Creation Museum To Display Dinosaur That "Proves" Biblical Flood

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The Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, is set to unveil the skeleton of an Allosaurus fragilis — one that supposedly proves the biblical account of creation.

Missouri schools may have to "alert" parents when evolution is taught

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In what may be the first of its kind, a proposed bill in Missouri would require that parents be notified when evolution is being taught to their children at school. They could then pull them from the class. Critics say the bill would "eviscerate" the teaching of biology.

In tonight’s debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham, the Science Guy went on stage equipped with the most vital tool of all in any oral debate over evolution and creationism: a showman's flair, developed over three decades of experience explaining science to the broad public.

Of course, he also had the science on his side, which doesn't hurt. But it isn’t a guarantee of anything in a stage debate: competitive debaters are judged by their ability to argue either side of a question. Debate is a tool for showing who's a better orator, not necessarily who's right.

And Ken Ham is no mean orator, usually. Yet, although he's spent a lifetime attacking evolution on stage, it seemed like he forgot to eat his Wheaties (or Weetabix) that morning. His presentation was largely drawn from his stock presentations, sometimes rambled far afield, and often raced by so quickly that it was hard even to know what he was saying. He also relied a lot on video clips of fellow young-earth creationists, as if he weren’t confident in his ability to sell his own message.

Bill Nye, the famed "Science Guy," found himself the center of attention this week after a video in which he saidcreationism should not be taught to childrenwent viral.

"I say to the grownups, 'If you want to deny evolution and live in your world that's completely inconsistent with everything we've observed in the universe that's fine," Nye says in the video. "But don't make your kids do it.'"

Of course,the Twitterverseand many viewers had a strong response. The Huffington Post reached out to Nye to ask him more about science, religion and teaching creationism in school.

What's the best scientific argument against creationism?

Unlike science, creationism cannot predict anything, and it cannot provide satisfactory answers about the past. The examples would be nearly limitless. Why does radioactive dating indicate that the world is 4.54 billion years old, if radioactivity is not a feature of nature?

Should teaching creationism be against the law?

Teaching creationism in science class as an alternative to evolution is inappropriate.

Tax dollars intended for science education must not be used to teach creationism as any sort of real explanation of nature, because any observation or process of inference about our origin and the nature of the universe disproves creationism in every respect. Creationism provides no insight whatsoever into nature. Creationism might be taught in a philosophy, psychology, or history of science class, for example.

Is religion inconsistent with science?

If your religion is inconsistent with science, consider tempering your beliefs. For me, the claims of creationism are completely unreasonable.

Judge Jones in Dover, Pennsylvania, used the expression "breathtaking inanity," meaning so empty, so silly that it took his breath away. The age of the Earth is very close to 4.54 billion years rather than a millionth of that time. The idea that fossils were buried in the Earth by some hidden deity to test ones faith is completely unsatisfactory. We can observe the processes of evolution, physics and especially geology everywhere every day. To deny what I see around me is unacceptable to me. Science is the acceptance of what you observe and seeking the natural laws that cause these effects.

How can science-minded people make it "safe" for believers to acknowledge that evolution is real?

The bible that is often cited as a guide to natural law has been translated from other ancient languages. There must be countless subtleties and nuances that are literally lost in translation. I got into good bit of controversy, when I showed an audience in Waco, Texas, USA that the bible, as translated into English, claims that the Sun lights the day, and the Moon lights the night. I pointed out that this translation is unsettling. To my ear, it doesn't seem as though the author realized that the Moon's light is reflected sunlight. It seems to me that many ancient people may have realized that the Moon casts reflected light, but it's lost in translation. This being but one example.

Will anything good be lost if creationism disappears?

Because of the robustness of our historical records, creationism will probably never disappear as such; instead, creationism can be used in classrooms and conversations to illustrate the process of science.

To wit, people once accepted an idea that the Earth was built in a week. In recent centuries, we have discovered the actual nature of nature. The process of science debunked and disproved the old idea, so it was cast aside for a better idea.

Did you ever believe in creationism? If so, what changed your mind?

The biblical stories were presented to me, but they never seemed reasonable.

I remember asking about Noah's ark. Did he look after the invertebrates: the bees, for example? What about the yellow-jackets? And, the black wasps that stung me a few times? All those ants? There's no mention of the most numerous organisms in my world. As a kid, I remember imagining a series of barges full of soil to be pulled like trailers behind this big boat. Grownups explained that it was just a story (whatever that meant). I remember asking, what was the point of the story? What was this guy's idea to get animals two-by-two? What did he hope to accomplish, if all the bees, worms, oak trees, and rosebushes were gone? Let alone the question: why did he let the poison ivy come back? He missed a huge opportunity, etc. It was never satisfying to my mind.

If you could speak directly to the children of creationists, what would you say?

Hang in there.

There is another amazing, exciting, inspiring way to know the world, one that will fill you with joy and reverence. Pick your battles with grownups. These creation ideas are important to the grownups in your life right now. Accept that.

Do your views place your personal safety in jeopardy?

We'll see. You don't get shot down, if you're not flying.

We are at a turning point, a crossroads in human history. Climate change or an asteroid impact can only be addressed with science. Shooting the messenger is not going to make creationism able to explain anything in the natural world. It still will be completely unsatisfactory and useless to anyone trying to solve an engineering problem in the real world. No science; no asteroid deflection.

Do you have any superstitions?

None that I know of. I change my socks often, because I had bad bouts of athelete's foot fungus infections as a kid. I may be able to change socks less frequently and not get the fungus. But, I'd rather not run the test to determine just how infrequently I could change socks. I don't feel superstitious about it. Who is your favorite scientist?

Don't make me pick.

Michael Faraday was amazing. He clearly realized that his discovery of a means to generate electricity, would change the world. I have great admiration for my physics teacher George Lang and my old professor Carl Sagan; he changed the world. My dad was no slouch, either. My older brother Darby continually showed me wonderful scientific principles.

The big step comes when you can convince yourself of the truth of a natural law. It changes the way you think of everything around you.

Mass Genetic diversity is impossible with a two individual origin. The only way the believers can or will explain that is with MAGIC. Magic does not exist in reality.

Whereas employers traditionally fought over classicists because they were seen as the most rounded graduates, students with degrees in evolution would soon gain a similar reputation, the author and renowned atheist said.

Although no such course exists in Britain, with the subject principally being confined to biology programmes, Prof Dawkins said degrees in evolution were sure to appear in future and their students would achieve "polymathic status".

Reading evolution would broaden scholars' horizons by giving them a better understanding of economics, social science, philosophy, engineering, medicine, agriculture, linguistics, physics, cosmology and the history of science, he argued.

The author of The God Delusion was speaking as he accepted an award for Distinguished Services to Humanism from the British Humanists Association last weekend.

He told the Daily Telegraph: "I think evolution would do a good job of uniting not just biology and geology and the obvious scientific subjects, but also philosophy, history, economics.

Yesterday I blogged about a new Gallup poll revealing that 46 per cent of Americans hold creationist views, but today attention shifts around the globe to South Korea, following news that school textbook publishers are to remove several references to evolution from future editions as a result of a successful petition by a creationist organisation. According to a report in the latest issue of Nature, the Society for Textbook Revise, an offshoot of the Korea Association for Creation Research, launched a petition calling on the South Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology to ask publishers to remove examples concerning the evolution of the horse and Archaeopteryx, a winged Late Jurassic creature believed to be an ancestor of modern birds. After the Ministry passed on the petition to textbook publishers, several took the decision to remove the examples from their books. The focus on the specific example of Archaeopteryx represents a common creationist tactic, whereby genuine disputes among evolutionary biologists are exploited in an attempt to undermine the science as a whole. Archaeopteryx has long been believed to have been an ancient ancestor of birds, but more recent studies have suggested the connection to modern birds may not be as clear as was previously thought. Having successfully taken advantage of that particular scientific debate, the Society for Textbook Revise are apparently now aiming to persuade publishers to remove references to “the evolution of humans”. Figures for those not believing in evolution in South Korea are relatively high, with almost one-third of those surveyed in a 2009 poll saying they did not. Considering that only 26 per cent of Koreans are Christian, it is possible that the problem lies with science education rather than religion – 41 per cent of those disputing evolution in the 2009 survey cited "insufficient scientific evidence", compared with 39 per cent who cited religious beliefs. Speaking to Nature Dayk Jang, an evolutionary scientist at Seoul National University, suggests evolution is not taught widely enough in the country's universities, with "only 5–10 evolutionary scientists" teaching the theory to students across the entire university system.

Biologist Richard Dawkins makes a case for "thinking the improbable" by looking at how the human frame of reference limits our understanding of the universe.

Why do people show kindness to others, even those outside their families, when they do not stand to benefit from it? Being generous without that generosity being reciprocated does not advance the basic evolutionary drive to survive and reproduce.

Christopher Boehm, an evolutionary anthropologist, is the director of the Jane Goodall Research Center at the University of Southern California. For 40 years, he has observed primates and studied different human cultures to understand social and moral behavior. In his new book, Moral Origins, Boehm speculates that human morality emerged along with big game hunting. When hunter-gatherers formed groups, he explains, survival essentially boiled down to one key tenet—cooperate, or die.

On Monday, the Republican dominated Tennessee Senate passed an anti-evolution bill by a vote of 24-8. The bill, known as HB 368, is sponsored by Republican Senator Bo Watson and “provides guidelines for teachers answering students’ questions about evolution, global warming and other scientific subjects,” according toKnox News,  ”The measure also guarantees that teachers will not be subject to discipline for engaging students in discussion of questions they raise, though Watson said the idea is to provide guidelines so that teachers will bring the discussion back to the subjects authorized for teaching in the curriculum approved by the state Board of Education.” The bill basically encourages teachers to present scientific weaknesses of “controversial” topics. In the case of evolution and climate change, both have been scientifically proven and the only weaknesses that have been presented by the right-wing are based on unscientific biblical verses. In other words, Republicans want teachers to use religion to destroy accepted science.

This bill is yet another attempt by Republicans to inject creationism pseudo-science into science classrooms. It gives students the ability to interrupt the teaching of real evidence based science with religious nonsense that belongs in church. So basically, as long as students bring up creationist theories, teachers can discuss them. This opens up the classroom to conflict between students of different religions or none at all, who all have different doctrines and points of view. Such conflict only serves to bury actual science under religious myth and superstition and is a distraction to learning real facts.

According to theNational Center for Science Education,

“Among those expressing opposition to the bill are the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, the American Institute for Biological Sciences, the Knoxville News Sentinel, the Nashville Tennessean, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, the National Earth Science Teachers Association, and the Tennessee Science Teachers Association, whose president Becky Ashe described the legislation as “unnecessary, anti-scientific, and very likely unconstitutional.”

The bill now heads to the House, which just passed a Ten Commandments bill, so we should expect them to pass this bill as well as part of the GOP war against freedom of religion and separation of church and state.