Dan S de Merengue, "Neil Armstrong ... says that the moon is receding from the earth at a rate of about an inch-and-a-half per year. This is quite a bit different from the figure you quoted."

AJ Philips said: "Increasing distance of the Moon. At a rate of about 3.8cm per century."

A minute of so with google shows that AJ is right. However, 3.8cm is equal to 1.5 inches. As some stage "century" got changed to "year".

Dan S de Merengue, "One simple answer is that there is such a lot of interesting stuff to debate."

I doubt most of the anti-ID brigade enjoy debating ID any more than they would enjoy debating about the existence of the tooth fairy. I'd guess most debate it only because they can't stand to see the arguments trotted out by ID go unchallenged. If you want an interesting puzzle, how about this: the minds of those preaching ID are, from an evolutionists point of view, the product of evolution themselves. How can it be that somebody who flatly denies a theory overwhelmingly supported by the evidence in favour of something little better than proposing the land is the carcass of a dream-time serpent be so dammed good at getting their progeny into the next generation?

To extend upon this...

The evolution/creationism debate is not in itself interesting. What is, as the article highlightes, is that it still takes place.

The enlightenment is centuries old yet many disregard all objective evidence in favour of mythology and legend, which is OK except such positions cannot be defended in any measure, much less on a site such as this. Someone claiming to believe in the tooth fairy can easily be dismissed as deluded; that so many claim to believe in creationism makes it no more defensible.

To a large degree the US population has become disconnected from critical thought and analysis, lulled by media and hubris, by politicians and exceptionalism, to the point an alternate reality has been created. Witness the 'museum' showing dinosaurs living side by side with humans or the extraordinary success of the 'left behind' series. The self-superiority that attends American evangelicalism is breathtaking.

Fortunately Bushworld is nearing an end. This rule of the boy-king, where truth became the enemy and white became black; where science was ridiculed or simply ignored by the leadership, such as it was; where might is right, slogans substitute for thought and adults are merely children in disguise, all this will (hopefully) eventually devolve into a sense of maturity. This decade of madness is nearly over.

rstuart,
When you said, “the minds of those preaching ID are, from an evolutionist’s point of view, the product of evolution themselves,” should I presume you would also include the minds of the evolutionists?

This brings us to the question of the nature of mind and logic. If our thoughts are just random chemical impulses in the brain of an up model monkey, with progeny surviving into the future the main thing of any concern, why should anything we think, say, or write here be judged logical, true, or correct in any objective sense?

If I may, I’d like to tackle the contention that the creation/evolution issue is anything to do with America, stars and stripes, apple pie, George W B, or domineering foreign policy. Yes, creationism has a lot to do with evangelical (Bible believing) Christians. And there’s the link. America has a lot of those, but so do other countries.

The creation museum in Kentucky that Bennie mentioned was founded by Ken Ham, a Queenslander. While God’s spokesperson on earth, the Pope, seemed genuinely disappointed about the number of creationists in his home country of Germany.

Creationism is associated with a Bible believing tradition. This is funny, as countries with strong biblical traditions have also historically been those with strong scientific legacies. How peculiar!

Next year is the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s Origin of Species. I expect there will be some fanfare and a few firecrackers. But after that, Darwin will begin to sink the way of other thinkers of his contemporary, such as Marx and Freud.

The evidence is not stacking up. It’s taking the simple minded Christian, with the childlike clarity of vision, to point out that the Emperor is not wearing any clothes.

Whereas the evidence FOR creationism is...?

Dan it's time you came clean with your evidence on creationism. While you're prepared to throw stones at scientific theory you're not prepared to proffer any rational explanations in support of your fantasies. I'm curious which evidence does not 'stack up'. Tell me more.

The church doesn't teach it; society doesn't support it; science has debunked it. The only proponents of creationism are fundies & fringedwellers, of which America has plenty. Are you one?

Dan,

<<This brings us to the question of the nature of mind and logic. If our thoughts are just random chemical impulses in the brain of an up model monkey...>>

But our thoughts aren't “random chemical impulses”. Who said they were?

If you're trying to imply that evolution is a completely random process, like the Creationist fallacy about the chances of a 747 being randomly assembled by a cyclone passing through a junkyard, then you need to educate yourself a bit more as you are debating a topic on something you know nothing about.

Therefore the question you pose is inconsequential.

In the previous thread, I posted you a link that explained just how incorrect this fallacy is. In fact, all the links that I had posted, together, debunked Creationism conclusively. I suggest you go back and actually check them out before you continue to embarrass yourself any further.

<<If I may, I’d like to tackle the contention that the creation/evolution issue is anything to do with America...>>

Of course! There are people who delude themselves all over the world. America just gets special mention because unlike third-world countries, and just like their fellow Western countries, they should know better.

By the way, the Creation Museum is not a museum. It is an animatronics display stating absolutely no scientific facts or evidence whatsoever. Even Christians protested against it. It was a monumental waste of money that could have gone to much better and charitable use.

This so-called “museum” talks about “Super-evolution” - a way of trying to get around the fact that it would have been impossible to fit two of every animal on Noah's ark. This unscientific absurdity implys that 10,000 species “Super-evolved” into 1,000,000 in the space a couple of hundred years after The Flood!

This would mean that evolution had to happen at about 10 times the rate that it does, and that a speciation event occurred every 4 hours!

To be consistent though, the Creationists say that this happened without beneficial mutations or increases of information in the animals DNA.

Continued...