liz_marcs | Mythic Creatures from the American Museum of Natural History...and a Post About Fairytale Science

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Mythic Creatures from the American Museum of Natural History...and a Post About Fairytale Science

hat tip to

idragosani for pointing me to this entry from the science blog Pharyngula by PZ Myers.

I found this link in the round up of news, scientific, and blogger reaction to the new Creation "Museum" opening on Monday.

Instead of paying attention to those anti-science nuts with too much money, go visit the web site of mythic creatures at the American Museum of Natural History (there's a link to resources there).

Better, if you're in and around NYC, go visit.

*shakes head*

I'm floored that in this day in age, something like the Creation "Museum" could even open, let alone open debt-free.

It reminds me of a story:

When I was in sixth grade, a bunch of us little snots (I say this because all sixth graders are snots, really) decided to trip up our science teacher, who just happened to be a fearsome nun we called Sister Yoda (because she looked like Yoda, and she was a master of wielding a ruler on misbehaving students).

For, lo, the day came when we asked, "So sister, how can you teach us religion during religion period and then turn around and teach evolution during science period?"

(Yes, we got the evolution overview in sixth grade, which I found out later is not normal practice.)

And, lo, Sister Yoda said onto us, "Because in religion period I'm a religion teacher. In science period, I'm a science teacher. The first teaches you the why, the other teaches you the how. Those are two different questions."

Then she smiled this pleased little smile. Looking back, it was almost Buddah-like. It was if she knew that question was coming and had practiced that answer just so she could blow our little snotty-kid minds.

That, or she'd been hit with that question by so many snotty sixth graders that experience told her that truly intelligent students would be trying to trip her up with that question.

Ahhh, Sister Yoda. You were a wiser woman than we knew.

In any case, my mother had something of a similar experience when she was in school, only in her case it was high school. I can't count how many times I heard this story.

Her snotty class hit up their biology teacher (a nun, naturally) with the same question. "How can you teach evolution?"

According to my mother, the nun thought about this a moment and said, "Well, let me ask you something. When people are born, they start out as babies and grow to adults, right?"

I imagine at this point that there was some scattered giggling here, because of course that's true.

The nun then poses the whopper of a question, "Now, say you have a baby and it never grows up. The baby never changes, never learns, never gains new skills. Everything remains the same. The baby keeps looking like a baby, thinking like a baby, and the baby remains a baby forever. You'd worry. You'd know something was wrong. You want that baby to grow up and change and become an adult, right? Because that's what should happen with babies."

I can imagine the eye-rolling at this point as every kid in class thinks, "Well, duh!"

Then the nun drives the point home, "So, if humans think that it's right and good that babies grow and change and adapt to their environment, how on earth can you think that God would want any less from humanity?"

Now, while I've offered two small fairytales to argue against one big one, they're telling ones, I think.

It's possible to be a deeply religious person and still know that creationism, the young earth "theory," and intelligent design is total bunk.

Hell, I know deeply religious people with scientific training and working in scientific fields, and they would never — not for one second — call evolution "a lie."

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Great stories Liz, thanks for sharing!

Thanks. :-)

What's funny is, I have a friend who's an evangelical Christian and a microbiologist. Her attitude is, "Evolution is man's best friend. Without it, how would we learn how to fight bacterial and viral disease? God is great like that, yay!"

I'm utterly mystified by creationism on a fundamental level. I can't figure out the reasoning behind it to save my poor wishy-washy Unitarian soul. What's even funnier that I know people who are deeply religious and can't wrap their heads around the reasoning for creationism.

So, I'm torn between amusement and embarrassment about this museum. I can't work up the outrage, because I honestly think that it'll shut down within five years due to lack of funds. However, I can see why scientists are morally offended by it.

I unfortunately don't think it'll be shut down from lack of funds. The fundies have been outbreeding us for a long time, and now we're seeing the fruit of their labor *bdum tish*

Make me depressed why dontchya!

LOL....

That icon is just brilliant :D (and I admit my first reaction was..."nooooooooooo, bunnies can't be wrong!!" lol)

I think you mean cheeseburgers is an abomination, not hamburgers per say.

And Hasidic Jews practice all those prohibitions. Although, within that community, there is some (small) debate as to whether homosexuality is outlawed. In any event, it only applies to males. There is nothing written about lesbianism at all.

Just figured I'd supply a little extra info there. **g**

I love both of those stories! Thank you for sharing them.

Thanks for reading.

It's strange how Sister Yoda is one of my favorite nuns, even though she terrified the heck out of me as a kid. I mean, all she had to do was just look at you with those cold, blue eyes of hers and you'd suddenly transform from little snot to straight-arrow polite kid.

The woman was not even 5 feet tall and had to be something like 80 when she taught us. You'd think she was a 100 feet tall and in her 20s the way we'd behave when she got her nun-stare up and running.

I think I love her as an adult because Sister Yoda always insisted that we think in class, and by God, she was going to teach us how to think come hell or high water.

I've talked about this subject a number of times in my own LJ, and having spoken to numerous people who are both religious and accept the science behind the Theory of Evolution, and I've come to the following conclusion about why the Religious Right has been pushing so heavily for Intelligent Design education in schools:

The Religious Right is trying to discredit science.

As the basis for Evolution, climate change, and embryonic stem cell research, Science, at least from the Religious Right's point of view, is far too dangerous a Pandora's Box to open, raises too many questions about many religious tenets for the institution of the Religious Right to *not* attempt some means of discrediting it.

What we need is a call-to-arms for funding science programs for school children, as well as funding to arts programs that support scientific thought, such as music, sculpture, and painting. Hell, even games play can teach probabilities and statistics.

Unfortunately, until we break the stranglehold the religious right holds on a portion of U.S. political discourse, the beginning baby steps aren't going to even head in that direction.

The key problem with something like the Creation "Museum" (and correct me if I'm erroneous in this idea) is that all the reasoning comes down to, "Because the Bible sez."

It's like there's this little civil war within Christianity that no one wants to talk about. You've got one branch (the Christinists) who think the James King version of the Bible is the unadulterated word of God. Then you've got the other branch (which probably makes up the majority of Christendom) who understand that the Bible is very much a product of the oral tradition and that a lot of what's in there is the product of a hundred little cultural and historical hiccups were going on at the time it was actually written down that we can't know or understand 100%.

The problem is that in the U.S., you've got everyone from non-Christians to deists, to atheists caught in the middle of the war.

It's enough to make you tear your hair out, because in the meantime there seems to be a lot of scientific inquiry that's either been suppressed (in the case of climate change science) or outright suppressed (in the case of medical science).

Then you've got the other branch (which probably makes up the majority of Christendom) who understand that the Bible is very much a product of the oral tradition and that a lot of what's in there is the product of a hundred little cultural and historical hiccups were going on at the time it was actually written down that we can't know or understand 100%.

Sadly, I think that in America the majority is on the other side. I believe an ABC News report indicated that some 80 or so percent of Americans believe in the literal truth of the Bible (granted, given the general (mala-)propensity to misuse words like "literally," this number may be inflated).

Thanks so much for sharing these stories, Liz. You might want to check this out:

'Creation Museum Report' ~ by one who believes it all.

There are folks (including folks in my extended family ... the majority of them, in fact) who believe all the anti-evolution nonsense pushed by AiG & the Creation Museum.

It's mind-boggling, and really sad ... but a reality.

Sheesh. It's moments like this that I feel like I've lived a too-sheltered life in my little New England corner of the U.S. 0_0

Ummmmmm, the museum is only a 6-hour drive for 75% of the U.S. population? Really? I don't think so, considering the population of California alone, and I know for a fact that Ohio is no 6-hour drive from California.

I mean, even the regions pet conservatives in New Hampshire mounted a huge push-back when a bunch of Christian Coalition members ran for office(this back when that was a real organization and the goal was to take over local and state politics). It got so bad, that people were walking up to candidates and asked, "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Christian Coalition?"

Yeah, very McCarthy, but that was actually happening.

Then when it turned out that some candidates lied about not being Christian Coalition members and then announced that they were after they got elected to some local school boards, citizens descended en masse on those meetings and there were near-riots from the parents who were pissed they were lied to, let alone the agenda items.

More than a few school boards got locked up because the parents got very, very active and started keeping a really close eye on the school boards. Those people were all voted out and the first available opportunity.

I mean, this happened in New Hampshire, where people read the bible and the Manchester Union-Leader in that order.

I completly agree...I don't think anyone with any real sense would say that you have to choose science or god, that either one is true or the other. You can be deeply religious and still be scientific.

I mean, come on, if there is a creator, he/she/they/it has to be headdesk-ing at the mere thought, that people actually think the parable that is the Christian creation story could be true.

I know, right? We were actually taught a form of bible literacy when I was in Catholic school, up to and including how various bible stories filched from older religious traditions (Hello, Noah and the Flood! I think the source of that one is Summerian, I think.)

Plus, I had multiple nuns say that you can't take anything in the Old Testament literally because: 1) All those bible stories are told based on a non-existent understanding of the natural world; 2) Before they were written down, you had thousands of years of oral tradition distorting the stories; 3) The books that were included were not necessarily included for "holy reasons," i.e., there were political, propaganda, and morale reasons for their inclusion.

Same goes for why certain books were included in the New Testament and others weren't.

I mean, the idea (at least what we were taught) is to look at the Old Testament as the evolution of a certain kind of religious thought, and the New Testament as a guidebook to moral living. However, the bible cannot be used as a hard-and-fast rule book because it doesn't work like that.

And always, always, always, you have to consider the historical background against which all these books were written down and chosen to be included.

So, yeah, the idea that we take the bible word-for-word literally confuzzles me to an nth degree. I mean, reducing something as big as the Supreme Being (he/she/it) down to one book</I. strikes me as short-changing said Supreme Being by a massive, massive degree.

The flood story comes from Gilgamesh, which was from Ur (part of Sumeria, I believe).

Can I, as an Elder in a protestant church, just say Amen to every word of that?

American Right-wing Christian Fundamentalists to me are not really Christian, as I was taught that for Christians the things that Jesus is reported as saying are the most important things, then the things people said about him, and that the Old Testament was the history of the people into whom Jesus was born, important because they are his cultural history.

But many fundamentalists who say that they are Christians seem only to take notice of the Old Testament and the book of Revelation (which I remember reading only just made it into the Bible anyway.) They seem to give little thought to he Gospels, and so they are more Johnians than Christians, or possibly some form of fundamental non-ethnic Jews.

As a practising Protestant Elder I would be much happier to have members of my family educated by your nuns than by the fundamentalists,for sure!

(PS - my favourite of al the stuff linked to is the picture of T Rex as a coconut eater - 'Oh Grandma what big teeth you have.' 'All the better to eat coconuts with, my dear!')

possibly some form of fundamental non-ethnic Jews.
As a Jewish-type person I have to disagree with that big time.

First off, Conservative and Reform branches of Judaism all believe in evolution. Most Orthodox Jews (ie, "fundies") also believe in Evolution, including the head of the Orthodox Council.

Judaism is predicated on the belief that the written Torah (first six books of the old testament) is not to be taken literally and needs to be studied in order for G-d's meaning to be divined. No one in the religion takes the bible literally, you're not supposed to.

Plus, of course, anyone who believes in the divinity of Christ cannot be Jewish by definition.

Sorry - I just couldn't think of any other description for a group who actually use only the 'Old Testament' as their ''Holy Writ' - because those people really don't seem to believe anything that Jesus said or did, so they cannot really be Christian because that would require them to follow the teachings of Jesus.

Can you think of a better way of describing them? This is a serious request, as I have tried to make this point before but cannot think of a suitable term for them.

The End of Days mob actually worship John The Devine, rather than Jesus, as they only seem to believe in what he wrote rather than anything reported as being said by Jesus, so 'Johnian' would do for them - but those who only believe in a form of God that they see in what we call the Old Testament?

Maybe literal OTers?

And usually, there are books that Jews believe in (ie, constitutes part of the law) that Christians (and I'm using a very broad definition here) ignore. For example, I think the entire book of Ester tends to be skipped.

I occasionally write about Jewish teachings and the like in my journal; you're welcome to haunt it if you like.

I think there is a huge divide in this country between a very vocal segment of the population who seem to think that everyone has to believe exactly what they believe (which is not only creationism, but a host of other things) and everybody else.In my darker moments, I forsee a religious war in this country that will rival anything currently happening in the Middle East.

I've got it! OTTs! Old Testament Totalitarians - because they are so completly OTT.

Esther is in my Bible, but I can't say it is a book I read a lot.

Today in Church, much to the joy of the young boy of the same name we were studying a passage from Joel, but it was alongside a passage from John and a passage from Acts to show how, in our tradition, they are linked - Joel forming the foundation on which the other two were built.

I agree with you about threat to peace of the Christian Fundamentalists - it's one of the reasons that I think other Christians should point out that their beliefs are not always Christian at all, as they do not actually have Christ at the centre - a bit like Buddists who don't bother with reading the teachings of the Buddha.

When we read the book of Esther, it's the basis for one of the big fun holidays (you're supposed to get stinking drunk.)

But yeah, I wish more people would stand up and say I am religious but my G-d looks nothing like the intolerant hateful being your G-d is.

And OTT! I love it.

Esther was definitely part of my upbringing, but I'm not sure anymore how standard that really was. But on the other hand, Ester isn't part of our lectionary (but then, either are a lot of books of the Bible). We do struggle with what to say about the Book of Esther, particularly since G-d is not directly active in the narrative, etc. But regardless of all the theological analysis, it's one of my favorite books - and that was before knowing certain details of the holiday. *g*

Esther is the only book where G-d is never mentioned. The explanation is that it is a story of G-d working behind the scenes as it were, which makes sense considering the amazing coincidences the story abounds in.

I think my brain just broke. :(

Thanks for this info, Liz. I'd heard about the Creatonist movement before, but living in Europe, there wasn't much information about it in the newscasts who talked about it. Now, for the first time, I understand what exactly they are. As a Catholic-raised kid, I can hardly believe these kind of people would still exist and have existed for such a long time.

However, I think all of you are overlooking an important fact and I hope nobody will be offended by what I'm about to say. That is not my intention.

These 'Creatonists' are nothing more then our Western World's version of the radical Muslims now running around the world, trying to spread their rigid form of belief on everyone else.

"It is the Will of Allah, spoken by the One True Prophet, Mohammed and written down in the One True Book, the Koran", or "It is the Word of God, as written down in the One True Book, the Bible".

Two sides of the same coin. Two sides who will spell disaster for anybody else who doesn't believe as they do. Everyone who states that science will be destroyed by the Creatonists is right. Just look at the countries where radical Islam has held sway. How long has it been since any scientific progress has been made in those countries? Weren't they supposed to be pretty advanced so many thousands of years ago? Even in 'moderate' Islamic countries, the only real advancements in science have been those that were pushed by the fact they have oil and finding ways of improving the market value of oil derivatives. Hardly any other field of science has seen the light of day there.

If the people in the US don't fight this now, they WILL follow in those countries' footsteps. And I don't think anybody wants that because that would spell disaster. For the whole world.

You had good nuns.

Thing is, this 'civil war' in Christianity is nothing new. The Catholic Church went through enormous ructions working out how it stood towards modern science, Biblical criticism, etc. Everyone knows about Galileo of course, but in the early 20th Century, the cig question was can you apply historical-literary critical methods to the Bible. And the Popes at the start of the century condemned these 'Modernist' tendencies vociferously. But somewhere along the line (and I don't pretend to know the history of it), the Church went through a bit of a revolution, and came to terms with both things like evolution, and the recognition that the Bible has a historical context, that the word fo God is mediated through fallible humans, that the OT represents a gradual development of human religious understanding, through the ongoing action of God in history, etc.

Thing is, it's easier in some ways for the Catholic church to do this than for Evangelicals. Because Catholics have the rock of the credal formulae, the doctrinal statements, it's always regarded the Bible as coming through the Church, and needing continuing interpretation by the Church. So you can accept all these qualifications about the Bible, but still hold to the fundamental teachings about Christ mediated by teh Church under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

For Evangelicals (and I was one myself in my younger days), the Bible is the sole source of authority. How did it get here? Who decided what should be in the Bible and what should not? Doesn't matter. It is the inspired word of God. So if you start chipping away at the authority of the Bible, you are left with no clear foundation.

There are many Evangelicals who can nonetheless come to terms with evolution, who while, maintaining the innerrancy of Scripture, can accept that there are different types of writing in the Bible, that not all are meant to be taken literally. But for many others, Biblical infallibility is so absolutely totemic, is so much an intellectual and spiritual rock in a confusing world, that even that is going way too far.

I think a factor that interacts with this is the general Evangelical teaching (again not shared by all Evangelicals, e.g. John Stott), that only Christians are saved. That, since Justification is by faith alone (one of the key Reformation principles), if you don't believe, you go to hell. (Of course the Catholic Church used to teach 'no salvation outside the Church', but again has moved beyond that.) So if you have faith, you ought to have faith in God to get his Bible right. And conversely, any deviation from such absolute faith basically puts in question whether you really have faith, and therefore whether you are saved.

I think in Britain Evangelicalism is much more mixed between those who accept Evolution and those who reject it, and more mutual tolerance. But this sort of thing can very much be a product of particular local circumstances, and some particualr issues can become, for whatever stupid original reason, the test of orthodoxy, of faithfulness, of whether you're saved or not. And thus can become something that is no longer open to question. To question is to become the liberal heathen enemy.

That's my take on how that sort of mentality takes hold, anyway.

Those nuns were very smart women. I can see their influence on you in the way you think about the world.
I think that the whole debate is more about power than truth: The creationists give up their power to think rationally about evolution to those who want to control the growth of scientific knowledge; the more we know about the world, the less power we give to others to tell us what the world should be. The Fundamentalist creationists tell us that God is all powerful and knows all, so we have to accept their interpretation of God's knowledge: in essence, give them the power of God to control how we see the world.
Knowledge is Power. Those who aim to control others want to keep that fact hidden.
It's about Power - Buffy.

I want to see the mythical creatures! Unlikely, unless I can get to New York right at the beginning of 2008.

Those were awesome nuns.

Anyone who's ever given birth or who has been kicked in the jewels knows that intelligent design is a laugh and a half.

Anyone who's ever given birth or who has been kicked in the jewels knows that intelligent design is a laugh and a half.

Gotta disagree. Anything that's designed intellectually is designed so that the lowest common denominator can use it to full effectiveness. Thus we have the simplicity of the "Tab A" and "Slot B" method of procreation. With that even the most unintelligent people can go out there and make babies (as evidenced so-freaking-often)...

The pain of birth and of being kicked in the jewels are a fail-safe to try and curb the unintelligent people from procreating. Because the unintelligent always think they are intelligent and who of any intelligence would suffer through the pain of birth more than once? And of course, the pain to the jewels happens as soon as the female finds out she's pregnant and the guy was wrong/lied about not being able to get pregnant if she would hop on one leg in a circle afterwords or some other stupid thing guys say.

Yup, it all makes sense, don't it? ;)

BWAH! Unfortunately the fail safe doesn't seem to be working...

(and we crazies suffer through birth more than once because time dulls the memory.)

Add to that list;

Anyone who'se ever had an appendix removed.

Anyone who'se ever had their tonsils removed.

Anyone who'se ever had *back pain,* brought about by that extra bone at the end of our spine to anchor the *tail we don't have anymore.*

Anyone who'se ever had a sinus headache brought on by inflammation of the vonemerasal organ, yet another vestigial thing that animals use to process sex pheremones during mating season and we don't (since human females don't 'go into heat,' *and never have*), but still have for no reason at all.

Anyone who has family with Down's Syndrone, Tay-Sach's, Sickle Cell Anemia, etc, etc.

My response to 'Intelligent design' is to say "Platypus!" over and over. Between the platypus, penguin, kiwi, capybara, etc, it looks less like intelligent design and more like, 'buncha college kids sitting around *massively* stoned, thinking up animal mash-ups...'

My personal favorite is the blind spot in the eye. It's an easy fix if we have been put together just a bit smarter.

Sister Yoda sounds like one smart cookie. As a God-driven evolutionist I have very little comprehension of the beliefs of the young earth theorists. I understand why they believe what they believe, I just can't fathom it. It's a teaching myth people! Jesus used them constantly.

And as an inquisitive 8th grader, I asked the same question and got: "How long is God's day?"

It might be because i'm a Catholic from the NWern US (our conservative administration aside, we're as- well, of course i'd say that we're as Christ-centered as we were in Hunthausen's day- wacky and future looking as we ever were), but i've never understood why there should be any divide between spirituality and science. Like your microbiologist Christian pal. One may as well say that electricity isn't real because Moses didn't mention it.

Man, I wish I had teachers like Sister Yoda - and I'm not even religious.

You know, I'm at a point where I have to be amused by these things, otherwise I'll cry. I transferred my daughters to my old [very Catholic] school from what was supposed to be a quite liberal [also Catholic] one because my oldest was convinced, and I quote: "Going trick-or-treating was like worshipping the devil."

It boggles the mind.

Your teachers rocked.

I'd heard a passing mention of the 'museum' in the news, but reading that article (okay, reading the first have of that uber long article) just had me shaking my head over and over.

Funny, just today in church one of the readings was about the Tower of Babel and I was wondering what literalists make of that text in view of the modern understanding of language development. Of course, I was also asking myself what I think the text is about, as I don't think it is meant to be a historical rendering, but if not that, then why?

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and quite possibly open myself up to even more insult. I know I'm in the minority here, and I know that by saying what I'm about to say (or write, I suppose) I could very well be singled out. I honestly believe in a young earth, I think evolution is false science and the mountain of evidence that says I'm wrong is inconclusive. So others tell me I'm just ignorant, or uneducated without the mental capacity to understand the science involved. Think what you may, but I have my reasons and it doesn't just come down to "'Cause the bible sez so."

I happen to know of a certain gentlemen who has a phd in zoology, taught evolution at the collegiate for 19 years and can now show, through hardcore science, how evolution can NOT work. It's more likely that a tornado moving through a junkyard will create and exact replica of Buckingham Palace.

I don't say this to thumb my nose at anyone. I honestly don't think someone's belief or unbelief in evolution or a young earth should really affect one's faith in God. If people would rather believe that God created evolution then so be it. I just hope that perhaps you might think that "Because the bible says so" isn't really such a bad thing after all.

Of course, if you have enough tornadoes going through enough junkyards, and assume that one of Buck House's essential qualities is the ability to feed off the energy and raw materials in the environment to make more and more palaces, that sort of thing becomes almost inevitable if you wait long enough.

(And then, of course, the layouts of the palaces shift over time, the ones with better architechture survive longer and produce more palaces, and next thing you know you've got flocks of Versailles roaming the land, grazing on Balmorals and being hunted in turn by packs of Neuschwansteins or something.)

Colorful, I have to admit. But keep this in mind: There are approximately 10 to the 80'th power # of particles in the entire universe. Not just atoms, but parts of atoms that make up this number. This is a number that the scientific community generally agrees upon. Now taking into account all of the situations that would have to occur, all of the laws concerning evolution and environment, even the vast amount of time given here, the chances for evolution actually happening is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 chance in 10 to the one hundred billionth power.

I mentioned earlier about a certain someone that had a PHD in zoology, spent many years teaching evolution, etc. His name is Prof. Walter Veith just in case anyone was hoping to check on this. This isn't a knock on science at all. I honestly believe that real science will prove me right. But look at the world today... if a full blown scientist were to state that he/she doesn't believe in evolution, he/she will lose all credibility, even if he/she can back his/her claims with proof... weird, huh?

Shane

Hello! I found your journal today through the issue of the purging of ljs, and I just wanted to thank you for both writing that letter and standing up for fandoms. I think it was pretty darn brave. =)

Anyhoo, I looked back a bit in your journal to realize that I rather like your rants, so I'm going to friend you, if that's alright.

I know you must be pretty busy right now, so thanks for taking the time to read this. =)

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Mythic Creatures from the American Museum of Natural History...and a Post About Fairytale Science

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