Dover Trap in the Pelican State

In Kitzmiller the good guys at least had to do some minimal work to connect the schoolboard's policy to creationism. With this Louisiana development, the policymakers are blatantly saying they want creationism. Well, they may get it...and a nice legal bill when they lose *again*.

My only concern is that the composition of the Supreme Court has changed a great deal since Edwards v Aguilard in 1987 (a 7-2 ruling if I recall correctly). Would the current Court uphold Edwards?

Welcome Dr. Miller, scratch that!

Hi Ken!! I am pleased to see you back in the fray. I missed the trial at Dover, hope to make it to Livingston Parish.

Laissez les bons temps rouler

rimpal said: Laissez les bons temps rouler

I'm sure that Prof. Miller is aware that Governor Jindal is a graduate of Brown with a major in biology. However, I am informed by John Kwok that Prof. Miller never had the dubious pleasure of having the governor in one of his classes. Thank whoever for small favors.

Maybe people are ignorant of the contents of intelligent design theory because there is no intelligent design theory, or even any content that could imaginably be included in an intelligent design theory.

The DI is afraid that Louisianans might confuse ID with religion:

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/08/04/a-classic-evolution-policy-blu

"Every one of us (board members) sitting up here believes in creationism*. We just sit up here and let them teach evolution and not take a stand about creationism. To me, how come we don’t look into this as people who are strong Christians and see what we can do to teach creationism in schools?" School board member David Tate * by which, in another quote, he appears to mean Genesis rather than ID or OEC

Les Lane said: The DI is afraid that Louisianans might confuse ID with religion ...

I read Chapman's letter this morning and thought it was amusing. He pretends that the ID creationism that lost in Kitzmiller v Dover was not the Real True™ Intelligent Design Creationism that he and his Discotute pals preach.

That is all they have left.

Gary Hurd said: That is all they have left.

Could it be that the next Kitzmiller Reunion will be in Louisiana?

Man, these troglodytes can’t even get the caps off their med bottles, yet they can manipulate the levers of politics.

Political levers need to be changed from looking like clubs.

Hmm. It does seem very strange, the way they keep picking fights they're bound to lose. Perhaps there's something about creationists that makes it difficult to think rationally about certain subjects. Perhaps they believe in some strange, supernatural force that will help them win these fights. A very mysterious force, surely, since it hasn't helped them in other such fights. Any idea what might make them think this way, Dr. Miller?

IMO the entire stealth strategy they've been peddling for the last few years is doomed to failure. The DI is attempting to construct a coded religous message that H.S. kids (and their parents) will all "get" and yet bystanders, nonbelievers, opposing lawyers and judges won't. That's going to be impossible.

The LA law was a tactical success in getting access to the classroom. But at some point they have to teach some content. They have to show their hand if they want to collect the chips. And its at that point where they're always going to fail. Where the judge looks at the cards and says "that's not a legal hand."

Until, as fasteddie points out, they get a court amenable to their curriculum. But in which case a stealth strategy is unnecessary - so there is never any use in it. Without court support the stealth strategy always fails, with court support its unnecessary.

John Pieret said:

Could it be that the next Kitzmiller Reunion will be in Louisiana?

Not for nothing, but being a few miles up the road from New Orleans has got to be better than a few miles up the road from from Harrisburg.

If these folks were Real Conservatives they'd stop wasting tax payer money on such bogus proceedings. The God of minimal government is not pleased with their heresy.

Tualha said: Perhaps there's something about creationists that makes it difficult to think rationally about certain subjects.

Mike Elzinga said: Man, these troglodytes can’t even get the caps off their med bottles, yet they can manipulate the levers of politics.

Where public school districts have been willing to stick to scientific evidence for and against Darwinian theory, and ignore religious implications in the classroom, Darwinian opponents have not sued, let alone sued successfully.

eric said: You'll get a snort out of the one from 9:10am. It, um, captures the intellectual rigor of the movement nicely.

Bruce Chapman - You are wrong again. Please re-read the first amendment. It is very Constitutional to teach Creationism. And Creationism is as scientific as evolution or are you blind like so many other athetist to the scientific evidence on the side of creation.

RBH said: One creationist on the AmSpec thread calls Chapman an atheist!

Yeah, it isn't like Paul Nelson is giving lectures at young-earth creation conferences or anything like that.

Evil(tm) Evolutionist

P.S. The year on the website is wrong. They forgot to update it from 2010 to 2011. It's scheduled for this fall.

John_S | August 4, 2010 1:49 PM | Reply | Edit “Every one of us (board members) sitting up here believes in creationism*. We just sit up here and let them teach evolution and not take a stand about creationism. To me, how come we don’t look into this as people who are strong Christians and see what we can do to teach creationism in schools?” School board member David Tate * by which, in another quote, he appears to mean Genesis rather than ID or OEC A number of Christian churches representing a large percentage of the world’s Christians have stated that evolution is not inconsistent with their faith. So “strong Christians” would appear to be a code word for “only people who agree with my interpretation of the scripture”.

Congratulations to David Tate for being completely honest about his intentions. Contrast this with William Buckingham and Alan Bonsell in Dover. Their under-handed attempts to introduce creationism into their public school curriculum cost taxpayers dearly.

The State of Louisiana shouldn't have so big an expense here.

Is this a new strategy, switching from subvert to overt, obfuscation to direct confrontation?

The same thing happened in Dover, Pennsylvania, in 2005 when school board members decided to grab onto the phrase (not the reality) of "intelligent design" to promote religious doctrine. The board members, as in Livingston, Louisiana, were as ignorant of the limits of the scientific case against strict Darwinism as they were of the content of intelligent design theory. The scientists and political scientists at Discovery Institute -- colleagues of mine -- who actually know something about intelligent design, tried to dissuade them, but to no avail. The Dover board members did not believe that a court could stop them. But a central Pennsylvania federal judge, John E. Jones, did stop them.

Intelligent Design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view. The reference book, Of Pandas and People, is available for students to see if they would like to explore this view in an effort to gain an understanding of what Intelligent Design actually involves. As is true with any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind.

An early pro-intelligent design textbook, Pandas was at the heart of the lawsuit filed by the ACLU against the hapless school district in Dover, Pennsylvania. The Dover school board wanted teachers to tell students that if they desired information about intelligent design they could go to the school library and read Of Pandas and People. What an outlandish idea: A school district actually wanted to encourage students to consult a book for more information!

RBH said: One creationist on the AmSpec thread calls Chapman an atheist! LOL!

Bruce Chapman - You are wrong again. Please re-read the first amendment. It is very Constitutional to teach Creationism. And Creationism is as scientific as evolution or are you blind like so many other athetist to the scientific evidence on the side of creation.

On the plus side, Chapman did use the word "repudiation" correctly.

Lauri said: On the plus side, Chapman did use the word "repudiation" correctly.

eric said:

Mike Elzinga said: Man, these troglodytes can’t even get the caps off their med bottles, yet they can manipulate the levers of politics.

Incidentally Mike, some of the comments to the article are a hoot. You'll get a snort out of the one from 9:10am. It, um, captures the intellectual rigor of the movement nicely.

Aagcobb said: Maybe people are ignorant of the contents of intelligent design theory because there is no intelligent design theory, or even any content that could imaginably be included in an intelligent design theory.

Frank J said: If Chapman truly wants to distance ID from YEC and OEC, all he has to do critically analyze them along with "critically analyzing" evolution.

Good shot FJ. Hmm, they could start on their "critical analysis" of creationism by just looking over the "creationist argument" list at talk.origins. But I suspect that would lead to complications too obvious to belabor here.

Maybe if this goes to court, as likely it will, it will expose the idiocy of the Louisiana law that was promoted by the dishonesty instutute and supported by Jindal, and hopefully put a dent in any future endeavor he might have for running for (gulp!) president of these United States.

DavidK said: Maybe if this goes to court, as likely it will, it will expose the idiocy of the Louisiana law that was promoted by the dishonesty instutute and supported by Jindal, and hopefully put a dent in any future endeavor he might have for running for (gulp!) president of these United States.

Ken,

Somehow I relish the thought of you going up against our fellow Brunonians Chuck "Watergate" Colson and David "Darwin = Hitler" Klinghoffer if either one was called on to testify on behalf of the Dishonesty Institute-crafted Louisiana Science Education Act. I don't think they would survive any rigorous cross-examination by Eric Rothschild, whom I would hope would be the lead witness on behalf of the plaintiffs. Then it would be a real "Kitzmiller reunion" for sure.

Sincerely,

John

Frank J said:

Aagcobb said: Maybe people are ignorant of the contents of intelligent design theory because there is no intelligent design theory, or even any content that could imaginably be included in an intelligent design theory.

Even the mutually contradictory YEC and OEC accounts have more content than ID. At least they make testable claims regarding "what happened when." (BTW, I thank Dr. Miller for the phrase "mutually contradictory" (in "Finding Darwin's God"), and Eugenie Scott for "what happened when" (in a reply to Dembski).) If Chapman truly wants to distance ID from YEC and OEC, all he has to do critically analyze them along with "critically analyzing" evolution. And he surely knows that the former can be accomplished without recycling long-refuted misrepresentations, defining terms (e.g. "theory") to suit the argument, baiting-and-switching concepts (e.g. evolution with abiogenesis), quote mining, etc.

John Kwok said: I wouldn't place my hopes on that derailing any of Jindal's presidential ambitions:

DavidK said: Maybe if this goes to court, as likely it will, it will expose the idiocy of the Louisiana law that was promoted by the dishonesty instutute and supported by Jindal, and hopefully put a dent in any future endeavor he might have for running for (gulp!) president of these United States.

However, as a Brunonian who considers himself a Conservative Republican (but with very pronounced Libertarian biases), I have no intention of ever voting for Jindal for elected office, unless he is the vice presidential running mate of some "sane" Republican (And by that I do not mean one Sarah Palin.). However, I strongly doubt that anyone would seriously consider him as potential vice-presidential material, even after the current BP fiasco.

Creationism won't be taught in the public schools of Livingston Parish, Louisiana — at least not yet. The Baton Rouge Advocate (August 1, 2010) reports that "The Livingston Parish School Board won't try to include the teaching of creationism in this year's curriculum, but has asked the School Board staff to look at the issue for possible future action." At a July meeting, inspired by the Louisiana Science Education Act, the board formed a committee to explore the possibilities of incorporating creationism in the parish's science classes. The committee is not expected to report its findings in time for the board to take any action for the 2010-2011 school year; the board's president Keith Martin explained, "We have decided not to try to hurry up and rush something in for this year." Marjorie Esman, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, told the Advocate that the decision to teach creationism would be not only doomed to failure but expensive. "If they were to do it, they could anticipate that any litigation would result in them not only losing, but having to pay enormous legal fees," she said. "They would be wasting a huge amount of taxpayer money on a battle they can't win." The board's attorney confirmed that it would be unconstitutional for the schools to teach creationism. Meanwhile, board member David Tate, who broached the possibility of teaching creationism at the previous board meeting, commented, "We don't want litigation, but why not take a stand for Jesus and risk litigation."

Rich Blinne said: This DI piece is from today, right? But NCSE is reporting this from August 1 saying that the school board is postponing this at least for a year. So why the piece now?

Creationism won't be taught in the public schools of Livingston Parish, Louisiana — at least not yet. The Baton Rouge Advocate (August 1, 2010) reports that "The Livingston Parish School Board won't try to include the teaching of creationism in this year's curriculum, but has asked the School Board staff to look at the issue for possible future action." At a July meeting, inspired by the Louisiana Science Education Act, the board formed a committee to explore the possibilities of incorporating creationism in the parish's science classes. The committee is not expected to report its findings in time for the board to take any action for the 2010-2011 school year; the board's president Keith Martin explained, "We have decided not to try to hurry up and rush something in for this year." Marjorie Esman, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, told the Advocate that the decision to teach creationism would be not only doomed to failure but expensive. "If they were to do it, they could anticipate that any litigation would result in them not only losing, but having to pay enormous legal fees," she said. "They would be wasting a huge amount of taxpayer money on a battle they can't win." The board's attorney confirmed that it would be unconstitutional for the schools to teach creationism. Meanwhile, board member David Tate, who broached the possibility of teaching creationism at the previous board meeting, commented, "We don't want litigation, but why not take a stand for Jesus and risk litigation."

Ah. That's what DI is most worried about. Another test case by people who don't care about winning but would rather make a stand for Jesus joined at the hip to DI. At least the Dover Board kept things on the down low. Here, the crazy it burns.

Dale Husband said:

John Kwok said: I wouldn't place my hopes on that derailing any of Jindal's presidential ambitions:

DavidK said: Maybe if this goes to court, as likely it will, it will expose the idiocy of the Louisiana law that was promoted by the dishonesty instutute and supported by Jindal, and hopefully put a dent in any future endeavor he might have for running for (gulp!) president of these United States.

However, as a Brunonian who considers himself a Conservative Republican (but with very pronounced Libertarian biases), I have no intention of ever voting for Jindal for elected office, unless he is the vice presidential running mate of some "sane" Republican (And by that I do not mean one Sarah Palin.). However, I strongly doubt that anyone would seriously consider him as potential vice-presidential material, even after the current BP fiasco.

Jindal destroyed any chance he'd have at running for higher office when he gave that moronic response to Obama's State of the Union speech of 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmNM0oj79t8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_hUqJanYx4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb3Kmmx68Yw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2ztrF253DE

Crumbs! I am the mayor of my smallish city up here in northern New England. I worry about how to get the streets paved, how to get a much needed new High School funded, and whether to replace our old City Hall and if so how to fund it. How the heck does any one in local government have the time or energy to devote to destroying local educational standards on top of everything else?

John Kwok said: It's said he's undergone a major rehabilitation due to the BP fiasco, acting more like a decisive leader than POTUS.

Considering that a number of bills being pushed to teach ID or (same thing) throw stupid objections against evolution involved Ben Stein and the showing of that gutter-snipe "movie" Expelled, I have no idea how anyone can make the claims in American Spectator with a straight face.

Expelled made no bones about the fact that they wanted the teaching that God created life put into schools, while smearing all who disagreed with the charge of atheism (not a smear to an atheist, but to anyone else it is, if simply for being untrue). The DI had a hand in both producing and promoting that propaganda piece, too.

Exactly what Stein and the Expelled prevaricators did in Louisiana I'm not sure, but they with the DI were pushing those fraudulent bills nationwide.

Well, it's not like we call them the Dishonesty Institute merely because we loathe them (we do), but also because it's a far more honest epithet than the one they've chosen (wtf have they ever discovered?).

Glen Davidson

Whoops, never mind. 2010 is this year. But my statement about Nelson still stands.

Evil(tm) Evolutionist

Ben Stein whining that God isn't allowed into science and classrooms. Oh yes, also claiming that only Darwinism is allowed for the explanation of gravity:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck3AgSAXIgo&feature=related

Ben Stein pushing the "Academic Freedom Petition," part of the nationwide push for creationist bills ("freedom to criticize Darwinism"--which is almost solely religiously motivated) that the DI coordinated to coincide with Expelled:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQPgXA5Em8c

Crowther is such a manipulative two-faced propagandist.

Glen Davidson

Odd.

The DI actively works to...um....urge school boards, state governments and the like that ID is a viable alternative explanation for the past and current diversity of life.

Those governmental entities succumb to the DI's urgings and enacts legislation that accommodates the DI's (pseudo)scientific claims.

And then the DI runs and hides, accusing those governmental entities of "misepresenting" and/or "misstating" the DI's (pseudo)scientific claims.

One wonders how many times this needs to happen before even the most strident of creationists decide that listening to the DI may not be the best thing to do.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Let’s get real, Frank.

— John Kwok

When a fundamentalist says “present both sides”, what they really mean is “Present evolution. Then give creationists free whacks at it without rebuttal.” No fundamentalist parent, regardless of how much they claim to support the “equal time” argument, would tolerate a teacher offering both pro and con arguments on Genesis.

— John_S

Before I get accused of not practicing what I preach:

I know that DI folk regularly read this blog, so if any of you are reading please tell Chapman that he is cordially invited here to enlighten us on what the unnamed, unembodied, possibly deceased (per Michael Behe's Dover testimony) intelligent designer did, when and how. Both per his opinion, and per the DI's "official" position if different.

Since Behe was the DI's star witness at Dover, Chapman and any other DI fellow who wishes to defend their "ID is not creationism" line might want to start by telling us if they agree with Behe's conclusion that life on Earth is indeed billions of years old and that humans share common ancestors with broccoli.

If any of you do surprise us, please do not add any irrelevant, unsolicited "weaknesses" of "Darwinism." Your "theory" can, and must be defended on its own merits. If you must contrast it with one you think is "weaker", pick one of the mutually contradictory "creationist" accounts.

I smell lawsuit.

MosesZD said: I smell lawsuit.

Oclarki said:

John Kwok said: It's said he's undergone a major rehabilitation due to the BP fiasco, acting more like a decisive leader than POTUS.

I would not be so sure about that "rehabilitation" bit. It is one of the sadder (to me) aspects of the whole leak event is that the administration was has not provided a clear discussion of the roles and responsibilities established by regulation and law for such an event. In short, the Administration's response was rapid, decisive, and robust. And Jindal's response? Well, there were huge problems with "his" initial proposal for the sand berms. Problems large enough that at least one of his own agencies expressed concern to the USACE (the USACE was and is chargesd with authority over dredging operations in US waters). Those berms were approved only after substantial revisions led by thwe USGS and USACE. Funny how Jindal has quite failed to acknowledge that....

Glen Davidson said: Considering that a number of bills being pushed to teach ID or (same thing) throw stupid objections against evolution involved Ben Stein and the showing of that gutter-snipe "movie" Expelled, I have no idea how anyone can make the claims in American Spectator with a straight face. Expelled made no bones about the fact that they wanted the teaching that God created life put into schools, while smearing all who disagreed with the charge of atheism (not a smear to an atheist, but to anyone else it is, if simply for being untrue). The DI had a hand in both producing and promoting that propaganda piece, too. Exactly what Stein and the Expelled prevaricators did in Louisiana I'm not sure, but they with the DI were pushing those fraudulent bills nationwide. Well, it's not like we call them the Dishonesty Institute merely because we loathe them (we do), but also because it's a far more honest epithet than the one they've chosen (wtf have they ever discovered?). Glen Davidson

Amadan said:

MosesZD said: I smell lawsuit.

This is Casey's Big Opportunity! Oh Boy, is this going to be good! C'mon Casey, place the Furrow of Forgiving Wisdom on your brow and teach those atheists a lesson in jurdiprunence umm juryspruning law 'n stuff!

John Kwok said: I wouldn't give POTUS much credit. In the first week he rejected technical advice and assistance from The Netherlands which had the tools and manpower necessary to stop a deep water oil leak.

IMHO he and his administration of experts - I say that with sarcasm since two of his key advisors, David Axelrod and Eric Holder are fellow alumni of my prominent New York City public high school - didn't accomplish nearly as much as the Bush administration did in its response to Hurricane Katrina within the first week of the disaster and its subsequent rescue and recovery operations:

John Kwok said: I wouldn't give POTUS much credit. In the first week he rejected technical advice and assistance from The Netherlands which had the tools and manpower necessary to stop a deep water oil leak.

David Utidjian said:

John Kwok said: I wouldn't give POTUS much credit. In the first week he rejected technical advice and assistance from The Netherlands which had the tools and manpower necessary to stop a deep water oil leak.

[citation needed]

IMHO he and his administration of experts - I say that with sarcasm since two of his key advisors, David Axelrod and Eric Holder are fellow alumni of my prominent New York City public high school - didn't accomplish nearly as much as the Bush administration did in its response to Hurricane Katrina within the first week of the disaster and its subsequent rescue and recovery operations:

The bolded part is completely irrelevant... even to your own discussion.

Anyway, as for Jindal, I would like to see him called to testimony explaining his rationale for advocating and then signing the Louisiana Science Education Act. I want him to explain how as a Biology concentrator at my Ivy League undergraduate alma mater could reject evolution as valid science. Ideally would hope that Eric Rothschild might cross-examine him.

Leave Carter alone, you damned bully. He'd probably kick your your sorry ass if he ever met you in person. He was the only honest president to serve in my lifetime, easily the most moral, and always acted in good faith. So STFU John, and stop maligning good and decent people.

Rich Blinne said: Ah. That's what DI is most worried about. Another test case by people who don't care about winning but would rather make a stand for Jesus joined at the hip to DI. At least the Dover Board kept things on the down low. Here, the crazy it burns.

Oclarki said: The DI actively works to…um.…urge school boards, state governments and the like that ID is a viable alternative explanation for the past and current diversity of life ...And then the DI runs and hides, accusing those governmental entities of “misepresenting” and/or “misstating” the DI’s (pseudo)scientific claims.

John Kwok said: However, as a Brunonian who considers himself a Conservative Republican (but with very pronounced Libertarian biases), I have no intention of ever voting for Jindal for elected office, unless he is the vice presidential running mate of some "sane" Republican (And by that I do not mean one Sarah Palin.). However, I strongly doubt that anyone would seriously consider him as potential vice-presidential material, even after the current BP fiasco.

Frank J said:

Let’s get real, Frank.

— John Kwok

I don't expect him to do it of course. But I wish more people would ask him and let people see him squirm instead of just assuming that he'll do the politically correct thing for the big tent.

When a fundamentalist says “present both sides”, what they really mean is “Present evolution. Then give creationists free whacks at it without rebuttal.” No fundamentalist parent, regardless of how much they claim to support the “equal time” argument, would tolerate a teacher offering both pro and con arguments on Genesis.

— John_S

Sadly even most non-fundamentalists have been conned into accepting that only evolution gets to be "critically analyzed." In fact, even most critics of ID/creationism have "taken the bait" on the subject of censorship. The "debate" is only about whether, "Darwinists" advocate "censorship," and rarely if ever about who really does.

Wolfhound said: Jimminy Christmas, is possible for Kwok to EVAH post without name-dropping or mentioning where he went to school, as if the success of others somehow rubs off on him by virtue of his tenuous association with them? For feck's sake, I went to high school with Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20 fame. That doesn't mean I'm a rock star, myself. Sheesh! I'm joining the growing ranks of those who quickly skip past any posts from Kwok without reading them. Which is a pity. There might even be something worthwhile mixed in with all of the self-aggrandizing. :(

Rich Blinne said: In it he correctly notes the mass exodus of the young people from the church while proposing more strident YEC as the solution!

Robin said: ... in 3...2...1...

eric said:

Rich Blinne said: Ah. That's what DI is most worried about. Another test case by people who don't care about winning but would rather make a stand for Jesus joined at the hip to DI. At least the Dover Board kept things on the down low. Here, the crazy it burns.

Actually, I think they do care about winning. But they either (a) would rather lose than lie, or (b) don't understand why its not legal and think a reasonable court will side with them (or both).

This past Sunday (8/1/10) the NYT Crossword puzzle clue 80A was "Brunonian rival". I had no idea what the reference was to, and indeed that part of the puzzle took me longer to solve than usual. Now I'm flooded in Brunonians.

MrG said:

Rich Blinne said: In it he correctly notes the mass exodus of the young people from the church while proposing more strident YEC as the solution!

Ah, the eternal cycle of revival and decline. One generation, fed up with the failings of society, picks up the Cause and grows in strength, zeal, and militancy. The next generation, for whom the Cause is boringly familiar, is driven off by the zeal and inflexibility of their parents. Some will stay, but enough will leave to ensure downward decline. And then, sooner or later, the cycle begins all over again.

Rich Blinne said: But what appears different this time is the lack of reformers that stay or form their own group. The previous cycle marked a shift from mainline Protestants to evangelical ones. This time the disaffected are just leaving. Thus, it is unclear that there is a next cycle.

What they fail to realize is that its pretty much impossible to come up with any step 2 that passes constitutional muster.

Mike in Ontario, NY said: Leave Carter alone, you damned bully. He'd probably kick your your sorry ass if he ever met you in person. He was the only honest president to serve in my lifetime, easily the most moral, and always acted in good faith. So STFU John, and stop maligning good and decent people.

Wolfhound said:

John Kwok said: However, as a Brunonian who considers himself a Conservative Republican (but with very pronounced Libertarian biases), I have no intention of ever voting for Jindal for elected office, unless he is the vice presidential running mate of some "sane" Republican (And by that I do not mean one Sarah Palin.). However, I strongly doubt that anyone would seriously consider him as potential vice-presidential material, even after the current BP fiasco.

Jimminy Christmas, is possible for Kwok to EVAH post without name-dropping or mentioning where he went to school, as if the success of others somehow rubs off on him by virtue of his tenuous association with them? For feck's sake, I went to high school with Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20 fame. That doesn't mean I'm a rock star, myself. Sheesh! I'm joining the growing ranks of those who quickly skip past any posts from Kwok without reading them. Which is a pity. There might even be something worthwhile mixed in with all of the self-aggrandizing. :(

"This past Sunday (8/1/10) the NYT Crossword puzzle clue 80A was “Brunonian rival”. I had no idea what the reference was to, and indeed that part of the puzzle took me longer to solve than usual. Now I’m flooded in Brunonians."

Carter was out of his depth as president and Obama even more so. But I have to give Carter a lot of credit for being the most successful ex-president in recent memory. Have a lot of regard for his Habitat for Humanity. So Mike, I can condemn Carter’s presidency, but still praise his noteworthy service to this country now, decades later (But only for Habitat for Humanity, not for his “assistance” with regards to Israel and the Palestinians.):

william e emba said: This past Sunday (8/1/10) the NYT Crossword puzzle clue 80A was "Brunonian rival". I had no idea what the reference was to, and indeed that part of the puzzle took me longer to solve than usual. Now I'm flooded in Brunonians.

Karen S. said:

Carter was out of his depth as president and Obama even more so. But I have to give Carter a lot of credit for being the most successful ex-president in recent memory. Have a lot of regard for his Habitat for Humanity. So Mike, I can condemn Carter’s presidency, but still praise his noteworthy service to this country now, decades later (But only for Habitat for Humanity, not for his “assistance” with regards to Israel and the Palestinians.):

His Carter Center does a lot of wonderful work. He even hopes to eradicate the guinea worm in his own lifetime. That alone would be an incredible accomplishment for mankind.

MrG said:

Rich Blinne said: But what appears different this time is the lack of reformers that stay or form their own group. The previous cycle marked a shift from mainline Protestants to evangelical ones. This time the disaffected are just leaving. Thus, it is unclear that there is a next cycle.

Such cycles seem so ingrained in American history at least that it would seem plausible, sooner or later, it will happen again. But who can say when?

Rich Blinne said: DI has lost control of their followers.

Rich Blinne said: Instead, we can raise a generation that can adapt to the issues of the day whatever they are.

Once again, religious fanatics, ideologues, are going to spend their kid's education money on promoting their religion.

Got to wonder why the school board in this parish cares more about advancing their cult than educating their kids.

Louisiana has been a national sacrifice area for decades. It's unfortunate, they know it, but many who live there don't seem to care.

raven said: Got to wonder why the school board in this parish cares more about advancing their cult than educating their kids.

Wolfhound said: Jimminy Christmas, is possible for Kwok to EVAH post without name-dropping or mentioning where he went to school...

John Kwok said: I have an added incentive to fight Dishonesty Institute goons Colson and Klinghoffer since they are fellow alumni of my undergraduate alma mater ... As for Obama, he picks three noteworthy alumni of my high school as trusted advisors...

How the heck does any one in local government have the time or energy to devote to destroying local educational standards on top of everything else?

DI has lost control of their followers.

Science Avenger said: As for Louisiana, as a registered coonass ...

John Kwok said: It's been in the news, David. Just GOOGLE it yourself and you'll find it.

Have no interest in playing citation games.

MrG said:

Rich Blinne said: Instead, we can raise a generation that can adapt to the issues of the day whatever they are.

RB, I get this impression you're arguing with me, but I cannot figure out over what.

Rich Blinne said: I don't think I am arguing with you as the statement above should be non-controversial.

The only thing that may be a difference is whether the current strategy by most evangelical critics of evolution is longterm self-destructive of evangelicalism itself.

raven said: The Geocentrists are down to 20% of the population.

raven said: Reality will win but we may not be alive to see it and the road may be rather bumpy.

raven said: Probably it is. The Flat Earthers are almost all gone. The Geocentrists are down to 20% of the population. Creationism will follow them someday.

eric said: There's nothing in the data that would suggest that. On the contrry, the fact that comparable response rates are found in Germany and England - much more secular cultures - would seem to indicate that this is a science education issue unrelated to religion.

“20%”?! I would have expected 2%.

raven said: That is a real number and widely known. Look up Modern Geocentrism on wikipedia.

but I do take issue with you lumping this in with creationism as if the geocentrism is a religious belief.

The Earth Is Not Moving Feb 1, 2001 ... The belief that the earth turns on an “axis” daily and orbits the sun annually is a carefully crafted Bible-bashing lie. www.fixedearth.com/ - Cached - Similar

Rebecca Watson: Because his work at Harvard focused on biology, that was the bulk of his talk, but before reaching that discipline he first dismissed both astronomical and geological evidence for evolution and a multi-billion-year-old universe. Of the former, he declared that when we observe galaxies around ours, they are spread out equally to the “north, south, east and west” of Earth, and therefore we are literally at the center of the Universe (and therefore blessed by God?). This is silly. Mountains of research suggest that the Earth occupies a wholly unremarkable corner of a Universe that is vaster and more ancient than Jeanson’s comparatively puny philosophy can imagine.

"Every one of us (board members) sitting up here believes in creationism*. We just sit up here and let them teach evolution and not take a stand about creationism. To me, how come we don’t look into this as people who are strong Christians and see what we can do to teach creationism in schools?

AN ACT To enact R.S. 17:285.1, relative to curriculum and instruction; to provide relative to the teaching of scientific subjects in public elementary and secondary schools; to promote students' critical thinking skills and open discussion of scientific theories; to provide relative to support and guidance for teachers; to provide relative to textbooks and instructional materials; to provide for rules and regulations; to provide for effectiveness; and to provide for related matters. Be it enacted by the Legislature of Louisiana: Section 1. R.S. 17:285.1 is hereby enacted to read as follows: §285.1. Science education; development of critical thinking skills A. This Section shall be known and may be cited as the "Louisiana Science Education Act." B.(1) The State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, upon request of a city, parish, or other local public school board, shall allow and assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning. (2) Such assistance shall include support and guidance for teachers regarding effective ways to help students understand, analyze, critique, and objectively review scientific theories being studied, including those enumerated in Paragraph (1) of this Subsection. C. A teacher shall teach the material presented in the standard textbook supplied by the school system and thereafter may use supplemental textbooks and other instructional materials to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner, as permitted by the city, parish, or other local public school board unless otherwise prohibited by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. D. This Section shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion. E. The State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and each city, parish, or other local public school board shall adopt and promulgate the rules and regulations necessary to implement the provisions of this Section prior to the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year. Section 2. This Act shall become effective upon signature by the governor or, if not signed by the governor, upon expiration of the time for bills to become law without signature by the governor, as provided by Article III, Section 18 of the Constitution of Louisiana. If vetoed by the governor and subsequently approved by the legislature, this Act shall become effective on the day following such approval.

ET Babinski talkorigins.org biblical astronomy: Since the 1970s a few devout Protestant and Catholic scholars with Ph.D.s in physics and astronomy have begun to argue in favor of geocentrism ("geo"=earth "centrism"= lies at the center). These devout Bible believers maintain that the earth does not go round the sun, but that the sun, planets, and all the stars go round the earth. In the United States there is a society that defends Bible-based geocentrism, called the Association for Biblical Astronomy (founded in 1971 under the name of "The Tychonian Society"). The Association for Biblical Astronomy publishes a journal and books, and is led by a young-earth creationist who has a doctorate in astronomy from Case-Western Reserve University, Dr. Gerardus Bouw. Outside the U.S., in France and Belgium, a Catholic group called Cercle Scientifique et Historique, includes some members who support geocentrism. Such geocentrists are also young-earth creationists and, like their young-earth brethren, "Biblical astronomers" feel the need to "point out flaws" in modern scientific evidence in light of "what Scripture tells us." And, like their young-earth partners, who publish "critiques of scientific arguments for an old-earth," these "Biblical astronomers" have recently published a number of books that "critique scientific arguments for a moving earth." They hope to open the eyes of the modern scientific community to the God-given truth that the earth doesn't move, or only moves slightly in comparison with the rest of the planets and stars in the cosmos, most of which must fly around the earth on a daily basis at speeds faster than light!

geocentricity.com: ABOUT THE ASSOCIATION for BIBLICAL ASTRONOMY The Tychonian Society was founded in Canada in 1971 by the late Dutch-Canadian educator, Walter van der Kamp (photo at right). The society was, and still is, a loose-knit, world-wide group of individuals from all walks of life. It's original purpose was to disseminate information about the central place occupied by the earth in the universe. To achieve that goal, Mr. van der Kamp produced The Bulletin of the Tychonian Society, thus founding the Tychonian Society. The Bulletin featured articles on the history, philosophy, and scientific arguments and evidence for geocentrism, the belief that the earth is located at rest at the center of the creation. In 1984 Walter van der Kamp retired as editor of the Bulletin and handed the reins to astronomy Ph.D., Dr. Gerardus D. Bouw (photo below, at left) who broadened its focus considerably. About four years later, Mr. van der Kamp, at the urging of Dr. Bouw, wrote a three-part history of the Tychonian Society entitled The Whys and Wherefores of Geocentrism. Walter van der Kamp died in January, 1998. In January of 1991, in keeping with the broader focus and by mutual consent with Walter, the Tychonian Society was renamed to the "Association for Biblical Astronomy," and the Bulletin of the Tychonian Society was renamed The Biblical Astronomer. Today the ABA is more commonly called "The Biblical Astronomer" after its official organ, which is published quarterly. Its readership extends to over 26 countries around the world. continues

How about it, FL?

Does the Bible assume a flat Earth in the center of the solar system, if not the whole universe?

And if the Bible does assume that, do you?

And if not, why not?

MrG said:

eric said: There's nothing in the data that would suggest that. On the contrry, the fact that comparable response rates are found in Germany and England - much more secular cultures - would seem to indicate that this is a science education issue unrelated to religion.

Yeah, this looks like plain dunderheadism at work. To be sure, creationism is also dunderheadism at work, so there' likely to be some set overlap there. Y'know, it would be techically feasible to describe the orbital mechanics of the Solar System in geocentric terms. Just as certainly as it would be technically feasible to get to the house west across the street by going east ... if you wanted to take your time doing it.

David Utidjian said:

John Kwok said: It's been in the news, David. Just GOOGLE it yourself and you'll find it.

Oh I did John. I wouldn't have asked you for a citation of your claim if I hadn't tried to find one by myself. The spill started on April 20, 2010. The offer from the Dutch was proffered on April 30, 2010. Since when was a week >= 10 days?

Have no interest in playing citation games.

I can understand that.... otherwise you would have to expand your use of 'mendacious intellectual pornography' to yourself. IOW, once you start to dig a hole... stop digging. Even better don't start digging in the first place.

FL said:

"Every one of us (board members) sitting up here believes in creationism*. We just sit up here and let them teach evolution and not take a stand about creationism. To me, how come we don’t look into this as people who are strong Christians and see what we can do to teach creationism in schools?

So, just to ask: Given the existence of the First Amendment, exactly what has David Tate said or done here that would merit a lawsuit in court? How precisely, would his statement legally run afoul of the Kitzmiller decision? And given the actual text of the Louisiana Science Education Act, exactly where are there any actionable violations of law with the Act itself?

AN ACT To enact R.S. 17:285.1, relative to curriculum and instruction; to provide relative to the teaching of scientific subjects in public elementary and secondary schools; to promote students' critical thinking skills and open discussion of scientific theories; to provide relative to support and guidance for teachers; to provide relative to textbooks and instructional materials; to provide for rules and regulations; to provide for effectiveness; and to provide for related matters. Be it enacted by the Legislature of Louisiana: Section 1. R.S. 17:285.1 is hereby enacted to read as follows: §285.1. Science education; development of critical thinking skills A. This Section shall be known and may be cited as the "Louisiana Science Education Act." B.(1) The State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, upon request of a city, parish, or other local public school board, shall allow and assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning. (2) Such assistance shall include support and guidance for teachers regarding effective ways to help students understand, analyze, critique, and objectively review scientific theories being studied, including those enumerated in Paragraph (1) of this Subsection. C. A teacher shall teach the material presented in the standard textbook supplied by the school system and thereafter may use supplemental textbooks and other instructional materials to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner, as permitted by the city, parish, or other local public school board unless otherwise prohibited by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. D. This Section shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion. E. The State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and each city, parish, or other local public school board shall adopt and promulgate the rules and regulations necessary to implement the provisions of this Section prior to the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year. Section 2. This Act shall become effective upon signature by the governor or, if not signed by the governor, upon expiration of the time for bills to become law without signature by the governor, as provided by Article III, Section 18 of the Constitution of Louisiana. If vetoed by the governor and subsequently approved by the legislature, this Act shall become effective on the day following such approval.

Please don't respond, "Cause Darwin Sez So." Instead, tell me specifics. Thanks!

Science Avenger said: Pity really, when Kwok sticks to evolutionary biology, he makes a nice contribution.

FL said: So, just to ask: Given the existence of the First Amendment, exactly what has David Tate said or done here that would merit a lawsuit in court? How precisely, would his statement legally run afoul of the Kitzmiller decision? And given the actual text of the Louisiana Science Education Act, exactly where are there any actionable violations of law with the Act itself?

AN ACT ... B.(1) The State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, upon request of a city, parish, or other local public school board, shall allow and assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning. ...

Please don't respond, "Cause Darwin Sez So." Instead, tell me specifics. Thanks!

FL said:

"Every one of us (board members) sitting up here believes in creationism*. We just sit up here and let them teach evolution and not take a stand about creationism. To me, how come we don’t look into this as people who are strong Christians and see what we can do to teach creationism in schools?

So, just to ask: Given the existence of the First Amendment, exactly what has David Tate said or done here that would merit a lawsuit in court?

How precisely, would his statement legally run afoul of the Kitzmiller decision?

And given the actual text of the Louisiana Science Education Act, exactly where are there any actionable violations of law with the Act itself?

Mike Elzinga said: Actually you hit on a nice example of something that wouldn’t work.

Does the Bible assume a flat Earth in the center of the solar system, if not the whole universe?

MrG said:

Mike Elzinga said: Actually you hit on a nice example of something that wouldn’t work.

Sure it would. You could describe the motions of the planets in terms of geocentrism -- that's what Ptolemaic epicycles were all about. Now coming up with a physical theory as to HOW it worked ... well, THAT would be toughie.

Mike Elzinga said: Careful here; there is a vast difference between kinematics, i.e., the description of motion, and dynamics, the explanation of that motion in terms of forces (in this case, Newton’s laws or general relativity, whichever applies).

heddle said: Just Bob,

Does the Bible assume a flat Earth in the center of the solar system, if not the whole universe?

No, it does not.

heddle said: Just Bob,

Does the Bible assume a flat Earth in the center of the solar system, if not the whole universe?

No, it does not.

John Kwok said: Once more Science Wimp drops by to condemn my name dropping (Just for your edification, the third alumnus from my high school advising Obama is molecular biologist Eric Lander, whose MIT team was the one which did the complete sequence of the human genome.). Pity you don't stop by more often to praise my comments with respect to the science of evolutionary biology. Don't even recall you ever admitting this until now:

Science Avenger said: Pity really, when Kwok sticks to evolutionary biology, he makes a nice contribution.

As for Dembski, he didn't just run away from Dover. IMHO he committed grand larceny by charging them $20,000 for services he never rendereed as a witness on behalf of the defense.

MrG said: Aw c'mon MrE, of course I know that. It's just that yes, indeed, you could recast your coordinate system by pounding a nail through the Earth and then painfully describing the motions of everything else around it. It would be like trying to cross the street going west by going east around the Earth, but it could be done. Actually, I can think of one example where it is useful to do this: horseshoe orbits of Earth coorbital asteroids. They actually have a smaller and faster orbit and gradually sneak up on the Earth over the years; when they catch up they are shunted to a bigger and slower orbit and fall backwards until they approach the Earth from the other side; then the cycle begins all over again. From the point of view of the Earth, the asteroid orbit looks like a horseshoe with the Earth in the "gap".

John Kwok said: Thanks for keeping track numbskull Dave. Doesn't interest me as to when the Dutch offered the assistance. The fact remains that they had offered it relatively early on and the Messiah, in his wisdom, declined:

David Utidjian said:

John Kwok said: It's been in the news, David. Just GOOGLE it yourself and you'll find it.

Oh I did John. I wouldn't have asked you for a citation of your claim if I hadn't tried to find one by myself. The spill started on April 20, 2010. The offer from the Dutch was proffered on April 30, 2010. Since when was a week >= 10 days?

Have no interest in playing citation games.

I can understand that.... otherwise you would have to expand your use of 'mendacious intellectual pornography' to yourself. IOW, once you start to dig a hole... stop digging. Even better don't start digging in the first place.

Mike Elzinga said: Playing with this interactive demo is extremely enlightening; and it demonstrates that orbital mechanics is much more subtle than the intuitions you develop when chasing and catching things in daily life.

Robin,

They are figures of speech, not unlike the figures of speech we use today. (Bobby Richardson's "shot heard 'round the world.) Not one is anything resembling a proposed statement of scientific fact. Take the passage from Revelation. Even taken literally, which is wrong because its a figure of speech, but even literally it has no bearing because even if the earth were flat only a small number of people could see, literally, a descending human-sized deity. If you take such passages literally then it is proposing a tiny flat earth.

This is just the same-old same-old tiresome algorithm:

1) Here is a passage
2) You must take it literally
3) And see, taken literally it is nonsense
4) Oh, and if you don't take it literally you are a "cafeteria Christian"

Oh...forgot about geocentrism question. There's only one passage that remotely implies such as far as my studies go. In Joshua 10 we get:

12Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.

13And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

The bible writers clearly establish the Earth as an immovable object. Here, one of the writers indicates that the apparent motion of the sun is due to it actually moving. Taken with an immovable Earth, this does imply the sun going around said Earth.

Here is a similar example of making a solar system.

Robin said: While I agree that most of the biblical writers and translators did not present anything to support a flat Earth, there are several passages that do create the impression.

Robin,

The Joshua incident never establishes the earth as an immovable object as a matter of scientific fact. It is a viewpoint and figure of speech question--and just like everything written today, everything apart from scientific literature, talks about the sun going around the earth.

heddle said: Robin, They are figures of speech, not unlike the figures of speech we use today. (Bobby Richardson's "shot heard 'round the world.) Not one is anything resembling a proposed statement of scientific fact. Take the passage from Revelation. Even taken literally, which is wrong because its a figure of speech, but even literally it has no bearing because even if the earth were flat only a small number of people could see, literally, a descending human-sized deity. If you take such passages literally then it is proposing a tiny flat earth. This is just the same-old same-old tiresome algorithm: 1) Here is a passage 2) You must take it literally 3) And see, taken literally it is nonsense 4) Oh, and if you don't take it literally you are a "cafeteria Christian"

Robin,

The problem occurs only when people (Christians) assume that the bible is the only book in the universe that must be read literally to be read correctly. In fact, it assumes an intelligent reader who can recognize genre and figures of speech. Hyperliteralism leads to gross error and such things like the hideous dispensational premillennialism eschatology that FL was championing on some other thread.

So if they read "geocentric" literally, then yes they are mistaken. It is not a fatal error because we don't proclaim salvation by astronomical correctness, but it is a mistake.

talktoaction.org: Copernicus Was Wrong : Reconstructionism & "The Flat Earth Temptation" Bruce Wilson print page Fri Feb 16, 2007 at 06:21:46 PM EST Geocentrists accept a spherical earth but deny that the sun is the center of the solar system or that the earth moves.... The basis for their belief is a literal reading of the Bible. [ source ] An emergent scandal over a Texas Republican Party politician's distribution of a memo citing a "fixed Earth" website alleging the Earth does not not rotate and lies at the center of the universe has raised the question; where do such eccentric views as Rep. Chisum's, that the Copernican model of the Solar System is wrong and derives from a Jewish Kabbalistic Conspiracy, come from ? Until recently, it's been generally assumed that the debate over heliocentric vs. geocentric models of the universe, that raged up until the advent of Copernicus, had been well resolved. Lately though, an American movement has sought to restore the Earth to a central position in the grand cosmological scheme... Since the existence of the "Flat Earth Society" became a widely traveled joke, it has become hard to determine if card-carrying flat-earthers really exist any more; many join the society for amusement. But, there are real geocentrists who dream of spheres within spheres and orreries, speculate that Copernicus killed Tycho Brahe and write dense, arcane mathematical proofs placing the Earth at the center of it all. Variants of such views apparently can be found in the Texas State legislature and, in 1999, Tom Willis --head of the Mid-Atlantic Creation Research Association-- was " instrumental in revising the Kansas elementary school curriculum to remove references to evolution, earth history, and science methodology" (also see this Washington Post story.) Willis was also a "geocentrist" and wrote, in 2000, a bold manifesto for both Young-Earth Creationism and Geocentrism: "...all experiments to demonstrate that the earth moves at all have failed. All seem to indicate the earth does not move at all. There is much evidence that the earth is young and cannot possibly be millions, much less billions of years old but we will not treat that herein.... The Bible does not say that the earth is at the center of the universe. But, anyone looking up can see that the sun, planets and stars are moving. Galileo argued that this motion was relative, that really the earth was spinning and it only looks like these other objects move. But, both the observations and the Bible indicate quite strongly that the earth does not move." - Tom Willis Tom Willis wasn't the only geocentrist toiling away to reverse scientific theories that had been accepted for centuries. Indeed, geocentrists could be found in orbit, frolicking and also fighting with Copernicans, around a key ideological and theological gravitational center of the Christian right : the Chalcedon Foundation. "The Tychonian Society was founded in Canada in 1971 by the late Dutch-Canadian educator, Walter van der Kamp (photo at right). The society was, and still is, a loose-knit, world-wide group of individuals from all walks of life. It's original purpose was to disseminate information about the central place occupied by the earth in the universe. To achieve that goal, Mr. van der Kamp produced The Bulletin of the Tychonian Society, thus founding the Tychonian Society. The Bulletin featured articles on the history, philosophy, and scientific arguments and evidence for geocentrism, the belief that the earth is located at rest at the center of the creation. In 1984 Walter van der Kamp retired as editor of the Bulletin and handed the reins to astronomy Ph.D., Dr. Gerardus D. Bouw..." "Historians readily acknowledge that the Copernican Revolution [i.e., the idea that 'the earth moves and turns'] spawned the bloody French and Bolshevic revolutions... set the stage for the ancient Greek dogma of evolution...led to Marxism and Communism...It is reported that Marx even acknowledged his indebtedness to Copernicus, without whom Marx believed that his ideas would not have gained much acceptance...It is thus a small step to total rejection of the Bible and the precepts of morality and law taught therein." - Gerardus Bouw, Ph.D., "Why Geocentricity?" Gerardus Bouw's commentary seems to suggest teleological, or utilitarian, reasons for Geocentric belief ; world conflict of the last five hundred years or so is heaped on Copernicus, and the presumed solution is to turn back the clock and put the earth back at the center of things. "Rushdoony is for it"

More arguing about what that pissant OT REALLY means? And people still responding to useless, lying Xian scumbag-in-residence FL?

I scrolled through the last two pages and wasted perfectly good leisure time doing so.

FL really should have be banned by now.

The same thing happened in Dover, Pennsylvania, in 2005 when school board members decided to grab onto the phrase (not the reality) of "intelligent design" to promote religious doctrine. The board members, as in Livingston, Louisiana, were as ignorant of the limits of the scientific case against strict Darwinism as they were of the content of intelligent design theory. The scientists and political scientists at Discovery Institute -- colleagues of mine -- who actually know something about intelligent design, tried to dissuade them, but to no avail. The Dover board members did not believe that a court could stop them. But a central Pennsylvania federal judge, John E. Jones, did stop them.

Moreover, in turning to Defendants’ lead expert, Professor Behe, his testimony at trial indicated that ID is only a scientific, as opposed to a religious, project for him; however, considerable evidence was introduced to refute this claim. Consider, to illustrate, that Professor Behe remarkably and unmistakably claims that the plausibility of the argument for ID depends upon the extent to which one believes in the existence of God . (P-718 at 705) (emphasis added). As no evidence in the record indicates that any other scientific proposition’s validity rests on belief in God, nor is the Court aware of any such scientific propositions, Professor Behe’s assertion constitutes substantial evidence that in his view, as is commensurate with other prominent ID leaders, ID is a religious and not a scientific proposition.

truthspeaker said: What's hilarious is how quick those mainstream, slightly less crazy Christians are to leap to the defense of creationists.

raven quoted an article which said: But, there are real geocentrists who dream of spheres within spheres and orreries, speculate that Copernicus killed Tycho Brahe and write dense, arcane mathematical proofs placing the Earth at the center of it all.

Woops. I guess that Copernicus arranged Brahe's murder, not his own posthumous murder ...

SLC said:

John Kwok said: Thanks for keeping track numbskull Dave. Doesn't interest me as to when the Dutch offered the assistance. The fact remains that they had offered it relatively early on and the Messiah, in his wisdom, declined:

David Utidjian said:

John Kwok said: It's been in the news, David. Just GOOGLE it yourself and you'll find it.

Oh I did John. I wouldn't have asked you for a citation of your claim if I hadn't tried to find one by myself. The spill started on April 20, 2010. The offer from the Dutch was proffered on April 30, 2010. Since when was a week >= 10 days?

Have no interest in playing citation games.

I can understand that.... otherwise you would have to expand your use of 'mendacious intellectual pornography' to yourself. IOW, once you start to dig a hole... stop digging. Even better don't start digging in the first place.

Actually, the offer from the Netherlands is something of a red herring. Far more cogent criticisms are: 1. The fact that this well was approved in the first place early in the presidents' administration. 2. The fact that the administration failed to pressure BP into accepting the assistance and expertise of other oil companies, such as Shell and Exxon in plugging the blowout early on.

SLC said: Actually, the offer from the Netherlands is something of a red herring. Far more cogent criticisms are: 1. The fact that this well was approved in the first place early in the presidents' administration. 2. The fact that the administration failed to pressure BP into accepting the assistance and expertise of other oil companies, such as Shell and Exxon in plugging the blowout early on.

Oclarki said:

SLC said: Actually, the offer from the Netherlands is something of a red herring. Far more cogent criticisms are: 1. The fact that this well was approved in the first place early in the presidents' administration. 2. The fact that the administration failed to pressure BP into accepting the assistance and expertise of other oil companies, such as Shell and Exxon in plugging the blowout early on.

The drilling plan was approved by the MMS in early March 2009, which was not even 2 months into the current administration's term. From experience as a former Fed, it takes at least 2 years for the philosophy of a new administration to filter down to the level at which that approval was made. So while the approval did most certainly occur under the current administration, it is quite likely that the actual review and approval process was performed in accordance with the philosophy of the previous administration. As for the claimed failure to compel BP to accept the "assistance and expertise" of its competitors Shell and Exxon, it would be very interesting to learn exactly what "expertise" is and was possessed by Shell and Exxon with specific respect to failures of deep water blow-out preventers. If those companies did not and do bnot have actual working experience with an event like Deepwater Horizon, then perhaps their "assistance" would not have been all that useful.

If they go to trial.., then
are the newspaper articles (written by either Forrest or IDists) going to be important evidence ?

heddle said: Robin, The problem occurs only when people (Christians) assume that the bible is the only book in the universe that must be read literally to be read correctly. In fact, it assumes an intelligent reader who can recognize genre and figures of speech. Hyperliteralism leads to gross error and such things like the hideous dispensational premillennialism eschatology that FL was championing on some other thread. So if they read "geocentric" literally, then yes they are mistaken. It is not a fatal error because we don't proclaim salvation by astronomical correctness, but it is a mistake.

FL said:

"Every one of us (board members) sitting up here believes in creationism*. We just sit up here and let them teach evolution and not take a stand about creationism. To me, how come we don’t look into this as people who are strong Christians and see what we can do to teach creationism in schools?

So, just to ask: Given the existence of the First Amendment, exactly what has David Tate said or done here that would merit a lawsuit in court? How precisely, would his statement legally run afoul of the Kitzmiller decision?

As we will review the federal jurisprudential legal landscape in detail below, we will accordingly render only an abbreviated summary of that terrain by way of an introduction at this juncture. The religious movement known as Fundamentalism began in nineteenth century America as a response to social changes, new religious thought and Darwinism. McLean v. Ark. Bd. of Educ., 529 F. Supp. 1255, 1258 (E.D. Ark. 1982). Religiously motivated groups pushed state legislatures to adopt laws prohibiting public schools from teaching evolution, culminating in the Scopes “monkey trial” of 1925. McLean, 529 F.Supp. at 1259; see Scopes v. State, 154 Tenn. 105 (1927) (criminal prosecution of public-school teacher for teaching about evolution). In 1968, a radical change occurred in the legal landscape when in Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97 (1968), the Supreme Court struck down Arkansas’s statutory prohibition against teaching evolution. Religious proponents of evolution thereafter championed “balanced treatment” statutes requiring public-school teachers who taught evolution to devote equal time to teaching the biblical view of creation; however, courts realized this tactic to be another attempt to establish the Biblical version of the creation of man. Daniel v. Waters, 515 F.2d 485 (6th Cir. 1975). Fundamentalist opponents of evolution responded with a new tactic suggested by Daniel’s reasoning which was ultimately found to be unconstitutional under the First Amendment, namely, to utilize scientific-sounding language to describe religious beliefs and then to require that schools teach the resulting “creation science” or “scientific creationism” as an alternative to evolution. In Edwards v. Arkansas, 482 U.S. 578 (1987), five years after McLean, the Supreme Court held that a requirement that public schools teach “creation science” along with evolution violated the Establishment Clause. The import of Edwards is that the Supreme Court turned the proscription against teaching creation science in the public school system into a national prohibition.

As Plaintiffs meticulously and effectively presented to the Court, Pandas went through many drafts, several of which were completed prior to and some after the Supreme Court’s decision in Edwards, which held that the Constitution forbids teaching creationism as science. By comparing the pre and post Edwards drafts of Pandas, three astonishing points emerge: (1) the definition for creation science in early drafts is identical to the definition of ID; (2) cognates of the word creation (creationism and creationist), which appeared approximately 150 times were deliberately and systematically replaced with the phrase ID; and (3) the changes occurred shortly after the Supreme Court held that creation science is religious and cannot be taught in public school science classes in Edwards. This word substitution is telling, significant, and reveals that a purposeful change of words was effected without any corresponding change in content, which directly refutes FTE’s argument that by merely disregarding the words “creation” and “creationism,” FTE expressly rejected creationism in Pandas. In early pre- Edwards drafts of Pandas, the term “creation” was defined as “various forms of life that began abruptly through an intelligent agency with their distinctive features intact – fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc,” the very same way in which ID is defined in the subsequent published versions. (P- 560 at 210; P-1 at 2-13; P-562 at 2-14, P-652 at 2-15; P-6 at 99-100; P-11 at 99- 100; P-856.2.). This definition was described by many witnesses for both parties, notably including defense experts Minnich and Fuller, as “special creation” of kinds of animals, an inherently religious and creationist concept. (28:85-86 (Fuller); Minnich Dep. at 34, May 26, 2005; Trial Tr. vol. 1, Miller Test., 141-42, Sept. 26, 2005; 9:10 (Haught); Trial Tr. vol. 33, Bonsell Test., 54-56, Oct. 31, 2005). Professor Behe’s assertion that this passage was merely a description of appearances in the fossil record is illogical and defies the weight of the evidence that the passage is a conclusion about how life began based upon an interpretation of the fossil record, which is reinforced by the content of drafts of Pandas. The weight of the evidence clearly demonstrates, as noted, that the systemic change from “creation” to “intelligent design” occurred sometime in 1987, after the Supreme Court’s important Edwards decision. This compelling evidence strongly supports Plaintiffs’ assertion that ID is creationism re-labeled. Importantly, the objective observer, whether adult or child, would conclude from the fact that Pandas posits a master intellect that the intelligent designer is God. Further evidence in support of the conclusion that a reasonable observer, adult or child, who is “aware of the history and context of the community and forum” is presumed to know that ID is a form of creationism concerns the fact that ID uses the same, or exceedingly similar arguments as were posited in support of creationism. One significant difference is that the words “God,” “creationism,” and “Genesis” have been systematically purged from ID explanations, and replaced by an unnamed “designer.” Dr. Forrest testified and sponsored exhibits showing six arguments common to creationists. (10:140-48 (Forrest); P-856.5-856.10). Demonstrative charts introduced through Dr. Forrest show parallel arguments relating to the rejection of naturalism, evolution’s threat to culture and society, “abrupt appearance” implying divine creation, the exploitation of the same alleged gaps in the fossil record, the alleged inability of science to explain complex biological information like DNA, as well as the theme that proponents of each version of creationism merely aim to teach a scientific alternative to evolution to show its “strengths and weaknesses,” and to alert students to a supposed “controversy” in the scientific community. (10:140-48 (Forrest)). In addition, creationists made the same argument that the complexity of the bacterial flagellum supported creationism as Professors Behe and Minnich now make for ID. (P-853; P-845; 37:155-56 (Minnich)). The IDM openly welcomes adherents to creationism into its “Big Tent,” urging them to postpone biblical disputes like the age of the earth. (11:3-15 (Forrest); P-429). Moreover and as previously stated, there is hardly better evidence of ID’s relationship with creationism than an explicit statement by defense expert Fuller that ID is a form of creationism. (Fuller Dep. at 67, June 21, 2005) (indicated that ID is a modern view of creationism). Although contrary to Fuller, defense experts Professors Behe and Minnich testified that ID is not creationism, their testimony was primarily by way of bare assertion and it failed to directly rebut the creationist history of Pandas or other evidence presented by Plaintiffs showing the commonality between creationism and ID. The sole argument Defendants made to distinguish creationism from ID was their assertion that the term “creationism” applies only to arguments based on the Book of Genesis, a young earth, and a catastrophic Noaich flood; however, substantial evidence established that this is only one form of creationism, including the chart that was distributed to the Board Curriculum Committee, as will be described below. (P-149 at 2; 10:129-32 (Forrest); P-555 at 22-24).

I am in agreement with Mr. Oclarid that the changing the attitude of the regulatory organizations after 8 years of demonstrated incompetence and laissez faire attitudes of the previous administration can’t be done in 2 months and that the current administration had its hands full with the economic situation it inherited from its predecessors. Nevertheless, the approval of the well that blew out happened on President Obamas’ watch so he can’t totally escape all responsibility.

FL said: So, just to ask: Given the existence of the First Amendment, exactly what has David Tate said or done here that would merit a lawsuit in court? How precisely, would his statement legally run afoul of the Kitzmiller decision?

If this is old news, I apologize, but LA has tabled the decision to teach creationism for at least a year. They sent it back to committee. Whether they are still seriously considering it or this is just their equivalent of the circular file, who knows.

Here's the story. Credit: I got this by way of Ed Brayton's blog.

Rich Blinne said:

FL said:

"Every one of us (board members) sitting up here believes in creationism*. We just sit up here and let them teach evolution and not take a stand about creationism. To me, how come we don’t look into this as people who are strong Christians and see what we can do to teach creationism in schools?

So, just to ask: Given the existence of the First Amendment, exactly what has David Tate said or done here that would merit a lawsuit in court? How precisely, would his statement legally run afoul of the Kitzmiller decision?

What David Tate stated if acted upon runs afoul not only of the the Kitzmiller decision but straight into the teeth of the 1987 Supreme Court decision where they declared it's unconstitutional to teach creationism. Since then the Intelligent Design movement has tried various ways of sneaking creationism into the schools. Last week Messiah College history of science professor and past ASA president, Ted Davis, had a talk on Dover. Living near Dover PA, Ted was able to be in the courtroom and also talked with the defense attorneys. The Discovery Institute alleges that it was because the Dover School Board was trying to introduce creationism that they lost the case. Ted's conclusion last week was completely different. Ted said it was primarily because of the editing of Pandas that proved ID was just a form of creationism that Judge Jones ruled against them. Now most of the people here including Ken Miller will go duh but I am introducing this to show that this conclusion is also reached by neutral, evangelical, observers, even professors at evangelical colleges who are experts in the history of science. If you read Judge Jones' decision it's clear why everybody except ID comes to this same conclusion. First, here's Judge Jones being a non-activist judge and showing why teaching creationism is unconstitutional [emphasis mine]:

As we will review the federal jurisprudential legal landscape in detail below, we will accordingly render only an abbreviated summary of that terrain by way of an introduction at this juncture. The religious movement known as Fundamentalism began in nineteenth century America as a response to social changes, new religious thought and Darwinism. McLean v. Ark. Bd. of Educ., 529 F. Supp. 1255, 1258 (E.D. Ark. 1982). Religiously motivated groups pushed state legislatures to adopt laws prohibiting public schools from teaching evolution, culminating in the Scopes “monkey trial” of 1925. McLean, 529 F.Supp. at 1259; see Scopes v. State, 154 Tenn. 105 (1927) (criminal prosecution of public-school teacher for teaching about evolution). In 1968, a radical change occurred in the legal landscape when in Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97 (1968), the Supreme Court struck down Arkansas’s statutory prohibition against teaching evolution. Religious proponents of evolution thereafter championed “balanced treatment” statutes requiring public-school teachers who taught evolution to devote equal time to teaching the biblical view of creation; however, courts realized this tactic to be another attempt to establish the Biblical version of the creation of man. Daniel v. Waters, 515 F.2d 485 (6th Cir. 1975). Fundamentalist opponents of evolution responded with a new tactic suggested by Daniel’s reasoning which was ultimately found to be unconstitutional under the First Amendment, namely, to utilize scientific-sounding language to describe religious beliefs and then to require that schools teach the resulting “creation science” or “scientific creationism” as an alternative to evolution. In Edwards v. Arkansas, 482 U.S. 578 (1987), five years after McLean, the Supreme Court held that a requirement that public schools teach “creation science” along with evolution violated the Establishment Clause. The import of Edwards is that the Supreme Court turned the proscription against teaching creation science in the public school system into a national prohibition.

So, all Judge Jones needed to do was to show was ID was crypto-creationism and it's an easy case to show teaching it is unconstitutional. Note that Judge Jones went beyond this reasoning to show ID failed multiple prongs of the Lemon test (Judges often "pile on" to avoid being reversed.) but the book Pandas and Peoples written by the supposed ID experts was a true gift to the plaintiffs. Again, Judge Jones:

As Plaintiffs meticulously and effectively presented to the Court, Pandas went through many drafts, several of which were completed prior to and some after the Supreme Court’s decision in Edwards, which held that the Constitution forbids teaching creationism as science. By comparing the pre and post Edwards drafts of Pandas, three astonishing points emerge: (1) the definition for creation science in early drafts is identical to the definition of ID; (2) cognates of the word creation (creationism and creationist), which appeared approximately 150 times were deliberately and systematically replaced with the phrase ID; and (3) the changes occurred shortly after the Supreme Court held that creation science is religious and cannot be taught in public school science classes in Edwards. This word substitution is telling, significant, and reveals that a purposeful change of words was effected without any corresponding change in content, which directly refutes FTE’s argument that by merely disregarding the words “creation” and “creationism,” FTE expressly rejected creationism in Pandas. In early pre- Edwards drafts of Pandas, the term “creation” was defined as “various forms of life that began abruptly through an intelligent agency with their distinctive features intact – fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc,” the very same way in which ID is defined in the subsequent published versions. (P- 560 at 210; P-1 at 2-13; P-562 at 2-14, P-652 at 2-15; P-6 at 99-100; P-11 at 99- 100; P-856.2.). This definition was described by many witnesses for both parties, notably including defense experts Minnich and Fuller, as “special creation” of kinds of animals, an inherently religious and creationist concept. (28:85-86 (Fuller); Minnich Dep. at 34, May 26, 2005; Trial Tr. vol. 1, Miller Test., 141-42, Sept. 26, 2005; 9:10 (Haught); Trial Tr. vol. 33, Bonsell Test., 54-56, Oct. 31, 2005). Professor Behe’s assertion that this passage was merely a description of appearances in the fossil record is illogical and defies the weight of the evidence that the passage is a conclusion about how life began based upon an interpretation of the fossil record, which is reinforced by the content of drafts of Pandas. The weight of the evidence clearly demonstrates, as noted, that the systemic change from “creation” to “intelligent design” occurred sometime in 1987, after the Supreme Court’s important Edwards decision. This compelling evidence strongly supports Plaintiffs’ assertion that ID is creationism re-labeled. Importantly, the objective observer, whether adult or child, would conclude from the fact that Pandas posits a master intellect that the intelligent designer is God. Further evidence in support of the conclusion that a reasonable observer, adult or child, who is “aware of the history and context of the community and forum” is presumed to know that ID is a form of creationism concerns the fact that ID uses the same, or exceedingly similar arguments as were posited in support of creationism. One significant difference is that the words “God,” “creationism,” and “Genesis” have been systematically purged from ID explanations, and replaced by an unnamed “designer.” Dr. Forrest testified and sponsored exhibits showing six arguments common to creationists. (10:140-48 (Forrest); P-856.5-856.10). Demonstrative charts introduced through Dr. Forrest show parallel arguments relating to the rejection of naturalism, evolution’s threat to culture and society, “abrupt appearance” implying divine creation, the exploitation of the same alleged gaps in the fossil record, the alleged inability of science to explain complex biological information like DNA, as well as the theme that proponents of each version of creationism merely aim to teach a scientific alternative to evolution to show its “strengths and weaknesses,” and to alert students to a supposed “controversy” in the scientific community. (10:140-48 (Forrest)). In addition, creationists made the same argument that the complexity of the bacterial flagellum supported creationism as Professors Behe and Minnich now make for ID. (P-853; P-845; 37:155-56 (Minnich)). The IDM openly welcomes adherents to creationism into its “Big Tent,” urging them to postpone biblical disputes like the age of the earth. (11:3-15 (Forrest); P-429). Moreover and as previously stated, there is hardly better evidence of ID’s relationship with creationism than an explicit statement by defense expert Fuller that ID is a form of creationism. (Fuller Dep. at 67, June 21, 2005) (indicated that ID is a modern view of creationism). Although contrary to Fuller, defense experts Professors Behe and Minnich testified that ID is not creationism, their testimony was primarily by way of bare assertion and it failed to directly rebut the creationist history of Pandas or other evidence presented by Plaintiffs showing the commonality between creationism and ID. The sole argument Defendants made to distinguish creationism from ID was their assertion that the term “creationism” applies only to arguments based on the Book of Genesis, a young earth, and a catastrophic Noaich flood; however, substantial evidence established that this is only one form of creationism, including the chart that was distributed to the Board Curriculum Committee, as will be described below. (P-149 at 2; 10:129-32 (Forrest); P-555 at 22-24).

One criticism of ID is that they are for the most part not scientists but they are dominated by lawyers. What Dover shows is that they are poor lawyers to boot. The same fantasy land that makes them bad scientists is the root of why they are bad lawyers. You cannot make up the facts as you go along because even church-going, Republicans who are appointed by George Bush care about the facts. To be fair, the plaintiffs had much better experts that the defendants, the author of this post being a singular example. The DI folk have learned their lesson in part trying to avoid any more legal tests because they know they will get creamed again. The problem is that they need to show that they are beating the "Darwinists". So they beat their chests and pray to God that no one calls their bluff. Any school board that takes any advise from DI will fall into the Dover trap and in this economic environment DI is stealing from that school district.

I noticed Judge Jones made an error in his ruling. He incorrectly identified the 1987 supreme court case Edwards v. Aguilard as Edwards v. Arkansas.

This invalidates the entire ruling! Creationism for all!

eric said: Or were you just being obtuse and asking if Tate's advocacy is constitutional? Of course it is. He has a 1st amendment right to state his opinion that the current law is wrong and advocate for a change in the law...he just doesn't have the right to break the law while he does so. Its perfectly constitutional for citizen Tate to state out loud that he thinks creationism ought to be legal to teach (as science), but until the courts change their mind, actually teaching it remains illegal.

Robin said: ... In other words, given a majority of people who already thought the world was the center of the universe and flat, the bible certainly does nothing to argue against such thinking and in places even presents implied support. ...

Does the Bible assume a flat Earth in the center of the solar system, if not the whole universe? And if the Bible does assume that, do you? And if not, why not?

fasteddie said: I noticed Judge Jones made an error in his ruling. He incorrectly identified the 1987 supreme court case Edwards v. Aguilard as Edwards v. Arkansas. This invalidates the entire ruling! Creationism for all!

Robin said:

eric said: Or were you just being obtuse and asking if Tate's advocacy is constitutional? Of course it is. He has a 1st amendment right to state his opinion that the current law is wrong and advocate for a change in the law...he just doesn't have the right to break the law while he does so. Its perfectly constitutional for citizen Tate to state out loud that he thinks creationism ought to be legal to teach (as science), but until the courts change their mind, actually teaching it remains illegal.

Boy...just goes to show, I need to learn to think like a creationist before I post. It didn't even dawn on me that FL was trying to open a discussion on whether Tate talking about teaching creationism was unconstitutional. Why would he bring such up? What would be the point? Silly me...I should know better by now. FL has no point. He's like the Joker from The Dark Knight - he doesn't want anything specific; he's just an agent of chaos.

Tom Jones, the School Board’s attorney, said a board member brought the issue up when evolution was mentioned as being part of the state’s 2008 Science Education Act. Jones said his previous research indicated that under the U.S. Constitution public schools can’t teach religion or the religious theory of creationism. “Without a doubt it’s a constitutional issue,” and state law does not supersede the U.S. Constitution, he said. Jones said he is not sure what the staff committee “will come back with, but I think it will be reasonable.” Given the financial picture of parish schools “the worst thing we could do at this point is to get into protracted litigation,” the attorney said. David Tate, the School Board member who brought up the matter at the board’s last meeting, said he would rather not see litigation, but added that the board gets sued on other matters. “We don’t want litigation, but why not take a stand for Jesus and risk litigation,” Tate said. Tate said teaching evolution as a theory is fine, but there are other ideas. “Creationism is another thought of how things came into being,” he said. “Give every theory due time” in the classroom. “We don’t all have to believe the same thing,” Tate said.

Robin said of FL: He's like the Joker from The Dark Knight - he doesn't want anything specific; he's just an agent of chaos.

Boy...just goes to show, I need to learn to think like a creationist before I post.

He's like the Joker from The Dark Knight - he doesn't want anything specific; he's just an agent of chaos.

John Kwok said: Only a delusional, intellectually-challenged, mind such as yours would arrive at this conclusion. Jones's argument rests on far more than the Edwards v. Aguillard decision:

fasteddie said: I noticed Judge Jones made an error in his ruling. He incorrectly identified the 1987 supreme court case Edwards v. Aguilard as Edwards v. Arkansas. This invalidates the entire ruling! Creationism for all!

Live Long and Prosper (as a Dishonesty Institute IDiot Borg drone), John Kwok

Dave Luckett said: John, have you noticed your knee ligaments stretching just a tad?

fasteddie said: I noticed Judge Jones made an error in his ruling. He incorrectly identified the 1987 supreme court case Edwards v. Aguilard as Edwards v. Arkansas. This invalidates the entire ruling! Creationism for all!

Dave Luckett said:

John Kwok said: Only a delusional, intellectually-challenged, mind such as yours would arrive at this conclusion. Jones's argument rests on far more than the Edwards v. Aguillard decision:

fasteddie said: I noticed Judge Jones made an error in his ruling. He incorrectly identified the 1987 supreme court case Edwards v. Aguilard as Edwards v. Arkansas. This invalidates the entire ruling! Creationism for all!

Live Long and Prosper (as a Dishonesty Institute IDiot Borg drone), John Kwok

Johm, have you noticed your knee ligaments stretching just a tad?

Dave Luckett said:

Robin said of FL: He's like the Joker from The Dark Knight - he doesn't want anything specific; he's just an agent of chaos.

No, I think he wants something specific, all right. He wants to persuade anyone who'll listen that his version of Christianity is the only true religion, and that what he calls "Darwinism" is a competing, and false, religion. That's what he wants. That's pretty specific. It's also deranged, being unhinged to a spectacular and baroque degree, but that's a different issue altogether.

Rich Blinne said:

fasteddie said: I noticed Judge Jones made an error in his ruling. He incorrectly identified the 1987 supreme court case Edwards v. Aguilard as Edwards v. Arkansas. This invalidates the entire ruling! Creationism for all!

Points of error can only be established on appeal. The case was never appealed because the good people of Dover voted all the clowns out. I suspect that DI was happy that this didn't occur because then Dover could have nationalized the ban on ID like Edwards nationalized the ban on creationism. Now we have a situation where you have board members like Tate who would appeal this all the way to God for a total, complete, double face palm, fail. Now you know why DI is running scared even though there is no short-term risk because of at least a year-long delay.

Rich Blinne said: If you think this is frustrating try being a creationist's lawyer, a good one and not a DI one. Fortunately, the school district has one who understands the First and Fourteenth Amendments and the supremacy clause to boot! Unfortunately, it looks like they are not taking his advice. I really feel for Tom Jones here:

Tom Jones, the School Board’s attorney, said a board member brought the issue up when evolution was mentioned as being part of the state’s 2008 Science Education Act. Jones said his previous research indicated that under the U.S. Constitution public schools can’t teach religion or the religious theory of creationism. “Without a doubt it’s a constitutional issue,” and state law does not supersede the U.S. Constitution, he said. Jones said he is not sure what the staff committee “will come back with, but I think it will be reasonable.” Given the financial picture of parish schools “the worst thing we could do at this point is to get into protracted litigation,” the attorney said. David Tate, the School Board member who brought up the matter at the board’s last meeting, said he would rather not see litigation, but added that the board gets sued on other matters. “We don’t want litigation, but why not take a stand for Jesus and risk litigation,” Tate said. Tate said teaching evolution as a theory is fine, but there are other ideas. “Creationism is another thought of how things came into being,” he said. “Give every theory due time” in the classroom. “We don’t all have to believe the same thing,” Tate said.

Robin said:

Rich Blinne said: If you think this is frustrating try being a creationist's lawyer, a good one and not a DI one. Fortunately, the school district has one who understands the First and Fourteenth Amendments and the supremacy clause to boot! Unfortunately, it looks like they are not taking his advice. I really feel for Tom Jones here:

Tom Jones, the School Board’s attorney, said a board member brought the issue up when evolution was mentioned as being part of the state’s 2008 Science Education Act. Jones said his previous research indicated that under the U.S. Constitution public schools can’t teach religion or the religious theory of creationism. “Without a doubt it’s a constitutional issue,” and state law does not supersede the U.S. Constitution, he said. Jones said he is not sure what the staff committee “will come back with, but I think it will be reasonable.” Given the financial picture of parish schools “the worst thing we could do at this point is to get into protracted litigation,” the attorney said. David Tate, the School Board member who brought up the matter at the board’s last meeting, said he would rather not see litigation, but added that the board gets sued on other matters. “We don’t want litigation, but why not take a stand for Jesus and risk litigation,” Tate said. Tate said teaching evolution as a theory is fine, but there are other ideas. “Creationism is another thought of how things came into being,” he said. “Give every theory due time” in the classroom. “We don’t all have to believe the same thing,” Tate said.

Oh no question - that's a real rough position Mr. Jones is in. I feel for the guy.

Dave Luckett said:

Robin said of FL: He's like the Joker from The Dark Knight - he doesn't want anything specific; he's just an agent of chaos.

No, I think he wants something specific, all right. He wants to persuade anyone who'll listen that his version of Christianity is the only true religion, and that what he calls "Darwinism" is a competing, and false, religion. That's what he wants. That's pretty specific. It's also deranged, being unhinged to a spectacular and baroque degree, but that's a different issue altogether.

Rich Blinne said: If you think this is frustrating try being a creationist's lawyer, a good one and not a DI one. Fortunately, the school district has one who understands the First and Fourteenth Amendments and the supremacy clause to boot! Unfortunately, it looks like they are not taking his advice. I really feel for Tom Jones

I suspect that DI was happy that this didn’t occur because then Dover could have nationalized the ban on ID like Edwards nationalized the ban on creationism.

It should be noted that Dover has effectively nationalized the ban on ID just the same. Any federal judge will simply quote the Dover ruling. There is no requirement to do so, but Judge Jones did all the hard work. The LA school board, in its own dim way, has actually grasped this. That’s why it chickened out.

or Heddle (defending poor FL): Several of us see it as Robin stated so well above–the Bible apparently supports the geocentric flat Earth (and many of your fellow Christians believe the Bible means what it says on that score).

It is part of the “shining Christian hero” thing that you find in the literature they love, such C.S. Lewis, and John Bunyan. It comes complete with sword, shield, swashbuckling bravery, and the chutzpa to charge into the “enemy camp” and provoke anger and frustration.

heddle said: Mike Elzinga

It is part of the “shining Christian hero” thing that you find in the literature they love, such C.S. Lewis, and John Bunyan. It comes complete with sword, shield, swashbuckling bravery, and the chutzpa to charge into the “enemy camp” and provoke anger and frustration.

You are like Lucy in Peanuts. You psychoanalyze for 5 cents.

heddle said: It doesn't matter that people may have understood it [the bible] to confirm contemporary erroneous cosmologies

John Kwok said: Once more Science Wimp drops by to condemn my name dropping (Just for your edification, the third alumnus from my high school advising Obama is molecular biologist Eric Lander, whose MIT team was the one which did the complete sequence of the human genome.

heddle said: ... The bible makes no statement beyond figures of speech that the earth is flat or that it is at the center of the universe or the solar system. It doesn't matter that people may have understood it to confirm contemporary erroneous cosmologies--the bottom line is that critical analysis (rather trivial critical analysis) demonstrates that it does not. ...

I seem to remember Phil Plait (The Bad Astronomer) critiquing an argument regarding geocentrism being used as a "the best frame of reference', Phil observed that if a particular geocentric model (Sol orbits Earth, remainder of planets etc. orbit Sol) then once you got to the orbit of Uranus or Neptune, in order for that planet and those further out to match observational data, Uranus would have to be travelling at a velocity exceeding c (the speed of light), and planets, comets, stars etc. would in many cases have velocities not simply fractionally greater than c, but in multiples of c.

eric said:

heddle said: It doesn't matter that people may have understood it [the bible] to confirm contemporary erroneous cosmologies

Yeah, it does. Christians regularly tell non-christians that the ultimate state of the soul depends on ones' beliefs. If honest, intelligent seekers can study God's (putative) word and arrive at the wrong belief, and wrong belief matters, that's a huge theological problem. Your statement also undermines your own claims to get it right. If "people" can infer an erroneous cosmology from the bible, so can you. So can FL. So can Robin. I might agree with you two personally about some phrase being a figure of speech, but in terms of argument validity you've just kicked out the legs of the stool you're standing on.

And you didn't answer my question:

Is there ANYTHING in the Bible to indicate that the writers knew the Earth was unflat and uncentered?

In other words, just from reading the Bible, could one draw the correct conclusion (that the Earth is round and orbits the Sun)?

Just Bob said: Is there ANYTHING in the Bible to indicate that the writers knew the Earth was unflat and uncentered?

Sorry, a "circle" ain't a sphere. It better describes the boundary of a flat disk. And it certainly could be taken figuratively to not mean anything round at all, as in "his social circle," or in this case "all that is encompassed by the Earth." (Making sense, Heddle?)

And I don't see what the Job line has to do with the geometry of the Earth at all. If we take it as literally indicating roundness (probably disk-ness), then don't we also have to assume it refers to an entire flat UNIVERSE, with a universal ocean, bounded at the rim with universal darkness beyond? That sounds like the ancient Greek concept of a "circle" of lands, centered on the Mediterranean, surrounded by the River Ocean, on a flat disk Earth.

Paul Burnett said: More on this at http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/wow/does-the-bible-say-anything-about-astronomy (chortle)

OK, here's a question for those conversant with biblical Hebrew (or the Greek of the NT).

Was there an ancient Hebrew word or expression for "sphere," or "globe," or "ball" to distinguish a roughly spherical object from a circle or a flattened disk? Surely there was, as any culture that built anything would have to clearly distinguish between circles and disks and spheres.

And if there was such a word, then one has to wonder why the writers would choose one that is best translated as "circle" instead of one that meant "sphere."

Rich Blinne said: Christian theology (at least evangelical Christian theology) distinguishes between saving faith and the assent or knowledge of facts. Thus, the old saw of do you have a personal relationship with Jesus. One of the theological objections against the AiG brand of YEC is that it takes the proper definition of faith and transforms it into the characterchure above. So, yeah, David's example knocks the legs out of a stool but not his own.

that doesn't mean that people on the other side can be any more effective mind readers of conservative Christians and their motivations, either

Yeah, it does. Christians regularly tell non-christians that the ultimate state of the soul depends on ones’ beliefs. If honest, intelligent seekers can study God’s (putative) word and arrive at the wrong belief, and wrong belief matters, that’s a huge theological problem.

Your statement also undermines your own claims to get it right. If “people” can infer an erroneous cosmology from the bible, so can you. So can FL. So can Robin. I might agree with you two personally about some phrase being a figure of speech, but in terms of argument validity you’ve just kicked out the legs of the stool you’re standing on.

I would be interested in reading this “rather trivial critical analysis;” to my eye, the texts certainly appear to accept as given a cosmology that is incorrect.

John Kwok said: - didn't accomplish nearly as much as the Bush administration did in its response to Hurricane Katrina within the first week of the disaster and its subsequent rescue and recovery operations:

heddle said: No, it doesn't. Because they don't (or shouldn't) tell you that it depends on one's cosmological beliefs.

Oops, ignore my last sentence...didn't see the "SWT,"

Misreading the bible to conclude the earth is flat does have bearing on salvation,

heddle said: … The bible makes no statement beyond figures of speech that the earth is flat or that it is at the center of the universe or the solar system. It doesn’t matter that people may have understood it to confirm contemporary erroneous cosmologies–the bottom line is that critical analysis (rather trivial critical analysis) demonstrates that it does not. …

Gingerbaker said:

heddle said: … The bible makes no statement beyond figures of speech that the earth is flat or that it is at the center of the universe or the solar system. It doesn’t matter that people may have understood it to confirm contemporary erroneous cosmologies–the bottom line is that critical analysis (rather trivial critical analysis) demonstrates that it does not. …

And heddle makes another apologetic revisionist assertion, as breathlessly astonishing as his claim that the Bible doesn't talk about unicorns! Lest we forget, Galileo was convicted of heresy for refusing to deny Copernicanism. So, once again, on one side we have heddle, asserting X and the official edict of the Catholic Church asserting the opposite. Too bad Galileo was incapable of producing what for you is "rather trivial criticial analysis". Shame, that.

The troubling news of Madama Cristina’s displeasure inspired an immediate response from Galileo. Even more than he regretted her opposition, he dreaded the drawing of battle lines between science and Scripture. Personally, he saw no conflict between the two. In the long letter he wrote back to Castelli on December 21, 1613, he probed the relationship of discovered truth in Nature to revealed truth in the Bible. “As to the first general question of Madama Cristina, it seems to me that it was most prudently propounded to you by her, and conceded and established by you, that Holy Scripture cannot err and the decrees therein contained are absolutely true and inviolable. I should only have added that, though Scripture cannot err, its expounders and interpreters are liable to err in many ways … when they would base themselves always on the literal meaning of the words. For in this wise not only many contradictions would be apparent, but even grave heresies and blasphemies, since then it would be necessary to give God hands and feet and eyes, and human and bodily emotions such as anger, regret, hatred, and sometimes forgetfulness of things past, and ignorance of the future.” These literary devices had been inserted into the Bible for the sake of the masses, Galileo insisted, to aid their understanding of matters pertaining to their salvation. In the same way, biblical language had also simplified certain physical effects in Nature, to conform to common experience. “Holy Scripture and Nature,” Galileo declared, “are both emanations from the divine word: the former dictated by the Holy Spirit, the latter the observant executrix of God’s commands.”

as breathlessly astonishing as his claim that the Bible doesn’t talk about unicorns!

Lest we forget, Galileo was convicted of heresy for refusing to deny Copernicanism

John Kwok said: In the first week he rejected technical advice and assistance from The Netherlands which had the tools and manpower necessary to stop a deep water oil leak.

heddle said: eric,

Misreading the bible to conclude the earth is flat does have bearing on salvation,

No it doesn't, any more than if you misread the bible to teach the pi = 3. But I think what you are getting at is if you can misread the bible in terms of cosmology, then you can misread it in terms of the basic gospel message. Perhaps. But, unlike cosmology, the basic gospel message is discussed over and over--and in straightforward definitive language. On the basic gospel message, almost all Christians are in agreement. If we are wrong on that, we'll all sink together.

heddle said: Gingerbaker as breathlessly astonishing as his claim that the Bible doesn’t talk about unicorns!

You are easily astonished. It doesn't. To the point, I defy you to find, in the Hebrew manuscripts, a word that means a mythological creature with a single horn. Or a description of such a beast. Since you cannot do that (but by all means try), the only thing that is astonishing that is that you would describe my claim as astonishing.

"There be many words in the Scriptures, which be never found there but once, (having neither brother or neighbor, as the Hebrews speak) so that we cannot be holpen by conference of places. Again, there be many rare names of certain birds, beasts and precious stones, etc. concerning the Hebrews themselves are so divided among themselves for judgment, that they may seem to have defined this or that, rather because they would say something, than because they were sure of that which they said ..."

How I see it is that Livingston has two choices to either back off or press on. If the school board backs off, the DI can claim that if they had only gone the 'smart' route and followed their tactics of marketing pseudo-science they might well be in the position to offer Creationism while safely hiding it under a lab coat. If they press ahead and suffer another crushing defeat, the DI can claim that it wasn't ID that got creamed, but Creationism -- and we all know that ID is not Creationism (wink, wink).

tedhohio@gmail.com
http://sciencestandards.blogspot.com

The bible makes no statement beyond figures of speech that the earth is flat or that it is at the center of the universe or the solar system. It doesn't matter that people may have understood it to confirm contemporary erroneous cosmologies--the bottom line is that critical analysis (rather trivial critical analysis) demonstrates that it does not. Atheists who insist that it does do so purely for convenience.

heddle said: On the basic gospel message, almost all Christians are in agreement.

heddle said: I think what you are getting at is if you can misread the bible in terms of cosmology, then you can misread it in terms of the basic gospel message.

But, unlike cosmology, the basic gospel message is discussed over and over--and in straightforward definitive language. On the basic gospel message, almost all Christians are in agreement.

Hypatia's Daughter said: John, if you think leaving people stranded without food & water for a week on rooftops and bridges in 90+ degree weather is an accomplishment, you leave me speechless! I strongly suggest you read Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland Security by Christopher Cooper & Robert Block, to see how the organizational re-structuring under Bush failed the people of New Orleans.

John Kwok said: - didn't accomplish nearly as much as the Bush administration did in its response to Hurricane Katrina within the first week of the disaster and its subsequent rescue and recovery operations:

WTF? It was Nagin who refused to put the evacuation plan into effect and simply fled. It was Blanco who forbade the Army Corps of Engineers from prepositioning equipment and wouldn't let the Red Cross stockpile supplies in the Superdome. It was the city council and the mayor who misappropriated funds for repairing the levees and augmenting the police department. It was the local police who illegally disarmed the law abiding citizens, then refused to defend them from the gangs of criminals that the police simply released from the jails.

Sorry, I messed up the formatting on my reply. The lower text is mine, not Hypatia's Daughter.

heddle said: Gingerbaker

as breathlessly astonishing as his claim that the Bible doesn’t talk about unicorns!

You are easily astonished. It doesn't. To the point, I defy you to find, in the Hebrew manuscripts, a word that means a mythological creature with a single horn.

Science Avenger said:

John Kwok said: Once more Science Wimp drops by to condemn my name dropping (Just for your edification, the third alumnus from my high school advising Obama is molecular biologist Eric Lander, whose MIT team was the one which did the complete sequence of the human genome.

Priceless. Truly priceless. And yes, I admit to being morbidly fascinated that someone pushing 50 would still be talking about where he went to high school, over and over again, and would namedrop in response to being accused of namedropping. You've invented an entirely unique brand of satirical character. I can't help wondering if you're for real.

Hypatia's Daughter said: John, if you think leaving people stranded without food & water for a week on rooftops and bridges in 90+ degree weather is an accomplishment, you leave me speechless! I strongly suggest you read Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland Security by Christopher Cooper & Robert Block, to see how the organizational re-structuring under Bush failed the people of New Orleans.

John Kwok said: - didn't accomplish nearly as much as the Bush administration did in its response to Hurricane Katrina within the first week of the disaster and its subsequent rescue and recovery operations:

Sorry Utidjian. Obama should have accepted offers of assistance from The Netherlands, EXXON and other petroleum companies with a far better record of dealing with oil spills than BP. He fell asleep at the switch.

Apparently you missed my rationale for mentioning my alma mater:

1) The Obama administration prides itself in having superb brainpower in attracting notable scientists like Nobel Prize Laureate Steven Chu (Secretary of Energy) and Jane Lubchenco (Director of NOAA). Its "intellectual superiority" is also reflected in the fact that it has three prominent alumni of my high school. Yet it hasn't accomplished nearly as much as Bill Clinton did in either his first or second terms, for example, and he did not have such "superior" intellect as does Obama in his cabinet. So I am being sarcastic when I am referring to my high school.

2) As I noted beforehand, I have a very special incentive to expose and to defeat the likes of Colson, Jindal, and especially, Klinghoffer, since they are fellow Brunonians. I abhor virtually everything they have said and have supported. Maybe you should worry more about what they are doing now to the state of both Louisiana's and our country's science education instead of obsessing over my name dropping.

“We don’t want litigation, but why not take a stand for Jesus and risk litigation,” Tate said.

John Kwok said: Sorry Utidjian. Obama should have accepted offers of assistance from The Netherlands, EXXON and other petroleum companies with a far better record of dealing with oil spills than BP. He fell asleep at the switch.

Tulse said:

heddle said: On the basic gospel message, almost all Christians are in agreement.

David, almost all Christians oppose the notion of unconditional election (that the Christian god has chosen from the beginning of time who will be saved, and everyone else is simply out of luck). Does that mean that, as a Calvinist, you don't consider yourself a Christian, or don't consider all those others Christians?

Rich Blinne said: Since when is the doctrine of election part of the "basic gospel message"?

eric said: I think you sweep a lot under the rug. The number of Christians who think other Christian sects are going to hell (i.e. disagree on the basic salvation message) probably number in the hundreds of millions.

Tulse said:

Rich Blinne said: Since when is the doctrine of election part of the "basic gospel message"?

Almost all Christian sects apart from Calvinists believe that the actions of an individual, whether their faith or their works or some combination thereof, impact on their salvation.

Rich Blinne said: Calvinists also believe that the actions of an individual, whether their faith or their works or some combination thereof, impact on their salvation.

Rich Blinne said:

Tulse said:

Rich Blinne said: Since when is the doctrine of election part of the "basic gospel message"?

Almost all Christian sects apart from Calvinists believe that the actions of an individual, whether their faith or their works or some combination thereof, impact on their salvation.

Calvinists also believe that the actions of an individual, whether their faith or their works or some combination thereof, impact on their salvation. So where's the disagreement?

Cheryl Shepherd-Adams said:

truthspeaker said: What's hilarious is how quick those mainstream, slightly less crazy Christians are to leap to the defense of creationists.

Bullshit. The author of this post, Ken Miller, is one of the "slightly less crazy Christians" who's been battling creationists for longer than you've been speaking the truth. Nick Matzke. Signers of The Clergy Letter Project. Me. Biology teacher extraordinaire Jeremy Mohn. All Christians or other theists, battling creationism.

Does it matter, theologically speaking, what the word was in the original Hebrew? As far as I was taught, the theological model of the bible (at least in the RC church) is that the Bible, as the work of man, was divinely directed by God and is thus infallibly accurate. Also, the translation, as the work of man, was also divinely directed, and also definitively accurate.

Are you familiar with the theological concept of “Predestination,” where God already knows if you’re damned or going to Heaven, so you shouldn’t bother to fight destiny, nor should you bother to associate the already-damned-but-don’t-know-yet’s, yes?

In other words, when the bible mentions unicorns, it’s irrelevant because the bible writers didn’t believe in unicorns. (Forget the text, go back to the source!) But the fact that the bible writers did believe in a domed earth cosmology and alluded to this in the bible is somehow also irrelevant because they weren’t explicit enough in text. (Ignore the source, look at the text!) Yup, no contradictions whatsoever.

Oclarki said:

John Kwok said: Sorry Utidjian. Obama should have accepted offers of assistance from The Netherlands, EXXON and other petroleum companies with a far better record of dealing with oil spills than BP. He fell asleep at the switch.

Sorry, but the Netherlands, Exxon and the "other petroleum companies" have any experience with the immense, diffuse cloud of oil that is now spinning around in the Gulf. That is reality. And just so you know, the response authority and responsibilities for an oil spill or leak as established under the Clean Water Act (including legslative amendments and ancillary laws) and the National Contingency Plan (the regulatory aspect of the CWA) was delegated by the President to the National Response Team by executive orders long ago...by Bush senior, in fact. And the NRT clearly was not "asleep at the switch".

heddle said: Stevaroni

Does it matter, theologically speaking, what the word was in the original Hebrew? As far as I was taught, the theological model of the bible (at least in the RC church) is that the Bible, as the work of man, was divinely directed by God and is thus infallibly accurate. Also, the translation, as the work of man, was also divinely directed, and also definitively accurate.

No, even the Catholic Church acknowledges that translations are subject to human error. And as I said on the previous thread, Protestants who proclaim Sola Scriptura acknowledge that not only are translations subject to error, but even the Table of Contents. But the bottom line is translations are not inspired, therefore the word unicorn is not inspired—and even more problematic for your position is that the word unicorn does not appear in most translations. Tulse As Rich wrote, predestination is not an essential part of the gospel message. If you listen to me presenting the gospel, you could not tell that I was a Calvinist. As for faith/works all Christians (Calvinists included) agree that a truly saved person must and will (in a normative sense) exhibit faith and engage in good works. Find someone who proclaims faith in Christ but has a history of an absence of good works and you have found someone who is not to be regarded as a Christian. The differences come solely in the logical ordering. Calvinists order it this way: regeneration → faith + works. Arminians order it: faith → regeneration + works. No mainstream denomination puts works on the left side of the arrow. Now let me say where some confusion arises, even among the faithful. Some (I usually do this) use the word salvation as a synonym for regeneration (or converted.) And some (and probably the better usage) use it for the entire Christian experience of regeneration and sanctification (which includes works). In the latter definition, even Calvinists would agree that works are part of salvation—after all we are adamant that if you don’t engage in good works that’s a sure sign that you were not regenerated in the first place. I am guessing Rich had this broader definition of salvation in mind, and if so we are in agreement. Stanton, (to Rich)

Are you familiar with the theological concept of “Predestination,” where God already knows if you’re damned or going to Heaven, so you shouldn’t bother to fight destiny, nor should you bother to associate the already-damned-but-don’t-know-yet’s, yes?

I’d bet the farm Rich is familiar, and I am absolutely sure that I have a good grasp of predestination, and your definition of it is unrecognizable. H.H.

In other words, when the bible mentions unicorns, it’s irrelevant because the bible writers didn’t believe in unicorns. (Forget the text, go back to the source!) But the fact that the bible writers did believe in a domed earth cosmology and alluded to this in the bible is somehow also irrelevant because they weren’t explicit enough in text. (Ignore the source, look at the text!) Yup, no contradictions whatsoever.

If you are going to do a snarky In other words… critique it really needs to be clever to work. The only issue is what the bible teaches. Does it teach of mythical one-horned animals? It does not. Does it teach as a statement of scientific fact that the earth is flat and/or at the center of the universe? It does not. Does it matter what the translators believed? It does not. Does it matter whether the biblical writers believed in unicorns or a geo-centric cosmos? It does not. It only matters what they wrote, in scripture, under inspiration.

Dale Husband said:

Cheryl Shepherd-Adams said:

truthspeaker said: What's hilarious is how quick those mainstream, slightly less crazy Christians are to leap to the defense of creationists.

Bullshit. The author of this post, Ken Miller, is one of the "slightly less crazy Christians" who's been battling creationists for longer than you've been speaking the truth. Nick Matzke. Signers of The Clergy Letter Project. Me. Biology teacher extraordinaire Jeremy Mohn. All Christians or other theists, battling creationism.

Thanks for noticing. I'm not an "accomidationist" myself (in the sense that I think religion shouldn't even be mentioned at all in science classes, unless we set aside a special class in high school on the history of science, where its clashes with dogmatic religion would have to be mentioned), but it seems clear to me that dogmatic atheist extremists like "truthspeaker" are their own worst enemy when it comes to explaining the nature of science; they ASSUME that science, because it does not support religious doctrines, must support atheism. NO, for that is the fallacy of the excluded middle. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just as fairies and leprechans should not be mentioned in biology to either affirm or deny their existence, neither should God be mentioned. But a person who beleives in God, in the absence of any evidence that God CANNOT exist, should feel perfectly comfortable in science classes. Attacking theists just for the fun of it is not a scientific attitude, but a philosophical one that also does not belong in the process of teaching pure science.

Stanton said:

Rich Blinne said:

Tulse said:

Rich Blinne said: Since when is the doctrine of election part of the "basic gospel message"?

Almost all Christian sects apart from Calvinists believe that the actions of an individual, whether their faith or their works or some combination thereof, impact on their salvation.

Calvinists also believe that the actions of an individual, whether their faith or their works or some combination thereof, impact on their salvation. So where's the disagreement?

Are you familiar with the theological concept of "Predestination," where God already knows if you're damned or going to Heaven, so you shouldn't bother to fight destiny, nor should you bother to associate the already-damned-but-don't-know-yet's, yes?

heddle said: SWT,

I would be interested in reading this "rather trivial critical analysis;" to my eye, the texts certainly appear to accept as given a cosmology that is incorrect.

Why does it appear that way to you? When you read "the sun moved across the sky" in other non-scientific literature do you assume that the writer holds a geocentric view?

And actually it doesn't matter if the biblical writers did hold a geocentric view. What matters is that they were not inspired to write a statement of cold scientific fact: The earth if flat. It is in a fixed position in the cosmos, and the heavenly host orbit about. They may have believed that--but they didn't, under inspiration, write it.

What is an "accomodationist"?

To me, there are several degrees interaction between science, law, and religion.

1) I very strongly support the concepts of freedom of expression and freedom of conscience. I strongly support the right of anyone to live and believe as they see fit, subject only to the restriction that they respect the rights of others. This has nothing to do with whether I approve or disapprove of their beliefs on a subjective level, nor whether or not I think that their beliefs are in conflict with scientific reality.

I would far more profoundly disagree with someone who sought to use force and censorship to "make" all people "believe" something I consider obviously true, than with someone who respects rights but uses free expression to attempt to persuade others to "believe" something that I perceive as not true. In a free society, I can always argue logically against the latter.

2) I also happen to believe, independently of "1)", that a variety of religious beliefs (which I don't hold) seem to be entirely compatible with a correct scientific understanding of the physical universe.

However, it is a logical corollary of "1)" that I massively oppose government enforcement or favoritism of one doctrine over another. This is obvious. If the government favors fundamentalist Hinduism, then rights-respecting fundamentalist Mormons are inhibited in their ability to live and believe as they see fit. Needless to say, using tax dollars to preach sectarian creationism as "science" at a captive audience of school children is an extreme violation of everyone's rights. (I realize that in many rights-respecting countries the government offers an "official" religion, sometimes headed by a constitutional monarch, and I don't have a problem with this as long as full freedom of expression and conscience is otherwise scrupulously maintained.)

Furthermore, I also oppose the teaching of anything that is known to be wrong by the mainstream scientific community as "science", for any reason. Thus, even if creationism were not religious/political, but were merely some kind of common, neutral superstition, I would still oppose teaching it in science class, for the same reason that I oppose teaching the assertion that "the number thirteen brings bad luck" as science.

Whether any of this makes me an "accomodationist" I have no idea.

"It only matters what they wrote, in scripture, under inspiration."

And they WROTE (under inspiration if you insist) about a flat earth with a dome of sky (with doors), separating waters above from those below, and the sun ceasing to move (and even going backwards). They WROTE about talking snakes and asses, and a universal flood, and a guy saving pretty much the entire terrestrial animal biosphere on a boat. They WROTE about the refractive properties of light changing, approval of chattel slavery, and the glories of genocide. They WROTE about a deity who can't out-wrestle a mortal without cheating, who lives on a particular mountain, and who carries out curses issued by his favorites, no matter how unjust those curses may be. And yes they WROTE (or translated under "inspiration") about unicorns, damnit.

And, as you said, "It only matters what they wrote, in scripture, under inspiration."

But maybe you left a weasel-hole open with the word "teach." Such things are written about in the Bible, but it doesn't TEACH about them. Only the things that YOU don't believe are factually untrue, or figures of speech, or poetic hyperbole...are "taught" about in the Bible. Uh, sure.

heddle said: As Rich wrote, predestination is not an essential part of the gospel message.

As for faith/works all Christians (Calvinists included) agree that a truly saved person must and will (in a normative sense) exhibit faith and engage in good works.

The differences come solely in the logical ordering. Calvinists order it this way: regeneration → faith + works. Arminians order it: faith → regeneration + works. No mainstream denomination puts works on the left side of the arrow.

John Kwok said: It is both ironic and presumptuous of Militant Atheists (which I prefer) or New Atheists or Affirmative Atheists to conclude that accepting scientific theories and facts should lead anyone to the conclusion that GOD is irrelevant or doesn't exist. There are - and have been - many great scientists who were devoutly religious believers in GOD(s) and such beliefs didn't interfere in their obligations and duties as scientists

Rich Blinne said:The problem is the only accurate way of finding out other's motivations and beliefs is to ask them.

heddle said: Stevaroni

Does it matter, theologically speaking, what the word was in the original Hebrew? As far as I was taught, the theological model of the bible (at least in the RC church) is that the Bible, as the work of man, was divinely directed by God and is thus infallibly accurate. Also, the translation, as the work of man, was also divinely directed, and also definitively accurate.

No, even the Catholic Church acknowledges that translations are subject to human error. And as I said on the previous thread, Protestants who proclaim Sola Scriptura acknowledge that not only are translations subject to error, but even the Table of Contents. But the bottom line is translations are not inspired....

Tulse said:

John Kwok said: It is both ironic and presumptuous of Militant Atheists (which I prefer) or New Atheists or Affirmative Atheists to conclude that accepting scientific theories and facts should lead anyone to the conclusion that GOD is irrelevant or doesn't exist. There are - and have been - many great scientists who were devoutly religious believers in GOD(s) and such beliefs didn't interfere in their obligations and duties as scientists

You can't even get follow the logical implications of your own claim correctly. "Accepting scientific theories and facts should lead anyone to the conclusion that GOD is irrelevant or doesn't exist" -- the fact that some scientists fail to make this conclusion does not demonstrate that such conclusion is incorrect. Like so many before you, you are confusing the mere boring fact that people can hold mutually inconsistent beliefs with some ontological truth about the universe.

stevaroni said: I went to a Catholic school as a child, and I assure you, at any and all opportunity, it was emphasized in no uncertain terms that the KJV was the Bible, and the Bible was the literal word of God.

Tulse said:

John Kwok said: It is both ironic and presumptuous of Militant Atheists (which I prefer) or New Atheists or Affirmative Atheists to conclude that accepting scientific theories and facts should lead anyone to the conclusion that GOD is irrelevant or doesn't exist. There are - and have been - many great scientists who were devoutly religious believers in GOD(s) and such beliefs didn't interfere in their obligations and duties as scientists

You can't even get follow the logical implications of your own claim correctly. "Accepting scientific theories and facts should lead anyone to the conclusion that GOD is irrelevant or doesn't exist" -- the fact that some scientists fail to make this conclusion does not demonstrate that such conclusion is incorrect. Like so many before you, you are confusing the mere boring fact that people can hold mutually inconsistent beliefs with some ontological truth about the universe.

Sigh, when PT stops arguing with the lunatic fringe, they have to take up the slack with the incessant war between the TEs and the OAs (opinionated / outspoken atheists).

I must admit that I personally find that preferable to a continued discussion of the fine points of scriptural interpretation.

John Kwok said: Care to explain your inane reasoning to the ghost of Theodosius Dobzhansky, or to Francis Collins or to Ken Miller or to one of our most eminent ecologists, Michael Rosenzweig (a Conservative Jew):

Tulse said:

John Kwok said: It is both ironic and presumptuous of Militant Atheists (which I prefer) or New Atheists or Affirmative Atheists to conclude that accepting scientific theories and facts should lead anyone to the conclusion that GOD is irrelevant or doesn't exist. There are - and have been - many great scientists who were devoutly religious believers in GOD(s) and such beliefs didn't interfere in their obligations and duties as scientists

You can't even get follow the logical implications of your own claim correctly. "Accepting scientific theories and facts should lead anyone to the conclusion that GOD is irrelevant or doesn't exist" -- the fact that some scientists fail to make this conclusion does not demonstrate that such conclusion is incorrect. Like so many before you, you are confusing the mere boring fact that people can hold mutually inconsistent beliefs with some ontological truth about the universe.

Not only would you have to discuss your argument with them. Even eminent physicists such as Brian Greene and Lisa Randall would disagree with your assertion (More so with Brian since he has hosted science and faith sessions at his World Science Festival here in New York City for the past few years.). Nor do I equate acceptance of atheism as synonymous with rationalism. I know an uncle, a retired Methodist minister, who has sounded a lot more rational than many of the "Affirmative Atheist" zealots I have encountered online. And he's not the only religious cleric I have met who has demonstrated such a strong degree of rationality.

stevaroni said:

heddle said: Stevaroni

Does it matter, theologically speaking, what the word was in the original Hebrew? As far as I was taught, the theological model of the bible (at least in the RC church) is that the Bible, as the work of man, was divinely directed by God and is thus infallibly accurate. Also, the translation, as the work of man, was also divinely directed, and also definitively accurate.

No, even the Catholic Church acknowledges that translations are subject to human error. And as I said on the previous thread, Protestants who proclaim Sola Scriptura acknowledge that not only are translations subject to error, but even the Table of Contents. But the bottom line is translations are not inspired....

When pressed, the official position of many - not all - religions, might be that the Bible - as a book - may - in some regards - be somewhat inaccurate, insomuch that translations might not be exact, but they all seem to draw the line at the idea that the book as a whole is the infallible word of God. In my experience, this is a subtlety that is not particularly... emphasized... anywhere in organized religion. In fact, in most religions, this line of questioning is actively discouraged, at least among the rank-and-file. I went to a Catholic school as a child, and I assure you, at any and all opportunity, it was emphasized in no uncertain terms that the KJV was the Bible, and the Bible was the literal word of God.

Dale Husband said: That's because you assume two things: 1. All things must be subject to scientific investigation, and anything not subject to scientific investigation must not exist.

2. That science advocates should DENY the existence of anything not subject to scientific investigation.

That is philosophical materialism. But as a hard-core empiricist, not a rationalist, I beleive: 1. That attempts must be made to use science to examine anything material in this universe. But there may be things beyond this universe we may not (yet) know about or could use science to discover. There are limits to science just as there are limits to everything else man-made.

2. That if we find no evidence for something, all we can rightly conclude is that there is no evidence for it. To go beyond that to claim dogmatically that something does not exist is to take an extra leap based on reason that may not be accurate.

So if a scientist says he beleives in God or a religion, he is not holding "mutually inconsistent beliefs" about anything. He does not consider God subject to science, that's all. He does this because he considers God to be beyond and separate from this material universe.

heddle said: If you are going to do a snarky In other words… critique it really needs to be clever to work. The only issue is what the bible teaches. Does it teach of mythical one-horned animals? It does not. Does it teach as a statement of scientific fact that the earth is flat and/or at the center of the universe? It does not. Does it matter what the translators believed? It does not. Does it matter whether the biblical writers believed in unicorns or a geo-centric cosmos? It does not. It only matters what they wrote, in scripture, under inspiration.

stevaroni said: I went to a Catholic school as a child, and I assure you, at any and all opportunity, it was emphasized in no uncertain terms that the KJV was the Bible, and the Bible was the literal word of God.

rossum said: I suspect that in a Catholic school the Douay-Rheims version would have been the literal word of God.

SLC said: The KJV bible? It is my information that the Catholic Church recognizes the Vulgate version as its official bible.

W. H. Heydt said:

Rich Blinne said:The problem is the only accurate way of finding out other's motivations and beliefs is to ask them.

That assertion presumes that everyone will answer truthfully when asked. Experience suggests otherwise. --W. H. Heydt Old Used Programmer

MrG said: Sigh, when PT stops arguing with the lunatic fringe, they have to take up the slack with the incessant war between the TEs and the OAs (opinionated / outspoken atheists). I must admit that I personally find that preferable to a continued discussion of the fine points of scriptural interpretation.

I said:

MrG said: Sigh, when PT stops arguing with the lunatic fringe, they have to take up the slack with the incessant war between the TEs and the OAs (opinionated / outspoken atheists). I must admit that I personally find that preferable to a continued discussion of the fine points of scriptural interpretation.

That admittedly tiresome debate wouldn't have gone on as long as it did if people hadn't been assuming they knew what David in particular and Calvinists in general believed. This thread and the unicorn thread are classic examples of the .000 batting average for determining motives and beliefs. Maybe at some other place and time I can debate David on how I believe that the authors of the OT really believed and intended to write about a pre-scientific three-tiered universe. The purpose is not to show who's right because I am not all that convinced of my own position but rather to show how you do a respectful debate that isn't nearly as tiresome.

Rich Blinne said: That admittedly tiresome debate wouldn't have gone on as long as it did if people hadn't been assuming they knew what David in particular and Calvinists in general believed.

Rich Blinne said: Better yet, instead of wasting electrons and people's patience here and if you want to see what that kind of debate would look like, see Denis Lamoureaux's recent review of G.K. Beale's book: THE EROSION OF INERRANCY IN EVANGELICALISM.

Isn't it obvious that among other things, the Bible is a veritable conglomerate/aggregation of primitive cosmology, fairy tales, myth in oral tradition handed down over generations, exaggerated retelling of historical events - isn't that how myths are built? Interspersed with accounts of religious experiences and insights - just what to be expected from a mankind slowly awakening to the world from it's primeval innocence as nothing much else than an animal with an oversized brain and two empty hands with which to begin reshaping the world?

An animal looking at the world, for the first time recognizing the frightening fact, I AM? An so on and on, until some particular tribes in the middle east invented some peculiar pracices like prophesies, prophets as go-betweens between the people and "God", a cover invented for whatever the kings/rulers/prophets decided was best for the people - and for themselves as well.

Why don't some smart and insightful character use his imagination and penetrate the primitive mind to tell us what mghit have been going on, say somewhere between 100k to 10k years BCE?

Am I making sense? It is hard to express exactly what I think on this subject, it is complicated.

tomh said:

Rich Blinne said: That admittedly tiresome debate wouldn't have gone on as long as it did if people hadn't been assuming they knew what David in particular and Calvinists in general believed.

Perhaps people assume that they know what David and Calvinists believe, because David has been spouting off about these beliefs, his in particular and Calvinists in general, through uncountable threads for what seems like an eternity. After a while people begin to believe that they know what he believes.

heddle said: No, even the Catholic Church acknowledges that translations are subject to human error. And ... Protestants ... acknowledge that not only are translations subject to error, but even the Table of Contents. But the bottom line is translations are not inspired...

Rich Blinne said:

W. H. Heydt said:

Rich Blinne said:The problem is the only accurate way of finding out other's motivations and beliefs is to ask them.

That assertion presumes that everyone will answer truthfully when asked. Experience suggests otherwise. --W. H. Heydt Old Used Programmer

It appears that creationists are more guilty of this but that's because our side doesn't attempt to figure out motives as often and not because we are any better mind readers. And that's my point. Stick to the facts and the evidence and don't care why the people you are debating are wrong, just demonstrate they are wrong. Study your opponent as closely as you study other natural phenomenon. Eschew easy cheap shots. As scientists that's our M.O. so for the most part it should come naturally if our emotions don't get the better of us.

SLC said:

John Kwok said: Care to explain your inane reasoning to the ghost of Theodosius Dobzhansky, or to Francis Collins or to Ken Miller or to one of our most eminent ecologists, Michael Rosenzweig (a Conservative Jew):

Tulse said:

John Kwok said: It is both ironic and presumptuous of Militant Atheists (which I prefer) or New Atheists or Affirmative Atheists to conclude that accepting scientific theories and facts should lead anyone to the conclusion that GOD is irrelevant or doesn't exist. There are - and have been - many great scientists who were devoutly religious believers in GOD(s) and such beliefs didn't interfere in their obligations and duties as scientists

You can't even get follow the logical implications of your own claim correctly. "Accepting scientific theories and facts should lead anyone to the conclusion that GOD is irrelevant or doesn't exist" -- the fact that some scientists fail to make this conclusion does not demonstrate that such conclusion is incorrect. Like so many before you, you are confusing the mere boring fact that people can hold mutually inconsistent beliefs with some ontological truth about the universe.

Not only would you have to discuss your argument with them. Even eminent physicists such as Brian Greene and Lisa Randall would disagree with your assertion (More so with Brian since he has hosted science and faith sessions at his World Science Festival here in New York City for the past few years.). Nor do I equate acceptance of atheism as synonymous with rationalism. I know an uncle, a retired Methodist minister, who has sounded a lot more rational than many of the "Affirmative Atheist" zealots I have encountered online. And he's not the only religious cleric I have met who has demonstrated such a strong degree of rationality.

In fact, Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman whose contributions to physics are at least equal to those of Prof. Randall and Prof. Greene was a militant atheist, as are his former Nobel Prize winning colleagues Murray GellMann and Steven Weinberg,

Rich Blinne said: ... what I saw David saying contrasted with what people said he was saying showed they weren't paying attention.

John Kwok said: SLC, I am referring primarily to those scientists who are living now - notable exception being Dobzhansky of course - who recognize that science and religion can coexist up to an extent. Brian Greene would argue passionately that faith is as important to him as science, Lisa Randall would say that both are different and one would not need to conflate the two, and Neil de Grasse Tyson would say that religion needs to sort itself out before it can communicate with science:

SLC said:

John Kwok said: Care to explain your inane reasoning to the ghost of Theodosius Dobzhansky, or to Francis Collins or to Ken Miller or to one of our most eminent ecologists, Michael Rosenzweig (a Conservative Jew):

Tulse said:

John Kwok said: It is both ironic and presumptuous of Militant Atheists (which I prefer) or New Atheists or Affirmative Atheists to conclude that accepting scientific theories and facts should lead anyone to the conclusion that GOD is irrelevant or doesn't exist. There are - and have been - many great scientists who were devoutly religious believers in GOD(s) and such beliefs didn't interfere in their obligations and duties as scientists

You can't even get follow the logical implications of your own claim correctly. "Accepting scientific theories and facts should lead anyone to the conclusion that GOD is irrelevant or doesn't exist" -- the fact that some scientists fail to make this conclusion does not demonstrate that such conclusion is incorrect. Like so many before you, you are confusing the mere boring fact that people can hold mutually inconsistent beliefs with some ontological truth about the universe.

Not only would you have to discuss your argument with them. Even eminent physicists such as Brian Greene and Lisa Randall would disagree with your assertion (More so with Brian since he has hosted science and faith sessions at his World Science Festival here in New York City for the past few years.). Nor do I equate acceptance of atheism as synonymous with rationalism. I know an uncle, a retired Methodist minister, who has sounded a lot more rational than many of the "Affirmative Atheist" zealots I have encountered online. And he's not the only religious cleric I have met who has demonstrated such a strong degree of rationality.

In fact, Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman whose contributions to physics are at least equal to those of Prof. Randall and Prof. Greene was a militant atheist, as are his former Nobel Prize winning colleagues Murray GellMann and Steven Weinberg,

MrG said: Sigh, when PT stops arguing with the lunatic fringe, they have to take up the slack with the incessant war between the TEs and the OAs (opinionated / outspoken atheists). I must admit that I personally find that preferable to a continued discussion of the fine points of scriptural interpretation.

H.H. said: Nonsense. No one claims that things that can't be scientifically tested must not exist, but rather that that things which can't be tested can't be rationally defended as true. A faith claim is by definition unverifiable, and believing an unverifiable claim, an extremely spurious one at that, demonstrates a high degree of irrationality and credulity.

Not deny, dismiss as wholly unevidenced. Claims made without evidence may be dismissed without evidence. Before something can be "denied" it has to be established as actually existing. You're assuming your conclusion.

No one disputes this. But only theism goes beyond the evidence. Atheism makes no such presumptions. It's a conclusion based on our best available current knowledge, and is therefore the only rational position. If you're under the mistaken impression that atheists dogmatically claim that god doesn't exist, then you're deeply confused. Atheism makes no positive claims to knowledge. It is simply the recognition that, based on current evidence, the arguments for theism fail. Any scientist should understand that claims which cannot be tested are nothing but vacuous assertions. Any intelligent person, especially a scientist who understands how actual knowledge is obtained, should be ashamed of believing in magic ghosts on the grounds that they can't be absolutely disproved. It's inconsistent because the theistic scientist holds his faith to a standard of evidence that he knows to be so low as to be utterly worthless. It admits virtually anything, since almost any claim can be sufficiently structured to avoid testability. See Carl Sagan's essay The Dragon In My Garage.

stevaroni said: I went to a Catholic school as a child, and I assure you, at any and all opportunity, it was emphasized in no uncertain terms that the KJV was the Bible, and the Bible was the literal word of God.

Senator Adley! There is no god. Pray all you want, it will avail you nothing. Instead of wasting your effort in making pleas to the nonexistent, go down to the beach with an eyedropper and a thimble, and pluck up a little globule of oil — and you will have accomplished more.

W. H. Heydt said:

Rich Blinne said:

W. H. Heydt said:

Rich Blinne said:The problem is the only accurate way of finding out other's motivations and beliefs is to ask them.

That assertion presumes that everyone will answer truthfully when asked. Experience suggests otherwise. --W. H. Heydt Old Used Programmer

It appears that creationists are more guilty of this but that's because our side doesn't attempt to figure out motives as often and not because we are any better mind readers. And that's my point. Stick to the facts and the evidence and don't care why the people you are debating are wrong, just demonstrate they are wrong. Study your opponent as closely as you study other natural phenomenon. Eschew easy cheap shots. As scientists that's our M.O. so for the most part it should come naturally if our emotions don't get the better of us.

That part of your response flies in the face of your initial claim, that the best way to determine what someone believes is to ask them directly. Using inferences from statements is certainly an effective means of determining what some actually believes, but it doesn't match your original claim. There were recent comments from a creationist who baldly claimed that he switched from accepting evolution to being a creationist because he was persuaded by creationist arguments (effectively answering the question of why he switched before being asked). The comment thread that followed quickly showed that this was a post-hoc rationalization. He actually became a creationist because he believed in an inerrant Bible, thus trying to find a way to support his initial faith, not examining arguments for rationality. It made an excellent example of why "just asking" doesn't work. We are dealing with subjects where efforts are frequently made to conceal motives and beliefs. The motivations for such behavior have been ably analyzed by others. --W. H. Heydt Old Used Programmer

Finally, our interviews revealed an interesting and creative reasoning style that we call inferred justification: recursively inventing the causal links neces- sary to justify a favored politician’s action. Inferred justification operates as a backward chain of reasoning that justifies the favored opinion by assuming the causal evidence that would support it. As with the situational heuristics described above, respondents begin with the situation and then ask themselves what must be true about the world for the situation to hold. People who displayed inferred justification assumed that since a politician they trusted had begun this war, there must be a good reason for it. Moreover, as the 9/11 attacks were the most visible foreign policy event of recent years, they assumed 9/11 was the reason for the war and actively resisted information suggesting otherwise. We found seven clear examples of inferred justification in the interviews. A paradigmatic example is the following:

There’s one gal that I was talking to and she don’t believe that we should stay in Iraq, like, right now. She don’t believe in all of those innocent people dying. I believe that also but there must be a reason why we’re still over there or we wouldn’t be over there still. We would’ve pulled all our troops outta there. Or at least most of them anyway.

This respondent’s recall of a conversation leads her to search for reasons why U.S. troops are “still over there” and suggests that the answer must emanate from the self-evident fact that we are, indeed, “still over there”. The existence of the situation itself is used to infer what must be true about the world for the situation to exist, as in the examples of the Tom Sawyer studies and uninformed response bias discussed above. On such a high-stakes issue as going to war, a leader must have an extraordinarily good reason for wanting to behave in this way. Another interviewee notes: “Saddam, I can’t judge if he did what he’s being accused of, but if Bush thinks he did it then he did it.” The respondent curiously interprets the quote by Bush saying that there is no direct tie between Saddam and 9/11 to mean the exact opposite: that Bush thinks there is a direct tie. In the face of a newspaper quote by Bush denying the tie between Saddam and 9/11, the respondent falls back on a trust of the president that leads him to conclude the exact opposite of what the president says. The president’s actions seem more relevant to this respondent than the president’s words.

Dale Husband said: It would be a boring blog indeed if such arguments didn't occur.

John_S said:

stevaroni said: I went to a Catholic school as a child, and I assure you, at any and all opportunity, it was emphasized in no uncertain terms that the KJV was the Bible, and the Bible was the literal word of God.

The RCC certainly asserts that scripture is the literal word of God, as do almost all Christian sects. But as to advancing the KJV, that's pretty surprising. I'm not a Catholic; but, having read the translator's preface to the KJV, which makes numerous disparaging comments toward the "Romans" and their beliefs, I suspect your teachers were in need of some bishoply whipping into line. As far as I recall, the "official" RCC Bible is the Latin Vulgate (Version 3) by Pope Jerome which is held in the Vatican. English translations of the Vulgate such as the DR are now tolerated. But in the event of disagreement, the "original" Vatican Latin Vulgate is "ruling". How did the Sisters explain the absence of Maccabees, Judith or several other RCC-endorsed OT books in the KJV? Maybe someone better versed in RCC rules can enlighten me.

H.H. said: Any scientist should understand that claims which cannot be tested are nothing but vacuous assertions.

Senator Adley! There is no god. Pray all you want, it will avail you nothing. Instead of wasting your effort in making pleas to the nonexistent, go down to the beach with an eyedropper and a thimble, and pluck up a little globule of oil — and you will have accomplished more.

This is actually explained purely by taking this person at their word.

Dale Husband said: Maybe there was a Catholic version of the King James Version none of us were ever aware of?

harold said: I very strongly agree with PZ that one tiny action is worth infinitely more than hours of ostentatious, hypocritical display of insincere religiosity.

I think that belief in God and prayer is useless if it is not accompanied by action. Get to the beach and continue the cleanup operations, you idiots! Assuming that God will bail you out when you have already given up is foolish.

harold said: Anyway, from a neutral point of view, the claim that "there is no god" is no more dogmatic than the claim that "there is a god". I have no particular problem with either claim in isolation. Both go beyond the evidence.

harold said: Richard Blinne -

This is actually explained purely by taking this person at their word.

Thanks for your many insightful comments. I must disagree with you here. I can't read minds, but I can observe behavior. Creationists will lie about anything and everything to "defeat evolution". It is an extremely common strategy for a creationist to lie and claim to be or have been expert in some branch of science or technology, when they in fact are not. Sometimes the claim is made outright, other times weaselly insinuation or implication is used, but the claim is always clear to any reasonable observer. The strategy behind this lie is obvious. The creationist who uses it is trying to mislead uneducated third parties. "Don't waste your time studying the theory of evolution or anything else; I am already an expert in it and I can tell you it's false". Or the closely related and even more common lie strategy, "I am a computer scientist or engineer and my discipline trivially disproves the theory of evolution, so don't waste your time studying anything, just take my word and reject evolution", may be used. It is crystal clear that making the truth of the creationist's ignorance and deceit known is valuable in such instances. First of all, it alerts the uninformed target that the creationist actually does not know anything about the subject matter on which they feign expertise. Second of all, it alerts them to the general lack of credibility of that particular creationist. It is very common for creationists to attempt these strategies, although seemingly less so than a few years ago. Indeed, I am most surprised that you haven't encountered this. ID is logically incoherent and classical creationism is factually false. It is hardly surprising that people who claim to believe things which cannot be true often turn out to have dishonest habits in general.

Dale Husband said: Here is that quote: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/06/louisiana_gives_up_on_the_gulf.php

Senator Adley! There is no god. Pray all you want, it will avail you nothing. Instead of wasting your effort in making pleas to the nonexistent, go down to the beach with an eyedropper and a thimble, and pluck up a little globule of oil — and you will have accomplished more.

You can only deny that's a dogmatic statement by changing the very meaning of dogma to apply only to religious and not to secular or even anti-religious concepts. I consider that dishonest. There's nothing wrong with being a dogmatic atheist in itself, but it still infuriates me when they turn around and say, "Dogma? What dogma? Only THEISTS are dogmatic." Which is BULL$#IT!

harold said: Anyway, from a neutral point of view, the claim that "there is no god" is no more dogmatic than the claim that "there is a god". I have no particular problem with either claim in isolation. Both go beyond the evidence.

H.H. said: Dear, lord. That's you're example of "dogma?" It's a simple declaration of personal belief. PZ is an atheist. He doesn't believe god exists and that therefore prayer is a waste of time. And by the way, the evidence supports PZ on that. For all intents and purposes, god doesn't exist and it's perfectly rational to treat god as a fictional concept barring valid evidence to the contrary. And casual conversation is not formal debate. PZ has explained his conclusions and beliefs in detail elsewhere. Amongst friends, on his own blog, he is entitled to speak plainly without having to add a litany of qualifiers to each of his statements. Inside a church, the congregation treats the existence of god as a given. They speak of him directly, offer thanks and prayers, sing hymns. Atheists should be able to enjoy the same latitude. This quote is not an example of "dogmatism" by any stretch of the imagination. You're really reaching here.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dogma 4. a settled or established opinion, belief, or principle.

Dr. J said: How dogmatic is it to say that the Celestial Teapot, Flying Spaghetti Monster, or the invisible dragon in my garage do not exist? Or any of the hundreds of other gods out there? I'm being totally serious, I don't understand this idea of "neutrality". In America or most of Europe, we're talking about ONE of MANY possible gods - never considering hundreds of others that are no less (or more) probable.

Rich Blinne said:

W. H. Heydt said:

Rich Blinne said:

W. H. Heydt said:

Rich Blinne said:The problem is the only accurate way of finding out other's motivations and beliefs is to ask them.

That assertion presumes that everyone will answer truthfully when asked. Experience suggests otherwise. --W. H. Heydt Old Used Programmer

It appears that creationists are more guilty of this but that's because our side doesn't attempt to figure out motives as often and not because we are any better mind readers. And that's my point. Stick to the facts and the evidence and don't care why the people you are debating are wrong, just demonstrate they are wrong. Study your opponent as closely as you study other natural phenomenon. Eschew easy cheap shots. As scientists that's our M.O. so for the most part it should come naturally if our emotions don't get the better of us.

That part of your response flies in the face of your initial claim, that the best way to determine what someone believes is to ask them directly. Using inferences from statements is certainly an effective means of determining what some actually believes, but it doesn't match your original claim. There were recent comments from a creationist who baldly claimed that he switched from accepting evolution to being a creationist because he was persuaded by creationist arguments (effectively answering the question of why he switched before being asked). The comment thread that followed quickly showed that this was a post-hoc rationalization. He actually became a creationist because he believed in an inerrant Bible, thus trying to find a way to support his initial faith, not examining arguments for rationality. It made an excellent example of why "just asking" doesn't work. We are dealing with subjects where efforts are frequently made to conceal motives and beliefs. The motivations for such behavior have been ably analyzed by others. --W. H. Heydt Old Used Programmer

This is actually explained purely by taking this person at their word. (I am not against drawing inferences just that we need to be very careful drawing them.) It appears that what is being described is inferred justification. This is a strategy that infers evidence which would support the person’s beliefs rather than infer evidence from observation. There are a number of strategies that resist persuasion: [etc.]

Dale Husband said:

H.H. said: Dear, lord. That's you're example of "dogma?" It's a simple declaration of personal belief. PZ is an atheist. He doesn't believe god exists and that therefore prayer is a waste of time. And by the way, the evidence supports PZ on that. For all intents and purposes, god doesn't exist and it's perfectly rational to treat god as a fictional concept barring valid evidence to the contrary. And casual conversation is not formal debate. PZ has explained his conclusions and beliefs in detail elsewhere. Amongst friends, on his own blog, he is entitled to speak plainly without having to add a litany of qualifiers to each of his statements. Inside a church, the congregation treats the existence of god as a given. They speak of him directly, offer thanks and prayers, sing hymns. Atheists should be able to enjoy the same latitude. This quote is not an example of "dogmatism" by any stretch of the imagination. You're really reaching here.

Hey, if you can broaden the definition of "atheism" to mean "lacking belief in God", why can't I broaden the definition of "dogma" to mean "a statement of opinion made as fact"?

Nobody knows about God. The statement "there is no scientific evidence" is true. The statement "there need not necessarily be any scientific evidence" is also true.

It's unreasonable to insist that everyone must believe only in things that they can demonstrate by scientific evidence. As has been pointed out, nobody does that in practice. It would actually be impossible to manage.

And that position - "I don't know, and I see no evidence" - is as far as the scientific evidence actually takes us. But so far, we have only atheism, or as I prefer to call it, agnosticism. (Yes, I am aware that not knowing if God exists is not the classical theological position of agnosticism, namely that the nature of God cannot be known. Words evolve new meanings. I use "agnosticism" to mean "no committment to the existence of God".)

The statement "I don't know" can then be followed up, without insulting anyone, with "I have faith," or "I don't have faith," and leaving it at that, and we can all part friends.

So why don't we?

Dale Husband said: You can non-dogmatically say that that there is no evidence for the existence of Celestial Teapot, Flying Spaghetti Monster, the invisible dragon in your garage, or any god you can imagine and leave it at that.

Yes, Tulse, seriously. One may answer, with perfect rationality, "there is no evidence for leprechauns". If further pressed, the further answer, "I don't believe in them" is sufficient to convey the meaning. It is not necessary to add to this "...and anyone who does is a sky-fairy fearing, insane nonreasoning befriender of imaginary beings who is incapable of scientific reasoning or rational discourse," or any excerpt, extract, extension or abstract of the same. The basic position is a rational one worthy of respect. The addendum is trolling.

SWT said: I don't know anyone, scientist or not, who actually lives their life this way. I happen to believe that my spouse loves me, and most of my friends who have spouses or partners believe that their partner loves them. However, this is not really a testable proposition -- although I have specific things I can point to that support this belief (affirmations of love and support, specific choices made, etc.), these are all also consistent with a spouse who despises me but wants to maintain what appear to be a loving marriage. The same holds for my friends who appear to be in committed, loving relationships. A statement that my spouse loves me is certainly not a scientific assertion; that doesn't make it vacuous.

Dave Luckett said: Yes, Tulse, seriously. One may answer, with perfect rationality, "there is no evidence for leprechauns".

SWT said: I happen to believe that my spouse loves me, and most of my friends who have spouses or partners believe that their partner loves them. However, this is not really a testable proposition

[...] these are all also consistent with a spouse who despises me but wants to maintain what appear to be a loving marriage.

I must admit that I was kinda sorta hoping that you would illustrate my point, Tulse. Thank you for that.

Yes, if I am engaging in ordinary conversation, I would say "there are no leprechauns". If you were to ask me whether there are gods, I would say "I do not know". That is for three reasons.

One, leprechauns explain nothing. God explains the Universe. Even if you don't accept that explanation, it's still an explanation. As it happens, I don't. But that's neither here nor there.

Two, God has stature. I find the contemplation of transinfinity and supereternity daunting and stimulating. It engages wonder, speculation if you like. And no doubt, profitlessly. But that is something leprechauns don't do.

Three, I am aware that I live in a human society in which people I love and respect have ideas that are different to mine. Yet I not only must live with them, I want to live with them, and to live in peace. I find - probably your mileage varies - that calling them "hypocrites" or the like does not serve that end.

Tulse said:

Dale Husband said: You can non-dogmatically say that that there is no evidence for the existence of Celestial Teapot, Flying Spaghetti Monster, the invisible dragon in your garage, or any god you can imagine and leave it at that.

Seriously, Dale? If someone asked you if there were leprechauns, you'd seriously say "there is no evidence for them" rather than "there are no leprechauns"? If someone asked if there was a wombat in your refrigerator, you'd say "there is no evidence of a wombat in my fridge" rather than "there is no wombat in my fridge"? If someone asked you if you'd drank all the water in your glass, you'd say "there is no evidence of water in my glass" rather than "my glass is empty"? You are hypocritically demanding epistemological niceties for statements about the existence of gods that you don't demand in other circumstances. There is no reason to be so persnickety regarding claims about divine beings. PZ said "there is no god" in exactly the same manner one would say "there is no wombat in my fridge" or "there is no water in my glass". Heck, even the dreaded Dawkins has stated that he cannot claim with absolutely certainty that no god exists (one can't rule out Deist gods, for example). So no, PZ's statement was not one of dogma, merely an empirical observation grounded just as much other statements of existence are, and just as probabilistic.

H.H. said:

SWT said: I don't know anyone, scientist or not, who actually lives their life this way. I happen to believe that my spouse loves me, and most of my friends who have spouses or partners believe that their partner loves them. However, this is not really a testable proposition -- although I have specific things I can point to that support this belief (affirmations of love and support, specific choices made, etc.), these are all also consistent with a spouse who despises me but wants to maintain what appear to be a loving marriage. The same holds for my friends who appear to be in committed, loving relationships. A statement that my spouse loves me is certainly not a scientific assertion; that doesn't make it vacuous.

In the context of this discussion, "assertions" was being used as synonymous with objective truth claims. Science deals with external, objective reality. With brute facts. It doesn't deal with the subjective, with opinion. Which isn't problematic for the question of god's existence because it isn't a subjective matter. That's that's where god is claimed to reside, after all. Out there somewhere, not in people's heads. Belief in god can't be compared to subjective beliefs like what ice cream tastes best or which music sounds best. God is not supposed to be a product of human minds, like emotions of love or joy. Either god exists for real, independent of human consciousnesses, or he's imaginary.

People commonly says things like, "There are no such things as ghosts," and we hear them so often from others that we start repeating them without even bothering to test that assumption. If that's not dogmatism, what the hell would you call it, Tulse?

Tulse said: Again, you are demanding far more epistemological nicety from statements about gods than you would about anything else in day-to-day discourse. That is hypocritical.

SWT said: The statement "My spouse loves me" is an objective truth claim about objective, external reality. It is scientifically unverifiable, but not vacuous.

Tulse said:

SWT said: I happen to believe that my spouse loves me, and most of my friends who have spouses or partners believe that their partner loves them. However, this is not really a testable proposition

So if you discovered your spouse was unfaithful, and saying terribly disparaging things about you to your friends, and wrote "I hate my partner" in a diary, that wouldn't be evidence of your spouse's state of mind?

[...] these are all also consistent with a spouse who despises me but wants to maintain what appear to be a loving marriage.

Yes, sometimes we can be deceived by improperly interpreting data -- that does not mean the question is not an empirical one. Honestly, how else does a non-deluded person determine that someone loves them except by the data of their actions and statements? How did you come to believe your spouse loves your except by observation?

H.H. said:

SWT said: The statement "My spouse loves me" is an objective truth claim about objective, external reality. It is scientifically unverifiable, but not vacuous.

Not it isn't. It's a claim about your spouses subjective state of mind. Do you really not see the difference between the statements "My wife loves me" and "My wife owns 3 cats?"

Dave Luckett said: One, leprechauns explain nothing. God explains the Universe. Even if you don't accept that explanation, it's still an explanation. As it happens, I don't. But that's neither here nor there.

Two, God has stature. I find the contemplation of transinfinity and supereternity daunting and stimulating. It engages wonder, speculation if you like. And no doubt, profitlessly. But that is something leprechauns don't do.

And another confirmation. Thank you, HH.

SWT said: So, psychology is not a scientific discipline? I'm not a psychologist, but I understand that it quite often attempts to deal with peoples state of mind.

Dale Husband said: Just because people can make up stuff like stories about leprechans or other clearly fictional characters like Harry Potter doesn't mean that gods certainly do not exist. That's actually a non-sequitur.

We should judge all such concepts on a case by case basis, not paint them all with the same prejudicial brush and then sweep them under a rug and pretend that by denying them all dogmatically we are superior to others who, for one reason or another beleive something that has not (yet) been disproven.

Tulse--

Have you ever heard of Bayes' Theorem? Because it's really relevant to what you're talking about. It basically means you can assign a probability to things you don't know for sure.

Take the statement, "I don't know if there's a gecko under my refrigerator." To you, that must seem like the equivalent of, "I don't know if there's a wombat in my refrigerator." But when I'm at my Puerto Rico house, the chances are about 50% that there is, in fact, a gecko under my refrigerator. So I'd better watch my step every time I walk between the refrigerator and the back door.

On the other hand, while I can't prove there is no wombat in my refrigerator without looking, the probability is so low that my optimal response is to act as if there's no wombat. But I know that wombats and refrigerators are real things, so if people living in the Australian bush told me, "last night we had a wombat in our refrigerator," I wouldn't automatically assume they were wrong.

Now suppose someone told me, "Jehova in all his glory is standing next to my refrigerator." In that case, the probability is so much lower than even the wombat, that I would assume he was either hallucinating or lying. In fact, if I, myself, saw Jehova in all his glory standing next to my refrigerator, I would check for optical illusions, hallucinations, and deliberate special effects by some malicious human before I would believe my own eyes.

So, I'm more comfortable with the label agnostic than atheist because I think the chances Jehova (or any other god I've read about) really existing are so low that I can comfortably ignore that possibility. I see no reason at all to lock myself in to a definitive statement.

And I see a lot of reasons not to push other people to make definitive statements they aren't comfortable with. I don't, actually, see any reason you would want to do that.

Dave Luckett said: One, leprechauns explain nothing. God explains the Universe.

Two, God has stature. I find the contemplation of transinfinity and supereternity daunting and stimulating. It engages wonder, speculation if you like. And no doubt, profitlessly. But that is something leprechauns don't do.

Three, I am aware that I live in a human society in which people I love and respect have ideas that are different to mine. Yet I not only must live with them, I want to live with them, and to live in peace. I find - probably your mileage varies - that calling them "hypocrites" or the like does not serve that end.

Dale Husband said: No, the only way you can empirically rule out the existence of leprechans or gods is to show that their existence is IMPOSSIBLE, not merely that they have never been confirmed.

As for the wombat in my refrigerator or my empty glass, you can use direct observation to indicate the wombat is not there or there is nothing but air in the glass.

H.H. said: Why do you keep placing gods in this special category where we must be certain they don't exist when this isn't a standard you use for anything else? It's fallacious special pleading. Atheists don't claim certainty nor do they need certainty. But they can say "gods very probably do not exist" with a high degree of confidence. The scales are not equal and it's dishonest to pretend all opinions are equally justifiable. Do you honestly think the case for god hasn't been given a fair shot by now? How many more centuries do you want to give it?

No, the only way you can empirically rule out the existence of leprechans or gods is to show that their existence is IMPOSSIBLE, not merely that they have never been confirmed. Thus, you can empirically show that planets the size of Mercury or larger could never be shaped like cubes or pyramids (because the laws of physics would force all such objects into a spherical shape). That’s the ONLY way you can scientifically say something like, “There are no planets shaped like pyramids or cubes.” As for the wombat in my refrigerator or my empty glass, you can use direct observation to indicate the wombat is not there or there is nothing but air in the glass. Bad examples, Tulse! It is RATIONALISM (relying on reason to determine truth) that leads one to conclude that when you have no direct evidence for the existence of something (that might still exist somewhere), you can then proceed to say, “There is no [something].” And for the record, I am NOT a rationalist, only an empiricist. So no, I’m no hypocrite. I can certainly say, “I have never seen any leprechans or gods, have you?” If the someone in question says, “Yes, I have seen them,” I’d ask for evidence. If none is produced, then, I say, “No evidence, no reason for affirming their existence, so goodbye!” And that’s all that needs to be done.

SWT said: However, one's spouse's mental state is not available for direct observation; we can only infer a mental state from behavior and that inference is subject to substantial error.

A statement that my spouse loves me is certainly not a scientific assertion; that doesn’t make it vacuous.

Tulse said: leprechauns in Irish folktales are given responsibility for various acts of mischief perpetrated on humans.

The wealth of Irish folktales about leprechauns, as well as their depiction in popular culture, certainly indicates that they are "stimulating".

And you think that saying their god or gods lack existence is disrespectful, even if you don't think they do?

Dave Luckett said: Yes, Tulse, seriously. One may answer, with perfect rationality, "there is no evidence for leprechauns". If further pressed, the further answer, "I don't believe in them" is sufficient to convey the meaning. It is not necessary to add to this "...and anyone who does is a sky-fairy fearing, insane nonreasoning befriender of imaginary beings who is incapable of scientific reasoning or rational discourse," or any excerpt, extract, extension or abstract of the same. The basic position is a rational one worthy of respect. The addendum is trolling.

Dave Luckett said: One, leprechauns explain nothing. God explains the Universe. Even if you don't accept that explanation, it's still an explanation. As it happens, I don't. But that's neither here nor there.

Stanton said:

Dale Husband said:

H.H. said: Dear, lord. That's you're example of "dogma?" It's a simple declaration of personal belief. PZ is an atheist. He doesn't believe god exists and that therefore prayer is a waste of time. And by the way, the evidence supports PZ on that. For all intents and purposes, god doesn't exist and it's perfectly rational to treat god as a fictional concept barring valid evidence to the contrary. And casual conversation is not formal debate. PZ has explained his conclusions and beliefs in detail elsewhere. Amongst friends, on his own blog, he is entitled to speak plainly without having to add a litany of qualifiers to each of his statements. Inside a church, the congregation treats the existence of god as a given. They speak of him directly, offer thanks and prayers, sing hymns. Atheists should be able to enjoy the same latitude. This quote is not an example of "dogmatism" by any stretch of the imagination. You're really reaching here.

Hey, if you can broaden the definition of "atheism" to mean "lacking belief in God", why can't I broaden the definition of "dogma" to mean "a statement of opinion made as fact"?

The only problem with this is that the statement that Mr Blinne claims is representative of PZ Myers' alleged dogmatism is not an expression of dogmatism, i.e., "a statement of opinion made as fact." In this statement, Professor Myers is scolding Senator Adley for engaging in what Myers rightly sees as reprehensibly useless behavior, that is, using his own piety to do absolutely nothing, instead of going down to the Gulf to help out, and encouraging other pious people to not help out, as well.

John Kwok said: SLC, I am referring primarily to those scientists who are living now - notable exception being Dobzhansky of course - who recognize that science and religion can coexist up to an extent. Brian Greene would argue passionately that faith is as important to him as science, Lisa Randall would say that both are different and one would not need to conflate the two, and Neil de Grasse Tyson would say that religion needs to sort itself out before it can communicate with science:

SLC said:

John Kwok said: Care to explain your inane reasoning to the ghost of Theodosius Dobzhansky, or to Francis Collins or to Ken Miller or to one of our most eminent ecologists, Michael Rosenzweig (a Conservative Jew):

Tulse said:

John Kwok said: It is both ironic and presumptuous of Militant Atheists (which I prefer) or New Atheists or Affirmative Atheists to conclude that accepting scientific theories and facts should lead anyone to the conclusion that GOD is irrelevant or doesn't exist. There are - and have been - many great scientists who were devoutly religious believers in GOD(s) and such beliefs didn't interfere in their obligations and duties as scientists

You can't even get follow the logical implications of your own claim correctly. "Accepting scientific theories and facts should lead anyone to the conclusion that GOD is irrelevant or doesn't exist" -- the fact that some scientists fail to make this conclusion does not demonstrate that such conclusion is incorrect. Like so many before you, you are confusing the mere boring fact that people can hold mutually inconsistent beliefs with some ontological truth about the universe.

Not only would you have to discuss your argument with them. Even eminent physicists such as Brian Greene and Lisa Randall would disagree with your assertion (More so with Brian since he has hosted science and faith sessions at his World Science Festival here in New York City for the past few years.). Nor do I equate acceptance of atheism as synonymous with rationalism. I know an uncle, a retired Methodist minister, who has sounded a lot more rational than many of the "Affirmative Atheist" zealots I have encountered online. And he's not the only religious cleric I have met who has demonstrated such a strong degree of rationality.

In fact, Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman whose contributions to physics are at least equal to those of Prof. Randall and Prof. Greene was a militant atheist, as are his former Nobel Prize winning colleagues Murray GellMann and Steven Weinberg,

Dave Luckett said: And why not, if you know no better. Do you know a better explanation for the Universe than God? I confess that I don't. That doesn't mean I accept it. It only means I admit the possibility.

W. H. Heydt said:

Rich Blinne said:

W. H. Heydt said:

Rich Blinne said:

W. H. Heydt said:

Rich Blinne said:The problem is the only accurate way of finding out other's motivations and beliefs is to ask them.

That assertion presumes that everyone will answer truthfully when asked. Experience suggests otherwise. --W. H. Heydt Old Used Programmer

It appears that creationists are more guilty of this but that's because our side doesn't attempt to figure out motives as often and not because we are any better mind readers. And that's my point. Stick to the facts and the evidence and don't care why the people you are debating are wrong, just demonstrate they are wrong. Study your opponent as closely as you study other natural phenomenon. Eschew easy cheap shots. As scientists that's our M.O. so for the most part it should come naturally if our emotions don't get the better of us.

That part of your response flies in the face of your initial claim, that the best way to determine what someone believes is to ask them directly. Using inferences from statements is certainly an effective means of determining what some actually believes, but it doesn't match your original claim. There were recent comments from a creationist who baldly claimed that he switched from accepting evolution to being a creationist because he was persuaded by creationist arguments (effectively answering the question of why he switched before being asked). The comment thread that followed quickly showed that this was a post-hoc rationalization. He actually became a creationist because he believed in an inerrant Bible, thus trying to find a way to support his initial faith, not examining arguments for rationality. It made an excellent example of why "just asking" doesn't work. We are dealing with subjects where efforts are frequently made to conceal motives and beliefs. The motivations for such behavior have been ably analyzed by others. --W. H. Heydt Old Used Programmer

This is actually explained purely by taking this person at their word. (I am not against drawing inferences just that we need to be very careful drawing them.) It appears that what is being described is inferred justification. This is a strategy that infers evidence which would support the person’s beliefs rather than infer evidence from observation. There are a number of strategies that resist persuasion: [etc.]

That's a lot of extremely interesting material on how some people reason and how they come to claim they arrived at their conclusions. I thought we were discussing the advisability of taking people at their word about what they believed, which you asserted could "...only be done..." by asking them. I demurred on the grounds that those queried this way lie. Are you then agreeing that people lie about what they believe and moving the discussion on to other--related--topics? Or are you asserting that these methods of arriving at opinions are a claim that when asked people don't lie about their beliefs? Others have expanded on the issue of lying to cover credential lying, so I won't attempt that. (And, for the record, I have no credentials applicable to these topics at all.) --W. H. Heydt Old Used Programmer

1. Although you claim to be interested in the origins of biological information and genetic control systems, you seem not to have any serious contact with scientists and scholars who study such things. Do you attend conferences on these subjects, or initiate contact with experts in these fields? Your ideas are potentially very significant – you seek to rule out naturalistic explanation for the origin of life and of DNA – but even if they were merely interesting, it would be foolish for you to think that you could contribute to the development of new theories or viewpoints outside of regular and rigorous interaction with colleagues who know this stuff the best. I have the impression that you don't do this. That's a crazy mistake. 2. A very serious and related problem is the nature of the scientific community that you do interact with. Jonathan Wells just isn't an accomplished or respected scientist, and his ideas are considered laughable by those (including me) who know and understand the relevant fields. Richard Sternberg's platonic views of biology are interesting, but he's on the fringe (to put it mildly) and, worse, he seems not to understand molecular biology. Doug Axe is a smart guy, it seems to me, but the two of you desperately need to get out of your freakish little gated community and talk to people who know that the initiation of cancer is indeed fueled to a large extent by driver mutations, and that genome sizes are indeed a hard problem for design theorists to tackle. When you have Wells whispering to you in one ear, and the bizarre perspectives of Richard Sternberg echoing in your mind, you have a huge problem: you're out of touch with real science, with real biology, with the ideas that you have to engage in order to really put design on the map.

"God explains the universe."

Presumably that means the existence of the universe can be attributed to a god's having created it, and perhaps maintaining it in an ongoing effort. But as Carl Sagan (and surely many others) pointed out, that merely moves the need for explanation one step further away. What explains god? Who created him? Why? When?

If the (non)answer is something like "god is eternal," then why not save a step and just assume that the universe is eternal (or the physical laws that allowed its origin and maintenance)?

Or with "who created god?" one could do the "turtles all the way down" thing.

Stanton said:

Dale Husband said:

H.H. said: Dear, lord. That's you're example of "dogma?" It's a simple declaration of personal belief. PZ is an atheist. He doesn't believe god exists and that therefore prayer is a waste of time. And by the way, the evidence supports PZ on that. For all intents and purposes, god doesn't exist and it's perfectly rational to treat god as a fictional concept barring valid evidence to the contrary. And casual conversation is not formal debate. PZ has explained his conclusions and beliefs in detail elsewhere. Amongst friends, on his own blog, he is entitled to speak plainly without having to add a litany of qualifiers to each of his statements. Inside a church, the congregation treats the existence of god as a given. They speak of him directly, offer thanks and prayers, sing hymns. Atheists should be able to enjoy the same latitude. This quote is not an example of "dogmatism" by any stretch of the imagination. You're really reaching here.

Hey, if you can broaden the definition of "atheism" to mean "lacking belief in God", why can't I broaden the definition of "dogma" to mean "a statement of opinion made as fact"?

The only problem with this is that the statement that Mr Blinne claims is representative of PZ Myers' alleged dogmatism is not an expression of dogmatism, i.e., "a statement of opinion made as fact." In this statement, Professor Myers is scolding Senator Adley for engaging in what Myers rightly sees as reprehensibly useless behavior, that is, using his own piety to do absolutely nothing, instead of going down to the Gulf to help out, and encouraging other pious people to not help out, as well.

SLC said:

John Kwok said: SLC, I am referring primarily to those scientists who are living now - notable exception being Dobzhansky of course - who recognize that science and religion can coexist up to an extent. Brian Greene would argue passionately that faith is as important to him as science, Lisa Randall would say that both are different and one would not need to conflate the two, and Neil de Grasse Tyson would say that religion needs to sort itself out before it can communicate with science:

SLC said:

John Kwok said: Care to explain your inane reasoning to the ghost of Theodosius Dobzhansky, or to Francis Collins or to Ken Miller or to one of our most eminent ecologists, Michael Rosenzweig (a Conservative Jew):

Tulse said:

John Kwok said: It is both ironic and presumptuous of Militant Atheists (which I prefer) or New Atheists or Affirmative Atheists to conclude that accepting scientific theories and facts should lead anyone to the conclusion that GOD is irrelevant or doesn't exist. There are - and have been - many great scientists who were devoutly religious believers in GOD(s) and such beliefs didn't interfere in their obligations and duties as scientists

You can't even get follow the logical implications of your own claim correctly. "Accepting scientific theories and facts should lead anyone to the conclusion that GOD is irrelevant or doesn't exist" -- the fact that some scientists fail to make this conclusion does not demonstrate that such conclusion is incorrect. Like so many before you, you are confusing the mere boring fact that people can hold mutually inconsistent beliefs with some ontological truth about the universe.

Not only would you have to discuss your argument with them. Even eminent physicists such as Brian Greene and Lisa Randall would disagree with your assertion (More so with Brian since he has hosted science and faith sessions at his World Science Festival here in New York City for the past few years.). Nor do I equate acceptance of atheism as synonymous with rationalism. I know an uncle, a retired Methodist minister, who has sounded a lot more rational than many of the "Affirmative Atheist" zealots I have encountered online. And he's not the only religious cleric I have met who has demonstrated such a strong degree of rationality.

In fact, Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman whose contributions to physics are at least equal to those of Prof. Randall and Prof. Greene was a militant atheist, as are his former Nobel Prize winning colleagues Murray GellMann and Steven Weinberg,

1. Prof. Randalls' sex has nothing to do with anything. 2. Murray GellMann and Steven Weinberg are still very much with us as we sit here today. 3. Steven Weinberg has been active in Texas in combating the nitwits on the school board there.

Rich Blinne said: First note I did not say this and furthermore I disagree strongly with it. Dogmatism is accepting something based on authority not evidence. PZ has claimed that he comes to his conclusions because of the evidence as he sees it. I take him at his word. BTW, this is an example of imputing motives I've been talking about but just in the opposite direction. The only difference is PZ has more evidence that his motives are pure than the creationist examples. (If you think I'm trying to shame my own side here you're right.)

Dale Husband said:

John_S said:

stevaroni said: I went to a Catholic school as a child, and I assure you, at any and all opportunity, it was emphasized in no uncertain terms that the KJV was the Bible, and the Bible was the literal word of God.

The RCC certainly asserts that scripture is the literal word of God, as do almost all Christian sects. But as to advancing the KJV, that's pretty surprising. I'm not a Catholic; but, having read the translator's preface to the KJV, which makes numerous disparaging comments toward the "Romans" and their beliefs, I suspect your teachers were in need of some bishoply whipping into line. As far as I recall, the "official" RCC Bible is the Latin Vulgate (Version 3) by Pope Jerome which is held in the Vatican. English translations of the Vulgate such as the DR are now tolerated. But in the event of disagreement, the "original" Vatican Latin Vulgate is "ruling". How did the Sisters explain the absence of Maccabees, Judith or several other RCC-endorsed OT books in the KJV? Maybe someone better versed in RCC rules can enlighten me.

Maybe there was a Catholic version of the King James Version none of us were ever aware of?

John_S said: How did the Sisters explain the absence of Maccabees, Judith or several other RCC-endorsed OT books in the KJV?

Dave Luckett said: Do you know a better explanation for the Universe than God? I confess that I don't.

Can you not see that there's a world of difference between "Your gods don't exist" and "I don't think your gods exist"?

H.H. said: God is not an explanation for the universe. There's no mechanism being proposed. Without the detailing the "how," there is no explanation here. It's just another vacuous assertion.

Can you not see that there's a world of difference between "Your gods don't exist" and "Your gods almost certainly do not exist and you should really stop saying they do until you find some evidence?"

Dave Luckett said: Then give me a better one. Nobody knows. Therefore, any explanation you give is another vacuous assertion, in your own terms. Hence, God is no worse.

Dave Luckett said: any explanation you give is another vacuous assertion, in your own terms. Hence, God is no worse.

Tulse said: No, postulating some sort of intelligent creator is much worse that presuming the universe spontaneously came into being, because a creator presumes that that entity spontaneously came into being ...

Dave Luckett said: Then give me a better one. Nobody knows. Therefore, any explanation you give is another vacuous assertion, in your own terms. Hence, God is no worse.

Yes, I'd be able to see that difference, if it had been proposed. Only it wasn't. The statement was "your gods don't exist", just that, and exactly that.

Had your question been asked, I would have replied that you do not know, any more than I, what if any gods exist, but that if I were to believe a God or gods exist, I would not require your permission to say as much, nor would I feel constrained to abide by your conditions.

MrG said: An atheist says: "There is no God."

I've never understood why those who believe in the Christian God feel that it is perfectly acceptable for them to tell me all about the God they believe in as though it is fact, while also feeling that I am not allowed to make a similar statement about what I believe, i.e. God does not exist. If your belief in God makes his existence a fact, why doesn't my lack of belief in God make his nonexistence a fact?

H.H. said: Only in the sense of being a tentative conclusion based on available evidence, not in the absolute sense of being a certainty.

Make that "not at all ambiguous". Tripping up on my double-negatives on that.

Dale Husband said: Well, if I climb to the top of Mount Olympus and see no sign of the ancient Greek gods, that would be evidence enough that they do not exist, at least there and now.

You can even go further and note that Christianity displaced ancient Greek paganism, and infer that the Christian god is more likely to exist than the Greek gods.

The thing about the Christian god is that he cannot be bound by limits on places, time, or material matters. So that makes him inaccesible to scientific confirmation.

No, the only way you can empirically rule out the existence of leprechans or gods is to show that their existence is IMPOSSIBLE, not merely that they have never been confirmed.

Tulse said: You seem to misunderstand science, since one can never show empirically that something is "impossible". Science never shows that something can't be, can't exist, just that its existence is extremely improbable based on what we know. For example, it is extremely improbable that there could be a wombat in my fridge at this moment. Indeed, it is so extremely improbable that I am comfortable saying that there is no wombat in my fridge without even opening the door. I make these kind of statements all the time in real life (e.g., "my office is at X address", even though I haven't confirmed it is still there since Friday). You are demanding that we talk about some entities, gods, using a different epistemic standard than we talk about other stuff. That's inconsistent. Is there a wombat in your fridge right now? Can you answer that without looking? Would you honestly not answer that as "no"?

H.H. said: We only have to rule out gods are impossible if we want to claim they do not exist with certainty. Fortunately, atheism doesn't require or imply certainty. It's a tentative conclusion based on current evidence. I'm going to keep hammering this simple point until it sinks it.

They could if you put as much effort into making up stuff about them as you do daydreaming about gods.

Dale Husband said: ... I do not define atheism as you do and there is no fuking law that says I have to!

MrG said: God is supposed to be a transcedent entity and so is not constrained by any material rules.

I am an apatheist. An atheist says: "There is no God." An apatheist says: "I don't care if there's a God or not."

Dale Husband said: If the scientific method, used to discover and confirm physical and chemical laws, cannot be used to determine if something is impossible according to those laws, WHAT GOOD IS IT?

As for the wombat, I can say it doesn't exist in my refrigerator because I never saw it there before and have no reason to see it there now, because its sudden appearance there would violate the scientific laws we use to make sense of the universe we live in.

God, on the other hand, need not be subject to any scientific laws. If he created the universe, why assume he is subject to the same limitations as objects in the universe, including leprechans, wombats, or anything we can directly see or detect? You just argued that the existence of God cannot be emprically ruled out completely too.

" Does the Bible assume a flat Earth in the center of the solar system, if not the whole universe? Heddle: "No, it does not."

Gingerbaker: "...as breathlessly astonishing as his claim that the Bible doesn’t talk about unicorns! Heddle: "You are easily astonished. It doesn’t..."

Tulse said: And why couldn't the origin of the universe also involve transcendent properties, just ones that don't require an intelligence?

That's nice for you.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who do care, and they are busy passing laws about how to order society according to their beliefs. So you can be apathetic about the issue if you want, but it impacts you all the same.

Gingerbaker said:

" Does the Bible assume a flat Earth in the center of the solar system, if not the whole universe? Heddle: "No, it does not."

Gingerbaker: "...as breathlessly astonishing as his claim that the Bible doesn’t talk about unicorns! Heddle: "You are easily astonished. It doesn’t..."

This thread is about creationists in Louisiana falling into a Dover Trap. In Dover, we were treated to the spectacle of creationists (as RationalWiki puts it) "...willing to bend the truth to see their own agenda furthered at all costs. " And in this thread, we see Heddle doing the same thing, for Heddle is, in his own way, as much as a Biblical inerrantist as any of the townspeople of Dover. The difference is that they simply believe all of the Bible as written, while you, Heddle simply sanitize the bits embarrassing to 21st century readers, relying on boilerplate Christian apologetic 'Midrash' delivered with sonorous authority, as if your positions were actually something more than self-serving assertions. Arguing that the Bible does not promote geocentricism, when that was official Church dogma for centuries! Arguing that the Bible does not speak of unicorns, when every Bible for two thousand years used the specific word! Pathetic. And all this so that you, a scientist, can accept that an actual real miracle took place two thousand years ago and Jesus was really resurrected. And all this coming from a man who bristles at the very idea that his philosophy requires compartmentalization of his religious beleifs from his rational side. What seems clear is that even the intellect of a highly-trained scientist will succumb to the requisite self-deceptions demanded by Christianity, and find refuge in his own elaborate rabbit warren of apologetic artifice.

Well, at least one thing seems obvious; there are thousands of religions in the world; and many of them are openly suspicious of and hostile to each other.

That appears to reduce the probability that any one of them is right, and it further suggests that perhaps none of them are right.

Usually when a method for finding out things leads to so many conflicting and inconclusive results along with so much argumentation and open warfare, the method is questioned and/or abandoned. Not so with religion.

MrG said: The only point I have to make is that if we are making arbitrary claims not based on any experience or provability, one is as good or bad as the other.

My past history with religions gives me no reason to defend them, quite the opposite, but I have more important things to worry about. Besides, from what I've seen they can hold their own readily and do not need my help.

However, I have no confidence in the OA crowd. How could I, Tulse? You are contesting with a person who is not opposed to you, no obstacle to you -- who simply has no personal use for your position.

Well, I think it's clear by now that the only militant, strident dogmatist here is Dale Husband, who insists that all theological positions are equivalent even when they are not. We'll also have him to thank when this thread ends up closed Monday morning.

MrG said:

Tulse said: And why couldn't the origin of the universe also involve transcendent properties, just ones that don't require an intelligence?

Absolutely! The only point I have to make is that if we are making arbitrary claims not based on any experience or provability, one is as good or bad as the other.

300+ Comments is enough. Continue it on the Wall.

tomh said:

Dale Husband said: ... I do not define atheism as you do and there is no fuking law that says I have to!

So you just make up definitions to suit your purpose. Well, that certainly makes it easy for you to "prove" your point, whatever that is. Why not try a dictionary for definitions instead of whatever your imagination can devise? Just about every dictionary will tell you that atheism is the belief that there are no gods, or, a lack of belief in gods. Yet you insist that atheism says that there is no god. So what if PZ Myers says that there is no god? Who is he, anyway, does he get to define atheism and rewrite the dictionary? Most atheists have never heard of PZ Myers. I don't know if you are just being obstinate or you really are that obtuse, but atheism is very simply defined. No belief in gods.