Texas Creationist Museum Facing Extinction 824
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.
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:5, Informative)
Some resemblence to the facts we can find in nature.
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:2, Informative)
There is still a bunch of uneducated people 'right on the bottom', but nobody at least somewhat educated, somewhat influential, somewhat famous takes creationism seriously.
Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.harunyahya.com/ [harunyahya.com]
This organization is litteraly sending thousands of books (called Atlas of Creation) to schools around Europe.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15857761/ [msn.com]
Nobody clearly understands where their funds come from...But they are "huge".
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.
Re:Texas and Kentucky... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:3, Informative)
The closest word to theory in the sense you use (as in 'guess') in the scientific community is 'hypothesis.' An hypothesis is just a guess. Maybe a somewhat educated one based on observation, by still just a guess.
OTOH, a theory is something much more substantial than a guess -- it is falsifiable, repeatable, consistent, and verifiable. Gravity is "just" a theory. Evolution and gravity meet these same scientific criteria.
Creationism does not. It is not verifiable (no, your 'Good Book' doesn't count). It is not falsifiable (we can't prove that without it, there would be no man). And it is not repeatable. (We can't just make a man in a lab from dirt.)
So Creationism doesn't meet the criteria for theory. It merely meets the criteria for hypothesis, and not a very good one as it's based on only one observation -- a 6,000 year-old story written in a book.
Re:The Market Speaks! (Score:4, Informative)
I've been to it. (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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."
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:1, Informative)
Two words are guaranteed to send them into a rage: human cloning.
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.
Re:The Market Speaks! (Score:2, Informative)
If you had given her $20.01 she would have given you $13.95 back, but with $21.01 she gave you $14.95 back. So it was the same dollar.
She probably thought you were a grifter. Did you call her sweetheart? That is the kind of thing grifters do in the movies.
Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:So is gravity (Score:3, Informative)
Seriously, though, Gravity is not a fact. Things falling is a fact. Gravity is a theory that explains why things fall. Which theory of gravity do people use? Mostly, Newton's, even though we know that is incorrect. Nobody uses relativity except in special circumstances, because it is a more complex calculation and yields the same results as the 'incorrect' theory of Newton in most circumstances. Newton's theory is 'wrong' but it is still useful. Do you understand now?
Re:The Market Speaks! (Score:1, Informative)
If you believe something you haven't proven yourself, you are exercising faith. If you think otherwise, you are exercising ego. It really isn't that complicated.
Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know about the others but Scotland is not the home of creationism - certainly not in the 1600s as we were in the middle of the reformation [wikipedia.org]. Although Calvinism [wikipedia.org] was particularly prevelant amongst those who set sale for the New World, Scottish colonization was notoriously unsuccessful (especially the Darien scheme [wikipedia.org] that arguably bankrupted Scotland forcing the act of union with England). So to say it came from Scotland is unlikely.
Given your dates, you may also want to check out the Scottish Enlightenment - James Hutton [wikipedia.org] (admittedly a little later) was one of the earliest to suggest [bbc.co.uk] that Science should determine understanding rather than tradition/religion.
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:5, Informative)
Pope Benedict believes in evolution [dailymail.co.uk].
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.)
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:3, Informative)
But they save their strongest hate for evolution. The problem with the theory is exclusive to Christianity because it strikes to the core of the religion. The theology is straightforward: Christ died as a means to offer salvation from Hell. But the sticking point isn't that Genesis has a different account of the origin of the universe, it's that Christ died to save us from Adam and Eve's sin in tasting the fruit of knowledge. That sin tainted not only those two, but all their progeny, i.e. everybody. So there's nothing we can do, unless we accept that Jesus had a really bad weekend for our sins. That's our ticket to Heaven. But if we accept evolution, then there was no Adam and Eve, no Eden, no original sin, and therefore, no need for Christianity. That means a lot of people stand to lose a lot of money.
That's the reason nobody who's strongly opposed to teaching evolution talks about their reasoning beyond "It's not what the Bible says." Even believers cherry pick what they want to believe in the Bible; I don't know many Christians who believe that the Earth is the center of the universe, for instance. But if we start discussing the real reasons churches oppose evolution, then some people who maybe haven't really thought about it will start to see how truly weak the foundations of Christianity are.
Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:3, Informative)
That's an interesting definition of creationism you're using. It's not most people's, nor does it fit with the dictionary [reference.com]:
creationism:
1. the doctrine that matter and all things were created, substantially as they now exist, by an omnipotent Creator, and not gradually evolved or developed.
2. the doctrine that the true story of the creation of the universe is as it is recounted in the Bible, esp. in the first chapter of Genesis.
It sounds like you're thinking of theistic evolution [wikipedia.org], which is different from creationism.
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:3, Informative)
- A pluralised second person (Several latin languages have them. See: Spanish, with -ais)
- A non-genitive third person pronoun (as "it" tends to be something of an insult when used with regard to people)
"Y'all" merrily fills one of those voids, yet is generally despised by those who fail to see its utility. Not only that, but with the apostrophe, it's technically correct.
There is "you all" and a few other multi-word forms that accomplish the same feature, but how is that any different from "do not" and "don't".
I am from Texas, and possess whatever accent I so choose (generally, I'm accused of being from Canada, regardless of where I am at the time). My only regional giveaway is that I use "y'all", not because I'm from Texas, but because it's an exceptionally useful word - same as any other contraction.
Now sod off, wanker.
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:3, Informative)
IANAP (I am not a physicist), but my understanding of general relativity is that all objects with mass tend to curve spacetime and curved spacetime is directly responsible for what we perceive as "gravity". The Wikipedia gravity well [wikipedia.org] article has a decent picture that might do a better job of explaining this concept then words do.
Actually, I recall reading somewhere that they did a test awhile back and figured out that gravity is limited to C, i.e: if you could make the sun wink out of existence, Earth would continue in it's orbit for 8 minutes or so as if nothing had happened. Then again, I just did a Google search and can't really find anything conclusive on this. One site seems to think that gravity propagates out at more then 300 times C. Another claims it's limited to C. Any actual physicists care to comment?
Not quite THAT mysterious! (Score:3, Informative)
It cannot. If the sun disappeared this instant the Earth would continue in orbit under its gravitational field for 8 minutes more: the time it takes light to travel from the sun to the Earth. In fact, rather ironically, it is the theory of relativity which, in its general form, explains gravity that also requires that information is never transmitted faster than the speed of light. So far from gravity having instantaneous action at a distance, the study of gravity has shown us that nothing can have instantaneous action at a distance...at least if you you like to have cause precede effect.
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:3, Informative)
I think part of it is that people don't know how it's supposed to be used. Fake southerners/Texans in the media often use it incorrectly in place of the singular 'you'. This turns it into just an excuse to laugh at a group for being different.
Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:3, Informative)