Project Reason

Creationism and global warming

2013-06-02T05:43:42-08:00

For several years now I have noticed the parallels in these denialist platforms. It quite amazes me that most of the people who reject evolution and global warming, which are both supported by vast amounts of evidence, accept the existence of a creator of the universe which is supported by none.

It’s just unfathomable, and it shows the power of faith. Faith more often than not triumphs over reason, and for no good reason. I can understand this thousands of years ago when humans were in their infancy and the ages of philosophical enlightenment and scientific discovery had not really happened yet. But today?

Those who choose faith, largely because they were taught to do so, have little trouble accepting the scientific technologies that make our world and lives better, like computers for example. But when it comes to any scientific endeavor that challenges their faith based worldview, that science is rejected and all the evidence along with it.

Evolutionary science and natural selection just can’t be true because they want and need creationism to be true. Yet genetics, which is the base for natural selection to act upon are fine as long as they are used by law enforcement. Global warming just can’t be right because God gave us earth as our domain and only he can seriously alter or change it. Although for hundreds of years humans have polluted air and water supplies. No creationist dominionist would deny that. So we affect the planet but we just don’t have anything to do with making the biosphere warmer.

This is all really quite ridiculous and severely hypocritical.

We don’t get to choose what science is correct and which is not. Scientific inquiry and discovery takes us where the evidence leads us, and to be intellectually honest we really have no choice in that.

A question about evolution?

2011-09-17T13:26:42-08:00

what could be the explanation for some long ranges, complicated and timed immigrations that some species perform with out previous experience, that exactly imitates what the old generations had commit, but without any physical link with them?

The branching pattern of life

2013-05-01T10:13:16-08:00

from Donald Prothero

‘One of the most powerful corroborations of Darwin’s evidence of the branching structure of life is that we can see that branching pattern seen by comparing the molecules in nearly every cell in every living thing. This was evidence that not even Darwin could have anticipated, and powerful proof of the fact that life has evolved. Whether one looks at the DNA sequences directly or at other nucleic acids like mitochondrial DNA, or the RNA’s, or the other protein sequences in any number of bio-chemcials-cytochrome c, hemoglobin, alpha lens crystalline, and many other proteins-the answer nearly always comes out the same.To paraphrase the Bible, the cells declare the handiwork of evolution! It is a simple calculation to show that these identical branching patterns in every biochemical system in an organism are not random and could not occur unless that branching pattern were due to common ancestry’

How do creationists deny this?

Evolution-what the fossils say and why it matters

2013-04-25T17:55:25-08:00

by Professor Donald Prothero, is my current read. This book was out in 07, which I am just now getting to.

This is a 100% debunking in all phases of Creationism/Intelligent Design. If any Creationist would read this book with intellectual honesty, they could no longer be a Creationist, without succumbing to total delusion.

It Really is that completely damning of the divine story.

And I am only half way through!

If you want a book to hand to a Creationist and say, here ya go…...digest this…......this would be a good one.

Professor Prothero addresses every subject it seems, and excuse the pun here, but, as he is trained as a Paleontologist, he leaves no stone unturned!

Young earth creationism and Astronomy

2012-07-25T08:45:21-08:00

Young earth creationists believe that the universe was created about 6000 years ago. However, I am sure many of them acknowledge the fact that there are visible stars millions of light-years away from us. Consequently, these stars must have already existed millions of years ago for us to see them today. This seems to me like an incredibly simple statement and contradiction to their belief so I am sure that they have an “argument” explaining this, but I have not been able to find a YEC dealing with this issue. Does anybody know how they object to this? Do they claim that light actually has infinite speed or something?

Creationism In Louisiana Public Schoolbooks

2012-11-25T13:26:32-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6ut94Zdeu0&list=UU1yBKRuGpC1tSM73A0ZjYjQ&index=2&feature=plcp

How are they getting away with this? They’re doing this in public schools?

Ron

Nessie being used as a Poster Child to disprove Evolution - Only in Louisiana (for now)

2012-06-25T06:01:21-08:00

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/education/how-american-fundamentalist-schools-are-using-nessie-to-disprove-evolution.17918511

Thousands of children in the southern state will receive publicly-funded vouchers for the next school year to attend private schools where Scotland’s most famous mythological beast will be taught as a real living creature.

These private schools follow a fundamentalist curriculum including the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) programme to teach controversial religious beliefs aimed at disproving evolution and proving creationism.

One tenet has it that if it can be proved that dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time as man then Darwinism is fatally flawed.

Critics have damned the content of the course books, calling them “bizarre” and accusing them of promoting radical religious and political ideologies.

From Goo To You By Way Of The Zoo

2012-04-29T04:44:14-08:00

I’ve heard creationists mockingly use this phrase, but I didn’t know there was an actual book! Check out the customer reviews.

http://www.amazon.com/From-Goo-You-Way-Zoo/dp/0800751744

Ron

Ancient Aliens

2012-06-17T17:48:18-08:00

OK, guys I need your help here… my wife has been watching Ancient Aliens (again) and in this episode they are saying things like… why are there no other animals driving around etc. They are also saying that the brain for Homo Sapiens couldn’t have evolved because “it grew too big too quickly”.

Consequently, they are saying that Aliens had to have come down and messed with us genetically.

OK, I’ll leave it up to my esteemed friends to help me point her in the right direction.

TTFN

Plausibility

2012-04-28T07:19:03-08:00

From Lawrence Krauss-

‘The Origins Project at Arizona State University, which I direct, recently ran a workshop on the Origin of Life, and I cannot help but view the present cosmological debate in this context. We do not yet fully understand how life originated on Earth. However, we have not only plausible chemical mechanisms by which this might be conceivable, but we are also homing in closer and closer every day to specific pathways that might have allowed bio molecules, including RNA, to arise naturally. Moreover, Darwinian evolution, based on natural selection, provides a compellingly accurate picture of how complex life emerged on this planet following whatever specific chemistry produced the first faithfully self-replicating cells with metabolism that captured energy from their environment. (as good a definition of life as I can come up with for the moment)’

This is what creationists miss, or choose to ignore. Through scientific experiments and observations in bio-chemistry plausible scenarios emerge that could have happened to accomplish abiogenesis. Although every fact is not yet known and every process is not fully understood about the origin of life, it does not mean that it is impossible or improbable to have happened. Obviously life emerged on earth from a once lifeless planet. We have enough knowledge in Chemistry and bio-chemistry now to safely ascertain through occams razor that it is very plausible this happened by naturally occurring processes.