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 Commenters were fired up about Bill Nye, creationism and evolution.
August 28th, 2012
10:37 AM ET
Your Take: 5 reactions to Bill Nye's creationism critiqueBy Eric Marrapodi, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor (CNN) - Bill Nye does not think that children should be taught to deny evolution, and a YouTube video of him explaining why has gone viral. The CNN Belief Blog's report on the video has generated around 10,000 comments and thousands of Facebook shares since Monday. There were some broad themes in the comments, reflecting a debate that is largely unique to the United States. While Christianity is booming in Africa, Asia and Latin America, creationism is not, Penn State University religious studies professor Philip Jenkins writes in his book "The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South." Here are five schools of reaction that have emerged in comments: 1. Those using this controversy to bash religion Atheists love the Internet, as we've chronicled on the Belief Blog. While they may be a small portion of the population, they seem to make up about half our commenters. It was their chance to join with Nye and cheer him on:
2. Those who say wait a minute, being a creationist isn’t necessarily being anti-evolution Lots of folks from the theistic evolution camp came out to say that believing God was involved doesn't automatically make you anti-evolution.
3. Those who say that science is stupid and that young Earth creationism rules Young Earth creationists, who believe the Earth is about 6,000 years old, appeared to be out in force in the comments.
4. Those who say Nye should stick to his area of expertise This tweet was the most polite remark we could find on this subject. Other comments and tweets, not so much.
[tweet https://twitter.com/watsup1101/status/240168918109523968%5D 5. Those who say CNN is cooking up controversy where none exists Lots of people suggested we were generating a story instead of covering one.
For the record, plenty of other news outlets covered this story, pointing out that Nye's video was posted on YouTube just before the Republican National Convention opened. Turns out that Nye taped the segment awhile back and had no say in when it would be released. Thanks for chiming in. The comments are open here, and you can always hit us up on Twitter @CNNBelief. soundoff (2,811 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 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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The deeper the "faith", the more insidious the mental illness. Creationism is based on evidence, research and collective progress. Religion is based on a the world's longest-running game of "telephone". Wake up and get educated!!
Are you sure about your post?
Not all people of faith deny evolution. I believe in keeping an open mind and taught our children to do the same. Not everything is "black and white", with an unquestioned certainty. I work in a field of technology and science, yet my faith gives me comfort. I can reconcile the differences between the two without difficulty. Of course I have questions about religion I may never understand, just as I question some problems the evolution theory raises. I can't make each of these subjects suit my needs, but there is a point where I can reach a balance between the two and continue to learn. Bill, you're a great "Science Guy", but apply your beliefs to your own children; we'll take care of our own, thanks...
Merlin, for some reason I'm not getting any comfort from you teaching your children nonsense.
No problem there. As long as you realize what's myth and what's reality, what has evidence backing it and what is just superstition and you don't push any public policy based on superstition.
@Merlin,
You said "I work in a field of technology and science, yet my faith gives me comfort."
Does that mean (to you) that your beliefs are true, because they give you comfort?
Merlin, don't you think that you can find comfort without faith?
@OOO
Please just answer me this, do you believe we came from fish?? Yes or No?
@OOO
Please just answer me this, do you believe we came from fish?? Yes or No??
I'm not sue how you can find balance between the two without major, unresolved conflict. Regarding teaching children – if you want to restrict their learning home school them or move to Texas.
okyourecool,
I believe in evolution. That all living things on this planet came from common ancestors.
I can't answer you question unless you specify the exact fish species. Then I would need to do some research to find if our lineage comes from that species.
But that is how the scientific method works.
OKyoureachild: what do you mean "came from"? I realize in your mind, it means a fish gave birth to a person, right?
Ok I'll ask a simpler question, did life originate on land or water? What do you teachings say?
@OOO
So you believe we all have a common ancestor?? Then why are humans... here
animals....here
insects...here
bacteria and micro organisms...here
why such the huge difference?
OKyourcool,
I'm no expert on this at all. I do know that evolution is the theory that species evolve over time. I do not think it is a theory of how life itself began, so it probably does not have a definitive answer to your question.
However maybe someone else on this forum does know more.
well some people feel we all have a "common ancestor", usually when i here ancestor i associate that person to own historical lineage meaning i came from them. So yes when people say we evolved from some ape like creature i view that as "coming from them"
OK,
Think of evolution as an upside down tree. The leaves are all the species alive today. The trunk is the common ancestor. Dead leaves and branches on the ground are species that have gone extinct.
@okyourecool
Listen here you little dip sh*it! We are not here to hold your fu*cking hand through the learning process. Do some research and come back with a brain.
EXACTLY you're not an expert! As i stated before i truly believe that all living creatures have the ability to adapt to their surroundings and finding miraculous ways of surviving but to take it to the extreme that a single micro organisms formed all life on this planet is a little nuts. Almost as nuts as believing some super being put us here
"miraculous ways of surviving"
You are just plain pathetic.
Wow, what comments. Folks, quite frankly I don't care if you aren't warm and fuzzy about my beliefs and how I can reconcile the differences between my faith and evolution. If you're comfortable with your beliefs, more power to you. If you feel "hell-bent" on criticizing others or attempting to make them feel inferior for their own personal beliefs, I'm not real impressed with you or your opinions. Have a nice millennium...
OK,
I give up. You win (sigh) 🙁
@Merlin
"Wow, what comments."
Look here numbnuts, you came here and posted, what did you expect, everyone to go "oh Merlin, thou art wonderful?"
The comment by candyapple just underlines the ignorance of what evolution means.
'Candyapple' is an idiot.. ' i believe god created one man and one woman and we evolved from that ' ?? The level of stupidity in that particular statement is astounding.
I can't stand fundamentalist preachers. That includes atheists.
They have become what they hate.
No. It's actually that your brain is so f*ed up that you see it in that way. Hope you get the help you need.
I can't stand people that can't stand fundamentalist preachers and atheists.
i'll post it three times:
what's so difficult to understand about it? Small genetic mutations over a large period of time creates change
What is your point and question?
...and if you post it an infinite number of times your ignorance of evolution will grow to infinite proportions.
The pathetic thing is that you really think you understand all you need to know. Even a career molecular biologist would never have the hubris to think they understand all they need to know. You are a fool.
Hey, people need blood, what else do you need to know? Can I do surgery on you?
Please just answer me this, do you believe we came from fish?? Yes or No?
Define your terms, first. I know, I know, you don't know what that means.
@okyourecool
"Please just answer me this, do you believe we came from fish?? Yes or No?"
What will you give me if I answer? 20 bucks would do!
Let me ask you this, okyourcool, do you believe that cars come from rocks?
(technically, they do, because they are made of metal and plastic) That's the level of question you're asking.
I'll post it twice:
what's so difficult to understand about it? Small genetic mutations over a large period of time creates change
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kEB7kf6aPA
if i'm not mistaken those who believe in evolution think we came from apes who came from fish. So yes i do think its ludicrous that people believe we're "animorphs (great book series by the way)" and are changing from different species to species. So what's next, we evolve into birds? There you go, we figured out the cycle of life bacteria>>fish>>monkeys>>humans>>birds!
I'll post twice also:
You clearly do not understand evolution.
I promise that if you go off and study it, and then come back, I will discuss it further with you.
what's so difficult to understand about it? Small genetic mutations over a large period of time creates change
OK,
You made a statement that we came from apes. Tell me what is wrong with that.
(The rest of you, please refrain from positing the answer).
You have the simplistic understanding of a child. Has anyone EVER told you that fish turned into apes? Other than someone teaching you religion? Or did you come up with that LUDICROUS and false notion all by yourself? Of course you don't believe in evolution. You made it up.
How about if I said "the Bible is INSANE. How can anyone believe that? Leviticus 4, verse 3, says "and God did provide flat screen TV's as a gift to turtles, but yea, ONLY turtles shall watch television on it, lest they go to hell". I mean, Have you EVER seen a turtle watching TV, let alone OWNING one? I mean, the Bible is crazy, isn't it?
You know, if you're going to try and attack evolution, you should at least try to demonstrate some understanding of that which you are attacking.
So far, all you demonstrate is ignorance.
Correction,
Your statement was that you don't believe we came from apes, assuming that is what evolution demands. What is wrong with that?
"If I'm not mistaken". You are mistaken.
the complexity of the human brain for one!!! if life flourished on this planet for millions of years, why is it that only humans have the ability to reason, have an understanding of their own existence, have the desire to find answers of their existence, while every other living creature is light years behind. how did we become so advanced? and how did it happen so fast?
He's not interested in a truly valid, intellectual discussion.
"only humans have the ability to reason"
Please cite your sources for your claim.
How? Evolution. Sheesh. Of course, as usual, your premises are flawed. Other animals DO have the ability to reason. Read a book, you child.
Please can you prove that animals have the ability to reason??
Take a biology class idiot.
I can prove it. Jane Goodall can prove it. But it has also been proven that some PEOPLE do NOT have the ability to reason. Look in the mirror.
@okyourecool
"Please can you prove that animals have the ability to reason??"
OK, now you're pis*sing me off! You are the one that claimed that only humans can reason, it is you that needs to provide that evidence.
Don't let this weasel off so easy and give him information. Let him learn like the rest of us. He claimed only humans can reason, let him prove it or he fails.
The statement below proof that human comes from Monkey based on mutation of the chromosome, The judge assigned to intellignet design vs evolution finally agree that they should stop teaching intelligent design and teach evolution. The judge also indicated that it is sad people still think backward instead of forward at this critical time when we have to compete in the world economically and scientifically. We teach our student intelligent design instead of science, we will have a lot graduates in theology instead of engineers that will help this country to compete.
"Fusion of ancestral chromosomes left distinctive remnants of telomeres, and a vestigial centromere"
if i'm not mistaken those who believe in evolution think we came from apes who came from fish. So yes i do think its ludicrous that people believe we're "animorphs (great book series by the way)" and are changing from different species to species. So what's next, we evolve into birds? There you go, we figured out the cycle of life bacteria>>fish>>monkeys>>humans>>birds!!!!
Well women know they came from my rib. BOW DOWN AND MAKE ME A SAMMICH, HEATHEN WENCH!
Seriously, why don't you grow-up and get a brain?
A MCRIB SANDWICH AND LIBATIONS. NOW!
You clearly do not understand evolution.
I promise that if you go off and study it, and then come back, I will discuss it further with you.
i never said i believed in the bible, and if i did i don't think the bible was written to be taken in a literal sense
So, exactly how badly did you fail high school biology?
We didn't evolve from apes. We share an common ancestor. Please go back and try to understand/learn what evolution means.
"If I'm not mistaken". You are mistaken.
This is where people who really don't have a good grasp of what evolution is should really stop trying to pass judgement on it. Evolution does not state that we evolved from other species. The ONLY thing that evolution states is that the process of DNA replication is not 100% accurate. THAT'S IT!!! The implecation being that these imperfections, over the course of long periods of time, could provide some members of a particular species an advantage over others in regards to surviving and/or procreating.
So, the bottom line is okyourecool doesn't believe in evolution OR the Bible, because he is incapable of educating himself about anything at all. Therefore, everything is stupid because it makes no sense to him.
Ok, next time you get sick please don't seek treament (antibiotics etc.). We need a clean gene pool.
`People of Earth... this is SANITY speaking... CREATIONISM AND EVOLUTION ARE NOT MUTUALLY-EXCLUSIVE CONCEPTS. Do you hear me? Good. Now start taking care of one another and cut the mindless crap. – VOICE OF SANITY
Yes they are. Creationism negates the basic principles of chemistry and physics. Evolution requires them.
Um, you're the voice of ignorance. Creationism and evolution are indeed mutually exclusive.
Science is the study of God's creation. How God created the universe is the purpose of what science observation and study of nature is all about. Man's question from the time he is a child and throughout his life time is WHY? The theory of evolution does not contradict the fact that the universe exists and the Bible is not to be a history book although there is history in it . The bible is a book of faith. And the Big Bang was caused by God. How God did it is ours to discuss and figure out. He gave man a remarkable brain.
Rose Marie Green,
You don't start out with the answer ("God created the Big Band"). You start out trying to find the answer.
Rose, why does there have to be a God to the question why?
Then this God is not Christian, Jewish or Islamic considering his book the bible, is full of things proven dead wrong by science.
If we were to wipe out all scientific discoveries, religious text, records, books, art, music, etc. from our existence and memory today, eventually all the scientific principles, laws, and theories will be re-discovered and identical to the very same ones we erased. As for religion, literature, and art: it will come back...but you will have a different book written by the rich to control the poor, different masterpiece paintings, and different classic novels. The reason science won't be any different is because science isn't man-made, it is real, it is fact, it is the truth.
I like your post Jeff.
Your post reminds me of the precious ignorance of a child born to this world. Unfettered, free to absorb and think, such a fantastic experience. But, unfortunately, there are very devious people in this world that understand what they can do with psychological indoctrination and call it God and religion.
This has already occurred at least once when the Christians burned the library of Alexandria Egypt. This library held great advancemnts of humans up to that day. It took over a thousand years to get the science back that religion destroyed.
Good post
I also like this post, very much ..Thank you.
Until it is proven wrong. Many scientific theories, thought to be fact have been proven wrong, over and over. The earth is flat , for instance.
ugh.. This debate will never end as long as us humans need to cook up fairy tales so we don't feel so alone in the universe, and so that we can live with purpose. Luckily for me, I can still feel "togetherness" and "purpose" without making things up in my mind (ie: faith) or letting it be polluted by other arcane old beliefs that were written in a book at a time when people thought the earth was flat, or that disease and suffering were the result of sin – and some master higher-being is sitting there messing with us all.
Thank _goodness_ for science.
On the other hand, No one truly knows either way – So logically , we can't come to any definite conclusions. Ahh agnosticism at its best 🙂
Another Good post. Like it.
In all seriousness, Thank God for Bill Nyes. Our children cannot compete in the most basic biological fields with the rest of the world having faith in 18th century 'science'.
You are exactly right iowa!
CreationWiki response:
The odds of life forming by chance is so incredibly small as to be virtually impossible. This is also why scientists have, in recent years, resorted to looking for life from outer space, and have speculated that life must have come to Earth from a meteorite or comet. But this only shifts the problem to a realm that is totally out of our reach, or to replicate (i.e. demonstrate) or prove, and is a matter of blind faith in the power of Nature to do what we have never before seen it do (or even come close to doing) on earth.
To give you some idea of the complexity of the most basic self- replicating bacterium, we first need to break it down into some of its "basic" (yet still incredibly complex) components. For example, all known living organisms are made up of, DNA, RNA, ribosomes, and MANY different types of proteins.
Proteins come in thousands of different types. They are, however, all made up of 21 basic amino acids. However, living organisms are only made up of the Left-Handed (or L-types of) amino acids, whereas experiments in the lab (such as that performed by Stanley Miller) produce both Left-Handed and Right-Handed amino acids. The most basic protein molecule consists of only 8 amino acids, yet it has never been observed to form naturally. The most simple bacterium known to man is the Mycoplasma. It consists of 40,000 protein molecules of 600 different types. It also has DNA (which it uses to make new protein molecules), and RNA (which copies the information from the DNA and then transfers that information to the ribosome (which is located in a different part of the cell)). Ribosomes read the information brought to them via the RNA molecule - which got it from the DNA - and use it to line up (Left-Handed Only) amino acids in their respectively correct order, in order to make all sorts of complex Protein molecules.
In other words there is NO WAY that a self-replicating organism such as a Mycoplasma (which is itself only a parasite, and requires a more complex "host" organism to survive) could have somehow made itself - meaning that (according to the best of our knowledge) there MUST BE A CREATOR.
It's too hard to understand, therefore some even more complex supernatural being did it.
Yea right (sigh).
That was an excellent example of a conclusion that does not follow from the premise.
Even if intelligent design is true, that does not prove the God exists. The universe could have been created by a committee of zombies, for instance.
Humans also can't fathom what can happen in 4.54 billion years.. Someone religious (my whole family practically) once said "If you place all the parts of a computer into a bathtub, and mix it around ... Do you think it would ever make a computer?" ... My response is ... "I dont know , and neither do you ... Have you tried it for 4.54 billion years?"
"there MUST BE A CREATOR" Right... and what created the "creator"?
Geoff,
Guys like you spew this kind of stuff and then disappear. Very few of you stick around to defend your own positions.
Man has created, from first principles, self replication and evolving proteins (RNA).
Man has created, from first principles, cell membranes.
Man has created synthetic DNA and inserted it into Mycoplasma and it works.
Given time these will all be put together and life will be created because all life is is an ongoing chemical reaction.
P.S. Chemistry is not random it follows specific rules.
"In other words there is NO WAY that a self-replicating organism such as a Mycoplasma (which is itself only a parasite, and requires a more complex 'host' organism to survive) could have somehow made itself – meaning that (according to the best of our knowledge) there MUST BE A CREATOR."
HOLY NON SEQUITUR, BATMAN!
This is just more desperate nonsense, attempting to disguise itself in pseudo-science.
Also, that post is full of inaccuracies and misleading statements. Then again, what did you expect from something called "CreationWiki"?
If anyone on here who believes in Creationism can explain to me what entropy is, what enthalpy is, what the Gibb's free energy equation is and explain to me why entropy is absolutely necessary for the existence of life then we can talk about evolution being only a "theory" until then. Please, I beg of you don't teach your kids creationism of any pseudo-religious science garbage...
Thank you,
A Chemist
Looks to me the author of this CNN article has overlooked a large number of comments. There is clearly a 6 th category, which comprises those comments dismissing creationism as non-rational and non- scientific without bashing religion. As far as I remember from looking at the comments this morning, this category clearly dominates and is very distinct from those five the author recognized and listed.
how about reaction #6 - we agree with what Nye says and he's NOT bashing religion - just telling the truth. weird how CNN forgot to put that one in, just 5 reactions that rip on Nye and his view. to all those people who say CNN bashes religion - you're ridiculous. CNN walks on egg shells around religion.
I thought I was alone in thinking the world was round. Its nice to see more people are coming out of the closet.
I believe we now know the earth to be banana shaped.
God made the banana for us humans because it fits in your hand perfectly and has a pop top. God 1 Atheists 0
Thanks to the internet and global communications we are witnessing the rapped demise of religious fundamentalism .
Thank God for that. Lets hope its not to late to save humanity and the other living species on earth.
Thank God?
Rapid?