…and this is a 
Whoa…faux-Seussian poetry, fairly nice animation, all in the service of a dumb, dead idea: The Watchmaker. It's a rather elaborate setup for Paley's watchmaker argument that starts with an imaginary animated analogy of glass and metal condensing to spontaneously form a watch, and then compares the absurdity of that argument with cells, which contain "assembly lines, robots, electrical cable", and argues that it's silly to claim that cells could just happen from dirt and warm water…as if anyone has argued such a thing.
Isn't it enough to simply point out that watches need watchmakers because they don't reproduce? Rabbits don't need rabbitmakers (other than other rabbits), so the analogy fails just by contradiction with common experience.
One enlightening and informative aspect of the exercise is that it does go on about the debunked watchmaker argument, and also associates itself with Intelligent Design—the Discovery Institute is recommended on the page—but it is screamingly evangelical and religious.
Kids 4 Truth International is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that exists to inspire and equip God's people to reach boys and girls worldwide with the memorable, creative, leading-edge teaching of God-focused truth.
Great science there, isn't it? It's more propaganda for creationism aimed directly at children. If there were a god and heaven, I would hope that lying to impressionable kids would be one of his most smite-worthy sins.
Comments
Posted by: Jon Voisey (aka the Angry Astronomer) | September 20, 2006 3:22 PM
I think I beat you to this by a few weeks.
Posted by: steve s | September 20, 2006 3:24 PM
Kids4lies.com is at least partly the effort of a guy named Dave Hawkins, known as AFDave at After the Bar Closes. He has a thread where 5,000 comments have been spent trying to correct his Young Earth Creationism. It's an entertaining read. He's so dumb, he makes Salvador look smart.
http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?act=SF;f=14
Posted by: RedMolly | September 20, 2006 3:26 PM
Is there any organization with "...for Truth" in its name that does not, in fact, stand for the wholesale promulgation of bullshit?
I'd be very interested in knowing.
Posted by: T_U_T | September 20, 2006 3:35 PM
One day, I'll get really pissed, will buy a 3D printer though it costs several thousand $, order a few hundred tiny magnets, and go invent the first self-assembling watch just to make this pseudoargument away for good.
Posted by: argystokes | September 20, 2006 3:37 PM
Molly,
AIDStruth.org is an anti-denialist site. Does that count?
Posted by: T_U_T | September 20, 2006 3:44 PM
A taste of reality
Posted by: CaptainMike | September 20, 2006 3:44 PM
"Is there any organization with "...for Truth" in its name that does not, in fact, stand for the wholesale promulgation of bullshit?" - RedMolly
Probably not. On a similar topic, the words tradition, family and values all represent perfectly fine things, but have you ever noticed that just about every organization that has those words in their name is monumentally evil?
My greatest nightmare is finding out that there is a political lobby group named "Traditional Family Values Coalition Promoting Valued Traditions in a Family Way."
Given that name, I would imagine that their primary goal is to make it legal to hunt homosexuals for sport.
Posted by: Warren | September 20, 2006 4:02 PM
This is why engineers don't do molecular biology.
It's also why it's not necessarily wise to take science instruction from a cartoon.
Posted by: Scott Hatfield | September 20, 2006 4:19 PM
PZ wrote: "If there were a god and heaven, I would hope that lying to impressionable kids would be one of his most smite-worthy sins."
And, presented for your consideration, Matt. 18:6:
"But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea."
So, if God of the Bible was real, there's reason to believe that deliberately misleading young people would be deemed eminently smite-worthy. (takes deep breath) In fact, as a believer, I find it hard not to smite some of these people myself....SH
Posted by: Greg Peterson | September 20, 2006 4:43 PM
That's way better than average animation. Some of it was very pretty. On the other hand, "Triumph of the Will" made excellent use of lighting.
Posted by: pough | September 20, 2006 4:46 PM
Recently I was tempted to say to an acquaintance, who was using the tornado in a scrapyard analogy, that until his analogy included fucking it was as useful as an interrupted wank. I didn't say anything, though, because I didn't want to discourage him. He's helping to make a pro-ID documentary and I can't wait for its full entertainment value!Posted by: Stanton | September 20, 2006 4:57 PM
I wonder what these idiotic wanks' position on things like Pituriaspis or Stensioella is.
Posted by: Gorn | September 20, 2006 4:58 PM
There was a creationist on TV yesterday that said Australopithecus was just an ape, Homo Erectus was just a man, and that we could "Forget about the rest". Now, are you saying he was wrong? I mean, he had a suit and tie on and everything!
Posted by: King Aardvark | September 20, 2006 5:02 PM
Warren: "This is why engineers don't do molecular biology."
Damn, I'm an engineer, and I'm thinking about going back to school to get a PhD in biology. Where does this leave me?
Posted by: A Hermit | September 20, 2006 5:03 PM
My usual response to the "complexity" argument is to point out that one of the hallmarks of good design is simplicity, so therefore the complexity of the natural world is proof that it was NOT the product of deliberate design.
Posted by: Rich | September 20, 2006 5:13 PM
I still think the best part is at the end:
'You can download... for $5 in our secure store.'
That simple paragraph rings truer than the rest of the presentation put together.
Rich C.
Posted by: ts | September 20, 2006 5:19 PM
Still confusing the mouse with the mousetrap
Posted by: Robert | September 20, 2006 5:57 PM
King Aardvark: If you got a degree in Biology than you would be a biologist and an engineer. I doubt that when you went into the lab that you would work as an engineer, instead of a biologist and get the same sort of stuff done.
Good luck though, we always need more biologists, and engineers!
Posted by: goddogtired | September 20, 2006 6:03 PM
AFDave is not simply dumb, but utterly dishonest (though he spends 99% of his time being dishonest with himself - the arguments require it!) and faux-polite. He truly is an Ur-Xian shithead fuckwit, but harmlessly stupid, besides these child-abusing tendancies at Kids 2 Cheat or whatever it is.
Posted by: Chris S | September 20, 2006 6:30 PM
Don't give up hope King, some former engineers made great biologists (e.g., John Maynard Smith) :)
Posted by: Blake Stacey | September 20, 2006 6:37 PM
Paraphrazing PZ:
If watches could breed, we would have no need of watchmakers.
I like it.
Posted by: quitter | September 20, 2006 8:38 PM
Denialism!
It's the classic argument from analogy!
Case closed.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | September 20, 2006 10:46 PM
Isn't it enough to simply point out that watches need watchmakers because they don't reproduce? Rabbits don't need rabbitmakers (other than other rabbits), so the analogy fails just by contradiction with common experience.
They always prefer the analogy. Why, in God's name, don't they point to a spider and say that obviously it must have been designed? It's because there is nothing less obvious than the supposition that the spider on the grass was "designed" like a watch is.
The spider may have been miraculously created--according to ancient belief. But designed like Hephaestus's robots (see Iliad)? Hardly. Even the gods' machines were different from the gods' manipulations of life. Yahweh's heavenly temple furniture was quite unlike Yahweh's inspirited animals.
That said, perhaps reproduction alone is not enough to obviate "design". We do hope (and fear, to some extent) to make robots which reproduce themselves. In a billion years after this happens, if it does, earthly life and robots may be indistinguishable, while "design" and "evolution" may be equally indistinguishable (except where life has yet to be affected by machines). However, a hundred years after robots begin reproducing one would almost certainly still be able to discern the rational designs of humans and computers in the robot reproductions.
The difference is the billion years, of course. Beyond that is the issue of flexibility and redundancy, which allow for evolution in organisms, to appear in the robots. Current computers and robots are another analogy the creationists are fond of--precisely because they lack the sort of flexibility necessary for evolution which organisms happen to have.
Undeniably, however, the reproduction issue is paramount in evolution. It is one of the requisites of evolution, almost a "prediction" of evolutionary theory, and another meaningless fact to ID. The flexibility and redundancy necessary for evolution, such as in the diploid chromosomes of eukaryotes, is another feature essential for evolution, at best meaningless in a "design" scenario. Likely, the ability to easily mutate, and to sexually recombine alleles, would better thought of as a means of destroying the designs of the "designer", were organisms truly to have been designed.
IDists don't actually care about explaining anything, so the derivations, the genomes able to support evolution, and the possibilities needed for evolution which are supplied by DNA, all of which we see in organisms, mean nothing to them. They're off looking for analogies to deny evolution and to make biology essentially meaningless. So much is explained by evolution, however, that they have to ignore all of it in order to focus on what hasn't been fully explained. It makes sense for them to ignore evolutionary meaning because they're aiming for a meaningless world which will have "meaning" only through fictive inputs from outside deities. Thus denial of the meaning which can be discovered is necessary.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm
Posted by: DrunkMonkey | September 21, 2006 12:13 AM
"If you'd like to show this file in places that don't have internet access, you can download the self running file for $5 in our secure store.
Or, since you download it anyway to watch it, you can right-click here and do a save-as: http://www.kids4truth.com/watchmaker/watchmaker.swf
Silly theists...
Posted by: Terry | September 21, 2006 12:28 AM
My problem with the design argument is -- what can you infer about the designer? Replace the watch with an unearthed B-17 bomber and a V-2 rocket. Both clearly designed; both from very different moral designers. The name of one "designer" is intentionally omitted lest I fall afoul of Godwin's law of internet arguments :)
Posted by: Mike | September 21, 2006 12:48 AM
Godwin's law refers to von Braun? Who knew.
Posted by: sara | September 21, 2006 1:22 AM
Watches do not reproduce, but other small metal objects definitely do, such as paper clips, fingernail clippers, and dead batteries -- they breed like rabbits and fill your drawers with kipple. Mess forms by spontaneous generation.
Posted by: Maronan | September 21, 2006 2:27 AM
This appeared on fstdt.com nearly two months ago. I wrote a rebuttal, which you can see toward the end of this thread. I'm no biologist, but I am a poet, so the style may trump the substance.
Posted by: G. Tingey | September 21, 2006 4:01 AM
"Holy Groundhog" looks to be heading for disemvowelling, unless he (she?) can come up with ration arguments, rather than abuse......
Come on, HG, let's see some evidence, put up or shut up.
Remember, god is not detectable - prove me wrong, or go away, please?
Posted by: MissPrism | September 21, 2006 4:44 AM
I can't get that link to open properly, but I'm imagining something like:
"That Ham-I-am! Ken Ham-I-am!
I do not like that Ham-I-am.
Do you like spleen, fibs and sham?"
Posted by: MissPrism | September 21, 2006 5:13 AM
I clicked on the link Mr. Drunkmonkey made,
And unlike the last time, the wretched thing played.
But I wish it had not! What a bucket of wank!
Yarr, Kids 4 Truth ought to be walkin' the plank.
Posted by: John M. Burt | September 21, 2006 7:11 AM
"Consider, my son, if you were walking through a wilderness and came upon a pocketwatch, and looked upon its many intricate parts, would you say to yourself, 'This is obviously the end product of a long and involved process that must have taken a great deal of time', or would you say, 'This is the result of a single paroxysmal event'?"
Posted by: Doug Kilgore | September 21, 2006 8:11 AM
The teaching of God-focused truth ?
There must be some real intellects at Kids 4 Truth International that failed to see the contradictions in this oxymoronic turn of phase.
Posted by: wintermute | September 21, 2006 8:36 AM
Political collolary: Any country with the words "people's", "democratic" or "republic" in the name will be a despotic dictatorship.
Posted by: George Cauldron
|
September 21, 2006 11:13 AM
Why do you kiss up to PZ when he is such a toad? You should be bitch-slapping him instead of being apologetic in his presence.
Ah, yes, fstdt, run by a dude who wants to be a pretty princess (or so he mused on Christian Forums).
Oooh, accusing someone of being gay! Classy.
I think with these comments Holy Groundhog has finally earned enough asshole points to be on the disemvowelling list.
Posted by: Watchman | September 21, 2006 12:44 PM
On Holy Groundhog Day (the only day of the year when the Holy Groundhog pulls his head out of his ass for a few moments), if the Holy Groundhog sees his shadow, it means six more days of ignorance and turmoil. I'm talking "days" as in "on the sixth day." Really long freakin days.
And because the Holy Groundhog is always illuminated by The Light of the World, he always sees his shadow. Sounds bad, don't it?
So. What to do? I do not advocate killing the ground hog, so I guess the only solution is to turn off the light.
Posted by: Steve_C | September 21, 2006 1:28 PM
In any provable and repeatable way.
Posted by: ts | September 21, 2006 1:32 PM
By Hg
"God is "not-detectable" by what criterion?"
any known to science
Posted by: Steve_C | September 21, 2006 1:56 PM
Nice dodge. So you're saying god is undetectable.
Mathematics can be applied to the material world.
Posted by: Steve_C | September 21, 2006 2:08 PM
Still waiting...
Posted by: Steve_C | September 21, 2006 2:37 PM
How god is detectable.
Posted by: George Cauldron
|
September 21, 2006 3:52 PM
How god is detectable.
Suddenly HG falls silent.
If he liked the sound of his own voice more, instead of being Mister Driveby, I'd think we had a new Jason.
BTW, HG, why are all your comments indented with an unindented period after them? Some kind of artistic statement?
Posted by: Steve_C | September 21, 2006 4:02 PM
So if you you "think" about god he exists?
Posted by: George Cauldron
|
September 21, 2006 4:10 PM
Via the intellect and/or epiphany.
Elaborate on the former, please?
I am testing a hypothesis.
Namely?
Posted by: Numad | September 21, 2006 4:15 PM
I figured the "hypothesis" probably has to do with trying to be even more annoying or to avoid the inevitable disemvowellement (altough I don't see how that would work). Because that's what trolls do.
Posted by: Bronze Dog | September 21, 2006 4:59 PM
Something I'd like to see before we get into deity detection: A decent definition for a deity. We have to know what we're looking for, and if the IDiots won't give us a meaningful definition, we can't do anything. They're holding up the works.
Posted by: RedMolly | September 21, 2006 5:34 PM
I think we should go with the ancient Norse definition of "deity": something that can effectively and mercilessly smite a troll.