Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Lisburn Council and the young-Earthers
More on the Lisburn Council young-Earthers, I’m sorry to say. Will Crawley points to Paul Taylor, a UK representative of Answers in Genesis, which is the US-based organisation behind such wonders as the $27m Creation Museum - as featured in the Guardian and, more recently, on the BBC [and excellently parodied here - Ed]. Mr Taylor claims mis-representation in media reports on the Lisburn Council motion, without references, and, more importantly, details his weekend of apparently well-attended meetings in Lisburn which ended on September 15th with a presentation and brief speech from the Lisburn Mayor, Councillor James Tinsley.
The [Lisburn Council] motion was likely given increased impetus because I had led a Creation Weekend in the city the previous week. My meetings were well attended—on Friday, September 14, 2007, for instance, I spoke to about a thousand people, half of whom were young people. On Saturday, September 15, I was presented with an attractive gift clock by the Mayor of Lisburn, Councillor James Tinsley, who made a brief speech welcoming Answers in Genesis to Lisburn as providers and preachers of biblical truth. (By the way, over the years, Ken Ham, AiG–U.S. president, has conducted several meetings in Northern Ireland which have drawn large crowds, and those seminars have helped create a groundswell of support for the deemphasizing of evolution as “fact” in govenment-run schools in the country.)
Meanwhile here’s a quote from the founder and President of Answers in Genesis - who not coincidentally are also purveyors of resources for teaching Creationism as science - and director of the Creation Museum, Ken Ham
I want to make it VERY clear that we don’t want to be known primarily as ‘young-Earth creationists.’ AiG’s main thrust is NOT ‘young Earth’ as such; our emphasis is on Biblical authority. Believing in a relatively ‘young Earth’ (i.e., only a few thousands of years old, which we accept) is a consequence of accepting the authority of the Word of God as an infallible revelation from our omniscient Creator.
First, select your conclusion..
Have those guidelines been issued here yet?!
Pete Baker @ 04:50 PM
Ding ding, Round Three….
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 06:41 PMWould a FoI request to Lisburn Council reveal how much public money had been spent?
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 06:44 PMDont apologise pete ... im loving every stage of this story!
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 07:18 PMI know u get fed up of me - but what on earth does this add to human knowledge - why can’t we leave these people to talk about their ideas in their own space ? Like far from normal people ?
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 07:19 PMIt’s the children I feel sorry for.
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 07:21 PMDewi
I realise that some have been steering posts on this topic into an argument between the atheists/deists positions but the actual topic is something else.
Previously it was solely the teaching of science in schools.
Now it’s also about how that motion came to be up for debate [and was passed] after the meetings, and presentation/speech from the Mayor, held by an organisation which produces the very materials the Council has now urged schools in the area to seek out.
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 07:37 PMIs evolutionary THEORY in fact taught as FACT in government run schools in this country? I don’t think so, I have more faith in science teachers that that, otherwise they are not teaching science. I am not so certain about guideline formulators though.
This AiG / Lisburn council nonsense seems to be just a ruse for a few superstitionists / super-naturalists / paranormalists to try to make us think that we have only been around for a few thousand years. That carbon dating is wrong, that the dinosaurs didn’t exist, that anthropology is bogus etc etc.
Like Pete suggested, first select your conclusion. (then make up and argument to support it)
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 07:41 PMBaker,
If we get more long-winded postings on this thread from a certain gentleman asserting that preposterous imaginings are really facts, and presenting as proof that it they must be true because some people with Rocket Science degrees share the same belief, I believe I’ll bust a gut.
And it’ll be all your fault.Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 07:52 PM“And it’ll be all your fault.”
As always, joeC, as always.
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 07:54 PMWhat is it about Lisburn?
Obsessive inferiority complex in relation to Belfast (cf. “city” status, Maze stadium).Anti-gay paranoia (cf. Seamus Close and his many allies).
A seemingly young-earther council.
An odd place indeed.Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 07:58 PMhehehehehe
Oh my god, I’ve started.
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 08:02 PM#
What is it about Lisburn?
Obsessive inferiority complex in relation to Belfast (cf. “city” status, Maze stadium).
Anti-gay paranoia (cf. Seamus Close and his many allies).
A seemingly young-earther council.
An odd place indeed.
Posted by willowfield on Oct 03, 2007 @ 09:58 PMPar for the course I’d have said….
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 08:07 PMWho paid for the clock?
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 08:12 PMPete Baker have you now joined forces with Will Crawley in being the voice of evolution in Northern Ireland?
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 08:12 PMPete,
You’re a busy little bunny aren’t you? I can’t keep up. No sooner have I read through one thread on the Creationism peeps than you present me with another. So it’s eyes down look in again….
Good for you. They can’t be shown up enough.
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 08:35 PMOh, come on…
Someone’s winding us up!
Any chance the next two hundred postings in this thread might, just might, occasionally, just occasionally, consider what education and schooling are for? And how they might, just might, differ from commercialised brain-washing?
I suppose it all conclusively proves evolution hasn’t worked, at least among the Neanderthalers of Lisburn. I wait for someone to point out that’s an unfair comment, unfair that is to homo neanderthalenis.
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 08:43 PMMalcolm,
What interesting issues you touch on here!
I surely won’t be the first to suggest that Creationism is more political than anything else. And in Northern Ireland we ought to see anytime soon the lines of battle being drawn.
So:
On the right, the DUP, the Free Prezzies, the Evangelicals, those who speak of the Antichrist and the Harlot of Rome (you know who you are).
On the left: Sinn Féin, the godfree, Nationalists of many hues, the Catholic Church, Dublin 4, and the soi-disant intelligentia (you know who you’d like to be).
Let battle commence….
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 08:53 PMI don’t think we can single out Lisburn as the Land that Time Forgot when three out of four Republican candidates in the U.S. Presidential stated in a televised debate that they did not believe in evolution, and a poll by the Gallop organisation showed that the majority of Republicans (U.S. Republicans, not your local republicans) do not believe in evolution in theory or as fact.
http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=27847
Personally, I don’t know how anyone can doubt evolution when our Dawkins just used “soi-disant” in a complete sentence. I’m dazzled.
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 09:19 PMs/b U.S. Presidential race
Told you I was dazzled.
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 09:20 PMOMG - do the Young Earthers deny the speed of light…if they do the entire sky is a delusion. Do the Young Earthers deny geological dating á la Lord Kelvin? Unfortunately I had the dubious honour of covering Lisburn council’s ‘debates’ for 6 years as a reporter (89-95) and believe me that with a few notable exceptions they were intellectual dwarves. They were good at expense calculations though…not so good at managing funds (remember BCCI). I seriously doubt the number of 1,000 attending any meeting in Lisburn unless there was a freebie on offer…my fear is that this debate will be a ‘stick’ the DUP use as a political weapon (see Nelson McCausland’s letter in Belfast Telegraph) against anyone who errs from their ‘belief system’ and provides useful cover for their other mad policies. I used to have some sympathy for some of their policies, but all has been washed away by this madness. All, and I mean all the evidence, shows creationism and young earth to be tripe, but I fear the book burning is not too far away….
PS: AiG…I thought they were Man Utd’s sponsors…a sure sign of an evil conspiracy!Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 09:21 PMMalcolm
See my comment no. 6.
susan
Whilst that may be a valid political point, the US does have legal rulings which defend the teaching of science in publicly funded schools.
Here there seems to be some confusion. [fixed link]
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 09:30 PMBack in Season 7 (and sadly last) of The West Wing, Alex Graves wrote an episode “Mr Frost”. It had the Democrat Presidential candidate asked about “intelligent design” (sorry, no way can I bring myself to dignify it with capitals). He replied: “I believe in God; and I’d like to think He’s intelligent.” Big kerfuffle, on screen and off.
That was a reflection of what was then happening in the Dover (Penn) School District, where the fruitcakes had taken over the School Board, and announced that the biology curriculum would question evolution, and use a textbook (those cuddly pandas) promoting this i.d. stuff. The Board even precisely dictated a two-paragraph statement the teacher must deliver. (I trust I am being as neutral in this as possible.)
Parents sued the School Board, and it became (this being the US, after all) a legal case: Kitzmiller v. Dover.
There was a 29-day hearing, and the District Court had a year to-and-fro, before declaring that the School Board had violated its powers; that i.d. had no standing as a science, that the bedrock assumption of i.d. was utterly false; that the theory of evolution was “good science … that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator”; and that the citizens of the school district were “poorly served” by the School Board, several of whom “who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy” [sorry that capitalization is in the original 139-page judgment at ]http://www2.ncseweb.org/kvd/highlights/2005-12-20_Kitzmiller_decision.pdf].
Of course, the President of the US had to stick an oar in, with a press statement (Oct 6, 2005), saying he “believes that students ought to be exposed to different theories”. This may, to some extent, clarify his thinking (I believe that is an appropriate term) to the New York Times during the 2000 Election campaign: “I don’t necessarily believe every single word [of the Bible] is literally true. I think that, for example, on the issue of evolution, the verdict is still out on how God created the earth. I don’t necessarily use the Bible as necessarily a way to predict the findings of science.” [Define “necessarily” in either of those contexts.]
If what happened in Dover, Penn, was way beyond the far side of improper, it had some positive results: the local voters replaced the School Board with people whose interest and commitment was education, not denominational propaganda, and the issue played some small part in the comprehensive trouncing of Republican Senator Rick Santorum last November. However, for the truly obscene, consider the 1999 decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to eliminate evolution and the Big Bang theory from the state curriculum totally. Again, only at the next election was sanity restored.
Do I have a point here? Well, apart from my general one about the nature of education (in other threads), it seems that the creationists want more than putting over their limited and oft-demolished views. Given the chance, they want, and have implemented Orwellian Ministry-of-Truth thought-control.
Lisburn: be afraid. Be very, very afraid
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 09:53 PMPete, I was unable to access your link, was it to Edwards versus Aguillard?
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 09:58 PMCan’t see the problem in presenting both as options in the classroom and letting the kids make their own minds up as to which ones makes most sense to them, or to let them dismiss the one that seems most ludicrous.
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 10:33 PM#
Can’t see the problem in presenting both as options in the classroom and letting the kids make their own minds up as to which ones makes most sense to them, or to let them dismiss the one that seems most ludicrous.
Posted by james orr on Oct 04, 2007 @ 12:33 AMThen James, we may as well teach the kids about Aliens. The hypothesis of ID and the hypothesis of the existence of Aliens are about equally as testable.
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 11:01 PM
