Evolution Misconceptions on the Fuzzy Logic Science Show (podcast link)

Is australia contributing to intellectual discovery of nature or inventions, a manipulation of nature, relative to america and cAnada or anywhere? I bet not.
Ken ham is from australia and the most famous thinker on science subjects dealing with origins.
I'm interested in marsupials origins.
Fine about a cover and paper in a magazine but does the other side get to defend itself? Does ID/YEC get front covers or articles printed? If they don't cover all sides its not a interest in origin science but just advocacy of one side in a famous contention.
Anyways science is never about science but about subjects. Depending on the subject is the interest quotient. Its not a interest in methodology. Likewise Australia is a more middle class nation and doesn't have, yet, the divisions in society that lead to differences in interest of science. Demographics matter.
I understand creationism is healthy there relative to the population.
Muy sister visted there once and enjoyed it very much. AC/DC, Beejees,Olivia Newton-John, lso do them proud.

Robert Byers said: Is australia contributing to intellectual discovery of nature or inventions, a manipulation of nature, relative to america and cAnada or anywhere? I bet not. Ken ham is from australia and the most famous thinker on science subjects dealing with origins.

Newton-John was born in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, to a Welsh father, Brinley "Bryn" Newton-John, and a Berlin-born mother, Irene Helene (née Born), the eldest child of the Nobel Prize-winning atomic physicist Max Born

Robert Byers said: Ken ham is from australia and the most famous thinker on science subjects dealing with origins.

Robert Byers said: ... I'm interested in marsupials origins.

Well he didn't know the capital of australia, why should he know the capital of cAnada? And why should anybody listen to someone who doesn't know shit? That's just fuzzy booby logic.

PaulBC said:

Robert Byers said: Is australia contributing to intellectual discovery of nature or inventions, a manipulation of nature, relative to america and cAnada or anywhere? I bet not. Ken ham is from australia and the most famous thinker on science subjects dealing with origins.

It's nice to see you attempt to bring in evidence to support your claim. But I'm pretty sure Ken Ham is not "the most famous thinker on science subjects dealing with origins" from Australia. I agree that in that case it would be a safe bet that Australia lags far behind other countries in life sciences.

Australians are fun, but they do have some strange obsessions. Admittedly Australia has scary spiders, but Australians seem to overreact and be obsessed with arachnids. Australian men call each other "mite", and when people analyze Australian culture they are always referring to "miteship".

Crikey!

Australia has eight of the world’s top ten dangerous spiders. We also have nine out of the top ten dangerous snakes. We’re not actually obsessed with them, but anybody who ignores the whole thing isn’t actually serving the cause of rationality by doing so.

Fact is that the Sydney funnelweb is the the most dangerous spider on earth, followed closely by the common trapdoor spider, and even the standard redback is by no means to be despised. Fatalities are rare since effective antivenemes were developed in the 1980’s - they were delayed for years by the fact that those two beauties have a different cocktail of venom depending on the season and what they’ve been eating lately. But let’s not even think about the blue-ringed octopus, the Queensland box jellyfish, the saltwater crocodile, the reef stonefish, or the irrikundji. Or the Northern Territory buff, while we’re at it.

As for “miteship”, we set a certain amount of store by it, here. And by its invariable companion, fair go. People do find it strange that a culture should define itself by interpersonal bonds more binding than corporate institutions, or an ideal of fairness and equity that takes no account of legal requirements. But it suits us.

Mike Elzinga said: A lot of people don't know this about Olivia Newton-John.

Newton-John was born in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, to a Welsh father, Brinley "Bryn" Newton-John, and a Berlin-born mother, Irene Helene (née Born), the eldest child of the Nobel Prize-winning atomic physicist Max Born

In other words, she is the granddaughter of Max Born. But what would Byers know about pedigree?

Robert Byers said:

Mike Elzinga said: A lot of people don't know this about Olivia Newton-John.

Newton-John was born in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, to a Welsh father, Brinley "Bryn" Newton-John, and a Berlin-born mother, Irene Helene (née Born), the eldest child of the Nobel Prize-winning atomic physicist Max Born

In other words, she is the granddaughter of Max Born. But what would Byers know about pedigree?

When I like music I look into the singers/songwriters/bands history. So I'm very aware of Olivia's Born 9and so Einstein too0 heritage. In fact she came from intelligent people on both sides of the family and thats why she was successful. Only a wee bit of entry level opportunity. Accomplishment and intelligence in humans is always from curves(on a graph) in influences affecting the newborn baby. There is great probability in this. NOT BIOLOGICAL OR GENETIC. Just picking it up more. No evolution.

Robert Byers said:

Mike Elzinga said: A lot of people don't know this about Olivia Newton-John.

Newton-John was born in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, to a Welsh father, Brinley "Bryn" Newton-John, and a Berlin-born mother, Irene Helene (née Born), the eldest child of the Nobel Prize-winning atomic physicist Max Born

In other words, she is the granddaughter of Max Born. But what would Byers know about pedigree?

When I like music I look into the singers/songwriters/bands history. So I'm very aware of Olivia's Born 9and so Einstein too0 heritage. In fact she came from intelligent people on both sides of the family and thats why she was successful. Only a wee bit of entry level opportunity. Accomplishment and intelligence in humans is always from curves(on a graph) in influences affecting the newborn baby. There is great probability in this. NOT BIOLOGICAL OR GENETIC. Just picking it up more. No evolution.

Oh, his nature was probably nurtured that way. Eh?

Mike Elzinga said: A lot of people don't know this about Olivia Newton-John. .. she is the granddaughter of Max Born.

Robert Byers said: "In fact she came from intelligent people on both sides of the family and thats why she was successful." "NOT BIOLOGICAL OR GENETIC. Just picking it up more. No evolution."

W. H. Heydt said:

Robert Byers said:

Mike Elzinga said: A lot of people don't know this about Olivia Newton-John.

Newton-John was born in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, to a Welsh father, Brinley "Bryn" Newton-John, and a Berlin-born mother, Irene Helene (née Born), the eldest child of the Nobel Prize-winning atomic physicist Max Born

In other words, she is the granddaughter of Max Born. But what would Byers know about pedigree?

When I like music I look into the singers/songwriters/bands history. So I'm very aware of Olivia's Born 9and so Einstein too0 heritage. In fact she came from intelligent people on both sides of the family and thats why she was successful. Only a wee bit of entry level opportunity. Accomplishment and intelligence in humans is always from curves(on a graph) in influences affecting the newborn baby. There is great probability in this. NOT BIOLOGICAL OR GENETIC. Just picking it up more. No evolution.

It appears (no surprise, of course) that you are unfamiliar with the long term debates over "nurture vs. nature".

Robert Byers said:

W. H. Heydt said:

Robert Byers said:

Mike Elzinga said: A lot of people don't know this about Olivia Newton-John.

Newton-John was born in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, to a Welsh father, Brinley "Bryn" Newton-John, and a Berlin-born mother, Irene Helene (née Born), the eldest child of the Nobel Prize-winning atomic physicist Max Born

In other words, she is the granddaughter of Max Born. But what would Byers know about pedigree?

When I like music I look into the singers/songwriters/bands history. So I'm very aware of Olivia's Born 9and so Einstein too0 heritage. In fact she came from intelligent people on both sides of the family and thats why she was successful. Only a wee bit of entry level opportunity. Accomplishment and intelligence in humans is always from curves(on a graph) in influences affecting the newborn baby. There is great probability in this. NOT BIOLOGICAL OR GENETIC. Just picking it up more. No evolution.

It appears (no surprise, of course) that you are unfamiliar with the long term debates over "nurture vs. nature".

I'm very aware. I reject the nature one ever had credibility in Anglo American civilization amongst real people. Or the rest of the world. It always was seen as nurture. A tiny bit of race stuff in obscure circles possibly. It was seen as based on identity and so curves of the class. However still entirely of the free will. the bible insists on this too and so Christianity, especially protestant,.

Robert Byers said:

W. H. Heydt said:

Robert Byers said:

Mike Elzinga said: A lot of people don't know this about Olivia Newton-John.

Newton-John was born in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, to a Welsh father, Brinley "Bryn" Newton-John, and a Berlin-born mother, Irene Helene (née Born), the eldest child of the Nobel Prize-winning atomic physicist Max Born

In other words, she is the granddaughter of Max Born. But what would Byers know about pedigree?

When I like music I look into the singers/songwriters/bands history. So I'm very aware of Olivia's Born 9and so Einstein too0 heritage. In fact she came from intelligent people on both sides of the family and thats why she was successful. Only a wee bit of entry level opportunity. Accomplishment and intelligence in humans is always from curves(on a graph) in influences affecting the newborn baby. There is great probability in this. NOT BIOLOGICAL OR GENETIC. Just picking it up more. No evolution.

It appears (no surprise, of course) that you are unfamiliar with the long term debates over "nurture vs. nature".

I'm very aware. I reject the nature one ever had credibility in Anglo American civilization amongst real people. Or the rest of the world. It always was seen as nurture. A tiny bit of race stuff in obscure circles possibly. It was seen as based on identity and so curves of the class. However still entirely of the free will. the bible insists on this too and so Christianity, especially protestant,

How did the Byers escape containment?

Even though I'm basically in agreement with phhht, he grows repetitious quickly.

So let me appeal to a similar thing in a better way. Mr. Byers: do you understand why I feel sorry for you, and regard you as a 'junior' human being? It's not because I disagree with you.

Don't you realize that you act like a massive bigot all the time? Don't you care?

Don't you realize that it is literally stupid to make up ad hoc excuses to prop up favoured hypotheses? Don't you realize that you do this all the time? Don't you care?

You frequently bear false witness against others. Don't you realize that this is against the dictates of the God you claim to follow? You frequently act covetously. Don't you realize that this is against the dictates of the God you claim to follow? Why do you act in a way you yourself regard as sinful?

I fell sorry for you, because there is a big, super-interesting world around us that can be shared by people who don't agree on everything. Don't you want to experience that? Why is your sense of wonder so stunted and childish?

I fear you, too, because it is your kind that assents to sending our boys and girls off to foreign wars to line the pockets of the Dick Cheneys of this world. Because you are a promoter of hate, and don't even realize it! What makes authoritarian submission so exciting? Maybe you and your wife should spice it up a little, so you can stop contributing to the hateful and violent edifice that is Christianism.

And yet I love you, too, because you are a human being like me, with the capacity for good over evil, light over darkness. You honestly think you follow God; in reality you are Satan's servant.

I feel sorry for you, because you don't know how to live as an adult. I'm sorry to see someone's life, anyone's life, be so much less than it could be.

This will be my only response to Mr. Byers ever. But I'll reiterate that PT never should ban him. As this blog and others have shown, the psychology and sociology of the followers is where the real action is for creationism. And I reiterate my thanks for the many people here who have done the hard work of exposing the pseudoscience of ID, and the charlatanry of the right-wing politicians who have tried to benefit from it.

phhht... grows repetitious

Geez, you're sensitive. I think your sledgehammer style is necessary at times, but not at all times. I agree that there is no empirical evidence for God or gods, and that other types of 'evidence' that the veddy veddy sophisticated theologians invent in its stead is self-serving nonsense.

I'm a convinced atheist, same as you. But religious believers are not generally delusional or insane. I think they are misled into a tendentious and self-serving interpretation of reality, but the fact is that the guy who lives in a tunnel and thinks the cops are devils is just not the same as your average churchgoer.

I did not express irritation with you, nor disagreement.

RJ said: But religious believers are not generally delusional or insane. I think they are misled into a tendentious and self-serving interpretation of reality, but the fact is that the guy who lives in a tunnel and thinks the cops are devils is just not the same as your average churchgoer. .

Since that definition is unable to express the obvious difference between the guy that thinks the cops are devils, and a workaday churchgoer, there follows that it is not a useful word to discuss the phenomenology or belief dynamics of religion.

Sure, technically many or most religionists are delusional by this definition. So we need different words or concepts if we want to have a real conversation about religious belief. Little of any real interest follows from technicalities. Technically, victims of sexual harassment have a choice, so they are not coerced; technically, charged particles do not exist, because the quantum equations are incoherent without reference to quantum fields and virtual particles.

Also, the veddy veddy sophisticated theologians do not accept God's existence 'in the whole mind'. They invent other sorts of attitudes so that in a sense (so the story goes) their belief in God is not of the same sort as their beliefs in cats and dogs. I don't accept the coherence of this sort of discourse, but it is plain that it is not like the belief of someone who wears a literal tinfoil hat.

I'm interested in real phenomena, not technical definitions. Aren't you?

RJ said: Sure, technically many or most religionists are delusional by this definition. So we need different words or concepts if we want to have a real conversation about religious belief.

RJ said: Geez, you're sensitive. I think your sledgehammer style is necessary at times, but not at all times. I agree that there is no empirical evidence for God or gods, and that other types of 'evidence' that the veddy veddy sophisticated theologians invent in its stead is self-serving nonsense. I'm a convinced atheist, same as you. But religious believers are not generally delusional or insane. I think they are misled into a tendentious and self-serving interpretation of reality, but the fact is that the guy who lives in a tunnel and thinks the cops are devils is just not the same as your average churchgoer. I did not express irritation with you, nor disagreement.

phhht said: The same words I use here are seem to be adequate to talk about other forms of delusional illness, such as erotomania and delusions of grandeur. Why do we need a special vocabulary to talk about religious delusional illness?

Because it's different. Obviously so. The same words should not be used for obviously different cases. Not that similar, so clearly should not be conflated.

FL is, I'm sure you realize, a very special case. Even among the fundamentalists, he is not typical. But even he is not like the guy with the tinfoil hat. He does not hallucinate, and your use of that word is metaphorical, not literal. He is much more similar to global warming deniers than with the 'CIA is after me' set.

Are you sure you are not overestimating the rational faculties and clarity of vision of the non-religious? It's not like they (we) have a special access to reality.

RJ said: [Flawdy] does not hallucinate, and your use of that word is metaphorical, not literal.

W. H. Heydt said:

Robert Byers said:

W. H. Heydt said:

Robert Byers said:

Mike Elzinga said: A lot of people don't know this about Olivia Newton-John.

Newton-John was born in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, to a Welsh father, Brinley "Bryn" Newton-John, and a Berlin-born mother, Irene Helene (née Born), the eldest child of the Nobel Prize-winning atomic physicist Max Born

In other words, she is the granddaughter of Max Born. But what would Byers know about pedigree?

When I like music I look into the singers/songwriters/bands history. So I'm very aware of Olivia's Born 9and so Einstein too0 heritage. In fact she came from intelligent people on both sides of the family and thats why she was successful. Only a wee bit of entry level opportunity. Accomplishment and intelligence in humans is always from curves(on a graph) in influences affecting the newborn baby. There is great probability in this. NOT BIOLOGICAL OR GENETIC. Just picking it up more. No evolution.

It appears (no surprise, of course) that you are unfamiliar with the long term debates over "nurture vs. nature".

I'm very aware. I reject the nature one ever had credibility in Anglo American civilization amongst real people. Or the rest of the world. It always was seen as nurture. A tiny bit of race stuff in obscure circles possibly. It was seen as based on identity and so curves of the class. However still entirely of the free will. the bible insists on this too and so Christianity, especially protestant,

And yet you praise Olivia Newton John for intelligent ancestors and assert that those ancestors have something to do with her intelligence. Mr. Byers that IS nature in this context. FYI...the Bible supports the "nature" argument (wrongly, but the idea is there) when it comes to breeding striped and spotted goats. So you are not only attempting to deny known science, but also the Bible you give so much lip service to.

On the religion-is-delusion sub-thread, I've been through this with phhht. There is a difference, and the difference between religious ideas and what he would call other delusions is that religious ideas are culturally installed. This class of culturally installed delusion is found in other spheres than the religious. Many Americans, for example, will, with complete honesty and total confidence, insist that they live in the best country in the world. Many Australians aver that our actual national value is "fair go". These are culturally installed delusions. They, and religious ideas such as "There is One God", are different from psychopathic, chemically-caused, traumatic delusions, or those originating from some physical injury to the brain or disease state. Phhht quotes the example of the Parkinson's sufferer who has visual hallucinations. Aural hallucinations are one of the common symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. Quite so. These are caused by clinical conditions.

But this is not true of one who prays, or lights a candle, or goes to church, and does not claim that he or she hears voices or sees God. Some of the more exotic manifestations of religious belief do appear perilously close to madness - hysteria, glossolalia, spasmodic movement, ecstasy - and yet the causes are still not clinical. They are cultural. Because they are cultural and not clinical, they must be distinguished, because the treatment is different. Saying that they are the same because they look alike, at least at the extremes, is to imply the false conclusion that they are to be treated the same.

Dave Luckett said: But this is not true of one who prays, or lights a candle, or goes to church, and does not claim that he or she hears voices or sees God. Some of the more exotic manifestations of religious belief do appear perilously close to madness - hysteria, glossolalia, spasmodic movement, ecstasy - and yet the causes are still not clinical. They are cultural. Because they are cultural and not clinical, they must be distinguished, because the treatment is different. Saying that they are the same because they look alike, at least at the extremes, is to imply the false conclusion that they are to be treated the same.

Robert, what makes you think your personal opinion is of interest to anyone else? Opinion is all that you have, there isn't anything suggesting that you know anything about the subjects you chose to utter stupid arguments about. You don't even understand the difference between a fact vs. a random thought in your mind.

Heredity has a lot to do with intelligence, and there is plenty of evidence around that high intelligence - IQ on the order of 140 is not only from upbringing - it shows its presence in the baby long before it has been brought up.

Like musicality runs in families, IQ does.

Big ears runs in families, is that from upbringing?
Small people have small children, big people have big children.

But you wouldn't know about such things, you are not a thinker, your capacity for thinking is limited.

You are annoying, an insult to intelligent and educated people.

Why don't you try to learn the facts before you spout the childish, primitive quasi-ideas that cloud your mind?

Smart people read books, and more books. They learn from the people that's been there before them. What do you read? What do you know? You don't make sense, you are indeed the proverbial fly in the ointment, something irritating that one want to swat.

W. H. Heydt said: It won't change the mind of Byers, but it serves to remind others that Byers hasn't any evidence to back up his ongoing claims.

PaulBC said:

W. H. Heydt said: It won't change the mind of Byers, but it serves to remind others that Byers hasn't any evidence to back up his ongoing claims.

Yes, but couldn't we just program a bot to reply "gods you're stupid Byers" every time he posts?

Robert Byers said: The bible never says nature has a influence over the moral/intellectual ability of man.

phhht asks: How does one distinguish causes that are “clinical” from those that are “cultural”?

Robert Byers said: No. I only mean because her family brought her up in more intelligent circles. Yes family and identity is everything almost. Yet just because one is brought up in hose circles. The bible never says nature has a influence over the moral/intellectual ability of man. Its all free will. Free will working with whjat is within reach which is based on the people one is around and ones own motivations.

Accomplishment and intelligence in humans is always from curves(on a graph) in influences affecting the newborn baby. There is great probability in this. NOT BIOLOGICAL OR GENETIC. Just picking it up more. No evolution.

Scientists predict academic achievement from DNA alone: Scientists from King's College London have used a new genetic scoring technique to predict academic achievement from DNA alone. This is the strongest prediction from DNA of a behavioural measure to date. The research shows that a genetic score comprising 20,000 DNA variants explains almost 10 per cent of the differences between children's educational attainment at the age of 16. DNA alone therefore provides a much better prediction of academic achievement than gender or even 'grit', a personality trait thought to measure perseverance and passion for long-term goals.

Rolf said:

Scientists predict academic achievement from DNA alone: Scientists from King's College London have used a new genetic scoring technique to predict academic achievement from DNA alone. This is the strongest prediction from DNA of a behavioural measure to date. The research shows that a genetic score comprising 20,000 DNA variants explains almost 10 per cent of the differences between children's educational attainment at the age of 16. DNA alone therefore provides a much better prediction of academic achievement than gender or even 'grit', a personality trait thought to measure perseverance and passion for long-term goals.

More here: Science Daily

Perhaps you missed the whole battle about vegesaurs.

It’s not like they (we) have a special access to reality. But we do have exactly that: we have empirical evidence.

These are culturally installed delusions.

RJ said:

Perhaps you missed the whole battle about vegesaurs.

No, I've read almost everything here for maybe 15 years. However egregious a crime against rationality and taste FL's constructs are, they are still obviously different from those of the guy with he tinfoil hat.

The observable differences are indeed in social function and behaviour. And I agree with phhht that commonly accepted falsehoods should not get any special deference. Also like (I'm assuming) phhht and unlike some people who post here, I think that credulity towards the unevidenced (even when it seems harmless) reduces our intellectual and political resistance to tosh. In this sense I am a New Atheist.

On an intellectual level, evolution denial and the belief that the Trilateral Commission is controlled by aliens from Sirius are on par, and we should judge them similarly in our deliberations of evidence-appraisal. That is, we should point out how incoherent and at odds with observed reality, both are.

On a social and phenomenological level, they are not that similar, and if we want to understand people, intellectually, and push back people, politically, we need to understand this.

My position is a simple one: People who profess belief in the nonexistent are mentally impaired.

I do not know what causes such impairment. I do not know whether it is "cultural" or "clinical"; I don't even understand the distinction, much less how to make it. I don't care that there are degrees of impairment by religious delusional illness, just as there are with virtually all illnesses. I am unimpressed by the argument that religious delusional illness differs from other forms of mental illness.

I think people who claim that gods are real are crazy. It's that simple.

Dave Luckett said:..glossolalia...

I did not make an argument that religion differs from delusional mental illness. Argument is not needed for common-sense observation. If you can't tell the difference, there is something crazy about you. It's that simple. You think David MacMillan is crazy? You're weird.

I disagreed with but understood the distinction between 'clinical' and 'cultural'. If you can't understand it, maybe you are a little short on cognitive 'umph'.

But I don't really believe that. No, you strike me as being a bigot like the oh-so-cool poststructuralists, who carefully give themselves ideological training until simple and obvious distinctions become hard for them to grasp. Because they want to be so cooooool. I'm sensing this sort of dynamic with you. Now I feel a little sorry for you, too.

RJ said: I did not make an argument that religion differs from delusional mental illness. Argument is not needed for common-sense observation. If you can't tell the difference, there is something crazy about you. It's that simple. You think David MacMillan is crazy? You're weird. I disagreed with but understood the distinction between 'clinical' and 'cultural'. If you can't understand it, maybe you are a little short on cognitive 'umph'. But I don't really believe that. No, you strike me as being a bigot like the oh-so-cool poststructuralists, who carefully give themselves ideological training until simple and obvious distinctions become hard for them to grasp. Because they want to be so cooooool. I'm sensing this sort of dynamic with you. Now I feel a little sorry for you, too.

You know, I wouldn't bother if I did not think you are basically on my side, and not just with the evolution issue.

You are perfectly entitled to your massively nonstandard and uninformative uses of 'delusion', 'hallucination', and 'mental illness'. But you should know that if you tried to apply this attitude to science, you would be left with very little experimental success.

If you apply the same attitude to Hilbert spaces, it will be very difficult for you to understand the difference between a continuum and discrete energy state. "It's still an energy - don't care if it is positive or negative."

If you apply the same attitude to metals, it will be very difficult for you to understand the chemical-reactive differences between germanium and sodium. "It's still a metal - don't care about multiple valances."

If you apply the same attitude to mathematical functions, it will be very difficult for you to define the integrals needed for statistical calculations in physics. "It's still a function - don't care about measure."

"It's still a fly - don't care about microevolution."

Next time David MacMillan does a guest post, will you give him the booby B. treatment? If not, why not?

RJ said: You know, I wouldn't bother if I did not think you are basically on my side, and not just with the evolution issue. You are perfectly entitled to your massively nonstandard and uninformative uses of 'delusion', 'hallucination', and 'mental illness'. But you should know that if you tried to apply this attitude to science, you would be left with very little experimental success. If you apply the same attitude to Hilbert spaces, it will be very difficult for you to understand the difference between a continuum and discrete energy state. "It's still an energy - don't care if it is positive or negative." If you apply the same attitude to metals, it will be very difficult for you to understand the chemical-reactive differences between germanium and sodium. "It's still a metal - don't care about multiple valances." If you apply the same attitude to mathematical functions, it will be very difficult for you to define the integrals needed for statistical calculations in physics. "It's still a function - don't care about measure." "It's still a fly - don't care about microevolution."

W. H. Heydt said:

Dave Luckett said:..glossolalia...

My wife, who has a degree in Linguistics from UC Berkeley, once had the opportunity to observe a session that involved glossalalia. She came away with one very strong observation, all of the phonemes spoken were from the English phonemic inventory, and all the "words" were constructed according to the English syllabic canon. E.g., you can't begin an English word with "ng" as in "sing." They were saying nonsense English. She didn't tell the earnest young people that, but she didn't go back to their session, either.

phhht said:

Dave Luckett said: But this is not true of one who prays, or lights a candle, or goes to church, and does not claim that he or she hears voices or sees God. Some of the more exotic manifestations of religious belief do appear perilously close to madness - hysteria, glossolalia, spasmodic movement, ecstasy - and yet the causes are still not clinical. They are cultural. Because they are cultural and not clinical, they must be distinguished, because the treatment is different. Saying that they are the same because they look alike, at least at the extremes, is to imply the false conclusion that they are to be treated the same.

So you say, Dave. How does one distinguish causes that are "clinical" from those that are "cultural"?

Scott F said: Because of his language deficits, Robert seems to be a special case. I'm no psychologist or any kind of doctor, but I wouldn't be surprised if he has other mental impairments. But even given that, changes in his meds would probably not affect the kinds of things that Robert believes.

I am not suggesting anything like Downs syndrome, but I belive people may suffer more subtle deficiencies.

But even people with Downs may write a book.

PaulBC said:

Scott F said: Because of his language deficits, Robert seems to be a special case. I'm no psychologist or any kind of doctor, but I wouldn't be surprised if he has other mental impairments. But even given that, changes in his meds would probably not affect the kinds of things that Robert believes.

I was reluctant to say it, but if Byers speaks the way he writes, he probably does have trouble functioning in society, in contrast to FL--whose folksy avuncular schtick is annoying to most of us here but might work in other settings. It's possible that Byers sounds normal until he starts to write. Some people write very stilted prose because they think it sounds more educated. I have also wondered if English is his first language, though his name suggests it is. So yeah, I'm not really sure about Byers, but it isn't specifically because he's religious. I couldn't write like that if I tried.

I am a little late to the "delusional" discussion, but I make a distinction between deluded and delusional. Newton was deluded if he thought that he could chemically synthesize gold from baser metals, but he was not delusional, because there was no reason not to believe he could do so. Deluded could be misinformed, but delusional is an order of magnitude more out of touch with reality. Someone today who thinks he can synthesize gold is probably delusional. Someone in Usher's time who believed literally in Genesis was deluded, but not delusional. Someone who has been exposed to modern science and today believes literally in Genesis, by contrast, is delusional. Someone who believes in God but does not consequently deny reality may be deluded but is not necessary delusional. The line between deluded and delusional is fuzzy; this fuzziness is the demarcation problem.

Matt Young said: I am a little late to the "delusional" discussion, but I make a distinction between deluded and delusional. Newton was deluded if he thought that he could chemically synthesize gold from baser metals, but he was not delusional, because there was no reason not to believe he could do so. Deluded could be misinformed, but delusional is an order of magnitude more out of touch with reality. Someone today who thinks he can synthesize gold is probably delusional. Someone in Usher's time who believed literally in Genesis was deluded, but not delusional. Someone who has been exposed to modern science and today believes literally in Genesis, by contrast, is delusional. Someone who believes in God but does not consequently deny reality may be deluded but is not necessary delusional. The line between deluded and delusional is fuzzy; this fuzziness is the demarcation problem.

Someone who has been exposed to modern science and today believes literally in Genesis, by contrast, is delusional.

How much exposure counts as “exposed to modern science”? And of what quality must the exposure be? I certainly knew many students who made it through the exposure offered in 12 years of public school (including 4 years in a science/math/technology magnet school) and went off to college as YECS. Many get constant and powerful counter-exposure from their fundamentalist families, churches, peer groups, Sunday school, bible camp, etc. I don’t think I could label them all as delusional. Tragically wrong and misguided, but not delusional.

Shared psychotic disorders usually happen only in long-term relationships in which the person who has the psychotic disorder is dominant and the other person is passive. These pairs tend to have a close emotional connection to each other. But apart from that, they usually don’t have strong social ties. Shared psychotic disorders can also happen in groups of people who are closely involved with a person who has a psychotic disorder (called folie à plusiers, or "the madness of many"). For instance, this could happen in a cult if the leader is psychotic and his or her followers take on their delusions. Experts don’t know why it happens. But they believe that stress and social isolation play a role in its development. Diagnosis If someone has symptoms of a shared psychotic disorder, they’ll answer questions about their physical and psychiatric history and possibly also get a physical exam. There are no lab tests that specifically diagnose shared psychotic disorders. So doctors may use tools such as brain imaging (including MRI scans) and blood tests to rule out other causes.

Matt Young said: I am a little late to the "delusional" discussion, but I make a distinction between deluded and delusional. Newton was deluded if he thought that he could chemically synthesize gold from baser metals, but he was not delusional, because there was no reason not to believe he could do so. Deluded could be misinformed, but delusional is an order of magnitude more out of touch with reality. Someone today who thinks he can synthesize gold is probably delusional. Someone in Usher's time who believed literally in Genesis was deluded, but not delusional. Someone who has been exposed to modern science and today believes literally in Genesis, by contrast, is delusional. Someone who believes in God but does not consequently deny reality may be deluded but is not necessary delusional. The line between deluded and delusional is fuzzy; this fuzziness is the demarcation problem.

Robert Byers said: I don't think I'm delusional but then if I was I wouldn't know it. I think.

Robert Byers said:

Matt Young said: I am a little late to the "delusional" discussion, but I make a distinction between deluded and delusional. Newton was deluded if he thought that he could chemically synthesize gold from baser metals, but he was not delusional, because there was no reason not to believe he could do so. Deluded could be misinformed, but delusional is an order of magnitude more out of touch with reality. Someone today who thinks he can synthesize gold is probably delusional. Someone in Usher's time who believed literally in Genesis was deluded, but not delusional. Someone who has been exposed to modern science and today believes literally in Genesis, by contrast, is delusional. Someone who believes in God but does not consequently deny reality may be deluded but is not necessary delusional. The line between deluded and delusional is fuzzy; this fuzziness is the demarcation problem.

Someone , today, who believes in christian doctrines on inerrancy in scripture and finds claims to the opposite of genesis to be plain unsupported by evidence is DELUSIONAL. If so persuading such people, in their millions, is hopeless. Delusional would be too the bone. I don't think I'm delusional but then if I was I wouldn't know it. I think. Possibly its better to say people in discussing invisible processes and actions of the past fail to appreciate the evidence for some conclusion thereto. Including failing to understand the evidence is not there. The evidence problem being a issue of bias, carelessness, non desiring it, and so on. Origin matters, unlike most science subjects, are about invisible things. However invisible gravity is ITS still not invisible.

Robert Byers said: Possibly its better to say people in discussing invisible processes and actions of the past fail to appreciate the evidence for some conclusion thereto. Including failing to understand the evidence is not there. The evidence problem being a issue of bias, carelessness, non desiring it, and so on. Origin matters, unlike most science subjects, are about invisible things. However invisible gravity is ITS still not invisible.

Delusional is far deeper; it also involves a deliberate effort to not look, never learn, never take in evidence, and to deliberately get things wrong in order to sustain a preconceived world view.

The leaders of the ID/creationist movement are, at the very least, delusional. They got PhDs yet never learned basic science. They don't look, they don't do experiments, they don't submit their ideas to the crucible of peer review; and most of all, they get the science wrong - DEAD WRONG - at the high school level.

Dembski, Sewell, Lisle, Abel, and all the others that do "mathematical" calculations get them dead wrong.
They don't know how to calculate the probabilities of molecular assemblies; they can do the basic calculations of the Earth/Moon orbital mechanics, they can't get units correct when pluging variables into equations, and they have no clue about the basic concepts of physics, chemistry, biology, and geology that are taught in high school.

Furthermore, they continue to get these things wrong even after being corrected over and over and over again over a period of something like fifty years.

When people have easy access to data, evidence, and information yet fail to look at it - let alone make any effort to understand it; when they continue to plow the same rut over and over and over and get it wrong over and over and over, something is mentally wrong with these individuals.

Delusional may be the mildest criticism one can offer of this kind of mindset; but it certainly captures the essense of a mind that doesn't work properly. And with ID/creationists, what is the common thread among all of them that leads them to be this screwed up in their thinking?

Answer: Sectarian dogma.

Mike Elzinga said: Dembski, Sewell, Lisle, Abel, and all the others that do "mathematical" calculations get them dead wrong. They don't know how to calculate the probabilities of molecular assemblies; they can't do the basic calculations of the Earth/Moon orbital mechanics, they can't get units correct when plugging variables into equations, and they have no clue about the basic concepts of physics, chemistry, biology, and geology that are taught in high school.

Firstly, students may come to this particular topic with strong preconceptions, often based on specific religious teachings. Journal of Biological Education

Robert Byers said: Possibly its better to say people in discussing invisible processes and actions of the past fail to appreciate the evidence for some conclusion thereto. Including failing to understand the evidence is not there. The evidence problem being a issue of bias, carelessness, non desiring it, and so on. Origin matters, unlike most science subjects, are about invisible things. However invisible gravity is ITS still not invisible.

Mike Elzinga said: Delusional may be the mildest criticism one can offer of this kind of mindset; but it certainly captures the essense of a mind that doesn't work properly. And with ID/creationists, what is the common thread among all of them that leads them to be this screwed up in their thinking? Answer: Sectarian dogma.

I am a little late to the “delusional” discussion, but I make a distinction between deluded and delusional. Newton was deluded if he thought that he could chemically synthesize gold from baser metals, but he was not delusional, because there was no reason not to believe he could do so. Deluded could be misinformed, but delusional is an order of magnitude more out of touch with reality.

Someone today who thinks he can synthesize gold is probably delusional.

Someone in Usher’s time who believed literally in Genesis was deluded, but not delusional.

Someone who has been exposed to modern science and today believes literally in Genesis, by contrast, is delusional.

Someone who believes in God but does not consequently deny reality may be deluded but is not necessary delusional.

The line between deluded and delusional is fuzzy; this fuzziness is the demarcation problem.

TomS said: Do they come to their conclusions from reading the Bible, or do they read the Bible in such a way as to validate their beliefs?

I’ll just see what kind of response this gets…

Matt Young said:

I’ll just see what kind of response this gets…

Well, that was quite a riff on what I actually said. No one here has mocked mental illness, and I do not think anyone said that delusional was necessarily a mental illness; I just said it was beyond deluded. If psychiatrists use delusional as a term of art, that is their business. As for Newton and Usher, you have a valid point; just choose some other example, like a physician who thinks you can synthesize gold by chemical means (as was explicit in my comment).

If psychiatrists use delusional as a term of art

Robert Byers said: Origin matters, unlike most science subjects, are about invisible things. However invisible gravity is ITS still not invisible.

My comment was somewhat strong to make a point, but I will repeat my suggestion that language that amounts to wrong amateur psychiatric diagnoses of creationists (or anyone else) be avoided.

Gold can certainly be synthesized.

harold said: The term "delusion" is like the term "species". It may be a bit hard to perfectly define, and ambivalent cases may exist, but it is a valid scientific term, and obvious cases are common. Delusions can be reproducibly recognized by experts, can be caused by drugs, and can be succesfully treated with other drugs. Delusions are the purview of psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals, but can be correctly recognized by other health care professionals and trainees in many cases.

Mike Elzinga said:

harold said: The term "delusion" is like the term "species". It may be a bit hard to perfectly define, and ambivalent cases may exist, but it is a valid scientific term, and obvious cases are common. Delusions can be reproducibly recognized by experts, can be caused by drugs, and can be succesfully treated with other drugs. Delusions are the purview of psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals, but can be correctly recognized by other health care professionals and trainees in many cases.

What kind of mental aberrations are attributable to religion when people in these subcultures display a repeated and consistent pattern of hatred toward anything secular; using even the same words and phrases even when they come from different parts of the country and world? These are people who are immersed in a subculture that instills fear and loathing from the time they are very young; and the subculture is sustained by powerful, politically active men who keep their foot on the necks of anyone who deviates in the slightest. It becomes emotionally painful for anyone in this subculture to doubt, question, and learn; and this emotional clutching at any hint of a different perspective continues throughout the rest of their lives. If anyone here was watching the Republican Convention when Jerry Falwell Jr, Ben Carson, and some of the other evangelicals had the microphone, you saw the weirdness and anger coming from those pulpits. Carson's weird, contorted connection of Hillary Clinton to Lucifer was a glimpse into a deranged mind. Falwell's angry diatribe arguing for more religion in government was a glimpse into the goals of this sectarian subculture. These are dangerous minds; minds that exist in a sectarian echo chamber, completely out of touch with reality. Minds that think their Manichaean world view should be put in place by force of law. How does anyone exist in this modern world, with all of its communication possibilities and access to basic information, and still produce the kind of pseudoscience, pseudo history, pseudo psychology, and pure hatred of everything secular that comes out of this subculture? This subculture is fed and protected by a society that allows them their churches and their freedom to worship as they please; yet it is not enough for them. They want to be the overlords of our society. It is a form of religion that induces mental illness when it is imposed on people from their early childhood and continues throughout their entire adult years. These are minds that accept conspiracy theories, outlandish innuendo, speculation, and demonization of others outside their subculture as obvious truth; and they accept these assertions from their leaders without the slightest twinge of doubt. They blanch only when reality intrudes. I am not a psychiatrist, and I don't know if the word "delusional" is a proper, clinical characterization of this kind of mindset; but watching the output from these minds in real time leaves one feeling like something isn't right about them; they are weird and creepy, and I certainly am not inclined to trust anything they say about anything.

Once, I think he said at a party, he cold-read a woman and convinced her that he was a psychic. Another person went to reassure the woman that the man was not a psychic but rather a professional magician. The woman insisted that the second person must be mistaken. “What if I get him over here and have him tell you that he is not a psychic?” asked the second person. “I would say he is mistaken too,” responded the woman. To my mind, that response borders on delusional – not crazy, not mentally ill, but beyond merely deluded.

Mike Elzinga said: These are minds that accept conspiracy theories, outlandish innuendo, speculation, and demonization of others outside their subculture as obvious truth; and they accept these assertions from their leaders without the slightest twinge of doubt. They blanch only when reality intrudes.

harold said: Ussher was neither deluded nor delusional. Later evidence that he did not know about at the time proved him wrong.

Huh. Then I guess that's what lead to the fall of the house of Ussher?