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Challenged by Creationists, Museums Answer Back
The New York Times ^ | 9/20/2005 | CORNELIA DEAN

Posted on 09/20/2005 7:02:45 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor

ITHACA, N.Y. - Lenore Durkee, a retired biology professor, was volunteering as a docent at the Museum of the Earth here when she was confronted by a group of seven or eight people, creationists eager to challenge the museum exhibitions on evolution.

They peppered Dr. Durkee with questions about everything from techniques for dating fossils to the second law of thermodynamics, their queries coming so thick and fast that she found it hard to reply.

After about 45 minutes, "I told them I needed to take a break," she recalled. "My mouth was dry."

That encounter and others like it provided the impetus for a training session here in August. Dr. Durkee and scores of other volunteers and staff members from the museum and elsewhere crowded into a meeting room to hear advice from the museum director, Warren D. Allmon, on ways to deal with visitors who reject settled precepts of science on religious grounds.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; US: Colorado; US: Nebraska; US: New York; US: North Carolina
KEYWORDS: creationuts; crevolist; crevorepublic; enoughalready; evobots; evonuts; museum
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To: DGray

Because so many are terrified on two types of grounds

1. Their faith is shaky and they do not truly accept their literalist interpretation of multiple translations of the Bible on faith.

2. They are afraid that if the above mentioned literalist interpretations are notcorrect, then humans will have no moral underpinnings.


221 posted on 09/20/2005 9:11:36 AM PDT by From many - one.
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To: JohnnyZ

"Like I said, there are always heretics. And again, even "near-universal" acceptance defeats your ridiculous assertion."

Not so. The proliferation of denominations of Christianity since Luther is evidence that my assertion is correct. Every denomination has arisen due to doctrinal differences. I've lost count of the number of denominations now extant.

Minor doctrinal differences are the driving force in the fragmentation of Christianity. It's never the big differences. That leads to other things, like Islam, and Christianity itself. From there, it's the little arguments that lead to the formation of new denominations.

Have you ever attended a Lutheran service in Sweden or Norway? If you did not know, you would think yourself in a Roman Catholic service. It's different here in the USA, of course.

Now we have at least three splinter denominations of Lutheranism, each split off over some disagreement in doctrine. It's most amusing to a student of religions.

It resembles most closely a fractal pattern.


222 posted on 09/20/2005 9:11:59 AM PDT by MineralMan (godless atheist)
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To: Right Wing Professor

It's funny how "settled science" finds it disconcerting when it is challenged on its methodologies.

Some science. More like "my kind of science"


223 posted on 09/20/2005 9:12:19 AM PDT by eleni121 ('Thou hast conquered, O Galilean!' (Julian the Apostate))
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To: Right Wing Professor

"The only people who claim evolution is accidental are either ignorant or are setting up a straw-man."

I concur. The end result of man (by means of following natural laws of science) is no more an accident than a souffle is an accident when you mix it just so and put the ingredients in the oven at just the right temperature.

Just a matter of perspective, really.


224 posted on 09/20/2005 9:12:23 AM PDT by MeanWestTexan (A good friend helps you move. A great friend helps you move a body.)
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To: JohnnyZ
You make assumptions that the docent was supposed to give a tour and make presentations, but was prevented?

The group was a 'mob' in the sense that they were a bunch of 'seminar callers' there to disrupt the tour just as the 'seminar callers' that call radio talk shows aren't doing so to further debate or ask honest questions but to disrupt the show. Reciting questions from a script and not listening to the answers is classless and tacky approach.

If this were a group of union members disrupting a George Bush Q&A, it would most certainly be called a 'mob' by those defending this group of people.

Regardless, it is in very poor taste and shows a lack of class to pepper a tour guide with seminar caller questions that you really have no intent to listen to the answers to. This tour guide was more educated and better prepared to deal with the seminar caller questions, but it's still tacky and classless. It's on the same level of ambush journalism.

225 posted on 09/20/2005 9:12:36 AM PDT by JeffAtlanta
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To: Right Wing Professor
Lubos Motl chronicled tha Summers debacle ably on his blog, and if you search on it, you get a good impression that even the most liberal members of the hard science faculties were likely to support summers over even the most moderate of the arts or social sciences faculties. Heck, Lisa Randall, probably the most brilliant mind in its physics department, didn't take Summers' remarks personally enough not to support him.

Lamentably, there were some scientists who opposed Summers. One of the most popular biology blogs is run by a professor here at the University of Minnesota, and unfortunately, he's a far-left moonbat who relies on the same sort of insults, ad homneim comments and quote-mining that his creationist enemies use. He referred to Summers as a "twit", a "moron", and other far less kind words. Not surprisingly, he's an acolyte of Richard Lewontin.

226 posted on 09/20/2005 9:12:55 AM PDT by RightWingAtheist (Bring back Modernman!)
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To: Right Wing Professor

If your criterion of speciation were inabiility ever to produce fertile hybrids, there would be perhaps 4 species of duck on this continent. 

Well, this is probably where we have a divergence of view points.  My background is in Botany so I'd use the example of Oak Trees, and while the botanical nomenclature may make Pin Oak and Red Oak distinct species, the fact that they can produce fertile offspring makes them the same species, but different varieties in my mind.

Before they were domesticated, they were segregated by habitat, and I suppose you could say this was enough to make them separate species, that's just not how I (and most advocates of inteligent design) define it.

 

Owl_Eagle

(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,

 it was probably sarcasm)

227 posted on 09/20/2005 9:13:01 AM PDT by End Times Sentinel (In Memory of my Dear Friend Henry Lee II)
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To: general_re

The number of gods Newton believed in. He didn't like committees.


228 posted on 09/20/2005 9:13:55 AM PDT by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch ist der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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To: JohnnyZ
You make the claim but cannot substantiate. You make assumptions that the docent was supposed to give a tour and make presentations, but was prevented? There is no evidence of this in the article.

Um, JohnnyZ, that was the main basis of the article. There are now training workshops for docents on how to deal with this sort of disruption. I guess you missed that part of the equation. Or you didn't actually read the article. Or something.

Obviously you've been caught with your pants down. Attack mode kinda spun out of control for you, huh? Lol ....

You're amusing, in a 6th-grade-level kind of way.

229 posted on 09/20/2005 9:14:29 AM PDT by DGray (http://nicanfhilidh.blogspot.com)
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To: Right Wing Professor; Owl_Eagle

Isn't it amazing that creationists will argue out of one side that evolution can't happen because the first member of a new species couldn't find a mate; then, without blinking, claim evolution is bogus because members of different species can interbreed.


230 posted on 09/20/2005 9:14:32 AM PDT by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: MineralMan

A rescue party came upon a man who had been shipwrecked on a desert island.

There were three nice neat huts.

"What are the three huts for?" asked the rescuers.

"Oh, the first one is my house. The second is my church."

"And the third?"

"Oh, that's my old church, but we had a disagreement."


231 posted on 09/20/2005 9:15:09 AM PDT by MeanWestTexan (A good friend helps you move. A great friend helps you move a body.)
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To: MeanWestTexan

Very nice.


232 posted on 09/20/2005 9:15:54 AM PDT by MineralMan (godless atheist)
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To: longshadow

I'd have the docent say "I'm here to explain the exhibits. If you have a problem with that please leave."

If they don't leave, call security.


233 posted on 09/20/2005 9:15:59 AM PDT by From many - one.
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To: Quark2005; general_re
Okay, so scientists get to decide who qualifies as a scientist, and those scientists get to decide what qualifies as science. Why does that make them entitled to my tax dollars?


234 posted on 09/20/2005 9:16:03 AM PDT by sheltonmac (QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES)
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To: MeanWestTexan

With the exception of global warming, very few of those were embraced by any reputable scientist.


235 posted on 09/20/2005 9:16:31 AM PDT by RightWingAtheist (Bring back Modernman!)
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To: JeffAtlanta
If this were a group of union members disrupting a George Bush Q&A, it would most certainly be called a 'mob' by those defending this group of people.

If George Bush holds a Q&A open to the public, and he's asked a lot of questions, even by (gasp!) union members!, well, that's pretty much what I would expect. In fact, he's asked hostile questions by reporters shouting at him all at once and it's called a "press conference".

236 posted on 09/20/2005 9:16:52 AM PDT by JohnnyZ (I'm marrying a woman before they make gay marriage mandatory!)
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To: ohioWfan
You have no ground to stand on in this one. It's an emotional response, and not intellectual.

But if you read the article, you might note that the museum's response was to provide additional training.

237 posted on 09/20/2005 9:17:00 AM PDT by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: JohnnyZ
Like I said, there are always heretics. And again, even "near-universal" acceptance defeats your ridiculous assertion.

It is not clear how you can argue this point. Go to any church - even a small 100 member Southern Baptist church and you will find that the members beliefs will vary.

They will all agree on the big items like the resurrection of Christ, but their will be very varied beliefs on things such as the proper role of a woman at home, the permissible methods of remarrying (if any) after divorce, and the meaning of the symbolism in the book of Revelations. This is certainly not an exhaustive list.

238 posted on 09/20/2005 9:17:31 AM PDT by JeffAtlanta
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To: DGray
Um, JohnnyZ, that was the main basis of the article.

And yet you can provide no evidence of it. Interesting .... lol

239 posted on 09/20/2005 9:18:03 AM PDT by JohnnyZ (I'm marrying a woman before they make gay marriage mandatory!)
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To: JohnnyZ

Don't know if you noticed, but there is a difference between a docent explaining museum exhibits and a college presentation.


240 posted on 09/20/2005 9:18:26 AM PDT by From many - one.
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