Something I actually feel I have to write about
So, I've been struggling to think of something that I feel is entirely appropriate to write about on here, and while I'm still sure there are probably more people out there that will be offended by this content than most of my posts, I feel confident that if you are offended we have some serious problems that I don't even care to correct. What is this controversial topic? Evolution vs. creationism. Hell, secular science vs. religious science, if such a thing exists at all. Here's why I feel so obligated suddenly to mention this.
As life often reminds us, when it rains, it pours. In the past week alone I've stumbled upon four random references to the creationism debate, a debate I would otherwise expect to be exposed to maybe every few months, prompting me to respond accordingly. It all began with a youtube video of a Showtime series called Bullshit with Penn and Teller that pretty much mocks fundamentalist Christians without any restraint (this show restored some of my faith in mankind, but how quickly a week can turn for the worst). Next, I read an article about a fisherman catching a rare fish that was thought to have been extinct as long as 400 million years ago, the Coelacanth. Clicking on yahoo image search results led me to this article on why the fossil record actually disproves evolution. If you want a fun (and potentially vomit inducing) reaction yourself check it out here http://www.accordingtothescriptures.org/creation/fossilrecord1.html Anyway, this got me a little fired up. Then, suddenly, I see a report on Yahoo news' video section telling me that a new Natural History Museum was opening...the Creationist version. Far more disturbing still, but I'll get to that later. Lastly, and far more randomly, I just watched an episode of Moral Orel on the cartoon network where his church mocks evolution although they stumble upon the "missing link." They unfreeze him and turn him into a conservative radio talk show host (if you haven't watched the show, it parodies fundamentalist Christians, which is fine by me). So many references...let me elaborate on everything that I can without writing a 100 page document.
If any Christians are already upset, let me make something blatantly clear - I have no problem with Christians, just fundamentalists. What is a fundamentalist in my mind? Anyone who takes every word of the Bible seriously, even the contradictions and obvious myths (like Noah's Ark). The news report I mentioned earlier gave a poll result that seriously made me want to move to Europe, and I'm supposedly the biggest white Americanized ethnocentric guy around. The poll stated that 60% of Americans believe the world was created in literally 6 days. Do I have to waste my time arguing this point? This report also featured the founder/curator/whatever of this "museum" walking through an exhibit in which dinosaurs were chillin' right next to Adam and Eve...and I considered this progress, as I had recently heard an argument that dinosaur bones were planted by God to test man's faith on issues like the Ark, the 6 day thing, etc. As they all do, he claims that "the scientific method" actually gives no evidence to disprove anything that they claim in the museum...
Ummmm....
I'll show you about 100,000 pages of it that would. Does his town not have a library, or has he simply not renewed his card the past few...well, eternities. Should I just ask how so many people have lost the ability to think, or has over half the nation gone literally insane? To put it simply - What the FUCK!!??
Ok, I'm calming down again I think. If you want some of the awesome "scientific" evidence that disputes evolution hit up the aforementioned article. Read a girl's response that the Bible must be right because it predicts Israel will become a state again, making all other arguments against it null and void! Ok, I admit, that calmness thing was a lie. According to this article carbon dating and pretty much all other dating methods rely on assumptions, and this guy's analysis shows that it makes more sense that these methods actually give results that show that the 6000 year history of the earth fits perfectly, not the billions we've come up with using actual evidence, just like the Bible says. Hooray! At the end of this post I'll give a riddle for any of the scientifically uninclined fundamentalists that may somehow read this to argue nonsensically.
The problem with writing anything like this current blog is that there simply isn't enough time for me to mention all the amazingly weird theories that these people come up with to defend the Bible at all costs. Well, here's another while I'm thinking of it - Ark supports say the Grand Canyon is evidence of the great flood washing away although actual geologists say it would take millions of years of...oh, fuck it, I'm sure you get the picture by now. I guess rather than pick apart every detail of the flawed argument I should actually explain how and why this whole debate bothers me so.
I can't help but think that in addition to being just plain wrong and counterproductive in general that this kind of thinking was at least originally based on some form of control. I don't think most people feel that way when they preach it today, nor are they even aware of their groups' origination of strength, but the manner in which this information is disseminated is suspicious at best. Back in the day republicans decided to side with the religious groups in the forms of huge nationwide organizations that would sell their vote at all costs. They somehow convinced Americans that no matter what the evidence showed, the Republican candidate was simply more moral. Take Bush for example: there has been little effort to fight allegations that he tried numerous drugs, slept with tons of women, or even more recently killed countless thousands upon thousands based on decisions that really nobody to this day has any explanation for. How the FUCK did he get reellected? Well, little press was put into this statistic, but over half of those that voted for him, pretty much all people from the south, stated that their top reason was that he was more morally sound than Kerry.
Ummmmm...
I don't know where that comes from either, don't ask. I guess being born again is better than having never been a fuckface in the first place. The whole point isn't that I'm some big liberal because I'm actually not, it's that so long as people "think" using only the example set for them by their churches they will lose the ability to make their own decisions entirely. The problem is so far advanced right now that it's scarier than anybody can admit. I am seriously scared for the future of my country. This history lesson (according to me, I must admit) leads to my criticism of this form of reasoning itself.
Basically, every defense of creationsim I've read or heard has asserted one very basic point - that there is pretty much no evidence for any scientific principle that contradicts the Bible, and if there is it is either obviously false or (even more amusing to me personally) altered to conveniently fit the theory in question. The last part is particularly funny as I find that this idea that scientists fit data to their liking as the true fundamental theorem of all religious arguments, not scientific...but anyway... What I hate about this thinking is that this approach to an argument shows a level of disinformation that is so blatantly uneducated that I can't comprehend how a fundamentalist can't go and do a little research on the topic and see his error. The form of this control is that the teacher keeps the information simple, linear, and absolute.
Was there an Ark? Yes. How do we know? The Bible says so. Why is it right? Well, duh, it was written by man...I mean, men influenced by God. Oh, ok. What other evidence? The Grand Canyon must be made from a huge flood. Oh, of course, I saw a picture of that once. Maybe I should read a book on erosion and weathering to learn more about - No! Where's your faith? How dare you questi... Oh, I'm sorry, nevermind.
Now let's say I did research on the Grand Canyon and learned all about the methods of erosion, I read data on how quickly rock can be cut away, I even learned the physics of water flow and turbulence, I consulted with geologists, learned the reasoning behind the ages assigned to rocks, and I figured out the flood argument didn't make sense. How do you argue against this? You attack science in general itself, the method itself. Is this approach effective? Well, it shouldn't ever be, this makes no sense. How do they do it then? I think the answer lies in the way that they mislead children to think that scientific theories are meant to be taken as absolutes just as religion often is, and are developed by "rogue scientists" (like darwin) who work alone and will lie or do anything to promote their idea. I present another example to show how silly this really is.
I've read far too many articles the past week telling me that the earth is without doubt 6000 years old. Why should I disbelieve this? Carbon dating - disproven by religion! Fossils? Dinosaurs were too big to go on the Ark dummy. How can I win? Well, riddle me this Batman. Hundreds of years ago people developed telescopes. Soon they found that the earth orbited the sun. Then they charted the moon and sun and even planets. Suddenly, they could predict eclipses. Eventually they knew where everything in the sky would be. As time went on theoretical physicists came about, and they learned about gravity and light, and when they tested these concepts they found that they could predict these movements without even charting them, they could just use the equations they had formulated. Soon they found that using light spectrums they could figure out distances and rates of movement and the list goes on and on. Einstein made assumptions about the speed of light and how it effects time and even these concepts were shown to be true in experiments. All of this research kept building and building and soon we could look at new galaxies and we could figure out their mass, their distance, everything, and we knew we were right because we made predictions, and again and again they came true! So many people, so much science, all working together. Nobody doubts the methods I just mentioned. How could they? The experiments are always confirmed. Answer this question then.
How can we see galaxies farther than 6000 light years away? Has God put fake light within our reach to give us a pretty view? Is all the science that led to us even seeing stars be created (which of course was made religious by somebody seeing Jesus in the cloud) wrong? How could we do this if it was all wrong. It's like solving a series of equations when you got the first one wrong, it won't happen. Why does God deceive us so? To test our faith? Can anybody give me a reasonable answer?
Conclusion (finally, I know). I've had religious people, not at all fundamentalist, but actual intelligent reason-based people, tell me that my faith in science is no different than my own concept of religion. I agree on some levels, but for the most part, I can't. The similarity between science and religion I feel is that they both attempt to rationalize the world around us, and both find themselves changing as our understanding grows. The difference, however, is that science never said it wasn't willing to change. It wants to get things right. Some may say the same of religion too, but science still has one thing on religion that is hard to argue. I can take my billions of man-hours humankind has devoted to the development of both math and science and use the results to predict events over and over again. No other system of beliefs can claim the same. Science is unique in that it can give credence to the past, explain the present, and even predict the future. It is truly unique and undeniably elegant.
Oddly, throughout this article I have never really given an arguement for evolution. I decided that I don't have to, thousands before me have looked at the data objectively and done my job for me. For more information, please visit your local library.
