Creation Wins!!!

[RebelSnake]

Creation Wins!!!

by A Person Warrior Published on Fri May 25, 2007 5:36 pm

2

The Georgetown Times

Judy Doerr, the science teacher for middle school students at Pawleys Island Christian Academy (PICA), says she is very pleased with this year’s science fair projects.
...
Brian Benson, an eighth-grade student who won first place in the Life Science/Biology category for his project “Creation Wins!!!,” says he disproved part of the theory of evolution. Using a rolled-up paper towel suspended between two glasses of water with Epsom Salts, the paper towel formed stalactites. He states that the theory that they take millions of years to develop is incorrect.

“Scientists say it takes millions of years to form stalactites,” Benson said. “However, in only a couple of hours, I have formed stalactites just by using paper towel and Epsom Salts.”

But let's see how many errors there are here:
1) The theory of evolution says nothing about stalactites. They don't breed.
2) Geologists do not say stalactites take millions of years to form, the rates of deposition vary (0.001 - 1 mm/yr) and some large speleothems are known to be hundreds of thousands of years old.
3) Stalactites are formed from Calcium Carbonate (limestone), epsom salts are magnesium sulfate. Epsom salts are extremely soluble in water, Limestone isn't.
4) This has nothing whatsoever to do with Biology or life sciences.

The kid isn't at fault, he's just repeating the idiocy he's been taught. It's the teachers and judges (who awarded him first place) that should hang their heads in shame for abusing this child's mind. Instead of actually looking at "God's creation' and showing how rings in speleothems can be read to give a fascinating 'recent' history of the Earth, complete with a temperature record, they have filled his head with myths.

Creation 'wins!!!' again by lying for God.

[RebelSnake]

The poor kid's just another victim of religion.

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

The Georgetown Times

Judy Doerr, the science teacher for middle school students at Pawleys Island Christian Academy (PICA), says she is very pleased with this year’s science fair projects.
...
Brian Benson, an eighth-grade student who won first place in the Life Science/Biology category for his project “Creation Wins!!!,” says he disproved part of the theory of evolution. Using a rolled-up paper towel suspended between two glasses of water with Epsom Salts, the paper towel formed stalactites. He states that the theory that they take millions of years to develop is incorrect.

“Scientists say it takes millions of years to form stalactites,” Benson said. “However, in only a couple of hours, I have formed stalactites just by using paper towel and Epsom Salts.”

But let's see how many errors there are here:
1) The theory of evolution says nothing about stalactites. They don't breed.
2) Geologists do not say stalactites take millions of years to form, the rates of deposition vary (0.001 - 1 mm/yr) and some large speleothems are known to be hundreds of thousands of years old.
3) Stalactites are formed from Calcium Carbonate (limestone), epsom salts are magnesium sulfate. Epsom salts are extremely soluble in water, Limestone isn't.
4) This has nothing whatsoever to do with Biology or life sciences.

The kid isn't at fault, he's just repeating the idiocy he's been taught. It's the teachers and judges (who awarded him first place) that should hang their heads in shame for abusing this child's mind. Instead of actually looking at "God's creation' and showing how rings in speleothems can be read to give a fascinating 'recent' history of the Earth, complete with a temperature record, they have filled his head with myths.

Creation 'wins!!!' again by lying for God.

I wonder what sort of qualification this so-called teacher had for teaching these 8th graders? She obviously failed to teach some pretty basic stuff, like what the theory of evolution actually says, what constitutes a biology or "life science" science project, and possibly the issues that make the experiment different from the point the kid was trying to make.

This kid is obviously destined to attend college at Liberty University and spend a career at the Discovery Institute, trying to convince people that the Flintstones was a scientific documentary instead of a weird Honeymooners ripoff.

Sad.

[RebelSnake]

There was an article on Dawkins site this morning about that.

This isn't just wrong, it's appallingly wrong. He's wrong on the facts, wrong on the interpretations, wrong on the understanding of how science works. If we're charitable and grant that a 14 year old has some reasonable excuse for ignorance, we can still indict his parents, his science teacher, and the judges at this fair on gross incompetence on multiple charges.

• This experiment has nothing to do with biology.

• Epsom salts are magnesium sulfate; stalactites are made of calcium carbonate.

• Stalactite growth rates are estimated to be around 0.1-10 centimeters per thousand years. If we assume his 'stalactite' was 10 cm long and use the slowest growth rate, that's 100 thousand years, not millions.

• Even if he had demonstrated an accelerated rate of stalactite growth, stalactite length isn't the method used to date the age of the earth.

• To quote the unquestionable authority, Terry Pratchett: "And all those exclamation points? Five? A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head." Mister Benson comes perilously close to the underpants limit in his title.

[A Person]

Ever wondered how the rates of deposition are determined? Geologists don't start with the rate and measure the size to determine the age. (At least not if they don't want their research to be laughed at) They directly measure the age by taking a core or section and counting layers. The layers are confirmed as annual by various chemical markers. The ratios of oxygen18 to oxygen16 give the temperature. From this they can determine the rate.

Rates can be a bit misleading - much like all deposition, high rates can occur for short periods of time but average rates are much lower. Straw stalagtites can grow several millimeters (in length) in a year - but as a thin tube. Of course the gypsum straw stalagtites that form in tunnels and bridges can grow much more quickly.

[Nfidel]

I thought you guys were caught up in a satirical site like this one. Fellowship Baptist Creation Science Fair 2001

I am really saddened that I'm wrong.

[BecauseHeLives]

I know this is a stereotype but I thought it was funny. Come from your bogus site above.

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

I know this is a stereotype but I thought it was funny. Come from your bogus site above.

Yeah, I've seen that one before. I love these parody pages. It's always fun to show them to the uninitiated and see how long it takes them to spot that they're parodies.

[Questioner]

The Georgetown Times

Judy Doerr, the science teacher for middle school students at Pawleys Island Christian Academy (PICA), says she is very pleased with this year’s science fair projects.
...

Christian Academy??? Try Christian brainwashing institute instead.

[BecauseHeLives]

The Georgetown Times

Judy Doerr, the science teacher for middle school students at Pawleys Island Christian Academy (PICA), says she is very pleased with this year’s science fair projects.
...

Christian Academy??? Try Christian brainwashing institute instead.

Now if you would have said catholic school brainwashing institute then I might could agree with you.

[Questioner]

Now if you would have said catholic school brainwashing institute then I might could agree with you.

Can't do that. I've never seen a Catholic school teach lies about science. Their teachers are required to have formal education (or even degrees in some of the higher end Catholic schools)in the field in which they teach. So you don't find Catholic school teachers supporting that sort of false and unscientific nonsense as science.

[BecauseHeLives]

Now if you would have said catholic school brainwashing institute then I might could agree with you.

Can't do that. I've never seen a Catholic school teach lies about science. Their teachers are required to have formal education (or even degrees in some of the higher end Catholic schools)in the field in which they teach. So you don't find Catholic school teachers supporting that sort of false and unscientific nonsense as science.

You speak as if the qualifications for teaching catholic school are more stringent than protestent schools.

[Questioner]

You speak as if the qualifications for teaching catholic school are more stringent than protestent schools.

Actually, they are. Catholic elementary and high schools have long been known for their extremely high quality education. They require their teachers to have excellent qualifications. They must have a college degree in education (and their teaching certificate of course). In addition, many have masters degrees. In our High Schools, many of our teachers have masters degrees in the subject they teach and several have doctoral degrees in their subjects--especially those who teach in the hard sciences (like Math, Biology, Physics, and Chemistry).

Catholic schools are known for having stringent and challenging curricula. And their national test score averages are far higher than public school averages, and higher than the scores kids from funadmentalist Baptist and Pentacostalist church schools achieve. Frankly, no University that I know of has any hesitation about accepting graduates from Catholic schools. That certainly isn't the case for many of the fundamentalist Christian schools.

In the past, many non-Catholic parents sent their kids to Catholic primary and secondary schools because the quality of education provided in Catholic schools is so far above that provided in any other public or religious schools. You can look it up on the Internet if you care about such things.

As to religious higher education institutions: You will not get the type of uneducated, poorly prepared graduate out of Notre Dame that we constantly see out of Bob Jones University and most other fundamentalist Christian schools. (It hurts to call that crappy "school" a University by the way. They are little more than an indoctrination center.) And the same criticisms hold true for most of the fundamentalist Christian colleges I know of.

BJU, for example, isn't even accredited by an acceptable accredition agency. It is "accredited" by something called the "Transnational Association of Christian Colleges", whatever that is. I wouldn't waste tuition money sending a kid there. A director of nursing in one of the local hospitals who is on a committee I'm also on told me once that she won't hire their graduates anymore.

They can spout their bible, but they can't do the most basic nursing care. Besides, she can't get them to accept some work assignments. She has had BJU nurses refuse to care for gays and lesbians, and in one case, she had a BJU grad refuse to provide care to an abortion patient sent to the ER for post procedure bleeding. Nurses (like hospital based physicians) do not have the right to pick and choose among patients they are willing to help. One would think that kind of discrimination should be against their christian principles, but evidently not.

Substandard education used to be the case for Oral Roberts University, but I must say that school did work hard to upgrade itself into a credible college. And it has succeeded. It is accredited by North Central, which means it had to hire qualified, doctorally prepared faculty and meet a whole bunch of standards. So that school's graduates of do tend to have a decent education.

Overall, however, Catholic schools are known as some of the best in the nation. That is not true of schools supported by fundamentalist Christian sects.

[A Person]

Catholics (and most main stream protestant groups) realized a long time ago that in a conflict between scripture and science (observations of the natural world) scripture comes out looking silly.

It's only relatively recently that Bible Literalism has reached prominence again. The target of the "Creation Science" movement is not the Universities or scientists, but to promote a plausible sounding pseudoscience to the masses. The message is firmly to promote the idea that it's intellectually respectable to claim that the Earth is only a few thousand years old and that there is a scientific controversy about origins. They have been disturbingly effective with that message. The general population is only too happy to believe in all kinds of pseudoscience (or pathological science in the case of young earth creationism) and spirituality (Dowsing, crop circles, spoon bending, alien abductions, Genesis, mind reading, feng shui, naturopathy etc.)

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

Catholics (and most main stream protestant groups) realized a long time ago that in a conflict between scripture and science (observations of the natural world) scripture comes out looking silly.

It's only relatively recently that Bible Literalism has reached prominence again.

Indeed. One has to wonder at such wierdness as YEC's, the presuppositionalists and many other extremely nonsensical flavors that are floating around out there, all having this basic tenet in common: when the universe and the Bible disagree, it is the universe that has got it wrong.

The target of the "Creation Science" movement is not the Universities or scientists, but to promote a plausible sounding pseudoscience to the masses. The message is firmly to promote the idea that it's intellectually respectable to claim that the Earth is only a few thousand years old and that there is a scientific controversy about origins. They have been disturbingly effective with that message.

This is one of the reasons why Hitchens (and many others) says that religion per se is harmful. It creates a mindset that allows authority figures to lead their followers to the outer limits of ignorance and erroneous thinking. Sure, there are some religious leaders who respect science and encourage their followers to do the same. but they could just as easily lead their "flocks" to being librarian-killing mobs... if you know what I mean.

[Questioner]

It's only relatively recently that Bible Literalism has reached prominence again. The target of the "Creation Science" movement is not the Universities or scientists, but to promote a plausible sounding pseudoscience to the masses.

I agree with all but the idea that their target is only the masses. I assume you are including public high schools in the "masses" because we all know they have fought long and hard to try and force their YEC crap into public high schools.

But don't think they are ignoring the public Universities! They aren't trying as hard there, but they regularly try to get students to complain about the "one-sided godless humanism" that we teach in Universities. Of course, the definition of that godless humanism is evolution. They just don't have the power over Boards of Regents that they do over local school boards.

[Questioner]

I just realized I might have been unclear about the abortion issue. No nurse is ever forced to assist with an abortion. That nurse was not being asked to help with an abortion. But just because a woman has had an abortion doesn't mean that a nurse can refuse to care for her for other problems. The woman I referred to earlier had already had the abortion, so there was no fetus involved. But she was bleeding excessively, and nobody can work in the ER and refuse to provide care to a patient who is hemorrhaging, whatever the cause. Essentially, the nurse thought she had the right to stand there and let the patient bleed to death. That is not permissible, and in fact, in states with aggressive State Nursing Boards, had somebody wanted to pursue it, the nurse could have action taken against her license.

[A Person]

But don't think they are ignoring the public Universities! They aren't trying as hard there, but they regularly try to get students to complain about the "one-sided godless humanism" that we teach in Universities.

Yes that's part of the growing 'respectability' of creationism.

I don't think that this is just as a result of effective campaigning by the fundamentalists. A large part is due to the values of racial tolerance and respect for spiritual beliefs that have been so important in recent years. Fundamentalists have hijacked this tolerance to try to push their brand of beliefs onto others. With the increase in religious (Islamic and Christian) fundamentalism in the world and the obvious negative impact it's only a matter of time before the pendulum swings the other way. It's the kind of thing that created the US constitution. Let's hope that not too many die first.

[BecauseHeLives]

Other than a few millions Christians getting their heads chopped off it shouln't be too violent.

[A Person]

There's no point in chopping off their heads, there's nothing useful inside.

[BecauseHeLives]

There's no point in chopping off their heads, there's nothing useful inside.

Wow... that's a pretty big insult to Questioner. I wonder how she'll react to that.

[Questioner]

There's no point in chopping off their heads, there's nothing useful inside.

Wow... that's a pretty big insult to Questioner. I wonder how she'll react to that.

Since I am not a fundamentalist, I guess I fail to see any reason to be insulted.

Actually, given the bad company being a Christian sometimes puts me in (specifically, whenever people think the fundamentalists are actually Christians), I have thought of leaving altogether from time to time. Jesus had wonderful ideas about the value of people and how they should treat each other. And He had lots of upset at how the power clique was using the Jewish faith. I'm beginning to think that all organized religions end up doing much more harm than good, just as a function of the extreme desire of human beings for power and wealth. Religion seems always to get corrupted by the hierarchy's loss of interest in Jesus and His teachings and by their desire for power and wealth.

That was my biggest disgust with Falwell. He evidently didn't know, or didn't care what Jesus taught. He told people things that supported their hatreds and prejudices. He pulled lots of stuff out of the Old Testament to support their hatreds, and never bothered to do what a REAL minister of Christ should do, which is teach love, tolerance and good works.

[BecauseHeLives]

There's no point in chopping off their heads, there's nothing useful inside.

Wow... that's a pretty big insult to Questioner. I wonder how she'll react to that.

Since I am not a fundamentalist, I guess I fail to see any reason to be insulted.

Hw was specific about Christians...not evangelicals

[Questioner]

Hw was specific about Christians...not evangelicals

You have to pay attention to the context. And the reality is, many murders and much harm has been done in the last 1600 years in the name of Christianity.

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

Hw was specific about Christians...not evangelicals

Interesting -- the looseness of language is on quite a display here. "Christian" is morphed into "fundamentalist," which gets equated with "evangelical." I know a few ELCA ministers who'd take exception at that last step as well.

And people wonder how a single book can lead to the creation of thousands of sects!