Creationism and the Further Sinking of the Republican Party
Charles has a definite point.
Here’s an Associated Press article on three Republican governors who are being looked at as front runners in the 2012 presidential election: Mark Sanford, Tim Pawlenty, and Bobby Jindal.
All creationists
The GOP should LOSE the New Creationism nonsense and concentrate on other issues.
40 years in the wilderness will be just the start if the Republican Party doesn’t lose another issue that “ALIENATES” voters.
Technorati Tags: Creationism, Intelligent Design, GOP
30 Comments
Rick Jimmink
Evolution is bad science. A mathematical absurdity at both a micro and macro level. Supporting evolution nonsense should push the Republican party into the wilderness for 40 years for lacking integrity and just being stupid.
Flap
Evolution is more widely accepted by the public and a rehash of the Scopes Trial is not going to win any GOP votes.
Evolution is not bad science.
Ling
That’s right. And there’s a time for everything. This is not the time for creating a big fuss over social issues. The main focus is on the economy and national security. Forget everything else and focus on these two. Both are traditional strengths of the Republican Party, so it shouldn’t be hard to win.
Jana
Why don’t Republicans focus on 2010 elections. Who cares about 2012 now?
Nothing but doomsaying and knashing of teeth among conservatives lately; how about a focus on being productive about the economy, which, by the way, is the public’s number one priority at the moment.
Moderate
As long as the Republicans keep pushing an anti-science agenda, it’s not good for the entire US political system.
Either:
1) They further marginalize themselves, and we become a one party left wing system.
or
2) They actually get elected, and we have wackos in charge who are blind to non-partisan truths.
Rick Jimmink
@Moderate Bad science is anti-science. Embracing evolution is stupid because evolution is bad science. I don’t expect people to push creationism but neither should they push evolution as a fact. It is a theory with a lot of holes, big ones. If we are back to “It’s the economy, stupid.” then the Republican party is nothing but a Clinton rehash. For shame.
Flap
You have said over and over evolution is bad science. But, it isn’t. It is science.
Creationism is religion.
There is a difference.
And, if you want to win elections the GOP has to stop alienating people, period.
Rick Jimmink
Nonsense. Truth sells. Truth gives vision, not embracing stupidity.
Where would Reagan have been if he didn’t speak against the “truths” about Communism that so many had willing embraced as the truth?
First off, do you understand the definition of evolution? Do you understand the mechanics at a macro level? If you do then you should be able to understand the mathematics behind that definition that say it is an absurd conclusion.
Flap
I have a Bachelor’s degree in biological sciences and a doctorate in dentistry. I think I understand the science.
You are comparing apples to oranges.
If you recall, Reagan did not flaunt his religion or social issues at all during his Presidency.
Rick Jimmink
Not I am not. I am talking about truth.
Do you understand evolutionary theory?
Flap
I do not want to argue evolution vs creationism.
I will not say anything to convince you.
But, the issue will do nothing to increase voter support for the GOP.
Rick Jimmink
You won’t address the issue because you don’t understand it. There is no debate because the is no substance to anything you have said.
If the Republican party doesn’t stand for truth then it doesn’t stand.
The Republican party can’t oppose abortion, homosexual marriage, or any other “moral” issue if it is only interested winning elections. If the only concern is winning elections then the Republican party is just a whore and should do us all a favor and jump off of a cliff.
I hope for better than that but don’t see leadership with the vision to get it done.
Rick Jimmink
The Republican Party exists because it stood for a truth. That truth being that slavery was wrong and one man should not be considered the property of another. It wasn’t a truth they picked on because it would win elections, it was born of a passionate belief it doing what was right, regardless of the outcome.
Now the Republican Party looks remarkably like that of the opposition. It has no absolute moral compass, it continually comprises with the opposition, and its leaders don’t. There is a lot of “Wait for me. I am your leader.†going around. Without passionate leaders that don’t compromise, the Republican Party is just following the parade with a broom and cleaning up some of the mess left behind.
Aneriz
Evolution is science in the modification of a species. When you try to turn it and twist it to make it a science capable of creating, then it becomes BAD science, full of hypothesis and lacking any real substance. You can call intelligent design “religion”, but it is still a better alternative.
I agree that the politicians should be focusing on the issues at hand, but I don’t see how compromising what they believe will make them more then…uh, liberals.
Flap
Funny though, when Reagan was running for President you never heard about the creationism vs evolution debate.
There are more important issues that do not alienate voters.
Move on…..
Flap
@12
I think you are looking for a church and not a political party.
There is a difference which you obviously do not understand.
Rick Jimmink
“I think you are looking for a church and not a political party.”
Really? Tell that to the founders of the Republican Party.
Rick Jimmink
If you are referring to adaption within a species/kind, evolution is not science in the modification of a species. Evolution, which results in new species, is the result of random genetic mutation that ends in a different species/kind. It is distinct and explicit. It is not the “peppered moth†type of adaptation. It is such a major jump from the original DNA source as to be considered a completely different species/kind and should theoretically be incapable of breeding back to the original source, thus making it a new species.
The problems with this theory grow large when you take time to consider just the math, forgetting the issues with dating, fossil records, etc. At each point of conception there is the potential for significant genetic mutation but this is extremely low. (Does anyone have current observable evidence of such a mutation?) To be generous let’s say the viable mutation rate is say 1/100,000. Now the possible number of mutational outcomes is what? Let’s say 1/100,000, again being generous. (Are you starting to see the issues?)
That means for every birth we have a 1/10,000,000,000 chance of a specific species/kind being created. Or to put it another way, we need 10 billion births to get a specific species. Now, if we are talking about a species/kind that sexually reproduces we have a couple of new issues. First, we need to have the same exact mutation take place but resulting in the opposite sex. Same sex marriages don’t work in the world of evolution.
So now we have 1/10,000,000,000 times 1/10,000,000,000 times 2. Is that big enough yet? Now consider that this mutation had to take place at roughly the same time, and the two mutants can find each other (they are somewhere in the same geographic area), and the mutation is complementary to its environment, and this is just to get to one new species.
Like I said, evolution is bad science. The emperor has no clothes but everyone is afraid to say anything.
I have seen some attempts to explain this away through either accelerated mutation rates or directed mutations but both end up sounding like an act of creation.
Flap
Evolution is accepted scientific thought, the debate with religion has gone on for over 100 years and you have demonstrated nothing to disprove it.
Evolution is not bad science – period.
Rick Jimmink
If you can’t do basic math then I am at a loss to understand how you received your degrees. If you like someone else to do your thinking for you when it comes to science then you are in deep trouble and never will get it.
If you do have the degrees that you say you have then get out there and look at both sides of the debate. (There really are two sides.) Decide for yourself. Start by seeing Expelled. The is some fluff in the movie but there also is some substance.
People that don’t believe in evolution aren’t stupid. I have two degrees, have worked with three universities on analytic projects, and spent a year on retainer with a genetics company. I was taught evolution as a student and didn’t start to question it until I was in a probability class in grad school. That is when I started to question evolution as fact and the more I questioned, the fewer answers I found.
Dennis
I could not agree more with Flap and his position. The hold the religious right has on the Republican party is a death grip. The party must become more welcoming to social moderates or become a true minority party in this country.
Flap
@20
Again, the debate has gone on for many many years and there are more educated folks than you or me that have engaged. I have read the literature and the papers.
And, you don’t have to resort to name calling to make your point. And, if you continue to do so, I will revoke your privilege here.
By the way, I have two degrees, plus a year of graduate school and have taught at the graduate school and professional school level.
Rick Jimmink
My intent was not to call you names. Sorry if that is how you took it.
You don’t need to “revoke” me. I won’t be back.
Flap
Buh Bye….
Michael Ejercito
The GOP should LOSE the New Creationism nonsense and concentrate on other issues.
I should point out that a large majority of Americans are at least tolerant of creationism.
79% of Americans think that “creationism” should be taught alongside
evolution in public schools; only 20% thought evolution should be taught
without mentioning creationism.
–“Survey Finds Support Is Strong for Teaching 2 Origin Theories,” James
Glanz, The New York Times, Mar. 11, 2000.
Aneriz
Come on Flap! Evolution is accepted because it was pushed, not because it was proven. The irony is that it takes more FAITH
to believe in evolution then on religion. You really believe that you owe your intellectual capacity to random selection?
I know, I know, the debate has gone on for a long time. I am not trying to change that. I am trying to make you look, somehow it seems out of tune for someone as inquisitive as you to buy fully into evolution (that was a compliment).
Still, you are entitled to your opinion. I am with Rick on this one.
Flap
Come on what?
Evolution is science and creationism is religion based upon faith.
Different, no?
And what about theistic evolution?
Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution
anvil
To Rick Jimminik et al:
You said the GOP must embrace truth and good science – and I agree. Evolution is good science, and is supported by the math and a tremendous amount of data. You mention having a strength in statistics – good!. Statistics is actually a very important tool in modern genetics and paleogenetics (drawing conclusions about past populations based on statistical studies of modern genetic samples.)
I think you’d be a lot happier if you had better numbers to work with than the ones you guessed at.
Here’s a few numbers about humans to play with. For starters, there’s 3.1 billion base pairs in our genome, of which 2% or about 60M code for protein (i.e. do something we understand.) In any generation there’s about a 1 in 40million chance of mutation in any one site. So we average about 1.5 mutations per generation in functional DNA (ignoring synonyms), I’d figure.
There are about 20-25K genes averaging 3000 bases in length; so in any one generation, each gene has about a raw chance of 1 in 13,000 of a mutation. Genes mutate at different rates, though; some vital genes have not changed in hundreds of millions of years (basically the same in us and in yeast, for example.) Other genes have changed in the past few thousand years, such as a gene influencing resistance to malaria that’s maybe 3500 years old appearing in north africa, and two others influencing developmental brain growth that seem to be less than 20000 years old.
Human ancestors diverged from the ancestors of Neandertals about 300-500K years ago (they’re our distant cousins, not our grandparents.) At 23years/generation, that’s about 20,000 generations. On average, that would give each gene a chance of a mutation or two, but many genes are the same. As it turns out, DNA is 99.9% the same across all humans. The list of known differences is about 1.4 million individual mutations (SNPs) here and there. The combinations of these are the differences that make us each unique.
It’s not as hard as you calculate for a new species to emerge. A new species doesn’t have to be determined by a single “lightning bolt” mutation, but may occur by a series of changes accumulating in a population over time. A new species is formed, simply stated, when a population separates into two sub-populations that can’t or just don’t interbreed for any of a variety of reasons – different behavior, different locations or seasons, or eventually, mutual sterility. But the population at the time of the split doesn’t have to be a single individual (that as you claim has to meet another mate with an exactly matching mutation), but may be several hundreds or thousands of individuals. Humans’ ancestors are estimated to have numbered 1000-10,000 at the time they stopped successfully interbreeding with their nearest relatives and thus became a new species: us.
Rick Jimmick (and GOP voters in general), I urge you to apply your quest for truth towards understanding the body of facts that we already know about our origins and that of other species of life on earth. I agree with you that there is no place in public debate for calling people stupid, but there is definitely a place for getting the facts right. There are so many distortions being slung around by those who don’t really want truth, but only want to win despite being wrong.
Isobel Shaw
Chinese herbs do work because it is time tested.,-;
Thomas Morris
chinese herbs can actually treat a lot of ilness and have fewer side-effects too:::