My friends and I always meet at a local pizza place on the second Tuesday of each month. The venue is a monthly get-together run by local pastors inviting people for free pizza and honest discussions about some tough questions for Christianity. While their advertisements state that skeptics are welcome and encouraged, their responses often show us that we are more tolerated than welcome. I have written on this previously. Steve and I always manage to stump them...but we can usually predict the content based on past meetings (they repeat the topics form year to year and this is now our second year attending). We have gotten to know the two moderators, Rob and Corey and actually we quite like them despite our differences. However, the topic the other day was, "Don't Science and the Bible Conflict?". We were sure the answer was going to be NOMA friendly-as long as science doesn't tread into theological "territory" each can prosper. The problem is that this time they brought in a guest speaker to field the questions.....my questions. The guest speaker, a blond haired woman with trendy glasses and a nice suit came up to the mic after the talk-which was NOMA friendly as we expect-and started out rather reasonable. Rob told us that she had a law degree and a Ph.D. in molecular immunopharmacology. Impressive. The first question from the audience was, "Well, we know that the earth was created in 6 days, so how are we supposed to feel about evolution vs. creation?". *Eyes roll back into head* Rob said that he was fine with evolution, but felt that this might have been a way the creator set everything into motion. I was expecting this molecular immunopharmacologist to agree and tell the man that evolution is a fact and that we shouldn't read Genesis literally. Instead, she said this: "There is no evidence for evolution, and creation is much more plausible". My jaw dropped, but my interest peaked. Then she went through a rapid laundry list of the most outdated and purile creationist trope imaginable from "Nebraska man" to "Like only produces like" to "if you have a protein of 200 amino acids, the odds of it forming and functioning at 20^200" to "there are no transitional fossils" and finally, "mutations ONLY produce bad things, there are no examples of beneficial mutations".
As D'Souza says in his debates, "I feel like a mosquito in a nudist colony...where to begin?". I took on the protein calculation first. I told her that this was GIGO math (garbage in, garbage out). The assumption is that the protein must come together all at once-completely at random. This misunderstands Darwinian processes. Second, and just as important, anyone who does bioinformatic analysis of nucleic acid or amino acid sequences knows that the same protein will look different even between closely related individuals. You see, amino acids cluster together based on their chemical characteristics. Some amino acids are hydrophobic, some basic, some acidic. I told her that a protein only has to fold correctly so that it's active site is in the correct geometry. Substitutions for charged amino acids, such as glutamate (E) for aspartate (D) generally have no functional consequences. I told her that this is an area of expertise for me, because I also have a Ph.D., mine being in molecular microbiology. She then became defensive and instead of argue with me, tried to drown me out and used several ad homs. She started shreaking at me, "Name one beneficial mutation, NAME ONE, NAME ONE (at this point, I'm trying to answer her), NAME ONE, NAME ONE (still trying to answer her), NAME ONE!!! I finally said, "Could you please stop interupting me, I'm trying to answer your question. I pointed to mutations in Cis acting elements (gene regulatory regions) that can alter body plans....such as those discovered in the gene bmp-2 which lead to longer digits in mice (and suggested to have been important in both forming bat wings and optimizing length). As I left I thought, "antibiotic resistance". Goddamnit, why didn't I say that??? I chose a much harder example to explain. Next, I informed the audience that transitions do in fact exist for many lineages. I pointed to Basilosaurus-a transition from four limbed tetrapods to modern whales. One of several whale transitions known. We can see the blowhole migrating with time from the snout towards its current position, and at the same time the legs becoming modified until the hind limbs are gone, changes to the skull allowing for hearing underwater, etc. Finally, I asked the audience what sense it makes for some modern whales to have a pelvis??? The "Ph.D" lady blew this all off, telling them it wasn't true.
Finally, she claimed that because of the second law of thermodynamics, evolution can't be true because we couldn't increase order. I interupted her and said, "The earth is an open system". She mocked me saying, "Open system, closed system, who cares????" I shit you not, that is what this bimbo with a title said. I said, "Why do you think we are eating pizza right now??? Carbohydrates, protein and fat are used to increase order and thus decrease our entropy at the expense of the entropy of the environment". I went on, "You don't even understand the second law of thermodynamics!!!" She told the audience this wasn't true. Finally, she refuted Rob's whole premise that science and the Bible don't conflict by stating that evolution couldn't be true because this would mean that "death came before sin". I looked around the room wondering if anyone else even realized this. Rob just stared at her. Rob and Corey have always come across as rather liberal preachers who don't take OT events very literally, and she just came in and might as well have taken a dump on Rob's foot. Finally, she spent about 45 seconds berating "any Ph.D's in the room" that use jargon and can't make concepts in science simply enough for children to understand. She said I was making the people do "mental gymnastics" and because of this, what I was saying MUST NOT BE TRUE!!!! Can any of you stomach this brand of non sequitur???? I couldn't, so I interupted her little diatribe against me and said, "You were the one who introduced entropy without explaining it". She paused and glared at me. Then went on to say that my degree wasn't worth anything. A bunch of Christians came up afterwards and said they couldn't believe how rude and dismissive she was and thanked me for being calm and sticking to the argument. It was fun....but that bitch is still a FUCKTARD!!!!! Can't stick to the argument forever!
Showing posts with label creationism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label creationism. Show all posts
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Monday, December 1, 2008
Science - It Works, Bitches!
There is perhaps no greater attack upon science and rational thought than the doctrine of a recent creation. Young earth creationists deny much of astronomy, geology, biology, paleontology, chemistry, linguistics, geomorphology and physics in favor of pseudoscience and their biblically based view that the world is more or less only 6,000 years old.
There is a vast body of evidence, all indicating that the earth is very, very old.
Among these are-
Amino acid racemization - which is a technique that is used to date fossilized objects up to several millions of years in age.
Coral - whose formations take a long time to grow
Continental Drift - Tectonic drift is an incredibly slow process, the separation of landmasses would have taken millions of years. This is verified by satellite measurement.
Cosmogenic nuclide dating - The influx of cosmic rays onto the earth continually produces a stream of cosmogenic nuclides in the atmosphere that will fall to the ground.
Dendochronology - which is a method of scientific dating based on annual tree growth patterns called tree rings.
Distant starlight - Because the speed of light is finite, when you look at an object, what you are actually seeing is how the object was in the past. If the universe is only 6,000 years old how can objects billions of light years away — and therefore billions of years old — be seen?
Erosion - Many places on earth show evidence of erosion taking place over very long time periods, not drastic, as would have been caused by a worldwide flood.
Fission track dating - which is a radiometric dating technique that can be used to determine the age of uranium containing crystalline minerals.
Geomagnetic reversal - which is a change in the polarity of the earth's magnetic field. Around 171 reversals are geologically documented, which would make the earth at least several millions of years old.
Helioseismology - The composition of the sun changes as it ages.
Human Y-chromosomal ancestry - Analysis has shown that man lived around 60,000 years ago.
Ice Layering - Currently the greatest number of layers found in a single ice sheet is over 700,000, which clearly contradicts the idea of an earth less than 10,000 years old.
Impact craters - Asteroid impacts as big those that have been discovered would have led to the extinction of all medium to large size species (an event that is seen in the fossil record).
Length of the prehistoric day - as measured by evidence in coral.
Lunar retreat - which can't corelate with a 6,000 year old earth
Naica megacrystals - Based on classical crystal growth theory these crystals are older than one million years.
Oxidizable Carbon Ratio dating - is a method for determining the absolute age of charcoal samples with relative accuracy. One can determine ages of over 20,000 years ago with a standard error under 3%.
Permafrost - The formation of permafrost (frozen ground) is a slow process.
Petrified wood - The process in which wood is preserved by permineralization, commonly known as petrification, takes extensive amounts of time.
Radiometric decay - is the constant predictable decay of unstable atoms into more stable isotopes or elements. Measurements of atomic decay are generally considered to be one of the most accurate ways of measuring the age of an object, and these measurements form the basis for the scientifically accepted age of the earth. There are many different variations of the radiometric dating technique such as radiocarbon, argon-argon, iodine-xenon, lanthanum-barium, lead-lead, lutetium-hafnium, neon-neon, potassium-argon, rhenium-osmium, rubidium-strontium, samarium-neodymium, uranium-lead, uranium-lead-helium, uranium-thorium, and uranium-uranium, of which every single one will date objects far older than 10,000 years.
Relativistic jetsare jets of plasma that gets ejected from some quasars and galaxy centers that have powerful magnetic fields.
Rock Varnish - is a coating that will form on exposed surface rocks. The varnish is formed as airborn dust acumulates on rock surfaces. This process is extremely slow.
Space weathering - is an effect that is observed on most asteroids. This dating technique exceed millions of years.
Sedimentary varves - are laminated layers of sedimentary rock that are most commonly laid down in glacial lakes. The Green River formation in easter Utah is home to an estimated twenty million years worth of sedimentary layers.
Stalactites - These formations take extremely lengthy periods to form; the average growth rate is not much more than 0.1 mm per year.
Thermoluninescence dating - is a method for determining the age of objects containing crystalline minerals such as ceramics or lava.
Weathering rinds - are layers of weathered material that develop on glacial rocks. Certain weathering rinds on basalt and andesite rocks in the eastern United States appear to have taken over 300,000 years to form.
The evidence for an old Earth is overwhelming. The data is supported by every field of science. More data and studies expand on this body of knowledge and confirm it almost daily. Unrefuted Creationist evidence simply doesn't exist.
Creationists just spew the same old completely refuted nonsense such as "uniformitarianism is just an assumption", "God made the earth with an appearance of age", "radiometric dating has been shown to have errors", "Mount Saint Helen shows _______ (insert whatever disproven junk you want here)", "remains of Noha's ark have been found.", "vertical fossils of trees were found", or crackpottery such as "polonium halos" and "Fine tuning".
Will this list of evidence for an old Earth convince Creationists?
Sadly, no. Or at least, infrequently. On one blog where I presented this information, the Creationist response was-
I just finished reading and I must say I am very upset by what I have read. You seem to be attacking Leif and I can't begin to tell you how angry that makes me!! Why are you attacking him? Did he attack you? There's also such a thing called faith. Blind faith. That's what makes Christianity so differnt. It seems to me that all the evolutionist can do is insult rather than give solid proof. If that's what they want from us then why can't they give it? Where's all their answers to our questions?
and
Hey look evo-dude,
You "seem" to have a huge number of "proofs" that evolution is true and that creationists are naive. But each one you've mentioned is really a bogus claim.
Who are you?
Be brave enough about your "beliefs" to stand up for them ... more than just hiding behind a keyboard.
I'll come to wherever you are. I'll present the truth to whoever you can get together. We'll do this thing and get it over with. There is no hope of any evolutionist pointing out "overwhelming evidence" because there is none.
And I'm not just a Sunday School teacher. I'm a Science Teacher and Professor of 30 years.
This last one was from a Young Earth wacko who claims that he was a biology teacher!
His website is www.PointsofOrigins.com if you want to laugh.
I responded to this crank that "even when I was a child, I never reponded to puerile, infantile "challenges", "dare ya" or "double-dare ya", so I certainly won't respond to your playground foolishness now. You claim to be a scientist and an educator, so act like one."
But I do like the idea of including good scientific info at SMRT, so I will try to post more in this category. Some people want to learn.
There is a vast body of evidence, all indicating that the earth is very, very old.
Among these are-
Amino acid racemization - which is a technique that is used to date fossilized objects up to several millions of years in age.
Coral - whose formations take a long time to grow
Continental Drift - Tectonic drift is an incredibly slow process, the separation of landmasses would have taken millions of years. This is verified by satellite measurement.
Cosmogenic nuclide dating - The influx of cosmic rays onto the earth continually produces a stream of cosmogenic nuclides in the atmosphere that will fall to the ground.
Dendochronology - which is a method of scientific dating based on annual tree growth patterns called tree rings.
Distant starlight - Because the speed of light is finite, when you look at an object, what you are actually seeing is how the object was in the past. If the universe is only 6,000 years old how can objects billions of light years away — and therefore billions of years old — be seen?
Erosion - Many places on earth show evidence of erosion taking place over very long time periods, not drastic, as would have been caused by a worldwide flood.
Fission track dating - which is a radiometric dating technique that can be used to determine the age of uranium containing crystalline minerals.
Geomagnetic reversal - which is a change in the polarity of the earth's magnetic field. Around 171 reversals are geologically documented, which would make the earth at least several millions of years old.
Helioseismology - The composition of the sun changes as it ages.
Human Y-chromosomal ancestry - Analysis has shown that man lived around 60,000 years ago.
Ice Layering - Currently the greatest number of layers found in a single ice sheet is over 700,000, which clearly contradicts the idea of an earth less than 10,000 years old.
Impact craters - Asteroid impacts as big those that have been discovered would have led to the extinction of all medium to large size species (an event that is seen in the fossil record).
Length of the prehistoric day - as measured by evidence in coral.
Lunar retreat - which can't corelate with a 6,000 year old earth
Naica megacrystals - Based on classical crystal growth theory these crystals are older than one million years.
Oxidizable Carbon Ratio dating - is a method for determining the absolute age of charcoal samples with relative accuracy. One can determine ages of over 20,000 years ago with a standard error under 3%.
Permafrost - The formation of permafrost (frozen ground) is a slow process.
Petrified wood - The process in which wood is preserved by permineralization, commonly known as petrification, takes extensive amounts of time.
Radiometric decay - is the constant predictable decay of unstable atoms into more stable isotopes or elements. Measurements of atomic decay are generally considered to be one of the most accurate ways of measuring the age of an object, and these measurements form the basis for the scientifically accepted age of the earth. There are many different variations of the radiometric dating technique such as radiocarbon, argon-argon, iodine-xenon, lanthanum-barium, lead-lead, lutetium-hafnium, neon-neon, potassium-argon, rhenium-osmium, rubidium-strontium, samarium-neodymium, uranium-lead, uranium-lead-helium, uranium-thorium, and uranium-uranium, of which every single one will date objects far older than 10,000 years.
Relativistic jetsare jets of plasma that gets ejected from some quasars and galaxy centers that have powerful magnetic fields.
Rock Varnish - is a coating that will form on exposed surface rocks. The varnish is formed as airborn dust acumulates on rock surfaces. This process is extremely slow.
Space weathering - is an effect that is observed on most asteroids. This dating technique exceed millions of years.
Sedimentary varves - are laminated layers of sedimentary rock that are most commonly laid down in glacial lakes. The Green River formation in easter Utah is home to an estimated twenty million years worth of sedimentary layers.
Stalactites - These formations take extremely lengthy periods to form; the average growth rate is not much more than 0.1 mm per year.
Thermoluninescence dating - is a method for determining the age of objects containing crystalline minerals such as ceramics or lava.
Weathering rinds - are layers of weathered material that develop on glacial rocks. Certain weathering rinds on basalt and andesite rocks in the eastern United States appear to have taken over 300,000 years to form.
The evidence for an old Earth is overwhelming. The data is supported by every field of science. More data and studies expand on this body of knowledge and confirm it almost daily. Unrefuted Creationist evidence simply doesn't exist.
Creationists just spew the same old completely refuted nonsense such as "uniformitarianism is just an assumption", "God made the earth with an appearance of age", "radiometric dating has been shown to have errors", "Mount Saint Helen shows _______ (insert whatever disproven junk you want here)", "remains of Noha's ark have been found.", "vertical fossils of trees were found", or crackpottery such as "polonium halos" and "Fine tuning".
Will this list of evidence for an old Earth convince Creationists?
Sadly, no. Or at least, infrequently. On one blog where I presented this information, the Creationist response was-
I just finished reading and I must say I am very upset by what I have read. You seem to be attacking Leif and I can't begin to tell you how angry that makes me!! Why are you attacking him? Did he attack you? There's also such a thing called faith. Blind faith. That's what makes Christianity so differnt. It seems to me that all the evolutionist can do is insult rather than give solid proof. If that's what they want from us then why can't they give it? Where's all their answers to our questions?
and
Hey look evo-dude,
You "seem" to have a huge number of "proofs" that evolution is true and that creationists are naive. But each one you've mentioned is really a bogus claim.
Who are you?
Be brave enough about your "beliefs" to stand up for them ... more than just hiding behind a keyboard.
I'll come to wherever you are. I'll present the truth to whoever you can get together. We'll do this thing and get it over with. There is no hope of any evolutionist pointing out "overwhelming evidence" because there is none.
And I'm not just a Sunday School teacher. I'm a Science Teacher and Professor of 30 years.
This last one was from a Young Earth wacko who claims that he was a biology teacher!
His website is www.PointsofOrigins.com if you want to laugh.
I responded to this crank that "even when I was a child, I never reponded to puerile, infantile "challenges", "dare ya" or "double-dare ya", so I certainly won't respond to your playground foolishness now. You claim to be a scientist and an educator, so act like one."
But I do like the idea of including good scientific info at SMRT, so I will try to post more in this category. Some people want to learn.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
A Grievous Omission
Holy batshit crazy islamic nutballs.
I visited richarddawkins.net for the first time in a long while, and was drawn to listening Dicky D.'s talk on Harun Yahya's magnum opus, Atlas of Creation. This little clip enticed me to look into Harun Yahya's internet presence, and was pleasantly surprised to find an endless corridor of crazy.
Harun Yahya is in possession of a few URLs that tangle a convoluted mess of propaganda speckled with occasional dodgy English and spelling. Actually, they have a list of their registered addresses here. 118 websites. Yeeess. Oodles of fun.
A couple of select picks here for your gawking pleasure:
- The Global Darwinist Dictatorship Must Apologize to the Entire World!
- For Children - aka Scariest feckin' site you'll see all week
- Fakewinism - an example of creationist wit
- Darwinism has been annihilated across the world
Oh, the title? Grievous omission? Is Harun Yahya yet included in the sidebar for professional non-thinkers? I personally think they definitely deserve a spot.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Nice company
seems as if Ray has an islamic brother...
He's called Harun Yahya.
Strangely his comments seem to make some sense as long as you have no clue but he is just shamelessly lying.
www.darwinismrefuted.com
Some of the followers of this guy are actually financing the Discovery Institute.
I stumbled upon an interview with this guy. Unfortunately it's in German, but if you want to have a look:
http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,578838,00.html
He's called Harun Yahya.
Strangely his comments seem to make some sense as long as you have no clue but he is just shamelessly lying.
www.darwinismrefuted.com
Some of the followers of this guy are actually financing the Discovery Institute.
I stumbled upon an interview with this guy. Unfortunately it's in German, but if you want to have a look:
http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,578838,00.html
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Vera's God Works Supernaturally Naturally
Over at Ray's it seems the "Ark Dimensions" thread is dying, but that has not stopped Vera from giving us some humorous gems:
"The object of this event was to wipe out mankind, not the animals and I think I might have an idea why. This is my own personal belief and I have no evidence other than Scripture to propose it and I am not 100% of its truth. But it is a "possibility." I believe it is possible that Adam and Eve had children before the fall of mankind and these children's children were somehow superior to the rest. They were giants so to speak. There was a problem with this and the evil that was occurring as a result was more than problematic. There is no reason to suppose that technology wasn't on the advance. After all, some artifacts suggest that there were some toying around with batteries etc in the ancient world. So God not only destroyed that whole group of men and women but the animals in the area except for what was brought to the Ark.Although she believes in giants and Atlantis, Vera does seem to be coming around as she suggests her god is not omnipotent:
There is the possibility that this is Atlantis. I saw a documentary on Atlantis that would suggest that it might be, of all places, in the Mediterranean."
"I believe the answer to your question then is that God didn't create new animals because the whole process would have had to have started all over again and that would have been a very ineffective use of the time and energy it took to get to that point."And she no longer believes that her god is magical:
"God doesn't work through magic. He works supernaturally naturally through His creation and authority."She has a lot more good stuff in that thread including her take on mtDNA, statements about the biblical model being testable, and some Hugh Ross worship. I just can't wait for the day that she claims that the Smurfs really existed.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Words Fail Me
I was at EvolutionBlog, reading about the 6th International Conference on Creationism and came across this:
Wow. I mean, wow.
I will have more to say about the minutiae of the conference in subsequent posts, but for now let me close with one dramatic break from the generally scholarly tone of the speakers. A fellow named John Pantana got up to tell us about God's pharmacy. To anticipate in advance your natural question: Yes, he's serious. I know that because someone asked him precisely that after his talk, and he bluntly answered in the affirmative. Read it and weep:
Here's God's amazing pharmacy. We can see the creativeness of God in the colors of food and the shapes of food that we put into our bodies. ...Did you know that the sliced carrot looks like a human eye. The pupil, the iris, the radiating lines look like a human eye. Science shows that carrots greatly enhance blood flow to the function of the eyes.
A tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart has four chambers and is red. All the research shows that tomatoes are loaded with lycopine and are indeed pure food for the heart and the blood.
Grapes and the heart. Grapes hang in a cluster that look like the shape of a heart. Each grape looks like a blood cell. All the scientific research shows that both red and green grapes are profound heart and blood vitalizing food.
A walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles and folds are just like the neo-cortex. They have shown that walnuts help develop more than three dozen neuron transmitters to the brain. So everybody eat some walnuts.
Kidney beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function. Yes, they look exactly like the human kidney.
Celery, bok choy, rhubarb and many others look like the bones. These food specifically target bone strength. Bones are twenty-three percent sodium and these foods are twenty-three percent sodium. If you don't have enough sodium in your diet the body pulls it from the bones thus making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.
Avocados, eggplants and pears target the health and function of the womb and the cervix of the female. They look just like these organs and the latest research shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week it balances hormones ... and prevents cervical cancers. It takes exactly nine months to grow an avocado from the blossom to the ripened fruit.
Figs and male sperm count. Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos. Figs increase the motility of male sperm and increase the numbers of sperm as well to overcome male sterility.
Sweet potatoes and the pancreas. Sweet Potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics.
Olives and ovaries. Black and green olives assist the health and function of ovaries.
One last. Oranges, pomegranites, grapefruits and other citrus fruits look just like the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.
Onions look like body cells. Today's research shows that onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes.
You know, I just transcribed that laboriously from my little voice recorder. It seems I needn't have bothered, because it looks like he got it verbatim from this site. Charming. Incidentally, I suspect Pontana got this from the web, as opposed to the website getting it from him, since he was reading mechanically from his slides, and stumbled over big words like lycopine, bok choy, and cerebrum.
He closed with:
Worship him who made heaven and Earth, the sea and all the springs of water. Worship the God of creation. How big is God? He's big enough to rule the universe yet small enough to live within the heart. He's got the whole world in his hands. Jesus is lord.Don't hear that too often at scientific conferences.
Wow. I mean, wow.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Open Challenge to Creationists
I understand this is purely academic and there will not be one evolution denier that will accept this challenge.
First of all, there are no "Creationists." It is impossible to be a creationist. There are only evolution deniers.
Not one article I've read by a creationist, not one creationist I've spoken with, has ever come forth with an argument in favor of their position; rather, they focus entirely on knocking down evolution. Instead of pro-Creation arguments, they offer only anti-evolution arguments. When we get down to it, the only argument is "I believe in Creationism because evolution is wrong about this, this, and that.
Ladies and gentlemen, I find this to be unacceptable.
The evolution theory - whether or not you agree with it - stands completely on its own and is utterly self-contained; it does not rely on the discredit of another "theory" to be understood.Creationism, on the other hand, seems to rely soley on "disproving" evolution. It offers no positive arguments for itself, only negative arguments for the opposition. The concept of evolution is not "Creationism is wrong", so why is the Creationist argument nothing more than "Evolution is wrong"?
And so, my challenge to you:Under the following rules, construct a positive argument in defense of creationism and then stay here to defend your evidence for creationism.
Stipulations:
1. Construct your argument as positive statements for creationism, not negative statements against evolution. Science freely admits there are problems with the evolutionary model. This is why there are evolutionary scientists that continue to study the phenomenon. Off the top of my head, I could write pages about evolution without once saying "and therefore creationism is wrong" (or like-minded phrases), but I won't, because literally hundreds of people more educated than I have done so in the past 100+ years. Can you do the same with creationism?
2. No attacking Charles Darwin.Many creationists go after Darwin like a drowning man goes after air. Darwin was not the be-all and end-all of evolutionary science. He merely laid out some of the groundwork, and since then, there has been over a century of supporting evidence discovered and literature published, and still the study continues.Attacking evolution (which creationists shouldn't be doing in the first place) by picking holes in Darwin's ideas is like deciding a building is ugly by standing in the basement.(Some people are apparently also unaware that Alfred Wallace - on the other side of the planet and fully independant of Darwin - had simultaneously come to the same conclusions of evolution and natural selection.)
3. References to faith are not fair game.If your listeners are not already convinced, a faith argument is useless. One must already have faith in order for a faith argument to mean anything.
4. It is for you to provide evidence for your argument, not for your listener to disprove it.A favorite tactic of creationists is to say, "you can't prove I'm wrong, therefore my theory is just as good as yours."The burden of proof always lies on the postulant, not on the listener. I can make any outlandish claim I like - say, magic invisbile noncorporeal elves that cause rain. Will you accept this as a reasonable alternative to observed facts merely because my claim can't actually be disproven? Do you believe elves exist simply because you can't prove that they don't exist?
First of all, there are no "Creationists." It is impossible to be a creationist. There are only evolution deniers.
Not one article I've read by a creationist, not one creationist I've spoken with, has ever come forth with an argument in favor of their position; rather, they focus entirely on knocking down evolution. Instead of pro-Creation arguments, they offer only anti-evolution arguments. When we get down to it, the only argument is "I believe in Creationism because evolution is wrong about this, this, and that.
Ladies and gentlemen, I find this to be unacceptable.
The evolution theory - whether or not you agree with it - stands completely on its own and is utterly self-contained; it does not rely on the discredit of another "theory" to be understood.Creationism, on the other hand, seems to rely soley on "disproving" evolution. It offers no positive arguments for itself, only negative arguments for the opposition. The concept of evolution is not "Creationism is wrong", so why is the Creationist argument nothing more than "Evolution is wrong"?
And so, my challenge to you:Under the following rules, construct a positive argument in defense of creationism and then stay here to defend your evidence for creationism.
Stipulations:
1. Construct your argument as positive statements for creationism, not negative statements against evolution. Science freely admits there are problems with the evolutionary model. This is why there are evolutionary scientists that continue to study the phenomenon. Off the top of my head, I could write pages about evolution without once saying "and therefore creationism is wrong" (or like-minded phrases), but I won't, because literally hundreds of people more educated than I have done so in the past 100+ years. Can you do the same with creationism?
2. No attacking Charles Darwin.Many creationists go after Darwin like a drowning man goes after air. Darwin was not the be-all and end-all of evolutionary science. He merely laid out some of the groundwork, and since then, there has been over a century of supporting evidence discovered and literature published, and still the study continues.Attacking evolution (which creationists shouldn't be doing in the first place) by picking holes in Darwin's ideas is like deciding a building is ugly by standing in the basement.(Some people are apparently also unaware that Alfred Wallace - on the other side of the planet and fully independant of Darwin - had simultaneously come to the same conclusions of evolution and natural selection.)
3. References to faith are not fair game.If your listeners are not already convinced, a faith argument is useless. One must already have faith in order for a faith argument to mean anything.
4. It is for you to provide evidence for your argument, not for your listener to disprove it.A favorite tactic of creationists is to say, "you can't prove I'm wrong, therefore my theory is just as good as yours."The burden of proof always lies on the postulant, not on the listener. I can make any outlandish claim I like - say, magic invisbile noncorporeal elves that cause rain. Will you accept this as a reasonable alternative to observed facts merely because my claim can't actually be disproven? Do you believe elves exist simply because you can't prove that they don't exist?
Monday, August 4, 2008
FAIL
In His workshop, the Almighty Lord
's latest effort no joy will afford.
He stares: "What the heck?! --
I've omitted the neck!
(Sigh.) Back to the old drawing board."
Friday, August 1, 2008
Today's Theist Memory Verse...
Emily said...
"C Diddy, you are just posting to argue, cherry picking from the Bible scripture you have obviously never studied and can't understand. You really have no idea how silly atheists look when they're quoting scripture. It's both laughable and embarassing (sic) because you have no idea what you're talking about, and there's no point in explaining for reasons that would take too long to explain.
Have you ever watched someone make a total fool of themselves, and you cringe yet you can't look away, because you are just so EMBARASSED (sic) for them? Well that's how it frequently feels when atheists post scripture.
Suffice it to say, you are completely in error and you look rather foolish. I'd recommend you refrain from quoting Bible verses if you would like to avoid looking foolish in the future.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Fun with Analogies
Bing McGhandi over at Happy Jihad's House of Pancakes* coined the following in his post of yesterday:
"Ron Carlson is to evolution what Paris Hilton is to circumspect modesty; they know nothing of one another."
This inspired me to come up with similar formulations:
"Vera is to science what aphasia is to speech: The greater the effort, the more complete the garblage."**
"Sye's logic is like a cow shitting in a hurricane: Produces something potentially useful while simultaneously wasting it."
Hmm. Okay, that second one is lame. But the first ain't bad.
Anybody else wanna play?
(*if you haven't read it yet, what are you waiting for? It's here.)
(**nope, not a typo, I'm a poet, I live to create neologisms and comma splices, so sue me)
"Ron Carlson is to evolution what Paris Hilton is to circumspect modesty; they know nothing of one another."
This inspired me to come up with similar formulations:
"Vera is to science what aphasia is to speech: The greater the effort, the more complete the garblage."**
"Sye's logic is like a cow shitting in a hurricane: Produces something potentially useful while simultaneously wasting it."
Hmm. Okay, that second one is lame. But the first ain't bad.
Anybody else wanna play?
(*if you haven't read it yet, what are you waiting for? It's here.)
(**nope, not a typo, I'm a poet, I live to create neologisms and comma splices, so sue me)
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