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Texas Creationist Museum Facing Extinction
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Jan 18, 2008 10:52 AM
from the going-the-way-of-the-dinosaurs dept.
from the going-the-way-of-the-dinosaurs dept.
gattaca writes "A small Texas museum that teaches creationism is counting on the auction of a prehistoric mastodon skull to stave off extinction. The founder and curator of the Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum, which rejects evolution and claims that man and dinosaurs coexisted, said it will close unless the Volkswagen-sized skull finds a generous bidder. 'If it sells, well, then we can come another day,' Joe Taylor said. 'This is very important to our continuing.'" Meanwhile, the much larger Creation Museum in Kentucky that we discussed and toured when it opened last year seems to be thriving.
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Science: Creationism Museum Opening in Kentucky 1166 comments
Noel Linback writes "A new creationism-espousing museum is opening in the state of Kentucky. According to a New York Times article the museum depicts humans and dinosaurs living together in traditional 'diorama' style exhibit. 'Whether you are willing to grant the premises of this museum almost becomes irrelevant as you are drawn into its mixture of spectacle and narrative. Its 60,000 square feet of exhibits are often stunningly designed by Patrick Marsh, who, like the entire museum staff, declares adherence to the ministry's views; he evidently also knows the lure of secular sensations, since he designed the Jaws and King Kong attractions at Universal Studios in Florida. For the skeptic the wonder is at a strange universe shaped by elaborate arguments, strong convictions and intermittent invocations of scientific principle. For the believer, it seems, this museum provides a kind of relief: Finally the world is being shown as it really is, without the distortions of secularism and natural selection. '"
[+]
Science: A Field Trip To the Creation Museum 1854 comments
Lillith writes "The anti-evolution Creation Museum opened last weekend and Ars took a field trip there and took lots of pictures. 'There were posters explaining just how coal could be formed in a few weeks as opposed to over millions of years, and how rapidly the biblical flood would cover the earth, drowning all but a handful of living creatures. The flood plays a big part in the museum's attempt to explain away what we see as millions of years of natural processes. There was also an explanation as to why, with only one progenitor family, it wasn't considered incest for Adam and Eve's children to marry each other.' (Myself, I liked the picture of the velociraptor grazing peacefully next to Eve, who is wearing some kind of dirndl, in the Garden of Eden.)" The reporter posted more photos from the museum on Flickr.
Submission: Creationist museum facing extinction by Anonymous Coward
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Science: A Torrid Tale of Plagiarizing Paleontologists 160 comments
its hard to think of writes "There's an interesting story up at Nature News about scientific ethics. It seems that while one group of scientists is figuring out details about aetosaurs (ancient crocodiles), another group in New Mexico is repeatedly taking credit for their work and naming the new animals they 'discover'. It also looks like the state government, which has been asked to intervene, is trying to sidestep the issue. 'The New Mexico cultural-affairs department, which oversees the museum, conducted a review of two of the instances last October and concluded that the allegations were groundless. But some experts call that review a whitewash, claiming that it failed to follow accepted practices of US academic institutions faced with claims of misconduct. Now all three cases are before the Ethics Education Committee of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, a professional organization based in Northbrook, Illinois, which is awaiting responses from the New Mexico team before making a ruling.' How widespread is this kind of thing?"
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Creationism in Europe? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:5, Informative)
The church in many European countries is busy trying to show that if the Bible is read like it is supposed to (i.e. not taken literally) it really does correspond with the scientific findings. 7 days for god is obviously some billion years for man they tell you and they take it from there, showing how through metaphors the scientific facts known to us were hidden in the text.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:5, Informative)
No, they didn't. The modern, and very flawed, Evangelical movement was kicked into high gear by some power-hungry madmen by the names of Dwight L. Moody and Cyrus Ingerson Scofield. Moody had a big effect on the British and Irish, actually, promoting their crazed movement there, too.
* I'm a Protestant-leaning Christian, but definitely not of the Evangelical nature. Sadly, most of my friends and family are still under the sway of the madness called the modern Evangelical movement. I also have a soon-to-be-published book (electronic as well) that I'd love to share with slashdot readers who are interested in why it is time for Christianity to take a new direction.
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Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:4, Interesting)
One view supports evolution. The other does not. However both are Creationist views.
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Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:5, Informative)
Pope Benedict believes in evolution [dailymail.co.uk].
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Re:Insecure much? (Score:4, Insightful)
Fortunately, no.
There are many intelligent, smart, wise people who believe in God. Thing is, for them faith always gives up to reason, never in opposite direction. You believe in things you don't know, you aren't certain. If science explains something, you adapt your faith to accept the fact, you don't deny it to keep that part of faith running.
You may believe that the first string of DNA that created the first living cell was created by an intelligent being. Thing is there's a lot of ways to mix bases of DNA code, just like slamming on the keyboard randomly, but getting a working self-replicating program by slamming on the keyboard randomly, well, that's a lot of slamming and what is more likely, that it happened randomly, or that it was created? We can't estimate the chance of random creation of such a string within several orders of magnitude, so it leaves room for faith: it might have been created this way. If you look at the amazing properties of electromagnetic waves, how simple rules create such amazing results, you think 'How could such rules come to be? Why is electromagnetism the way it is, so possiblity-rich and yet so simple in its essence?' and you think it would take quite a wise mind to invent such a thing... if it could be invented. Again, room for faith, never certainty, but elements of unknown.
But if you hear bones of dinosaurs were dug into the ground some 4000 years ago to confuse us, sorry. No matter how much you believe in God, with a bit of criticism, you say "bullshit".
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Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:4, Funny)
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Quick.... (Score:5, Funny)
Texas and Kentucky... (Score:4, Funny)
The Market Speaks! (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't even begin to count the billions of hours wasted by Christians in living life in ways completely counter to what our God teaches us. Look at the battle over the 10 Commandments, laws of the Israelites' God that have been countermanded by Christ's teaching to a much more simpler set of rules (completely love God first, completely love others second). And yet, when we dig deeper into the "Why" of modern Christian thought, we come up against the same problem that I see in those who are pro-government: we need "leaders" and we need "rules" and we need "penalties" to keep us in line.
What has happened to the powerful individual in today's society? Evolution versus creationism is a debate that strikes at the heart of my question: why is it that we need "teacher-leaders" to stick to a specific standard, rather than what the individual kid in a unique place in their specific city/society needs to be taught? I can't even understand why science is taught to ALL children, along with higher level maths, when the kids today can barely count, let alone read or speak properly. I had a 20-something in my town use a calculator at a checkout line 2 weeks ago when I gave her $21.01 for a $6.06 charge. Unbelievable.
Creationism and evolution are both articles of faith, and really have no purpose for MOST students. Then again, I truly believe that even High School is worthless for 70% of society considering what it is churning out.
Re:The Market Speaks! (Score:5, Insightful)
You start off sounding like a very reasonable person, and then end with that.
You have faith in something you cannot prove. Like the existence of a god.
There is tons of evidence for evolution and none against it so no "faith" is required. Or is gravity an article of faith too, because you never know, one day something might fall upwards?!
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Re:The Market Speaks! (Score:5, Insightful)
the biologist, all views are open for debate and can be overturned
at any time. All it takes is for a "better idea" to come along.
You are attempting to conflate "faith" with "trust".
Faith is based on wishful thinking where as trust is based on experience.
Clinging to your religious view in the face of the current scientific
consensus is the perfect example of this distinction.
Creationism simply isn't that "better idea". Infact, it is what Evolution
REPLACED when it originally came along as the "better idea". It's history.
It belongs alongside the idea that you grow mice by combining scraps of
clothing and grains of wheat.
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Re:The Market Speaks! (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:The Market Speaks! (Score:4, Insightful)
To start with: I'm not a Christian, but I find some theological topics like this interesting.
To me, it would make sense to say that the fall is as literal as Adam. The fall comes hand in hand with free will; if free will appeared as a gradual process through evolution, then so too was the fall a gradual process.
This makes sense from other perspectives as well -- we treat young children as innocent, even if their actions by an informed party would be wrong. As they grow older, they become more responsible for their actions, and so (if you're the type who believes in "sin") more capable of sin. It's not an instant process; we'll be more lenient with a 10-year-old than a 20-year-old, but we still expect them to understand right and wrong for the most part. If you're willing to take other parts of the Bible as metaphorical, I see no contradiction in taking the fall and original sin and the Eden story as allegorical for slow processes that came with the evolution of free will.
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Re:The Market Speaks! (Score:4, Interesting)
The way I look at it, the "fall" was not a one-time event that blighted the rest of us. It was, and is, and will continue to be, an over-and-over event that blights each of us individually. "Adam" is not an historical figure, but an allegorical one, a representative of our human nature.
We are human, and fallible. Not one of us makes it through life (or probably even through the day) without making some serious error of judgment that wounds another person, whether deliberately or thoughtlessly. Those errors are the things we need to atone for: our deliberately hurtful deeds, our thoughtlessness. No one is immune from this; it is a necessary consequence of our free will.
And in most cases, I think we cannot really make up for the wrong we have done. The errors create wounds that are beyond our power to heal. Yet in a just universe, evil requires an expiation.
As I see it, Christ's death provided that expiation. The salvation of Jesus is offered freely, as a pure gift -- nothing expected of us in return, except to say, "I accept." Without that acceptance, the expiation for the evil I have done then falls on myself.
(DISCLAIMER: Please understand, it's not my intent to proselytize or start a debate. I only expressed my view because the parent asked for an answer. I'm not saying that this is THE answer. I'm saying that this is AN answer, and one that I can live with. If your life, logic, and understanding have led you to a different conclusion about the world -- a different relationship with God, a different God or set of Gods, or no God at all -- and so long as you are harming no others, I won't presume to say that your view should be the same as mine. Go in peace.)
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God will... (Score:3, Funny)
The KY Creation museum (Score:4, Interesting)
Teh funnay (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously a fake. (Score:5, Funny)
I've been to it. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:5, Informative)
Some resemblence to the facts we can find in nature.
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Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:5, Insightful)
Sexuality. Other religions.
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Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:5, Funny)
And don't forget world 36 on Super Mario Brothers. That one can be pretty tricky if you don't know what to expect.
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Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:4, Insightful)
Logic?
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Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:4, Funny)
English
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Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, interesting that you bring up gravity. Last time I checked, we *still* have no clue what the heck gravity is. How it acts at such great distances and such. We can describe it mathematically (G m1 m2 / d^2), but we don't really know the reason for it. Why is it that this works? How can it act apparently instantly across great distances that even photons can't reach as quickly?
Perhaps your smart-ass answer isn't far off - it's God's will. Whatever it is, we do not thoroughly understand it. All we can do is take advantage of it (through mathematics).
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Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:4, Insightful)
My take on it? Creationism per se is bunk, and evolution is the best theory I've seen to explein how God went about growing this wonderous universe.
Yes, I know it's heresy to admit being a Christian [kuro5hin.org] at slashdot, where athiesm is the site relgion and its proponents will stone with mod points anyone who dares believe that God exists, so mod me down. Arguing the existance of God with an athiest is like arguing the existance of red with a blind man.
You're an athiest because God wants you to be an athiest. "All we are is dust in the wind" - Kansas.
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Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:5, Insightful)
I would also suggest that the argument analogy you presented is inaccurate and misleading, as most analogies often are. Such topics cannot be summed up or dumbed down in such simplistic manners. Case in point, the popular "let me explain this as a car" analogy given so often on Slashdot. Your analogy presents a pre-determined supposition that God does indeed exist, which is the point of the argument in the first place, yes?
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Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:5, Insightful)
Evolution makes predictions that are accurate enough to be useful, regardless of whether is it aboslutely true or not. (For the record: It's as true as anything we've ever come up with.)
Creationism makes no predictions. In fact, it prevents them: Why did this happen? God did it. Will it happen again? If God wants it to. Will it stop? If God gets bored. Can we influence it? If God decides to be influenced, yes. In the end, 'God' is unknowable and unexplainable, so by saying God did it we have stopped all thought, inquiry, or prediction on the topic.
Which is probably why it is attractive to some people: They don't want to think.
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Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:5, Interesting)
At some point, we may become so advanced, technologically, that there is nothing curently living which is beyond our ability to recreate in a laboratory setting. How would one determine what occurs naturally and what was created? There will be lots of legal issues related to "accident of nature" or "industrial accident" related to when created things go bad, and how to prove they were created versus just having occurred by themselves.
To some extent, this is us "playing God" with nature. Somewhere down the road, a wholly "created" being will gain consciousness, evolve some (if left alone long enough), then wonder where he came from. Then they will have the same argument we are having now.
I'm no fan of ID as having "scientific" merit. But it does have philosophical merit. And some of the thought experiments make my head hurt.
(Posting Anon, because I don't like to discuss my personal politics or religion in public.)
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Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:5, Informative)
Books used to be copied by scribes, and (despite a lot of care) sometimes typos would be introduced. Later scribes, making copies of copies, would introduce other typos. It's possible to look at the existing copies and put them into a 'family tree'. "These copies have this typo, but not that one; this other group has yet another typo, though three of them have a newer typo as well, not seen elsewhere..." This is not controversial at all when dealing with books, including the Bible.
Now, this process of copy-with-modification naturally produces 'family trees', nested groups. When we look at life, we find such nested groups. No lizards with fur or nipples, no mammals with feathers, etc. Living things (at least, multicellular ones[1]) fit into a grouped hierarchy. This has been solidly recognized for over a thousand years, and systematized for centuries. It was one of the clues that led Darwin to propose evolution.
Now, more than a century later, we find another tree, one Darwin never suspected - that of DNA. This really is a "text" being copied with rare typos. And, as expected, it also forms a family tree, a nested hierarchy. And, with very very few surprises, it's the same tree that was derived from looking at physical traits.
It didn't have to be that way. Even very critical genes for life - like that of cytochrome C - have a few neutral variations, minor mutations that don't affect its function. But we find a tree of mutations that fits evolution precisely, instead of some other tree. Wheat engineered to use the mouse form of cytochrome C grows just fine. (Imagine if a tree derived from bookbinding technology - "this guy used this kind of glue, but this other bookbinder used a different glue..." - conflicted with a tree that was derived from typos in the text of the books. We'd know at least one tree and maybe both were wrong.)
The details of these trees are very specific and very, very numerous. There are billions of quadrillions of possible trees... and yet the two that we see (DNA and morphology) happen to very precisely match. This is either a staggering coincidence, or a Creator deliberately arranged it in a misleading manner, or... common ancestry is actually true.
[1] Single-celled organisms are much more 'promiscuous' in their reproduction and spread genes willy-nilly without respect for straightforward inheritance. With single-celled creatures, it looks more like a 'web' of life than a 'tree'. But even if the 'tree' of life has tangled roots, it's still very definitely a tree when it comes to multicellular life.
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Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:5, Informative)
From the BioTech Life Science Dictionary: theory definition:"In science, an explanation for some phenomenon which is based on observation, experimentation, and reasoning. In popular use, a theory is often assumed to imply mere speculation, but in science, something is not called a theory until it has been confirmed over the course of many independent experiments."
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Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:5, Insightful)
What possible prediction can anyone make from Creationism?
Evolution predicts that since all living things on the planet share DNA, then medical research using animals should produce useful medical procedures for humans.
When you cut someone open, it's not full of clay.
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Creationists don't understand the word Theory (Score:5, Informative)
(Theory defitition 1): "supposition" or "hunch". This is the use in the sentence "If my theory is correct, then
(Theory definition 2): "a description of a process that explains observed facts". These vary in their degree of supportability, and sometimes, multiple warring theories are supported to different degrees by existing experiment. For example, there are at the moment multiple theories about what process gives matter mass. Examples: The theory that matter is atomic, i.e. not continuously divisible. The theory that natural selection coupled with variation leads to evolution. The theory that particles have mass because of their interaction with the Higgs field.
(Theory definition 3): "a body of knowledge and understanding that supports much other past and future work"; it describes an entire framework of internally consistent principles, understanding and data. Meanings used in this sense:
* Atomic theory (the understanding of the structure of the atom and it's constituent particles and interactions that underlies all of nuclear science and chemistry)
* Evolutionary theory (the understanding of how organisms and species give rise to one another, and the genetic mechanisms thereof that underlies all of biology)
It's instructive to note that evolutionary theory and atomic theory are approximately equivalent in terms of evidentiary support and use in their fields. Both arose as type-2 definitions around the same time (mid 19th-century), supplanting prior theories (matter is continuous, God created all organisms at one time and they have been unchanged since then). Both have since then become into type 3 theories that completely underly the relevant fields (chemistry, biology).
Religious fundamentalists don't understand the difference between these definitions, and they think evolution is a "type 1" theory, more properly called a hypothesis. It is not. Evolution is the entire framework of over a century of biological research. Attempting to understand research in biology while rejection evolution is like attempting to understand chemistry while rejecting the atom. Or attempting to understand higher math while rejecting arithmetic. It's flat-out ludicrous.
(This is a repost of my statement from the last time we had this debate. [slashdot.org] I will keep reposting it, hoping to educate a few people eventually.)
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Re: (Score:3)
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Difficult Decision (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:wha? (Score:5, Funny)
'If it sells, well, then we can come another day,' Come again?
I think that means his wife is cutting him off until he gets that damned thing out of the house.
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Re:wha? (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Definitional clarity, please (Score:5, Insightful)
Typically, they think that "evolution" means that a monkey got pregnant one day and out popped a human baby. They think that a theory in science (as in "just a theory") is an idle speculation that just shot out of some scientist's ass and beat out competing theories in a popularity contest. Their faith requires them to believe without question what they are taught by their parents and religious authorities, and so the notions of reason and sceptical inquiry carry zero weight with them.
There's a multitude of them, they're refractory to reason, and they vote. They are also easily manipulated by unscrupulous politicians who don't give squat about their beliefs but are willing to pander to them to enhance their own power.
This circus is going to go on for a long, long time.
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