← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Gabrielle
Thread ID: 20306 | Posts: 6 | Started: 2005-09-20
2005-09-20 12:17 | User Profile
Challenged by Creationists, Museums Answer Back
By CORNELIA DEAN Published: September 20, 2005 ITHACA, N.Y. - Lenore Durkee, a retired biology professor, was volunteering as a docent at the Museum of the Earth here when she was confronted by a group of seven or eight people, creationists eager to challenge the museum exhibitions on evolution.
[img]http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/09/20/science/20docent.184.jpg[/img]
Michael J. Okoniewski for The New York Times Warren D. Allmon of Museum of the Earth advises, "Be firm and clear, not defensive."
F.A.Q.: What's Evolution? Is It 'Just a Theory'? (September 20, 2005)
Forum: Human Origins They peppered Dr. Durkee with questions about everything from techniques for dating fossils to the second law of thermodynamics, their queries coming so thick and fast that she found it hard to reply.
After about 45 minutes, "I told them I needed to take a break," she recalled. "My mouth was dry."
That encounter and others like it provided the impetus for a training session here in August. Dr. Durkee and scores of other volunteers and staff members from the museum and elsewhere crowded into a meeting room to hear advice from the museum director, Warren D. Allmon, on ways to deal with visitors who reject settled precepts of science on religious grounds.
Similar efforts are under way or planned around the country as science museums and other institutions struggle to contend with challenges to the theory of evolution that they say are growing common and sometimes aggressive.
One company, called B.C. Tours "because we are biblically correct," even offers escorted visits to the Denver Museum of Science and Nature. Participants hear creationists' explanations for the exhibitions.
**So officials like Judy Diamond, curator of public programs at the University of Nebraska State Museum in Lincoln, are trying to meet such challenges head-on. **
Dr. Diamond is working on evolution exhibitions financed by the National Science Foundation that will go on long-term display at six museums of natural history from Minnesota to Texas. The program includes training for docents and staff members.
"The goal is to understand the controversies, so that people are better able to handle them as they come up," she said. "Museums, as a field, have recognized we need to take a more proactive role in evolution education."
Dr. Allmon, who directs the Paleontological Research Institution, an affiliate of Cornell University, began the training session here in September with statistics from Gallup Polls: 54 percent of Americans do not believe that human beings evolved from earlier species, and although almost half believe that Darwin has been proved right, slightly more disagree.
"Just telling them they are wrong is not going to be effective," he said.
Instead, he told the volunteers that when they encounter religious fundamentalists they should emphasize that science museums live by the rules of science. They seek answers in nature to questions about nature, they look for explanations that can be tested by experiment and observation in the material world, and they understand that all scientific knowledge is provisional - capable of being overturned when better answers are discovered.
"Is it against all religion?" he asked. "No. But it is against some religions."
There is more than one type of creationist, he said: "thinking creationists who want to know answers, and they are willing to listen, even if they go away unconvinced" and "people who for whatever reason are here to bother you, to trap you, to bludgeon you."
Those were the type of people who confronted Dr. Durkee, a former biology professor at Grinnell College in Iowa. The encounter left her discouraged.
"It is no wonder that many biologists will simply refuse to debate creationists or I.D.ers," she said, using the abbreviation for intelligent design, a cousin of creationism. "It is as if they aren't listening."
Dr. Allmon says even trained scientists like Dr. Durkee can benefit from explicit advice about dealing with religious challenges to science exhibitions.
"There is an art, a script that is very, very helpful," he said.
A pamphlet handed out at the training session provides information on the scientific method, the theory of evolution and other basic information. It offers suggestions on replying to frequently raised challenges like "Is there lots of evidence against evolution?" (The answer begins, simply, "No.")
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/science/20doce.html?th&emc=th[/url]
2005-09-20 17:52 | User Profile
The theory of evolution is just that, a theory. It is not fact and quite frankly has more holes than Swiss cheese, IMO.
Having said that, these creationist taterheads need to stay the 'f' home and let honest folk do their damn jobs.
2005-09-20 22:39 | User Profile
[QUOTE=phoenix_rising]creationist taterheads[/QUOTE]
Yes, but were the taterheads designed or did they just evolve?
2005-09-20 23:25 | User Profile
"It is no wonder that many biologists will simply refuse to debate creationists or I.D.ers," she said, using the abbreviation for intelligent design, a cousin of creationism. "It is as if they aren't listening." Exactly. There's no point in arguing with people who love their fantasies more than they love cold, hard reality.
My biggest peeve is with people who try to use the Second Law of Thermodynamics to argue against evolution when they don't understand the first thing about that law. (Hint: There is NO law that says entropy cannot increase in an open system. And if you don't even know the mathematical definition of entropy, what are you doing in this debate, anyway?) Also annoying are the "tornado in a junkyard" argument and attacks on carbon dating.
There is no point in debating with a person who uses such arguments. It's like discussing the finer points of quantum theory with someone who doesn't even know calculus, let alone any advanced math or physics. In order to debate someone, they have to at least understand the subject they're debating.
2005-09-20 23:30 | User Profile
[FONT=Arial][COLOR=Red][B][I] - "Exactly. There's no point in arguing with people who love their fantasies more than they love cold, hard reality."[/I][/B][/COLOR][/FONT]
How can you tell for sure that this much-advertised "cold, hard reality" that you are supposedly so devoted to isn't just a fantasy of your own?
Petr
2005-09-20 23:40 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Petr][FONT=Arial][COLOR=Red][B][I] - "Exactly. There's no point in arguing with people who love their fantasies more than they love cold, hard reality."[/I][/B][/COLOR][/FONT]
How can you tell for sure that this much-advertised "cold, hard reality" that you are supposedly so devoted to isn't just a fantasy of your own?[/QUOTE]Because of (1) the evidence, and (2) the fact that the explanation makes good intuitive sense based on the years of mathematical and scientific training I've had (including college-level biology and chemistry). But the evidence is especially important, as is the testimony of the overwhelming majority of the world's scientists. Oh, and then there's (3) the fact that no explanation besides evolution has any empirical evidence supporting it.
Now perhaps you'll answer a similar question. How are you sure that your God exists? (Not just some God. The God of the Bible.)