Bill Nye: Creationism is not appropriate for children.

reply to post by john_bmth


Okay, i'll bite. The belief in god doesn't necessarily help nor does it necessarily hinder the search for knowledge. Now how exactly does completely closing your mind to the very Possibility of a creator help us to understand the way the universe works?

Originally posted by kaiode1
reply to post by john_bmth

 

Okay, i'll bite. The belief in god doesn't necessarily help nor does it necessarily hinder the search for knowledge. Now how exactly does completely closing your mind to the very Possibility of a creator help us to understand the way the universe works?

edit on 7-9-2012 by kaiode1 because: (no reason given)

Again, you miss my point. When it comes to understanding and explaining the universe, I couldn't care less if one god or many gods exist. There is no evidence for them, and you admit that they do not aid in understanding and explaining the universe so there is absolutely no reason to invoke them. They add nothing to our understanding. The possibility of an entity for which there is no evidence for existence nor is even testable or observable objectively helping us understand and explain the universe is zero.

Substituting "creator" with "unicorns" yields exactly the same argument. Do you believe that the existence of unicorns can help explain and understand the universe? Is your mind closed off to the idea of unicorns helping us with this quest for knowledge? Substitute "unicorns" with any mythical beast described in print and/or film for which there is no evidence for and my point still stands.

Originally posted by popcornmafia
Nye is a washed up hack,

He must need the money real bad

Why do you think both of these things?

I just wanted to say thank you to VYZ, nixie and others who have been keeping up with the mind numbing befuddlement that is this thread, especially keeping up on the false claims, misinfo, logical fallacies, lies, and the plain absurd.

I wanted to point out something regarding the video (below). I think it relates to who those tending to take information on faith without question. Because I find it amazing the number of times certain people have said stuff like in this thread:

"the irony will be that those who believe that "science" is a fact as a whole are those who actually don't involve themselves in science or know anything about it....science is just another faith...There is NO LAW of evolution." (pg. 1)

Love the use of the word "irony" here. Something needs to be understood here. SCIENCE IS NOT RELIGION. Dictionary.com:
Science - knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.
Science is concerned with objective, observational truths. Experiments are subject to peer review, and the best theories, such as evolution have been studied, tested, observed over and over again, until, as with any subject, we have an agreed upon set of objective truths (knowledge). As already pointed out in this thread, scientists are quick to pick up on and weed out fraud and false information precisely because we follow a methodology. A scientist claiming that the sun revolves around the Earth would quickly be identified as a fraud, due to the fact that hundreds of other scientists would be able to easily test his work and observe that in fact the Sun does NOT revolve around the Earth.
Wikipedia
Religion - collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with "faith". In other words, religion relies on FAITH, the very definition of which means belief in something without proof or evidence that it exists such as the belief in supernatural beings or "god(s)", the belief that a god or gods created the universe.

By nature, ideas based on religion/faith are antithetical to scientific discourse since they cannot be observed or tested, and so carry no weight similarly to concepts like unicorns, fairies, et al. Scientific theories can also be applied to real world applications such as the development of medications, computer engineering, and so forth. Where as ideas based on faith, since we cannot observe, nor test these ideas, hold no practical use in the real world. (i.e. we cannot apply the concept of angels, heaven, talking snakes, etc. since we have no way or observing testing or studying any of these things, let alone showing that they even exist)

Lastly, I wanted to show how people fail to use a healthy dose of inquiry and skepticism so long as a particular idea helps to prop up previously held beliefs.

Originally posted by NewAgeMan
I often wonder.. of ALL the planets in the present-moment living universe, inhabiting sentient, intelligent life (observers), how many (more than one...?) might have their single moon, perfectly exclipse their sun, whereby the shadow of the inhabiting observer planet, also perfectly encircles the visible moon's circumference..

I've heard many times people tell me how when we look in the sky, the Moon and the Sun are precisely the same size, which is why we are able to have eclipses. Now I've taken astronomy classes in college and from what I know this statement, while they may have similar sizes, they are not precise (or even close at times). The size of the moon in our sky can vary up to 11% depending on where the moon is in our orbit. The apparent size of the sun in our sky also varies. In fact we have many more partial eclipse, or instances where the moon does not fully cover the sun, than we do full eclipses (such as this one here) Although people say that the probability of the moon even being remotely close to the size of the sun enough to that we have eclipses is so improbably that it must be evidence of some sort of design! However, our galaxy, the milky way, alone contains hundreds of billions of stars. Following the rules of probability, given enough chances...chances are it will happen. In fact it's not as improbable as some seem to think, and neither do we have to look to far, as Saturn's moon Titan is also capable of eclipses.

So, that's just one example, where we have this phenomena of people wanting to sort of bend information and ideas to support their own beliefs. There is a name for this "confirmation bias"...and it seems people with a high degree of "faith" or conviction are most likely to use it.

One more thing to add, I think what Bill has absolutely right here in the video is the part about needing to educate future generations of engineers, computer scientists, biologists, physicists, doctors, geologists, etc.

The National Academies, the nonprofit institutions that provide expert advice on science and technology, warned years ago that the United States would continue to lose ground to foreign economic rivals unless the quality of its math and science education were improved. The experts reported last year that among 29 wealthy countries, the United States ranked 27th in the proportion of college students with degrees in science and engineering. And among 32 developed countries, the United States ranks 31st in math and 23rd in science

Our future depends on the strength of our scientific spine. Spelled out, it's Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, or STEM, as it has become known. The skills derived from a STEM education are the mission-critical elements of the jobs of tomorrow, for they are directly linked to economic productivity and competitive products.

[Why Math and Science Education Means More Jobs]

Whether you "care" for science or not, whether you choose to accept the knowledge science provides us or not, you should care about the economy and about whether or not the U.S. is going to be able to keep up with the rest of the world in scientific and technological advancements. You should care that children today will have great difficulty finding good jobs tomorrow if we fail to educate them properly in science and math.

reply to post by BagBing


Such a witty and insightful comeback.

The man most definitely has a point. Religion has grown so oppressive and so insane with its beliefs and it's policies that (in my opinion) I don't believe it itself is good for children in general. Of course, there are always sensible Christians that live happy lives that are unbiased, but it can't be helped that the Loud and Obnoxious voices of the ones waving the bible around screaming 'Y'ALL GOING TO HELL' get the most camera time.

I do believe that it is harmful for children, and I don't think anyone could have said it any better than Bill Nye in this video.