VP Pick Sarah Palin: Young Earth Creationist?
Back in late October of 2006, during the Alaska governor’s race, in an interview with the Anchorage Daily News, Sarah Palin seems to have talked about the age of FOSSILS as an example of something that reasonable people might have different opinions about—and that might thus be talked about in the science classroom.
The Anchorage Daily News reported the following:
“It’s OK to let kids know that there are theories out there,” she [Palin] said in the interview. “They gain information just by being in a discussion.”
That was how she was brought up, she said. Her father was a public school science teacher.
“My dad did talk a lot about his theories of evolution,” she said. “He would show us fossils and say, ‘How old do you think these are?’ “
Asked for her personal views on evolution, Palin said, “I believe we have a creator.”
She would not say whether her belief also allowed her to accept the theory of evolution as fact.
“I’m not going to pretend I know how all this came to be,” she said.
In her fossil example above, did Palin mean to imply that the ages that scientists generally attach to fossils are in dispute—and that we should teach different theories about the age of fossils in the public schools?
Does she think, for example, that it is reasonable to teach, in a public school science classroom, that there are theories out there that all the fossils we find in the earth were laid down by a single, great flood 10,000 years ago?
In other words, someone needs to ask Palin, not just whether she accepts the scientific consensus concerning evolution, but whether she accepts the scientific consensus concerning the age of the earth, and how fossils came to be deposited in the earth.
The question will tell us a great deal about her level of scientific literacy—and whether she would take sensible advice from scientific advisors (or even comprehend it).
I guess she’s smarter than Barack, because when Warren asked him when life begins, he said it was above his pay grade.
I don’t know, I guess I’d rather have a President who can admit they are not all-knowing, than one who has all the answers but no explanations FOR those answers. Eight years of George W. Bush are enough for me in THAT regard…
4leslie
August 31, 2008 at 9:24 am
Science class should teach science. Even if some would cast doubt on the EXACT age of fossils, we should not appease those who would throw out carbon dating altogether because they wish to defend their faith.
Thomas
September 7, 2008 at 7:14 pm
I think that other theories should be taught. Classrooms today are biased towards the theory of evolution and that is unfair.
normbetland
September 7, 2008 at 8:47 pm
No, not at all. Creationism is not science
Jordan
May 7, 2009 at 12:00 pm
norm… Evolution is called a theory because it is a “scientific theory” which is not the same as a “guess.”
That evolution has happened is a SCIENTIFIC FACT, not theory. That evolution is responsible for the diversity of species on this planet is SCIENTIFIC FACT.
evolution is only called a “theory” because we have yet to understand all of the mechanisms involved over time, but that evolution has taken place and is responsible for all the animals and humans on the earth today is not a scientific theory, it is scientific fact.
Texas Hill Country
September 7, 2008 at 10:22 pm
http://creationontheweb.com/
I would disagree, perhaps you should read some papers by secular grads with pHd’s that have an argument for a biblical creationism.
http://www.answersingenesis.org
Matt
September 11, 2008 at 6:17 am
Matt, first of all it’s PhD. pH is a measure of acid/base interactions. Freudian slip? No. You’re ignorant. Those people who avow creationism may have high degrees of education. However, they still can’t think beyond the tiny fraction of what’s around them that they can touch and feel. I know because beat my head against a wall trying to teach their children. Ignorance is indeed bliss.
Anonymous
September 12, 2008 at 3:44 am
I agree that Ms. Palin should be questioned extensively as to her understanding of science vs. belief (particularly scientific evidence vs. creation myth and superstition), as her answers would quickly indicate whether she would be capable of leading a country in a time when science must provide solutions to the issues of energy and resource usage.
As far as the early-Earth defenders with so-called credentials, I can think of nothing else that is so personally and professionally disingenuous. For example, I could state that “all apples are blue”, then proceed to produce bogus photometric data carefully edited to indicate that the delicious fruit reflects light of blue wavelengths. But this is not science, nor a scientific approach, but a dishonest attempt to convince weak-minded people of a reality that does not exist to explain a “belief.”
Wallers
September 16, 2008 at 7:20 am
I think the Flying Spaghetti Monster deserves equal time. Oh, to gaze into those meatballs and know the secrets of sauce.
Just Passing Through
September 19, 2008 at 7:06 pm
[...] – Young Earther http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/09/15/bess/print.html http://santitafarella.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/sarah-palin-young-earth-creationist/ http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/20/1441/15249/706/604403 [...]
Gwangi Valley - Lost Blog of the Gwangi » Blog Archive » Sarah Palin - Young Earth Creationist in Chief?
September 28, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Texas:
It is not a scientific fact. Lining up fossils in what appears to be an order of progression and saying that one evolved from another is no more scientific than me lining up a spoon, a ladle, a pot, and a hot tup and saying that one evolved from the other.
normbetland
October 13, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Spoons cant grow, mutate, or produce offspring!!
Jordan
May 7, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Norm, you are indeed a small minded fool. There’s a documentary (of sorts) that’s playing on various pay channels called something similar to or named Flock of DoDos. It has to do with the Dover PA School Board and other School Boards’ attempts to “teach” or at least insert “language” into a science class about Intelligent Design (creationism). You may find it enlightening. It’s only one example. Ignorance is bliss. You are living a blissful life.
Jack Mehoff
October 25, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Texas Hill Country happens to be absolutely right about Evolution as a fact. Lest some poor fool (or some ignorant country) hope that their antibacterial spray will be effective forever, while the germs just ‘get’ better at fighting it. And of course, such fools will resort to exactly what anybody who understands anything knows they are going to go back with: “That’s Microevolution.”
Oh, dang, their right… Why, for that process to cause speciation and natural selection, god, that process could take… Millions of years!!!
No matter how Christian-ly soft they talk about Intelligent Design by some unknown Creator, it’s a well known fact to EVERYBODY that they aren’t fooling anyone and they haven’t been since this thing started.
Brad
October 27, 2008 at 7:44 am
Its still not a fact no matter how much anyone says it is. Tell me Texas Hill Country, how has it been factually proven. I don’t want speculation, I want to see facts that prove something, not suggest something, but PROVE something.
normbetland
October 30, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Norm:
Evolutionary scientists have written books accessible to lay people on the subject.
I’ll offer you two: Donald Prothero’s “Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters”; and “What Evolution Is” by Ernst Mayr.
If you read both of these books, and you find them unconvincing, fine, but please don’t pretend that scientists have built their theory without regard to facts and plausible reasoning.
If the earth is not billions of years old, and plants and animals have not changed over time, then an awful lot of very smart scientists have been fooled by the seemingly overwhelming evidence for these two things.
I think a simpler explanation is that creationists are simply wrong—and that, with regard to matters of earth history and the fixity of species, the Bible is wrong.
It is hardly surprising that a book written in a pre-scientific age would get matters concerning contemporary science incorrect.
But it is quite surprising should we discover that all the great scientists of the past century and a half, as well as all scientists working and teaching at the world’s most prestigious universities, have not just gotten a few things about nature wrong, but gotten things so spectacularly wrong that they are literally deluded.
I’m sorry Norm, but it strikes me as far more probable that you, and your fellow creationists, are incorrect with regard to evolution and the age of the earth—and not the literally tens of thousands of smart, highly trained scientists working in the fields of geology, biology, and paleontology around the world today.
santitafarella
October 30, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Norm, You stated back on Sept 7 ” I think that other theories should be taught”. Is Intelligent design (creationism) a THEORY?? Has the hypothesis been peer reviewed? Please get a grip. JM OUT.
Jack Mehoff
November 1, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Jack,
Thanks for directing us to “Flock of Dodos.” I had not heard of the DVD until you mentioned it above, and I got it from Amazon.
It was both informative and entertaining.
—Santi
santitafarella
November 1, 2008 at 6:25 pm
I can’t prove intelligent design.
You can’t prove evolution.
I see the evidence for both and I see that ID hold more water. You look at it and see evolution. That’s fine. But stop labeling me (in the general sense as a creationist) is stupid, barbaric, and uneducated. I am so sick of people trying to paint creationists as stupid for not believing the same things.
And I can see simply from the title “What fossils say and why its important” that it is completely bogus. We were not here (according to your timeline) when these fossils were put there, so how can we possibly know how they got there and what their message is. What bothers me is that you guys are often so thick headed you cannot see the illogic in that line of thinking.
And there are educated scientists who don’t buy into evolution.
normbetland
November 5, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Hope it is ok if I throw my 2 cents worth in.
Texas Hill Country, you have a serious problem with the evolution “facts.” Evolutionary science still has no idea where that first cell came from. I realize that this is common knowledge. But do you realize that empirical science has proven that every necessary mutation of a cell loses information contained in the DNA?
Jack,
Here is the difference between ID and creationism. Creationism begins with the Bible, and then requires the Intelligent Designer, God, to understand the processes of science. ID starts with science, say the explanation for the beginning of all existence, the first cell, then realizes the scientific fact that there had to be an Intelligent Designer, and does not adhere to the blind faith of Darwinism. In reference to the Dover trial, you may be interested to know that it wasn’t science or the public that determined the outcome, but the very adept ability of the ACLU, and the inability of the judge. Try reading the summation of the ACLU, and the summation in the Judge’s explanation, (at least the original) they are identical, word for word. Interesting, Eh?
santitafarella,
It is nice that you mention fossils, and the book “What Evolution Is” by Ernest Mayr. To quote him from the same book, “Given the fact of evolution, one would expect the fossils to document a gradual, steady change from ancestral forms to the descendants. But this is not what the Paleontologist finds. He or she finds gaps in just about every phyletic series.” And since Mayr could only find 5 or 6 transitions where there should be millions, something is wrong.
Bacon, Kepler, Pascal, Newton, and the vast majority of 16th and 17th founders of modern science were Creationists. (Obviously this excludes the Greek philosophers of around 600 B.C., who considered science no more than mental gymnastics.) Sir Isaac Newton, arguably the greatest scientist of all time,-calculus and dynamics— is quoted as saying…“atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance.” And since creationism requires ID, Not the other way around, ID can claim many more scientists, theories, experiments and experience, than Darwinists. And if you consider that creationists won the 1925 Scopes trial, Darwinists can claim no more than 80 years (vs. 320 years for ID) as having the prevailing scientific theory.
I certainly hope my 2 cents worth was an asset to this thread, and I sincerely wish all, my very best.
bud
November 14, 2008 at 4:58 pm
additional note,
THC, I should have said that “Nobody knows where the first cell came from”, and not just evolutionists. my apologies.
bud
November 14, 2008 at 5:03 pm
bud,
you’re obviously dug in on your position—and your free to have it.
i’d just like to ask you a simple question: do you reject the idea that the earth is old and that plants and animals have changed over time?
in other words, is it your position that if we got into a time machine we could only go back, say, 10 thousand years?
or, if you accept an old earth, and went back to, say, 60 million years ago, would we find flowering plants, bees, and whales? scientists say that these species had not even evolved yet. and if you agree that they weren’t there 60 million years ago, then how did they get here today?
were there a multitude of creation events over time, or just one?
and if there was just one, why did god, in the 10,000 years since noah’s flood, allow so many of his creatures—something like 99% of all species on earth—go extinct?
why are there no dinosaurs and saber-toothed tigers anymore?
wasn’t noah’s ark supposed to keep species from going extinct?
as for mayr, please note that the quote that you have of his does not obfuscate the fact that mayr is an evolutionist. in other words, the grave difficulty that you posit is not a grave difficulty for mayr.
santitafarella
November 14, 2008 at 5:40 pm
santitarella,
Thank you for letting me post, responding, and doing so in such a civil and pragmatic manner. When emotion gets involved in this topic of discussion, frequently it is venomous, on either or both sides.
Yes, I do reject the old earth theory. I do, however believe in the evolution of life forms, within their own kind. I do not believe that, no matter how much time you give a frog, it will become a cat.
As far as the time travel, it depends on your objective. We could not go back that far if the quest is to find human life.
The Creation. I believe that God created everything in 6 days.
Actually, the Flood was much closer to 5,000 years ago then 10,000. I am uncertain where the 99% comes from. We don’t have anything close to a complete fossil record of life forms that we know existed, and there certainly were no eyewitness accounts for verification. I would have to see some factual documentation to be able to even hazard a guess.
I do not know how to get to the factual specific fate of the saber-toothed tiger. I could only put them in a generalized category, such as dinosaurs. And, simply put, they did not adapt to the climate and environmental changes necessary for survival.
I have to admit, I don’t know how we can determine what unknown creatures became extinct prior to the end of the flood. From a personal observation, God would have no difficulty keeping every species He desired, from going extinct.
Actually, the fact of Mayr’s evolutionary beliefs, as well as the fact that he was considered by some to be the 20th century Darwin, is my point. This well known professor emeritus from Harvard is stating that the necessary fossils for confirming the evolution theory regarding the transitional phases of said creatures over millions of years, which would entail millions of transitions, is extremely lacking.
I agree that it wasn’t a grave difficulty for Mayr. And that this scenario certainly wasn’t serious enough for him to change his theory in any way. What it does indicate, I believe, is that this mystery of the missing transitions was important enough for him to state it in writing, and the fact that this fossilized confirmation of evolution has still not been resolved to this day, is actually supporting Creationism.
bud
November 14, 2008 at 9:08 pm
bud,
i’m not a scientist, and i presume that you are not either.
doesn’t it make you feel at least a bit uncomfortable holding a viewpoint that you know contradicts the carefully considered opinion of literally every scientist at every major university in the world?
you, i assume, routinely defer to expert opinion when it comes to your health. if your doctor says you need surgery, and you get a second opinion, and a third, and they all agree that you need surgery, wouldn’t you get the surgery?
why doesn’t the same reasoning apply to scientific opinion with regard to the age of the earth and the evolution of plants and animals over time?
isn’t it a far more sensible thing to simply say, “the bible was written in a pre-scientific era, and i thus shouldn’t put such a burden upon my reading of the bible so that i presume that its authors would have scientific knowledge about the age of the earth, or the origin of species.”
why can’t you, in short, allow the bible to be what it is (a book by bronze era authors telling stories, and sharing poetic descriptions of the world and history, in a pre-scientific age)?
read my recent blog post on etiological narrative and share with me why one should think the bible is doing something different than, say, the ramayana.
—santi
santitafarella
November 15, 2008 at 1:05 am
santi,
You are correct, I am not a scientist.
With all due respect, what makes me uncomfortable are the assumptions on which modern evolutionary science is based. Evolution is not the opinion of literally every scientist. Darwinism simply has too many “holes”. Creationists consider these holes confirmation of their scientific and theistic beliefs. Scientists who do not base their opinion on theism, but can not reconcile Darwinism to their findings, are now called Intelligent Designers. Evolutionists consider I.D. scientists a major threat. They deflect the findings of I.D. as creationism, which by definition is untrue. I.D. has been pushing for a scientific debate with evolution for years now, why won’t the evolutionists participate? If Darwinists are so confident with the truth of the beliefs, why not publicly debate? Richard Dawkins, among other Darwinists, considers I.D. “stupid” and “ignorant”. If he could debate with “inferior” scientists and eliminate any objective credibility that I.D. has, why doesn’t he? I.D. is not going to go away because popularity, innuendo, venomous slander, or lies. It will only go away by a public debate of the comparison of the factual data in question.
Going back to one of the “holes” I previously mentioned, is the beginning of life. Darwin’s “Origin of Life” starts with a single living cell. That is a major problem. The laws of probability state that anything with odds greater than 10 to the 50th power is a faith statement, because it has never been observed. (Actually it is 10 to the negative 50th power, but for this example, it makes no difference.) Scientists and mathematicians have estimated the odds of the formation of the first cell at 10 to the 40,000 power. That is 800 times more than anything ever observed. If I wanted to wager $1,000 dollars with you, and you knew that the chances of your winning were 1,000 to 1, would you? And the odds of undirected cellular formation are “a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, and trillion to 1.” This is the actual statement of a noted microbiologist. Others say simply, it is impossible.
I do not know when the “scientific age” actually began. Was it 650 B.C. with Greek philosophers? My guess is that it is around the 16th century with scientist who started the discipline as we know it today. Darwin wrote the “Origin of the Species” in 1859 and the “Descent of man” in 1871. (In this book, Darwin presented Eugenics in a positive light. If that doesn’t make you sick, what will?) His theory of evolution, originated some 30 years earlier, was in direct conflict to the known tenets of science that had been in place for over 200 years, and stayed there for the next 100 years. This means Darwinism is less than 50 years old in main stream form. (I have stated that it had been 80 years because of the Scopes trial, but I believe, without direct verification, that evolution didn’t take hold until the 1960’s).
In summation, to consider Darwinism as the “norm” and the Bible as a book of fairy tales, you must believe:
The arrogant statement (not specifically by you) made that only the scientists of the last 50 years (as a majority) not the scientists of the previous 350 years have a correct understanding, and this despite the fact that their the current understanding has no foundation. The creation of the first cell is realistically impossible, as I pointed out previously.
That this single cell mutated into people, dinosaurs, trees, and saber-toothed tigers, even though empirical science has proven that every mutation reduces information in the DNA.
And many more examples.
As for the Bible, it was not written in a “pre-scientific era”. For Judas to have hung himself, gravity was essential. And gravity is certainly scientific. The information in the Scriptures was the basis for the discipline of modern day science, (from the 16th century) with many of the pioneers considering The Bible and “the book of nature” as the chief textbooks.
Your definition of the Bible, in my opinion, is quite incorrect. The vast majority of Americans believe in the Truth of the God of the Bible. It is only those, with few exceptions, who deny God and the Bible that need to create an explanation of the existence of all things without a divine Creator. And Darwinistic evolution, with all of its contradictions and flaws, is the weapon of choice.
bud
November 15, 2008 at 6:24 pm
santi, i did not ignore your last paragraph, my post got long, so I thought we might bring it back later.
bud
bud
November 15, 2008 at 6:39 pm
bud,
i do not give darwin a pass on the eugenics at the end of his “descent of man.” i agree with you that they constitute the most disturbing passages in darwin’s work.
but as for science, darwin was correct on two things, and very early on: the earth is vastly older than the chronology of the bible seems to have anticipated, and species are not fixed, but change over time.
and it was the work, not of darwin, but of cuvier, that led to the conclusion that the earth is far more ancient than anticipated by the bible.
so the scientific discovery that the earth is old goes back several decades before darwin’s voyage on the beagle.
and i’d like to make it very clear that i understand your arguments about the first cell, and the structure of the universe—and even the very existence of the universe—as being a problem for strict atheism. they are not insermountable barriers, but they are problematic.
HOWEVER, darwin made no greater claims than this: the earth is old and plants and animals have changed over time (by natural selection).
these two proposition, which he held at least from the 1840s forward, have proven to be as correct as any propositions that we can make in science.
in other words, there are virtually no scientists who dispute the age of the earth, and the fact that there have been different animals and plants inhabiting different geologic eras (and that those animals and plants share ancestries with earlier forms of life).
the people at the DISCOVERY INSTITUTE also accept the ancient age of the earth, and also accept that different plants and animals have inhabited different geologic eras.
the id people just believe that there is design behind the ancient universe, and design functioning behind the mechanisms of evolution (or they believe in separate creation eras).
they do not deny the age of the earth, or the existence of different animals and plants corresponding to different geologic eras.
this is where i think that your young earth creationism falls off the rails—not in its more legitimate critique of initial complexity (of the first cell etc.).
—santi
santitafarella
November 16, 2008 at 8:32 am
bud,
as for when science begins, i suppose i would place this with the ancient greeks—with Thales and Aristotle—but there was no printing or Internet to whirl their ideas around the globe in short order.
science as we understand it in contemporary terms begins with francis bacon (and descarte).
that the systematic application of baconian scientific methods of direct observation and induction should have led us to surprising discoveries not in keeping with imaginitive ancient texts (such as the bible, the ramayana, and ovid’s metamorphosis) is hardly shocking.
—santi
santitafarella
November 16, 2008 at 8:55 am
santi,
I must admit that I don’t understand how the location of plants and animals discredits creationism, if that is your contention. Why couldn’t have God put them in the locations He desired? I would think that the explanation of how a single cell created all living things from a specific point, to cover the entire planet, would actually be more difficult for evolution than creationism.
I can not find any evidence, except hypothesized, that the earth is older than 10,000 years. I presume that this is why you had asked me about this time frame previously.
I agree there has been evolution within a species, just not from one species to the next. (Btw, as I stated previously about the “30 years earlier” in regards to Darwin and the beginning of the evolutionary theory, my statement was meant to be a generalized claim acknowledging someone else as the originator of the theory in a close but earlier time. I didn’t think that specifics were needed because it really wasn’t a point of contention. Any confusion is certainly my fault, I apologize.)
I would have to submit that the creation of the first cell is an insurmountable barrier. How can one develop a theory with no actual beginning? Especially since the foundation of this theory has been proven to be impossible? There was no way for Darwin (or any other scientist of his time) to know that the cell was anything but a simple entity. If he knew then what we know now about its complexity, would he still have built his theory, without any explanation for step one? Or if I submitted a theory to the NAS that only has scientific data that disproves its foundation, would they even consider it? (I realize that the last 2 questions are obviously rhetorical.)
The evolution theory regarding the formation of the earth has the same problems as the cellular theory. There is no beginning proposed by Darwinists that can be proven, just unproven. Where did the matter come from?
“The Big Bang represents the instantaneous suspension of physical laws. The sudden abrupt flash of lawlessness that allowed something to come out of nothing…It represents a true miracle.” (I thought the acknowledgement of miracles was exclusively a creation belief.)
Paul Davies, physics and evolution, The Edge of infinity 1995.
“The universe burst into something from absolutely zero…nada. As it got bigger it became filled with more stuff that came from absolutely nowhere.”
Discover magazine, April 2002.
“It is only fair to say that we still have a theory without a beginning.”
Joseph Silk, PhD. and professor of astronomy, University of Oxford.
The Big Bang, 2001.
“… Astronomers have not the slightest evidence for the supposed quantum production of the universe out of a primordial nothingness.”
Sten Odenwald, PhD. and chief scientist with Raytheon STX corp. at the Goddard Space Center.
The Astronomy Cafe, 1998.
These men are all evolutionists.
So Darwinian evolution has only data that disproves its belief in the creation of the universe and life forms, while not being able to factually deny anything in the Creation Theory. Only empirical scientific data, not atheistic beliefs, should be considered.
Here is a question for you.
How was the universe created? There are only 3 possible answers:
It created itself
It is eternal
It had a Creator.
—bud
Note: Sir Francis Bacon- considered the father of modern science—said “There are two books on which we should read. One was Scripture, the other the book of nature.”
bud
November 17, 2008 at 2:26 pm
I wonder, did Santi get it?
B
January 24, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Bud,
I read your last post but really had nothing to add.
I’m happy to concede any ontological arguments about first causes—and the origin of the universe.
I agree that we are living within a mystery.
What I simply don’t have the energy for is arguing about young earth creationism, or evolution as such.
Numerous contemporary evolutionary scientists have written fully competent, accessible prose, directed to laymen, on how they KNOW that the earth is old and that plants and animals have changed over time.
I refer you to those books.
If they are not convincing to you, then I simply have nothing to add.
—Santi
santitafarella
January 25, 2009 at 10:50 pm