I can’t help but post occasional comments from creationists—just to remind us what we’re up against. This comment, sent in response to my post about declining ticket sales at Kentucky’s Creation Museum, goes above the fold, for the writer, one “Lynette,” is just so uninformed, so willfully ignorant, that it makes me despair of America.
How many mistakes or lies can you spot in this post? You’ll surely recognize The Darwin Deathbed Canard:
I was very distraught when I read your uneducated and rude comments toward the people in this country who do believe in creation. I know many doctor, lawyer’s [sic] and business owners, who absolutely do believe in creation and further more [sic] believe in God. You might also want to further examine the very man who came up with the ridiculous theory, lie, of evolution and relie [sic] he actually died rejecting his own theories, and became a Christian. He ended up not only believing in creationism, but also believing that God sent His Son to die for Him, and accepting Him as his savior. So maybe you should get a little more educated. It is also true that many European countries, who believe themselves extremely well educated, teach both creation and evolution in their public schools. To be honest I don’t know what people are so afraid of, evolution is taught as a theory, so why not creation. THERE IS NO SOLID PROOF FOR EVOLUTION, YET HAMS [sic] THEORIES MAKE MORE SENSE than anything I have ever read. By the way the percentage of how many Americans believe in creation is hopeful on your part, I know it’s not factual. There are many people that don’t claim Christianity, that still believe in creation. Sorry but the truth of the matter is wether [sic] you like it or not it’s probably at least 70 percent.
My point here is twofold. Our country is full of people like this: over 40% of Americans believe in young-Earth creationism and the de novo appearance of species that have remained unchanged ever since. Second, these people have had ample opportunity to inform themselves about evolution. Unless they’re some of the few that have never been exposed to evolution on television, in books, or in school, we have every right to deride their ignorance.
Uniformed? I presume you mean uninformed.
Indeed. Fixed, thanks! I corrected a few other typos.
mis-informed is more accurate. They have been fed a pack of lies by people who know better
This is the key. These people are routinely lied to by those who should (and often do) know better. Because they trust these people they believe their lies, which is what makes it so important that schools teach them about reality. Too many of them will never hear about it otherwise.
I think the real problem is they aren’t really interested in KNOWING the truth about anything that contradicts what they want to believe.
During the fourth of July holiday I saw memes posted to Facebook of that phony Patrick Henry quote about America being founded as a Christian Nation.
Patrick Henry never said any such a thing.
How hard is it to go to Snopes.com and and learn the truth of the matter?
No, they’d rather keep re-posting and propagating that nonsense because it fits their agenda.
I’m of the opinion that not only are creationists intellectually dishonest, but are downright eager enthusiastic liars as well, (As long as the lie builds and reinforces their case.)
I guess I’m going to great pains to state the obvious, but that’s why they will NOT learn the facts about Evolution, and will turn a blind eye and deaf ear to any evidence presented to them that supports it.
Like Mr. Coyne, I hold little hope for the future of America. These backward thinking people, if given their way, will take us back to the Dark Ages.
The very fact a Creation Museum was even built in the first place should be cause for National shame.
I hope the damn place DOES go bankrupt.
It’s not hard to go to Snopes, but the people who repeat such BS also tend to be the people who believe that there’s a vast conspiracy against them: any source that contradicts their own biases is just more evidence of the conspiracy.
There’s an Internet Rule about pointing out others’ spelling and grammatical errors, isn’t there?
I don’t think “Internet Rule” should be capitalized, but to answer your question, no, there ain’t [sic].
Muphry’s Law.
I think my grammar teacher’s name was Sister Murphy.
Yes. The unstated rule as in it’s rude and certainly egotistical to point out a misspelled word. Word-Police. Reminds me of my mom. Yuck.
To people who object to being picky about things like grammar and spelling:
I’m not going to argue with the man who created the Coyote and the Roadrunner (one of the few verifiable instances of Intelligent Design). Are you?
This is lovely. Nicely done.
It’s rude and egotistical not to care about the grammar and spelling in one’s posts. Good spelling and grammar is a courtesy to your readers. It helps them understand you posts more easily.
Corrections offered in the right spirit should be accepted graciously as an opportunity to make your gems of wisdom even better. Notice how, rather than yelling “grammar Nazi”, JAC took the correction in good grace and also fixed a few other problems too.
Skitt’s Law: Any post correcting an error in another post will contain at least one error itself.
I used to always refer to Skitt’s too; till Ben mentioned Muphry’s, which is actually in Wikipedia, and more fun, IMO. 😀
Obviously, I had no intention to be rude, and wouldn’t have minded if my comment had been removed after the error was noted. Having said that, no, I don’t know of any Roolz other than our host’s own 😉
I did this for one reason only, and that wasn’t to make fun of the person (she did that to herself): to show that the errors were hers and not my own errors in transcription.
Somehow, I knew that.
Me too. Though since the era of cut and paste transcription errors are much less likely.
I didn’t say anything about your making fun of her. It almost feels like you are responding to someone else.
My comment was not at all intended to address your motive in using sic throughout the quote. I did assume you were, as you say, letting her demonstrate her ignorance to us.
Muphrey’s law was all I had in mind, and naturally, as docbill pointed out, the rule should also apply to my words (and therefore apparently, his).
Apologies, if I have offended.
Assailing “Lynette’s” intelligence would of course be like shooting the proverbial fish in a barrel. For the sake of “devolution of the species” one can only hope that “Lynette” is herself not procreating, though something tells me she is and quite liberally. Yikes!
I’ve often wondered why someone would shoot a fish in a barrel since they, historically at least, would already be dead and salted.
The Mythbusters already tested shooting fish in a barrel. You don’t even need to hit the fish, they die from the shock wave. http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/mythbusters-database/shooting-killing-fish-barrel.htm
Has anyone ever tried shooting fish in a barrel? It’s actually quite hard.
I suspect this is the point. Shooting fish that are already dead and salted would not only be easy but a complete waste of time.
and I bet it makes them taste funny, too.
To say nothing of crunchy.
I don’t see that there’s anything wrong with Lynette’s intelligence. It’s her education that’s FKD.
I also don’t think that she’s willfully ignorant. That term could only apply to someone who doesn’t want to know the truth and that doesn’t describe anyone I can imagine. She does want to know the truth and she thinks she has it, it’s just that her version comes from the alternate universe she grew up in.
I just don’t get that. For me it is very easy to imagine people not wanting to know the truth about something. Not only do I commonly observe behavior that indicates that, it is also not uncommon for people to sometimes clarify the matter by specifically stating that they don’t want to know.
I agree, completely.
I suppose I can sort of see a point in what Kevin wrote if you interpret “willfully ignorant” narrowly, as he does, to mean that the person in question resists education, knowing they have a deficit.
But, per Dunning/Kruger, these folks don’t think they do have a deficit. So I don’t think there are very many people in Kevin’s category.
There is a phrase common among Mormons (the religion I left): “Avoid the very appearance of evil”. The idea is that you shouldn’t approach anything contrary to Mormon doctrine. Don’t even casually page through TGD or TGSoE while perusing the local bookstore. Not even for the purposes of “knowing thine enemy”. The result is an extremely insular, poorly-educated existence.
If that’s not willful ignorance, I don’t know what is.
And IIRC, the Amish/Mennonite community cuts off schooling at 6th grade for the same reason. Too much knowledge is a dangerous thing!
As another example, I’ve also heard from my ex-Witness friend that Witnesses allow their kids to continue education until they finish high school where the emphasis is getting something good enough to get a job. For example, my friend took typing classes because she was going to be a secretary. Luckily, her family left the church & she went on to university to get a Chemistry degree.
I thought the cutoff was 8th grade, because in most states the age of statutory attendance ends at 16 and many states require the home school or private school teacher of high school level grades to have at least a two year degree.
Freegrazer – correct [see my comment]. Also, occasionally there is an Amish kid who wants to continue in school, and they have to leave the Amish church. Several have gone on to medical school and then return to serve the Amish community even though they cannot be Amish. Knowing Pennsylvania Dutch probably comes in really handy 🙂
Well, I distinctly remember being told 6th grade when my family & I toured the A/M museum in northern Indiana. (And the mentioned it as if it were a good thing!) But that was some time ago.
I suspect that these things vary a lot by state. I know that in MI, with the R’s in control, the homeschooling regs tend to get loosened.
Sounds like MennoHof in Shipshewana, eh? It’s a minor quibble anyway since generally the drop out age is 16.
Yeah, sounds right! It was 25 years ago, +/-, so my memory is vague except for the fact that 6th grade stuck with me*. That, and that storm chamber re-enactment thingy they have. 😀
*Possibly erroneously, but I do remember that my Dad spoke up to say, calmly, how much he disagreed with that custom. (I was 30ish at the time, so he was no spring chicken, either.)
Slight correction – in Indiana, the Amish indeed cut off education at the state-mandated age of 16. Often this led to a really good 8th grade basketball team since they did not go on to high school. We at New Paris generally got crushed by the Honeyville 8th graders. In contrast, the Mennonites generally support higher education [with several liberal arts colleges such as Goshen, Bluffton and Eastern Mennonite] and many Mennos continue on to earn PhD’s, some in the evolutionary sciences 🙂
You are right. I wasn’t thinking of that aspect of it.
What I was thinking of is the people who homeschool for instance. It’s not that they don’t want their kids to know the truth, it’s that the sincerely believe that they already have the truth and that public schools tell lies.
Gotcha. I am sure some do indeed have that attitude. I am kind of a pessimist in some respects though.
In my corner of the world kids are almost always home-schooled not because the public schools teach lies but because they don’t teach them anything.
I didn’t mean to say all people who home school. My bad.
Several of my kids’ friends ended up home-schooled, but I thought (and still think) that children learn a lot of social skills, most importantly perhaps, how to deal with teaches whose personality might closely resemble a boss, co-worker, in-law or whatever that they will need to deal with sometime as adults. So, I sold my house and put them in Catholic school where they not only had to cope with these social situations but also had access to advanced (college-level that actually earned college credits) in several branches of mathematics, literature, computer hardware/software, history, philosophy,sociology and sciences. Amazingly, the bible was never mentioned any of these classes except one literature class and a comparative religion class which also taught all the major civilization creation stories. But even more importantly, they were disciplined (not physically) for inappropriate behavior and if they failed to turn in homework, projects or failed exams, their grade reflected it. These last two ‘innovations’ were forbidden in public schools at the time.
While it’s important to learn how to deal with people like that, I’m not sure that the way one learns to deal with them in public school is necessarily the best way….
b&
lisa,
I have a somewhat similar tale, although not involving home schooling. I have two kids, one went to a public high school, one to a Catholic high school. We (the parents) are atheist, although at the time I wasn’t the hyper-vocal (i.e. “shrill”) version. The Catholic high school was rather liberal philosophically and did a good job education-wise. It had no success at whatever indoctrination it might have subtly sought to achieve. If anything it honed my son’s skills in arguing the subject and he went on to minor in comparative religion in college. Both kids are atheist to this day. We always assumed that they would figure it out by themselves as they grew into adulthood and they did.
I remain hostile to the sham of “choice schools” and public funding of private schools, whether religious or not. And I detest religious indoctrination of children. But IMO the most important factors have to do with attitudes at home when children are growing up. If they learn to think critically religion has little appeal. (At least from my two data points.)
@ gbjames
You can add my two data points as well. A very similar story in our family, right down to the one-in-Catholic-HS, one-in-public bit.
“It is also true that many European countries, who believe themselves extremely well educated, teach both creation and evolution in their public schools.”
Really? As a European I’d like to know exactly what countries she’s talking about here.
I’ve never heard of a European country that teaches Creationism as a valid scientific theory opposing Evolution.
Where does one start with “arguments” like this?
I have no idea where to start, but where to stop is easy–about half way through the first sentence where she describes Jerry as “uneducated.”
In the Netherlands. Evolution is part of the examined curriculum, but denominational schools – all public funded – are free to teach creationism. They do.
The curriculum is changing (next year’s examination(?)), but until recently, the official curriculum said under part E2.6 “(The student is able to) detail past and present ideas on origin of life and organisms, in particular
-generatio spontanea
-creation
-evolution”
[. E2.6 vroegere en huidige opvattingen en ideeën weergeven over het ontstaan van leven en levensvormen, in het bijzonder:- generatio spontanea;
– schepping;
– evolutie ]
But do they teach creationism in the science classroom?
At the denominatiol schools, certainly. Nothing to stop them, as long as they teach enough evolutionary biology to get pupils through their exam (if there wouldd be an evolutionary biology question).
Sadly, I stand corrected then.
Now I feel depressed on my fellow Europeans behalf.
Note that she said “who believe themselves extremely well educated”. She is true for that: to teach creationism in public school you need faith.
What would be really interesting is to find how many European countries she is able a) to name and b) to locate on a map. But, in her case, such a test would be very unfair bordering on the unethical.
Desnes Diev
“Note that she said “who believe themselves extremely well educated”. She is true for that: to teach creationism in public school you need faith.”
Aye, but from the gist of it, I’m fairly certain she is talking about treating Creationism and Evolution as two competing theories.
In biology there is no competition, only evolution.
“What would be really interesting is to find how many European countries she is able a) to name and b) to locate on a map.”
That’s probably an unfair test. (As you said). The percentage of the average population of the _world_ that can point to any given country on the map is depressingly small, and I believe I’ve seen some report that the percentage of ‘muricans who can do so is even smaller. Something between 6% and 82% ** (depending which Google headline one reads) can’t even point out the USA.
However, since she is happily making generalisations about what European countries teach in schools, maybe it’s not such an unfair test, at that.
(** Yes, there does seem to be a wide variation in the statistics).
The way ‘muricans learn about other countries is by looking at the little map in the top left side of the screen as the FOXNews reporter talks about why we need to invade it.
Lynette needs to hear something important: whoever told you that was lying.
Ah, of course.
It’s all lies from the pits of Hell!
LOL. She is so ignorant. Pathetic.
Pathetic, but unfortunately representative of a large swathe of the voting public in the US. It’s easy to dismiss these kind of folks, but we really need to pay attention to them, and figure out a way to reach them (or at least their children) without selling out the principles of science in the process (something I think the NCSE continually flirts with).
a) Break into printers where bibles are produced
b) Liberally coat the paper stock with an estrogen/progesterone mix
c) Add note to title page “Lick fingers to make turning pages easier”
Problem solves itself 🙂
“Pathetic, but unfortunately representative of a large swathe of the voting public in the US”
Not to mention Congress.
Obviously homeskoold.
Correction: homeskoolt.
Ah stand korektud.
You misspelled “corrected.”
(No need to thank me.)
You know a sic laden response is going to be a fun one (you missed a couple too). I think my favourite parts are the ones that touch on weird inferences and anecdotal statistics.
The inference: if some professional people that got book learnin'(doctors, lawyers, business owners) believe in creation then creation must be real ’cause them peoples is smart!
The anecdotal statistic at the end: yeah I saw what you said as a statistic for those that believe in creation but I’m going to go ahead and tell you how wrong you are because I like my own made up statistic based on feelings better.
Epic!
Well, she did say that . . .
So, there you go. A thorough evaluation on her part, I’m sure.
Ah, you’re right! I’m so uneducated. 🙂
Funny how she thinks the opinions of doctors, lawyers, and business owners count for something on the question of evolution versus creation.
and the taliban are experts on human rights.
…in the same sense that Jeffrey Dahmer is an expert on human anatomy….
b&
Was, Ben, was.
Did I ever tell you that I used to drive past his house twice a day here in Milwaukee? True fact.
The place is torn down now. Last time I saw it, the lot was surrounded by a big fence. Not sure it it was keeping ghosts in or ghouls out.
Eh, what’s a couple tenses between friends?
One wonders what the property owners are planning on doing with the space. Do they just treat it as a normal lot and hope the world loses interest, or do they try to exploit it with a crass “killer” museum?
b&
We should offer the listing to Ken Ham. Maybe they can get funded for a Hellfire museum. Animatronic Satan? Hell yes. I think the animatronic Dahmer would actually creep me out though. Slowly stirring a large pot of something with a creepy smile on his face….
I was gonna suggest a nice little neighborhood park or playground, but I like your idea better. Perhaps a museum or theme park for all the serial killers. Or I guess with space issues, they’d have to make do with the well=known. What a ‘top ten’ list that would be! with movie rights and merchandizing, one could make a fortune.
According to the Bio channel, the city of Milwaukee spent a half million dollars buying up objects/material related to the Dahmer case just so someone couldn’t start a museum.
Interesting. I must be a part owner.
Tastes just like chicken! (Sorry, I felt compelled; the devil made me do it!)
Not chicken…humans are the other other white meat. Or so I’ve been told.
b&
“Long pork” is till a big favorite in some places. Hopefully not Milwaukee.
For what it’s worth, if you’d like to add a few more [sic]s to make it look even worse, one could go after ‘relies’ and ‘wether’.
Pedant much? Your comment reeks of pigheadedness. Seems like “Lynette” was cut some serious slack on the sheer number of [sics] that could’ve been placed. (not that they “make fun of” anything, besides) Do you not know that JC is on the road, attending and preparing talks?
Spelling and grammar is the least of the worries.
That was meant for “Keith”, whose imbecilic post was thankfully disappeared.
I was confused. I even involuntarily quirked my eyebrows.
I was confused. I thought you were addressing Lynette sarcastically 🙂
I hate it when that happens. But I would’ve SO loved to see the quizzical expressions.
I tried to find a rather hilarious video of some midwestern politician, yelling into the camera, punctuating his prepared speech (city councilman?) with “Christ Fathers”, etc., etc. If only I could remember the name of the town. He says something like “Go Monrovia!” (insert town name here)
Not sure how long he stayed elected. Either in Illinois, Indiana or Iowa, I think. That video has a similar effect on me as what I inflicted on youse twos.
Holy crap!
Irony is NOT dead!
Halle – freakin – lujah!
And pass the smoked green chile nachos please.
“And pass the smoked green chile nachos please.”
Here you go.
Now where did i put the magic kool-aid?
Are you crazy?!
A nice beer. Or a properly made margarita! (definitely not frozen)
I kid, I kid. About the crazy part anyway.
Oh, alright then.
I’ll get the beer, even though I can’t think like a creationists without me kool-aid.
What’s even better is it appears to be dramatic irony!
Who gets to tell “Lynette” that Charles Darwin actually took his degree in divinity on the way to becoming an Anglican parson, and that he never recanted his theory?
Yep, his intention was to settle down as a vicar on return from his voyage on the Beagle.
Kurt Vonnegut may be right after all: “We are still in the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages – they haven’t ended yet.”
“The Big Space Fuck” should be required reading. Or was that Harlan Ellison? I always get those two mixed up for some reason. Let me check.
(opens new tab)
Nope. Right the first time. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
I believe Vonnegut wrote “The Big Space Fuck” for one of Ellison’s “Dangerous Visions” anthologies – a lot of good stories in those books.
That is correct; Vonnegut’s story is in the “Again, Dangerous Visions” anthology (which Ellison edited).
I just finished reading Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle,” and have been itching to share these quotes. I finally have an excuse! The first one is particularly à propos for this thread (are you reading this, Lynette?).
“She hated people who thought too much. At that moment, she struck me as an appropriate representative for almost all mankind.”
“Science is magic that works.”
“I agree with one Bokononist idea. I agree that all religions, including Bokononism, are nothing but lies.”
The title of the book is explained about halfway through–the idea that children are confused, because someone tells them that the game is called “Cat’s Cradle,” but when they look, all they see is a piece of string. A little bit later this exchange occurs:
Little Newt snorted. “Religion!”
“Beg your pardon?” Castle said.
“See the cat?” asked Newt. “See the cradle?”
And finally, for the “there’s no purpose in life without god” crowd, here’s Vonnegut’s response:
“And God said, “Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done.” And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close as mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked. “What is the purpose of all this?” he asked politely.
“Everything must have a purpose?” asked God.
“Certainly,” said man.
“Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this,” said God.
And He went away.”
There was another deistic pronouncement… was either in Breakfast of Champions or Galapagos… perhaps the former. (and perhaps as related by Kilgore Trout telling a story)
When asked “why? …why am i here?” God replies something like:
“to be the eyes, ears and conscience of the universe, you fool.”
Overlaid upon Lynnette’s palpably willful ignorance is the stunning Dunning-Krugerite effrontery so characteristic of creationists. It is as if I were to contradict an expert in Russian literature concerning her translation of The Brothers Karamazov, knowing absolutely no Russian and having never read the book in any language.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is strong in this one.
I’m European, trust me, we do not teach ‘creationism’ as science, I don’t know where she got this remarkable notion.
Maybe from one of those business owners she knows?
Heh, maybe so.
I never got to learn creationism at my school.. As I remember it, we did not learn much aboute evolution either.. From Sweden..
“I know many doctor, lawyer’s [sic] and business owners, who absolutely do believe in creation and further more [sic] believe in God.”
So what does this actually proves? Nothing, you can be a (succesful) business owner, lawyer or doctor, while believing in pink unicorns or flying spaghetti monsters. Further truth is not a democracy: no matter how much people believe something, something does not become therefore more true.
“So maybe you should get a little more educated.” That was choice.
Note that this list does not include the people that would actually know something about the subject: Namely biologists. And even if it did: Who cares? There are lots of crackpots out there. Any dispute about the subject is only going to be settled by the facts and not by the amount of people believing it.
And which countries would that be? I’m from Germany and I am not aware of anything remotely like that in Germany and surrounding countries. In fact pretty much everyone I know (hey I can supply anecdotes too) can only shake their head that a developed nation like the U.S. has such a high percentage of creationists (at least she got that one right although I would dispute it’s 70%).
Oh boy. Assuming that she is talking about Ken Ham. If she finds him convincing that pretty much explains everything.
She only accepts authority and in her mind those authorities are the doctors, lawyers & business owners (standard professionals) as well as Ken Ham. Pedigree not facts are important to her it seems.
Never let statistics distress you. Statistics are just mathematical prestidigitation and can be used to support anything. It is also wise to see the question as it appeared in the survey. I remember long, long ago when Masters and Johnson (I think it was their report) published their findings on Americans and human sexuality. I was fairly surprised by the claim that at least 30% of American men admitted they were homosexual. (In those days it was not considered proper conversation) Some time later I saw the actual question these men answered: Have you ever had sexual contact with another man or men, or looked at pictures or film of men engaging in sexual contact or of nude men or of men engaged in sexual contact with women. Then I was surprised that only 30% of American men replied ‘yes’ to that.
Well, if popularity is all it takes to make something true, she better be putting on a burka in a hurry.
Sadness at the writer’s lack of education followed quickly by fear upon realizing that she can vote.
Agreed. My first reaction was embarrassment for her. She obviously travels in uneducated circles and mistakes the foolishness she hears for truth. But alas, she is typical I fear of so many US citizens who would vote us into a theocracy were it not for the separation of church and state. All the more reason to fight for maintenance of this principle.
How do you say ‘Sharia’ in Xian speak?
In parts of the US, “Republican party platform”.
Good one! 😀
Yeah, close enough! Also, ‘Michele Bachmann Family Values’.
Indeed.
Which is ironic, considering the frenzy into which the right works itself over the brown-skinned Mooslem Menace.
Pot, meet kettle.
“God’s law”
I don’t think that will ever happen. I can’t think of any theology that could win enough votes to have a clear majority.
Why couldn’t it happen? They don’t need theology. They only need to coalesce around a basic principle like ‘God’s law’ until power tips in their favor. Theology can be sorted out later.
Ah yes; but WHOSE god’s law? The only thing all God’s Chilin’s hate more than atheists are the fools who believe in different laws or different gods. If you get them to the poles, it will be to vote against each other. I cannot remember (and I will grant that my remembering is not at its best now) any war or major persecution of atheists by any particular religion (at more than a personal level; I did say major.) They persecute the heretics and go to war against the infidels.
And they will never sort out the theology. It would be the Tower of Babel all over again (if I am allowed to snicker at my own bad jokes.) Perhaps I shouldn’t use the word theology; the ‘-ology’ part makes it sound like some kind of actual scholastic discipline.
Exactly. I am a naturalized US citizen meaning I had to pass a test in order to vote. (OK, it wasn’t a very hard test but I’d like to see how your average Sarah Palin would do on it – not very well from all reports.) I think this requirement should apply to all.
Can she? This reads like she’s 10.
She sounds too intelligent and well-informed to be from Indiana
Whoa there! We my be only a handful of well-informed Hoosiers, but cut us a bit of slack….but I guess I really am From Indiana, having left there in the 60’s and never moved back 🙂
Ouch. Not cool. Also from Indiana.
Speaking of rude, that’s quite a combination she’s got going for her: ignorance, with a side order of hubris.
It’s one thing to be ignorant, but to be deliberately so, and at the top of your lungs?
These Jesus people. No brains. And no manners.
Would Lynette be comfortable if we allowed all creationist stories into our public education system, or is she stopping at HER creationist story? These people act so persecuted, yet think nothing of discriminating against those who don’t follow their very particular brand of Belief. The rest of her email is not even worth addressing.
You are so intolerant. Both her lawyer and her banker said so. (Wait. How do they know you?)
I always want to ask that of creationists, is it only their theory that gets to be taught alongside evolution? What about all the other wonderful creation stories? Shouldn’t we teach the controversy about them as well?
Being from Australia, I have heard the aboriginal creation stories but my favourite is their flood myth (every culture seems to have one). There was a big drought because some huge frog drank all the water and so the different animals had to tell it jokes until it laughed and all the water came out and flooded the land. I can’t remember which animal won or if anyone remembers the joke.
The frog’s name is Tiddalik if you want to investigate further. I think the Aboriginal myths of the Dreaming are lovely and well worth being taught in schools. It was the kookaburra that won IIRC.
I love the idea that all the animals had to make the frog laugh. There is something so pleasing about that!
I really loved it, too. Sadly, now being a product of “now”, my first thought was what a great movie it would make.
Of course it was the kookaburra. I should have realised that. Whenever I hear them and I’m outside with the cats, I tell them that it’s laughing at them (just as a joke, of course).
A much more entertaining flood story than that silly zoo boat.
LOL…silly zoo boat. It boggles my mind that adults REALLY believe in the silly zoo boat. It’s funny and horrifying at the same time.
You should get the Brick Bible Old Testament for laughs. I just ordered it when I was up in the middle of the night with migraines (in addition to the Die Hard 25th Anniversary Blu-ray Collection). They also have a New Testament. The looks on the figures’ faces is hilarious. http://www.amazon.com/The-Brick-Bible-Spin-Testament/dp/1616084219/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1373766575&sr=8-2&keywords=brick+bible
Awww! What a cute tale. So unlike the biblical myths full of genocide and hate.
over 40% of Americans believe in young-Earth creationism and the de novo appearance of species that have remained unchanged ever since.
Of the remaining less than 60% of Americans who reject creationism how many could compose an adequate lay-person’s explanation of evolution? Up until a few years ago I couldn’t have. I was taught the theory in the Catholic high school biology course but didn’t retain the explanation. Since then I would have said I accepted it. By way of the Berkeley Evolution 101 site and eventually your book, Why Evolution Is True, I now can. Thanks.
Watching my kids’ experiences in elementary and secondary ed, it was my impression that most bio textbooks leave evolution to a final chapter at the end, and most teachers cover it for about a week, if that. Whereas IMO evolutionary context should underlie all of biology, from page one.
Never gonna get there, though; publishers have to sell textbooks, and evolution is such a third rail subject in the US.
I took biology in the final year of school in the mid-60s in NZ. Don’t actually recall learning about evolution but lots of biochem, DNA and that sort of thing. I suppose it must have snuck in somewhere as I have known about it as long as I can recall.
And if Lynette is reading this-hi I’m a lawyer and know why evolution is true. Much more reliable than the bio types on this site.
Umm, layperson’s summary of evolution: normal genetic variability + survival of the fittest. Plus lots of time. Everything else is details.
(Strictly, ‘survival’ should be replaced by ‘reproductive success’ I know. But the point is, it’s so simple and obvious).
I know the details can get very complicated – life is complicated. But the principle is simple.
There’s a problem with using the phrase “survival of the fittest”. Most laypeople misinterpret this to mean “domination by the strongest”.
Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a simple, easily stated way to explain the concept as it is understood by rational people. I could go with something like “optimal adaptation”, but even that’s a bit highfalutin’ for someone of Lynette’s ilk.
Fitness can probably best be measured by the number of generations of descendants.
If you have lots of descendants, you might be more fit than another organism who has only a few. But if your line dies out after a couple generations but that other still has descendants in the next geological age, then that other less-prolific breeder was the more fit one, after all.
Cheers,
b&
The best way I’ve come up with to describe this is, whoever has the most grandkids wins.
Or, the one who has the most great-great-great…great grandkids wins.
b&
I think my grandkids are pretty great.
Then I do believe you win!
b&
That’s all well and good, but the same people who think that “fittest” means “strongest” not only are the same kind of people who constantly misinterpret “theory” but also lack the capability to think in terms of generations.
There are those who are willfully or otherwise irredeemably ignorant, yes.
But not all are beyond hope. And your target audience isn’t necessarily the one to whom you’re addressing your words.
Try it next time somebody suggest “fittest” means “most claws and teeth” — say, “actually, it means the one who has the most great-great-great…great grandchildren.” See if it doesn’t make them pause and think.
Cheers,
b&
….and if they still don’t get just bite and scratch them!
Have to chuckle just a bit when I see “willfully ignorant” bandied about here. Since many would dispute the willful part, it seems that Lynette is simply destined to be ignorant 🙂
I am nearly speechless after reading this type of thing. Or the comment section of webpages like this: https://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/healthscience/2013/July/College-Draws-Fire-for-Hiring-Creationism-Advocate/
This woman is sincere and intelligent, and of course, wrong in her understanding about science and evolution. Instead of making fun of her and alienating her to the scientific method, we should be patient and hopeful with her. Instead of ridiculing her, we should acknowledge she is intelligent although uneducated in science. Hopefully, she will come to realize how wrong she has been and will be mortified with her comments.
Lynette, someone has been feeding you incorrect information about evolution and Darwin. Who is this person (persons) who has deceived you? He/she has done you a great wrong and cannot be trusted. Pray, if you must, but be skeptical of those who feed you untruths.
She is more than “uneducated in science”. She is uneducated in critical thinking. But more to the point, she is completely unaware of how ignorant she is. Telling such a person to simply be skeptical is unlikely to make much of a dent. She is lacking the skills to recognize that your advice should be taken.
You’re assuming a bit there based on her post. I don’t see anything in that post that would indicate that she is intelligent…sincere perhaps but her post is not intelligent so it would be closer to assume she isn’t intelligent either. Most responders, however, have more accurately classified her as ignorant which seems about right. Sadly, she is also pretty sure of herself and at the same time relies heavily on authority (based on pedigree) to inform her opinions so it is unlikely she will question what she is told.
Good luck with that. Your approach probably does work for at least a few people. But the success rate is definitely not high enough to back up your moralizing to others that might choose to use different methods. Some of which are clearly at least as successful as yours.
But you would be hard pressed to tell by the comments here since in general they are not directed to Lynette and are not intended to engage her in a conversation with the intent to enlighten her. Meaning you can not tell how the commentors here would choose to engage her based on their comments here.
And here, of all places, there really is no reason to explain. The position you are championing is well understood.
I agree with the other respondents, this is a an example of the mindset of a large swath of the population, one that Dunning & Kruger revealed in their seminal work. Lynette is stubbornly and willfully ignorant, which indicates she is not intelligent. Moreover, because education intrudes upon her preconceived world-view, she probably dismisses it as an attempt to tempt her into sin. While I agree that contempt and derision are inappropriate and unlikely to succeed; I disagree that patience or attempts to inform her will be successful. The cause is hopeless, we have a lost generation. I used to joke that we are a nation of idiots, because only an idiot looks to a fool for leadership and guidance; however, I think it is worse, much worse. We are a nation of morons aspiring to be imbeciles; for only a moron looks to an idiot for leadership and exalts a fool as a demi-god.
What makes you think any subsequent generation will be any better?
I’m hoping the lack of religiosity of young people helps out. It’s a big step in the right direction.
This.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-stenger/the-new-secular-strategy_b_3566106.html
It makes me fearful for America, too. People who grow up in a bubble of certainty are yet fearful that the story they grew up believing uncritically, however satisfying, may not be true. So they lash out as Lynette does. More insidiously, they add bulwarks to their comforting story… that the Declaration of Independence was divinely inspired or that Jesus handed the Constitution to the Founding Fathers. Thus, we see a growing theocratic streak in government that’s unprecedented.
Speaking of….did you know that Atheism is a psychosis? http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/Atheism-is-a-psychosis-20130710
Yes, jail would be the beginning of their end game for nonbelievers. I’ve no doubt that some already in Congress would be happy to turn the lock.
I think it would be a mistake to under-rate the importance of this work.
Previously, diagnosis of psychosis relied on the patient seeing things invisible to everyone else [by dint of them not actually existing].
This new discovery, that psychosis can also refer to an inability to be able to see things that do not exist, but are the subject of someone else’s delusion, opens up new and important areas in the study of psychopathy.
I’m sure the DSM is being updated as we speak
You found a live one. Jasper displays a lot of projection there.
I prefer a more literal translation of “Je ne sais quoi” when describing Christians’ sensus divinatis.
The comments were surprisingly weighted towards atheism. I especially liked the detailed takedown given by Stephen Townshend (July 10, 09:48).
I liked the ‘atheism is a religion, you have meetings ‘ comment. Not a high bar and can I now tax deduct my beer at the weekly drinking session.
Scientists don”t have to prove anything. They just have the evidence. Evolution is a fact.
I will only comment on the deathbed conversion. That old rumor appeared for the first time in 1915 in a newspaper article written by an evangelist named Lady Hope, who claimed she had visited Darwin on his deathbed. This story was vociferously denied by surviving members of his family who were there (Hope probably was not).
Some details of this false rumor are provided in Darwin autobiographies, namely those from James Moore, The Darwin Legend, and Ian McCalman, Darwin’s Armada. There is a very detailed account of this story by Moore in a historical book about evangelicism, which can be read at
Telling Tales. The newspaper can be read on Wikipedia. It is laughably stupid.
Late to the party…but…Lynette, if you read this…well, there’s no polite way to put this, so I’ll just lay it out there.
You get your “facts” from a millennia-old anthology of third-rate faery tales — one that opens with a story about an enchanted garden with talking animals and an angry wizard; one that prominently features a talking plant (on fire!) that gives magic wand lessons to the reluctant hero; and one that ends with a truly bizarre zombie snuff pr0n fantasy involving a guy getting his jollies from having some other guy thrust his hand into his gaping chest wound.
That you think that there are any facts at all to be gleaned from such nonsense demonstrates that you truly are, in the immortal words of an imaginary chicken, dumber than a sack of wet mice.
If you ever wake up and decide that you’d like to join the human race, do please let us know and we’ll be happy to help you get up to speed on the education you so clearly missed out on. But fair warning: while all you have to do to get in with your current crowd is chant magic spells at your collective imaginary friends, if you want to hang with the cool kids, you’ll have to work hard and study and generally help to make the world a better place.
If you’d rather keep wallowing in the muck, no worries. The rest of us will keep going, and we’ll even help you clean house from time to time because that’s the kind of people we are. And if you really like being depending on charity like that, fine and dandy.
But don’t mistrake our charity as some sort of sign that we like and respect you, because we don’t. We only do this for the likes of you because it makes the world a better place for all of us.
Cheers,
b&
Off topic, but I thought some here might appreciate this.
This Huffington Post article is about a woman who testified in front of the Texas state Senate against a new anti abortion bill that is about to be passed there. Her name is Sarah Slamen. The following is from her testimony, which got her dragged out of the Senate by state troopers at the direction of one of the senators.
I would really like to do a little something nice for Sarah if I could. Maybe send her some flowers and a nice “Well Done” card.
Not so off topic, really. Current events in Texas give us a sneak peek of what Dominion government looks like.
To the charge “disrespectful” she might have responded, ‘You’re damned right I am, and deservedly so.’
From Ken Ham’s website:
It has been widely held among many sincere and well-meaning Christians that Charles Darwin on his deathbed not only renounced evolution, but also accepted Jesus Christ as his savior. The tale of this deathbed conversion has been passed down over the years as fact. This “event” has even been used as “evidence” that evolution is false. The overzealous have, at times, boldly proclaimed, “See—even Darwin knew that this theory was not true!”
Answers in Genesis, right?
This is in the section “Arguments Christians shouldn’t use”. (www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2009/03/31/darwins-deathbed-conversion-legend)
It goes on to sum up the evidence (pretty fairly, IMO) and concludes inter alia: “Given the weight of evidence, it must be concluded that Lady Hope’s story is unsupportable, even if she did actually visit Darwin. He never became a Christian, and he never renounced evolution. As much as we would like to believe that he died with a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, it is much more likely that he didn’t.”
Apparently Lynette hasn’t read AIG.
Incidentally, I have to applaud the motive behind AIG. Insofar as it tries to discourage the more unfounded arguments, it shows a degree of respect for rational argument and verifiable facts that is, I suppose, a hopeful sign.
For Lynette’s benefit, you can translate “unsupportable” as “not true”. 😉
I’m sorry, Jerry. I think she hit the nail on the head.
Because “[she] know[s] many doctor[s], lawyer’s [sic] and business owners, who… do believe in creation,” it must be true. You’ve got to face up to the facts. Scientists base their theories off of what doctors and lawyers believe–get with the program.
This is the most densely packed ball of twisted information I’ve read in a while.
Not on the head. With her head.
Small difference in wording, I know, but it’s significant.
b&
Hahaha. I guess with satire it’s virtually the same thing.
…I didn’t go far enough:
“Given the weight of evidence, it must be concluded that Lady Hope’s story is unsupportable, even if she did actually visit Darwin. He never became a Christian, and he never renounced evolution. As much as we would like to believe that he died with a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, it is much more likely that he didn’t. It is unfortunate that the story continues to be promoted by many sincere people who use this in an effort to discredit evolution…”
Lynette can’t even be bothered to learn from the people she claims to respect. How can she POSSIBLY learn from the educated people she scorns?
For those who just skim, this quote is from Ken Ham’s website.
Great contribution, Greg.
Oh drat. Don’t ya hate it when you complete someone’s quote for them then read down and find they’ve done it already. Makes ya look really stupid. (‘ya’ in this case being me…)
🙁
No way! I was the doofus for not including more in the first place!
This has to be a troll email. The claim that Jerry is uneducated gives it away.
Poor Lynette. What does she think “education” is? A distinguished professor apparently needs it, and she can trump his knowledge with her half-baked second-hand opinions. The combination of ignorance and arrogant certainty is really depressing.
Well, according to his wife’s statement, she sat by his bedside until he had died, and they spoke and cried with each other because they knew they would never see each other again; he, because he did not believe in an afterlife and she, because as a devout Christian, she knew he was going to hell and she didn’t plan to see him there. She also spoke of how much harder widowhood was when you knew there would be no reuniting.
Perhaps Lynette was speaking about a different Charles Darwin.
I read somewhere that the idea of being saved or born again came from a religious revolution in the late 1800’s .someone here will know what i’m talking about.Christians may know this but don’t bother to question it.
What people mean when they say ‘getting saved’ or ‘born again’ has, ahem, evolved. Not sure they mean the same thing… the distinction probably requires theology, which is impenetrable.
Richard-Having come from a fundamentalist childhood, the terms “born again” and “saved” have essentially the same meaning. Being “born again” means that you are “saved” from hell. Theologians may parse separate meanings for the terms, but to the average christian believer, they are the same.
I thought for Catholics, ‘born again’ just means getting baptized, but for Evangelicals, it’s come to mean having an intense conversion experience. I really don’t remember hearing it much until the 1970s.
The US experienced a great deal of religious ferment in the 1700s and 1800s. According to Wikipedia (under “Great Awakening”) there were four waves, 1730 to 1743, late 1700s to mid 1800s, 1850-1900, and late 1960s to early 1970s. The second of these is probably the best known, and gave rise to any number of sects and cults, among whom the Mormons are probably the most prominent today.
Very likely the “born again” meme got going in one of these.
Dear Lynette,
Lovely to hear from you and that you believe in the gods. I am sorry to tell you that you have made some mistakes in your letter. Darwin, the man who first put forward the Theory of Evolution certainly DID NOT recant upon his deathbed to become a Christian. That is a very old lie told by religious people to each other. Secondly, why do you believe in Creationism when your religious leaders do NOT! For example the Catholic Pope believes in evolution, and so does the British Archbishop who is the leader of the world’s Protestants. How come you disagree with your own religious leaders? Most Christians in the world believe in evolution. Perhaps your church pastor does not, but you should be a bit careful listening to the things he has been making-up. It appears that he and others have been lying to you. The Pope even says that Creationist pastors in America are doing great harm to religion. You might be following the devil by mistake!
And another thing. Your letter is full of bad spelling and mistakes of grammar, and I suppose that you are still in Grade School. Who told you that Europeans have Creationism in schools? I am a European and I have lived in several European countries, but there is practically no Creationism, and it is never taught in schools!
When you say that there is no proof for evolution, you simply haven’t looked! The world’s museums are full of proof. Get a parent or a responsible adult to take you to a real museum where you may see collection of fossils of our ancestors, and the ancestors of dogs, cats, cows and sheep.
Do you know what a ‘laboratory’ is? I worked in a laboratory for many years. It is where scientists use microscopes and electronic instruments to study the world around us. There are about one million two hundred thousand laboratories in the world employing about ten million scientists. Many of those ‘labs’ deal with such things as oil, coal and energy; many deal with geology, mining, civil engineering, transport, or nuclear power.
But about two thirds of those laboratories are about living things; biology. Most of those labs are about human health, – diagnosing illness, developing medicines, researching surgery that works, saving lives, curing illness. Many others deal with farming livestock and crops, or the world of vets, or oceanography. But all those laboratories that deal with biology are based upon ‘evolution’. That’s right, nearly a million laboratories worldwide employing ten million people, making our medicines, and improving our farming, are all based upon evolution. You know that medicines and operations save lives, and that farming produces food, so why do you not believe in it?
You said that Professor Jerry Coyne was uneducated. But that is not true. He is one of the most educated people in the world. His work is studied by millions who learn from it. He is famous all over the world. I live in France and read about his wonderful discoveries.
And your claim that 70% of Americans believe in Creationism is not true. That claim is made by religious people. If you ask people if they like their medicine and food to be produced by ‘evolutionists’ rather than witch-doctors, they will quickly choose evolutionists and men of science.
I am sorry that the people around you have told you lies about the world. There are no gods in the sky. It is all made-up. And now the churches all around the world are emptying as people find out that gods are not real. The churches around me are mostly up for sale.
It’s worth a try…
Well done, George.
Yes, very nicely said.
NB: The Archbishop of Canterbury is the leader of the Church of England, not all Protestants.
There is a problem with deathbed recantation argument, and the similar “no atheists in foxholes” argument, that proponents such as Lynette seem not to get. Namely that even if Darwin had renounced evolution, or that the atheist had a foxhole conversion, it wouldn’t mean that evolution, or atheism, weren’t true. It would just mean that Darwin, or the foxhole resident, were experiencing fear and thus were displaying very human last-resort behavior.
I read an article a few years ago that has always stuck with me, and it was along the lines that no matter what people did or believed, it doesn’t make facts true or not. If Hitler was an atheist (we all know he wasn’t) it does not mean that evolution is not true, and if every atheist on the planet ate live babies for dinner every Sunday, that would also not mean that evolution is not true. It was a shame that Richard Dawkins did not point this out when talking to to that idiot on Faux news (I can’t bring myself to write his name but it’s the cant explain tides guy).
Ooh, I know this one.
It’s the “never a miscommunication” guy, isn’t it.
First, while europeans may well place well when comparing education levels and education quality, most can only dream of being extremely well educated in such universities like MIT, Harvard, Yale, UoC, Princeton, et cetera. 6 of the 10 top ranked universities are placed in US.
Second, while “both creation and evolution” is taught, with a few exceptions (Turkey, Cyprus) evolution is exclusively taught in science and creation is exclusively taught in comparative religion. We learn that the religious believe the world was created by Amun, Ahura Mazda, Shangdi, Chaos, Tepeu and Gucumatz, Odin and Vili and Vé, et cetera.
Ditto.
Well said.
Well, since no one else has…
First problem…Dr. Coyne is a world-leading expert on the subject of evolution. So, he’s far from uneducated. Rude? Well, honesty is often called “rudeness” by people who can’t quite grasp that they’ve been fed a pack of lies all their lives.
This is the common logical fallacy known as argument from authority. The problem with the argument is that none of the people you mention seem to be studied experts in the facts of evolution or in evolutionary theory. Sorry, but they are not the experts. Dr. Coyne is. And he’s telling you that you’re wrong. Along with each and every one of those doctors and lawyers and business owners.
This is a lie. You have been lied to. I wonder what else those liars have lied to you about? Do you pay these liars a little bit of your income every week? Hmm…maybe a correlation there.
Another lie. The only examples noted above are state-funded church schools. NOT public schools. Thankfully, our US Constitution prevents us from supporting religious nonsense with our tax dollars. And if you think this should be otherwise, I have a couple of Muslim schools that would love to move into your neighborhood and use your property tax dollars to pay their imams.
You confuse “angry” with “afraid”. You also do not understand what the word “theory” means when used in the scientific sense. It does not mean “guess”. It’s the explanatory framework around a set of facts. The facts of evolution are everywhere. The theory of evolution explains those facts.
You must not read a whole lot. The creationist Michael Behe (of Intelligent Design and Dover Trial infamy) believes that humans and other apes have a common ancestor. He notes that the vitamin C pseudogene that all ape species have is proof positive that we share a common ancestor.
Behe’s other claims about “irreducible complexity” are sheer nonsense, but at least he got the common ancestor part down right.
Ken Ham is not a scientist. He does not have theories. He does not have facts. He has religious dogma. You should learn the difference.
Another logical fallacy. Argument ab populum. At one time, 100% of the world’s population believed the Earth was flat. They were wrong. Doesn’t matter what percentage of the world’s population believes in superstitious nonsense, they’re wrong.
Have a great, superstition-free life.
I happened across this website while searching for an article on the Moustache toad (of all things), and after perusing the first few blog posts, I found myself smiling at the insecurity I could infer from the writing.
The common thread I see is, “Hey, listen to this Christian who thinks animals have never changed!” and it is then blanket-applied to all of Christianity. Is this how you convince yourself that you’re correct, by implying you’re “up against” a bunch of imbeciles using one or two cherry-picked examples? Come on guys.
The earth is millions (or billions) of years old, obviously. Animals can change (to a certain extent through natural selection), obviously. The Big Bang theory aligns perfectly with the Bible (ie. “Let there be light.” I think where atheists lose the average Christian is when you claim to believe in the “from the goo to the zoo to you” hypothesis, which I too think is preposterous.
I have a degree in Finance from Northwestern, own my own successful business, travel the world and…yes…am an unflinching Christian (GASP!)
I think it takes more faith to adhere to the atheist belief that everything came from nothing, so I do admire that aspect in the few people who choose to believe it.
I think your time would be better served trying to figure out what caused the big bang (ie. everything happens for a reason–what was the impetus behind the Big Bang, if it wasn’t intelligence?). The laws of Thermodynamics demand an answer to that question.
Perhaps you could then try to determine how life began, how it multiplied immediately and didn’t die just as quickly as it appeared, etc. Richard Dawkins cannot explain it (he admits to this, I’ve seen him say it in two documentaries), but he does say people are studying it. He does not know what caused the Big Bang, either. So, if he doesn’t, how do you claim to know? That’s one thing I like about him–he’s an honest atheist. He even said, when asked, that he’s “99% sure there’s no Creator.” I saw him say this in the same documentary (I believe it was the one with Ben Stein).
My point is, if you’re going to be an atheist, at least be an honest atheist who doesn’t claim to have all the answers, because you certainly don’t. None of us does.
In closing, do you know what you atheists need to get straight so that you don’t sound ignorant to the masses? Stop saying we descended from apes. Richard Dawkins says humans started out in the beginning as X species, and continued as X species, and monkeys started out as Y species, and continued as Y species, etc. That’s why there’s no missing link. I realize you already know this, but I wanted to let you know how many of your like-minded drones have their own belief system all wrong. It’s funny, and I always enjoy the look on their faces when I explain their own belief to them.
Have a good one,
Derrick
P.S. I dare you to post this on your blog (we both know you won’t). I just wanted to again point out your insecurity, as you’d never post something that made Christians look halfway intelligent.
Sorry, Derrick, you lose; I posted it.
The problem is that while your post may make one Christian look halfway intelligent, you’ve got a long way to go before you’re even three-quarters of the way there.
p.s. Since “everything happens for a reason,” could you tell me the reason why a radioactive atom decays at a particular moment?
I didn’t think so.
Actually, Jerry, don’t we suppose that there is some yet-undiscovered internal process in the nucleus that does make radioactive decay happen at a particular moment? I seem to remember some theorising about a number of oscillating “stresses” in different directions that eventually coincide and push the total across some threshold to set off the decay.
Derrick’s letter has several much weaker points, like
“Stop saying we descended from apes.”
Get it right, nobody ever did. We ARE apes. “The African Apes are gorillas, humans, bonobos and chimpanzees” – Richard Dawkins.
“Richard Dawkins says humans started out in the beginning as X species, and continued as X species, and monkeys started out as Y species, and continued as Y species, etc. That’s why there’s no missing link.” Oh really? Citation please, and what are the values of X and Y?
“The Big Bang theory aligns perfectly with the Bible (ie. “Let there be light.””
That really is a stretch. The cosmological microwave background radiation only came into existence about 379,000 years after the Big Bang, and stars only began emitting light some time after that.
I think we’re still waiting for that half-way intelligent post.
If you’re going to be a Christian, be an honest Christian and don’t claim that atheists think we know everything. We’re not the ones who claim to know about all powerfull, all knowing, all beneficent invisible deities.
+1
(The guy’s got a degree in *Finance*. Perfect example of a self-contained field with its own esoteric rules and a tenuous connection to reality. (/sarcasm). Not sure if that makes him better able to evaluate evidence than Lynette or not.)
Actually I was going to comment to him that our derision is aimed in this instance at Lynette’s post and not at all other Christians such as Mr McLennan. But having read the rest of his post, I won’t bother.
Derrick, your post reeks of ignorance, ignorance unbecoming of somebody with the education and social status you claim.
Fortunately for you, it is ignorance that you should be able to easily remedy.
I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t engage in a point-by-point refutation of everything you wrote, and instead hit a couple highlights and point you in the right direction for thorough answers.
First, the Bible is a worthless ancient anthology of third-rate faery tales. It doesn’t even pretend to be anything else, and doesn’t even vaguely resemble anything else no matter how hard you squint. I mean, right there, right at the opening, is a story about an enchanted garden with talking animals and an angry wizard. To drive the point home, not much later we find a talking plant (on fire!) that gives magic wand lessons to the reluctant hero. And it all ends with this utterly bizarre zombie snuff pr0n fantasy with the anti-hero getting his jollies by having his thralls thrust their hands in his gaping chest wound — and that very story is frequently used somehow to explain that we really should uncritically accept the whole shebang!
Now, can you invent your own transcendent meanings by doing some heavy quote-mining and re-working of the text? Of course. But you can do the exact same thing with any text. The This Little Piggy becomes a metaphor for the epic struggle of the proletariat against the capitalistic hegemony and an omen for good fortune to come if we but only maintain our solidarity in the hands of a sufficiently creative Marxist, for example. The Bible is no different.
Next — assuming you’re still with me and haven’t, as Christians are wont to do after hearing their childish fantasies laid bare, gone off in an huff — you attack nothing but strawmen.
For your first reading assignment, there’s Lawrence Krauss on A Universe from Nothing. Read it, and you’ll learn why the Big Bang was, essentially, nothing other than a large-scale version of the exact same phenomenon physicists already understand very, very well. You won’t find any gods of any sort banging in a big way a baker’s dozen billion years ago.
While it’s true that we don’t know the precise pathway that abiogenesis took on Earth a few billion years ago, it’s also true that we know the general outline of what happened. Your argument would be akin to suggesting in the 1800s that, because we didn’t have a thorough kilometer-scale map of the Amazon basin, the Earth must therefore be flat and that’s where we’ll find the edge.
And I assure you that you have mischaracterized Richard’s description of human origins. Let me recount a favorite thought experiment of his to help set you straight. Imagine you’re holding your father’s hand, and he your grandfather’s, and he his father, and so on in an unbroken chain stretching back to the dawn of time. Each son resembles his father, but is not an exact copy; there is variation on the theme. Now, imagine doing the same thing with some distant cousin of yours. The same holds and, if you go back a sufficient number of generations, you’ll find two brothers holding a single father’s hand. Do the same with some random person on the other side of the planet, and the same holds, except you’ll have to go many more generations back before you reach the brothers holding hands.
Now, find a chimpanzee boy holding his father’s hand and so on. Trace his line and yours and you’ll find a shared father six million years ago. This father resembled his sons who resembled their sons, but the drift has been such over the thousands of millennia that your millions-years-removed ancestors are quite different from you today — and different from the chimp’s ancestors, as well.
Now, keep that process going still further back and you’ll discover that not only is that chimpanzee your cousin, but all apes, all monkeys, all mammals, all vertebrates, indeed all life on Earth is your cousin and that we all share a single universal common ancestor some billions of years ago.
And that is the grandeur in Darwin’s view of life: we are all cousins — you me, my cat, the redwood tree, and the chicken and even carrots and celery and onions and rice in the soup I’m about to eat for dinner.
For an excellent introduction to why evolution is true, I suggest you read Jerry’s book: Why Evolution is True.
I’ll leave you with one final assignment: watch Sagan’s Cosmos. Sagan is probably the most brilliant poet of the Twentieth Century, and Cosmos was his magnum opus. In it you’ll learn Sagan’s view of life, the universe, and everything — and his is even more grand than Darwin’s; for Sagan tells us that we are all startsuff, that our history does not end with our oldest ancestor on Earth, but that it continues all the way back to the Big Bang. In a very real sense, we are a star’s way of thinking about itself, and it is also true that we are cousins to the stars.
Why anybody needs to retreat into bad fantasy such as the Bible is beyond me, when reality is so much more than anything any ancient sociopathic goatherder with delusions of grandeur ever thought up.
Cheers,
b&
I wish that we had been taught your version of the garden of eden at (catholic) school. Actually, probably lucky we weren’t as I love stories about wizards and I may have held on to the bullshit longer than I did.
Derrick, you make two common mistakes: 1: you misunderstand what an atheist is. 2: you mix up all different scientists.
For 1: an atheist is just someone that does not accept gods as real. It is the opposite of theist (hence the alpha privative. The Greek bit that makes a word its opposite). In this way, asking us in general, as atheists, to figure out cosmological answers is misguided. There may be scientists (cosmologists) who work on this but atheists have all kinds of backgrounds. I’m sure there are atheists with Finance degrees too and they aren’t going to do work on cosmology any more than you will.
For 2: scientists all specialize in different things. So yes Richard Dawkins isn’t going to know about cosmology. He’s an evolutionary biologist. Not all scientists work on the same things. Also he isn’t going to know about work in abiogenesis nor would he claim we know the answer to this. This is because he is an honest scientist not an honest atheist.
In closing. I would love to know where you saw people on this site claiming to know everything. It seems to me you claim this more than we do. We know what we know because we have taken the time to understand the science and we accept not only that science has not yet found the answers to everything but that we are atheists provisionally; if God shows up and we all have strong evidence of this we will all become theists. We just see no evidence so for now we will assume the null hypothesis.
Diana-
Great response!
🙂 I wrote it all on my phone too. 😀
You must have the patience of a saint. 🙂
Hoo mama! “… descended from apes.” What can one say but “Hoo mama!?”
You should know that’s crap Derrick. If an intelligent christian wasn’t an exception we wouldn’t be having the political problems we are having in the United States. Such as, laws that are made to intertwine government and christianity. Laws that dictate the control of a woman’s body. Laws that allow the christian to suppose that the United States is a christian nation. Laws that try to encode the teaching of christian creationism. The election of idiotic politicians. The nation can’t get there without having a majority of christians that are under developed intellectually.
If you are as intelligent as you seem to think you are, you to should be fighting against the problems, not defending the sad state of affairs of the christian majority.
Derrick, we know that not all Christians are the same. But keeping religion out of the science classroom in the US is a constant struggle.
Here is some empirical evidence that only 15% of Americans hold the correct scientific view of evolution: http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/hold-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx
The “humans didn’t descend from apes” bit is of course pure gibberish, but the point I’d like to make is that it’s simply no good solving one mystery by invoking several larger mysteries. Sure, why there is something rather than nothing is superficially puzzling (but as one person said, “Oh, don’t pretend that if there were nothing you’d actally like that better”). But why there should be a god rather than no god is as LEAST as puzzling, and why, if there is a god, it should have gone to such extraordinary lengths to appear unnecessary is, by my lights, a damning mystery. I understand well some of the existential attraction to a bowdleried version of Christianity, but that’s not the same thing as having a better answer. And belief without sufficient evidence is theft.
Belief without sufficient evidence is theft.
I like it! Here’s W. K. Clifford on the same topic:
“It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”
*YET HAMS [SIC] THEORIES MAKE MORE SENSE THAN ANYTHING I HAVE EVER READ.*
To be fair, when most of you post things of a scientific nature on this site, you do tend to use big words and scientific nomenclature. It is very likely that these don’t make sense to her.
Here’s my favorite of Ham’s theories:
Whole wheat bread, mustard on one slice, mayo on the other, a good Black Forest ham with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and either swiss or provolone. Now *that’s* a creation I can get into!
No bacon?
With turkey, yes, but with ham–even as much as I love bacon–that is just a bit of overkill.
Alright — give me Hamm on five and hold the Mayo.
b&
I hope I’m not boring anyone with these autobiographical stories, and apologize if I am.
When we returned from our 15 years as missionaries (“I made a pilgrimage to save the human race, never realizing that the race had long gone by”), we stayed for the first few months back with the man who was the editor (the real editor; the guy whose name is seen when the credits roll) of the film “Airplane”. A wonderful man–not all christians are creeps–which, of course, does not nothing to salvage the irretrievable wreck of their doctrine on the shoals and shores of science.
I bet that was a challenging movie to edit, considering how crucial timing is to good comedy. It’s even got a scene that rivals “Who’s on First?”
b&
“Do we have clearance, Clarence?”
“Roger, Roger.”
“What’s our vector, Victor?”
All-time classic, and a regular part of our (my wife’s and my) daily speech!
I always wonder why people like this focus on Darwin. I suppose it’s because Christianity is obviously founded on an argument from authority, so they assume that any counter-argument must be based on authority as well?
It wouldn’t matter if Darwin were wrong. He could have been a cannibalizing sodomite. He could have converted to Islamic creationism on his deathbed. Every line that Darwin wrote could have been a deliberate lie designed to fool people and send them to hell. It wouldn’t matter. Evolution doesn’t require Darwin to be true; it’s true regardless of Darwin.
If they want to combat evolution, they need to focus on the thousands of scientific experiments that indicate the truth of evolution, starting with Lenski’s E. coli experiment.
+1
You are right of course. Still I like it very much that Darwin was a nice person and a gentleman, who was 99% right in what he wrote about evolution. 😉
Her problem seems to be both ignorance of what evolution is actually about, and a want of education in basic logic. Her main fallacy is the ad populem fallacy, that if a majority of people think something, it is true.
This is actually a useful rule of thumb for anything that is not in the least bit controversial (most people – especially in Sunnyvale, Milpitas, Cupertino and Los Gatos – do know the way to San Jose) but it breaks down fairly soon after we stray from the narrow path of the blindingly obvious.
Much of my early education in facts has gone out of date – the political system and the landscape have changed, currency and the measuring system have been simplified, and virtually everything I was taught about religion was wrong – but whatever I learnt about logic and the winkling out of fallacies (usually between the lines of my formal education) continues to stand me in good stead. Our education systems should concentrate on teaching not so much knowledge or what to think, but how to think clearly.
Here in TN, they have taken steps though new legislation to allow creationism back into the classroom. This law turns the clock back nearly 100 years here in the seemingly unprogressive South and is simply embarrassing. There is no argument against the Theory of Evolution other than that of religious doctrine. The Monkey Law only opens the door for fanatic Christianity to creep its way back into our classrooms. You can see my visual response as a Tennessean to this absurd law on my artist’s blog at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2012/04/pulpit-in-classroom-biblical-agenda-in.html with some evolutionary art and a little bit of simple logic.
Historical revision has always been an important tool for totalitarian ideologies. Obviously extreme Christian fundamentalism is no different.
It’s sad to see such a well meaning and sincere person become so confused and misguided by dishonest manipulators.
She asks what are we so afraid of if creationism is taught side by side with real science? In theory we should fear nothing because intelligent people should be able to see the difference between, on the one hand accurate rational empirically based enquiry into natural truth, and on the other hand religious wishful thinking and fantasy stories.
But this letter is evidence that in practice there are reasons to be worried. I’m worried that the United States, in the long run, if this kind of Christian fanatasism ends up corrupting our education system, could be turned into a second rate nation where religious superstition stifles freedom and enterprise, where fear induced by ignorance squashes innovation, invention, and progress. We could become a Christian version of Iran or Saudi Arabia, where clerics poison minds into surrendering to ancient belief systems, effectively disabling a large portion of the creative economic and cultural potential of the nation.
When your fellow creationists tell you not to use a certain argument http://www.answersingenesis.org/get-answers/topic/arguments-we-dont-use Maybe just maybe you should listen?
Speaking of theft, it was of course Clifford that I…APPROPRIATED…that notion from. His entire essay on faith and evidence should be mandatory reading for…humans.