| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"david ford" |
| Date: |
21 Feb 2005 07:41:54 AM |
| Object: |
Re: In the News: Profs debate design theory |
Paul J Gans wrote:
I think that T.O. could be an important resource. But
what is needed is for the professionals and the educated
amateurs to guide the rest of us. I'm neither.
I am surprised.
My field
is something else -- the Second Law, as a matter of fact,
and so I can't do it.
What do you think of this IDiotic argument?:
Premise 1: If the universe (or a collection of universes) was/is
infinitely old, then it would have run down by now in accord with the
second law of thermodynamics.
Premise 2: The universe (or a collection of universes) has not yet run
down-- it has not yet suffered "heat death," meaning that everywhere is
the same cold temperature, a fraction of a degree above absolute 0.
Conclusion: The universe (or a collection of universes) is not
infinitely old.
To summarize this modus tollens argument form,
if infinitely old, then rundown;
not rundown;
thus, not infinitely old.
One thing I'd do is take the basic notions of the ID
crowd and refute them. That way at least folks would
know that they have been refuted.
But in arguing with the ID crowd, I do think that we have
to take the fight to them.
No: don't debate them. _Laugh_ at them.
Point out that the only reason
why some systems are proposed as being ID is that the proposer
has "personal incredulity" that such a thing could evolve.
I'd harp on it and make fun of it. Ask them if they believe
that God intervened on the side of the Boston Red Sox since
it can not be believed that they actually beat the Yankees
face to face.
That's a powerful question. I wish I'd thought of it.
And most of all, we must not allow ourselvesto be taken away
from *our* line of attack. I know that when Demski was at
Columbia and NYU he simply ignored everything but the
points he wanted to make.
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| User: "josephus" |
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| Title: Re: In the News: Profs debate design theory |
21 Feb 2005 10:38:10 PM |
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david ford wrote:
Paul J Gans wrote:
I think that T.O. could be an important resource. But
what is needed is for the professionals and the educated
amateurs to guide the rest of us. I'm neither.
I am surprised.
My field
is something else -- the Second Law, as a matter of fact,
and so I can't do it.
What do you think of this IDiotic argument?:
Premise 1: If the universe (or a collection of universes) was/is
infinitely old, then it would have run down by now in accord with the
second law of thermodynamics.
Premise 2: The universe (or a collection of universes) has not yet run
down-- it has not yet suffered "heat death," meaning that everywhere is
the same cold temperature, a fraction of a degree above absolute 0.
Conclusion: The universe (or a collection of universes) is not
infinitely old.
To summarize this modus tollens argument form,
if infinitely old, then rundown;
not rundown;
thus, not infinitely old.
One thing I'd do is take the basic notions of the ID
crowd and refute them. That way at least folks would
know that they have been refuted.
But in arguing with the ID crowd, I do think that we have
to take the fight to them.
No: don't debate them. _Laugh_ at them.
Point out that the only reason
why some systems are proposed as being ID is that the proposer
has "personal incredulity" that such a thing could evolve.
I'd harp on it and make fun of it. Ask them if they believe
that God intervened on the side of the Boston Red Sox since
it can not be believed that they actually beat the Yankees
face to face.
That's a powerful question. I wish I'd thought of it.
And most of all, we must not allow ourselvesto be taken away
from *our* line of attack. I know that when Demski was at
Columbia and NYU he simply ignored everything but the
points he wanted to make.
What I find exceedingly disgraceful is the *existence* of religious
IDiots. Putting Baptists into cages really should be merely a
first-- albeit necessary-- step to prevent them from continuing to
spread their viruses of the mind. The coming atheist state
should lack all religious individuals. After Baptists are put into
cages, they will have to be liquidated.
IDiots argue against an empirically founded knowledge, thereby
looking kooky, irrational, and delusional.
IDiots support IDiocy as an emotional alternative to Darwinian
natural selection. It is an absolutely insupportable nonscientific
effort. There is zero evidence for IDiocy. Scientific evidence
does not work by analogy. The evidence for the scientific fact
of materialism does not proceed by analogy. Their is no
scientific theory of IDiocy. Probability assertions about IDiots'
products is not science and is not a foundation for a scientific
theory and it has no facts that differ from what we find in
nature. From a soft sciences perspective it is clear and readily
documentable that the vast majority of IDiocy proponents want
their religion to trump science (particularly those sciences that
trump their religiously based empirical assertions). It is
transparently clear they have no desire to establish an
empirically-based science. If they had such an agenda they
would charge ahead on developing a scientific intelligent design
theory and totally ignore evolutionary theory; since a successful
intelligent design theory would require empirical support it
would if found show evolutionary theory to be wrong. IDiots'
emotional commitment to their irrational goal of documenting
the inadequacy of the *facts* of evolution and the
all-sufficiency of neo-Darwinian natural selection cannot be
done by them. They are not producing empirical support for the
inadequacy of the fact of evolution nor for an alternative.
IDiots are physically in the 21st century but their religious
values are in the 15th and earlier centuries. IDiots suffer from a
severe case of religious cultural lag. IDiocy is fundamentally an
emotional disorder. As a hillbilly I suffered from this disorder
as well. It is a communally-based emotional disorder that
distorts social and religious reality. One is lead to believe that
the Bible is triumphant over all secular knowledge.
Anti-intellectualism and anti-science are key attributes of this
emotional disorder. They never have to engage in a rational
argument for their religious beliefs since those beliefs are
emotionally-based. It is always correct to lie or distort any
argument (whether scientific or not) for the biblical
interpretation of the universe since the ultimate goal is a biblical
acceptance of its preeminent "truth," i.e. if you truly believe you
will regardless of all your evil sins have a guaranteed place in
heaven. IDiots' disorder is the systematic distortion of scientific
theory and evidence. It is not even subtle, yet IDiots continue to
post here as if there is something substantive and unique about
their distorted arguments. Rationally, the antidote is learning to
accept that science trumps religiously-based empirical
assertions. Emotionally IDiots are not there as human beings
created by those blind random undirected accidents of nature.
As a hillbilly I was educated to the IDiot view. I held the same
position you as a now-ex Southern Baptist used to hold. I was
anti-intellectual and anti-science. I grew out of this orientation
by recognizing my emotional commitments. IDiots'
anti-intellectualism and anti-science values seem to block any
insight into strong emotional commitments to religion along
with strong emotional commitments to an evolutionary and
abiogenesis view of humans. A violent discontinuity exists
between IDiots' rational abilities to understand science and their
emotional commitment to religious anti-science values.
Don Quixote would be proud of IDiots. All their thousands of
posts have not had and will not have any effect on evolutionary
theory. As emotionally satisfying as these posts must be for
them, they don't look stupid but rather delusional. The failure of
all their posts is clear evidence for the problem being in their
religiously-held emotional convictions and not in the fact of
evolution.
David Ford said
IDiots' moral duplicity and deception is plainly seen in their
posting history. The duplicity shows when they assert no lab
research can demonstrate the evolutionary process (to their
satisfaction) when much of the present evidence and support for
it is (and possibly always will be) indirect lab and field research.
The fact that almost all extant scientific theories come from
indirect lab and field research is totally ignored. IDiots' ideas
clearly are on the superficial level of, if it looks designed it must
be designed.
Why all the moral duplicity, deception and irrationality with
respect to science? The answer lies in IDiots' religious
convictions. They are testifying. All their posting efforts and
rationalizations are to confirm their severely
scientifically-challenged religious convictions. They want
desperately to believe their old fashioned religious beliefs trump
science. Their emotional rigidity with respect to religion causes
them like mercury under pressure to squirt off into randomly
formed intellectual and emotional havens. Their efforts are a
prototype of socio/religious evolution.
It is clear that the IDiots posting here possess emotional
religious commitments that create a steady string of vacuous
responses. No expertise is required to understand this.
IDiots' failure to acknowledge the fact of evolution is due to
their emotionally-held religious convictions. Evidence for the
scientific *fact* of evolution is there in all (99%) of the college
level basic biology texts. The reason IDiots haven't "found" the
scientific evidence they claim to ask for is because of them, not
because of the lack of evidence. This is not difficult to
understand. IDiots' life commitments require them to deny the
scientific evidence that is truly non-controversial. It only
becomes controversial because some parts of science contradicts
religions' empirical observations. IDiots' religion needs to
change, not science.
IDers have no scientific theory nor scientific evidence. In stark
contrast, we scientific materialists have *tons* of supporting
scientific evidence for the scientific *fact* that there is no God,
no gods, no afterlife, no heaven, no hell, and we scientific
materialists have tons of supporting *scientific* evidence for the
scientific *fact* that life can come from non-life and that the
universe never began to exist and is eternal, with neither a
beginning nor an end.
No meta-analysis that reveals a pattern of substantial empirical
failures to support evolutionary theory presently exists, and past
and future controversies over the mechanism of evolution and
their relative import for evolution are NOT relevant for denial of
evolution as a fact or theory.
IDiots' comments in talk.origins and the atheist newsgroups are
clearly contingent upon an emotional (i.e. nonrational)
commitment to a particular religious perspective and in no sense
of the term can it be said they would follow the evidence, the
latter being the "sine qua non" of science.
IDiots' versions of Christian theism is anti-science when the
scientific evidence contradicts or challenges their religious
visions. Of course Christian theism has versions that are
compatible with all of science. IDiots' strong intellectual and
emotional rigidities (frequently demonstrated here) are clear
evidence that they are not open to other possibilities.
IDiots need to try some TT (Theological Therapy tm). IDiots
need to find a Christian theologian who sees no conflict between
science and theology and discuss their concerns with him.
Possible productive outcomes would be:
A) they would not feel it necessary to testify in newsgroups,
B) they would become open to other possibilities, and
C) they would testify about a Christian theology that is
compatible with science. Santayana, for example, was a
Catholic atheist.
There are no refernces to why the IDoits are wrong. We are agreed that
that they are extreme and k00kie.
about primise 1. That is not a proper application of the 2d law. The
universe will not run down, entropy may increase and the energy
equalize (heat death). in about 10^120 years.
about primise 2 the age of the universe approximate 20 billion +/- 7
billion 13 billion seems about right. but that is not an old
universe. that is a baby universe. There is astronomical data that
show the age of the universe as greater than 10 Billion and less than 20
billion. and that is the consequence of physics.
josephus
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