…and this is a 
The dimness of D'Souza
Category: Kooks
Posted on: October 22, 2007 10:09 AM, by PZ Myers
It's Monday. You're tired after your weekend, you aren't too enthused about getting back to work, and it's just so dispiriting to have to get back into the grind. What do you need with your coffee? An unsurprising tale of a very stupid person, so that your boss and your coworkers will look like shining beacons of reason by comparision, and you'll realize your job isn't so bad after all. You need to hear about Dinesh D'Souza, because you'll realize that even in the state of sluggish stupor on a Monday morning, you are a thousand times wiser and more perceptive than that crank.
You will especially enjoy the irony of D'Souza declaring that atheists aren't very bright.
I don't need to dwell on it (if you want more, Dust in a Sunbeam is more thorough), because early on the whole of D'Souza's argument collapses in a torrent of straw.
The Fallacy of the Enlightenment is the glib assumption that human beings can continually find out more and more until eventually there is nothing more to discover. The Enlightenment Fallacy holds that human reason and science can, in principle, unmask the whole of reality.
So atheists aren't very bright because they think they can understand all of reality. How silly. We don't think that at all. I'm fairly sure I can only grasp 93.4% of reality, and that's only after drinking so many cups of coffee that my reality is reduces to a painfully full bladder and life is nothing but an episode of prolonged micturition. But seriously, this is not part of the premise of either atheism or science; we don't claim completeness at all. So how can something we freely admit be an argument against our position?
All it takes is one very silly man to spiral his delusions up into a fantasy case against science and atheism, and that man is Dinesh. After going on and on about Kant in a pointless appeal to the authority of a poorly understood philosopher, he gives us his refutation of atheism.
It is a shared doctrine of those religions that the empirical world we humans inhabit is not the only world there is. Ours is a world of appearances only in which we see things in a limited and distorted way, "through a glass darkly," as the apostle Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians 13:12. Ours is a transient world that is dependent on a higher, timeless reality. That reality is of a completely different order from anything we know, it constitutes the only permanent reality there is, and it sustains our world and presents it to our senses. Christianity teaches that while reason can point to the existence of this higher domain, this is where reason stops: it cannot on its own investigate or comprehend that domain.
A thousand words berating atheists for having a certainty that they do not claim, and then he announces his own dogma of certainty, and refutes himself.
So this spiritual world is different from anything we know, and we cannot investigate or comprehend it with reason.
So how does Dinesh D'Souza know anything about it?
The atheist position does not rest on any claim of absolute perfect knowledge. It is based on a very simple principle: that we have to be able to explain how we know what we know, and support it with some kind of independently confirmable evidence. When people make extravagant religious claims, like this invention of D'Souza's that there is an independent reality supporting the one we can see, we ask, "How do you know that?" And what do we get? Silence. Or meaningless babble that skirts the question.
Comments
The idea
we cannot know everything (with science) is true, The only logical conclusion is that there will always be some unknowns. Just how you twist this into "Therefore there is a god" defies logic.
Posted by: sailor | October 22, 2007 10:26 AM
On Hannity & Colmes the other night, D'Souza, in comparison, made Hannity sound reasonable and coherent.
Posted by: caynazzo | October 22, 2007 10:34 AM
I read this a bit earlier on Christian Science Monitor. I have to remind this person of another philosopher which seems to be very quotable--Wittgenstein:
"Whatever we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence."
In this case, since one cannot speak about things without reasoning or evidence behind them, even though they may exist, we can say nothing of them. To claim any knowledge when you have argued that knowledge of such things is IMPOSSIBLE is absurd to the highest.
Besides, Christianity DOES make claims that are plausible to come to by reason or evidence, such as a world-wide deluge, a mass Exodus from Egypt around 1400 BCE, the existence of a great Davidic Kingdom, and a guy in 1st century Galilee that did magic tricks and got the crap kicked out of him and later got up again. Unfortunately for Christians, these things are not only unverified, they are shown to be painfully false. Hence, Mr. D'Souza's belief is within the domain of reason and logic and has utterly failed.
At best you can get deism out of this Kantian argument, but science suggests that such a being is superfluous, so what's the point? In the end, remember Russel's teapot. (Hey, ANOTHER quotable philosopher! See what happens when you read more than one book?!)
Posted by: Gilgamesh | October 22, 2007 10:38 AM
The only thing that is required of an atheist is that he or she not believe in a supreme being or beings that created the universe. The principle that PZ is defining is really that of a skeptic. Really. I know atheists who are into homeopathy.
Posted by: Geoff | October 22, 2007 10:41 AM
I used to think Rhetoric 101's use of draconic (see how many times you can catch the word during 12 hours of cable news) was the most annoying thing ever. Enter the armchair philosopher's reality.
I'm sure there is an independent reality supporting D'Souza's reality that his ramblings make him Mr. Suave at a party.
His idea of a higher, timeless reality makes me wonder if he's read any Zelazny lately.
Posted by: Caldfyr | October 22, 2007 10:43 AM
That's the problem when we based our philosophy on an 18th century philosopher: we don't know what in the world he is talking about. Seriously Kant should consider reading Einstein's work. Relativity is a theory using only purely reason with the only premises that light travels at a constant speed at all inertia frames, and that there's no privileged frame of reference. With that Einstein had approximated very accurately every single cosmological phenomenon known to man. Now that is reason that I can stomach, not like some Kantian unprovable doctrine.
Posted by: Jan | October 22, 2007 10:43 AM
D'Souza has butchered Kant on so many fundamental points that adrenaline is now doing for me what two cups of high-octane coffee couldn't. Thanks, PZ! I shall attempt to restrict myself to a few points:
1) Among the many, many colossal mistakes, the most egregious one, I think, is that he completely misunderstands the target of Kant's criticism. On the one hand, Kant does not criticize the Enlightenment thinkers for being too dogmatic -- he criticizes them for being too dismissive of metaphysical speculation. On the other hand, the dogmatists who Kant criticizes are reacting against the Enlightenment (e.g. Leibniz as reacting against Spinoza and Hume).
2) While Kant may be in some respects a critic of the Enlightenment, the author of "What is Enlightenment?" would no doubt say that the importance of the Enlightenment lies in its capacity for constant self-criticism.
3) Although Kant does think that we can have no knowledge whatsoever of the existence of God (or the nonexistence, for that matter), he clearly does not think that "anything goes." On the contrary, Kant was utterly dedicated to the idea of a purely rational religion (to quote the title of one of his last works, "religion within the bounds of reason alone"). Without going into how Kant tries to justify the claim that reason itself can go beyond the limits of knowledge, let it suffice to say that Kant was not, by any stretch of the imagination, an irrationalist or dogmatist.
Posted by: Carl Sachs | October 22, 2007 10:49 AM
It is hard to believe that D'Souza honestly believes what he says - because so much of it is not correct concerning the history of science and secularism. Does he really believe that atheists like Leonard Susskind or Weinberg are not bright? Of course not, he is so tiredly dishonest.
Posted by: Jon | October 22, 2007 10:52 AM
The irony, of course, is that Kant opposed the speculations of metaphysics (until, that is, he got into his "practical reason," but that's another book), because however much it may be true that there is an "invisible reality," we certainly have no access to it.
No, Kant was no friend to D'Souza's ignorant rant, not in his Critique of Pure Reason. Kant adhered to the Enlightenment and its careful and conservative epistemology, and one requires the vasty deeps of D'Souza's abyss of knowledge to make Kant out to be some friend of meaningless BS.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | October 22, 2007 10:55 AM
Well, everybody knows that God is a deranged shapeshifting hunchback with a unicorn fetish.
Posted by: Iain Walker | October 22, 2007 10:55 AM
Ah, but you are forgetting that about 4000 years ago someone 'made contact' with a being from this unknowable, undetectable, unmeasurable plain of existence. How are we so certain of this? Well obviously because a group of bronze age goatherds were accurately able to transcribe the entire events into some sort of 'sacred book' that would never be edited, abridged, re-written, translated or mis-interpreted.
Also any other claims of 'divine contact' are obviously fraudulent. Joseph Smith and Mohammed are quite clearly charlatans, but NOT MOSES! No way, couldn't happen.
Here's why I have a problem with types like DD in the first place, they have absolutely no concept of self-analysis. They will happily attempt to point out discrepancies in viewpoints that don't match their own, but dare retort that the self-same discrepancies apply equally well to their own 'worldview' and you are branded as the anti-christ!
Posted by: PsychoAtheist | October 22, 2007 11:00 AM
This is just "You can't prove there's no God, can you?" with some philosophical chaff thrown in. We should be much, much harsher on people who use this argument. Imagine it in another context.
"In fact, there was a full arsenal of WMDs in Iraq including nuclear weapons, but fairies ate them all just before we invaded and that's why we didn't find them."
"What? What evidence do you have for that, Senator?"
"Well, you can't prove it isn't so, can you?"
Posted by: Paul Crowley | October 22, 2007 11:00 AM
Dunno why everyone's so shocked at D'Souza's butchering of Kant. I mean, yeah, we all know he's dumber than a bag of hair, but there's something else, too.
His whole anti-atheist shtick isn't aimed at us, it isn't aimed to convert or convince. He's there to make soothing animal-noises to an audience of faithful who are vaguely shaken that there seem to be lots of unbelievers out there who have good arguments.
It's the heir to the illustrious traditions of Josh McDowell and even C.S. Lewis: logic and consistency are out the window, as well as any honesty in the representation of other people's words. It's purely aimed at keeping the sheep in the fold, by hook or by (shepherd's) crook.
Posted by: minimalist | October 22, 2007 11:02 AM
Here's Kant in the Critique:
www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/kant-cpr.html
It was metaphysics (by extension, D'Souza) that Kant thought was dogmatic, at least in his best work.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | October 22, 2007 11:03 AM
My random quote for this post was Thomas Jefferson: "Difference of opinion leads to enquiry, and enquiry to truth."
My caveat: Difference of opinion leads to inquiry only in those who are not ideologues demanding conformity to their opinion from both other humans and the universe. For ideologues, difference of opinion leads to outrage, and outrage leads to overt distortion, overheated rhetoric, outright lying, and overwhelming stupidity.
Inquiry can only lead to truth for those willing to engage in inquiry. Those who already have all the answers have forever walled off even the possibility of a glancing familiarity with any truths whatsoever.
Posted by: G Felis | October 22, 2007 11:08 AM
D'Souza doesn't know what argument from ignorance is either - although as I just wrote in Dinesh D'Souza is Not Very Bright, he relies on it himself.
Posted by: Skeptico | October 22, 2007 11:15 AM
D'Souza is debating Hitchens down the street tonight and I can't go. :-(
Posted by: Chris Bell | October 22, 2007 11:16 AM
All we can really do is take pleasure in the fact that we apparently get under D'Souza's skin so much that he just can't stop writing about it.
Posted by: Rey Fox | October 22, 2007 11:27 AM
Posted by: CJ | October 22, 2007 11:30 AM
Maybe science can understand "everything" and maybe it can't--but it is the only thing that comes close.
Posted by: PalMD | October 22, 2007 11:30 AM
Lately, D'Souza's been spewing out a whole heap of meek anti-atheist caterwauling. Today, he rambled out a mountain of misguided dreck about the twilight of atheism. To me, it seems to be nothing more than a shameless plug for his feculent novels as he pads himself for the inevitable beating he will undergo this evening at the hands of Christopher Hitchens.
Posted by: Dan | October 22, 2007 11:36 AM
Minimalist at #12 hit it on the head. D'Souza doesn't care about the consistency of his argument. He wants the faithful to swallow the "logicalness" of it, and take away the conclusion (that the faithful may not even realize) that, since reason and empiricism are useless, there is only authority. He is reinforcing the authoritarianism. He is, in short, a fascist.
He is a propagandist, and as a wingnut welfare recipient, he looks elsewhere for his reward.
Posted by: reverter | October 22, 2007 11:37 AM
So if we close our eyes to reality we will see more.
Seems as though he has a homeopathic view of reality.
The less facts the more real a thing is.
Posted by: tsig | October 22, 2007 11:40 AM
You know, I think his underlying logic here IS sound:
A book that bashes atheism is bound to sell, despite it's silliness.
Posted by: Brennon | October 22, 2007 11:42 AM
In case anyone's interested, here's D'Souza's recent debate with Michael Shermer. Sadly, Shermer's a bit of a limp debater, but it's a curious event nonetheless.
http://richarddawkins.net/article,1764,Debate-between-Michael-Shermer-and-Dinesh-DSouza,Michael-Shermer-Dinesh-DSouza
Posted by: oxytocin | October 22, 2007 11:50 AM
#11 - don't go giving D'Souza ideas. Seriously, I can hear him using that one.
Posted by: Der Bruno Stroszek | October 22, 2007 11:54 AM
anybody could waste humanity's time with this sort of drivel -- if they weren't too embarrassed to do so.
Posted by: toomanytribbles | October 22, 2007 11:54 AM
As much as Hitchens works my nerves, I do agree with him on the 'I will say what the hell I want so fuck you' idea. I think D'Souza needs a Hitchens enema to flush all the bullshit out of his mind.
I'd like to see a dream team debate of Penn Gilet and Christopher Hitchens take on D'Souza and whoever he wants to bring along in a tag team philosophy debate. Winner gets the heart of the losers as a trophy.
Posted by: E in MD | October 22, 2007 12:19 PM
I love this response to D'Souza's editorial following the Virginia Tech shootings:
http://richarddawkins.net/article,904,Dinesh-DSouza-says-I-dont-exist-an-atheist-at-Virginia-Tech,Mapantsula-Daily-Kos
Sorry about the ugly long link; I'll look up how to do it right later.
Posted by: Charley | October 22, 2007 12:20 PM
What is the difference between an Invisible Reality beyond ours that we have no access to or proof of, and an Invisible Reality that doesn't exist.
None that I can see.
Posted by: raven | October 22, 2007 12:21 PM
If asked "How do you know that?" D'Souza would simply answer "My faith".
Posted by: Jody | October 22, 2007 12:25 PM
I wish dolts like D'Souza would step up and realise that they're basing their beliefs on physical evidence: just not very good evidence. If they really could appreciate god through senses other than the five they accuse us of being chained to (nevermind proprioception or others), then why the need for all the talking and writing of priests and missionaries? Show us how they 'know' god using their ethereal god-sense, and explain why the need to have physically encountered teachings about god before it works? This is why spontaneous Christians don't exist: The god of the Bible NEVER talks to people who've never previously heard of the god of the Bible.
With this latest, Dinesh demonstrates that he's got an obnoxious freshman's understanding of philosophy, and a conservative theist's understanding of science. That is to say he understands neither.
Posted by: Brownian | October 22, 2007 12:30 PM
It was metaphysics (by extension, D'Souza) that Kant thought was dogmatic, at least in his best work.
Yes, but not metaphysics intrinsically, just the metaphysics which came out of the enlightenment.
D'Souza's argument is pretty horrible, he claims that atheists are wrong because they make claims about the "real" world and then goes on to present what is the most dogmatic claim about the world one can imagine, that "Ours is a transient world that is dependent on a higher, timeless reality."
Kant would scoff at the fool.
Posted by: coathangrrr | October 22, 2007 12:32 PM
I suppose the only real retort to this kind of crap is to say that the only class of things that can never be detected by science are things that don't interact with the observable universe.
God can't be detected by science? Then god is irrelevant, because s/he has nothing to do with this universe. This means whoever is whispering in your ears late at night or giving you feelings of warmth and security isn't god.
Posted by: Brownian | October 22, 2007 12:36 PM
When I read this drivel from D'Souza, or hear it from the TV preacher, I just wish I didn't suffer from morality. It'd be so easy to make a living serving it to the faithful who'll pay good money to eat crap on a plate if you tell them it's Christian sanctified crap that does, really trust me, taste good.
A bit of an aside, but D'Souza's has "enjoyed" a 20+ year career as a wonk and I've followed it over time. In 1991, for example, he wrote "Illiberal Education" that, while not perfect did have some valid points and wasn't the totally bug-fuck travesty his most recent stuff has become.
Not that I like or approve of D'Souza, he's as hateful piece of crap I've ever heard of, from his gay-bashing in the 1980's, to his tawdry religious/neocon apologetics of today. I just find it interesting to watch his ability to make even the smallest intellectual argument decompose over time as he's been in the neo-con movement.
Posted by: Moses | October 22, 2007 12:38 PM
"Atheism is wrong because it is based on faith not evidence."
Theism is right because it is based on faith not evidence."
Why is this such a common "argument" from believers, and why do so many people find it persuasive? I am coming to think that unraveling this example of cognitive dissonance is the key to shaking off theism.
Posted by: Patrick Quigley | October 22, 2007 12:42 PM
So his whole argument is a paraphrase of Plato's forms? You think he could come up with something more imaginative.
He needs to read Wittgenstein's Tractatus. Or at least the section 7: "About which we cannot speak, we must be silent" And then STFU.
Posted by: Patrick | October 22, 2007 12:43 PM
God can't be detected by science? Then god is irrelevant, because s/he has nothing to do with this universe. This means whoever is whispering in your ears late at night or giving you feelings of warmth and security isn't god.
That doesn't really follow. God could interact with the world by whispering in your ear at night, but not in a way which is observable to more than one person. Then it wouldn't be testable scientifically.
Posted by: coathangrrr | October 22, 2007 12:43 PM
D'Souzaphone says:
So in other word, all religions that are founded on the idea that there is a supernatural world share the doctrine that there is a supernatural world? Wow, what an earth-shaking insight there.
Posted by: Mithrandir | October 22, 2007 12:45 PM
I listened to that debate between Shermer and D'Sousa last night. Quite a few times I yelled at my computer. But here are three that are examples of the good of christianity (Assuming that you do not want to listen to this.)
1) Christianity taught it's followers that slavery is bad. The idea that all men (Ahem!) are equal in god's eye got moved from the religious sense to the human sense, that being that all men are equal and therefor slavery is wrong.
2) Science grew out of the christian tradition. All of the early scientist were christians trying to understand the rational world. They were trying to understand the laws given by god that created this rational universe. You love an example he uses, how do we know that the speed of light is not different in an other part of the world? We are taking it on faith. Did not Thomas Hume deal with this centuries ago?
3) The Catholic Church was actually very rational when dealing with Galileo. The church authorities told him that he needed to provide the proof of of a heliocentric system, much like scientist demand now. I was not aware that modern scientist locked each other up and threatened each other with excommunication and burning in the bonfire.
There are many more but I think this gives you a taste of the madhouse world D'Sousa. To hear him go on about how the name The Dark Ages subtly pushes people towards having bad view of christianity is enough to start you screaming.
Posted by: Janine | October 22, 2007 12:47 PM
Posted by: Stanton | October 22, 2007 12:47 PM
Miracles, eh? Sigh, you're right. But then I'm a sucker for uniformitarianism.
Posted by: Brownian | October 22, 2007 12:50 PM
Criticizing Dinesh D'Souza is the intellectual equivalent of strangling a defenseless kitten, it's just too easy. But it's kinda fun to be sadistic towards somebody like him.
Posted by: OrneryPest | October 22, 2007 12:52 PM
"How do you know that?" isn't the only relevant question here. You can also ask "Could you be wrong about that?" and "If you were wrong about that, how would you know -- so that you could change your mind?" It's that last question which points directly to dogmatism. Too often, there's nothing that could, even in theory, change their minds. That's arrogance. And not very bright.
Theists have an unfortunate tendency to view atheists through their theistic assumptions. If atheists don't have a God over them, then atheists must be thinking "they're the highest things in the universe." The idea of a universe not even structured as a status hierarchy doesn't seem to occur to them.
Ditto for the idea that, without a God which knows everything, atheists must think they will one day know everything. Again, the idea of a universe which is not set up so that someone, somewhere, some day has to know everything is outside their frame of reference -- which seems to be centered on human needs, hiding behind a God which MUST fulfill them, or life "doesn't make any sense."
Posted by: Sastra | October 22, 2007 1:00 PM
This part made me chuckle:
Someone ought to let him know about some newfangled inventions called videotape, VCRs, and camcorders. I'm not a deep thinker like D'Souza, but I tend to believe magnetic tape doesn't actually care whether it's recording audio or some other type of sensory information.
Posted by: SeanH | October 22, 2007 1:07 PM
Miracles, eh? Sigh, you're right. But then I'm a sucker for uniformitarianism.
I must say that I'm fond of it as well.
Posted by: coathangrrr | October 22, 2007 1:09 PM
I think D'Souza's got the wrong philosopher. Nicolas Cusanus is the one he wants:
"Therefore, 0 God, You who are Infinity cannot be approached except by him whose intellect is ignorance--i.e., whose intellect knows that it is ignorant of You. How can the intellect apprehend You, who are Infinity? The intellect knows that it is ignorant and that You cannot be apprehended because You are Infinity. For to understand Infinity is to comprehend the Incomprehensible. The intellect knows that it is ignorant of You, because it knows that You can be known only if the unknowable is known, the unseeable seen, and the unapproachable approached."
* * *
"Therefore, when I assert the existence of the Infinite, I admit that darkness is light, that ignorance is knowledge, and that the impossible is the necessary."
Posted by: Jud | October 22, 2007 1:12 PM
Yeah, but tape recorders can play tapes backwards, and that's cool. Can D'Souza smell backwards? Huh? Can he? Huh? Huh? No! I knew it!
However, I'm pretty sure I can taste backwards. It usually happens after reading D'Souza.
Posted by: Kseniya | October 22, 2007 1:13 PM
He's gotten more stupid? I don't know - the last time I heard of him (mid 1990's), he was arguing that black people should be thankful they're not slaves, and (I thought) reimbursing others for their freedom.
He would like to think that he's part of an intellectual elite, particularly the conservative one - but of course, any elite that would have him is proving their negation by doing so. Beating on DDS is like beating on John Smith - pretty pointless but fun to do anyways.
I am partially sorry for lowering the tone of the Watson threads - JS needed to be asked for proof but there wasn't much point because he wasn't going to provide any. I didn't know enough to argue with Caledonian or James Clinton, and other than general logic faults and specification faults (specified by others, lots) I didn't really have anything to add. Sorry.
Posted by: Hap | October 22, 2007 1:25 PM
If what D'Souza said about Kant is true, then Kant is in serious need of revision. While our senses indeed limit us in our quest for knowledge, it does not mean that our senses determine absolute boundaries. An example would be our knowledge of the electromagnetic spectrum. We have no sense organ that allows us to see in the x-ray range, yet we know quite a bit about that region of the spectrum. D'Souza never really thinks through anything he says.
Posted by: Randy | October 22, 2007 2:22 PM
The Enlightenment Fallacy holds that human reason and science can, in principle, unmask the whole of reality.
Half of "Enlightenment" is being able to recognize and unmask idiotic little turds like Dinesh D'Souza.
This world is it, Dinesh. This world - which now contains your crappy little books and your crappy little, mean-spirited, bullshit philosophy and your crappy little wingnut friends.
Go fuck yourself.
Posted by: CalGeorge | October 22, 2007 2:29 PM
I think D'Souza needs a Hitchens enema to flush all the bullshit out of his mind.
Ugh, now I'm imagining a drunk D'Souza.
Posted by: melior | October 22, 2007 2:38 PM
Been a while since I read the Critique of Pure Reason, but as I recall Kant makes some assumptions about the nature of space and time that were subsequently refuted by relativity.
Posted by: syntyche | October 22, 2007 2:39 PM
We have no sense organ that allows us to see in the x-ray range, yet we know quite a bit about that region of the spectrum. D'Souza never really thinks through anything he says.
Technically we get our information on the spectrum through our senses mediated by devices which we use. This is completely consistent with Kant.
And he certainly wouldn't agree with D'Souza.
Posted by: coathangrrr | October 22, 2007 2:43 PM
Glad you liked the response Charley.
It's so draining that this man is at it again.
Posted by: mapantsula | October 22, 2007 2:47 PM
syntyche: It's true that Kant assumed classical physics, including Euclidean space and a separate/independent linear time dimension. But it's hard to blame him for that; classical electrodynamics was a long way off yet... More interestingly, in the analogies of experience he draws links between time and causation that are quite illuminating-- in particular, he sees that classical simultaneity demands (in principle) unlimited signal speeds.
Posted by: Bryson Brown | October 22, 2007 3:01 PM
If you though he was being stupid in that article, wait till you hear him speak.
http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,1764,Debate-between-Michael-Shermer-and-Dinesh-DSouza,Michael-Shermer-Dinesh-DSouza
Makes me wish natural selection was a bit more selective.
Posted by: Nick | October 22, 2007 3:30 PM
If you thought he was being stupid in that article, wait till you hear him speak.
http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,1764,Debate-between-Michael-Shermer-and-Dinesh-DSouza,Michael-Shermer-Dinesh-DSouza
Makes me wish natural selection was a bit more selective.
Posted by: Nick | October 22, 2007 3:31 PM
If you thought he was being stupid in that article, wait till you hear him speak.
http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,1764,Debate-between-Michael-Shermer-and-Dinesh-DSouza,Michael-Shermer-Dinesh-DSouza
Makes me wish natural selection was a bit more selective.
Posted by: Nick | October 22, 2007 3:32 PM
Nick, oxytocin already linked to that video. I had a few words about also. Although someone more thorough then me can make a list of all the fallacies that D'Sousa passes as fact. Also, as any good theist, he picks and chooses what parts of the bible he believes is true.
Posted by: Janine | October 22, 2007 3:37 PM
Why should anyone believe in something for which there is no evidence? Challenges to "prove" non-existence is a silly game. The proof is the lack of evidence.
Posted by: Davis | October 22, 2007 4:09 PM
"Winner gets the heart of the losers as a trophy." [#28]
On the anticipated outcome, that's a very meager prize.
Posted by: Drake | October 22, 2007 4:11 PM
Man, he got pwned (as the kids say) in the first four comments. Well actually the first comment but the next three are beautiful supports. I can't imagine what the other 400-some comments are discussing. Maybe football.
I love the beautiful simplicity of this comment which refutes the whole article in two sentences.
"And, finally, do you *really* want to assert that the 'transcendent reality' is beyond human conception? That means you can't be sure of *anything* about it - anything at all."
Posted by: Casey S | October 22, 2007 4:14 PM
I do apologise for the multi-posts. The internet was acting up, my blood pressure was high (thanks to DiDo) and I developed a seven year itch on my mouse finger. Some needs to reason
a) with DiDo and point out how he was being stupid and painting himself into a corner
b) Micheal Shermer and convince him that sitting on the fence isnt going to help when we have idiots like DiDo to contend with.
b) with me on why I shouldnt give natural selection a helping hand and introduce DiDo to a baseball bat. Honestly, there are many religious apologists that I am willing to tolerate and even respect for their sincerety, albeit misplaced, but DiDo is pushing it.
Posted by: Nick | October 22, 2007 4:23 PM
Speaking of the dim, Stein's going to be on O'Reilly tonight.
Lord knows D'Souza's a schmuck, but at least he's not (normally) whining about the persecution of IDists. Stein is (even though he appears not to really buy their snake oil), and I'm sure the two science illiterates, Stein and O'Reilly, will have a good ol' time rubbishing science and scientists.
So if you want to see a Tard love-in (I have yet to see where Stein can really think, rather than cough up trivia--certainly his blog piece was a fatuous affair), watch Fox tonight.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | October 22, 2007 4:28 PM
Technically we get our information on the spectrum through our senses mediated by devices which we use. This is completely consistent with Kant.
But then, this isn't how D'Souza is using Kant. I think Dinesh is being very literal about the senses here and doesn't understand the nuances at all. Big surprise.
Posted by: Randy | October 22, 2007 4:41 PM
People like D'Souza and his ilk have this 'chasing miracles' syndrome. Its humility and inferiority complex taken to its extremes. The realization that there may not be anything behind the smoke screen induced by religion is such an anti-climax for these people, that they are in constant self-denial. May peace be upon them!
Posted by: Balaji | October 22, 2007 4:43 PM
D'Souza writes crap and it is difficult to read; save for the thumping he takes from his commenters it isn't worth the click it takes to get to his site.
Posted by: tom | October 22, 2007 5:02 PM
The sad thing is that this despicable twerp is going to be at my university sometime soon to talk to "conservatives." I'm tempted to go just so I can know who to write off as the sexist, racist, fascist, and theocratic fuckheads.
Posted by: Callandor | October 22, 2007 5:04 PM
Get there! It's possible that you will witness the first "fatality by argument" in debate (world?) history... what a mismatch.
Posted by: J Myers | October 22, 2007 5:35 PM
Apologies if not mentioned earlier, there was this piece of dreck that USAToday published today:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/10/a-christian-fou.html
Every single paragraph had either a factual or logical error in it. Amongst the hilarity:
-Christians invented democracy. I guess the Greeks were chopped liver.
-Christians abolished slavery. Funny, they sure waited a long time before getting around to it.
-Christians value the sanctity of life. That is, after they got done with the self-justified genocide of muslims during the Crusades and teaching them everything they know about terrorism.
It went on and on. Is he just doing this expecting this kind of backlash to then throw his arms up theatrically and exclaim, "look how we're being oppressed"?
Posted by: rich (richmanwisco) | October 22, 2007 7:04 PM
D'souza just seems to be debating a straw man. Not too uncommon for theists.
When I talk to theists, they often assume that I believe one way or another because I am an atheist. I usually have to point out to them that the only requirement to being an atheist is a non-belief in God or gods. For example, Just because someone is an atheist doesn't always mean that he/she is pro-choice or wants "under God" taken out of the pledge. These issues are only straw men when applied to individual atheists. I wish more theists who wish to debate me would realize this. I they just asked me what I stand for, they would save some time and maybe even begin to understand me a little bit.
Posted by: Robert Madewell | October 22, 2007 7:30 PM
I'm sorry, being an atheist I'm not smart enough to understand what D'souza is trying to say. I guess I'll just live in ignorance. Why, oh why couldn't he have stuck to monosyllabic words. My soul will burn because of his inability to communicate at my level.
Posted by: Dahan | October 22, 2007 8:21 PM
D'Souza:
Christians were the first ones who envisioned the universe as following laws that reflected the rationality of God the creator.
Is this supposed to be a good thing?
Where is the virtue in being the first people to have an idiotic idea?
It's like taking credit for creating the Edsel.
Great job, you geniuses.
[Is his statement even true?]
Posted by: CalGeorge | October 22, 2007 8:52 PM
Is there an audio feed available somewhere?
Posted by: J Myers | October 22, 2007 9:19 PM
#69: what if all the other atheists do the same?
Posted by: octopod | October 22, 2007 9:55 PM
Here's what a couple people had to say about the Stein-O'Reilly interview (which I'll have to try to record late tonight):
____________________________________________________________
www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?p=4891133#post4891133
IOW, typical yammering stupidity. Stein's gone from saying that "there was a 'very high likelihood' that Darwin was on to something" to the dead drone of the IDiots at the DI that ToE is is "outdated" (Paleyism, of course, is not).
Of course he's so stupid as to say that Darwin's theory of evolution is outdated, which is extremely obvious, since it mostly has been replaced (at least in the details).
And gee, O'Reilly, I guess it's stupid to say "I don't know how it all began when the facts aren't all in." After all, not having the facts has never stopped Ben or Bill from claiming that they already know.
I guess D'Souza has to be grateful that Stein and O'Reilly can make him look smart and wise in comparison. Not in comparison with anyone who actually knows what he's talking about, but you know, if you're D'Souza you might as well take what you can get.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | October 22, 2007 10:29 PM
Oh yeah, I wonder if Stein really said that "Einstein, Newton, and Darwin developed their ideas within a framework of belief in God."
It's true for Newton, arguably true for Darwin (he became atheist after he figured out the framework of evolution), and really not true for Einstein, since Albert's "God" was so indefinable as to be meaningless (true of the other modern gods, I know, but Einstein's "god" didn't even conform to common use of the term). I suspect that Stein said "Galileo" rather than "Darwin," however, since they haven't learned a thing from our comments on their blog (I doubt they read them, merely deciding that since we react against their theocratic desires, they must actually be right). And it's almost certainly true of Galileo as well, not that that has anything to do with their opposition to freedom in science.
I think we know enough what the "movie" is going to be like, stupid, dishonest, and likely self-contradictory in many ways.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | October 22, 2007 10:40 PM
It looks like this:
and results in this:
Posted by: noncarborundum | October 22, 2007 10:58 PM
D'Souza reads like a piss poor, second year philosophy of science essay. I probably would have failed it had I be grading it.
Posted by: ChrisC | October 22, 2007 11:00 PM