Carl Wieland, the creationist clown from Australia, wrote a bitter article denouncing atheists and scientists for refusing to give him a platform to yodel nonsense on, and one of the things he did was link to my my public refusal to debate him. Unfortunately, what that meant is that all of his Too-Stupid-To-Know-They're-Stupid acolytes came charging over to declare that creationism was too scientific, evolutionism is a religion, scientists are afraid to debate their pet idiots, you're all mean poopyheads who call us names, yadda yadda yadda. It's turned into a regular storm of argument that has filled up the thread with over 1100 comments.
I've closed the thread and added an invitation to resume in this one, if they must.
One thing I'd like to see the creationists consider is a simple fact. When scientists make interpreting the totality of the evidence their priority, with even the believers among scientists regarding the natural world around them as part of their god's message to human beings, they come to the conclusion that the book of Genesis is a myth or a non-literal parable of some sorts, because it does not line up at all with the physical evidence. The rocks speak out against the earth being less than ten thousand years old, and the molecules in our bodies all speak for billions of years of descent from a common ancestor. The only 'evidence' for a young earth is a very specific, and rather skewed, interpretation of one book written by a scattered conglomeration of non-scientific priests, accompanied by a lot of unfounded 'revelations' by seers, mystics, and obsessed numerologists (oh, and a related question to you creationists: how many of you are aware that many of the details of the creation myth that you regard as gospel truth have their source in the visions of the Seventh Day Adventist prophetess Ellen White and her agent, George MacReady Price?).
Now be honest. If you peel the Bible away from the argument, just pretend for a moment that it doesn't exist, do you appreciate the fact that there is no independent evidence to support the story you draw from it? Think like a heathenish pagan who has no respect for biblical authority, and you'll realize why your claims have no weight. What creationists are always trying to do is to cobble up some of that evidentiary support for their beliefs, while refusing to acknowledge that their entire claim rests on a presupposition that the bible is a valid source of prehistoric information.
If you did honestly try to separate your beliefs from your religion, you're probably a bit dizzy and nauseous right now. Go ahead, go back to embracing your clumsy old book…but realize this. Here, you're arguing with a group of people who not only disbelieve your crutch, but actively despise it as a source of lies. You can try to pretend that the source of your doubts about science are polonium halos and the Grand Canyon and missing transitional fossils, but we see right through you: we know the only thing propping up your absurd beliefs is the Bible.
And guess what? It's just another cranky old book written by cranky old men who tried to replace their ignorance with a foolish certainty.
My day has officially begun!
Thanks, PZ!
Let the whining begin!
Looking forward to continuing this discussion if it does continue. I didn't get to refute one of their "arguments" on the old thread, I always showed up too late and found somebody else had got there first. And now I'm here early. :)
josh queried to our bumbling creationist moron:
That has never happened that I can remember... and I doubt it will start now... creationists don't come in here to debate unique, fresh topics. No... if it didn't come from one of the mind-numbingly stupid wells of already existing creationist talking points, it is not going to be discussed, except to outright dismiss it with a hand-wave, or insist those evidences are merely forgeries or tricks of the debul...
Yet another reason why it's pointless to debate creationists. They stick to the handbook, use the method of "repetition leads to truth", and refuse to engage in discussions about evidence that goes outside of the standard creationist arguments.
Ah, being able to load the thread on that @#$%%^^&&** piece of ancient history at work. Heavenly ;)
Gaze at Archaeopteryx and cry, cretins and IDiots.
Believe me, while it's not the impossible-to-live intermediate that you clowns try to claim transitionals have to be, it's by no means the sort of design that you'd like to think your favorite magical invisible ghost would make. It's just a reptile clothed in feathers with dinosaur (most likely) bones modified for flight.
It's everything you wish didn't exist, a transitional, and the kind of thing no known intelligence would produce--but exactly what evolution would have to "make" if it were ever to get to birds.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
PZ, surely those two nutjobs were well beaten to it by a bunch of Mesopotamian goat-herders back in the Bronze Age?
How can anyone take the crap in the bible seriously? (Rhetorical question.)
Wow! That thread kept burning? Goats Afire!
I bailed at about 500 comments. A guy can take only so much stupid.
The random quote I'm seeing is perfect:
Whoever imagines himself a favorite with God holds others in contempt. Ingersoll.
I was looking through some old photos of myself, when I realized that I could not pinpoint an exact transitional form between the adorable baby I once was and the ugly lump of man I am today. At no point do I have, for example *picks features arbitrarily* a baby's head attached to a 5'11" body frame.
Rather than form the logical conclusion that every form I have taken is just slightly different than the forms before and after it, and therefore all are effectively transitional, I have concluded that all of those baby pictures my mom loves to show me are forgeries, and all familial anecdotes concerning my once-cuteness are satanic lies. After all, why don't they have pictures of every second of my life handy, isn't that a reasonable request?
I like my family, too bad everything they say is apparently maliciously false based on my blinkered, crippled powers of reasoning. :(
No, I can't remember it happening, either. By far most of the time the dishonest assholes just ignore the challenge completely. Occasionally one will respond with something helpful and substantive like "Those aren't transitional features." But we'll see if there is anyone out there this morning willing to put their money where their mouth is.
Indeed, let's see. I will re-post comment #1141 from the previous thread:
*yawn*
Okay, fine. Explain how the possession of teeth by the avian Archaeopteryx doesn't represent a transitional feature with respect to the evolution of birds from non-avian dinosaurs.
Explain how the possession of feathers by the dromaeosaurid (a non-avian theropod dinosaur) Microraptor doesn't represent a transitional feature with respect to the evolution of birds from non-avian dinosaurs.
Explain how the possession of a wishbone by Microraptor doesn't represent a transitional feature with respect to the evolution of birds from non-avian dinosaurs.
That's probably enough to start with.
Aaaaaaaannnnnd go.
And for shits and giggles, I will also go ahead and re-post comment #1143 from the previous thread:
Really? How about you show me where anything has come out in the geological literature since the 1930s or so (when radiometric age dating was first really systematically put toward the question of the age of the Earth) where the resolution in the reported dates has swung from millions to billions of years.
I read somewhere on teh interwebs a month or two back that some of these creationist diploma mills are getting the 'students' to post their copy-and-paste nonsense from AiG on forums like this as a mandatory exercise (in stupidity?) for some of the courses. I think they perceive it to be the theistic equivalent of lab or field work.
That could explain the influx of creotard trolls who cruise in (without reading any of the prior posts) to leave a few of their droppings, and disappear like a shot when we ask them to put their cards on the table.
Pity, they can't even do the simplest of exercises correctly. The objective is supposed to be stick around and try to get some experience 'debating' scientists... but when your only tool is the hammer of faith, I suppose every valid scientific claim looks just like a nail.
You are wrong and very misleading to say that creationists find science "bizarre". As you well know, creationists do not object to factual, objective science.
______
As we well know, YECers do object to factual objective science.
They are ignorant of how science truly works so they disgracefully cherry pick both the body of scientific knowledge and its accompanying and crucial method (the examining of evidence).
If science was conducted the way they want it to be conducted, it would no longer be science and we would not be able to advance our societies. They are dangerous hypocrites and pathetic freeloaders which the rest of us have to carry on our backs. They do not deserve the fruits of scientific labor done by clear headed people, both theists and atheists. They are despicable. Not to mention, since they are lying that they themselves risk going to the hell in which they believe.
I wonder if it has to do with the "is" in "islam" screwing up the parsing for that word. A handful of other words starting with "is" also failed to populate the suggestion fields.
Creationism is a 20th century (mostly American based) invention.
A the time of Darwin's Origins few educated christian took Genesis literarly. They didnt like evolution, not because it said the world and life was old only that nature was cold and ruthless. Most these days accept life is cold and ruthless and they need to do something about it
"a scattered conglomeration"
Qué?
Oh sure, redirect my first ever comment why dontcha. *grumble*
That was meant for the previous thread.
The fundies use a formulation called "horizontal" vs "vertical" reasoning. (Huckabee has discussed this publicly.) We blasphemous scientists reason horizontally, from observation through analysis to conclusions. Those who know God, however, reason vertically, from revealed premises to the explanations of the world they provide.
A simpler way to put it is, they reason backwards, first stating the conclusion and then marshaling the "evidence," such as it may be.
Evolution deniers really have nothing to stand on, but it is much more important that someone stroke their ego than that reality be treated as more important than their self-absorbed claims about the Bible.
1100 comments of juicy, ravenous debate?
Ahhhh, I love the smell of burning neurons in the morning!
#11, is that the same hammer the servants of Allah will use to punish the wicked in the grave?
Someone suggested on the other thread to invite these dangerously deluded maniacs and pathetic lying fools because they could be contained in an audience of mostly atheists. Why should we waste any time at an conference focused on atheism? Atheism has nothing to do with the fact and scientific theory of evolution. It stands alone on its own splendid, interlocking, superbly elegant evidential basis.
You don't even have to try to pretend, just look around the world.
There isn't a single Hindu scientist who has seen any evidence of a big flood circa 4000 years ago.
There isn't a single Buddhist scientist who has found any sign of a 6000 year old universe.
There isn't a single Shinto scientist who has found evidence of "baramins".
None of these other religions have any particular attachment to evolution, and yet around the world, the view of all religious scientists can be summed up in one of two positions:
A) The scientific consensus is correct, the earth is 4.5 billion years old and evolution explains life's diversity!
B) BAH! All the evidence shows that MY RELIGION was right all along!
Now, just imagine for a second that any of these religions was correct and the scientific consensus wrong. Surely, there would be some scientist somewhere in the world looking at the evidence who is open minded enough to see it. If Hinduism is correct, we'd expect some Christian scientist to see evidence of an infinitely old, unchanging universe, right? It couldn't be that EVERY Christian scientist was completely closed-minded. But this doesn't happen, so it seems fairly clear that the evidence is against Hinduism (literally taken) being correct.
And the fact that not a single Hindu scientist has spotted evidence of a global flood says exactly the same thing about Creationism.
The evolutionary scientist has no confusion on this point. Scientists around the world who accept the evidence accept evolution, or they reject the evidence and cling to their pre-existing religion. From the creationist perspective, it requires that every other scientist who clings to a different religion be closed-minded, while every single scientist of another religion who accepts evolution is somehow close-minded and open-minded (after all, they accepted something outside their religious framework) at the same time.
Of course there is no evidence for evolution happening, if there was you'd see things like Orcas demonstrating diversification on there way to becoming two distinct species
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8440000/8440002.stm
Free Willy kills the credo cretins
PZ wrote
See here for an explanation of why creationists find that to be an impossible task.
Josh, #9, I recently read "Darwin's Century" by Loren Eiseley, (anthropologist, educator, philosopher, and natural science writer), in the late 1950's. He quotes the age of the Earth as about three & a half billion years, back then.
(I *used* to be nigelTheBold, but the fucking broken login system no longer works with TypePad. Oh, it offers TypePad as an option, right enough. But that's merely adaptive coloration.)
Y'know what I'd like for next Christmas? A creationist who bothered to study the epistemology and methodology of science, who then dug through existing data & evidence, leading ultimately to an informed debate about the viability of creationism as a scientific discipline.
Y'know why? Because that would be unique. It would be refreshing. Sure, it would mean debating the validity of empiricism, as well as the effectiveness of other forms of epistemology. (That part would be short: there are no other effective epistemologies, so bite me.)
Y'know what else I'd like? A dwarf apartment T-Rex.
My favourite argument from the previous thread came from our friend andre. He told us evolution is complex and difficult to understand. Creationism is simple and, therefore, is of more scientific merit.
Wait, what?
PZ, inspired by your headline, I've created this stylish piece of evowear for all your scientifically sartorial needs.
Can someone explain what PZ is talking about?
Creationists are welcome to visit my new blog:
http://darwin-killed-god.blogspot.com/
I'm an atheist but another person who visits my blog speaks your language because he used to be a minister. Now he's more interested in evolution than religious ideas.
Thus the common tendency among all pseudoscientists to fall back on an extreme relativism. There is no neutral common ground; there is no possibility of being objective; there is no such thing as an honest process of inquiry. We all start out with a "world view" which we seek to confirm. Therefore, there is nothing wrong with starting out with the Bible, and presuming it's true. After all, atheists start out presuming it's false.
No we don't. That was our conclusion. We know what would change our minds.
Creationists think science has to do with individuals going around looking for supporting evidence for what they already believe. They don't get it. In the big picture, that's the opposite of what the scientific method is about.
They also don't seem to get that their eager embrace of epistemic relativism done to confirm creationism is going to undermine their entire argument that only God lets us escape from moral relativism. Once you throw out the idea that there can be a common, neutral ground from which skeptical inquiry may reach consensus, then it's just gone as far as you're concerned. You can't take it back later to show that God grounds morality, or whatever.
Think, people. Think it through...
balagan @ 23
Nice try. If there are two different kinds of killer whale, then it is obvious that god created them separately (on porpoise :-)
Oh shit, now this thread has me projecting like a creationist. Arrggghhhh!
MrJonno #14,
Most folks are doing something about it. It's called anthropomorphic global warming.
(Sorry - bad joke.)
#29: Google the names. You'll find that Price, an Adventist with no background in the sciences whatsoever, cobble together the whole idea of "flood geology".
Cerus @16: Well, at least you didn't spell Myers as "Meyers". Some of us did just that on our natal day of commenting -- take a few deep breaths, and then start again.
Regarding the observation up-thread, (actually, several observations, if you count the previous thread), about "truth by repetition": this is the biggest problem, the most stubborn sticking point, I come across when discussing Intelligent Design or Creationism with mormons. They are highly trained in the "truth by repetition" mode of thinking. If they're looking for evil, teaching people to think (or fail to think) this way, and then pretending that it's a virtue is a great Evil.
I'd like to hear from neuroscientists (or psychologists, perhaps?) on how one might bust up the mental concrete that protects the repetition channels.
Well, shit. This is just an Atheist circle-jerk. BRING ON THE TRUE BELIEVERS!
Creationist lies are effective with non-creationists as well. To the non-scientific layman--even an intelligent one--their claims sound plausible. I've had secular friends mention those polonium haloes, or family members express sophomoric doubts about evolution. Each time I've tried to set them straight, but the thing is, they think scientists just have *opinions.* They simply have no clue how science works and, alas, are many times too lazy to even pick up an actual book on the topic. So even though these people don't think of themselves as creationists, they think there's still some debate, and think scientists are arrogant and dismissive. In that way, the creationists have done their job, which is anything that will erode trust in science.
Bible? What "bible"? No one has ever been able to prove the existence of a "bible" and I have never been shown one. It can't exist because it is not logical to conclude that it CAN exist. There has never been one shred of evidence to support such a claim.
Hey - if they can do it.....
Jc
I wish the creationists would take their noses out of their 'holy scriptures' for just a little while and actually look at the world - they would surely see that the real 4.5 billion-year-old world is far more exciting and interesting than any banal mythology; they would see that evolution is far more fascinating than the magic their supposed deity supposedly used to poof it all into existence. How could any religious fiction even come close to being as compelling as the reality of our amazing, intricate universe?
Yep. The formation age of the Earth dating to some millions of years B.P. was ruled out pretty fast when they finally turned radiometric dating toward that question in a systematic way (which, if I recall correctly, started happening in the ?late 1920s).
Unless I missed some major paper that everyone is on board with whereby Archaeopteryx is currently being classified as a very derived non-avian, then it's not proper to be calling it a reptile (unless you're including birds within Reptilia).
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/evo_10
@1140 on the previous thread, a link was provided to an explanation from Richard Dawkins on why it is a waste of time to debate creationists. It's a great read.
In the comments, a creationist says (among many other numbingly stupid things), "We know why evolutionists are ordered not to debate and why they must not contend for the Life Science Prize. They are eminently unqualified as scientists..."
Because creationists are used to living with overseers who dictate their every move, indeed, their every thought, it's amusing to see them projecting that kind of existence onto non-believers. "Ordered not to debate..." Okay, which one of you is ordering everyone else around!?
Lynna, the repetition heard from godbots come from their programming, which can be don to them by others or by themselves or by a mix of the two influences.
Basic deprogramming techniques are: (gotten from the wiki art):
1. Discredit the figure of authority: the cult leader
2. Present contradictions (ideology vs. reality): "How can he preach love when he exploits people?" is an example.
3. The breaking point: When a subject begins to listen to the deprogrammer; when reality begins to take precedence over ideology.
4. Self-expression: When the subject begins to open up and to voice some of his own gripes against the cult.
5. Identification and transference: when the subject begins to identify with the deprogrammers, starts to think of himself as an opponent of the cult rather than a member of it.
This polonium haloes thing is new to me. I must be out of the mainstream. Though, I just did a modicum of research on it (from the perspective, of course, of a non-believer) and found a very simple argument against Gentry's claim.
It's really not that hard.
The main assumption in science is there is some sort of order in the universe and and our brains are capable of at least attempting to understand it.
I mean I suppose it could be wrong but I rely on that assumption every time I get into a car or an aircraft. I make that assumption every time I log on to a computer.
I certainly don't make the assumption that the bible is bollocks and christianity is a hate filled death cult I just come to that conclusion after examining the evidence and relying on my initial assumption
Simplifying the matter, literal Genesis had been abandoned by scientific types long before Darwin, and replaced with a variety of Genesis-like systems, such as the idea that the Genesis creation/destruction (flood) story was just the most recent of a long series of creation/destruction events God had performed. This long series of creation/destruction cycles could, it was thought, be aligned with the geological record, which a singular Genesis story could not.
Then comes Darwin and the need for such a model dies.
Post Darwin, the only people still worried about making the evidence match the Bible were the creationist literalists. They'd never been happy with the cycle model, and without the intellectuals pushing for it, they fell back on the old ways.
It was George MacCready Price who formalized YEC into a pseudo-scientific endeavor. He took the Genesis elements and tried reading geology into them, using a combination of long abandoned flood geology ideas and combining them with the latest (circa 1920s) in science to come up with a scientific-sounding swill of weirdness which Henry Morris popularized (without credit) 40 years later in "The Genesis Flood".
The fact that YEC is almost entirely based on the work of a man most YECs would consider a total heathen blasphemer has been the source of much amusement to me.
I think all books should be presumed fictional unless there is evidence of their veracity. Otherwise I can go and promote my novel as a prophecy of the future rather than just some shit I made up in my copious spare time. Any jackass can write a book. Any jackass can write a book that claims its own veracity. If it really is TRUFAX, they should be able to point to evidence outside their own writing. Therefore, the null hypothesis is to assume a narrative is fiction.
Dan Brown, for instance.
I'm glad PZ Meyer has finally put his finger on it: modern creationism is the intellectual progeny of Ellen White who the Seventh Day Adventist church says is a prophet of God.
As an ex-Adventist myself who has read most of what Ellen White wrote and read several of George MacReady Price's books while I was still a believer I can vouch for the veracity for what PZ Meyer's has written at the beginning of this thread. This is why when the Discovery Institute and others after their kind blather on and on I just snigger and know from whence cometh their message.
There also ample evidence Ellen White was just another pious fraud among many, just in case some devout Adventists are reading here. Like the Mormons, the Adventists have a prophet who is now an embarrassment to them.
Creationism is a fraud. Ellen White was a fraud. Religion is a fraud. I hold them all in utter contempt.
RBH: "See here for an explanation of why creationists find that to be an impossible task."
Actually I was a creationist who could and regularly did think from the perspective of non-believers. During college my interest was in apologetics, and my creationist beliefs were from my private school and my home church.
It's not too terribly difficult for those who value "truth" (aka objectivity and rationality), and for those in apologetics understanding the opposition through their eyes is the only way to successfully debate.
When it came to creationism... I did finally see the light. It was merely a long educational process.. I jumped from one "what about this" to another until finally all of my questions were answered.
PaleGreenPants said:
Seconded. While we're waiting, I highly recommend RBH's link in post 24, with a question for anybody who's read it: How can I tell when I am doing the same thing as the creobots(selectively ignoring evidence) but on a different topic?
If you're using the term "Reptilia" at all these days, you'd better be.
I think most prefer "Sauropsida" for that clade, though, which does of course include birds.
Just turn the argument back on the creationists: remind them that there are TWO accounts of creation in the Book of Genesis that are mutually irreconcilable. For one to be right, the other has to be wrong. Make them pick one.
Nebula99: "How can I tell when I am doing the same thing as the creobots(selectively ignoring evidence) but on a different topic?"
When you assert "you're wrong because of such-and-such"... the opposition's response is either non-sense or you learn something. As a former creationist, I constantly learned when I debated against science. Today as someone who accepts modern biology, I still go out and read articles from such places as AnswersInGenesis and it's crystal clear that they're speaking non-sense, ignorance, and sometimes even lies.
oops. trigger-happy.
As opposed to the colloquial English term "reptiles," which is still usually understood to exclude birds.
@Tony.Bubbles #26
They're easy to come by. I have a two of them myself, a blue one and a yellow one (Melopsittacus undulatus). They think they're roaring and being all scary, we just hear it as chirps and twittering.
Why yes, I'm glad you like it.
Oh..., you think that's a bad thing...
Well, whatever you think of my hobbies, hell yes, bring on the TRUE BELIEVERS, for I would mock them.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa30
Quoth PZ: If you peel the Bible away from the argument, just pretend for a moment that it doesn't exist, do you appreciate the fact that there is no independent evidence to support the story you draw from it?
...which, if you recall, is essentially admitted (though not in so many words) by AiG, right in the first gallery of Ham's House of Hooey, as I point out here.
And if I said that we're just modified fish, you'd be complaining that humans aren't classified as fish.
Read for comprehension.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
I didn't know about the Seventh Day Adventist/creationism link! Wow, that clears up something that's rattled in my head for decades: when I was a kid at a family picnic, I caught a little garter snake. My Russian grandmother, who was Adventist (altho' I had no real idea what that meant) asked me if snakes ate dirt. I was pretty confused, but I told her they ate insects and other snakes. So I've always wondered where she got that --of course, the fucking bible, Gen. 3:14. Ugh.
Mr. Meyers writes this comment: “When scientists make interpreting the totality of the evidence their priority, with even the believers among scientists regarding the natural world around them as part of their god's message to human beings, they come to the conclusion that the book of Genesis is a myth or a non-literal parable of some sorts, because it does not line up at all with the physical evidence."
The above is not true. First, it is imperative that Mr. Meyers differentiates between “creationist clowns” (young Earth/young universe), old universe/younger Earth, or old Earth/younger universe. I represent the old Earth/younger universe, which holds the view that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old, and the remaining celestial objects in the universe are three days younger.
I’ve contacted Mr. Meyers before, but he fails to address the issues which I bring to the table. Genesis DOES line up perfectly with both the 4.6 billion year geologic history of Earth, and the 650+ million year fossil record of death. All other creationist views either deny literal scripture, or deny scientific reality. The truth about Genesis is that the seven days are not linear, and are in “biblical order”.
For example, the correct reading of Genesis chapter one reveals that 1) the only day of Creation Week that Moses saw was the Fourth Day, and 2) mankind has been on Earth, in his present likeness, for over 60 million years. This view is called the “Observations of Moses”. Stop being deceptive, Mr. Meyers. Scrutinize someone that is more formidable,
rather than just the “clowns”.
Herman Cummings
Ephraim7@aol.com
I missed out on that 1000+ thread. Knowing my luck, they're too cretarded to find their way over here.
And there you go again, Sven, demonstrating how you elitist evolutionists change your theory whenever it runs up against something it can't explain* just so long as the religion of evolution is not questioned.
*Yes, I know. They don't know...
Their argument really boils down to "God is too dumb to use metaphors". A lot of their arguments are implicitly insulting to the idea of a puissant deity since they project their ignorance onto their god.
Read some of the history of creationism -- in particular, Ron Numbers' book. At the time of the Scopes trial, for instance, most creationists had a, well, I can't call it a sophisticated theology, but it was a little less batshit insane than what people like Ken Ham and Carl Wieland peddle now. They didn't flat out reject the conclusions of modern science, but tried to fit their god into the incontrovertible evidence of nature.
The Seventh Day Adventists, though, had a prophetess, Ellen White, who had mystical visions and claimed to have witnessed in spirit all the events of the book of Genesis, and proclaimed that it really was a week of seven 24 hour days. Most of the early 20th century creationists repudiated that -- it wasn't just dumb, it was heretical, since it came from a self-proclaimed prophetess from a religion that was just another wacky cult. George MacReady Price was an SDA who lived a long, long time and constantly pushed this view of the Bible, colored by crazy visions.
It all got whitewashed in the 1960s. Whitcomb and Morris came out with a book, The Genesis Flood, that was basically warmed-over Price, except that it left out Ellen White and SDA dogma. This is the view of creationism that has taken off in the last 50 years. What Carl Wieland is trying to push off on his followers is the fantastic imaginary scenario of a deranged 19th century cult leader, with the embarrassing cult omitted.
@ 61,
Who is this Mr Meyers you speak of??
bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha !
Would I? Really? And you have evidence of this from exactly where?
How about you write for clarity?
Mr. Cummings:
If you learn to spell the name of your host correctly, you won't annoy as many people.
All attempts to claim that Genesis is 'true' fail because Genesis is a collection of myths that have nothing to do with history or science. Your claims aren't very interesting, not even in a crackpot sort of foolishness.
Herman Cummings @61: No, as long as you're getting your natural history from Genesis, you're just another clown, albeit in different face-paint.
And to all and sundry: let me echo the hearty recommendation for today's Panda's Thumb post referenced at #24.
Well sure one could think that until they started thinking about things like the speed of light and other insignificant facts.
I would rather face a T-rex than our parakeet any day. That thing was pure evil.
@Herman #61
So all of this:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/12/hubble_space_telescope_advent_…
by the god of a tribe of creatures living here:
http://www.humanistsofutah.org/images/PaleBlueDot.jpg
Yeah - that makes total sense - to someone with a truly cosmic-sized ego.
Holy Shit! Just as I write 60, #61 turns up! Woo-hoo! There is a non-god!
WTF? Which can only be corroborated by your discredited bible, and is therefore meaningless.
If you like. It's about as believeable as anything else in there. The problem is, we have no authoritative, independent corroboration of Moses' existence.
Er.....0.2 timecube?
Oh wait. You must be a Poe. Is this your secret signal?
Herman Cummings @61
Scrutinize someone that is more formidable,
rather than just the “clowns”.
I'm sure he would, if he could find any. You're just exiting a different door of the Creationist Clown Car.
Rather than just stating your ludicrous position, why not post your "reasoning" and "evidence" so we can all have many more laughs than we'll get from your one-liner there?
@PaleGreenPants: "Dan Brown, for instance."
Damn right. My sisters and mother are all about the damn guy's book, saying how good it is. I read the DaVinci code and I was beyond bored at his lack of talent and the easy plot. It's easy to make a controversial book, just shove a religion in it. No need to make the plot good.
Gawd I can't believe I spent 15 bucks on that book..
Every time a creationist spouts nonsense about Genesis myths some sumerian priest spins in his grave...
Talking snake, forbidden fruit and fall, global flood, all myths already present before Abraham.
PZ what sort of influence did the various essays on Evolution and "Darwinism" in The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth have on the whole movement?
Particularly the ones from Beach and Wright.
Are you really that dumb, Josh? The point is that it's the same idiotic whine either way. If you're unable to understand idioms, that's not my problem.
Did, but mindless pedants can fault anything.
And I don't need to bother with your incomprehension and pedantry further in this thread.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Herman Cummings has written this.
Josh, Reptilia is a paraphyletic group (to the ire of many people) which does not include (most) dinosaurs or any avians. Many people refer to dinosaurs as reptilian, adding to the confusion. While the technicalities of a naming scheme may be occasionally misunderstood, the actual facts and relationships are plain for anyone who isn't afraid of actually learning about them.
I have serious trouble seeing how classifying birds as non-reptile, given their dinosaur ancestry and the specific clades within Reptilia, constitutes a reaction to something anyone couldn't explain. Instead, it arose from a better understanding of birds' relationship to dinosaurs and a more technical application of paraphyletic taxonomy. In the future, you should make cogent points rather than declaring your conclusions and attaching buzzwords or nonsensical vitriol.
Herman, is that three Earth days, three Jupiter days, or three days on the third planet out from the major component of the binary star system Alpha Centauri?
Or is the three days how long it is since you last took your meds?
@Ubi Dubium and @BlackCat:
I have FOUR Budgerigars. FOUR. My girl is the fattest, most territorial bitch on the block. Her first son's called Godzilla. I called him that because of his destructive behavior in the nest.
He turned out bigger than his mom. I'm scared here. What if HE reproduces?!
I’ve contacted Mr. Meyers before, but he fails to address the issues which I bring to the table. Genesis DOES line up perfectly with both the 4.6 billion year geologic history of Earth, and the 650+ million year fossil record of death.
I think what you mean is that your liberal ad hoc interpretation of Genesis lines up perfectly. That's what you mean, but you didn't say it. So, yep, you get to wear the clown hat too! Sorry!!
And I represent the Lollipop Guild.
*speechless*
come on people you're so hungry for someone to argue with you take the bait of an obvious poe @61?
Come on, you really think that guy is serious?
@Drew: Yea, he can't be serious. I mean, his name's Cummings.
Ah Herman. Perhaps most Christians' doxies are orthodoxies but the fact that your doxy is a heterodoxy doesn't change the fact that we're talking about a whore.
You're not right, you're just differently wrong.
Can't parse that first sentence, second one either, but the third is off-base.
Things are very colorful in your world aren't they
If Mr Cummings has contacted me before, his ravings have merely been unnoticeable examples of the same old crazy talk I get in my email every day. I'll have to look to see if I've got anything from him buried in the archives, but more likely, that kind of lunacy just got trashed.
This is wrong, and only marginally better than YECs. There are things we can see that are almost three times older than the Earth. Unless you reject the speed of light, in which case you are no better than YECs.
This is wrong. PZ has addressed all of your points before. And it is "Myers".
This is wrong. There are two Genesis stories, neither of which bears any similarity to the geologic history of the Earth or to the history of life on this planet. For instance the first Genesis story says mammals developed before fish, which goes directly against the fossil record which shows mammals ultimately evolved from fish.
This is wrong. Some creationist views, like yours, deny both.
I don't know what you mean. Do you mean that they are of different lengths, which means the order is wrong, or do you mean that they are out of order, which contradicts the the words in the story and the scientific evidence since Genesis has things happening on the same day when in reality things on other days happened between them (such as the stars and moon being formed on one day, and the Earth being formed on another, when many of the stars formed first, then the Earth, then the moon).
On what grounds do you say this is the correct reading?
How could Moses have seen any of them when he lived centuries later?
This is wrong. This is over two orders of magnitude longer than humans have been around. Not only did humans not exist back then, but no ape did. As best as I can tell it was even long before the first monkeys. Further, that was only 5 million years after the extinction of the dinosaurs.
We would love to, if such a person were to present himself/herself. But so far it is all just different types of clowns.
Ok, I'm game. Show us the timeline, and how it lines up with the Genesis account. Which Genesis account are you using, btw?
A lie from the first page, MrFire:
"Secular science is dogmatic about trying to establish evolution as an undeniable fact, and is not interested in accepting or exploring other possibilities, no matter how plausible they may be."
This is a common claim by creationists and it's utterly vacuous. Creationist claims get consideration, in fact far too much consideration given their track record, and are soundly dismissed (emphasis on *soundly*). They are almost never plausible, as implied by the quote, and when they are remotely plausible they lack the two most important aspects of evolutionary theory (and any strong theory): they account for a vast amount of current observations and they are predictive concerning future observations. Typically, the very best creationist claims account for a very small subset of data and even then they usually make mistakes (or are outright dishonest).
No, 'secular science' (which is to say science), despite dealing with far too many creationist claims and finding them inferior to the vast majority of middle school science projects, concentrates on ideas which generate data, which make predictions and can be tentatively confirmed or denied as a result. Look at that word, tentatively: that's the results you get from the best science available, from the science your computer is built upon. Creationist claims haven't even gotten that much support experimentally. There's a reason the best creationists have to offer is AnswersInGenesis, a wholly dishonest enterprise: they are *not* interested in science nor a critical examination of their claims when it comes to their personal, wacky religious beliefs. There are rare exceptions, but they are the ones who admit that creationist claims lack scientific value.
So, to soundly rebut a lie listed on the first page of an article you didn't even write, it was necessary (to properly cover the issues) to write several paragraphs. I won't be continuing on that article, as merely quoting another lazy person simply gives me work that you should've done to begin with. If you find something particularly good, write it out in your own words (so that we know you understand it) and prepare to defend it.
Please, you all must tell me right now, truthfull, that Herman Cummings is just a troll. Please please please say that he doesn't really believe that. I'm not sure my brain could take the fact that someone believes that.
Hey, Cummings did send me something back in August! It was more of the same, marked "For publication", and with the dire threat that after I published part 1 of his biblical refutation of young earth creationism, he'd send me part 2.
I ignored it. Just another clown.
Before it is even relevant to for me to even start considering the veracity of this claim, you must first demonstrate for me how Genesis 1 lines up with Genesis 2.
Herman Cummings #61
"Scrutinize someone that is more formidable,
rather than just the “clowns”."
{Enters in dilapitdated car, exists car, closes door, car falls to pieces} HONK HONK EHEH HONK HONK {throws pail of whitewash} EHEH [dee dee diddle diddle dee dee dah dah] HONK HONK {slips on banana skin}.
I spy over-large shoes, a red nose, green hair, an horrendously made up face, is it....Auntie Ethel?* No! It's another clown!
Louis
* The temptation to pick prolific female posters of Pharyngula and cause an ensuing pun/joke/flame fest (delete as appropriate) was nearly overwhelming. I am proud of myself that I didn't. I shall reward myself with a beer and some bacon.
P.S. Who the fuck is this Meyer/Meyers bloke people keep mentioning? The owner of this blog is Bpii Shzzheaddh Gnmaellars, please spell it correctly.
so you mean to say that either he's serious and not a poe, or he's perpetrating a really elaborate joke?
Hmmm...I'd like to think better of humanity than to think that a person could believe such a thing as this...but I've been let down so many times.
thank you, Louis, for your uncharacteristic restraint
Bah. He's strictly second-rate as far as whacked-out beliefs go. Let me up the ante.
I believe that I am around 14 billion years old, but the universe and earth is only 42 years old. How do I know this? Because the earth (and time) only began to exist for me about 42 years ago. Ergo, since I myself am 14 billion years old, it is the rest of the universe that is only 42 years old.
Dinosaurs began to have been existed when the world was 4. At about 8, the pharoahs had begun to have once ruled ancient Egypt. When the universe was 12, the best thing to have happened in my 14 billion years occurred: computers. When the world turned 19, I invented something better: sex.
You, Jim, are unfortunately only about 10 minutes old.
Now, until Mr. Cummings can beat that, his belief is merely dolled-up superstition. It's not even whacky. It will never have been considered true.
If this is the case I'd stay far away from this place, the frequent kooks that show up here will be a huge let down for you.
*reads Sven DiMilo's comment, agrees, cites Poe's Law regarding Josh*
For a Poe, Cummings wrote a 4-page screed laying out his personal (rather odd, to put it mildly) creation myth. Mr. Fire linked to it in #78. I think Cummings is serious--his loony ideas are no loonier than the standard YEC nonsense.
We start with the fundamental assumption that reality is real. What we see (observe/measure/etc) is what we get. Thus, if the bible (or any other source, sacred or otherwise) does not match reality, then the bible must be a lie (or an allegory/metaphor/whatever).
But the fundamentalist YECs do not share this basic assumption. They start with the assumption that their bible (or their personal interpretation of it) is real. Thus, if reality does not match the bible, then reality must be a lie. Or at best, a metaphor. And the parts of the reality that even YECs must concede to work, work because those aspects of reality are particularly good metaphors.
Debate is not possible if the two sides cannot agree on a basic foundation upon which both may anchor their claims. Otherwise all you get is two people talking past each other.
@Sven #98:
Uncharacteristic? Buddy you don't know the half of what I'd like to say had I the time or inclination...
...And I suspect you're rather glad about that! ;-)
Louis
Hello, Herman. So Moses witnessed day four, eh? This is you interpretation of the translations of the inscribed, older oral tales told in a set of bronze age myths, recounting a vision of Moses (who may or may not have been loosely based on a real person), and assuming he had a vision of God, and was not merely hallucinating. Okaaay... no chance for errors there.
I assure you that claiming the stars are three days younger than the Earth is at odds with just about every field of science except maybe library science. Your only "evidence" is your own unique interpretation of religious texts from one of many religions currently available.
The reason there are so many religions, and why they continually fracture into more and more sects, is because none of them are testing their claims against reality.
If you want to found a religion of one, fine; you won't be the first. But stop asserting that it's science, or even compatible with science. That's just clown talk.
Kermit,
not that horrible google string above
Shirakawasuna:
Easy tiger! Friendly fire (no pun intended). I was linking to his blatherings, after suggesting @72 that he might be a Poe.
@61
OMG! Bwahahahahahaha indeed.
The universe is YOUNGER than the earth? Really?
That's just... wow. Just so insane. That makes even LESS sense than a young earth claim. There is not a single thing in reality which could possibly support that. You can't have a planet without a solar system first, which requires a sun which are formed from hydrogen and other light elements created after the big bang and baryogenesis. It is not physically possible to have a universe younger than the earth. It's like saying you were physically born before your mother.
OMG the insanity.
I always wondered what specific flavor of batshit insanity the 7DAs added to the Christian kookiness - and now I know. At least *someone* in this thread will have learned something!
Perhaps Mr. Cummings is also a faithful believer in the existence of tachyons?
Amphiox @ 103
Well said.
The view science takes on reality is contingent on reality. This causes the scientific view to self-correct when new information is discovered, thus furthering the progress of knowledge about reality. This kind of honing makes the scientific view a better approximation of truth than any other method known.
The creationist's view of reality is contingent on static 2000 year old scribblings based on even more primitive knowledge and fable. They presume these ancient documents are inerrant for no rational reason other than their presumption. Anyone doing this while expecting to be take seriously is a clown.
One day I was browsing a ID document, and I find the picture of the Archeopteryx and I thought "WTF, a picture of a transitional fossil in an ID document!!", and then I read what was the document saying about this fossil, it was something like:
"This is the Archeopteryx, some evolutionists believe that this is a transitional fossil between reptiles and bird but that was disproved long ago"(emphasis mine)
No citation, not a clue of who or how was "disprove it", they disguise their unfounded asumptions like science without make the attemp to do a mere citation. They have no proofs, only stupid believers.
Icarus @ #39 wrote:
Well, yeah. Exciting yes, but evolution (or any aspect of reality revealed through science) neither makes you feel all special and loved, nor does it provide impetus for denigrating and loathing whole groups of others. Butch and Linda Babyfactory from Topeka who still can't understand why they're struggling to make ends meet when just three short years ago they were voted Homecoming King and Queen probably couldn't care less about the exciting reality of the planet they live on as much as finding someone to blame for their lack of material success, and scientists with their refusal to slot the world into simple black-or-white dichotomies are just shills for the liberal homosexual Ayerab-lovers' agenda.
Take the dipshit comment at #61: Cummings' comment effectively says nothing other than, "I'm special! Really! Listen to me!" Consider the hubris required to write something like "All other creationist views either deny literal scripture, or deny scientific reality." So Cummings' loving god created all of the universe and wrote a special book for his favourite creations only to have it grossly misunderstood by skeptics and believers alike, save for Cummings and his ilk? Please. And how does Cummings account for his 'special' knowledge that's beyond the ken of nearly everyone else in the world? Why, he simply makes it up as he goes along. "The problem with trying to reconcile the bible with science, see, is that the bible is written not in scientific or historical order, but 'biblical order'. That's why it doesn't line up. But if you just move this phrase over here, and cross out that word over there, and add in this phrase, it dovetails perfectly. Well, perfectly when you consider that the facts in the bible aren't scientific or historical facts, but 'biblical facts'. Take all of that into consideration, and the book is practically a physics textbook. But nobody understands that but me."
We really need to stop poking fun at Christianity by calling it a Skydaddy cult, because it's not about Yahweh or Jesus or Mary or the saints or any of those: it's about each individual believer, and how the whole universe was created just so people like Cummings can feel like they're at the centre of the whole thing. Honestly, it's the most narcissistic belief system ever invented.
Ah yes, for the good old "Well you are just AFRAID to debate" - 'argument'...
No. Not really.
You see, I have a ten to twelve hour working day as a journalist. When my three year old nephew is coming around to tell me his new Power Rangers figure is, in fact, the greatest thing in the history of everything, I will probably nod my head to him for a few minutes with a gentle smile, but then send him on his way. I will, and can, not spend hours upon hours debating the greatness of his Power Rangers figure. For I have, in fact, more important stuff to do.
And really, it is just the same with scientists being "invited" to debate a creationist. If you elect to dwell in a self selected cesspool of ignorance, that is your free decision. But don't you dare knocking on our door and steal our valueable working time just to get us to ease your worries about your new sparkling toy indeed being more than merely a batch of plastic with a bad theme song.
#61
"Earth is 4.6 billion years old, and the remaining celestial objects in the universe are three days younger."
Easy meat...You are a fucking idiotic clown with shit for brains!
@85:
My mother's name is Cummings :-(
It was pretty cool when she worked for a certain Diesel Engine manufacturing plant in Indiana. Of course, they were missing a letter in the name.
Sigh, she also believes that we are on Earth because aliens flushed the toilet as they were passing by... It must be the name.
JC
I have, at times, considered the possibility of arguing to creationists that the biblically derived age of the earth is just a misunderstanding, i.e. that god told the scribes how old the earth was, but they didn't understand "billions", so he just said, "Write something down, they'll figure it out later." Along comes Mr. Cummings to illustrate the law of unintended consequences: he takes that basic idea and goes somewhere... else.
I think I'll leave that argument alone now.
*resigns to failure after getting accidentally Poe'd twice*
@vanharris #7: I think PZ means all the pretend geology which the creationists rely on is from McReady-Price (see Eric Hovind's Grand Canyon story for example - 100% pure McReady-Price).
... for significantly large values of the phrases "line up" and "perfectly".
(I actually typo'd that second word above as "significan'tly" - something I probably should consider rather more accurate...)
JC
It's been a while since I commented here. I should probably spend a bit of time ridiculing Herman (or at least read everyone else's good job of it).
The funny thing I wonder about Herman is if he believes the speed of light went up. Kind of funny: E=mc^2. If you increase c, m goes down very quickly. Essentially, believing the speed of light used to be faster requires believing the Earth once weighed about as much as a grain of rice.
Of course, he could say that God decided to override E=mc^2, but, of course, that would be tantamount to saying the universe is a random, chaotic place where any rule could be overridden by the moment-to-moment whims of their stone idol, who was created by a random nothing storm randomly stirring up a bunch of nothing and perfectly assembling a being with the inexplicable desire and ability to create this particular universe.
Of course, requiring the laws to change doesn't speak well of his intelligence, since it means he wasn't smart enough to get it right the first time.
Also, the only reason Creationists offer for why he would speed up the light from some stars would be to deceive us: Creationists believe their god is a pathological liar who only deceives to revel in his ability to get away with it.
@Metz'OMagix #11: You might be thinking of this same blog where PZ wrote that Ray Comfort (or was it someone else) gives extra credit to "students" who post nonsense on blogs such as PZ's.
What *do* we call Comfort's acolytes? Students or apprentices is not apt; who wishes to study to be a fool?
I can't take anymore creationist crazy. Been dealing with it IRL.
it really sucks when you realize that you can't talk honestly about a subject with some one close to you because they know you have the evidence to prove them wrong, and they'd rather be wrong then change their minds.
No, that was Dembski not Comfort.
I like your analogy Frankencone, but there's a further difference between a creationist and your nephew: your nephew isn't engaging with you solely in the hope that he'll trip you up and expose you as a tool of Christ-denying abortionists and masturbators. We have, on occasion, had creationists here who were honestly curious about the theory of evolution and the evidence supporting it, but they're rarer than fossil hominins. The rule is to allow everyone three comments before signaling the rest of the wolf pack that it's time to feed, but it usually takes fewer than that to reveal the motivations of a mendacious creationist armed only with what they think is a 'Gotcha!' overheard at their bible study group.
Growing Pains.
Brownian @112: Well said about the arrogance.
Of course, arrogance is pretty much what Creationism is all about.
I humbly accept that the universe could have turned out very differently, and that I wouldn't exist in those hypothetical universes. I'm just glad to be here.
Creationists, on the other hand, assume that this universe that contains them is infinitely more special than any other hypothetical universe. Why? Because it contains them. Because they can't accept that it even *might* have turned out differently, they invent a God who exists for the sole purpose of creating them, the pinnacle of all possible universes.
Endor #122
Know the feeling. I had homeopathy and magnet therapy touted as the next best thing since sliced bread by some of the more credulous members of my family over the holidays. I was a good boy....for about the first three times, then I kinda rose to the bait and may have made a point or two. With refrerences.
Bad, bad Louis. Bad Louis. I imagine we'll all be speaking again by March.
Louis
When a creationist speaks of "true" science, that means the set of random unconnected scientific factoids that do not obviously contradict Genesis.
Your worldview is novel, but the fact that it contradicts two less scientific facts than the other creationist ideas out there does not make it more formidable. The main problem with your schtick is aptly noted by Dr. Myers in his generalized debunking of creationism above:
Unfortunately your viewpoint does not differ from any other in creationism in this regard. You've rearranged your interpretation of the bible so that it no longer contradicts the age of the earth as determined by geology or the amount of time life has existed on earth. On the other hand the basis of your cosmology is still the Bible, and still in contradiction to much of observable reality (the speed of light and immensity of the universe, and the non-existance of a 60 million year fossil record of humanity to name a couple). That puts you in exactly the same defective philosophical boat as the YECs.
You know, I've been thinking why debates with creationists, climate change denialists and other anti-scientists always degenerate into shouting matches.
In science, it is all about the evidence interpreted in a naturalistic framework. We can debate precisely what the evidence means, but only within a narrow range. And we keep having to come back to the evidence. There is only so personal a debate can become under these rules of engagement.
Now introduce into that paradigm somebody for whom talking snakes and virgin births are simply matters of course. There simply is no common framework for interpreting evidence.
With evidence out of the picture, it becomes a matter of authority. By any objective measure of authority, a scientist ought to win that one hands down when it comes to his own subject matter, right? So, all that is left to the anti-science nutjob is character assassination and ad hominem attack. Their only hope is to so discredit the scientists that the audience also begins to doubt the evidence gathered by the scientists.
There's no point in debating such people--you're playing football, while they're playing calvin-ball.
And guess what? It's just another cranky old book written by cranky old men who tried to replace their ignorance with a foolish certainty.
Well, it's a step up from "Bronze-Age goatherds" anyway. But I would submit that it was written by men who simply lacked the concept of empirical truth altogether. It took the Scientific Revolution for people to begin to imagine that there were actual, reliable ways to know about things like what causes the tides? much less the origins of the Earth and the solar system. To the priest who wrote Genesis 1, such matters were the province of Gods, and the way for humans to talk about these things was in the idiom of myth.
Biblical literalism is like empiricism's evil twin. Once rigorous empirical inquiry got started in earnest, and scientists and engineers could use its techniques to demonstrate convincingly, to anyone, that the universe was governed by regularities explicable with mathematics and logic, God's word, being The Truth, after all, had to partake of that kind of truth too, or so said many. But much before that, I suspect that if you told a believer that the evidence contradicted his myths, he'd just be puzzled. He would not disbelieve your evidence willfully, in the manner of the modern creationist, and find rationalizations; he just would not consider the question meaningful.
It's standard these days to assume that pre-modern cosmogonies and origins myths were primarily devised as aetiologies, that they were intended as a filler for the pre-empirical epistemic void. But I don't think this is right. I doubt that the void was experienced as such, as a lack or a deficiency in one's ability to acquire knowledge. Such myths have a social dimension that is underappreciated. The salient anxiety addressed by such narratives was not empirical curiosity about the natural world but what it meant to be a moral actor in an indifferent universe and a grossly unfair social world that was nevertheless believed to be a reflection of the will of God. A myth is a way of saying "It was like this when I got here." Less "foolish certainty" than a timorous whistling past the graveyard.
RBH, thanks for the link @24. Like others, I enjoyed the presentation. The explanation of how people manage to believe things that aren't true, or to believe concepts for which there is no evidence was good. I had read previously the research by Sam Harris et. al. that was mentioned. However, understanding how people got that way, or are that way, doesn't necessarily answer the question of how to get them out of the rut(s).
A subsequent comment listed some practical steps, beginning with discrediting the source of the information (discrediting the Prophet or pseudo-authority, for example). I've tried that with Joseph Smith. Some people respond by funneling any mention of the name of their prophet into their ready-made channel of "worship, honor, obey, do NOT question". They seem to be more receptive if they come upon discrediting information on their own. The internet works well for this. If you search for LDS or mormon, you're bound to come up with debunking sites as well as the usual official lies.
Louis #126 -
Oy, family! i don't even bother why my family! They watch Glen Beck. And think he's telling the truth! There's no hope for them.
This person actually said to me "that evolution is correct is YOUR opinion" complete with a glare.
i give up. I'm going back to not talking to people about anything of substance. They always turn out to be freakazoids who believe in stupid things and are absolutely certain they're right, even though they haven't spent a single second investigating it.
is canada this bad? I need to get away from good ol' muricans.
C.S.Lewis was buddies with Tolkein, and you know how evil that is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inklings
Oops wrong thread. ;)
MadScientist, # 118, thanks for that. Someone else explained it earlier as well.
But how the hell does PZ find time to read the superstitious crap as well as all the good stuff? Is there a mole in the Theology Dept? A lot of people who study theology do end up atheists.
I find Cummings' position even more bizarre than YEC. He's almost there, with regard to the age of the Earth anyway - why stop there when you're within an order of magnitude for the Universe? If you can twist Genesis enough to slide 4.3 bilion years in there, what is the issue? Surely the rest is easy?
So, how about this? Consider the universe as a 4 dimensional "sculpture" being created by this "god" guy. So, the first day he starts working on it he turns on his work lamp (let there be light) and starts pushing around the light and dark parts of the sculpture. On the second day he inserts various features into the 4 dimensional object, etc.
Now within the sculture we see things occurring in a certain order, but since god is "outside" he can put things wherever (whenever) he wants. So the "days" of creation are god's days, not days "within" the "sculpture" of the universe.
Sadly, I hear a lot of Creationists using that argument, SteveM.
Of course, they argue that their stone idol did all that stuff out of sequence in order to deceive us into thinking the universe is consistent and predictable, when it's really being tinkered with for the sake of randomness. And all that randomness just coincidentally lines up with what we expect from an orderly, predictable universe.
It’s sad that only #91, and #95 had a sensible comment. Before inserting your foot in your mouth, find out what a person is talking about first. Sorry about misspelling your name Mr. Myers. And yes, you refused to print my rebuttal of young Earth and old Earth doctrines.
Genesis has no creation accounts. Chapter one is God’s rendition of geologic history, given to Moses, revealing seven days which occurred in seven different geologic ages. Each day was taken from the first week of that particular geologic age. For example, in chronological order, the Fourth Day (Wednesday) was taken from Creation Week which was 4.6 billion years ago. Next came the fifth day (Thursday), which was taken from the first week of restoration following the Permian extinction in 245 Million BC. This is when God created the first birds and giant marine reptiles (“sea monsters”, not “great whales”).
Next came the sixth day (Friday), which was taken from the second (next) week of restoration which followed the Cretaceous extinction in 65 Million BC. This is when God created herbivores, giant mammals, and changed the likeness of mankind to what he is today (in God’s image).
The next day which was revealed was the seventh day (Saturday), taken from the third week (next) of restoration which followed the extinction of 25 Million BC. It goes on from there. Each week of Divine activity (1 Creation, 6 restorations), God put a different dispatch of mankind on Earth and life forms, which would be destroyed after a period of time. The first such instance was after Lucifer lost the war in Heaven (245 Million BC), and came back to Earth to engage in retaliatory destruction of our solar system.
The reappearing of life forms, which secular science defines as “evolution”, is actually God restoring life on Earth after corruption by Satan. There’s more to it than that, but that’s all I’ll say here, since most of the audience here is not serious. As far as chapter two is concerned, it conveys the origin of modern mankind (Adam & Eve) which began in 7200 BC. That’s why the sequence of events is different than the sixth day in chapter one.
In closing, there where seven days, taken from seven weeks, which were the first week of seven different geologic ages. So stop saying that the text has “creation myths”, because you have not been trained in this area. Genesis is a book of prehistoric history, advanced math and science.
Herman
Ephraim7@aol.com
Slightly off-topic, but not really.
A YEC fail made it onto Failblog (assuming it's not a Poe's):
http://failblog.org/2010/01/06/field-trip-fail/
You're not misleading my children into beleiving that the Earth is older than 6,000 years! And I'll make sure they don't even do their homework completely unless the assignment is Biblically correct.
Time is Cubic. The universe is Cubic. Four sides!
Sorry... I just had to Time Cube the hell out of this thread.
@ CJO: What particular point in history are you referring to, and what evidence do you have that people at that time actually thought that way?
One of the main jobs of priests in early civilizations was predicting the seasons based on the positions of the stars, and in some cases errors resulted in execution. The idea that such people could base their careers around analyzing evidence yet still somehow were not at all concerned for evidence seems contradictory to me.
Mr Cummings, who came up with this interpretation of Genesis? Was it you, or did you learn of it from someone else?
So it appears Cummings came by to release a pressing faecal dump, declined to wipe his ass and wondered off to stink up other areas of his tawdry and oh so woefully ignorant existence elsewhere.
As is the the modus operandi of every cretinist, Old or Young, makes not a jot of difference.
oh and by the by tis revealing on how Y/O ecisms really relate to each other with that 'ol black magic xian 'lurve!
You are dismissing all your fellow believers in fantasy with the comment...
"All other creationist views either deny literal scripture, or deny scientific reality."
Where is your religious respect?
When you would, all to glibly, accuse atheists of such a lack towards yourself and demand 'respect' towards your inherent load of codswollop that you preach as gospel...what a classic Clown!
We reserve exclusively the right to display a certain amount of COULROPHOBIA to an amateur sub section of that esteemed calling!
The reasons being obvious, your idiotic cult, and you by default, are mad, bad, and dangerous to bother with, you are also twisted with it.
But just on the dubious likelihood that the wannabee clown might reappear for an encore.
"Genesis DOES line up perfectly with both the 4.6 billion year geologic history of Earth"
Erm!...nope not a smidgeon!..although lying and making up nonsense to shoe horn it like an African rogue elephant into a tight size 8 red pencil line skirt with bust hugging garish pink blouse with obligatory smeared mascara and tatty peeka-boo bra to pimp it might explain a few things.
Then you have the singular lack of rationality to wonder why folks laugh and point and unanimously dismiss your offering as a cheap and unsatisfying dollop of trash....wise up 'Sherlock...your hoer is past it...and the price is too high even if you were giving her services away!
Even atheists have standards!
That is of course if you read it correctly...
And while there which creation myth, according to your analysis, is true the chapter one or the chapter two version in Genesis?
And if one outweighs the other...then why claim the tawdry pamphlet as error free?
Curious minds wish to know...and some of the others just want a giggle!
Do oblige...we are seemingly awaiting 'Goddo' here!
Unfortunately, very few of them seem capable of performing the Outsider Test on their own beliefs.
Delusional clownshoe @ 139,
Wrong thread Herman, wasn't that meant to go into the "The're coming for us" thread?
So the "days" of creation are god's days, not days "within" the "sculpture" of the universe.
An appeal to an infinite regress of increasingly strained metaphors is hardly convincing.
Herman, you seem to have reinvented a Catastrophist geological doctrine along with a Progressionist biological doctrine!
Why? This sort of superstitious thinking was discredited back in the 19th C.
Please go take your medication.
*cough*
#139
"In closing, there where seven days, taken from seven weeks, which were the first week of seven different geologic ages"
Seriously dude...you are a clown!..and a rather confused one at that.
Hermann "foremost living terrestrial authority on Genesis" Cummings #139
advanced math ? Give an example.
I wrote most of this before this thread was even created… :-)
Those? Rodenty? That would be stupid.
Two papers:
Tom S. Kemp: Acoustic transformer function of the postdentary bones and quadrate of a nonmammalian cynodont, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 27(2), 431–441 (12 June 2007)
Luo Zhexi, Chen Peiji, Li Gang & Chen Meng: A new eutriconodont mammal and evolutionary development in early mammals, Nature 446, 288 – 293 (15 March 2007)
Kemp (2007) is about Chiniquodon, Luo et al. (2007) is about Yanoconodon and can be found at http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1038/nature05627 .
Pretty pictures in both of them.
There's a mechanism for inheritance and one for mutation, so evolution by mutation and natural selection is inevitable.
Languages evolve, too. And so do certain computer programs (genetic algorithms).
It's actually very easy. Papal infallibility has only been invoked twice so far (immaculate birth of Mary, bodily assumption of Mary into heaven*) and came with pompous ceremonies both times.
* "The wages of sin is death." Somehow this got turned around into sin being the only possible cause of death. Mary being sinless (see "immaculate birth"), she can't have died, but must have moved to heaven in the flesh just like her son. See? Logical. <vehement nodding> It certainly helped that this idea had already been a tradition for centuries.
Yes. Almost all of them sit in the USA, though, "where even the Catholics are evangelical".
We look different?
The outwardly visible differences between us, mice, and kangaroos are mostly limited to proportions, all the same body parts are there for no functional reason.
Most of the outwardly visible differences between all these and the bananas disappear at the cell level, and remember that genes are templates for RNAs and proteins, not for body parts.
Homology all over the place, inwards, outwards, forwards, backwards.
Adam? What Adam? There is no Adam in that entire story! Adam belongs to the other creation tale!
Except…
…that the normal word adam just means "human being", and it just so happens to be grammatically masculine like its correspondents in German (Mensch), Russian (человек), and KJV English (man) for instance. Therefore "him" rather than "it".
You have overlooked comment 626 and lots of others.
<yawn> If I don't forget, I'll post a link to a highly interesting paper later today. Thine eyes shall pop out as usual.
So you believe what you want to be true?
Is that it?
If so, isn't that the greatest logical fallacy of all?
Except for bats (flew in) and mice (rafted in twice).
Haven't you noticed that controversies within science are never decided by debates? Haven't you noticed that scientists never hold debates with each other, not even at their conferences?
Have you never thought about why this is?
I can easily tell you. In a debate, the better rhetor wins, not the best-supported idea. In science, we want the best-supported idea to win come hell or high water.
Of course there is – the Gish Gallop and a long list of other rhetorical tricks.
Scientists write scientific articles instead to figure out which ideas are wrong. Such articles contain references to the necessary evidence, unlike debates. There's no time limit on them, so the Gish Gallop isn't possible – there really is time to deal with every single argument. And finally, there's peer review: every manuscript sent to a journal gets sent out to colleagues of the authors who are supposed to check if there are errors or omissions in the manuscript. Only when they approve is the manuscript published.
Todd Wodd. Check out comments 778 and 780 of this thread.
Because you simply don't get to judge whether the behavior of the LORD God Almighty is OK. He gets to judge you.
They don't believe what they want to believe. Remember Barb, who had a better sense of morals than her god, and who we got to admit this almost explicitly shortly before she was banned?
How does that qualify him to shoot his mouth off about biology? BTW, he's spelled Wieland and might even be pronounced accordingly (with "ee" rather than "eye").
Then why does he try to meddle in biology?
<yawn> And I can finish a lowest-level Minesweeper® game in 4 (four) seconds and a highest-level one in 104. Who cares?
Assuming it's even the same type of intelligence that's necessary for chess and science, intelligence can't get anywhere without knowledge. You can't just make the necessary facts up as you go along. You need to learn about them.
Congratulations to him for this. At the same time, shame upon him for his refusal to learn about biology before talking about it. :-|
Engineering is completely irrelevant. Plant physiology is a sufficiently narrow field that a sufficiently imperceptible mind could do it without noticing the evidence for evolution it contains (…especially if that's someone who doesn't know enough about evolution to recognize it in the first place). Geology has nothing to do with evolution except for needing the same amount of time… and the one creationist geologist I know about, Andrew Snell, is well known for writing one thing (old Earth) in the scientific literature and another (young Earth) in creationist journals. Snell is almost certainly lying in one of them, probably in the latter.
Explain their peer-review process, please.
Completely irrelevant. Evolution is descent with heritable modification (…something tells me you didn't read comment 626). Therefore it starts with the first self-replicating entity. How that thing got into existence just doesn't matter to the theory of evolution.
Seriously. If Yahwe poofed it into existence, that wouldn't change anything. (Even though recent advances in chemistry show what an unlikely possibility that is.)
Methinks you don't even know what DNA is, chemically speaking. Please, please, please look it up.
Duplication of existing genes followed by mutations in one of the copies.
There isn't anything truly new in the living world. It's all just endless variations on the same old.
First of all, Flew is a deist, not a theist.
Then, let me submit the humble possibility that Flew might be simply wrong. In fact, I think he's completely wrong. Some have wondered if he's going senile, so strange and incoherent are his new arguments; but "evolution of the first reproducing organism" (a contradiction in terms, as I just explained) is just ignorant.
The theory of evolution doesn't even try to explain the universe. Next!
You've been had.
Oyyyy, referenced! Sorry, that's cargo-cult science what creation.com is doing.
…
<ehem>
Many of us here do claim to be qualified scientists. That starts with our esteemed host, a professor who teaches evolutionary biology and development biology at the University of Minnesota in Morris. Off the top of my head, there's also Josh, who has a doctorate in geology; me, a doctoral student in paleobiology (fossils, you know); never mind the chemists like Nerd of Readhead or the physicists like a_ray_in_dilbert_space…
World? What world? Creationists are very hard to find except in the Third World and the USA.
Only Christian apologists use the word "evidence" in the plural anymore.
Agriculture can only be developed in places and times with reliable rainfall patterns. This means it can only be developed in some interglacials, basically once every 400,000 years. In other words, agriculture was invented immediately as soon as that became possible.
Why have the Australian Aborigines never developed agriculture, when people on every other continent did? Because the Australian climate is too unreliable. There are a couple of tribes who occasionally sowed before the rain and came back to harvest after the rain, but they never relied on this first stage of agriculture, because they just can't.
Despair.
That's the only assumption science makes – and it is itself a scientific hypothesis that is being tested in every single observation all around the world without interruption! Science really does pull itself up by its bootstraps. :-)
"Colloquial English term"?!? It has always been a highly technical term that most people don't understand. In an hour or two I'll post a link to a news article about salamanders that feels it necessary to state that "salamanders are amphibians, not reptiles".
Wow. That's the age of Primates as a whole. What sense does it make to deny the entire fossil record of that group?
It's William Dembski at "Liberty" "University" (yes, two pairs of scare quotes).
I have a concern. It seems to me that you are giving Wieland too much attention. That’s all people like him wants. He was never serious about presenting scientific debate, he just want the “authority” that comes from having debated scientist, which is why he is so angry that you rejected his offer. Now you’ve dedicated at least three post to this vain conman and his sychophantic fans which only offer them fodder for their flock. They’re probably braging to to their congration about how vulgar and evil proponents of evolution are and they (the flock) will buy into that fallacy without considering that they have no scientific merits. So I say we just end this here and now. Don’t give them the attention that they crave.
He's not a publisher. And this is a blog. If you want to have your arguments aired on this blog, all you have to do is post them. But you seem to have figured that out now. Well done.
Ok. That's not how most people read it, though. Do you have an explanation for why there are not (two) creation accounts, and why it should mean something else, other than because you say so?
And you know this how? And what happened in the first three days?
I don't know.
THIRD BASE!
No it doesn't. A few "out of order howlers" The sun came before the earth. Day and night are caused by the rotational spin of earth in relation to the sun. How could there be day and night if the sun was created on day four? The moon is not a light in the sky, it reflects sunlight. Hence solar eclipses. Hence moon phases. Hence lunar eclipses. And as for the stars? There is a star in our galaxy that is 3 times the age of the earth, we've seen distant galaxies where the light that has left the galaxy was 3 times the age of the earth. And plants come before the sun? lol, that's quite laughable. One word: photosynthesis.
To take genesis as a history of the planet, you either have to ignore the parts that don't line up or ignore the science that doesn't line up. Genesis and history do not match, but that's not a big deal. Genesis is a mythic account, not a scientific history of the planet. Taking it as the latter misses the point of what the myth is meant to be - that is a culture trying to understand its place.
Oh, a thousand pardons, most enlightened Sir. You see, we get hundreds of creationist morons here, each with his or her own Absolutely True Interpretation of Genesis (Unlike All Those Other Creationists' Interpretations)™, and thus we erroneously assumed yours was just another of those, probably because it sounds exactly like all of those other beliefs--aside from subtle and meaningless differences in which aspects of science the believer fails to comprehend, of course. So please, accept our humblest apologies.
Okay, I got my pencil and I'm ready to jot down your genius for all posterity. Please do continue.
@ CJO: What particular point in history are you referring to, and what evidence do you have that people at that time actually thought that way?
One of the main jobs of priests in early civilizations was predicting the seasons based on the positions of the stars, and in some cases errors resulted in execution. The idea that such people could base their careers around analyzing evidence yet still somehow were not at all concerned for evidence seems contradictory to me.
Well, in my view, the idea that astrology was just proto-astronomy or alchemy was proto-chemistry is just wrong. Priest/astrologers were concerned with evidence, in a way, yes. They searched the skies for evidence that the gods had certain dispositions, or were likely to behave in some specified way in the near future. In the course of this enterprise, of course, they managed to assemble an impressive knowledge of the movements of the planets and etc., and from that body of observations it became possible later to apply systematic reasoning and make general conclusions. But such conclusions had to wait for the very concept of regularity as natural law, for the idea of empiricism, as I've been saying. The astrologer's conclusions are all specific and situational, not general. Each case must be judged in the context of everything that's of interest to the questions being asked. It's all anecdote, and as with all pre-modern methods of divination, the highly subjective nature of the interpretation given to whatever natural events was integral to the practice, not the shortcoming it would be if the ideal was to form universal conclusions about causality and natural law. There just was no concept of replicating others' observations or falsifying hypotheses.
As for evidence that pre-modern people thought this way, look no further than the Aristotelian system that persisted throughout the West for the better part of two millennia. Aristotle's physics is not empirical, and it's riddled with dicta that are trivial to disprove with the simplest of actual observations. Before empiricism, though, rhetoric, metaphysical self-consistency, and the prestige of an ancient authority counted for much more than systematic observation of a material world that was believed to be chaotic and unreliable. Eternal truths trumped whatever happened just now, and it didn't matter how carefully you were watching.
Bullshit. It's used in colloquial English all the time, as are algae, monkeys, lizards, apes, etc., all of which are technically para- (or, for algae, poly-)phyletic but which are understood unambiguously anyway. Seriously, dude, you're going to tell me about colloquial English?
Dermbski's not even at "Liberty." He works at a Baptist seminary in Texas.
The moon it seems was created very early on in earth's history, an impact some 4 billion years ago. Yet the biblical account says it happened after the coming of plants. How is this possible?
Again someone taking myth as history...
1) If this is actually what the Bible means, then why doesn't the Bible actually say any of this? Can you produce the scripture (or even better the empirical evidence) that shows that "Lucifer lost the war in Heaven [in](245 Million BC)"? With all due respect, you made this shit up. There isn't any reason (not even a Biblical reason) for us to take it seriously.
2) Why is it necessary to postulate regular interventions of God and Satan into our world at all? The development of life and its major extinctions can be explained rather more elegantly using only natural phenomena. There is a guideline in science and philosophy called Occam's razor that states that you should never make a hypothesis more complicated than it needs to be to explain a phenomenon. There isn't any evidence that the dinosaurs went extinct because God and Satan flattened the earth and used it to play tennis 65 million years ago, and no reason to add that rather improbably complication. A simple, mundane asteroid is much better suggestion, and there is a actual impact crater to back it up. Occam's razor butchers your ideas.
Here, read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
It might help you. (But probably not)
Llewelly posted this over at WEIT and I thought it fit here.
When the Lord Our God sent rain down to the Earth for Forty Days and Forty Nights, Satan, the Deceiver, secretly poisoned God’s Holy Rain with all manner strange and unearthly creatures – Anomalocaris, Hallucigenia, Trilobites, Marrella, Opabinia – all were created in Satan’s foul realm, for his foul purposes. God saw Satan’s evil act, and turned these strange creatures to stone, so that they would harm no-one, and caused them to buried deep in the Earth.
Sadly, today’s scientists, in their overweening arrogance, have dug up Satan’s dangerous creatures. Even now, Evil radiates from the Burgess shale. Nonetheless, scientists, hard at work in Area 51, seek to weaponize these creatures. They hope, in their desperate vanity, to use them in their secret war against the Derros, who are beginning to emerge from the Hollow Earth. Indeed, even now as we speak the Derros are melting the Antarctic Ice Cap, in order to reveal the largest and most terrible of the portals to Hollow Earth. The Derros will use these portals to invade and dominate the unfortunate surface world, in preparation for the arrival of the Alien Planet Nibru, which will destroy the Earth in 2012. The Derros, having foreseen this terrible event through Necromantic Augury (by the power of Satan), plan to board Nibru in the nick of time, and thereby escape to another Solar System, and spread their Evil throughout the Galaxy.
Now I hope you all understand the Cambrian Explosion and the Terrible Truth it represents.
Jeez Kel, how dense can you be? He already said Genesis is laid out in 'biblical order'. You have to use 'advanced math' to get it.
Sorry about my colleague here, Mr. Cummings. He isn't serious.
Now, please do go on.
I'm especially interested in the first war with Lucifer. Did they ever find his weapons of mass destruction? If you've got any photos of Archangel Michael standing in a flight suit atop an aircraft carrier under a banner claiming "mission accomplished!" I'd dearly love to have a copy for my scrapbook.
Is that the maths that enables time travel?
Nothing new here... you're just one of those "genesis day = geologic age" idiots.
So ummm... how many geologic ages can plants (day three) survive without any source of light (day 4)?
More interruptions by Hurin:
It does. It just says so 'biblically'. You need a special kind of glasses to read it, and Herman Cummings has the only pair.
Advanced math and science. You need to be trained in this area to understand.
@Brownian: The WMDs were hidden in Saddam's Heavenly Chocolate Chip Factory I believe?
"Now introduce into that paradigm somebody for whom talking snakes and virgin births are simply matters of course. There simply is no common framework for interpreting evidence."
Worse yet, they consider this to be a virtue. They always chide us for not opening our minds to the particular presupposition of the Bible being an accurate document (rather than just one of a great many compendia of myth). If we just clapped our hands and really believed in fairies, then we'd understand!
I'd like to say that for anyone voicing concerns over providing a forum for nonsense, please think a little broader. I'm pretty much a n00b when it comes to anything scientific (my college lab was literally titled "Plant Biology for Non-Science Majors), yet still managed a BS in business. How I get a BS, I don't know.
My point is that this is all very informative to me, as I have recently developed an interest in the basics of biology, and find many of the comments/creotard-shredding to be very satisfying not only in verbal smackdown (which I love, being a lawyer) but also satisfying in the knowlege provided. In my line of work, the only science knowlege I'm ever able to gain is through paid expert witnesses, etc.
Ok, I've managed to ramble enough, but the basic point, I think, is clear: these discussions are far more helpful than you may realize.
Oh, and BTW, Louis - "The owner of this blog is Bpii Shzzheaddh Gnmaellars, please spell it correctly."
Win. Pure and simple.
@ CJO: I am not talking about astrology, I am talking about calendars. A major role of priests in early civilizations was to make and maintain calendars for the purpose of planning the agricultural tasks that the society depended on. The conclusions they drew were essential to the society's survival, and there are documented cases were errors resulted in execution. You make assertions but these assertions appear to me to be inconsistent with the actual role of the priesthood in early civilizations.
Milton is part of Scripture now?
Why do the people who hate and fear middle-Eastern misogynistic assholes cleave so closely to a book authored by an older collection of middle-Eastern misogynistic assholes? My new mantra for people who insist that we "teach both sides" or "teach the controversy" is to insist that we also include the Islamic version of creation in schools. It's fun to watch them get all hot and pissy about it, since so very few of them know that the Islamic and Xian creation myths are identical.
Brownian seems to be telling a collection of very intelligent people that they don't have an education...
Makes sense, what with all those nasty "colleges" and "universities" and "research" brainwashing people.
I'm so glad I can figure all this out just by going to the fiction section of the library!
Makes sense that they are. I thought islam split from Jews at Ishmael.
Herman Cummings, in #139 you chide PZ:
Well, I am someone who has been trained in this area, at a seminary. I, and other people "trained in this area" have educated PZ to the point where he can claim to have been trained in this area.
Although it doesn't take much special training to see that "In the beginning, god created the heavens and the earth" is a creation myth.
There is no advanced math in the bible. Anywhere. What little math there is, frequently is wrong. There is little science in the bible, and what little there is, frequently is wrong. Same with medicine - what little is there, is mostly wrong. (If you believe this is wrong, it is up to you to provide the book, chapater and verse as evidence -- but there are far too many of us who have spent years studying the bible, and already know such verses do not exist.)
When you claim there are no creation myths in genesis, you are either simply wrong, amazingly ignorant, deliberately lying or insane (or some combination).
Or, to translate this into your native language: Honk honk hooonk hnk honk-honk honnnnnk, HONK, honk honkk, hoonnk h honk.
OK, except that you didn't have any evidence that I would actually make the second one.
Look, I love the way you wrote it: "just a reptile clothed in feathers." It gets at the transitional (and not-bird-defining) aspect of feathers quite nicely. Or at least it does to me. But you didn't appear to be writing to us. It seemed that you aimed comment 6 squarely at people who tend not to know what a transitional form is (hell, most of them don't appear to actually know what evolution is, which you hinted at in the first part of comment 6). It seemed to me that you were addressing the people who make no distinction between transitional form and transitional feature and have no apparent understanding of the fossil or rock records (or, actually, any real understanding of science). To say "we're all really just modified fish" is a fine way to put things if you understand phylogeny. I like it. However, I don't know what good it does if the words sail high over the heads of the people you're saying it to, and I think that's what will happen here. The people in question are a long way from sitting down to read Your Inner Fish (if they would, which I doubt), and I don't think phrases like this help in sound-bite discussions with complete novices and deniers*, which is why I commented as I did re: reptile. Lots of people hold a concept of the word reptile, but I don't think "dinosaur" is the first place most of them go--and I really don't think we're helped if people come away envisioning feathered lizards. To me that smells a little crocoduck. I'm willing to be convinced though...
*Which again, is the group at which comment 6 seems to be aimed.
Every culture has their own creation myth. How is it that all other cultures (besides the Babylonians) are just myths while the one that originated in the middle east is anything but?
The honk language seems far more succinct than English. I should learn it.
@Brownian, 166
Can you tell me what kind of cereal box I should be saving to get these special bible decoder glasses? I want to see all the PDEs and advanced math stuff next time I pick that book up. It sounds a lot more interesting than the stuff that is actually written there.
Which is a shame, that book was a really good read. Not just informative, but fun to read.
The tenses and genders can be a bit confusing... for example I regularly confuse hooonk with hoonkk, which, as any learned honkarian knows, is just silly.
One thing I find funny was just yesterday I got off on a rant-planning session where I was planning to describe humans (and all land vertebrates) as "modified fish". It's certainly true.
Of course, with Creationists like Cummings, the dictionary is holy writ.
David Marjanović, in regards to a small portion of your comment #159.
"Adam" is Hebrew for "from the ground" ("from the earth" or "from the dirt" or "from the dust"). It was a description, not a name like Steve or Joe. It later became the word used to express 'man' like mensch.
Reminds me of an old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon:
Not at all, Maslab. I'm telling a collection of very intelligent people that, despite being utterly indistinguishable from all the other run-of-the-mill creationists, Herman Cummings actually has the Only Correct Interpretation of Genesis™ (how do I know this? He told us in comment #61) and we should all stop pestering him with contrary scientific evidence and simply listen to what he has to say without reservation (something all creationists implore us to do, even though Mr. Cummings is Different From All Other Creationists Because He Says So™, and therefore such similarities are purely coincidental.)
Please, Mr. Cummings, do go on.
Great, it's the "evolution is a religion" trope again. Ever notice how when it's their pet belief system, religion is what makes life livable, but when the "religion" label gets slapped on a science, then suddenly it means something negative and dismissive?
re Harry Tuttle@147:
Sorry, wasn't trying to be convincing.
hmmm.... somehow I don't think that's how it worked. the concept that the stars can predict the future has emerged independently in many cultures. This is likely no accident. And if you consider that in a way, the stars CAN predict the future: calendar making was precisely this: telling where along the cyclical movement among the stars the sun is, and thus being able to tell if "spring" will be in one month or in five. Astrology seems to have developed as an extrapolation from this, since the ancient priests had no concept of why the movement of the stars predicted the seasons, they assumed various interpretations of why the future is written in the stars, and assumed this was true for other areas of life, too.
You're right though that modern science, which creates theories to explain WHY/HOW something happens via falsifiable hypotheses is a thoroughly modern concept. those old priests didn't do theories. they merely collected the facts/observations/evidence; explanation was completely free-form, and the concept of a TESTABLE explanation was probably meaningless to them.
holy crap, what a grammatical clusterfuck my last post is...
ah well :-p
Nits: "Adam" is not exactly "adama" (ground); "from the" is not part of the word "adam"; "dust" is definitely not right since there's a separate word used specifically for "dust" ("afar").
I'm suspicious of this putative late etymology, given that the following verses do not make sense unless "adam" is translated as "man":
Gen 1:26 says: "ויאמר אלהים נעשה אדם"; "And God said 'we shall make man'" (no article prefixes the word, and ground, "adama", is not mentioned in Gen 1)
Gen 1:27 says "ויברא אלהים את־האדם" ; "And God created the man" (the article is used). Note that this verse also describes "them" as being created male and female.
Gen 2:4 says "ואדם אין לעבד את־האדמה" -- "and there was no man ('adam') to work the ground ('adama')", and most of Gen 2 refers to Adam as "האדם"; 'ha-adam'; "the man".
Which certainly looks like "adam" meant "man; mensch" very early. So, anyway, if you have a citation in support of "adam" not meaning "man" at first, I'd like to see it.
"Herman Cummings actually has the Only Correct Interpretation of Genesis"
Yeah, him and the other, what, 300,000 different sects of Christians?
"we should all stop pestering him with contrary scientific evidence and simply listen to what he has to say without reservation"
Discard reality?
I sense a "poe", I believe the term is here.
Well, yes, in the strict definition of the term. Brownian is being sarcastic.
I'm very bad at noticing sarcasm much of the time.
Ignoring the fact that I don't think the assertions in this are accurate, I seem to have completely missed the award ceremony where you were presented with the coveted maroon beret* of Pharyngula Traffic CopTM.
And, if the rest of comment 79 is any indication, then I'd argue that you're among the last people who should be lecturing me in any aspect of theropod phylogeny.
*You're gonna wanna cut the lining out of that thing, shave it, and mold it to your head wet. Otherwise, it's just not gonna look right. Molding it while in the shower works well.
Apolipoprotein,
Noted.
We already know that, Wieland is just the most recent example.
Not 'probably', it is a certainty (look at their comments). But this was going on before any posts. :)
If you've read the threads, you'll note how they come in with bluster, and how quickly they wilt when confronted.
Perhaps you subscribe to the belief that any attention is good attention, but clearly Pharyngula doesn't.
But we like giving them attention... keeps our pelts sniny and glossy, dontcha know!
We offer them the opportunity to 'debate' here, and much hilarity ensues. :)
Mr. Cummings, do you really believe the above is more formidable?
LOL. Science can date Stars as well as the Earth. And It can date the age of the Universe as well. It is far older than 4.6 billion years.
"But we like giving them attention... keeps our pelts sniny and glossy, dontcha know!"
No, no, John: It makes our FANGS sniny and our PELTS glossy.
Nutrition is very important to the growing minion; we need to keep these things straight!
"We offer them the opportunity to 'debate' here, and much hilarity ensues. :)"
Sunshine is to Vitamin D as debating creationists is to Vitamin H(ilarity), and Vitamin H is VERY important for healthy minionship!
MadScientist and GHP,
Thanks for the tip about where trolls are coming from. Indeed it was this very blog:
So that's where some of our trolls come from...
Way back in August, as it turns out. BTW, I did post a useful link just before PZ capped the previous thread. Lynna referenced it earlier in this thread. It was the link to an article by Dawkins himself explaining why he will no longer debate creationists:
Why I Won't Debate Creationists (2006)
Now if only we could get some of the whackjobs to read that and comprehend it...
Another way to put it: Herman believes in a Young Universe: A mere 4.6 billion years old + 3 days, instead of what the evidence says: About 13.7 billion years.
He's willing to accept the scientific evidence for one thing, but as soon as it contradicts his "squint and look at the bible sideways" point of view, suddenly science is automatically wrong, even if you're using the same methodology for either.
Herman thinks the Bible is metaphorical or figurative, except the parts he thinks aren't. And he thinks science is correct, except when he thinks it's wrong. His view is all perfectly logical and consistent, except when it's not.
Well summarized, KOPD42.
John Morales,
while creationist falter when they are confronted with evidence, it has been my observation that this somehow reaffirm their faith in creationism. It’s like they have some sort of confusion and consider evidence against their claim as evidence for it.
P.S. Please forgive my misspelling. The word that I typed as “congration” should be “congregation.”
Here is the LiveScience.com report that specifically mentions: "Salamanders are amphibians, not lizards." I had slightly misremembered. It's even worse. <headdesk>
The Permian-Triassic boundary mass extinction was 251 million years ago, but never mind. The first seriously big marine "reptiles" only date to the Late Triassic, some 230 to 200 Ma ago roughly, and the first birds are (under a generous definition of "bird") not much more than 150 million years old, Late Jurassic.
Incidentally, the first giant mammals are about 50 million years old, not 65.5... and the text doesn't even say anything about "giant", but mentions "creeping things" instead!
0.6 Tc for this alone.
Fail.
"Reptiles" is used as often as "algae"?
Seriously?
4.51 billion last time I read about it.
<facepalm> That's supposed to be the split between the Hebrew and Arab peoples, not the religions most of them have today! Check out the similar (though more peaceful) story of the three brothers Lech, Czech and Rus.
Islam dates to the 7th century and appears to be mostly based on a badly translated Christian lectionary.
It was the word for "human being" from the start, and it's related to "earth" (a connection also found in Indo-European languages). Gen 2 tries to explain why this is – it's an etiological myth like most or all of Genesis –: it claims that the first human was made from earth and given that as his name, and that we carry that name forthwith.
All of Genesis is chock full of puns. "The snake was naked, but smarter than all beasts of the field" – why "but"? Because "naked" and "smart" are yet another pun in the original Hebrew. Abram (abi-ram "my father is exalted") getting his name changed to Abraham (ab-raham "father of the crowd") is yet another, and so on and so forth.
38,000. Only.
<headdesk> At long last the clue train has arrived! It should be renationalized without delay.
@ CJO: I am not talking about astrology, I am talking about calendars. A major role of priests in early civilizations was to make and maintain calendars for the purpose of planning the agricultural tasks that the society depended on. The conclusions they drew were essential to the society's survival, and there are documented cases were errors resulted in execution. You make assertions but these assertions appear to me to be inconsistent with the actual role of the priesthood in early civilizations.
Maybe we need to move past generalizations like "early civilizations" and "priesthoods" and talk about specifics. In my first comment, I was talking about the perspective from which Genesis 1 was written and from which it was understood and accorded sacred status by its audience. I don't know of any of these executions for calendrical errors, though that sounds interesting (educate me if you're inclined, as a cursory Google search turned up nothing obvious), but it sounds like you're talking about the Mesopotamian civilizations. If so, it wasn't just, and perhaps not even primarily, "agricultural tasks" that were on the minds of the first Sumerian astrologer/priests who observed the heavens for the purpose of making calendars. It was a function of the new mode of specifically urban living, in which the ancient city was conceived of as a mirror for the heavens, and the priests were in charge of the calendar for liturgical reasons. If you didn't keep track, the seasonal religious ceremonies for propitiating the gods would drift against the months of the year. This is a mythic and cult-oriented kind of empiricism, if that's even a valid term for it. What was "essential to the society's survival" was the maintenance of a social order believed to be based on a cosmic order, reflected in the heavens and ordained by the gods.
Okay, so, given this take, is it fair to say that these priests were 'unconcerned with evidence' or 'had no concept of empirical truth' (giving these as paraphrases of what in my thesis you seem to be taking issue with)? Strictly, no, I suppose, and so I will concede that you have a point. However, returning to one of the points of my first comment, notice the social dimension to all this imaginative effort that is ostensibly directed at the natural world. I still maintain that, for ancient peoples and in ancient literary and cultic productions, regularities in the natural world were salient only insofar as they found a reflection in the social order. The heavens could 'explain' the social order, but no effort was made to explain the movements of the heavens in objective or empirical terms.
"38,000. Only."
Thanks for the clarification.
" At long last the clue train has arrived! It should be renationalized without delay."
Not sure whether I should be taking that seriously or as sarcasm but thanks again anyway.
Apolipoprotein E,
Congration. I like it. It's obviously the heartfelt appreciation that people have for what they think a con man has done for them... just before they realise they've been conned.
Apolipoprotein @202, think of it as adding to their cognitive dissonance — something that ignoring them won't achieve.
--
Leigh, d'oh. I'm blushing with embarrassment! :\
Damn. Hit submit too soon.
Congration is the term that will heretofore be used to describe Ray Comfort's followers ;-)
Don't take that too seriously, Maslab. I've been around for awhile, and most of the regulars know me well enough to know when I'm being sarcastic, satirical, or parodying (not always, though, as many of the comments responding to this comment demonstrate). But good on you for calling a spade a spade as you saw it.
Hey PZ! I didn't know you were aware of The Seventh Day Adventists and their contributions to the crazy. Most people don't. I was raised on Nellie Black and her special brand of myth. I think it made leaving religion easier because it was so obviously wrong, but it would have happened no matter what.
Alright Brownian. I think I'll try not responding to your comments, or at least see how others respond first.
And @MetzO'Magic; I thought the term was "sheep"? Congration seems a bit... uplifting.
Brownian OM #166
Are those the special glasses that Joseph Smith used to translate the Book of Moron?
Maslab, you should note that's Brownian, OM.
Look at the Commenters link at the top of the page (or this link if you feel lazy).
So I can't help but wonder how many ex-Sevies there are here. Actually, it'd be interesting to see the break down of the regulars here concerning what they were raised as. Hmmm.
@ David Marjanović (various down to #203) re:
Yes, it really is used as a colloquial English term in English English. Perhaps like "theory". I'd say it was used more often than "algae" by normal people - and perhaps also more frequently used incorrectly (even given its colloquial meaning), since the habitually incorrect people are less likely to know/recall the term "algae" at all.
However, in one context "reptile" very much does include birds - when referring to certain female politicians etc.
gr8hands @ 175
I don't quite know why I find that post as funny as I do but BUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!
I had something to add to Kenneth Higgs's rantings on the previous thread (may it rest in pieces) but as he's buggered off it's not massively vital I may not bother.
However, due to beer I may. Meester Heeggs seems to mention at #whateverthefuckIthinkitwas1029 that he has some sort of qualification in IT. Having a rather unmarvellous BSc in Computer "Science" I can quite happily say that computer science has fuck-all to do with science... period.
A hardware based degree involves electronics and maths, software is basically maths/algorithms and creative problem solving. All things "IT" were just for girls and people who couldn't count (Yeah.. I'm taking the piss... vaguely!)
Soo... as a supposedly qualified computer scientist I can pretty much say that Higgs's qualifications are precisely arse-all when it comes to, well, science.
Being English I am now brewing a nice pot of Earl Grey. So nuts to the lot of you!
Dang, got stuck with briefing the new sales force all afternoon, and now no creobot to use as a chew toy. *mutter*
Frist.
RCC here. 8 years of catholic primary school with alternating years of nuns (yes Sister Mary Elephant, I'm thinking of you) and lay teachers. Won a free scholarship to catholic secondary school. Turned it down... and then I really was free.
And from what do you base that hilarious assertion on?
What the fuck does that even mean?
No. Glasses were not involved. An Angel told me Smith was high as fuck on 'shrooms. Of course, by 'Angel' I mean An-hel, the Latino guy who sells me weed. He's about as reliable a source as any in the Abrahamic texts.
Ex-Catholic. Was an altar boy and even went to Catholic school until Grade 9. I missed being confirmed in Grade 6 with the rest of my classmates due to a family vacation and distinctly remember 'forgetting' to reschedule with the Archbishop as a bet-hedging strategy.
Indeed. Though in my degree, I had to do physics (kinematics), psychology (cognition) and a subject about processing sensory information - so it wasn't all just maths, algorithms, and that boring computational theory that is somehow necessary to make a Computer Science degree.
I tend to refer to the degree a degree in applied logic.
[I guess this is just about an open thread now... :)]
Catholic, me. I was an altar-boy until around 15 years of age, but I was a firm atheist from around 13 y.o. — go figure. And, if I say so myself, I was a virtuoso at swinging the thurible (not to mention at lighting it up!).
BTW, I know for a fact at least two other altar-boys were also atheists.
(I wasn't stupid, outing myself was not the go at the time; I didn't need the grief.)
jesus I'm an asshole
Rev BDC, I think hairychris was well under the influence of the aforementioned beer, but I'd interpret the phrase you question as meaning that he looks down on "IT" qualifications (a sweeping generalization of course), concedes that he is inelegantly overstating his case ("taking the piss") but retains a belief that there is a grain of truth in there as well("... vaguely"). YMMV.
ok
I of all people should be able to translate drunk speak, but I was confused there.
MetzO'Magic,
(see the end of the original closed thread for reference)
I read this message you linked and I've thought a bit on it and the comments here in general.
What I tend to find is, anyone wants to know something as a fact; as truth; as reality. Whether it be through an infallible source, the name of science, or some amazing revelation, there are many who will go a long way just to prove that theirs is the correct idea.
Rather than considering the issues for what they are, taunts arise from both sides. Everyone knows it all and their opponents are, well, I will allow you to insert the derogatory term you find appropriate. Reason?...REASON?? No. Stating that "this is true" does nothing for this thing you call reason. Many times, neither side is reasonable--Clans form where the one group learns how misguided and silly the other is, while this evil opponent is conniving similar schemes. I'm sorry to not have an example of the other side's possible flaws at present, but the following quote was most convenient to recite:
"But that is better than supplying the creationists with what they crave: the oxygen of respectability in the world of real science."
Just as we, the steriotyped "creationists" deserve no such thing as "respectibility" in the world of the almighty *real* science, "athiests" certainly have no bearing in reality because such ideas have no foundation; no beginning. Of course, "evolutionists" know this deep-down and are only "scared" to submit to the truth.
This isn't reason. None of it is. Is there a place in this world where people can truly express ideas to each other with a non-biased, never-ending desire to understand? I think not.
It's a shame. It's a damned shame (and I hate to use that term, but it's appropriate here I hope). Yes I'm a Christian, but not because we know it all. Just read the book we glorify; read it once. If you forget the rhetoric surrounding it, there are some amazing words there.
All-in-all, does it matter all that much whether the world is six thousand years old, or six million, or six billion? Is it really important? Or is the evolutionist/creationist dilemma just another invention of man for those who cannot live in this world without thinking and believing that his knowledge and understanding is superior to that of his fellow creatures.
Regards,
Mr. Christian
Easter/Christmas catholic. Considered myself catholic until I went to Canada and realized what that actually means. turned out I had been agnostic for years at that point already.
Early on, sounds like the Ex-Catholics may be strongly represented here. VegeBrain came out as an Ex-SDA earlier in this thread, so I know I'm not the only one here though.
Ya know, Come to think of it, I've been visiting this blog for 2 years or so and don't even know what PZ was raised as, don't remember coming across that.
Anyone know?
and another one who thinks atheists have never read the bible. *sigh*
dude, reading the bible all the way through is a leading cause of atheism!
Please enlighten me how anyone can eversupport let alone "prove" that their divine [amazing] revelation is fact, is truth, is reality?
They two "ways of knowing" are not equal. They just are not.
You're all wrong. The universe is actually a computer simulation being run on a server at a high school. It's been run for a few years, and has undergone a fair number of upgrades and had a few reboots. The current session is number 5 and has been running for the last 3 real years.
We're scheduled to switch to a whole new computer technology in a few of your years, where we'll finally be clearing out the data base for real. No more Moses, no more Egypt and Set and Osiris. A whole new start with a new world, new history and legends, new operating system. It should take about three weeks real time before the new sophonts are ready for your coding, some 12 billion years in simulation time.
It wouldn't take so long if we kept the mechanics to what you have now, but we're trying out a more interventionist God, and setting the mechanism in place for working magic. We figured, after your performance this go around, you needed the help. Adult supervision alone should make a huge difference. So the new simulation requires more processing power, even with the new technology (based on new scientific discoveries I might add) the speed increase is not going to be all that spectacular.
Critical reasoning and the scientific method will still work, you'll just have new tools to use with them. We're not about to fundamentally change the foundations of reality. (We tried that once, that computer is hidden deep in the Earth and in actuality may not be reachable by any means known to us. We think H. P. Lovecraft may have tapped into it for his Cthulhu Mythos stories.)
Why am I telling you this? Because it won't make a difference. You'll be starting off your new lives with a clean slate, so this news will have no impact on your future lives. I'm doing this because I felt like messing with your heads now.
(Yes, not only am I weird, I'm proud of it. :) )
BDC #220, the university that I studied CompSci at opened an 'IT Institute' around my final year. Us mathematical CompSci-ers looked down our noses at the folks who spent their days writing presentations are now corporate directors & etc... :-) Let's just say that they had the last (pay/career related) laugh! Lost control of the English language there.
Kel @ #222
I learned a bunch of languages, all the formal methodology and a goodly chunk of logic and related math. The logic was a lot of fun. Most of the rest wasn't. I loathed formal methods. By the time I hit my final year I was thoroughly annoyed by the whole situation. No interesting physics or 'real people' stuff.
About the most entertaining thing about my whole degree was that our sysadmin was a bona fide Hells Angel. You didn't fuck with the department's network...
Sorry, I digress.
I wasn't really raised as anything. Dad wasn't religious, Mum was into New Age stuff, and in school I was put in a liberal protestant scripture class. Became an explicit atheist at age 12, though I never really believed before then.
BDC, #231
Science is not a way of knowing, science is a way of learning.
THE two ways....
grumble
Yes, hence my quotes because. It's a common claim of creationists / religious is that they just have another way of knowing.
I just have to say, I'll be quoting this for a while as you absolutely nailed the crux of the problem in one simple sentence.
Think like a heathenish pagan who has no respect for biblical authority, and you'll realize why your claims have no weight.
-- PZ Meyers
It's almost beautiful, if only I thought they'd actually understand it and not write it off as us wanting to discount them to make ourselves feel better.
Been there, done that, and the two year old tantrums and amoral warlord mentality of Yahweh started me toward atheism. Also, no evidence for the exodus, flud, and even jebus can make one doubt the book, resulting in the conclusion it is simply a book of myths, nothing more.
Bill Hannah,
Whether it is or not is not important, but whether our knowledge of reality is accurate or not is extremely important in the modern world, in which technology is the overwhelmingly most important reason why we can sustain a population approaching 7 billion people.
The different scientific disciplines and the evidential basis from which the age of the Earth and of the cosmos have been determined have been tested thoroughly and have not been falsified; to deny them in one context yet accept them in others is intellectual dishonesty.
In short, if you place any value on intellectual honesty and in pragmatic concerns for the welfare and sustainability of the human species, yes, it is important.
wtf
sigh. Today the typos are flying free and fast. I am not a multi-tasker. Trying to edit 400 shots from a photo shoot today while trying to be snarky on a blog just isn't working out.
ANYWAY
Being an IT slave myself, I can understand that in a most painful way.
One of my mates at university referred to IT students as "Computer Science wannabes without the brains". Though I wouldn't go as far to call them CS wannabes... ;)
We shared classes with IT students, and some of them weren't that bad. What really surprised me, however, was the logical abilities of those in my psych class. To get all anecdotal up in here, take the proposition "All men are intelligent. Bob is a man. Therefore Bob is intelligent" - is this logical? Well not according to the responses of the psych students "I think that's wrong because women are intelligent too" was one memorable response. Frustrated, the lecturer proceeded to ask us Computer nerds at the back of the room. I answered it is logical... I've never had so many death stares from women in my life, who turned around to look at me as if I just made the statement that a woman's place was in the kitchen.
Boy howdy. I love that "Read the bible!" thing,
It's a cultural-god-damn-icon for Merika. Even Atheists have read it. For my part, I believed in Christianity until I read the Old Testament. "You mean to tell me that colossal dick was supposed to be Jesus' dad? I disbelieve."
Mr. Christian: Just read the book we glorify; read it once.
______
Oh geesh, just about everybody who posts here has read the Bible. How can you be so ignorant and dense about that? And you wonder why we get irritable with the lot of you. What tiny world do you live in?
Holy books are a dime a dozen. Have you read them all? Lots of people here have. Have you read the Torah, the Koran, the Gita, etc.? Do you know that the Golden rule was already established way before the writing of your particular holy book? That Jesus ripped off the love your neighbor theme from an older culture? There is nothing uniquely valuable in the bible or in Christianity.
And yes, science is in a class of its own. It does not have or need to share the spotlight with religion. It is an independent way of discovery, accumulating knowledge, learning from mistakes, and improving the quality of life for all. Christian beliefs belong in the private, personal world of any adult who chooses to embrace it. And that is about it. If you think Christian beliefs are so special, you are wrong. They are not. However, there is nothing like science. And we will keep drumming that into your thick skulls.
John Morales,
Yes, I agree, but it seems there are more pressing concerns. I meant to point to the silliness of spending a lifetime in pursuit of proving an opponent wrong when the age of the world, though possibly of some importance, is certainly not the most pressing concern in this era. It seems like semantics to me, when I look at it, and I wonder why so much time--time that could be used to develop treatments for disease or devise new theories of the (present) world in which we live--is spent on this idea.
To everyone:
Please read my former statement, post 227, for what it is. Read all of it. You may notice an apparent flaw or two, as I'm sure they are present, but please take into account the entirety of what I (attempted to) express.
Thanks,
Bill
Unfortunately I only got as far as the crazy-assed prophecy stuff at the end of the old testament. My bible went AWOL in a recent apartment move. I needed mind-bleach after Deuteronomy so I really can't wait for the so-called main event.
This is most annoying. I love books, and that even cvers the bible which admittedly I was given at my baptism.
That ended well, etc.
Gah, and I of course screw up the last name here where I can't edit it.
Bill, if you believe the fictional babble, and that your imaginary deity exists, then you have nothing of interest to say to us. You are a delusional fool. No more is expected from you. You won't obtain cogency until you realize all your beliefs in god and babble are a lie.
I dunno. Does it bother you when someone lies to school kids? It bothers me. We force them to spend the early years of their lives there. We promise them that we'll make them better equipped to face the world. And then some asshole, when he has them as a captive audience, lies to them and tells them that the Earth is six thousand years old? Yeah, that bothers me.
Bill,
You've just described creationism in general, and the Discovery Institute in particular, to a T.
Strangely enough, scientists themselves spend their time testing others' theories in general, and their own hypotheses in particular, to see if they can be falsified.
Please notice the difference between 'testing' and 'proving wrong'!
It's basically the difference between skepticism and dogmatism.
PS Radiometric Dating; A Christian Perspective.
Ah found it.
Isiah 5:22 (RSV)
"Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine,
and valiant men in mixing strong drink"
Oops. That's me buggered then!
It is important, yes. It's important because the underlying science is the backbone of our civilisation. It's important because science matters to our lives, to our prosperity, to the continued survival of our species. And most of all, it matters because it is what is empirically true.
The age of 4.58 billion isn't just pulled out of thin air, it has come from measuring and understanding how nature works. The same science behind the age of the earth is the same science behind nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons. The same science behind the age of the universe is the same science as is behind the fact that you're able to read this text. e=mc² isn't just a formula to convey the notion of intelligence, it describes the underpinnings of nature itself. Science tells us not what we want to hear, but what can best be learned from making models and predictions of how the world works. And given you're sitting on a computer, I'd say you're a fan as much as anybody else here.
I wonder why so much time--time that could be used to develop treatments for disease or devise new theories of the (present) world in which we live--is spent on this idea.
___
Creotards have done much damage to science education in America and in other countries. You just don't get it. We are forced to waste time like was squandered at the Dover Trial so we can keep these FUCKING MORONS contained. And all you are concerned about is that we are making a big deal over nothing. Well, we are not. We are fighting to keep science intact so we can develop treatments for disease, etc.
You waffling, passive, limp types drive me nuts.
Josh,
That's certainly valid to say. I would be very disappointed if someone lied to be blankly, however trivial the matter.
Now I may be childish to suggest this, and I may learn better from future experience, but I hate to assume the worst in men. Though someone's claim may be false (the world can't be both six thousand and six million years old, I figure), this doesn't mean--and I don't like to think that--they mean to speak falsely in their claim.
Misguided? Perhaps, but for a human to purposely falsify a claim and hold that knowledge in him for a lifetime? Seems like too much sacrifice, if only to supress a simple truth.
It seems, though, that focusing on the age of this earth--and forming opposing sides who ever-taunt the other--really serves little purpose other than a satisfaction that "I'm right and you're wrong."
Thanks for the reply,
Bill
@BDC @Kel
I think that the point I was staggering towards was that even in academia things that are called 'science' aren't necessarily so... Although anyone who's been taught with any rigour should be as aware of what they don't know as what they do.
Apologies for being obtuse. Being a smart-arse without the smarts isn't particularly complimentary!
Kel OM #242 wrote:
Many people can't reason their way out of a paper bag, because they translate technical terms into sloppy social analogies. If something is "logical," then that has to mean it's right.
Or, perhaps, the opposite. It must be wrong. Your anecdote reminded me of a discussion I once had with a group of spiritual, new-age-ish friends. They were arguing that logical contradictions were possible. When I asked for examples, they gave me things like "Joanne is both nice, and not-nice, depending on the situation, and on who is doing the evaluating." I tried to explain that no, that wasn't an actual logical contradiction, because the terms were unclear -- but they could not see my point. The more I tried to explain the need for clarity, the more they saw me as being "judgmental" and incapable of seeing nuances, or allowing other points of view.
They then explained that my own unambiguous examples of A = non-A were therefore also possible. Logic is "Western thinking." It's too narrow. It's wrong.
As another note, I am not under the impression that "Christians" (understood as a generalization) disagree with scientific theories as a whole at all! Yes, there's an issue with the age of this world, but that doesn't mean those who believe this cannot believe in atoms, force, or elements!
My point is not that science is unimportant--far from it. My point is that, though it's valuable to understand how this world works, it seems that the devotion to the idea of creation vs. evolution in the age of the world takes up time that could be spent doing much more productive operations, in the advancement of current scientific technology.
Thanks again (and please notify if I have seemed to overlook important responses; I'm not the best at keeping track of posts),
Bill
As Napoleon said, "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence."
Of course those who say 6,000 years old for the most part aren't doing so because they know better and are lying to children deliberately, the problem is they don't know better and don't know they don't know better (google Dunning Kruger). There can only be one true age of the earth, the problem is that people are putting faith into adding up a whole bunch of begets and taking mythology as historical fact. When one instead chooses to measure the earth, the story is vastly different.
It's not about saying I'm right and you're wrong, there's a lot more than having bragging rights. Science is successful, the methodology works. Secondly it's dishonest to ignore the facts when they are inconvenient. This "different interpretations" nonsense doesn't cut it, it's basically alleging that the distance between New York and San Francisco is about 10 yards. Are you honestly suggesting that those measuring the age of the earth are so wrong that they are off by a factor of close to a million? That's not off by a million, but a factor of a million. It's like trying to determine the time of a murder within a 30 minute period and getting an answer around the time the Shroud Of Turin was made.
Science can't be cherry picked. If evidence is rejected and ignored, science stops being science. what part of that do you not get, Mr. Christian?
Inane claim. Where is your evidence. Until then, nothing but hot air...
Just like you scientists don't do their work 24/7. They also like to relax. And what better way to relax than to take idjits who believe in imaginary deities to task for their delusions...
Bill Hannah @ 240
Several other people have already responded (gee, you go away for a few minutes to make a pot of tea when the thread appears to be dying, and look what happens) in much the same way that I will, but I'd like to give you my slant on the situation.
If the fundie christians, primarily in the U.S., weren't trying to push their religious agenda into the science classrooms, then many of us here couldn't give a toss what they believe. But they are very forcefully trying to do that. Look up 'fatwah envy' while you're at it.
And look at all that science has given us, like that computer you're typing on. Modern medicine, et. al. Think religion could produce those things? If the fundies had their way, we'd eventually be back in the next Dark Ages hoping for another Renaissance.
Maybe a little OTT what I said there, but the anti-science camp with their religious/political agenda are beginning to have a serious detrimental impact on people's decisions regarding issues that have a strong body of scientific evidence behind them, like, oh I dunno... AGW? Vaccination? Getting this stuff right is crucial to our survival as a species.
Anyway, thanks for being civil and (apparently) taking the time to listen, It sounds like you might stick around for a while.
Please.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0PIdWdw15U
Bill,
You seem to misapprehend the issue, which is epistemological at heart. On the one side, their holy text dictates what is factual; on the other, empiricism does.
Christians, in general, don't. Biblical literalists, however, do — and then only when they can't reconcile science with their interpretation.
Alas, this leads them to be selective in their acceptance of physics, chemistry, geology, biology etc.; to assuage their cognitive dissonance, they must perforce dismiss those parts of science they cannot accommodate in their dogma.
The only issue is that, for YECs, science contradicts their interpretation of the Bible.
PS Have a look at the link I provided @250.
Bill Hannah #254 wrote:
Generally speaking, people who insist that issues always come down to one side trying to "win" over the other side are themselves obsessed with their own personal status. If you care so little about what's actually true here, I am surprised that you've bothered to go to so much trouble forming a theory and writing about it.
Or are you afraid that your theory won't stand up to critique, so you deflect the issue to one of personalities and motivations? That's a possibility.
Again, that's the problem. Modern medicine relies on the fact that evolution occurs. The creation / evolution battle is a distraction and it is one that takes away from the scientific knowledge of the day. Instead of being taught science, there's a constant battle to put non-science alongside science with the phrase "teach the controversy" said as if there were scientific controversy. There ain't.
There ain't a scientific controversy over whether evolution happens and that we evolved. There ain't a scientific controversy of the age of the earth. There ain't a scientific controversy over the universe being old. Yet the theories that are the underpinnings of science are constantly being called into public scrutiny because some fool in the 18th century thought that you could get an age of the universe by adding up a whole bunch of begets and take the reused Babylonian myth as a historical account. Sound reasonable to you?
Mr. Christian, your mistaken focus that this is about bragging rights show me that you are one superficial person. If you can't see the real damage that creotards have done to science, then you, too, are the enemy. Would you like not to be the enemy since you seem to be an obsessive peace maker? Then open up your peepers and take sides. What's that your Lord that you worship said, something about puking up the lukewarm people (like you)?
And are you a YECer?
Bill Hannah:
Oops. I mistook you for the Creationist Mr. Cummings. I should have checked back before I responded.
My apologies.
It matters because the methods and evidence we used to arrive at the figure of 4.6 billion years can be used to actually do stuff to help people.
Creationists would have us believe that rolling dice and coming up with random answers is more helpful than actually learning. That's what they propose as an alternative to science: Random chance and the impotence that comes with it.
Which will put food in a poor person's mouth? Scientific methods of increasing farm yields, or your apathetic dice rolling?
Indeed, though "social science" and "political science" should be dead give-aways of that.
Recently I remember seeing an advery of some followers defending their dead paedophile cult leader, and so many people in list of supporters put their qualifications up no matter how minor. Like a "CEO" of a cleaning company (it's a one man company), bachelor degrees, etc.
I was reminded of the show Red Dwarf where the main character Rimmer was so obsessed with status that he used to sign his name B.SC, S.SC - which stood for Bronze Swimming Certificate, Silver Swimming Certificate. Thereby I propose anyone who signs their name with any degree of qualifications from now on should be referred to as a "Smeghead"
Bill,
Of course the fight detracts from our current capacity to do productive things - but not fighting will detract even more from future generations, if the scientific literacy of the student population falls too far.
Allowing religious notions to interfere with the cabability of the research community is not the hallmark of a civilized country.
But Sastra, Bill Hannah did write that quote in your #264. I am confused.
I think this is true. I also think that a good teacher, with all of the myriad examples to choose from, could think to select one that won't likely be heard as dismissive or insulting to several students in subordinate groups (imagine substituting a racial or national group); then, when clearly faced with this situation, rather than compound the problem by turning to members of the dominant group flattered by the example, alter that example or choose another. Sucky lecturer, if you ask me.
echidna,
For a good example, look at the repercussions of Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union.
Kel (#258),
You do make a good point. These theories are vastly different when it comes to the conclusions drawn by the evidence (so-called: I'm not attempting to reinforce or refute the "evidence" at present). Both sides of the coin offer reasons for their claims, whether it's Carbon dating, geological formations, or the testimony of an ancient manuscript. It all comes down to what evidence you find *credible* or most accurate.
Carbon dating -
With the exponential decay of C-14, many objects have been dated at tens of thousands of years old (maybe older; not the point). While many point to this as a proof of a very old world, some note the variables of climate conditions, atmospherical differences, and past catastrophes as evidences to the contrary (suggesting that this decay rate is not necessarily consistent over time).
Geological formations -
Early on, rock layers were dated by the specimens (fossils) found in them. Though some, now extinct, seem to be of times long past, evidences such as the non-extinct Cealocanth(sp?) are commonly cited to counter this idea.
Many rock formations, vast as they are, have been linked to a great span of time for their completion. On the other hand, some point to quickly-forming (relatively small) canyons, streams, and volcanic deposits as evidence of a young world.
The testimony of manuscripts -
Of course, there is likely the most skepticism and room for argument when it comes to this witness.
Some point to truths of certain portions of one area in such writings as proof of the validity of other claims in them. Others points to things that seem to go against the text at times, as well as pointing to the simple fact of likely inaccuracy to support their ideas.
Though one side may seem more convincing to you, it's really an idea of perspective. Which evidence is *better* and which will you trust. That's really where you and I butt heads, as it were. I do respect your ideas and opinions, but I simply, at this point, find myself lead towards the evidence that you do not.
I certainly don't mind if you present facts as a means of showing me your standpoint, but I hopefully have conveyed to you the reason that my beliefs come contrary to yours--It's not that there isn't evidence, it's that the evidence I find most reasonable differs greatly from the evidence you find the best.
Michelle B (#259),
The above information may give you a slight light into the reasons I believe what I believe. Otherwise, I would like to let you know that I do generally believe the majority of information known under the category of "science." Respectfully, though, I am not convinced that an old earth and an evolutionary view of the world is a true representation of reality.
Redhead (#260),
Fair enough, I guess.
Again, thanks, (need to catch up reading responces, probably, I'm not very quick at this)
--Bill
Bill Hannah #254
If it were a simple difference of opinion that didn't make any difference, like "I think baseball is more boring than cricket" and "no, cricket is much more boring than baseball" then you'd have a reasonable point. But when we're arguing facts, and the facts are vital to the future prosperity of humanity, then there's more at stake.
Streptococcus pneumoniae is a bacteria which not only causes certain forms of pneumonia but also meningitis, osteomyelitis, septic arthritis, endocarditis, peritonitis, pericarditis and sepsis. It's a heavy duty bug that can definitely screw you up or even kill you. But there's a problem with this critter. In the 1960s, nearly all strains of S. pneumoniae were susceptible to penicillin, but since that time, there has been an increasing prevalence of penicillin resistance. Certain strains are also resistant to cephalosporins, macrolides, tetracycline, clindamycin and the quinolones. This antibiotic resistance is due to S. pneumoniae evolving.
But the creationists don't want evolution taught in school. Some of them won't even accept that S. pneumoniae is evolving, even though the proof is readily available and obvious to anyone paying attention. So what happens when creationists get their wish and evolution is replaced with GODDIDIT? Research for antibiotics cease and we go back to witchdoctors praying for cures. Do you really want to return to the Dark Ages? Because that's where the creationists want to lead us back to. And no, that is not hyperbole.
Michelle B #271 wrote:
Yes, but I thought that the person who wrote #264 had also written #61, etc. I was surprised that someone who had gone to such pains trying to prove that "the Earth is 4.6 billion years old, and the remaining celestial objects in the universe are three days younger" was suddenly saying that it didn't really matter, what was the big deal, can't we just move on? I see now, that he wasn't.
Bill H
The issue from my side of the fence is that the creationists, while accepting scientific method when it related to every other aspect of observable reality make an exception for the bits that they don't like.
Now I'm not a scientist. However I do value consistency, and inconsistency really bugs me (I'm not a fun guy to go to the cinema with as I am a continuity freak). I honestly don't get why conclusions that come from the same methodology are treated in different ways.
Young earth creationism is - if you accept that out reality is consistent - moronic. I think that the proper phrase is 'fractally wrong'. The maths and methodology that allows those idiots to post on-line is the same maths and methodology that makes their world view extremely unlikely.
There is also nothing wrong with saying 'I don't know' if the answer is not known. What happened before Planck time? Who knows. What is outside our universe? Possibly an incoherent question but again, who knows. How did the first replicating entity appear? There are a few ideas but no-one knows for sure.
Replacing 'I don't know' with 'God did it' does not answer the question. All that you do is put it down to magic and seal the line of enquiry off from further research. 'God' is not an answer, it's an excuse. It doesn't actually explain anything in a form that is useful. A lot of questions are left begging - more then if 'god' was not brought up in the first place.
I'll be perfectly happy if the average creationist would discard all of the tools provided by scientific method and live in a cave as a result. They'd be stupid, but at least they'd be consistent. But they don't do this. And what makes it more nauseating, as an observer, is the self righteous certainty that is regularly displayed. No, as I mentioned before, the same process that has confirmed the age of the earth from multiple sources is the same process that put food on the table, electricity to the wall socket and a computer for all this bullshit to be typed on.
I don't know who originally said "You are entitled to your own opinions. You are not entitled to your own facts." but they're dead on.
Bill, no I don't think that one date, the formation age of the planet, is super important in and of itself. I referred to it because I was replying to your earlier comment where you mentioned it. That one fact is merely symptomatic.
It's the concept of deep time itself that we're actually fighting over, and that concept is extremely important. An understanding of the antiquity of the Earth underpins geology in the same manner that an understanding of evolution underpins biology. Everything we know about the Earth is dovetailed with the concept of deep time, from how volcanoes work and plates move, to landscape and soil development, to the building and weathering away of mountains, to how rivers move silt, to recharge rates of aquifers, to the residence times of water molecules within the sea. Indeed, it is impossible to divorce any study of the Earth from the notion of time. All of it dovetails with deep time or is dependent on deep time.
And there has never been a point in the history of humanity where an understanding of geology has been more important to technology and civilization than now. Most of society is ignorant of how much geology contributes to everything they do, but it remains a fact nevertheless. The concept of deep time isn't a small thing. It's all of it. To say that the earth is young is to say that we don't understand soil formation at all, and that's wrong. We have a very good understanding of soil formation. To say that the earth is young is to say that we don't understand sedimentology at all, and that's wrong. We have a very good understanding of sedimentology. And so on and so on.
The notion of a young earth in this day and age is insane. It just is. It's as nuts as the idea that the earth isn't a spherical body. It's a profound denying of reality that's absolutely crazy and the only place you will find support for the idea is within the YEC literature*; a young earth is just simply not supported by the entire body of scientific thought within geology. To assert otherwise isn't just a difference of opinion, it's false. We know this shit; we've built civilizations using this knowledge (e.g., we use our understanding of evolution, in part, to help prospect (successfully) for petroleum; this understanding of evolution is rooted in deep time).
So whereas I understand you not wanting to believe the worst of people, the fact is that there is simply no earth science course that a teacher candidate could have been provided with in the last half century where the teacher can teach the age to be 6000 years and not be willfully ignorant or lying. You simply cannot be in a position where you know enough about the earth to be teaching it to others (Christian school or not) where the concept of deep time hasn't been tied in to everything you've read and seen. It's just not possible except in the case where you can find me a teacher who is teaching about rocks but has never studied them. The people who know enough earth science to be teachers who remain in the YEC camp are being willfully ignorant because of their YEC biases, or they are lying.
*Yes, I know that there are YECs out there who call themselves geologists, including some who have managed to secure degrees from otherwise respectable programs. I'll go on about these "scientists" in a later comment if you like.
Wrong, the formation rate has varied over time. The decay rate is consistent. Something you would know if you truly knew the fact of the science. Your ignorance makes what you say unreliable.
And if you believe in delusions, we don't believe you. What part of this are you having trouble with?
You may try to be polite, but you have presented no evidence for your ideas, and inane questions or opinions are not evidence. That requires citations to the peer reviewed scientific literature. And you supply none. Ergo, you have nothing cogent to say, and we have no reason to pay any attention to your meanderings.
Which is more helpful?
A) Using biological evolution to predict and prevent drug resistance in germs.
B) Going back to believing that disease is caused by the random whims of a capricious boogeyman in the sky.
Which is more helpful?
A) Using geology to develop methods predict earthquakes.
B) Going back to believing that natural disasters are caused by the random whims of a capricious boogeyman in the sky.
Which is more helpful?
A) Using physics to study new possibilities in energy production.
B) Performing voodoo dances in hopes that a boogeyman in the sky will someday get to randomly solving problems?
Which is more helpful?
A) Learning about the world with the scientific method, spreading that knowledge, and using it to help people.
B) Rolling dice to determine which parts of some old book written by superstitious bronze age people are taught to children.
OK, I can't stand this Mr. Christian (Bill Hannah), but it is clear that many of you are how can I say focused on being polite and nice. So I will go mute, because this guy is slime in my book. He is the same as all the creotards that have posted here recently except his nonsense is puffed up with an oppressively polite air to his stinking relativism.
Have fun (I will continue reading of course!).
Thanks, Sastra, that clears it up for me.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Bill @274, you haven't read the link at #250, have you? ;)
From the introduction (my emphasis):
Does it bother you at all to be dismissing science on the basis of ignorance?
The age of the Earth matters for a lot of reasons. For one thing, it is essential to understanding where to find minerals, petroleum, coal and other valuable resources. It matters because an old Earth is essential to understand evolution, which in turn is essential to understanding biology, medicine, agriculture... It matters because it is essential to understanding how Earth fits into the cosmos, and allowing us to see how unique, fragile and precious the planet is. It matters in our reconstruction of past climates so that we can see how we are altering the climate ourselves and thereby threatening the continued viability of our civilization. It matters because it is a part of the truth, and each truth in science is inter-related to all the other truths.
A story, Bill: When the Soviets were struggling to build an nuclear bomb to counter the American nuclear threat after WWII, they knew they didn't have time to enrich Uranium. Their spies had managed to relay the information that element-239 (later plutonium) was also fissionable and could be separated from spent fuel by chemical means. But what was the chemistry of the trans-uranic elements. Well, according to the periodic table, it ought to be similar to the Rare Earth elements. There was only one big problem. Chemists in the workers' paradise had been forbidden from studying the Rare Earths because they were... well, rare. Luckily for the Russians, one chemist had defied the ban, conducting his research late at night in his lab. Copies were made of his handwritten notes and these were distributed to the chemists, and the Soviet Union lived another 45 years.
The point is that you never know what particular fact is going to be absolutely crucial.
Also, Bill, as a scientist, I have implicitly agreed to be bound by the evidence. When the preponderance of the evidence becomes sufficiently cogent, my decision is made. It doesn't matter whether I like the truth or not. The thing is, by agreeing to go with the evidence, science ceases to be personal. We have a standard by which scientists can debate, and as long as we stick to the evidence, the debate tends to remain civil. If someone comes along who doesn't believe in evidence or how to interpret it, there is no common foundation for debate.
Finally, Bill, I would think it would matter to you whether your religious beliefs were founded on truth or falsehood--or perhaps more to the appropriately, truth or poetry.
After reading a few more of Bill's posts, I'm inclined to take Michelle B's view of things. In fact, Bill, it's one of the best shots at concern trolling I've ever seen.
Nice try, come back again later when you don't deny any facet of science that doesn't agree with your YEC world view.
Read it. More than once. Along with pretty much everybody else here, I should imagine. Why would you think otherwise?
The number itself isn't as important as the means by which we arrive at it. The most important question to be asked of anybody with a belief about the age of the universe, or any other concrete factual assertion, is "and how do you know that?".
No, these things are not evidence of a young world. They represent evidence of fairly rapid processes. YECs love to assert that "uniformatarian geologists" insist that everything that happens on earth is gradual. This is a lie. We assert no such thing.
The speed at which a stream cuts through a hillside has virtually nothing to do with the age of the planet upon which the hill is sitting.
The Old Man in the Mountain collapsed, as far as we can tell, overnight. You know what the speed of that collapse has to say about the formation age of the Earth? For the purposes of our discussion here, nothing.
Perhaps consider the first two paragraphs of this comment?
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/04/i_have_no_idea_what_this_thr…
Oh, and despite how often YECs jump up and down about it, we actually use C14 dating methods for precious few things. Geochronology is much more diverse and complex than C14 methods.
The problem with people who doubt radio isotope dating: It usually involves an assertion that nuclear physics is wrong, which in turn, implies that they believe all our atomic clocks and nuclear power plants operate purely on dumb luck.
Dumb luck. There's so much Creationists will attribute to dumb luck.
Carbon Dating goes back at most about 80,000 years. There are dozens of different radiometric dating tools that all point to the same picture. Even dating the sun using what we know about the life cycle of stars points to the same age. Not to mention the vindication from non-radiometric methods (such as fossil corals combined with the slowing rate of spin of the earth, or tectonic drift combined with the changes in earth's magnetic field causing polarising formation of iron in newly formed rock)
You've hit the nail on the head with a problem. One group is using science, and the other group is not. What's the problem again? You're admitting as such that it's science versus non-science which is what people here are trying to tell you.
That's only because I haven't chimed in yet. A few well-placed F-bombs should convince Mr. Hannah he fought the devil and won, and he can slink off to his pals to cry about the viciousness of atheists and evolutionists.
Most likely he's gonna do it anyway (where do you think "Hitler was an atheist!" comes from?), so this'll save us all some time.
Stop listening to your bible study buddies. They're wrong, and repeating what they say just makes you look like a fool. The upper bound for carbon dating is only about 60,000 years, and is limited to objects containing (or coming into contact with) carbon. But that isn't the only dating technique used. In fact, it's not even the only radiometric dating technique. Others include uranium-lead, samarium-neodymium, potassium-argon, rubidium-strontium, uranium-thorium, fission track, dendrochronology and photoluminescence, and--surprise!--they all work pretty consistently, given limitations in age and materials dated.
The rocks are used to date the fossils and the fossils are used to date the rocks, so it's circular, right? Hallelujah, praise Jesus!
In general, fossils (particularly index fossils, which you'd know about if you weren't talking out of your fucking ass) were used (among other things) to tie geological formations separated by space together. While scattered examples of mistaken assumptions like the presumed extinction of the coelocanth exist, on the whole the process worked pretty well. Bring in radiometric dating to confirm and shore up the dates, and bingo! We've got a science that makes predictions that are verified.
But you wrote:
And then you wrote:
So what the fuck was the point of bringing up "Christians" as a generalisation if only to later demonstrate that you're not like them?
Nice try at the ol' bait-and-switch Bill, but we seen your kind here more times than you've had prayers 'answered'.
Brain Hertz wrote:
Someone here once noted that it's almost as if they think the words on the page are somehow 'magic', and will compel you to get down on your knees and pray before you finish reading "...created the Heavens and the Earth."
I'd suspect this viewpoint is limited to Christians who are generally religious illiterates, otherwise they'd know that the Bible is no more persuasive than the Baghavad Gita, the Diamond Sutra, or the Popol Wu'uj and they wouldn't make such an idiotic appeal.
@227
You said "All-in-all, does it matter all that much whether the world is six thousand years old, or six million, or six billion?"
I thank Lauren Becker of the Center for Inquiry for this - and it sounds much better coming from her:
Why is the evolution/creation or religion/science argument important? What does it matter what people believe?
It's a fair question. It really only matters when the two come into contradiction. When a fundamentalist Christian teaches children that Genesis is a scientifically factual account of how the world was formed, then the conflict arises.
Why does it matter if a rock is 6,000 years old, or 300,000,000 years old? It's still a rock.
How does believing a 300,000,000-year-old rock is only 6,000 years old become dangerous? Because it is a reflection of how we know things.
A 300,000,000-year-old rock is the answer resulting from decades of observation, research, field study, laboratory testing, comparative studies, physics, and critical peer review.
A 6,000-year-old rock is the answer because God said so.
Believing a 300,000,000-year-old rock is only 6,000 years old is to completely surrender to an argument from authority (in this case, Archbishop Ussher's math), regardless of what logic, reason and your senses tell you.
Is the accurate age of a rock really that important? Maybe not.
But what if the question is about treating polio? Should we perform analysis, experimentation, scientific study, develop a vaccine, test it, and eradicate a global plague? Or, should we read the Bible and pray?
What if the question is whether women should have the same rights and opportunities as men? Should we study the intelligence of men and women, statistically examine the success of men and women in different endeavors and societies, research gender differences in school children, critically review the work, publish the results and respond to the criticism? Or should we instead accept the authority of Sharia Law?
If you wish the freedom of a representative democracy because you don't wish to surrender completely to a dictator's authority, why would you surrender completely to religious authority when considering the truth of our origins?
Humans are wonderful at deceiving themselves and each other. The middle-aged, overweight, sun-starved father of five who sucks in his stomach, looks in the mirror and says "Not bad!" is practicing self-deception. And influencing the minds of others is the whole point of marketing, politics, and much of entertainment. People are influenced all the time by what others tell them, by their own beliefs and biases, by differences in perception.
How do we avoid being deceived when we want to really know the truth about something?
The best way we've found so far is the scientific method. It consists of questioning current assumptions, hypothesis, experimentation, theory, critical peer review, refinement, and questioning all over again. It is designed to put our biases aside, to cut through the smoke and mirrors, to honestly seek critique of our assumptions, and find the real truth. Constant questions, constant testing. If an idea doesn't work, we ruthlessly throw it out. There is no surrender to authority because authorities make mistakes. As Sagan says - "intellectual brilliance is no guarantee against being dead wrong." It is through this thinking that we've harnessed the atom, built the communication network, power grids, eliminated plagues, and so many other advances.
When you're buying a used car, do you take the car the salesman wants you to buy at the price he wants you to pay? Or do you research what car you want, compare to other shoppers, develop an understanding of what you're going to buy, question the salesman, then get your wife/husband/partner/parent's opinion before you pay?
If you are willing to employ your own version of the scientific method for something as trivial a car, why wouldn't you use it for developing your world view and your understanding of our origins?
Many people believe that science is some great conspiracy - that nobody can go against the current wisdom of science. But that's completely false. Science awards its highest honors to those who break new ground, who overturn the status quo. But only if the PROVE it, only if their ideas or models WORK.
Back to the that dangerous rock. It's just a little rock, but as you can see, it's a BIG metaphor.
Creationist geologist Kurt Wise puts it very clearly: "As I shared with my professors years ago when I was in college, if all the evidence in the universe turned against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate. Here I must stand." As Professor Wise says, the dogma of creationism forces him to put aside his Harvard education and all the evidence, and surrender his intellectual honesty.
Isn't it bad when something conflicts with honesty?
When you allow a person or institution to declare itself beyond question and without error, you've created a form of monarchy, exactly what the United States was designed to avoid. When you are forced to ignore the evidence, to deny logic, to be blind to things that are demonstrably true, you've surrendered your greatest gift - your intellect.
So the age of the rock, the validity of evolution, the age, size and motion of the cosmos - all of these things are symbols of the battle over the meaning of truth, the use or denial of intellect, and the freedom to ask questions. And what makes it even more important is that the battle is not being fought between leading thinkers in each field, it is being fought with and around our children, in public school staffrooms and classes. One side is using evidence, reason, and logic, while the other fights with public relations, lawyers, and with lies, distortions, false information and badly flawed arguments. Those are not my adjectives, they are the adjectives used by Judge Jones in the Kitzmiller v Dover Intelligent Design trial.
If you surrender your intellect to organizations like Answers in Genesis, you are buying into the PR, believing the hype and drinking the coolaid. You're essentially taking the used-car salesman's first offer.
Some of you may not think this is important. Some may not even be bothered to read this. But our collective intellect is the only resource capable of getting this world beyond its current problems, capable of reducing suffering, capable of navigating a safe, prosperous and healthy future from among the many unpleasant possibilities.
Sorry, I wrote a lot, because I think the intersection of science and religion, of our origins, and of how we use our intellect are some of the most important things we can discuss.
Or repeatable, demonstratable and supportable.
*sigh*
RickK, when setting off a quote (especially one comprised of multiple paragraphs, use <blockquote>quoted text</blockquote> so we know what you're quoting and what you're writing.
Otherwise, thanks for comment #293. I started writing much the same thing, but your comment (or Lauren Becker's) said it as well as I could have.
And it's not just radiometric dating either. The fossil record shows a gradual progression over time. You don't see any animals in ancient rock, and in the rock that is seen, there is a general progression. Fish before tetrapods (including fishapods), synapsids before mammals (including transitions), dinosaurs before birds (including dinobirds), non-humans before humans (including transitions), land mammals before cetaceans (including transitions) - the list goes on.I want all young earthers to consider the following. In 1987 a supernova exploded, well it didn't explode in 1987 - it was seen from earth in 1987. This star exploded in a nearby galaxy, a dwarf galaxy that orbits the one we reside in. Anyway, this star had a ring around it, so when the light from the supernova reached the, scientists were able to use triangles (remember SOHCAHTOA?) to work out directly how far it was away: 168,000 light years. So that means the explosion happened 168,000 years ago.Now how do people who believe in a young earth explain that? You can't increase the speed of light because of e=mc², you can't bring the object close enough to earth because of the gravity 10,000,000,000 stars would have on our orbital system. The only thing you can do is either believe that there is an old universe or that God faked the light.If the universe (and earth within) are only 6000 years old, then we shouldn't see anything more than 6000 light years away (we shouldn't see anything at all because it takes light about a million years to escape the sun, but that's besides the point), so any light we do see must by definition be an illusion. That God created photons of light en route to earth. So for that star in the LMC, it must mean that God not only created the illusion of the star, but the illusion of a supernova too - and one which was able to give us an absolute distance for a nearby stellar object. Now that galaxy is only 28 times as far away as light needs to travel, there are galaxies over 2 million times as far away as light needs to travel.So consider this. The universe looks old, that either means that the universe is old or that it has the appearance of being old. So if the biblical accounts are accurate (which come off it, they aren't nor are they meant to be) then it would mean that God is lying to us, and such a being is not worth worship. If you believe in a young earth / universe, then you believe in a dishonest deity.
The Lord Works in Mysterious WaysTM
Romeo Vitelli (#52)
Yeah, I've tried that. Apparently, even to a Biblical literalist, the second story is a reiteration of the first and the switched up order is a "literary device." (But claiming other literary devices such as allegory is wrong.) Of course, that particular nitwit claimed you could have non-contradictory paradoxes and non-autonomous free will. So he was quite skilled in denialism.
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lose_the_woo (#110)
Not exactly static. They can always rewrite it, as with the Conservative Bible Project. Which doesn't detract from your point about presumption one bit.
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alysonmiers (#186)
By pretending evolution is a religion, they don't have to give it special consideration; they can dismiss it automatically like they do all religions besides their own.
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Dahan (#214)
Episcopalian, then Unitarian, then Neo-Pagan. So uh... I guess you could say I was raised in the Church of the Liberal Post-Modern Clusterfuck.
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Brownian (#292)
I read that as "smarmium." That would be the perfect creationist element.
Read it? Hell, I gave a guest sermon or two from it. Not all atheists have always been atheists. That should be obvious.
Kel,
Supernova 1987A was the subject of considerable discussion over at Christian Forums (IIRC) a year or two back.
There's a commenter there that explained that our conclusion was messed up because we were using "childish" math, and it would all work out and show the possibility of a 6,000 year old universe if only we all used "G-d's math" (sic) instead.
Obviously he wasn't actually able to show us "G-d's math", because, being mere humans, we wouldn't be able to understand it, and since he was a mere human too he wasn't privy to it either. Nonetheless, he felt sure that we would all find his argument convincing.
Bill Hannah (#245)
Yes, evolution, geology, cosmology, etc., people only work in those fields to prove creationists wrong.
(#254)
I bet that trust gets even easier the less importance you give to having an objective method of establishing truth claims.
(#257)
The creationists' selective approach to accepting scientific facts shows quite clearly how little regard they have for how science works or why how it works is important. You don't get to simultaneously pretend you value science while rejecting those scientific facts that conflict with your religious beliefs.
If you honestly want scientists to lay off the whole debate, then help get it through to people that the only reason there's a debate at all is because creationists are trying to sell their non-scientific religious agenda. It's really that simple.
(#274)
Wrong. The evidence is the evidence. It comes down to which theories best explain all the evidence.
If you're picking and choosing the evidence, you're doing it wrong.
Sastra & Michelle,
My point was not to herald the idea of being right, but to simply note that the disposition of opponents and a desire to be "right" is common in the field of evolution/creation debate. I agree that such a position is not the proper perspective when it comes to discovering and understanding the truth.
I am not familiar with the term YEC(er).
Tis Himself,
Again, I'm generalizing, but Creationists do not desire to disregard science and return to the Dark Ages (though I'm sure there were more than a few sunny days within that time).
Christians do not counter scientific observation or the process of the scientific method. In saying that we believe in a six thousand year old world (in general), this does not mean that this is an attempt to toss science out the window. On the other hand, it's simply on account of contrary evidence that we find credible in the situation of the age of this world.
That quote is great, by the way:
"I don't know who originally said "You are entitled to your own opinions. You are not entitled to your own facts." but they're dead on."
Chris,
Did you notice post #227? I mentioned that I as well do not admire the tendency of mankind to state as fact what is not truly known. It's very important to maintain the respect to say "I don't know" when faced with an unfamiliar difficulty.
Now again, I don't attempt to simply ignore scientific evidence. I have seen a great amount of it. On the other hand, I believe that the evidence supporting creation has credibility to it. On the other hand, it's hard to say you know what happened x-thousand years ago. As you say, "I don't know" the day the world began. I have simply concluded in my mind, at this point in time, that the evidence of which I am aware points more strongly to a "young" world than an "old" one.
Remember, I certainly don't mind evidence of the perspective you tend to believe. I would appreciate it, in fact.
Please remember, though, that science--empirical science--has its limits. When it comes to years before men kept any record, it's not easy to be sure of what is fact and what is fiction. For all we know, a planet-sized eagle could have slashed the Grand Canyon. Now I have my doubts about that, for obvious reasons, but my points is that even science has its limits, especially with that which we can no longer directly perceive.
Josh,
Christians don't tend to disagree with understandings of the current structure and movements involved in this world. Instead of a deep time understanding, though, a great many who believe in the idea of a young earth also agree that catastrophies played an important role in the formation of this world. I already mentioned this in the short section on geological formations, of course.
Please, if you would, take into consideration the above and respond if you feel necessary. I may be evaluating your statements too quickly in my attempt to catch up.
Redhead,
If you note, my initial comment was in no way an attempt to prove creationism. In case you missed it, the post is #227. My goal, at this time, is certainly not to convince you all that evolution is wrong, though such may be my belief (at least in part).
Also, I'm certainly not a scientist - Please forgive my incorrect statement.
Bronze Dog,
That's certainly nowhere close to the Christian understanding of science. Those who believe in the truth of the Bible also very much believe that there is unity in nature. We do not devalue science because it's some pagan ritual--in no way at all.
Saying this, though, the common understanding in "Christian circles" is that the idea of deep time evolution has not been proven by science and, on the other hand, that there is substantial evidence for a young world even regardless of the Biblical account.
John,
Nope, I just got back on and I'm desperately trying to keep up.
Again, I am not forgetting science. I simply don't believe that science truly backs up the claim of deep time to the extent that you claim. Remember, science has its limits, however helpful it may be.
A Ray,
This belief in the age of the earth does *not* mean that creationists just throw out theories and calculations commonly associated with deep time study. Again, saying that the earth is not millions of years old does not throw away science, it simply challenges your interpretation of the evidence.
To everyone:
Though responding to the many recent comments directed at me, I feel you all have taken me as a Bible-totin', God-fearin', I-don't-care-if-science-says-this type. That's certainly not the case. Firstly, please re-read my post #227 if you would. I did not come here to prove creationism.
I respect those who do not wish to discuss these ideas with me. Please don't think that I mean nothing I say, though, it's quite the opposite--I came here to post #227 because I truly believe what I said and thought it important to convey.
Thanks for reading,
--Bill
There is?
For our benefit and so we know where you are coming from can you please provide us some citations and / or links to this substantial evidence?
*psst* Josh is a geologist.
Actually, I'll put my hand up as an atheist who hasn't read the bible - not, at least, at length; I have, however, read bits and pieces when I've felt it necessary to understand the context of something someone quoted.
That being said I haven't read the Q'uran, the Kalevala, the Edda, the Bhagavad Gita or the Egyptian Book of the Dead either.
all the evidence, not just your preferred subset of it. and the 4.5 year-old earth does precisely that. the 6000 year-old earth does not.
Bill, you are doing nothing but trying to muddy the waters. That makes you a creobot in all but name only. If you had any background in science, you would have shut up many posts ago, as we know much more than you do. If you really had evidence, you would have presented it. As it is, you are a persistent but meaningless godbot in your posts. For meaning, you need that crucial evidence that you lack.
Bill Hannah (#303)
No such field.
It means you aren't being scientific.
Because you're cherry picking the evidence to fit your religious beliefs which goes against how real science works.
It's a lot more reliable than you make it out to be, but you're apparently quite fond of mistaking your ignorance for the state of reality.
Oh, this will be fun; I can't wait to read all the reasons why we know that's impossible. To which you will predictably reply that you don't actually think it happened to avoid acknowledging the point.
I'll respond to just a couple of these...
YEC = Young Earth Creationist. The bounds of the term are typically set so as to include anybody who thinks that the universe is less than 10,000 years old or so...
These two statements are not compatible. There just isn't any way to consider the world (as you put it) to be 6,000 years old or thereabouts and not claim to be wanting to toss science out of the window.
I appreciate that you may not agree with and/or understand this. Not being funny, but what exactly is your source of information that implies differently? This would seem to be rather important.
Indeed.
One more thing: the age of the universe is not a matter of opinion.
crap, blockquote fail. might as well make this a long one, then.
[1]for all intents and purposes, yes they do
[2]yes they do, and so do you when you claim that this is all a matter of "picking your preferred set of evidence"; it isn't. science doesn't work like that
[3]see above
[4]what contrary evidence? once again: a viable theory must explain all the evidence, not just your preferred subset of it. and the 4.5 year-old earth does precisely that. the 6000 year-old earth does not.
please look up the Dunning-Kruger effect. what you're saying is that your knowledge is equivalent to the knowledge of scientists, and therefore your conclusion is as valid as theirs. it is not. you're clueless of the vast majority of evidence that exists for the theory of evolution (evolution itself is an indisputable, observable, and well-documented fact), and you're ignorant of all the evidence that exists to refute every single creationist claim ever made. have you ever read anything at Talk-Origins? do you understand why their refutations of creationist claims are more than just an "opinion"?
this "common understanding" is based on ignorance, nothing else. see the response above.
your belief is not relevant. for that matter, my belief or the belief of any individual scientist isn't either. if you believe in science, you're doing it wrong. and your idea that evidence is supposed to "back up" a scientific claim is backwards. evidence is what leads to scientific claims, not the other way round.
And what precisely do you imagine the limits of science to be? because from where I'm standing, it's significantly less limited as a form of learning about reality than any form of "revelation", especially not 2000-year-old, severely redacted "revelation"
you can repeat this claim until you turn blue in the face, and it still won't be true. disbelief of the scientific conclusion that the earth is 4.5 billion years old IS throwing out all "the theories and calculations" of science that lead to that conclusion. and there's more of these theories, facts and evidence than you evidently know about.
true enough. you came here with your dunning-kruger syndrome to convince the scientists on this blog that your conclusion (based on incomplete and even fradulent and long-debunked information) is equivalent to the conclusions of well-informed experts in the fields of geology, astronomy, chemistry, biology, and archaeology (and probably a whole host of other scientific fields).
The problem is that when those people in those "Christian circles" come around to debate me, they invoke random chance so often:
They say so-called "micro" evolution doesn't add up to "macro" evolution because some magical barrier of dumb luck prevents accumulation.
They say it's dumb luck that every chain of evidence adds up to the same tree of life.
They say it's dumb luck that we and chimps just happened to be infected by the same endogenous retroviruses in the same locations, where they were deactivated by the same errors, and they just happened to acquire fixation in both species by sheer, enormous dumb luck.
Luck. That's what Creationism boils down to. Of course, they have to disguise it in rhetorical trickery, but that's what it is. I just choose to call a spade a spade.
Which is exactly as rational as saying "in Christian circles, heliocentrism has not been proven by science...and there is substantial evidence for an earthocentric* galaxy, even regardless of the biblical account".
The evidence for both the age of the earth and evolution is just as strong for heliocentrism. To deny that this is so is nothing short of blatant stupidity.
And there is no evidence for a young earth. We have documented human civilisations older than the age of the earth as calculated by that nitwit with the bible and a pen and pencil in the other. Read the Wikipedia article on Çatalhöyük.
There's no more reason to believe the earth is 6,000 years old than there is that you can fly by flapping your arms really hard - choosing to ignore that fact doesn't change that**.
*Apologies; I can't remember what the correct word is.
**Douglas Adams notwithstanding.
Brownian,
What do you mean in saying that I claimed no to "be like" Christians? I didn't follow that point.
Kel,
Regarding transitionary forms, such evidence is very sketchy. It is not argued that animals cannot adapt at all, of course, but simply that there are limits, in a creationistic viewpoint. It's easy to say that a bird looks like a land animal when you're looking for it, but there are certainly major differences between species. There are definitely similarities in all animals.
The Christian viewpoint (it's annoying to generalize, again, but I will do so for simplicity's sake) is that, though animals can adapt to their environment, there are limits in this adaptation.
KOPD,
Yes, I understand that - Many have already noticed that and I appologize for the largely-incorrect generalization.
Kel & Brian,
I'm not very familiar with this specific phenomenon. I will look that up at a point, but I'm running short of time at present.
A. Noyd,
I certainly didn't mean to say that scientific fields of thought are unimportant because of the idea of deep time--not at all. I was simply mentioning that this idea regarding evolution vs. creationism seems rather trivial in the scheme of things.
...also, science is not perfect. To say that my disagreement with "scientific facts" is rejecting science simply assumes that these are, firstly, facts, and secondly, scientific. Though evidence has been offered from the field of science, they are not facts that the world is old. It is evidence, not fact.
"Wrong. The evidence is the evidence. It comes down to which theories best explain all the evidence."
Good distinction - I meant to refer to the strength of the different parts of "evidence" rather than saying that you could throw some of it out at will. I agree with the above statement, but simply disagree in my assessment of the correct explanation for the evidence provided regarding the age of this world.
"It's not that there isn't evidence, it's that the evidence I find most reasonable...
If you're picking and choosing the evidence, you're doing it wrong."
Again, that's fair - When I said evidence, I don't necessarily mean valid evidence. I am referring to those things used as evidence. Sometimes, though someone may say that evidence x supports a claim, others will find that it does not truly support the theory (for one reason or another). This is the distinction I meant to make.
Again, I think it would be best to simply stick to the statement I gave at post #227. I am not trying to prove you all wrong. In fact, I don't find that the importance of the issue is relatively low in the scheme of human progress. On the other hand, though, I think it fair to present with I do believe about the age of the earth.
Thanks,
--Bill Hannah
It's most certainly not on account of "contradictory evidence." Creationists have no evidence. What you have are the fabrications and fantasies of an ancient people with more fear than knowledge, and those tales have been used by fraudsters to scam equally fearful and unknowing people for thousands of years.
I still think the problem with many creationists is simple pride, and I suppose I can't blame them. They've worked very hard and lied a lot to accomplish nothing. Walking away from such a failure is probably much harder to do than perpetuating the lie.
and the evidence for the existence of this barrier is... what precisely?
this is only because you don't even know of the existence of most of the evidence* for an old earth, nevermind what this evidence is and why it's impossible for it to be explained with a young earth
you can present it all you want; but to claim that your beliefs are equivalent to the conclusions of 200+ years of scientific research is hubris and arrogant ignorance of the highest order.
-----
*most of which, incidentally doesn't have shit to do with evolution. the age of the earth is a question of geology and astronomy, not biology. but YEC's seem to think that "evolution" is a catch-all phrase for all the science they disagree with. it isn't. ironically, a 6000 year-old earth wouldn't even disprove the Theory of Evolution, and conversely, disproving the Theory of Evolution wouldn't mean the earth is any younger than 4.5 billion years. those are two completely unrelated issues. they just agree with each other, just like many other strands of evidence do, because they happen to reflect reality; which is consistent with itself.
"One more thing: the age of the universe is not a matter of opinion."
No, it's a fact, but a fact which we have yet to fully agree upon the reality of (i.e. when it occured).
Okay guys, I definitely have brought about the wrong impression. I am not here to prove you all wrong, nor am I here to agree with you, but simply to explain my opinion on the issue.
Though I've said a number of things since, it's probably best to check out post 227 where I outlined my take on this idea.
Also, in saying what I've said I am in no way trying to say "I know it all; you don't." I'm certain the majority of you have a very strong background in this study. Again, though, this does not mean I agree on the subject. Telling me that I'm wrong doesn't do a lot, providing evidence does (and if I were trying to prove my point, the same applies to me, of course). Thanks for that instance of the 1987 supernova, I will certainly check out the accounts of that event.
Nice to chat with you all, have a good rest of the day/night.
Cheers,
Bill Hannah
geocentric
No, it's not very sketchy. When you see forms like archaeopteryx or the sequence between land mammals and the cetaceans, it's pretty damn clear. If you want a good account of the fossil record, read Evolution: What The Fossils Say And Why It Matters by Don Prothero.
I really wish you wouldn't refer to it as the Christian viewpoint, as the majority of Christians support evolution. But as for the whole "we accept microevolution thing", it's nothing more than a slight concession while still engaging in special pleading. You have to break the cycle of life to intersect a deity in, while the evolutionary explanation has structure emerge from selection.
It would be good to look it up. Google for SN1987A. And remember that it is a dwarf galaxy nearby. The nearest full galaxy is over 2 million light years away! And that's only one of about 100,000,000,000 galaxies that exist in the observable universe.
The universe is big, very big. Very very big. Very very very big. And a big universe necessitates an old universe unless one again wants to engage in special pleading.
In which case, you shouldn't be surprised when it is picked apart mercilessly. As has been suggested, look up "Dunning-Kruger effect". When you give the same justifications that have been debunked time and time again by the scientific community to the point that anyone who has seen this argument before can answer on autopilot, it shows something wrong in your understanding. When you're trying to tell a geologist that his science is wrong (as you did with Josh), you really need to be talking from more than a point of ignorance on the matter. Perhaps before you bring up an argument, see whether it has a response on TalkOrigins.org - that way you cna at least get an idea about what you're echoing which is utter purile nonsense.
Wowbagger,OM,
Well, as I'm sure you're aware, it's... shall we say, somewhat overrated? Lol! I'm glad you've done other things with your time. Wish I could have those hours back.
Except that all 'evidence' is strong - it has to be, by definition; if it's not strong then it isn't evidence - it's just speculation.
That's the real difference between science-based evolution and faith-based religion: science is based entirely on including all the evidence observed to forumalate the 'bigger picture'; religion is based on assuming the presupposition about the 'bigger picture' they already have (i.e. from the bible) is true and then trying to find ways of demonstrating that.
Creationism, of course, has presented absolutely zero evidence for its side and instead relies entirely on attempts to discredit the science underlying the evidence of evolution. It's never 'creationists find x, which is evidence for creationism'; it's always 'creationists claim x is a problem for evolution'.
All scientific evidence is as strong as it gets. All opinion and/or religious belief, like you keep trying to present as evidence (it isn't) is low grade, and essentially irrelevant to a scientific discussion. You need to understand that. That is why peer reviewed scientific literature is considered the gold standard for evidence, as it has been checked as being correct. And it has a million or so papers showing evolution is correct, both directly and indirectly, and the earth is 4.5 billion years old. Only more science, in the peer reviewed literature, can refuted the present science. So write those papers and submit them instead of posting your nonsense here. That is the only way it will be taken seriously.
This is the crux of the problem; in the face of multidisciplinary evidence across many countries throughout the world and in light of the lack of true dissent among scientists qualified to review said evidence people are still out there who say THIS. This is not two sides with differing conclusions over the same facts.What you call contrary evidence is not evidence at all(prove me wrong with your evidence)Those facts that contradict the creationist view are inevitably ignored ; when they can't be ignored false, meritless arguments are used to disparage well documented and verifiable techniques(see radiometric dating). This is important because similar arguments with similar logical fallacies are launched with identical modus operandi by the same people even when the consequences may affect our near future( see climate change).Might this be an example of "the more important things" you refer to? The attempt to dumb down our youth to the point that we no longer have a significant population of critcal thinkers simply because you have a personal agenda they must fulfill or because questioning your view of the universe makes you uncomfortable certainly is a reason in and of itself to fight this way of thinking.This type of "all evidence is equal" thinking is antithetical to the scientific method.I've read your post; all it means is that you'll be happy to accept anything sciencey unless it's implications make your christian sensibility queasy, at which point you'll vigorously seek out contrary opinion, no matter how flimsy the opposing "evidence" provided.This lack of honest treatment of the evidence is the root of the problem.
One of the common misunderstandings of science is that it's somehow a collection of disparate and unrelated factoids that are of limited utility outside of a trivia quiz or a bar bet.
In fact, it's much the opposite; the strength of the evidence is not in any individual piece of it, but instead how it fits together to present a cogent story.
Thanks guys, but I do really have to go.
I may come back to respond, but this is taking far too much time and I need to get to other things.
I thank you all for your opinions and responces,
Bill Hannah
Bill Hannah, you do not deserve the fruits of scientific labor. The rest of us will have to continue carrying your freeloading self and your ilk on our backs until your deaths. Enjoying the high quality of life that science has given you does not get you off the hook for being a freeloader. You deserve to live in a cave, but you won't have to because of what authentic science has accomplished (and not what you think science is). You don't get to cherry pick science and then unconvincingly insist that you are not anti-science just because you enjoy the comforts that science has given you.
You are probably one of the slimiest creobots I have ever encountered. Your intellectually dishonest, repugnant, despicable implicit deal is since you are not trying to convert us, you are reasonable in demanding to be allowed to wallow in your willful ignorance. Your lack of morality and ethics actually fools you into thinking this is a peacekeeping and fair approach. All it is demonstrates is your pathetic cleaving to fantasy.
You do not get to have your own facts. The old age of the earth and evolution are facts. And you are denying them. The majority of Christians accept the old age of the earth and evolution. You are the enemy and will remain so until your short (but much longer than if scientists regarded science in the butchered, disgraceful manner in which you do) life ends.
Just because you are responding to most questions, does not mean that you have answered any of them without weaseling out especially regarding the dangerous reality that science education is being sabotaged.
Have your beliefs, it is your right, but don't expect that your slippery crapola will not be identified for what it is or not we will not fight your kind every step of the way.
"Regarding transitionary forms, such evidence is very sketchy. It is not argued that animals cannot adapt at all, of course, but simply that there are limits, in a creationistic viewpoint. It's easy to say that a bird looks like a land animal when you're looking for it, but there are certainly major differences between species. There are definitely similarities in all animals. "
Why is that evidence sketchy? Are you denying the existence of Archeopteryx or Tiktaalik? Be specific when you make these claims...
Actually that's pretty much all you're doing. You repeat talking points that cast doubt on what we know. Which actually would be fine if you could A: Be specific, and B: show us the evidence you derived your doubts from.
Dahan wrote:
I realised not that long ago that between work and my other activities I don't have anywhere near enough time to fit in reading all the good books I'd like to read - let alone squeezing in the hours for particular piece of poorly-edited fan-fiction.
Maybe when I retire (if such a thing still exists thirty years in the future) I'll think differently.
The funny thing is: PZ is a coward. That's the entire reason he refuses to debate a creationist. He can hurl all the elephants he wants. If he reeeeeally wanted to demonstrate that creationism is invalid, he'd take that debate and use it to make his point once and for all. He'd want to make a gazingstock of us.
But he's not.
He's essentially hiding behind the whole schoolyard, "I could take you if I really wanted to, but I'm not gonna waste my timr," which bluster and bravado we all know from experience typically hides a glass chin.
As luck would have it, I wrote about this very issue of atheist/evolutionist cowardice just yesterday before someone sent me a link to this post:
http://siriusknotts.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/the-evolving-post-darwin-e…
This is priceless! Ha!
-Sirius Knott
Who is we? Geologists? Plumbers? Hottentots? If by we you are implying those educated in the sciences then, yes, the VAST majority of that "we" does in fact agree.
Damn blockquote fail.
In case it's not evident, the part where I stopped quoting Bill and began writing for myself in the comment above begins with "That was my mistake, Bill."
Yawn, it appears the boring evidenceless troll finally leaving. I always have to laugh how these idjits think they can cast doubt on the science without citing the scientific literature. Somewhere in their peabrains the concept of how science is done, and refuted, is absent. Trying to cast doubt does nothing. Only by doing and publishing more science in the proper forums will scientific theories be modified. And since creobots are too stoopid to do either, they will get nowhere.
Bill,
You say that you aren't saying that science is wrong, but the moment you say that the Earth is 6,000 years old, you are saying that our understanding of atomic theory is wrong.
What you don't seem to get is that the exact same calculations used to work out the date of the Earth are also used to run atomic power stations.
So, either the creationists are dead wrong, or nuclear reactors are controlled by blind luck.
So far you are definitely living up to the title of this post.
Hannah Okay guys, I definitely have brought about the wrong impression.
_____
You have made the wrong impression only in the sense that you failed to fool us.
It's important to understand the limits of this, Bill. There are people who are mistaken, and express their mistaken understanding, that nobody would get upset about. But as soon as people claim to be an authority on a subject, and continue making elementary mistakes in that subject, they are lying. Wilful ignorance is intentional deception, and intentional deception is lying. This applies to teachers, lecturers, broadcasters and other media professionals, politicians and presidents (among many others no doubt). These are people who have a huge influence on the standards of both truth and technology that we live with.
Please don't be a liar. Be informed and correct your understanding. Ask yourself what would persuade you to change your mind; and check it for yourself. Ask yourself who told you the things that all of us here are disputing, and check how they know, and look to see how accurate they are.
Here's hoping you can take those difficult steps.
You mean, like the evidence the creationists keep saying they're going to provide? What exactly has the Discovery Institute discovered?
How about the claim that Christians are more moral?
Is there any bone of yours that isn't glass?
Nice try at blogwhoring, though.
Whore.
And Hannah's constant referral back to his original post despite it being eviscerated by many commenters just shows you how deep his ostrich head is mired in denying reality.
Got the burden of proof around the long way. Creationism has been discared academically for a long time now. If creationists want to prove that their ideas have any merit whatsoever, they would stop hiding behind public rhetoric and fight for their ideas in academia among learned people in the relavant fields. Instead they rely on the ignorance of the masses (and we are all ignorant on most things, ignorance is not a crime - just not a place to argue from or pander to) and challenge respected scientists for the celebrity of the spectacle.
If creationists weren't running scared, they'd stop talking "science" in public and fight for their ideas among scientists before telling people with absolute certainty that they know the absolute truth - whereas anyone who is learned in any relevant field can see otherwise. Why is it creationists are so scared to engage academic issues academically?
Bill,
You say that you aren't saying that science is wrong, but the moment you say that the Earth is 6,000 years old, you are saying that our understanding of atomic theory is wrong.
What you don't seem to get is that the exact same calculations used to work out the date of the Earth are also used to run atomic power stations.
So, either the creationists are dead wrong, or nuclear reactors are controlled by blind luck.
So far you are definitely living up to the title of this post.
The Christard, Herman Cummings burbled:
Wow! Geologic ages can be identified down to the specific week where one ends and the next begins! Who knew?
I've been to a debate between PZ and a creationist, and the reason I suggested to him he not do that in the future is because in general, you're a bunch of lying pieces of shit who can't cut it in a lab so you retreat to the only forum you know you can succeed at: shilling snake-oil in front of an impressionable audience.
How's it feel to be the intellectual equivalent of Paris Hilton?
Whore.
@ 329, as usual creationists bluster then ignore all the answers; it's been done,there's no winner because a debate does not decide the merits of the argument, only the persuasive abilities of the speaker which is not related to the validity of the evidence;what part of this idea is difficult to understand?There is no "once and for all" when you don't listen, it will just be a rehash of the same non-arguments next year with an appeal for the debate to end all debates.
Sorry Rutee, my initial purpose coming here wasn't anywhere close to explaining my viewpoints on creationism. Check out post #227.
"You are the enemy"
I'm sorry you feel this way.
My intention in coming here was not to make enemies. I will not regard you as one and I hope you can respect that, though I understand if you think differently.
Guys, please read my initial post...I'm not trying to press my point of "creationism" at all. I initially mentioned how I didn't think it all-too-important in the scheme of things. Please don't think that my coming here was an attempt to cast doubt, I'm not silly enough to think that the opinion of one person will change an entire chatroom. You all have researched a lot more than that, I'm sure.
Joffan, I'm very sorry, but please refer back to previous postings...I didn't expect so many responces and I have to get to other things.
Michelle, please understand the point of my first statements, in post 227. I was not trying to prove creationism at all, if you do read it. I'm simply commenting in the idea that facts are not as well-known as sometimes perceived.
Okay, I need to be done...
Goodnight,
Bill Hannah
Kel, OM
You had to take psychology for a Computer Science degree?
Ok then. Glad we have it straight that we're talking about matters of fact, not matters of opinion.
Holy shit. What were we talking about, like, 10 seconds ago?
Yes, I'm pretty sure just about everybody here read it in full, and it's kind of annoying that you keep on mentioning it as if we didn't. Several people, including me, responded to what you said in that post because you say some rather wrong-headed things.
Yes, the universe is older than 6,000 years old. Much, much, older. There isn't any way of claiming otherwise without tossing out just about every branch of science, contrary to what you claim, and this is not a matter of opinion.
In support of your claim, you've managed to run through several items from the list of creationist pseudoscience talking points (carbon dating springs to mind...) which, in case you hadn't figured out already, we've all encountered many times before. Many here recognize them, and are aware of the source of these ridiculous claims, which is why I asked a few posts back what your source of these points was.
I understand that you have a strong belief. I understand that you think there is no conflict between science and these beliefs, because you've been told so, and you've been shown a bunch of arguments (see above, under "we've seen these before, and we know from whence they came") which sound convincing.
You've been had. Sorry.
sirisknotts wrote:
The funnier thing is, siriusknotts is a dumbass. He doesn't seem to realise that science is never - and has never - been determined by debate.
He doesn't need to demonstrate that creationism is invalid; creationism is already demonstrably invalid and will remain so until it meets the definitions of what science is - things like the presentation of evidence to support its hypotheses, the explanation of the processes involved, falsifiability and so forth. Publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal would be a good first step.
Please link to wherever it is you believe you read that PZ claimed that the reason he does not debate creationists is because 'he could take one if he really wanted to', because it's a direct contradiction of everything he's said about the issue.
The reason he, and most other scientists, don't debation creationists is - as they have all said, over and over and over again - because creationism isn't science. It's like a cryptozoologist challenging a zoologist to debate which is faster, a horse or a unicorn.
If you, siriusknotts, have the arguments to support creationism, why not present them right here and now? What's stopping you?
Then shut the fuck up. You are pressing creationism indirectly until you do so, as that is what you are doing by trying to raise doubt on science. What part of that don't your understand? That makes you an even worse liar and bullshitter than the standard hit and run creobot, but you are still a creobot without any evidence. You need to put up the right information from the peer reviewed scientific literature, or shut up. These are actions of person of honor and integrity. Those who can't put or shut up, are con men. You degraded and keep degrading yourself with your inane, irrational, and dishonest behavior.
Bill,
You say that you aren't saying that science is wrong, but the moment you say that the Earth is 6,000 years old, you are saying that our understanding of atomic theory is wrong.
What you don't seem to get is that the exact same calculations used to work out the date of the Earth are also used to run atomic power stations.
So, either the creationists are dead wrong, or nuclear reactors are controlled by blind luck.
So far you are definitely living up to the title of this post.
Debate. The coward's first refuge. So easy to cover up science's answers by calling time when the scientist explains why the drivel the Creationist spouts out is wrong.
If the Creationists ever want to grow a spine, they should publish to a science journal, where everything's wide open and there's nowhere to hide.
Kel, Siriusknotts has been a Poe in the past. He hasn't been around for a while.
Why would that be surprising?
How annoying.
While trying to apologise for the double post, I somehow managed to instead post the same thing for a third time.
Maybe not to you, but the science behind the age of the earth and age of the universe is pretty solid. This is aanother subsersive problem of creationism, it's not the "denial of knowledge" type, but the "trivialising of knowledge" whereby what is very solidly supported is cast into doubt.
Do you think that astronomers, astrophysicists, and cosmologists are off by a factor of over 2 million? Do honestly think that those measuring distant galaxies, the age of ancient stars and looking at such things as cosmic background radiation are that badly off that it would be like mistaking the width of the continent of north america to within a few yards? Do you honestly think that geologists, nuclear physics and astronomers are so off about the age of the earth that it's like mistake the width of the continent of North America to within 10 yards?
One of the triumphs of modern physics is the theory of Quantum Electrodynamics. Scientists are able to predict the effects of electromagnetism at a quantum level to such a degree that it's like being able to measure the width of North America to the width of a single human hair! That's how powerful the theory is. Yet with nothing but a look at a book of mythology, you can triumphantly proclaim on your computer and onto the global telecommunications network that utilises the theory that scientists don't really know what they know as well as they think they know it.
The distance of galaxies, the absolute age of rocks, these things have an error bar - but you're suggesting the error bar should be millions of times greater than what it is, and for what? Because some book of mythology can be interpreted to say "well it all should be young"?
Bill,
I and others directly addressed that post; in fact, to my initial reply that it was "Whether it is or not is not important, but whether our knowledge of reality is accurate or not is extremely important in the modern world"
you responded "Yes, I agree, but it seems there are more pressing concerns."
Are you now retracting your initial agreement that it is extremely important, regardless of whether other things are even more so?
Are you going to read the Christian perspective on radiometric dating, to at least see what a Christian scientist explains?
Are you, in fact, going to examine your beliefs about the science on the age of the earth (if nothing else) now that a number of experts (and I too) have unequivocally stated they're contrary to science (and have been for many decades!)?
Or are you going to willfully avoid exposing your beliefs to any criticism?
Because, if so, I note that the truth has nothing to fear from examination; that is the province of untruth.
--
"siriusknotts", is your pseudonym an indication you are a parody? :)
Serious, not.
Sorry Kel, my #350 should have been addressed to Wowbagger. Time for bed.
I'm glad someone shares my assessment of that particular point.
Hannah: "You are the enemy"
I'm sorry you feel this way.
______
Well I am not sorry that I have the ability to identify the enemy. And if you were truly sorry then you would work on not being an enemy.
Nobody fell for what you what trying to do here.
Again you have the right to your delusion, but you do not have the right not to be criticized for it no matter how much you regard yourself as being low key, inoffensive, and downright limp.
Exactly. Understanding science take effort, because a lot of it involves concepts that we* don't all grasp that easily - deep time and genetics and so forth.
'Goddidit, with magic', on the other hand, is very easy to grasp if you don't choose to think any further about it. 'Goddidit, with magic, because you're special and he loves you', is even better, 'cause not only do you not have to think, but you get to feel all warm and fuzzy at the same time.
*By 'we' I mean we laypeople, not Pharyngulites - mostly because I know some of you freak genius bastard people probably don't find it as brain-achingly complex as I do.
yes, yes. and we keep on trying to explain to you that this claim of yours is incorrect. it is a claim based on your arrogant and ignorant belief that you know all the facts. you do not, and we've been trying to explain this to you, and even point you to places where you could learn the facts.
"Sorry Rutee, my initial purpose coming here wasn't anywhere close to explaining my viewpoints on creationism. Check out post #227."
Assuming honesty for a minute, that's fucking immaterial. My original intent in going to college was to get a CompSci degree, but that doesn't change the reqs on a legal studies degree.
"Guys, please read my initial post...I'm not trying to press my point of "creationism" at all."
No, assuming honesty, you were in fact trying. In fact, the post I quoted from you is in fact you doing that exact thing, from the standpoint of Creationism (It has been correctly pointed out that Creationism's strategy is not to make positive assertions, but to cast doubts on Science's claims.) You were pointing out perceived weaknesses in Evolution. That is in fact exactly what you say you didn't intend to do.
Stop doing it, if it's not your intent.
Yep, part of this wasn't that my degree wasn't a straight Computer Science degree. It was Computer Science (Game Programming). So not only was there a decent helping of mathematics, Computation theory, data structures, and general programming subjects. There was also game technology specific subjects, such as using game technologies, doing physics related to motion, learning how the body processes information, and a psychology subject I think called Game Cognition. Which was shoving us in third year psych lectures on Cognition, and having practicals more on the types of psychological concepts relevant to what we do.
Yeah, that's exactly it.
Basically what he is alleging is that the margin of error scientists are out by is like a scientist standing in a room, and when asked the distance to the wall the scientist replies that it is ~5000km (~3000 miles). That's the scope of the allegation, that scientists who measure it are off by so much that they are seeing what should be a really tiny distance to be gargantuan. Of course when they are just numbers on a screen, 4,500,000,000 doesn't look that much bigger than 6,000 - but the scale is enormous, and he has no problem alleging that those who measure it are out by that huge factor.
And thus the bullshit of creationist rhetoric, denial of evidence is one thing, but playing down the significance of well established fact is utter absurdity. Yet he continues to look for means to play down what would be a gargantuan error by those who base their conclusions of measurement and scientific theory. Why is it that the most learned men and women over the last 100 years who have spent their lives studying on the matter can be so wrong as to think that a room that is 9 metres (~10 yards) across is really 5000km (~3000 miles)? It doesn't make sense, this whole line of playing down the significance makes no sense.
Bronze Dog (#312)
I usually see them "explain" this one by claiming "humans and chimps can get many of the same diseses." Which makes for one of the most concise and brazen examples of Dunning-Kruger ever.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Wowbagger (#313)
I believed the latter... when I was four. I even tested it. And concluded that I just couldn't flap hard enough.
I'm so glad I'm no longer four.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Brownian (#324)
Errr? I know that? Not sure why that was aimed at me.
Bill Hannah (#314)
Which can be arranged into family trees based on their degree of similarity and those trees will be almost identical to trees based on genetic relatedness. Which is some of the evidence for evolution that you apparently don't know exists.
Well, it's a debate entirely manufactured by creationists. Ironically, that you, both a victim and a perpetrator of the manufactroversy, are here to trumpet your beliefs, shows that the issue isn't trivial. And if you really do feel less time should be spent on it, then go learn real science, learn why that science supports an old earth and evolution, and then go educate your buddies.
It doesn't have to be. We can still use it to discover and verify facts.
To reject that there are facts shows yet again you do not understand the scientific method. You don't get to redefine "fact" and "science" into some meaningless relativistic mash that supports your religious beliefs. That's exactly the sort of behavior that makes it obvious you, like all creationists, don't genuinely respect science.
It's true that "evidence" is not "facts." Nice straw man argument. However, that you selectively accept scientific facts is evidence you don't understand science.
Talking about the "strength of the different parts" and scare-quoting "evidence" is just a weaselish way of retaining the idea of "what evidence you find *credible* or most accurate."
Then you aren't considering all the evidence. And given how many talking points you've regurgitated, it's blatantly clear you have no idea what the evidence is, so you're not qualified to judge which explanation is correct.
More weasel words. Evidence is evidence. If there's something problematic with a piece of evidence, that has to be established on some basis other than it failing to jibe with the theory* in question. Creationists don't do that. Real scientists do.
The evidence doesn't support a young earth. Everything we've found so far supports both an old earth and evolution. All the apparent exceptions have reasonable explanations. Denying this just shows you're ignorant of the evidence.
Well, we find presentation of beliefs about factual matters to be of even lower importance than you accord to debating the age of the earth. If you want to stop wasting our time, cough up some evidence for a young earth. Otherwise, be satisfied that you've successfully appraised us that you're an ignorant fuck who puts beliefs before reality and go slither back into your science-proofed lair. Though, I'd much rather you followed my other suggestion and got an education.
(#317)
When you refer to fossil evidence as "sketchy," it shows you a) haven't actually checked the fossil evidence, and/or b) aren't competent enough to understand why you're wrong about it. How will pointing you towards any other bit of evidence** work to educate you if you think you've looked at the fossil evidence honestly? Hell, you don't even understand what evidence is. I'd have better luck teaching a bear to tapdance.
.........................
*Not that there are any theories in creationism.
**Why don't you start with talkorigins.org and Prothero's book which have already been suggested?
I agree with the above statement, but simply disagree in my assessment of the correct explanation for the evidence provided regarding the age of this world.
Oh okay. Thanks for your roundabout way of saying you have the mentality if a pile of rocks!
Please, if you would, take into consideration the above and respond if you feel necessary.
Oh okay. Yeah I'm sure those are some salient points up there.
I may be evaluating your statements too quickly in my attempt to catch up.
Yeah, you keep on "evaluating" things.
Sorry A. Noyd. I actually meant to use your comment as a jumping off point to the paragraph you just quoted, but I excised the story that would have related the two.
A few years ago I got in an argument with a flake about conspiracies. He was telling me of some piece of Sumerian writing that was dated to 60,000 years old. When I replied that that was impossible, he chided me with "the mind is like a parachute: it only works if it's open."
Until then, I'd never had to take a deep breath and count to ten before.
Instead of carnage, I spent the next twenty minutes calmly describing every piece of information I had that would have to be refuted for me to accept his claim. It was kinda a 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and here's why your claim is extraordinary' thing. I think he actually got it in the end.
The part of your comment that I quoted reminded me of that incident, particularly "I can't wait to read all the reasons why we know that's impossible." Sorry about the confusion.
I blame the small roach I smoked earlier.
Ummmm.... how is it the same evidence regarding the earth's age can result in two vastly different conclusions (one of which conveniently lines up with superstitious belief held prior to the evidence becoming available)? There's only one way to determine the age of geological features, to my knowledge.
And how on earth is one supposed to provide evidence of an old earth when the person demanding evidence rejects the verifiably accurate process of determining the age of geological features?
The same is true of evidence for evolution. If you believe your interpretation of the fossil record being sketchy is more valid than that of the entire scientific community (no, pseudoscientists aren't part of it), there is no reason whatsoever to provide you with fossil evidence.
You haven't so much as provided a reason for why the way we interpret these things is incorrect. You've simply dismissed our conclusions. What method is it you use to determine what it is evidence, be it geological or chemical or biological, is stating? What is it we're missing? Why does your method result in the more logical outcome?
Don't pretend you're genuinely seeking truth when your fingers are actually stuck firmly in your ears.
Brownian (#367)
No worries. And good story. I wish I were better at explaining the nature of knowledge and why science is priveleged, myself. Living in Seattle, I run into a lot of people who say things like your flake. It would be nice to have a more coherent response than going all owl-in-a-box.
OTT, but I just have to share.
My children have just received their xmas presents from their creotard grandparents. They received a book entitled 'Glory in Tribulations: Suffering in the Life of the Believer', written by their grandfather, and published by a vanity press.
In the chapters 'The Man Born Blind - John 9' and 'Blindness and Refusal to See', there are references to my blind son, followed by pointed comments about educated people (me and my ex), who refuse to see the way of the lord.
How rude is that?
You came to deny science. That's all I see in your statements about the "limits" of science: you asserting that science is absolutely false if it contradicts your religious dogma.
How do you know? What palaeontological studies have you personally made?
How are these limits determined? What scientific evidence demonstrates these limits?
What are you trying to say here?
So what?
It's obviously not the 'Christian' viewpoint since there are Christian evolutionary biologists. It is only the anti-evolutionist viewpoint -- which is based on dogma, not science; bare assertion, not evidence.
It is fact that it is evidence. And inasmuch as it is the only empirical evidence that we have, it is fact. It can only be adjusted or modified with additional empirical evidence; additional facts.
What does "fact" even mean to a science-denier like you?
Right, because you deny science when it contradicts your dogma.
Tell me, can you read Radiometric Dating : A Christian Perspective (this is the same essay linked to above by John Morales), and explain what aspect of the evidence for the age of the world you disagree with, and why?
So what is the "invalid" evidence?
You're not even bothering to try proving -- you're simply asserting that science is wrong.
If your opinion is not based on facts, then what is it based on? Dogma, right?
In other words, you're saying that your opinion trumps science.
Perhaps classes in epistemology would be helpful. I don't see anything about it (as its own topic) on talk.origins, and many of the creationists coming here could use a primer.
"One more thing: the age of the universe is not a matter of opinion."
No, it's a fact, but a fact which we have yet to fully agree upon the reality of (i.e. when it occured).
Yeah, that doesn't sound like an opinion at all. Dude, you are seriously warped (assuming you ain't a trolling.)
Deb, that sounds like a book that should meet the same fate as one given to my husband Mr. Science by family members I shall not name (because I am ashemed of them). The book was entitled "How to Raise a Boy" or some such, and its author was that eminent evangelical asshole James Dobson. Its primary theme was "how to sure your son doesn't get infected with teh gay or get ensnared by an uppity woman", and it was even more disgusting than it sounds.
And I, for the only time in my life, helped my husband tear that book to shreds, bagged it up, and sent it to the landfill.
It would be nice if there were a way we could get creationists to read primers before we post, or even just having a link for primers on particular topics in general. Much like pointing at that radiometric dating article, but for all kinds of topics including the basics on evolution, palaeontology, transitional fossils, abiogenesis, epistemology, logical fallacies, astronomy / cosmology, Dunning-Kruger effect, geology, etc. And maybe a reading list too on these topics, good beginner, intermediate and advanced books on the matter so that one can further their education. TalkOrigins FAQ is pretty reactionary as opposed to being explanatory.
That's not quite right The words are similar, but not identical, and the one used in Gen 3:1 is "'arum" ("עָרוּם") meaning only "subtle" (or "clever", or "crafty", or "shrewd"). In Gen 3:7, they are "'eyrum(im)" ("עֵירֻמִּם"), meaning "naked" (plural). There's not only a shift in the vowels, but a difference in which mater lectionis is used and where (vav in one and yod in the other).
But using those two words in proximity could well have been a deliberate pun based on the similarities of the two words. In earlier manuscripts, there may not have been mater lectionis.
Gen 3:1 -- "וְהַנָּחָשׁ הָיָה עָרוּם מִכֹּל חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה"
Gen 3:7 -- "וַתִּפָּקַחְנָה עֵינֵי שְׁנֵיהֶם וַיֵּדְעוּ כִּי עֵירֻמִּם"
Bill Hannah:
Bill, I don't know what "Christian circles" you run in, but I can assure you the dogma you're hearing now is NOT the majority viewpoint in Christianity. The big majority of Christians are not Biblical literalists; most of us have no problem with science.
NO. That is not the Christian viewpoint, it's an eisegesis of Genesis adopted by your sect.
You most emphatically do NOT speak for all Christians. The very fact that you presume to do so tells us that you are not only ignorant about science, but also ignorant about Christianity. And arrogant, to boot.
I prefer "warped". Obviously dude has some seriously deep reality issues!
Slogging thru the commentary, this cracked me up.
Mr. Bill doth quote:
Or a pterodactyl w/a helluva pituitary gland problem.
Nice try @ the 'god of the gaps', but no cigar. We use induction to make deduction, Mr. Bill. As for the rest of your opinion, well, you seem a pleasant enough fellow, but as Harlan Ellison put it: "You're NOT entitled to an opinion, you're entitled to an INFORMED opinion."
Do go out henceforth, Mr. Bill, & get informed.
Funny you should mention Dobson there, Leigh.
My ex grew up in Arkansas, and had Focus on the Family firmly rammed down his throat daily. I never knew some people didn't 'believe in dinosaurs' until I met his looney-tunes family.
Hey Creationists,
Explain this !
Hey Creationists,
Explain this !
I hope you do you do realize that they are masters of denial. You're asking then to do what they do best. Deny stuff! Not a problem for them at all, I'm sure.
It is a shame that people forgot we have already discussed day/age creationism.
A little reading gift for Mr. Cummings.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/12/day-age_creationism_is_almos…
@ Kel #375:
If they were able and willing to read stuff honestly and for comprehension then they wouldn't be creationists in the first place.
Of course, this isn't a simple binary situation. The ones with at least middling ability and willingness are those who are already uncomfortable with their previous creationist indoctrination and have been struggling to slowly work their own way out of it (typically under huge social penalties from their fellow fundies for doing so). Just occasionally one of those does show up here (eg an ex minister bod last year).
@ Bill Hannah #303:
Having read through the thread, this bit doesn't seem to have gained the attention it deserves:
What [contrary] "evidence supporting creation" and why do you find it credible? You haven't specified any such evidence yet as far as I could see. Give us an example. Make it your best one. NB fairy-story books, such as the Bible, don't count as evidence.
Meanwhile, other people have already pointed out that you keep switching to pretend that you are in the majority of Christians with your belief in a mere 6,000 year old world. Polls suggest that YECs are not even a majority among UnSAnians, let alone the rest of the world. Where's your evidence that Christians in general (ie some sort of majority) hold this view? Or do you just not count as "true" Christians all the ones who don't agree with you?
I disagree, based on extensive experience. That disagreement is fundamental to the YEC position. I've had YECs (=proponents of a young earth) assert to me that tectonic plates aren't moving, and that various mountain building events aren't actually happening. I've had YECs tell me that we're interpreting wind-blown sandstones in the rock record incorrectly, despite the fact that those interpretations are based on watching those same kinds of deposits form in real time now. I've had YECs tell me that we require "millions of years" for particular rock formations to form, when in numerous cases we require no such thing. It goes on and on. YECs absolutely do in fact disagree with understandings of the current structure and movements involved in this world. It's how they are YECs.
It's a YEC talking point that "uniformitarian geologists" require all processes on the Earth (now or in the past) to be gradual. This is at best a straw man argument, as we require no such thing. These are words that creationists put in our mouths, so to speak. But they can repeat that junk all day long if they like. They're still lying.
Catastrophes are a fact. It isn't as though we were all on a Martian holiday when St. Helens erupted in 1980. It wasn't as though the 2004 tsunami was some sort of earth-shattering surprise to us. It wasn't as though geologists weren't expressing concern about a Katrina-like event happening in New Orleans for years before that particular hurricane arrived in town. It's not YECs who have proposed impact hypotheses for any extinction event. It isn't YEC "geologists" who figured out how to read high-energy debris-flow deposits in the rock record. Catastrophes happen. So what? That they occur doesn't provide anymore support for a young earth than does the existence of John Kerry. Proposing catastrophic-hypotheses for the formation of the earth is fine, too. We have no problem with that. Propose away. But we probably are going to be kind of obnoxious in requiring that your hypotheses are based on that pesky evidence thing and that they don't violate various laws of physics.
*And despite the fact that they don't usually have a problem when we use the same methodologies to show them that things like limestone are water-lain...
Yes but the things we do know with a relative certainty totally destroy any notion of a young earth and creationism.
Nerd of Readhead @260
Um, I have 'science' written on my batchelors certificate but I wasn't taught any of the scientific method that phys/chem/biol/etc folks were. I did computers, which on my course was half maths & half creative problem solving. My comment was no dig at True Scientists(TM?), just that calling something science doesn't necessarily make it so. :-) I'm considering myself chastised though!
Bill Hannah @303
Er, wow. I'm assuming that the 'Chris' part was addressed to me. I'm only looking at a couple of points as the thread has moved on.
Religious consistency fail. So you, and a christian, call your god (to some degree) unknowable and then dare to give it attributes? Hahahaooops. My brain hurts.
Palm, meet face.
Turn this argument back on your own beliefs, mate. You have more problems because of less physical evidence!
That Bill character is just as retarded as the other creotards. He may try to hide his lunacy behind a veneer of platitudes and piety, what he's actually asking for is recognition of his pathetic beliefs. To have his ass hattery put on an aqual footing with actual science, then he can say "look the scientists agree, I have a valid point, and i'm entitled to ignore any, or all evidence, .. we should in that case teach our bullshit, along with evolution".
Fuck him, and the stump he rode in on !
Hairychris, idjit bill meant that he didn't consider some of the sciences real, so I challenged him on that. Show that biology, paleontology, geology, etc. aren't real sciences.
With degrees, you are correct. The Redhead has a BS degree, but her major is art. Apparently, where she attended, a BS or BA depended on how my credits were required for the major.
Bill Hannah,
Whatever goes on in creationists' heads doesn't interest me much. In their minds they may think that what they are doing doesn't going against science (or at least whatever they picture science to be). Hell, they may even enjoy learning about the natural world (as long as it doesn't contradict their beliefs). However, their entire enterprise is anti-science, whether they recognize it or not. Let's not pretend that both sides have both derived their conclusions based solely on the evidence. The creationists have drawn their conclusions of what the truth must be based on the Bible and they work backwards to make the evidence fit, no matter how twisted, self-contradictory and unsatisfactory that explanation may be. That isn't science.
No apology necessary - at least not for me. I just don't understand why this generalization is so common among believers. You're hardly the first Christian to come to a forum populated largely by atheists and suggest they read the Bible. A lot of atheists are former believers. Many have read the Bible. Some more than others (and at least for me, that had something to do with my departure). Ever heard of Dan Barker? Maybe not. I hadn't until after I figured out I was an atheist, but I'm very grateful for having had the chance to meet him. His is a very interesting story. Anyway, I know of atheists who went to seminary. I know atheists from the three Abrahamic faiths plus Hinduism. And I'm far from unique in this. I own two Bibles, a Book of Mormon and the Bhagavad Gita. I still haven't finished the last two, but they seem just as credible as the Bible. Personally, I'd ditch all three of them for the Iliad. It's a much more interesting work, and it makes a lot more sense.
I've wandered away from my point. My point is that while Christians don't seem to think so, we have indeed read the Bible. There are people on this thread who can read it in the original languages. We've read it and the other "holy" books. But we read them all with an open mind. We read the good parts and the bad. We don't just try to explain away the bad. What we see is an incoherent mess. It leads us to the conclusion that the god described therein is either an idiot, or non-existent. Then we go find something better to do with our time. After all, life is too short to waste it believing in fairy tales.
@Bill Hannah, #303 said:
Sure.
However, in the area of discovering things about the way the universe really works, it is the only effective tool at our disposal. Understanding the limits of science, and working within the limits of science, is part of the world of all scientists. That's why there's so much emphasis on statistical analysis of data, of minimization of errors, and so on.
Science is extremely rigorous in analysis of data. It is this rigor that allows scientists to say, "We are 98.3% certain that young-earth creationists are mentally deficient, according to all available data." That sort of thing.
Yes, science has its limits.
What you fail to mention, though, is there is no other way of gaining knowledge that is effective. Period. Not "as effective as science." Simply, "effective."
If you have a method of learning about the universe that is effective, please share it with us. "Read the Bible," is not viable -- the Bible is internally inconsistent, let alone consistent with observable reality. The Bible is congruent with a bronze-age cultural understanding of how the universe works, which is far from reality.
So, here is your challenge: describe the limits of science. Provide another effective epistemology. Then explain how that epistemology overcomes the same limits from which science suffers.
This statement is completely meaningless unless you are fully qualified to understand how science works and what those limits actually are and how they apply.
You have demonstrated clearly in your faulty understanding of things like radiometric dating, geology, cosmology, evolution and transitional fossils that you are far from qualified to make any informed statements about how, exactly, science has its limits.
Making such a statement while being so clearly deficient in the knowledge and application of science is nothing more than hand-waving dismissal of that which does not support your indoctrinated, pre-supposed beliefs.
Bill Hannah says:
Wowbagger @ 313
Thanks for that link to the Çatalhöyük Wikipedia entry. A well-documented 9000+ year old civilisation. Absolutely fascinating. On the lighter side, I enjoyed The Onion's take on the alleged young earth creation date:
Sumerians Look On In Confusion As God Creates World
(though no doubt most of the regulars here have already seen that one)
I learned a lot from this thread, and also appreciated the 'Why is the age of a rock important?' editorial from Lauren Becker that RickK posted.
227: All-in-all, does it matter all that much whether the world is six thousand years old, or six million, or six billion? Is it really important?
This Christian answers "yes" both because of what it says about God and because of what it says about us.
Everything we are able to see and discern with respect to the universe demonstrates that it is far older than your worldview allows. It's more on the order of 4.6 billion years old, I think. Everything we can see, test and experience, from the grand (what we can see in the outer reaches of space) to the infintesimal (at the level of cells and even of subatomic particles) speaks to the error of your viewpoint. This difference in worldviews has very practical consequences too. To pick an easy example, if your view of the world were true, we couldn't treat disease the way we do (and our ability to do so and the manner in which we create and adjust vaccines shows why and how your view cannot be correct). At its basest level, a God who would create a 6,000 year old universe with all the physical characteristics of one that is 4.6 billion years old is a charlatan and a fraud. A God involved in such trickery is not one who could proclaim to be the Truth.
Your view says something about ourselves too. But I can't say it as well as Augustine so I'll leave it to him (from more than 16 centuries ago):
"It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are." The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 1:19–20.
For some reason, much of American Christianity chooses to ignore great Christian works of the past. In this instance, I pray you won't.
This comment is for Leigh Williams (if you are still reading):
Are you acquainted with the works of John Shelby Spong? He has a view of Christianity that seems to be aligned with yours. If I were not an atheist, I would find his arguments both persuasive and seductive. I do understand what he is trying to do, but it would take relatively little to discard even his position in favor of atheism. But for those who just can't leave the security blanket of some kind of Christianity, I think his interpretation of the Christian message offers a "soft place to land.
I'm not sure about my dad, but my mother spent a long period of time as a very "liberal Christian" and introduced me to Spong when I was in a similar phase. It definitely helped to see someone like him hovering at the edge of atheism for many of the same reasons I was there.
Sometime I should consider rereading some of those books. I think he's an atheist in denial. Did like his point that Fundamentalism is born out of ignorance of the Bible. Every time I read something new from the Bible, I got closer to atheism.
Since then, I crossed that line and haven't regretted it. I've learned an appreciation for truth that won't let my ego get in the way. I may not have the shallow comfort of belief in the afterlife and such, but if there is one, it's the scientific method and openness to evidence that'll find it, not the egotism of wishful thinking or the unbridled arrogance of faith.
I'd rather be honest with myself than build a fortress of fiction for the sake of stroking my ego. The pursuit of truth allows us to understand and solve the problems our fellow beings face. Self-delusion for the sake of self-idolatry only compounds those problems.
Amen, Brother 975robocop. To further address the problem St. Augustine so admirably sums up, I also wish my literalist fellow Christians would consider the effect their ill-conceived YEC dogma has on young people brought up in this belief. What will happen to those kids when they go to college and discover that they've been taught lies?
Well, some of those kids will simply avoid science so they won't have to confront the problem; I know this is true because I've seen it happen in my own family. So . . . no biologists, no doctors, no geologists, no chemists, no physicists. Some of the most rewarding of human endeavors are forever closed to these poor kids.
Others will be greatly attracted to science, and their fascination with its wonders will lead them to those very science courses that will disprove your YEC dogma. What will happen to their faith when this false dogma based on Biblical eisegesis and lies comes crashing down around their ears? You literalists are creating a brittle faith that can't co-exist with reality. What will these young people think of you when they realize you've diligently taught them a tissue of lies?
Your kids have no way of knowing that yours is a minority view within Christianity. They have no way of knowing that millions of faithful Christians don't worship a book, but the living God whose Word isn't on paper, but is instead the Christ and the universe He spoke into being.
God's own handwriting is in the spectra of stars, the geological column, the fossil record, and the DNA that all living things on this planet share.
The silliest and most counterproductive thing we Christians can do is to keep lying about His handwriting. And creation itself tells us that the earth is very, very old and that God used the process of evolution to create life.
I'm sorry Leigh... I'm glad that you accept science and that you appear to be mostly rational... but this still made me throw up in my mouth a little.
I most definitely like hearing from non-literalist Christians like you. I may have a few snippy things to say on the debate table, but you still have your heart in the right place, and that earns my respect.
You're very much right about the literalist idolatry: They worship a book written by humans as infallible, and deny the truth of the world around them.
If there is a god out there, I would much rather learn about it through the testimony of the universe itself: the evidence we as a people dig up, not some ancient collection of stories written by superstitious bronze age people who claim to have innate, unquestionable authority.
Fundamentalists trust in the arrogance of humans.
If the universe was authored by some being's hand, the scientists will be the first ones to find and trust his pencil marks. Faith will only serve to blind people to that possible (if unlikely) discovery.
Evidenced how, exactly?
But insisting you have some special knowledge about "His handwriting" that exists nowhere and is not evidenced in any way is somehow better? Maybe, but only by a matter of degrees of wrong.
Wait... what? What does that even mean? I understand you are trying to reconcile your beliefs with what science has told you about the natural world, but what you are saying here is just gibberish. I don't mean to pick on you, because generally what you write is thoughtful and rational, from what little I can remember reading... but you are making assertions here as if they were unquestioned fact, without qualifying it by noting that what you are saying is pure, unsubstantiated, unsupported belief. I can't just let that go by unanswered, despite how rational you might otherwise appear.
Creationists keep saying everyone looks at the same evidence and comes to different conclusions.
That's wrong.
In fact, the creationists don't even know that most of the evidence even exists. It's called the Dunning-Kruger effect.
The decay rate is absolutely constant.
The production rate of 14C is not constant, but its changes through the time in which 14C dating works is now known in quite some detail due to things like ice drill cores. Did you know there are close to 800,000 yearly layers in the longest ice cores recovered so far?
<headdesk>
Coelacanths have never been used as index fossils, because they're rare and because they haven't changed much since the middle of the Carboniferous (though they had quite some diversity before that).
You should, further, learn the difference between relative and absolute dating. Index fossils provide relative dating.
And only Christian apologists use the plural "evidences" anymore.
Guess what? The science of geology exists. There are people out there who can look at a rock and tell how it was formed. Some rocks form very quickly, others very slowly…
"Truth cannot contradict truth."
– Pope John Paul II
That's because you don't know most of the evidence yet.
You don't know most of the evidence, so you aren't capable of forming an opinion about it.
Or what have I missed?
Science isn't a list, it's a method.
Like medicine, sociology and politology can be done as science. I'm sure MAJeff's thesis contains a defensible idea or two <skillfully evading thrown frying pan>.
Even more than medicine, however, they often aren't done as science. "The closer you get to humans, the worse the science gets."
The debate among scientists ended in the 1870s when the last two or three creationists (and Old Earth Creationists they were, with views that came remarkably close to the theory of evolution – Richard Owen, Louis Agassiz) died.
It's not a deliberate attempt to do so, alright.
But it's simply not possible to believe in a 6000-year-old world without contradicting science. You can't help it. There's no way around it, no matter your intentions.
It's on account of lack of knowledge of evidence on the part of creationists.
Definition of "fact".
Except you don't know enough of the evidence to be able to form a belief about it.
That was a rash statement.
Let's see…
Where would such an eagle come from? Where's the population? Where are footprints, feathers, whatnots? Where's the evidence?
How can a living being attain such a size? Why doesn't its mass destroy it – and, depending on which value of "planet-sized" we're talking about, the Earth as well? (Do you know what happened last time the Earth encountered a planet the size of Mars?)
That's his wife. He is the Redhead's nerd.
It had better been!
When n ideas contradict each other, this alone proves that at least n – 1 of them are wrong. We scientists find it interesting, fascinating even, to find out which ones are wrong. If that's not your intent, what is your point? Why bother commenting?
There is no single Christian understanding of science. Nowhere near it.
Nothing has been proven by science.
Science cannot prove, only disprove.
Science can, however, prove beyond reasonable doubt… it has done that to a few things without you noticing. Try to keep up. :-)
They absolutely do, and it absolutely does, regardless of whether YECs are aware of what they're doing.
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
Oh, dude. Have you been living under a rock – a basaltic rock – for the last 20 years?
Forget Archaeopteryx, cool as the 10th specimen is. The following well-known fossil animals are more closely related to today's birds than to the crocodiles and the pterosaurs, ordered from least to most closely related to today's birds – note that this is a small sample of the total, I just picked the most spectacular fossils off the top of my head:
Silesaurus, Heterodontosaurus, Tawa, Coelophysis, Dilong, (Compsognathus + Sinosauropteryx + Sinocalliopteryx + Huaxiagnathus), Beipiaosaurus, Shuvuuia, Protarchaeopteryx + Caudipteryx (about 3 species), ((Microraptor (2 species) + Sinornithosaurus (2 species) + Graciliraptor + Velociraptor (2 species)) + (Mei + Anchiornis)), Epidendrosaurus/Scansoriopteryx/Epidexipteryx (1 to 3 species in total), Archaeopteryx, Rahonavis, Jeholornis/Shenzhouraptor/Dalianraptor/Jixiangornis (1 to 4 species in total), Yandangornis, Sapeornis, (Confuciusornis (several species) + Changchengornis), (Protopteryx + Hebeiornis/Vescornis + Iberomesornis + Enantiophoenix + (Longipteryx + Longirostravis) + Eoenantiornis + Cuspirostrisornis + Sinornis), Aberratiodontus, Archaeorhynchus, (Yanornis + Yixianornis), Gansus, (Baptornis + (Parahesperornis + Hesperornis)), Ichthyornis.
Can you even find old Archie in there? ;-)
Ah, Hitler's "iron law of nature" again.
Where do those limits come from?
Which miracle is it that tells DNA polymerase: "no, you mustn't repair this missing adenine by filling in a guanine, this site has already had its allotted number of changes"?
You need to postulate a god to prevent evolution from accumulating.
Even when you're not.
Why are these similarities arranged in a tree shape?
Why aren't they in a line, a tape, a circular line, a cross, a square, a circular disc, an 8, a pentagram, or whatever? Why a tree? Why exactly the one shape that the theory of evolution predicts?
You praise us on getting the most utterly basic parts of science theory right? It's sad.
How often do we need to repeat it?!?
Debates are won by the person who is best at rhetorics. Scientific discussions are won by the idea that is least wrong.
Debates have a time limit, making the Gish Gallop possible. Scientific discussions are done in writing and are not limited, which allows the participants to reply to every single argument.
Have you never noticed that scientists never organize debates to settle their disagreements? Even at conferences scientists don't debate each other. That's because debates are completely beside the point. Debates tell us who is the best speaker, not which idea is most consistent with what we know about reality, yet the latter is what we want to find out.
You were right. Flap 850 times faster next time.
You still don't recycle paper in the USA or at least burn it? ~:-|
That's what I mean. And the plural of mater is matres. :-)
Hundreds of millions even.
Please remember, though, that science--empirical science--has its limits.
Oh okay thanks. We'll remember that. Thanks a lot, you warped creationist wacko. Thanks for the lecture, dude.
Bill Hannah blathered:
It isn't contrary evidence, it's FUCKING BRONZE AGE MYTHOLOGY, YOU IDIOT!
Sheesh...where do these Christards come up with this shit? And how does religion make them so brain addled they can't even understand something as basic as what constitutes evidence?
We have read it. Nearly every book ever written contains some amazing words, even The Cat in the Hat. That doesn't mean I turn to Dr. Seuss to learn about the age of the earth.
Of course it matters. You Christards love to blather on about knowing "the truth" (excuse me, "The Truth") don't you? If you can't understand why believing the earth is only 6,000 years old is so far from "The Truth" as to be utterly laughable, then you are a defective human being, plain and simple.
You have to admit that science doesn't work too well with imaginary evidence though.
Just read the book we glorify; read it once. If you forget the rhetoric surrounding it, there are some amazing words there.
Oh okay. Yeah, nobody ever really read that book before, you mental looney case, you.
I should write up one of my own blog posts: Not only does the Bible contain some outrageously bad morals, superstitions, and random, arbitrary rules, it just strikes me as so alien:
So many of the characters act in a manner that's just downright strange. They don't act like you would expect from people with fears, desires, and real emotions. If I were to see people behaving in some of those ways in movies, it would wreck my suspension of disbelief.
leepicton, I am indeed very familiar with Spong's work. Marcus Borg's Jesus, A New Vision is also a favorite of mine. I am currently reading Bart Ehrman's The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture.
Bronze Dog, thank you for sharing your journey. My own path has been somewhat different. Unlike you, I was brought up in a traditional Southern Baptist church in which blood atonement and Biblical inerrancy were taught. My mother was, however, more liberal in her thinking. When I shared with her my deep misgivings about the apostle Paul, for example, her advice was to ignore his misogyny as a mistake: "Just bleep over that stuff, and don't throw the baby out with the bathwater," she said. That was my first clue that Biblical inerrancy was a false doctrine.
It is greatly to my mother's credit that when I declared, at thirteen, that I was an atheist, she didn't freak out. She asked that I continue to accompany the family to church while I remained at home, and assured me that my beliefs were mine to own. She did ask that I continue to think about the issue and to seek more information. At that time, however, no additional theological information was available to me; so I went to church and, during the sermon, read the Bible rather than listening -- an activity that merely confirmed me in the belief that the whole rigamarole was purest nonsense.
My mother died when I was twenty. If wishful thinking could bring faith, surely then I would have believed . . . but it did not happen.
I did not become a Christian until I was in my thirties. I wish I could recount some dramatic road-to-Damascus style conversion story, but it was more mundane than that, more a series of small "signs and wonders" that we are not alone on this earth.
The choice of Christianity as a faith was, at first, merely a matter of cultural milieu. Later, when I had an opportunity to read theologians like Spong and Borg and studied the Bible in the intensive "Disciple" series offered by my Methodist church, it became an informed choice. I believe that Jesus reconciles the whole world to God, in universal salvation, and in the Wesleyan sanctification, that is, becoming more like Christ in service to humankind through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Even so, I sometimes hover on the point of unbelief. The whole proposition is, we must admit, so very unlikely. Against its unlikeliness I set my experiences of communion with God, which come when I least expect them (the first came when I didn't even believe in God!) and my general sanity, which seems to be intact in spite of my unfortunate tendency towards mysticism. My own faith is hard-won and my belief in doctrine (other than what I mentioned above) is tenuous at best; but you mustn't think that the points you raise, Bronze Dog, are things I haven't considered very carefully.
Your points about self-delusion and being honest with oneself are well-taken. I think that any thoughtful Christian must address these questions. It disturbs me very much that so many Christians do not ever seem to interrogate their own beliefs, but continue all their lives in self-satisfaction, and yes, arrogance. These are the people who most boast of their "Christian humility". I find their company almost unbearable.
To be perfectly honest, I often wish to be in the company of clear-eyed atheists, who mirror my general outlook and political views far more closely than do my familial co-religionists. Thus my presence here at Pharyngula, where on threads such as this I am certainly a fish out of water.
I made this point before, but I want to be clear: I am in no way a Christian missionary on this board. When we are discussing the manifold weakness of YEC dogma, I bring up my faith to minister to the YECs and to lurking Christians who may be undecided, not to you.
I did not become a Christian until I was in my thirties. I wish I could recount some dramatic road-to-Damascus style conversion story, but it was more mundane than that, more a series of small "signs and wonders" that we are not alone on this earth.
Oh okay. I thought previously you said that you had first hand empirical evidence, or something to that effect. I forget, but it sounded like a lot more than a series of small "signs and wonders". I guess maybe you were exaggerating a little. (That's one of the best ways religion propagates. People exaggerate stuff, and then other people believe them so that they don't feel stupid.)
Celtic Evolution, I'm sorry I made you throw up a little.
My words aren't addressed to you, but to the unknown Christian lurkers who may be on the fence about creationism.
I don't mean to imply that I have special knowledge when I talk of God's handwriting. I am addressing my co-religionists in a language I hope they will understand.
Knowledge about the universe is, of course, gained through science, not through revelation. That is what I'm trying to convey to them.
#391
"Let's not pretend that both sides have both derived their conclusions based solely on the evidence. The creationists have drawn their conclusions of what the truth must be based on the Bible and they work backwards to make the evidence fit, no matter how twisted, self-contradictory and unsatisfactory that explanation may be."
And then they lie about the actual reason of their interpretation like Behé and Comfort!
Although a notable few are not adverse to admitting they would choose the biblical over the science , simply because it is biblical,
Which in one way is a far more honourable confession then the majority of their cult that deny biblical preference and witter about scientific doubt as a prime causal and try and sound knowledgeable in front of their minnions about radiometric dating techniques...but being ever so careful of not mentioning the myriad other techniques that confirm the uncomfortable fact.
The whole point seems to be that they are spouting trash more as a 'dog whistle' to their own legions of hard of thinking clones that drool over their words and nod empty heads sagely.
presumably trying to rally the hearts more then the mind of the deluded.
They only ever seem have the oldie but goldie points of 'evaluation' to fling into any discussion that have been debunked repeatedly.
One would think they might get the message that their 'gem of proof' they so proudly and pompously deposit is always...without fail...is a bogus dollop of wishful thinking that has been fouling the atmosphere since Bish Ussher had a rather severe and embarrassing brain fart!
No matter how patiently and rigorously the 'red herring' is explained as an aberration of desperate and insincere grasping at fictitious straws that meme continues to bounce around the hard of thinking as a 'factoid' of great import.
Mainly because they do not have that many 'factoids' they can drop from their hysterical lexicon of 'alternative interpretations'.
Even with AiG cautioning devotees that certain 'examples'...like Paluxy man..does not best serve the campaign.
The Earth is not 6.000 or even 10.000 years old, there are civilisations that pre-date Genesis waffle by thousands of years.
The Homo Sapien v Homo Neanderthalis local derby pre-dates the formation of recognisable civilisation by almost 100.000 years the cretinist snake oil claim.
This stuff is so well documented and researched by so many investigations it is a little indication that creationists are not only illiterate but arrogant with it.
Vacuous and complete idiots are welcomed to believe in fairies at the bottom of their garden, but they should not and do not get to introduce that belief addled twaddle to indoctrinate kids, doing so is tantamount to mental abuse and the cretins should be prosecuted for it!
Only the truly scientifically blind could and do promote Genesis as 'fact'.
Either through stupidity ignorance or woefully incompetent education, possibly a combination thereof...there is a percentage that are just plain lying of course.
That they are obviously mentally unfit is a tragedy, but pleading for utmost respect for the delusion is really taking the piss!
I said: "and sent it to the landfill"
David asked :You still don't recycle paper in the USA or at least burn it? ~:-|"
Of course we do! and normally I recycled books by taking them to Half-Price Books or giving them away.
But that particular book was so pernicious and evil that I didn't want to take a chance on someone else reading it. Suppose it fell into the hands of some gullible Christian whose son happened to be gay? Or worse yet, into the hands of a vulnerable gay teen steeped in fundamentalist Christianity?
No, the thing had to be destroyed. I couldn't burn it, so I tore it up and consigned it to the bowels of the earth.
Fair enough, and I have not accused you of such behavior... I'm simply calling out your assertions of the clear "hand of god" in nature. I'm sorry, but you simply can't reconcile such a statement with any sort of "truth" in any way other then to simply assert it. Which, scientifically speaking, carries as much weight as asserting that the universe was burped into existence by a cosmic fluffy bunny.
But I would like to address something you did say from your last post:
I have two questions for you:
First, you claim that you were an atheist from age 13 until your conversion... did you ever truly and fully dismiss the idea of god, or were you more of an agnostic or doubter claiming to be an atheist? I'm not trying to make assumptions either way, just asking if you've really asked yourself this question. Most I've come across who claim to be atheist converts to christianity were never actually atheists, but agnostics or indifferent in general.
And second, concerning the small "signs and wonders" that led you to believe in the existence of god... imagine if you will that you had never heard of, or been taught about god... would it ever have occurred to you to assign these "signs and wonders" to anything but mere coincidence? Serendipitous perhaps but coincidence nonetheless? Would you have HAD to have inferred supernatural cause or intervention? If you had not experienced these "signs and wonders", as many people do not, would you therefor dismiss the existence of god? Is either scenario, in the end, a reasonable or rational method for determining the existence of any supernatural deity?
No, the thing had to be destroyed. I couldn't burn it, so I tore it up and consigned it to the bowels of the earth.
Hmm. I'm having a hard time with that one. I suspect there might be some "exaggerating" going on there somewhere. :P
It's not entirely gibberish. There is a logic to it, albeit a problematic logic. It follows from science...
[Observation: Human beings exist, and the best empirical explanation for human beings existing is by evolution by natural selection over 3.8 billion years.]
... and from a completely non-parsimonious and arguably internally inconsistent premise.
[Assertion: There exists a benevolent personal powerful knowledgeable God that desired for humans to exist and used the natural laws and processes that humans observe in order to bring about humans existence.]
You may well disagree with the assertion, and point out its non-parsimonious inconsistency, but combining the assertion with other scientific observations leads logically to the conclusion.
And then they lie about the actual reason of their interpretation like Behé and Comfort!
I wouldn't put it that strongly. Maybe "exaggerate" would be a nicer way of putting it. I don't think they would outright "lie" about things. Surely their intentions are more honorable than that. Maybe they would "exaggerate" a little though.
This doesn't sound like an informed choice at all. You really are deluding yourself to think so. In your adulthood you have fallen back into Christian beliefs, no doubt instilled in you as a child. You give no indication of seeking spirituality outside the framework of Christianity. Have you spent the same amount of time studying the Koran? Buddhism? Shintoism? Scientology? Have you ever considered that Christianity is little more than a brand, no different than Coke or Honda? That your superhero on a stick, Jesus, is nothing but a spokesman for that brand?
All I hear in what you have written is just parroting the messages of that ubiquitous marketing machine known as Christianity, nothing more.
I believe that Jesus reconciles the whole world to God, in universal salvation, and in the Wesleyan sanctification, that is, becoming more like Christ in service to humankind through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Oh okay. Yeah, that does sound like it makes a lot of sense. Doesn't sound self-delusional at all.
No... I do understand the logic behind "supernaturally catalyzed evolution" thought process... and no, of course, scientifically, I can not say for certain that it's impossible, but it IS unlikely, and is not supported by any evidence whatsoever. Further complicating things is that there is nothing written in what is the ONLY authoritative literature governing christianity (the Bible) that supports such a proposition... in fact it directly refutes that possibility in its own accounts (unless one gets very, VERY creative with interpretation, like our loony friend Cummings).
But that aside, it's not the logic of the thought process I was commenting on, it's the wording of the specific sentence I referred to:
What does it mean, creation tells us anything about the age of the earth? And how, exactly, does creation tell us anything definitively about what process god used? I get the logic that leads one to say "I believe in god, I accept evolution, therefor god uses evolution" (regardless of it's flawed reasoning), but the sentence I referred to is, in my opinion, gibberish.
No, I was not an agnostic or indifferent. I was a convicted and passionate atheist rationalist.
If I had never heard of a God, what would I have made of those experiences? I suspect that we're wired for them, and that's where the idea for a God or gods comes from in the first place.
Thus it's entirely possible that the whole God notion is an artifact of human brains which perceive a pattern where there is none. Our brains are wired for pattern recognition, after all, but we must put forth some effort to ensure that the patterns are real.
On the other hand, it may be possible that I'm apprehending something that is true. The proper course of action, it seems to me, is to reserve judgment and wait for more evidence. I did, and more evidence accrued, and so here I am.
Let me emphasize in case anybody is misunderstanding: I have no hard evidence. Everything I've got is subjective and personal, some of it so personal that I'd rather describe Mr. Science's most excellent virility than to talk about it in public.
I invite you most cordially to dismiss everything I've said. In fact, that's what I myself would do (or more accurately, would have done twenty years ago); I certainly won't take offense if you tell me I'm full of crap.
My purpose on threads like this is to invite other Christians to cast off the shackles of false doctrine and to embrace science. I have no objection to answering your questions about my faith, though unfortunately answering honestly probably doesn't further my primary goal of reaching lurking Christians, since I've no doubt those answers reveal me as (gasp) a LIBERAL and thus an apostate.
#418
"Maybe "exaggerate" would be a nicer way of putting it. I don't think they would outright "lie" about things. Surely their intentions are more honorable than that. Maybe they would "exaggerate" a little though."
In this day and age with the scientifically valid and accurate body of evidence complied from every facet of the scientific endeavour for at least a century and all reported tested and perused and available for falsifiable protocol and accepted by the significant majority of the scientific establishment and a vast majority of their own prime delusion that there is NO excuse for their woefully ridiculous assertions.
That they continue to do so indicates more about their supposed 'Honour' then you would seem to admit.
And if they do "exaggerate" then that says more about their trustworthiness then a whole blog of atheists could ever manage.
pdfurguson:
I mentioned this on the first iteration of this thread, so you probably missed it.
I looked most closely at the Baha'i faith, but I also investigated Buddhism seriously. I rejected Islam at the outset because as a young woman I had friends from Saudi Arabia and Algeria, and I knew about the misogyny.
#422
" I did, and more evidence accrued, and so here I am.Let me emphasize in case anybody is misunderstanding: I have no hard evidence."
Spoken like a true Christian !
I have no objection to answering your questions about my faith, though unfortunately answering honestly probably doesn't further my primary goal of reaching lurking Christians, since I've no doubt those answers reveal me as (gasp) a LIBERAL and thus an apostate.
Nothing unfortunate about that. Liberals should stand and be proud of it. That way there would be more liberals evident, and thus, due to the pack sheep mentality of religion, more will be converted to liberalism.
The winners in demagogic belief systems like religion are the people who yell the loudest. You don't convince people to be liberal by fearing that they will know you are liberal! This is the way the pack mentality of religion works since it is all based on a puff of smoke, unfortunately.
See... I think this is where you go off the rails...
The proper course of action, for a person of reasoned logic, regardless of the experience, is to assume natural processes and mere coincidence (even striking, incredible, odd-defying coincidence) and dismiss that for which there is no evidence whatsoever until such evidence clearly presents itself. And by clearly I mean observably, falsifiably, and testably presents itself.
It does not follow logically that your experiences MUST be assigned to the supernatural. It is only your prior indoctrination that even gives you the target on which you decided you must land.
I'm not trying to de-convert you here... I respect much of what you say... it's just always troubling to me to see intelligent people suspend rationality and reasoned logic because our brains are wired to see patterns even where none exist, and then assign odds-defying events as supernatural signposts.
So I'll leave you with just those thoughts and a hope that you'll someday follow your rationality back to stripping a creator from an incredibly wondrous universe that doesn't require one to be so.
Peace.
In real life I'm very "out" as a liberal, mainly as an example to my very conservative family.
But young Christians in fundamentalist sects have been taught to demonize liberal Christians; so the effectiveness of my attempt to win them from the dark side may be blunted by that label.
I don't really give a rat's ass what other people believe; what I do care about is the integrity of science education, which has been horribly damaged here in Texas by fundamentalists.
We're about to have some very cold temperatures here in Austin, and I've got to do some work outside to secure my greenhouse and set up for unaccustomed Arctic weather (maybe as low as 16 degrees F, which just stuns us with its severity). Feel free to laugh; but my poor plants must be protected.
I'll look in later this evening.
I infer that "creation" was used as a noun, in the sense of "the universe and everything in it". The term of course begs the question, and the word as such is used more rarely nowadays, but it is still an existing definition.
Hmmm... ok... I guess... :-/
@ Leigh Williams #424:
But that means you were only rejecting it because it was personally distasteful to you and not because you had any "good" "reason" (ie within the religious game-rules something such as a random brain-fart revelationary moment) not to believe Islam was the one true religion.
You haven't said how any of your alleged "signs and wonders" (which you won't specify!) ruled out Islam etc and absolutely had to imply some flavour or other of Christianity.
You're not being consistent and honest in your approach. This ought to concern you. Does it not?
It's not only possible that God belief is purely a product of human imagination, there is compelling, hard evidence for it from a broad range of scientific and social disciplines. Once you recognize that, you can evaluate your own feelings in the context of human cognition more objectively.
If it were true, don't you think there would be hard evidence?
What you are describing is simply, as Dennett put it, belief in belief. You may have been an atheist for a while, but you have not been able to get past your own desire to believe, which consequently pulled you back into the warm childhood embrace of religion. It may be genetic, it may be environment, or more likely a combination of the two. In any event, it doesn't lend any credibility to your beliefs, no matter how strongly you may feel them.
Leigh, Like others I support you in your efforts to show YECers that a sister Christian can pinpoint also the same problems inherent in their nonsensical perspective as atheists can, both from a scientific and a religious view (that they are ridiculing the very god they claim to worship by not using the brain that the god in which they worship gave them in order to see its creation, that is, nature, as deeply and clearly as possible).
Regarding your Christianity:
Do you use your religious shorthand (I believe that Jesus reconciles the whole world to God, in universal salvation, and in the Wesleyan sanctification, that is, becoming more like Christ in service to humankind through the power of the Holy Spirit) as a means to keep in awareness on a routine basis that you want to do your best, fulfill yourself as much as is possible, learn from mistakes, and work with others (and alone) to further the cause of humanist ideals?
Human awareness wanes and waxes. There are cognitive techniques available which one can apply to ground ourselves in this regard. I regard your religious stance to have more in common with such techniques than actually straight-out religious worship. Jesus and the Holy Spirit which are meaningful, though certainly fanciful mental and emotional subjective constructs, provides the cognitive structure for you to function at your best. You have clothed these constructs in the religion in which you are the most familiar.
What you are doing is more embracing a non-rational view than an irrational one. It sounds fine to me. And really it is none of my business even if it did not! You are keeping your non-evidential beliefs private. What more could an atheist ask?
Perhaps, but still seeing the level of ignorance they possess and the expectation of a greater ignorance that they have of us...
You have evidence that a god exists, but you can't share it?
@ 370 - That's when you have the kids craft a loving "thank you" note to Grandma and Grandpa for the lovely toilet paper. Their only request is that next time they send individual sheets as the custom-crafted cover made it difficult to use for its intended purpose.
Gads! Have you considered just cutting them out of your lives completely? Trying to affect both your relationships with your kids as well as undermining their education is going more than a little too far.
Ah, Leigh, I have just recently wrapped my borderline plants in our garden in the southeast of France with tons of voile d'hivernage (insulating cloth). The poor shivering babies!
You have evidence that a god exists, but you can't share it?
That is what makes it iron clad, you have to take it on faith. And faith is the most wonderful thing in the big sky daddy's universe.
I have no such worries, as here in my neck of western NY it has been snowing for 1,374 consecutive days.
Ok... that may be an exaggeration... it just feels that way.
419: This doesn't sound like an informed choice at all. You really are deluding yourself to think so. In your adulthood you have fallen back into Christian beliefs, no doubt instilled in you as a child.
432: You may have been an atheist for a while, but you have not been able to get past your own desire to believe, which consequently pulled you back into the warm childhood embrace of religion. It may be genetic, it may be environment, or more likely a combination of the two. In any event, it doesn't lend any credibility to your beliefs, no matter how strongly you may feel them.
Fascinating diagnosis. Why take her word for what happened when your preconceived notions about what had to have happened are so much more sanctimoniously satisfying? Do you suggest intensive therapy or might medication be enough?
Whatever the treatment, we plebeians can never hope to reach your exalted state. Our inate defectiveness, so well evidenced by our susceptibility to infantile delusions that anyone with even half a brain ought to spot as such, simply precludes it donchaknow....
Oh bobocop, I see one of your great strengths is being able to read a few posts and knowing everything about those people. Your powers of perception is astounding.
This is why I hate atheists (Don't take pleasure in that, Robocop, I hate Theists too).
Just because you're actually supported by evidence doesn't give you a right to irritate people who are going out of their way to be legitimately inoffensive and keep their beliefs in private.
This is distinguished from the guy earlier, who was denying science in public.
I have read the comments on this thread. I would like to present you with a challenge. Read the Bible, it’s God’s word afterall. Specifically read Genesis and than anaylze who geology actaully lines up with it. Finally, if evolution happened how could the fagellum possibly retian it’s motor mechanism?
Are you parodying Creationists? It doesn't matter whether or not geology lines up with Genesis, only whether it lines up with reality.
As to the 'fagellum', Might I assume you meant "Flagellum"? The Flagellum IS a motor mechanism. It would retain it because if you remove the motor mechanism from a flagellum, you would need to remove the flagellum because it's a waste of energy to grow and maintain it if it's not providing any actual motor.
Observation:
It's all microevolution.
So sorry, Rutee, I just had a rather unpleasant run in with bobocop. So sorry it makes me detestable to you.
Notconfused, I think your moniker is ironic.
I've spent years doing it, sport. Genesis fails.
I have more experience with astronomy than geology, and when I read genesis chapter 1, all I could think was "What a load of rubbish" - it didn't match with what we know about the universe at all. Forget trying to match geology (how do you get a building to see all the lands on earth? It's physically impossible), it doesn't fit with astronomy.
It's my new motto, Janine: My powers of perception is astounding. Robert Downey, Jr. will play me in the movie.
notconfused,
Most of us have read the Bible. Reading the Bible is precisely what moved many of us away from faith. Specifically Genesis. Not sure "who geology actaully lines up with it." Finally, I'm not sure which kind of flagellum you're talking about (assuming you didn't mean to type fagellum), but even Wikipedia has a nice summary of current theory on the topic.
"So sorry, Rutee, I just had a rather unpleasant run in with bobocop. So sorry it makes me detestable to you."
I don't care if you mock him, because he doesn't appear to be trying to keep it private, and appears to be trying to be smug towards Atheists. I'm more worried about Leigh, who to my observation has been fairly private with her faith EXCEPT when telling YEC-rs to STFU about Christ. I don't understand why anyone would need to attack a Christian for their faith when they take very small liberties with reality and to boot keeps it to themselves.
Notconfused, #443
Compared to crafting religious doctrine legislation is honest and straight forward.
Go for it, bobocop. Only you have demonstrated that you will apply motive to people when you have shit to back up what you are saying.
Oh, wait, I am only saying that because I hate all christians.
Leigh Williams #410,
I've been hovering on the edge of atheism for my entire life. Always rejected all religions. Fervent admirer of the discoveries of Science.
But over the last couple of years, some strange things have been happening to me. I don't really like to talk about it. I've only spoken about it with my mother and my boyfriend, both staunch atheist, and they just think I'm being crazy. They might well be right.
There's most probably a very good explanation for it (other than some kind of personal communication with some kind of God). But it is like something pushing me from inside of my brain to do things that I would have never done, at the most unexpected moment, and with a resulting very emotional reaction.
@Robocop:
Have you read the link first given @#24 yet?
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2010/01/an-ill-wind-in.html
Note that he does not exclude intelligent atheists/scientists from having mental ruts, or being in mental ruts.
---
And have you given up on the discussion in the thread from November, or are you still pondering it? Just wondering, given the long silence from before we resumed.
you didn't answer the question. How did the flagellum evolve? Also I am appauled by the vulgarity on this site.
If you're referring to the conversation that developed with Leigh, well, I'm afraid you're way off base.
What Leigh posts, for the most part, is just fine, but she went out of her way, unprompted, to make broad claims about god's hand in the creation of the universe. The discussion the evolved from that point is frankly not for you to judge.
How again is it not my right to call that out? And how is doing so "irritating" her, anymore then her blithely ascribing supernatural agency to the universe on an atheist blog anymore "irritating" to the rest of us?
Seriously... I think you're out of line... but hey, if it makes you feel better...
Your concern is noted.
Through the process of natural selection, same as everything else.
Those of us with English degrees are appalled by your lack of spell-check.
I am appalled by your lack of basic spelling skills. No-one is forcing you to come here, so fuck off.
Michelle B #437,
Just did the same on my Lemon and Mandarine trees... Where about are you ? I'm near Antibes.
What is it about creationist trolls that also makes them tone trolls. Are those traits related?
Fuck you, notconfused. You are an oxymoron.
@ Leigh Williams #410 -
If you haven't already read it, might I recommend, "Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists". He has quite a lot to say on the subject of "signs and wonders".
Um, that wasn't the question. You asked:
Evolving and retaining function are different things. It evolved by means of mutation and natural selection, probably. It has retained its function because it hasn't been selected against.
Smug stupidity is still stupidity.
Read, moron... then come back and explain, scientifically, why what you read is wrong.
Looking forward to it...
Those of us with English degrees are appalled by your lack of spell-check.
What about those of us who do not have English degrees, dustlund? Can we also be appalled?
'raspberry'
Celtic Evolution,
I was just trying to show you that evolution was just as theory and nothing more so that you don't delude youself. I guess I'll go then since I not wanted and I'm far above engaging in childlish namecalls.
It seems the criteria for determining the source of a voice in someone's head is based on what the voice is saying.
If the voice says "Your neighbor is a shy person that you should get to know better" then the source of the voice is God.
If the voice says "Your neighbor is a giant lizard in disguise" then the source of the voice is a neurochemical imbalance and possibly an early sign of schizophrenia.
Been there, done that, and now I'm an atheist. It is all mans word, that is a work a fiction, and cobbled together well after the fact for political reasons. Your deity, who was invented by man 2500 years ago, also is a work of fiction. You have presented no conclusive physical evidence to support either a deity, or that the babble isn't a work of fiction. Until you do, you are nothing but a delusional fool without any redeeming cogency. Evidence, none is found in fictional works like the babble.
Just saw that. Really? I can think of a few "signs and wonders" that would do a lot of people a lot of good. As an ex-Christian myself, I feel the urge to point out that your personal deity is vain, capricious, and often malicious, unless of course you define Him as either not omniscient, not omnipotent, or not loving.
I was just trying to show you that evolution was just as theory and nothing more so that you don't delude youself.
BINGO!
I win! I win!
By quoting something you don't understand at all? Something that has been refuted a thousand times over and is one of the more pathetic arguments against evolution that exists?
I gave you a link that explains it. I'm guessing you won't read it because if you were actually interested in learning anything you would have discovered it yourself long before now.
Do you actually even understand the question you asked or did you just pull that one off of some ridiculous creationist website like AiG?
LOL @Janine of Many Names,
I didn't mean to talk down my nose; I suppose it's just as painful for anyone trained in reading and/or writing when someone who doesn't/oughtn't know how to do either tries and fails.
I just learned about Creationist Bingo today. When I get some free time I think I might create a random board generator. Probably in Java. It might make reading YouTube comments tolerable.
You don't seem to understand what is meant by the term 'theory' in science. A theory is not a guess. It is a falsifiable explanation that ties together a wide variety of facts in one cohesive framework with predictive power. A theory is the highest form of explanation that exists in science. The atomic theory, the germ theory of disease, and Newton's theory of gravity are all theories.
Destlund, after I called you dustlund, you should have asked, "Who?".
Oh? You don't say! Wow! Thanks. Now that I'm on the right track, I need to get started explaining biology using your alternative theory. Oh, wait..
Jaine, their id a lvel of mispellings taht I cna reaf thrugh bef9re I notus.
You are the deluded one. Evolution is a scientific theory, which means it is well supported by the evidence. A million or so scientific papers, both directly and indirectly, support evolution with physical evidence. You have nothing but a book of mythology. Who is the real delusional fool? It isn't the scientists...
A theory as opposed to what? The Theory of Evolution will always be a theory (theories do not get promoted to laws after repeated successful testing), and that's great! In science, we seek to explain phenomena. That's what theories do; they explain. It doesn't really get much better than the theory; it's what the really ambitious scientists dream of devising. Theories are touchdowns at the end of a bowl game.
As a sort of tangent, Mary Roach wrote in Spook about transcranial magnetic stimulation of the temporal lobe. Some people had profound experiences; others felt a presence; still others had little or no reaction.
Part of your brain may be changing or have had something happen to it, and this can result in changes in what you feel and the way you think. It might be the result of something relatively benign, internally, but you might not want to take that for granted, either.
If it's something that can be detected (and you can afford to have it detected), having that knowledge would be better than not having it, I think.
If it's not something that can be detected (or you can't afford it), or (if there is something detected) it's something that may not be easily fixable, then you may just have to cope.
No you don't. I called bingo first in the last thread. That toaster is MINE.
Stupid Pharyngula SIWOTI, preventing me from listening to the professor. lol
Homo sapiens, Homo neanderthalensis. The italics and the capitalization are part of the spelling.
Let me just repeat this. I have already addressed this issue in comment 152, twice (...and got no reply, though that comment is so long I can easily imagine it just got overlooked!).
I think we have here a case of what Sastra calls "nice people believe nice things".
Good. Er - you did mean "applauded", didn't you, as in made to feel welcome and special? Or is "appauled" a new word indicating a road-to-Damascus style conversion?
Alright, cheap digs at spelling aside, the flagellum, based on this link, already given, which you should follow. As I understand it, basically the flagellum evolved from a secretory pore on the cell membrane that evolved a rod (good for increased area) which then evolved to wiggle about (good for increased dispersion, possibly some motion) that then evolved to vary its speed according to health indicators (good for leaving unhealthy areas).
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This is in danger of becoming a second undying thread... I suggest a merger.
don't let the metaphorical door hit you in the theoretical ass, poopyhead
455: Have you read the link first given @#24 yet?
Yes. I read it last night and thought it was quite good. I think he's surer than he ought to be that he's not in a mental rut, but I would wouldn't I?
And have you given up on the discussion in the thread from November, or are you still pondering it? Just wondering, given the long silence from before we resumed.
My apologies. I've been checking in on that thread regularly. But I read (misread) your "I'm going to take a break here..." as meaning you would come back to it when you were ready to resume. I'll go back to it and have a post for you up as soon as I can. My daughter is getting married in nine days and everybody starts arriving this week-end, so apologies in advance if I don't get to it quickly or have to take a break myself (probably to sign more checks).
Thanks for inquiring. I have enjoyed that thread a lot.
Janine @ 461,
Someone at work last night called me "angry", so I held an impromptu poll asking the question "do you think the truth value of a statement changes depending on the tone it is presented in" ?
I got 4 "Yes" out of 4.Also one " if you think it doesn't then you don't know the english language".
So it wasn't really Sparta?
notconfused #443
What makes you think most of us haven't read the Bible? I read the thing cover to cover, including all the begats and leprosy of houses, three times. That's what convinced me that Yahwehism and Jebusianity were crocks of shit.
This example of Michael Behe's "irreducible complexity" was refuted years ago. Here's how biologist and Christian Ken Miller takes this argument apart.
That's easy. None of the above.
I (for one) don't have a problem with Leigh's Christianity, since she freely admits that it doesn't have a rational basis. It's only when Christians try to argue that their faith is the product of reason (an impossible task) that I feel there's any need to object to it.
480: As a sort of tangent, Mary Roach wrote in Spook about transcranial magnetic stimulation of the temporal lobe. Some people had profound experiences; others felt a presence; still others had little or no reaction.
Mark Salzman has an excellent novel that covers this territory. It's called Lying Awake. I recommend it highly.
Leigh's christianity is a bit like a person who knows they should stick to a certain diet but just can't deny themself the guilty pleasure of that raspberry icecream every now and then....They know it's wrong and bad for their figure but can't help it.
Huh?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZeYVIWz99I
heddle?
What? Like weaving?
Sven DiMilo wrote:
No, more Piltdown Man, Robocop and a few others who like to cite page after page of tired post hoc rationalisations and the steps of other combination handwaving/tapdancing routines that they seem to think pass for reason.
Besides, heddle's a Calvinist - according to his particular theology his god simply makes you believe with a wave of his magic wand and a pinch of fairy dust. If you don't believe in his god then it's because his god doesn't want you to. Reason doesn't come into it.
As nuts as it is, at least it's consistent. And he doesn't pretend that you can reason your way to belief.
Owlmirror,
Thx, I'll check that.
It's as if my susceptibility to mysticism has increased significantly over the last couple of years.
For instance, I visited a few months ago the basilica of Assisi, which is absolutely magnificent with its frescoes from Giotto. So I go down to the crypt, where there is the simple stone tomb of St Francis, and suddenly, in this very serene and dark atmosphere, I felt strongly compelled to kneel and pray. I didn't even know what I was doing, and there I was, crying like a little baby. I was really surprised with myself, why had I done this ?
It seemed to me at first a very profound mystical experience, which I can imagine some would easily interpret as a sign of the divine.
I would interpret it as a successful execution of applied architecture. I love visiting cathedrals and holy places for just this reason.
I wonder what this means for me?
@notconfused:
No you haven't, you fucking liar. If you had, you wouldn't have written this
Because you would have read Bill Hannah's comment #227 "Just read the book we glorify; read it once", and the comments after it.
Here's a challenge for you, you borderline illiterate douche: why don't you demonstrate to us that you've read the bible, huh? We'll have a little contest to see who knows their bible better. And don't even think about trying to lie to us anymore, notconfused, you're way too fucking stupid to fool anyone but yourself.
Fucking asshole.
No, right; I was giving heddle as an example of another Christian who is upfront about it being irrational, and yet he's still pretty annoying about it.