
Bill Nye warns: Creation views threaten US science - bcl
http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Bill-Nye-warns-Creation-views-threaten-US-science-3888451.php
======
Alex3917
I've never understood why out of all the things broken in the US and in
education specifically people get so worked up over this one issue. Evolution
is one of the easiest concepts to understand in all of science. Literally all
it takes is a ten minute YouTube video to explain it to a fourth grader.

As such, while clearly evolution should be taught in schools, I fail to see
how students are significantly harmed if it isn't. The fact that these kids
come communities where most of the parents are really dumb has to be hundreds
of times more damaging than not getting a day or two worth of lecture.

(And as an aside, I would bet money that the percentage of religious folks who
have a good understanding of the main arguments in favor of evolution is about
10x as high as the percentage of 'science-oriented' folks who have a good
understanding of all the philosophical concepts referenced in the wiki article
on intelligent design.)

~~~
jlgreco
Not understanding Evolution effectively locks students out from large swaths
of science. The issue you see isn't merely that they don't understand
evolution, but that the people preventing them from being _exposed_ to it are
_also_ teaching them to be _opposed_ to it.

The style of "creationism" in America that is seen as the opposition of
evolution _(versions of creationism that appear compatible with evolution
exist. See: the RCC)_ is not defined merely by the absence of evolution but
also by it's warped and twisted "versions" of it (strawmen) and often some
healthy dose of conspiracy theory (evil scientist conspiracies).

This basically 'immunizes' children against what would normally be a trivial
education in evolution. I say this from personal experience. In retrospect
evolution is _embarrassingly_ simple and obvious, but it took _years_ for it
to truly sink in for me. A quick 10 minute youtube video can explain it
_great_ , but once a certain degree of damage has been done it can suddenly
take a _lot_ more.

~~~
anamax
> Not understanding Evolution effectively locks students out from large swaths
> of science.

Large in what way?

How much of physics depends on evolution? How about chemistry? How about
materials science? I can go on and on.

In fact, much of biology doesn't depend on evolution. (Who do you think did
all the work on selective breeding pre-darwin?)

I don't know Knuth's views on evolution, but he is Christian. Can you tell me
if he believes in evolution?

As someone else pointed out in this thread, evolution is being used as a
tribal signal.

And no, believers in evolution are NOT more rational.

~~~
hermannj314
Evolution as a conceptual framework for understanding how complexity can
emerge from simple feedback is relevant to many branches of science, including
computer science.

Maybe I am really stretching, but if evolution wasn't real, then many machine
learning algorithms wouldn't work.

~~~
anamax
> Maybe I am really stretching, but if evolution wasn't real, then many
> machine learning algorithms wouldn't work.

You're really stretching. No one denies selective breeding. The evolution
claim is much stronger, and isn't necessary for machine learning.

Why would you make such an absurd claim?

~~~
hermannj314
Evolutionary processes present themselves everywhere from political systems,
social organization, genetic algorithms in computer science.

If evolution doesn't exist, then why do we constantly see processes evolve
based on a feedback cycle of constant experimentation, survival, failure, etc.
Isn't that word evolution? Is there another word I am supposed to use?

So I stand by what I said, if evolution isn't real (i.e. evolution doesn't
happen) that all things are complex by-design, and never by uncontrolled
processes of iteration and survival, if that is true, then evolutionary
algorithms wouldn't work.

Is that really absurd? What am I not getting?

~~~
anamax
> If evolution doesn't exist, then why do we constantly see processes evolve
> based on a feedback cycle of constant experimentation, survival, failure,
> etc.

> Isn't that word evolution?

No. As I wrote, evolution is a stronger claim.

Evolution involves feedback but not all feedback is evolution.

Many stable amplifier designs use feedback. Would you claim that the signal
being amplified is evolving?

As to man-made entities, yes, their designs are affected by feedback. However,
they're also created.

As I said, creationists believe in selective breeding. Their argument wrt
evolution is wrt something else, so if you don't understand that....

> So I stand by what I said, if evolution isn't real (i.e. evolution doesn't
> happen) that all things are complex by-design, and never by uncontrolled
> processes of iteration and survival, if that is true, then evolutionary
> algorithms wouldn't work.

You do know that you didn't say that above, right?

However, I'll play along.

Your new claim is wrong because algorithms with feedback can work even if
evolution doesn't occur in the wild.

As to your suggestion that evolution is involved in every complex system, I'll
ask how stars evolved. They're very complex systems.

There are lots of complex systems. Evolution only applies to the biological
ones.

------
Shenglong
I had the pleasure of meeting Bill Nye about three years ago, where I told him
that as a kid, he was my scientific inspiration. I never imagined at that
point, that he'd still be fighting my battles, even now.

------
kefs
The Creation Museum's response is laughable.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-AyDtD6sPA>

------
tonetheman
What I would prefer is to have creationism taught in a religion class. I do
not care if my kid knows about it.

I just do not want him to think that any real scientist even comes close to
believing in it. And I know some people do not believe in carbon dating and
that is fine too. But the facts as we know it point to us not being plopped
down on the earth instantly as the bible suggests.

Teach the facts, let the other stuff be taught in a class on religions or
mythology.

------
vyrotek
I've always been curious about how we date things so far back. It's one of
those things which I wish I could understand better. Does anyone have a good
resource on carbon dating or other modern techniques that are used today?

Also, has anyone ever scientifically argued that perhaps our dating techniques
are incorrect? Could there be natural ways for the system to be thrown off?

~~~
jff
In the case of carbon dating, plants take in carbon-14 from the atmosphere.
Carbon-14 is radioactive and decays at a known rate. Once a plant dies, the
carbon-14 begins to decay. By finding the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 and
carbon-13 in a sample, we can estimate how long it has been since the sample
died. Since animals consume plants directly or indirectly, they also take in
carbon-14 and can thus have their ages estimated in a similar fashion.

~~~
ars
Just so you know, in practice it's considerably more complicated than that.

The main limitation is that carbon dating only works to about 60,000 years (so
older figures are never from carbon dating). This is well known.

Less well known is that it only works if the sample has never been soaked in
water. This is because the CO2 in water will dissolve into the sample
completely overwhelming the original carbon ratios. This probably causes a
huge number of errors in the field, unfortunately. Because how many samples
have been completely shielded from water for that long?

There are other datings though, but they are less accurate. Usually they are
only able to date the rocks near the sample, but not the sample itself.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometric_dating>

Most commonly things are actually dated based on fossil and geological
evidence, not any type of direct dating. But there is a bit of circular logic
in those types of datings. First the rock is dated, and the sample is assumed
to be of the same age. Next when other samples of the same type are found they
are assumed to be of the same age as the first. The rock formations are then
recorded and the appropriate layer is given an estimated age. Which is then
used to date other things. Basically, things older than 60,000 years are dated
based on what fits the theory best.

~~~
Alex3917
Kind of like how we know the universe is 13 billion years old because of the
speed of light. And we know the speed of light is constant because it hasn't
changed in 100 years. Hmmm.

~~~
ars
Let's not overreact here. We know the speed of light is constant because it's
impossible for it not to be - too much is tied into it.

If you change the speed of light the energy content of matter changes, and
where would that energy come from (or go to)?

If you tried to balance out the change by changing other constants you would
end up changing even more things in an impossible cascade.

As for the age of the universe, it's not calculated from the speed of light,
but from other things which I do not understand well enough to explain to
others.

~~~
Alex3917
For what it's worth I was kind of joking, I agree that it would be basically
impossible for the speed of light to change over time.

------
drucken
_"...according to a June Gallup poll that found 46 percent of Americans
believe God created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago."_

The rest of the world, even developing countries, look on with astonishment
while the US undermines itself after more than 500 years since the
Enlightenment!

------
ianb
This is a good critique of the _form_ of Bill Nye's anti-creationist screed:
[http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2012/08/bill-nye-demonstrates-
how-...](http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2012/08/bill-nye-demonstrates-how-not-to-
persuade-a-creationist/)

The form of his argument only encourages the conflict. He clearly feels
contempt towards creationists, and even towards those who sympathize with
them. As soon as you've shown contempt you've given up on convincing anyone of
anything, and are just cheering on your side.

A serious attempt at promoting evolution would emphasize how you can resolve
the tension between the theory of evolution and a strong belief in
Christianity and The Bible. (There's no reason to pretend this is a general
issue, it's a Christian issue:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_support_for_evolution#...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_support_for_evolution#Support_for_evolution_by_religious_bodies))

I'm not a Christian, so I can't write something more authentic than what Bill
Nye might (though I damn well could write something less offensive). But I can
imagine what the intellectual tensions are. I made an attempt
([https://plus.google.com/104537541227697934010/posts/TnMt9Wgf...](https://plus.google.com/104537541227697934010/posts/TnMt9WgfJq6)),
something like:

To convince someone of evolution, as a Christian, I'd want to emphasize a
reverence for the world as God created it, that He teaches us through the
world around us, and that learning from and of that world could never be in
contradiction with His word, in the Bible or as shown to us through our faith.
The world is full of contradictory messages and lessons, we can't always
expect to decide that one is right and another is wrong.

I'd want to probe how the person has chosen to resolve the tension between
Bible-as-fact and Bible-as-historical-document. For example, the Bible in many
places talks freely and without condemnation about slavery, and clearly this
does not fit with a modern understanding of Christian morality. I would hope
that the person has seriously considered this problem and come to a
resolution. I would hope to find a way to fit evolution, and ongoing
scientific discovery in general, into that intellectual template.

Some Creationists might claim, for instance, that something as complicated as
the eye could not be made through the incremental changes of evolution – it
had to be designed. But this is a terribly limited notion of God. Could not
God create a mechanism that would lead to the design of His choosing? Is there
a mechanism so complicated that He could not conceive of it and create it?

There is a story of creation in the Bible. It is not a recipe of how to create
a world. It is a message given to us to explain the world, a world that we
cannot ever fully know. We've found tensions in that story. Consider for
instance dinosaur fossils. Some people have considered this and read Genesis,
and decided that dinosaurs must have lived in the Garden Of Eden, or been
wiped out by the Great Flood. Does the Bible say this? No. There is more in
the world than is in the Bible. Does the Bible talk of electricity, or about
germs? No. Would we try to create a Biblical basis for this phenomena? No. The
Bible covers the entirety of the creation of the Earth in one chapter, would
we expect it to be comprehensive? It is _our_ burden to resolve the world we
see with the Bible as written. Some decide to ignore the world. This is a lazy
approach, God did not give us the world in all its fullness just for us to
ignore it.

~~~
lotharbot
Your comment about contempt is right on. As soon as someone decides there can
be no dialogue, only monologue [0], you've given up on convincing anyone and
are now "preaching to the choir".

There's actually a much simpler Christian solution to the intellectual
tensions between the creation account and science:

Recognize that the Genesis creation account (traditionally said to be written
by Moses, to an audience that lived in Egypt) strongly parallels the Egyptian
creation account. It's not a recipe to create a world, nor is it primarily a
story about the world. It's a story about how this One God is different from
those gods [1].

Some modern Christians have a problem with this response because they view it
as a modern watering down of the Bible. Yet some highly respected early
Christians, like Origen [2] and Augustine [3], expressed these views. The
literalist/creationist view has only been in favor for the last century or so.
Prior to that, it was common understanding among many Christians (as well as
many Jews) that the creation account was about God's position as sovereign
creator of the physical universe, not about the details of the universe
itself. It's not literal history; it's a poetic description meant to highlight
specific details.

[0] "sophisticated argument requires as an essential condition that you have
the good manners to understand before you criticize" - from
[http://www.uky.edu/OtherOrgs/GainesCenter/Letter%20To%20Jerr...](http://www.uky.edu/OtherOrgs/GainesCenter/Letter%20To%20Jerry%20Coyne.pdf)
(the "only monologue" line comes from the debate he is responding to.)

[1] I wrote a short introduction to this concept at
[http://transformedthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/08/genesis-1-in...](http://transformedthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/08/genesis-1-introduction-
to-theology.html)

[2] <http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf04.vi.v.v.i.html>

[3] <http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.iv.XI.6.html>

~~~
jlgreco
>Recognize that the Genesis creation account (traditionally said to be written
by Moses, to an audience that lived in Egypt) strongly parallels the Egyptian
creation account.

Some pretty strong emphasis needs to be placed on the _"traditionally"_ there.
There is absolutely no archaeological evidence for the Exodus. It, and
necessarily Moses as he is known as well, are fictions.

The truth is far more interesting though. In fact the evolution of the
religion that would come to be what we know today as Judaism is a fascinating
topic in general.

~~~
lotharbot
> _"the evolution of the religion that would come to be what we know today as
> Judaism is a fascinating topic"_

Agreed -- but it's difficult to find legitimately evidence-based, scholarly
works amidst the sea of speculation (secular and religious). Do you have any
decent resources?

------
waterlesscloud
To play devil's advocate, can anyone provide a clear, concrete example of how
it hurts science if the man in the street believes in creationism?

This doesn't seem like an issue that it makes rational sense to get up in arms
about. It seems emotion-driven to me, ironically.

~~~
Shenglong
It hurts science because it's wrong. I'm not trying to be a jackass here, but
believing in creationism is the same as saying "I believe acceleration at the
Earth's surface is exactly 10 km/s^2 because it says so in the Bible." (it
doesn't... I hope)

It discourages scientific criticism of ideas. When you are taught a scientific
fact or theory, you are always welcomed to, and often encouraged to question
it. "Why is acceleration 9.81m/s^2? How do I know that it is true as of right
now? If I carry out my own experiment, will I see this?" When you listen to
the "word of god", this is no longer the case. You know it's _right_ because
someone, thousands of years ago, apparently said it is.

Yes, it can waste tax dollars - but we can always make more dollars. An
innovative generation that can carry on mankind's survival? That's a little
more important.

~~~
waterlesscloud
How many discoveries in the past (and even in the present) were made by people
who believed in Creationism?

Why didn't that belief stop them from advancing science?

Why would it now do so?

~~~
famoreira
This is a list of famous thinkers/scientists who were also christians.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_thinkers_in_s...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_thinkers_in_science)

~~~
Alex3917
Science has practically been a branch of Christianity for the last 1,000
years. It's only since Reagan that science has essentially been hijacked by
new atheism and private industry.

