Talk:Creationism

Two truths

If God is almighty and not bound by time; I see no reason, why the story about the creation of the universe, as told in Genesis of the christian Bible, and the scientific story about the appearing of earth, life and man should not both be literally true.

I don't see this idea anywhere in the creation/evolution texts. I think it is an interesting concept to think about.

oh man, every man is entitled to an opinion but couldn't you just leave this place alone

Aldous Huxley misquoted.

The Huxley "quote" from "Confessions of a Professed Atheist" is misleading and deliberately misrepresents what Aldous Huxley thought. The whole "we objected to the morality" quote, represents a position Huxley had abandoned by the time he wrote "Ends and Means" in 1937 (the source of the quotation). Huxley no longer believed the world was "meaningless" when he wrote the essay, nor was Huxley an atheist, nor had he broken with traditional religion solely so he could indulge in sexual hedonism. The quotation seems to originate in the right-wing magazine "Report: News of the Month in Perspective" in 1966, when it appeared in a piece called "Confessions of a Professed Atheist". From there it has been repeated numerous times on Christian fundamentalist books, magazines and websites (often misattributed to Aldous' brother Julian ). This website explains how the Huxley misquote began:

http://etb-creationism.blogspot.com/2012/03/lies-creationists-tell-julian-huxley.html

[Note: this "correction" is so absolutely disingenuous. First off, Aldous DID write this in "Ends and Means." It makes no difference if he abandoned the belief that the world did not have meaning by the time he wrote the book. Creationists may be mistaken in saying, "Aldous Huxley believed the world had no meaning in order to be immoral," but if he was writing about a past-tense belief system he and friends adopted in order to live licentiously, their point is still valid - he and others had shed the idea that the world had meaning to be immoral. Furthermore, no he DID NOT break with the idea the world had meaning SOLELY for sexual reasons but also for political, but SO WHAT - the creationist is arguing he didn't want to believe in meaning so he could live in a sexually immoral way (and yet there the writer goes proving that this point was stated and believed by Huxley when he writes: "nor had he broken with traditional religion SOLELY so he could indulge in sexual hedonism." (capitals for emphasis)" It's foolish to point all this out to say he was misquoted by creationists when it clearly seems the point they were making - that people abandon God, Christianity, and meaningfulness in life so they may be their OWN gods - is clear in so many peoples' lives, INCLUDING Mr. Huxley's whether he later left such a position or not.]

Bogus Prigogine quotation

I removed a quotation supposedly from Ilya Prigogine et al, Physics Today. The quoted material does not appear in the cited article, but does appear frequently around the web on creationist sites. The text also incorrectly attributed two Nobel Prizes to Prigogine (he had one), and got both of the article's co-authors' names wrong.

Hofstadter quote

Latest comment: 10 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

What turns a mere piece of matter from being mere matter into an animated being? What gives certain special physical patterns in the universe the mysterious privilege of feeling sensations and having experiences?

This question is attributed without source to D.R. Hofstadter. This is a legitimate question, which Hofstadter investigated. But I can find no evidence that he wrote exactly these words, merely sourceless quotations. Furthermore, quoting the questions without any hint of the answers (many developed by Hofstadter himself) incorrectly suggests that there are no answers. DanStyer (talk) 10:44, 9 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

Flew quote

Previous editions of this page included the following "quotes":

It is, for example, impossible for evolution to account for the fact that one single cell can carry more data than all the volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica put together.

It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design.

- Anthony Flew Professor of Philosophy, former atheist, author, and debater

I have moved these to "discussion" because:

- Although these statements are attributed to Flew at several sites on the Internet, none of them provide a source.
- Neither statement appears in the well-known work There Is a God by Antony Flew and Roy Abraham Varghese.
- Flew's first name was Antony, not Anthony.
- The first statement is certainly false ... there are many ways in which compact information storage could have evolved. [See, for example, Thomas D. Schneider, "Evolution of biological information", Nucleic Acids Research volume 28, issue 14, pages 2794-2799 (2000).]

Butler quote

Previous editions of this page included the following quote:

I attacked the foundations of morality in Erewhon, and nobody cared two straws, I tore open the wounds of my Redeemer as he hung upon the Cross in The Fair Haven, and people rather liked it. But when I attacked Mr. Darwin they were up in arms in a moment.
- Samuel Butler, Evolution Old and New, 1879, p. 54.

I have moved this to "discussion" because:

- The "attack" on Mr. Darwin IS the book Evolution, Old and New; Or, The Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and Lamark, as Compared with that of Mr. Charles Darwin (1879). Because this book IS the attack, it can't say how people reacted to the attack.
- This quote doesn't appear on page 54 of that book: see http://books.google.com/books?id=8NPgUBwX__QC&pg=PA54
- It gives the impression that Butler was opposed to evolution, whereas in fact he was opposed to natural selection ... Butler held that evolution happened through some different mechanism.

Section about intelligent design temporary removed from article

Latest comment: 10 years ago3 comments1 person in discussion

Notability disputed

The following quotes have been removed from the article page to the talk page because

No evidence has been provided for the notability of the author (no Wikipedia article exists).
The source of the article is not a notable publication

Parasites in general and viruses like the zika virus in particular continue to be an embarrassment to creationists who insist everything is intelligently designed for a purpose...
There is almost invariably some sort of arms race between parasite and host as the host gains a way to resist the parasite and the parasite gains a way to overcome this resistance, and so the cycle of resistance and overcoming resistance is repeated endlessly until some sort of balance is achieved or a symbiotic relationship emerges as the parasite provides some sort of benefit to the host in return for being tolerated.
The embarrassment is of course in explaining why an designer let alone an intelligent one would bat for both sides in this arms race and why it would have designed a parasite then redesigned a host to resist it in the first place.
- Rosa Rubicondior, "Has The 'Intelligent Designer' Been Tweaking Zika?", 1 October 2016

Probably because it was intelligently designed to do just that, the term 'kind' as used by creationists is so nebulous that it can mean whatever they need it to mean. The meaning can change at will according to the audience they are trying to get away with using it on or the debate they are trying to win with tactics because they don't have any evidence.
It's almost perfectly designed to allow word play and subtle changes in debate barely noticeable by an unsuspecting audience.
- Rosa Rubicondior, "Hey Creationists! What Kind Of Kind Is This?", 2 December 2016

What to include from the Scopes Monkey Trial.

I've recently been reminded of the 250 word limit for quotes and was wondering how to edit the conclusion of the 7th day of the scopes monkey trial down to an acceptable limit, as it's relavent to the topic, very thorough in addressing creationism and remains highly notable. The following is the best I've managed to do yet it's still 3 times the limit at 750 words, (including the names of the speakers).

Darrow: Mr. Bryan, do you believe that the first woman was Eve?

Bryan: Yes.

Darrow: Do you believe she was literally made out of Adam's rib?

Bryan: I do.

Darrow: Did you ever discover where Cain got his wife?

Bryan: No, sir. I leave the agnostics to hunt for her.

Darrow: You have never found out?

Bryan: I have never tried to find out.

Darrow: You have never tried to find out?

Bryan: No.

Darrow: The Bible says he got one, doesn't it? Were there other people on the earth at that time?

Bryan: I cannot say.

Darrow: You cannot say. Did that ever enter your consideration?

Bryan: Never bothered me.

Darrow: There were no others recorded, but Cain got a wife.

Bryan: That is what the Bible says.

Darrow: Where she came from you do not know. All right. Does the statement, "The morning and the evening were the first day," and "The morning and the evening were the second day," mean anything to you?

Bryan: I do not think it necessarily means a 24-hour day.

Darrow: You do not?

Bryan: No.

Darrow: What do you consider it to be?

Bryan: I have not attempted to explain it. If you will take the second chapter--let me have the book. [Reaches for a Bible.] The fourth verse of the second chapter says: "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth, when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens," the word day there in the very next chapter is used to describe a period. I do not see that there is any necessity for construing the words, "the evening and the morning," as meaning necessarily a 24-hour day, "in the day when the Lord made the heaven and the earth."

Darrow: Then, when the Bible said, for instance, "and God called the firmament heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day," that does not necessarily mean twenty-four hours?

Bryan: I do not think it necessarily does.

Darrow: Do you think it does or does not?

Bryan: I know a great many think so.

Darrow: What do you think?

Bryan: I do not think it does.

Darrow: You think those were not literal days?

Bryan: I do not think they were twenty-four-hour days.

Darrow: What do you think about it?

Bryan: That is my opinion--I do not know that my opinion is better on that subject than those who think it does.

Darrow: You do not think that?

Bryan: No. But I think it would be just as easy for the kind of God we believe in to make the earth in six days as in six years or in 6 million years or in 600 million years. I do not think it important whether we believe one or the other.

Darrow: Do you think those were literal days?

Bryan: My impression is they were periods, but I would not attempt to argue against anybody who wanted to believe in literal days.

Darrow: I will read it to you from the Bible: "And the Lord God said unto the serpent, because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life." Do you think that is why the serpent is compelled to crawl upon its belly?

Bryan: I believe that.

Darrow: Have you any idea how the snake went before that time?

Bryan: No, sir.

Darrow: Do you know whether he walked on his tail or not?

Bryan: No, sir. I have no way to know. (Laughter.)

Darrow: Now, you refer to the cloud that was put in heaven after the flood, the rainbow. Do you believe in that?

Bryan: Read it.

Darrow: All right, Mr. Bryan, I will read it for you.

Bryan: Your Honor, I think I can shorten this testimony. The only purpose Mr. Darrow has is to slur at the Bible, but I will answer his question. I will answer it all at once, and I have no objection in the world. I want the world to know that this man, who does not believe in a God, is trying to use a court in Tennessee to slur at it, and while it will require time, I am willing to take it.

Darrow: I object to your statement. I am examining you on your fool ideas that no intelligent Christian on earth believes.

Clarence Darrow's examination of William Jennings Bryan at the 1925 Scopes trial Scopes Trial Day 7