Kevin Myers and Evolution.

Son Goku

Did anybody else catch the two part piece Kevin Myers wrote in the independent between 8th March - 9th March? It concerns how evolution and the "muck to man" process was a fairy tale.

robindch

More of the usual creationist claptrap -- Myers has gone downhill, hasn't he?

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=36&si=1789190&issue_id=15337

Talk about an evolution . . . why Darwin must be cast into primordial and proverbial soup

ONE of the professional consequences of being a columnist is that one is sent books one would never dream of buying. Thus I recently received Volume One of Harum Yahya's Atlas of Creation.

It is easily the most extraordinary book in my possession. It is nearly 800 pages long, employs the kind of extravagant colours one might expect in a religious publication from Salt Lake City of a Hindu religious shrine, and quotes copiously from the Koran in a systematic assault upon the theory of evolution.

Now, I have not read the Koran, but - like the Bible or the Torah - I would have thought it an improbable document upon which to base an assault on Darwin's theories about the origins of species.

However, the author, who is a Muslim, is also a scientist: and it is in the scientific realm that his arguments against Darwinism are, for me anyway, most telling.

And there can be no more fragile base for the entire house of cards that is Darwinism than the creation of the building blocks of life.

This is where evolutionists abandon science and start speaking Old High Tibetan - because, quite simply, the random accidents of life which form the creative tension to the theory of evolution do not and cannot explain the formation of proteins, back in the dawn of time.

You can't have life without proteins.

Proteins are made from amino acids in a particular order; without order, without the amino acids occurring in a particular sequence - and just as important - at particular angles, in particular dimensions, the assembled mass is not a structure, but a molecular Ground Zero on September 10. And the simplest protein is composed of 50 amino acids.

The average-sized protein molecule (and I'm taking the author's word on this) is composed of 288 amino acids.

The odds against achieving the right sequence of amino acids are (breathe deeply) 1/10 to the power of 300: in numerals, that sum would take over one third of this article.

And all for one protein. One of the smallest bacteria, Mycoplasma hominis H 39 contains 600 types of proteins, all of which - according to evolutionism - had to be created by the random collisions of our dear friend, the primordial soup.

The odds against the soup being able to produce the necessary proteins to create a human cell were 1/10 to the power of 40,000. Or in terms of straightforward numbers, 1 is followed by 40,000 noughts followed 39,000 noughts, followed by- and so on.

There's one further aspect to the miracle of the protein: its component amino-acid molecules all have to be "left-handed".

Amino acids, almost perversely, exist of mirror-images of themselves: one left-handed, the other right. All life, without exception, depends on molecules which are left-handed. A right-handed molecule, when attached to a protein, renders it useless.

Yet the random adventures of the primordial soup should make left and right handed equally common.

On the other hand, the very presence of a single right-handed molecule in a vastly complex extended left-handed molecule was as lethal as a single bullet to a billion cells in Dallas. You at the back of the class, wake up.

I'm sorry to be boring you, but we're talking about the biggest question in the history of the world - certainly as far as you're concerned, it's where you came from - and for the most part, almost across the world, real enquiry is concealed by the unrelenting dogma of evolution, natural selection and Darwinism.

Moreover, attempts by some in America to posit other theories about creation - "intelligent design" being the most fashionable at the moment - are invariably treated with hooting condescension and lordly contempt by European journalists.

Me? I don't know. All I think I know is that DNA cannot be manufactured in the absence of life, and life cannot exist without DNA. So did DNA mysteriously evolve in the violent chaos of the protoplasmic soup, and then transmogrify into life?

But why should a hugely complex and profoundly vulnerable structure like DNA, or its cousin RNA, evolve entirely accidentally and without purpose, only then to mysteriously become the key ingredient of every living thing?

All forms of life, even at its most simple, are profoundly intricate and complex.

To suggest that it could have come about accidentally is like saying that if you throw enough rubble and jewels up in the air often enough, it will sooner or later come down as the Taj Mahal.

This will not happen because it cannot happen: and for this to have happened on countless occasions, and in many different forms, throughout the ages, is simply preposterous. Yet this is what the evolutionists bid us believe.

There is one further problem. How does what makes a (relatively) simple biological design become a vastly more complex one?

How does genetic material increase, without fatally damaging the organism concerned? This is like causing the original Wright Brothers' plane to evolve over time into a F21 Stealth Fighter, yet remain in the air the whole time.

Yes, I know, I know, I've bored you to death already, and there's barely a single reader left: which is why I return to this subject tomorrow. I rather enjoy solitude, you see.

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=36&si=1789786&issue_id=15344

Once more with feeling . . . why it's time our thinking regarding creation evolved beyond Darwin

PART II about (what seems to me, anyway) the heresy of Evolutionism, prompted by the arrival of Haran Yahya's "Atlas of Creation". Evolution is now taught as a fact, across the western world, though much fossil evidence is not merely contradictory, but actually hostile to it. And even the most convinced evolutionists become embarrassed and start mumbling in Eskimo when they try to explain the origin of complex left-handed protein molecules in the primeval swamp that predated life.

No, no, it will never do. So let us consider the other aspect of evolution which Harun Yahya attacks.

Dismissed

The emergence of species through the process of evolution. He dismisses it primarily because the Koran declared that God is the author of all. He even rejects intelligent design, because of the Koran.

However, his argument that animals do not evolve, but remain largely the same, is backed up by the most stunning part of his book: superb colour photographs of living animals and of their apparently identical fossil ancestors. Crabs, oysters, cockroaches, grasshoppers, springtails, ants and beetles from 25 million years ago remain - as far as we can see - in existence today, identical in every detail. The starfish of 360 million years ago is the same as its great granddaughter today.

Or so it seems. Changing climate would surely favour animals which adapted to it by growing thicker of thinner, darker or whiter coats, according to conditions. Yahya does not rule out variations occurring in species; what he argues is that those variations depend on existing genetic material within the species. What is not possible, he argues, is that evolution can add genetic material to one species to create another.

The famous Galapagos finches are not new species, but merely carriers of genes in different proportions from those possessed by their ancestors. To be sure, you have your little finches which specialise in knitting tea-cosies, and other finches which harpoon whales, but they still mate with one another. And do.

So how do discrete animal species come about? How does a species diverge so markedly from its parent stock that it is unable to breed with it, not in just one species, but in millions of them, across the world?

Recent DNA analysis of birds and insects in New Guinea reveals there are many distinct and discrete new species within what had until recently been thought to be a series of undivided species. These newly discovered species are incapable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring with the species they were once thought to be part of. So how did so many kinds of animal and plant, living alongside one another, become sexually separate?

At its most basic, and within our own modest habitat, what evolutionary force caused Europe to have 53 kinds of warbler, 16 kinds of thrush, 18 kinds of finch and 12 types of tit? What was the mechanism which caused not merely sexual sterility between species, but also the ability to recognise the separateness of species? There are least 40,000 types of spider, and hundreds of thousands of kinds of beetle, all of which are able to distinguish potential mates from virtually identical but genetically incompatible kindred species.

What fissiparous mechanism caused so many species to come into being? Moreover, what possible advantage could have accrued from such staggering heterogeneity, combined with such absurd amounts of sexual and genetic incompatibility, right across the plant and animal kingdoms?

These are not complex matters: if they were, I would be unable to discuss them. They are perfectly reasonable questions to ask of the Dogmatic Orthodoxy of Darwinism which is now triumphant across the western world. This has reached the point that people who believe in Intelligent Design are regularly sneered at by those such as Richard Dawkins. Some American states have actually made it illegal to mention ID in science class, even as a possible alternative to evolution.

Now, when I hear a set of ideas being protected by the law, almost like a copyright, I get the odd tingle in my brain, as I sense the word "inquisition" taking shape. Today's inquisitions are conducted with the weapons of disdain, scorn and dismissive stereotyping: "Intelligent design," goes the mantra, "is the brainless creation of scientifically illiterate rednecks from Nebraska. We evolutionists know better, haw haw haw."

Do you? No doubt you do. I confess, I do not. As it happens, I do not believe in intelligent design, but then nor do I believe in Darwinism. I am unconvinced by the former, though I don't reject it. As for the second, it stretches the bounds of possibility to breaking point to assert that every living thing in this world was created by a series of accidents, the odds against which are to be measured in the zillion trillions.

Both readers still with me, weeping tears of bitter boredom, will probably be delighted to hear that this two-part sojourn in the world of Darwinism is now coming to an end.

The book that started the two columns, Harun Yahya's Atlas of Creation from Global Publishing, is quite the most spectacular so far this year. You can inquire about it from the publishers in Istanbul, telephone 0090212 222 00 88.

mike65

Beated to it edited!

Mike.

Zombrex

Son Goku wrote:

Did anybody else catch the two part piece Kevin Myers wrote in the independent between 8th March - 9th March? It concerns how evolution and the "muck to man" process was a fairy tale.

Kevin Myers is an idiot. I thought that before I read this, and I think it even more now.

I have a friend who works in a news organisation (don't want to be too specific), and they all got sent that book too. It was send around by a Creationists group to various media outlets in Ireland, newspapers and TV. One would have thought that the fact that it was send around a creationists would send alarm bells off, but like I said, Myers is an idiot.

"However, his argument that animals do not evolve, but remain largely the same, is backed up by the most stunning part of his book: superb colour photographs of living animals and of their apparently identical fossil ancestors."

You got to love it. His argument in the book that animals don't evolve is backed up in the most stunning way by HIS OWN BOOK .... what nonsense

robindch

> It was send around by a Creationists group to various media
> outlets in Ireland, newspapers and TV.

Harun Yahya is Islam's answer to Ken Ham and he's been promoting his book heavily in France as well as Ireland, and no doubt, a few other countries too:

http://www.harunyahya.com/new_releases/news/atlas_earthquake_france.php

Still, though, he's got a long way to go before he's as smooth as Ham's cheese.

lookinforpicnic

Kevin Myers "Me? I don't know"

Just leave it at that you muppet and read some evolutionary science.

Such stupidity coupled with ignorance about evolution presented to a mass readership really makes my blood boil

Scofflaw

Hmm. Waters contra atheism, Myers contra evolution, Bertie contra 'aggressive secularism'...

...someone remind me again why my pet theory of atheism and the 'materialistic' viewpoint being used as the new 'outsiders' to generate social cohesion between religions is wrong?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Dades

lookinforpicnic wrote:

Such stupidity coupled with ignorance about evolution presented to a mass readership really makes my blood boil

That is the crux of it. Stupidity is fine as long as it's not passed off as intellect to those who suspect nothing.

Schuhart

robindch wrote:

Harun Yahya is Islam's answer to Ken Ham

He’s also big into the scientific miracles in the Quran agenda. This is the idea that the text of the Quran includes statements that embody a knowledge of the material world unknown at the time it was written. It relies on the kind of selective quotation and optimistic retrofitting of language that you would find in ‘proofs’ of the prophecies of Nostradamus.

Muslim cosmologist Bruno Guiderdoni has fluently rejected the miracles as abusing both science and scripture, for example, dismissing the idea as a

“cheap concordism'' which would consist in taking the literal meaning of some Koranic verses as alluding to “scientific facts'', and in interpreting allegorically those whose literal meaning seems to be discrepant.

Ironically, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia maintained in the 1960s that it was heresy to suggest the Earth orbited the Sun so this advanced scientific knowledge in the text seems to be a recent discovery.

I think we can be very clear that Myers has swallowed a large helping of quack science, and got it into print without any apparent quality check.

Scofflaw wrote:

...someone remind me again why my pet theory of atheism and the 'materialistic' viewpoint being used as the new 'outsiders' to generate social cohesion between religions is wrong?

Can we start calling it ‘Scofflaw’s Hypothesis’?

Scofflaw

Schuhart wrote:

Scofflaw wrote:

...someone remind me again why my pet theory of atheism and the 'materialistic' viewpoint being used as the new 'outsiders' to generate social cohesion between religions is wrong?

Can we start calling it ‘Scofflaw’s Hypothesis’?

Well, it might shut me up, I suppose. It's still a risk, though.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Son Goku

Would anybody happen to know if acceptance of evolution has gone down in recent years or have the proponents of creationism just gotten louder?

I've found some studies myself, but nothing really decent.

simu

Gosh, he has gone downhill, hasn't he?

Scofflaw wrote:

...someone remind me again why my pet theory of atheism and the 'materialistic' viewpoint being used as the new 'outsiders' to generate social cohesion between religions is wrong?

Annoying that so many people mix different meanings of the world materialist too. :mad:

2Scoops

Kevin Myers wrote:

Today's inquisitions are conducted with the weapons of disdain, scorn and dismissive stereotyping: "Intelligent design," goes the mantra, "is the brainless creation of scientifically illiterate rednecks from Nebraska. We evolutionists know better, haw haw haw.

You have fallen right into Mr. Myers carefully constructed trap, poor fools:) By anticipating your dismissal of his ignorant argument, you all appear as haughty, arrogant 'evolutionists' and all the Irish Independent readers can safely ignore you.

Scofflaw

2Scoops wrote:

You have fallen right into Mr. Myers carefully constructed trap, poor fools:) By anticipating your dismissal of his ignorant argument, you all appear as haughty, arrogant 'evolutionists' and all the Irish Independent readers can safely ignore you.

Mmm. I'm pretty certain that was already happening....

cordially,
Scofflaw

Steve01

The Atheist wrote:

Stupidity is fine as long as it's not passed off as intellect to those who suspect nothing.

Thats the smartest comment I've heard all week. Mind if I use it? There's so many situations I can apply it to

pH

Funny? Sad? who knows. I mean it's one thing arguing with JC in that thread but pretty much Myers is JC, their arguments are identical.

And yes, I know he's writing for the Indo now not the IT, but still.

But what I don't fully understand is this - Myers is taking a scientific/materialistic position, he's attempting to explain life on earth. However I cannot tell exactly what his replacement theory for evolution is.

He seems so some degree to accept the geological age of the earth (i.e. he quotes dates with millions of years in them), yet insists that life pretty much is created and can't change much (maybe you can get longer hair). So is his theory a God that jumps in every few million years and creates new species? or have chimps been around for 450 million years? And us ... he's proposing a literal garden of Eden (date?) where God says "looks like the time is right!" and creates Adam and Eve?

Quick someone send him a copy of Dawkin's "The Ancestor's Tale".

5uspect

My copy is gathering dust on the bookshelf, I should stick iy in the post!
You're right pH tho, his arguement is all over the place. It seems he's trying to distance himself from the two extremes of the arguement while justifying belief in god at the same time and making a pigs ear of the whole thing.

Son Goku

5uspect wrote:

It seems he's trying to distance himself from the two extremes of the arguement

This is actually the worst thing to come out of the creation-evolution "debate". Creationists were always there, but now we have people saying things like "It seems pretty dogmatic to stick to either extreme".

5uspect

Exactly, its almost as if science is being painted in the public opinion by the same brust zealot creationists are. There's a big difference between passion for scientific accuracy and blind faith.

MoominPapa

this guy gets paid 250,000 to write this junk, I reckon waters is considerably cheaper but just as dull. The standard of opinion writing in this country is appalling

stevejazzx

Imagine, in the middle of discussion saying well I just don't know anything about evolution and then going to say that the idea doesn't work for you. Am I missing something here? This has to be the most spectacular display of pesudo intellectualism ever seen in an Irish newspaper - quite a feat -, what's funny though is he constantly acknowledges his shortcomings yet still goes on to deliver a conclusion, what a complete (insert expletive of your choosing here). He drops in Dawkins name casually but obviously hasn't read anything by him, he wouldn't dare harp on about 'chance statictics' if he had, would he?

Dades

Steve01 wrote:

Thats the smartest comment I've heard all week. Mind if I use it? There's so many situations I can apply it to

Be my guest! I was too irritated to elaborate.

Zombrex

MoominPapa wrote:

this guy gets paid 250,000 to write this junk, I reckon waters is considerably cheaper but just as dull. The standard of opinion writing in this country is appalling

I find it rather amusing that both the Indo and the Times feel they need to some how counter balance any perception of being too liberal by letting these loonies rant about nonsense using such ignorance of any subject they tackle it makes a 5 year old's essay on Barney The Dinosaur look like an intelligent and well researched essay on the Jurassic era. All in the name of standing up to the "PC-police", what ever that means (has it become "too PC" to be intelligent and to bother researching what you want to rant about?)

I have no problem with columnists who wish to write unpopular articles on sensitive subjects. I watched with interest the doc on Channel 4 that challenged global warming, and while I wasn't entirely convinced, it was still thought provoking and a reminder to not accept everything you hear just because something is cloaked in a righteous cause.

But seriously, is Kevin Myers the best that Ireland can produce when it comes to challenging established opinions?

I don't mind my opinions being challenged but I would prefer if someone with a bit more intelligence could be found. If I wanted a nonsensical rant based on ignorance with the odd nonsense stereotype thrown in for good measure I would talk to my bitter old neighbour who likes to throw sticks at passing children

MoominPapa

stevejazzx wrote:

he constantly acknowledges his shortcomings yet still goes on to deliver a conclusion

Thats this guy to a tee..

Disagree with him and you're part of the pinko lefty PC brigade, afraid to answer hard questions that only someone as brave as himself would dare to ask , someone as brave as those true patriotic irishmen who answered Redmonds call at Woodenbridge and laid down their flowering manhood for King and Ireland, or something

robindch

> This has to be the most spectacular display of pesudo
> intellectualism ever seen in an Irish newspaper

The indo published a mild rant I emailed in the other day (may need to log in; it's the second of the three letters):

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=53&si=1792469&issue_id=15360

PoleStar

The way I see it, Myers had 2 main issues with evolution.


1. Infinite odds: Well the chances of person A winning the lotto on wed and person B winning on saturday if we were to estimate in advance would be 1 in 46 million multiplied by 1 in 46 million (at current odds if I am right), a big number cant be bothered to calculate it. And yet this seemingly improbable event happens all year. Hmmm ok thats point one rubbished. When we are dealing with big numbers the odds arguments lose all power. Who knows how many billions of habitable planets are out there.


2. No evidence of evolution: well just to give an example of one species evolving over the last few years, well within our lifetimes. Staphylococcus aureus since the widepread use of antibiotics has experienced a new evolutionary pressure. In a short period of time we have a new organism, MRSA. Thats just maybe in the last 30 years.

Thats me done

Talliesin

Well, here's a thing.

The very earliest moments in evolution are a difficulty.

I can't bring a mixture of chemicals to a lab and get them to make me a software engineer out of them through duplicating evolutionary processes. Indeed they can't even get close.

This hardly leads us to say "evolution is clearly wrong" though.

No, our knowledge of what has led to our existence, and that of all other living things, is imperfect. It's better than Darwin's (who couldn't tell you how traits got passed from one generation to another, having no knowledge of DNA) but hopefully less good than what we'll know about it in 50 years time.

In 50 years time it will still be imperfect. Having the first clue about how science works I have to admit that it's quite possible that in 50 years evolutionary theory will be completely disproven. Having the second clue about how science works, I find that very, very unlikely. Having a third clue about how science works, I note that what progress has been made in the matter (including the many side additions to our knowledge, including many practical matters) has not come from any religious doctrine.

The value of religion in investigating this matter has been to inspire some of the people who have added greatly to our knowledge of how we came about (such as Gregor Mendel) our how the world itself came about (such as Georges Lemaître) who were both deeply religious people but who could based their science on observation, deduction and experiment and as such came up with hypotheses that could be tested and elabourated upon by others, whether those people where similarly inspired by their religious views or not.

Zombrex

Talliesin wrote:

I can't bring a mixture of chemicals to a lab and get them to make me a software engineer out of them through duplicating evolutionary processes.

True, but then nor should you want to, since the last thing the world needs is mre software engineers (said the software engineer)

What you can do, and this is the interesting bit, is bring a mixtures of chemicals into a lab and get them to form some basic self replicating molecules. Which, while not necessarily showing how life on Earth happened, at leasts hints that it is entirely possibly and probable.

Talliesin wrote:

The value of religion in investigating this matter has been to inspire some of the people who have added greatly to our knowledge of how we came about

Possibly, but then think of all the people that religion didn't inspire because it teaches that it already knows the answers.

Dades

Wicknight wrote:

Possibly, but then think of all the people that religion didn't inspire because it teaches that it already knows the answers.

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge.
Daniel J. Boorstin

joe_chicken

Wicknight wrote:

Possibly, but then think of all the people that religion didn't inspire because it teaches that it already knows the answers.

Religion answers huge questions that people can't answer...

You could argue that answering these questions takes away the temptation to try and answer them yourself, and therefore giving time for more concentrated efforts at specifics problems that can be solved.

5uspect

joe_chicken wrote:

Religion answers huge questions that people can't answer...

You could argue that answering these questions takes away the temptation to try and answer them yourself, and therefore giving time for more concentrated efforts at specifics problems that can be solved.

Let me guess, Science asks "How?" questions and Religion asks "Why?" questions?

Going by their respective track records its more like Science asks "How?" questions and gets some answers, then goes and asks some more "How?", "Why?" and "When?" questions and gets more answers, whereas Religion, well it just makes up the answers and ignores everything else (or imprisons or kills everyone who disagrees, whichever is good).

I don't get this Separate Magisteria idea at all. The answers religion provides are as useful and meaningful as the sound of a dog's fart.

bonkey

pH wrote:

But what I don't fully understand is this - Myers is taking a scientific/materialistic position, he's attempting to explain life on earth. However I cannot tell exactly what his replacement theory for evolution is.

Why does he need a replacement theory?

"Your theory is wrong" does not require that I know what the correct theory is.

Thats not how science works. "Your theory is wrong because I can show why your theory is wrong" is how science works.

Now...don't get me wrong...I don't accept that Myers has shown that evolutionary is wrong, nor even made a good argument as to why it may be wrong.

If a challenge to a scientific theory is to be rejected, it should be rejected by showing that it is incorrect, not that it fails to supply an alternative.

ETA:
This would perhaps make instructive reading for Mr. Myers to help understand his quandry regarding probability and/or the lack thereof.

bonkey

joe_chicken wrote:

Religion answers huge questions that people can't answer...

Unfortunately, thats what religion should do. Unfortunately, religion has on occasion taken it upon itself to answer huge questions that people couldn't answer at the time only to find that people could in fact answer them at some later point.

Where this has not led to an ongoing dispute (as per the case at hand), the outcome has consistently always been the same - the religious have been wrong.

Of course, its not that these divine sources are wrong, its that the interpretation of them was incorrect. It is man and not the divine which is fallible. If the message was corrupted, it is through man's imperfection.

I can accept this. Its not all that bad an argument.

What I cannot accept is that the self-same acknowledgers of previous fallibility do not recognise (or do recognise but refuse to admit) that the unquestionable implication of this is that there is no definitive reason to believe the current interpretation is infallibly correct.

JCarey70

'Icons of Evolution' by Jonathan Wells.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Icons-Evolution-Science-Teach-about/dp/0895262002/ref=sr_1_1/026-2404536-6737237?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173913637&sr=1-1

Scofflaw

5uspect wrote:

Let me guess, Science asks "How?" questions and Religion asks "Why?" questions?

Going by their respective track records its more like Science asks "How?" questions and gets some answers, then goes and asks some more "How?", "Why?" and "When?" questions and gets more answers, whereas Religion, well it just makes up the answers and ignores everything else (or imprisons or kills everyone who disagrees, whichever is good).

I don't get this Separate Magisteria idea at all. The answers religion provides are as useful and meaningful as the sound of a dog's fart.

I don't think that's fair. Religion answers some of the really big questions people want answered - "why is my life meaningful?", "why am I so important?", "will everything be OK?", and "is death really the end?" - to which the answers are "God loves you", "God loves you", "if you behave", and "no of course not".

Now, you and I might think these answers are the things you say to comfort a frightened child - 'meaningless unsubstantiated soothing noises', perhaps, rather than your less comforting noise, but that is irrelevant. They may be bad answers, but they are answers - answers that science does not even pretend to provide.

This is why most people will never be atheists - because the atheist answers are "you'll have to work that out for yourself", "you'll have to work that out for yourself", "maybe", and "probably".

cordially,
Scofflaw

5uspect

Scofflaw wrote:

I don't think that's fair. Religion answers some of the really big questions people want answered - "why is my life meaningful?", "why am I so important?", "will everything be OK?", and "is death really the end?" - to which the answers are "God loves you", "God loves you", "if you behave", and "no of course not".

Now, you and I might think these answers are the things you say to comfort a frightened child - 'meaningless unsubstantiated soothing noises', perhaps, rather than your less comforting noise, but that is irrelevant. They may be bad answers, but they are answers - answers that science does not even pretend to provide.

This is why most people will never be atheists - because the atheist answers are "you'll have to work that out for yourself", "you'll have to work that out for yourself", "maybe", and "probably".

cordially,
Scofflaw

Okay, but those aren't really answers based on anything meaningful. they're opinions based on interpretations of an idea put forward with no justification as ultimate knowledge. I guess we're back to saying whats wrong with saying "I don't know?"

I see you point that this lack of absoluteness is why most people cling to religion, I don't see how they can justify it tho. I suppose thats why I'll never understand the mystical Christian concept of faith. Maybe I'm too cynical.

Zombrex

joe_chicken wrote:

Religion answers huge questions that people can't answer...

It doesn't though, that is the point. It just pretends it does. And admitably a lot of people are perfectly happy with that delusion.

Say I've got a maths problem that asks what is 142523293 divided by 29343. If I said well the answer is 42 I am certainly providing an answer. But that answer is largely meaningless. Since I don't actually know the true answer I don't know that is answer is either incorrect or correct, it is just a guess. This is componded if I then stop trying to figure out what the actual answer is and am just happy with my guess. It probably isn't the correct answer, though of course there is always the small possibility that by blind luck it actually is the answer (its not btw, the real answer is 4,857.14). But that doesn't change the fact that I don't know either way.

So the question is what is the point of this answer?

If the point is to simply provide an answer, any answers, because the lack of an answer to the question makes us uncomfortable then it succeeds in that goal. But if the point is to provide a correct answer then it doesn't.

This is exactly what religion does, but in a much more elaborate fashion, often constructing the question itself around the answer it wishes to provide.

joe_chicken wrote:

You could argue that answering these questions takes away the temptation to try and answer them yourself

No I'm arguing that religion, by claiming to have an answer that is really nothing more than a guess, takes away the desire for people to go out and try and find answers to a higher standard. That is what science is, a higher standard of guessing over religion.

As Dawkins points out in the God Delusion the statement "we don't know" is what drives scientists. Science is about exploring what we don't know. It is also about realising what we don't know and constantly examining the questions as well as the answers.

Religion is the exact opposite. It is about pretending we know something that we don't actually know, and then saying that because of this we should stop looking at both the questions and the answers.

Zillah

I was going to start arguing with Scofflaw like the two tits above me here (:p) but as I was formulating a response I realised that he is absolutely right. Well chosen words laddie.

EDIT: Ok technically the tit Wicknight wasn't but the spirit of the argument was there

Scofflaw

5uspect wrote:

Okay, but those aren't really answers based on anything meaningful. they're opinions based on interpretations of an idea put forward with no justification as ultimate knowledge. I guess we're back to saying whats wrong with saying "I don't know?"

I suppose that it's not satisfying for a lot of people.

5uspect wrote:

I see you point that this lack of absoluteness is why most people cling to religion, I don't see how they can justify it tho. I suppose thats why I'll never understand the mystical Christian concept of faith. Maybe I'm too cynical.

The thing I think most atheists miss is that belief comes first - then everything else.

We expect people to justify their Christianity, say, from the Bible, whereas the majority of Christians don't know the Bible much, and reading the Bible only comes after they've become Christians.

It's as if I wanted you to justify falling in love with someone at first sight - asking you "what factors led you to do this?", "how do you know you're right?", and expecting meaningful answers. Belief is like love - it's an emotional committment first and foremost.

Once the believer is 'in love', they are hardly going to be able to see their beloved's faults. She has people put to death? It's for their own good! And we, the atheists, can no more persuade someone out of belief than we can persuade them out of love - we can only wait for them to fall out of love, which the smart ones will do, because of their beloved's lyin' cheatin' ways...


cordially,
Scofflaw

joe_chicken

Wicknight wrote:

It doesn't though, that is the point. It just pretends it does. And admitably a lot of people are perfectly happy with that delusion.

This is where I don't get atheism...

It does answer questions for people who have faith...
Whether you think they are right or wrong is completely irrelevant.

Say I've got a maths problem...

Using a construct like maths where we know what the answer is (because we invented the rules) is not a fair comparison.

So the question is what is the point of this answer?


If the point is to simply provide an answer, any answers, because the lack of an answer to the question makes us uncomfortable then it succeeds in that goal. But if the point is to provide a correct answer then it doesn't.

This is exactly what religion does, but in a much more elaborate fashion, often constructing the question itself around the answer it wishes to provide.

I'm unsure what you're arguing here?!

Is it that science has more of a point?

No I'm arguing that religion, by claiming to have an answer that is really nothing more than a guess, takes away the desire for people to go out and try and find answers to a higher standard. That is what science is, a higher standard of guessing over religion.

So how did we discover anything new before about a 100-150 years ago, and how come so many people who did push the boundaries of science were religious.

Zombrex

Zillah wrote:

I was going to start arguing with Scofflaw like the two tits above me here (:p) but as I was formulating a response I realised that he is absolutely right. Well chosen words laddie.

EDIT: Ok technically the tit Wicknight wasn't but the spirit of the argument was there

What you saying about my mother!

bonkey

joe_chicken wrote:

Is it that science has more of a point?

Science has a different point, and its one which can happily co-exist with most religious beliefs.

To explain further...limiting myself to science...

Newtonian physics is wrong. We know its wrong. We can measure situations where its wrong. However, we know its pretty-damn close to being right in a lot of situtions and a hell of a lot simpler than other models we have which are capable of producing more accurate asnwers.

So Newtonian physics can be used in a wide-ranging number of scenarios because it is a useful model which matches observation sufficiently well in a large number of cases.

Relativity gives us another model. Its more complex than Newtonian physics, harder to work with, but has the advantage that it can provide a more accurate result which will more closely match observation. At worst, it will agree with Newtonian physics. Like Newtonian physics, Relativity is still, strictly speaking, wrong, as we can come up with situations where it fails to accurately match observation.

The same applies for most - if not all - scientific models. If we discovered tomorrow that gravity doesn't quite work the way we think it does, our current model would still be applicable in the situations where we know it matches observation.

Scientific theories are not explanations of what is. They are models which closely match observation within a set of boundaries with sufficient accuracy to be used in a predictive manner.

That might sound like pedantry, but its not.

Lets imagine, just for one sec, that the universe was created by a divine being exactly 10 seconds ago and made to look exactly like a universe which formed according to current scientific theory. Would this invalidate our scientific theories? Not in the slightest....because they would still predictively model just as well as they do now. From a scientific perspective, there would be no difference. They wouldn't accurately explain what the origins of the universe really were, merely what observation says they appear to have been.

If someone wants to argue that dinosaurs didn't walk the earth, but that the fossils were added by some divine being and made to look just like they did....that doesn't invalidate scientific theory in the slightest.

If someone wants to argue that the earth was created on the night of October 24th, 4004BC and made to look exactly as though it were billions of years old, in a universe billions of years older, then fine...it doesn't invalidate scientific theory in the slightest.

If someone wants to argue that evolution didn't happen but that it has just been made to look like it did, then thats perfectly ok too.

Most young-earth creationists that I've had experience of don't seem to want to deal with the concept of a capricious God. They don't want to have to open themselves to the question of why God would do this. They don't want people to consider that there is merit to accepting the usefulness of scientific modelling because its not what they believe happened, regardless of what things look like.

I can't explain it.

The entire point of science is to model observation. Its not a definitive statement of what is. Belief, on the other hand, should be about an underlying belief of just that...of what is.

I would argue that the current "victimisation" of theists by atheists is a backlash. Some faithful want their children to be taught that ID is a scientific theory. Some want the credibility of science torn down because its models offend them. Some misunderstand science to be a declaration of what is and/or are worried that others may mistake it to be such.

Ultimately, science and belief should have no need to clash swords. Scientists generally don't go looking to hunt down the faithful or the religious to challenge, demean or scoff at their beliefs. What they do, however, is defend themselves and the integrity of their field from the type of attack they have been subjected to.

Scofflaw

joe_chicken wrote:

So how did we discover anything new before about a 100-150 years ago

Trial and error. The scientific method is at heart a formalised, standardised and thought-through version of this.

What it wasn't, by and large, was "applied religion".

joe_chicken wrote:

and how come so many people who did push the boundaries of science were religious.

You can be as religious as you like, as long as you can apply the scientific method properly.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

Zillah wrote:

I was going to start arguing with Scofflaw like the two tits above me here (:p) but as I was formulating a response I realised that he is absolutely right. Well chosen words laddie.

EDIT: Ok technically the tit Wicknight wasn't but the spirit of the argument was there

That has to be some kind of first!

cordially,
Scofflaw

SonOfPerdition

joe_chicken wrote:

This is where I don't get atheism...

It does answer questions for people who have faith...
Whether you think they are right or wrong is completely irrelevant.

What about those whose faith has them believe the end of days are coming so there is no point in worrying or doing anthing about climate change?
What if those people are in a position of power? Is their faith completely irrelevant?

Zombrex

joe_chicken wrote:

This is where I don't get atheism...

Not sure what you mean. Atheism doesn't answer any questions, it simply points out that previous answers (ie "God") are wrong.

joe_chicken wrote:

It does answer questions for people who have faith...
Whether you think they are right or wrong is completely irrelevant.

Well it depends on if you think a wrong answer can hold any value. Some people might say yes. But even in this case it is important to realise that the value of the answer is in the comfort it provides, not the fact that it is correct.

joe_chicken wrote:

Using a construct like maths where we know what the answer is (because we invented the rules) is not a fair comparison.

Well for my example you don't need to know the answer, I just picked that problem because it was possible to show that 43 wasn't the answer. If you didn't know how to divide those numbers it wouldn't make 43 any more likely to be the answer.

This is why statements, often made by theists, along the lines of "Science cannot tell us what was before the Big Bang. Religion can, and it was God" annoy me so much.

Science cannot tell us what was before the Big Bang because science views the correctness of an answer on the subject to be more important than the comfort value of any such answer. Therefore it does not put forward an answer because we cannot tell if any answer is correct or not.

Religion also cannot tell us what was before the Big Bang either, but because the comfort value of providing an answer is more important than the answer being correct religion will put forward an answer anyway.

And because people are made uncomfortable by there being no answer at all available they will take the this answer, even if it isn't correct, and use it to nullify the uncomfortable feeling when they ponder things like the Big Bang.

But the point to remember is that the answer provided by religion is largely meaningless in terms of if it is correct or not.

joe_chicken wrote:

I'm unsure what you're arguing here?!

Is it that science has more of a point?

Pretty much.

Any answer provided by religion to any question posed to it is largely meaningless because it is simply a guess. And not even an educated guess, often the guess will be very random and nonintuitive (a middle eastern virgin gave birth the son of a god who lived for 33 years and then was executed by Romans so that man can be forgiven his sins that were first created by god when a woman in a garden south of Babylon as punishment for eating an apple ... seriously?)

The only thing this guess can do is to delude people who accept it into a feeling of contentment about how the world works.

But you cannot actually do anything with this guess because it might not actually be correct, and most likely isn't. You cannot build a TV with it, or an automobile. You cannot form a theory of relativity or cure a form of cancer with it. You cannot launch a rocket to the moon, and build a nuclear power station.

The only thing religion can do is provide easy, yet in all likelyhood completely incorrect, answers to the people who get upset if they don't have answers for certain things.

It seems to just be human nature that some people are made uncomfortable if they cannot view the world in such an absolute way. Religion provides a very basic and silly model that these people can use to feel better. To them that is enough.

joe_chicken wrote:

So how did we discover anything new before about a 100-150 years ago

Many ways, but not through religion.

Religion has never answered anything, if one assumes that to discover something real one requires a correct, or at least close to being correct, answer.

There have certainly been religious people who were also brilliant minds who explored and developed ideas and theories on things. But they didn't do it within the framework of religious questioning.

For example no one has ever formed a theory of the Earth's formation from the book of Genesis that does anything accept make them feel comfortable about the book of Genesis. You cannot find oil or determine why the poles flip by looking at the religious theories of the Earth.

The people who are content to stop looking based on these religious answers are normally the ones who aren't actually that interested in looking in the first place. You get that all the time on the Christian forum, comments along the line of "I don't accept evolution, the Bible is good enough for me" That person will never cure HIV or cure cancer, though they might not care and they might be just happy enough living their lives (hopefully HIV and cancer free) content in their absolutely belief in the Bible.

Scofflaw

Wicknight wrote:

This is why statements, often made by theists, along the lines of "Science cannot tell us what was before the Big Bang. Religion can, and it was God" annoy me so much.

Science cannot tell us what was before the Big Bang because science views the correctness of an answer on the subject to be more important than the comfort value of any such answer. Therefore it does not put forward an answer because we cannot tell if any answer is correct or not.

Religion also cannot tell us what was before the Big Bang either, but because the comfort value of providing an answer is more important than the answer being correct religion will put forward an answer anyway.

And because people are made uncomfortable by there being no answer at all available they will take the this answer, even if it isn't correct, and use it to nullify the uncomfortable feeling when they ponder things like the Big Bang.

But the point to remember is that the answer provided by religion is largely meaningless in terms of if it is correct or not.

Indeed, science could 'provide an answer' with exactly the same rigour that religion does. Scientists could just say "it was orange" - or even better, different groups of scientists could say different things. These statements would have exactly the same level of validity as those made by religion, but they would not be scientific statements - which is the reason science does not make them.

cordially,
Scofflaw

joe_chicken

Wicknight wrote:

Well it depends on if you think a wrong answer can hold any value.....

But the point to remember is that the answer provided by religion is largely meaningless in terms of if it is correct or not...

....

Any answer provided by religion to any question posed to it is largely meaningless....
....

Religion has never answered anything.

I'm getting a tremendous feeling of deja vu here

Zillah

Scofflaw wrote:

That has to be some kind of first!

Bout bloody time you started making sense!

joe_chicken wrote:

I'm getting a tremendous feeling of deja vu here

You'd think you would have gotten it by now tbh.

Zombrex

joe_chicken wrote:

I'm getting a tremendous feeling of deja vu here

Well to be honest Joe I'm simply saying again the same thing as I've always said

As Scofflaw says science could provide an answer for any question that you think religion can provide an answer (and that answer could well be "orange")

But science doesn't do this, and that is a mark in science's favour. It is precisely because it doesn't do this that science is held in vastly better favour than religion ever could be.

Yet for some people this is considered a failing on sciences part, when it reality it is a failing on the part of religion.

Science holds itself to a standard to the truth that religion doesn't care about, or is even unaware of.

Múinteoir

As regards Kevin Myers, here's a humourous blog here that follows his journalistic escapades and where he is referred to as Colonel Myers.
Sadly nothing up about this whole evolution debate yet. Maybe they need a nudge in the arm to wake them up.