Discussion (13)¬

1. Hobbes says:

   September 6, 2006 at 7:55 am

   Take a look at this: “47 percent [of Americans] believe that God created humans in the last 10,000 years (a Fundamentalist view of Christianity). About 68 percent of Americans polled favored teaching creationism along with evolution in public schools, and about 40 percent favored teaching creationism instead of evolution. ”

   This is a gift that keeps on giving. Biological evolution is suppressed by the 47% myth-believers. This creates more myth-believers because their children are not allowed an unfettered science education. This leads to the 68% who don’t know the difference between a theological myth and a scientific theory. Ignorance begats ignorance!

2. Hobbes says:

   September 6, 2006 at 8:03 am

   Oops, I meant to add in the previous post the source of the quote: http://www.footnote.tv/mwreligion.html#attitudes

3. Souldier says:

   January 8, 2007 at 10:17 am

   Evolution is undeniable fact but until 500 odd years ago people all thought that the world was a cube (no not a flat disc or square, that was never widely believed) and were “scientificly” certain of this. Science is just a rational perception of obvious things. It is often right but it is very important that we can accept it being wrong.

   Do you ever wonder what shape the world will be next?

4. sacredserenity says:

   April 9, 2007 at 12:04 am

   hey souldier ever seen a photograph of earth taken from outer space… so unless everyone is having big-time optical illusions, the earth is round… or actually orange shaped flattened at the poles

5. Jafet says:

   September 23, 2007 at 5:53 am

   Of course, the LORD tampered with those photographs to test the faithful, you infidel. Souldier is doing very well.

   No, actually the space flights and moon landings were all faked. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Moon_Landing_hoax_accusations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop See, it all makes sense now, doesn’t it.

6. Greatness Personified says:

   December 29, 2007 at 6:19 pm

   Um, people knew well before 500 years ago that the earth was round. All they had to do was look at other planets/stars (they are round) or the shadow of the earth on the moon in a lunar eclipse. People saw that when they stood on a tall mountain, or sailed down the coast to trade, they could only see so far yet could always get back; i.e. not fall off the “edge.”

7. Paper Hand says:

   October 12, 2008 at 10:36 pm

   I’ve never heard of any belief in a “cubical” world at any point in history. I would like to see some evidence that that was believed.

   And “what shape the world will be next”? I sure hope it doesn’t change! I’d like to not fall victim to such a major change. 😉

   But, on a more serious note, the issue of the shape of the world is a perfect example of how science progressively increases its understanding of the world. At one time, it was thought that the world was flat. The ancient Greeks realized that it was spherical, and for a long time, that was the general consensus (although, some early Christian theologians did reject the spherical world view in favor of a flat Earth). The Earth was a sphere. Later, it was realized that the Earth was slightly oblate, with a larger equatorial radius than polar. Still later, that was refined even further, and we now know that the maximum radius is a little south of the equator. Each advance got closer to the truth. It wasn’t an arbitrary change in view, as if just fashion. The spherical model was wrong, but not nearly as wrong as the flat model, and, indeed, for many purposes, the spherical model works just fine.

8. Max says:

   October 19, 2009 at 7:02 am

   Hmm… perhaps it will become a tetrahedron! I always liked the way those look.

   Or we could go back to the disc on A’Tuin, that giant turtle.

9. Matt says:

   April 6, 2011 at 2:49 am

   @Soldier,
   You should read this essay by Isaac Asimov:

   http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm

   He makes some good points.

10. fenchurch says:

    October 6, 2011 at 5:57 pm

    What Souldier and his/her ilk don’t understand is that the shape of the earth or (insert other sciencey things here) doesn’t change over time, but our understanding improves and we become more accurate with our facts and observations as we acquire additional information.

    Just like a relationship isn’t perfect because it never ends, a position isn’t perfect because it never changes or improves when new deets come to light.

    The best thing about the scientific process is that it is self-correcting and the most reliable way we have of knowing something at this point. Maybe it will be thrilling to, later on, learn that we’re on Turtle Island after all. But until then, evidence supports spheroid, not herpoid.

11. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    August 13, 2012 at 12:58 am

    And an oblate spheroid at that.

12. Cephas Atheos says:

    November 14, 2013 at 4:44 pm

    Trouble is, we all have to agree on what’s ‘valid’.

    You might believe in creationism, but you’ll be first in line for Tamiflu. Unless you’re a talibanist, in which case you’ll watch your children die of MMPs, whooping cough, or the ‘flu.

13. Joxer says:

    September 17, 2014 at 8:29 am

    I also firmly believe that creationism should be taught in schools. I just believe that they should cover it factually and tell them it’s BS fed to idiots to milk them for their money then get right back to teaching science. A whole 30 seconds to cover that topic and get on with it.