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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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We have to draw distinctions. The two largest and oldest Christian Churches, Catholic and Orthodox, do not deny evolution and understand Genesis as truth transmitting allegorical stories. Many Protestant Churches have the same approach to scripture. There is nothing inherently incompatible between Genesis and the theory of evolution (which JP II called probably "true" even though it is still officially a scientific theory). Creationism is primarily a movement within the fundamentalist, literalistic, 'Bible only' Christian sects. That's a fairly large minority in the United States. Even so, they are not likely to have a widespread influence in what gets taught in the vast majority of schools. Heck, we were taught evolution in Catholic high school back in the 1960s.
Unfortunately, the screeching critics of Christianity are also fundamentalist and literalistic. They rail against a Christianity that does not exist for the vast majority of believers. It's true in this case as in most news stories concerning religion. They have degrees in 'bumper sticker' philosophy, theology, and history.
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.
Doesn't sound like a minority to me.
Dan- 40-47% isn't a minority? Your stupidity is astounding.
It is when no other group is higher than 47%. If 47% are creationist, 30% are aethists, and 23% moderates, who is in the majority?
There is no majority. A majority requires greater than 50%. As the largest, it could be considered a plurality, but a minority (less than 50%) chose that answer.
There was a movement in PA to force intelligent design theory taught along side that other "just a theory." It was mentioned on another post, and was the subject of a PBS Frontline special. Luckily the courts got involved and stopped the whole thing,which turned out to be a blatant end run around the Supreme Court ruing banning the teaching of Creationism. The show is available at the Frontline site; highly recommended.
Intelligent design... ! We were created by aliens! o.o
I think that one is called Directed Panspermia.
I have trouble understanding the position that having faith in a creator is a setback to scientific progress. Causality cannot be completely explained by physics or science. Even mathematical systems diverge.
I don't claim to know what happened, but I think science does allow room for a possible creator. Otherwise, science would be a set of rules, and I don't think observations can or should be confined by determinism.
No, science does not allow room for a creator.
Science allows room for only things that can be provable with facts.
A creator is just an unproven hypothesis, which in the realm of science is considered false.
Actually, an unproved hypothesis could be classified as a theory in science. It's not inherently false. It would need to be proven false for that to be the case. The concept of a creator or God just hasn't been "proven" true either.
Anything unproven is considered false.
It is the task of the presenter of the hypothesis/theory to prove it true using date, facts and a scientific model that is repeatable.
It is not the job of others to prove it false to make it false.
I have this arguement with fundies that I work with. They tell me to prove god false, and because I can't, it means that god is true.
If you don't see the fallacy of that, then I guess we can't have a discussion.
I grew up in a christian household.... I was also taught to be open minded and take in all the facts before coming to any conclusions. I believe in the theory of evolution wholeheartedly. I'm still amazed and baffled at the sheer abundance of ignorance in the name of "faith". Why should evolution be such a threat to christians? I see plenty of arguements that evolution is "just a theory" and it is... however it's a theory with massive factual proof. I have yet to see any "proof" that God created the world as we know it in 7 24 hour periods. To those who believe that evolution is false and creationism is correct, let me ask you... which is more incredible, the idea of an omnipresent being creating the entire world in a matter of days or the same omnipresent being creating and allowing a process where simple chemical compounds like amino acids transform over millenia to become living breathing creatures?
Without getting into whether or not God exists, historically the majority of achievements throughout the centuries were achieved by creationists, simply because that was the norm. This is not to say that without their belief they never could have achieved these accomplishments but it begs the question; What does it matter what you believe? so long as your work doesn't directly conflict with your belief I don't understand the logic in saying that creationists can't build or invent things to move us forward. To be blunt, there's no evidence to back that up and a plethora of evidence to support the theory that creationists in fact, DO achieve great things.
Its sad when one has to explain why the masses should know the truth about the origin of their species and world.
"What does it matter what you believe?" hmmmmm....if your beliefs are causing some serious dumbing-down as well as stalling or even halting any scientific progress (say, curing cancer or somehow making human lives better), then yes indeed it does matter what you believe. I think that was his (Nye's) point, if you are part of society, and drinking from the collective teat, you need to put your best & brightest foot forward, and it ain't happenin' now with 50% of the US population being creationists.
Historically, they lacked the socio-politcal freedom to say otherwise.
The majority of scientific discoveries and achievements have occured in the last 150 years of so by mostly atheists. Sorry!
Yes, wouldn't it be great if you could erase from society the people who don't believe just like you? Whether you believe in evolution or creationism, that isn't what people should be upset about. People should be upset that this guy doesn't want any view taught that doesn't comport to his view. I'm of the belief that, until you can absolutley prove your theory, you should teach evolution AND creationism. Let kids, with guidance from their parents, form their own opinions once they have enough information.
"belief in evolution" is a false phrase. There is no "belief" when it comes to science. I prefer the term "accept as the mostly likely explanation of reality. There is no equivalence between "belief in creationism" and "acceptance of evolution".
as steve harvey would say, "if we all evolved from monkeys, why we still got monkeys." greatness
steve harvey, further propogating the black stereotype
His horrible grammar aside, we didn't evolve from modern-day monkeys and apes. However, both humans and modern-day apes evolved from a common ancestor way back when. There's a key difference.
duuuuuuh, if cheese comes from milk, why we still got milk? Me too smart for them science-tists.
The sad thing is, that statement is a JOKE to Steve Harvey, and to many on this board, a valid critique of evolution.
Steve Harvey, the world's premiere expert on evolutionary science... Oh wait no, he's just a somewhat entertaining comedian and game show host.
Convinced yet that religion is the world's bane? How many have been killed in religion's name? And now it threatens to hold generations of American's hostage to ignorance. So very sad.
"How many have been killed in religion's name?"
About an order of magnitude fewer than those killed by the atheist regimes of the 20th century alone.
@Me – there's no such thing as an atheist regime. No one jumped up one day and said, 'in the name of atheism, a bunch of people will die'. There is such a thing as an atheist dictator. But no one runs around killing in the name of atheism just because other people aren't atheist.
" atheist regimes of the 20th century" and then he will go on and claim Hitler was an atheist, Mao an atheist, Pol Pot etc, when Hitler was on a religious crusade to help Jesus out by killing His Jewish enemies, and Communists end up worshiping Marx in the end. Mao ended up in a shrine with faithful worshipers filing past all day, just like Lenin, so don't tell me Communism isn't religion.
Once and for all, most Christians DO NOT take the Bible literally. Only a very vocal minority do, and the majority are embarrassed by them. Also, not all believers are Christian.
And by very vocal minority you mean 47% according to all the Gallup polls???
But you are taking away their stereotyping ability. They like to talk in percentages as it matters. The truth is known to only a very small percentage of Christians.
Read much?
Grasping for low hanging fruit Donna?
So how would anyone know which parts to take literally and which not? -especially when every sect of the Christian cult has a different answer to that, and considering that even within each sect there is disagreement.
Seems god has a marketing problem, and an expectation problem.
Uh- no. I was pointing out that the evidence tells us that lots of people take it seriously. I think it's the people who want to fast answers from dogma without doing any research or thinking for themselves you should make that accusation towards.
hheh nice bowtie. ... what of the ventriloquist making this dummy talk?
Nothing makes me rage more than when I hear "Evolution is just a theory". The idiots who say this obviously have no clue what the word "Theory" means in scientific terms.
GRAVITY is "just a theory"
ATOMS are "just a theory"
Planet Earth being round is "just a theory"
All of these "theories" have been tested and repeated, and have stood the test of time, INCLUDING evolution.
FOR THE LAST TIME, EVOLUTION DOES NOT STATE THAT WE EVOLVED FROM APES!!!
Evolution states that apes and humans SHARE A COMMON ANCESTOR. We are distantly related, but we did just evolve from apes!
The amount of ignorance on this board is staggering! These idiots criticize evolution, yet they don't even take the time to even TRY to understand it! All they do is regurgitate the things they hear other uneducated people say!
*didn't evolve from apes
Evolution is a silly little unproven religion surrogate, rife with its own zealots and "preachers". Sir, it is credulity at its highest possible level.
God or no God, evolution is a child's fairy tale.
Find another theory cause this one is toast.
Show me and evolutionist and I will show you a virgin.
They are trolling you pretty well, I see.
They know and are lying or don't know because they are too stupid to know.
Very few people come here. Most of these posts are by the same people.
The one that likes to pretend to misunderstand words like "theory" has you upset.
Don't feed the trolls.
I honestly think that the majority of these posts are not trolls, they are just severely undereducated and overly vocal.
Bob, Every evolutionary biologist I have read supports the theory that we evolved from apes. Maybe you aren't clear on what an ape is: It's a large, tailless primate. We are apes and the line that we have evolved from has been all ape for millions of years.
And we aren't distantly related either. We share about 99% of our genes with chimps and bonobos, and we only separated about 5 million years ago which is a blink of the eye as far as evolution is concerned.
Donna, The apes of today and humans did not evolve from each other. We did not, for instance, evolve from Gorillas or Chimpanzees, or any currently living ape. Millions of years ago, we had a common ancestor, and the family tree forked into many different directions.
Bob, "ape" does not mean "apes of today." Apes have been around for millions and millions of years. Telling people that we didn't evolve from apes is spreading false information. And it's little better than spreading dogma.
Our last common ancestor with chimps was an ape. Our last ancestor before modern humans was an ape. We have been apes and been evolving from apes for a long time. Why try to tell people that's not true? Why try to spread lies about what evolutionary theory tells us?
It is factual that we evolved from apes, unless you want to reject the entire fossil record of hominid evolution. Is that what you are doing?
We didn't evolve from other modern ape species, that's true. So that's what you should say.
Those of faith aren't worried about the world their children will inherit, because they believe in the End Of The World as told in the Bible/Koran. It's all part of the doomsday plan. And everyone WILL get destroyed with them, because there is not now nor will there ever be a unified Human Race. We are simply God's simple children waiting on His Judgement. It's rather sad.
Bill Nye is not healthy for himself or anyone else.
HA HA HA HA
What an incredibly stupid thing to say.
Go play with your dog's ass some more, kid. I don't think you got the full meal deal.
Does Bill Nye believe in God? ... that is why he cannot and even conceive the idea.
My kids and I love Bill Nye but slamming creationism is too far.
God or no God creatioism is still nonsense.
Too far? Hopefully it's just the start.
Too far? He teaches science. He's supposed to teach the value of evidence and rational thought- NOT dogma.
Too far? Shit, he hasn't gone even nearly far enough!
Ya know... I listened to this this morning on the news and was really saddened. I always liked Bill Nye, the Science Guy. But to hear him try to belittle someone because of their belief system is sad. Bill, you use dinosaur bones as proof of the longevity of the earth. You aren't aware that carbon dating has been refuted as unreliable? Also, what about the Apparent Age Theory? Maybe the dinosaurs never did walk the earth. Maybe those bones are just part of the "apparent age" of the earth. Evolution, Creationism and the Apparent Age theory all have one thing in common. They are theories that can not be proven physically. Bill seems to have FAITH that we ascended from a single celled ameoba that suddenly came to life on it's own.
Oh, wow. Bill's whole point, in action, right here. It boggles the mind.
And of course you have proof of?
Bill Nye is aware that a LIVING cow was carbon dated and showed that the cow had been DEAD for more than 600 years. But he wont admit it because it would damage his "scietific" findings. He would rather live a lie.
Kodiak, What is the origin of God? Seriously, do you even have an opinion?
Kodiak wrote, " you use dinosaur bones as proof of the longevity of the earth. You aren't aware that carbon dating has been refuted as unreliable?"
Please post the citations to the peer-reviewed scientific research that has refuted carbon dating.
Then explain to us why in the world you would use carbon dating on dinosaur fossils?
You nitwit. Carbon dating can't be used on dinosaur fossils. You don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about.
Look, when will you people realize that the crap you believe in and call "creation" is nothing but a fairy tale. There is no such thing as god. There was no such person as adam or eve. For you to even think that there was and that the earth was made in the last six thousand years or that some higher being made us in his own image is just absolute nonsense. Grow up. Stop living in a world of make believe and come to terms with the fact that at one time we where and still are ANIMALS. But then again you religious zealots should know that because that is what you act like. ANIMALS!
God or no, there is no such thing as evolution. Silly little fairy tale. Dogma, erroneous doctrine spewed by its very own "preachers"
So music, are the 400,000 professional (PhD) scientists world-wide who work in the relevant fields, all lying? Or are all 400,000 just wrong?
And you would rather believe the fairy tale of evolution or the big bang where somthing was made from nothing. Well I would love to put these kind in an empty room for twenty years and see what the could make from nothing. Oh yes a single cell omeba crawled up from the sea and evolved into ALL the species of humans, animales' birds and sea life. Talk about fairy tales. Well where did the sea come from? How was the ocean created and where did the omeba come from. Tell me some more fairy tales.
Sharkfisher, you're a waste of time.
What's being said has already been said again and again and again ...
"I am going to put the Bible out of business". –Robert Ingersoll
"Another century and there will not be a Bible on earth!" –Voltaire
"In another couple centuries I'm sure that worldview won't even exist. There's no evidence for it" - Bill Nye
You are in good company, Science Guy,
98% of the world agrees with Bill.... He is in great company...
Steve, what is the origin of God?
But those of weak mind will continue to procreate and populate the world with equally weak minded followers. We are always looking for answers. The Bible, like children's tales, tell us stories to help us learn right from wrong and so forth. It does not, however, explain penicillin or the properties of the atom. Want to impress me? Have God explain why he created cancer and birth defects.
Zeus,
Ra,
Horus…
your god is in good company and just another one of the imaginary boys
Years ago the church taught that the earth was the center of the solar system and everything revolved around it....Copernicus realized that the earth revolved around the sun, which we all know is true now....but the church threatened him with death....just to espouse their bad knowledge and keep the flock in line. Creationism is no different, it's obviously made up by the church, and they desparately cling to it....just like the earth being the center of the solar system. We need to move past the idea of the church teaching what they believe and recognize that science will provide the actual true answer.
It took a few hundred years, but the Vatican finally had to admit that Copernicus might've had a point, so don't give up hope!
Maybe student in the 25th century won't have to contend with Creationism.
And this proves the evolution?
Dave,
With all due respect.
You point out one area where you "say" Christians beleived a certain thing about the earth. I can show you examples in the Bible of prophets knowing things about the universe that scientists of their day disagreed with initially. The world has bought the Darwin house of cards which he himself new was merely a hypothesis.
The Vatican eventually acknowledged and accepted evolution as well, it's the fundamentalist Christians that dug their heels in to defy the inevitable. The difference between Vatican Priests and fundamentalist preachers? Catholic officials are required to have an education.
Dont get all worked up now... it will be over for you soon enough. Imagine those idiots that wrote that "all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalieanable rights". Are you kidding me? what with downs syndrome and birth defects and varying IQ and juvenile cancer? Science would call them fools and idiots. Obviously something else is in view here. Science has no explanation for the souls of free men. You'll never get it.. and you'll remain a dishonest skeptic right up to the time you bow the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ and say AMEN to your own damnation. Chill out... your clock is ticking as fast as every one elses.
And if god turns out to be Vishnu, then YOU are the damned one, is that right?
monkey_man
Typical cornered christian. When they run out of pseudo reasons for why they are right they play the damnation card. It’s somewhere between pathetic and impotent
People fail to realize just how hyper silly evolution is, a fairy tale, boring and clumsy...
And do not mention the Bible as if perceived weaknesses somehow bolster the doctrine that evolutionist and their "preachers" spew.
Find another idea folks, this one is broken.
Show me an evolutionist and I will show you a virgin...
I got another idea. Kool-Aid. Tastes good!
Wow, that was SO deep! How do you do it? So much insight packed into one sentence. "Evolution is dumb." You totally convinced me.