Posted on 01/02/2005 12:20:11 PM PST by PatrickHenry
With its towering dinosaurs and a model of the Grand Canyon, America's newest tourist attraction might look like the ideal destination for fans of the film Jurassic Park.
The new multi-million-dollar Museum of Creation, which will open this spring in Kentucky, will, however, be aimed not at film buffs, but at the growing ranks of fundamentalist Christians in the United States.
It aims to promote the view that man was created in his present shape by God, as the Bible states, rather than by a Darwinian process of evolution, as scientists insist.
The centrepiece of the museum is a series of huge model dinosaurs, built by the former head of design at Universal Studios, which are portrayed as existing alongside man, contrary to received scientific opinion that they lived millions of years apart.
Other exhibits include images of Adam and Eve, a model of Noah's Ark and a planetarium demonstrating how God made the Earth in six days.
The museum, which has cost a mighty $25 million (£13 million) will be the world's first significant natural history collection devoted to creationist theory. It has been set up by Ken Ham, an Australian evangelist, who runs Answers in Genesis, one of America's most prominent creationist organisations. He said that his aim was to use tourism, and the theme park's striking exhibits, to convert more people to the view that the world and its creatures, including dinosaurs, were created by God 6,000 years ago.
"We want people to be confronted by the dinosaurs," said Mr Ham. "It's going to be a first class experience. Visitors are going to be hit by the professionalism of this place. It is not going to be done in an amateurish way. We are making a statement."
The museum's main building was completed recently, and work on the entrance exhibit starts this week. The first phase of the museum, which lies on a 47-acre site 10 miles from Cincinatti on the border of Kentucky and Ohio, will open in the spring.
Market research companies hired by the museum are predicting at least 300,000 visitors in the first year, who will pay $10 (£5.80) each.
Among the projects still to be finished is a reconstruction of the Grand Canyon, purportedly formed by the swirling waters of the Great Flood – where visitors will "gape" at the bones of dinosaurs that "hint of a terrible catastrophe", according to the museum's publicity.
Mr Ham is particularly proud of a planned reconstruction of the interior of Noah's Ark. "You will hear the water lapping, feel the Ark rocking and perhaps even hear people outside screaming," he said.
More controversial exhibits deal with diseases and famine, which are portrayed not as random disasters, but as the result of mankind's sin. Mr Ham's Answers in Genesis movement blames the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, in which two teenagers killed 12 classmates and a teacher before killing themselves, on evolutionist teaching, claiming that the perpetrators believed in Darwin's survival of the fittest.
Other exhibits in the museum will blame homosexuals for Aids. In a "Bible Authority Room" visitors are warned: "Everyone who rejects his history – including six-day creation and Noah's flood – is `wilfully' ignorant.''
Elsewhere, animated figures will be used to recreate the Garden of Eden, while in another room, visitors will see a tyrannosaurus rex pursuing Adam and Eve after their fall from grace. "That's the real terror that Adam's sin unleashed," visitors will be warned.
A display showing ancient Babylon will deal with the Tower of Babel and "unravel the origin of so-called races'', while the final section will show the life of Christ, as an animated angel proclaims the coming of the Saviour and a 3D depiction of the crucifixion.
In keeping with modern museum trends, there will also be a cafe with a terrace to "breathe in the fresh air of God's creation'', and a shop "crammed'' with creationist souvenirs, including T-shirts and books such as A is for Adam and Dinky Dinosaur: Creation Days.
The museum's opening will reinforce the burgeoning creationist movement and evangelical Christianity in the US, which gained further strength with the re-election of President Bush in November.
Followers of creationism have been pushing for their theories to be reintegrated into American schoolroom teaching ever since the celebrated 1925 "Scopes Monkey Trial", when US courts upheld the right of a teacher to use textbooks that included evolutionary theory.
In 1987, the US Supreme Court reinforced that position by banning the teaching of creationism in public schools on the grounds of laws that separate state and Church.
Since then, however, many schools – particularly in America's religious Deep South – have got around the ban by teaching the theory of "intelligent design", which claims that evolutionary ideas alone still leave large gaps in understanding.
"Since President Bush's re-election we have been getting more membership applications than we can handle,'' said Mr Ham, who expects not just the devout, but also the curious, to flock through the turnstiles. "The evolutionary elite will be getting a wake-up call."
Whether one believes Bible stories is mostly irrelevant to science, except where there is sufficient evidence. there is sufficient evidence to determine the age of the earth, the age of the geologic strata, the age of fossils, the relationship of species as seen in their DNA.
It may be irrelevant to science but it has staggering implications for eternity.
I'm not a proponent of a 6 days 6 thousand years ago creation, I don't believe that the original text supports it. I'm a disciple of Jesus and friend of God through the blood sacrifice of Jesus - in a cognitive, dynamic, growing relationship with God.
As I have stated elsewhere on this forum, whatever God did, He did it ex niliho ... speaking something into existence from nothing. How he did it is beyond figuring out. How it continues at this time, based on observations of current phenomena as well as study of what has been deposited and recorded over time, is what science is about.
You are, however, assuming that these observations reveal behaviors that continue now as they always have. While this may in fact be what is happening, an unprovable assumption is the undergirding for how "scientific facts" are established.
This methodology works well for positing how things will behave in the future ... but again, only if you assume that things will continue as they always have.
My faith (assumption) informs me that they won't, God has other plans.
They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation. But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment” 2Peter 3:4-7
I really don't think anything I say is opposed to God. I do oppose ignorance, and I oppose people who say the same discredited things over and over and over.
I say science must make the assumption that physical laws and processes are uniform over time. That does not mean there are no miracles, but it does mean that science isn't science without the assumption that any given phenomenon is "natural".
Personally I don't believe God does a lot of Cecil B. deMille miracles. I don't rest my faith on this kind of wand waving. My personal faith is based on the words that touch my heart and inspire me to be kind and loving to others. This does not require proof and is not susceptable to falsification. I'm just not interested in theology.
It is dangerous to assume that conditions now are identical to the conditions thousands of years ago, and therefore not possible. The Bible seems to indicate that in addition to rain, the foundations were opened - something interesting to consider as to how there may have been rapid change in the topography of the world.
What do you think that "in his days, the earth was divided" means in this context?
"Heresy is pretty much the same thing as thinking."
You sort of got that backward. tx eggman is trying to get me to disagree with him on something he thinks is crucial to being a Christian. Since he thinks that evolution cannot be a fact and anyone who thinks it is a fact cannot be a Christian, he is trying to find one more thing to confirm his view.
But he is wrong that a Christian cannot think evolution is a fact. And you are wrong that being a thinking Christian is impossible. I agree with you that it is impossible to be a thinking Christian and hold to the Biblical misinterpretations of the creationists. In fact, it is my contention that creationists are not really Christians at all.
To turn the Bible into nonsense goes against everything Jesus and Paul hoped for the Church. No, creationism is really a christian-like cult. It has the form of Christianity, but has departed from the precepts the Gospel
requires. Those precepts are in the Nicene Creed. But to follow the Great Commission, one cannot oppose fact and insist on belief that is just plain nutty. The nuttiness drives people away from Christianity, since they think that all Christians are scientific idiots.
It is difficult enough for people to believe in the Resurrection, without asking them to also believe that Noah and a few people kept all the animals on a wooden boat for a year and this saved the world.(or any of a number of other silly misinterpretations of the Bible)
The more this happens, the more money the charlatans at AIG make, because their following gives them more money whenever they find people resisting "the true word". Their thinking goes something like this,"What you don't believe that Noah had all the animals on a boat? I bet you don't believe in the Resurrection, either!" Thus, making belief in Noah salvational and hardly getting to Jesus at all.
It makes me very sad.
What were the foundations made of? Cement?
We will get along better if you assume my short posts are ironic until proven otherwise.
It may depend on where it's observed from
Here you go. Give this a read. Maybe then you will understand that evolution is a fact, it is a Theory and there is no serious objection to the Theory. You might postulate that there could be a serious objection, but so far no one has ever advanced one, unless you count putting the strawman of creation into the ToE as a "serious objection":
Evolution is a Fact and a Theory
by Laurence Moran
Copyright © 1993-2002
[Last Update: January 22, 1993]
When non-biologists talk about biological evolution they often confuse two different aspects of the definition. On the one hand there is the question of whether or not modern organisms have evolved from older ancestral organisms or whether modern species are continuing to change over time. On the other hand there are questions about the mechanism of the observed changes... how did evolution occur? Biologists consider the existence of biological evolution to be a fact. It can be demonstrated today and the historical evidence for its occurrence in the past is overwhelming. However, biologists readily admit that they are less certain of the exact mechanism of evolution; there are several theories of the mechanism of evolution. Stephen J. Gould has put this as well as anyone else:
In the American vernacular, "theory" often means "imperfect fact"--part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory to hypothesis to guess. Thus the power of the creationist argument: evolution is "only" a theory and intense debate now rages about many aspects of the theory. If evolution is worse than a fact, and scientists can't even make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in it? Indeed, President Reagan echoed this argument before an evangelical group in Dallas when he said (in what I devoutly hope was campaign rhetoric): "Well, it is a theory. It is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science--that is, not believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was."
Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.
Moreover, "fact" doesn't mean "absolute certainty"; there ain't no such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.
Evolutionists have been very clear about this distinction of fact and theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory--natural selection--to explain the mechanism of evolution.
- Stephen J. Gould, " Evolution as Fact and Theory"; Discover, May 1981
Gould is stating the prevailing view of the scientific community. In other words, the experts on evolution consider it to be a fact. This is not an idea that originated with Gould as the following quotations indicate:
Let me try to make crystal clear what is established beyond reasonable doubt, and what needs further study, about evolution. Evolution as a process that has always gone on in the history of the earth can be doubted only by those who are ignorant of the evidence or are resistant to evidence, owing to emotional blocks or to plain bigotry. By contrast, the mechanisms that bring evolution about certainly need study and clarification. There are no alternatives to evolution as history that can withstand critical examination. Yet we are constantly learning new and important facts about evolutionary mechanisms.
- Theodosius Dobzhansky "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution", American Biology Teacher vol. 35 (March 1973) reprinted in Evolution versus Creationism, J. Peter Zetterberg ed., ORYX Press, Phoenix AZ 1983
Also:
It is time for students of the evolutionary process, especially those who have been misquoted and used by the creationists, to state clearly that evolution is a fact, not theory, and that what is at issue within biology are questions of details of the process and the relative importance of different mechanisms of evolution. It is a fact that the earth with liquid water, is more than 3.6 billion years old. It is a fact that cellular life has been around for at least half of that period and that organized multicellular life is at least 800 million years old. It is a fact that major life forms now on earth were not at all represented in the past. There were no birds or mammals 250 million years ago. It is a fact that major life forms of the past are no longer living. There used to be dinosaurs and Pithecanthropus, and there are none now. It is a fact that all living forms come from previous living forms. Therefore, all present forms of life arose from ancestral forms that were different. Birds arose from nonbirds and humans from nonhumans. No person who pretends to any understanding of the natural world can deny these facts any more than she or he can deny that the earth is round, rotates on its axis, and revolves around the sun.
The controversies about evolution lie in the realm of the relative importance of various forces in molding evolution.
- R. C. Lewontin "Evolution/Creation Debate: A Time for Truth" Bioscience 31, 559 (1981) reprinted in Evolution versus Creationism, op cit.
This concept is also explained in introductory biology books that are used in colleges and universities (and in some of the better high schools). For example, in some of the best such textbooks we find:
Today, nearly all biologists acknowledge that evolution is a fact. The term theory is no longer appropriate except when referring to the various models that attempt to explain how life evolves... it is important to understand that the current questions about how life evolves in no way implies any disagreement over the fact of evolution.
- Neil A. Campbell, Biology 2nd ed., 1990, Benjamin/Cummings, p. 434
Also:
Since Darwin's time, massive additional evidence has accumulated supporting the fact of evolution--that all living organisms present on earth today have arisen from earlier forms in the course of earth's long history. Indeed, all of modern biology is an affirmation of this relatedness of the many species of living things and of their gradual divergence from one another over the course of time. Since the publication of The Origin of Species, the important question, scientifically speaking, about evolution has not been whether it has taken place. That is no longer an issue among the vast majority of modern biologists. Today, the central and still fascinating questions for biologists concern the mechanisms by which evolution occurs.
- Helena Curtis and N. Sue Barnes, Biology 5th ed. 1989, Worth Publishers, p. 972
One of the best introductory books on evolution (as opposed to introductory biology) is that by Douglas J. Futuyma, and he makes the following comment:
A few words need to be said about the "theory of evolution," which most people take to mean the proposition that organisms have evolved from common ancestors. In everyday speech, "theory" often means a hypothesis or even a mere speculation. But in science, "theory" means "a statement of what are held to be the general laws, principles, or causes of something known or observed." as the Oxford English Dictionary defines it. The theory of evolution is a body of interconnected statements about natural selection and the other processes that are thought to cause evolution, just as the atomic theory of chemistry and the Newtonian theory of mechanics are bodies of statements that describe causes of chemical and physical phenomena. In contrast, the statement that organisms have descended with modifications from common ancestors--the historical reality of evolution--is not a theory. It is a fact, as fully as the fact of the earth's revolution about the sun. Like the heliocentric solar system, evolution began as a hypothesis, and achieved "facthood" as the evidence in its favor became so strong that no knowledgeable and unbiased person could deny its reality. No biologist today would think of submitting a paper entitled "New evidence for evolution;" it simply has not been an issue for a century.
- Douglas J. Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology, 2nd ed., 1986, Sinauer Associates, p. 15
There are readers of these newsgroups who reject evolution for religious reasons. In general these readers oppose both the fact of evolution and theories of mechanisms, although some anti-evolutionists have come to realize that there is a difference between the two concepts. That is why we see some leading anti-evolutionists admitting to the fact of "microevolution"--they know that evolution can be demonstrated. These readers will not be convinced of the "facthood" of (macro)evolution by any logical argument and it is a waste of time to make the attempt. The best that we can hope for is that they understand the argument that they oppose. Even this simple hope is rarely fulfilled.
There are some readers who are not anti-evolutionist but still claim that evolution is "only" a theory which can't be proven. This group needs to distinguish between the fact that evolution occurs and the theory of the mechanism of evolution.
We also need to distinguish between facts that are easy to demonstrate and those that are more circumstantial. Examples of evolution that are readily apparent include the fact that modern populations are evolving and the fact that two closely related species share a common ancestor. The evidence that Homo sapiens and chimpanzees share a recent common ancestor falls into this category. There is so much evidence in support of this aspect of primate evolution that it qualifies as a fact by any common definition of the word "fact."
In other cases the available evidence is less strong. For example, the relationships of some of the major phyla are still being worked out. Also, the statement that all organisms have descended from a single common ancestor is strongly supported by the available evidence, and there is no opposing evidence. However, it is not yet appropriate to call this a "fact" since there are reasonable alternatives.
Finally, there is an epistemological argument against evolution as fact. Some readers of these newsgroups point out that nothing in science can ever be "proven" and this includes evolution. According to this argument, the probability that evolution is the correct explanation of life as we know it may approach 99.9999...9% but it will never be 100%. Thus evolution cannot be a fact. This kind of argument might be appropriate in a philosophy class (it is essentially correct) but it won't do in the real world. A "fact," as Stephen J. Gould pointed out (see above), means something that is so highly probable that it would be silly not to accept it. This point has also been made by others who contest the nit-picking epistemologists.
The honest scientist, like the philosopher, will tell you that nothing whatever can be or has been proved with fully 100% certainty, not even that you or I exist, nor anyone except himself, since he might be dreaming the whole thing. Thus there is no sharp line between speculation, hypothesis, theory, principle, and fact, but only a difference along a sliding scale, in the degree of probability of the idea. When we say a thing is a fact, then, we only mean that its probability is an extremely high one: so high that we are not bothered by doubt about it and are ready to act accordingly. Now in this use of the term fact, the only proper one, evolution is a fact. For the evidence in favor of it is as voluminous, diverse, and convincing as in the case of any other well established fact of science concerning the existence of things that cannot be directly seen, such as atoms, neutrons, or solar gravitation ....
So enormous, ramifying, and consistent has the evidence for evolution become that if anyone could now disprove it, I should have my conception of the orderliness of the universe so shaken as to lead me to doubt even my own existence. If you like, then, I will grant you that in an absolute sense evolution is not a fact, or rather, that it is no more a fact than that you are hearing or reading these words.
- H. J. Muller, "One Hundred Years Without Darwin Are Enough" School Science and Mathematics 59, 304-305. (1959) reprinted in Evolution versus Creationism op cit.
In any meaningful sense evolution is a fact, but there are various theories concerning the mechanism of evolution
I have no overwhelming objection to this interpretation, but I assure you that you will find opposition from creationists on this forum.
There are really three core issues that get debated over an over on these threads: One is whether (from the human perspective) the earth is billions of years old; two is whether life on earth is related by common descent; three is whether natural selection is the shaper that produces the variety of living things. The first two are statements of fact, that can be tested and are susceptible to falsifying evidence. The third is a theory, and is subject to enhancement and modification.
You forgot the number of bacteria.
I love it when people put words in my mouth.
Shubi, if you recall, a little while back you posted
Why anyone would care about a foreign liberal law professor who was trying to overturn a legal election process is beyond me. We need more of these "accidents" for our country to survive.
concerning a woman killed in an accident
In part of my reply, I stated:
I'm not implying that their dogged clinging to "6 days 6 thousand years ago "theology" is or isn't a case of their straining at gnats and swallowing camels, merely that hypocrisy just as likely dwells in the heart of one professing to hold out the love of Christ to a dying world who at the same time can say what you said.
I don't care about the Evoluton/Creation controversy and I don't care where you come down on the argument. I DO NOT believe that it is crucial to being a Christian. Faith in Christ is the only requirement for that.
There are, however, crucial questions of Christian faith, among which are included ... did God become a man? Did the Word become flesh and dwell among us? They are crucial because the answers to them define the character of the one you are putting your faith in. If the answer to them is negative then, although you may have faith in someone, it isn't the Jesus sent by the Father
Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. - 2John 1:7
So my questions were pointed. I did not say that Jesus was "only" human but He is a human being.
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross. Philippians 2:5-8
As anyone who has paid attention to you since you showed up 2 months ago can see, you are OBSESSED with the controversy over Evolution/Creationism. Would that you would put as much energy into seeking God as you do defending your position. God doesn't need you to defend His.
Sorry, I must physically depart my computer for a while. I will return in a couple of hours.
This thread is about creation/evolution. I am focusing on the subject at hand.
I don't need to seek God. I have known Him most of my life.
Thank you for your concern.
So, answer this one question so all the posters and lurkers can determine if you are being genuine:
Do you or do you not think that evolution is a fact?
"Re #3: Beneficial cannot be determined ex ante, only ex post. Most mutations are neutral and thus not selected for or against.
Again, you are correct, but your point only reinforces my illustration as it decreases the likelihood of a beneficial mutation thus lowering its probability of its occurrence. "
This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the science.
Mutations come to the fore as benefits when they characteristic they control becomes necessary for incremental survival.
Again, not my axe to grind. My initial interaction with Shubi was back in late November on a thread about a lawyer that was accidentally killed in New York.
His response, which was deleted by the mod, struck me as hard of heart ...
I have no beef with either side on this argument. I've studied it some over the past 28 years and decided that it's very interesting, but not important. I do, however, from time to time, like to poke a stick into one side or the other of the hornets nest :-)
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