I only watched the first ten minutes — it was just too terrible. The very first creationist point turns out to be nonsense from Jeffrey Tomkins, and just answering that left me exhausted and nauseated.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
I’m sure I have seen tnhat exact same argument thrown ar Aaron-Ra recently.
Creationists churn out these diatribes and then you get a wave of misinformatiin smuggly being promoted all over the interwebs.
Its infuriating.
Thanks for your clear rebuttal.
I hold these “scientists for jesus” in complete contempt. How could you get a degree in genetics and then use that knowledge corruptly in the service of creationism?
Also fed up with the constant refrain from some of the youtubers (Paulogia, Viced Rhino) who tackle creationism that “religion and science aren’t exclusive, some scientists are religious”. The argument appears to be that you don’t have to believe in creationism to be a christian. Then they reference people like Ken Miller, Francis Crick. I call bullshit. If you understand that evolution explains the diversity of life in Earth, including human life, there is no “gap” to squeeze in a belief in some imaginary being.
nomdeplume @2:
Nonsense. There will always be gaps. A believer could accept that evolution explains diversity, and still claim that god pops in now and then to tweak things. It’s highly doubtful they could ever prove such a thing, and we are fully justified in dismissing such claims as being groundless. But that does not disprove the claim, and it’s neither incumbent on us, nor within the remit of science (unless a testable mechanism is presented), to do so.
nomdeplume@2 Religious scientists definitely exist. For that matter, not all religious people are Christian or even practice an Abrahamic faith. How many biologists are there in India? Are you telling me that none of them are practicing Hindus who have found a way to reconcile science and faith?
That doesn’t mean that I agree with anyone’s religious beliefs, just that I don’t really care as long as they don’t try to pass off their faith as science, which creationists inevitably do. As Rob Grigjanis says above, there are a lot of in-between positions, and some have been commonly held, like evolution up to humans, but with some final intervention to produce reason or consciousness. (Though I think that denying the existence of animal consciousness borders on the psychopathic when evidence of self-awareness and emotion is palpable).
I think that the more we learn, the less it will make sense to invoke a divine power to explain any part, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t find plenty of scientists who do. Most probably grew up in a religion and have held on for all the usual reasons people hold onto their culture.
Someone mentioned in a previous thread that planet-sized skulls are a common feature of creationist videos. Given a sample size of 2 since the issue was brought to my attention, I guess it’s really true? (Wait no, that was the same video, so I guess it’s still a sample size of 1. Really straining the limits of scientific induction here.)
“that incredibly bad wig” Lol, the first thing out of my mouth when that picture popped up was, “…that wig!” O.O
Good video. I learned a lot. Thanks!
If your god has to hide in the gaps, he’ll only get tinier.
what I am most familiar with is christian christian creationism in many of its guises which is I am told very similar with Islamic fundamentalism, I have no specific knowledge of Jewish creationism or what it’s variations may be.
The problem is its irrationality and denial of the scientific evidence and the authoritarian structure from which the religion comes. They have no arguments so far and they have been at it for a pretty long by now and it looks like they will never have any since they just keep rephrasing the same old ones again and again. The only one they really have is faith there is no other. Since their belief does not have any connection to demonstrable reality I consider it as interesting mythology telling something about the people who believe it but little about the reality the cosmos nor life on earth
uncle frogy
As Rob notes, there will always be gaps.
If and when physical ones run out, there will still be ontological gaps.
@9 @3 Well, there are no meaningful gaps in the evolutionary record now, just matters of detail. And whatever “gaps” there are now, whatever “gaps” there have been for, say, the last 50 years, are not gaps any thinking person could fit a “god” into, or give a coherent explanation of what a “god” might do in such “gaps”.
nomdeplume, just one name: Francis Collins. Proponent of theistic evolution.
(Either he’s not a “thinking person” or he’s a counter-example to your claim)
@10: Thanks for sharing your opinion on what disqualifies someone from being considered a “thinking person”.
unclefrogy @8: My limited understanding of Jewish Creationists is that they differ primarily from Christian Creationists in dress sense (most of them are Orthodox Jews) and the fact that they don’t make references to Jesus or Christian interpretations of things like the age of the Earth.
@12 Any time Rob, any time. Notice that it was a fairly precise definition!
@11 I may have said Crick meaning Collins…By the definition I gave he would not be a thinking person…
Nice clear debunk. With regard to the fusion of 2 chimp chromosomes becoming chromosome 2 sometime in the past. Could this have occured as a result of a Robertsonian translocation? There are perfectly normal folk going around with 45 chromosomes and a Robertsonian translocation. If this were the mechanism then you would not have had telomeric fusion and therefore no telomeric sequences in the middle of the new chromosome.
@15 fergl
It was a head to head fusion. In the middle of human chromosome 2 are remnant telomere sequences left over from the fusion event.
I once had a long drawn discussion with someone over whether Neanderthals also had the fusion and would we ever know. They said no.
Then they sequenced the Neanderthal genome and in the middle of their chromosome 2 was…the telomere sequences again.
Thanks Raven. That’s cleared that up. The karyotypes of the apes, against what the authors intended, show a nice evolution. The chimpanzees banding pattern is more similar to humans than gorilla etc. They could have saved a lot of effort by just looking at that one image.
@3 RobG: “Nonsense. There will always be gaps.”
What’s more, it’s always possible to superimpose something supernatural on a (by definition) naturalistic scientific theory. What this means of interpreting the Bible is not my concern.
@14 Nom de plume: yes, “Everyone who doesn’t agree with me on this issue is not a thinking person” is a very precise definition indeed. It’s also utterly stupid.
Some years ago I had one creationist tell me that if things were not exactly the same then they were completely different. So a 96% similarity between chimpanzee and human genomes meant they were completely different, that there was actually no similarity between them at all. [headdesk]
@19 I said “whatever “gaps” there have been for, say, the last 50 years, are not gaps any thinking person could fit a “god” into, or give a coherent explanation of what a “god” might do in such “gaps”.” Since you disagree, perhaps you could give your explanation of what god is doing in the “gaps” while evolution is proceeding happily on each side of the gap by mechanisms which are well understood. While you are at it, tell me what the evidence is that any extra-evolutionary, supernatural mechanism has affected any evolutionary lineage.