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 ...
Let's keep in mind who first attacked whom.
Well, if I were the biology instructor general_re brought to the discussion, I'd put on a purposeful blank look and ask you why you were asking about abiogenesis in the context of biology.
For a scientific answer, I'd suggest you try a biochem prof; for a religious answer, the appropriate clergy and if you insisted that you needed to know the complete origins all the way back before having a discussion in biology I'd (dubiously) send to to your friendly neighborhood cosmologist or a poet.
As it stands, what it 'tentative' is stated as hard, cold fact.
That's all the distinction that needs to be made for the general public.
And it would be much less expensive to just tell the truth, adding only a few words on the exhibits, than to start a massive education project for people who probably didn't listen in Biology class in the first place. ;)
You have -got- to be kidding.
My kids alone collected bucketloads at a well known site I brought them to. Every step crunched more than could be collected.
Now my grand-kids are doing the same.
Rapid, massive erosion over, say.....40 days and nights? :)
The point is, even scientifically, there are other ways that it could have been formed. It shouldn't be stated as FACT that it was formed by erosion from the Colorado River over a gazillion years. Because it's NOT fact.
That is my only point here. TELL THE TRUTH. Don't state theory as fact on every plaque on every display in every museum and National Park in the country.
It's misleading at best, and deceitful at worst, and it shouldn't be defended by anyone........let alone people who are interested in truth........which I perhaps falsely assume that you are.....
I'm a bit bithered by your use of the phrase "tell the truth" since what you are asking for is actually a partial truth.
Of couse, everything in science is tentative, but it is also backed up by mountains of data (varying height mountains, to be sure).
To have every museum placard have to spell all this out for every exhibit is untenable and, for the visitor, tedious.
That is why I am both looking for and asking for other alternatives
Bithered =bothered
I rarely correct my obvious typos but this one is just asking for some type of pun fun. Anyone?
When information that is not proven fact is stated simply as proven fact, it is not accurate.
That is the only suggestion I have. Tell the truth.
I've made that very clear, so this is my last post.
Change the exhibits to state that the information is 'tentative.' If you want to add that there is ample research to back it up, fine. But don't mislead the public into thinking that something is a fact when it is not. (You don't have to worry that it will happen, though. Our national parks are controlled by the left.......nothing will be changed. They enjoy misleading the public with propaganda).
Enough now. Thanks for the discussion.
I think you are sincere or I wouldn't be posting to you.
Please check out PatrickHenry's List o' Links for an explanation of why the Mount St. Helens situation is different from Grand Canyon.
I've never learned how to link from another poster's home page or I'd provide it for you.
(Are you, by any chance Dagwood's boss?)
I'm sorry you are bowing out.
Partial truth can be worse than blatant lies. And you are asking for partial truth.
I wouldn't trust a thing he said about anything.
He hasn't evolved far enough to have an adult conversation like we just had. He needs at least a million more years to get to where you are in maturity.....
I trust, and have learned from many on these threads, and have corrected some of my erroneous views, but I would never in a billion years trust Patrick Henry to tell the truth about anything.
Sorry about that. He's earned my distrust over and over again...
Busted! :-)
The public is being lied to because they are being given 'partial truth' and I am asking for complete truthfulness. (But as I said....it isn't going to happen, so you don't have to worry).
Now, I really have no more to say on the subject. Thanks again for being polite. This thread has been very unusual in that respect, and I appreciate it.
Mr. Bithers. :)
I believe you may be misunderstanding me.
I am not referring to the folks in the article.
I am referring to the evo folks that seem to hold Dembski, Behe and others in such contempt.
That wasn't my definition. My definition was:
A system composed of many complex parts such that each of those parts, or precursors to those parts, would offer no survival advantage singularly or in combination to explain their selection or retention according to theories of natural selection or mutation.
Please note that claims that the bacterial flagellum were irreducably complex led people to explain how it could have evolved. I'm not saying that scientists can't or shouldn't try to do that. But the absence of evidence is not evidence of an absence. The only way to know whether there are irreducably complex systems in biology is to look for them and try to explain them naturally. Just because some people have been quick to point to certain systems as irreducably complex when there is evidence that they aren't does not mean that other examples don't exist. As for the idea that irreducable complexity proves divine creation, at the very least it would prove that natural selection can't explain everything. At that point, the search should shift to (A) a different natural explanation for the feature or (B) other ways to distinguish the hand of a Creator from random chance or some other natural process.
But at the very core level, ID provides pressure to test evolution rather than simply assume it happened. Even if it pushes science to figure out how various systems may have evolved from precursors (e.g., the bacterial flagellum), that advances knowledge and science and, no balance, I think that makes ID a good thing even if it never pans out.
I never challenge people's feelings about things or other people, but the List 'o Links is just that, links to websites that are verifiable with documetable sources.
I've known some pretty obnoxious scientists and the best surgeon I ever had was someone I would not have wanted as a next door neighbor. I try very hard to keep the message and the messenger separate.
If you really don't want to honor PH with using his links, do try using google on this one. The Grand Canyon and Mount St. Helens situations really are different.
See Post # 682. Maybe that is clearer and more profound.
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