…and this is a 
Oh, dog. Discussion of the conflict between science and religion. Francis Collins comes up first. Atheists are shrill. Human genome. Morality is a pointer to god. C.S. Lewis. Fine tuning. Atheists are arrogant. Atheists are fundamentalists. Atheism is irrational. Read my BioLogos website. The usual appalling Collins drivel.
Next up…you'd think anything would be a relief after that tepid, tired inanity, wouldn't you? But no. Who is the complement to the pious, gullible, nice Dr Collins? Someone who might offer a different point of view? Someone who might spark some real discussion? Someone who might, you know, disagree?
It's Barbara Bradley Hagerty.
Jebus. What a pile of brainless, self-congratulatory pudding pretending to be a discussion of substance. And then the reporters in attendance dish it up with a spoon, and they gum it over with their soft, toothless questions, and everyone dies of sugar poisoning.
No, I lied. The ending is even worse.
Francis Collins picks up his guitar and sings.
Praise the source of faith and learning that has sparked and stoked the mind
With a passion for discerning how the world has been designed.
Let the sense of wonder flowing from the wonders we survey
Keep our faith forever growing and renew our need to pray.
That's where I began projectile vomiting. Horked up my spleen right on my keyboard, blood squirted out of my eyeballs, and my howls set the small vermin lurking in the walls of my house scuttling to throw themselves beneath the wheels of passing vehicles in a massive and merciful act of suicide.
Comments
Posted by: The Science Pundit
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June 22, 2009 6:14 PM
Careful PZ, you might attract squid eating predators with that.
Posted by: Kobra | June 22, 2009 6:15 PM
Wow. What a fucking waste of time. When there's singing and praying and "Oh Praise the Lord!"ing it definitely is NOT a debate or an intellectual discussion.
Posted by: Bjørn Østman | June 22, 2009 6:17 PM
Hard to think of anything more vile that Collins on his Christian guitar singing songs of faith, design, and praying.
Posted by: Kobra | June 22, 2009 6:18 PM
@2: I accidentally hit Post too early and apparently the server accepted it. I meant to add: Since this has one of those three, we can safely dismiss this as typical nonacademic bullshit.
Posted by: Bjørn Østman | June 22, 2009 6:21 PM
@4:
Unfortunately we cannot trust the reporters to do the same.
Posted by: Ompompanoosuc | June 22, 2009 6:27 PM
PZ, how did it really make you feel?
Posted by: Merkin Muffley
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June 22, 2009 6:28 PM
PZ you must stop internalizing everything. If you could just work pass your shill, fundamentalist arrogance and let your true feelings be known .......
Posted by: Chalmer Wren | June 22, 2009 6:31 PM
"That's where I began projectile vomiting...merciful act of suicide."
Why do you do this to yourself?
Posted by: Doc Bill | June 22, 2009 6:33 PM
You gotta admit, it's a catchy tune.
Perhaps cuttlefish could come up with some new lyrics.
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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June 22, 2009 6:34 PM
That's the dream, to stay pathetic.
Seriously, is Collins getting even sappier?
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Posted by: Mary Kincade | June 22, 2009 6:36 PM
Eesh. Looks like the elder gods have some competition for sheer horror.
Posted by: bassmanpete | June 22, 2009 6:38 PM
The Pew Forum? Sack that copywriter; s/he left out the S.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | June 22, 2009 6:40 PM
If there was a god, he'd give his followers Vogon-grade poetry. Shock and awe, baby, shock and awe.
Posted by: Lauren Ipsum | June 22, 2009 6:41 PM
The good news is, if you managed not to get blood or other body fluids on the actual electronics of the keyboard, you can pop all the keys off (take a photo first so you'll know how to put them back on later!) and throw them in the dishwasher. same for the plastic shell if you take the electronics board off. Dry and reassemble, and the keyboard should be good as new.
Posted by: Sili
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June 22, 2009 6:42 PM
Well - at least you've left tasty treats for the cats, so they won't starve.
It's not very kind to Mary, that you keel over like this, though.
Posted by: Kobra | June 22, 2009 6:42 PM
@9: Oh man, if he did, I might nominate him to be the first to have the title, Cuttlefish, OM2. That's right, bitches, OM squared. If that's even the correct way to represent having won the Order of Molly twice, if such a thing is even logical.
Posted by: Andyo
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June 22, 2009 6:51 PM
Jebus, I don't have enough popcorn. Please take it slower, I'm still going through Coyne's posts from last week.
Posted by: lose_the_woo
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June 22, 2009 6:53 PM
And there you all go again with your shrill accusations about the retard believers not having a shred of fucking evidence to support their magical fantasies. You all act like a bunch of arrogant fundamentalists just because you can prove shit, and actually apply it to reality. Big fucking deal! It's irrational to think that God doesn't exist. How do you explain all the fucking wonder in the world? What happens when you die? Huh? Big brained atheist fucks?!
Posted by: Somnolent Aphid | June 22, 2009 6:58 PM
goodness, i would not want to be considered shrill, arrogant, or irrational. that wouldn't be polite. perhaps this in itself is an argument for the existence of? that it is impolite not to believe? suppose it's as good an argument as any. need to fart now. 'scuse me. (see, now i'm being polite).
wait a second, isn't shrill, arrogant and irrational the basic human condition? good to be an aphid.
Posted by: MadScientist | June 22, 2009 6:58 PM
@Kobra #4:
Unfortunately slow news days attract this sort of thing. Incompetent reporters love to portray scientists as soulless (as if anyone ever did have a soul), unfeeling beasts who would steal candy from a baby then bash in the baby's head with a hammer and eat the corpse raw.
Posted by: Andyo
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June 22, 2009 7:12 PM
Golly, Alex is coming full-steam... More popcorn!
That god doesn't exist is actually a pretty reasonable assumption. It doesn't need to be proven. There is simply no reason to think he/she exists.
Now since you're a believer, imagine a universe without god. How exactly would it be different than ours? A few prayers would still be "answered" by chance. People would still believe someone is looking out for them. If you imagine a universe in which prayers never go unanswered, then it's not evidence that there's no god, but instead is a suggestion that there is a god, and he's a prick.
Wait... was this a Poe?!
Posted by: Andyo
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June 22, 2009 7:15 PM
Of course I meant to say "if you imagine a universe in which prayers never go answered, then it's not evidence that there's no god, but instead is a suggestion that there is a god, and he's a prick."
Posted by: Ref | June 22, 2009 7:16 PM
Please tell me he DIDN'T do that to the tune of "Ode To Joy."
Posted by: lose_the_woo
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June 22, 2009 7:17 PM
I wasn't trying to set a Poe trap, just feeling mischievously punchy after reading that drivel. Perhaps I was too subtle with the sarcasm?
Posted by: tim Rowledge | June 22, 2009 7:20 PM
That's just crazy dude. OM is such a high rated honour that you simply cannot be awarded it twice. That would be like being Sir Sir tim. Perhaps it might be plausible to have 'star' or 'bar' though. Like 'OM and bar'. (some body somewhere must know how to do an OM with a proper bar across it in html)
Posted by: Andyo
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June 22, 2009 7:28 PM
Well, fuck me. I was looking forward to an actual religious person coming flinging their guns and balls here, seeing as most of them are too touchy-feely ("LAWYER, come!") to REALLY get into it with this bunch of rude mofos.
Posted by: JD | June 22, 2009 7:33 PM
What a no-playin' hack of a fucktard. And you can tell him I told you so. Really.
3 chord tard. Kum Bio Ya Tardos
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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June 22, 2009 7:33 PM
Collins, don't give up your day job.
Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM | June 22, 2009 7:35 PM
erm... what is the tune? I can't find a video of it anywhere?
Posted by: Jeff | June 22, 2009 7:38 PM
Read this quote from Collins carefully--could he possibly be a closet atheist?
The God of all truth cannot be well-defended by a lie, no matter how noble the intentions of those spreading the lie might be and no matter how unaware they might be of the fact that they’re spreading untruths. Ultimately, I think the truth is going to come out. If you have your religious traditions based on premises that are going to be seen as flawed in a fundamental way, how can they then survive?
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | June 22, 2009 7:42 PM
<scrolls up>
<tries>
RRRRRRRRRRRRHÂÂÂÂÂ !!!
Excuse my French. English fails at such levels of possible horror.
I will not click on the link.
Posted by: Paul Lundgren | June 22, 2009 7:47 PM
@Jeff
I doubt it. The quote to which you're referring could be interpreted as, "All other religions BUT MINE are wrong, and I hope to expose them for the frauds they are." I think he hopes to find God as opposed to Allah, Shiva, or FSM. IOW, the god he made in his own image.Unfortunately for the good Dr. Collins, he's quickly turning himself into a parody. Which is why I say, "Keep up the good work!"
Posted by: dave | June 22, 2009 7:47 PM
Hmmm, let's see if I can remember those childhood sunday school songs:
Jesus loves me this I know,
For the Bible tells me so!
or:
I've got the love of Jesus,
love of Jesus,
Down in my heart,
Down in my heart to stay!
(I feel a bit ill myself right now.)
Posted by: peter | June 22, 2009 7:51 PM
[quote]The God of all truth cannot be well-defended by a lie,[/quote]
Hmm, which one is he talking about? One of the million or so manifestations of the hindu trinity?
Can't be the xtian one, cause thats a lying, cheating, murdering etc.etc (breathless for adjectives in FSJ)abomination of the idea of a god(could likely have been only sprung from the minds of some oppressed desert dwellers looking for a way to fuck their neighbours...
Or is he creating his own universal model of one..?
Posted by: Lynna | June 22, 2009 7:54 PM
Oh, no. What can I do to recover? I read all of the "discussion" in the Pew Forum link. Don't criticize what you haven't read, and give peas a chance, I thought...or something like that. I am so sorry that I wasted the time. Most of the presentation was a regurgitation, somewhat different from PZ's reaction, but definitely the same old chewed-over stuff. Microevolution vs macroevolution, two separate magisteria, how to be happy and irreducibly complex at the same time, and more.
What worries me is the aura of respectability. If I didn't know better (and I know better pretty much by accident), I'd tend to give that discussion at least the benefit of the doubt. Lovely! Look at them smiling! Don't they look like bright lights. Who am I to reject these arguments -- certainly I'm not an expert in the human genome and stained glass windows.
Depressing. You can combat Ken Ham, dent his credibility, but how does one combat this kind of thing? I'm feeling like a very tiny node in a very tiny minority.
Posted by: eigenvector | June 22, 2009 7:55 PM
Gut chucking understandable; almost came to that myself! But...if you delete "faith and" from the first line of the song and ditch the entire last line...not a bad little ditty. Also proof that religion can just about screw anything up! Keep up the good work PZ!
Posted by: Efogoto | June 22, 2009 7:58 PM
I thought the song was an over-the-top parody bit -- until I saw the transcript. I can hardly stand some songs by people who make a living singing. I'm not clicking through to hear that crap from an amateur.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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June 22, 2009 7:59 PM
Oh, no. I hope it wasn't to Ode to Joy...that would be a horror beyond imagining.
There are more words to that mess.
Hurk. Trying to suppress gag reflex.
Posted by: pdferguson
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June 22, 2009 8:03 PM
Well, he's no John Ashcroft...
Posted by: Krystalline Apostate | June 22, 2009 8:04 PM
A few items of the article caught my eye:
Uh, hello? Lewis called evolution a Myth, Capital M? Wanker was a lousy writer & even WORSE philosopher. & (I think) a perfect example of what happened when everyone was polite about religion: nobody shouted this jackass down, & now we're stuck w/a bunch of Lewisian wannabes, all looking for the ultimate atheist body-slam argument, all the while not realizing that his anti-atheist arguments only worked on himself, or on a 'true believer'™.
There's no more irritating commentary by the religious than this 1. Nothing is a placeholder: it's a non-substance, a non-reality. There is, strictly speaking, no such thing as nothing, to bend a phrase.
Bugs me to no end, it does.
Posted by: Lynna | June 22, 2009 8:17 PM
I like Christopher Hitchens' response to the "why is there something instead of nothing" pseudo-argument -- soon enough there will be nothing from a human and earth-centric point of view:
Who decided to define whatever existed before the Big Bang as "nothing" anyway?
Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM | June 22, 2009 8:25 PM
Ah... the tune is "Hyfrydol"--
http://www.hymnsite.com/fws/hymn.cgi?2004
Posted by: Eamon Knight | June 22, 2009 8:29 PM
You know, professional exterminator services aren't that expensive, and I'm sure they're much less traumatic for the home-owner.
Posted by: 386sx | June 22, 2009 8:36 PM
You can hear Mr. Collins singing it at the end of this mp3:
http://www.asa3.org/ASAradio/ASA2006Collins.mp3
It's from 2006 though.
Posted by: yoyo | June 22, 2009 8:42 PM
Wasn't Francis a talking mule or somesuch? I never heard that he could sing, there's micro evilution in action!
Posted by: 386sx | June 22, 2009 8:56 PM
I like it! Props Mr. Collins.
Posted by: ThirtyFiveUp | June 22, 2009 8:57 PM
Your post from 2006, "I'm Beautiful - On the Inside" was one of our favorites. But, today, yucky gross. More information than I want or need.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/05/im_beautifulon_the_inside.php
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | June 22, 2009 8:57 PM
If it was sung to Ode to Joy you can also do it to Darling Clementine or the (US) Marine Corp Hymn
Posted by: 386sx | June 22, 2009 8:58 PM
I like it! Props Mr. Collins.
Thinkin of doin a remix...
Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM | June 22, 2009 9:12 PM
First verse, anyway--
Praise the pow’r of faith unswerving
In the face of evidence.
With a doctrine undeserving,
We must cling to our pretense;
Let us climb the rugged mountain
Though the cliffs are in our way:
“Faith and science from one fountain”
Let’s repeat the old cliché.
Posted by: Eric | June 22, 2009 9:17 PM
"There's no more irritating commentary by the religious than this 1. Nothing is a placeholder: it's a non-substance, a non-reality. There is, strictly speaking, no such thing as nothing, to bend a phrase."
If you're right, then it follows that the universe is a plenum. But how can one even make sense of the notion that the universe is a plenum given QM?
Also, doesn't the subtraction argument (e.g. take the universe as a collection of things -- understood broadly to include not just subatomic particles but space-time, fields, etc. -- and properties, and subtract, one by one, each thing and property) show that we can conceive -- not imagine, but conceive (e.g. I can't imagine a chiliagon, but I can conceive it) -- nothingness?
"[Lewis] was a lousy writer & even WORSE philosopher."
We determine the quality of a philosopher by examining his or her arguments. Now, one way to test an argument is to ask whether there are any good arguments in its vicinity; to the extent that there aren't, it's a bad argument. However, with Lewis's rather loosely formulated popular level arguments, it's often the case that there are quite good arguments in their vicinity. For one of the best examples, see Victor Reppert's rigorous development of Lewis's 'Argument from Reason.'
Posted by: Kitty'sBitch | June 22, 2009 9:18 PM
Holy Shit!!
Oh, and wholey shit!
I thought you were kidding. He really did the song?
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | June 22, 2009 9:24 PM
I've only heard one successful change to the words of "Ode to Joy." Lenny Bernstein was responsible for that, and he only changed one word:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imv2M64t_og
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K4635W4roY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIsXmOHo7EA
Posted by: Medievalist Jon | June 22, 2009 9:37 PM
I began to heave at this gem from Bradley Hagerty:
Is this just basically the Argument from Ignorance plus "I'm OK with ignorance" plus "please don't disrupt my little worldview with evidence and reasoning"?Oy vey, my worst fear is to somehow get "born again" and become one of these people.
Posted by: LRA | June 22, 2009 9:43 PM
LMAO!!! Um. Dr. Myers, that was the funniest post of yours I've read to date!
Posted by: Walter Silveira | June 22, 2009 9:44 PM
AND P.Z. MYERS LET OUT A HOWL, SHAKING THE VERY FOUNDATIONS OF THE COSMOS. DEMONS AND BEASTS ALIKE FLED FROM HIS GAZE; BUT IN VAIN! FOR NONE COULD ESCAPE THE WRATH OF P.Z.
GRASPING HIS TRIDENT IN HAND AND CALLING UPON HIS NOBLE HORDES OF OCTOPI, P.Z. FLEW FORTH FROM HIS BLOG WREATHED IN PURIFYING FLAMES AND ARMORED IN SCIENCE TEXTBOOKS.
WITH A FIERCE GROWL P.Z. BARKED THE WORDS THAT WOULD SEAL THE FATE OF HIS ENEMIES "SOON...I SHALL UNLEASH THE POWER OF........REASON! MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
The Book of Myers, Chapter I
"The Genesis of the Tentacle Empire"
Posted by: mikmik | June 22, 2009 9:49 PM
I still love folks of faith that insist that at least by being christian they get to have a sense of wonder.
Posted by: Strider | June 22, 2009 9:49 PM
That last bit was fucking hysterical!
Posted by: Pope Maledict DCLXVI | June 22, 2009 9:53 PM
Nice work, Cuttlefish.
As some people have already observed, the poetic metre Collins used is a fairly common one, so there are numerous alternative tunes that will fit besides Hyfrydol (also sometimes referred to as “Hydrofoil” in some church choirs):
• Ode to Joy (“Freude, schöner Götterfunken”) adapted from Beethoven’s choral symphony
• the hymn tune known as Austria is another, adapted from the slow movement of Joseph Haydn's Emperor string quartet op. 76, no. 3 and used as the Austrian and German national anthem at various times
• Erie and Blaenwern, two of the main tunes associated with the hymn that is sometimes derailed as “What a friend we have in cheeses”. :)
Posted by: Nominal Egg | June 22, 2009 9:54 PM
This isn't really true, is it? I mean, the part about colliding with Andromeda in 3 billion years is true, but is it really likely that all life will be destroyed as a result? I've been led to understand when galaxies collide, the individual stars don't literally bang into each other. It's more like two galaxies merging into one another to form one larger galaxy, eventually. Life on any individual planet probably won't notice anything different, other than a really amazing night sky. Right?Posted by: Strider | June 22, 2009 9:55 PM
That last bit was fucking hysterical!
Posted by: Kagato
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June 22, 2009 10:03 PM
You can only receive the Order of the Molly once.
Subsequent awards would be the New Order of the Molly, which can be received multiple times.
Cuttlefish, OM NOM NOM.
Posted by: articulett | June 22, 2009 10:05 PM
They have Collins, we have Cuttlefish.
(I know which poet I'm tossing my cyber panties at.)
Posted by: Nominal Egg | June 22, 2009 10:10 PM
I'll drink to that!Posted by: genesgalore | June 22, 2009 10:12 PM
science is as pure as the driven snow. the entity suffering the affliction of confliction is religion....for the life of me, i don't know why that fact isn't called out everytime the conlicted try to feign conviction.
Posted by: foxfire | June 22, 2009 10:14 PM
OK, assume I could buy into the meme that there is some kind of point or purpose to everything that exists ("everything" from a matter/energy perspective).
How one can jump from that into *knowing* said point of everything centers around a particular dogma developed by a subset of a rather self-destructive species on an inconspicuous planet in an unremarkable galaxy, is beyond my comprehension.
Thanks for the fish, Collins, but I personally believe it is "all about" the black holes.
Posted by: foxfire | June 22, 2009 10:19 PM
Speaking of fish, I forgot: Cuttlefish for double OM. It could represent a new level: OM^2
Cuttlefish, that is brilliant!
Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM | June 22, 2009 10:22 PM
Praise the pow’r of faith unswerving
In the face of evidence.
With a doctrine undeserving,
We must cling to our pretense;
Let us climb the rugged mountain
Though the cliffs are in our way:
“Faith and science from one fountain”
Let’s repeat the old cliché.
Faith and science, we must tether,
Through our cunning and our art,
Force the twain to come together
Though they long to cleave apart.
With the use of clever framing
Forge a bond that will not break;
Then, resort to petty blaming
Cov’ring up our own mistake.
Now two currents in the ocean
Long diverged, and long discrete,
One long stilled, and one in motion
Nevermore the two to meet,;
Pray that God will cause a blending
Till they carve a single course
Justify our whine unending:
Faith and science, joined by force.
http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2009/06/hymn-to-accommodation.html
Posted by: Pope Maledict DCLXVI | June 22, 2009 10:26 PM
Cuttlefish @ #68 = wins the thread
Posted by: Eidolon
|
June 22, 2009 10:28 PM
Nominal egg...
You have it correct - colliding galaxies is rather like two swarms of bees merging. Few, if any collisions. Still, there IS the pending red giant phase of our sun, coming in the next 6000 years, xian time; 4 billion years in real time.
Posted by: June | June 22, 2009 10:37 PM
Apparently, the Milky Way Galaxy has already collided about 9 times with the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy that orbits us, and will pass through us again in 100 million years (http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap980216.html).
Posted by: 386sx | June 22, 2009 10:49 PM
Somebody has Collins singing it up on youtube already.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R60RMr8-_mM
They used Beatles Day in the Life footage for the video background. Man, those theists sure are goofy.
Posted by: Rorschach | June 22, 2009 10:50 PM
@ 68,
a true piece of beauty !!
BRAVO,man !
Posted by: Troy
|
June 22, 2009 10:56 PM
I don't understand how can even a religious scientist talk seriously about praying? Praying is the most dumbest concept, from logical/philosophical perspective to empirical...
WTF, he just lost all of his credibility.
Posted by: Q-Squared | June 22, 2009 10:57 PM
Isn't a debate supposed to be, well, a DEBATE? It sounds like they all agree in their "OMGWTFGODISAWESOMEANDRULESOURSOULS" mentality.
..urgh, I feel the urge to throw up. Time to read a bit more of Christopher Hitchens, and resist the urge to beat my head on the keyboard until it's mush.
WAIT- just got saved by #68. THANK YOU. :)
Posted by: DLC | June 22, 2009 10:59 PM
Polite golf clap for Cuttlefish.
Whenever I think of Science merged with Religion I can't help but think of Heinlein's novella If This Goes On, wherein the protagonist reports being schooled in Applied Miracles.
Posted by: Evolution SWATT eam | June 22, 2009 11:05 PM
"That's where I began projectile vomiting. Horked up my spleen right on my keyboard, blood squirted out of my eyeballs, and my howls set the small vermin lurking in the walls of my house scuttling to throw themselves beneath the wheels of passing vehicles in a massive and merciful act of suicide."
You know, there's something poetic about you ...
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | June 22, 2009 11:10 PM
Collins is the odds-on favorite for the first Templeton Award for Musical Interpretation of A Big Question.
Prof. Myers, would you mind listening to that grand finale once again, in a recording studio? That audio track would be worth a fortune to the pest control industry, even if they'd be obligated to hire special crews of deaf applicators.
Posted by: Nominal Egg | June 22, 2009 11:14 PM
Thanks for confirming. Has anyone corrected Hitchens?Well, yeah, there is that.Posted by: gaypaganunitarianagnostic | June 22, 2009 11:16 PM
The lyrics do fit the 'song of joy'-lots of things do. They sound, unfortunately, like some Unitarian-Universalist hymns. When I give programs,I usually use 'Not in Vain the Distance Beacons,'(Beethoven - Tennyson) and 'A fire mist and a Planet,' which is a nicely evolutionst hymn.
Posted by: 386sx | June 22, 2009 11:23 PM
Wow there's a lot of Collins singing videos on youtube. And he ain't too bad. You guys will jump on anything. He's better than that Roy whatsizname you guys are always pushing around here. Cheers.
Posted by: Anon | June 22, 2009 11:26 PM
@#81--
Didn't anyone tell you it is not polite to lie?
Posted by: Sastra
|
June 22, 2009 11:32 PM
Krystalline Apostate #40 wrote:
ooh, I am happily reading my brand new copy of John Beversluis' C.S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion (revised and updated). It comes recommended by philosophers. Beversluis carefully analyzes all Mr. Lewis' arguments, and gently and politely and masterfully rips them apart till they lie dead and scattered and bleeding.
If you want to watch someone do that, then this is just the book for you.
Posted by: genesgalore | June 22, 2009 11:56 PM
"I don't understand how can even a religious scientist talk seriously about praying? Praying is the most dumbest concept, from logical/philosophical perspective to empirical...
WTF, he just lost all of his credibility."
RIGHT. like pray isn't meditation and meditation isn't beneficial. it's guys like you that can give science as bad name. foad
Posted by: Troy
|
June 22, 2009 11:59 PM
For fuck sake, if he meant meditation he would say meditation, not praying!!!
Isn't it obvious that those are 2 different words, that is even a bigger fail for a "scientist".
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | June 23, 2009 12:13 AM
Nominal Egg @ # 60: I've been led to understand when galaxies collide, the individual stars don't literally bang into each other. It's more like two galaxies merging into one another to form one larger galaxy, eventually. Life on any individual planet probably won't notice anything different, other than a really amazing night sky. Right?
IANAA, but I'd be willing to bet a bottle of fine single malt that the gravitational tides of all those non-colliding stars & attendant dark matter will disrupt the orbits of the great majority of planets involved, to great inconvenience & annoyance of all aboard.
Posted by: Nominal Egg | June 23, 2009 12:37 AM
I'll take that bet, but only if the winner agrees to share with the loser, whichever way it happens to go.A single malt aged 3 billion years would have to be sublime.
Posted by: Tulse | June 23, 2009 12:56 AM
That would be a pretty impressive cask to last that long...
Posted by: PeterKarim | June 23, 2009 1:22 AM
Weird how Religion in these "discussions" is so often synonymous with Christianity.
I mean, the leap from Deism to the virgin birth and the talking snake as astounding.
Posted by: Krystalline Apostate | June 23, 2009 1:31 AM
Eric @ 51:
Well, we've just proven that reincarnation exists - Eric is Anselm reincarnated.
Unless you can provide me w/a solid example (pun intended) of a non-existence of particle weights, or indeed a complete & utter absence, I'm afraid that's existential rubbish.
Imagination ≠ reality.
The witless Lewis dilemma springs to mind.
Logic by association? So if you surround a logical fallacy w/a bunch of solid facts and/or axioms, then it somehow becomes good? That's a new approach. Sounds casuistic.
I'll see you & raise you w/Carrier's critique.
Sastra @ 83 - hey, thanks for the book tip, I'll order it post haste. It's in graphic novel format, right? ;)
Posted by: Autumn
|
June 23, 2009 2:30 AM
Again, the simple question of why one should include a preposterous being with incredible attributes as an axiom of a universe which seems to be explicable without such an assumption is seen to be violating some unspecified aspect of a demonstrably ignorant viewpoint.
To all theists who insist that science leave them alone: Stop your ignorant rantings about faith's influence on the things which it has been amply shown not to affect in any way.
As soon as you shut up, we will.
Posted by: Eyeoffaith | June 23, 2009 2:32 AM
"A single malt aged 3 billion years would have to be sublime.
That would be a pretty impressive cask to last that long..."
It would have to be amazing. It almost certainly couldn't be glass. I is usually totally devitrified after a few 10s of millions of years. The oldest glass I have ever found was 350 million years old. There are some reports on remanants of glass lasting up to a billion years but that is extremely rare.
Of course you could replace the container now and then. :)
Posted by: woozy | June 23, 2009 2:42 AM
As inane and drivel as Collins is, at least when that brain dead Green from Fox asked as molecular evolution was sexier than the fossil record and we can see micro-evolution (birds evolving to red birds) but not macro-evolution (snails evolving into wombats) will studying chemical evolution make fossils obsolete and disprove macro-evolution, he had the fortitude to say no. Ditto when she and others went on about time-dilution and six days from God's percpective could actually be 20 billion years, he was honest enough to say that was meaningless.
That's not a terrific amount of scientific integrity but ... well, it could always be worse, I guess....
Posted by: Frederik Rosenkjær | June 23, 2009 3:07 AM
Francis Collins picks up the guitar and sings?
That makes it official: Francis Collins is Ned Flanders.
Posted by: IvanM | June 23, 2009 3:15 AM
I second the recommendation of Beversluis' book on C.S. Lewis.
His treatment is gentle enough to avoid offending most True BelieversTM, but sadly just as likely to convince them as is Hitchens' God Is Not Great. After all, if you can believe that, say, Yahweh's commandments to commit genocide are faithfully recorded and morally righteous, then you can believe anything.
Posted by: Steven Templeton | June 23, 2009 3:27 AM
Poor poor Paul Zachary.
Mommy and Daddy named me after so sooo soooo soooooo Biblical figures and forced me to go to SUnday school. Now I am so mad at them, but I don't dare to lash out at them, because I then they will tell me to go on a diet and stop eating burgers.
Posted by: Katkinkate | June 23, 2009 3:40 AM
Hey gang. Off topic sorry, but I'm sure the topic has been covered adequately by now. Just wanted to give you a heads up re. the latest (19 June) Jesus and Mo comic, is exceptionally good. http://www.jesusandmo.net
Posted by: Stewart | June 23, 2009 4:13 AM
Hagerty is doing worse than classic strawmanning, again and again:
"One of the interesting developments, of course, in the last few years is the rise of the new atheists, and what Dawkins and others would have you believe is that they can prove there is no God."
"And so if Dawkins is right and God is a delusion and he can prove that scientifically, that’s bad news for the Christian home team or Jews or whatever – believers of all stripes."
"... for people to say that absolutely they can prove there is no God or an intelligence that stitches together the universe, I think that’s a bit arrogant."
And the people who listen to her rather than read something like "The God Delusion" for themselves go right ahead and think that Dawkins and gang claim to be able to prove there's no god. It's hopeless. Why did I waste that minute pointing it out?
Posted by: flea | June 23, 2009 4:26 AM
Calm down PZ. I'm having breakfast!
Posted by: Knockgoats | June 23, 2009 4:55 AM
Stewart@98,
If you hadn't, I would have. Because it's worth pointing out that Barbara Bradley Hagerty is a brazen, shameless liar.
Posted by: Kel | June 23, 2009 5:16 AM
That is really shameless, though I guess when Jesus forgives all but blasphemy against the holy spirit, even a Liar For JesusTM is better than a denier of the trinity ;)
Posted by: Hamilton Jacobi | June 23, 2009 5:42 AM
This forum could have been really interesting if only the organizers had invited Sam Harris and Dan Dennett. Whoever was responsible for making it a one-sided monument to lameness should be rewarded with a one-way ticket to R'lyeh.
Posted by: Stewart | June 23, 2009 5:46 AM
I did a quick look to see whether she's ever written anything that indicates she's read TGD. The closest I get is her May 15th piece "Choosing Tylenol and God," where she writes '... Dawkins had delivered a talk that he believed would prove the impossibility of God (later published as "The God Delusion").' The tone she writes in conveys to me that she wants to present atheists as angry because they are unable to do what she claims they want to do more than anything else: prove decisively that no god exists. Looks like there's a choice between brazen lying and great stupidity (mouthing off in public about what she thinks her opponents are saying without checking also falls into the latter category). Maybe we need to set up our own strawman who will claim he can prove there's no god and shift the Overton Window a bit so that Dawkins and Co. can be seen as more reasonable.
Posted by: Samantha Vimes | June 23, 2009 5:51 AM
Luckily, you're part sea cucumber, and can grow those internal organs again, right, PZ?
Posted by: SAWells | June 23, 2009 5:52 AM
Re. the colliding galaxies issue, I had understood that when galaxies collide we see a lot of hard radiation from the interaction of their gas clouds and magnetic fields; so while it's true that the odds of any two stars actually colliding is effectively zero, it's still the case that everything's going to get radiation-baked in a way that's probably not surviveable.
Posted by: Peter Ashby | June 23, 2009 5:53 AM
Well according to an article in last week's New Scientist that does a reasonable job of shaking Gaia's tree life on this planet has about 1 Billion years left before Sterility. It works like this:
1. The sun is getting hotter in its middle age.
2. Weathering of rocks increases with temperature locking up CO2, this will be aided and abetted by plant roots as warm world means vigourous plant growth.
3. At first this removal of CO2 buffers the increases in temperature from increased solar activity, but eventually, maybe in 500million years or so there will not be enough CO2 in the atmosphere to support plant growth, so they die. As subsequently do all the animals.
4. With the plants gone CO2 goes wild and we become Venus.
So no need to worry about waiting for the sun to go Red Giant or Andromeda to give us the kiss of death and no Gaia like white/black daisies will save us.
Posted by: Knockgoats | June 23, 2009 5:59 AM
A few points of interest from Collins' wamblings. The first, interestingly, has nothing to do with religion:
We’re identifying all of these risk factors for almost any disease using the tools of the Human Genome Project. That in turn provides the opportunity to identify who’s at risk for what. You can already, for $400, send your money to one of these direct-to-consumer marketing companies, and they will tell you what your risk is for about 20 different diseases.
Now that is, at the very least, a stupid and irresponsible thing to say, Francis. You yourself warn later about companies "testing" for susceptibility to ADHD, but claims to tell you what your risk is for a disease are, with very limited exceptions for which proper medical advice is essential, seriously premature. You must know this. Even if they were not, there is no evidence that knowing that (say) your genetic profile gives you a slightly higher risk of heart disease than average would do you any good. What would be the advice? "Don't smoke, drink alcohol in moderation if at all, don't get fat, have a varied diet and plenty of exercise." That is, exactly the same as you'd give everyone else.
As I sat at the bedside of individuals who were facing death and saw in many instances how their faith was such a strong rock in the storm for them, I couldn’t help but wonder about that. I couldn’t help but wonder how I would handle that situation if it were me lying in that bed, and I was pretty sure I would not be at peace the way these folks were.
So it seemed like a time to perhaps look at the question a little more deeply because I realized my atheism had been arrived at as the convenient answer, the answer I wanted, not on the basis of considering the evidence.
Might not this little anecdote suggest that it was your conversion to Christianity, rather than your previous atheism, that was "the convenient answer"? Suddenly faced with suffering and death, you got scared.
A thoughtful person turned me onto the writings of C.S. Lewis, which was quite a revelation in terms of the depth of intellectual argument that undergirds a belief in a creator God and the existence of moral law.
One can only agree. When piffle like Lewis's is the deepest it gets (and in comparison to Plantinga, for example, Lewis is a rigorous thinker), that is indeed quite a revelation.
You’re basically stuck with two options: Either those constants were set by an intelligence that was interested in having a universe that was not sterile, or the alternative is that actually there are an almost infinite number of other parallel universes out there that have different values of those constants.
No, you're not. We don't actually know what range of constants would have led to the development of life in some form - not necessarily on planets - so another possibility is that a very wide range of physically possible universes would have led to the development of life. Another is that we simply live in an unlikely universe, and so what? My existence is far more unlikely than that of life - can I validly conclude that the universe was designed to produce me?
But I would submit that evolution would have a very hard time explaining the most radical acts of altruism, where an individual puts himself and his future progeny at great risk by carrying out a radical sacrifice on behalf of somebody he’s never met.
You're wrong. There are many reasons to expect altruism to exist in social species. In our own species, reputational effects are likely to be particularly important: on average, it probably pays in evolutionary terms not just to be perceived as a nice person, but to be a nice person - if only because that's a pretty reliable way of being perceived as one. Sometimes, that is going to lead to acts of extreme altruism which do not "pay off" in terms of inclusive fitness. You don't actually appear in this case to understand that natural selection does not produce perfect adaptation, although you presumably must do so in general. It's notable that you personify "evolution" at this point, saying:
"Evolution looks at that and says that’s a scandal."
No, Francis, evolution does not say that, nor anything else, ever.
That meant going and looking at the world’s religions and trying to understand what they stood for, and finding that they’re actually a lot alike in many ways as far as their principles, but they’re also quite different in terms of their specifics.
Never having really known much about Jesus and discovering that he was not a myth because the historical evidence for Jesus was actually much better than I had realized – some would say better than the evidence for Julius Caesar
Sure, Francis, we believe you surveyed all the world's religion, and found that the one predominant in your own culture just happened to be right. Sure we do. Of course, only someone completely ignorant of the relevant history could possibly claim that the evidence for the existence of Jesus was remotely comparable to that for Julius Caesar - absolutely nothing contemporary in the first case; copious contemporary documentation including the man's own extensive writings in the second.
Of course, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Dan Dennett – the four horsemen of the atheist apocalypse, as they like to call themselves [my emphasis]
[citation needed]
Of course, from my perspective, having been an
atheistaleprachaunist and traveled this path, it seems to me thatatheismaleprachaunism is, of all of the choices, the least rational because it assumes that you know enough to exclude the possibility ofGodleprachauns. And which of us could claim we know enough to make such a grand statement? Suppose the knowledge ofGodleprachauns just happens to be outside of your little circle of understanding? Then would it not be the height of arrogance to say, I know thereisare noGodleprachauns?The next two excerpts offer an interesting contrast:
I think I would also say intelligent design is not only bad science; it’s questionable theology. It implies that God was an underachiever and started this evolutionary process and then realized it wasn’t going to quite work and had to keep stepping in all along the way to fix it. That seems like a limitation of God’s omniscience.
OK, got you, God shouldn't need to poke his divine finger in to keep things on track...
They say, well, that’s fine for you to have those spiritual leanings, but surely as a scientist, you don’t accept the miraculous claims of the Christian faith? I think basically the real question is, do you believe in a God who is outside of nature and who is the author of the laws of nature? If the answer to that is yes, then I don’t see that it’s a big leap at all to say that God might also on rare occasions of great significance invade nature and suspend those laws in order to convey an important message to God’s people.
...except when the Bible says he does.
On the other hand, I think you could make a plausible argument that Adam and Eve were historical figures, a pair of Neolithic farmers, at a time where the brain had reached the point of sufficient complexity for the arrival of the sense of free will – which then got misused – of the moral law and of the soul.
Of course this would mean that many of us are not descended from Adam and Eve - Australian aborigines and native Americans for a start. Did they get their souls later, Francis, or are they actually beasts? Do tell.
Posted by: Kel | June 23, 2009 6:10 AM
It's amazing how much woo can be spoken in such little time by a very smart man.
Posted by: Schmeer | June 23, 2009 6:16 AM
If you really want your eyes to burst from your skull, read a little further where the Fox News correspondent starts with the creationism shit.
Posted by: Peter | June 23, 2009 6:28 AM
Knockgoats, I think Collins is well aware of the ludicrous nature of that claim, hence the use of the weasel words, "some would say". He's not ignorant, he's dishonest.
Posted by: SerenGoch | June 23, 2009 6:32 AM
Gosh, PZ, I though the expression venting your spleen was a metaphor.
Maybe I should stop complaining so much about Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4 in the morning - the presenters hardly ever break into song.
Posted by: Nine | June 23, 2009 6:47 AM
PZ, The Church of Scientology told its members today to tilt an internet poll in their favour:
http://forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?t=12032
Any chance this poll could be pharyngulized?
http://2007.fr.msn.com/votes.aspx
Posted by: AdrianT | June 23, 2009 6:53 AM
What an ending. Maybe Collins could collaborate with Cliff Richard next Christmas: the lyrics are almost as offensive as 'mistletoe and wine' (american readers won't understand this, it's probably just as well...).
Posted by: Steve P. | June 23, 2009 6:53 AM
Er, when can we expect empirical evidence for "pays off in evolutionary terms"?
Btw, are you one of those proponents of evolution as silly putty?
Posted by: AdrianT | June 23, 2009 6:58 AM
What an ending. Maybe Collins could collaborate with Cliff Richard next Christmas: the lyrics are almost as offensive as 'mistletoe and wine' (american readers won't understand this, it's probably just as well...).
Posted by: Peter Ashby | June 23, 2009 7:03 AM
Since there seems to be some question of what song should be sung to the tune of another this seems an opportune moment to mention that I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue has been resurrected after a suitable period of mourning. The first two programs have been chaired by Steven Fry. Joy is to be found here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnwb
Posted by: gdlchmst | June 23, 2009 7:05 AM
Francis Collins never fails to disappoint.
Posted by: Knockgoats | June 23, 2009 7:34 AM
Steve P.@114,
The evidence is all around you: most people are nice much of the time, and some of them are very nice, so clearly this trait is evolutionarily advantageous - although we would expect considerable individual variation, both innate and acquired, due to interactions between the fitness of individals. This is all a matter of common observation, but also of experiments in social psychology. Now of course you will say this doesn't show evolutionary advantage - God could have poked his divine finger in to make us nice. However, we do know (again from both common observation and experimental social psychology) that people are nicer when they believe they are being observed, nicer to others who have been nice to them, or who they have seen being nice to third parties, nicer to people they have been introduced to, etc. - all of which we would expect if this niceness is an evolved capacity, but have no reason to expect if God's finger is responsible. Moreover, we see "niceness" (altruism) in other social animals, so any explanation in terms of alleged deities is clearly otiose. There is also abundant evidence from computer models, showing that altruism can indeed be expected to evolve and persist in social species - Collins himself referred to some of this work when he mentioned Martin Nowak. As starting points for your homework, I suggest Moral Minds by Marc D. Hauser, Foundations of Human Sociality by Joseph Henrich, Robert Boyd and others, and Evolutionary Origins of Morality by Leonard D. Katz.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, OM | June 23, 2009 9:51 AM
It couldn't be glass in any case, regardless of glass' durability: As Alton Brown told me just last night1, a distilled spirit only ages in wooden casks; once it's bottled, aging ceases. So a 3 billion year old bottle of 18 year old single malt would still just be 18 year old whisky.
1 OK, OK, I confess... I was just watching the punch episode of Good Eats. Much as I might wish it, AB and I don't hang out together.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | June 23, 2009 10:30 AM
I don't know how true this is for whisky, but wine and port do age in the bottle. I suspect it might well be to do with how airtight the seal is.
Posted by: AC | June 23, 2009 10:53 AM
My maiden name was Hagerty, and it makes me cringe each time I see it connected with this drivel.
Posted by: Walton | June 23, 2009 11:06 AM
If it follows the same pattern as real-life British honours, it would be "OM and bar".
Posted by: Lynna | June 23, 2009 11:09 AM
Cuttlefish @68:
The whole poem/song is great, but the "Justify" line is priceless -- uses their whole God-of-justice vocabulary to skewer them where it hurts most.
I have a vision of Pharyngulite hordes banding together to sing this one. We need a pipe organ, maybe even some bell ringers. Can any of us actually sing?
Posted by: John Phillips, FCD
|
June 23, 2009 11:39 AM
Cuttlefish, again you excel yourself, bravo.
And to those interested, an addition to the OM is OM with tentacles and very richly deserved. Then again, Cuttlefish has deservedly been the poet pharynguleate for a long time now.
Posted by: bybelknap, FCD | June 23, 2009 11:44 AM
@Lynna
I've a descent baritone, when in voice, if I do say so myself, and I do.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | June 23, 2009 11:57 AM
Peter Ashby, #106
When does animal life go extinct?
Posted by: Eamon Knight | June 23, 2009 12:42 PM
One can only agree. When piffle like Lewis's is the deepest it gets (and in comparison to Plantinga, for example, Lewis is a rigorous thinker), that is indeed quite a revelation.
I first encountered Lewis' "philosophical" (ie. apologetic) writings at age 16 and was impressed (now, be nice: I was young and naive, and it didn't help that my recreational drug of choice at the time was Evangelical Christianity). Whatever his flaws, it was probably my first introduction to the practice of taking claims and ideas apart and looking at the bits; to the notion that there was this whole history behind the way we now think about the world, and that we shouldn't take our current prejudices for granted; to the whole cut-and-thrust of intellectual argument. On recent re-reading (30+ years later) I now find his arguments transparently fallacious, but: Lewis helped start something for me.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | June 23, 2009 12:50 PM
Is that still necessary? "Are you for dissolving the Church of Scientology? Yes 59 % No 40 % Without opinion 1 %".
Posted by: apnea | June 23, 2009 2:08 PM
Poor wall-dwellings bugs. :(
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, OM | June 23, 2009 2:24 PM
Yah, AB was talking specfically about whisky; he said aging resulted from contact with wood and air. I have only his word for the notion that whisky doesn't keep aging after bottling... but he's never lied to me yet! ;^)
An airtight seal is almost certainly part of it, but I don't know that whisky bottles are sealed any tighter than wine bottles. Personally I suspect that the difference (if it's real) has to do with the higher proof of distilled spirits compared to fermented beverages, and perhaps the fact that they've effectively been cooked during distillation.
Is there anyone out there who's an expert on the chemistry of wine and spirits, and can fill in the gaps?
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, OM | June 23, 2009 2:32 PM
Walton:
Surely you're not suggesting Pharyngula is anything other than real life, are you? ;^)
Posted by: Genecutter | June 23, 2009 2:39 PM
Francis Collins is an idiot. In his book The Language of God, A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, he writes: “That ancient asteroid collision is a tantalizing event. It may have been the only possible means by which the dinosaurs could have become extinct and mammals could have flourished. We probably wouldn’t be here if that asteroid had not hit Mexico.” Really, Francis, the only way? How about rounding up the dinosaurs into one continent--give 'em Australia. Certainly God has good herding skills. Or perhaps modify their gustatory receptors so mammals taste bad. God could do that, right? Surely he knows basic molecular biology. As Collins states: “Is He not the greatest scientist? The greatest physicist? The greatest biologist?” Evidently not, since the only solution He could come up with was throwing big rocks. It is a tragedy that this fool is considered a prominent scientist.
Posted by: Laura | June 23, 2009 3:18 PM
My boss is mad at you for causing me to laugh so hard when I should be working.
Posted by: Lynna | June 23, 2009 4:46 PM
We have one member of the choir to sing the latest song/poem from Cuttlefish. Now we need more choir members.
Posted by: genesgalore | June 23, 2009 5:00 PM
Posted by: Troy | June 22, 2009 11:59 PM
"For fuck sake, if he meant meditation he would say meditation, not praying!!!
Isn't it obvious that those are 2 different words, that is even a bigger fail for a "scientist"."
literates of you caliber should be barred by law from using a keyboard connected to an electronic web.
Posted by: Kobra | June 23, 2009 8:04 PM
@62: ROFL.
@Cuttlefish's addition to the song: Awesome.
Posted by: Kobra | June 23, 2009 8:07 PM
@62: ROFL.
@Cuttlefish's addition to the song: Awesome.
Posted by: Don't Panic | June 24, 2009 2:19 AM
genesgalore@135,
I think you meant to type "illiterates of your caliber ..." I do have to ask, are you purposely being dense?
prayer |pre(ə)r|
noun
a solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God or an object of worship
meditate |ˈmedəˌtāt|
verb [ intrans. ]
think deeply or focus one's mind for a period of time, in silence or with the aid of chanting, for religious or spiritual purposes or as a method of relaxation.
Not the same thing. The former is an attempt at (at least one-way) "communication". The second isn't. One might attempt to argue that all prayer is a form of meditation, but one can't argue that the reverse is true. So if it is meditation that is beneficial why add the additional requirement of addressing a God?
I think I should also inform you that the "web"-thing is a metaphor; the internet is really a series of tubes.
Posted by: Pope Maledict DCLXVI | June 24, 2009 6:41 AM
I usually sing either countertenor or tenor, and rumour has it that Cath the Canberra Cook is a soprano... :-)
Posted by: genesgalore | June 24, 2009 1:51 PM
what a frickin idiot>>>>>.......genesgalore@135,
I think you meant to type "illiterates of your caliber ..." I do have to ask, are you purposely being dense?
prayer |pre(ə)r|
noun
a solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God or an object of worship
meditate |ˈmedəˌtāt|
verb [ intrans. ]
think deeply or focus one's mind for a period of time, in silence or with the aid of chanting, for religious or spiritual purposes or as a method of relaxation.
Not the same thing. The former is an attempt at (at least one-way) "communication". The second isn't. One might attempt to argue that all prayer is a form of meditation, but one can't argue that the reverse is true. So if it is meditation that is beneficial why add the additional requirement of addressing a God?
I think I should also inform you that the "web"-thing is a metaphor; the internet is really a series of tubes.
you should stop smoking whatever it is that causes the disconnect.
Posted by: genesgalore | June 24, 2009 1:57 PM
fricken idiot>>>>>..Don't Panic | June 24, 2009 2:19 AM ..for a small sum we can get you back on the road to being able to comprehend the written word.