Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

@farmerman,

I am sorry that you had to see that, farmerman. I forgot that you had him on ignore. Smile

3 Replies

@wandeljw,

Its ok, I am gratified that he is still among us. I dont wish any harm to anyone no matter how zany they be.

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@wandeljw,

wandeljw wrote:

I am sorry that you had to see that, farmerman. I forgot that you had him on ignore.

Hey, I had to see it too. What about me? Troll scat be gone.

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

Damn! I musta had you on ignore too.

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@wandeljw,

It's not very polite wande to remind people of things they ought to be deeply ashamed of. President Obama's remarks last night were addressed to just such people.

Your thread is besmirched and besplattered when people on a science forum post messages which boast of not listening to others simply because they have no answers to the arguments and use expressions like "zany" and "troll scat" to characterise opinions which are well established, are on the record for many years and held to by a majority of Americans.

Such things are not even debating points for the obvious reason that they might be asserted by anybody about any opinion. All they demonstrate is fear of the opinions of others and a pathetic attempt to stifle free speech and open, civilised discourse.

1 Reply

@spendius,

It's not very polite wande to remind people of things they ought to be deeply ashamed of. President Obama's remarks last night were addressed to just such people

Is this not what the church is suppose to do?

[remind people of things they ought to be deeply ashamed of] So that they will be remined not to do them?

1 Reply

@reasoning logic,

Are you equating the use of the Ignore function with depraved sexual conduct rl?

I have no objection to the Ignore function except where people using it stay at the debating table.

Imagine a member of a school board who puts earphones on playing music as soon as he has said his own piece.

I think that the use of Ignore necessitates leaving the table. It implies resignation. Justifying it with assertions of "zany" and "troll scat" is babyish.

Anyone on a thread entitled "Challenges to the teaching of evolution" is required to answer any challenges that arise.

BTW--I read recently that Attila's motto was "I am the scourge of God."

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Quote:

A BOATLOAD OF TROUBLE FOR KENTUCKY?
(Robert Kingsolver, Editorial, Kentucky Academy of Science
Newsletter, January 2011)

Last month, Governor Steve Beshear proposed that the
Commonwealth of Kentucky award tax incentives to encourage the
development of "Ark Encounter," a biblical theme park envisioned
for an 800 acre site in Grant County. Kentucky's Tourism, Arts and
Heritage Cabinet has since granted preliminary approval for up to
$43 million over 10 years in tax incentives to the park's developer--
a for-profit entity owned in part by Answers in Genesis. This is the
same ministry responsible for the creationist "museum" in nearby
Petersburg. Plans for the proposed park include a colossal wooden
representation of Noah's Ark complete with animal menagerie,
dramatic exhibits based on Old Testament stories, and a 100-foot
tall "Tower of Babel." In addition to the tax incentives, Ark
Encounter developers are asking the state to fund a multimillion
dollar interchange off of I-75 to improve highway access to the
project. The tax incentive plan has attracted national attention,
along with considerable criticism from civil liberties groups.

The park's developers have publicly stated that Ark Encounter will
teach a literal interpretation of biblical texts, and its Answers in
Genesis backers continue to claim the mantle of scientific
credibility for their belief in young-earth creationism. Though KAS
respects any group's right to celebrate its cultural and religious
traditions, the Academy has long held the position that faith-based
paradigms defying any sort of investigative scrutiny should not be
passed off as scientific truth, especially at taxpayers' expense.
Governor Beshear defends state support of the biblical theme park,
saying in effect that he was not elected to consider the creation of
the universe, only the creation of jobs.

Setting legal and theological questions aside, will the Ark
Encounter theme park really create more jobs than it kills?

Construction firms will surely be employed in fabricating these
fabulous structures, and the park will presumably need employees
to sell its cotton candy, peddle its literature, and shovel its manure.
On the other hand, the publicity surrounding government support
for this project will not be well received by scientists, engineers,
and the technological innovators who might otherwise bring highpaying
jobs to Kentucky.

Scientifically literate people will think twice about moving to or
investing in a state that publicly endorses the replacement of
established scientific methods and principles with an alternative
"creation science." It is therefore worth asking whether the Tourism
Cabinet's proposed tax incentives will actually lead to a better longterm
future for all Kentuckians. While competing states are
investing in solar energy, broadband infrastructure, and the
biotechnologies of the future, our Commonwealth is putting its
money on a landlocked wooden boat, a failed stairway to heaven,
and a bronze-age world view.

Meanwhile, a more constructive opportunity to invest in tourism
and promote Kentucky's national reputation languishes for lack of
state attention. The same tourism cabinet that seems so anxious to
promote a for-profit, anti-science enterprise has ignored
longstanding plans for a natural history facility in the state's capital.

Unlike the proposed theme park, a Kentucky Natural History
Museum could enhance the public understanding of science by
exhibiting real plants, real animals, real fossils, and geologic
specimens actually collected in our state.

The Natural History Museum has been authorized, but never
funded by the state legislature. Its board of directors, established by
KRS 146.650, has not even been called together to meet in recent
years, in spite of requests for action from its KAS representatives.
To our knowledge, the state has sought no investors in this project,
nor has it launched any public awareness campaign comparable to
the recent deluge of publicity for Ark Encounter.

Opportunities lost include the natural history museum's potential
tourism revenue and a critically needed educational resource, but
also the preservation of our state's natural heritage. As we wait year
after year for a facility, Kentucky's irreplaceable biological and
geological collections are being shipped out of state, thrown away,
or left to deteriorate in inadequate storage facilities. In spite of the
stirring words we hear from state government about the importance
of science for future prosperity, the proposed public subsidy of Ark
Encounter steers Kentucky in the opposite direction.

Governor, we applaud your interest in economic development, but
let's let religious organizations build their own monuments, and
reserve public support for tourism and educational projects that
better serve the interests of all Kentuckians.

3 Replies

@wandeljw,

wandeljw wrote:

Quote:
A BOATLOAD OF TROUBLE FOR KENTUCKY?
(Robert Kingsolver, Editorial, Kentucky Academy of Science
Newsletter, January 2011)

Unlike the proposed theme park, a Kentucky Natural History
Museum could enhance the public understanding of science by
exhibiting real plants, real animals, real fossils, and geologic
specimens actually collected in our state.

I think Kentucky has some pretty good fossil discoveries. It would be a shame to lose out on a Natural History Museum in preference to a fantasy land.

1 Reply

@wandeljw,

Quote:

Governor Beshear defends state support of the biblical theme park,
saying in effect that he was not elected to consider the creation of
the universe, only the creation of jobs.

That sounds sensible to me.

Quote:

Setting legal and theological questions aside, will the Ark
Encounter theme park really create more jobs than it kills?

That sounds sneaky to me.

And I prefer sensible people to sneaky people. One might easily show the jobs created. Take the interchange for a start. Most people have seen an interchange under construction. They are often followed by industrial estate developments. The ark itself is going to take a lot of kit. And skills. People moving into the area. Property values going up. Real estate agents busy. The mind boggles. And the animals will need mucking and foddering.

Now--the jobs it kills. What might they be? Give us a clue wande since you quoted the unelected, self-appointed Mr Kingsolver.

Does he want to ban all the Biblical movies as well. They are more realistic than a theme park that everybody knows is a fake 9apart from the animal ****) and just somewhere to while away an afternoon when you don't know what to do with yourself.

Quote:

On the other hand, the publicity surrounding government support
for this project will not be well received by scientists, engineers,
and the technological innovators who might otherwise bring highpaying
jobs to Kentucky.

Bullshit. They'll go where they think best. Surely such highly qualified experts as they are not going to take any notice of "publicity". Living near Mr Kingsolver might give some pause for thought.

Is he an American?

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@rosborne979,

Quote:

I think Kentucky has some pretty good fossil discoveries. It would be a shame to lose out on a Natural History Museum in preference to a fantasy land.

Does anybody go in natural history museums anymore? Telly is the place for natural history. There's enough fossils already. There will be some in the bricks of your house.

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I've just seen a programme on BBC Four about Sister Rosetta Tharpe which claimed that rock and roll is derived from gospel music and that all the big white names used to sit at the back of the church and watch the shows. That's where it comes from.

I don't know how much money rock and roll has made for America but it must be a very great deal and I'll bet that a lot of scientists got funded on some of it.

And the arguments used by anti-IDers were just as valid in 1900 as they are now and if they had been taken any notice of then we would still be listening to Pat Boone and Frank Sinatra milking the matron market.

1 Reply

@wandeljw,

Every year, very large endowed research orhganizations and "For Profit" research companies (like Craig Venters or WL Gore, or DUpont Pharma etc) are always looking for places to locate based upon
1location wrt to markets
2brain trust
3Tax bennies
4 Opportunities to partner with other research facilities and universities.

Little Delaware has turned its principal University into a funding magnet based upon the above. There was a"proposal" to put a Creation SCience Center and Museum in the area around Dover Del about 20 years ago. The state refused to provide any benefits other than those accrued by admittedly religious organizations. The "Creation Cornesrtone Projects" as it was called, tried to hustle the gov by claiming it was purely scientific in its endeavor. The gov, no fool she, said to them
We can give you a finite tax break and some seed money or you get an infinite tax break from being a religious organization--Pick One.

Their heads disappeared up their asses so fast. They got bested by the tax laws of the state. MAybe KY has some of the same code items.
Seems kinda stupid to chase out valid science "Seed" compnies by turning an entire state into Jesus' Disneyland.

I wonder what some of the Ky Universities are saying about all this through their web sites

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I suspect that they'll get the bible belt folks in there--certainly from Ohio and Indiana, to a lesser extent from Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee . . . but in the long run, i don't think they'll be much of a draw. It's not a long term investment for the state, and it certainly doesn't come even close to the kind of sustained income which the marriage of business and research produce. The research triangle in North Carolina is a prime example. As with Kentucky right now, North Carolina once had no big industry other than tobacco. The research triangle has helped business and therefore employment, and it has drawn research funds to Wake Forest, UNC and NC State. Silly, silly people. Too bad for Kentucky.

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@Setanta,

There isn't much sillier than that wodge of platitudes, cliches and fantasy economics.

Quote:

Kentucky is known as the "Bluegrass State", a nickname based on the fact that native bluegrass is present in many of the pastures throughout the state, based on the fertile soil. It made possible the breeding of high-quality livestock, especially thoroughbred racing horses. It is a land with diverse environments and abundant resources, including the world's longest cave system, Mammoth Cave National Park; the greatest length of navigable waterways and streams in the Lower 48 states; and the two largest man-made lakes east of the Mississippi River. It is also home to the highest per capita number of deer and turkey in the United States, the largest free-ranging elk herd east of Montana, and the nation's most productive coalfield. Kentucky is also known for thoroughbred horses, horse racing, bourbon distilleries, bluegrass music, automobile manufacturing, tobacco and college basketball.

With 4.5 million people it's a pretty large entity to be casually dismissed in such a blithe manner. It's as if Setanta has no sense of proportion. The 50 states are merely counters in a board game on his kitchen table.

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@Setanta,

Yeh, RTP was an example of how NC took a path that led from celebrating Spruce-Pine furniture and hillbilly culture and led instead to high tech and applied research.

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@farmerman,

It's a bet fm. You're great delusion is that you don't know it's a bet. There are lots of people who have a deep hankering, a yearning in some cases, for Spruce Pine furniture and hillbilly culture. Your instruments don't measure it but mine do. It's on telly. It sells. "Home Bakery" stuff. Kentucky Fried Chicken. Finger lickin' good.

Teapot cottage ornaments. It's vast. The hankering and the yearning are there right under your nose. Like as if it is an instinct. Central Park is there to cater for short top-ups.

You have it yourself.

And "high-tech" and "applied research" is all very well as long as we know what it's objectives are. (As if we don't eh--I meant it's stated objectives in the handouts). I know you will say that it is "saving lives" in your best Mother Theresa handwringing mode but in your Darwinian mode I can't see you agreeing to such a silly idea.

High-tech what? How to make us all dafter than we are?

Not that I'm against that sort of thing in principle. High-tech I mean. But there has to be a balance if the instinct has validity. I daresay Ark Encounters will cater for flashbacks for the instincts. They could have a water feature with cheer-leader types washing clothes on the rocks and chattering away in an incomprehensible tongue. They would want all the clothes fresh for a long trip on the waves.

Our instinct to eat with our fingers is almost destroyed along with a few others I could mention and the yearning for the hippie life needs nurturing if that is not to go the same way to the point where you get laughed at for calling yourself farmerman. Like in Brave New World.

So you could make a scientific case, using that science relating to repression of instincts being unhealthy, for Ark Encounters being a saver of lives except that nobody can measure how many there are as you can when you start with sick people. If it cheers people up it must be a good thing and the investors must think it will. It's cheering you up now by providing you with opportunities to strut your stuff to try to see that tax incentives go to your mates in the NCSE and its subsiduary enterprises.

I don't think it's possible for you to think scientifically.

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@farmerman,

Tonight, on the AMerican Experience on PBS (9pm EST) is a show about "The Bone Wars" between Othneil S Marsh of Peabody Museum and EDward Drinker Cope of the Phila ACademy. This event in history of paleo, involved the pecuniary events around the early advancement of large museum fossil collections. MArsh was a kind of rich white boy with connections (His Unckle WAS PEabody of the museum name) and he outspent Cope by a large amount to supply competing expeditions into the US West to find and name new species of dinosaurs. Between the two guys (as nuts as they were) they named about 140 species of new dinosaurs.

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You see the same kind of competition for public recognition in the early history of archaeology, too. Schliemann was all about the publicity, and after a desultory visit to some of the Greek islands, he discovered that he could make a name for himself. So off he rushed to Mycenae and Troy.

These days, the boys and girls who make really important archaeological and paeleontological discoveries are not only not celebrities--outside their own colleagues, they are virtually non-entities.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

They must do something first, then they write a book about it and still are only famous for about 30 minutes.
REmember to watch it. You wiull see (if it does the period service) How MArsh actually hired Indian ("bikers") to raid Copes camps and steal **** and bones .

1 Reply

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