Scientists have lost jobs and have been denied tenure simply by saying they believe in creationism. That is why pseudonyms are sometimes used. Scientists have lost grants, jobs, and chances for tenure over other issues as well. Evolution is a religion no more provable than Christianity or Islam or animism yet it is presented as fact. Natural selection? Fact. Mutation? Fact. These phenomena have been observed and experiments using scientific method have been performed over and over. Evolution is, at best, a weak hypothesis. It is currently in vogue to use the term evolution as a synonym for mutation and natural selection.

Within my lifetime I expect to see the Theory of Gravity re-written, and perhaps some of the others as well. But not Evolution. As far as I can tell, Evolution is currently the strongest theory we have out there.

So let's strip this of it's emotional context and look at the other alternative theories of the big ones, and ask what we should do with their proponents.

What *should* we do with a High School Teacher who wants to teach that the World Is Flat? What do we do with a scientist who claims the same?

Can we reasonably think that they have serious judgement issues? Serious competence issues? I say so. And the Flat Earth idea is at least as strong as Creationism.

Most creationists don't want creationism taught in public schools. The issue is how evolution is taught (eg. as fact). Dragging out flat earth belief as analogous to belief in creationism is really getting old and only strengthens my argument that evolutionist are unable to admit their own biases.

Most creationists don't want creationism taught in public schools.

I hope that was a joke. The creationists appear to want that exactly.

The issue is how evolution is taught (eg. as fact).

You mean, as opposed to Gravity? Or Nuclear Physics?

Both of those are MUCH weaker than evolution because both of those have known flaws. There are things they predict that don't happen and things we can observe that they can't explain. Dark Matter, Dark Energy, the imbalance between matter and anti-matter, etc. Thus we are actively looking for replacements.

Evolution is MUCH stronger. Nothing it predicts has been observed to not be there, nothing we can observe pokes holes in it.

Dragging out flat earth belief as analogous to belief in creationism is really getting old

But it's true. Both of those ideas (not theories) get their support from the Bible. The Bible says the world is Flat. This is why Galileo had so many problems with the Church.

only strengthens my argument that evolutionist are unable to admit their own biases

So what would you compare Creationism too? Other than the Bible, it has no evidence backing it up. It's supporters mostly try to attack evolution (mostly by distorting it's claims and the evidence), but attacking evolution isn't the same as supporting Creationism.

It is possible, even likely, that one day the theory of Evolution will be over turned. But to do that you have to have a better theory, this is why we keep the theory of Gravity around and teach it as fact, there's nothing better on the table.

"And the Flat Earth idea is at least as strong as Creationism."

Not if you read the scriptures

OK, fine, if you want to split hairs... Flat Earth according to the scripture is a much stronger idea than Creationism.

And dude, I'm not kidding. The Bible clearly states the structure of the world, i.e. the dome of air, the firmament, that sort of thing, and not just in Genesis. To be fair it was state of the art scientific belief at the time. If you want a listing of Biblical support for Flat Earth, this site does a good job. <link>

Creationism on the other hand has problem in that there are TWO biblical creation myths for how life was created, and they don't agree.

TruettCollins:

"And the Flat Earth idea is at least as strong as Creationism."

Not if you read the scriptures

Moron! He ment in the minds of creationists.

DBuss:

Within my lifetime I expect to see the Theory of Gravity re-written, and perhaps some of the others as well. But not Evolution. As far as I can tell, Evolution is currently the strongest theory we have out there.

So let's strip this of it's emotional context and look at the other alternative theories of the big ones, and ask what we should do with their proponents.

What *should* we do with a High School Teacher who wants to teach that the World Is Flat? What do we do with a scientist who claims the same?

Can we reasonably think that they have serious judgement issues? Serious competence issues? I say so. And the Flat Earth idea is at least as strong as Creationism.

CaliforniaDreamin responds:

Please provide all the evidence you can find of people who believe in the "Flat Earth idea" and provide it here.

Then provide your reasoning for stating that the Theory of Gravity will be re-written.

"Except in pure mathematics, nothing is known for certain." - Carl Sagan, Demon Haunted World, page 28

Please provide all the evidence you can find of people who believe in the "Flat Earth idea" and provide it here.

Since the time when the church really punished people who stepped out of line, belief in the Flat Earth has died down to something close to zero. This makes it a non-emotional substitute for Creationism. No one believes in it, but the evidence for it is better than for Creationism.

Thus we can create a reasonable thought experiment over whether or not someone should be punished for their belief. And the answer is "sometimes".

If you're pumping gas or fixing houses, then I (your boss) have no reason to fire you because of your believe in the Flat Earth. If you're teaching children about science or your job involves science or making maps, then yeah, your belief is enough of a problem that so is your job.

Then provide your reasoning for stating that the Theory of Gravity will be re-written.

We know of too many instances where it's not working. Why do we look for Dark Matter & Dark Energy? Because there's a difference between what the TOG predicts and what we observe.

This also why scientists are always looking for ways to make the universe heavier, and why universal expansion data over the universe's entire history looks odd. Further, if we've ever going to unify TOG with the other field forces TOG will need some changing since it's really the odd duck out.

Whatever we replace the TOG with will have to explain why my pen falls down, and why the math works the way it does, and since this isn't viewed as an emotional issue people will just shrug and accept it, but still.

This is one of the problems with Creationism, it makes no attempt to deal with Evolution the Fact, and whatever replaces Evolution the theory will have to do that. Diseases evolve drug resistance, etc, etc x(1 Million).

Your link gives a lot of assumptions with no true backing, but then when you are dealing with someone who wants to deny the existance of a Creator they can only rely on physical assumptions.

How about backing up this FALSE statement?

How about backing up this FALSE statement?

If you don't like the multitude of Biblical quotes, let's see what the Church itself thought about this. Remember Galileo? Brought up on charges of heresy in 1633?

In the spring of 1633, Galileo Galilei, an Italian scientist, was delivered before the dreaded Roman Inquisition to be tried on charges of heresy. He was denounced, according to a formal statement, "for holding as true the false doctrine . . . that the sun is the center of the world, and immovable, and that the earth moves!"

The statement went on to read that "the proposition that the sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and... heretical, because it is expressly contrary to the Holy Scripture!" Galileo was found guilty and forced to renounce his views. Ill and broken in spirit, he was sentenced to a life of perpetual imprisonment and penance. <link>

Now you are making the assumption that the catholic church is "the church".

If we go far enough back, there is just "the church" because that's before the various splits. More to the point, although some of the splits predate 1633, the believe in the Flat Earth goes back a lot further than that and none of the splits were over that issue.

The Early Church didn't know the shape of the Earth, so they looked to the Bible for guideance. Since man thought the world was flat 3000 years ago, :shock:, the Bible says the world is Flat. Now days people like to skip that part, just like we skip the parts supporting slavery (which Christ never said one word against), Monarcy, no rights for women, etc.

Can you give any fresh examples of this? I looked around and the examples cited by intelligent design proponents seem to fall apart after further research. Either the folks never lost jobs or privileges or had long standing valid histories of performance issues unrelated to their beliefs. This began to seem like urban myth, paranoia or histrionics. Regardless, Christians are supposed to rejoice in persecution for their beliefs, even to the point of prison or death, a tad worse than demotion or job search. (see 1 Peter 4:12-13, Acts 5:28-42, etc.)