Daggah

Extremist statements like this help no one.

Nataraja

Creationist = NAZI
The leaders of the Third Reich didn't have nuclear weapons, though. We must put up a fight against the Religious Reich or perish.

Extremist statements like this help no one.

But it's so [i]fun[i]!

Besides, there really are real loons out there and some have a dangerous amount of power and support. I'm talking Hitler replicas.

Camaban

No, not Hitler replicas.

I'll put it this way:

One of the reasons I think Hitler is one of the great tragedies of history is that if he hadn't gone for the mass slaughters, etc, and had at least warred in an honourable fashion, he'd be hailed as one of history's greatest and most intelligent leaders. (Morons don't lead countries out of bankruptcy to being the most powerful country in Europe)

These other people (generally) simply have the ractist bigotry, homophobia, etc without the intelligence.

(BTW, before anyone pounces on this, No, I don't support Hitler, I'm simply being honest and not clinging to what I've been told all through life along the lines of "Hitler was a very naughty man" I can't stand the simple dismissal of people like that as madmen, morons, cowards, etc. Mad, by many standards, yes, moron, morons don't do what Hitler did, and coward. Cowards don't earn iron crosses. I just think the sort of dismissal that usually goes on is downright dishonest)

Wyz_sub10

Hitler wasn't a coward in the way Lenin was a coward (i.e. afraid to actually fight). But then 'coward' has a few definitions...

In any case, this is pretty off topic. You should probably start a thread on your thoughts. I guarantee you'd get some good discussion going.

Nataraja

Did I say that all Creationists were morons? They believe stupid things and their agenda is fascist, but they can't all be stupid.

As for Hitler...well, he was a very charismatic speaker. Hitler is actually a very fascinating historical figure. <a href="http://www.hitler.org" target="_blank">http://www.hitler.org</a> is a good place to learn about them. I have some admiration for him, though he was undisputably quite insane. Overzealous? However you feel about him, you must admit that the fellow left a pretty big mark. I watched a documentary recently, Youth of the Third Reich. Standard brainwashing on a scale somewhat smaller than that of today's Religious Reich, though astromomically more blatant and shameless.

Nataraja

Oh! Perhaps this should go somewhere else, but there was a rather dramatic two-man war during a rather quiet period of the war. That's right: snipers! The way wars should be fought, dramatic battles between two willing champions. Battle of the Champions! Wahoo!

RufusAtticus

Okay guys. Topic drift is fun, but unless this returns to something about biology or science education in general, we'll move it.

RufusAtticus
E/C Moderator

zzang

Look, I'm not advocating allowing alternate views in the classroom or removing evolution from the science curriculum. I mean I may not believe it but its still the best explanation for the diversity of life. I just don't feel that the elementary and high school level science courses have much of a bearing on science. I mean the whole debate done in the scientific community not elementary and high schools. Furthermore, universities assume that you didn't learn science in high school. All the lowest university level science courses (which are prerequisets for the higher lever courses) start of with an introduction to science and the scientific method. Hell, I've had professors come out the first day and rant about how the Bible isn't a science book and how its a matter of faith not science. Obviously, they don't feel that the lower educational system is doing its job if they're re-teaching something your supposed to have learned in high school. Which shows that they know that elementary and high school science is a joke. Some of you say that then people will be denied knowing about it and later pursuing it. Well thats not the case because if you do get in to a college or university, your knowledge of science isn't really a factor in admissions. Furthermore, science courses are part of the core requirements. So if you were not exposed to science or exposed to bad science in your lower education, not only do you have a choice in which course to take, you can repair the damage done in high school.

scigirl

But but but...not everyone has the privelege (or desire) to attend college and take science courses. Even many college-goers still don't understand or believe in evolution.

I posted my reasons for why I fight creationism but they got lost in the quick nazi fray. I'll recap:

The creationist movement is a symbol, for me, of a much larger problem - and that is lack of science education and understanding in our society. Biology is going to play a more increasing role in our lives - with the advances in stem cell research, functional genomics (using our DNA and RNA profiles to make disease predictions) and so on. Social problems such as obesity, addiction, and violence are now being discovered to have biological, and thus evolutionary, explanations. But we have a long way to go: How can we progress as a society if over half the population doesn't buy one of the fundamental tenets of biology?

Do you think we would have had the space-age exploration advances (and would we have computers right now?) if, say, the christians decided that calculus was against God? I don't think so. Think of all the advances we could be making in areas such as mental illness, violence, addiction, medicine, and so on - if everyone at least bought into the "calculus" or basics of biology!

scigirl

zzang

Statements such as:
"...why did you spend so much time and energy earlier this month religiously defending the flawed YEC argument from magnetic field decay... "
I don't recall you personally saying I was a YEC or a creationist but you did say the above statement which is false. I did not defend the YEC argument.

<strong> My main gripe was with the fact that we have never experienced a reversal in our lifetime and haven't done direct measurements on the fields strength after the reversal to determine whether or not it correlates with the oscillating claim. As for deducing from geologic data, I think I made it clear that I'm skeptical about historical data.

<strong> Not quite, people were already jumping all over my case after my initial post, in which I didn't indicate what I thought about the magnetic field.