Creationist Scientist Wants Airtime on Cosmos for Creationist Views

[Pr0]

Neil DeGrasse Tyson actually summed this up best himself.

To paraphrase cause I don't want to link someone elses Youtube video here, he basically said that it stands to reason that there is no argument for or against God, but the advancement of human knowledge over time has quite simply shown that what we assign to "God" is often quite natural phenomena that we simply do not understand yet as a species and that effectively the "God" that we tend to believe in at any given time is simply the most efficient solution to a problem we cannot veritably explain as naturalistic, scientifically veritable processes.

So effectively, God is everything we don't know...til we know it, then suddenly the idea of what God is gets even more complex.

I take no sides in the area of religion but I do believe that teaching creationism in any of its forms, whether it is purist, fundamental creationism, or expanded creationism...is simply not teaching science...its teaching mysticism...and mystical/religious concepts are the baliwick of theology and they have plenty of TV air time all over the place.

Whether there is a God or not is immaterial to the debate, creationist views are not science, because they cannot be verified in any way and operate solely on "faith" and thus they have no place in a scientific discussion.

Believing in them, or not, is again, immaterial. Cosmos is about the science of known cosmology, physics, and the galaxy as we....human beings, understand it. If there is some kind of super entity, some massive intelligence so great that we could not ever comprehend it, that is actually responsible for all this stuff working like it does because said entity actually "created" it...thats just it...we will never be able to comprehend an intellect of that nature, we won't ever have the computational power to ever be able to even verify its existence much less come to "know" it in any way.

Creationists like having their equal time..but in all fairness, they've run the world for thousands of years and still, to this day, run many parts of the world right now. And, also...its not like they don't have enough money to put on their own TV show to share their views..so the entire dig at Cosmos is simply a professional dig at best and nothing more than that.

So in short, Creationist views aren't required on a show about Cosmology. There are more than enough platforms for them on television..and in other mediums as well.

 

[paragon1]

And people in Hell want ice water!

 

[Westaway]

Ok...Someone tell me if I'm wrong here. But isn't a Creationist Scientist an oxymoron?

Kind of like Christian Scientist? (Not attacking them, just find the title kind of funny.)

Newton, Mendel, Darwin, Galileo, and pretty much every single notable thinker up to and just after the enlightenment era were either Christians or deists, either way believing in Creationism.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

If you're discussing theology, perhaps.

It has no place in scientific discussion.

 

[MidnightSt]

Actually I would be genuinely surprised if Cosmos did not discuss intelligent design and creationism. Just as I would be surprised if they did not discuss global warming denial. People in general and children especially need someone to take the time to explain how and why these things are not science and why they can be so easily dismissed.
Cosmos would be the perfect platform to explain this.

they wouldn't want to do that, believe me...
as soon as you bring something (or make something join) the "debate", it's very hard to get it out of it again, and impossible (as everyone should know from experience) to "win" the "debate" in the eyes of religious people.

the surest way to protect that something from deteriorating is to just stay away from that particular "debate", unless it is explicitly created from the get-go to join it, offcourse.

 

[JenSeven]

You know, I'm absolutely fine with creationists wanting this, but it has to work both ways.

If a creationist wants airtime on a scientific channel, I want atheist scientist to get airtime on religious channels.

 

[miketehmage]

So much ignorance in this thread.

We know as much about the universe now as we did back in the back in the bronze age (nothing). Sure, we have some pretty good ideas based on what we're able to observe and comprehend around us, but they're still just ideas.

By completely disregarding other, less popular, ideas, you're being just as closed minded as those who allow themselves to be blinded by their religious dogmas.

We know fuck all about the universe, we can perceive fuck all of the universe, we can comprehend fuck all of the universe, to think anyone is anywhere close to an actual answer on anything is the height of arrogance.

This. So much this. Really couldn't have worded it better myself. The point of science is to admit we are ignorant and to try and learn more about what is around us, and if we spend all day shooting down different ideas, as crazy as they may seem, we are no different to the people we claim to know better than.

 

[Cerebrawl]

When did evolution become fact?

When atheistic thinkers decided they don't like where the evidence is really leading.

Kind of like an ostrich, really.

If you're open to views that Darwinists refuse to look into, you can read "Signature in the Cell" and "Darwin's Doubt". Both are well annotated and documented and written from a scientific point of view, using the same method of reasoning that Darwin used to advance his own theory.

And no, even in genuine science, a theory is not considered a proven fact. If it were, then scientists would not be calling it a theory.

You haven't got the faintest idea what the word theory means in a scientific context. So here's what it means:

You've been told that "evolution is just a theory", a guess, a hunch, and not a fact, not proven. You've been misled. Keep reading, and in less than two minutes from now you'll know that you've been misinformed. We're not going to try and change your mind about evolution. We just want to point out that "it's just a theory" is not a valid argument.

The Theory of Evolution is a theory, but guess what? When scientists use the word theory, it has a different meaning to normal everyday use.1 That's right, it all comes down to the multiple meanings of the word theory. If you said to a scientist that you didn't believe in evolution because it was "just a theory", they'd probably be a bit puzzled.

In everyday use, theory means a guess or a hunch, something that maybe needs proof. In science, a theory is not a guess, not a hunch. It's a well-substantiated, well-supported, well-documented explanation for our observations.2 It ties together all the facts about something, providing an explanation that fits all the observations and can be used to make predictions. In science, theory is the ultimate goal, the explanation. It's as close to proven as anything in science can be.

Some people think that in science, you have a theory, and once it's proven, it becomes a law. That's not how it works. In science, we collect facts, or observations, we use laws to describe them, and a theory to explain them. You don't promote a theory to a law by proving it. A theory never becomes a law.

This bears repeating. A theory never becomes a law. In fact, if there was a hierarchy of science, theories would be higher than laws. There is nothing higher, or better, than a theory. Laws describe things, theories explain them. An example will help you to understand this. There's a law of gravity, which is the description of gravity. It basically says that if you let go of something it'll fall. It doesn't say why. Then there's the theory of gravity, which is an attempt to explain why. Actually, Newton's Theory of Gravity did a pretty good job, but Einstein's Theory of Relativity does a better job of explaining it. These explanations are called theories, and will always be theories. They can't be changed into laws, because laws are different things. Laws describe, and theories explain.

Just because it's called a theory of gravity, doesn't mean that it's just a guess. It's been tested. All our observations are supported by it, as well as its predictions that we've tested. Also, gravity is real! You can observe it for yourself. Just because it's real doesn't mean that the explanation is a law. The explanation, in scientific terms, is called a theory.

Evolution is the same. There's the fact of evolution. Evolution (genetic change over generations)3 happens, just like gravity does. Don't take my word for it.4 Ask your science teacher, or google it. But that's not the issue we are addressing here. The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection is our best explanation for the fact of evolution. It has been tested and scrutinised for over 150 years, and is supported by all the relevant observations.

Next time someone tries to tell you that evolution is just a theory, as a way of dismissing it, as if it's just something someone guessed at, remember that they're using the non-scientific meaning of the word. If that person is a teacher, or minister, or some other figure of authority, they should know better. In fact, they probably do, and are trying to mislead you.5

Evolution is not just a theory, it's triumphantly a theory!

Thanks to notjustatheory.com

 

[Ratty]

Ok...Someone tell me if I'm wrong here. But isn't a Creationist Scientist an oxymoron?

Kind of like Christian Scientist? (Not attacking them, just find the title kind of funny.)

Newton, Mendel, Darwin, Galileo, and pretty much every single notable thinker up to and just after the enlightenment era were either Christians or deists, either way believing in Creationism.

Newton also believed in Alchemy, do you think we should believe that to just because he did? What matters is what the men and women said and how much of it is supported by the current body of evidence. Otherwise, you're just arguing from authority. "Well these guys were really smart in certain fields so obviously you're dumb to disagree with them on anything." That's like saying someone with a Doctorate in Sports Medicine is automatically qualified to speak on geology.

Even the most brilliant ancient thinkers did not have access to the data and data collecting techniques we have now. No matter what names you can pull out of a hat the simple fact is that creationism does not follow the scientific method, therefore it is not science.

 

[Gorrath]

Ok...Someone tell me if I'm wrong here. But isn't a Creationist Scientist an oxymoron?

Kind of like Christian Scientist? (Not attacking them, just find the title kind of funny.)

Newton, Mendel, Darwin, Galileo, and pretty much every single notable thinker up to and just after the enlightenment era were either Christians or deists, either way believing in Creationism.

Generally speaking, a creation scientist is someone working in the field of creation science. While someone might be a creationist and a scientist, that does not necessarily indicate their field of study is creationism. The wording here gets jumbled up because of this and is often not clarified. Some would say that a "creation scientist" is an oxymoron because the ideas put forth by creationism are unscientific.

You might find a biologist, chemist or any other scientist who does good work in their field. That person might also believe in special creation. I would still not consider them a "creation scientist" because creationism isn't something that lends itself to scientific inquiry. The reason special creation does not lend itself to scientific inquiry is because some of the core tenants are unfalsifiable. That is to say, by the way the argument is constructed, it would be impossible to gather evidence for it or against it.

So, while we can say that all of those people you listed, and many more living today, do believe in special creation, they aren't creation scientists because creationism generally isn't something that can even be scientifically studied. It becomes difficult to understand meanings in all of this sometimes because one might say" creationist scientist" and just mean a scientist that accepts the idea of special creation and some other person might say "creationist scientist" and mean a scientist who studies creationism (which would be impossible if the creation idea at work is unfalsifiable.)

Hope I didn't belabor the point too much, just felt there might be some crossed meanings here.

 

[vagabondwillsmile]

Which religion's version of creationism do they want to give airtime to?

I'd be interested in learning about ancient Egyptian, Greek and Norse creationism. How about those?

Reading your comment, I actually quite like that idea. First-Nations / Native American ones would be cool too. Seems like a totally different show though, like a multi-part mini-series on the history channel or something. I'd watch it just to know how ancient people thought about these things.

 

[Gorrath]

So much ignorance in this thread.

We know as much about the universe now as we did back in the back in the bronze age (nothing). Sure, we have some pretty good ideas based on what we're able to observe and comprehend around us, but they're still just ideas.

By completely disregarding other, less popular, ideas, you're being just as closed minded as those who allow themselves to be blinded by their religious dogmas.

We know fuck all about the universe, we can perceive fuck all of the universe, we can comprehend fuck all of the universe, to think anyone is anywhere close to an actual answer on anything is the height of arrogance.

This. So much this. Really couldn't have worded it better myself. The point of science is to admit we are ignorant and to try and learn more about what is around us, and if we spend all day shooting down different ideas, as crazy as they may seem, we are no different to the people we claim to know better than.

The point of science is discovery. Science is simply a method by which to take observations, form ideas about those observations, test those ideas in the form of an experiment, have our experiment repeated to see if we get consistent results and finally see if the theory we create from those results is able to have predictive power. While I'm all for admitting we are ignorant of that which we do not know, science isn't best described that way. Shooting down ideas is one of the most important parts of science. If your idea (hypothesis) isn't backed by the evidence, then that hypothesis should be discarded and a new hypothesis formed. Accepting ideas that don't fit with the evidence doesn't make one open-minded, and I'd go so far as to say it is probably rather foolish. But that is a philosophical debate.

 

[-Ezio-]

saw this on tumblr and it just seemed incredibly relevent.

 

[immortalfrieza]

Ok...Someone tell me if I'm wrong here. But isn't a Creationist Scientist an oxymoron?

Kind of like Christian Scientist? (Not attacking them, just find the title kind of funny.)

Newton, Mendel, Darwin, Galileo, and pretty much every single notable thinker up to and just after the enlightenment era were either Christians or deists, either way believing in Creationism.

That's because practically everybody on the planet was religious at the time, as well as being raised under it's doctrine. You could be imprisoned, exiled, or even executed for being otherwise back then, so there wasn't really any room for any "notable thinkers" that weren't religious. This is the same reason why the claims that religion and science do go together because religious people came up with the very foundations of science to begin with is completely groundless. If there had been real room for atheist scientists back then, then the scientific method would have not only been created far sooner but science as a whole would have advanced SIGNIFICANTLY more readily than it actually ended up.

 

[Dijarida]

I'll say what I say whenever a creationist scientist comes up. If the majority of their science is correct, then the other gap are excusable. However, that gap is much too big in astronomy, and after relating a comment on a biological theory relating to astronomy, I wonder how much of his integrity can be trusted.

EDIT: Wow, this thread has some big issues. You'd think on a website based on journalism, people would understand how to have a bit more of a neutral outlook. No, oh my gosh no. What we have is people shooting down the /possibility/ of religion, and using opinions as fact. Stay classy, Escapist.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Creationism is just certain christians trying to make their religion relevant now science has slowly been able to explain everything. Science starts with a theory and tests that theory, then uses the result to either or disprove the original theory. Creationism starts with one thing "bible is real, god is real" and then builds the evidence to prove this fact. Im athiest and have no issues with peoples belief, but when you see these creationist people only pick and chose parts of the bible "as proof" then there whole argument fulls flat on its face. In science you cant just pick and chose your results.

 

[Gorrath]

Creationism is just certain christians trying to make their religion relevant now science has slowly been able to explain everything. Science starts with a theory and tests that theory, then uses the result to either or disprove the original theory. Creationism starts with one thing "bible is real, god is real" and then builds the evidence to prove this fact. Im athiest and have no issues with peoples belief, but when you see these creationist people only pick and chose parts of the bible "as proof" then there whole argument fulls flat on its face. In science you cant just pick and chose your results.

I hate to be pedantic but in threads like these it becomes really important to refine our wording due to the fact there is already so much misunderstanding of terms. Science does not start with a theory, it starts with an observation followed by an hypothesis. If that hypothesis fits with evidence gathered from a repeatable experiment, then we form the theory. I'd also be really hesitant to say that science has slowly been able to explain everything. It is, bar none, our best and only method for discerning reality, but there are still metric tons of things for which we do not have an explanation.

 

[Cowabungaa]

I am truly confused how he ever got those M.A's in physics and astronomy. I truly do not get it. Getting those M.A's means he's obviously very intelligent, he has to be as the material at hand is just so damn complicated.

And yet he purposefully and consciously ignores, and that's what both confuses and scares me, even the basics of the scientific method. Did he go through the entire, grueling process of getting those extremely difficult degrees fully convinced that it was all bunk? Is devotion and fanaticism truly that powerful? That's scary.

I find it so hard to understand that such an intelligent person does not realize or refuses to believe that what he does it not in any way science. Yet he wants to be a part of a scientific show. How in the hell does that man's head work.

When did evolution become fact? No, seriously, can someone tell me when? When I was still in school, all the way up through college, evolution was still referred to as a theory. Then is seemed like one day theory was dropped and evolution became fact. I'm curious when that happened, or was my city just slow to catch on?

A scientific theory is not what a layman usually thinks it means. A scientific theory is a network of interconnected, related theoretical models. A theory also has a central core of principles that every model in that theory shares. A theoretical model is but one part of a theory which predicts, describes or simulates, among other things, certain more specific phenomenon. All inside a shared scientific domain.

As for evolution, there is both the fact of evolution, which is basically the mountain of direct and indirect evidence that life evolves, and he theory of evolution that tries to explain how that happens.