/argument

Also, Ben Stein on O’Reilly. I didn’t realize Bill was such a complete and utter idiot… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDIwm_1bAEU

WHY ARE YOU WASTING YOUR TIME ASSWIPE?

PHIL YOUR SUCH A FAKE ASTRONOMER!

Barton:

“Why not?”

Sorry, I was using Mike J logic. Not very scientific, I know. And alas, it seems that Mikey has done his disappearing act again, no doubt to spout off the same crud again at some point in the future despite the fact it was already debunked here. Fundies are nothing if not predictable.

[[Where did God come from? He can’t have always just been there, surely. ]]

Why not?

>When will it get through your thick skulls that maybe everyone who doesn’t agree with the THEORY of evolution is a “liar” or “doomed”…<

Not everyone who is a creationist/IDer is a liar, but it does seem to happen occasionally….

From Kitzmiller vs Dover School Board:

“Both Defendants and many of the leading proponents of ID make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false. Their presupposition is that evolutionary theory is antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general.

Repeatedly in this trial, Plaintiffs’ scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator.

To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.

The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy.

It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.”

Decision by Judge John E Jones III (against ID)

Philosophical materialism: that which is observable and physically interrogable in nature is all that exists. There are no spiritual nor supernatural agents, objects, or forces in the world.

Science is very much materialistic. Naturalistic materialism is its realm of inquiry by definition. If anyone wants to apply a ‘deeper meaning,’ they have to do it themselves by making up sky fairies or universal flows or karma or whatnot. Whether or not these things actually have any truth value in a philosophical sense is irrelevant because in the reductionist naturalistic materialist system of science, they can not be interrogated and are thus not acceptable explanations for phenomena.

This basically comes down to science not being able to say that God exists, but being more than capable to say that praying for health is about as effacacious as hoping for good health.

—

TAKING THE MIKE J. CHALLENGE!

> Evolution… never been observed

False. Purely natural speciesation has not been observed, and this suffers more from the indistinct definition of “species” more than anything else. Evolutionary adaptation has been observed in everything from influenza to human beings themselves (note how, for example, as time progresses, the average eyesight of humans in First World countries has been progressively getting worse).

> Evolution… never been tested in the lab

False. Every new fossil classifies as a lab test; every computer model of speciesation and evolution of “irreducably complex” structures like flagellae and complex eyes classifies as a lab test. They have all come out in favor of evolution.

> Evolution… never been duplicated naturally or artificially

Extremely false. Orange trees are a naturally capable but artificially realized evolutionary hybrid of pears and tangerines, I believe. All human food crops and animals have been artificially evolved to better suit our needs. Dogs were artificially evolved from wolves. Animals have been found to adapt–”microevolve”–in response to changing climactic or environmental conditions. Macroevolution is only microevolution over extended periods of time. It is too much to ask of a mere two hundred years of scientific inquiry and many fewer years of concentrated efforts to displayed Observed Proof Of Speciesation Happening Right Now.

> Evolution… mathmatically impossible

False. If evolution were truly random and not guided by environmental pressures and survival requirements, then you would be correct. It is not, however, random and most mutations are either of null value or harmful (where they are, if nature runs its course, purged). Successful mutations, however, ‘pass the test’ and continue, thus making the argument of evolution being random a total strawman: there is a filter involved, and filters preclude randomness.

> Evolution… the only thing that atheists are willing to believe (sorry im just skeptical of that little fact)

False. They’re also generally willing to believe in the theory of universal gravitation, germ theory, thermodynamic theory, aerodynamic theory…

> Evolution… actually is a hypothesis that has been elevated to the status of a “theory” even though its never been observed taking place, been tested in the lab, or duplicated at all.

See above. Repetition does not denote evidence nor otherwise reinforces an argument.

> Also most math buffs will tell you that it is statistically impossible for “evoltuion” to take place even once, let alone billions of times for every animals.

This is assuming evolution to be a truely random sequence. It is not. Please show evidence that a sorting function makes self-ordering of data statistically impossible.

> Also if you just do a quick equation, you will see that EVERY animal must have , or be going through evolution, therefore the amount of time it would take for several billion different life forms to evolve from “the soup” (which has never been observed or tested either) would be in the trillions of years (assuming the big bang, chemical (abiotic) evolution, and planetary evolution also had to take billions of years as well)…

Provide evidence. Also, do not assume linearity in the progress of evolution; as each species can be the common ancestor of an entire family of new species, the progress of evolution is probably exponential (which appears to be borne out by the progress of diversity in the fossil record), barring extinction events.

> Also before the trillions of years of evolution, you would also have to dole out about 10 billion years after the big bang, to have chemicals evolve, and planets to form, just so you could have the “soup” form, in order for the billions of life forms to mutate from the one single “soup” that you all BELIEVE in (and yes you do BELIEVE in the soup, because you’ve never seen it or tested it)… i.e.. it is your god that you have no proof of.

Strawman. I’ve never seen nor tested the existence of Timbuktu. Does that automatically imply that it does not exist? The primordial soup theory is a purely naturalistic explanation for naturalistic phenomena which can be tested, and is in the process of being tested. Should it fail utterly, a new hypothesis will have to be developed.

Contrast with belief in a God, which is a supernatural organism that cannot be interrogated but its actions in reality can. All current evidence tends to indicate that the origin of life can be explained through naturalistic means without resorting to a supernatural creator. I’ve never seen, nor can I test the existence of God, and thus can make no comment on Its existence except one of faith. However, we can observe the world around us and test whether phenomena are the acts of some God or some naturalistic cause. Prayer to cure the sick or the self does not work any better than generally wishing well and works definitively worse than naturalistically derived medicines and treatments.

The belief in God as a universal concept and the belief in the primordial soup as a theory are two very different things. One is a belief completely predicated on faith for the time being; the other is interrogable and, should reality say otherwise, be disbelieved.

> No proof of the soup, yet you still tell everyone they are wrong if they don’t believe in it like you believe in it.

Evolution is not contingent on primordial soup. Evolution is not equivalent to the ultimate origin of life. There are evolutionary biologists who dispute the soup theory and suggest some of their own (like the primordial sandwich; crystalline structures in sulfuric vents; so on and so forth).

> I challenge you phil, show me proof of your god, the soup. Back up your claims that creation didn’t take place.

Show me proof that the soup is Doctor Plait’s god. Since you are making this assertion, it should be backed up by evidence. Beyond that, show me undeniable proof of your God, the Creator.

> Please explain how, naturally, something came out of nothing at the beginning of the universe.

Time and space are unified; the universe is a closed four-dimensional object. Before the universe, there was no time, therefore, there is, as far as our ignorance allows us to say, no “before” the universe. It seems we’ve moved on from biology to cosmology/

> Please remember, that space cannot appear without, matter, and matter cannot exist without space, and space and matter cannot exist without a “time” to put them at (i.e.. after you have space, and matter, the problem becomes WHEN do you place the space and matter in time).

Space is not predicated upon the existence of matter, nor is time an entity separate from space, as far as our current level of ignorance allows us to say. Based on this concept, the last quoted statement is absurd.

> So space, matter, and time must have been “created”… as logically speaking the could not “just have always been there”… the only two choices are that the “universe has always just been here”, or that the “universe came from nothing”.

As distasteful as ex nihilo arguments are, things come from and fall back into nothing all the time, particularly “quantum foam.” It appears uncertain at this time that we can interrogate anything prior to time being equal to zero in this universe, where our mathematical understanding reality breaks down. This is generally regarded as admitted and a reason why cosmologists still have jobs.

Both “from nothing” and “always been” have been posited with a straight face and the scientific argument continues, and will probably continue for a long time, somewhat akin to the proportion of God and Man in Jesus in the late early Christian church. This dispute does not automatically disprove either concept, however, nor preclude other possibilties we have not conceived of yet.

> Both are illogical choices,

Only because they conflict with our concept of causality, which derives from our evolution inside a system already in motion. As said previously, at time equals to zero everything breaks down.

> only one has a logical explanation though… the logical explanation of course is that an “outside force” beyond space, time, and matter (i.e. beyond the natural universe) brought it all into existence somehow.

This is merely a way to force a situation currently beyond our comprehension, where the rules of reality as they stand right now make no sense, make sense to our perceptions of the rules of reality as they stand right now. We cannot conceive of there being no time and no space, and it makes no sense to us, where event A2 is brought about by cause A1, that there could be something with no cause. Therefore, we create and rationalize an external being to give our effect a cause to make things more comfortable for us. It may be more logical, but our logic is predicated on our perceptions and our evolution inside our system, and simply because something is logical does not make it true.

>> Evolutionists like yourself believe that (according to your science textbooks) that space time and matter were just compressed down to a small dot… your side doesn’t even address the logical problem of where the dot came from. You guys just “say it was there”.

This is because there was no time in the ‘period’ of the dot. There was no ‘before’ the dot. Time did not exist, and so the everyday concept of a string of causality breaks down completely. Just like with your God. He was always there; nothing created Him because if He were created He would not be God. You simply shift the argument from realtime to Godtime, and you cannot interrogate Godtime any more than we can interrogate the no time at t=0.

> Word to the wise, none of that is science.. believing in an unseen soup, believing in a big bang that came from a dot, and a dot that “was just always there”… believing all chemicals somehow evolved from Hydrogen, and believing that the planets formed from debris falling over billions of years.

It is science because it is an explanation based on purely naturalistic phenomena and have, to date, held up against scientific inquiry.

> You believe all these took place, each one taking billions of years consecutively… just add it all up, you’ll see that the age of the universe would be in the tens of trillions of years.

The only evidence we have for this is your assertion, which appears to be based on false assumptions of how the system works.

> My point is … if you take the whole enchilada offered by the evolution belief system, you have to stretch reality so far, that you leave science, and enter the realm of “scientology”.

Red Herring. Scientology is a New Religious Movement (the right-think term for ‘cult’) which has practically nothing to do with science.

> ARe you a scientologist phil? ;^) AFter all, they believe things that are just as crazy as believing in soup, and dots!

Character assassination only weakens your argument.

>”Evolution… never been observed”

Wrong

>”Evolution… never been tested in the lab”

Wrong

>”Evolution… never been duplicated naturally or artificially”

Nonsensical statement

>”Evolution… mathmatically impossible”

Wrong

>”Evolution… the only thing that atheists are willing to believe”

Wrong. Don’t forget, religious people can accept evolution too.

>”life forms to evolve from “the soup” (which has never been observed or tested either)”

You’re conflating evolution with abiogenesis again…

>”would be in the trillions of years”

Wrong

>”and yes you do BELIEVE in the soup, because you’ve never seen it or tested it)… i.e.. it is your god that you have no proof of.”

Abiogenesis IS a hypothesis, and that’s the way science works. While we know evolution occurred, we don’t know for sure how life first appeared – yet. What was your alternative “theory” again?

>”I challenge you phil, show me proof of your god, the soup. Back up your claims that creation didn’t take place.”

There’s no reason why God couldn’t have used evolution to get us here. Evolution says nothing about God. Evolution doesn’t disprove God. NOTHING can. Therefore it isn’t testable. That is why it is unscientific.

>”Please explain how, naturally, something came out of nothing at the beginning of the universe.”

Please explain how God SUPERnaturally made something out of nothing at the beginning of the universe. You are also aware that evolution and the Big Bang are two separate theories, yes?

>”So space, matter, and time must have been “created”… as logically speaking the could not “just have always been there”… the only two choices are that the “universe has always just been here”, or that the “universe came from nothing”. Both are illogical choices, only one has a logical explanation though… the logical explanation of course is that an “outside force” beyond space, time, and matter (i.e. beyond the natural universe) brought it all into existence somehow.”

Where did God come from? He can’t have always just been there, surely. So what created God? And what (and here’s the important part) EVIDENCE do you have of this “outside force”, other than your complete and total inability to comprehend science?

>”your side doesn’t even address the logical problem of where the dot came from.”

Again, we don’t know – yet. But substituting that with “GODDIDIT” does not help scientific progress in any way whatsoever.

Also, this site debunks pretty much all of your nonsense here:

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/

Come back when you’ve learned something, Mikey.

God … never been tested in the lab

God … never been duplicated naturally or artificially

God … mathmatically impossible

God … the only thing that theists are willing to believe

So you think God must not exist as well?

Mike J is an EVIL ATHEIST! All good Christians BEWARE! His words are LIES!

Prove me wrong.

4) It will be run extensively and promoted by local church groups.

-OEJ

————————————-

Good point phil… lets see here..

Evolution… never been observed

Evolution… never been tested in the lab

Evolution… never been duplicated naturally or artificially

Evolution… mathmatically impossible

Evolution… the only thing that atheists are willing to believe (sorry im just skeptical of that little fact)

Evolution… actually is a hypothesis that has been elevated to the status of a “theory” even though its never been observed taking place, been tested in the lab, or duplicated at all. Also most math buffs will tell you that it is statistically impossible for “evoltuion” to take place even once, let alone billions of times for every animals.

Also if you just do a quick equation, you will see that EVERY animal must have , or be going through evolution, therefore the amount of time it would take for several billion different life forms to evolve from “the soup” (which has never been observed or tested either) would be in the trillions of years (assuming the big bang, chemical (abiotic) evolution, and planetary evolution also had to take billions of years as well)…

Also before the trillions of years of evolution, you would also have to dole out about 10 billion years after the big bang, to have chemicals evolve, and planets to form, just so you could have the “soup” form, in order for the billions of life forms to mutate from the one single “soup” that you all BELIEVE in (and yes you do BELIEVE in the soup, because you’ve never seen it or tested it)… i.e.. it is your god that you have no proof of.

No proof of the soup, yet you still tell everyone they are wrong if they don’t believe in it like you believe in it.

I challenge you phil, show me proof of your god, the soup. Back up your claims that creation didn’t take place.

Please explain how, naturally, something came out of nothing at the beginning of the universe.

Please remember, that space cannot appear without, matter, and matter cannot exist without space, and space and matter cannot exist without a “time” to put them at (i.e.. after you have space, and matter, the problem becomes WHEN do you place the space and matter in time).

So space, matter, and time must have been “created”… as logically speaking the could not “just have always been there”… the only two choices are that the “universe has always just been here”, or that the “universe came from nothing”.

Both are illogical choices, only one has a logical explanation though… the logical explanation of course is that an “outside force” beyond space, time, and matter (i.e. beyond the natural universe) brought it all into existence somehow.

Evolutionists like yourself believe that (according to your science textbooks) that space time and matter were just compressed down to a small dot… your side doesn’t even address the logical problem of where the dot came from. You guys just “say it was there”.

Word to the wise, none of that is science.. believing in an unseen soup, believing in a big bang that came from a dot, and a dot that “was just always there”… believing all chemicals somehow evolved from Hydrogen, and believing that the planets formed from debris falling over billions of years.

You believe all these took place, each one taking billions of years consecutively… just add it all up, you’ll see that the age of the universe would be in the tens of trillions of years. My point is … if you take the whole enchilada offered by the evolution belief system, you have to stretch reality so far, that you leave science, and enter the realm of “scientology”.

ARe you a scientologist phil? ;^) AFter all, they believe things that are just as crazy as believing in soup, and dots!

My guesstimate is 99.99975%. There are probably at least 800,000 biological scientists in the world, and only 2 or 3 (to the best of my knowledge) do not accept the fundamentals of evolutionary theory.

“Their way of thinking is different. They are ignorant, close-minded fanatics – but I do think they are _sincere_ ignorant, close-minded fanatics. As fundamentalists (wrong but honestly committed) they do not accept any science that refutes the Bible – eg. & esp. evolution. To them, such science must be false and must be lying or mistaken. Why? The Bible tells em so. God, in their hearts and minds (or imaginations) tells them so. To them if nobody else they’re right and defending what they see as the Truth. If they have to use dirty tactics to acheive this (like say suicide bombing or political wedging) then that’s okay because in their eyes they’re fighting for the side of what’s rightand good and true and doing Gods work. They base this on faith, and god and if soemof them know they aresometimes telling “white lies” then they excuse it as acceptable for the Greater Truth or some such BS – BS I think they genuinely if stupidly believe. ”

I see your point here, and I agree with you about the rank-and-file creationists, but it is the leaders who I believe are lying, because they actually do know better.

You also said:
“Lying is when you tell somebody something that you know to be wrong and don’t actually beleive yourself.

The DI believe their rubbbish. They claim to be authorities because they claim to Know from a POV which we don’t share with based on evidence we consider no evidence at all. ”

Hmmm … I’m not so sure about this bit.

When ID was being touted as a “scientific” alternative to evolution, the leading lights published critiques of evolutionary theory (e.g. No Free Lunch by W.A. Dembski and Darwin’s Black Box by M. Behe). In response, scientists have torn apart the arguments in these books. I mean, literally shredded. They are factually wrong on many counts, they claim that evolutionary theory claims things that it actually does not claim, and their writing contains more logical fallacies than you can shake a stick at. The authors have failed to acknowledge the critiques (except in the most trivial of cases); they have, in fact, continued to publish essentially the same deeply-flawed arguments.

Now, asidfe from what one may personally believe, if your “science” gets torn to pieces by critiques of the scientific community, the least you should do is address the criticisms. The behaviour of these fellows has convinced me that they know they cannot rebut the criticisms, so they choose to ignore them. Thus, they know that what they publish is wrong. Whatever you personally believe, if you make a claim that you know to be wrong, I call that lying.

Additionally, the DI fellows have repeatedly claimed that IDC makes no claims about the designer, that it does not have to be God. Most of them have gone on record (in front of partisan audiences, for the most part) stating that they believe the designer to be God. And, oddly, none of them has made any credible suggestion about who else the designer might be. Yet, at the same time, they have steadfastly refused to entertain the concept that there might be more than one designer. Thus, despite the claim that the designer might not be God, I am convinced by their behaviour that they all consider the designer to be God.

Despite their claims that IDC is not religiously-based, it actually is religiously-based. (This was a finding of the Dover court case). Since they know their own motivation better than anyone else, that claim was therefore also a lie.

[[1. It has not been repeatedly tested.
2. It is not widely accepted.
3. It can not be used to make predictions about natural phenomena,
all apply to Evolution also… And all three are logical fallacies…]]

1. Evolution has been repeatedly tested. On many occasions, evolutionary biologists have made predictions that have panned out — that the common ancestor of ants and wasps would have particular characteristics (they found one in amber in 1967 and it did), that intermediates between land animals and whales would have certain characteristics (they found a bunch in the ’80s and ’90s and they did), that overuse of pesticides and antibiotics would result in pesticide-resistant insects and antibiotic-resistant microbes arising (and they did).

2. It is certainly widely accepted by biologists. 99% or more.

3. See #1.

And since when is it cool to flat out accept one THEORY, but then exclude all others? How can you call yourself scientific?

Don’t you hear how ridiculous it sounds—- when you and PZ sit there, as supposed educated atheists, calling all sorts of good people “liars”.

dude, you guys are becoming a joke, and exactly what you claim to hate…. i.e.. bigots”

The scientific theory of evolution is one of the best pieces of science that exists. It is the unifying principle of biology, and explains many disparate observations. There is no alternative. (An before you claim that there is, I hope you are prepared to provide a detailed description of the scientific alternative, including a precise defintion of all terms you wish to use . Remember also that ID is not science and actually has no scientific content, and that all “scientific creationism” options are flatly in contradiction with known facts).

Conclusions arising from evolutionary theory, such as common descent, have been proven beyond any reasonable doubt.

But don’t take my word for it – go to Talk Origins and look at some of the evidence for yourself.

Anyone who denies the applicability of evolutionary theory is, as far as can be determined, denying reality. Therefore, they are either hugely ignorant or they are lying.

As you can see, ID creationism fails on three counts:
1. It has not been repeatedly tested.
2. It is not widely accepted.
3. It can not be used to make predictions about natural phenomena,

all apply to Evolution also… And all three are logical fallacies…

Robert”

Well, Robert, guess what? You’re wrong.

1. Evolutionary theory has been repeatedly tested. Every time a new fossil is unearthed or a new genome is sequenced, it could (in principle) be refuted. To date, no contradictory data have come to light, despite the huge amount of biological data that have been acquired since the theory was proposed.

2. Evolutionary theory (in its modern incarnation that includes such items as DNA, recombination, genetic drift and punctuated equilibrium) is accepted by all scientists (to about 4 significant figures). The couple of hundred actual scientists that have signed the “dissent from Darwin” statement represents a trivial minority of scientists. Evolutionary theory is also overwhlemingly accepted by rational and critical thinkers. It is only widely rejected by those who (1) do not know what it is; or (2) have an alternative agenda.

3. Evolutionary theory was used to predict that fossil beds of a certain age would contain a fish – tetrapod transitional form. Lo: Tiktaalik (look it up on Wikipedia).

I am, however, not sure you’ve quite grasped mine.

From our scientific point of view (POV) the discovery Institute and the IDCer’s (Intelligent Design Creationists) are lying – as we see it. We follow the scientific method and logic and reason and see them as not only wrong but liars for arguing a case where _we_ see NO case to make -based on our way of thinking.

Their way of thinking is different. They are ignorant, close-minded fanatics – but I do think they are _sincere_ ignorant, close-minded fanatics. As fundamentalists (wrong but honestly committed) they do not accept any science that refutes the Bible – eg. & esp. evolution. To them, such science must be false and must be lying or mistaken. Why? The Bible tells em so. God, in their hearts and minds (or imaginations) tells them so. To them if nobody else they’re right and defending what they see as the Truth. If they have to use dirty tactics to acheive this (like say suicide bombing or political wedging) then that’s okay because in their eyes they’re fighting for the side of what’s rightand good and true and doing Gods work. They base this on faith, and god and if soemof them know they aresometimes telling “white lies” then they excuse it as acceptable for the Greater Truth or some such BS – BS I think they genuinely if stupidly believe.

This is my point I don’t think they see themselves as lying. (or even know when they are?) They may be deluded, stubbornly willfully deluded perhaps – but their mindset is so vastly different to ours we may as well be on separate planets. (Ah yes if only they were… Neptune might just be far enough enough away … )

This whole issue is at the intersection of & involves the political & scientific & religious.

They want to pit religion against science and have religion win in the political arena. They see themselves as waging a political war (hence the Wedge strategy) in the cause of their Truth against what they see as scientific falsehood.

This idea & conception is absurd. To us. To them its real and they see everything through that ideological prism. They are wrong – but from their standpoint they aren’t telling telling lies.

& in fairness some radical atheists like Richard Dawkins and a few other scientists do seem to be fighting a war against religion again as much in the political sphere as much as anywhere else.

Perhaps then we too must accept a certain level of ideological blindness or seeing things through X-xcoloured glasses. We think we’re right &, of course, we would. They think they’re right – & of course they would.

Objectively … well, philosophically speaking, genuine objectiveness is very hard to get and especially when as with this, things have been so polarised and heated. Each side sees themsleves as absolutely Right and the other side as absolutely Wrong.

(Of course, our side really is Right but hey, that’s still the situation! )

Nigel – Semantically I disagree with your disagreement with me :

“The DI fellows claim authority in a topic in which they remain willfully ignorant. That is lying.”

Not quite. Close, aguable perhaps but not by my definition that :

Lying is when you tell somebody something that you know to be wrong and don’t actually beleive yourself.

The DI believe their rubbbish. They claim to be authorities because they claim to Know from a POV which we don’t share with based on evidence we consider no evidence at all.

We’re right but they’re sincere in their delusions.

Course, that is just semantics … but still.