Creation vs. Evolution: College Edition

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A young woman who is a devout Biblical literalist chooses to use Youtube to display her arrogant, haughty, and totally indefensible beliefs, as she goes to college and comes up against biological science, and a professor who correctly tells her that there is no scientific "controversy" regarding evolution.

In this day and age, with computers and television shows like Nova, this woman has already closed her mind, all due to her devout religious beliefs. Yes, she believes in Noah's Flood, too, as well as the literal six days of creation.

Despite several people's video replies attempting to dispel her rigid beliefs, it appears she is holding fast.

So how does her Christian religion help this young woman ??? REALLY! I'd love to know how.

Here is what she declares without pretension.

So my Biology professor thinks there's no controversy over evolution. I've been studying the Creation vs Evolution debate for a while now (not a lot compared to many people, I know, but bear with me) and Ian Juby's Genesis Week and CSE's Creation Today are two of my favorite web shows. This video was born.

Added: Since most of you refuse to even attempt to be mature, I'll simply say that all of this argument proves my point. There IS a debate. Whether or not it is in the scientific community is really irrelevant. The scientific community is a tiny fraction of the population of the world. My professor and the rest of you are rather deluded about their significance. So bring it on. God wins.

Perhaps some deeply religious Christians from here can help her open her mind.

[rug]

1. I'd tell her to cast her lot with a God who can thread mitochondria rather than

with a man who's frozen in a word.

[rrneck]

2. If you don't walk out of higher education

profoundly changed you wasted your money.

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3. My concern with this young woman is...

that she has put herself out there on Youtube with these rather limiting beliefs.

Does her devout religion help her get a job when this is out there? Will she find herself a victim of her beliefs? Is she really trying to challenge her beliefs, or is she just spending her free time on Youtube because she cannot get a date with her opinionated attitude toward science?

I am sorry someone is so crippled by their religious beliefs that she limits her ability to spread her wings and fly into a career, a life of intellectual challenges. I see this woman as an example of the harm some religions can do to a bright mind. I say "bright mind" because this young woman is capable of serious intellectual challenges, she is articulate, self-assured, and in some ways, endearing. BUT, her religious beliefs are handicapping her future. I am so sorry to see this in young people in the USA.

[rrneck]

4. I agree it's a damn shame.

I've seen 'em. If she successfully clings to her beliefs she might get a career within her faith. But I expect she will prove young enough to see it all fall apart before her career is done.

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5. This is living proof that a concept of belief can

go tragically wrong, when it comes to tooling young people for the next 40-50 years of their career.

It is heart-breaking to watch this, and know that she is doing such damage to her career hopes, right in front of us. My heart goes out to this woman, and to thousands of other young people who have been so crippled by their belief set.

I really hope some religious believers can help people like this young woman out.

I don't hold out much hope for a future here in America, when religion makes such devastating blows to intellectual curiosity and love for the discipline of scientific inquiry within our young men and women.

Does anyone think this young woman will become a liberal Democrat? I have my doubts.

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6. I wish I could have titled this:.........

Religion crippling America's youth.

For that is exactly what it has done to this young woman, and thousands of others like her.

The license and "freedom" to believe enables tragic consequences like this one, over and over again.

For anyone who says that religious people have a "right" within our Constitution to believe whatever they wish to believe, please remember this young woman, and thousands of college students like this one, so self-assured, so arrogant, so willing to jettison all of the last 500 years of scientific discovery and work, all in the name of their religious beliefs trumping over their opportunities to make a difference in this world, all in the name of stifling their intellectual curiosity, and their ability to do something that helps mankind advance.

This woman is only noteworthy because she dared to put her beliefs out there on Youtube. I have only pity for this woman and the thousands of others Christianity has intellectually destructed so early in their lives

[libinnyandia]

7. The largest Christian denomination has no problem with evolution. Why doesn't she ask them?

If I were mean I would say that people like her might provide support for arguments against evolution.

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8. I think this shows why religious beliefs lend themselves to

certain personality traits.

But let's look a her behavior on the video...........as if we are clinicians in a mental heath clinic.

What would we say about this woman as she presents? Arrogance, haugtiness, a sense of entitlement, a refusal to examine facts, a desire to focus on stories told to her as a child.

What does this give an ordinary clinician with basic training? I think we all know how this plays out. Even people who don't have that training, red flags go off, when someone puts this on the internet.


Tell me what you think! Remember to back up your assertions with something from the video.

[laconicsax]

9. Just a guess...

Fundies tend to be the variety of Protestant who believe that Catholics are devil-worshipers. They're not likely to trust the Catholic attitude towards evolution.

[mr blur]

11. As I understand it, many Fundies

don't even consider Catholics to be Christians.

[Glen Davidson]

10. A few cranks do not a controversy make

Obviously she knows almost nothing of the other side, while having heard a bunch of creationist fabrications. Oooh, polystrate fossils, you know, because no way could many layers occur at once ever in the fossil record--if you believe creationist nonsense.

By the way, grass probably existed when non-avian dinosaurs did: http://tinyurl.com/6vgeqc3 And it makes no sense to say that grass would float above the dinosaurs in the "flood," as why wouldn't all of the light wood, pine cones, and assorted detritus do the same? Why wouldn't (waterlogged) hardwood leaves and the like flow out to the Cambrian oceans and be buried, like they often are today? No flood excuses have ever explained the fossil record.

And she thinks a mish-mash of evolution-hating physicists, engineers, chemists, with very few biologists in the mix, indicates a meaningful controversy? Do a few physics cranks seriously call relativity into question, let alone would some engineer "questioning" evolution turn a settled matter into a "controversy?" Supposedly she's in college to learn from people who know more than the religious cranks who "doubt evolution," and if she doesn't actually learn it's because she's unwilling to do so.

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12. So for, several hundred have commented, and thumbs-down rated this, and...

three people have posted video responses which she put up on her Youtube page.

Some of the people responding are just juvenile and insulting, others have a clear understanding of the nature of scientific inquiry, and how evolution as a theory has been validated with evidence.

I think the future of this young woman, who, incidentally is not 18 but 20 years old, not a freshman but a junior, and not someone who is afraid of negative comments. I have to hand it to her on that one, most religious videos on Youtube limit or deny comments or video responses. This woman I'm beginning to admire for her willingness to let in all sorts of comments. Maybe she is closer to resolving her Biblical literalism with an openness to solid critique.