I see an edit war going on between some (?) IP editors, who are trying to soften the stance of young Earth creationists to say that they reject all science "on the issue", and some Wikipedia regulars who are insisting on "all science" (period). I find the latter claim implausibly broad (do they reject Newton's laws? Classical thermodynamics?), and the burden of proof should be on them. So what do the sources say? Unfortunately, most of the citations clustered at the end of the paragraph don't mention young Earth creationism at all, as far as I can tell. I'm going to tag some of them. RockMagnetist(talk) 22:22, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
Actually, none of the sources support the first half of the sentence. I have also come to realize that the sentence contradicts itself, saying that "this view" completely rejects science, and then saying that creation science attempts to prove that young Earth creationism is consistent with science. This latter statement is actually supported by some of the sources, particularly the one by Eugenie Scott. RockMagnetist(talk) 22:46, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
- Young Earth Creationists reject everything that does not agree with their interpretation of the Bible, science, history, philosophy, math, medicine; you name it, and if it can neither conform to or be distorted in order to conform to a YEC's favorite misinterpretation of the Bible, they will reject it and denounce it as the Devil's excrement.--Mr Fink (talk) 22:41, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
- e/c I was going to say the same, but less eloguemntly!! -Roxy, the dog. Esq. wooF 22:45, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
- Both of you - this is Wikipedia. What are your sources for this statement? RockMagnetist(talk) 22:47, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
- My spelling above, for one thing. -Roxy, the dog. Esq. wooF 22:48, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
- Among other things, RockMangetist,
have you ever bothered to look at Young Earth Creationist sites to begin with, let alone that they are rife with anti-science propaganda? did you read the sources and note that they don't actually state Creation Science/Young Earth Creationist is consistent with science?--Mr Fink (talk) 22:51, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
- Astrophysics, astronomy, nuclear physics, geophysics, geochemistry, geology, paleontology, biology, evolutionary theory, genetics, molecular biology, paleobiology, and anthropology, according to https://ncse.com/files/pub/legal/stearns/expert_witness_ayala.pdf (Ayala 2007). Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:09, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
I need to apologize beforehand, but also need to say this. Mr Fink, the only way you could make the statement of "Young Earth Creationists reject everything that does not agree with their interpretation of the Bible, science, history, philosophy, math, medicine; you name it, and if it can neither conform to or be distorted in order to conform to a YEC's favorite misinterpretation of the Bible, they will reject it and denounce it as the Devil's excrement." would be if you were speaking for the entire group. I can't, and haven't heard of anyone who can. You are speaking of a group of individuals who may be influenced to an extent by those who lack sufficient knowledge. Given that, I fail to see how this type of hostility I'm seeing here is in like with the WP purpose. The idea is to provide quality articles. How that is to be accomplished is also defined in the guidelines for editing and conflict resolution. So the internal structure of WP is defined. Now how does that get accomplished amid the emotionally charged dialog I see? There does seem to be some type of conflict, if it is only the apparent hostility being tossed around above. If the idea is to hurl accusation and insult, I see that being accomplished. What I don't see is definitive methodology leading to improvement. Can we get to that? I'm also at least a little surprised that User:Tgeorgescu would be here in like manner, yet as I suspected, there may be some affiliation suspect of WP:COI: "ncse.com", tells the story. I'm calling for disclosure at this point for affiliation to the organization: National Center for Science Education (N.C.S.E.). The NCSE is decidedly biased in their anti-religious POV. Any affiliation with them is cause for COI concern. Are any editors on this page, or in this article, affiliated with NCSE? I'm asking for good faith disclosure. I don't see any disclosures listed on the article page or this one. If I missed something, help me out and direct me to the place where any disclosures might be found.BRealAlways (talk) 12:07, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
- The NCSE does not have an anti-religious POV, except when religious groups try to have their beliefs taught as fact in science classes. Even if editors are not "affiliated" with the NCSE, it is unsurprising that most will agree with a group whose purpose is to keep science teaching restricted to facts and reality. Black Kite (talk) 12:28, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
- Well, creationists live in a parallel universe with alternative facts where creationism is valid science and where non-religious equals anti-religious. If you want to write articles that pretend that the parallel universe is the real world, you will not be happy editing Wikipedia. There is actually a Wiki for that parallel universe: Conservapedia. You will not succeed morphing Wikipedia into another Conservapdeia, so maybe you should directly go there instead. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:32, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
- @BRealAlways:, I make and stand by my statement that "Young Earth Creationists reject everything that does not agree with their interpretation of the Bible, science, history, philosophy, math, medicine; you name it, and if it can neither conform to or be distorted in order to conform to a YEC's favorite misinterpretation of the Bible, they will reject it and denounce it as the Devil's excrement" due to both personal observations of Young Earth Creationists demonizing literally everyone who commits the sin of disagreeing with them, i.e., Answers In Genesis staff twisting "I respect all religions" into a tacit confession to promoting Satanically inspired ritual cannibalism, and personal interactions with Young Earth Creationists explicitly belittling me as a hellbound idiot for committing the sin of not believing God magically poofed the world into existence over the course of six 24 hour days exactly 4 to 10,000 years ago, or praying me to go to Hell for committing the sin of pointing out that it's physically impossible for the last mammoths to be frozen by magical falling pieces of magic ice falling from a magical floating ice dome, or even that scientists, in general, are a bunch of Satanic idiots engaged in a centuries-spanning conspiracy to hate Jesus for no profit beyond hating Jesus.--Mr Fink (talk) 15:15, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Well, since everyone is sharing their POV on the subject, I may as well chime in. As a preacher's kid from multigenerations of YEC, but now an atheist, I'd word it differently. I have two medical educations and have worked in YEC university settings and medical centers alongside medical and scientific researchers who were YEC. They live a compartmentalized existence, so here's a more accurate statement:
- YECs "reject those aspects of science, history, philosophy,
math, and medicine that do not agree with their interpretation of the Bible, but believe, practice, and research all other aspects of those subjects just as other, non-YEC, people do."
There are large areas of science and medicine where they will agree with others and their YEC beliefs are not evident. But there are areas where their deviance from science-based thinking will become evident. So it's not "all", but just that which disagrees with the Bible, which isn't everything. As with much in life, "all" is an extreme, and rarely true, exaggeration. Use a bit of common sense. -- Valjean (talk) 15:52, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
The editors with a COI in relation to the NCSE are likely those making requests at Talk:National Center for Science Education to avoid editing the article themselves. There's only one that I'm somewhat familiar with and he's not very active on Wikipedia. I also don't find edits from him in this article's history or on this talk page. But the NCSE is notable, so it's not surprising for it to have mentions. Its focus is science education, that especially in the US has a history of corruption. An encyclopedia promoting public education and with academic bias (WP:ABIAS) like Wikipedia is compatible with that, it seems. This article also mentions theistic evolution and includes a source from the BioLogos Foundation that can be considered apologetic but does not promote rejection of evolution. —PaleoNeonate – 18:10, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
My final analysis of this section is that it's out of control. Opinions based on "conversion from YEC to atheism" are a contrived way of expressing an opinion that is not backed up by anything other than personal POV. What I would be looking for is sources. Those hapless individuals plagued with YEC sugarplums dancing in their heads would be better served by producing content that is unbiased, pointing out the error of their ways. The verbiage above doesn't accomplish the task. Harboring an obvious animosity or contempt for the "religious" is an unacceptable norm for edits, as far as I can discern from WP guidelines for editing. That is one of the reasons I called for disclosure of affiliation. Though this is a talk page, it is not a general forum for discussion of material superficial to the article, unless it is included to support improvement of the article (with sources, of course).
User:PaleoNeonate, While it may seem innocent enough to conceptually limit the activities of a radical group to a specific topic, if we apply that same reasoning to Hitler's activities, we would end up in a position under his boot. Working under a similar assumption, if the N.C.S.E. is only about science education, why would they be concerned at all about religion? BRealAlways (talk) 13:07, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
- What specific changes to the article are being proposed here? AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:16, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
I propose that the article has no merit in and of itself. Therefore it should be removed from the stacks. This will, of course be a point of conflict, but be it as it may. It comes across as a propaganda piece against religion, and doesn't cover the topic sufficiently. It is sparse on scholarly sources. Big surprise! I'm seeing Eugenie Scott and Richard Dawkins show up in the list of references. Eugenie Scott = N.C.S.E. Anyone here affiliated with that group in any way? Just a question. Yes, I move for deletion. The world will not suffer if a list of anti-religion revolutionaries don't have their day in court. If it were a scholarly piece, it would include "Religious Groups", rather than singling out Judeo-Christians. This is the only religious group I see mentioned in the article. Surely this is not the only religious group in the world that rejects evolution theory as given. If it isn't canned, it should be seriously rewritten, as in be serious about covering the topic properly and fairly. WP is not for painting targets on any religion.BRealAlways (talk) 17:39, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
- BRealAlways, if you want this article deleted, your next step is to go to WP:AFD and follow the instructions. --McSly (talk) 18:02, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
- There's no need to ping me. Sure, Scott did important work against the corruption of education and is very notable for that. Why would that be Wikipedia's problem? —PaleoNeonate – 23:13, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
On second thought, deletion isn't absolutely necessary, but a major rewrite is the only saving factor. For example a contradictory statement is made in paragraph 4: "The Catholic Church recognizes the existence of evolution ...". The pope is then quoted as saying "Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve." This is not a recognition of the existence of evolution theory, but the defining of the reliance of evolution theory on Creation, thus, a Creator. In engineering terms, God is the Designer of all self replicating machines (if life forms are to be classified as such). Some people are much smarter than I am, and might view such nonsense as an insult to their intelligence. The problem seems to be much bigger than a single article. This is only the tip of the iceberg from what I have already seen. I'll ask for advice before moving to delete. Thanks, McSly BRealAlways (talk) 18:16, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
- Make sure you mention that the NCSE is some sort of radical atheist group. Doug Weller talk 18:39, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
- Our own interpretation of what the Pope meant is not usable per WP:OR, but if you mean that many Catholics believe in theistic evolution I think that there are sources supporting that, one is from Scott,[1] Theistic evolution also appears to use this one.[2] There's also an article about the Watchmaker analogy... —PaleoNeonate – 23:13, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
- Accusing me of WP:COI is laughable. I mean: really funny!
- Other remarks: at Wikipedia we do not sing
Kumbaya, My Lord
. We sing A mighty fortress is mainstream science
.
- There is life outside of Wikipedia. Wikipedia does not have a monopoly on Net 2.0. tgeorgescu (talk) 03:01, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
- Me, on the other hand... —PaleoNeonate – 04:19, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
This section shouldn't exist according to talk page guidelines. I will, however, answer the above opening edit to an extent. Some good information on the history of Young Earth Creationism can be found here []. The research was done by 2 authors who looked into the origin in a systematic fashion. Their book must go into the subject more thoroughly, although I haven't read it personally. Those who are interested in knowing more about the topic may want to purchase a copy. The page gives a sequence of development for the Young Earth paradigm from the origin to a point near the present (subject to date of publishing and revision). The authors have found that certain factions or sects of Christianity held to certain literal translations of selected text. This is an excerpt from the author's book: "The “heretical” and “infidel” tendencies of modern geology were roundly condemned by some churchmen, few of whom had any knowledge of geology, although there were a handful of individuals who had produced acceptable field-based studies of regional geology in Great Britain. These “Scriptural geologists,” however, found themselves increasingly marginalized by the vast majority who had extensive working geological knowledge and were now convinced that the Earth is very old."
Hope this helps. What affect it may have on article improvement is unknown at this point. The section doesn't appear to have been created for that purpose, but looking at the history of a movement always helps to determine why it is what it is. YEC doesn't seem to have been formed for any other reason than to be a "follow me" paradigm. It (YEC) is a radical isolate, not founded on sound principles. The entirety of their belief system appears to be due to the types of relationships developed by Jim Jones and David Koresh. Need I say more? Your question doesn't follow, unless it is leading to article improvement. BRealAlways (talk) 05:51, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
re: "Our own interpretation of what the Pope meant is not usable per ...". I did not interpret what the Pope meant. I interpreted what he said in the framework of the assertion. The article is self contradictory on that issue. If a person says something they don't mean, then how can I assume they mean what they say? There is a minimum expectation that a person is not suffering from some mental disorder that dissociates their ability to transmit their thoughts cogently. What you suggest is "putting words into other people's mouths". That should only be done when the person is aware of the conversation. That way, they would be able to explain to us all whether they are being "interpreted" correctly. BRealAlways (talk) 06:07, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
- As far as I'm concerned the discussion is done here, unless perhaps more specific proposals were done with citations. WP:BRD is also a good guide. Another possibility is creating text drafts in a sandbox for review by other editors. —PaleoNeonate – 08:25, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
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