The story about the ranking of evolution support in Western nations did not include any data on Africa. America’s standing might have looked a little better if it did; the news from Kenya is not good. Evangelical churches want to suppress the Kenya national museum’s fossil collection. This includes some of the most impressive examples of humankind’s ancient history, such as multiple australopithecine specimens and Turkana Boy; it’s arguably one of the world’s foremost collections of hominid fossils. This is where many of Richard Leakey’s finds are stored.
Who wants to hide away in back rooms a national, even a human, treasure? The “Christian community.”
As part of an ongoing expansion funded by the EU, the National Museums of Kenya, which manages the country’s cultural sites, is conducting a survey to determine what visitors to its Nairobi headquarters most want to see.
Church leaders aim to hijack that process. “The Christian community here is very uncomfortable that Leakey and his group want their theories presented as fact,” said Bishop Bonifes Adoyo, the head of Christ is the Answer Ministries, the largest Pentecostal church in Kenya.
“Our doctrine is not that we evolved from apes, and we have grave concerns that the museum wants to enhance the prominence of something presented as fact which is just one theory.”
Bishop Adoyo said all the country’s churches would unite to force the museum to change its focus when it reopens after 18 months of renovations in June next year.
“We will write to them, we will call them, we will make sure our people know about this and we will see what we can do to make our voice known,” he said.
I like that. They want the evidence to go away, and are no doubt deeply disturbed that right there in their own back yard is an awesome pile of data that says their religious beliefs are all bunk.
This attitude isn’t unique to Kenya, though, and we see plenty of signs of it right here in the highly advanced nation of the United States. Maybe we should be relieved that that Science study didn’t include any African countries; we wouldn’t necessarily have done any better.
Anecdote: a friend of mine teaches biology and spent some time in various African countries. Upon return, she offered to send some science books to a school in Africa and sent them a list of possible titles. In response, they said they would rather have real science books instead of a few titles analysing Creationism (the old Eldredge, Ruse, Kitcher books about it) as Creationism is an “American thing”. That was about 10 years ago, I think.
Leading lights of creationism Rob Crowther, Jonathan Wells, BillD (and their factotums like SalC) will find it difficult to spin this away.
Anecdote #2: I spent a year teaching biology in Mozambique, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the few textbooks I had — there weren’t many — contained a substantial section on evolution. It was one of the first chapters, too, and the national exam included questions on the topic. It was one of the few things in the educational system (which was largely horrible) that was better than the US.
Granted, only about 10-20% of children even made it to the grade (10th) that evolution was taught, but it was still a refreshing instance of the government choosing scientific fact over religious propaganda.
The story posted is one more exaple of how the religion mind-virus is damaging, not only to the individuals whom it infects, but also the public around them. We have another example in the news. The arrest of group of young educated, mainly British Muslims, who were allegedly about to take explosives on airplanes and use them to blow a whole bunch of people out of the sky. We don’t need to ask what religion they were, we know. Just as we would know if another group were caught planning to blow up an abortion center. Religion is a damaging and dangerous bit of false information that takes control of its host and in worst cases makes them dangerous. The only effective counter measure I can think of (I consider from going back a few centuries and giving people a chance to recant or die unacceptable), is to thoroughly inoculate our young with a proper education in skeptism and science.
Hey, dude, I hate to break it to you, but science doesn’t give a fuck what you think.
Not a fucking democracy.
The Taliban blew up those ancient statues of Buddha because they found them offensive. Any indication that the folks in Kenya are going down this route?
These are irreplaceable treasures. Are they being protected?
I had the same thought, but I see it as a blessing in disguise. The loss of those fossils would be awful, no doubt. However, if a bunch of religious fanatics storm the museum and destroy those fossils, the media coverage would A) Bring to light the massive amount of fossil evidence that most Americans don’t know about; and B) Make the religious fanatics look like fools. This would be an extreme and highly visible example of how they try to suppress the evidence for evolution.
Most African protestants are evangelicals and are great lovers of the Bible (like me) but tend to take it literally and thsu accept a 6 day creation.
Archbishop Akinola of Nigeria (Anglican) is very anti-evolution and soem of my distance learning students from East africa who are Anglican clergy also tend to YEC.
Also many evangelicals in Africa dont belong to traditional denominations like the Anglicnas or Methodists and adopt extreme ideas including OTT excorcism which can be very damamging.
There is an immense amount of work needed to be done on African evangelicals and their emphases including creationism
This needs to go on Panda’s Thumb as well.
PS oldhippie would do well not to repeat Dawkins’ nonsense about the religion virus. This is as daft as any form of religion and not worthy on anyone who values science
Hey creationists, guess where the oldest human fossils are found. Not the Middle East.
“PS oldhippie would do well not to repeat Dawkins’ nonsense about the religion virus. This is as daft as any form of religion and not worthy on anyone who values science”
Let us look at what it says. Lifeforms are information coded in genes. Evolution says that information varies and some forms of this kind of informaton will be more successful in replicating themselves than others. These forms of information become more numerous. We also know that combination of bits of this information and changes in the information are a big part of change through time. As you know when you get infected with another lifeform it can control your behaviour to its own end. A good example is the cold virus which will have you sneezing and coughing and thus helping the virus spread itself all over the place.
We can replicate the evolutionary process with information that is not genetic. There are a bunch of researchers who have designed computers to take stacks of computer code, change and combine them, then keep better approximations and throw out worse approximations to what the computer programmer has decided is the desirable result. Using this evolutionary process computers themselves have written successful programs. So we know that information can work in this way without genes.
When we developed a symbolic language we became prime carriers of informationm albeit of a non-genetic kind. Can this form of informaton replicate and multiply themselves in us? Unlike genes, the success of the host of no big concern since since they can spread across population rather than through inheritance. One form of such information is scientific method. This is a successful bit of information because it is a very powerful tool enabling the host to invent such things as effective medicine and planes. But is is not nearly as successful as it should be, because a grasp of science involves a lot of work and study, which limits the number of people that will be lucky enough to be infected by it. Religion is anoher example and far more successful at infecting people because it does not take much work or unerstanding just “blind faith”. We have to somehow explain why a bunch of middle class (in world terms very well-to-do) youths, many with wives, would want to blow themselves up along with countless others.
If you can think of a better explantion that that they ere infected with some bad information, let us hear your take on it, and let us also hear what is so bad about the idea of Memes, or mind virus.
Sorry I was never even a young hippy.
Am I correct to work out from what you say that all human thought is a virus, so we have Muslim, Christian, Fundamentalist and Athesits viruses.
To say religion is just blind faith reflects an invincible ignorance about religion. I see more blind faith in Richard Dawkins than the Archbishop of Canterbury who was made a full professor at Oxford at 36 and then made a Fellow of the British Academy, never given to anybody who cant think.
Really if you want to challenge nutters whether suicide bombers, Christian zionists or Young Earth Creationists, you would do better not to make silly statements.
Michael
but I see it as a blessing in disguise. The loss of those fossils would be awful, no doubt. However, if a bunch of religious fanatics storm the museum and destroy those fossils, the media coverage would A) Bring to light the massive amount of fossil evidence that most Americans don’t know about; and B) Make the religious fanatics look like fools.
sorry, but the temporary ideological gain isn’t close to being worth the loss of irreplaceable artifacts.
Besides, what’s the difference between damaging public property or life for ideological reasons, and encouraging terrorists to damage public property for ideological reasons, regardless if the ideologies are 180 from each other?
C’mon Michael Roberts. Stop being so full of BS.
How can you say it’s nonsense when it spreads from adult to child, unquestioned the vast majority of the time?
Then you get really stupid:
Atheism is not a religion. It is simply the absence of belief. And yes Muslim, Christian and any other religion that relies upon unprovable assertions would qualify. Not all human thought and to conflate the views is blantant dishonesty. If you can see the difference in believing the claims of a religion as opposed to rational thought you aren’t going to contribute much here.
You do huh? Wow. That is simply stunning. You see more blind faith in Dawkins a man who understands science and the need for evidence as opposed to a man who believes an entire host of ideas based on quite literally nothing more than fragments of an old book and the saying contained therein.
How does that even work for you?
Nutters? You forgot to include snake handlers, those who think virgins give birth, the rapture ready folks, the kenyan evangelicals down below, Fred Phelps, Pat Robertson, and oh my the list goes on.
And you sir have made more than a few silly statements already.
Anyone? How many logical fallacies do you count in Michael Roberts’ post?
Michael Roberts wrote: “I see more blind faith in Richard Dawkins than the Archbishop of Canterbury…”
Really. What does Richard Dawkins show evidence of “blind faith” IN?
Please cite specific quotes. I’m really tired of Church Ladies who, merely by pronouncing the name “Richard Dawkins”, evoke a chorus of “boo, bad” from the dutiful faithful. Please don’t turn out to be one of those.
If anyone knows how to get this article on mainstream media outlets, please do so. This just doesn’t affect Kenya.
The Christian Right should be exposed each time they try to pull this kind of crap.
Not to be pedantic, but technically an artifact is a technological product, something designed and built by a sentient being or beings. As far as we know, fossils are the product of evolution combined with natural processes, and are not substantially changed by being dug up by paleontologists, thus they are not artifacts. You might call them “relics” (in the non-religious sense of the word) if you want to use a term that’s more romantic than descriptive.
That said, I completley agree with your point. I’d rather have those Afghan Buddhas back than have gotten whatever temporary rhetorical gain was made against the Taliban by their destruction. Afghanistan’s already pretty much fallen off the American radar, to the degree that they’re happily reinstating the morality police over there and almost nobody here even knows or cares. Losing the Buddhas didn’t really do anybody any good in the long run, but now that they’re gone we can never get them back, never learn from them or admire them ever again.
Between the Buddhas and the Iraqi national museum and the damaged archaelogical sites in Iraq and probably some other things I’ve forgotten, we’ve already had more than enough destruction of irreplaceable parts of our history in the past few years. Piling tragedy upon tragedy gets us nowhere. I hope the museum has armed guards on those exhibits, and I hope they’re willing to shoot to kill.
…to the degree that they’re happily reinstating the morality police over there and almost nobody here even knows or cares…
Pedantic arguments aside…
indeed. I can’t even recall the last time Afghanistan was mentioned in more than passing fashion by any major US media outlet.
what’s it been, months now?
I swear, if the internet didn’t exist, Americans would be ten times as much in the dark as they already are.
Do you have a specific reference you recommend to keep track of what the latest is over there?
Ichthic –
Try http://www.afghandaily.com/ for headline-type stories and the Institute for War & Peace Reporting at http://www.iwpr.net/ for more in-depth stories about Central Asia.
Stories about the fighting (is it a war again yet?) are regularly found on http://www.truthout.org & http://www.commondreams.org/ .
thanks for the links. I immediately found useful information; for example I do wonder just how many americans are aware of this:
http://article.wn.com/view/2006/08/10/Opium_eradication_a_must_for_peace_in_Afghanistan_US/
Opium eradication a must for peace in Afghanistan: US
Dawn By David Fickling LONDON:
AmericaÂs drug tsar, John Walters, on Wednesday acknowledged that US allies have voiced doubts about the wisdom of opium eradication in parts of southern Afghanistan where insurgents have killed 10 British troops over the past two months.
ahh, but that’s pretty far OT for this thread.
These are irreplaceable treasures. Are they being protected?
They are pretty securely stored, IIRC. Big climate controlled “vault”. I also suspect that the Hominid Gang would be up for some action if anyone was to try anything that stupid.
To say religion is just blind faith reflects an invincible ignorance about religion. I see more blind faith in Richard Dawkins than the Archbishop of Canterbury who was made a full professor at Oxford at 36 and then made a Fellow of the British Academy, never given to anybody who cant think.
This stupid, ignorant, and dishonest statement just helps support oldhippie’s thesis. Most foolish is that you post it here, where you’re not likely to get much sympathy. Try Uncommon Descent, where they’re sure to agree.
Not all human thought and to conflate the views is blantant dishonesty. If you can see the difference in believing the claims of a religion as opposed to rational thought you aren’t going to contribute much here.
Actually, GH, if you would exercise your own intellectual honesty by reading what oldhippie wrote that Michael Roberts responded to before characterizing his response, oldhippie was talking about all human thought, including “a grasp of science involves a lot of work and study, which limits the number of people that will be lucky enough to be infected by it”. The “viruses” in question are Dawkins’ memes. You can read all about them, including “Memetic accounts of religion” and “Memetic accounts of science”, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
Michael Roberts, you say, “I see more blind faith in Richard Dawkins than the Archbishop of Canterbury…”
Well, there are three kinds of people: those who seek the truth as revealed by a higher authority; those who seek the truth as defined by rational enquiry; and the vast majority, who believe whatever they find convenient.
You know which kind you are, perhaps. We know which we are. But we know which kind you aren’t.
Truth machine, that wikipedia analysis is very good.
The meme idea has a ton of appeal and seems very logical. The question is will it start to generate valuable research and thus increase our understanding? It is early to say yet. But it seems we need to understand better just how our brains are programmed, and how they are receptive to some obviously damaging information. I remember some years ago there were a lot of cults and rich parents who were pissed that their progeny got sucked into the moonies or whatever. They used to hire people to kidnap the kids and “deprogram” them. It seems to me we need to work on a program to inoculate children against being easy prey to false information by enhancing their powers of judgment and perception, and giving them a firm idea of how to use “reality based” criteria.
truth machine-
Thanks for the correction. I did not read his response as thoroughly as I should have, the links and notice are appreciated.
Worth noting that Bishop Adoyo was also involved in the government’s 1994 “Inquiry into Devil Worship”, which concluded (funnily enough!) that President Daniel Arap Moi’s political opponents were Satanists. It’s helped to create a climate of paranoia in the country that recently saw colonial-era religious symbols in churches being destroyed. I’ve put a bit about this background on my blog.
Yes, they are all units of information “seeking” to survive and prosper. But depending on their environment, they can have different effects on their survival machines and surroundings. Under “good” environmental conditions, the first three memes listed can have beneficial effects for the machines they occupy and those that interact with them. Perhaps these same memes are responsible for the rise of what some call “Civilazation”. But, under different circumstances they cause their machines to become blood thirsty “defenders of the faith” which is bad for individual machines and their genes but good for the meme. Theism is more general and abstract. It isn’t nearly as large and complex as Christianity, or Islam. In fact, it is much more likely to be re-created from random “mutations” or be part of a synthesis of many large memes (Such as Islam or Christianity)just as bacteria and virus genes joined together to create more complex organisms and eventually multicellular life. Atheism, I imagine, would be similar in size to theism and just as harmless by itself.
Sure, memetics is very much an untested hypothesis. But it is very interesting and may prove to be invaluable in studying culture in the future. Calling Mr. Dawkins idea a “faith” is dishonest and unjustified. He provides a plausible mechanism and develops his idea rationally and he would gladly abandon it if sufficient evidence could show it unlikely. All I hear from Christianity is a bunch of empty threats if you doubt and a bunch of empty promises if you believe without evidence.
Criticisms welcome.
Ironically, whereas these hominid fossils from Kenya are regarded by the Kenyan fundies as a source of shame, the British once regarded Piltdown Man — exposed as a hoax in 1953 — as a source of national pride. LOL The Wikipedia article on the Piltdown Man says,
Also, the transcript of the recent PBS Nova TV documentary about the Piltdown Man says,
Moore’s timeline is wrong. Neanderthal was actually discovered before publication of the Origin of Species, according to the timeline in Talk.Origins. And according to Talk.Origins, it was the discovery of Neanderthal that sparked the hunt for human ancestors:
Framing the problem of creationism as religion vs atheism is extremely self-destructive. If you must go down in flames, please be kind enough not to take the rest of us with you. The only rational goal is to educate the public that science and religion are two different things, and need to coexist in tolerance. The only thing you’re accomplishing is bolstering the case of those who have very successfully convinced the media and the public that science somehow has the goal of eradicating religion. The media and the public are reacting accordingly, and very successfully, as far as creationists are concerned. To think that anything will result from this course other than the destruction of science education in the US is insane. If your goal is tolerance of atheism you can not attain it by being intolerant and picking self destructive and unnecessary fights with the religious beliefs of the moderate majority who are more than willing to be tolerant when they aren’t being forced to defend themselves.
Ironically, whereas these hominid fossils from Kenya are regarded by the Kenyan fundies as a source of shame, the British once regarded Piltdown Man — exposed as a hoax in 1953 — as a source of national pride.
Fafarman, you are such a troll. Indeed “the British” once regarded Piltman Man a source of national pride, but they no longer do, due to scientists demonstrating that it was a hoax. It’s not really ironic, since religious dogma and national pride aren’t all that different in character.
If your goal is tolerance of atheism you can not attain it by being intolerant
This is such bullshit. The intolerance of atheism consists of denying that atheists have the right of citizenship or to hold office, and the attempt to destroy science as the supposed agent of atheism; the intolerance of religion consists of the criticism of irrational ideas and resistance to imposition of religion via what should be secular govermental institutions.
who are more than willing to be tolerant when they aren’t being forced to defend themselves.
This tolerance of atheism is as fictional as your god. Insistence that I must be tolerant of stupidity and ignorance is itself intolerance of freedom of speech and thought.
truth machine said ( August 14, 2006 06:04 PM ) —
Note that I said that the British “once” regarded the Piltdown Man as a source of national pride — I did not say that they do now.
I was just contrasting the attitudes of the Kenyan fundies and the British towards their respective national hominid fossils. You are reading more into my statement than what I intended.
BTW, I think that Dr. Leakey made a faux pas when he said that the hominid fossil collection is “one of Kenya’s very few global claims to fame.” I think that a lot of Kenyans would not want to be reminded of that even if it were true. The Daily Telegraph reported, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/08/12/wleakey12.xml
Also, it was not necessary for him to say that “[t}he National Museums of Kenya should be extremely strong in presenting a very forceful case for the evolutionary theory of the origins of mankind.” Why not just let the museums house the fossils and let that “forceful case” for evolutionary theory be made elsewhere? Leakey should not push his luck in a place like Africa. Africa can be very volatile and unstable, as has been shown in such places as Uganda, Somalia, Sudan, Liberia, and Zimbabwe. I think that for the fossils’ safety, they should be moved to a back room of the museum and maybe some of the fossils should even be moved out of the country. Better safe than sorry.
Also, Kenya need not depend on this hominid fossil museum to attract tourists. Kenya has a lot of national parks with a lot of wildlife and scenery.