Creationist to speak in Potosi (MO) schools

[deadparrot]

Jesus, my state ashames me.

:banghead:

A representative of an organization that promotes biblical creationism will address science students today at two public schools in Potosi.

Potosi High School invited Mike Riddle, a speaker and education specialist at Answers in Genesis, to visit its science classrooms. He also will address science classes at John A. Evans Middle School.

On its Web site, Answers in Genesis says it focuses on "providing answers to questions surrounding the book of Genesis, as it is the most attacked book of the Bible. We also desire to train others to develop a biblical worldview and seek to expose the bankruptcy of evolutionary ideas."

Riddle said in an interview that his presentation, entitled "Fascinating Facts About Origins," will focus on such things as "the laws of thermodynamics," and ask such questions as, "How could a protein originate by itself? Is that possible?"

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/religion/story/BCECDD80F825B42786257168001A7C4F?OpenDocument

[ComerPerro]

1. I hope they didn't pay him. I would be pisses as hell

if the school district I paid into funded this kind of shit.

I'd even be pissed if they had him speak for free...


Creationist nonsense has no place in schools...

[madeline_con]

2. Parents should storm the Bastille, so to speak.

And the kids walk out. It's outrageous!!!

They can't get the crap into the classroom, so the guy becomes a "guest speaker"?!

[BlueJazz]

3. Also..In a related Story: Mike Riddle is going to discuss the...

feasibility of another topic of his...The Easter Bunny... and how (Through God's Plan),
the little rabbit brings billions of "Happy Eggs" to all the little children.

[Dudley_DUright]

4. Take it from a Ph.D. physicist

There is no conflict between the laws of thermodynamics and evolution, and anyone that claims differently is just displaying their ignorance of both.

[Salviati]

Yup..

I've been trying to think of a statement as boneheaded as this one thate keeps cropping up. It seems to me that it's displaying as much ignorance as someone who claims that since the Law of Gravity tells us that everything falls at the same rate on the surface of the Earth that airplanes are impossible as they would defy the laws of physics.


I hope that someone asks this nutcase about the statements of Guy Consolmagno, the Vatican astronomer.

[VTMechEngr]

8. see comment 7 for my rant on that.

[kestrel91316]

23. Protestant fundamentalists don't pay any attention to what the VATICAN

says. They know that all those "mackerel-snappers" are going to burn in hell someday just like the Jews and witches.

[Salviati]

24. Yeah, but it's always fun to make them say it...

...keep driving in those wedges, remind the Catholics what the fundies *really* think of them...

[Kutjara]

9. They're relying on the fact...

...that the average person doesn't have a firm grounding in either thermodynamics or evolution, and will therefore accept 'scientific arguments' made by an 'expert' who, ostensibly, knows more about it than they do.

It's easy to confuse people by talking about the implacable nature of entropy, and using it as 'proof' that complex systems can't self organise, without bothering to point out that local 'violations' are not only possible, but common. The fact that we have an enormous fusion reactor sitting on our cosmic doorstep, pumping out a torrent of useable energy, easily able to support the complexity we see around us, doesn't detract one bit from the fact that the overwhelming majority of the energy from the Sun pours out into space as useless heat. In the great story of the Sun's heat death, Earth doesn't even rate a footnote. It's like standing in front of a fire hose and wondering what miracle got your clothes wet.

As with many religious fanatics, what Creationists lack most is a sense of the appropriate perspective.

[IselaB]

14. Right. He's going to bring up the entropy thing again, isn't he?

Ignoring the basic fact it only applies to closed systems.

[greyl]

16. One doesn't need to be a Ph.D. physicist to recognize that.

Besides, creationism is based on fallacious "appeal to authority". ;)

[Kutjara]

5. I'm sick to death of these assholes.

It's bad enough that they tell these fairy stories to adults, but poisoning the minds of children with such crap is tantamount to abuse. How many young minds are being twisted and polluted? How many more generations will labor under the burden of dogma and ritual?

More evil still, Creationists don't give a shit how the world was created or how mankind came to be. They merely want to shape young minds to accept arguments from authority, regardless of proof or logic. Their mission is to destroy critical thinking and replace it with intellectual docility. A country of 'believers' is a country of fools, willing to swallow whatever stories those in power feed them.

[depakid]

6. will focus on such things as "the laws of thermodynamics

Which he NO DOUBT misunderstands- or maybe lies about.

What do bet he's never even bothered to read Prigogine....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Prigogine

[0rganism]

12. Either he doesn't know how thermo works, or purposefully misrepresents it

Thing is, most of the people institutes like AIG and ICR get to do their public presentations AREN'T SCIENTISTS. They ARE well-trained public speakers, debaters, and (above all) salesmen. The one thing you'll notice if you watch them go at it with biology profs and such is that the creationists have their rhetoric down, man, they've got a finely-tuned rap and they keep it fresh, and they'll make the audience think they've won even when the biologist mops the floor with their heads. Their routines may be constructed entirely of distortions glued together by logical fallacies, but they're smooth as silk and easy on the brain.

Don't EVER underestimate these assclowns.

[depakid]

20. Yep- accomplished huskters and snake oil salesmen

and my take on the way to deal with them is treat them just like that.

A healthy dose of ricule works wonders. Of course, these kids probably won't get to see it done that way.

[VTMechEngr]

7. You know what pisses an engineer off?!

Idiots who say Evolution violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

First of all, its a law that applies to closed systems for analysis only. But they say, entropy wouldn't allow evolution.
Why not? A system can have a negative entropy, it just requires an energy input. Gee, looking out in the daytime, I can't figure out where the earth gets an energy input.:banghead:

Go ahead and draw your control volume around our pretty planet, because it doesn't apply! You see, there is this giant ball of fire in the sky raining down light, heat, radiation of all forms, and then there are cosmis rays from all over the freaking universe!!!!!

:nuke::banghead::rant:

[Kutjara]

10. LOL, we were ranting the same rant at the same time.

As I said above, the Creationists are standing in front of a fire hose, calling it a miracle that their clothes are wet.

[Dudley_DUright]

11. Thanks for both your rants,

saved me the trouble. :-)

[VTMechEngr]

17. Creationist only get away with it because

few people get the science background they need to see that their smooth talking is just science sounding garbage.

[Kutjara]

18. Maybe we need to coin a new word...

...a la Stephen Colbert's 'truthiness,' to highlight scientific-sounding ideas that are actually mallarky.

Sciencyness?
Scientesque?
Sciencish?
Scientology? - scratch that one, already taken.

[Roland99]

21. Scientificiness?

[IselaB]

13. I'm sorry, but isn't this illegal?

I thought the Supreme Court had ruled back in 87 that creationism was religion.

[Kutjara]

15. You don't think anyone's actually enforcing...

...all those 'librul' laws and judgements, do you?

Remember, the Supreme Court is just a buncha guys in dresses.

[MaineYooper]

19. Philip Kitcher got it right over 20 years ago: "Abusing Science"

http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=5383

Very good book, detailing how these people cherry-pick statements from a broad range of sciences (physics, biology, geology, etc) and then use them out of context, and frequently incorrectly, to "support" their case.

Open ridicule is really the best response, since the people who support ID/creationism have demonstrated repeatedly that they are unwilling and/or unable to participate in an honest debate.

The Dover case judge really hit it on the head when used "breathtaking inanity" to describe the continued efforts of this crowd.

[Bruden]

22. We'll never be rid of these people. The fight must go on.