Norm MacDonald believes in God, but not in science

June 10, 2013 • 1:15 pm

This clip of comedian Norm MacDonald, who has apparently recently become a Man of Christian Faith, is a prime demonstration of how religion makes you stupid.  Here he tells Larry King why he has faith in God but not in science. Science has “always been wrong.” And he doesn’t believe in DNA! Only religion, booze, or drugs can make someone so addled.

My kishkes are in knots. . .

h/t: Chris

102 thoughts on “Norm MacDonald believes in God, but not in science”

    1. Are you thinking then that old MacDonald is more intelligent than the audience that a supposed publicity stunt would be targeted at?

      I don’t think so, his demeanor seems genuine though very confused.

    1. Larry: Did Christ think the world was flat?
      Norm: Huh?

      That answers your question about stupid.

  3. Oh no! I used to love Norm MacDonald’s comedy. Now he has gone insane. 🙁

    1. Can’t say I agree. Norm MacDonald typified what, to me, is (or was? I haven’t seen the show in years) a really obnoxious trope of SNL comedy. Say something, then stare blankly at the audience. Eventually, they will laugh. Maybe because it was funny, maybe because they can’t stand the nervous silence, maybe because they know that it’s a comedy show and you’re expected to laugh.

      In practice, it’s a stupid gimmick to get an audience to laugh (eventually, and probably insincerely) whether what you just said was in any way funny or not. In my experience, when Norm was doing it, it’s because there was nothing else funny about what he was doing. Uncomfortable staring was the only comedic talent he had, and boy did he milk it for everything it was worth.

      2. You must’ve used “another way of knowing” to arrive at that conclusion. 😀 buh dum da tish!

      3. I think that you simply fail to understand what he was doing, then and now. His act is to take a joke, intentionally remove all subtlety and cleverness, and state a harsh and blunt punchline which is basically the same as the set up. It’s intended to make you uncomfortable, he often bombs on purpose (see Saget roast where he exclusively tells lame jokes from the 50’s, without letting the audience in on the bit). He’s a genius.

  6. The quest for certainty. If you’re going to believe something you want to be right. So take the short cut and “choose” to believe in something nobody can ever take away from you: believe in something which is beyond human fallibility, experience, evidence, and understanding. Believe in God.

    Or whatever damn thing you think is ‘beyond human fallibility.’ Apparently you get to borrow infallibility from whatever it is you believe in. If you’re wrong, that means God is wrong. Look — you’ve become so small you disappeared!

    Oh no. I suddenly had a vision of Norm MacDonald getting together with fellow SNL alumni Victoria Jackson, also an uber-Christian. A concentrated dose of stupid. Now I have to wash my brain.

    1. Bingo!

      People crave certainty so much that they’ll latch on to an answer, any answer, even an answer they know is worng, just so they can say they’ve got “the” answer.

      I think that’s the fundamental difference between true believers and the sane. Sane people are okay with admitting ignorance, but that sort of thing scares the shit out of the believers.

      Cheers,

      b&

      2. It is not just being okay with admitting ignorance. It is as much being not okay with made up bullshit. It is just not being satisfied with answers which there is no good reason to believe are accurate. And not “even if those easy answers make us feel good.” They don’t make us feel good.

        1. Of course! The flip side of the coin.

          The bullshit answers also cause problems for the believers, but that’s when cognitive dissonance kicks in and overwhelms sanity….

          b&

  7. Argh! I completely hate this kind of thinking.

    “Woah! You mean that in science I can’t accept something as true and forget about it, knowing it will be true forevermore? You mean I actually have to judge things to be true?
    I don’t like that.
    What’s this? A system that proclaims absolute certainty, that everything it says will always be true, so I don’t have to worry about that thinking thing? Cool!
    And it also says I will have happy times forever if I go along with it?
    What do I have to do? Do I need to understand anything? No? Just have faith?

    Sign me up!”

  8. Doesn’t one have to be funny to be called a comedian?

    Norm MacDonald doesn’t even qualify for the D list. He is no more than a bug on the windshield.

    1. That reminded me of “Fly on a windshield” from the album “The lamb lies down on broadway” by the original “Genesis”….

      There’s something solid forming in the air.
      The wall of death is lowered in Times Square.
      No-one seems to care,
      They carry on as if nothing was there.
      The wind is blowing harder now,
      Blowing dust into my eyes.
      The dust settles on my skin,
      Making a crust I cannot move in
      And I’m hovering like a fly, waiting for the windshield on the freeway.

  9. Hey! Hands off my booze and drugs Prof Coyne! Don’t try to drag them down to religion’s level. That requires a whole different level of brain addling. Besides, without drugs how are we to have deep insights such as that the walls are fucking BROWN. 😉

    On another note, this guy needs to read his bible more closely. Wasn’t it from there that we got the idea of the sun going around the earth? It states several items that the earth is fixed and unmovable.

  14. Yeah, I love it: Science is self-correcting so we shouldn’t trust it. Trust the crap “holy” men have been pulling out of their arses since the beginning of humankind. Yeah, right!

    1. Yeah I’ve had people argue with me like this too. They don’t trust science because it is provisional. Um, that’s why you should trust it.

      1. “They don’t trust science because it is provisional. Um, that’s why you should trust it.”

        No, no it isn’t. Phrasing like that is probably part of the problem.
        Science being provisional is not why we should trust it, that sounds counter-intuitive.
        We should trust science because its goal is to best explain our current understanding of the universe. Part of the philosophical underpinnings of science is that a) we don’t know everything at any given time and b) we can be wrong about stuff.
        The religious approach touted by Macdonald here ignores those two facts. By definition the religious claim that, on any given point of religious dogma it accounts everything they need to understand it, and it can’t possibly be wrong.

        1. Another part of the reason to trust science is because it works. It has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to develop explanations that successfully explain, make predictions that are then tested, and offer repeatability of results. Not to mention that science has provided us with a wide assortment of useful and beneficial applications, such as science-based medicine.

        2. No, no it isn’t. Phrasing like that is probably part of the problem.

          No it’s not. Especially on this website. It’s obviously just a shorthand way of saying science is not dogma.

        3. I think something that is provisional is completely trust worthy. It means there is no faith or dogma. It works until we find something that falsifies it then it gets revised.

          I don’t think I would trust science because it’s goal is to explain our current understanding of the universe – that’s religions goal too. It doesn’t mean you’re going to do it right.

          It works and if we find something that makes it not work, we revise it and it works again.

          1. Trust should be apportioned in proportion with a rational analysis of empirical observation.

            That’s science. Anything else is faith, which is very, very, very bad. (And, yes — we have the empirical observations rationally analyzed to know just how bad faith is.)

            Cheers,

            b&

    2. JBlilie, he’s a “Former funnyman and current idiot” and what makes me sad is I used to like him. Along with Victoria Jackson’s ever-increasing girth, I’m beginning to wonder if calories have a role in this.

      C.

  15. For some reason, and it shouldn’t, because there are so many like this doorknob, I am always completely bumfuzzled that people can live in the 21st Century and be so patently ignorant and then stupid to boot. All fueled by a supposed book written by illiterate goat herders and fishermen 2000 years ago. He can have his Celestial Dictator. I’ll take settled science any day.

    1. I think those who have studied the issue put the number closer to 1800. Don’t concede that it was written in real time.

      1. A book might be written by goat herders, but not by illiterate ones – that’s a contradiction in terms!

        In the specific case of the bible, the whole notion is also wrong. The various books of the Old Testament were written down and compiled by priestly scribes who were the educated social elite of their society, with a very definite political/religious agenda in mind. Similarly, analysis of the earliest New Testament tests shows that they must have been written by city-dwellers based in the Greek-speaking eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. These guys must have been converts from Hellenistic paganism or Hellenized Judaism, thus explaining the many parallels between the Jesus story and other religious concepts that were floating around in the general culture at the time. The original stories, particularly in the OT, may include much older oral traditions, but the texts themselves were not written by hairy guys in tents, despite what Christian apologists would have us believe.

  16. Like Tanya Luhrmann he says belief isn’t important. And like Luhrmann, he also sounds confused.

  18. If he was a baby, he could just suck a pacifier/dummy, but being ostensibly an adult such behaviour would be unacceptable in civilized society. Becoming inanely god-soaked, however, is OK.

  19. First, Norm Macdonald is no dummy. He’s pretty impressive in some ways. Second, I am a biologist, but I don’t “believe in” my hypotheses. I favor those supported by a preponderance of evidence. To be the best scientist I can be, I sleep with, but never marry a hypothesis. If you believe your hypothesis, then you most likely aren’t going to design the most rigorous test of that hypothesis. I try very hard to break my students’ habits of believing all the scientific dogma. Rather, I encourage them to evaluate the data holding up their intellectual foundations. Things go horribly wrong when we “believe in” the data. I haven’t seen the whole interview, but I suspect Norma Macdonald was trying to articulate that rational point of view. If he hasn’t studied the evidence behind DNA testing, why should he believe it? Because one of the science gods told him to believe it? I think he’s being very honest when he says he “chooses to believe in God.” How many religious folks would admit that? They more typically say God told them to believe, or they use some other twisted story that shifts the responsibility. Don’t be hating on Norm!

    1. “If he hasn’t studied the evidence behind DNA testing, why should he believe it?”
      He should believe it because the overwhemly majority of people who do study and understand it all agree*. Also, like most other avenues of science, the evidence of it working is out there. I don’t understand how the phone I’m using to type this on works nor how it sends my message to the internet for all to see, but clearly it does. I can either accept science’s version of the story or “choose to believe” that Jesus magically sends my thoughts over the airways into Heaven, aka, the interwebs.

      That being said, Norm was and perhaps may still be a very funny guy.

      *(If you don’t believe for whatever reason, that is perfectly fine. That is how progress in science gets made I suppose. But there is entirely too much knowledge we all have to accept to a degree, otherwise where does the questioning stop?)

      1. Yeah, I always found Norm to be very smart. I’m disappointed at his responses. I agree that when there is strong scientific consensus then you tend to “believe” to some extent. So, if cosmologists tell me there is evidence for a multi verse and I read that evidence (at my popularized level) I don’t have the training to refute it. I rely on specialists to do that. However, I can see if support for said ideas is ify or not.

          3. The idea of multiverses is hardly “wild” or “unsubstantiated”. It arises as a natural consequence of some evidence-based models in QFT and cosmology (e.g., inflation). As such, it’s nothing that “undermines the credibility of science.” Quite the opposite. “Wild” and “unsubstantiated” are terms that should be reserved for rectum-derived ideas.

            /@

          4. Agreed. Those theories make a lot of predictions that have been found to be true, which is evidence that those theories are correct. If so, then the Multiverse is not wild speculation.

          5. @ Billy Joe and Ant

            What is the evidence that multiverses exist? Can you name one?

            How do we know that black holes exist? There is indirect evidence, such as stars racing around Saggitarius A at the centre of the Galaxy, at incredible speeds because of the enormous gravitation caused by a still invisible black hole. Also, we observe strong short lived x-ray flares that can only be explained by chuncks of mass passing the event horizon of a black hole. So what is the evidence, direct or indirect, of multiverses? Introducing the concept because we want to counter the idea of an intelligent designer fine tuning physical constants (such as the ratio of the mass of a proton to the mass of an electron) so that life as we know it could exist is silly. By the way, is there a physical explanation that caused Alan Guth’s inflation shortly after the Big Bang? No. So inflation cannot explain multiverses.

          8. @ Alexander

            “Introducing the concept because we want to counter the idea of an intelligent designer fine tuning physical constants … so that life as we know it could exist is silly.”

            Well, it would be, but that’s not why the concept was introduced! (Besides, the fine-tuning problem is overrated.)

            There was no direct evidence for the Higgs boson for nearly 50 years. Did Peter Higgs undermine the credibility of science?

            Your point re inflation isn’t clear to me.

            /@

          9. @Ant
            The Higgs has always been presented with the possibility that it could not be found. In fact, the public was surprised when its discovery was announced. Also, the existence of the Higgs was predicted by a theory accepted by a large majority of particle physicists, the Standard Model. The Multiple World hypothesis depends on one of several interpretations of quantum mechanics, and for now any of these theories are not testable (unlike the Higgs boson). Also, not everyone accepts taking on the inflation theory to explain the way the universe looks now, and further there is no explanation of what caused the inflation. The mechanism that would explain high-temperature superconduction eludes us (although something of an explanation has been announced a few days ago). But we can measure superconduction at high temperatures (at which nitrogen is liquid). But we have no observational hints of multiverses, or I must have missed them.

          10. @ Alexander

            Hmm… All three of those statements about Higgs are wrong in some degree, but in any case they’re not really relevant to my point that the lack of direct evidence is not enough to indicate that a hypothesis is “wild” and thus undermines the credibility of science.

            There certainly are observational hints of multiverses, so clearly you have missed them; Diana posted one earlier.

            /@

      2. “He should believe it because the overwhemly majority of people who do study and understand it all agree”

        But the problem with that argument is that it can also be applied to religious belief as each major religion has its own theological ‘experts’. The majority of readers of this web-site are familiar with the masses of evidence in favour of scientific explanations for natural phenomena and familiar with the flaws in arguments for a religious explanation of the world about us but the population as a whole is not necessarily so well informed. If you are neither an expert (or reasonably well-read) in science or in theology you have no good reason to follow one ‘overwhelming majority’ rather than the other.
        We don’t like it when theologians offer ‘the courtiers reply’ so we should really avoid it ourselves.

        1. You are ignoring a very large difference between consensus among scientists regarding explanations of phenomena and the claims of religious leaders.

          The methods of science have been, are, very successful at producing useful explanations and models of reality. This can be readily demonstrated at any time for any person who is willing to give the necessary attention. And by that I don’t mean formal study of science.

          There are no comparable ways of demonstrating the efficacy of religious methods of acquiring knowledge about reality. In point of fact many religious claims can easily be shown to be inaccurate by applying the methods of scientific inquiry to them.

          It is perfectly reasonable to expect non specialists to be able to understand why one, science, is much more successful at explaining reality than the other, religion. It is not reasonable to choose to believe something for which there is no good evidence over something for which there is a huge amount of good evidence. Though it is very human.

          2. Also, anybody can confirm for themselves anything that scientists have observed. Not only can they, but they’re encouraged to do so.

            I’ve independently (with the guidance of teachers, of course) re-confirmed all of Newtonian mechanics, absolute zero, and all sorts of other facts about nature. Anybody who’s passed a decent science class with a lab requirement has done so as well.

            I really should personally re-create a bunch of the quantum mechanics experiments, such as the double slit and oil drop and the like…but I’ve got other more pressing matters to attend to. (Indeed, one of them involves building ICC camera color profiles using a slit monochromatic light source from an old B&L Spec 20.)

            Even the big scale stuff you could verify. If you don’t trust CERN’s discovery of the Higgs…well, you could certainly start by building a cyclotron and a Wilson Cloud Chamber to verify the fundamentals; that doesn’t require anything beyond the reach of an hobbyist. You could then get a tour of the LHC where they’ll be positively thrilled to have you ask all the pointed questions you can imagine. And their results are published, so you can examine those and search for flaws. If you find something they can’t explain, you’ll have no trouble publishing your own findings.

            But, please. OD NOT TAKE MY WORD FOR IT. Go and do the verification yourself. And, in so doing, you’ll not only learn all this for yourself but you’ll even have a good chance at discovering something new and exciting yourself.

            Of course, you’ll become a scientist in the process, but what’s so bad about that?

            Cheers,

            b&

          3. “The methods of science have been, are, very successful at producing useful explanations and models of reality. This can be readily demonstrated at any time for any person who is willing to give the necessary attention”.

            Sorry Darelle for the delay in replying. I entirely agree with you that scientific methods are demonstrably effective at explaining natural phenomena and religious explanations are equally ineffective. What I am taking issue with here is anyone simply saying you should believe this or that scientific theory because it’s what smart people who have studied it believe. That’s quite different to explaining how the scientific method works, why it is effective and what the evidence for a particular theory (such as the role of DNA in genetic inheritance)actually is. I don’t believe if confronted with Norm or someone of a similar persuasion that you would limit yourself to just telling him he should ‘believe in DNA’ because smart people who have studied it believe it and leave it at that? Am I wrong?

          4. Oh, I agree that majority belief and argument from authority are not effective ways of determining the accuracy of something. What I am saying is that I don’t think that scientists’ concensus opinions on things that they have studied and investigated fall into either of those categories.

            And yes, I would prefer explaining why science is different than “devising just so stories” to people like Norm. But, science is not a new thing. Norm’s ignorance on this issue is not something that I think should be respected. There is good evidence all around, everywhere, just about every moment of his life that, for whatever reason, he chooses to disregard.

            And explaining it to Norm is not likely to change his beliefs. The problem isn’t that he doesn’t understand, at least not completely. He is committed to his religious beliefs for reasons other than rational analysis. The other problem you have to solve to enable a Norm to understand why science is reliable, and his religion is not, is to figure out why he is committed to his religious views and deal with that too. If you can.

    2. “If he hasn’t studied the evidence behind DNA testing, why should he believe it? Because one of the science gods told him to believe it?”

      Gee, I don’t know. Just because some fancypants physicists tell me about electrons, semiconductors, optical fibers, p-n junctions, and other sorts of gobbledygook, why should I believe them if I have’nt studied solid state physics, optics, and electricity and magnetism? Maybe if I sit here and stare at your question on my computer screen an answer will come to me.

      1. Yeah, I refuse to believe this computer works until I have done the hard yards of becoming a physicist and finding out for myself how it works.

  20. I don’t know the man, but I’m ashamed to say I assumed he was American…

    Anyway. I found this on his WIKI & it made me wonder how con someone with so little insight or analytical skill be a worthwhile comedian? :-

    In 2003, Macdonald appeared on Barbara Walters’s program The View, publicly renouncing his Canadian citizenship as a joke over his home country’s decision not to participate in the Iraq War, stated his belief that Ronald Reagan was the greatest president ever and said that he would be becoming a naturalized citizen of the United States. Later he affirmed that he was joking about renouncing his Canadian citizenship, stating in a telephone interview that “I’m not an American citizen. I’m a Canadian citizen. I just keep renewing my green card… I don’t want to be American.” He further burnished his apolitical stance in regards to both America and Canada saying that he was not eligible to vote in American elections and never voted in Canadian elections either: “I figured since I never did when I was in Canada… I never voted because I don’t want to make a mistake. I’m so uninformed that I don’t want that on my hands, you know?”

    From the Wiki I get the impression that almost any publicity is good publicity if you want to keep getting those very well paid Miller Lite [and etc.] advertising gigs ~ hence this latest nonsense.

    1. “I don’t know the man, but I’m ashamed to say I assumed he was American…”

      Without making any of the usual jibes against the U.S. (there are many Canadian religious nuts and many rational Americans) Macdonald seems to have spent most of his life and career in the US, so his place of birth probably had less to do with his conversion than his current life.

      1. Ha ha yeah I forgot Norm is Canadian. It’s true we have our share of bone heads too and our own ID types that get too many ideas from the US I think 😉

  22. I never thought that guy was funny. Now I have more of a reason not to listen to him.

  23. Well, no — lack of large-scale success can also drive somebody into the arms of Jesus. But I would argue that the stupidity comes first.

  24. Science has “always been wrong.”

    …says Norm MacDonald, in a TV studio, surrounded by cameras and lights, his words and image being broadcast to millions of people sitting thousands of miles away in their homes.

  25. If only we could get MORE morons to come out in public support of Christianity. Think about a teenager in the Bible belt experiencing doubts about his or her religion, then seeing a clip like this. I think Norm just did free thought a favor.

  26. How dare Norm sneer so smugly, so hipster-ly. Next time he has pneumonia give him a flat-out choice: antibiotics or prayer.

  27. Well, damn! I just changed my opinions of both Norm MacDonald and Larry King in just one minute and thirty five seconds.

    1. I’m wondering if Larry King was thinking about the verse in Matthew (or was it Mark, I always confuse the two) wherein Satan shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world from atop a tall mountain, which clearly suggests the world is flat.

      If he was, and if I find out later that that’s what followed this clip, I will be highly amused.

      1. I don’t know what he was thinking, but I’m using that line. Larry King doesn’t seem like the type to surreptitiously throw in bible verses. If he did, I’ll have to revise my opinion of him even further.

        You’re right, it would be informative and amusing to see the full interview.

  28. IIRC, Norm’s style of comedy was heavy on the irony. I sorta hoped this was something heavy on subtle irony, but looks like it isn’t. One thing’s sure – he looks more like Jonathan Winters now than even the Norm MacDonald I’ve recently seen in commercials.

  29. Fundamentally, this dude was paid to say stupid things for a living (a comedian). Why should ANYONE expect anything else of him. This is the problem of our interest in celebrities: we expect them to say and think things that might make sense or be profound. Unfortunately – or shall we rephrase and say: reailistically, they can’t, won’t and don’t. How can you expect a professional goof to be anything other than average in other aspects of their life? So he’s a “Christian”, are at least 67% of Americans Christian? So he doesn’t trust science, well he is likely in the majority. So he goes on Larry King (is that guy still alive? Wow, there had GOT to be something weird going on there) and says stupid things… doesn’t everyone who goes on Larry King do that? This is really not a story…

    1. Not all comedians get their yucks from playing the fool. George Carlin, for example, was brilliant, and it was his brilliance that got people to laugh at their own idiocies.

      b&

    2. I’m sure we can all list favourite comedians who are clearly very intelligent. My list includes Dara O’Briain, Tim Minchin and Bill Bailey.

  31. First Victoria Jackson, then Dennis Miller, and now Norm MacDonald- three SNL alumni gone right-wing! Well, we’ve still got Julia Sweeney for progressives.

    Note to Norm: Space flight has been effective using the new model of the solar system.

  32. He hasn’t had much of an acting career since ,well I can’t even remember the movie.

      1. Must be something about being on the east side of an ocean. Here on the Pacific North Wet coast, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of him either.

          1. Well that is a relief! Was it a deliberate pun JohnnieCanuck, to say Pacific North Wet coast?! 🙂

          3. I knew of him, but only because I’m in Canada and my tv, when on, is almost always on the standup comedy channel.

            He had a comedy special where his opening act was taking science to task for not solving the death problem and focusing on ‘diseases’. Apparently his beef with science is more than just an act.

        2. I’m sort of on the east side of a Great Lake, and I haven’t heard of him either.

  34. If anyone is still reading this thread, here’s the link to the full interview:

    http://splitsider.com/2013/06/watch-norm-macdonald-and-larry-king-have-a-long-conversation/

    I’ll warn you, however, that it does not shed any light on the confused mess of ideas Norm is rambling about. The only part that was left out was a non-sequiter about some guy named “Stephen Hawkings”:

    “…I’ll say one thing: the smartest man in the world is supposed to be Stephen Hawkings, and I heard him say that God was a fairy tale. Now that doesn’t seem like a very scientific idea…”

    If you want to skip (most of) the ads, the relavent bit is at the beginning of the last segment.

  35. I’ve always really liked Norm (though he seems to end up in the absolute worst films) and sought out the clip hoping to find some cynical attempt at humor.

    But as far as I can see, there is no irony present here. He seems really confused and even contradicts himself.

    “There’s a lot of things I have faith, but I don’t really believe in DNA…”

    Presumably he wants to say, “there are a lot if things I have faith in, but that I don’t really believe in. For example, DNA…”

    Later Larry says (referring to DNA evidence in court) “so you don’t have faith in that?”. Norm replies, “No, I don’t have faith in science.”

    So is he talking about things he has faith in, but doesn’t believe in, as initially stated? or about things he doesn’t have faith in, as his later remark suggests? (both ostensibly about DNA) What is his distinction between faith and belief? Clearly he has no idea what these words mean to himself, let alone other people.

  36. Science has been right about the Earth been round for about 2,300 years now. Science has also been right about heliocentrism for about 2200 years now and it has been right about cell theory for about 400 years or so.

    I could go on but there is no reason to bother.

  37. Uncertainty w.r.t. Norm seems to be the vogue here… as it has always been. Whether it is truth or fantasy, we may never know whether he is playing dumb. Haven’t seen him in a long time. Maybe this is his new premise for senior centers.

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