Comments

  1. says

    No, India, noooooooooo!

    Teh Grauniad: Indian LGBT activists outraged as supreme court reinstates gay sex ban

    Few expected the legal challenge launched by conservatives – including Muslim and Christian religious associations, a rightwing politician and a retired government official turned astrologist – to succeed. The supreme court is known for its broadly progressive judgments that often order politicians or officials to respect the rights of the poor, disadvantaged or marginalised communities.

    Few now expect the beleaguered government, led by the Congress party, to risk limited political capital and sparse energy on a fight for gay rights.

    The opposition Bharatiya Janata party, a Hindu nationalist party, has won a series of recent victories in state elections at the expense of the traditionally liberal, secular Congress, and though Indian society is changing very rapidly it remains profoundly conservative. The home minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, said it was “not possible to legislate on anything now”.

    Fuck fuck fuck… Religion and nationalism, promoting human misery since times imemorial.

    First Croatia, now this. Just goes on to show how some victories can be easily reversed. :\

  2. jonmilne says

    Hi there.

    Some common smears I hear of evolution by fundie Creationists/IDers is that evolutionary theory is a “fraud” and/or a “sham”, labels that make me wince not only because it’s demonstrably not the case, but also because of how lightly they seem to throw the labels around. To call something a fraud, one is by definition labelling it as “wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain”, and similarly with “sham” one would be labelling something as “not what it is purported to be” and being “falsely presented as the truth”.

    So in other words, they’re accusing scientists working in biology as well as other evolution-related fields as people who are committing crimes by acts of lying and cover-ups. Again, this is the sort of accusation that feels really irresponsible to throw around, especially since considering the nature of other people and organisations in major news stories and what has happened to them, one would expect that if the scientists truly are lying, then it’s a massive scandal absolutely worth pursuing to the fullest extent so as to expose it, and yet the fact that I’ve never seen a single creationist/ID individual or organisation go to such efforts to reveal evolutionary theory as “fraudulent” is extremely revealing about how weak their case is.

    What I’m here for is for some thoughtful input about entertaining a hypothetical situation where the fundies wind up being right and it turns out that scientists have been hiding evidence that has falsified evolutionary theory and it turns out they’ve been lying and covering-up the truth in favour of protecting a false scientific theory. Could some people give me some thoughts about what kinds of ramifications such an exposure would have in the scientific community as well as politically of course?

  3. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    @Tony!

    ThunderDome needs Brains

    is as perfect a slogan for this place as any of which I could ever think.

    Let’s immortalize it.

    While I make tea and procrastinate my papers.

  4. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    dõki,

    re. Croatia

    We lost the referendum, but a civil partnership should soon become possible for gay partners.
    Still, I think gay folks here have gotten the message about their own worth in this country loud and clear. I’m ashamed.

  5. says

    Tony!

    Yeah, I had seen that, too. Not a particularly good fortnight for equal rights.

    Well, I guess there’s still some hope for Scotland? And, I don’t know, erm, maybe Luxembourg?

    * * *

    Beatrice

    I appreciate the feeling, but no need to feel particularly ashamed of your country. It’s not like it was a localized problem, anyway. It’s something that has to be tackled globally.

    * * *

    Random link to something I’m listening to now, provided for absolutely no good reason: Madredeus – Palpitação

  6. yazikus says

    I was accidentally listening to catholic radio today, and heard this gem. They were talking about how great of a time it is to be a catholic. There are tons of catholic apps, the internet is full of cool catholic stuff, you can get apologetics on your smart phone and “there is even a text to speech app on the kindle. I mean, you don’t even have to be literate to know what the church says today!” Yay! lets all be illiterate and just listen to what the church has to say! It will be just like the dark ages!

  7. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Did a little research today after finishing some end-of-the-year crap for work. I thought I would need half a year after the Redhead qualified for Medicare before I could officially retire with the “official age” SSA bump. Turns out, I can retire with the bump before she qualifies for medicare by two weeks. Unofficial date of my retirement, the last day of the month after the Redhead qualifies for Medicare. Yep, less than one handful of fingers….

  8. cm's changeable moniker (quaint, if not charming) says

    Time-lapse video of London at night.

    I think I have been physically present at pretty much every ground-level location featured (I can’t claim for the long-range skyline shots!) except for the underpass at 1:10. Anyone know where it is?

    It also features four different office buildings in which I have worked. All for the same firm, and all in the right order. It’s like he’s following me. ;-)

  9. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    What I’m here for is for some thoughtful input about entertaining a hypothetical situation where the fundies wind up being right and it turns out that scientists have been hiding evidence that has falsified evolutionary theory and it turns out they’ve been lying and covering-up the truth in favour of protecting a false scientific theory. Could some people give me some thoughts about what kinds of ramifications such an exposure would have in the scientific community as well as politically of course?

    There is no need to even consider a hypothetical. There are a million or so scientific papers that back the Theory of Evolution, both directly and indirectly. If the ToE was falsified, there would be a Nobel prize, accolades, etc, waiting for the scientist showing that conclusive evidence. Actually, the odds of that happening are far less than the godbots showing the equivalent of an eternally burning bush for their imaginary deity. If it isn’t there, why are they covering it up?

  10. Amphiox says

    What I’m here for is for some thoughtful input about entertaining a hypothetical situation where the fundies wind up being right and it turns out that scientists have been hiding evidence that has falsified evolutionary theory and it turns out they’ve been lying and covering-up the truth in favour of protecting a false scientific theory

    Evidence of that nature cannot be covered up. Because to be valid it would have to be out there, in nature, and reproducible, such that anyone who looks for it, will find it. Even if some scientists tried to cover it up, they would fail. Even if ALL scientists tried to cover it up, they would fail, because it doesn’t take a scientist to do science. Anyone can. Everyone can.

    Conspiracies of that nature simply not possible in science. If even a single person with a vested interest in revealing that evidence existed (and there is just no one out there with a vested interest in wanting to see evolutionary theory fail, right?), it would come out.

  11. chigau (違う) says

    just another topic

    For those in a position to be a “volunteer”:
    when did you cross the line?
    how did
    “Yeah, I can work a casino once every 17.5 months.”
    morph to
    “If I am not at the Hall every Tuesday at 8AM, the Universe is at risk.”

  12. says

    Chigau
    I don’t flatter myself that I’m that indispensable, but after several months of intermittent volunteering at the Tool l Library front desk, I overheard two of the board members discussing how the volunteer coordinator was leaving for the South Pacific in a month or so, and they needed to find a new one. I said I could do that, and they told me when the next board meeting was. I turned up and was unanimously voted onto the board, and after a couple hours and a load of email documents from my predecessor, I became responsible for making sure that at least 5 people turn up for 2.5 hrs a week so we can stay open.

  13. chigau (違う) says

    Dalillama
    in one sense, well done and thank you for helping to keep a light burning so people can read.

    in another

    in my experience, in Canada, Board members are not paid.

  14. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    JonMilne, if the creobots try the conspiracy theory, hit back with one of your own. Like god exists, and there is evidence for it, but the god there is evidence for is a woman, who believes in feminism, communism, and males do what they are told. The priesthood knows the evidence exists, but won’t show it because they will lose everything and be replaced by women….

  15. says

    @cm’s

    Thanks for posting the video. I think I’ve pretty much cycled all those places at one time or another, though I am a bit rusty on the names.

    Cycling about Marble Arch was surreal, what with the massive surge of steel, of the vehicles about one. The same adrenaline rush I would imagine one gets from white water kayaking.

    Fond memories of the Big Smoke.

  16. Antiochus Epiphanes says

    jobnmilne: Evolutionary theory comprises a suite of mechanisms by which evolutionary change is thought to happen. I can’t imagine any study that could falsify all of them. If evolutionary theory were soemhow falsified (again, unlikely to happen in toto), we would still be left with the problem of explaining the fact of evolution, which is an observable phenomenon.

  17. says

    It might be interesting to consider just how big such a scam/coverup would have to be. Take it seriously and see where it takes you. E.g. it can’t simply be a matter of hiding some evidence. The evidence we have is sufficient to make it all but certain that some kind of evolution must be occurring. If some evidence had been suppressed, at most it could result in a revision of evolutionary theory.

    So, we would have to assume that false evidence had been disseminated. This is no small undertaking, though, since research is so spread out and easily verifiable by labs in various countries. E.g. simple phylogenetic analyses alone provide strong support for common ancestry, so the conspiracy would have to control which sequences were available in databanks and prevent people from doing independent sequencing. This itself is problematic because a single individual who could be bothered to save up for it could buy the necessary machinery, gather the samples and sequence the genes, to verify the facts.

    So, in order for evolution to be faked, we’d have to postulate a world-wide conspiracy, controlling universities, publications, facilities and even private access to machinery. It would have to be truly staggering in size, having operatives in every country and every institution. After all, it would only take one unsupervised undergrad to sabotage the entire project.

    It’s simply out of the question that something of this size could be kept secret. In the real world, the secrecy of a conspiracy is inversely proportional to its size. As the saying goes: “Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”

  18. jonmilne says

    Well, I brought up the issue in a private forum. I got this response from someone called Dragonfang:

    1- Sometimes, people tell “small lies” in order to serve what they believe to be greater truths; there have certainly been frauds within the ToE (Earnst Haeckels, Piltdown man, Nebraska Man). I agree that it is wrong to question the intentions of people or scientists alike without evidence, it is beyond cruel when they are hardworking. Of course, that does not change whether someone is indoctrinated and dogmatic.

    2- The ToE is not science; it is a historical hypothesis. Therefore, it cannot be falsified. Don’t really get what is there to falsify.

    3- The issue is not fraud which can’t be thrown lightly. The issue is in indoctrination and dogma. Blindly trying to prove the theory and fit the evidence into it rather than letting the evidence lead you.
    In the same way this attempts to prove a geocentric earth: http://withfriendship.com/images/d/18760/to-the-geocentric-model.jpg

    4- The court cases (I pointed out Kitzmiller v Dover and Edwards v Aguillard to Dragonfang) had nothing to do with Evolution vs ID/Creationism (I do not believe any of these three to be science btw). It was about suppressing the existence of alternative beliefs and preventing people to neutrally have a look at them. The real winner of these expensive lawsuits in a bad economy are the lawyers who got money into their pockets and the thought police. The loser was the freedom of thought.

    5- No doubt abiogenesis did occur on this planet. However, there is no scientific answers for how it occurred. The evolutionary version which is similar to spontaneous generation of an “undiscovered simpler cell” + jumping through hoops of astronomically improbable steps.

    Abiogenesis is not demonstrably happening anywhere on this planet. Not in nature and not in experiments. We are not within light years of making living cells that can nourish themselves, respond to stimuli, and reproduce. Science simply don’t know what “Life” is and what makes it. And evolutionists don’t like that.

    The evolutionist’s version of abiogenesis they have to believe in is simply unprovable figments of imaginations they try to pass as science. Therefore, they will either demean those who do not believe in their fairy tale, or try to ignore that they have to believe in it.

  19. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    they have to believe in is simply unprovable figments of imaginations

    Oh, you mean your imaginary diety/creator/phanstasm? Nothing but a figment of your imagination. Absolutely no conclusive direct physical evidence for one…..

  20. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    In science, a theory is not a hypothesis.

    Nor is the “theory of evolution by natural selection” a hypothesis of any kind. It is a conceptual framework that describes what we know about and how we understand the consistent tendency of certain biological hypotheses to be confirmed by experiment while certain other hypotheses have been consistently disconfirmed.

    The hypotheses themselves not only are testable, they have been tested. The conceptual framework is tested by deriving new hypotheses that *should* be true (though some are framed as a “shouldn’t” this is just a different kind of should) if the toebns is true. Where the toebns fails, we are shown the conceptual limits of the theory. For instance, the conceptual framework can describe things that demonstrably do happen, but that doesn’t mean that it is impossible for things like unselected genetic drift to alter a population. Such things are described by theory outside of toebns, but they do not, when tested, violate toebns

    …not least because toebns is the framework of what we know to be true from experiment, not a framework of things we think or wish might be true. The latter are hypotheses or religions, the former are theories.

  21. ChasCPeterson says

    The ToE is not science; it is a historical hypothesis. Therefore, it cannot be falsified. Don’t really get what is there to falsify.

    garden-variety ignorance.
    Also seems to think that a ‘light-year’ is a unit of time.
    DISmissed.

  22. says

    JonMilne
    I went ahead and took that post apart that you passed on, so:
    For Dragonfang:

    Sometimes, people tell “small lies” in order to serve what they believe to be greater truth

    Only people who haven’t got enough evidence to make their case honestly.

    here have certainly been frauds within the ToE (Earnst Haeckels, Piltdown man, Nebraska Man)

    Non Sequitur. None of those frauds were ‘small lies in service to a greater truth’. They were quite big lies, in service to the self-aggrandizement of their perpetrators and perpetuators.

    The ToE is not science; it is a historical hypothesis.

    Fractally wrong. History is a science (quite a lot of interrelated sciences, actually). The ToE is not a hypothesis; many, many hypotheses have been made and confirmed within the framework of the ToE. Many other hypotheses have been made, falsified, and discarded, both within and without of the current ToE. The discarded hypotheses which were part of previous iterations of the ToE are no longer part of the current theoretical structure, as they have been falsified. Meanwhile, the hypotheses advanced by advocates of other theories regarding the diversity of life have been consistently falsified or shown to work with the framwork of the ToE.

    Therefore, it cannot be falsified. Don’t really get what is there to falsify.

    The falsification of a sufficient number of the aforementioned hypotheses would have required a sufficiently large reworking of the aforementioned theories as to make the current ToE obsolete, thus ‘falsifying it.’ At this time, it is effectively not possible to falsify the nucleus of the current framework, as the existing body of evidence is overwhelming in its favour. A partial list of the evidence can be found in any college-level biology textbook, a large number of popularized science books written dozens of authors, and a vast number of scientific journals.

    The issue is in indoctrination and dogma. Blindly trying to prove the theory and fit the evidence into it rather than letting the evidence lead you.
    In the same way this attempts to prove a geocentric earth:

    Classic apologist projection. Too absurd to respond further.

    had nothing to do with Evolution vs ID/Creationism

    That would be news to the plaintiffs in Kitzmiller, who quite plainly said the opposite. It would also be news to the Court that heard Edwards,, who said that “teaching a variety of scientific theories about the origins of humankind to school children might be validly done with the clear secular intent of enhancing the effectiveness of science instruction.”

    (I do not believe any of these three to be science btw)

    One wonders what this person does believe to be science.

    However, there is no scientific answers for how it occurred

    There is no scientific consensus as to how abiogenesis occured, because the presently available evidence is insufficient to distunguish between several equally likely models. The evidence is sufficient to indicate, however, that it was one of the current models, or at least a process quite close to same. This also has nothing whatsoever to do with the theory of evolution.

    jumping through hoops of astronomically improbable steps

    When there are astronomically many chemical events occurring over an astronomically long period of time, astronomical improbabilities happen incessantly.

    Abiogenesis is not demonstrably happening anywhere on this planet

    As far as we are presently aware, this is the case.
    The conditions which would allow for abiogenesis are incompatible with the widespread presence of life. The types of complex organic molecule involved do not exist free-floating in large quantities, because some life form will consume them.

    We are not within light years of making living cells that can nourish themselves, respond to stimuli, and reproduce.

    Getting quite close, actually.

    Science simply don’t know what “Life” is and what makes it.

    Life is metabolism, reproduction, growth, and response to stimuli. Assorted chemical processes, many of which relate to proteins, make life.

    The evolutionist’s version of abiogenesis they have to believe in is simply unprovable figments of imaginations they try to pass as science

    As noted above, the theory of evolution is entirely neutral on the subject of the origins of life, and serves only to describe the adaptations of existing life. None of the hypotheses regarding abiogenesis require any deviations from known and demonstrable physical laws and processes, and thus require no a priori faith, although firmly asserting that, say Manfred Eigen’s hypotheses is the one true one would require a leap of faith. I’m not aware of anyone who does that, though.

    Therefore, they will either demean those who do not believe in their fairy tale,

    Nah, you haven’t garnered enough of my attention yet for me to demean you.

  23. says

    It seems to me that Dragonfang suffers from the same problem as most people who are critical of evolution; a complete lack of education on the subject. While he claims to not be a creationist, he’s pretty reliably regurgitating creationist talking points. Strange coincidence, isn’t it?

    there have certainly been frauds within the ToE (Earnst Haeckels, Piltdown man, Nebraska Man)

    Anything not a century old? No? Okay, then.

    The ToE is not science; it is a historical hypothesis. Therefore, it cannot be falsified.

    What an immense load of bollocks. First, evolution isn’t solely historical. If evolution is true, it’s something that’s going on right now. The fact that it was also going on back then doesn’t put it in a different category, no more than the fact that gravity was always around makes that a “historical hypothesis”.

    Second, it can be falsified. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that it could have been, since the facts are now so overwhelmingly in favor that it’s really not up for debate anymore. However, the theory could have been disproven a hundred times over. It just wasn’t.

    The issue is in indoctrination and dogma.

    Dogmatic attitudes are indeed problematic. That’s why we’ve come up with this nifty idea called the scientific method. Among it’s many ingenious features is the principle that evidence should be open to scrutiny. This allows anyone to go over the evidence and conclusions and check if they’re valid.

    Ring any bells?

  24. jonmilne says

    I actually did a bit of debunking of his crap myself, but mucho thanks for the input. He responded later on, but I’ll start off with how I responded, so that there’s not too much quotation in one post:

    1- Sometimes, people tell “small lies” in order to serve what they believe to be greater truths; there have certainly been frauds within the Toe (Earnst Haeckels, Piltdown man, Nebraska Man). I agree that it is wrong to question the intentions of people or scientists alike without evidence, it is beyond cruel when they are hardworking. Of course, that does not change whether someone is indoctrinated and dogmatic.

    The existence of small lies does not equate to one big conspiracy in the scientific community. If you believe there is a conspiracy, prove it with hard evidence.

    2- The ToE is not science; it is a historical hypothesis. Therefore, it cannot be falsified. Don’t really get what is there to falsify.

    Nonsense. There are plenty means to falsify evolutionary theory: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA211.html as well as http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA211_1.html and http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Disproving_evolution. Since there are means to falsify it, it’s therefore a scientific theory

    3- The issue is not fraud which can’t be thrown lightly. The issue is in indoctrination and dogma. Blindly trying to prove the theory and fit the evidence into it rather than letting the evidence lead you.
    In the same way this attempts to prove a geocentric earth: http://withfriendship.com/images/d/18760/to-the-geocentric-model.jpg

    The evidence is there in nature regardless of whether we wish to apply evolutionary theory to it or not. The theory explains the evidence. Oh, and learn your scientific terms: nothing is ever “proved”, we simply find “evidence”. We’re more than aware that something could turn up that would overturn evolution and fit far better into the evidence, but in the meantime, beyond reasonable doubt, evolution is the best explanation for the evidence we have. And again, if you’re alleging some super secret conspiracy where scientists are suppressing any evidence of evolution being false and lying and covering up the truth in favour of protecting a false scientific theory, then the onus is on YOU to demonstrate this with hard evidence.

    4- The court cases had nothing to do with Evolution vs ID/Creationism (I do not believe any of these three to be science btw). It was about suppressing the existence of alternative beliefs and preventing people to neutrally have a look at them. The real winner of these expensive lawsuits in a bad economy are the lawyers who got money into their pockets and the thought police. The loser was the freedom of thought.

    Again, if you allege such a massive conspiracy exists to silence rival beliefs of equal legitimacy within the scientific field (because Kitzmiller v Dover especially were to do with what is actually allowed to be taught as science in the classroom), demonstrate it with hard evidence.

    5- No doubt abiogenesis did occur on this planet. However, there is no scientific answers for how it occurred. The evolutionary version which is similar to spontaneous generation of an “undiscovered simpler cell” + jumping through hoops of astronomically improbable steps.
    Abiogenesis is not demonstrably happening anywhere on this planet. Not in nature and not in experiments. We are not within light years of making living cells that can nourish themselves, respond to stimuli, and reproduce. Science simply don’t know what “Life” is and what makes it. And evolutionists don’t like that.
    The evolutionist’s version of abiogenesis they have to believe in is simply unprovable figments of imaginations they try to pass as science. Therefore, they will either demean those who do not believe in their fairy tale, or try to ignore that they have to believe in it.

    Read the Index to Creationist Claims, specifically the sections under “Abiogenesis”: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html#CB0 . These should cover all areas of your complaints. We’re more than able to explain abiogenesis. Your accusations are baseless.

  25. jonmilne says

    And now, here’s how Dragonfang responded to what I’ve detailed to have written to him in Post #536:

    The existence of small lies does not equate to one big conspiracy in the scientific community. If you believe there is a conspiracy, prove it with hard evidence.

    You consider indoctrination and dogma to be a conspiracy? Perhaps in some group psychology subconscious sense?
    In any case, nice strawman.

    Nonsense. There are plenty means to falsify evolutionary theory: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA211.html as well as http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA211_1.html and http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Disproving_evolution. Since there are means to falsify it, it’s therefore a scientific theory

    * a static fossil record; Protected with ad-hocs: Living fossils, punctured equilibrium, stasis.
    * true chimeras; Protected with ad-hocs: Convergent evolution.
    * a mechanism that would prevent mutations from accumulating; Sure, once it is shown that “accumulated mutations” leads to the creation of organs.
    * observations of organisms being created. Similar historical events are unlikely to be reproducible for scientific tests. Their value as evidence works both ways. Observations of evolutionary abiogenesis will render creationary abiogenesis unlikely. I will consider this conceding that abiogenesis have to do with evolution.

    The evidence is there in nature regardless of whether we wish to apply evolutionary theory to it or not. The theory explains the evidence. Oh, and learn your scientific terms: nothing is ever “proved”, we simply find “evidence”. We’re more than aware that something could turn up that would overturn evolution and fit far better into the evidence, but in the meantime, beyond reasonable doubt, evolution is the best explanation for the evidence we have. And again, if you’re alleging some super secret conspiracy where scientists are suppressing any evidence of evolution being false and lying and covering up the truth in favour of protecting a false scientific theory, then the onus is on YOU to demonstrate this with hard evidence.

    I did not use the terms incorrectly. I simply stated the effects of indoctrination and dogma, which is trying to prove something regardless of whether it is possible or not.
    Are you implying that evolution offers scientific explanation rather than imagination? If that is the case, then shouldn’t it offer scientific evidence for the possibility of their claims and provide rational physical steps for processes
    Too many strawmen today. Might have to bring out my flamethrower.

    Again, if you allege such a massive conspiracy exists to silence rival beliefs of equal legitimacy within the scientific field (because Kitzmiller v Dover especially were to do with what is actually allowed to be taught as science in the classroom), demonstrate it with hard evidence.

    False.

    Kitzmiller v Dover did not happen because they wanted to teach creationism or ID in science classrooms (Which I do not support). It is because biology teachers refused to to announce that there is a book discussing an alternative viewpoint in the library. So the school made the announcement for them. Literally because some teachers refused to read a note encouraging students to explore an alternative view points.

    Is the ToE so weak and unsure of itself that it have to prevent students from knowing that there is a book about a different idea that does not agree with evolution?
    All that taxpayer money went to prevent an announcement about a book that talks about an alternative idea… If that is not indoctrination and dogma, I don’t know what it is.

    Read the Index to Creationist Claims, specifically the sections under “Abiogenesis”: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html#CB0 . These should cover all areas of your complaints. We’re more than able to explain abiogenesis. Your accusations are baseless.

    Lol @ the indoctrinated “WE”.
    I mean are you thinking as an individual? Do you consider yourself a person? identifying and placing yourself on a groupthink and hive mind where people all think and behave alike is such a dark hole of thought…

    I fail to see how the Abiogenesis links on TO negates my points. Found a lot of the responses to be quite weak.
    But lets start over. You said that you (or The-Group) is more than able to explain abiogenesis. So please provide the steps of how it happened.

  26. Esteleth, statistically significant to p ≤ 0.001 says

    The biggest issue, really, with the fraud argument is that even if Charles Darwin were a terrible horrible no good very bad man who faked all his data, cheated on his taxes, and stole candy from children,

    (1) That does not mean that every other scientist who came after him and worked to expand on the theories of evolution were also frauds.
    (2) That does not mean that the Christian creation-myth is an accurate description of human origins.

  27. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    You said that you (or The-Group) is more than able to explain abiogenesis. So please provide the steps of how it happened.

    Ask him to explain where his imaginary deity arose from. Don’t let them change the subject. Either they provide the evidence they expect for abiogensesis, or they shut the fuck up about their imaginary deity/creator.
    Fair is fair after all….

  28. chigau (違う) says

    Caine #540

    Rats below, it’s good to be off the floor.

    Cryptic.
    What did I miss?
    Everything OK?

  29. says

    Chigau:

    Cryptic.

    I’ve been scribbling. Had to lay it out on the floor. My old body doesn’t like that sort of thing these days. Mmmm, yeah, it’s more horizontal. I’m gonna do the toucan now. Yeah, it’s gonna have a toucan. With incorrect colours.

  30. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Rats below, it’s good to be off the floor.

    Ah, creativity at work. ‘Nough said.

  31. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Evidently I did something to hurt my right shoulder yesterday or last night. Got up in the middle of the night with it hurting. The motion with pain is lifting my arm with weight in the middle of my body above the shoulder, like lifting a tankard of grog to my mouth, or putting dishes away/taking them out from the upper cupboards.

  32. chigau (違う) says

    Nerd
    That’s terrible.
    Leave the dishes on the counter and save the few shoulder moves for the grog.

  33. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    @chigau:

    Present.

    What did you want to discuss?

  34. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Leave the dishes on the counter and save the few shoulder moves for the grog.

    The dishes were put away this morning (ouch), and as more grog is consumed, the less the pain. And I get a bit of rest before I need to assemble the plate of planovers. With plates/glasses from the upper cupboards I refilled this morning (dang).

  35. dianne says

    @Cripdyke: I sometimes ask people from the US or Canada to name as many indigenous peoples as they can, suggesting 12 as a goal.

    Moving this here for off-topicness. I’m going to be utterly sloppy about it and simply name any group that I have ever heard identified as a group (tribe, people, language group, etc) rather than trying to determine whether these groupings are real or not, so may end up giving a distinctly European-influenced list. But here goes anyway:
    Maya
    Incan
    Aztec
    Navajo/Dene (I probably misspelled that name)
    Hopi
    Seminole
    Cherokee
    Cree
    Iowa (were they a real distinct group or what a bunch of refugees got named?)
    Dakota
    Lakota
    Maori (or is this supposed to be American indigenous peoples only?)
    Apache
    Nakai
    Biliganna

  36. chigau (違う) says

    CD
    Your
    “I sometimes ask people from the US or Canada to name as many indigenous peoples as they can”

    Made me think
    Band?
    Nation?
    Linguistic group?
    Self-identified or gummint-classified?

    I have worked with many First Nations people and have learned through bitter experience that they way I ‘classify’ them doesn’t always agree with how they ‘classify’ themselves.

  37. cm's changeable moniker (quaint, if not charming) says

    @theophontes:

    I think I’ve pretty much cycled all those places

    Eeek!!

    For a short while, I lived south of Tower Bridge (0:26) and cycled Tooley Street (0:20) and London Bridge (1:43) then King William Street to the intersection at Bank (0:44) and beyond.

    After three weeks some fuckers nicked my bike from the apartment block car park, and I was forced to revert to Shanks’s Pony.

    On the upside, it probably increased my life expectancy by about 10 years.

  38. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    @Dianne:

    The point is to name groups whose history is connected with yours and be aware of those connections.

    When I use this exercise, I don’t criticize people for using government/white imposed names. Frankly, in not limiting it you get to see just how ignorant the majority of non-indigenous folk are.

    I can name bands by band names. I can name “national” groupings that share a common culture and history even if they did not (in historical time) have any kind of formal unifying structure. I can name language groups (though there are fewer of these of which I’m aware, though obviously the largest, highest-level groupings (NaDene and the like) are familiar). I can name super-cultures like the Salish who can be categorized as having multiple nations within their scope.

    The names (or lack thereof) aren’t useful in and of themselves, but people come up with one or two and then others come up with a different one or two and pretty soon as a group we might have 20 or more before I speak at all. I don’t have to criticize them for ignorance – they tend to do that themselves when the names that they can’t access are nonetheless mostly very familiar to them (since although most non-indigenous people can only remember one or two when the spotlight is on, it’s not like they haven’t heard news reports or seen movies that involved names of many different peoples).

    I started using this as a tool when I heard a statistic that some test group (which I think was college students, because aren’t they always?) in the US could, at Median, name fewer than 10 African nations. I think the median was around 4-6 and you had a z of at least 1.5, probably 2+ if you could name 10.

    It reminded me of how ignorant I am about, y’know, the entire world. I can’t cure all of it, but I can make an effort to see beyond my own local perspective (local geographically, local demographically, local temporally). Although I’d done anti-racism work before, this “name 10” (did I type 12 in the other thread as a goal? That’s a typo, I normally ask for 10) format exercise was deliberately chosen because it would seem easy but be accomplished only rarely. I want people to think of themselves as both

    a) ignorant of far too many things

    but
    b) able to learn an amount which puts them out of the ordinary.

    I use the motivation of joining the few, the proud, the not 100% ignorant to get people to try to learn on their own. If they can see in a workshop that naming 10 African countries (or 10 indigenous peoples, or 10 rivers vital to human life, etc.) is rare, but they also see it as a goal that they can accomplish, they won’t become experts in how the lives of southern Africans are affected by the Orange or the Limpopo, but they’ll pick up a bit more knowledge. And if the concepts stay with them while the names don’t (Was that Lake Albert or Lake Victoria?) the fact of the discussion will make them prick up their ears when they have an opportunity to learn something. I have been told by 2 different people that after this exercise they caught themselves listening more closely to a news story b/c they heard the names of one of the peoples we discussed and wanted to know more, whereas they both reported that before, when hearing the name of an indigenous people, they tended to do the opposite – tuning out b/c they didn’t know enough to care. The people involved were entirely too abstract. Even being able to place the Wallowa Valley as something other than vaguely in the US West was enough to make someone from Oregon listen more closely to the news when they caught the name Nez Perce.

    No, Nez Perce obviously isn’t their self-identified name, but it’s nonetheless useful to know since you’ll hear it in media, read it in books.

    It’s not perfect, but it’s a starting point both for judging your current level of awareness and for gauging whether you are growing in knowledge over time.

    (Many!) More than 2 people reported that they just said names (and maybe pictured stereotypes) when they first tried the exercise. But later when they tried it again, even if they didn’t remember that many more peoples right away, they thought of them differently -“The people who lived in X part of my native country, where I went [camping/shopping/whatever]” is a different way of thinking and shows more connection as well as just more basic knowledge (you have not only a who, but a where). They also continued thinking of names over the next hours or days, “Oh yeah, I should have thought of X”. Even if not a great education in who a given people are, the focus on indigenous peoples as a part of the current world – not an anachronism, not people who once were, not people too strange to share a connection – is, sadly, a step up for a lot of non-indigenous folk.

    While I’m not comfortable with that level of education as an end goal, I know how horrifically awful it is for me to try to teach Trans* 101. If the non-trans* people teach each other trans* 101 and I can be useful in bringing people to a truly different level of understanding of themselves and their gender later, we make a good team and I save myself a lot of pain which non-trans* people don’t have to worry about speaking in complex areas where they are very likely to get it wrong.

    I see my pitiful-in-the-grand-scheme,-but-unfortunately-necessary anti-racism work as the kind of work for PoC that I want non-trans* people to do for trans* folk.

  39. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    Testing myself on the Ps only:

    Powhattan
    Penobscott
    Pueblo
    Passamaquoddy

    Crap, that’s all the Ps I’ve got right now. Don’t know why I can’t get my brain to function tonight. Harrumph.

    Oh, wait, Potawatomi & Pensacola, not to mention the Pequod/Pequot (I’ve seen it spelled both ways).

    I know there’s the Popoloca in Mexico (though I’m not proud to say that the reason I remember it is that it is connected in my brain to “crazy pope” which has nothing to do with that people at all).

    Okay, I think I’m going to give up. I spent 5 minutes on it – oh, Paiute – but that’s just Ps, and I haven’t done this exercise in a little while (and for some reason, there seem to be a lot more M’s up here in Canada, though the Cs As and Os seem to be common everywhere).

    Looks like 9 in 5 minutes. It should be more, I feel, but on the other hand, I don’t know if I could name 9 US cities that start with P in 5 minutes, so it isn’t like it’s a perfect test of anything.

  40. cm's changeable moniker (quaint, if not charming) says

    And, because I’m bored!

    I am a bit rusty on the names

    Heh. Link:

    0:00: South Bank looking towards the old City of London School for Boys, Unilever House, Blackfriars Bridge

    0:14: Museum of London roundabout looking east along London Wall to the twin Pizza Expresses of 125 London Wall

    0:20: Tooley Street, passim

    0:26: Tower Bridge (can’t tell if it’s north or south side)

    0:32: Piccadilly Circus, looking west to the old Virgin record shop (not sure if that what it is now)

    0:35: London Wall again

    0:40: Westminster Bridge, south side, looking north

    0:44: Bank of England, Royal Exchange, Bank intersection passim

    0:47: The bright blue glass thing is the IMAX; it’s from the footbridge from Waterloo station over the A3200 to Shell House

    0:50: Covent Garden (somewhere)

    0:53: Docklands from the O2 side of the river

    1:00: The Shard, from its base! Amazing piece of architecture; it occupies a site the size of about six tennis courts and just goes up and up and up and …

    1:04: O2 Arena from the Docklands side of the river

    1:07: MYSTERY UNDERPASS. WHERE IS IT? :-)

    1:14: Parliament Square looking east over Bridge Street and Westminster Bridge

    1:20: see 0:53

    1:23: South Bank looking NE at (I think) the railway bridge from Waterloo into Charing Cross

    1:25: My first thought was High Holborn going over Farringdon Road, but I’m not sure. A40 further west, maybe?

    1:29: Leicester Square

    1:32: London Wall, again, I think

    1:36: Waterloo to Charing Cross pedestrian bridge

    1:40: Covent Garden again

    1:42: London Bridge from the south looking north

    [various long shots]

    2:04: Liverpool Street station

    2:05: Millennium (wobbly!) bridge, south bank, looking north to St Paul’s

    2:12: Piccadilly Circus (again)

    2:20: Liverpool Street station (again)

    2:26: Intersection of Regents Street and Oxford Street

    2:33: Intersection of Regents Street and Great Marlborough Street

    [fin]

    (You know, I actually enjoy doing this!)

  41. dianne says

    @553: I don’t know if I could name 9 US cities that start with P in 5 minutes

    Given that you have just named at least 2 (Pensacola and Pueblo), you probably could.

    10 African countries…let’s see…

    Nigeria
    Niger
    Democratic Republic of Congo
    That other Congo
    South Africa
    Egypt
    Sudan
    Liberia
    Madagascar
    France (part of it’s in Africa–Reunion is a French department)
    Senegal
    Angola
    Sierra Leone
    Ethiopia
    Eratria
    Somalia

    I have to admit that most of those were countries that I’ve heard of when disasters or civil wars strike them, but that took me all of about 1.5 minutes (even if you discount the cheating) and I’m not particularly strong on the geography of Africa and am sadly ignorant of the politics and culture. I’d do pathetically if asked to name African tribes. Hmm…

    !Kung
    Zulu
    Tutsi
    Hutu
    ?Egyptian
    ?Pygmy
    ?Arab

    That’s it. That’s all I’ve got and the last three are pretty much guesses.

  42. cm's changeable moniker (quaint, if not charming) says

    Regents -> Regent, apparently. Should pay more attention to les maps du Google.

  43. dianne says

    @CripDyke: My thought process in listing names of indigenous tribes went something like this: 1-3 people I learned about in American history class (and I do mean AMERICAN, not US history in this case), 4 probable relatives*, 5 possible relatives*, 6-8 other tribes I’ve heard about from general knowledge of US history and/or geography, 9 people a place I lived once was named after, 10 another place name (no personal connection), 11 riffing off 10, 12 people whose health problems I’ve read about fairly extensively, 13 oops, should have thought of them earlier and family meme-connection**, 14-15 I wonder if anyone will get the joke and call me on this one. Probably not what you were looking for since most of the connections are connections to the past.

    *Successful cultural genocide means that I don’t know for sure.
    **Probably of interest to no one else.

  44. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    Pueblo is a city? Oh, yeah, Colorado, right?

    I don’t know many peoples of Africa, but I don’t live there. I don’t need to be disabused of notions such as that the area belongs to my ethnic group, etc.

    In front of a blank map, I can now consistently name every independent African nation (though I had forgotten that France has national territory in Africa), even Sao Tome & Principe. Listing them abstractly would be a bit different, but in the past I’ve been able to visualize and name them all, in part b/c I also tried to learn regional clusters (overlapping, of course) that connect to other bits I’ve tried to learn (like Countries that border Lake Chad – that kind of thing).

    I can do likewise for Asia and Oceania, and South America. Sadly, there are Caribbean nations I still forget and some of the smaller European nations drive me a bit mad (San Marino, I’m looking at you). But I’m much better at appreciating where a named country is (and in a few of the larger countries, like Brazil, China, Canada, the US and Russia, where some of the major major states/regions are) than I was 10 years ago, which lets me connect better to news of the day. Like: “Oh, something is happening here? That means it’s next door to this other place – and wasn’t there an earthquake in that other place last year? What did I learn about availability of resources in the region when that earthquake story hit?” My appreciation of what people are facing is always inadequate and self-centered (in the sense that it is always compared back to my experience in an attempt to understand it), but it is richer, more complex, and better amenable to education than it was when I couldn’t contextualize a country or a people quite as well.

  45. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    @dianne, #557:

    I just looked up biligana/ biligaana. Very funny.

    I found nakai to be a botanist that published on samples, naturalist style, collected during roaming around parts of Japan and parts of Korea. So that one was beyond my google-fu.

    ========
    As for what I was looking for, well, what I look for in my workshops is a starting place to talk about those connections. What I was looking for on TD wasn’t anything at all, since I’m not your teacher. I was just talking about it b/c chigau and you seemed interested in exploring this.

  46. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    Philadelphia,
    Portland, (can I count it twice?)
    Pittsburgh (where you go after you die, if you believe Calvin & Hobbes, with the main point of debate being whether that’s where you go if you’re good or if you’re bad)
    Pensacola
    Pueblo
    Panama City
    Pacific City
    Providence
    Is Paxatucent River a city or just a military base? (also, I now remember that there was a band named Paxatucent)
    Paradise
    Palo Alto
    Paramus….(and I know that there are a bunch of cities in NJ that start with P b/c a friend of mine joked about this once, but I couldn’t come up with any more)

    Well, that was a bit over 5 min, but i wasn’t looking at the clock when it turned. Still, you were right. i got over 9.

  47. dianne says

    @561: Everyone goes to Pittsburg after death, good or bad. The difference is whether you get Pittsburg at a good economic period or a bad economic period.

    What? It makes at least as much sense as any other description of the afterlife.

  48. ChasCPeterson says

    there are a bunch of cities in NJ that start with P

    Passaic
    Paterson
    Perth Amboy
    Parsippany
    Princeton
    uh

    Also, Pittsburgh is a fine town (where, btw, I’m from). Not like it’s, like, Cleveland, or Detroit or some shit.

  49. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    Paterson!

    That’s the one that was on the tips of my fingers. Argh.

    Thanks, Chas.

    And condolences on being from Pittsburgh ;-)

  50. ekwhite says

    Native American Nations I can think of:

    Lakota
    Iriquois (does a confederation count?)
    Mohawk
    Delaware
    Gay Head (Martha’s Vineyard – I forget their real name)
    Lumbee
    Tuscorora
    Seminole
    Cherokee
    Tonoho O’odham
    Yavapai
    Havasupai
    Apache
    Creek
    Navaho
    Hopi
    Ute
    Chumash

  51. says

    The latest installment of The Great Pharyngula Movie ™ has come to an Interwebz near you!

    This is basically the back story of how Ken Ham’s AIG and Atheism plus came to be at loggerheads. It features everybody’s favourite Benevolent Dictator for Life, Tony!, Ms Molly (incarnated as a human) and Ken Ham. The main scenes are from 20 years ago, so everyone looks very young and sprightly.

    Link to Movie. (9:20)

    chigau, this will be of interest to you as it is the first time that the official TZT Thunderdome uniforms are on display.

  52. David Marjanović says

    LOL. Dragonfang? Is that VenomFangX 3.0 (quotation marks not intended the second time)?

    1- Sometimes, people tell “small lies” in order to serve what they believe to be greater truths; there have certainly been frauds within the ToE (Earnst Haeckels, Piltdown man, Nebraska Man). I agree that it is wrong to question the intentions of people or scientists alike without evidence, it is beyond cruel when they are hardworking. Of course, that does not change whether someone is indoctrinated and dogmatic.

    Nebraska Man wasn’t a fraud. It was a completely honest mistake. The fossil is genuine and has never been tampered with, and it really was found in that place and that layer, not planted – it just happens to belong to a peccary, not to an ape. The teeth of apes and pigs are quite similar, I once confused them at an exam.

    Piltdown Man was a fraud. But the idea behind it wasn’t to support the theory of evolution. It may have been patriotism (if Germany has Heidelberg Man, we need our own!!!!1!), or simply a quest for personal fame, or any number of stupid reasons, but that humans are descended from apes hadn’t been questioned by any biologist in decades. FFS, On the Origin of Species came out in 1859, The Descent of Man came out in 1871, and Piltdown Man was “discovered” in 1912!

    Ernst Haeckel interpolated to fill in holes in the growth series available to him. That was dishonest, even though his interpolations have, AFAIK, turned out to be pretty much correct.

  53. David Marjanović says

    …and the motivation may have been nothing more than to (over)simplify the picture. Haeckel was, however, an ideologue.

  54. chigau (違う) says

    There are no fucking veggies that fucking kill fucking stomach fat!

    Yeah. I said it.

  55. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    If you drop a pumpkin off the empire state building and it lands on someone’s head, I bet that person’s stomach fat would die….

  56. Goodbye Enemy Janine says

    I have a silly question.

    Why has the stalker who fancies himself to be a “human rights investigative journalist” switch most of his attention from FtB to trans women? Not that this is a recent development nor does really surprise me. But there are a lot of people on Twitter who hear from that assclam and his supporters. But they know little to nothing about FtB, “Guys don’t do that.” and the founding of the pit.

  57. Goodbye Enemy Janine says

    I am sure that any link I make to ElevatorAssclam’s Storify site will trip the filters here. But that should give you enough to look it up.

  58. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    plenty.

    Thanks.
    …..click, whirrrrrrrr…..

    Hmm. I’m looking and the storify doesn’t even make sense. There are important bits left out. Even if the “man” elected to head a feminist student union is really a trans person, what actually happened? Who is it? Is it Kevin? What did Kevin ask CCP and friend that resulted in being blocked?

    All I see is people saying entirely undramatic things. “I got blocked” “A man got elected” “the jury system sucks for trials” and on and on.

    Seriously, what’s with this? Why is this even here? This is journalism?

    Bizarre and entirely beyond my ability to figure out.

  59. says

    You tell me this AFTER I’ve paid a small fortune for a large pallet of canned pickled turnips ‽‽‽

    I’ll trade you some canned pickled beets. I actually like them, but the moment I open the 10 litre can they’ll become perishable, and I’m not sure I can store that much beets in a small refrigerator.

  60. says

    theophontes:

    You tell me this AFTER I’ve paid a small fortune for a large pallet of canned pickled turnips ‽‽‽

    Yes, but look at the bright side. You have a large pallet of canned pickled turnips.

  61. jonmilne says

    Alright, I need help with the latest response from Dragonfang. I let him know that you guys had questions for him, and he agreed to address them:

    Only people who haven’t got enough evidence to make their case honestly.

    Also, anything not a century old? No? Okay, then.

    Which is exactly the case for the ToE.

    Considering that frauds within life sciences is at an all-time high, then there are probably frauds that includes evolution in this century.

    http://www.theglobalistreport.com/publications-research-articles-retracted-fraud/

    And considering that Ernest Heckles’s drawing are still not discarded in some modern books:
    http://s479.photobucket.com/user/antpogo/media/IMG_20110318_153748.jpg.html
    Your statement is incorrect.

    Non Sequitur. None of those frauds were “small lies in service to a greater truth”. They were quite big lies, in service to the self-aggrandizement of their perpetrators and perpetuators.

    Which was evolution in this case.

    Fractally wrong. History is a science…
    *snip*
    Also, evolution isn’t solely historical…

    Trite evolutionist comments…
    By saying “Evolution”, I include the claim that a single cell was responsible for all the diversity of life. From that context, the foundations of evolution is nothing but a fantasy. Ancestors of dinosaurs becoming hummingbirds is a fairytale or a historical hypothesis that lacks any evidence of it’s possibility.
    In order to have a discussion at the topic in hand, please don’t use the fallacy of equivocation to change the meaning of evolution to: “There is genetic change between generations!”. No one is arguing against that since Mendelian genetics.

    The falsification of a sufficient number… *snip*

    The fact of the matter is it can be falsified. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that it could have been, since the facts are now so overwhelmingly in favor that it’s really not up for debate anymore. However, the theory could have been disproven a hundred times over. It just wasn’t.

    Just to make sure you are not on indoctrination auto-pilot: Can you explain how we can falsify dinosaurs becoming hummingbirds?

    The statements you made here about evolution being a fact not up to debate sounds like ones from a religious nutcase.

    Dogmatic attitudes are indeed problematic. That’s why we’ve come up with this nifty idea called the scientific method. Among it’s many ingenious features is the principle that evidence should be open to scrutiny. This allows anyone to go over the evidence and conclusions and check if they’re valid.

    Ring any bells?

    Don’t see the relevance to the topic. Are you claiming that the ToE follows the scientific method?
    So It provides physical steps of processes happening? There are observations and experimentation that proves evolutionary mechanisms are capable of being the foundation of all of life’s diversity, including organ-creation and multicellularity?

    That would be news to the plaintiffs in Kitzmiller, who quite plainly said the opposite. *snip*

    I admit that there was a bit of exaggeration on my part there. However, my point stands. These court cases boils down to restricting the freedom of thought.

    One wonders what you do believe to be science.

    Not fairy tales.

    There is no scientific consensus as to how abiogenesis occured… *snip*

    Which still means that there is no scientific answer. Not to how it once occurred, and not to how they can make it occur.

    When there are astronomically many chemical events occurring over an astronomically long period of time, astronomical improbabilities happen incessantly.

    Your oversimplification make it sounds like the earth was trying to create life; that it knows the target, the end goal, and the destination.
    This is a collective amount of astronomical events; I am not saying it is unlikely, I am saying that it is virtually impossible. If anything I’d say chemical reactions are more likely to reach an equilibrium and constantly create lifeless mush as time progress.

    As far as we are presently aware, this is the case.

    The conditions which would allow for abiogenesis are incompatible with the widespread presence of life. The types of complex organic molecule involved do not exist free-floating in large quantities, because some life form will consume them.

    Please state the conditions.

    Getting quite close, actually.

    The comment at getting close is simply laughable. I assume you mean Venter’s synthetic cells? managing to join yeast proteins into DNA and inserting it into a (live) cell without killing it is fascinating and an amazing achievement. I hope the beneficial potential of this is found and used in the future.
    However, a synthetic cell implies synthetic organelles, proteins, enzymes, RNA, and DNA. We are light years away from bringing a dead cells back to life or creating a living cell from non-living matter.

    Life is metabolism, reproduction, growth, and response to stimuli. Assorted chemical processes, many of which relate to proteins, make life.

    So joining those components and sticking them together together will make it? Scientists should try it… Oh wait.
    I pity your narrow outlook and incapability to understand the beauty and the coordination of cellular functions. But that is what indoctrination does to people.

    As noted above, the theory of evolution is entirely neutral on the subject of the origins of life…

    It have everything to do with evolution. It follows on the claim that nature’s simple becomes complex. The first cells or the alleged “Proto-cells” and their formation is a foundational and an important part of evolution. Don’t you think there should be less dancing around? Abiogenesis must be answered alongside consciousness, biological systems, and multicellularity.

  62. jonmilne says

    I also had another guy called “Sadolite” say this:

    Evolution is taught as fact and not a theory. It pretends to answer the origin of life which it fails at proving miserably. Quite frankly I would believe that a higher life form “not god” is responsible for the life on this planet long before I would believe all the species just evolved from the same primordial goop. Until I see evidence of a higher life form be it god or another form of life thousands of centuries more advanced than us, I am sticking with creation. Evolution just doesn’t cut the mustard other than small changes with in a species. It in no way answers the origin of life and is extremely weak at explaining all the different species of life. I have to have the same amount of faith to believe that all species evolved from a primordial goop as I do to believe in creation be it god or a higher form of life.

    “Living cells are filled, of course, with complex structures whose detailed evolutionary origins are not known. ”

    This quote is from a site trying to debunk irreducible complexity. You notice how it is a given that they evolved without even knowing anything about their origin. Why is it assumed that all complex structures evolved? How the fck do they know when they don’t even know their origins or how the complex structures could have evolved? Evolution engages in reverse engineering at this point and then says it’s possible for this to happen by accident when the odds are a million to the x factor.

  63. says

    @ Sadolite via jonmilne

    Evolution is taught as fact and not a theory. It pretends to answer the origin of life which it fails at proving miserably.


    False.
    ToE has not made this claim. Once again, abiogenesis is being confused with evolution. They are quite different. That you are making this mistake informs us that you should not be commenting on this topic and rather get thyself to a library.

    Until I see evidence of a higher life form be it god or another form of life thousands of centuries more advanced than us, I am sticking with creation.

    Which advanced life form would, in turn, need a creator.

    Evolution just doesn’t cut the mustard other than small changes with in a species.

    Evolution is all about small changes. These agglomerate over great reaches of time to lead to very substantial changes. We have many speciation events on record. Would you care to give your own ideas as to what constitutes “a species”?

    It in no way answers the origin of life and is extremely weak at explaining all the different species of life.

    ToE does not seek to explain abiogenesis (“the origin of life”) – you are rather confused on this issue. As to “species”, ToE explains both morphological changes and speciation extremely well.

    I have to have the same amount of faith to believe that all species evolved from a primordial goop …

    Life evolved from earlier life. Evolution does not relate to non-living matter coming to life.

    Why is it assumed that all complex structures evolved?

    There is no such claim being made. Snowflakes are extremely complex, yet form spontaneously on the basis of simple underlying conditions. What you specifically mean to refer to (I gather) is the increase in complexity of living forms. (Which are likewise based on relatively simple underlying principles and conditions.)

    How the fck do they know when they don’t even know their origins or how the complex structures could have evolved?

    You are making this claim based purely on your ignorance of the subject under discussion. Have you any evidence supporting the position you hold in this regard?

    Evolution engages in reverse engineering at this point

    You are not even wrong here.

    and then says it’s possible for this to happen by accident when the odds are a million to the x factor.

    If the odds were likely, life could not emerge (at least not as we know it) as conditions would be too unstable. We are dependent on the unlikelihood of spontaneous emergence. Fortunately, anything that does ever emerge is instantaneously relegated to “food”, and so the problem disappears (down a very teensy gullet.)

  64. Antiochus Epiphanes says

    If you drop a pumpkin off the empire state building and it lands on someone’s head, I bet that person’s stomach fat would die….

    Ah, but a pumpkin, tis a fruit! Might I suggest a beet?
     
    theophontes: Wunderbar! I laughed, I cried. It was a delightful romp, rich in pageantry, a must-see for the season. However, may I recommend either a belt or a cod-piece for our new unifoms? Or both? Or alternatively, whatever the monkey was wearing at least for engineering and security?
     

    ToE has not made this claim. Once again, abiogenesis is being confused with evolution.

    But it isn’t important. I’ve seen this argument, and it’s just goal-post moving. Abiogenesis still needs an explanation–this explanation is aided considerably by ToE, in that any system that replicates with error is subject to selection. The first instance of selection likely preceded cellular life.
     
    nonetheless, jonmilne: Your antagonists may be too far in the dark for the light of knowledge to reach them. One strategy may be to adopt a less defensive position. Attack their beliefs. Engage in mockery and ridicule. Make it funny, and report back.

  65. says

    @ AE

    But my character WAS wearing a codpiece!

    (The movies I sampled were Robinson Crusoe on Mars, Brave New World and … of course … Ken Ham – Why Won’t They Listen Part Deux.

    That last is in three parts, totalling 50 minutes. It is rather drole in its own right, but also goes a long way to explaining why he does what he does wrt ID and creationism. He believes in creationism through necessity. By letting science into ones life, you are undermining YHWH’s word. Facts and stuff cannot way against That.

    He notes that indoctrination is easier if everyone (that is: society – in its entirety) just goes along with his worldview. The whole enterprise would have been so much easier if those pesky Hellenists (he calls them “Greeks”) hadn’t ruined it all by considering the nature of reality rather than simply accepting “Jewish” spiritualism and YHWH. What he fails to mention – and it is innevitable if we went along with him – is the level of violence that would be required to keep his world views in place as the dominant paradigm. Linky.

    (Note: His “lost in translation” problem in selling YHWH is not what we find with reality based narratives, maths, science, logic … etc)

  66. ChasCPeterson says

    Your antagonists may be too far in the dark for the light of knowledge to reach them.

    What a polite way to point out that they’re ignorant blowhards. Their supercilious bullshit isn’t worth dignifying.
    I will make one factual point:

    Ernest Heckles’s drawing are still not discarded in some modern books: [photolink]

    Dumbass didn’t notice that the art in question is labeled “adapted from M.K. Richardson 1997”? Or didn’t look up Richardson 1997 to learn that it features photographs of the embryos depicted?

  67. Antiochus Epiphanes says

    The whole enterprise would have been so much easier if those pesky Hellenists (he calls them “Greeks”) hadn’t ruined it all by considering the nature of reality rather than simply accepting “Jewish” spiritualism and YHWH.

    You are too kind. We tried and failed.

  68. David Marjanović says

    Yes, but look at the bright side. You have a large pallet of canned pickled turnips.

    Day saved.

    Alright, I need help with the latest response from Dragonfang. I let him know that you guys had questions for him, and he agreed to address them:

    Why don’t he and Sadolite simply come here? Invite them! This indirect conversation is becoming tedious!

    Considering that frauds within life sciences is at an all-time high, then there are probably frauds that includes evolution in this century.

    Fraud happens where money is involved. In most of evolutionary biology, no money is involved whatsoever.

    And considering that Ernest Heckles’s drawing are still not discarded in some modern books:
    http://s479.photobucket.com/user/antpogo/media/IMG_20110318_153748.jpg.html
    Your statement is incorrect.

    It’s rather breathtaking to claim these drawings are from Haeckel. Go look at them and at the figure legend.

    Also: Ernst, single syllable; Haeckel – “Heckle” would end the same way as “kitteh”.

    By saying “Evolution”, I include the claim that

    *sigh* One more idiot who believes he gets to make up his own definition of a technical term. Evolution = descent with heritable modification.

    Can you explain how we can falsify dinosaurs becoming hummingbirds?

    By finding a better explanation for the detailed fossil record of just that happening. :-|

    managing to join yeast proteins into DNA

    colorless green ideas sleep furiously

    We are light years away from bringing a dead cells back to life or creating a living cell from non-living matter.

    Not light years. Years.

    The first cells or the alleged “Proto-cells” and their formation is a foundational and an important part of evolution.

    Well, no. By definition, evolution requires inheritance, so it can only begin once there’s a self-replicator. Whether the first self-replicator was a cell is an entirely separate question.

    “Living cells are filled, of course, with complex structures whose detailed evolutionary origins are not known. ”

    This quote is from a site trying to debunk irreducible complexity. You notice how it is a given that they evolved without even knowing anything about their origin.

    Note the leap from “detailed […] origins not known” to “without even knowing anything about their origin”. I’m afraid Sadolite needs to learn to read for understanding.

    Life evolved from earlier life. Evolution does not relate to non-living matter coming to life.

    Depends on your definition of life.

  69. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    Ancestors of dinosaurs becoming hummingbirds is a fairytale or a historical hypothesis that lacks any evidence of it’s possibility.

    Can you explain how we can falsify dinosaurs becoming hummingbirds?

    Yes. We would use physics to date sedimentary rock layers. We would then investigate as many of those layers as we can, as widely in each as possible. We would look for the appearance of hummingbirds in a rock layer older than the evolution of theropods (circa 230mya). If we think we’ve found it, we would double check the structures of the fossil bones under discussion to make sure it is the remains of a hummingbird. Contemporaneously, we would double and triple check the date – in different labs, using different equipment run by different people.

    We could also closely examine the expected relationships between animals based on similarities in fossils. With a pattern of expected relationships in hand, we would run genome sequences of hummingbirds, crocodilians, mammals (especially including bats), insects (especially including winged insects), frogs. lizards, snakes, tuatara, turtles & tortoises, bony fish, and sharks. If evolution by natural selection operating on undirected variation is true, we would expect to find fewer sequence differences between snakes and lizards (who split off from each other 100mya according to rocks) than between birds and crocodiles (who split off from each other 250-265mya) and both would be expected to contain fewer sequence differences than would be found between bats and birds (split circa 300-350mya) or between bony fish and sharks (who split circa 400nya). Especially interesting to our analysis would be these last 2 comparisons where function and body plan have gross similarities, and bodies achieve similar results through similar means, but nonetheless should show independent genome evolution over a very long time. We would then ask if any of the genetic evidence contradicted the fossil evidence. If it did, we would ask if the two evidence bodies contradicted each other in small ways, where interpretations were arguable or data was thing, or in large ways, finding fundamentally different relationships that are better predicted by a designer reusing parts that achieved similar function than by descent with modification (sharks closer to bony fish than bats to people; birds closer to bats than snakes to lizards).

    We could also reexamine every hypothesized descent link in the bird family tree, excruciatingly verifying that the similarities in structure are, in fact, present in the fossils. We would use verified dates to test whether or not its impossible for certain relationships to exist.

    We would then either win a Nobel and ruthlessly mock more than a century of scientific incompetence, or we would concede that the theory of natural selection acting upon descent with modification does in fact well explain the data and is in fact confirmed by experiment.

    Go collect your million bucks, buddy. You already know the answer, all you have to do is the work.

  70. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    The statements you made here about evolution being a fact not up to debate sounds like ones from a religious nutcase.

    I’ve said the same thing about gravity a million times. People keep wanting to say that mass attracting other mass is a fact not up for debate.

    Religious nut jobs.

    My mind is open. My mind is open to anything. My mind is open 15cm by 20 cm. That’s how open it is. That’s how I know I’m superior: because I refuse to accept any evidence that would be difficult to argue against, since if it makes something difficult to argue against, it’s a violation of free speech promulgated by totalitarian religious nut jobs.

    And may I say…

    …hey, what’s that squishy gelatinous thing on the ground there, looking like like a roundish mass of wiggly intestines congealed into a gelatinous shape that could fit through an opening 15cm by 20cm?

  71. jonmilne says

    Dragonfang also responded to another post I made. I’ll include what I said when responding to a previous post of his:

    You consider indoctrination and dogma to be a conspiracy? Perhaps in some group psychology subconscious sense?
    In any case, nice strawman.

    This above quote fits into what I talked about in my OP quite nicely, where I pointed out that the anti-evolution side has a tendency to throw around accusations so lightly. Do you actually know what indoctrination and dogma are and what they imply? By definition, indoctrination is “teaching someone to accept doctrines uncritically” while dogma is “a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true”.

    In other words, you’re implying that some super-secret cult exists in the scientific community where scientists recruit other scientists sort of like in a Masons fashion and teach them evolution is true regardless of the evidence, and that it should be treated as inerrant and protected even if is a false theory.

    This is of course nonsense, for exactly the reasons I highlighted before. No matter how determined any sect of scientists would be to protect a false theory, a cover-up of that scale would be impossible as long as any single person or people existed with a determination to demonstrate evolution to be false.

    Glad I have torches stashed for those pesky strawmen.
    I am only stating the obvious; evolutionists commonly demonstrate indoctrination and dogma. In fact, the psychology of evolutionist is much more interesting than the theory itself. It is simply group psychology which is very powerful, there is no indication or implication of a conspiracy.

    * a static fossil record; Protected with ad-hocs: Living fossils, punctured equilibrium, stasis.
    * true chimeras; Protected with ad-hocs: Convergent evolution.
    * a mechanism that would prevent mutations from accumulating; Sure, once it is shown that “accumulated mutations” leads to the creation of organs.
    * observations of organisms being created. Similar historical events are unlikely to be reproducible for scientific tests. Their value as evidence works both ways. Observations of evolutionary abiogenesis will render creationary abiogenesis unlikely. I will consider this conceding that abiogenesis have to do with evolution.

    These are all just assertions without any evidence on your part about evolutionary theory. I want you to produce peer reviewed papers in reliable scientific journals that demonstrate evolution is wrong.

    What? Want evidence on the existence of ad-hocs such things as “Punctured Equilibrium” and “Convergent evolution”?
    This is simply more of the many techniques evolutionists use in order to tritely avoid question. Instead of answering my rebuttal, you went for a vague statement. Claiming that I do not understand evolutionary theory. Challenging me to produce peer reviews in scientific journals. Really, ANYTHING BUT answer the question.

    The funny thing is, The origin of species was never peer reviewed or published in a journal. Therefore, according to your implied logic, we should discard what it says since it is not reliable.

    I did not use the terms incorrectly. I simply stated the effects of indoctrination and dogma, which is trying to prove something regardless of whether it is possible or not.

    See above. No matter how determined anyone would be in science to have a super-secret cult of people who believe evolution is inerrant (which you’ve still provided no evidence for), a cover-up on that scale would be impossible.

    I am not sure what 80s action cartoon you are watching, but tone down the strawmen a bit K?

    Are you implying that evolution offers scientific explanation rather than imagination? If that is the case, then shouldn’t it offer scientific evidence for the possibility of their claims and provide rational physical steps for processes

    And it does. I would suggest that rather than regurgitating tired old creationist arguments, you actually get off your arse and actually look for the evidence: http://necsi.edu/projects/evolution/evidence/evidence_intro.html http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/lines_01 http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Common_descent

    Come on! Indoctrinated cliches are getting tired beyond definition. I ask a rational question, and you throw a list and ask me to look up and believe.
    Throwing lists at questions in an attempt to overwhelm with information to make the questioners give in and throw their hands up in frustration. Who thought indoctrinated tactics could be so fun.

    False.

    Kitzmiller v Dover did not happen because they wanted to teach creationism or ID in science classrooms (Which I do not support). It is because biology teachers refused to to announce that there is a book discussing an alternative viewpoint in the library. So the school made the announcement for them. Literally because some teachers refused to read a note encouraging students to explore an alternative view points.

    Because it amounted to messing up the regular curriculum with “Teach the Controversy” bollocks and promoting a so-called “scientific alternative” in ID despite the fact ID has never been found to be anything of the sort, not to mention it promoted using “Of Pandas and People” as a reference, which as you should know from studying the case, turned out to have been copied from other creationist literature just with all instances of “creator”, “creationism” and “creation science” were replaced with “intelligent agent” and “intelligent design”, leaving substantive content essentially unchanged. One copy of the book that surfaced during the case even contained the “missing link” between creationists and intelligent design proponents: the cdesign proponentsists.

    Again, no teaching was involved. All that tax money and time was simply wasted in order to retaliate that students knew that there is ONE ID book in the library.
    The “Missing link” is beyond absurd; ID existed before the bible since the time of Plato and Aristotle. Albert Einstein believed that the universe points to a higher intelligence, yet he rejected religion. Evidence of a conspiracy (Which amusing considering the strawmen you made) is weak to non-existent, trying to lump ID and Creationism in a conspiracy with such feeble evidence in an attempt to make them look foolish is simply childish; they are allied against evolution, but they are not the same. Just because the author changed the vocabulary in an early manuscript in order to avoid loaded language does not demonstrate that he is a biblical creationist, evolution is slow creationism if we remove the loaded language behind the word. Even if we assume that he is a biblical creationist that believes in a 4000 old earth for the sake of argument, if he interchanged creationism with intelligence, that does not mean the two viewpoints are connected.

    Is the ToE so weak and unsure of itself that it have to prevent students from knowing that there is a book about a different idea that does not agree with evolution?

    No, it’s that when in a science classroom, you teach actual science, which ID has never been demonstrated to be. Evolution has. *Cut for character limit* shouldn’t be taught as factual in classrooms as “different ideas” to what is actually established facts with evidence behind them, then you in turn concede that only factual content should be taught in classrooms and regardless of something being a “different idea”, if there is no evidence to support it then it should not be taught in classrooms, and that’s what was conclusively found about ID.

    Incidentally, I like how you didn’t pay attention to the clear dishonesties in each of the testimonies of the IDers in that trial, especially from Bonsell and Behe.

    Again, ID was not taught in the school district and I do not support it being taught in a science classroom (I believe in it philosophically).
    If evolution was demonstrated to be scientific, then you should be able to answer the questions asked in the previous posts.

    What the trial intended was attempt to prevent children from knowing that they can read about ID and evaluate it in their own free time, like this incredible waste of time and money would permanently block them from hearing anything about ID in the future. This is simply thought police at work trying to exterminate the freedom of thought. If the point of view is factual, then it should trump the competition.

    All that taxpayer money went to prevent an announcement about a book that talks about an alternative idea… If that is not indoctrination and dogma, I don’t know what it is.

    Clearly you’ve never heard of Lemon v Kurtzman and the “Lemon Test”. ID was found by K v D to be primarily religious and fostered unnecessary entanglement of church and state. The court further found that intelligent design is not science.

    The ‘Lemon’ test examines three points. *snip* ID failed the Lemon Test, thus it’s unconstitutional to be taught in the classroom next to something that is an actual established and demonstrable science.

    Irrelevant as I do not support it being taught in classrooms. ID is independent of material causes which is the specialty of science.

    Demonstrate that environment and animals killing other animals and mistakes in the genetic code produces an effect allowing complexity to increase in an organism from unicellularity to multicellularity. Demonstrate to me that environment and animals killing other animals and mistakes in the genetic code produces an effect allowing the invention of organs and biological systems.

    The reasoning of a single individual is worth more than the mere authority of scientists. If these events were never observed and can’t be repeated, then the scientific method does not apply.

  72. jonmilne says

    Dragonfang also said this:

    Lol @ the indoctrinated “WE”.
    I mean are you thinking as an individual? Do you consider yourself a person? identifying and placing yourself on a groupthink and hive mind where people all think and behave alike is such a dark hole of thought…

    Rebutted this tired nonsense above. Actually demonstrate this super-secret cult of brainwasher scientists covering up the truth or shut the fvck up

    Ahh… Evolutionauts being compulsively angry as usual. :)

    I fail to see how the link bombardment negates my points. Found a lot of the responses to be quite weak.

    This is just precious and shows your intellectual dishonesty. You provide no justification for the above quote, and it shows no matter what evidence I present, you’ll just dismiss it because of your preconceptions formed by devotion to your magical sky daddy for whom you’ve provided no evidence whatsoever. And you call me indoctrinated? This is just laughable, dude.

    I could never understand the fetish evolutionists has with proving that their opponent is intellectually dishonest. It’s not like this will undermine their argument or anything…
    Your link to the abiogenesis section on TalkOrigins, other than being annoying and childish, did not directly address my points. Therefore, I am not obligated to address these distraction so you can comfortably get away with addressing my points. On a side note: Yes, the answers were weak.
    And then there is an other trite religious card. I separate my philosophical beliefs with scientific issue, therefore they have nothing to do with the topic. “Sky fairies” “Magical sky daddy” “Bronze-age goat-herders”, yeah yeah heard those cliches before. As usual, more distractions from the questions you can’t answer.

    There have been shadow boxing against scientific ID alongside bait & switch regarding the definition of evolution. Therefore, there is no point addressing them.
    Lacking skepticism have the same meaning as not questioning. Believing that fish become racoons only to try to become fish again to end up being multi-ton whales without evidence is the definition of gullible.

    It would be considerably more profitable to actually try and find something that may disprove evolution, which is what scientists do anyway when they constantly do new experiments related to evolution that they try to falsify. Anyone who ends up succeeding at falsifying evolution and finding some new scientific theory for the diversity of life would, as I’ve said countless times, become a living legend in the scientific community and would be able to retire early with a big fat wad of cash and a Nobel Prize. The fact this hasn’t happened yet is extremely telling about how structurally sound the theory of evolution currently is within the scientific community.

    The ToE is as falsifiable as this statement:

    “The earth will blow up after 15 years due to an earthquake a couple of billion years ago. Unless you prove that this is wrong, we must devote all of our resources to find a way to live in space.”

    There is no point in trying to falsify non-occurring miraculous mutations.
    Something unfalsifiable is not science. So I really don’t see anything to be proud of.

    There’s not even any beneficial political reason you can point as to why proponents of evolutionary theory as well as abiogenesis would blindly adhere to them. There is NO political correctness in the scientific community. In America alone, their political landscape is still majority Christian and a lot of it is anti-science; witness the continued cuts and threats to science funding. Being a solid evolutionist is a detriment, not a benefit, in today’s political climate. Other countries have similar problems, although to varying extents.

    A pseudo-intellectual foundation for naturalism and being zealous in spreading belief are examples of political reasons.
    The reason does not have to be beneficial; group psychology and resistance to being changed is more than enough.

    But lets start over. You said that you (or The-Group) is more than able to explain abiogenesis. So please provide the steps of how it happened.

    Already showed you explanatory evidence in abundance. You rejected it a priori. So I’d like you to explain where your imaginary deity came from. I will not allow you to change the subject. Either you provide the evidence you expect for abiogenesis, or you shut the fvck up about your imaginary deity/creator.

    Fair is fair after all, considering you can’t even justify why we should favour your own specialist brand of “Christian” religion when there’s no more evidence for that than the Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Taoist, Sikh, Buddhist, Raelien, Scientologist etc etc versions of religion. The only reason you actually hold to your specific flavour of religion is geography, that is to say the area where you live, plain and simple. If you were born in the East, it’s very likely you’d be spewing at least one of the first six religious beliefs at us.

    Hell, since we’re dealing in conspiracy theories in this thread, I’ll hit back with one of my own. Like god exists, and there is evidence for it, but the god there is evidence for is a woman, who believes in feminism, communism, and males doing what they are told. The priesthood knows the evidence exists, but won”t show it because they will lose everything and be replaced by women. Frankly, as far as conspiracies go, even that one’s more plausible than the garbage you spew about scientists working in areas of science relevant to evolutionary theory.

    I laughed at the “Evidence in abundance”. I ask you to answer a specific thing and the only thing you do is dance around and create distractions like now.

    As for “Whence the deity cometh from”: Unless you are talking about something else, read a damn book >.> . The traditional concept of God includes him being eternal, therefore uncreated. From nothing nothing comes, therefore there must be something that exists on it’s own necessity. An intelligent creator is the most rational alternative, that is all.
    Also, how come we have not caught time, space, minds, and reality red-handed with a microscope!? That means those imaginations do not exist!

    Also, way to shift the burden of proof.

  73. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    JonMilne

    Really, ANYTHING BUT answer the question.

    Any thing but provide evidence, like liars and bullshitters who ask dishonest “gottcha” fuckwittery simply can’t do. Like the solid and conclusive evidence for your imaginary deity….Nada, nil, zip, zero, nothing. Just like the idea of deity.

  74. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    From nothing nothing comes,

    Prove this.

    I assume you’ve had several “nothings” under observation? I won’t ask you for how long you observed the nothings, since time would not exist in a nothing, since nothing has nothing, not even time.

    But I would like to see the data that you use and the mathematics deployed to extrapolate to the number of nothings that (don’t) exist at all non-points in non-time and non-space.

    Or were you just making shit up?

    What? Want evidence on the existence of ad-hocs such things as “Punctured Equilibrium” and “Convergent evolution”?

    Bwaahahahahaha!

    It could not be clearer that you are incompetent to engage in this debate. ***All science*** is ad hoc. That is both the point of science and the strength of science. Let’s look at some definitional information from wikipedia:

    Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning “for this”. It generally signifies a solution designed for a specific problem or task, non-generalizable, and not intended to be able to be adapted to other purposes… the term may refer, for example, to a military unit created under special circumstances, a tailor-made suit, a handcrafted network protocol, or a purpose-specific equation.

    and this is specifically to be contrasted with:

    A priori knowledge or justification is independent of experience.

    “Ad hoc” is a subset of “a posteriori” knowledge. It is “a posteriori knowledge formulated to assist in solving a problem”. It is not the entirety of all possible antonyms to “a priori” but is included as a portion of that global antonym. In other words, while you can come up with examples of knowledge antithetical to a priori knowledge that are not included in “ad hoc”, you cannot come up with examples of of knowledge that are **more** antithetical to a priori knowledge than “ad hoc”.

    So, science should design its solutions only “for this” specific circumstance on which we have previously gathered data, not generalizing it beyond where we have data…though of course it is permissible to guess that it might be generalizable to a new circumstance, but then we’d have to test it in that new circumstance or it wouldn’t be science (alternately, we could demonstrate somehow that the “new” circumstance does not, in fact, constitute a new circumstance).

    Science should not assume in advance how things work – in fact, this is the sin contained within your accusation.

    Science should look at the data and only then decide how things work – this is the data you used to prove that we have used to “prove” that scientists decided in advance what is true.

    If there is a more moronic debating tactic in the world than:

    “You decided in advance what’s true and then, when you got new data, you changed what was true to fit the data!”

    I have no idea what it might be. Perhaps you have some a priori knowledge on this topic?

  75. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    The traditional concept of God includes him being eternal, therefore uncreated.

    Not true. The traditional concept of God has had her being spawned from a void, or from chaos, or from her father’s head, or as an emergent property of mountains, lakes, rivers, trees, and oceans.

    If you mean the traditional Christian concept, well there you’re up against the mythology of the early Christians. Only John, who is very, very different from the other gospel writers, says, “in the beginning was the word, and the word was god”. The pseudonymous John also writes much later than Mark, Matthew and Luke. So, here you’re wrong again.

    If you mean the post-Aquinas concept of a Christian god, I’ll give it to you, but now you’ve narrowed the field considerably. Why should the fact that 1/8th of humans over the last 750 years belonged to groups that were nominally adherents to a creed espousing a particular concept of god, whether or not 1/8th actually conceived of god in that way, prove anything about this god or any other? Concepts of buddha have been consistently indicating that he was born on earth for even longer, and involved at least as great a segment of the population. Does that prove Buddhism?

    Moreover, animism has had far more adherents over time than Christianity. Does that prove that mountains have souls?

    You’re engaging in “I believe X, therefore you should be believe it’s true”.

    I believe you’re an idiot that embraces false ideas whose life would be better if spent with a healthy respect for a posteriori knowledge and even handed application of critiques of a priori knowledge.

    Follow your own logic, if you will.

  76. says

    Caine:
    (not sure if you keep up with the Lounge at all)
    My parents gave me a Nexus 7 for my birthday and the first thing I bought was A Brief history of Misogyny: The World’s Oldest Prejudice, thanks to your recommendation. I’m finding it a captivating, though saddening read.

  77. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    X-posted from Ed’s blog, where he has a post up asking about being an atheist Jew.

    If I haven’t written anything else of value lately, I do think this might have some, and TD is a good place for it to live.

    ================
    Why do I identify as Jewish despite having come to a firmly atheist understanding of myself?

    It’s simple: you fuckers murder us.

    No one in my family was murdered (or a murderer) in the holocaust, but as someone who didn’t grow up Jewish and found it in fits and starts, alternating with my questioning the whole religious enterprise, or just apathetically ignoring both atheism and Judaism, I could easily have chosen to say that there was nothing significant enough about Judaism to continue to identify me after I completed my evaluations of the evidence for god.

    But when I was first considering that maybe it was important for me to say that I was Jewish – not every time I’m introduced, but when such things come up making it clear that Jewish applies to me – my lack of firm belief in God held me back. And yet, it was clear that I participated in a shul where the ritual was comfortable and familiar, the congregation my friends, and the community very homely: I gave money, I sat on a committee or two, I went to visit the sick and the bereaved. Then I went to a conference and found that I was really going to miss having Shabbat with my honey. So there I was, pretty far along a path of evaluating the evidence for god and coming up empty, contacting other Jews and asking them if they wanted to daven some on shabbat.

    I realized how much I was getting out of the community, and enjoyed getting that much out of the community. And it’s not like I wasn’t giving back, it’s not like I was a moocher, but why would I just tell people, “I’m a jew”? There were plenty of reasons, and many of them good ones.

    But then a problem that had long been lurking in my experience bit me again: anti-semitism. The west coast of the US doesn’t see a lot of organized anti-semitism, but that’s in part because Jews aren’t as visible. It was clear that anti-semites were, in some sense, attacking me. But were they attacking me as a Jew? What would it mean if they were?

    Finally I concluded that I may or may not be a real Jew by any number of definitions, but in a world where my Judaism is arguable, where it might-or-might-not be, I have choices. If people are going to choose to engage in anti-semitism, with the history of Partner’s family (though I didn’t know her then), with a world history of ghettos and murders, of blood libels and immigration restrictions, of child abductions and pogroms, I realized that my complicated, nuanced thoughts about atheism, agnosticism, community, identity, religion, and, finally, Judaism all got in the way of just this statement:

    I stand with those who have been loving to me against those who spread hatred of them, fear of them, violence toward them.

    It comes with other moral implications, of course, and I must wrestle with those. As long as Israel is a Jewish state, i must pay particular attention to its acts regardless of whether or not I have visited, or have lived within, or have become a citizen of Israel.

    But in a world where my status as a Jew is arguable and confusing, I remember that the German government from 33-41 would not have been likely to be forgiving, I remember that people I love have lost people that they loved, and most of all, I remember that the destruction of an entire people starts with making people question whether or not they want to be associated with them.

    I stand for moral courage. I stand between danger and those less prepared than I to face it. I stand without a god to save me while I do.

    And yet I stand a Jew.

  78. Esteleth, statistically significant to p ≤ 0.001 says

    Crip Dyke,
    As (very Gentile) I understand you, whether or not someone is religiously Jewish (in any sense, from the Haredim to the bacon-eating-go-to-Temple-on-special-occasions-only and everything in between), whether or not someone is Jewish under Jewish law (matrilineal descent from a Jewish woman, or converted in an acceptable manner), whether or not someone is of one of the various Jewish ethnic groups, the identity of “Jewish” cannot be divorced from the cultural context of centuries of ghettos, pogroms, etc etc etc.

    I’m reminded that Benjamin Disraeli, baptized as a child and raised Christian, by all reports a doctrinally orthodox Anglican (for all that an Anglican can be “doctrinally orthodox”), referred to himself as a Jew, because other people saw him as one.

    I’m reminded that the children and grandchildren of Jewish people who married non-Jews and raised their children outside of Judaism were shipped to the camps by the Nazis alongside everyone else.

    Am I understanding you properly?

  79. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    thanks for the respectful engagement, Esteleth:

    the identity of “Jewish” cannot be divorced from the cultural context of centuries of ghettos, pogroms, etc etc etc.

    I don’t know about “cannot” in the sense that I could choose or not and my last name isn’t “Cohen” or “Levi”.

    but “cannot” in the sense:

    I’m reminded that the children and grandchildren of Jewish people who married non-Jews and raised their children outside of Judaism were shipped to the camps by the Nazis alongside everyone else.

    This is the sense in which it can’t really be divorced. Even if I wasn’t raised to fear this, what does it mean for someone you go to shul with (or did) to decline to identify as a Jew when we know that anti-semitism still occurs? I can see it as a principled stand about non-appropriation of Jewish experience when I don’t actually believe Adonai gave me 613 mitzvoth whose fulfillment is my greatest enterprise. I did see it that way. But, even though the Godwin thing is real and Hitler is invoked in all the wrong ways, there are huge numbers of families who have a oral history, occasionally even a living memory, of what was done, of how it was done.

    Pastor Niemoller’s famous statement is applicable here. I don’t make a lot of noise about being a Jew as in many times and places it doesn’t matter. Although I like lighting candles on Fridays, I clearly don’t prioritize it or I would do it more often. But if there’s even a possibility of an anti-semitic attack, no matter how small, I don’t want the people with whom I went to shul thinking I won’t stand by them. In fact, because of how I was raised, anti-semitic attacks *do* hurt me less than for many others. So I even risk less than they by putting myself in the line of fire.

    Jewish relationships with whiteness, with religious privilege, with class, with so many things are very complicated. Saying I am an atheist Jew doesn’t render any easy answers, and I might not want to take time to deal with all those questions, but in a context where anti-semitism still exists, I don’t want those unjustly targeted to feel like people from their own community are walking away.

    Although I felt all this before meeting Partner, learning the history of Partner’s non-Jewish Jewish family is such on one side b/c that side not only left judaism, but hid any details of Jewish past for fear of anti-semitism. In other words, Partner is non-Jewish b/c Hitler literally scared the Judaism out of her family. This is an effect on my own family life, a practical one, since Parner doesn’t know the hebrew alphabet even enough to know the 4 letters on a dreidel, or how you play the dreidel game. Hitler literally robbed me of a shared cultural experience 70 years after he died.

    I’m an atheist, but I choose not to let fear of any kind come between me and the other Jewish people in my life. If that creates awkwardness for me at times explaining my complicated relationship to Judaism and the Jewish people, or if that creates a moral obligation for me to be more involved in helping bring about a just peace in Israel, Gaza, and Palestine, I pay that price so that I can look myself in the mirror. I can’t bear the thought of my lack of courage contributing to another generation’s estrangement.

  80. says

    Argh. Still can’t post anything at other blogs.

    Someone is a racist if and only if they specifically focus on and believe in “race” as something that actually exists and that “race” is a key or good basis on how to treat others.

    If they don’t do this then however much you disagree with them, how bad you think their thinking might be -it ain’t racism.

    There’s so much fail in the above comment by StevoR. Not that that’s anything new, but especially when Mano is trying to discuss ‘reverse racism’, this isn’t the time for his denialism.

  81. says

    Tony:

    My parents gave me a Nexus 7 for my birthday and the first thing I bought was A Brief history of Misogyny: The World’s Oldest Prejudice, thanks to your recommendation. I’m finding it a captivating, though saddening read.

    Ooh, what a lovely gift! Yay, you. I’m glad you’re enjoying the book.

  82. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    I’ve missed you Caine.

    Glad you’re around.

  83. says

    CD, thank you. Sorry to be so scarce, I’m working my fingers off on the tree, trying to get the Crayola Quilt done. I’ll be scarce for a while yet.

    Chigau:

    SO is back from India!
    Not dead!

    *Phew* Glad to hear it! Mine is missing in action this week, learning about crane safety, in the cold, snow and ice. Makes all manner of sense, that. :eyeroll:

  84. David Marjanović says

    Dragonfang also said this:

    Seriously, bring Dragonfang here.

    The pseudonymous John also writes much later than Mark, Matthew and Luke.

    That’s not actually clear.

  85. says

    @David Marjanović
    I thought John being the later gospel was pretty much universally accepted. Can you give a bit more info on that?

    @jonmilne
    Regarding this point:

    And considering that Ernest Heckles’s drawing are still not discarded in some modern books:
    http://s479.photobucket.com/user/antpogo/media/IMG_20110318_153748.jpg.html
    Your statement is incorrect.

    I’d ask Dragonfang to describe exactly what’s wrong with that picture, because as far as I know, it’s completely accurate. These organisms do all have pharyngeal slits during their development.

    It sounds like he’s been listening to creationist nonsense for too long. They seem to have a knee-jerk reaction to anything that compares embryos of different species. Haeckel was wrong about the degree to which organisms recapitulate past development, but that doesn’t mean that there are no such embryonic similarities and that all pictures that compare embryos are frauds.

    Dare him to present an example of an actually fraudulent picture in a modern text book.

  86. David Marjanović says

    I thought John being the later gospel was pretty much universally accepted. Can you give a bit more info on that?

    I’ve recently read (thanks to Esteleth!) parts of the book discussed here.

  87. CJO says

    Luke is probably the last of the canonical gospels, its final form and its sequel Acts being (possibly) products of the Marcionite controversy of the mid-2nd c. The dating and order of the gospels simply isn’t known with anything near the certainty that some will pretend. The priority of Mark I view as all but certain. Beyond that, simple scenarios are likely to be wrong. In particular, notions of John’s independence from the Synoptics are not sustainable in my view. And I note a tendency on the part of NT scholars to date Matthew practically as early as it possibly could have been written (~10 years following Mark), and I see no particular evidence for it, it’s treated as a given that it’s the product of the 80s CE. It could well be the case that Mark dates to around then and Matthew Luke and John were all produced in the 2nd century.

  88. Owlmirror says

    @jonmilne
    Regarding this point:

    And considering that Ernest Heckles’s drawing are still not discarded in some modern books:
    http://s479.photobucket.com/user/antpogo/media/IMG_20110318_153748.jpg.html
    Your statement is incorrect.

    I’d ask Dragonfang to describe exactly what’s wrong with that picture, because as far as I know, it’s completely accurate. These organisms do all have pharyngeal slits during their development.

    The caption for the picture says only that “The common structure [pharyngeal slits] is evidence that all five evolved from a common ancestor”, not that the embryos are identical.

    And the image is not Haeckel’s, but: “Adapted from M. K. Richardson, 1997”. Which appears to be this paper:
    There is no highly conserved embryonic stage in the vertebrates: implications for current theories of evolution and development. Anat Embryol (1997) 196:91–106.

    It’s kind of ironic that he’s arguing against Haeckel. That is, he argues that embryos of different species exhibit quite a lot of variation (there’s a table towards the end that lists some of the extremes). Of course, he’s not arguing against evolution , nor that the differences imply any sort of problem for evolution — just that Haeckel went too far in saying that they were the same.

    From Richardson’s conclusion:

    These modifications of embryonic development are difficult to reconcile with the idea that most or all vertebrate clades pass through an embryonic stage that is highly resistant to evolutionary change. This idea is implicit in Haeckel’s drawings, which have been used to substantiate two quite distinct claims. First, that differences between species typically become more apparent at late stages. Second, that vertebrate embryos are virtually identical at earlier stages. This first claim is clearly true. Our survey, however, does not support the second claim, and instead reveals considerable variability – and evolutionary lability – of the tailbud stage, the purported phylotypic stage of vertebrates. We suggest that not all developmental mechanisms are highly constrained by conserved developmental mechanisms such as the zootype. Embryonic stages may be key targets for macroevolutionary change.

    (emph mine)

  89. says

    Over in this post: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/12/17/david-brooks-still-has-a-job/#comments , PZ put down some skewering satire of a column by David Brooks. At the beginning of it is the following:

    PZ:

    At first I thought maybe it was entirely autobiographical, and that he was describing his own career, in which case he really needed to be put on suicide watch

    I commented, @15 in the thread, saying that that was an unfunny joke and PZ should find a better one. PZ replied, @23:

    It was not a joke. Read the Brooks essay. If it was knowingly self-referential, as some claim, then Brooks is deeply lost in despair and self-loathing, and there are grounds for serious concern about him.

    In reply to that and some other comments on the thread, I said @27:

    Trivializing suicide is a very harmful thing to do.

    If you actually have serious concerns for someone’s safety, it is not the time to be writing skewering satire. And if you don’t, you shouldn’t be linking the one to the other.

    Several other people have also replied over there. But since this is not related to Brooks or his column, and to avoid a more massive derailment of that thread, I move my question here:

    Why is anyone saying that it is either (1) acceptable/funny to make jokes about someone “needing to be put on suicide watch” or (2) appropriate to remote-diagnose someone as “deeply lost in despair and self-loathing” or (3) the time to write skewering satire at someone’s expense if you have serious concerns about their safety?

  90. says

    (in reply to The Vicar, in the Brooks thread)

    To clarify, I have no interest in defending “michaelbusch”. For all I know, he might be an old troll you all are acquainted with… or maybe Ken Ham’s best friend, or Arpaio’s deputy undercover. *shrugs*

    I also don’t dispute any blogger’s right to post whatever they want. Nor the right of any person to call out another for what they wrote. This is all very trivial.

    My point is very modest, really: I don’t want fans’ overzealousness to trump the need to have consideration for the bystanders. Because you seem to be defending PZ’s right to write a joke he says he didn’t make… by making suicide jokes of your own. And, well, I don’t know, I have a few friends with mental health issues who are sensitive about this sort of thing*, and I’d like to be able to point them here to Pharyngula and show them a place where they can read intelligent commentary and where religious bigots and scammers are mocked, not a place where they are made to feel worse because somebody has the need to make a point about free speech.

    I realize I’m new here and don’t have the right to demand what the discussion should be like, but, if there’s a concern about being inclusive, I believe some simple measures like this can help to make the place more welcoming.

    Anyway, sorry for the long-windedness. tl;dr If we can agree in trying to reduce collateral damage, I’ll gladly pursue this no further.**

    *which is, of course, not the only way one can feel about that.

    ** actually, I’ll probably let it go anyway, because I don’t think I have the energy to go on with this.

  91. says

    I now realize I made an unwarranted assumption about michaelbusch’s gender in my previous comment.

    I’m very sorry about that.

    *hits head repeatedly against a wall*

  92. says

    dõki:

    I now realize I made an unwarranted assumption about michaelbusch’s gender in my previous comment.

    I had assumed that you’d clicked through my nym to my Facebook profile – I post under my real name, which happens to be a strongly male-coded one, so your assumption was entirely correct. So head-walling is not necessary.

  93. Antiochus Epiphanes says

    Why is anyone saying that it is either (1) acceptable/funny to make jokes about someone “needing to be put on suicide watch” or (2) appropriate to remote-diagnose someone as “deeply lost in despair and self-loathing” or (3) the time to write skewering satire at someone’s expense if you have serious concerns about their safety?

    Because the target of the joke was a person who is not widely respected around here. See? So it’s OK. Oh. And black humor. Why do you want to take away our precious black humor?

  94. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    How will Nerd pass the time of day now?

    The usual. Taking care of the Redhead and running errands; today post office, bank, drug store, and work (to return the laptop to its docking station and water the cactus).

  95. David Marjanović says

    My first thought when seeing this was that “?” represented a glottal stop. You know, ‘Arab

    Heh, that word begins with the other thing.

    …which is why it shows up in Tatar as Гарап Ğarap. Years ago I found the Tatar Wikipediä and spent entirely too much time just looking at it. :-)

  96. cm's changeable moniker (quaint, if not charming) says

    All good things come to an end

    *grin* Told you you wouldn’t get the last word. ;-)

    In unrelated news, from the Department of Why Was I Not Informed of This Before, Rob D – Clubbed to Death samples Elgar. (Seriously, I was working my way back from Nimrod and was like, whoa!)

    (FTR, Best Nimrod: Grimethorpe Colliery Band. Shiny. Literally.)

    Now, also, Smokebelch II turns out to be a cover. Although it doesn’t achieve classic status until the David Holmes fourteen minute remix.

    *ciao*

  97. jonmilne says

    Dragonfang hasn’t responded since when last I responded to him. However, later on in the forum, I got talking about “common sense” and how actually in history what “appears” to be common sense actually tends to get debunked quite a good bit by thorough scientific investigation, and so “common sense” cannot be used as an appeal to Creationism’s apparent truth value. A poster called Medic took exception to this and responded. I’d really appreciate some help on this one:

    You quite simply cannot appeal to “common sense” as a means of trying to prove your case.

    In many cases, common sense and logical, rational thinking is indeed adequate, this is one such example.

    We know that a protein exists in an organism, that protein wasn’t present in the organism that it allegedly evolved from. Ancestry doesn’t explain the existence of that protein, in an organism. Is that not a logical statement??

    -The earth being flat
    -The Sun actually engaging in “rising” and “setting”
    -The surface of the Earth not spinning at over 1000 miles per hour
    -Heavier objects falling faster to the ground than lighter objects
    -Particles not curving around corners like waves around a floating dock
    -The continents of the Earth not moving
    -Objects heavier-than-air being unable to have sustained flight unless they could flap wings.

    Each and every one of these common sense notions, however, have been readily and heavily debunked and upon closer detailed examination the stuff that would have been considered “un-obvious” at the time have actually turned out to be correct.

    Sure there are exceptions, but when you consider the track record of how often we use common sense, and how often that common sense pays off, you’ll find that common sense has a pretty darn good record.

    Exactly the same applies here. Creationism may well seem to be “common sense”, but upon closer examination it holds as much water as a sieve

    Care to elaborate?? On what basis do you think that it leaks like a sieve?? Why should biology operate on the assumption that observational science is invalid??

    This could get kind of long, but please read it and give some thought to what I say. At the very least it’ll help you understand how I think, as a person, and the under-pinnings of why I believe what I do, regarding science and religion.

    From a more philosophical perspective, why should we as rational beings, not accept what you even admit, “seems” to be common sense if that is our reality?? Dawkins made a similar comment, to paraphrase, he said something like…Biology is the study of complex organisms that appear to have been designed. Those comments beg numerous questions…

    If life “appears” to have been designed, then what’s wrong with accepting that which appears to be true, and deducing from that design, that there must also be a designer??

    Why throw out that which “seems to be common sense”, and “appears to be designed”, in favor of that appearance simply coming about by random chance, for no particular reason, defying the massive improbabilities against it??

    If we can’t even trust our reality enough to accept what we can observe in the natural world, then on what grounds do we trust science to be able to accurately answer questions about things that can’t be shown, such as animals turning into different kinds of animals?? IOW, if our universe and reality are so uncooperative and unpredictable that we can’t even trust our own senses to give us a rational, logical picture of the world that we live in, then why would we think that other humans, scientists, are able to use those same senses, in the same world, and come up with a rational, logical, truthful answer, that is trustworthy?? By what basis or authority do they have dependable senses, yet we don’t??

    If it appears to be designed, and what we observe seems to be common sense, then why fight against that reality?? Why not accept that reality??

    I think the obvious answer, to that last question, is that science can’t address the metaphysical or supernatural. Science is our only means of gaining knowledge about our universe, but it can only address that which is materialistic in nature, and tangible. If we accept what reality seems to be trying to tell us, that there is design in our universe and in life itself, then that demands the conclusion that there also be a designer. Science, as an entity, is not prepared to deal with such a conclusion.

    Regardless of a scientist’s personal beliefs, science properly done HAS to operate materialistically. It HAS to assume that there IS NOT, and CAN NOT be, a designer. The endeavor of science HAS to operate as if faith and religion, thus the designer, never existed. If it allows for the possibility of a designer, then scientists have absolutely no idea where the line is that divides that which can be known but is yet undiscovered, from that which can only be known by the Creator, thus is undiscoverable for us. A genuine pursuit of knowledge, all the knowledge that we can possibly attain, HAS to assume that there is a natural, materialistic answer for everything.

    I want science to make that assumption, because that pursuit is why we are as technologically advanced, as we are today. That pursuit of knowledge is what makes it possible for me to help patients even before reaching the doctor and hospital. That is what allowed me to be brought back, after going into cardiac arrest, not once but on two different occasions. Humanity, as a whole, benefits when science functions properly. Assuming that there is ALWAYS an answer that can be found, and is within our grasp, is a necessary and righteous part of a properly functioning system for attaining knowledge about our universe, and life.

    The need for that assumption of materialism though, creates a problem when dealing with the issue of origins of the universe, and life. Materialistic science can only address the material world, that which we can interact with, using our senses. It is, by definition, self-limiting, but it can’t operate as though it has any limits, at all.

    In existing as our only means of attaining knowledge, science has a solemn duty to humanity to provide answers to major questions. Who we are, where we came from, and how we got here, are some of the most fundamental questions that science is tasked with answering, but science is limited. This goes back to my statement that science is unprepared for concluding that there is a Creator, or a higher power. It simply can’t function as it should, or as we should want it to, unless it assumes that we are in charge, and that the knowledge is there for our taking, therein lies the problem. Science is necessarily materialistic, but our origins are not nor can they logically be, materialistic. That puts origins outside the scope of materialistic science, but science, by necessity, can’t operate as though it has a scope.

    It’s up to us, as rational individuals, to realize that materialistic science has limits that it can’t impose on itself. Yes, scientISTS can believe in God, but science as an entity, cannot, nor should we want it to. It can only provide a strictly materialistic explanation, even if its best explanation is full of absurdities that defy common sense. It’s up to us to use our own minds and our own senses, of which common sense is one, to realize that though evolution might not be the best explanation, it’s the best “materialistic” explanation that science can come up with. That materialistic explanation is all we can expect from science.

    I do get frustrated with the dogmatic teaching of materialism by ideologues, and sometimes appear overly critical of the scientific community, in general, and I can’t speak for all creationists, just myself, but I don’t believe there is some vast conspiracy among scientists (atheists perhaps, but not scientists). Deep down I know that science, for the most part, is doing what it is suppose to do, and what we should want it to continue doing, just with a little less dogmatic adherence to a current paradigm. I owe science, the men and women who dedicate their lives to mankind’s pursuit of knowledge, a debt of gratitude. Their work, and God’s grace, is why I’m alive today, and for that I am deeply appreciative. Which is why, in a moment of unbridled honesty, I have to admit that even though I find the cre-evo debate such a fascinating issue, it does cause internal conflict for me. I want for science, as a whole, to be on the right side of this issue, but deep down I know that it can’t be. I don’t want to have to be so critical of science, but on this issue it is wrong, and no amount of appreciation for the work they do, on other issues, makes them any more right on this one.

    For me, the fact that the brightest minds on the planet have to resort to such absurdities and still requires a faith-based belief, is proof that science is clearly outside its scope of practice, with the origins issue. No matter how bright these people are, there is no such thing as an expert on origins, and their best materialistic explanation, UCA, isn’t science, but it’s the best that science can come up with.

    It seems perfectly logical to me, to look at the world and accept it for what it shows us, rather than adding in parsimonious explanations, which we can never determine the truth of. Rather than yield his or her decision making power to a false authority, individuals need to use their own God-given common sense to interpret what the world around them is saying.

  98. says

    @ jonmilne

    I support what David M. said earlier about bringing the people here for the discussion rather than our dealing with them through degrees of seperation.

    However, regarding this materialism thing, I am worried that he underestimates the ambit of science. Gods certainly fall under its scope. He seems to be trying a sophistimicated version of the “non-overlapping magisteria” gambit. Essentially he is talking out of his arse, for pretending that science does not go beyond the (so called) “materialism” of which he speaks. What he seems to be ignoring is the whole field of Psychology, which more than adequately fills in the gaps that he so desperately feels “science” has neglected.

    It is perhaps to much to drop onto his tender psych at this stage, that it is in fact materialism all the way down. On the other hand, there is nothing to stop you reading up on Kahneman and Boyle (discussed upthread, see also Pharyguwiki) to improve your own understanding of how the mind works, and why it is so easily seduced by fairytales.

  99. throwaway, never proofreads, every post a gamble says

    Nerd of Redhead from INFECTING thread:

    Oh, you would have us boycott for an internal and domestic law? That isn’t good foreign policy, and Carter was about Russia invading Afghanistan, which was a foreign policy decision by Russia. You don’t have any perspective. Like I said, there sometimes isn’t a good handle to make such decisions on.

    People forget POTUS needs to either build a coalition internally and externally to get actions to occur, to have backing in law. Try to get a boycott past the rethuglican congress. That is what I mean by being able to realistically act. Evidently you have no concept of practical politics.

    Well, that was demeaning. Thanks, Nerd.

  100. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Well, that was demeaning. Thanks, Nerd.

    Demeaning in what way? Denying your ability as a person or a group to protest against the homophobic Russian laws?
    Or saying the the official US political response is limited in what it can do in protest against those laws, and that those limitations need to be taken into account when making criticism of official policies?

  101. David Wilford says

    cm @ 636:

    *grin* Told you you wouldn’t get the last word. ;-)

    Forget about it Jake, it’s Chinatown, er, the internet.

  102. throwaway, never proofreads, every post a gamble says

    Don’t play coy, Nerd. I bolded the problematic part of the exchange. I don’t have any perspective? I have no concept of practical policies? Those statements were hostile, unnecessary, and didn’t add anything to your point, only your impression of me. Almost like you were attempting to intellectually bully.

  103. dysomniak, darwinian socialist says

    Don’t stress about it throwaway, it’s all just Nerd’s OPINION anyway. And we all know what St. Hitchens said about that.

  104. says

    David Marjanović:

    Thanks for correcting my ignorance. I think I’ve encountered the voiced pharyngulareal fricative from hell before, probably when I was trying to figure if I could have some aspirated glottal stops, please, but evidently I failed to learn my lesson.

    Also, pretty impressive your incursions into Tatar territory.

  105. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Gee, some find my opinion distasteful to to them. Look in the mirror folks, especially dysomniak. Your statement about food stamps was intellectual bullying, as when I lived in Dah YooPee, food stamps wouldn’t help in buying decent vegetables. All we had was the dried over produce rejected from “down below”, like where I live now. Not everybody has access to decent produce at all times.

  106. dysomniak, darwinian socialist says

    Hey everyone, raise your hand if you can recall a comment by Nerd that contained actual substance!

  107. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Hey everyone, raise your hand if you can recall a comment by Nerd that contained actual substance!

    And raise yours if you actually have an argument yourself. I did with substance show your attitudinal point was wrong. Care to show me wrong, and that the YooPee has better fresh produce year around than the Chicago area?

  108. dysomniak, darwinian socialist says

    That’s just your OPINION, which can be dismissed as per St. Hitchens.

  109. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    That’s just your OPINION, which can be dismissed as per St. Hitchens.

    *snicker*, no evidence, just attitude. Why should I believe a word you say if you won’t back up your attitude with evidence. Come one, show me that somebody living in a food desert without transportation has an easy time buying fresh produce. You are challenged to present real evidence, or acknowledge your attitude needs an adjustment.

  110. throwaway, never proofreads, every post a gamble says

    Welp. I’m sorry that my complaint is being used as a springboard to mount the pommel horse of past grievances. Though it is Festivus, after all, maybe that’s appropriate?

  111. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    DW, if you have a point, why not just say “this is what I believe, and this (link) is the evidence to back it up”. Trying to say “chew over this” is a sign of intellectual cowardice on your part.

  112. says

    Those rats are squeeetastic! =D

    * * *

    On another note, I feel like I’ll have to read the Unapologetic thread to understand what’s going on. sigh… And I was hoping I could avoid going through all those hundreds of comments…

  113. says

    Thanks, LykeX and Doki. :D

    On another note, I feel like I’ll have to read the Unapologetic thread to understand what’s going on.

    Eh, you don’t really. David Wilford is all in favour of the wonders of religious belief and annoyingly incorrect in accommodationist assumptions, and everyone else attempted to argue actual facts and sense. As for the rest, it’s just people driving by to be sniping asses. Just wish ’em a merry mishmush and leave them be. Not worth hassling.

  114. says

    :sigh: The flip side thread is making me uncomfortable. So much othering going on, with the rider that “yeah, they don’t do as much harm, yada, yada, yada”, while never realizing at least part of that is because it’s still automatic in most cultures to dismiss anything a woman says. Eh, I had more, but I think I’ll close out and get a little work done. Merry mishmush, everyone.

  115. Nick Gotts says

    It seems y’all are in need of something of substance to chew the fat over, so here it is – David Wilford@661

    Why are you such a condescending arsepimple, Wilford?