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Bill Nye "The Science Guy" Hates Creationism

ThinkingWithMyDeac said:
Like I said earlier to believe that God created everything and put things into motion, and that he is what gave us purpose in life is fine. Its when you blatantly reject proven scientific thought and data to fit your belief when problems arise. Like before I don't know what the solution is. Science has a very bad PR department and needs better spokesman. The problem is that it is complicated as shit. Things found in magazines like Scientific America and Discover are about as dumb down as you can get and for the majority of people even that is going to be over the top. We are talking about a general population with a reading level somewhere in the range of 5th grade. So what is easier for them to latch onto, complicated radioactive isotope decay determining the earth is 4 billion years old or what they have been hearing all their life, God did it.
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This is why places like Answers in Genesis (big time YEC group - the creation museum folks) convince so many people. They have many people with a scientific background who engage in a science of plausibility, not true science - showing how the YEC account could happen based observation rather than observing and drawing conclusions from that - their conclusions were made before the process started - they are just looking for evidence that can be interpreted in a way to support their conclusion. When presenting these observations (and presenting them in a vacuum without dissenting opinions) to the masses - the majority of whom have neither a strong hermeneutic nor scientific background - it's easy to be convinced/reinforced of something they already believe.
 
KickballDeac said:
(3) We've progressed despite the influence of creationism, yes. But think of where we could be in our understanding of nature today. I'm positive that were it not for the literally fatal taboo of publishing one's scientific results during the dark ages until the enlightenment we'd be so, so, so much more advanced. Hoverboards by 2015, amiright? But seriously, it's pretty difficult to believe that many would-be scientists and thinkers weren't forced "into the closet" by the religious pressures of the times.
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I'm not so sure of this one because most early scientific endeavors and discoveries were motivated out of a place of faith - wanting to understand the creation at a deeper level and thus understanding its creator. The unfortunate science/religion divide/war./silliness, etc. is a fairly recent occurrence.
 
IamThunderbolt said:
I'm not so sure of this one because most early scientific endeavors and discoveries were motivated out of a place of faith - wanting to understand the creation at a deeper level and thus understanding its creator. The unfortunate science/religion divide/war./silliness, etc. is a fairly recent occurrence.
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If by "fairly recent" you mean within the last millennium or so, versus ancient times, then I tentatively agree with you and that was what I meant to convey. The climate for scientific inquiry in the western world was significantly improved by the 1700s, but the rift does still persist (much more mildly, comparatively) to this day. Hence this thread.
 
I would guess most people are of the "creative evolution" oeuvre- not sure why those two things are that incompatible- in the beginning God created everything and set evolution in motion. :noidea:
edit: ok, just went back and read the poll results, yeah that's pretty ridiculous :eek: - but would like to know how the poll was phrased (per IaT original comment on page 1).
 
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HoosierDeac said:
I would guess most people are of the "creative evolution" oeuvre- not sure why those two things are that incompatible- in the beginning God created everything and set evolution in motion. :noidea:
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intelligent design?
 
It is possible to be both religious and intelligent/intellectual.
 
I think you can be religious, spiritual, etc. and be very intelligent. The problem (and gift) of intellect is planting seeds of doubt and encouraging dissent. Luckily, I think many faiths allow this (though many dogmatically stifle it).
 
So for those that don't think it really matters, I made a few graphs that show the ranking of countries by Science scores from 2010 in comparison to the percent of the country that finds religion very important. The United States is pretty far down the list, and it correlates with a fairly high view on religion. What I did find interesting was then applying the same rankings of science scores in comparison to the percent of the religious population that identifies as Christian. Here there is no difference from the top to the bottom. So this leads to a lot of questions on what the hell happened in this country, and it is an underlying theme of Bill Nye's rant that the rest of the developed world can't even fathom the earth being only 6,000 years old. Since it is obviously not specific to Christianity as the top Science scoring nations are on par with the United States. It appears that it is more on how deeply entrenched you are, which goes back to early posts about intellectual laziness within the population of this country. I think people can point back in history and see, well every country was really religious at one poin,t but what Bill Nye and others should and are worried about is that the rest of the developed world seems to be changing and advancing while we get bogged down by something that shouldnt even be debatable.

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Evolution is scientific fact. Aspects of it can be debated in the scientific realm, but ultimately it is not disputable at this point. I really don't think those who dispute evolution have studied it properly. Do they also dispute gravity? It is a "theory" as well, is it not? To the contrary, belief in creation is theology and/or philosophy.

The problem comes when people swap, or interchange the two. Much comes down to the difference between truth and fact, if that makes any sense. The creation story can be read as truth but ultimately not fact. There is no authentic factual debate between the merits of evolution and literal creationism, yet that is what the public debate always devolves into. I recognize that some see no way to reconcile evolution as fact and creation as theology/philosophy, but many find this a reasonable dynamic. Also, I do believe the bible states that god reveals himself through nature. Perhaps literal creationists have forgotten that line.
 
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Creationism lul, if I told the story of Lord of the Rings back in ancient Rome I could definitely sell that as a legit religion.
 
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