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garoteThis is so sad. Religion at its worst, right here in the United States. "Our HOLY BOOK has been contradicted by THE NATURAL WORLD. Therefore ... We declare JIHAD on our UNDERSTANDING of the NATURAL WORLD!!"
Richard Feynman made a speech some 40 or 50 years ago about this sort of thing. He observed that his fellow scientists were downplaying the solidity of their observations and experiments, because they were being pressured by religious leaders. The zealots complained that scientists were making "offensive" and "morally disruptive" discoveries, and the scientists, being nice people in general, didn't want to upset anyone with their work. Feynman said that he wasn't interested in being polite. He was interested in presenting the data as it was, and pulling no punches when people challenged it on non-scientific grounds. "Why are we tolerating these kinds of attacks?" he asked.
That's the stance I take, too. So here's what I really think. This organization? With a 15-million-dollar annual budget dedicated exclusively to spreading disinformation and rotting away the foundations of science? It's crap. Everyone involved in it is a malevolent jerk. Anyone who donates to it is a stupid cow who's been swindled, and hoodwinked, and had their brain raped by religious dogma, in the most intimate and desecrating of ways.
Scientific evidence isn't like a writ of holy commandments. It can't be wished away or shouted down. It doesn't vanish when you maim or imprison the people who teach it, or deface the textbooks that present it. Science doesn't work that way. Science is about refining theories that predict the outcome of an event before we witness it, or an observation before we make it. If the observation or the outcome doesn't match the theory, we modify the theory, or in extreme cases, throw it in the garbage. The Biblical creation myth belongs in the garbage. It was the best that a bunch of nomads in rude huts could manage thousands of years ago and it hasn't aged well. Anyone living today who thinks it has even a smidgen of truth is either haplessly ignorant, or willfully so.
Evolution, on the other hand, is such a vindicated and well documented theory that it has become an indispensable part of almost every branch of science. Its predictions have been proven right over and over again, from the presence of countless intermediate fossils to the genetic imprint of a common ancestor, carried in the DNA of every living creature on Earth. Since its formulation, no scientist has ever uncovered evidence that contadicts it. The closest anyone came was the Piltdown man discovery, and that turned out to be fabricated. We've seen new species created in the wild, as well as in lab settings. We've seen it work on the small scale and on the Earth-encompassing scale.
And frankly, I am just plain fed up with people who can believe in "God", without ever demanding that he show up and make some water into wine, but smugly declare that evolution is fantastical because they've never seen a lizard spontaneously erupt in feathers and start going 'Bock bock'. They're buffoons who simply can't handle the thought of not being Super-Duper Special in the eyes of Their Lord, and according to their own narrow idea of Special at that, but at the same time they clutch their microwave ovens, television sets, factory-built clothes, credit cards, and supermarket goods that science, and science alone, has delivered to them. In short, they're hypocrites, and I hope they wake the hell up before they trash the house that science built, like the ignorant little children they are.
Richard Feynman made a speech some 40 or 50 years ago about this sort of thing. He observed that his fellow scientists were downplaying the solidity of their observations and experiments, because they were being pressured by religious leaders. The zealots complained that scientists were making "offensive" and "morally disruptive" discoveries, and the scientists, being nice people in general, didn't want to upset anyone with their work. Feynman said that he wasn't interested in being polite. He was interested in presenting the data as it was, and pulling no punches when people challenged it on non-scientific grounds. "Why are we tolerating these kinds of attacks?" he asked.
That's the stance I take, too. So here's what I really think. This organization? With a 15-million-dollar annual budget dedicated exclusively to spreading disinformation and rotting away the foundations of science? It's crap. Everyone involved in it is a malevolent jerk. Anyone who donates to it is a stupid cow who's been swindled, and hoodwinked, and had their brain raped by religious dogma, in the most intimate and desecrating of ways.
Scientific evidence isn't like a writ of holy commandments. It can't be wished away or shouted down. It doesn't vanish when you maim or imprison the people who teach it, or deface the textbooks that present it. Science doesn't work that way. Science is about refining theories that predict the outcome of an event before we witness it, or an observation before we make it. If the observation or the outcome doesn't match the theory, we modify the theory, or in extreme cases, throw it in the garbage. The Biblical creation myth belongs in the garbage. It was the best that a bunch of nomads in rude huts could manage thousands of years ago and it hasn't aged well. Anyone living today who thinks it has even a smidgen of truth is either haplessly ignorant, or willfully so.
Evolution, on the other hand, is such a vindicated and well documented theory that it has become an indispensable part of almost every branch of science. Its predictions have been proven right over and over again, from the presence of countless intermediate fossils to the genetic imprint of a common ancestor, carried in the DNA of every living creature on Earth. Since its formulation, no scientist has ever uncovered evidence that contadicts it. The closest anyone came was the Piltdown man discovery, and that turned out to be fabricated. We've seen new species created in the wild, as well as in lab settings. We've seen it work on the small scale and on the Earth-encompassing scale.
And frankly, I am just plain fed up with people who can believe in "God", without ever demanding that he show up and make some water into wine, but smugly declare that evolution is fantastical because they've never seen a lizard spontaneously erupt in feathers and start going 'Bock bock'. They're buffoons who simply can't handle the thought of not being Super-Duper Special in the eyes of Their Lord, and according to their own narrow idea of Special at that, but at the same time they clutch their microwave ovens, television sets, factory-built clothes, credit cards, and supermarket goods that science, and science alone, has delivered to them. In short, they're hypocrites, and I hope they wake the hell up before they trash the house that science built, like the ignorant little children they are.
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 03:25 pm (UTC)this and make it sound "good" instead of "utterly ridiculous."
no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 05:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 06:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 06:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 06:56 pm (UTC)But I really feel sorry for the poor school teachers who are going to have to deal with these obnoxious, brainwashed kids. How are they going to carry on class without eventually having to isolate and discipline the troublemakers? And won't their parents take that as being 'punished for their religion'? Ugh. This can lead nowhere good.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 06:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 07:02 pm (UTC)This bloke puts such a ridiculous burden of proof on science for his "contest" that it would be impossible to prove anything by his standards. By his standards of proof, you can't prove ANY spatial motion. He's basically exploiting relativity of motion by ruling out "appeals to 'simplicity.'" (Of course, suspiciously enough, that means that he can't prove that the sun revolves around the earth either...)
Lucas came up with the potential 'proof' that the sun can hold the earth with its gravitational field, but the converse is not true. However, it doesn't seem like these rules would allow for anything like that either (at least, not without a whole hell of a lot of supporting evidence), because the evidence has to be direct, measurable, etc. To prove it with direct, measurable evidence would take volumes and volumes of 'proofs.' You'd have to document the history of astrophysics. For $1,000.
It's the oldest trick in the religious, anti-scientific backlash book... "If you can't prove it to my ridiculous standards, it isn't true and I win!" Putting enormous burden of proof on science, and taking religion on faith.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 09:20 pm (UTC)The parallax shift of stars in the sky proves the the earth's location in the solar system moves, circularly, during the time of one year.
http://www.noao.edu/outreach/nop/nophigh/parallax.jpg
By comparing the parallax shift of stars that are at different distances from the sun, it is pretty easy to map a picture of space around us and show how the earth moves in a circular motion. By comparing the apparent size of the sun at different times of the year and it's location in the sky, it can be shown that the sun is not moving and that we are. Hence, we are moving in a circular motion around a sun which is not.
While these may not be the kind of "proof" that the CAI is looking for, they are very simple observations that can be made with a telescope that are backed up by plenty of more "complcated" science.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 09:22 pm (UTC)I guess I should go collect my $1000 now.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 09:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 10:35 pm (UTC)Never mind that (A:) there is functionally no different between the two, and (B:) new species have been observed in the wild and created in reproducible laboratory experiments.
I recently got into a throw-down rant with a fellow hothead on Slashdot about evolution versus "intelligent design", and his definition of Macroevolution changed to something more dramatic and extreme with every example I presented, until he was claiming that unless he was able to "watch a lizard sprout a wing", he had no reason to believe in evolution at all. It was the eternal course of the zealot: Refuse to accept what's right in front of your face, because to you, 'proof' is a matter of subjective idolatry, not a matter of reasoning.
Your Geocentric Challenge example is almost as bad -- The fellow asks for "proof" as he defines it, not as scientific theory demands it. Scientific theory is all about appeals to simplicity. The simplest theory which explains all the facts, and predicts future facts the most accurately, wins. The high-school physics equations for gravitational attraction fold nicely into functions describing orbital motion in a 2D plane - whether that orbital motion is centered around body A, or body B. But just because you can plunk the zero point of your graph paper down on any particular body doesn't mean that it's suddenly the center of the freaking universe.
In other words, the earth and the Sun orbit each other, and if the Sun orbits the Earth, the Earth orbits the Sun. Observe one and you observe the other. So watch the sun come up: Q.E.D. Better ask for a cashier's check, those religious organizations are notorious tightwads.
In addition, it's more accurate to say that the Earth orbits the Sun because for any extended period of time the Sun is at the relative center of the solar system. This is not an "appeal to simplicity" any more than calling the molten ball of iron far below our feet the "center of the Earth" is an "appeal to simplicity". It makes calculations easier and it makes our spoken language easier, unlike claiming that the "center of the Earth" is, for example, up on the Moon, or that the whole universe spins haphazardly around Chicago.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 10:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 10:40 pm (UTC)HERESY
Date: 2006-02-13 10:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 10:51 pm (UTC)After all. Brainwashing mind-control cults, sin, and drugs, are what they know.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 11:53 pm (UTC)http://robocowboy.livejournal.com/57426.html
no subject
Date: 2006-02-14 12:07 am (UTC)Re: HERESY
Date: 2006-02-14 12:50 am (UTC)Get a rope!!!
no subject
Date: 2006-02-14 01:46 am (UTC)When he says "How do you know that the earth was created billions of years ago? Were you there?", it makes me want to ask, "How do you know that God wrote the Bible? Were you there?"
Do you thank God we don't live in a Democracy?
Date: 2006-02-14 03:18 am (UTC)Or are you a pragmatist only where it comes to your college professor's agenda?
Re: Do you thank God we don't live in a Democracy?
Date: 2006-02-14 04:52 am (UTC)Do you think that "majority rules" is a better way to understand the natural world? To test the validity of reasoning? If so, then go back to your cave and pound some more rocks together, to appease the Sun God.
adding to the exchange
Date: 2006-02-14 05:32 am (UTC)Then you can get into a discussion about the relative quantities of evidence around you, and the evangelist will point at things and say, "all of this is proof of God!" To which you can reply, "How so?" To which they will reply, "Well, there's no other explanation available, is there?"
And to that, you'll have to respond with one of the following:
1. "That's not proof. That's a circular argument."
2. "Sure there is. The universe was pooped out by a giant Turtle named Mr. Snappers."
3. "That's a pretty strong conviction. Can that explanation also explain why we have two eyes instead of three? Hair instead of feathers? Why we don't reproduce by laying eggs? Why we develop tails in the womb? ... Because the theory of evolution has explained those things. Not just why they happened, but how. What are your explanations? Let's start with the 'two eyes instead of three' one. Assume, as you want to, that man did not evolve from lower life forms. Why do we have two eyes instead of three or six?"
Re: Do you thank God we don't live in a Democracy?
Date: 2006-02-14 06:38 am (UTC)Re: adding to the exchange
Date: 2006-02-14 07:24 am (UTC)They're sick, they're delusional, and as rational people, we have to decide if we want people like that speaking as strongly for us, knowing they'll argue for whatever they're told, or if it's better to keep them marginalized as fundimentalist Christians.
This is a topic I've spent a LOT of time on, and had many, many hours of discussion about. It's hard for me, but some people literally are beyond hope here.
Re: adding to the exchange
Date: 2006-02-14 05:41 pm (UTC)Dude, you can't win with those lunatics.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-17 08:38 am (UTC)1) Evolution has never excluded god. Anyway if I decided to believe in a god, I'd want to believe that he/she/it had the foresight to put evolution in place.
2) The geocentric model still works, you just need enough circles to explain the mechanics. Of course you would need more that $1,000 to entice someone to figure that out. In the end the only thing you'd prove is the person who figured it out needs a hobby.
3) If you believe in creationism, remember your appendix, tonsils, etc. were placed there by god. Remember that when your doctor says they have to go (but we may have free will in which case we can disobey god, or we don't have free will in which case we can't stop ourselves).
4) Sleep is a good thing that I am not getting enough of.
Re: Do you thank God we don't live in a Democracy?
Date: 2006-02-23 02:46 pm (UTC)If religious people just kept their beliefs in their designated religious cubby-holes, would you be so upset that some people actually believe these wild machinations? I doubt it. Isn't your anger the result of the fact that they actually try to foist their superstitions on us in the minority? If so, are you looking for support in your fight, or are you hoping to inspire others to fight this battle for you? For this is an important area where the minority must fight against the tyranny of the majority.
"Majority Rules" is "mob rules" and that's a pure Democracy. Nature doesn't work by mob-ocracy. Luckily for us, the guys who created our Bill of Rights weren't trying to create a Democracy and specifically wanted to avoid it. They knew that Democracies don't work. Not in nature and not in political systems. The only way to protect the minority is to protect and defend the Constitutional system of Representation and oppose movement toward pure Democracy and oppose the people who espouse plebiscitary rhetoric like "One person, One vote".
But, I suspect now that you don't have a whole lot of respect for the Bill of Rights, based on your comparison to the Ten Commandments, for which you presumably hold nothing but contempt.
Re: Do you thank God we don't live in a Democracy?
Date: 2006-02-23 09:35 pm (UTC)1. Groups who have the blessing of the church, who go on to spread disinformation or commit horrible deeds in its name,
2. The constituents of the church itself, who believe they must do some inane thing to protect the integrity of the church from an "evil force", be it homosexuality, abortion, rock music, "pagan rituals", or evolution.
But this whole statement isn't really necessary - you were really just trying to insult me by claiming that I had been fed my ideas by "a local college professor", and you know, that's not much of an insult, because I found college professors to be quite likable, and well-informed, on the whole.
Like that fellow who taught my AMST-001 class, which focused on the history and function of the US Supreme Court. He really opened my eyes to what an innovative idea that was - a body of judges whose purpose is to determine the constitutionality of written and "penumbral" law, from a position of political insulation from the body that wrote the laws. They have made some truly important decisions based on the Bill of Rights - and some decisions that the "unwashed masses" have found distasteful at first, only to understand later.
I already had great respect for the Bill of Rights, but that class only increased it. And I compare the Bill of Rights to the Ten Commandments only in form, not in content. They're a set of declarations that describe in strong terms the limits of behavior. The crucial difference would be that the Ten Commandments attempts to restrict personal behavior, whereas the Bill of Rights was meant to sharply restrict the behavior of the government.
So your assumption that I hold "nothing but contempt" for the Bill of Rights and/or the Ten Commandments is just more goading. I don't know why you would say that except to try and foist some kind of argument-by-misdirection on me, like you're trying to do with democracy. As I said before: Democracy and the good practice of science are really not related. I'm not arguing from a democratic standpoint, and neither are the people that I oppose. It's a group of catholic megalomaniacs out there, doing what catholics do best, and embarking on a crusade. And it's just plain stupid, from end to end.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-23 09:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-15 09:24 am (UTC)Charlatans.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-15 10:49 am (UTC)What brings this back up, anyway?