I'm sitting here watching Ken Ham...

[onager]

Just learned that Noah brought baby dinosaurs on the Ark. And they later evolved....SORRY!...er, turned into the dragons of legend! WoW!

Watching the new HBO documentary "Questioning Darwin" right now. It alternates between various Creationists...lots of pastors...and Darwin experts/scientists.

Crap. While putting a Darwin quote onscreen, they managed to misspell "atheist." (The quote was "I have never been an athiest.&quot

OK, it just ended. Only an hour, so WAY too short for this subject.

I still doubt that I have ever heard so many different interpretations of Darwin in an hour. Every one of them as wrong as they could be, when presented by those always-honest, never-lying Xians.

I'd wonder if any of the Xian experts ever bothered to read Darwin, but I'm pretty sure I know the answer to that already. No need, they get their info from hucksters like Ken Ham and Answers In Genesis.

[bravenak]

1. I watched part of this but I can't take anymore.

I watched the debate with Bill Nye the other day, and I was shocked by Ken Ham. My jaw dropped time after time during the debate, after a while it was no longer funny. I was pissed that he's running around trying to educate people. That man is insane.

[rexcat]

2. I watched the opening...

Remarks and turned it off. Ken Ham is nothing more than a snake oil salesman. He fits in well with the other fundamentalist. I am surrounded by them here in SW Ohio not far from the creation museum.

[Brainstormy]

3. Where are you watching it? nt

[onager]

4. HBO. Latest in their documentary series.

It will probably be available everywhere soon.

Like some of the other commenters, I almost turned it off in the first few minutes. Glad I stayed around to watch.

Nothing showed up the Creotards better than letting them rant ignorantly about Darwin, followed immediately by scientists and historians presenting the facts.

One woman even hoped "Mr. Darwin will find Jesus." I guess nobody told her he died...uh...some time ago...

The reviews were interesting. The NY TIMES said it was "respectful" toward the Creos. While the Slate reviewer said it showed how dangerous Creationism really is.

They were both right. But I wonder if some of that "respect" was in return for getting access to Ham's Creation Museum and some of the Xian bloviators.

[Curmudgeoness]

6. :sputter: It is hilarious that someone hopes Mr. Darwin finds Jesus.

What is more hilarious is that Mr. Darwin was a Christian. In fact, he had a lot of problems reconciling what he theorized about the evolution of living organisms with his Christian faith. But I don't think that he ever gave up his religion. He just didn't let it get in the way of what he saw.

[onager]

8. The movie "Creation" did a good job showing that.

From 2009. With devout atheist Paul Bettany playing Darwin (who else?). And as Mrs. Darwin...of all people...Jennifer Connelly! (She did a great job.) The movie also goes into the death of their oldest daughter, which devastated Darwin for a long time.

In the first few minutes of the story, Huxley drops in after reading a draft of "Origin of Species" (IIRC). He says something like: "Congratulations, Darwin! You've killed God. About time somebody did in the old bugger." ROFL...

[deucemagnet]

9. An interesting aside about Darwin:

while in the Galapagos, Darwin was one of the first to make reports of the Kissing Bug, an arthropod vector for Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiological agent of Chagas disease. Later stages of Chagas disease are characterized by damage to cardiac tissue and heart disease. It is speculated that Darwin died of Chagas disease contracted in the Galapagos.

Individuals with chronic Chagas disease have a rather low rate of cure with conventional anti-parasitic medication, but there is little to no research into more effective therapies. Chagas is considered an "orphan disease", due to the fact that there is hardly any funding available for research because there is no profit to be had in developing drugs for the third world, despite the fact that a substantial portion of heart disease in South America is thought to be caused by Chagas.



</rant>

[Act_of_Reparation]

13. I work in a medical school

One of our MD/Ph.D. candidates is working on Chagas, in point of fact. We have collaborations with a few hospitals in Brazil that specialize in tropical medicine. Hope something comes of it.

[deucemagnet]

14. That's very good to hear.

I first heard of this when I was doing my doctoral work in the late 90s-early 2000s. I'm glad there is research into this now.

[pokerfan]

7. It's on YouTube

ETA: Never mind. This is the Ham/Nye debate.

Posted by Ham's group. Answers In Genesis.

Comments and ratings disabled for some reason.

[LAGC]

12. God damn -- the ignorance, it burns!

I could feel my IQ dropping 10 points just listening to that guy for 5 minutes.

"Historical science."

[Beachwood]

5. Should Scientists debate Creationists?

Just passing this along for people who may have an interest and may not have caught this before.


Published on Feb 11, 2014
Should Scientists Debate Creationists?
Hemant Mehta (http://www.friendlyatheist.com)

He references this other debate in his video.


Dan Savage and Brian Brown Debate in 2012:

...

[onager]

10. Check out this thread...

Started by Curmudgeoness a few days ago. I see by your post count that you're pretty new, so I figured you might not have seen it yet.

And where are my manners? Since you are new here, welcome to the group! As the Cheshire Cat said to Alice, you'll find that we're all mad here. But generally mad in a nice way.

Anyway, that thread has lots of posts about debating creationism, with the "Ham On Nye" (OUCH!) debate as a starting point:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/123019700

[Beachwood]

11. Thanks for the link, no I had not seen that one.

And your manners are fine.

Have enjoyed reading this group's threads for a few months as a non member of DU, while I didn't have lots of time to join and participate. I also read the stuff the religion booster clubs have going here in DU, but don't enjoy their closed-minded midwestern American "what could possibly be wrong with religion?" kind of stick. They seem to enjoy being challenged to feel so superior to the atheists here who challenge their assumptions, much like all those churches I went to in Iowa and Kansas back in the day.

I will fill in my vital personal profile here later, when I get around to it.

In the meantime, I enjoy reading posts from this group, as from science, anthropology, and a few others.