Expelled
Has anyone seen Ben Stein’s new movie, “Expelled”? Apparently he’s half-preaching creationism and half-blasting the scientific community for their devotion to the non-proven theory of evolution. I’ve heard it’s very “Michael Moore” in style, but I like Stein and I’m curious about the movie itself even if I don’t agree with creationism (it doesn’t make sense to me that scientists would push theories without evidence… which brings us to:).
On Slashdot, someone said the topic reminded them of global warming, and the scuffle between Roger Harrabin (BBC) and Jo Abbess (Campaign Against Climate Change). The bottom line (click the “scuffle” link if you want more information) is that Abbess claimed that expressing specifically what makes a theory a theory (that Global Warming isn’t proven) hurts the credibility of scientists and educational communities and injects doubt. In other words, “we might be wrong, too - but at least we believe we’re more right than them.”
And that’s funny. Thoughts?
April 21st, 2008 at 5:25 pm
It’s more like “Don’t question us because we’re really smart scientists, and you’re just uneducated people who couldn’t grasp the how hard it is to try to understand this stuff we’re working on.” Or “If we don’t make it sound like we know what we’re talking about, we’ll lose all that grant money that let’s us play with these really neat, expensive toys all day long.”
April 24th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Exactly, Kam. Exactly.
I know I’ve gone on (and on) about my own religious doubts. I know I’ve mentioned that I refer to myself as an agnostic only because I don’t believe we can know better (even with some hooey-tastic ideas out there, like Scientology). But I still applaud Ben Stein for digging up dirt like this because, I think, it leads to better futures.
Creationism is silly to me. Evolutions sounds more plausible. Creationism is based on a claim. Evolution is based on evidence and study. But one group preaching that they’re right and everyone just needs to have faith is as wrong as the other side doing the exact same thing. And like you said, scientists just make themselves sound stupid when they make comments like these. We need to get past this and just work on doing our best to figure things out, as much as we can.
April 24th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Oh, and on the global warming topic, this one is easier for me to make a stand on. It’s oft-repeated, but… “I’d rather make the effort and be wrong, than not make the effort and be right.” Right and wrong doesn’t matter. There is absolutely nothing bad about working toward a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable Earth. (Tsul says, “Except for smug.”)
April 25th, 2008 at 11:10 am
I agree that a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable Earth is a good goal, but I disagree with the scare tactics used (i.e., global warming=imminent, man-made DOOM!!!!111!).
I also disagree that Creationism is based on a claim vs Evolution being based on evidence and study. Evolution is based on conjecture drawn from circumstantial and–at best–corrollary evidence taken from observations of subsystems that do not hold up when applied to the larger macrosystem.
Creation is based on historically and scientifically accurate accounts in the Bible (I’m not referencing the creation account here, but other historical events and scientific discoveries related in the Bible that can be corroborated by other sources, a fact that distinguishes the Bible from other religious texts that not only lack these, but contain contradictions) that lead one to believe there is a God, and if there is a God, then His account of Creation must be true.
April 29th, 2008 at 2:04 am
Yeah, I disagree with the scare tactics as well. But… I can understand it. I think people feel like they need to scare others into action. And they probably feel that it is justified since it works toward an ultimate good. Like you, I don’t agree with that. Especially when we don’t know for sure. I think we need to work harder and create tougher regulations than we have now, but in a general sense, I like the path we’re taking: encouragement and education with some regulation. I just want more regulation.
Ya know, like a requirement that isn’t so lenient as 32 mpg by 2015 or whatever.
As far as evolution, yep: it’s a theory. We’re finding puzzle pieces and trying to fit them together. Sometimes people get carried away and force an image, but ultimately someone else always comes over and reminds everyone that the pieces will fit normally when we get the puzzle right. I like the idea of it because it’s working with what we have and what we know.
You kind of have me confused in your argument in favor of creationism. It sounds like you’re saying that since there’s an account of, for example (amongst many others), a great flood, and since scientific research can agree that there was a flood in a specific time and/or place, then somehow that proves the Bible is divine and everything else that it says is right. But that seems like awful logic to me. Am I missing something? I must be!
This seems relevant, point 6 especially so: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/bible.html
May 8th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Okay, I read through 2.I of the article and then skipped down to 6. Mr. Drange’s arguments concerning prophecy are easily refuted/explained:
(1) Whether Bethlehem refers to a city or a tribe, it still is an accurate prophecy, as Jesus came from both. It should be noted that even the Jewish scholars of the time considered it to be a reference to Bethlehem, as do the vast majority of modern Biblical scholars.
(2) The Jews recognized paternal lineage over maternal, and as far as they were concerned (or knew), Joseph was Jesus’ father. Using a modern analogy, it would be similar to Senator Clinton’s citizenship as a New Yorker for the purposes of being eligible to represent that state in the U.S. Senate.
(3) The Bible is pretty clear that the Israel Christ would rule over was a spiritual nation, not the physical Israel that existed then (or exists now). (Matt 3:8-10; Romans 9:7-8; Galatians 3:6-8).
(4) It’s obvious after reading a few different articles that there is no easy, safe answer to reconciling the census account in Luke with the historical Roman census of Caesar Augustus, which makes it an easy target. However, I don’t see how it really goes to support Drange’s argument that Jesus wasn’t born in Bethlehem.
Using Drange’s own thesis that if the steps are erroneous, then the premise can be attacked, his argument is called into serious question at this point.
Many of Drange’s factual errors rely on the “facts” of the earth’s age according to scientists. The arguments against the accuracy of carbon dating and the use of geological strata to determine age make this reliance suspect to me. If there truly is a God who is the creator of the universe, many of his “impossible” points would not be impossible for such a being to orchestrate.
To answer your question more directly, yes. It’s a simple issue of building trust. If you can back up enough of your statements/claims, I’ll put faith in those that seem confusing or unexplainable to me. God, through the Bible, has done so more than evolutionary scientists. Therefore, I’m willing to believe there is an explanation for those few areas I don’t understand or can’t explain. To date, the gaps in the theory of evolution as the origin of species, the big bang, and other “scientific” theories that want to base our beginnings on chance don’t satisfy my intellect and sense of logic to the degree that a belief in a Creator–as revealed in the Bible–do.
May 10th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
OK, it really sounds to me like you’re saying you have taken a leap of faith because you feel secure in your trust relationship with God and His divinely inspired works.
And obviously that’s fine - for you and many others.
But my argument was that I subscribe to the *theory* of evolution over the belief of creationism because I don’t want to take a leap of faith. I want to stick to logic. I want to stick to the physical, discernible clues left behind in the real world (By God? By accidental events? By something else entirely? No one *knows*. Any of these *could* be correct.).
When you can look to the Bible as wholly accurate in its discussions on our world despite the fact that its details often defy the physical clues we have (i.e. suggesting the Earth does not move, that the Earth is flat, that our carbon-dating is off by millions or billions of years, that plant life existed without the sun, that the entirety of the world was underwater, and on and on), then you’re in a different discussion entirely.
Yes, “God makes the impossible possible,” but so does the Flying Spaghetti Monster. These are claims. Not evidence. We can’t debate these concepts (God and/or the Flying Spaghetti Monster) on any level other than “I choose to believe these claims” if the claims don’t mesh with our clues in every way.
May 17th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
http://baetzler.de/humor/book_of_creation.var