The wonderment of creation myths

September 3rd, 2008 • education
Tags: creationism, education

This week’s class focuses on creation myths, specifically the one in the Book of Genesis. Most of us know the story, God creates everything we know in 7 days including the Earth, heavens, and all living creatures. That was the first book. In the second one, basically the order of events is changed slightly but the story remains the same. For an allegory, it’s not bad at all. For literal fact, it’s absurd. But if you take one of the creationist screeds and attempt to work within that framework, it makes slightly more sense. The belief that each of the 7 days it took is roughly 1000 years can make sense except for the reliability of radio carbon dating showing things are much older than 7,000 years. By leaps and bounds. Although, still, if you want to believe wackaloonery that belief is much better than man and dinosaurs and everything lived at the same time and it only took a day to create things like humans, cypress trees, and birds.

But this discussion finally got more people talking in class, it’s always boring hearing the same people talk over and over, myself included — although, I’m beginning to just sit there and keep quiet as to not laugh. The religious folks have some interesting rationale and the wannabe Bible scholars keep floating about as much as they can. I appreciate that there are other people who’ve looked into things like this as I have but when they don’t cite where it came from, I tend to put less credence into it. I wonder what we’ll talk about tomorrow since we’re supposed to watch part of Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth (wikipedia).

Oh boy, I thought class was going to suck

August 29th, 2008 • 1 comment education
Tags: creationism, evolution

But I’m now assured that it will never be uninteresting. We actually had a new student today join us. In her defense, I don’t think she read the course description at all. She looked like a nice Jewish girl but has punctuality problems. But then she ended up leaving less than halfway through. I guess she didn’t think to READ the course description and realize that this probably wasn’t a class she’d like. Tough tits for her. This Evolution and Creationism class is going to be great. Not because it’s a discussion of a very pertinent and very current topical issue but because of the people in it. We’re all in school. We all got there somehow, hopefully retaining some intelligence on the way there, right? HA! Boy, am I wrong. Now, I’m not discounting the average IQ of the class at all. I know full well it’s right in the ball park of the average 7th grader. I’m not discounting the fact that this is a class mostly full of people who don’t know what Anthropology is although it is the first word of the proper course title. Hell, most probably don’t know what creationism is exactly. But they’re finding out.

Finding out real fast. Today Professor McCarthy trotted out a PowerPoint slide based on Eugenie Scott’s Creationism/Evolution continuum from the NCSE. Most people got lost right there. A simple slide outlining what she wrote, with pictures nonetheless. Many of my classmates couldn’t fathom the different types of creationism. Now, Professor McCarthy didn’t give the best descriptions but most of the names are self-explanatory. Flat Earthers? Well, that’s easy. Young Earth Creationist? Fairly easy too. Old Earth? Just as easy. But no, it was still difficult. This is further compounded by people who don’t know what evolution is or what creationism is (or was, now they do). I know Florida’s school system is a laughing joke but really, where were these kids in Physical Science or Biology? Just keeping quiet in class is an exercise all its own.

Then we leaped off on a groupthink about whether religion is ‘hard wired’ — meaning, in our DNA now — versus being nothing more than a behavioral or social construct or idea. First we were asked “what do you think religion is for?” and there was silence. My friends and myself were just waiting for answers, the most proper of which came about 15 minutes after the question was proposed and more people were suffering from footinmouthitis. One squeaky voiced guy, whose yet to hit puberty I believe, stated religion is hardwired into our DNA for social cohesion. I let this sink in for about 5 minutes before I said anything. At all. I was laughing inside but I stayed quiet. Then I valiantly raised my hand and simply stated “Well, if it’s hardwired for social cohesion, wouldn’t that mean that it would bounce back and forth between the two extremes [in our DNA versus behavioral adaptation]?” The teacher tried not to agree in order to stay non-biased but he did agree. I was accused of making the “chicken before the egg” argument which I’d made no allusions to doing so. I merely stated what I said I did, nothing more. I didn’t propose which came first or second, nor did I want to, purposefully. I pretty much got the reaction I was looking for. Mr. Balls-not-yet-dropped got huffy and defensive trying to back up his point. But does he not realize you cannot have a social construct without a pre-existing society? Religion could not have become part of our DNA without it first being socially introduced. For that, you need a society first. Societies develop just like humans do, in small stages. We don’t run before we walk and societies do not develop widely held beliefs of any kind on day one. According to this kid, they pretty much do and it’s in our genes. That was but one highlight of the day. We still had people positing the idea that if we evolved from Great Apes, they must have religion too because it’d serve monkeys and apes some great purpose for societal means, like keeping alpha males from killing each other (actually said by some girl today). Yep, religion keeps people from killing each other. Oh, hello Crusades. Hello, Inquisition. Hello, West Bank. I’m going to try and record this class just for the laughs.

And we’re not even close to getting into any material at all, today’s class was merely about defining the debate between evolution and creationism, and outlining why this is and has been an issue. We haven’t touched The God Delusion yet, haven’t read any nonsense from Behe, or struggled through The Wedge Document (that’s later in the class!). People got to hear about the Disco Institute but haven’t yet even begun to hear anything about that mess. I’d love to know that when we get to Joseph Campbell’s movie, it’d open some eyes but I know it won’t. Crazy wonks will always be crazy wonks.

So far, I love ANT4930-009 because I don’t have to take any notes or really even listen at all. I get to do some light reading, watch South Park and Expelled and The Power of Myth, and along down the road read excerpts from PZ Myers. In other words, I get to basically do everything I already do and get a grade for it. How sweet! A class where I get a grade for merely being a science-loving atheist.

I have returned

August 26th, 2008 • chatter, education
Tags: creationism, school

The blog hiatus was over and I was due for one. The Olympics really helped steer me away from my huge daily intake of news articles and blog posts, I was beginning to get a little burned out. Also, school started this week and it’s going to be a doozy for sure.

Today’s class was aptly titled Anthropology, Evolution, and Creationism. I didn’t make a typo, this is my new Tues/Thurs. class and it’s definitely going to be interesting. Professor McCarthy was trying his hardest to maintain a non-biased stance in class but I certainly didn’t make it any easier for him. It was interesting to hear comments from people who didn’t really know what evolution or creationism were, I’m wondering why they even signed up. If they weren’t scared off after today’s all over the place discussion, I’m not so sure they’re going to enjoy the ensuing weeks.

I got a huge chuckle out of our syllabus. We’re watching both the South Park episode on Scientology (and discussing Mormonism the same week) and watching Expelled in class! I thought I was seeing things at first until the teacher began talking about the syllabus. Yeah, it’s no joke. We get to talk about Xenu, the Disco Institute IDiots, and all sorts of crazy stuff interlaced with Dawkins and Nietzsche.

Anyway, I’m neck-deep in two weeks’ of RSS feeds and I need to go read for class on Thursday. I’ll be back to update on the next real class we have of Evolution and Creationism.