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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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He was mistaken. Creationists believe in all science. It is just the origin of this science that differs from the unproven faith of evolution. A young earth and universe currently has more scientific evidence than the old universe model. Visit http://www.answersingenesis.org and see videos on demand for real scientific data that evolutionists are trying to hide.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Wait, are you serious?
Evolution isn't a faith, it's a fact.
@Aaron Frick,
"A young earth and universe currently has more scientific evidence than the old universe model."
This is incorrect.
Radiometric dating, magnetic banding on the ocean floor, visible stars, presence of matter heavier than He, even tree rings are evidence of an Earth older than 10,000 years.
My bologna has a first hame; it's A A R O N. My bologna has a second name is F R I C K. Oh, I hate to hear it everyday, and if you ask me why I'll say:
Because it's a bunch of bullish!t.
yeah I just poked around your site – what a bunch of baloney.
AnswersInGenesis is just a couple of people in an office pumping out religions propaganda. All of their claims are easily refuted and much of what is on their site are outright lies.
No, Creationists also invariably believe in every detail of the Bible. In other words, that God turned the Nile into Blood. Explain the SCIENCE in that.
The theory of evolution, which has not added anything new to the theory for 150 years is now a fact as of 8/27/12? Thanks guy! There is no doubt in my mind you evolved from a primate.
Sure! The earth is only 6,000 years old. Your "god" made so many mistakes, REPEATEDLY, and continued to let his fallen, mistakenly created MAN continue to live on this insignificant, non-unique ball of iron and dirt in the middle of NOWHERE! YEP! Noah and the Flood are all true stories. Noah went around with Petri dishes and meticulously collected specimens of every type of microorganism (completely UNKNOWN to man at the time) just so they could continue to live until modern times so we could all enjoy their presence. Same goes for all parasites, like mosquitoes, bedbugs, leeches, tapeworms....awwww, you get the idea, STUPID!
OK now I'm convinced Aaron is a poe.
Am I the only one that loves that the creationists have adapted the evolutionary mantra of "they believe with faith and not logic"! Don't bring science into it, it doesn't help the creatonist side at all
mind does not come from matter but mind always produces matter.
Ummm, no. As far as we know, matter cannot be created or destroyed, only changed. And actually, as far as we can tell, a mind is merely an emergent property of a working brain. So in fact a mind does come from matter acting in a certain way.
well matter can be destroyed that is simple, it is energy to which you are referring, One of Einstein's theories.
No, Matter cannot be destoyed. The bonds that make up various things can be broken, and objects can be taken apart, but matter in and of itself cannot be destroyed.
I think humanity started from this guy's bowtie. Why does he have to be such a cliche?
awww because its made him famous?
Follow Satan!! Oh wait, he doesnt exist either....crapola
Satan is a good guy. Yup, of course he is a good guy. Anyone that would persecute eveil people for all eternity must be a good guy. If Satan was actually a bad guy, then he would just have a great old Vegas in the sky for the "bad people" to do their ill gotten ways for all eternity. But, nope, he don't, he's got himself a good old Hell to throw those sinners into. Hmmm, sounds like he is doing gawd's work there, and that makes him a good guy. So, yes pray to Satan as he is good.
Bill Nye, the Fisher-Price science guy? Does anybody seriously care what this pop scientist "feels?" Mr. Nye should take a look at the Book of Romans, then he should simply walk outside and take a look around. After that, he wants to continue to suppress the truth, he will be in good company within the majority of the scientific community.
Please stop impeding progress.
well you are basing your life on what a bunch of goat herders "felt" 2000yrs ago.. who is sillier.. ??
Yeah, this Fisher Price guy who has an Ivy League engineering degree and invented a component of the 747. I'll lay odds at 1,000-1 that he's smarter than you.
The Book of Romans was written tens of thousands of years after the advent of anatomically modern humans. However, human origins were not as well understood two thousand years ago as they are now. If you would rather use candles than light bulbs, more power to you.
Why is it that to believe in Creation that I must reject science? Not all science is tied to the origin of the species. Why do my children need to be saved from GOD? We have the greatest Nation on Earth and every achievement made by this country was not made by atheists, I am pretty sure there were some believers involed. The whole premise of Bill Nye's arguement is BS. Just so we all can be on the same footing I as a Christian believe that evolution is just insane a theory as an Evolutionist would say creation is. Case closed, agree to disagree. Oh by the way our counrty is going down the proverbial crapper so maybe we should but all this energy into ways we can all work together, rather than splitting us apart.
"We have the greatest Nation on Earth and every achievement made by this country was not made by atheists"
Name one acheivement that would not have been possible without the help of religion.
Evolutionary theory has a century of scientific observation and discovery behind it. All creationism has is 6,000 years of ignorance. Based on observation to date, rejecting evolutionary theory is rejecting science in its entirety. A century ago, what you said might have some validity. Not now. Now you're just a hypocrite if you think that the science that keeps your kids from getting polio is suddenly invalid just because it contradicts your stupid book.
Idiot!
Your kids will be voters, so we all have a stake in how they form their beliefs.
"I did not come to bring peace on Earth, but division"
Mathew 10:34
"I did not come to bring peace on Earth, but division"
That is as close to truth as the bible gets.
Look Jef, believe it or not it is okay to be christian and rational. I am, or at least I hope I am. But don't whine about how you're persecuted because you think evolution doesn't make sense. Science does not add up with creationism, period, and by desperately trying to prove it does, you make us all look bad. I'm a perfectly good christian, and I am a man of science. I believe in the big bang theory because the notion of an infinetely powerful God making the world in six days and then needing a break is kind of ridiculous, creating it in seconds, and then letting the beautiful clockwork of the universe evolve over the course of several billion years makes a bit more sense, and its what the Catholic church believes. You don't have to believe it, but you can't rationalize creatonism with science, I'm sorry.
Jeff, please tell me you're not serious. PLEASE. Do you also believe that the crops whither and die in the fall, and we can't grow anything until Spring BECAUSE GOD IS ANGRY WITH US??? People once thought that, UNTIL THEY FIGURED OUT THE SEASONS. You know, one of those scientific theories?? Your kind of thinking is an enormous impediment to working together, because you want to build on a foundation of sand (fantasy). Want to solve the huge problems we have with the environment, with geopolitical conflict, with famine and disease??? Quit waiting for your God to solve your problems and get to work with the rest of us. The reason your prayers aren't answered is because there's no one listening.
What it all really comes down to is being able to do and say what ever you want without feeling bad. If you have no moral code to follow or no GOD to fear, then you can do and say anything, as you can see by all the no believing posts. Insulting, rude and immoral. Man is the king and I can rule myself. I dont need rules. this is why it is a waste of time to have this kind of discussion. As a believer you will only be ridiculed and made to feel stupid, that is really their only true defense, bully you into silence.
@Jeff
Oh yea, and condemning people to eternal torture for not blindly believing illogical nonsense just oozes out morality and tolerance.
You're being ridiculed not because you're stupid but because you're ignorant. You're only stupid if you choose to remain ignorant. And it looks like that's the route you're choosing, Jeff.
Thanks for supporting my point Tom.
I don't think you're stupid, I do think you are ignorant, because you think you're beliefs match up with science, and they don't. It's the great christian dillemma. By all means, believe what you want! Teach your kids what you want! Just know that they are going to learn scientific facts in schools. And digressing to "you are all bad people and your morals suck" isn't a very good scientific argument. You should not feel bad though. Live life as you please! And we will as well
He'a a puffer.
But why did religion evolve? A trait that reduces the spirit of survival and curtails the drive to rise above your lesser man.
You tube. Andy Anderson. Why we believe in gods.
Likely due to our nature. The ability to abstract (i.e. language conceptual thinking, the idea of ourselves in time) also allows us to ask question which don't really make sense (e.g. why am I here?). In early man this results in animistic religion that mostly is used to explain what was mysterious then (i.e. why did it rain and wash away my food, why did my brother get stick and die...). That cultural legacy has continued to support the idea of religion today. This is well supported by the fact that there are 1000s of religions. If there is one God, he has done a very poor job of revealing himself. The data is far more supportive of man inventing god and religion, not the other way around.
No, religion "evolved" because they used the pwoer bestowed upon those that could read and write to twist that power (as humans are want to do) to serve their own twisted ends. They did this ultimately by killing off any other band of people that thought differently from them. The crusades, the inquisiton, the conquering of the lands far and near through their ocean going enterprises. Can you sat conquistidor? Religion is the last bastion of true evilness, and will only be gone from this body of humans when the last priest is strangled with the entrails of the last politician. These two mental cases go hand in hand and feed off each other. Just look at Fatboy Cardinal Fatboy from NYC giving the bendiction at the RNC. What a loud mouthed MOFO who shud just STFU. Disgusting pig.
Actually read The Faith Instinct, and find the ideas in this field to be very weak. By all evolutionary logic, the Sociopath is the highest form of human, having the best chances of survival.
Religion isn't a trait. But there are biological traits that predisposed us to embrace aspects of religion, such as:
Curiosity
Ability to believe something without any evidence (we don't need to eat the poisoned berries to believe mom that they'll kill us)
Desire to be led, have someone parent us
Extreme grief from extreme social bonds
Desire to be part of a group
Adrenaline rush from group activities
Oh Give- you're just silly. The fact is all religions give humans codes of conduct that generally restrict their ability to follow evolutionary laws of procreate, eat and expand. Some theories of group evolution have been proposed, but this would need to be supported by a whole new theory. Genetic evolution is not supported by NOT schtoopping your neighbor, but by schtooping all your neighbors wives!
Donna a trait common to every human culture ever recorded is considered a evolved trait by biologists. Language, walking on two legs, tool use and religion are so common as to fall into this category.
Blame the deserving – looks like you can read and actually think about this stuff.
Daniel Denett has a great book called Breaking the Spell. He is an Atheist,but writing in a bit more toned down approach to answering your question than Harris, Dawkins, etc.
Blame the biologist, You are mistaken. First, religion is not universal, so your whole argument is moot. But having said that, universal social behaviors aren't automatically deemed biological. It means they are a good candidate for being linked to a biological trait. There are elements of religion that associated with biological traits (and they've been discussed here), but religion itself is not a trait.
Without Jesus Christ you have no future. Seek Him with all your heart while you still have time. These are the last days. Pray.
God sucks ball$
Last days? News bulletin from THOUSANDS of years ago.
Yeah, that's what Jeebus said, 2000 years ago. Go scare a little kid. And stop threatening the adults.
Really?
Jesus Christ did not have a single original thought.
Jeebus probably never existed.
You sound scared.
Since you're not going to need it, can I have your all your money now?
All you arm chair scientist all of the sudden are experts on anything evolution AND biblical! Reaching to make sense of what you can't comprehend and don't even begin to. Most of you feel as if your contribution to this form legitmize the little bit you remember from the last science show you watched, pitiful at best! I'm reading comments that even go as far as "explaning" evolution,, Ha, you guys are funny... please reframe from such if you only know a little about the subject, IDIOTS. Yes I am Speaking To YOU!
This is news? Duh? Bill Nye now newsworthy. Must be light news day.
You may be right. I'll bet every news organization in America was all geared up to cover the Republican National Convention, and now they're shucking and jiving and looking for fillers and time-killers.
matter comes from mind but mind has never come from matter.
Too bad you know no Neuroscience. Consciousness is an emergent process from complex chemistry. Stick to 2+2, as apparently that's about the extent of your capability.
Matter comes from mind?
What?
Mind never comes from matter? In your case I believe you.
Neurologists have solved the consciousnesses problem? When exactly did that happen? I read science journals several times a year, and I hadn't heard this one. Do tell.
@realbuckyball,
... but wouldn't emergence say that 2+2 is actually greater than 4?
jk ; )
Never mind, it doesn't matter.
Why do evolutionists need evolution to be true? Is it because they want desperately to reject the Christian God's authority over human life and morality? Is it because they live for the grant money and fame that comes with each new bit of evidence? I have read that leading evolutionists now believe Aliens brought life to Earth or evolution made huge jumps in one generation like X-men or something. Still, evolution cannot explain the creation of life because there is no logic and no science that can create life out of mud. Evolutionists cannot explain how it is statistically possible for, literally, millions of the right DNA mutations and no others have somehow occurred perfectly at the same time each time a new life form has been created.
You read incorrectly.
Wow, what kind of tin foil do you use?! Whatever it is I need it for my toaster-oven, man, the pizza makes a mess. An elementary school science book would blow you out of the water by chapter 6 ... time to go get that GED buddy!
@Roger
You're not even talking about evolution, you're talking about abiogenesis. If you're going to trash science, at least know what branch your talking about before you make an ass of yourself. Although I'm pretty sure you're going to make an ass out of yourself no mattter what.
also,
"millions of the right DNA mutations and no others have somehow occurred"
ever heard of this thing called cancer? your comment is riddled with falsities..
"Why do evolutionists need evolution to be true?"
They don't NEED it to be true, they OBSERVE it to be true. It's like, their job, you know?
Here, maybe this will help:
The Basics
Science: I believe it because it's true.
Religion: It's true because I believe it.
"Magic" is not an acceptable explanation. How anyone can laugh at science when their alternative is "magic" is in itself laughable.
Amen! Roger.... couldnt have said it better myself
No, you probably couldn't, Alicia. That's the shame of it.
Who ever said that belief in God and science cannot coexist? I believe in both. Who's to say that God did not use science to create? I don't think it has to be one or the other. There are many things in this world that science can explain, and for that we need science. However, there are many things in this world that science cannot explain, and for that we need spiritual understanding.
Do you think creationism should be taught in public school as a part of science classes?
@Kristen,
I think Bill Nye is arguing against Creationism, not God.
The evidence does not agree with a strict literal interpretation of Genesis, which is what YECs believe, but the Theory of Evolution does not preclude God, it just doesn't require one.
@ ME II – thank you; that is a very important distinction. The goal of science is neither to prove nor disprove the existence of anything, it is only to make sense of what we experience every day. If it's undoing the doctrine of a given belief system along the way, that may be unfortunate, but it's something a believer has to come to grips with.
There are many things that science has not yet explained. That's no reason to impose some bullshit superstitious nonsense to explain it in the meantime.
Most Christians belong to churches that fully embrace evolution as either possible or likely. Why do so many obsess on the literal interpretation of a parable?
Next time, ask it in your church and be astonished at what all sorts of answers you would get.. 🙂
Snow, as a Catholic I find Protestants obsession with literal translations strange.
It is always 'those fanatics' 🙂
I wonder how many of the ye olde thumpers here would agree to teach creationism in classroom as "just another theory" and not the absolute truth.. 20 bucks say it would be close to one percent than one hundred..
Sure. Yep. The Universe is a mere 6.000 years old, just like the Jewish bible says! That explains why "god" has to resort to such subterfuge a planting the image of a supernova that is billions of light years away, at merely thousands of light years away, so that it would appear just within the past few years so present day scientists could observe it and gain further EVIDENCE that the Universe is BILLIONS of years old instead!
"god" must not want all that many souls in "heaven" at the end of this ride if "he" is playing so many pranks on us to trick us into believing that "he" is not real. Gee whiz! Go "god"!
On the seventh day, he said he rested. Really he was burying dinosaur bones.
"he" must have also created microorganisms on the 7th day and just forgotten to tell any Jews about it so they could write it down 1,000's of years later!
Nothing wrong with the church teaching the believers in creationism and schools teaching science, including evolution. Religion belongs to the church, facts of science belongs to the rest of the world.
No doubt, true. Nevertheless 46% of Americans appear to believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old.
I wonder why I've never been asked to do one of those polls ... nor has anyone I've ever known, ever. Who do they target and where the heck do you signup?? They really need to diversify the polls ....
"Creationism Is Not Appropriate For Children."
Niether are half the movies H-wood puts out but I'm not going to mandate what your kid watches.
Bill Nye isn't "mandating" anything, Nichols. Buy a clue.
he is talking about teaching it in science class.. Your silly logic would hold a drop of water if they show all the h-wood movies in classrooms as well.. try again ..
You guys are not getting Nichol's point. Hollywood=hippies=bad. So her argument wins.
Fellow reasonable people,
Unfortunately all of our points will fall on deaf ears. We will never be able to convince the religious nuties otherwise. So, we should resign to the fact that they will continue to fall behind in the modern world while we move ever forward into the future.
farts man
I consider myself a creationist, but I definitely don't rule out evolution. The way I see it, I don't care HOW the junk got here, but it definitely came from somewhere.
Let me do a math analogy for you. Start with 0. Nothing, right?
I proceed now to divide it into +1 and –1. Still 0 in total, right?
In fact, down at the quantum level, this is happening ALL THE TIME. It's probably happened about a million times within your own body during the time it's taken you to read this. An electron and a positron spontaneously emerge from the quantum foam and almost instantly recombine into nothing. But for that instant, there were 2 (opposing) subatomic particles FROM NOTHING. We know this happens because it's the basis for all electronics. So it's not that big a stretch to say that it happened oddly, once, 13.72 billion years ago, got carried away, and never quit.