RufusAtticus

Really now? If you teach any of what you've been saying in this thread, then you are doing a bad job. There is no way you can claim that you are doing a thorough job as long as you act like your doubts about modern biology are relevant. Good science teachers teach their students that the accuracy of science cannot be determined by things like emotion, philosophy, politics, or religion. Yet your own doubts are based on religious beliefs and emotion. How then are you able to give a thorough treatment of the science of evolution as long as you have such a faulty understanding of science?

We have lots of christians on this board, its just that most of them aren't creationists and those that do come here as creationists often don't stay so for long.

pz

That is not a logical, rational reason to reject macroevolution. That is bibliolatry. Your series is even worse than your initial loopy claim.

I think if you asked the atheists here, many of them also loved their daddies, some of whom would have been fellow unbelievers while others would have been christian. This is not a unique or relevant argument. The fact that my father and I had a relationship of love and mutual respect does not bestow infallibility on my opinions. If you think it does, then you lose: my dad had as low an opinion of christianity as I do, and we must be right.
a) no, love isn't rational. I don't have any problem with loving someone. Whether one loves one's parents, however, is not an indicator of truth.
b) I asked you for your single best reason to reject macroevolution. You spat up one of the most ridiculous non sequiturs I've seen here in some time. If that's your best, your second best has to be a real hoot.
No, it means that when I ask for some scientific reasoning behind an assertion, I expect evidence and logic, not that you will run to hide behind your pious papa's apron. Or behind pms. Or in a one-on-one forum.

Have you noticed that you have presented no reasonable evidence for several remarkable claims that are completely counter to the best scientific consensus available? You aren't being smeared, you are being exposed.

Spenser

You wonder why people on this board are outraged by what they hear? You don't even profess to basing the foundation of your knowledge upon the bible because it's God's words, no it's cause of your dad???

WTF kind of scientist are you? I love my dad, he's a great man but I'll be damned if I choose Allah cause he made my dad who he is today. Perhaps PZ is offended because some one pretending to do what he does who is really a phony, a fake is an insult to his very profession and therefore to himself.

What purpose do you serve by being a biology teacher? Do you not think I would offend many if I became a priest but added a disclaimer at the end of my sermons that I didn't truly believe anything I just said and if people wanted to talk with me further about it to contact me. What a joke!

Perhaps I hold you in contempt because of things like this, I posted the following:


If this isn't evidence for macroevolution of hominids, then what is it?




God created all these at different times in differing images, yet let them die out in an order that looks suspiciously like they are becoming more advanced through time until he created us? :banghead:

and you answer with this:

These weren't skulls that were just reported to CNN yesterday. They aren't a bone box with the inscription Brother of Jesus on them. They are multiple finds of none Homo sapien skulls that have been evaluated and scrutinized by the scientific community and accepted for what they are with their approximate ages as well. I suppose next you'll lay out an attack on radio carbon dating and other techniques. To preempt that I'll repost what essentially shut creationists up in another thread a while back:

OK to destroy your 6000-10,000 year old Earth without radiocarbon dating.

The Green River Shale: The Rock That Killed God :notworthy

-Frank Zindler


Go Here To See The Source

Tada! The varves are ANNUAL DEPOSITS , meaning a new sedimentary layer is deposited each year. There are 6 MILLION of them, completely destroying the concept of a 6000-10,000 year old world without radiometric dating. Physical evidence of a much older world. One can go back each and every year and see a new layer, proof that this happens annually. Sorry, you have a large hole to dig yourself out of...

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There is far too much evidence to suggest the earth is far older than 6-10 thousand years so any credible scientist would never make such a suggestion. The fact that any one claiming to be a scientist could make such an assertion is absurd, preposterous, unbelievable, ludicrous and insulting to the human intellect. And even more ridiculous when your answer is 'daddy' says so...

wdog

the whole idea of comparing science to a court case is not really valid.

court cases deal with a history of human action that may or may not really be testable, like with motives. almost all evidence in a court case like that is circumstantial. on the other hand when one introduces science into a court case, like genetic testing, it is interesting to note how that evidence is granted a lot more weight than say a testimony. human obsevation without the precise measurement techniques of science is very fallible.

studying the past of natural history is much more akin to say DNA evidence, it is much more precise and objective. the comparison to a trial like OJ is not appropriate, and the peer review process is not like swaying a jury. Scientific theories are tseted over and over again and slowly a consensus developes. I know that philip johnson would like to have it otherwise, but he is not a scientist and doesn't really understand the differences.

I personally hate the promotion of creationism as it replaces real science with a belief system and creationists think that they can force scientific reality by simply winning in court. this type of thinking gives us a taliban-like environment where the religion crazed masses dictate over reason.

The Lone Ranger

Malachi256:

With respect, possession of an advanced degree in some field of science does not make one a scientist. Science is a way of interpreting the world around us, not a collection of facts.

Cheers,

Michael

wdog

malachi,


how about some simple 'in the present' experiements like simply the distance to the Andromeda Galaxy (2 million light years)? that would seem to indicate that the universe must be at least 2 million years old as the light it takes to get here took at least that long. Please no half-baked Hugh Ross stuff either, we are talking about well accepted science that doesn't have any controversial 'courtroom' drama to it. If you lay claim the title of science teacher, how can you possibly dismiss the conclusions of a the great majority of the scientific commmunity and the body of evidence on which those conclusions are drawn?

If you do reject the conclusions of the scientific enterprise yet still want to teach science, integrity and honesty demand that you at least inform your students.

faust

wdog, i am unsure if malachi is reading this thread, but as i posted in my debate thread, i would like to see someone question his YEC claims. Perhaps you should open a new thread and ask him about the astronomical data.
cheers,
faust

wdog

I thought he may come back, i tried to email him but it says that he is not accepting emails even though he said that he wanted to. Maybe the admin will forward this message to him?

It disturbs me that teachers are like him, but beside that I wanted to point out to him that the 'trial of science' has already been done for the YEC case and the 'verdict' is false (the overwhelming majority of scientists reject the YEC case and provisionally accept evolution on its merits, isn't that good enough for a trial?). The dishonesty is that YEC's like him refuse to accept it, fine, but don't teach my kid science.

We also need to be wary of people like him trying to move it from a 'trial' of real peers (the scientific community) to a real public trial where we all know that we are at the mercy of a scientifically ignorant and religious public.

It's not the wacko beliefs, it's their promotion.

pz

I suspect (thanks to Dr GH) that malachi256 teaches at a christian 'college', fortunately. Since he's probably at a place that doesn't even offer a pretense of a secular education, we don't have to worry too much, yet, about our kids wasting their time in his class.

Dr.GH

This does raise an issue of accreditation. There are a growing number of far-right, fundi "universities." Examples are the Institute of Creation Research Graduate Studies program, Azusa Pacific University, Biola University, Concordia University, Southern Califonia University. These are just the ones in southern California. There are many many others. They pass out degrees that are not worth the paper they are printed on, and then these assholes get teaching jobs in public schools. These so-called universities are grinding out teachers like a deli grinds out sausage (leftover snouts and ears and other trash meat).