Cognitive Detour: Have we been here before?

These are two unrelated passages, that are more realated than they seem to realize. The first is from CBC and the second is from www.badastronomy.com - it gets really juicy when the CBC guest who claims to be the godifier of science tells his students that fossils are but piles of dirt, and has them reherse questions such as "how do you know its true?" to ask the museum scientists (you know, the ones who spent their youth studying feverishly and forging new roads towards understanding Earths history, and since spent their adult life devoted to understanding through research what we know today...those people). Is he missing the point? Is that possible for a thoughtless, blindly believing entity such as himself?
Should we recite the same question to him and see how many peer reviewed, quantifiable, reproduced and investigative scientific reports he references? Or personal research he brings into the discussion? My guess would be none.

The teaser is below, go to CBC.com and link to THE CURRENT to hear the whole shebang.

Did I mention he called a fossil a pile of dirt?!?

Soil, at least, would have been more provocative and slightly nearing proper terminology. But lets not go ahead and spread credit where it is easily obvious that it is not deserved.

Fossil....dirt....?
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The Current: Part 3 October 31, 2006


Biblically Correct Doc

If you go through a natural history museum these days, you might see signs that reflect our more "politically correct" reality. For instance, the word "humankind" often replaces "mankind" on the placards. But in the United States, there's a Christian movement to take museums beyond politically correct to something called "biblically correct".

This morning we wanted to take you on one of those tours, called, in fact, "Biblically Correct Tours", which offers a literal, Biblical interpretation of everything from what fossils tell us about evolution to the disappearance of the dinosaurs. And we followed one of the guides, named Bill Jack, who teaches children that evolution is "bad science" and that questions concerning how we got here can be found in the book of Genesis.

We aired Frank Faulk's documentary called "Be Reasonable".____________________________________________________________________________
"As long as these attacks on science continue, we must be diligent. And they will go on, no doubt, forever. Eternal vigilance, fellow humans. Stay on your toes, and don’t let those antiscientists turn the clock back to the Middle Ages."

P. Plait