Posted on 08/28/2012 3:39:34 AM PDT by rickmichaels
Scientist and children’s television personality Bill Nye, in a newly released online video, panned biblical creationism and implored American parents who reject the scientific theory of evolution not to teach their beliefs to their youngsters.
“I say to the grownups, ’If you want to deny evolution and live in your world that’s completely inconsistent with everything we’ve observed in the universe that’s fine. But don’t make your kids do it,’” said Nye, best known as host of the educational TV series “Bill Nye the Science Guy.”
The video, titled “Creationism Is Not Appropriate for Children,” was posted on Thursday by the online knowledge forum Big Think to YouTube and had netted more than 1.3 million views as of Monday.
In it Nye said widespread public doubt in the scientific concept of evolution — which holds that human beings and all other forms of life developed from a process of random genetic mutation and natural selection — would hinder a country long renowned for its innovation, intellectual capital and a general grasp of science.
“When you have a portion of the population that doesn’t believe in (evolution) it holds everybody back, really,” he said.
According to a Gallup poll that surveyed 1,012 adults in May, 46 percent of Americans can be described as creationists for believing that God created humans in their present form at some point within the last 10,000 years.
Education advocates have argued for decades over what children should be taught in public schools in regard to the formation of the universe, life and humans.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that requiring biblical creation to be taught in public schools alongside evolution was unconstitutional as a violation of the First Amendment separation between church and state.
In April, a law was passed that protects teachers in Tennessee who wish to critique or analyze what they view as the scientific weaknesses of evolution, making it the second state, after Louisiana, to enable teachers to more easily espouse alternatives to evolution in the classroom.
Nye said that while many adults may believe in creationism, children should be taught evolution in order to understand science. Absent a grasp of evolution, he said, “You’re just not going to get the right answers.” And he called evolution the “fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology.”
Teaching children the building blocks of science is essential for the country’s future, he added, saying, “We need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future.”
Nye’s popular show, produced by Disney’s Buena Vista Television, aired from September 1993 to June 1998 on PBS and was also syndicated to local television stations.
Stating a fact. I'd only be a victim if you could actually cause any damage. As it is, you just make yourself look bad.
Not if their proponents shout, "Deniers!!!" at those who offer alternatives -- instead of considering their data...
Like Nye does...
Hey Bill, ya smarmy pointy headed intellectual...
How do you know that the engineering crew from some Vulcan Starship didn’t come down for a little R and R, and do up a bunch of Neanderthal babes?
You know the history of science. It's been tried before, and it never works. If you've got better data and a better theory, it will win.
You and Betty pique a question. That is, "How does the evolutionist attend, epistemologically, with the order of mind, consciousness, or any other abstract, invarient universal entity. It seems that as one asserts that a biological entity is declared to have any of these abstract entities, especially consciousness, it is declared to have evolved an entity which has no way to explain its origin. If it is said to have developed superveniently upon this universe (something derived from another entity which it does not have) it has abandoned naturalism and have embraced panpsychism. But in embracing panpsychism, it has abandoned physicalism and naturalism and cannot yet account naturalistically for theirphysicalist worldview. No, naturalism is in its death rattle and its devotees must come to grips with these questions or abandon that worldview. It has embraced a metaphysical episteme for what they say is an evolutionary worldview.
Lately, they've been calling the mind, soul or consciousness an "epiphenomenon" of the physical brain. Epiphenomena are secondary phenomena which can cause nothing to happen.
That means a physical brain caused the above post. "You" didn't cause it to happen. "You" are just an epiphenomenon. "You" can't cause anything to happen.
If they really believed this nonsense they would have to say a person couldn't be tried for a crime. He is just an innocent epiphenomenon. He can't cause anything to happen. He didn't do it. He couldn't.
That raises a humorous legal point - if only the physical brain can be guilty for causing a crime, it would be cruel and unusual to punish the innocent epiphenomenon or the rest of the physical body.
LOLOL!
I guess my point is, if they perport that consciousness, or the soul are epiphenomenon which superveins on a biological entity then they have to explain how it originates. Biological entities (purely physical, they say) would have to have this epiphenomenon emerge, even though there is nothing like it in the physicalist worldview. So, there are two choices for the physicalist...(1)abandon physicalism and embrace dualism, or (2)accept the epiphenomenonalism which forces them to espouse panpsychysm and by definition, a metaphysical reality. If they do not accept one of these two worldviews they must deny that consciousness, sentience, numbers, any abstract, invariant, univeral entity even exists....and that is a hard one for them to have a conversation about. I do not believe their argument,otherwise, is sustainable. Metaphysical naturalism is on its way out, it seems to me. It must be defeated whereever we find it.
As you know, the underpinning of the Criminal and Civil law is Natural law which presupposes, as our Founders did, the dualistic nature of man. It seems the law deals with reality more forthrightly than those stewards of biology.
Hint: Galileo did not get guff from Rome because he believed in God.
We cannot allow them to get away with that kind of nonsense.
Who knows what epiphenomenalism even means. Is it itself an epiphenomenon?
I hope that helps.
That's going to be hard to do, given that they've already recognized and considered it significant enough to give it a name. The concept is already integrated into their "reality".
i just must dig out that philosophy 101 text
Like a secular counterpart to the extreme forms of Christian Calvinism, it’s a cop out.
Yes. Science is a slave to philosophy and cannot exist apart from it.
If by your analogy you mean those who proclaim epiphenomenalism accounts for the emergence of consciousness and fail to explain it ontology, then I suppose you could go there. They want a word (epiphenomenalism) to be accepted as an explaination of causation. It is just a word. Now that we understand the word (which explains an alledged phenomenon) now we need them to explain HOW it occurred. They cannot. They cannot explain how a completely new kind of property can supervene in a brute universe and suddenly produce consciousness...that is, produce what it does not have to give. They do not get something for nothing. They do not get a pass. Nowadays we are demanding the HOW it worked. Explain for us HOW and show us the evidence, not just how one wants it to be.
Calvinism is whole 'nuther' thread. Please don't get me started on another subject.
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