tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post2313413227084403653..comments2024-03-16T05:00:38.826-04:00Comments on Egnorance: Hmmm...mregnorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.comBlogger54125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-88603571064153279932013-06-24T19:39:21.357-04:002013-06-24T19:39:21.357-04:00Ilion,
I've pointed out numerous times that &...Ilion,<br /><br />I've pointed out numerous times that 'survivors survive' is an idiot's characterisation of natural selection. It's actually 'differential reproductive success' in producing more surviving offspring and surviving 'great-offspring' than others in the same population.<br /><br />As an example, the female giant Pacific octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini) spends 1 to 2 months lovingly tending her only batch of eggs, ensuring that the maximum number survive, starving and neglecting herself. And then dies. She doesn't survive.bachfiendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14752055891882312204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-34552116000840098682013-06-24T19:28:19.269-04:002013-06-24T19:28:19.269-04:00Deuce, if you were not such an idiot, you could ea...Deuce, if you were not such an idiot, you could easily find Johnson's statements directly showing his reliance on the postmodern approach to promote his brand of creationism. Google a bit and you can find his interview with Amy Binder, a sociologist from USC. <br /><br />Here is an excerpt. Enjoy. <br /><br />Hoo<br /><br />Johnson: I've learned a lot. I'm no postmodernist, as you know, no follower of Foucault…but I've learned a lot from being intimately familiar with that debate in academia. Of how people read texts as filtered through their cultural situation. And, boy, is that true of science educators and elite <br />reporters! <br /><br />[Asked if Foucault’s arguments about authoritarian discourses resonated with him]: Oh, yeah, that’s what I mean when I say I’ve learned. But you see, what I find ridiculous about the postmodernists is that they apply it to all the wrong situations. I mean, Foucault, himself, was a pampered intellectual, laden with honors. I mean, he's part of the oppressor class, from my point of view, who does this sort of thing. <br /><br />Did you read about this Social Text hoax?…The writers in Social Text use these ideas of empowerment and resisting authority in such a narrow, tendentious, political agenda, when it is really much more broadly applicable to themselves. So, yes, you are right: I read that stuff with a great deal of interest. I just apply it differently. <br /><br />And that’s one of the things that is very funny about my intellectual method. Because while [my] conclusions are considered outlandish in the academic world—you know, “natural selection can't really create, and all that”—the message it generates, though, is dead-bang mainstream academia these days. You know, [I’m] looking for the hidden assumptions, the power relationships…it’s a very fashionable method, it’s just that nobody ever dreamed that it <br />would be applied to this particular sacred cow, [evolution]… Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-37145374371026226192013-06-24T17:16:38.351-04:002013-06-24T17:16:38.351-04:00That's it? A single 1999 interview paragraph i...That's it? A single 1999 interview paragraph in which Johnson says he thinks that post-modernism has some positive effects as a counterweight to excessive rationalism (he's wrong about that btw; PoMo nihilism directly follows from rationalist materialism) shows that he's a post-modernist who introduced post-modernist relativism of truth into the ID movement and made it rife among proponents?<br /><br />My mockery of the use of Matzke and Pennock for your authorities is based on my familiarity with them, particularly Matzke, who is a veritable font of equivocation, guilt-by-association, and tortured logic in general.<br /><br />Your best option would be to keep talking, so people can continue to see how smart you are.The Deucehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09664665914768916965noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-89713591229256639402013-06-24T17:16:11.311-04:002013-06-24T17:16:11.311-04:00KW: "So God revealed natural selection as his...<b>KW:</b> "<i>So God revealed natural selection as his method of creation to Moses? Do tell.</i>"<br /><br />Aren't these fools just the cutest little things?<br /><br />I mean, if one disagrees with their atheistic/materialistic pseudo-scientific non-theory -- if one shows, <i>logically</i> why it is false, and cannot be true -- then they shriek like howler monkey that one is "ignorant" (*).<br /><br />But, what this fool said -- "<i>... natural selection as [the/a] method of creation ...</i>"<br /><br />This fool -- who we all know will (falsely) accuse me of "ignorance" about "evolution" because I am a DarwinDenier -- doesn't even understand "evolution" well enough to know-and-understand that 'natural selection' does not, and cannot, <i>create</i> anything.<br /><br /><br />(*) As The Deuce so rightly points out, this is just leftist post-modernism in action -- they don't believe in truth, and they don't believe in knowledge. But they do believe in shouting ... and in using force and/or violence whenever they think they have the upper hand.Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-73236034963058540662013-06-24T16:51:01.613-04:002013-06-24T16:51:01.613-04:00Deuce,
Argumentum ad hominem has never been an e...Deuce, <br /><br /><i>Argumentum ad hominem</i> has never been an effective rebuttal. <a href="http://www.arn.org/docs/johnson/commsp99.htm" rel="nofollow">Here</a> you can read Johnson's praise for postmodernism in his own words. <br /><br />Your best option now would be to slither back into the gutter whence you came. <br /><br />HooAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-41798937440281443682013-06-24T16:05:14.940-04:002013-06-24T16:05:14.940-04:00mregnor:
Indeed. One thing that's important to...mregnor:<br />Indeed. One thing that's important to keep in mind when dealing with left-wing atheists like the ones here is that they don't actually believe in objective truth, or in the ability of our senses to attain objective facts about the world, or in logic as inviolable guide to moving from true premises to true conclusions.<br /><br />All of those notions contradict their materialism, and this affects how they think, act, and argue, whether they have the philosophical wherewithal to consciously realize it or not.<br /><br />To them, the "truth" is socially constructed, and arriving at it is a matter of screaming loud enough rather than using observation and reason. It's not that they think we're objectively wrong and need to be corrected with facts and logic. Rather, they think we're evil, and they're terrified that our evil "narrative" will become the "truth" if they don't succeed in shouting, insulting, pressuring, and lying enough to form a consensus around their own "narrative." Even when they happen to be right about something, they don't think of it as being true in the same sense that you or I do.<br /><br />Poo:<br />LOL, oh look, an article by professional logic-chopping spin-artist Nick Matzke quoting an article by professional logic-chopping spin-artist Rob Pennock, accusing their mutual enemy of being relativists about the truth.The Deucehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09664665914768916965noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-72075270127016777992013-06-24T15:16:48.587-04:002013-06-24T15:16:48.587-04:00So God revealed natural selection as his method of...So God revealed natural selection as his method of creation to Moses? Do tell.<br /><br />-KWAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-58048749118824082402013-06-24T14:07:15.012-04:002013-06-24T14:07:15.012-04:00The PoMos turn every discipline they touch into cr...<i>The PoMos turn every discipline they touch into crap, and they're responsible for the subjectivist, politicized corruption of science in places like the USSR and China.</i> <br /><br />Then you should worry about postmodernism in intelligent design. Phillip Johnson, the father of ID, was the one who <a href="http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2010/03/pennock-on-post.html" rel="nofollow">brought po-mo</a> into the movement. Steve Fuller is an active proponent of the approach. <br /><br />The irony is delicious.<br /><br />HooAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-66056628751263532972013-06-24T12:57:43.640-04:002013-06-24T12:57:43.640-04:00bachfiend: "Darwinism is alive and well. '...<b>bachfiend:</b> "<i>Darwinism is alive and well. 'Survivors survive' is an idiot's description of natural selection.</i>"<br /><br />Ah! So Himself (that is, <i>St. Chuckie</i>) is an idiot? For, after all, in the later editions of his own turgid tome (*), The Maaster, Himself, explicitly says that the phrase "survival of the fittest" (**) was a better, more descriptive, term for his (cough) theory than was his own phrase, "natural selection".<br /><br />(*) I'm sorry, Mr Egnor, but Darwin was *not* a "good writer", I mean, even aside from being illogical/irrational, and loving it, he's all but unreadable.<br /><br />(**) and where 'fit' was being used in its normal sense, rather than in the tautological sense later invented by the neo-Darwinists, by which "survival of the fittest" comes to mean nothing more than "survival of the survivors".<br /><br />==========<br /><b>KW:</b> "<i>The fact that you find Darwin’s theory so banal is a tacit admission of how obvious it is in retrospect.</i>"<br />Darwin's (ahem) theroy -- I mean, the bit of it that is actually both rational and observable -- is so "obvious in retrospect" that it's actually right there in a certain famous "Bronze Age religious text" -- Darwin was scooped by Moses, more than 3000 years ago.Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-87093157933625934512013-06-24T10:26:45.832-04:002013-06-24T10:26:45.832-04:00Deuce:
You're right. Eugenics and Darwinism a...Deuce:<br /><br />You're right. Eugenics and Darwinism and DDT hysteria and Global Warming garbage are tastes of atheist science. It's going to get worse. <br /><br />"Politicized corruption" (an apt term) is what science will become. It already has, in some fields.mregnorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-40733746859817484382013-06-24T10:20:54.569-04:002013-06-24T10:20:54.569-04:00mregnor
[What makes Christians so effective in sc...mregnor<br /><br />[What makes Christians so effective in science is their faith in the rationality of science. Atheists have no coherent reason to expect nature to be rational. Christians do.]<br /><br />Yup, and as Steven Novella helps to demonstrate, the moment atheists gain power within science, they go about tearing down its rationality and objectivity again. The practice of scientific discovery will not be able to survive a bunch of post-modernist materialists who think that reality is all a subjective neural construction.<br /><br />The PoMos turn every discipline they touch into crap, and they're responsible for the subjectivist, politicized corruption of science in places like the USSR and China.The Deucehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09664665914768916965noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-17221142671374690262013-06-24T07:23:58.315-04:002013-06-24T07:23:58.315-04:00Hoo,
That's the whole point. I do/did/wont e...Hoo, <br /><br />That's the whole point. I do/did/wont ever define a 'day'. I can measure it. I can observe it. I can analogize it. <br />But I cannot set the definition of what a day is. I do not set time in motion, or alter it's courses. I cannot set its obviously relative constraints. <br />I am a mortal human being. I am subject to time (days included). That is the whole point of illustrating the 'days' in Genesis one: To show how they (time) were/are initiated with a will. <br />That will is the will of God. The creator. The original Mind. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14739783974158130525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-88390943240520909182013-06-24T07:20:40.779-04:002013-06-24T07:20:40.779-04:00“His "theory"-- that variation and survi...“His "theory"-- that variation and survival of survivors explains adaptation-- is banal to the point of immunity to satire.”<br /><br />The fact that you find Darwin’s theory so banal is a tacit admission of how obvious it is in retrospect.<br /><br />-KW<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-36840659909836784502013-06-24T00:45:32.931-04:002013-06-24T00:45:32.931-04:00A dim sun? Try: No sun. No moon. No light. No heav...<i>A dim sun? Try: No sun. No moon. No light. No heavens. No Earth. No time. No space. No life.</i> <br /><br />How do you define a day then? <br /><br />HooAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-54308151789692554402013-06-24T00:11:59.029-04:002013-06-24T00:11:59.029-04:00Hoo,
You have to take a very simplistic view of ...Hoo, <br /><br />You have to take a very simplistic view of the nature of time (and even matter) to take the position you have posited. It is not the Christian perspective - at least not the rational creationist perspective. <br />A dim sun? Try: No sun. No moon. No light. No heavens. No Earth. No time. No space. No life. <br />Nothing in what we call the 'universe' until the act of creation. <br />At the moment of God's observation/participation, the universe coalesced into the potential for what we have now. This is not determinism. On the contrary: It is the potential for all. <br />Creation could be compared to something like what an atom does when observed by a physicist. From wave to particle in an instant. Until that point in 'time' the particle is everywhere and nowhere. From that moment the particle is observed it has a history. Before that moment it had none. It was sheer potential of form; a 'waveform'. <br />That 'now' (the moment of genesis) was then. That 'now' is now. That 'now' is what will be, and all that can be. <br />God is the original mind. The first and final causation. The Alpha and the Omega. The potential of all (good) is God's grace. He IS. <br />That is theism. The constant creation of all. Six days or 6 billion years (from our human perspective) makes no difference. <br />You do have a singular point though. Genesis was penned by ancient peoples. Their means of expression was far more image based than our own. The book of Genesis attempts to be timeless, and in doing uses an eternal form of language. <br />Taking that fact into consideration the analogue of the 'big bang' is even more apparent - even if the 'big bang' is sorely lacking in meaning by comparison. If I were to compare the two, I would say the 'big bang theory' is akin to a chalk board with 2+2=? scrawled on it, while the reading of Genesis could be compared to a baroque panel of 4 trees growing from a riverbank during a glorious sunny moment. <br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14739783974158130525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-37071128915296788302013-06-23T23:14:17.852-04:002013-06-23T23:14:17.852-04:00Egnor: Science points to God in a powerful way. Sc...Egnor: <i>Science points to God in a powerful way. Science is quite literally a way to know His actual thoughts. Yet countless atheists use science to deny the obvious. I simply can't get my mind around something that stupid.</i> <br /><br />It is merely a sign that you have a small mind. Lemaitre (a Catholic priest!) saw that science is decoupled from metaphysics. Reread <a href="http://egnorance.blogspot.com/2013/06/hmmm.html?showComment=1372021721245#c8258106731671087212" rel="nofollow">his quote</a> and ponder why he wrote that. <br /><br />And no, the Big Bang is rather at odds with Genesis One. Only if you pick parts that you like and throw away ones that you don't. Like the 6-day creation story. It makes no sense to have days without light. Was the Earth orbiting a dim Sun? The story was concocted by ancient people who had no idea about cosmology. That modern Christians would believe it literally boggles the mind. <br /><br />HooAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-34102437069261922942013-06-23T23:01:01.629-04:002013-06-23T23:01:01.629-04:00Michael,
Darwin did his 'PhD' on the Beag...Michael,<br /><br />Darwin did his 'PhD' on the Beagle. 'Voyage of the Beagle' was his thesis.<br /><br />Everything thereafter was his post-doc. He didn't need an advisor.<br /><br />Darwinism is alive and well. 'Survivors survive' is an idiot's description of natural selection.<br /><br />People will still be discussing Darwinism in 2059, unlike 'Egnorance', which will be long forgotten.bachfiendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14752055891882312204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-49665744649187409792013-06-23T22:43:25.583-04:002013-06-23T22:43:25.583-04:00@KW:
Regarding Darwin, I quite honestly believe t...@KW:<br /><br />Regarding Darwin, I quite honestly believe that he was a third-rate scientists, at best. His "theory"-- that variation and survival of survivors explains adaptation-- is banal to the point of immunity to satire. It is as if a particle physicist explained quantum mechanics by positing that particles change and particles survive that survive.<br /><br />The only things of note that Darwin "accomplished" was the prediction of universal common ancestry-- which remains highly dubious-- and the "tree of life", which was really Aristotle's idea and culminated in Linnaeus's system. <br /><br />If I were Darwin's thesis advisor, I'd suggest he stick to the barnacles (at least that's real science), and perhaps consider a career in fiction writing. He was a good writer.<br /><br />If he persisted in his "survivors survive is a theory" shit, I'd have recommended psychological counseling. mregnorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-82118281343387827272013-06-23T22:34:48.195-04:002013-06-23T22:34:48.195-04:00@KW:
[Of course the irony is that the accumulated...@KW:<br /><br />[Of course the irony is that the accumulated knowledge and president that these great scientists represent are what allow me to be confident of my atheism. In a very real sense, I am an atheist because of these men.]<br /><br />You're being very honest. <br /><br />One of the most bizarre things I've encountered (and I've encountered a lot of bizarre stuff) is the belief that science somehow disproves God. I find it difficult to think of a more convincing argument for God's existence than the elegant order of nature and the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in describing it. <br /><br />Science points to God in a powerful way. Science is quite literally a way to know His actual thoughts. <br /><br />Yet countless atheists use science to deny the obvious. I simply can't get my mind around something that stupid.mregnorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-44699473524636926582013-06-23T22:28:45.990-04:002013-06-23T22:28:45.990-04:00@KW:
Darwin was a nominal Christian, but he certa...@KW:<br /><br />Darwin was a nominal Christian, but he certainly wasn't devout.<br /><br />I didn't include him on the list because the list is only of scientists of the first rank.<br /><br />Darwin's primary accomplishment was the cataloguing of barnacles. He wrote some pseudoscientific drivel about survivors surviving, but tautologies aren't real science.mregnorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-12701839028878901092013-06-23T21:48:21.042-04:002013-06-23T21:48:21.042-04:00Michael,
And how exactly was Steady State cosmolo...Michael,<br /><br />And how exactly was Steady State cosmology an impediment to science?<br /><br />Junk DNA wasn't a prediction of Darwinism. It was an explanation of why the size of the genome of similar species varies so widely, with no relationship to 'complexity', including one of around 500 billion base pairs (x180 humans) in Amoeba dubia.<br /><br />Stephen Meyer is continuing his lies, claiming in 'Darwin's Doubt' that ENCODE showed at least 80% of the human genome is functional, whereas it was between 20 and 80% (probably closer to 20%, since 8% is conserved and 12% are markers for disease - and hence have some function)bachfiendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14752055891882312204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-44607258045601398042013-06-23T21:44:10.590-04:002013-06-23T21:44:10.590-04:00Of course the irony is that the accumulated knowle...Of course the irony is that the accumulated knowledge and president that these great scientists represent are what allow me to be confident of my atheism. In a very real sense, I am an atheist because of these men. <br /><br />They well knew the theological implications of their discoveries, theories, and methodology. That did not stop them from undermining the very belief system they sometimes paid tribute to. That they would genuflect for the political powers and patrons of the time is to be expected. Even so, the conflict between the church and some of these men is well known.<br /><br />What’s stunning is that Darwin didn’t make your list, for he was perhaps the best Christian of them all. He delayed publishing Origin of the Species because of its theological implications. He cares so much about Christianity that he keeps arguably the greatest theory of all time secret until it was clear that Wallace was getting ready to publish something similar. <br /><br />Even Darwin was no fanatic however. If he was, he would have done what you did, proclaimed genesis as the answer.<br /><br />-KWAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-38540378125872157822013-06-23T18:56:56.511-04:002013-06-23T18:56:56.511-04:00Egnor: Resistance to Big Bang cosmology was closel...Egnor: <i>Resistance to Big Bang cosmology was closely related to discomfort with it's theological implications. Steady State cosmology, which for decades was the atheist alternative to Big Bang cosmology...</i> <br /><br />Bullshit still. I have provided names of the major proponents of the Big Bang, who were atheists or agnostics. Friedman, Gamow, Hubble. According to you, they should have been on the other side. <br /><br />HooAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-51467600146206221512013-06-23T18:54:14.504-04:002013-06-23T18:54:14.504-04:00Feynman's views on religion were not subtle. H...Feynman's views on religion were not subtle. He was a self-described atheist. In the essay "The meaning of it all" (from which you excepted a quote), he wrote: <br /><br /><i>But my atheistic scientific colleagues, which does not include all scientists—I cannot tell by their behavior, <b>because of course I am on the same side</b>...</i> <br /><br />One can split points about whether Feynman was an atheist or an agnostic (he wrote that it is impossible to disprove the existence of God), but it hardly matters. Feynman did not believe in God. He was neither a theist, nor a deist. He wasn't a militant atheist, but hey, neither am I.<br /><br />HooAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-79294478113151457842013-06-23T18:32:33.693-04:002013-06-23T18:32:33.693-04:00@Hoo:
Resistance to Big Bang cosmology was closel...@Hoo:<br /><br />Resistance to Big Bang cosmology was closely related to discomfort with it's theological implications. Steady State cosmology, which for decades was the atheist alternative to Big Bang cosmology, was an enormous impediment to science, just as junk DNA (an inference from Darwinism) has been an enormous impediment to science in recent decades. That's merely a matter of historical record. <br /><br />Agnostic astronomer Robert Jastrow commented on the implications of Big Bang cosmology:<br /><br />"Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover. That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact."<br /><br /><br /><br />As to Lemaitre's discomfort with drawing theological implications from the Big Bang, I understand where's he's coming from. He does not want to tie Christian theology to a particular scientific theory. But the parallel with Genesis is obvious and only a liar (Hoo would I be referring to?) would deny it. <br /><br />Regarding Feynman, your characterization of him as an atheist is too facile. He believed that the God of organized religions was inadequate as a rigorous description of the Creator-- a view many Thomists would share.<br /><br />Feynman:<br /><br />"What I mean is this: the probability that the theory of God, the ordinary theory, is right, to my mind is extremely low. That's all. That's the way I look at it."<br /><br />Feynman believed that God was not identified with the laws of nature nor with the pieties of organize religion. God was not nature. His argument was more against Spinoza's God than Aquina's God.<br /><br />Feynman's views on God are much more subtle than the usual New Atheist swill. New Atheists have always kept a respectful distance from Feynman, for that reason. <br /><br />[Scientists of the past were Christian because pretty much everyone living in the Old World was Christian.]<br /><br />Probably not true. The fraction of the population that is atheist or functional atheist is probably not much different over the centuries. Historians have pointed out that church attendance has probably been higher in the 19-20th centuries than it was in the Middle Ages. <br /><br />Atheism has found a niche in certain industries (entertainment, journalism, academia, etc) but that probably does not reflect a significant a significant change in the proles. <br /><br />And for the purposes of this argument, it doesn't matter. The overwhelming majority of scientists during the Scientific Revolution were devout Christians, and they produced the best science in the history of man. <br /><br />Q.E.D.mregnorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.com