The Big Bang Theory a Fairy Tale? So says presidential candidate Ben Carson....

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Ben Carson's dismissal of the Big Bang Theory as a "fairy tale" raises concerns about potential impacts on scientific funding if he were to become president. His beliefs may align with a growing fundamentalist movement that could threaten federal support for scientific research, particularly through the National Science Foundation (NSF). The discussion highlights the fear that a scientifically challenged leadership could undermine public faith in science and lead to reduced funding for critical programs. Historical parallels are drawn to past political actions that negatively affected scientific initiatives, suggesting a worrying trend. The conversation reflects broader anxieties about the intersection of personal beliefs and scientific integrity in governance.
  • #121
Loren said:
I don't know, but I have seen a lot of quotes seriously taken out of context, again, to serve someone else's agenda.

I am only raising a red flag here because it is easy if not typical to take what is in print at face value.

As I said, I really don't know the man's true position on these things and I am weary to get it based on a media with its own agenda.

I see the Earth being created in six days as more of a parable, but irrespective of that — science mixes with religion no better than oil and vinegar.
There have been videos of him saying these things posted in this thread. They are not misuses of things he said.
 
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  • #122
Evo said:
There have been videos of him saying these things posted in this thread. They are not misuses of things he said.

Again, unless you see the whole video or transcription of what he said you can't be sure of the real context.

He may be a true believer, but I can't make that call at this time.
 
  • #123
Loren said:
I see the Earth being created in six days as more of a parable ...
But this thread is not about how you see it, it's about Carson and he can be seen on video saying that it is not a parable, it is the literal truth. Six 24-hour days. Period. He does hedge his bets on the age of the Earth and does not insist on 6,000 years but the creation was done in six of our normal days. He says the Earth might have been around, devoid of life, for millions of years before God decided to create everything on it in six days and he implies that that happened about 6,000 years ago.
 
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  • #124
phinds said:
But this thread is not about how you see it, it's about Carson and he can be seen on video saying that it is not a parable, it is the literal truth. Six 24-hour days. Period. He does hedge his bets on the age of the Earth and does not insist on 6,000 years but the creation was done in six of our normal days. He says the Earth might have been around, devoid of life, for millions of years before God decided to create everything on it in six days and he implies that that happened about 6,000 years ago.

Isn't this thread about how we see it in contrast to Dr. carson?

I think few people here would agree with Dr.Carson's view, myself included.
 
  • #125
Loren said:
Again, unless you see the whole video or transcription of what he said you can't be sure of the real context.

He may be a true believer, but I can't make that call at this time.
Loren said:
Isn't this thread about how we see it in contrast to Dr. carson?

I think few people here would agree with Dr.Carson's view, myself included.
This thread is about what Carson thinks.
 
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  • #126
Evo said:
This thread is about what Carson thinks.
Politicians in general, whither new or old have a habit of saying what they think the people they are speaking to want to hear. This is true of both sides.
 
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  • #127
hagar said:
Politicians in general, whither new or old have a habit of saying what they think the people they are speaking to want to hear. This is true of both sides.
I agree but the problem w/ Carson goes deeper, I think. He BELIEVES the creationist nonsense, he isn't pandering to his audience.
 
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  • #128
phinds said:
I agree but the problem w/ Carson goes deeper, I think. He BELIEVES the creationist nonsense, he isn't pandering to his audience.
You may well be correct but it is probably a bit of both, we just do not know to what extent yet.
 
  • #129
hagar said:
Politicians in general, whither new or old have a habit of saying what they think the people they are speaking to want to hear. This is true of both sides.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/170822/b...cation&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=Religion

About 42% of Americans believe that evolution is "just a theory ", so there isn't any great advantage. There are some who believe that evolution did happen but it was guided by God, so let's raise it to 50% , so there is only a 50-50 (almost) chance of success for being anti-science.
 
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  • #130
hagar said:
You may well be correct but it is probably a bit of both, we just do not know to what extent yet.
His belief in creationism long predates his interest in politics, so yes, I'd say we DO know.
 
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  • #131
phinds said:
His belief in creationism long predates his interest in politics, so yes, I'd say we DO know.
So then it is settled, both you and Carson are exactly at opposite poles.
 
  • #132
hagar said:
So then it is settled, both you and Carson are exactly at opposite poles.
On this particular issue, yeah, I'd say so. I believe in science and he believes in God. But I don't think it matter nearly as much what I think, because I'm not running for president.
 
  • #133
phinds said:
On this particular issue, yeah, I'd say so. I believe in science and he believes in God. But I don't think it matter nearly as much what I think, because I'm not running for president.
Then I will withdraw, I give you the last word.
 
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  • #134
russ_watters said:
Partial response to a deleted post (oh, the power!):

Analyzing the issue from the direction of different flavors of creationism (or other anti-science beliefs) is looking the issue at hand from the wrong direction. It matters not why, precisely, the scientific conclusion is rejected in favor of the religious one, only that it is rejected for religious reasons. Indeed, certain sects such as, famously, the Catholic Church, may choose to modify their beliefs (ironic) to accept theories previously rejected. But even those decisions just serve to highlight the problem, that these issues are not being judged on their scientific merit alone. For the Catholic Church, acquiescence looks to me like an issue of marketing.

I wish you and others would stop referring to creationism as *the* religious view! It is at best *a* religious view, a very specific one largely ignored by everyone except Biblical-literalists in the US. The situation with the Catholic Church is very different. Obviously it was, or regarded itself as, the main repository of knowledge and wisdom until long after the Reformation. So you would expect it to attempt to understand and explain stuff, get some of it wrong and change its views as knowledge increased. It's different now because science is secularized and as far as I can tell, the Catholic Church accepts all the findings of science unequivocably. Though, having said that, I am not sure what its stance is on Schroedinger's Cat.
 
  • #135
My last comment - unless someone takes the bait :)
Evo said:
This thread is about what Carson thinks.
Actually it's not. It's about his potential for harming American science.
Might we see representatives of our community sitting before a congressional committee defending their research. Or more importantly Is he undermining our nations faith in science. With an ever strained federal budget will His beliefs still be able to influence NSF funding?
Perhaps Americans should welcome Carson and the possibility of having creationism examined for funding? It has, after all, been deemed a religion by an American court. Presumably funding committees are competent to decide what is truly science and what is crackpottery? Otherwise how do they decide what to fund? If they are not capable of deciding, then American science has bigger problems than Carson.
 
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  • #136
Derek Potter said:
My last comment - unless someone takes the bait :)

Actually it's not. It's about his potential for harming American science.

Perhaps Americans should welcome Carson and the possibility of having creationism examined for funding? It has, after all, been deemed a religion by an American court. Presumably funding committees are competent to decide what is truly science and what is crackpottery? Otherwise how do they decide what to fund? If they are not capable of deciding, then American science has bigger problems than Carson.
Over the years even science has had quite a bit of “crackpottery” funded.
 
  • #137
Monsterboy said:
About 42% of Americans believe that evolution is "just a theory ", so there isn't any great advantage.

That greatly depends on the distribution of those people and to what extend this factors into their political beliefs. If the electorate in your range (be it the geographical area you are running in or the party you are running for) have a higher percentage than the national average and it's an important political issue there is certainly an advantage.
 
  • #138
hagar said:
Over the years even science has had quite a bit of “crackpottery” funded.
Then we are doomed.
 
  • #139
Derek Potter said:
Then we are doomed.

We really aren't. If you totalled up the amount of funding to legitimate science and how much went to crackpot nonsense I doubt you would even be able to see the latter because the former would dwarf it so severely. Plenty of funding has gone to bad scientists, "pointless" subjects and generally hasn't been allocated efficiently but even that is most likely a small minority.
 
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  • #140
Ryan_m_b said:
That greatly depends on the distribution of those people .
If the electorate in your range (be it the geographical area you are running in or the party you are running for) have a higher percentage than the national average and it's an important political issue there is certainly an advantage.
Well, I was specifically talking about running for president (or prime minister) depending on the country, one cannot take different stands on evolution on different geographical areas( that will be funny) depending on the electorate there.
 
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  • #141
Monsterboy said:
Well, I was specifically talking about running for the president (or the prime minister) depending on the country, one cannot take different stands on evolution on different geographical areas( that will be funny) depending on the electorate there.
Like New Yorkers evolved from reptiles but Texans popped up out of the ground one day? Sounds like a good film.
 
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  • #142
Monsterboy said:
Well, I was specifically talking about running for president (or prime minister) depending on the country, one cannot take different stands on evolution on different geographical areas( that will be funny) depending on the electorate there.
Why not? Sounds like a good idea to me. Note that while that can be difficult to pull off, it happens. Politicians' positions follow a version of Relativity: their positions are not constant vs position (geography) or time (specifically, the day after the primary election).
 
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  • #143
"Carson can be seen on video saying that it is not a parable, it is the literal truth. Six 24-hour days. Period. He does hedge his bets on the age of the Earth and does not insist on 6,000 years but the creation was done in six of our normal days. He says the Earth might have been around, devoid of life, for millions of years before God decided to create everything on it in six days and he implies that that happened about 6,000 years ago."

Sounds like baloney. That makes only a little more sense than Hawkins saying this all came from something smaller than the point of a needle. If Carson backed up his beliefs with some phony math he would have a lot more credibility, at least in California.
 
  • #144
Bernie G said:
He says the Earth might have been around, devoid of life, for millions of years before God decided to create everything on it in six days and he implies that that happened about 6,000 years ago."

Maybe Dr. Carson has inadvertently mixed up the account of creation in Genesis with the genesis project from the Star Trek movie "Wrath of Khan"
 
  • #145
Bernie G said:
Sounds like baloney. That makes only a little more sense than Hawkins saying this all came from something smaller than the point of a needle
Do you mean \Lambda CDM? This has a lot more support than just that of Hawking. In fact it's normally referred to as the standard model of cosmology.

Bernie G said:
if Carson backed up his beliefs with some phony math he would have a lot more credibility
The support of \Lambda CDM is more than phony math. It explains important observations (e.g, structure and anisotropies of the CMB, abundance of light elements).
 
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  • #146
Derek Potter said:
Like New Yorkers evolved from reptiles but Texans popped up out of the ground one day?
So THAT'S where @Drakkith came from :smile:
 
  • #147
phinds said:
So THAT'S where @Drakkith came from :smile:

We don't like to talk about it...
 
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  • #148
Looking more into attitudes toward science particularly in Congress I discovered Georgia Representative in the US Congress, a former physician, Paul Broun sat on the House subcommittee on Energy and Environment. He was definitely anti-science.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Broun
On September 27, 2012, in a speech at the Liberty Baptist Church Sportsman's Banquet,[68] Broun stated that the sciences of embryology, evolution, and the Big Bang are "lies straight from the Pit of Hell ... lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a savior.

Science educator Bill Nye questioned Broun's ability to serve on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, stating, '"Since the economic future of the United States depends on our tradition of technological innovation, Representative Broun's views are not in the national interest"' and that '"He is, by any measure, unqualified to make decisions about science, space, and technology."'[73]

In response to Broun's statements, in the 2012 general election, over 5,000 voters in the 10th District voted for Charles Darwin as a write-in candidate.[74][75]

On the bright side in his quest for a Senate seat in 2014 he lost and could not seek reelection to the House and Charles Darwin got votes.

But beside Ben Carson, How many more Paul Brouns are there but not as outspoken?
 
  • #149
Bernie G said:
"Carson can be seen on video saying that it is not a parable, it is the literal truth. Six 24-hour days. Period. He does hedge his bets on the age of the Earth and does not insist on 6,000 years but the creation was done in six of our normal days. He says the Earth might have been around, devoid of life, for millions of years before God decided to create everything on it in six days and he implies that that happened about 6,000 years ago."

The Bible says that the Earth was created before the stars. Does Carson go for that?
 
  • #150
Hornbein said:
The Bible says that the Earth was created before the stars. Does Carson go for that?
Does it matter? Since he believes in a literal 6 24-hour day creation, why worry about what other nonsense he believes?