# Religious fanatics protest science museum over human evolution exhibit **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 16, 2015, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-fanatics-protest-science-museum-over-human-evolution-exhibit/722667 "2015-06-16T13:07:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-fanatics-protest-science-museum-over-human-evolution-exhibit/722667/21 "2015-06-16T17:43:23Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Did you happen to see post #3, dipshit? There are real reasons to protest. The idea that the exhibit at the Smithsonian “centers on a relatively new hypothesis, based largely in speculation, that extreme climate change in the past made humans incredibly adaptable” is false, as is the claim that there is an “interactive video that lets visitors create future humans that have adapted to warmer temperatures simply by growing taller or adding more sweat glands.” The first claim is simply a lie – the exhibit does not involve any such hypothesis. This was made up by Greenpeace and Thinkprogress as part of their religious crusade which says that anything funded by David Koch is ritually impure and must be destroyed before it contaminates our souls. The second claim is based on this image: [http://d35brb9zkkbdsd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/SmithsonianWhiteWash-816x501.jpg](http://d35brb9zkkbdsd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/SmithsonianWhiteWash-816x501.jpg) which anyone who has passed ninth grade biology understands as a perfectly ordinary illustration of the idea of natural selection, and is one of thousands of pieces of the exhibit, and the only one that mentions sweat glands or future climate change. So, no, there are not “real reasons to protest” since the “reasons to protest” are made up by hysterical Greenpeacers and left-wing Christian religious crusaders – who are the very people that caused climate change in the first place with their similarly disingenuous religious crusading against nuclear power! By the way, the vast majority of David Koch’s charitable giving goes to [cancer research](http://www.kochfamilyfoundations.org/foundationsdhk.asp). I assume you will also be marching to purge various hospitals of The Bad People and their sin-spreading influence? ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-fanatics-protest-science-museum-over-human-evolution-exhibit/722667/22 "2015-06-16T17:44:23Z")
And yes, this thread is a satirical attempt to show how Christianity in America has come full circle, such that even the left-wing “progressive Christians” are now leading protest marches against science museums. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-fanatics-protest-science-museum-over-human-evolution-exhibit/722667/23 "2015-06-16T17:50:02Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > By the way, the vast majority of David Koch’s charitable giving goes to [cancer research](http://www.kochfamilyfoundations.org/foundationsdhk.asp). I assume you will also be marching to purge various hospitals of The Bad People and their sin-spreading influence? The fact that such marches don’t happen show that people aren’t protesting _just_ because the Koch name is involved. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-fanatics-protest-science-museum-over-human-evolution-exhibit/722667/24 "2015-06-16T17:51:35Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > And yes, this thread is a satirical attempt to show how Christianity in America has come full circle, such that even the left-wing “progressive Christians” are now leading protest marches against science museums. Now, if only some of them were muslim, you’d have all your pet peeves under one roof. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-fanatics-protest-science-museum-over-human-evolution-exhibit/722667/25 "2015-06-16T17:55:30Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > And yes, this thread is a satirical attempt to show how Christianity in America has come full circle, such that even the left-wing “progressive Christians” are now leading protest marches against science museums. Better luck next time. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-fanatics-protest-science-museum-over-human-evolution-exhibit/722667/26 "2015-06-16T18:00:12Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > It’s particularly galling for Greenpeace to be protesting anything on the grounds of climate change, since the main reason we have climate change is Greenpeace and its ideological fellow-travelers shrieking down the transition to a fully nuclear energy economy. Not even you believe that. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-fanatics-protest-science-museum-over-human-evolution-exhibit/722667/27 "2015-06-16T18:00:41Z")
Well, now I don’t know WHAT to feel. I lightly mocked the OP without reading his link so I guess I was whooshed, sort of, into giving the “unwitting agreement” mentioned in post 16. What that’s worth… no idea. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-fanatics-protest-science-museum-over-human-evolution-exhibit/722667/28 "2015-06-16T18:06:54Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > Koch is not “in charge.” His foundation merely provided the funding for an exhibit that was created by biologists. You are falling into the same trap as the Christian fanatics demanding that the exhibit be “taken down.” It follows then that the exhibit should be changed to reflect the need to prevent climate change other than telling the people attending that we will evolve to the changes with not much problem. > [@Haberdash](#): > > This is exactly the “well, Hitler supported evolution!” nonsense. Science is either true or not true. Whether bad people agree with it, or what social consequences it has, does not change whether a fact of physical reality is true or not. As pointed many times before the Kochs also give a lot of money to groups that undermine science. In any case, your point here makes no sense, when creationists say that “Hitler supported evolution” they mean that Hitler was just as evil as the evolutionists, the ones complaining here can say that the Kochs have a good point, but it is not the matter at hand. > [@Haberdash](#): > > It’s particularly galling for Greenpeace to be protesting anything on the grounds of climate change, since the main reason we have climate change is Greenpeace and its ideological fellow-travelers shrieking down the transition to a fully nuclear energy economy. It’s like if the American Nazi Party protested that an exhibit was funded by Holocaust deniers. Oh dear, you should had stopped digging, Greenpeace was founded in 1971, the science of climate change and the investigation of the reasons for Global Warming were proposed at the beginning of the century by Svante Arrhenius and others and then in the 1950’s Plass and others reported that just a few degrees of a temperature increase due to our CO2 in the atmosphere could melt the Polar Ice caps. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/0lgzz-L7GFg/hqdefault.jpg "1958 - Global Warming - It's NOT newly known") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lgzz-L7GFg) > [@](#): > > For [SIXTY] YEARS scientists have known about global warming. This exerpt is from the well known educational documentary “Unchained Goddess” produced by Frank Capra for Bell Labs for their television program “The Bell Telephone Hour.” It was so well made, that it went on to live a continued life in middle school science classrooms across the nation for decades. > > Nearly half a century before Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth,” this film was made. But what does it reveal? That our scientists have known for over two generations about this danger, but our politicians and citizenry have chosen to ignore the dangerous implications of this fact until it really is too late to avoid the preventable consequences. > [@Haberdash](#): > > I guess a lot of people around here agree with the crazy Christians of the left and right – scientific truth and science education aren’t as important as making sure everything is ritually purified of The Bad People’s involvement. As it was shown by your demonstrated ignorance of when science was aware of the issue (and greenpeace is a johnie come lately) you do not have a clue. Please learn some history. [http://www.aip.org/history/climate/](http://www.aip.org/history/climate/) ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-fanatics-protest-science-museum-over-human-evolution-exhibit/722667/29 "2015-06-16T18:09:17Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > The fact that such marches don’t happen show that people aren’t protesting _just_ because the Koch name is involved. > **[Cook-Out to get Koch out](https://www.nycclc.org/event/cook-out-get-koch-out-mar-08-2014)** > > International Women’s Day Rally We’ll meet on York Avenue, between 68th and 69th Streets March 8th 10am That’s the site of the soon-to-be-built David Koch Pavilion, a new hospital in New York City’s wealthiest neighborhood, the Upper East Side, named... > **[Cook Out to Kick Koch Out: International Women's Day Speakout and Rally](https://www.facebook.com/events/613921648687885/)** > > Event by Jennifer Flynn Walker and Jesse Alexander Myerson on Saturday, March 8 201413 posts in the discussion. > **[Loopy liberals freak over Koch brother’s $100M hospital gift](https://nypost.com/2014/03/16/loopy-liberals-freak-over-koch-brothers-100m-hospital-gift/)** > > On the surface, it appeared that a major New York hospital had gratefully accepted a $100 million gift from a philanthropic family with a long history of donating to the arts, higher learning and m… ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-fanatics-protest-science-museum-over-human-evolution-exhibit/722667/30 "2015-06-16T18:10:41Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Please learn some history. Watch out-“Learn” is one of those fellow-traveler code words! ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-fanatics-protest-science-museum-over-human-evolution-exhibit/722667/31 "2015-06-16T18:11:11Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Oh dear, you should had stopped digging, Greenpeace was founded in 1971, the science of climate change and the investigation of the reasons for Global Warming were proposed at the beginning of the century by Svante Arrhenius and others and then in the 1950’s Plass and others reported that just a few degrees of a temperature increase due to our CO2 in the atmosphere could melt the Polar Ice caps. Yes, and? Do you think “global warming bad!” is just a religious motto to be embroidered on a sampler to show your piety, or do you actually understand what causes it? Fossil fuels are used instead of the non-climate-change-inducing, safe, non-polluting nuclear alternative because of a disinformation campaign led by environmentalists, especially Greenpeace. This, like human evolution and climate change itself, is a fact. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-fanatics-protest-science-museum-over-human-evolution-exhibit/722667/32 "2015-06-16T18:17:01Z")
The woo woo decoder ring is reporting too that there is another stupid issue from the OP. It is not surprising that the deniers (that are virtually all coming from the right) are apoplectic that the Pope and the Catholics are coming with an encyclical to call all the faithful to accept the science and to get involved into protecting our environment, just like in the evolution case (Catholicism accepted evolution decades ago) the church is late, but it is welcomed to do the right thing. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-fanatics-protest-science-museum-over-human-evolution-exhibit/722667/33 "2015-06-16T18:19:20Z")
What is your definition of a “denier?” Is “climate change is real, but that doesn’t mean we should take a sledgehammer to exhibits on human evolution funded by people who don’t understand climate change” part of it? Sounds very puritanical to me. Almost religious. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-fanatics-protest-science-museum-over-human-evolution-exhibit/722667/34 "2015-06-16T18:22:48Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > Yes, and? Do you think “global warming bad!” is just a religious motto to be embroidered on a sampler to show your piety, or do you actually understand what causes it? Scientists and experts do and it is not really hard to follow the science, woo woo proponents like you don’t seem to get it. > [@Haberdash](#): > > Fossil fuels are used instead of the non-climate-change-inducing, safe, non-polluting nuclear alternative because of a disinformation campaign led by environmentalists, especially Greenpeace. This, like human evolution and climate change itself, is a fact. And it is a fact that I think Greenpeace is wrong about nuclear power, but thanks to advances in batteries it is likely that this nuclear issue will be a moot point in the near future, in the meantime many liberals like me do appreciate nuclear power. In any case the point stands, many conservatives really do suffer from a time line syndrome ailment, even when it is pointed that Greenpeace could not had started this the deniers just have no clue about time lines or the march of time. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-fanatics-protest-science-museum-over-human-evolution-exhibit/722667/35 "2015-06-16T18:30:06Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > What is your definition of a “denier?” Is “climate change is real, but that doesn’t mean we should take a sledgehammer to exhibits on human evolution funded by people who don’t understand climate change” part of it? Sounds very puritanical to me. Almost religious. As Tim Minchin said, that is pure bullshit. The religion part is coming from the ones that want to minimize the problems that humanity will encounter if we do not control our emissions. It is also related to the ones that think with\*\* religious fervor\*\* that protecting the environment means less jobs, the ecological disasters in China and India is showing those nations what the USA learned in the 70’s when the EPA was created. In reality you will get less jobs by allowing the environment to degrade, and as peace is an important factor the loss of water supplies made worse by global warming means that the ones that do not want to do the right thing are indeed just wishfully thinking that nothing will happen; they are indeed using faith to ignore what it should be done. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-fanatics-protest-science-museum-over-human-evolution-exhibit/722667/36 "2015-06-16T18:31:32Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > [Cook-Out to get Koch out | New York City Central Labor Council](http://www.nycclc.org/event/cook-out-get-koch-out-mar-08-2014) > > [Cook Out to Kick Koch Out: International Women's Day Speakout and Rally](https://www.facebook.com/events/613921648687885/) > > [Loopy liberals freak over Koch brother’s $100M hospital gift](http://nypost.com/2014/03/16/loopy-liberals-freak-over-koch-brothers-100m-hospital-gift/) Wow! You found three different things right off the bat! No, wait…you didn’t. You posted three links about the same thing-a protest about the donation for the David Koch Pavilion. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-fanatics-protest-science-museum-over-human-evolution-exhibit/722667/37 "2015-06-16T18:33:07Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Wow! You found three different things right off the bat! > > No, wait…you didn’t. You posted three links about the same thing-a protest about the donation for the David Koch Pavilion. Is this your admission that your previous post, claiming marches against hospitals that David Koch donates to “don’t happen,” was ill-informed? ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-fanatics-protest-science-museum-over-human-evolution-exhibit/722667/38 "2015-06-16T18:34:13Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > The religion part is coming from the ones that want to minimize the problems that humanity will encounter if we do not control our emissions. It is also related to the ones that think with\*\* religious fervor\*\* that protecting the environment means less jobs, the ecological disasters in China and India is showing those nations what the USA learned in the 70’s when the EPA was created. In reality you will get less jobs by allowing the environment to degrade, and as peace is an important factor the loss of water supplies made worse by global warming means that the ones that do not want to do the right thing are indeed just wishfully thinking that nothing will happen; they are indeed using faith to ignore what it should be done. OK. So why does this mean we have to “take down” an exhibit on human evolution, again? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-fanatics-protest-science-museum-over-human-evolution-exhibit/722667/39 "2015-06-16T19:03:37Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > OK. So why does this mean we have to “take down” an exhibit on human evolution, again? The main protest item has been to request that Koch be removed from the Smithsonian’s advisory board. And since the specific complain is one part of the exhibit that concludes that ‘climate change isn’t a big deal, and we’ll evolve our way out of it.’ it is clear that the compromise should be to make some changes, after all the official position of the Smithsonian is that the Kochs have no say in what it is exhibited. It is IMHO thanks to the refusal to do anything that is causing the talk to demand a take down, but in the end this is just a freedom of expression issue, the people that are protesting have a right to be heard and the Smithsonian has the right to ignore them, the problem for the Smithsonian is that they are really looking too out of touch when a simple change could demonstrate that indeed they are not following what climate change deniers want to tell the public. And the point stands, you still have no clue about the issue and the history involved. ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-fanatics-protest-science-museum-over-human-evolution-exhibit/722667/40 "2015-06-16T19:13:27Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > About a hundred evolutionary biologists and paleontologists collaborated on the plan for the exhibit. I call them evilutionary theologist and faileontologists. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-fanatics-protest-science-museum-over-human-evolution-exhibit/722667.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-fanatics-protest-science-museum-over-human-evolution-exhibit/722667.md?page=3)