Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: Geocentrism

  • They Really Do Believe the Earth is Stationary

    Occasionally when I mention “geocentricity” people will roll their eyes and let me know that nobody is believes that any more, nobody is that stupid, and comparing the rejection of overwhelming amounts of modern science in favor of young earth creationism with similar rejection of science by geocentrists is silly, because there aren’t any such people.

    I’ve previously linked to the Geocentricity web site to show that there really are such people. Yes, they do exist, and they really are just that far out.

    Today in the mail, however, I got further proof. Not only are they capable of producing web sites (using modern science to attempt to destroy it), but they are capable of producing and mailing brochures as well. I received a brochure titled “Have Scientists Been Wrong? For 400 years?” In the pamphlet they argue that “the mobility of the earth is the only place where science and the Bible have come into real conflict, and is the starting point for all churches that have compromised the authority of scripture.”

    Gotta love all that rejection of compromise! Can’t allow even one iota of fact to pervert our doctrinal systems!

    They even advertise a free book (one doubts very many people would pay for such drivel, but there it is–The Geocentric Bible–freely available to all with time to waste and a brain to fry.

    Here is your brain; here is your brain after reading the book through.

    (Imagine the pictures!)

    Question: Is this much more brain frying than Kurt Wise’s claim that he believes in young age creationism even though the evidence is against it because of his beliefs as to the literal understanding of Genesis? (See my notes on his book Faith, Form, and Time.) I’d like to think not, but it seems to me that with the young age view, he is flying pretty vigorously into the face of reams of scientific evidence.

  • Teach the Controversy about Geocentrism

    In my previous post The Danger of Teaching the Controversy, I suggested that one of the problems with teaching the controversy was just which controversies one should teach. There are always plenty of crackpot theories floating around not to mention sound attempts to modify existing theories. These need to be tested by scientists using scientific methods with accountability through peer review.

    In discussing this, I said the following:

    More importantly, however, let’s consider how this “teach the controversy” principle would work in public schools. Should science teachers be asked to teach the controvery on geocentrism? I know some people are just about to explode on that one. “Nobody believes that any more, or at least only a few kooks.” Well, that may be true, though I believe there’s even a kook with a PhD who tries to teach geocentrism. But this does illustrate the problem. We argue for teaching the controversy on creation and evolution or on intelligent design and evolution, but we are unwilling to invoke the same phrase for all controversial issues.

    And to prove my point, one Mark Wyatt posted this comment:

    “…Should science teachers be asked to teach the controvery on geocentrism? …”

    Yes.

    And Here are the recommended text books.

    Mark

    Well, well, well. Though I will often debate with people who probably should be ignored, even I will not bother debating geocentrism. But I think my point is made. Theories need to be tested scientifically before becoming part of the curriculum. No exceptions should be made, even for especially controversial ones, or we will dilute education. There really isn’t any idea so stupid that it can’t find advocates somewhere!

    For those who believe someone is being suppressed here, note that even a person so far out there as to advocate geocentrism has two books published and a web site. It’s getting very difficult to suppress ideas. The problem that creationists and others have is that it is also getting extremely difficult to blunt criticisms of dumb ideas.