florida, non-stop stupid. [Politics/Religion]

Bingo!

Sorry if I'm holding you to words you're not comfortable with, but ...

I see a difference between the origin of the universe and the origin of man.  The Big Bang theory doesn't address anything that occurred before the BANG!  As in, no comment on where the stuff came from that formed the glop that spread out and cooled.  No comment on its composition or level of complexity.  (So far as I remember, anyway.)  So I can accept evolution as proven science, yet still find science to have no firm answer to the greater question of Where It All Came From.

On the specific issue of Man's origin, though: as a scientist more or less trained in the relevant disciplines, it seems almost impossible to me that (a) simple elements bouncing around in an energy-rich environment can combine to form simple and then increasingly complex molecules, (b) such increasingly complex molecules can then interact in increasingly complex ways, and (c) all this molecular/intermolecular whiz-bang would be selected for in any meaningful way.  Nonetheless, I see no other scientific theory in front of me, so ...

Does this mean that you have no opinion or concerns about the standards of education in this country?  Because that is the only issue here.  Do you really think it is right to expose your children/grandchildren or the school children in your school district, to any crank idea that comes down the pipeline?

There are a lot of people who believe the holocaust never happened, that astronauts never landed on the moon, that space aliens will arrive to collect handfuls of chosen people to repopulate other worlds, etc.  Should these frauds be given the same equal time in the classroom that the creationist demand, to foist their crackpot notions upon the shoulders of school children as the ultimate arbiters of their truthfulness?

Evolutionary science has nothing to fear of creationism.  Creationism does not challenge evolutionary science in any way whatsoever.  It hasn't contributed to or detracted from it intellectually. So in that regard, yes, creationism really doesn't matter.

And there is scant little you can probably do anymore with respect to the evolution of your lineage.  So, yeah, evolution really doesn't matter to you or affect you in any measurable way. 

Yet, as a prideful citizen in the manufacturing belt of the USA heartland, to see your country not be the best that it can be, to embrace mediocrity and ignorance, to willfully ignore deception and outright deceit...somehow I've got to think it matters to you.

OK the last two posts go into my book of "so there's".

See what ya started, UB? This thread was much more civil when we were just bashing Floridians.

oh, in that case, nevermind

Of course not.  I think they say "....and everything that comes before this point is not our realm, so this theory has nothing formally to say about that."  Or, to take words directly from the NASA page on the subject:

My point is that (again, to my understanding) the Big Bang theory relies on an "it appeared" start and does not at all address from whence the matter of that nascent universe was derived.

To be clear, there is a difference between, on the one hand, a creationist claiming God's hand is responsible for every evidentiary gap in the evolution charts and, on the other hand, a scientist accepting the Big Bang theory yet being willing to see God's hand in the creation of the space that suddenly appeared everywhere as the Big Bang phenomenon.  I tend to view the creationist as a denialist, as he clings to his religious views even in the face of strong scientific evidence to the contrary.  But where science advances no supported theory for an event, I view as closed-minded the person who rejects some theories and opens his mind to others, where his selection seemingly is based on source.  The fact that a theory is untestable doesn't make it wrong per se, it merely makes it untestable.  When an alternative that can be tested pans out, then it takes the lead.  Before then, my personal view is that the scientific mind should hold all unsupported theories equally valid.