Showing posts with label ark encounter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ark encounter. Show all posts

9.12.2012

Creation Museum Scientists Challenge Bill Nye To Evolution Debate

The scientists from The Creation Museum have challenged Bill Nye to a debate. If there's a god, I pray that he makes this happen. On live prime time television.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you're aware that Bill Nye angered quite a few Creationists with a video he made for Big Think, in which he stated that Creationism is indoctrination and inappropriate for children.

Faster than you could say "Adam's rib," the folks at Answers In Genesis (the creationist ministry behind the Creation Museum and the forthcoming Ark Encounter) responded with a facepalm-inducing rebuttal of Nye's comments.

Bill Nye then responded to Answers in Genesis with the following comments:
"When I see reasoning like this, I often feel that we educators have failed to convey a fundamental idea in evolution. We humans, who design and build things, or who plant crops according to a calendar, think in what would be top-down style or method of design. Evolution works the other way; it's bottom-up design. The only designs that we observe in nature exist, because they have been successful from generation to generation."

""Creation Science" is not useful, because it can make no successful predictions about nature or the universe. So, it is reasonable to say the expression is an oxymoron, or simply: it's not science. It has no process of observation, hypothesis, experiment, then predicted outcome. A useful theory about time and organisms would make no distinction between "observational" and "historical" science.
In terms of critical thinking, its claims are completely refutable. When creationists assert that the Earth is 6,000 years old. That claim can be evaluated and shown to be untrue or simply wrong. If creationists claim that ancient dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time, that can be shown to be false. Judge John E. Jones in Dover, Pennsylvania used the expression "breathtaking inanity" to describe creationists' arguments, i.e. claims so silly that they took his breath away."

"My concern again is that we cannot afford to raise a substantial fraction of the next generation of students, who do not have the skills to think scientifically. We are at a crossroads in the history of the U.S. Without scientifically literate kids, we will fall behind other countries as inventors and innovators. We will lose our edge."

Ken Ham of AiG seems a bit pessimistic on whether Nye will accept the debate challenge:
Well, we’ve already seen a lot of web chatter by secularists saying that they don’t debate creationists. They claim creation has nothing to do with science and that Christians like Dr. Purdom (with aPhD in Molecular Genetics from Ohio State) can’t be real scientists if they are creationists.

They argue that there is no debate because evolution is fact. In other words, these secularists use every excuse they can put forward because ultimately, they do not want to debate creationists. They don’t want the public watching such a debate. They realize that when the public hears the creationist information that has been censored from them and learn how they’ve been brainwashed, they will definitely question evolution.

...The secular media by and large support Bill Nye’s false statements about evolution and science, the mainstream media would not want the general public to hear anything else. It’s almost always this way. Most in the secular media aren’t out to report news—most of them have a very liberal anti-God agenda. But we are used to that.

Bill, please accept the challenge. We will get the popcorn ready.

2.11.2011

Answers in Genesis: Ark Park Jobs Link Removed After Church-State Criticism


Answers in Genesis, the organization behind the Creation Museum and the forthcoming Ark Encounter has had a jobs page on their Website for some time.  And until just yesterday, the site had an "Ark Encounter Jobs" link as part of that page (cached page from Feb. 2) -- right above the statement: "All job applicants need to supply a written statement of their testimony, a statement of what they believe regarding creation and a statement that they have read and can support the AiG statement of faith."

The organization's required Statement of Faith would be a problem for Ark Encounter jobs, one would think, since the citizens of Kentucky will be subsidizing the project with their tax dollars.  The statement of faith clearly requires employees to adhere to a fundamentalist Christian faith and a literal interpretation of Biblical text -- a problem for any tax-paying Kentuckians of any other (or no) faith.

Some of the highlights from AiG's statement of faith:
  • The 66 books of the Bible are the written Word of God. The Bible is divinely inspired and inerrant throughout. Its assertions are factually true in all the original autographs. It is the supreme authority in everything it teaches. Its authority is not limited to spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes but includes its assertions in such fields as history and science.
  • The final guide to the interpretation of Scripture is Scripture itself.
  • The account of origins presented in Genesis is a simple but factual presentation of actual events and therefore provides a reliable framework for scientific research into the question of the origin and history of life, mankind, the earth and the universe.
  • The great Flood of Genesis was an actual historic event, worldwide (global) in its extent and effect.
  • Those who do not believe in Christ are subject to everlasting conscious punishment, but believers enjoy eternal life with God.
  • The only legitimate marriage is the joining of one man and one woman. Any forms of homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, incest, fornication, adultery, pornography, etc., are sinful perversions of God’s gift of sex.
AiG spokesperson Ken Ham has frequently been a source of frustration (and comedy, to be sure) to biologist P.Z. Myers, a noted atheist and highly regarded ScienceBlogs staple (Myers's corner is the popular Pharyngula blog).  Ken Ham has also spent his fair share of time writing about Myers on his blog.  But on Wednesday, Myers brought the Ark Jobs conflict of interest to his readers' attention with a post, "Great Jobs In Kentucky!" The comments section of the page contains lengthy discussion of the constitutionality of such requirements in a place of business partly made possible by tax incentives.  And although, to be fair, the Ark Park Jobs link took users to a page which stated that there currently were no jobs listed, it is notable that the link vanished almost immediately after Myers' post.

It will be interesting to see what, if any, belief system is required to work at the Ark Encounter.  And rest assured that if there are faith requirements, AiG and the Ark Encounter will find themselves in another heated debate about the separation of church and state.  And if there are no faith requirements, then AiG will have found themselves in an unprecedented compromise, when non-compromise is at the core of what they do and who they are.