The Creation Museum, I'm not kidding folks.

jtwildone05

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i actually live like 20 minutes from there over the OH-KY bridge. the museum was really cool and high tech, i loved it.
 

aristarchus

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That's what I don't like about the History and Discovery channels -- they've become less objective and more... I don't know, like they're making a sales pitch. They use scientific topics as profit machines, not scientific journals. I had more respect for Nova on PBS more than I've ever had for the cable networks.

Other folks here may have the inside scoop even more than I, but speaking as somebody who has been cajoled more than once into providing "expert interviews" for the both the History and the Discovery channels (as have several of my colleagues, who have the same experience), I can tell you that all the nuance, methodology, and argument provided during interviews by the "learned talking heads" ends up on the cutting room floor. Things are so heavily edited sometimes I don't recognize my own statements any more. Basically the producer starts with preconceived "opinions" and notions of what will "sell," and then trims the footage to fit.

You are right that Nova was MUCH better in this regard.

In my opinion producers vastly underestimate the intelligence and capacity of their audiences.
 

snoozan

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That's what I don't like about the History and Discovery channels -- they've become less objective and more... I don't know, like they're making a sales pitch. They use scientific topics as profit machines, not scientific journals. I had more respect for Nova on PBS more than I've ever had for the cable networks.

As a footnote to this, please please please, if you enjoy your local NPR station or PBS station, give them money. PBS and NPR are welcome counters to the advertising-driven radio and television that is most of what is available to us. They are also frequently up on the chopping block in Washington. Vote with your wallet, send them some money.
 

B_big dirigible

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A couple of nights ago, I was watching a show about early Homo species (cro-magnon, neanderthal), on The History Channel.
mumble grumble
Cro-Magnon man is modern Homo sapiens. Homo neanderthalensis was at one time a separate species, but in the mid '60s was lumped in with us as a subspecies (whatever that is), Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. Now as a sort of prehistoric retro revival, he's sometimes listed as a separate species again. It's all rather silly but they need something to keep grad students off the streets, and systematics seems to be it.
 

DC_DEEP

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mumble grumble
Sometimes these "documentaries" do get annoying. I find myself sitting there thinking,
"Yes, that's well-known."
"Shouldn't that be labeled as 'questionable?'"
"That's total rubbish."
"Sounds plausible enough."
"How the hell did you conclude that?"
"Yes, that's well known."
 

SpeedoGuy

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I can tell you that all the nuance, methodology, and argument provided during interviews by the "learned talking heads" ends up on the cutting room floor. Things are so heavily edited sometimes I don't recognize my own statements any more. Basically the producer starts with preconceived "opinions" and notions of what will "sell," and then trims the footage to fit.

Christ, if that isn't the truth.

In my job I've done dozens of interviews with print and broadcast media over the last decade. I'd spend hours discussing and explaining various facets of my job and how they affect decision making by higher ups in the organization I work for. I always strove to make my interviews frank, entertaining, objective and informative.

It was never enough.

All the careful attention to accuracy would be tossed aside by the editors. Out of 60 minutes of taped interview, I'd get quoted on a 10 second sound byte on some irrelevant portion of the interview topic. Man, that always left me frustrated because the sound byte rarely ever represented the message I was trying to convey.
 

Freddie53

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Ok, can we get back to large penises now?
Sure, there is the Healthy Penis forum, the Sex with a Large Penis and seveal other fourms dealing with the penis were on the LPSG. You are in Etc Etc. This is really a debate forum more than anything else.

I think when Jana goes to the museum she needs to ask questions about why the penises aren't showing in any of the creatures there.:biggrin1:
 

Lordpendragon

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DC_DEEP

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I found this completely by accident today. Maybe it was divine intervention.

YouTube - Refuting Evolution (from HBO's Friends of God)
The guitar-guy should be ashamed of himself, manipulating those poor young children like that.

"Is the word dinosaur in the bible? No. Is the word computer in the bible? No. Why? Because they are new words."

Hmm. Computer is a new word, because it's a new invention. Is he telling me that dinosaurs were only created a couple of decades ago?
 

Blocko

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"GOD SAID IT, I BELIEVE IT, THAT SETTLES IT".... I'm sorry, but that scares the living fuck out of me. In Nazi Germany, it might've been "THE FUHRER SAID IT..."

How can you have a society where people base their reasoning on that predicate? This very axiom drives the logic of some of the leaders of the world. And who communicates the word of god to those who don't always hear it for themselves?

It is beyond conscience to do this to children who are too young to think critically and ask the hard questions. How can the children know something is wrong if an adult told them "god said it"? Even if that something is touching them in inappropriate places?

I found this completely by accident today. Maybe it was divine intervention.

YouTube - Refuting Evolution (from HBO's Friends of God)
 

kalipygian

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Sure, there is the Healthy Penis forum, the Sex with a Large Penis and seveal other fourms dealing with the penis were on the LPSG. You are in Etc Etc. This is really a debate forum more than anything else.

I think when Jana goes to the museum she needs to ask questions about why the penises aren't showing in any of the creatures there.:biggrin1:

If they were created, rather than evolving, they don't need sexual reproduction.

And do their Adam and Eve have belly buttons(they shouldn't)?
 

B_big dirigible

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BD, I share your skepticism of polls in general because they usually do set out to prove a point, but this one has me a little spooked. Maybe it's because I live in Ohio, but I wouldn't have a tough time believing that 60% figure of my statesmen.
The big problem here is that you can't just accept the nominal "conclusion" of the poll - that's never justified. At a minimum, you must know what the actual questions were.

Consider a howler I remember from maybe three or four years ago. The headline was something very much like "Sixty Percent of Russians Don't Believe US Is a Superpower." That turned out to be an eccentric interpretation of a rather prosaic poll which actually said nothing of the sort. The poll question was, "What's the first thing which actually comes to mind when you think of the US?" Some 40% of Russian respondents put down "superpower", maybe half the remainder put down "friendly" (a seismic shift from the Cold War era, of course), and I don't remember the rest - something like "where Disneyworld is", maybe - it's not too important. The headline writer decided that since 40% put down "superpower", then 60% thought it wasn't a superpower. That's just plain stupid.

Another good example - a poll to measure "anti-Semitism". The money question was whether the respondent thought that Jews were "overrepresented" in certain "fields". Neither term was defined. A "yes" answer to this question was interpreted as proof of anti-Semitism. But of course it indicated no such thing. Approximately one percent of the population of the US is Jewish. In certain industries or professions, far more than 1% of the people running things or practicing the profession are Jews. This is hardly in dispute to anyone with any familiarity at all with, say, the gemstone trade, clothing, publishing, or medicine. If the respondent interpreted that as "overrepresentation" - that is, more than one would expect extrapolating from the raw population figures - then a "yes" answer is a simple reflection of reality, not a critique. But that's not how the poll was touted.

Sometimes the question itself isn't too loaded, but the rest of the methodology is. Here's one which crops up in modern gun-control polls. The respondent is asked if there is a gun in the house - not if he is a gun owner. If he says yes, there is a gun in the house, then his subsequent answers are counted as being those of a gun owner, even if the respondent is, say, the grandmother of the gun owner. Then answers to questions like, "do you believe 'assault weapons' should be banned?" allow the pollsters (or their clients) to report that "even xx percent of gun owners think assault weapons should be banned!" This little scam can't be spotted by reading the poll questions - it's buried in the poll's methodology.

All of this crap works because the typical person is afraid of numbers. He doesn't understand them, but he believes them - he doesn't feel qualified to not believe them. They constitute some sort of mystical truth, like the pronouncements of an oracle. This is very hard to combat. It's not enough to say, as I'm doing here, that we can't believe the numbers unless we know a great deal about how they were gathered. We have to actively reject them. Otherwise we are left with unsupportable residual impressions. Although we have no idea what fudges the pollsters used, we are left with a vague idea that most Americans believe implicitly in Genesis, although the poll may have supplied no evidence whatever that this is true. The pollster's insidious work has been done.

All of this is quite aside from the actual mathematics of polling, which introduces other errors, usually much smaller.
 

DC_DEEP

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<...>
It is beyond conscience to do this to children who are too young to think critically and ask the hard questions. How can the children know something is wrong if an adult told them "god said it"? Even if that something is touching them in inappropriate places?
Good point. Possibly fodder for another thread, but it is a good point. It's a shame that so many children get religious indoctrination, rather than religious education - and equally shameful that the indoctrinators most likely don't know the difference.
 

dong20

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The big problem here is that you can't just accept the nominal "conclusion" of the poll - that's never justified. At a minimum, you must know what the actual questions were.

Exactly. Good post.

This is a ficticious example from an 80s British sitcom but it underscores how unreliable polls are :

"Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the number of young people without jobs?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Are you worried about the rise in crime among teenagers?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think there is a lack of discipline in our Comprehensive schools?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think young people welcome some authority and leadership in their lives?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think they respond to a challenge?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Would you be in favour of reintroducing National Service?"
Bernard Woolley: "Oh...well, I suppose I might be."
Sir Humphrey: "Yes or no?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"

Sir Humphrey: "Of course you would, Bernard. After all you told you can't say no to that. So they don't mention the first five questions and they publish the last one."

Bernard Woolley: "Is that really what they do?"
Sir Humphrey: "Well, not the reputable ones no, but there aren't many of those. So alternatively the young lady can get the opposite result."
Bernard Woolley: "How?"

Sir Humphrey: "Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the danger of war?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Are you worried about the growth of armaments?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think there is a danger in giving young people guns and teaching them how to kill?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think it is wrong to force people to take up arms against their will?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Would you oppose the reintroduction of National Service?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"

Sir Humphrey: "There you are, you see Bernard. The perfect balanced sample."

People are so easily manipulated.
 

madame_zora

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BD, I understand all of that, I really do. I don't really have much interest in the study or I would investigate it further. What I SAID that I agree with is the statement that 60% don't believe in evolution. Whether that figure came as the result of a survey, flawed or not, I don't know or care.

It may be anywhere from 10% to 95% as far as I am concerned, what I meant is that I know that around HERE the number would quite likely be more than half, from what is happening religiously and politically here. I don't have accurate specific figures, nor do I need them in order to say "a fuck of a lot". That isn't a scientific assessment, just a layman's observation. Since I'm not a scientist, I am never speaking with any kind of scientific authority. If I read a study I find noteworthy, I'll post it for other people's opinions. All I said here was that the statement seemed likely enough.