Creationists and Flat-Earthers

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkrkaH_V7fE]

I’ve often compared Creationists to flat earthers. Both show a comparable ignorance of modern science. Sherri Shepherd, new co-host of The View, says she doesn’t “believe in evolution, period.” As the above video shows, her ignorance isn’t limited to evolution as she doesn’t know whether the earth is flat or round.

4 Comments

  1. 1
    rupert says:

    I am not a creationist. Evolution is a belief system. Evolution and natural selection account for variations within a species. It does not account for gross speciation or the development of complex structures that require a whole redesign in order to be an advantage to a species.

    If you arms or fore legs were to “evolve” into wings, unless the complete structure “accidentally” happens due to a mutation, the wing is not an advantage as it doesn’t work and doesn’t allow you to use the mutated limb for the original purpose. Unless the bones, muscles, nerves, skin and hair/feathers all occur ACCIDENTALLY by RANDOM MUTATION at the same time – it doesn’t wprk.

    Look at your fingernails and then look at a cat’s RETRACTABLE claws. How does that difference happen by accident? How does such a complex structure mutate into existence by ACCIDENT?

    Evolution is just magical thinking with a science label attached. Devolution and extinction are real and there are as many examples of that as you want – like chicken wings and your appendix.

    Show me a flying squirrel that flaps and has feathers – SURELY such a marvel must have evolved by RANDOM ACCIDENTAL MUTATION, right? The structure is the same as a regular squirrel except for the flap of skin and the adaptability and plasticity of the nervous system.

    If you truly believe in evolution’s marvelous random effects, then get all the parts for a harley davidson motorcycle, put them into a cement mixer and turn it on. Sooner of later you will have a complete and working motorcycle. Yeah, and an infinite number of monkeys typing at computer keyboards can write the complete works of Shakespeare too.

    Now we are supposed to believe that evolution produces new species. Where are they? Don’t we have less now than in the past?

    Np one understands gross speciation, yet it is assumed by those who believe in evolution that it just happens. That is FAITH and BELIEF.

    Intelligent design has GOD lurking discretely to the side but maybe the intelligence is IN the DNA itself or, in the mechanism which writes it. The DNA code has been written out, but just like a book, the chapters, paragraphs, sentences and words DID NOT WRITE THEMSELVES. If you are handed a book, do you assume that it wrote itself or that the words just accidentally got put in that order? If you do, then you are an evolutionist.

    Just because we cannot see the designer or the writer, does not mean that it does not exist. It is a projection of, or a slice of, a higher dimension (infinite number of universes and dimensions). Most folks call that GOD unless they are into the new physics. It has nothing to do with the creationist’s god. It is an overlying intelligence and design mechanism and is currently unkown and undefined.

    As for the world being flat, it is, on the scale of people, and only is round if you are far enough away to see it, and if you are real close then it is a chaotic jumble of nooks and crannies. Scale matters and to the average person who is not traveling around the globe, it matters not. She just didn’t get a good education. Most of us didn’t. Few of us realize that.

    Teaching evolution as a fact is a bad education.

    At the Smithsonian, they use the Polar bear as an example of evidence of evolution. It is just a bear with specialized hair and adapted to the cold. They COULD NOT use an example of wings evolving, fins, feathers or anything else involving a structural and engineering change because it JUST DOESN’T HAPPEN and IT JUST DOESN’T WORK.

    People believe the first lie they are told about something and it is hard to get them to change once they imprint.

  2. 2
    Ron Chusid says:

    “Evolution is a belief system”

    No, it is science. It has withstood the rigors of the scientific method and is both established science and a fundamental principle of modern biology.

    “Evolution and natural selection account for variations within a species. It does not account for gross speciation or the development of complex structures that require a whole redesign in order to be an advantage to a species.”

    I suggest you study the science (as opposed to writing it off as a “belief system”) as this, and pretty much everything else you say is incorrect. Evolution provides a mechanism which has explained both development of a new species as well as the development of complex structures.

    Your comments on evolution have nothing to do with the actual science and are based upon the distortions of the science commonly used by the religious right when they claim to argue against evolution. If you are interested in learning about the actual science, as opposed to repeating nonsense talking points from the religious right, there are several links in the reference section here. A basic biology text might also be of value. As just one example of the degree to which evolution is accepted without any real controversy in the scientific community, see Science and Creationism from The National Academy of Sciences. Their review of evolution begins:

    Studies in evolutionary biology have led to the conclusion that human beings arose from ancestral primates. This association was hotly debated among scientists in Darwin’s day. But today there is no significant scientific doubt about the close evolutionary relationships among all primates, including humans.

    You wrote. “People believe the first lie they are told about something and it is hard to get them to change once they imprint.” That is only true of some of you who believe the false claims spread by the religious right. Those who study science base their views on what has been proven, not simply the first thing they heard.

    Not only are you incorrect in claiming that evolution should not be taught as a fact, the entire field of biology could not be taught without evolution. Evolution is the unifying principle which ties all of biology together.

  3. 3
    Dash says:

    The “Harley-Davidson in a cement mixer” example perfectly illustrates what people who oppose evolution don’t understand evolution. To make the example actually fit evolutionary processes, then every time a part lands where it “fits” into the cycle structure — that is, it is advantageous for it to be there — it would be kept there. Eventually, given enough time, all of the “random” changes in parts’ location would place them where they need to be.

    Of course, this just illustrates what a piss-poor example this is in the first place. Natural selection and evolution don’t work toward a “goal,” they are the mechanism and result of the laws of nature. Genetic variation that’s advantageous and adaptive has a better chance of surviving than that that isn’t. Those variations are preserved. It’s not random what’s kept, it’s only random in that it’s arbitrary whether a certain genetic mutation will be helpful in an environment, hurtful, or neutral.

    The natural, physical laws of the universe tend toward diversity and complexity. You many not be able to predict what change will happen in a complex universe, but scientists are very good a prediction what will happen to that change once it appears in an given environment. This is not faith. It’s the same science that allows you to use a computer to post a comment demonstrating your complete misunderstanding of what you’re talking about.

  4. 4
    Ron Chusid says:

    Dash,

    The problem is that creationists have absolutely no knowledge of what evolution actually is. They received religious indoctrination and accept this, preventing them from studying or understanding the actual science.

    A very common misconception about evolution is that it says that random chance resulted in a specific end result. To briefly reiterate the point of your comment, evolution is not about chance but about a mechanism which explains the development of increasingly complex life forms. Current species are not an intended end result but the consequence of this process. In other situations other species may have developed, as we see in isolated ecosystems.

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