We could also teach kids to be open minded and not shove their opinion down other peoples throats. That goes for christian's and atheists alike. Live your life and other people will live theirs. Mind your business Mr. Bill Nye
Everything he's said is consistent with current scientific thinking, including what he's said about gender (in line with modern psychological knowledge)
Open mindedness only goes as far as not being a moron
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· 7 years ago
This is a classic False Dichotomy. Believing in evolution does not change the way an engineer builds a bridge, nor does not believing in evolution. And what the heck does evolution have to do with taxpayers?
I think he might be talking about critical thinking skills
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deleted
· 7 years ago
If he's talking about critical thinking, he needs to talk about critical thinking.
What he's saying is, effectively, if you teach your kids to believe in a faith-based religion, they shouldn't be participating in our country.
If you believe god made the earth in seven days then there is something seriously wrong with your critical thinking skills
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· 7 years ago
Am I allowed in this dichotomy to believe that God made the Earth in a series of events referred to as "days" as a metaphor for periods of creation of undetermined duration?
Oh yes. Any logical path of thinking will lead you to the conclusion that an omnipotent being created our planet and all the other planets in the seemingly infinite universe, and continues to guide our day to day lives, ensuring that bad people go to hell and good people go to heaven. And God help you if you don't worship a statue of him every Sunday, because he needs that shit to increase his power level.
The stories within religion aren't meant to be taken literally. They're moral and intellectual lessons. This rule is true across the big three Abrahamic religions, but is also true for many other ones and you're ignoring this rule. That's what makes everything you say a straw man.
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· 7 years ago
Proscribing my beliefs by your choice (and incorrect) notion of what you think I believe makes you look like a fool.
I'm a Mormon who believes the Earth is billions of years old and that most (if not all) life on Earth has a common ancestor. I don't believe in predestination or in Hell as Dante describes it. I don't believe God makes my choices for me.
At the same time, I do believe in a creator who knows what's going on down here, like an Architect who knows who has moved into his apartment building.
I believe that /most/ of the Old Testament is allegorical, but that doesn't make it any less true.
I'm not a crazed doomsdayer, nor do I believe in the great Richard Dawkins.
Believe it or not, most religious folk are a little more complex than that.
Anyone find a fossil record of the missing links yet? Amazingly what Bill Nye the sciences actor isn’t mentioning is there are huge flaws in the theory of evolution.
Now bring on the down votes without any further research done on your part.
dating dinosaur fossils means dating the rock around it. There are TONS of accurate ways to do that. Most fossil dating uses radioactive decay of Potassium 40, which has a half-life of 1.25 billion years.
And just because we haven't dug up fossils of every species that has ever existed doesn't invalidate evolution. There are CLEAR trends ALL over the fossil record that point directly to evolution.
Also, the problem with the missing link argument is that to get rid of 100% of the missing links you would need an fossil sample of literally every individual member of a branch for there to be no missing link. Right now every new species produces two new "missing links", one older than that particular fossil, and one younger.
Evolution is the most robust scientific theory ever put forward. It literally has trillions of data points of evidence. But you know, whatever.
More specifically, the Tiktaalik Roseae.
A gap existed between fish and tetrapods, there was no transitionary fossil yet found in the record.
Based on assumptions made by evolution, it's morphology and extant era was predicted. Once a site was determined that was amenable to being able to search that rock strata, it was looked for.
I mean, as a catholic I believe in evolution. There’s no denying it. I think it’s stupid for people to ignore it. I believe it’s just another method God used to create animals like us or otherwise. I’m not gonna go and shove my beliefs down your throat, though.
Imagine you had a car and you wanted to transform it into a submarine; picture the number of mechanical changes that would have to occur in a very specific order to allow a car to operate as a submarine. I come up with a list of a few hundred adaptations, mechanical, structural etc.
Now imagine the ancestor of a whale, had to have been a land mammal originally and the number of changes that had to occur randomly and in a very specific order to allow a whale to be successful in its environment. These changes taking place over millions of years.
Now tell me where the fossil record is of just one variation connecting the modern whale to its ancient ancestor. Hundreds of successful adaptations, thousands of unsuccessful attempts, millions of years. Not one piece of physical evidence.
Skepticism is not denial.
That doesn't happen, because evolution is extremely slow. It takes a couple hundred years before there are large noticable changes. But yes there is evidence of animals branching into different species. Which, of course, is also something that takes a long time, a few thousand years give-or-take.
There are ALSO examples of macro-evolution that we've seen in the past 100 years. I forgot the genus, but some mid-western wildflowers had a distinct species emerge in the 40s and 50s. The flowers (two variations of the same species) were introduced from Europe, and for some reason some species of bug only liked to pollinate the flowers that were crosses of the two variations and not the pure variations. The bug and the cross-bred flowers quickly developed a symbiotic relationship and mutated enough to where now it's impossible for that flower to breed with the original variations; meaning it's a new species.
There are a few other examples in plants, but the best examples are in bacteria, since they mutate so much faster. We are constantly developing new species of bacteria.
I'm betting before I die we see macro-evolution in some insects... but probably nothing much bigger than that when it comes to animals... unless we finally see Orca's break off into two distinct species.
Orcas are really close.
Anyway, most macro evolution is just micro evolution over much longer time scales. Macro evolution only hurries up when either a barrier forms or ceases to exist, climate changes, or a new species emerges that applies pressure to another species' population.
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Edited 7 years ago
deleted
· 7 years ago
I never understood why micro evolution is different from macro evolution. Why can’t tiny changes over time stack up into big changes? That’s kind of like saying you believe someone can move an inch forward, but that it’s impossible for them to eventually move a full mile given enough time
You know who always believes they're right? Anyone that's religious. No religious person will come up to you trying to have a conversation about religion and be rly questioning their beliefs. Any religious person having a conversation about religion is trying to tell you why you're wrong. If the person you're trying to convince doesn't believe your holy arguments, call them close-minded. What kind of fucking idiot wouldn't accept an omnipotent being always watching over them that will send them to a magical land where all your dreams come true when you die. It just makes you feel all warm and tingly inside.
I honestly think that this little PSA is bullshit and pointless. Parents are going to try and make their kids believe whatever they want them to believe. It’s up to the kid later on in life to decide what they want to believe (and unfortunately for you it might not be exactly what you want it to be) but that’s when you accept other people’s differing opinions and maybe even try and educate them.
"We need engineers that can build stuff" then go build stuff Bill Nye, because you have an engineering degree. Stop talking to me about science, youre not a scientist, go build something and keep your bullshit opinion to yourself.
That’s Pascal’s Wager, and in my opinion it’s a terrible argument. Let’s say you’re right and a god or gods exist, how do you know which one is the correct one? Also I do think I would lose rather a lot in this life if I became religious. For example, I’d have to willingly disbelieve many aspects of science because they contradict my holy book. I’d rather not believe anything and just see where evidence leads us
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deleted
· 7 years ago
Also, I’m genuinely interested in your evidence for the bible that no one here is talking about
Pascal's Wager is the worst argument someone can make, it basically damns them to hell because by their own admission their faith isn't true faith. If there is God it's not like you are going to freaking trick it, it's going to know you were just hedging your bet.
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deleted
· 7 years ago
Oh, another thing I just remembered: the argument makes it seem like a 50/50 chance, which may have seemed true a hundred years ago, but now that we know so much more about the world around us, the god of the bible becomes less and less likely. There’s a good reason the western world is losing its faith
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· 7 years ago
Not looking for a fight here, @yimmye , just wondering: what are some of the contradictions you find between science and religion?
I ask because I am religious, and I don't see those conflicts. Not trying to make you a believer, maybe just show you that religion has room for science.
deleted
· 7 years ago
If you want to believe rhe bible is the literal word of god and 100% right about everything, there are a lot of things, starting with genisis and the ark of noah
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· 7 years ago
Solid. I do know some people who latch onto the whole biblical literalism thing, but most of the religious people I know are willing to acknowledge the Old Testament as mostly metaphorical.
I also take the Bible as the word of God (perfect), but revealed to and written by man (imperfect).
What he's saying is, effectively, if you teach your kids to believe in a faith-based religion, they shouldn't be participating in our country.
I'm a Mormon who believes the Earth is billions of years old and that most (if not all) life on Earth has a common ancestor. I don't believe in predestination or in Hell as Dante describes it. I don't believe God makes my choices for me.
At the same time, I do believe in a creator who knows what's going on down here, like an Architect who knows who has moved into his apartment building.
I believe that /most/ of the Old Testament is allegorical, but that doesn't make it any less true.
I'm not a crazed doomsdayer, nor do I believe in the great Richard Dawkins.
Believe it or not, most religious folk are a little more complex than that.
Now bring on the down votes without any further research done on your part.
And just because we haven't dug up fossils of every species that has ever existed doesn't invalidate evolution. There are CLEAR trends ALL over the fossil record that point directly to evolution.
Also, the problem with the missing link argument is that to get rid of 100% of the missing links you would need an fossil sample of literally every individual member of a branch for there to be no missing link. Right now every new species produces two new "missing links", one older than that particular fossil, and one younger.
Evolution is the most robust scientific theory ever put forward. It literally has trillions of data points of evidence. But you know, whatever.
http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/evo_science.html
More specifically, the Tiktaalik Roseae.
A gap existed between fish and tetrapods, there was no transitionary fossil yet found in the record.
Based on assumptions made by evolution, it's morphology and extant era was predicted. Once a site was determined that was amenable to being able to search that rock strata, it was looked for.
Guess what? It was found with the predicted morphology in the predicted strata.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiktaalik
Now imagine the ancestor of a whale, had to have been a land mammal originally and the number of changes that had to occur randomly and in a very specific order to allow a whale to be successful in its environment. These changes taking place over millions of years.
Now tell me where the fossil record is of just one variation connecting the modern whale to its ancient ancestor. Hundreds of successful adaptations, thousands of unsuccessful attempts, millions of years. Not one piece of physical evidence.
Skepticism is not denial.
There are a few other examples in plants, but the best examples are in bacteria, since they mutate so much faster. We are constantly developing new species of bacteria.
I'm betting before I die we see macro-evolution in some insects... but probably nothing much bigger than that when it comes to animals... unless we finally see Orca's break off into two distinct species.
Anyway, most macro evolution is just micro evolution over much longer time scales. Macro evolution only hurries up when either a barrier forms or ceases to exist, climate changes, or a new species emerges that applies pressure to another species' population.
I ask because I am religious, and I don't see those conflicts. Not trying to make you a believer, maybe just show you that religion has room for science.
I also take the Bible as the word of God (perfect), but revealed to and written by man (imperfect).