jeannot
Posts: 1201
Joined: Jan. 2006
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Hi,
This thread may sound a bit like the recent "where are you from" thread, but I’d like it more focused on your relationship with ID and other forms or creationism/anti-evolutionism. In other words, why are we here to discuss such topics?
I heard that some of us are evolutionary biologists, so their conflict with IDC would be clear. However, many of us are not biologist, and I would be curious to know the reasons why they became interested in this political/cultural debate.
I am from France, where creationism has lost all credibility for over a century, but I often heard, from a distance, that it was a more (vaguely) threatening movement in the US. But I never paid much attention to it. Though I’ve always been sort of fascinated by such ignorance and blindness.
I specialized in evolutionary biology 2.5 yeas ago, when I began my master. At this time, I never heard of “Intelligent Design”. This was before a mail was delivered in a mailing list (of a local association of evolutionary biologist) which related the event of one of the few ID paper that was published in a Peer review journal-the one by Steven C Meyer, in the proc. Of Washington-and the reaction that followed in Nature and Science. I first got intrigued, but I didn’t go any deeper in the topic at that time, though I read part of the paper.
Then, there was this mess around those sticker that were to be put on biology textbooks, in Arkansas I believe (or was it somewhere else?), and that were supposed to aid student keep an open mind about what was just a theory, evolutionary theory of course. I heard the news in a discussion board, the ars technica discussion board for those of you who know the site. I was amazed to witness the heated discussion between creationists (that were in minority) and defendant of science. Hopefully, ars technica is populated with educated people.
Then I became interested in the debate. Mostly, I was just a lurker, because most of the time, I dare not post comment in English (and this is also very time consuming for me), by I found that witness creationist’s argument being debunk in public very entertaining. People often resort to links toward talk origins, I then discovered the panda’s thumb.
Then I just googled for a real discussion board (not a blog), where creationism could be discussed, but among educated people; and google returned antievolution.org, the critique resource. I first though it was a anti-evolution website.
When I registered to the board, the most prolific topic was featuring Ghost of Paley and his gut to gamete / geocentric theory.
Meanwhile, I began my PhD on evolutionary ecology in a species of aphid, and I followed kitzmiller vs dover with moderate attention.
I’ve found here a bunch of fine people (most of you), and a few amusing jerks (AFDave, JAD…). I particularly appreciate the (now defunct) AFDave CGH and the uncommonly dense discussion thread, particularly, the erudition of Zach, the fun tidbits reported form UD by Phonon, the hilarious dt parody by Richard, Arden, Steve and others. I wish I could participate a bit more, but I mostly don’t have the time nor the motivation to post in English.
What’s your story?
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until I rejected all truth claims and learned about the scientific method. I grew up feeling pretty alone in my interest in science and evolution, reading Gould and Sagan and debating my father, who was a biblical literalist (this was during the time of the Little Rock trial).