Letters to the Editor
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Corruption
I'd like to think spending $40M to show how silly religion is was a wise investment, but really this is going to corrupt a lot of kids brains, and America will lose (more) ground on science. And then Europe or India or Asia will become the dominant economy, if America doesn't get pissed off and blow up the world first. Shouldn't let fundamentalists own nuclear weapons, really.
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Delicious irony
Has anyone pointed out the wonderful, appropriately misappropriate name of the CEO of this 'Only in America' misnomer? (Refuse to give it even a glimmer of respectablity by writing the word 'museum').
Great article, but it made me petrified to read of a super power in which such a disproportionate percentage of seriously obsessed crackpots are driving the decision making process. And by extension, affecting my country as well, not to mention the poor, beleaguered Iraqis. May the God of sanity (and science) help us all!
jazzam
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bernbart - No they aren't
ID is a philosophy, Creationism is a religion.
There are proponents of the ID philopshy who endorse the Creationist religion, but there are many who do not.
ID is an interesting notion for philosophical (not scientific) debate, there is no debate in Creationism. Creationism is an absoulte orthodoxy seeking to superceede scientific discoveries, ID is a philosophy seeking to interepret scientific discoveries.
You cannot combat something if you do not understand who it is you are fighting.
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JohnPotter - Hedgeing your bets
Mr. Potter, please understand that for the vast majority of people philosophy is a method for interpreting life and the universe, and science is a tool for observing reality. If you seek to make science a philosophy you hinder science, and philosophy.
Yes many people believe in a creator because the philosophy aids in their interpretation of the world around them. Science makes no mention, nor offers an opinion on the existence or lack there of for a creator. If you believe it does, as many creationists believe it does not, you are making science a philosophy and that is wrong.
There is no more evidence that God does exist than that God does not exist. There are no bablefish. As such, questions of God or Zeus, or superstring theory, are best used as philosophical interpretations of the world we see, and not as final judgments about the absolute reality of which we have no evidence.
The existence of an intelligent super force may not be something which you find can exist in your philosophy, but you shouldn't act as if this notion is any more upheld by scientific discovery than the notion of one existing.
The argument that our existence is the result of a million lucky coincidences is no more scientifically viable than the notion that the outcome was altered by an intelligent super force. You can only roll a seven so many times before you start to wonder if the dice are rigged. But that question is unknowable, and is for philosophy not science to debate.
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Mythology, History, Paeleontology, Anthropology
Sorry, I forgot to mention religion! On the surface it's odd that so many Americans are held in thrall by the fear of death and their hereafter. A look at any of the topics in the subject heading suggests that fear should not be a factor. Rather, acceptance of the fact that your not the bug you step on everyday should make you happy that you're at the top of the food-chain and might live for 76 years instead of 76 hours! We are all the victims or victors of chance. The best that we can do is to live the life we were given at its fullest: forgive those whom we hate and love the rest!
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This debate gives the creation museum too much credit
I don't like to respond to articles as many days old as this. But it's clear that this has become a debate giving the museum , the spark for the debate, too much credit.
As someone who acknowledges some still-open problems with evolutionary theory (how could the self-correcting mechanism in DNA replication possibly evolve? How can speciation take place so fast in some lakes and not in others?) I can often form arguments for ID which are far and away smarter than what ID proponents actually say.
To allow readers of this discussion to return to recognizing that the enemy is nothing but a very real pro-stupidity movement, I give you the following quote from www.creationevidence.org, kid's section.
"So could any of the dinosaurs breathe out fire?
Nobody knows for sure, but there are many facts that may prove that there was at least one dinosaur that could."
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Education is the Answer
The only way to combat ignorance is through education. Most science educators in our schools have never had a college-level course (not to mention pre-college!!) in evolution. Many science educators never need to go beyond entry-level college science courses to become certified to teach science. At my institution, science educators for elementary school (K-6th grade) need 3 college courses in science: one in geography, one in bioscience, and one “Other”. This is no basis from which to teach children about modern science, much less the complexities and multiple lines of evidence that support evolution.
If the teachers who teach our children do not know nor understand the basis for the theory (or even what “scientific theory” means), how can we expect anyone else to? Kids don’t learn it in school because their teachers don’t know it. Most Americans only get through high school, and those that do go to college can take one or two entry-level science courses and never learn anything about evolution.
It’s well-past time to start holding Teachers’ Colleges accountable for making their students take so many “how to teach” courses and not enough “what to teach” courses. (What a turf war this could start!)
We do seem to be going backwards, towards more ignorance. Even while top-level researchers push out the edge of the knowledge envelope, the average American seems to know less and less. Less history (remember the Spanish-American war and how the press whipped people up to participate? Any recent analogies here?), less science, less everything. These are scary times, but the answer is not to whip up patriotic fever or bury our heads into 2,000-year old texts. Educate, educate, educate! Movies, tv, radio, newspapers, magazines, destinations (theme parks, museums) – educate any way you can!