Zing!

[vakkotaur]

Via viergacht:

David Klinghoffer, Intelligent Design (rebadged Creationism) advocate from the "Discovery Institute" invited or sought invitation to debate with Dr Gotelli of the University of Vermont.

Dr Gotelli had quite an eloquent response. As commenter #25 summed it up, "Do some science, then we'll talk."

Comments

[viergacht.livejournal.com]

Invisible pink unicorn, I don't see it.

[thecanuckguy.livejournal.com]

Reason #1703 why I'm always uncomfortable labelling myself a Christian (and a creationist as well, though I find absolutely no evidence in the Bible to make it incompatible with science and evolution, and believe in those as well), people like that. (To be fair, I've heard of those debating on the side of science/evolution/atheism put out very rational writings/bloggings detailng their cases, but wind up going the "insult the Creationist" route when the debate gets underway. I absolutely love Gotelli's response in that he doesn't stoop to the Creationist's level (or go there first).

[nefaria.livejournal.com]

Seems like Creationists and evolutionists speak different languages so they can't communicate effectively. And they're working from different sets of axioms (evolutionists - science is the source of truth, Creationists - the Bible is the source of truth), so arguments that are valid within one community are invalid in the other.

A lot of debates end up in intractable flamefests for reasons like this, pro-life vs. pro-choice, capitalism vs. socialism, etc. Until both sides agree on their starting assumptions and their vocabulary, there won't be a logical conclusion that both sides can agree on.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Indeed. And I'm not sure that there can be agreement on starting assumptions. Consider the political left/right or socialist/libertartian difference. One group sees Governemt (as opposed to government) as the solution to most problems, the other as the cause or worsening mechanism of most problems.

There was a cartoon sometime ago, it might have been Frank and Ernest that showed the two characters looking down on earth from the clouds/heavens. "What's this 'evolution' thing?" "It lets big guy put creation on 'automatic'." But I've seen it put another way: "Intelligent deisgn is the idea that God isn't smart enough to invent evolution."

[nefaria.livejournal.com]

In this particular case, my sympathies are with the evolutionists. The Creationists are arguing that the evolutionists' conclusions are invalid but they have no scientific proof to back it up, just religious/philosophical arguments.

On the other hand, when the evolutionists tread into religious folks' turf and claim that evolution proves that there is no God, my sympathies switch over to the religious folks.

If you're going to accuse someone of being wrong and expect to be persuasive, your accusation has to be valid in the accusee's frame of reference, not yours. Otherwise you're just being a troll.

[viergacht.livejournal.com]

First, "evolutionist" isn't a word. It's a derogatory term invented by creationists.

And what we're objecting to is creationism trying to be passed off as science. Creationism is magic, plain and simple. Just imagine someone telling you they sincerely believe their car is powered by elves on treadmills that you can only see if you beleive hard enough, imagine a bunch of people who beleive the same thing demanding that your children be taught this in school, and you'll get a taste of how frustrating creationists are.

The lack of understanding about very basic scientific pirniciples, and the lack of critical thinking skills is highly disturbing and it's not going to get better if religion is being taught in schools. If religion has to be taught, it should be up to the parents the way any other cultural variation is.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Fortunately in this case there is no outright statement that there is no God. At worst there is the statement: "Nothing could possibly be more exciting and electrifying ... scientific proof of the existence of a god." That does not say, "There is no God" but "There is no scientific proof of a God." which is rather different statement - it doesn't deny the existence, just that such a thing has not been confirmed.

I wouldn't say that evolution is proof of there not being a god. For one thing it would be an attempt at proving a negative. But it could be argued that evolution removes one possible reason that a god can be claimed to exist - life is guided by chance mutation and environment rather than by mysterious divine intervention.

[foolscap001.livejournal.com]

Beautiful! That made my day.

[jcw-da-dmg.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to see that there is at least one topic on which you and I can agree completely.