(Via 95% Of You Are Morons, and Pooflinger's Anonymous)
For those of you who enjoy reading this blogger's favourite skeptical blogs, it is sad to note that a blogger known as Weapon Of Mass Information (we call him Cocksnack) has disappeared off the face of the blogosphere.
For those who weren't aware, Cocksnack was a creationist who had a blog committed to "debunking" "Darwinism" and "Evolutionists".
A bit sad, but nonetheless, to see what IDiocy creationists are capable of, check out the exchange that Rockstar Ryan has reproduced at his blog. This is but the tip of the iceberg with this guy. He was (and probably still is) one insane dude.
And then check out Matt Pooflinger's assessment of Cocksnack's disappearance.
Infophile has commented that Cocksnack may have re-located to another blog - is this Cocksnack?
Only time (pause, Kent Brockman style) will tell.
Showing posts with label creationism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label creationism. Show all posts
15 April 2007
09 February 2007
Paley's Rock
William Paley's Watchmaker Analogy is held aloft by creationists everywhere as proof that the earth and everything on it was created by God, or at least, a higher power of some sort.
Critics of creationism are quick to refute the Watchmaker Analogy, and rightly so.
Let's just quickly re-cap on what Paley himself had to say about the whole matter, in his book Natural Theology:
Now this is all largely nonsense. Paley is suggesting, on the basis of his watch example that everything in this world is intelligently designed by someone or something to serve some sort of purpose.
Charles Darwin accepted this while studying theology at Cambridge and came to the conclusion that this argument held up.
He later, after sailing away on the Beagle to study nature and the distribution of species around the world, refuted this analogy quite explicitly in the Origin of the Species by explaining that the Law of Natural Selection was a better model for explaining the diversity of species around the world. In so doing he paved the way for Evolutionary Biology which took Darwin's findings one step further and developed into a field primarily concerned with examining the origins and evolution of species.
By far the most famous evolutionary biologist on the planet today is, of course, Richard Dawkins. Dawkins had a serious bash at the Watchmaker Analogy in his book The Blind Watchmaker and concluded that, as complex as evolution sounds to the layperson, it pales next to any creation argument. The very idea that everything is the subject of complex design implies an even more complex designer.
Which of course implies an even more complex designer for the first complex designer, a sort of "Turtles all the way down" scenario.
Stephen Hawking, in A Brief History of Time explains this concept very well, by quoting a story that may or may not have involved Bertrand Russell:
And this is good, because it is pretty clear from these arguments that evolution is easily the simplest explanation for life on this planet.
But it has occurred to me that Paley's argument falls on its face in a much simpler and much more embarrassing way.
Darwin and Dawkins, as well as countless scientists and creationists have been led astray by what was a magnificently well-placed red herring in the story.
The Watch.
How much time has been spent poring over the Watch?
How many mental pictures have been created in peoples heads - what the face looked like? Was the glass scratched? Was it a gold watch? Did it have a 2mm or a 5mm chain? If it was gold, how many carats would it have been?
The problem with Paley's example is not with the watch, though.
If we go back and accompany Paley on his hypothetical walk across the heath again, we'll see that he didn't just hypothetically come across a watch that day.
Paley also came across a stone, which he gave very short shrift to. His answer to what he thought of the stone appears to be complete disinterest:
So why does he not subject the rock to the same level of scrutiny which he gave the watch?
Paley has no, repeat, no idea of how the stone came to be there, nor does he consider it to be important.
What is important, though, is that in dismissing the stone as being unimportant to his story, he is essentially applying a double standard to the stone compared to the watch.
He mentions it in passing, because it is important for comparison to the watch.
But Paley's comparison ends there.
It should not.
Why has everyone, Darwin and Dawkins included, appeared to have missed the bleeding obvious on this? Paley does not at any time discuss the "purpose", "contrivance" or the "design" of the rock at any stage.
Paley has had a free kick on this for over 200 years - so why don't we do what Paley did not, but should have done?
Paley lauds the watch as, "There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed [the watch] for the purpose which we find it actually to answer;"
But a rock? We would need to know its "purpose".
The rest of the story serves no purpose unless someone can come up with way of assessing the rock in the same way that Paley evaluates the watch.
Its a great trick - introduce the rock and then dazzle us with implied bling - and for all we know, the watch that Paley finds on his walk might only have been a cheapie made in Sheffield.
And being the humans that we are, the flashy piece of chronometry has everyone's attention, whereas the drab rock - basalt perhaps, diamond, maybe - vanishes into the background.
The wonder of it all this is this: why hasn't anyone taken Paley apart for this?
It's really that simple folks.
Someone should call their blog Paley's Rock.
Critics of creationism are quick to refute the Watchmaker Analogy, and rightly so.
Let's just quickly re-cap on what Paley himself had to say about the whole matter, in his book Natural Theology:
In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. (...) There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed [the watch] for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use. (...) Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation.
– William Paley, Natural Theology (1802)
Now this is all largely nonsense. Paley is suggesting, on the basis of his watch example that everything in this world is intelligently designed by someone or something to serve some sort of purpose.
Charles Darwin accepted this while studying theology at Cambridge and came to the conclusion that this argument held up.
He later, after sailing away on the Beagle to study nature and the distribution of species around the world, refuted this analogy quite explicitly in the Origin of the Species by explaining that the Law of Natural Selection was a better model for explaining the diversity of species around the world. In so doing he paved the way for Evolutionary Biology which took Darwin's findings one step further and developed into a field primarily concerned with examining the origins and evolution of species.
By far the most famous evolutionary biologist on the planet today is, of course, Richard Dawkins. Dawkins had a serious bash at the Watchmaker Analogy in his book The Blind Watchmaker and concluded that, as complex as evolution sounds to the layperson, it pales next to any creation argument. The very idea that everything is the subject of complex design implies an even more complex designer.
Which of course implies an even more complex designer for the first complex designer, a sort of "Turtles all the way down" scenario.
Stephen Hawking, in A Brief History of Time explains this concept very well, by quoting a story that may or may not have involved Bertrand Russell:
A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.
At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise."
The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"
"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"
- Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (1988)
And this is good, because it is pretty clear from these arguments that evolution is easily the simplest explanation for life on this planet.
But it has occurred to me that Paley's argument falls on its face in a much simpler and much more embarrassing way.
Darwin and Dawkins, as well as countless scientists and creationists have been led astray by what was a magnificently well-placed red herring in the story.
The Watch.
How much time has been spent poring over the Watch?
How many mental pictures have been created in peoples heads - what the face looked like? Was the glass scratched? Was it a gold watch? Did it have a 2mm or a 5mm chain? If it was gold, how many carats would it have been?
The problem with Paley's example is not with the watch, though.
If we go back and accompany Paley on his hypothetical walk across the heath again, we'll see that he didn't just hypothetically come across a watch that day.
Paley also came across a stone, which he gave very short shrift to. His answer to what he thought of the stone appears to be complete disinterest:
In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer.
So why does he not subject the rock to the same level of scrutiny which he gave the watch?
Paley has no, repeat, no idea of how the stone came to be there, nor does he consider it to be important.
What is important, though, is that in dismissing the stone as being unimportant to his story, he is essentially applying a double standard to the stone compared to the watch.
He mentions it in passing, because it is important for comparison to the watch.
But Paley's comparison ends there.
It should not.
Why has everyone, Darwin and Dawkins included, appeared to have missed the bleeding obvious on this? Paley does not at any time discuss the "purpose", "contrivance" or the "design" of the rock at any stage.
Paley has had a free kick on this for over 200 years - so why don't we do what Paley did not, but should have done?
Paley lauds the watch as, "There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed [the watch] for the purpose which we find it actually to answer;"
But a rock? We would need to know its "purpose".
The rest of the story serves no purpose unless someone can come up with way of assessing the rock in the same way that Paley evaluates the watch.
Its a great trick - introduce the rock and then dazzle us with implied bling - and for all we know, the watch that Paley finds on his walk might only have been a cheapie made in Sheffield.
And being the humans that we are, the flashy piece of chronometry has everyone's attention, whereas the drab rock - basalt perhaps, diamond, maybe - vanishes into the background.
The wonder of it all this is this: why hasn't anyone taken Paley apart for this?
It's really that simple folks.
Someone should call their blog Paley's Rock.
13 March 2006
How to De-stabilise Rational Thinking in 10 Easy Lessons
After the arse-kicking that they received in the Kitzmiller vs Dover case (also known as Scopes II), IDiots have been strangely quiet.
But don't discount them. They'll be back. And they'll be back in a way that means that when they do, all us rational folk will be needed for the showdown.
After all, there are plenty more battlefields out there that haven't even been fought at yet.
Evolution is just one of the possible targets that they could name. They could come back with a sneaky attack on the Big Bang, Gravity, the list is too big to mention.
In the fallout after this case, attention has been focussed back on the Discovery Institute, the shadowy right-wing thinktank that has been pushing the ID line.
What is most disturbing is that, amidst all the double-talk, wheeling and dealing and spin, the Discovery Institute seems to be ashamed to acknowledge their admitted religious agenda.
You wouldn't think so if this really was all there was to it.
Anyway, back to the story at hand.
What appears to be the case is that up to this point, the boys and girls over at the Discovery Institute have been going out of their way to introduce a concept called Intelligent Design into the science classroom through a process of deliberate confusion called "Teaching the Controversy."
Teaching the Controversy is simply asserting that a controversy exists where there isn't one. Great trick, if you can pull it off. Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation are particularly good at this.
What is certain about Teaching the Controversy is that it is designed to exploit a weak point identified fairly early on by the Discovery Institute. The weak point that I am referring to is that many people don't know what science actually is.
Disgraceful, really.
Mark Nutter is a bloke who keeps a very interesting blog on reconciling religion with science called, Heaven is not the Sky.
Nutter has identified a top ten, an "action plan", if you like, for sabotaging science in the name of religion.
These read as follows:
My questions are these.
Firstly, there are many religious types who don't approve of what 'mentalists like the Discovery Institute are doing.
Why don't they have a serious bash at destabilising the 'mentalists? The vast, vast majority of Christians (and I will specifically single Christians out here. Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc all seem to be immune to all this silliness) simply do not support literal interpretations of the Bible.
In fact, if you were to ask them, and promise them confidentiality, I would hazard a guess that 9 out of 10 Christians do not even support the notion of Biblical inerrancy.
Secondly, this goes for scientists and the rest of us.
Up to now, the PR nous displayed by scientists has been atrocious.
Kitzmiller was won through sheer dumb luck. Luck in that it was lucky that the plaintiffs had such a good case and a decent legal team.
When the IDiots attempt to pull another one over on the rest of us, they will come better organised.
It is time for scientists to go out on the attack and lauch a PR blitz of their own.
And there is a really, really good reason why this is the case.
In the next few weeks this blogger plans to examine the concept of Dominionism. Is it just another wacky conspiracy theory? If not, then what is it?
Even if it is pure codswallop, wouldn't you feel more comfortable if our friends with pointy heads were at least getting out there and making themselves known?
Because if they don't, and our fundamentalists come a calling, normal people are going to feel safer with them than the forces of logic and reason.
And this has the potential to return us to the dark ages.
But don't discount them. They'll be back. And they'll be back in a way that means that when they do, all us rational folk will be needed for the showdown.
After all, there are plenty more battlefields out there that haven't even been fought at yet.
Evolution is just one of the possible targets that they could name. They could come back with a sneaky attack on the Big Bang, Gravity, the list is too big to mention.
In the fallout after this case, attention has been focussed back on the Discovery Institute, the shadowy right-wing thinktank that has been pushing the ID line.
What is most disturbing is that, amidst all the double-talk, wheeling and dealing and spin, the Discovery Institute seems to be ashamed to acknowledge their admitted religious agenda.
You wouldn't think so if this really was all there was to it.
Anyway, back to the story at hand.
What appears to be the case is that up to this point, the boys and girls over at the Discovery Institute have been going out of their way to introduce a concept called Intelligent Design into the science classroom through a process of deliberate confusion called "Teaching the Controversy."
Teaching the Controversy is simply asserting that a controversy exists where there isn't one. Great trick, if you can pull it off. Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation are particularly good at this.
What is certain about Teaching the Controversy is that it is designed to exploit a weak point identified fairly early on by the Discovery Institute. The weak point that I am referring to is that many people don't know what science actually is.
Disgraceful, really.
Mark Nutter is a bloke who keeps a very interesting blog on reconciling religion with science called, Heaven is not the Sky.
Nutter has identified a top ten, an "action plan", if you like, for sabotaging science in the name of religion.
These read as follows:
- Focus on a vague, generalized group of presumed antagonists (e.g. evolutionists, “Darwinists”) whose motives are always presumed to be corrupt, dishonest and evil.
- Emphasis on atypical examples of cases that make a theory (e.g. evolution) look bad, generalized to imply that the whole theory is bad.
- Attacking a scientific theory (e.g. evolution) on religious, non-scientific, or pseudo-scientific grounds, rather than by offering detailed scientific explanations whose specific, verifiable predictions are a better fit for the observed data.
- Manufacturing phony challenges to the legitimacy of a theory (e.g. evolution), and inflating the credentials of those challenges.
- Manufacturing spurious and unsupported alternatives to a theory (e.g. evolution) and using non-scientific channels to get them acclaimed as “scientifically superior,” so as to displace the challenged theory.
- Manipulating the educational and political system to control public perception of scientific information independently of the scientific process.
- Spreading distorted information and false information about a theory (e.g. evolution) and/or the people who support it.
- Maintaining a facade of false neutrality and objectivity while clearly working to promote a monopolistic agenda.
- Claiming to promote scientific research while never doing any actual research beyond looking up materials that can be used to try and discredit the target theory (the “Hollow Curiosity” indicator). Note that this failure to produce any documented results is often masked by complaints of “censorship” by mainstream science, despite the fact that until you do the research, you have nothing publishable for mainstream science to censor!
- Tight PR controls on all media outlets (including blogs) owned and operated by the creationists themselves.
My questions are these.
Firstly, there are many religious types who don't approve of what 'mentalists like the Discovery Institute are doing.
Why don't they have a serious bash at destabilising the 'mentalists? The vast, vast majority of Christians (and I will specifically single Christians out here. Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc all seem to be immune to all this silliness) simply do not support literal interpretations of the Bible.
In fact, if you were to ask them, and promise them confidentiality, I would hazard a guess that 9 out of 10 Christians do not even support the notion of Biblical inerrancy.
Secondly, this goes for scientists and the rest of us.
Up to now, the PR nous displayed by scientists has been atrocious.
Kitzmiller was won through sheer dumb luck. Luck in that it was lucky that the plaintiffs had such a good case and a decent legal team.
When the IDiots attempt to pull another one over on the rest of us, they will come better organised.
It is time for scientists to go out on the attack and lauch a PR blitz of their own.
And there is a really, really good reason why this is the case.
In the next few weeks this blogger plans to examine the concept of Dominionism. Is it just another wacky conspiracy theory? If not, then what is it?
Even if it is pure codswallop, wouldn't you feel more comfortable if our friends with pointy heads were at least getting out there and making themselves known?
Because if they don't, and our fundamentalists come a calling, normal people are going to feel safer with them than the forces of logic and reason.
And this has the potential to return us to the dark ages.
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