Posted by Without hesitation, I can tell you who the most contemptible, repulsive creationist I know is: he tops even Ray Comfort and Ken Ham in the pantheon of creationist liars for Jesus. It’s the otherwise negligible Sal Cordova, a whiny little nobody with no talent and no reputation other than his ability to cobble up some of the most disgusting innuendo. His latest achievement is to tie the murders by Amy Bishop to evolution; he’s found that Bishop is named in the list of supporters of the Clergy Letter Project, which means he gets to sneer a bit.
Amy Bishop was charged in the murder of several people recently. Now, there are some very fine Darwinists like Francis Collins, and I don’t mean to say Amy Bishop is representative of all Darwinists. But I’d recommend that if the Clergy Letter Project wishes to put on a good face for Darwinism, they might consider disassociating themselves from Amy Bishop.
They may not want to promote “survival of the fittest” in their sermons today. That would be kind of poor taste in light of the fact a presumed societal degenerate (Bishop) is the “fittest” survivor while 3 (possibly 4) innocent victims are the “unfit” dead.
As if the preachers were going to endorse Bishop’s actions from the pulpit; as if evolutionary biologists anywhere promote the kind of simplistic ruthless extermination that Cordova fantasizes over as the only possible fitness strategy. All we learn from his nasty little dig at evolution is that he doesn’t understand it — he does have some competition from Ray Comfort in the stupidity department — and that he’s willing to capitalize on a tragedy to make a fallacious argument against science.
And, as usual, he loves to make the out-of-context quote from Charles Darwin, in this case, the phrase “How I did enjoy shooting,” taken from
The Autobiography of Charles Darwin. As if Charles liked to open fire on his rivals and climb to eminence on the corpses of his competitors. Here, by the way, is the full quote in context; he was an enthusiastic sportsman who liked hunting game, and would have been sick with disgust at the thought of shooting people.
I kept an exact record of every bird which I shot throughout the whole season. One day when shooting at Woodhouse with Captain Owen, the eldest son, and Major Hill, his cousin, afterwards Lord Berwick, both of whom I liked very much, I thought myself shamefully used, for every time after I had fired and thought that I had killed a bird, one of the two acted as if loading his gun, and cried out, “You must not count that bird, for I fired at the same time,” and the gamekeeper, perceiving the joke, backed them up. After some hours they told me the joke, but it was no joke to me, for I had shot a large number of birds, but did not know how many, and could not add them to my list, which I used to do by making a knot in a piece of string tied to a button-hole. This my wicked friends had perceived.
How I did enjoy shooting! But I think that I must have been half-consciously ashamed of my zeal, for I tried to persuade myself that shooting was almost an intellectual employment; it required so much skill to judge where to find most game and to hunt the dogs well.
Slimy Sal repels me, so I’ll leave it to Allen MacNeill to take his post apart.
Sal, what precisely is the point of this post? It seems to me you are making the following assertions:
A1) Amy Bishop is a member of the consultant group for the Clergy Letter Project
A2) Amy Bishop is alleged to have murdered three of her colleagues and seriously injured three others by shooting them
A3) Charles Darwin indicated that he enjoyed shooting (target unspecified)
There appears to be considerable evidence in support of these assertions. However, it is also clear that your intention in making these assertions is the following:
I1) Amy Bishop is an evolutionary biologist
I2) Evolutionary biologists enjoy shooting
I3) Some evolutionary biologists enjoy shooting their colleagues to death
And from this you appear to be strongly suggesting the following conclusion:
C1) The practice of the science of evolutionary biology predisposes people to commit murder by shooting their colleagues to death.
It is a matter of simple historical record that many of the regular commentators at this website agree with something very similar to C1. Indeed, they waste no opportunity to state it as an incontrovertible fact, and cite this “fact” as a reason to reject the methodology, conclusions, and (by implication) the character of the practitioners of evolutionary biology, and especially Charles Darwin.
Let me therefore construct an exactly equivalent line of “reasoning”:
A4) Andrea Yates was a member of a Christian worship group led by the itinerant Christian preacher, Michael Peter Woroniecki
A5) Andrea Yates was convicted of murdering her five children by drowning them in a bathtub
A6) John the Baptist indicated that he enjoyed submerging sinners in water
Again, there appears to be considerable evidence in support of these assertions. Using the line of reasoning you seem to be promoting here, it would be equally “reasonable” to make the following inferences:
I3) Andrea Yates is a Christian
I4) Christians enjoy submerging people in water
I5) Some Christians enjoy murdering their children by drowning them
You should therefore be very willing to accept the following conclusion:
C2) Christianity predisposes people to murder their children by drowning them.
Please correct me if I have somehow misconstrued your intentions here. Also, please explain how your training in science and scientific reasoning leads you to make arguments of this form.
And,while you’re at it, please let me know how you can look at your own reflection in the mirror after making arguments like this.
We can always play the guilt by association game…in this case, the nastiest person I know is Sal Cordova, a creationist, therefore creationists are all people with no sense of common decency.
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 16, 2010
February 17, 2010
February 25, 2010