US Rep Paul Broun: Evolution a Lie "From the Pit of Hell"

[General Mung Beans]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nati ... 8858.story

U.S. Rep. Paul Broun: Evolution a lie 'from the pit of hell'

October 7, 2012, 1:57 p.m.
Evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory are major underpinnings of mainstream science. And Georgia Republican Rep. Paul Broun, a physician who sits on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, says they are “lies straight from the pit of hell.”

Broun, who is unopposed for reelection in November, made the comments in a videotaped Sept. 27 speech at a sportsman's banquet at Liberty Baptist Church in Hartwell, Ga., according to the Associated Press.

Here are his remarks:

“God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution, embryology, Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell. It’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a savior. There’s a lot of scientific data that I found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I believe that the Earth is about 9,000 years old. I believe that it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says. And what I’ve come to learn is that it’s the manufacturer’s handbook, is what I call it. It teaches us how to run our lives individually. How to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all our public policy and everything in society. And that’s the reason, as your congressman, I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C., and I’ll continue to do that.”

Broun spokeswoman Meredith Griffanti told the Athens Banner-Herald that “Dr. Broun was speaking off the record to a large church group about his personal beliefs regarding religious issues.”

The church had posted Broun’s full speech to YouTube on Thursday, according to the Athens Banner-Herald, but the video appears to have been removed as of Sunday.

Although Broun’s remarks have raised eyebrows among liberals and scientists — congressional tracking service Govtrack.us rates him as one of the most conservative members of the GOP caucus — some of Broun’s strict creationist views aren’t that far out of the mainstream of American public opinion. According to the latest Gallup poll, 46% of Americans think God made humans within the past 10,000 years.

Nor are Broun’s views radically out of whack with other Republicans on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. Another member is Missouri Rep. Todd Akin, still dodging flak for saying victims of "legitimate rape" were unlikely to become pregnant because “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Akin is running for the Senate.

Over at Wired, Brandon Keim has run down the list of other views held by House science committee members:

"The committee’s chair, Ralph Hall (R-Texas), lumps 'global freezing' together with global warming, which he doesn’t believe humans can significantly impact because 'I don’t think we can control what God controls.' Dana Rohrbacher (R-Huntington Beach) thinks cutting down trees reduces levels of greenhouse gases they absorb. Mo Brooks (R-Alabama) still trots out the debunked notion that a scientific consensus existed in the 1970s on 'global cooling,' which he portrays as a scare concocted by scientists 'in order to generate funds for their pet projects.' "

Some thoughts.

How the hell is a physician a scientist?:

There’s a lot of scientific data that I found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth.

He can't get even young earth creationism right, considering most of them think the Earth is about 6,000 rather than 9,000 years old:

There’s a lot of scientific data that I found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I believe that the Earth is about 9,000 years old.

According to Wikipedia, Congressman Broun seems to be a general xenophobe and moron:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Broun

In an interview with the Associated Press, Broun said, "That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did. When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist." Broun later clarified his statement by saying, "We can't be lulled into complacency. You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I'm not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential of going down that road."[31]

[RileyManheim]

Yes, Religious Right Republicans are morons and frighteningly deluded, for a normal person. For an adult who votes on our laws and helps write some of them?

I'm just glad we have so many people in Congress. Its the only thing that stops the lunatics like this guy from completely controlling the asylum.

[Flagg]

In my experience doctors are some of the worst when it comes to buying into the YEC bullshit.

[Eulogy]

I just have to wonder what the Devil gains from teaching evolution. It's not like the actual believers are going to suddenly stop bowing to their imaginary friend just because some guy who lived centuries ago showed how critters changed over time. And given that evolution is most definitely a net positive for society, that means that Old Scratch is apparently not as good at being evil as he is portrayed to be.

[CJvR]

He can't get even young earth creationism right, considering most of them think the Earth is about 6,000 rather than 9,000 years old:

There’s a lot of scientific data that I found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I believe that the Earth is about 9,000 years old.

I was wondering where he got 9000 from, it isn't a figure I have seen before.

[mr friendly guy]

How the hell is a physician a scientist?:

According to your own wiki link he appears to have a science degree in chemistry and a degree in medicine. Otherwise its possible at some universities to get a dual Bmed Sci degree as well.

That being said, he is behaving like a pseudoscientist crack pot and like these scientists who embarrass themselves, is commenting on fields outside his specialty, and looking dumb at it. He can join the ranks of Michael Behe, Fred Hoyle and well we are at it we can add Phillippe Rushton to the mix who made retarded statements outside their field.

Edit - in some universities to get into medicine you must also do another degree first, usually a science based one. Whether that automatically makes him a scientist is debatable. I mean doctors who are not allowed to practice any by their medical board and struck off, cough Andrew Wakefield cough aren't called doctors although they still have their degrees. So maybe people with science degrees who don't do science as a occupation or even a vocation shouldn't be called scientists. Shrugs.

[Simon_Jester]

In my experience doctors are some of the worst when it comes to buying into the YEC bullshit.

Some of the highly educated professions are easier to get into than others for a creationist. Biology is really really difficult, because to do the job at all you have to be smart, and when you're both smart and constantly bombarded with the evidence, you're eventually going to change your mind to fit the facts or walk away from the field altogether if you just can't take the cognitive dissonance.

Medicine lets someone sit there memorizing facts and participating in the social life of a group of relatively intelligent people, while privately hating the 'evolutionists' because their conditioning tells them to. And they can (more or less) get by and do the job while mentally taking every piece of their education that says "evolution" and treating it as so much garbage. You can't do that so easily in the pure sciences, but in engineering or medicine it's more possible.

I was wondering where he got 9000 from, it isn't a figure I have seen before.

Dunno. My only guess would be to shrug and say you can find a kooky sect that thinks anything if you dive deep enough into the fractal structure of evangelist fundamentalism.

Edit - in some universities to get into medicine you must also do another degree first, usually a science based one. Whether that automatically makes him a scientist is debatable. I mean doctors who are not allowed to practice any by their medical board and struck off, cough Andrew Wakefield cough aren't called doctors although they still have their degrees. So maybe people with science degrees who don't do science as a occupation or even a vocation shouldn't be called scientists. Shrugs.

The American custom is to give doctors a normal bachelor's degree in a rigorous field to ensure that they get a general education and are at least worth admitting into medical school. Otherwise the medical schools are overwhelmed with people who aren't going to graduate; they don't need a longer list of applicants than they already have.

The students who are taking their degrees for this reason are called "pre-med." Most of them go to biology, but chemistry and a few other fields can work.

Regarding your suggestion about people calling themselves 'scientists:' the reason doctors get disqualified by medical boards is that there are serious consequences if an incompetent doctor continues to claim the right to practice. People could die.

Science, so far, has trusted itself to be self-regulating. There are ways to blacken your reputation until the only way to get a job as a 'scientist' is with some private think tank that has its own agenda and doesn't care what your professional ethics look like. But there's no board that decides your right to practice; given the way academia works that's probably just as well.


Another reason for this: there are a lot more career options for people with science degrees than you might think. There's really nothing stopping you from going to work for industry and applying what you learned getting a master's in chemistry to computer simulations and control software (for instance), then going back to an academic position later- or vice versa.

Doctors are in constant high demand, so if you want to remain licensed to practice medicine it's reasonable to say that you need to do that, and keep re-certifying yourself as a doctor by proving that you're fit to do it. Scientists don't have such a reliable demand pool, and it's not reasonable to say that any person who isn't in an academic job doing research now doesn't deserve the opportunity to do it later.

[K. A. Pital]

I guess 9000 is just poorly remembered 6000. Don't think too much into it.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

I just have to wonder what the Devil gains from teaching evolution. It's not like the actual believers are going to suddenly stop bowing to their imaginary friend just because some guy who lived centuries ago showed how critters changed over time. And given that evolution is most definitely a net positive for society, that means that Old Scratch is apparently not as good at being evil as he is portrayed to be. 8)

Silly heretic, evolution doesn't glorify God. God wished the world into being and it was done due to his divine and unquestioned power. The notion of "evolution," that higher beings originated from lower beings; that men came from monkeys, flies in the face of a belief system where an all-powerful Creator willed the world into being and created Mankind in His own image. You don't need an all-powerful Creator to explain evolution, and trying to invoke one only muddles the picture.

In this world-view, anything that doesn't glorify God, or give God credit where it is allegedly due ... is the work of Satan. Why? Satan wants people to turn away from God and reject God, because everyone who rejects God and Christ gets to be cast into Hell, to suffer with Satan, for eternity. One might be tempted to think that righteous, upstanding, people would reject Satan and his lies out of hand ... except that evangelical theology holds that men are born with Original Sin and are damned to Hell from the get-go. This makes a man's default resting state to be "sinner," and it takes considerable work to get him to accept Christ (and salvation) into his life, and more work still to get him to keep Christ in his life and not fall victim to the ever-present temptations of Satan.

So ... yes, they actually do believe that if people are exposed to the lies of Satan, they will automatically become raging heathens and sinners (again, because a man's default resting state is "sinner.") Give people birth control? They'll become out-of-control fornicating nymphomaniacs. Allow those filthy homosexuals something other than second-class citizenry? Everyone will become kiddy-diddling cock-monsters. Show people a world where "natural" processes, and not God, are in control? They'll become avowed atheists Satanists, dedicated to spreading the word of the Prince of Lies, and turning people away from their Lord, Jesus Christ.

[Knife]

Hmm, I thought it had more to do with them being pissed off at the thought of being descended from a monkey instead of special chosen of god.

[Feil]

Maybe there's a school of young-earth creationism that has adapted to some of the evidence of human culture dating back before 4000bc? It would make some amount of sense, from a certain point of view. The bible says that human civilization occurred within a few generations of the creation of the earth; human civilization originated around 7000bc, therefore the world began around 7000bc?

[wautd]

Nice to see anyone* can be succesful in american politics. Even lunatics apparently.

* unless you're a gay atheist offcourse

[Alerik the Fortunate]

A lot of evangelicals will consider the possibility that the old testament genealogies were telescoped a little, omitting some generations where nothing of note occurred, therefore possibly getting past the 6000 year limit imposed by a direct reading of scripture, but definitely not more than about 10000 years. In any event, whatever timeframe is necessary to absolutely rule out evolution, since that is a specific goal of the construction of their prehistories.

A lot of Americans still have a very provincial view of the universe, and will feel a lot more comfortable with someone spewing deranged paranoid nonsense about scientists being servants of the devil and foreigners being crazed freedom hating godless islamocommunazis because it doesn't call into question what they already know and feel comfortable with, and only demonizes what they do not know. I think increasing urbanization and media exposure is gradually eroding this (look how old most of these people are). Those that remain that way may radicalize further just to isolate themselves from the mollifying influence of the general culture, but they will definitely decline in numbers, and therefore electoral influence. Hopefully we'll survive to that point.

[Ralin]

The students who are taking their degrees for this reason are called "pre-med." Most of them go to biology, but chemistry and a few other fields can work.

There was a premed student in the honors college at my undergraduate school who was majoring in history. I have no idea how that turned out, but I'm assuming he took a whole bunch of elective science classes.

[Zaune]

There was a premed student in the honors college at my undergraduate school who was majoring in history. I have no idea how that turned out, but I'm assuming he took a whole bunch of elective science classes.

Depending on how good his history professor was, that might turn out rather well; if nothing else, it's a damn good way to get really good at detecting bullshit.

[PainRack]

He can't get even young earth creationism right, considering most of them think the Earth is about 6,000 rather than 9,000 years old:

There’s a lot of scientific data that I found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I believe that the Earth is about 9,000 years old.

I was wondering where he got 9000 from, it isn't a figure I have seen before.

??? Its a relatively new figure, that's came up in CMI or even AiG after the 6,000 years been rebuffed. Its a bit absurd though, since they have multiple articles that say 6, 9, or even 12 thousand years old.


As for doctors being suckers for YEC nonsenses, try nurses:D

[K. A. Pital]

So 9000 is the new 6000? That's even worse than what I thought. And AiG actually shifting from 6000 to 9000? Amazing. They can adapt, too. Too bad that their new number is just as idiotic as the old one.

[Simon_Jester]

It doesn't cause quite so many active absurdities when paired with things like the known age of many ancient civilizations. That's probably their reason.

This way they can at least pretend there was time for Noah's kids to breed enough to rebuild those civilizations before they started creating giant stone monuments and things.

[Thanas]

I guess Paul Brown's intelligence is a lie from the pit of the GOP.