Uh oh. I hope this does not make me a creationist!
October 14th, 2009
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Found this on a fundy “creation science” site, apparently questions that will tell whether you’re an “Evolutionist” or not. The alternative, being a creationist.
Evolution can become so ingrained in our thinking that we don’t even notice it. Our government schools and universities are entrenched in evolution, from biology to philosophy and even English class. There is no escaping evolution after we graduate, either. We encounter it in the newspaper, on the radio, on television, and in blockbuster movies. So, how do you know if you’ve been evolutionized? Here are a few questions to find out:
- Are tribes in the South American rain forest more primitive forms of humans than we are?
- Did dinosaurs live before humans?
- Were the people who lived in caves and used simple tools not very intelligent?
- Did Noah lack special tools or equipment to build the Ark?
- Are the stars older than the earth?
- Is there more than one race?
- Does it take millions of years to form fossils, oil, coal, or diamonds?
- Did Adam have to learn how to speak, read, and write after he was created?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you’ve been evolutionized to some degree, and the more times you responded “yes,” the more evolution impacts your thinking. Evolutionary teaching so permeates our culture that it can affect every area of our thinking, including what we believe about the Bible. This sort of evolutionized thinking has even permeated our churches.
That is why it is more important than ever for Christians to be discerning and weigh every thought against the truths revealed in God’s Word. If you examine each question more closely, you will see how your answers must be different from evolutionists’ if you start with God’s Word.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t answer any of the questions with an unequivocal “yes.” Here are my answers:
1. No, they may be more primitive societies, but the actual people in them are homo sapiens just like myself and everyone else.
2. If you’re talking about the classic dinosaurs that people think of then yes, but it’s increasingly starting to look like there might not be a hard and bright line between small feathered dinosaurs and birds. Primitive bird species may qualify as dinosaurs, which really makes the question a bit complicated and largely depends on your definition.
This is really the only question that I could answer “yes” to, but it’s a qualified yes.
3. I don’t know. The intelligence of early man is a topic of debate in the scientific community. In general, the prevailing thought now is that early ancestors of man probably were not quite as intelligent as modern humans, although they may have come close. It really depends on how far back you’re talking and exactly what kind of “people” you’re talking about. Neanderthals for example (not a direct ancestor, but a very close cousin) were once thought to be fairly unintelligent, but that view has changed, although they are still believed to have less cognitive abilities than modern man.
My short answer to this question would have to be “no.”
4. How many fairies can dance on the head of a pin? What does Santa Claus do during the off season? I can’t answer that question any more than the previous two, because it involves an assumption of a fictitious person.
5. Most are, but not all. Some stars have life cycles under a few million years and there are constantly new stars being created. The earth is about five billion years old and there are plenty of stars that are younger than that. Protoplanetary nebulsa, like the one to the right are a phase of stellar evolution that takes as little as ten thousand years, a very short time in cosmic terms. These clouds of gas eventually come together due to their own gravity and form new stars. While the oldest known stars are many billions of years old, the youngest are well under one million years old – much younger than Earth.
6. How do you define race? Humans are all one species. There are distinct sub-groups with various features and genetic traits. By some definition, different groups of humans with distinct features, such as Caucasians versus Africans versus South Asians could be considered to meet the biological criteria for being subspecies, but that’s not a hard and bright line either. It’s complicated by the fact that humans can interbreed and thus mix. It may have been simpler when populations lived in relative isolation. In any case, there certainly are no easily defined borders.
7. Most fossil fuels are millions of years old, but it does not need to take that long to produce oil (petroleum). It can be produced in a relatively short period of time using thermal depolymerization - the process of breaking down organic matter is accelerated in high heat and pressure environments. As an artificial process, organic matter can be reduced to a crude oil-like state in less than a day. In the natural enviornment, conditions of high compaction and heating can produce fossil fuels in less than one million years – although it generally takes at least thousands of years.
Fossilization can also happen in thousands of years, so millions of years are not required. Fossils are often defined by the arbitrary date of being over ten thousand years old, but mineralization of organic material and hardening can take place in even less time, under the right conditions. Thus, fossils can easily be much younger than “millions of years.”
Diamonds can be made in less than a day. GE has been producing synthetic diamonds since the 1940’s. It’s possible that natural forces could produce diamonds in less than millions of years, although since the ones near the earth’s surface come from kimberlite, they have to be at least millions of years old.
An early synthetic diamond production apparatus is shown to the right.
8. See answer to question four.
Wow! I can’t believe this. Of all the questions to evaluate whether I am an evolutionist or not, I couldn’t give an unqualified “Yes” to any of them! Could this mean I’m not one? Or maybe the creation-science folks just don’t know enough science to even understand what “evolutionists” accept.
(There is some dry sarcasm here. I’m not actually a creationist, and I realize that these questions are supposed to imply that the earth is 6000 years old, that stars are even younger and that people once existed with T-Rexes)
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 6:29 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Misc, Not Even Wrong, religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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October 14th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Creationism is a load of bull to begin with, but the fact that there are people who believe the earth is 6000 years old and that dinosaurs died out a few thousand years ago, after having lived alongside mankind is just so amazingly stupid. Not only that, but they believe that this is obvious and that anyone who doesn’t believe it must have been brainwashed by the big conspiracy. It’s all just amazing that anyone could be so clueless.
I don’t think most people who consider themselves “religious” even believe this. Much of my family are churchgoers and pray and believe in the afterlife etc etc. Despite this, they are not so stupid or crazy as to not realize that the earth is billions of years old and not thousands.
It’s a different class of religious type who goes so far as to think that it is absolutely necessary to believe that the earth is younger than some civilizations in order to have a chance at not burning for all eternity and to believe it’s their mission in life to oppose all the science that says otherwise.
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October 14th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
The fact that they are unable to frame questions that will lead to an unequivocal “yes” answer shows just how ignorant of science they are. It’s sad, really.
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October 14th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
It’s not so much that you are a creationist, as much as you are a Rationalist and by advocation a scientist. Absolutes are the preview of the faithful, we on the other hand look at any statement as broadly as possible and therefore always must leave room for alternate interpretations.
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October 14th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
Most fossil fuel is millions of years old, but lignite (the lowest grade coal) is usually only a few million years old and it can be a lot younger (maybe hundreds of thousands of years), which is why it’s not so much different than peat, which can be very young, because peat is just basically mud that has a high enough organic content to burn (if dry)
I don’t know how old most petrolium is, but some subscribe to the abiogenic origin hypothysis, which states that it was formed with the earth from cosmic material. It certainly **can** form in much less than millions of years, if there is enough heat and pressure and the right kind of organic matter is pressent. I’m sure some of the oil in the world is under a million years old. Of course, then you get into the areas of fuels where the lines blur between what constitutes oil versus what constitutes tar versus high tar peat.
In any case, these processes normally take a long time, but don’t have to, because they’re really just the action of carbon and hydrogen rich matter being heated and compressed until it breaks down to simple hydrocarbons.
The time thing really comes into play because of the amounts of stuff that exists. If you had all the plant material from a single season or even one hundred, you’d never have the kind of oil and coal reserves the world has. Like Saudi Arabia has millions of years of lifeforms that have compounded to create the oil.
It would be more accurate to say that the fossil fuels formed “over millions of years” and not “taking millions of years,” because the age of the molecules is going to be all different. It was not produced all at once.
So, they have the science that they don’t even believe somewhat wrong.
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October 15th, 2009 at 1:11 am
How should a member of a South American rainforest tribe answer question 1?
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October 15th, 2009 at 1:54 am
A central tenet of modern science is methodological naturalism–it seeks to explain the universe purely in terms of observed or testable natural mechanisms. Science has also shown us that this knowledge will always be fundamentally incomplete and that the search for true understanding of the universe will never end.
Yet adherents to religion believe that they know many things: the nature of the universe; whether or not an afterlife exists; precisely what to expect from said afterlife; the origin of species; that certain people will burn in everlasting torment who do not believe what they do; and so forth, about anything and everything including the claim to be privy to the infallible word of an omnipotent being. Religion in all its obnoxious denominations—is illogical, irrational, unreasonable and thus completely unscientific.
Worse the bilge they believe in they treat as something sacrosanct; its manifest absurdities are not mentioned, and thus can safely be ignored. But meanwhile they are quite free to belabor science with their whole armamentarium of imbecilities. Every apologist becomes an authority upon science’s errors, and is heard gravely. But it is considered at best in poor taste for a scientist to openly attack religion or call a colleague that claims to be both religious and a scientist, a hypocrite. At worst it could cost a researcher his or her position.
It is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it is not sufficient to exhibit the true; it is also necessary to expose and denounce the false. To admit that the false has any standing, that it ought to be handled gently because millions of morons cherish it and thousands of frauds make their livings propagating it, is to abandon a just cause to its enemies, cravenly and without excuse.
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October 15th, 2009 at 3:43 am
DV82XL said:
A scientest needn’t (or shouldn’t) sink to the level of an attack against anything. Reason will always win in the end, so if somebody chooses to believe nonsense that is his choice and deserves pity more than scorn. Even if he’s an arse.
Regarding questions 4 and 8, the given answers are succinct, but assuming for a moment their premise is true, the answers become:
4. Yes. He lived in a desert and so would not have had immediate access to ship-building equipment.
8. Probably, but it is never referred to either way. It is certainly possible that God created a fully-functional adult man, but as that would unfairly rob him of essential childhood experiences, God is unlikely to do so.
Even the fundies’ own questions don’t help their case.
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October 15th, 2009 at 4:34 am
who are we? said:
Since they talk about humans not technical and organization status the answer is no.
Question 3 is worst and not possible to answer without an estimated time period.
20.000 years ago: no, 40.000 depending if you think Homo sapiens or Neanderthals and how intelligent the Neanderthals was. 300.000 years ago: yes.
Question 2, 6 and 7 would be yes if you followed consensus and ignore special cases. 5 is yes as no would be wrong.
The story of Noah, turn into a logistic nightmare even before start thinking about how to build the boat.
About Adam, he knew how to speak but had to level up to level 10 before he got the reading skill and 15 for writing, so it neither yes or no.
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October 15th, 2009 at 4:55 am
[Other] Matthew said:
The business of hauling absurdity up and attacking it is one of the principal functions of reason. Its prompt execution is the gauge of progressive civilization. The proposition that the world is ~4000 years old is a scientific statement; it may be examined and tested like any other scientific hypothesis. So examined and tested, can be shown to be wholly without evidential support. All the known evidence, in fact is against it, and overwhelmingly so. No one with any claim to the title of scientist is in any doubt about this. They disbelieve it as thoroughly as they believe that the earth moves around the sun. Thus it is a professional duty, a first obligation of professional honor, to attack and refute those who uphold it. Above all, it is a duty to attack the false evidence upon which creationists base their case. A defensive position is not enough; there must be a outright onslaught upon the theological citadel of superstition and deceit.
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October 15th, 2009 at 5:23 am
DV82XL said:
My apologies. I mixed up attacking the idea with attacking the holders of the idea.
Attacking the idea is certainly right and proper. Correct ones will stand while the absurdities will fall.
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October 15th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Although I agree on all the other points, there is an error in point 5. “Planetary nebula” have nothing to do with planets (the term is historical), and are not molecular clouds forming a new star, but rather clouds produced by a dying star that sheds its outer parts into space, usually while forming a white dwarf at the center of the nebula (this will happen to our sun in ~7 Gyrs). They have typical ages of ~10000 years.
What you are talking about are “protostellar cloud cores” like the ones observed in the Orion nebula, although it is very difficult to observe the collapse of the cloud core itself, as this is thought to be quite a short event on astronomical time scales.
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October 15th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Biff: They don’t. Young Earth Creationists are (to the best of my knowledge) a minority even among Baptists, let alone Christians as a group, let alone religious humans.
(Catholics, for instance, hold that the six day creation in Genesis is metaphorical, and see no reason, as a matter of doctrine, why evolution can’t be the medium of creation of the animal species.
The only evolution they reject, doctrinally, is that of the human soul. Which, since it can’t be evidenced at all, is not a matter for science anyway.)
Other Matthew: Don’t forget that a large part of the middle eastern desert is near the sea. For that matter, it’s not at all clear from Genesis that Noah lived in a desert, where it was he lived, or what relation, if any, the antediluvian world map had to the current one. (Assuming that we take the myth’s own terms for answering questions about it, at least.)
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October 15th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Sigivald said:
Keep in mind that Young Earth Creationists are not the Christians of Reinhold Niebuhr and Karl Barth,. They are part of a very politically active movement that in many countries seek to have elements of their faith enshrined in the law of the land. Not content with denouncing all free inquiry as evil, the partisans of of this movement have now undertaken with great ferocity, to make it downright unlawful. Worse, in places they show signs of succeeding.
Make no mistake about it: they would like to impose a totalitarian system. The level of manipulation is quite sophisticated. These people understand the medium of television, they understand the despair and brokenness of the people they appeal to, and how to manipulate them both for personal and financial gain. To do this they must crush logic, they must render their followers unable to think for themselves. Demanding belief in Biblical inerrancy, particularly on the subject of creation, is a big part of this. Once you are able to enforce this, you can declare science and reason invalid, leaving only doctrine in its place.
People have a very hard time believing the status quo of their existence, or the world around them, can ever change. There’s a kind of psychological inability to accept how fragile open societies are. We don’t think these people can succeed, yet they have forced some school districts to allow the teachings of thinly veiled creationism in the science curriculum, and they continue to press for more. The core of this movement is tiny, but you only need a tiny, disciplined, well-funded and well-organized group, if you can count on the sympathy of 80 million to 100 million evangelicals. And that’s enough. Especially if you don’t have countervailing forces, which we don’t.
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October 15th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Dr. Buzzo and fellow posters,
Three questions: (1) Are there any examples of an explosion, post-Big Bang, that results in greater complexity and order rather than chaos and destruction? (2) What physical laws (thermodynamics, gravity, etc.), if any, existed prior to the Big Bang? (3) From whence does the human conscience evolve?
I realize these are different questions from the ones you posted, but I think they are worth considering and responding to.
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October 15th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
DocForesight said:
(1) The Big Bang was not an explosion is the usual sense of the word, but a unique cosmological event wherein spacetime and matter came into existence. Thus it cannot be compared to any subsequent event.
(2) By the Standard Model, none of the fundamental forces existed prior to the Big Bang. Nothing was there, there wasn’t even a there for nothing not to be. Absolute non-existence.
(3)Human conscience, to the best of our understanding at the moment, is an emergent behavior that occurs when a brain reaches a certain undefined level of complexity.
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October 15th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
DV82XL said:
The way Hawking’s book describes it, during and shortly after the big bang, the physical laws as we understand them did not function. Since the tools we have for understanding and describing the universe didn’t function then, they cannot be used to reach across that point in time.
It’s not necessarily that nothing existed before the big bang, but if anything did exist we have no way of knowing about it or describing it since it lies on the other side of the gulf that our understanding cannot cross.
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October 15th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
Time was created with the Big Bang, so “before” it is meaningless. There was no ‘before’ absolute nothingness. That is the way the Standard Model see this, Hawking notwithstanding. His idea is, at this point only a hypothesis, which has yet to be proven.
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October 15th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Hawking’s point was that even if something did exist, such existance is meaningless since it can in no way affect anything that existed after the bib bang. In fact can something be said to exist if its existance (or lack thereof) affects nothing?
It wasn’t so much a hypothesis as a statement that any hypothesis about what happened before the big bang is meaningless.
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October 15th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Then for all intents and purposes it’s the same as absolute nothingness.
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October 16th, 2009 at 3:51 am
While it’s the same for the purpose of describing it’s effect on the current universe it’s not the same when it comes to language. thing is. saying there was nothing is a statement that implies knowledge of what lies beyond a singularity that it’s knowable. Hawkings point is that it’s totally un-knowable. the correct answer to what was before the big bang is not nothing, but un-knowable.
It might seem like a nitpick. but the truth is that lots of people has problems with this distinction. nothing can come from nothing. but an entire universe can spring from the un-knowable.
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October 16th, 2009 at 4:04 am
Antice said:
I would not be so quick to declare what happened before the big bang or beyond a singulatiry to be unknowable. It appears, based on our current understanding of things to be beyond what can be known, but declaring something unknowable has historically not served science well.
It may very well be unknowable, but that doesn’t mean we should give up on even trying.
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October 18th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Antice said: …”nothing can come from nothing…” I think Billy Preston would disagree — remember that song from the 70’s (I think?).
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October 22nd, 2009 at 5:08 am
Sigivald said:
Good point. It doesn’t really change much though – Noah wouldn’t have had much by way of ship-building tools. He’d have had to make them before he could start on the boat.
As for the rest, there is no ‘before the big bang’. In the beginning _there was nothing_, which exploded (with apologies to Pterry).
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October 23rd, 2009 at 11:48 am
Noah in Genesis is not ordered to build a ship. He’s ordered to build a watertight box. The word ‘ark’ means a box. cf. ‘Ark of the Covenant’. It would still have been a tall order for a single person to fill, as specified.
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November 3rd, 2009 at 7:30 am
The answer to question 1 is obviously yes (if you don’t get to far into complexity = chaos, of course).
The universe was initially almost exclusively composed of hydrogen, most of it then collapsed into stars and fuelled fusion reactions. after a few billion years, when lacking hydrogen, these stars tend to explode, liberating the various elements they created.
Our solar system, and therefore our existence, is the consequence of one of those explosions.
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