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August 27th, 2012
11:31 AM ET
Bill Nye slams creationismBy Eric Marrapodi, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor (CNN)–Famed TV scientist Bill Nye is slamming creationism in a new online video for Big Think titled "Creationism Is Not Appropriate For Children." "Denial of evolution is unique to the United States," Nye begins in a YouTube video posted on Thursday. The video quickly picked up steam over the weekend and as of Monday morning had been viewed more than 1,100,000 times. Nye - a mechanical engineer and television personality best known for his program, "Bill Nye the Science Guy" - said the United States has great capital in scientific knowledge and "when you have a portion of the population that doesn't believe in it, it holds everyone back." "Your world becomes fantastically complicated if you don't believe in evolution," Nye said in the Web video. Creationists are a vast and varied group in the United States. Most creationists believe in the account of the origins of the world as told in the Book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. CNN’s Belief Blog: The faith angles behind the biggest stories In the creation account, God creates Adam and Eve, the world, and everything in it in six days. For Christians who read the Genesis account literally, or authoritatively as they would say, the six days in the account are literal 24-hour periods and leave no room for evolution. Young Earth creationists use this construct and biblical genealogies to determine the age of the Earth, and typically come up with 6,000 to 10,000 years. Your Take: 5 reactions to Bill Nye's creationism critique The Gallup Poll has been tracking Americans' views on creation and evolution for the past 30 years. In June it released its latest findings, which showed 46% of Americans believed in creationism, 32% believed in evolution guided by God, and 15% believed in atheistic evolution. During the 30 years Gallup has conducted the survey, creationism has remained far and away the most popular answer, with 40% to 47% of Americans surveyed saying they believed that God created humans in their present form at one point within the past 10,000 years. Survey: Nearly half of Americans subscribe to creationist view of human origins "The idea of deep time of billions of years explains so much of the world around us. If you try to ignore that, your worldview becomes crazy, untenable, itself inconsistent," Nye said in the video. "I say to the grownups, if you want to deny evolution and live in your world, that's completely inconsistent with the world we observe, that's fine. But don't make your kids do it. Because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. We need engineers that can build stuff and solve problems," he said. Creationists' beliefs about the origins of the Earth are often a narrow focus, based in large part on religious beliefs, and while they reject evolution as "just one theory," they often embrace other fields of science and technology. Follow the CNN Belief Blog on Twitter In "The Genesis Flood," the 1961 book that in many ways help launch the Young Earth creationism movement in the United States, the authors write: “Our conclusions must unavoidably be colored by our Biblical presuppositions, and this we plainly acknowledge." Their goal for the book was to harmonize the scientific evidence with the accounts in Genesis of creation and the flood. The idea of creationism has been scorned by the mainstream scientific community since shortly after Darwin introduced "The Origin of Species" in 1859. By 1880, The American Naturalists, a science journal, reported nearly every major university in America was teaching evolution. "In another couple centuries I'm sure that worldview won't even exist. There's no evidence for it. So..." Nye ends his video. soundoff (14,640 Responses)« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 Next » |
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The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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I'm waiting for the day when scientists can create life from nothing. Find the right mix of gasses, liquids, and temperature and have it actually turn into life.
yeah, and i'm waiting for a talking snake to convince me to eat an apple
Perhaps you misunderstood what I meant. I was not implying that I believed in any religious hocus pocus – I'm merely curious to see the creation of life from nothing. Aren't you?
You're getting your theories mixed up.
Look up Urey and Miller experiment.
Saul,
Urey and Miller did not create life, nor were their conditions reflective upon what we now know of the past. My degree is in biology, so dont worry, I know of those experiments :). What they created was VERY interesting to me, but not quite *there* yet. Clearly evolution has happened, and almost certainly started from nothing – It would just be great to witness the creation of new life (without bioengineering techniques, im sure we can "create" a bacteria that way)
Brian – I'm curious to know where your god(s) came from?
Bob,
I'm curious to know where your reading comprehension skills came from. I was *not* defending religion or god. In fact, I'm an atheist.... Please re-read what I was saying.
Perhaps Bill Nye is incorrect in this article – It seems like the biggest problem with today's generation is a reading deficit, and has nothing to do with religion.
Sorry, don't mean to patronize. Glad you have the bio background, that will help the conversation dramatically. I only had the minor so I'll defer facts to you. That experiment, however flawed, and followed up with modifications, is helpful in bridging physics with biology... It's pretty awesome stuff. But I think that to go on to create life without intervening (ie place the right chemicals within lipid bubbles to create cells) may require a ton of random chance, and could take a lab the size of the ocean, and about a half a billion years to work. 🙂 Good show, go science!
Right on Saul!
That's exactly what I'm talking about. When I was in 7th grade evolution was always the topic I was most interested in, specifically the *first* life to exist. Both my parents have PhDs in biology, so I've been exposed to that idea at a very young age. Although my own doctorate will be in medicine (well, in two years), I've always kept a keen eye on things that have to do with the creation of life. It'll be a long long long long time until we can randomly create life, I just hope (although i doubt) I will be around to see it.
Well the more practical approach is within bio-engineering. The fact that we can make biosynthetic insulin (diabetes medication created in engineered bacteria – translated for the rest of us) is amazing and such a jump from using yeast to make bread and beer. 🙂 Even if we never create life we have a pretty good grasp nowadays on biology and that will only improve. Maybe not in my lifetime, but seriously the sky is the limit! Good luck with the medical job, stay strong and hang in there, you will have some debts to pay but in 10 years you will be living large and providing a great life for your family.
doth the axe boast against the hand that hews therewith? i have always loved science and still do. when i was in grade school i constantly read science books, i knew the position of the planets, their distances from the sun, diameters, etc. however, by the time i graduated high school, 50% of the scientific knowledge i had gained had already been proved untrue. i have also read the bible (unlike most of you geniuses who try to quote it but haven't really read it). as much as science interests me, i still rely on the bible for the truth. jesus said, it is good, father, that thou hast hidden this from the wise and prudent and revealed it unto babes.
Science is constantly learning and evolving, unlike religion which is for the most part stagnant. Also, your certainty in quoting the bible is amusing since this is a text which has been translated / transcribed and revised hundreds of times. So even if the bible were "true", you can't pretend to know that the version you are reading is true.
Yeah, nevermind your well established 21st century scientific knowledge, I'll stick with my nonsensical bronze-age book of conjecture and fairy tales for all of my beliefs. Then I'll teach my children to be ignoramuses too! Take that, nerds!
Piper, when a scientific theory is proven incorrect, scientists celebrate for now they have more to learn and new ways to approach learning. When a religious theory is proven incorrect, people get killed and information gets buried with their bodies.
It scares me to see how many people here are so outraged! Have none of you taken biology? Evolution is one of the, if not the, most rigorously developed scientific theories of all time. The evidence is so overwhelming that there is very little left to try and prove. I imagine many here are associating evolution with the origin of life theories or the big bang (Something I would condone by the way). While there is great evidence for both of these theories they are not as well established. Evolution describes how life, already in existence, changes over time, not where life or the universe came from. With all the evidence, religious people ought to be intelligent design (I mean god-guided evolution by this) supporters at worst, though I would hope that after some serious thoughts on the moral paradoxes induced by belief in the "divine" people would come to their senses. Pure creationism, especially young earth creationism, is ridiculous!
On another note I don't think that religious belief will prevent people from being good scientists (even if it can distort some viewpoints) if unbiased peer-reviews are being performed.
It's right up there with global warming. Deny if you must but the guys on TV with weather maps behind them seem convinced...
The creationists do not even know what evolution or biogenisis is, the difference and are always throwing up straw men. They don't even know what the term "theory" means when discussing science. They don't know what the scientific method is, etc., etc. Then argue out of fear and ignorance. When you get all your info from your pastor and from a 2000 year old text written by bronze age sheep herders then you're going to remain ignorant.
John, I'm tired of all of these references to the Bronze Age. The New Testament was written no more than 1800 years ago, not 2000, placing it well into the iron age. The Old Testament was written about 700 years earlier. That text was probably based on older written and oral accounts, most of which also occured withing the Iron Age. The Bronze Age ended approximately when Exodus was supposed to have happened. The first events described in the bible that are independently confirmable through archeological evidence of written texts from other countries are almost all within the Iron Age.
So please, will everyone stop referring to Judeo-Christian teachings as Bronze Age mythology and call it Iron Age mythology?
this is going too fast for me, i try to respond to someone and 12 pages later????
It scares me to see how many people here are so outraged! Have none of you taken biology? Evolution is one of the, if not the, most rigorously developed scientific theories of all time. The evidence is so overwhelming that there is very little left to try and prove. I imagine many here are associating evolution with the origin of life theories or the big bang (Something I would condone by the way). While there is great evidence for both of these theories they are not as well established. Evolution describes how life, already in existence, changes over time, not where life or the universe came from. With all the evidence, religious people ought to be intelligent design (I mean god-guided evolution by this) supporters at worst, though I would hope that after some serious thoughts on the moral paradoxes induced by belief in the "divine" people would come to their senses. Pure creationism, especially young earth creationism, is ridiculous!
On another not I don't think that religious belief will prevent people from being good scientists (even if it can distort some viewpoints) if unbiased peer-reviews are being performed.
Well said.
Very true, Science Guy. Unfortunately, a whole culture has arisen in this country that denies basic scientific facts at the behest of misguided religious and political groups for both idealogical and economic reasons.
Theories of global climate change threaten the energy companies so they manipulate the facts to make it look like a "normal" cycle and their political operatives flood the airwaves and Internet with dubious "proof".
Evolution and genetic research threaten many religious groups who also have both idealogical and economic reasons for opposing them. Local school boards and politicians use their office to legitimize pseudo-scientific "theories" and force them into school curriculums, and the media doesn't help since they seldom provide an overall perspective on the impact this movement has had on scientific education in this country.
Keep speaking out, Bill Nye.
So, here is my question for those who think that all of creation evolved from nothing, "How can your logic believe such a foolish theory. Tell, me how can something come from nothing. It defies logic. Did it come from "star stuff"? Then where did the "star stuff" come from? I don't have enough faith to believe that. I'll just keep believing in a Holy Creator who loves us and is bigger than we can image or think. I have faith enough for that.
So, here is my question for those who think that God came from nothing, "How can your logic believe such a foolish theory. Tell, me how can something come from nothing. It defies logic. Did God come from "magic stuff"? Then where did the "magic stuff" come from? I don't have enough faith to believe that. I'll just keep believing in a universe that is bigger than our current understanding, but is real enough to be examined thoughtfully and eventually will be fully understood.
The theory of evolution does not attempt to explain the origins of the universe. It might help to understand evolution.
Yeah! Never mind all that data collected and analysis done by scientists over the last 300 years, I choose to believe in a magic invisible sky man who created the Earth in 6 days, one who keeps me under surveillance 24 hours a day 7 days a week from the time I'm born until the time I die because I'm just that important to him, a god who will convict me of thoughtcrime, even while I'm asleep, if I should ever doubt his existence. Yep, that's much more realistic than believing what science proposes. I'm so happy that Jesus invented the personal computer, otherwise I wouldn't be able to share this with you all.
Because there is more to life than logic. Intuition for instance, or the the ability to leap beyond "logic" and conceive ideas based on insight or a "feeling" about something. People who think that "logic" is the "be all, end all" of thinking are shortchanging themselves and future generations. They stymie new ways of thinking by claiming that "facts" are the only important aspect of research.
As the late Issac Asimov put it: The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka” but “That’s funny...”
Billions and billions of years where every molicule and chemical in the universe can be randomly combined. That is trillions of trillions of trillions of trillions ...(endlessly) of experiments. We can change normal dogs into pit bulls in a handfull of controlled breedings. Draw your own conclusions.
So, to creationists, to create the diversity and complexity of life over a huge period of time is just impossible. Even if that life is fragile and very much imperfect. Yet the existence – and creation – of God, the absolute perfection, is something that just cannot be disputed. Go figure.
Science can't test for the existence of God, thus Creationism is outside of the realm of science. As such it does not belong in the science classroom.
I agree with you David, that creationism doesn't belong in the science classroom. However, I don't believe that science can't test the existence of god.
If, as the believers claim on a daily basis, this deity is able to affect changes in our physical plane, such as saving junior when no doctor could, or getting Sally that raise she was praying for, then this interface between its realm, and ours, should be, and must be detectable. And when it is detected, I'll believe, but not a moment sooner.
creationism is made bull s.h.i.t.
science is REAL
You're right – science IS real. Santa Claus is a scientist.
@Bill
I think you are trying to refute something, I just, for the life of me, can't figure out what.
@ Hubert
That's okay. It'll come to you. Wait for it.
My brother is just stupid. I got all the brains in the family, but he's not a bad guy if you overlook his christardity.
Best I can tell is that you are trying to say that science is all make believe. But I just don't believe that anyone could be so stupid as to say such a thing over the internet, using a computer. I mean your very method of communication undercuts your entire point.
Denying creationism is denying yourself. How is this so? Because it is obvious that a creator exist. I don't care if the creator was the flying spagetti monster; it is common sense and obvious that an intelligent designer created all things.
yeah becaue common sense is always right
NOT!!
Why can't I believe in both God and evolution?
Who says you can't?
DA, you can
Well, once you take original sin out from under Christianity, the whole thing kind of collapses......including the virgin birth, immaculate conception, reason for death on cross, incarnation, trinity, grace, the whole thing.
You can, but at some point, you begin to fill in the holes of whatever book you choose to follow. Therefore, you begin your own religion. Hence, the various denominations. Which leads to; 'I don't know what I'm talking about". Which means..... you're really agnostic.
To Chris:
First of all, you apparently still believe in the voting system...that's worrisome. Second, you yourself deny what's been observed, and then tell everyone else they need to abide by what's being observed. The very foundation of your evolutionary belief system has been shown to be faulty by recent discoveries in the unreliability of radiometric dating.
Exactly what is it you're really saying? Sounds like you live off of secular sound bites. Do you really live by what you're preaching, or is this just your "religion?"
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/august/sun-082310.html
Billions of years ago there was some kind of matter that eventually exploded and billions of years later here I am typing on my laptop. Now THAT is faith!!!!
What is your point?
No, actually, it is ignorance.
No. That is the result of scientific discovery and invention.
And man and woman were created from a pile of dust and a spare rib, only to have a talking snake convince her to eat an apple therefore condemning all mankind to original sin is so much more believable
Yes, billions of years later you type and display your astonishing ignorance for all to see. No faith required.
Using simple math....If you have three objects you have 9 possible combinations.
There are not enough inert(dead) elements in the universe to create one simple living organism.
So who do you think created that matter? The first law of thermo-dynamics is that "matter is neither created or destroyed". Yet that matter had to come from somewhere in order to explode. Somebody/Something put all the carbon, hydrogen, helium, etc,. atoms out there to be flung into the cosmos.
Gotaclue, your understanding is a bit off. Matter can be 'destroyed' in a nuclear reaction. Some of the matter in the reaction is converted into energy and is thus no longer matter. A matter-antimatter contact does the the same thing. If matter can be converted into energy, might it then be possible for the reverse to occur if the conditions allow for it? I of course have no idea. But it stands to reason that it might be possible to create matter from energy without requiring a god. There are also several hypotheises that deal with what may or may not have existed before the BB, but as none of those hypotheises are even remotely testable it is possible, even probable, that way may never know for certain.
Yet another scientist making logically unsound leaps. One cannot be an engineer if he believes in creationism? My guess is that if you left the lab and actually knew people (which you imply you do, since you are aware of every nation's views on creationism), you would discover many intelligent, capable 'believers' and many mindless, incapable 'thinkers'. But that's not your goal, is it? You just want everyone to believe what you do, and you think this is best because you equate your knowledge with wisdom. You are mistaken, Mr. Nye. You do, however, have the right to believe whatever you want, as does everyone.
I find it amusing to watch men who have yet been able to create anything from nothing, sit around and try to use their limited logic in trying to understand the reasoning and purpose of GOD who has the ability and knowledge to create dirt from nothing.
ps. most Christians I know and hang around with have no earthly idea how long one of GOD's days is.
That's what the religion of naturalism does to you. It forces you into exactly the same illogical thought pattern they claim Christians live in. Weird isn't it?
Ok, we do not know how long God's day is, but when he was revealing his truth to mankind, he knew what man's day is. Now he was pretty specific on a lot of other things, would he make such a mistake as to not clarify?
@Bill,
Pray tell me which Bible I follow, where is my church, what are my cultural and belief systems, how am I supposed to practice sacrifices, matrimonial and funerary services, meditation and prayer? I seem to be the lost sheep of the Naturalistic religion and you evidently know something here!!! 🙂
Creationism bad for kids??? Really??? well, sir, atheism is worse. You are off our television unless you repent. 'Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess.' Including yours, sir.
YES Creationism teaches kids lies...Science teaches kids the facts based on actual evidence. You can remain ignorant all you wish but keeping your children that way is simply child abuse!
Both Creationism and Atheism deal in absolutes. What is your proof for either? What do I believe in? I believe that the world is a wonderous place. I believe that science is a way of understanding and explaining that wonder. I believe that the organized religions would like us to close our minds and follow them blindly. Let us accept that we don't know everything and maybe never will and continue on our journey of discovery.
To Dr D
"Vidas asks, "So, if the Universe emerged from the Big Bang, then what matter did explode during the Big Bang?" Matter did not explode during the Big Bang. Also, the Universe did not "emerge" from the Big Bang. In fact, the Big Bang is still happening."
But there was a beginning. The age of the Universe is finite. So my question still stands: what caused the Big Bang if there was nothing before (no space, no time, no matter...)
Every time, science has a answer, more question arise. That is just the nature of science.
On the other hand, religions accept everything as it was described in some books, NO questions asked.
When Creationists pick any inconsistency in science as proofs that sciences are wrong, but provide no proofs of any kind about the "magic" events happened in the bible such as virgin birth, walking on water, turning water to wine, and parting the red sea. They can never duplicate those event as scientific experiments required to do.
Sciences are based on evidences. When new evidences are discovered, the conclusion would change, and may prove that previous conclusions were wrong. Still, Sciences are based on scientific evidences not magical thinking.
Meteorologist are wrong many times, but their conclusions are based on scientific evidence, and their accuracy are improving. I cannot say the same for rain dance or rain praying.
People seem to forget that there is a huge difference between God/spirituality and the established religions. The established "houses of worship" have a vested interest in the masses following their version of religion. People need to open their eyes, open their minds, and think. You can believe that the universe was somehow created (afterall, we are here, aren't we?) and call that the work of a god. This doesn't mean you have to blindly follow the established religions or any religion at all for that matter.
Besides the dinosaurs and other fossils:
As per National Geographic's Genographic project:
https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/
" DNA studies suggest that all humans today descend from a group of African ancestors who about 60,000 years ago began a remarkable journey. Follow the journey from them to you as written in your genes”.
"Adam" is the common male ancestor of every living man. He lived in Africa some 60,000 years ago, which means that all humans lived in Africa at least at that time.
Unlike his Biblical namesake, this Adam was not the only man alive in his era. Rather, he is unique because his descendents are the only ones to survive.
It is important to note that Adam does not literally represent the first human. He is the coalescence point of all the genetic diversity."
For your $99 and a DNA swab:
"Included in the markers we will test for is a subset that scientists have recently determined to be from our hominin cousins, Neanderthals and the newly discovered Denisovans, who split from our lineage around 500,000 years ago. As modern humans were first migrating out of Africa more than 60,000 years ago, Neanderthals and Denisovans were still alive and well in Eurasia. It seems that our ancestors met, leaving a small genetic trace of these ancient relatives in our DNA. With Geno 2.0, you will learn if you have any Neanderthal or Denisovan DNA in your genome."
why can you not believe that an all wise loving creator could put together this earth in "a day" when mr. nye has created all of these geniuses in just 1 day and120 pages of nonsense.
Why not believe that a benevolent sky-fairy put the whole thing together in 60 seconds, with one man, one woman and a dancing bear.
colin, you missed the point and what vs. is the bear from?
"The basic timeline of a 4.6 billion year old Earth, with approximate dates:
3.6 billion years of simple cells (prokaryotes),
3.4 billion years of stromatolites demonstrating photosynthesis,
2 billion years of complex cells (eukaryotes),
1 billion years of multicellular life,
600 million years of simple animals,
570 million years of arthropods (ancestors of insects, arachnids and crustaceans),
550 million years of complex animals,
500 million years of fish and proto-amphibians,
475 million years of land plants,
400 million years of insects and seeds,
360 million years of amphibians,
300 million years of reptiles,
200 million years of mammals,
150 million years of birds,
130 million years of flowers,
65 million years since the dinosaurs died out,
2.5 million years since the appearance of the genus Ho-mo,
200,000 years of anatomically modern humans,
25,000 years since the disappearance of Neanderthal traits from the fossil record.
13,000 years since the disappearance of Ho-mo floresiensis from the fossil record."
1.^ Moskowitz, Clara (29 March 2012). "Life's Building Blocks May Have Formed in Dust Around Young Sun". Space.com. Retrieved 30 March 2012.
2.^ Planetary Science Insti-tute page on the Giant Impact Hypothesis. Hartmann and Davis belonged to the PSI. This page also contains several paintings of the impact by Hartmann himself.
3.^ "Because the Moon helps stabilize the tilt of the Earth's rotation, it prevents the Earth from wobbling between climatic extremes. Without the Moon, seasonal shifts would likely outpace even the most adaptable forms of life." Making the Moon Astrobiology Magazine. (URL accessed on August 7, 2010)
4.^ "However, once the Earth cooled sufficiently, sometime in the first 700 million years of its existence, clouds began to form in the atmosphere, and the Earth entered a new phase of development." How the Oceans Formed (URL accessed on January 9, 2005)
There is 0 evidence for God. That is why I cannot beleive it.
jack, i feel so sad for you. please contact Jehovah's Witnesses as soon as you can and have a serious discussion with one.
"Jahovas Whitness" and "serious" do not go together. It's like putting caviar with jelly beans. It's a disgusting joke.