that one cannot exist with the other. This is simply untrue. There is no biblical reason that I know of to say that Adam/Eve couldn't have looked like they were out of a Geico caveman commercial.

Also, "evolution" is a very ambiguous term. If you zap fruit flies and they speciate, many will call that evolution. Some people mean the "origin of life". Be careful here. But it's really super hard for me to believe that some pieces of evolution/etc are dead on.

Now let me be clear: I do not buy evolution from the "macro" standpoint, and I don't believe Adam looked like a caveman, and I don't believe birds came from dinosaurs. However - if it turned out that evolution is real, why would I care? I know God created us.

In actuality, Creation is in "competition" with the idea of natural abiogenesis. IE: one day you have a bunch of molecules floating around; the next you have fully-functioning cells.

As many of you know, even the simplest cells need a bunch of things: cell walls, DNA, RNA, ways to replicate DNA, ways to divide, ribosomes, cellular workers to move information about, etc. The list is ridiculous. This means that for natural abiogenesis, we need one of two things to happen:
1. All this fabulous stuff appears overnight (impossible)
2. All of this stuff slowly appears over a long time, while providing no actual competitive advantage. IE: imagine a bunch of cells creating DNA, cell walls, etc for no real reason.

#2 is "possible" but ridiculously unlikely. I'd encourage you to check out some of the ideas out there; they're a good read. The stuff they latch onto in modern scientific circles is SO far-fetched it makes Scientologists look sane.

TL;DR: Guys, don't let foolish troll atheists like Nye, Dawkins, or Hitchens distract you with the idea that creationism is in competition with evolution. It's not. This is simply thinly-veiled atheism. In addition, by buying into this presupposition, you may be causing other Christians to falter when they buy in to the idea of evolution themselves, which isn't even that unreasonable.

Edit to add: to reply to Ewok's good attempt at trying to get this thread back on track...that's pretty much how I'd reply...from the TL;DR on. Bill Nye is essentially saying that nothing other than atheism is okay for children...which quite frankly, sounds a bit religious to me.

 

[Chaska]

So, my two cents. Here in Alberta, the primary giver of education is defined as the parent. That means that schools and teachers are resources to use to further the child's education. In Edmonton, we have a large variety of public schools, some of them are faith (not just Christian) based, others are based in language, arts, sports, science, and the like. There is a Christian program called Logos so that parents can send their students to school in a Christian setting and at the same time all of the programs are held up to the standard of the Alberta Program of Studies Curriculum and the Provincial Achievement Tests. This way people are given the choice of how their child is educated and it is their right to have the option of a school that shares their belief in a created world or a randomly lucky world. The separation of church and state is actually about the state not governing people's faith. So I completely disagree with Mr. Nye on this one. I also think that He's completely out to lunch on "the denial of evolution is unique to the United States"...just saying.
I also disagree that belief in a God who created the world makes the world harder and more complicated and less wondrous to behold. I also don't see it hampering my ability to learn about life (in the carbon sense). I have found my faith quite freeing in fact.

 

[RyanB]

That particular aspect of Alberta sounds fantastic.

 

[Whon]

I would have to say that I personally believe in micro evolution, but in no way do I believe in macro evolution. It's just not there, there's no valid scientific proof of macro evolution. And to say that since you can't support Creationism with scientific background so it doesn't belong in school you must also throw out the big bang theory as no one has (nor will IMO) take something of dead matter that was not moving and have "something" happen that made it move and become living. Once there is scientific proof and evidence that that process is possible then and only then should evolution be taught in school by itself.

 

[BassMan449]

I tried to stay out of this thread for a while but I have a few things I have to say.

First on the quote several times from this thread that evolution is just a theory. You are blatantly misusing the word theory. Evolution is a scientific theory. A scientific theory is very different from the colloquial meaning of the word theory. A scientific theory is "a well-substantiated, well-supported, well-documented explanation for our observations". Evolution will never become a law not because it's unsupported, but because that isn't how the term is used. A scientific law is the description of something that occurs in nature. A scientific theory is the explanation of those observations. A theory is the highest form an explanation can every reach. Evolution is a theory because it is extremely well supported. The theory of gravity is actually less supported than the theory of evolution.

Secondly, many times it's been mentioned that there is very little evidence for "macro-evolution" as you call it. First of all macro evolution is simply the compounding of microevolution. It is the same mechanism just spread out across millions of years. There are two primary ways that evolution has been supported via evidence. The first and weaker method is through the fossil record. An example of the different transitional forms of humans is here. The top left skull is the skull of a modern chimpanzee. The bottom right is a modern human. Skulls B-M are ancestors of modern humans dated from 2.6 million years to as near as 30,000 years old. If you would like another example I would encourage you to read on the evolution of whales.

The second primary support and the stronger method is by analyzing the genome of humans. By looking at the human genome you can see where we diverged from both Chimpanzees, our closest cousin, and even further back from the great apes. A great example of this is the fact that humans have 1 less chromosome pair then chimpanzees. It has been shown that the second chromosomal pair in humans is actually a fused together pair of chromosomes that matches that of the apes. This is just one such example among many in not just humans but shown in every species.

Finally, I'd just like to say that just because evolution is true does not rule out the existence of God. The majority of Christians in the world today except that biological evolution occurred and have no trouble still believing in God. The story of Genesis could very easily have meant to be metaphorical. Biological evolution can be a very complicated theory, but it is extremely well supported and is the basis for most of modern day medicine.

 

[tomfoolery_79]

I tried to stay out of this thread for a while but I have a few things I have to say.

First on the quote several times from this thread that evolution is just a theory. You are blatantly misusing the word theory. Evolution is a scientific theory. A scientific theory is very different from the colloquial meaning of the word theory. A scientific theory is "a well-substantiated, well-supported, well-documented explanation for our observations". Evolution will never become a law not because it's unsupported, but because that isn't how the term is used. A scientific law is the description of something that occurs in nature. A scientific theory is the explanation of those observations. A theory is the highest form an explanation can every reach. Evolution is a theory because it is extremely well supported. The theory of gravity is actually less supported than the theory of evolution.

Secondly, many times it's been mentioned that there is very little evidence for "macro-evolution" as you call it. First of all macro evolution is simply the compounding of microevolution. It is the same mechanism just spread out across millions of years. There are two primary ways that evolution has been supported via evidence. The first and weaker method is through the fossil record. An example of the different transitional forms of humans is here. The top left skull is the skull of a modern chimpanzee. The bottom right is a modern human. Skulls B-M are ancestors of modern humans dated from 2.6 million years to as near as 30,000 years old. If you would like another example I would encourage you to read on the evolution of whales.

The second primary support and the stronger method is by analyzing the genome of humans. By looking at the human genome you can see where we diverged from both Chimpanzees, our closest cousin, and even further back from the great apes. A great example of this is the fact that humans have 1 less chromosome pair then chimpanzees. It has been shown that the second chromosomal pair in humans is actually a fused together pair of chromosomes that matches that of the apes. This is just one such example among many in not just humans but shown in every species.

Finally, I'd just like to say that just because evolution is true does not rule out the existence of God. The majority of Christians in the world today except that biological evolution occurred and have no trouble still believing in God. The story of Genesis could very easily have meant to be metaphorical. Biological evolution can be a very complicated theory, but it is extremely well supported and is the basis for most of modern day medicine.

There are a lot of intelligent thoughts here, but flawed. Macro evolution is NOT micro evolution over millions of years. Within micro you have changes based upon a set of parameters (information with in DNA specifically). In Macro you have NEW information being introduced that sporadically comes from nowhere.

Chimpanzees/Apes are similar to us in that there is a common designer. A difference in chromosomes is a difference. 1 chromosome difference can deteremine whether you have a penis or a vagina and those are vastly different in structure.

A note on fossil records. They date fossils according to where they are found in the rock, they date rock based upon other rocks and fossils. Hmmm. They date A based upon B and B based upon A. Also, the fossil record isn't missing a "Missing Link", it's missing tens of thousands of "missing links". For every kind of evolution claimed to have taken place.

Also, when we start picking and chosing what we believe in the bible we very quickly run into trouble. As Ken Ham says, if we cannot believe the very first chapter of the bible, why should we believe the rest of it. Perhaps, I can selectively choose to believe this portion and not the rest because it's not valid to 21st century life.


PS, when we playing League of Legends again!?!

 

[BassMan449]

In Macro you have NEW information being introduced that sporadically comes from nowhere.

First of all, what you call "Macroevolution" is by definition the compounding of small changes over time. Macroevolution is a term made up by Christian Apologetics as a way to discredit evolution. It isn't actually a part of the Theory of Evolution.

The idea that mutations cannot add information is false. It happens all the time. Down syndrome is exactly that. In almost all cases the mutations tend to have negative effects, but all it takes is for it to have a positive effect once for that information to survive and cause addition of genes.

If you want an example of the divergence of species via evolution that can be easily observed in the modern world, you should do some reading on ring species.

Also, the fossil record isn't missing a "Missing Link", it's missing tens of thousands of "missing links".

This is a terrible argument. Every person alive on the planet today has different genome. They are all very very similar but slightly different. Should I have to have a fossil of every single ancestor in your family tree to be able to show that your great x20 grandfather was different from you? No matter how many transitional forms we find there will always be more between them.

Also, when we start picking and chosing what we believe in the bible we very quickly run into trouble. As Ken Ham says, if we cannot believe the very first chapter of the bible, why should we believe the rest of it. Perhaps, I can selectively choose to believe this portion and not the rest because it's not valid to 21st century life.

So you are saying that you would rather deny what science has proven occurred then change your beliefs? You are denying reality in favor of your beliefs in the face of all the evidence to the contrary.

 

[RyanB]

Even in the most recent replies, there is still ambiguity amongst terms.

"macro-evolution" - zapping fruit flies until they can't mate with each other? Recent evolution of humans? Or are we talking amoeba eventually turning into animals with blood cells. Admittedly term itself isn't too great because one needs to define how macro "macro" is.

First of all, what you call "Macroevolution" is by definition the compounding of small changes over time. Macroevolution is a term made up by Christian Apologetics as a way to discredit evolution. It isn't actually a part of the Theory of Evolution.

You are still being ambiguous here. What extent combounded changes? This is what people dispute. It is not fair to create your own broad definition of what people mean by "macro-evolution" and then discredit it - that's a straw man. When people do not believe in "macro-evolution", they are generally referring to the fact that they do not believe we came from a single-celled organism, that lungs or eyes formed on their own, etc. Surely you already know this. I don't believe anybody is passionate about what will happen if you seperate a species of birds and leave them alone for a while...but they probably believe they won't grow extra wings.

"evolution" (used above) - Again, how much evidence exists for it depends on what's being referred to here. Nobody disputes that Down syndrome exists.

The majority of Christians in the world today except that biological

- minor nitpick...I'm not saying plenty of people don't believe in both. I don't feel "majority" is correct, though I wouldn't mind being wrong. Even so, completely agree with the main point that these two concepts are not conflicting. That was the main thing I hoped to get across above.

...

That said, since we're talking evolutionary theory - I'll tell you the main reason I don't buy it. To me, it's because there are alternate reasonable explanations for plenty of things. Take the genome example you brought up. In my mind, it's not surprising that two very similar animals with very similar features have very similar DNA. If God created man and monkey, why wouldn't they be extremely similar?

And of course, the genome example also fits evolution as well...but I'm not going to jump on any evidence that has viable alternatives. This exact same scenario exists in the converse - Christians claim the earth is too "perfect" to not be made for us. Atheists claim the earth is perfect because it must be; we wouldn't be here otherwise. And quite frankly, they're both good arguments - making them both moot.

 

[tagtarsis]

The second primary support and the stronger method is by analyzing the genome of humans. By looking at the human genome you can see where we diverged from both Chimpanzees, our closest cousin, and even further back from the great apes. A great example of this is the fact that humans have 1 less chromosome pair then chimpanzees. It has been shown that the second chromosomal pair in humans is actually a fused together pair of chromosomes that matches that of the apes. This is just one such example among many in not just humans but shown in every species.

I love you man, and I have heard all of these descriptions in the past and I am working on a more detailed response but I wanted to point out an issue with this argument. I am married to a genetic scientist and She and I have talked alot about human genome and this is a false understanding of this.

1. Genome-wide variation from one human being to another can be up to 0.5% (99.5% similarity)

2. Pigs are 98 % similar to humans.

3. Chimpanzees are 96% to 98% similar to humans.

4. Cats share 90% of homologous genes with humans.

5.Cows are 80 % similar to humans.

6. Mice have 75 % similar to humans, with some other tests showing they are almost identical with humans on some genes.

7. Fruit Flies are 60 % similar to humans.

This does not prove decent any more then arguing any other point.

I could say hey we evolved from pigs! In fact they used a pigs tooth as a missing link for many years in text books (talk about poor science). Nebraska man was imagination based on a single pig's tooth!

All this shows is a similarity to one another. You can use this to argue we all originated and evolved from one point or you can make the same argument and say we all had the same designer and he used the same or similar building blocking when creating each individual and independent kind of creature.

 

[BassMan449]

I'd be very interested in a "viable alternative" that has as much evidentiary support as the Theory of Evolution does.

As far as the comment about Downs Syndrome, I was simply giving an easy and common example of "information" being added to the genome.

- minor nitpick...I'm not saying plenty of people don't believe in both. I don't feel "majority" is correct, though I wouldn't mind being wrong. Even so, completely agree with the main point that these two concepts are not conflicting. That was the main thing I hoped to get across above.

I'm saying that based off of the denominations that do accept evolution and there membership numbers. Obviously there is no way to poll every single Christian but doing it by church membership should give a decent approximation. The catholic church accepts evolution and that would very nearly constitute a majority on it's own (obviously not every catholic likely accepts it). I will however concede the point as it is largely irrelevant.

You are still being ambiguous here. What extent combounded changes? This is what people dispute. It is not fair to create your own broad definition of what people mean by "macro-evolution" and then discredit it - that's a straw man. When people do not believe in "macro-evolution", they are generally referring to the fact that they do not believe we came from a single-celled organism, that lungs or eyes formed on their own, etc. Surely you already know this. I don't believe anybody is passionate about what will happen if you seperate a species of birds and leave them alone for a while...but they probably believe they won't grow extra wings.

Finally, I would be interested in your definition of "macroevolution". Macroevolution as I've heard most people define it is the changing of one species into another species. The problem with that definition is how do you define what is a different species? If you want an example of that occurring I would encourage you to look up the Ring species wiki article I linked from earlier. In ring species the immediate neighbors are still closely enough related to be able to mate with each other, but species at each end of the ring cannot. They are a great example of speciation occurring from a common ancestor. They are a similar animal but would be considered different species by science as they are unable to mate with each other.