New Scientist Admits: Liberals Are Biased And Deluded

Image courtesy of Becker1999, Creative Commons (CC BY 2.0).



Joel Kontinen

New Scientist has admitted that liberals are “just as deluded as everybody else.”

Reporting on several recent studies, NS concludes that liberals are anything but open-minded.

Research published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology suggests that like anybody else they were so “averse to listening to opposing viewpoints on hot-button issues, such as same-sex marriage [that]…they were willing to give up the chance to win money just to avoid the unpleasantness of hearing an opinion they disliked.”

The NS article uses expressions like 'the Regressive Left' and admits that American university culture is toxic and intolerant, thanks to "liberals".

NS also discloses that people who regard themselves as progressives and vote for Democrats, do not necessarily embrace science – even though they might march for it:

“Consider Seattle, a city that voted 87 per cent for Hillary Clinton and is proudly one of the most progressive … in the US. A warm embrace of scientific reality doesn’t come with the territory: Seattle isn’t terribly fond of biotechnology, rejecting GMOs and even vaccines. Rwanda’s childhood polio vaccination rate is higher than Seattle’s. As for other vaccines, including MMR, only five US states have higher exemption rates than Washington State.”

We welcome the opportunity to agree with NS’ conclusions, as this doesn’t happen too often. (Here’s one noticeable exception.)

Recent weeks have provided us with empirical proof of how closed-minded liberals really are.

Bill Nye, for instance, would rather suck than explore the merits in alternatives to his godless worldview.

This is probably also true of men like Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins.

Source:

Berezow, Alex. 2017. Liberals are no strangers to confirmation bias after all. New Scientist (28 April).

Superfast Spinning Stars Show Our Sun Is Special – And So Is Earth

Weird stars show how special our sun is. Image courtesy of Fred the Oyster, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).





Joel Kontinen

Bill Nye might call himself the Science Guy, but his science is often badly outdated.

Recent research suggests his view of our sun is simply wrong. This is what he said:

“I'm insignificant. ... I am just another speck of sand. And the earth really in the cosmic scheme of things is another speck. And the sun an unremarkable star. ... And the galaxy is a speck. I'm a speck on a speck orbiting a speck among other specks among still other specks in the middle of specklessness. I suck.”

New Scientist summarises the findings of a recent study that shows just how wrong Bill Nye is:

“Our star is a particularly calm one. Hot, massive ‘early-type’ stars can spin almost 100 times faster than the sun, causing them to bulge in the middle. The gas around the star’s equator is then farther away from its centre, so it cools more than other parts of the star’s surface, in a phenomenon called gravity-darkening. The poles, meanwhile, remain hot and dense.”

John Ahlers, a researcher at the University of Idaho in Moscow, has examined what effect this would have on a planet orbiting such a star.

“Early-type stars emit mostly UV light, so this corresponds to yearly shifts of up to 80 per cent in the UV radiation hitting the planet. And because these planets would be directly over the star’s chilled equator twice in each orbit, it would go through two summers and two winters each year.

In extreme situations, the planet’s surface could rapidly oscillate between a boiling hellscape and a frozen tundra.”

The research is based on observations of the cause of seasons on the good Earth:

”Earth’s seasons come from the planet’s tilt: as we orbit the sun, one hemisphere leans towards it, receiving more direct sunlight, while the other leans away.”

In contrast to what Bill Nye thinks, our sun is anything but unremarkable. Almost everything in our solar system, from Earth’s magnetic field, the Moon and the giant gas planets, appears to be fine-tuned to keep Earth habitable.

That is exactly what we would expect, as Genesis is reliable history.


Source:

Crane, Leah. 2016. Superfast spinning stars cause strangest weather in the universe New Scientist (3 October).

Does Evolution Kill the Idea of Self?

Image courtesy of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR).




Joel Kontinen

Science, scientism and reason are popular words that many people understand precisely the way they want to.

Sceptics have re-defined science. It used to be a search for the best explanation, but somewhere along the way Darwinists hijacked the word, making it the search for the best naturalistic explanation.

This has had far-reaching consequences. Some have embraced thinking that hails from the teaching of Eastern philosophers and they question the very reality of our existence.

Elon Musk, for instance, believes we might be living in a computer simulation.

Many other sceptics think we are insignificant. This is what Bill Nye, the 2010 Humanist of the Year, believes about humans:

“I'm insignificant. ... I am just another speck of sand. And the earth really in the cosmic scheme of things is another speck. And the sun an unremarkable star. ... And the galaxy is a speck. I'm a speck on a speck orbiting a speck among other specks among still other specks in the middle of specklessness. I suck.”

Consciousness and free will are hard dilemmas for Darwinists and so is the existence of the self.

Recently, Robert Lawrence Kuhn wrote an article on Live Science in which the difficulties brought by Alzheimer's to his 100-year old mother prompted him to take a critical look at selfhood.

He seems to think that while the self might be real, it is material, located in the brain.

While sceptics might invoke reason for this choice, ignoring all but the material dimension is not very reasonable.

As British writer G. K. Chesterton put it, atheists have a doctrine against the supernatural. This eventually leads to the destruction of reason.

The Bible takes an entirely different approach. We are made in God’s image and as such we are accountable to Him for all our deeds, choices and misdeeds.

And He freely offers us pardon, friendship and eternal life through faith in Jesus.


Source:

Kuhn, Robert Lawrence. 2016. Is Your 'Self' Just an Illusion? Live Science (7 September).

Bill Nye: Evolution Is Like the Alphabet

Image courtesy of Bill Hrybyk, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.





Joel Kontinen

Bill Nye, who is fond of being known as the science guy, does not like those who are critical of evolution.

Mr. Nye advocates censoring criticism of evolution. He famously debated Ken Ham last April in an attempt to make his view more popular.

He probably only managed to persuade those who already had bought into the Darwinian model of explaining origins.

Recently, he spoke again of the importance of knowing evolution. He likened it to the alphabet.

Darwin does follow close on the heels of A, B and C. and after the D-word we have something beginning in E.

The problem with Nye’s agenda is that it is entirely worldview based. When it comes to origins, he is not the science guy, but the materialistic guy.

Source:

Mitchell, Elizabeth. 2014. Bill Nye Likens Evolution to the Alphabet. Answers in Genesis.(September 19).

Bill Nye and the Predictions of the Creation Model

Joel Kontinen


In the recent debate between Ken Ham and Bill Nye on creation vs. evolution, Mr. Nye repeatedly insisted that creation does not make any predictions and is thus not scientific.

However, already in his opening statement Ken Ham showed a slide with the headline Predictions Based on the Bible. He listed six predictions that science has confirmed:

1) Intelligence produced life.
2) Living beings reproduce after their kinds.
3) There is overwhelming evidence for a global flood.
4) In contrast to the writings of Charles Darwin, humans form a single race.
5) Language groups are evidence for the Tower of Babel account.
6) There is much evidence for a young universe.

Contrary to what Mr. Nye asserted, creation is not only Ken Ham’s model. His lost in translation argument for the reliability of the Bible likewise misses the mark.

However, overall the debate achieved its purpose. It made people aware that the origins issue is far from settled. The atheist-materialist party does not have a monopoly.

Ken Ham – Bill Nye Debate Made Headlines

Joel Kontinen


In recent years, creation - evolution debates have been few and far between, as most evolutionists have refused to engage in any such exchange of views.

In this sense, Tuesday’s debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham was news. However, the debate topic, Is creation a viable model of origins in today’s modern scientific era? might not have been the best possible one and the five minutes allotted to each debater to respond to the other’s claims was far too short.

The debate, moderated by CNN journalist Tom Foreman, was a battle – although a rather friendly one – of opposing worldviews and touched on our understanding of what science is. While we would agree on observational science, our worldview decides our opinion of historical science – a dichotomy that Bill Nye refused to accept. Moreover, an atheist cannot allow a “divine foot in the door,” because it would destroy the ideological system he has fought for so long and so hard.

As Ken Ham indicated, a belief in biblical creation does not exclude scientists from doing good science.

Bill Nye brought up several illustrations that he assumed would be evidence of an old earth. While Ken Ham did not have the time to respond to each of them, practically all of them have been rebutted by scientists who believe Genesis is true.

Nye claimed, for instance, that there was not enough time “since Mr. Ham’s Flood” for “millions of layers of ancient life” to have formed beneath the Creation Museum. However, things like fossils are not a problem for creation, as in real life fossils can and do form quickly.

Answers in Genesis estimated that over three million people watched the debate live. In the question and answers part, Bill Nye acknowledged that he did not know how matter invented itself at the beginning or how consciousness came from matter.

The debate might not have changed the listeners’ views, but it certainly reminded us of the importance of origins.

Source:

Golden, Steve. 2014. Bill, There Is a Book Out There. Answers in Genesis (5 February).

Ken Ham Will Debate Bill Nye on Creation vs. Evolution - Atheists Are Already Protesting

Joel Kontinen

Freethinkers have never been pleased with the free exchange of ideas, especially if some of these ideas are contrary to their naturalistic worldview.

Once again, this trend has become obvious in the criticism some leading atheists such as Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins (and his foundation) have come up with following the announcement that Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis will debate Bill Nye (known as the Science Guy) at the Creation Museum in Kentucky on February 4th. They have in vain urged Mr. Nye to give up the debate.

Evolutionists tend to be allergic to debates. Richard Dawkins, for instance, has refused to debate Jonathan Sarfati of Creation Ministries International or any other scientist who believes in biblical creation. This, of course, gives the impression that he is somewhat unsure of his ideology.

The two-and-a-half-hour debate beginning at 7.00 PM (ET) on February 4 will be streamed live. You can watch it here.

Source:

Atheists and Their Tantrums—Dawkins Comments on Debate Answers in Genesis 22 January 2014.

Bill Nye, No Need to Censure Weaknesses in Evolution

CMI produced a short video debunking Bill Nye’s recent anti-creation views.



Joel Kontinen

Recently, Bill Nye, “the Science Guy”, appeared on a video, lamenting the fact that parents are reluctant to teach their children about Darwinian evolution.

In a highly emotional presentation, Mr. Nye saw evolution as the only game in town. However, as former communications satellite expert Richard Fangrad of Creation Ministries International-Canada shows, Nye’s approach has more to do with philosophical naturalism than with science.

Previously, doctors Georgia Purdom and David Menton of Answers in Genesis also responded to Nye.

Bill Nye: Doubting Darwin Is Disastrous!

Joel Kontinen

The behaviour of a theory’s advocates speaks volumes of the strength of a theory. In other words, if a theory is robust, it does not need angry supporters who will shout at all those who do not see its strengths.

In recent years, Darwinists have used almost everything but scientific arguments for furthering their pet theory.

This approach has obviously failed as many have already left the boat, and more are leaving.

But some have decided to stay on board and face the storms. One of them is Bill Nye, “the Science Guy”. Recently he posted a video in which he warned of the dangers of rejecting evolution.

Nye, who has a bachelor’s degree in science, says that doubting evolution is “unique to the United States.” One wonders where he gets his outdated information. In May I attended a creation conference in London. None of the speakers, most of whom had far better scientific credentials than Nye, were Americans. Creation Ministries International, one of the leading creation organisations, is actually headquartered in Australia. There are creationist organisations in most European countries. I personally know many Finnish creationists.

Nye claims that the failure to believe in evolution “holds everybody back”. He equates acceptance of Darwinism with technological development. What he fails to see is that engineers use intelligent design, a concept that evolutionists wish to ban.

Bill Nye says he wants to deny parents the choice of letting their children doubt evolution. Unfortunately, in a typically Darwinian fashion, he wants to stifle all scientific dissent.

Here’s a video that doctors David Menton and Georgia Purdom of Answers in Genesis made in response to Nye’s claims: