Difference between revisions of "Talk:Question evolution! campaign"

Revision as of 01:06, April 26, 2012

Archive 1 Archive 2

Answers to 15 questions

The debate page on the 15 Questions actually has answers to all of the questions. I think this article should reflect that fact. Something like, "Editors on Conservapedia, however, have been able to provide answers to all of the questions, putting their usefulness, and the validity of the Question Evolution Campaign, into serious doubt." TonyPark 23:57, 11 January 2012 (EST)

"Question Evolution" Link

Under the "Notes" section, the first link is supposed to bring the user to the Question Evolution! page on the Creation Ministries website, correct? Currently, the link is broken. It should say, "creation.com/question-evolution," whereas right now it says "creation.com/question-evIolution."

Note the "I" between "v" and "o" in "evolution." I cannot fix this link, so someone with that power may wish to do so. JHunt1487 14:51, 23 November 2011 (EST)

Fixed thinks.Conservative 02:35, 2 December 2011 (EST)

Seven Questions Creationists Can't Answer!

The Bible has quite a few dates and talks about lots of old men who supposedly lived for 900 years. Using these dates and records, Christian apologist Bishop Ussher created the most commonly accepted chronology that claims that the Earth was created in 4004 BC. Most Christian Fundamentalists still accept this date or at least a very similar one. Here are seven reasons that they are wrong!

1. The Pyramids Everyone knows that they are there. Even Southern Baptist apologists can't deny their existence. So how does their very existence destroy Biblical inerrantism? Because every single one of them was built hundreds of years before the Bible says that the Flood supposedly wiped out humanity. The Great Pyramid of Khufu in Giza was built around 2550 BC according to Egyptian records. That is 200 years before the flood. Embarrassingly, God's miles high flood made no mark on the pyramids or their contents. The mummies and artifacts inside are still dry and in great shape. If there really had been enough water to cover the Earth, it would have exerted a force of at least 1.8 million pounds per square foot on the Pyramids (assuming that the water was high enough to cover the entire Earth and all the mountains as the Bible says). This amount of pressure would have completely destroyed the antiquated architecture and mummies.

Where did you come up with your Flood date?

1. Tree Rings Dendrochronology, the study of tree rings, is an interesting and informative science that can tell us much about history. Every year, each tree creates a new growth ring. The size of this ring depends on the conditions of that year. Scientists can take cores of these trees and count the number of tree rings in order to give the age of the tree. Each year has a distinctive pattern depending on the local conditions. Amazingly, we have a species of tree, known as Bristlecone Pines, that provide a record of tree rings that extends back 11,000 years to 9,000 BC. This is an obvious problem for those that believe that the Earth was still "matter unorganized" back then. We even have a tree, known as Methuselah, that has now been alive for 4,842 years and counting as shown by its rings. That means that the tree was born in 2831 BC. This tree (and many others) kept living right on through the Flood that supposedly killed everything in 2350. The lowly Bristlecone Pine has toppled the Holy Bible simply by living when it should have died.

5,000 years ago is when the Flood happened, and bristlecone pines have been shown to be younger than that. Where is this 11,000 year tree-ring record you speak of?

1. Carbon Dating Radiometric dating is one of the strongest killers of Biblical literacy and one that creationists love to hate. Basically, radiometric dating measures the amount of an isotope and its decayed products are present in a given sample. It is based on the universally admitted fact that radioactive things decay at a certain rate. Through simple math, one can figure out the age of the sample. Radiometric dating is important because it proves that fossils are much older than a few thousand years old. This data shows that the Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years which obviously destroys the Ussher Chronology. Creationists often claim that "decay rates may have changed" or "I carbon dated my dead cat and the answer was off, so..." I have heard all kinds of silly attempts to discredit radiometric dating. The fact remains that we have used this method with not only carbon-14, but with more than 50 other isotopes to confirm the dates. Each of these 50 isotopes decays at a different rate. Yet, they all agree that the Earth is more than 4.5 billion years old. This is important. The half-lives for isotopes range from 70*10-18 seconds for Be-8 to 2.28*1024 years for Te-128. This is a huge range of time. That means that God would have had to speed up each of the 50 isotope's half-lives by vastly different factors in order to fool us into thinking that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. How ridiculous. My question is: why do creationists make insane claims about basic laws of physics in order to defend a Bronze Age myth?

You can believe what you want to believe, but there are major flaws based around the word "assumption" in regards to radiometric dating; too many people have too many problems with it to be reliable. [1]

1. Egyptian Hieroglyphs and Sumerian Before 2250 BC and the Tower of Babel, according to Biblical mythology, the only language on the planet was Adamic. All of the other languages, including Egyptian and Sumerian, were created by the confusion of tongues. Therefore, it is devastating that we have found hundreds of examples of writing that date to a thousand years before the Tower of Babel. Egyptian writings are also powerful evidence against Biblical literalism. The first known Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription was the Narmer Palette which is a collection of writing that dates to 3200 BC. This writing existed 1,000 years before the Tower of Babel when the Egyptian language was supposedly created. The first examples of Sumerian Cuneiform date to 3300 BC. Obviously, two completely different languages existed long before the Tower of Babel "created" them all and neither of them was Adamic.

For years scholars have been stating that written language is no older than 5,000 years (the Flood date again!), and recently things began to change. Could this change have been connected with militant atheism and a hostility towards the Bible?

1. Egyptian Dynastic Records Thanks to a well-developed system of record keeping and well-preserved papyri (which oddly enough, survived the Flood), we know an amazing amount about the Egyptian dynasties of the Old Kingdom. We know the exact years that each pharoah rose to power and then was replaced beginning with the Pharoah Zanakht, who rose to power in 2649. This line continues unbroken until the Pharoah Unas (2356-2323 BC) who obviously survived the "Global Flood" in 2349. This line continues until Nemtyenmzaf (2255-2246 BC) who reigned while God was changing everyone's language. Luckily, God forgot Egypt existed and no major disruptive linguistic change occurred during those few centuries when the Tower of Babel suppposedly happened.

Are you stating here that Pharoah Zanakht is the first Egyptian king? And are you sure about those dates? David Rohl did some checking and found out the scholars were wrong by about 350 years.'

1. Kangaroos, Lemurs, Frogs, and Emus Besides the obvious absurdity that Noah crammed 2 of each of the more than 5,000 mammal species, 10,000 bird species, 1,000,000 insect species, and 9,000 reptile species in a 450 foot long boat, there are other biological problems with the Bible. Leaving aside all the evidence for evolution, we can look at current animal distribution to see that Noah's Ark is bunk. Supposedly, Noah collected 2 of each animal into his boat and rode the Flood out for a year until he disembarked and released all of these animals from one point on Earth (legend says in Turkey). They then reproduced and spread out to where they are now. If this were true, animals would be present wherever they could have migrated since the Flood. Animals go where they can survive. That would mean that there would not be the kind of differences that we see in the world. Why are most Marsupials in Australia? Are we really expected to believe that all the Kangaroos got off the Ark and made a beeline for Australia without leaving one behind on the mainland? Why did all the Lemurs head for Madagascar? Why are the platyrrhines only found in the Western Hemisphere and catarrhines only in the Old World? How did all those animals get to Australia or any other island at all? Frogs cannot survive in salt water, so how did they get to Australia? I could list such problems in animal distribution forever. These questions are all easily answered by evolution, but they really make no sense if we accept Genesis.

Those questions are easily answered by Genesis, and an order by God that they go to their appointed places after the Flood. After all, how did people migrate out from the Old World to the New? Did they cross land bridges? And did they take several thousand years to do it...or did they actually do it in a few months? Wasn't the island of Krakatoa repopulated with animal and plant life within a couple years after an 1883 eruption which killed off everything, including bacteria?

1. Oil and Coal Every time a creationist drives he is benefitting from the fact that he is wrong. Petroleum only exists because the Earth is billions of years old. As most know, it is formed when the remains of phytoplankton and zooplankton settle to the bottom of the sea and are compressed and decomposed in anaerobic conditions. There is no other way to make petroleum. Enormous amounts of heat, pressure, and time are require to create petroleum. Only geologic time could do it. The gas in your car is great proof that Christian Fundamentalists are wrong when they said that the Earth was 6,000 years old.

What exactly do you mean by "as most know?" When phytoplankton and zooplankton settle on the bottom of the sea they are disposed of by scavengers before any sort of burial takes place, and this little fact is observable. And it isn't just dead animal and plant life that is being consumed; try looking at the remains of an iron-hulled ship that used to be called "Titanic". Courtesy of the recent oil well blow out in the Gulf of Mexico, we have the news from several sources that there are biological critters which eat oil. So, where is the oil coming from if it's being eaten away every time an animal dies?

Unless all 7 of these questions can be answered, Creationism must be dismissed as pseudoscience. FRodgers 23:20, 1 December 2011 (EST)

Basically, FRodgers, all those questions were answered, and they were answered too many times by too many people with a lot of evidence to back it all up. The first thing you had better do is to disprove the existence of God beyond all doubt; then you can talk about why we should not believe in what you call "pseudoscience". Karajou 02:09, 2 December 2011 (EST)

FRodgers, I see the evolutionists are getting desperate because they still can't the 15 questions. Second, the fluff you put forth certainly should not be taken seriously. For example, "Peter Clayton remarked that “it may come as a surprise to realize that it is extremely difficult to fix true or absolute dates in Egyptian chronology” (1994, p. 12, emp. added). Sir Alan Gardiner, the foremost Egyptologist of the twentieth century, spoke of “lamentable gaps” and “many a doubtful attribution,” finally exclaiming: “What is proudly advertised as Egyptian history is merely a collection of rags and tatters” (1961, p. 48, emp. added). Noting that our present knowledge of Egyptian chronology is “far from satisfactory,” Olaf Toffteen, curator of the Hibbard Egyptian Library in Chicago, explained that the deficiency can be attributed “not to the scarcity of material, but rather to its abundance. This material...exhibits so many contradictions that Egyptologists and historians differ radically in their theories on Egyptian chronology” (1907, 1:149). This indefiniteness does not remove all validity from the chronology, but it must be recognized that the ancient chronology of Egypt, though well established, is far from infallible."[2] Conservative 23:38, 1 December 2011 (EST)

Here is some addition information: "The uncertainty to which these scholars refer, results from the shaky foundation upon which Egyptian chronology is built. Manetho, the source of “the basic structure or skeleton of Egyptian chronology that we use today” (Clayton, p. 9), is unreliable and inaccurate. In the introduction to his translation of that historian, W.G. Waddell suggested “there were many errors in Manetho’s work from the very beginning” (1997, p. xxv). Further indicting this ancient source, Breasted confessed: “Wherever he can be controlled, Manetho is generally wrong in his figures, and any chronology based on his data is hopelessly astray” (1927, 1:32). Whatever the reason for Manetho’s untrustworthiness, one immediately sees the unreliability of a system whose “basic structure” is “hopelessly astray.”"[3] Conservative 23:44, 1 December 2011 (EST)

And the Question Evolution! campaign relies entirely on quote mining, misrepresentation of science, extremely flawed assumption, critical misinterpretation of evolutionary theory, and outright lies. I don't see your point. While there is some dissent about dates regarding Egypt, the consensus is that Egypt formed pre-flood and survived until the Greeks moved in. You can't explain that. FRodgers 00:25, 2 December 2011 (EST)

Don't you have any recent references? You can find some good stuff at my YouTube video, "More analysis of the Flood myth" or on my channel, voiceoftruth2006. I'm happy to debate you, by the way. --VOT2011 23:48, 1 December 2011 (EST)

Evolutionists, all your evolutionist jargon, evolutionist whining/kvetching and evolutionist consensus doesn't amount to a hill of beans. This campaign will throw creationist sabots into the machinery of evolutionary indoctrination. Get used to the Question evolution! campaign because you are not going to stop it. Conservative 01:17, 2 December 2011 (EST)

Archiving

Archiving shouldn't be used as a tool for last wordism! I un-archived those arguments to which someone contributed less than a day ago. AugustO 09:43, 2 December 2011 (EST)

Third-party coverage

I'd like it if the article showed some coverage from outside the Question Evolution! blog network. Can anyone point to such sources? RandRover 18:52, 30 December 2011 (EST)

Just Google it. --ArtWellesley 19:30, 30 December 2011 (EST)

Everything on the first page appears to be either content from the QE! campaign network reposted to other pages or twaddle critical of the campaign posted by atheists. Isn't there some positive publicity that wasn't created by the people running the campaign? RandRover 18:47, 31 December 2011 (EST)

Third party coverage and press is given in the article. I suggest actually reading the article before commenting on the talk page. I guess it's true that atheists have a hard time finding evidence because they don't want to see it or look for it. "Maybe the atheist cannot find God for the same reason a thief cannot find a policeman." - Francis Thomson. see: Atheism Quotes. Conservative 10:02, 4 January 2012 (EST)

That was uncalled for; please do not accuse me of being an atheist. I want this article to be strong and while it's true that I missed a short few lines in the middle of the article, I was looking in the references which by and large fit the pattern I mentioned above (38 of 44 are to either ShockofGod's YouTube channel or to one of the campaign's creators; the other 6 do not mention the campaign at all). Those pages are all dated before September 1; is the media simply ignoring us? Surely a local paper or similar has run an article. RandRover 16:53, 4 January 2012 (EST)

Rand, If it is important for you to know if there has been media coverage, then ask your locale librarian to help you do a search on newspapers coverage. Since the only thing that is necessary for the campaign to be effective is for students to ask their teachers the 15 questions in class and for people to examine the questions with an open mind, I don't see why media coverage is paramount though at this early stage. For example, the Question evolution blog (network) has only been around a month, as can be seen HERE. The Traditional Values Coalition seemed to jump in right around the beginning of school in late August based on their website and the WND story which cited their website.[4] That is only 3 months ago. Maybe it is just me, but Christians tend to be more patient and tenacious and don't expect instant results nor do they expect mainstream media validation. Plus, there are so many ways now to get the word out without the use of mainstream media. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if social movements go through stages and some preparation, recruiting and organizing is involved before deciding to seek attention from press outlets in a significant way. Plus, although some social movements probably start out with a book/movie/video, I am guessing the converse also happens and social movements develop material as they go along. I would think that books/movies/videos tend to attract more media attention. I know that impatient people like the fire, aim, ready approach, but I personally think the ready, aim, fire approach has more wisdom. :) However, I can see how a person who comments on a talk page before carefully reading an article would feel differently. :) Conservative 18:12, 4 January 2012 (EST)

There's no reason for the snark. Please refrain. RandRover 18:35, 4 January 2012 (EST)

Who is this campaign aimed to ?

Is it aimed to students ? Is it aimed to people who are hesitant about creationism/evolution ?
I ask this question because the only reactions I could see are from militant creationists. Therefore, even if the goal seems laudable, I am not optimistic about the success of this campaign. --PhilipN 18:20, 4 January 2012 (EST)

What is the campaign called? Question evolution! isn't it? It seems obvious to me what the purpose of the campaign is, but maybe I am not thinking hard enough. :) I loved the first video with Pastor Carl Gallup especially the line "Didn't your teacher teach you to question everything?" It seems to me though that the evolutionists/atheists don't like their dogman/religion questioned though and I think Pastor Gallups was suggesting that they are hypocritical.Conservative 18:43, 4 January 2012 (EST)

Hi Conservative, I understand pretty well the purpose, I am just wondering about the target. Do you know if some people abandoned their belief in evolution because of this campaign ? If evolutionists don't like their religion to be questioned, I suppose this campaign does not target them. --PhilipN 18:48, 4 January 2012 (EST)

Again, I think that obvious too. The campaign is called Question evolution! so people with with an open mind. Generally, dogmatic/opinionated people such as militant atheists/evolutionists probably tend not to question their beliefs although Charles Darwin was plagued with doubt about evolution and even late in life and often had overwhelming thoughts the world was designed[5] so who knows what goes on inside so called dogmatic evolutionists heads. (see: Charles Darwin). The Question evolution blog posters have indicated several times that they would like to reach young people plus develop curriculum for young people which is not surprising since young people tend to be less dogmatic and opinionated. [6] I really don't think this is rocket science. I don't see this very young social movement doing anything radically different than others before them. Conservative 18:57, 4 January 2012 (EST)

How can you speak about open mindedness while you "Never read more than a few words or sentences of inane and socially challenged atheist/evolutionist comments before deleting them" ? (I am not an atheist but I believe in listening) --PhilipN 20:47, 4 January 2012 (EST)

Did I write that? Second, how much time a day do you pour over the material of "inane, socially challenged atheists/evolutionists"? Is it a hobby of yours? Maybe you should consider engaging in other hobbies. Just a thought. :) Conservative 21:02, 4 January 2012 (EST)

Well played, Conservative ;) I have to admit that I usually don't listen to "insane, socially challenged atheists/evolutionists" ! But I sometime have a chat with sane, socially admitted atheists/evolutionists ! --PhilipN 21:38, 4 January 2012 (EST)

What goals will you try to achieve in 2012 ?

As you wrote on the main page and probably on the blog as well:
An advocate of the Question evolution! campaign believes that as the campaign continues to gain new fans and spread across the globe in 2012 that these desperate rants of atheist crybabies may reach a feverish pitch.
So what objectives did you define for 2012 ? Do you define goals by number of conversions, by number of crying atheists, by number of the campaign followers, or by the number of bullied atheists ? --PhilipN 17:12, 18 January 2012 (EST)

Did "you define"? Please explain. Who are you referring to? Conservative 19:00, 18 January 2012 (EST)

Seeing how much you promote the campaign on CP, I thought you were one of the leaders of the campaign. Am I wrong ?--PhilipN 23:41, 19 January 2012 (EST)

Philip, very early on as an editor at Conservapedia, I established a policy of asking that my critics address my content at this wiki and try to point out factual errors in my content. Of course, given my articles which are brimming with facts and well cited this has been very frustrating for them. :) As part of this policy, I said I would not entertain any of their speculations about any internet activities outside of this wiki that they wish to speculate about in terms of confirmations or denials by myself. I/we do realize that some people have Conservapedia obsessive compulsive disorder and are obsessed with Conservapedia and some of its sysops/administrators, yet my/our policy remains firm. :) By the way, to date no true skeptic declares whether I/we are one person or many. :) Conservative 08:09, 20 January 2012 (EST)

Let's cut the word-games: it is secondary whether the Question Evolution! Campaign has leaders, or only leading members or possibly only more and less prolific contributors. Judging from the activity on this wiki alone, you are the most prolific observer(s) of the QE!C here at Conservapedia - and perhaps the only one(s) who met members of this campaign in real life (Have you? Has anyone else encountered an activist of QE!C in RL? Or at least got a pamphlet which he hasn't printed out himself? )

Therefore it makes sense for PhilipN to address his questions to you, though he could have phrased them a little bit differently:

• User:Conservative, as someone who seems to know quite a bit about the campaign what objectives do you think the campaign will have for 2012 ?
• Do you think that the campaign will result in actual conversion of atheists? Has it done so over the last six months?
• Do you think that the campaign will have a measurable influence on the atheist crybabies? How do you propose to measure it? Has it have such an influence over the last six months? If not, why not?

AugustO 08:35, 20 January 2012 (EST)

AugustO, the campaign is the campaign of Creation Ministries International (CMI). The CMI website describes the Question evolution! campaign thusly: "The campaign involves people empowering people to stand firm together against the evolutionary indoctrination so rampant in our schools, universities and media. You can encourage your friends to ‘Question evolution’ — especially if you are a student who is being force-fed evolutionary dogma. What good questions can you ask? Our exciting ‘Question evolution’ tract, 15 Questions for Evolutionists, provides 15 critically important questions that evolutionists cannot adequately answer. Share them with your friends, family and fellow students. These attractive tracts [view / order] are very affordable, or print your own from our downloadable PDF document [plain A4-size, plain letter-size]... here is a web page of the complete 15 Questions including links to further reading and references."[7] That's the campaign. It's a simple campaign that's easy to get involved with. I know you can't adequately answer the questions so get involved in the Question evolution! campaign. Conservative 09:40, 20 January 2012 (EST)

Since you don't define "adequately," CMI can simply ignore any answer given, even a thorough one that really does answer the question, as "inadequate." The 15 questions are almost all basic questions about evolutionary biology that were all covered in my sister's 10th grade biology class. They HAVE been answered, by many people, and your continued insistence that they have not been answered, even as the answer sits in every biology textbook AND on the debate page for the 15 questions, is wrong. RachelW 12:18, 20 January 2012 (EST)

You post was rather humorous to many Conservapedians no doubt who are familiar with what Harvard evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould confessed about biology textbooks (see: Biology textbooks). By the way, I know you can't adequately answer the questions so get involved in the Question evolution! campaign. Conservative 14:37, 20 January 2012 (EST)

So, no clear objective that you are aware of ? --PhilipN 15:25, 22 January 2012 (EST)

PhilipN, why don't you debate Shockofgod on the 15 questions for evolutionists. And after you are done with the debate, ask him about his experience with the campaign. Conservative 21:06, 25 April 2012 (EDT)

95 Theses against Evolution

I suggest to include into "See also" the 95 Theses against Evolution.--AK 18:07, 25 April 2012 (EDT)