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David Bowie wrote a song on it, it has to be true.

There is even a god called Mars. Where do you think he came from?

They even trade with earthlings - Mars bars have to come from somewhere!

 generalgrog wrote:

In 1996, scientists at NASA declared that a 6.3-ounce rock, broken off from a Mars meteorite discovered in Antarctica in 1984, contained flecks of chemical compounds— polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, magnetite, and iron sulfide— that suggested the existence of bacteria on the Red Planet 3.6 billion years ago. "August 7, 1996, could go down as one of the most important dates in human history," intoned one newspaper report. But within two years the theory began to crack. Traces of amino acids found in the rock, crucial to life, were also found in the surrounding Antarctic ice. More damning, other non-Martian rocks— rocks from the moon, where it is clear life does not exist— showed the same "evidence" of life. By November 1998 an article in Science declared "most researchers agree that the case for life on Mars is shakier than ever."

What statement made by a scientist was incorrect?


Also, the article you cited mixes mistakes by scientists with mistakes by journalists; likely to make the article compelling to people such as yourself.

But... someone wrote it... so it must be true! :O

 motyak wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Of course there is life on mars. I have loads of books which detail all sorts of adventures people have had there!

And an awesome musical about what happens when they have a holiday here!

I mean it's other stuff, but the Jeff Wayne one is the best.

I would love one day to see that stage play in person. Loved that album since the early 80's.

Ok now Ham is saying Bill Nye is 'Like Satan':

http://deadstate.org/watch-ken-ham-compare-bill-nye-to-satan-who-offers-people-the-forbidden-fruit-of-knowledge/

Now lets just ignore the fact that the snake in the garden is Never directly called Satan (people just infer it is), Ham seems to really strive to stay ignorant. Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge, Ham sees this as a bad thing. So Ham would rather have had humanity stay in the garden forever ignorant, and this I think, is why people like Ham will never accept evolution. They dont want to know the truth, they want to keep their narrow view so they can (in their mind) stay pure to the word of God and not become corrupted by knowledge.

 generalgrog wrote:
Anyway, you obviously choose to gloss over the part where I stated I have friends and family that are in the Roman Catholic Church.

Oh I get it... you have friends and family that are Catholic, so it's totally okay to dismiss a Catholic and insult him. Sounds like the classic "friend argument" to me. I mean, you automatically assumed someone else got their doctrine "from Rome" while dismissing his (correct) commentary on the origin of the Bible.

I don't have any black friends so that means I can't be absurdly racist, right?

 Eisensapper wrote:
Ok now Ham is saying Bill Nye is 'Like Satan':

http://deadstate.org/watch-ken-ham-compare-bill-nye-to-satan-who-offers-people-the-forbidden-fruit-of-knowledge/

Now lets just ignore the fact that the snake in the garden is Never directly called Satan (people just infer it is), Ham seems to really strive to stay ignorant. Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge, Ham sees this as a bad thing. So Ham would rather have had humanity stay in the garden forever ignorant, and this I think, is why people like Ham will never accept evolution. They dont want to know the truth, they want to keep their narrow view so they can (in their mind) stay pure to the word of God and not become corrupted by knowledge.

That is a great article. I can envisage that Hams' next debate will be " Pogroms and why they are necessary - getting revenge for Jesus". He's just so crackpotty . Is he being "ironic"? Is he a secret comedian? Honestly declaring Bill Nye is like Satan, oh please and I suppose that that makes Ham like Jesus. Hams' doctrine of obedience to God sounds very Islamic , I suggest he go train in an ISIS camp.

Holy crap I just read about a gallop poll in which 46% of Americans said they believed God created humans in their present form in the last 10000 years. Please tell me those polls are localised and not done over a wide area.

Bullockist wrote:

 Eisensapper wrote:
Ok now Ham is saying Bill Nye is 'Like Satan':

http://deadstate.org/watch-ken-ham-compare-bill-nye-to-satan-who-offers-people-the-forbidden-fruit-of-knowledge/

Now lets just ignore the fact that the snake in the garden is Never directly called Satan (people just infer it is), Ham seems to really strive to stay ignorant. Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge, Ham sees this as a bad thing. So Ham would rather have had humanity stay in the garden forever ignorant, and this I think, is why people like Ham will never accept evolution. They dont want to know the truth, they want to keep their narrow view so they can (in their mind) stay pure to the word of God and not become corrupted by knowledge.

That is a great article. I can envisage that Hams' next debate will be " Pogroms and why they are necessary - getting revenge for Jesus". He's just so crackpotty . Is he being "ironic"? Is he a secret comedian? Honestly declaring Bill Nye is like Satan, oh please and I suppose that that makes Ham like Jesus. Hams' doctrine of obedience to God sounds very Islamic , I suggest he go train in an ISIS camp.

Holy crap I just read about a gallop poll in which 46% of Americans said they believed God created humans in their present form in the last 10000 years. Please tell me those polls are localised and not done over a wide area.

Nope, Americans are just stupid.

O I remember somewhere about I think it was on a pod cast where Bill Nye did this huge rant about creationism. Any way I can't find the pod cast but hears a video he did about it that i think is pretty good http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHbYJfwFgOU. And hears a video about him defending global warning on the news as well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWT-EWKIR3M. This may be a debate but we all no who would win if it was a dance off go to 1:45 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZtHZM8XYUQ.

 Jimsolo wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
So did anyone (anyone? anywhere?) go into this debate on one side of it, but emerge from it having been convinced that the other side was wrong?

I think these debates are more about people who for whatever reason are not already convinced either way.

Earlier, I predicted that while such people might exist, none of them were going to tune in to such a debate. Personally, I think 'debates' like this are more about ego-stroking and self-aggrandizement than actually convincing anyone of anything.

I am legitimately curious, though, as to whether or not anyone tuned in to watch who was either A) actually undecided on the issue and came to a conclusion based on the debate, or B) already on a side, but changed their mind as a consequence of this debate.

The problem is, your question/poll presupposes that someone changing their mind about something is a response to a singular event. The reality is that someone changing their mind about anything as fundamental as this is usually going to take a while. There's middle ground between "I didn't change my mind" and "I changed my mind," and it's not something people will necessarily even notice until what they heard at the debate fits in with something they hear later, or they've had time to think about it.

 Eisensapper wrote:
Ok now Ham is saying Bill Nye is 'Like Satan':

http://deadstate.org/watch-ken-ham-compare-bill-nye-to-satan-who-offers-people-the-forbidden-fruit-of-knowledge/

Now lets just ignore the fact that the snake in the garden is Never directly called Satan (people just infer it is), Ham seems to really strive to stay ignorant. Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge, Ham sees this as a bad thing. So Ham would rather have had humanity stay in the garden forever ignorant, and this I think, is why people like Ham will never accept evolution. They dont want to know the truth, they want to keep their narrow view so they can (in their mind) stay pure to the word of God and not become corrupted by knowledge.

I was waiting for this or something similar.

Also Ham cannot seem to realise that he is claiming he is an authority considering he says that people should listen to his interpretation of the bible. Of course the irony would be lost on him.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
After that video of Ham the video where an entertainment reporter confused Samuel L jackson with Lawrence Fishboune, it was rather amusing.

Did anyone see these?

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/messages-from-creationists-to-people-who-believe-in-evolutio

And their hilarious if a tad insulting translations?

http://imgur.com/gallery/PbBTk

I think the original questions go to show that Bill Nye going on the stage that night was important. Some of them seem to indicate a genuine lack of scientific knowledge. And I do hope they edited for the kookier ones and left the deep, thoughful ones off the list.

I really liked this one:



+1 incomprehensible.

They are all awesome. I'm still trying to figure out how philosophy (noetics) relates to evolution ect. at all

My favourite has to be #20 , not only does her expression remind me scarily of the overly attached GF meme but her question just shows me that she is so pea brained the only way she can concieve of this amazingly complicated world forming is that if someone (not God apparently but someone , probably Ham) created it.

Do they feel proud being the poster children for the uninformed?

Also I have just realised that if we have found 1 Lucy there must have been 2 Lucys on Noahs' ark. *knowing smile with an arched eyebrow *

 generalgrog wrote:
That's ok keep taking me out of context, as if I am dismissing the views compared to the way in which they are presented.

GG

No interest in taking you out of context, and if there's a way you can explain how you haven't been dismissive of Roman Catholic beliefs in this thread, I'd love to hear it.

But I've read the whole thing, and I've seen a lot of you writing off Roman Catholic beliefs for no reason other than their origin.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Did anyone see these?

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/messages-from-creationists-to-people-who-believe-in-evolutio

Reading through that list and noticing it's the same, tired old nonsense we've been seeing for decades (thermodynamics, mutation somehow not creatingin information etc) I'm reminded of an article I read a couple of years ago, that claimed intelligent design was spent as an intellectual force. Well, pseudo-intellectual force , but hopefully my point is clear - creationism used to attract a lot of bright young sorts coming up with all kinds of new arguments... they were terrible arguments, but there was a challenge in figuring out a decent scientific answer to one claim before the next creationist argument got invented.

But it's now been a couple of decades since creationism came up with anything new. Now the debate seems to consist of knocking down the same old zombie myths one after the next.

It doesn't seem to have impacted creationism's acceptance among the general population, unfortunately, but I guess it leaves hope that maybe the movement has reached a high watermark. With no new ideas, it's appeal will begin to slowly fade.

 sebster wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Did anyone see these?

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/messages-from-creationists-to-people-who-believe-in-evolutio

Reading through that list and noticing it's the same, tired old nonsense we've been seeing for decades (thermodynamics, mutation somehow not creatingin information etc) I'm reminded of an article I read a couple of years ago, that claimed intelligent design was spent as an intellectual force. Well, pseudo-intellectual force , but hopefully my point is clear - creationism used to attract a lot of bright young sorts coming up with all kinds of new arguments... they were terrible arguments, but there was a challenge in figuring out a decent scientific answer to one claim before the next creationist argument got invented.

This is very much the case.

If they actually cared about finding the answers to those questions they could have typed it into google and got the answers for most of them. Those kind of questions only seem sensible and reasonable if you have surrounded by others who also don't tend to question things.

These ones just make me mad... bro.

My purpose is to ensure that fast food businesses in the South Wales area do not go out of business.

The insanely smug smiles with which they cast down judgement is very annoying.

 Alexzandvar wrote:
The insanely smug smiles with which they cast down judgement is very annoying.

It's not smug. It's like they're asking "I'm clever, right? RIGHT? Tell me I'm clever!" It's kind of sad really.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Alexzandvar wrote:
The insanely smug smiles with which they cast down judgement is very annoying.

It's not smug. It's like they're asking "I'm clever, right? RIGHT? Tell me I'm clever!" It's kind of sad really.

Trust me, it's smug.

When I was a wee lad I signed up to go to a Christan summer camp, as I have throughout my life attended church often (I'm Episcopalian which is basically American Anglican) but I have always been liberal and so have my parents (As well as our church).

I got a punch to the face for suggesting that the development of life through a complex means is more a credit to god than an insult. Subsequently my parents took me out of camp on the second day.

The smug comes in when the councilor who explained why it happened suggested me and my parents were silly to even think that God didn't just poof everything into exsistance 6000 years ago.

It's sad that they would hold their belief in God up so highly as to justify their existence.

I'm not saying God or Religion shouldn't be part of a persons life, but that just seems to be taking it to the extreme.

 MrDwhitey wrote:
My purpose is to ensure that fast food businesses in the South Wales area do not go out of business.

I think I have been helping you with that one.

Why is finding objective meaning necessary to lead a satisfactory existence?

Frankly, I would rather believe that there is no inherent 'purpose' to my life beyond living and reproducing than that this life is nothing more than an extended examination to test whether or not we might be allowed into some nebulous afterlife...

 Alexzandvar wrote:
The insanely smug smiles with which they cast down judgement is very annoying.

Blessed is the mind too small to doubt.

 daedalus wrote:

 Alexzandvar wrote:
The insanely smug smiles with which they cast down judgement is very annoying.

Blessed is the mind too small to doubt.

I would hope that most religious individuals experience doubts at some point in their respective lives. Many (specifically Christians) seem to have a poor understanding of their own Bible or beliefs and have voiced some doubts and confusion that I believe are easy to explain from a Biblical standpoint even if the actual answer may be more distressing than the question. IIRC the most common complaint that I have heard is concerning the problem evil. Why does God let bad things happen? Why does God allow evil to exist? According to the Bible and the Protestant Doctrine I am familiar with, God gave humans free will. For what purpose? Apparently because it desires willing worshipers and not robotic underlings. Since humans have free will we naturally have the freedom to do evil. Should God intervene and prevent this evil action it would essentially be negating free will. Evil exists because God allows free will to exist. This doesn't mean that God condones evil.

Anyone of religion experiences doubt (and I really say this with a lot of confidence). Doubt is a necessary component to faith. Refusal to admit belief in face of doubt as being standard is a sign of fanaticism.