Response to "eworkhard", part three...

Another response to eworkhard's comment last post...

"I might remind you that evolution seems to make good use of ‘ad hoc hypothesis’ if that is your definition. At first it was proposed that the big bang had occurred just millions of years ago. Now it is billions. At first dating supported millions, now it supports billions. Sound to good to be true? Is this an example of data changing a theory, or theory changing data?

Gah! I know you disagree with many parts of comtempory science, such as the Big-Bang, geology and most of all evolution. Okay, that's fine, it's good to critisise science, but don't do it because it disagrees with your religion, and that's waht you're pretty much doing.

Anyway I have a huge problem with dating methods that are used as you can see on my blog http://www.creation-evolution.blogspot.com . The problem with evolution is that the theory needs billions of years to explain how things could have evolved. As this time increases, dating also began to show an increase in time."

What, this? Or how about this?


"No, although all you state is true, that is not what I was talking about.(although you can add Einstein) Data is data. Scientists take it and try to INTERPRET it. Sometimes they are wrong. Sometimes they simply do not know enough to properly interpret it. I am especially thinking about science around the atom. Many times the theory changes, sometimes quite dramatically."

Funny you should mention that, creation science does this all the time.

The MO theory is like evolution. Always changing. Yet never true. If you left civilization and came back 10 or 20 years later you would be surprised at the changes to the theory. Yet Dawkins tries to quite critics and say evolution has all of the evidence. It does not.

Yeah, I have kind of stopped arguing about Dawkins....

"First off, I have pointed out that much data is INTERPRETED to support evolution. Yet most, if not all data, that fits evolution also fits creation."

Like what?

"I do not want to come out and debate societal decline or anything (note: we were talking about whether or not Harry Potter is immoral etc). Yet I feel that I must state that I believe that all this magic and even murder gets to people. They feel that they can also do it. That is why that I think that many movies are also wrong. By portraying something, you are condoning it."

You're not giving me any evidence that it gets to people. Even so, you cannot say that your book is moral, not by a long shot.

"Well, I do not necessarily agree with that, and that is the first time that I have heard that. However, I find that they are not saying the evolution caused racism as you originally stated. Rather the articles are stating that evolution antagonized the situation. I am not an expert in this, but I imagine both creationists and evolutionists somewhere would both agree that ‘non white’ races are inferior."

There's still too many straw-man arguments going around at the moment...

"I would say do not worry. You wanted to debate me, and I will do that. It may be sporadic due to my schedule, but I will try to reply. As long as things do not get anyone upset…. I take your reply to mean that you absolutely do not agree. Therefore the debate…. ;)"

Yep. I'm actually enjoying this mini-debate, so, I'll be waiting for your next response...

Response to "eworkhard", part two...

Responce to eworkhard's comment on my last post:

I think you are confused in what I meant by the ad-hoc hypothesis. What I meant was you could add an add-hoc hypothesis to save your theory from being falsified.

Of course, you could happily say that scientists have been doing this for years, and you would be right. For example, when the scientists back in the "good old days" were observing Uranus, they noticed tiny wobbles in it's orbit which would have disproved a lot of the theory of gravity. However, they came up with an ad-hoc hypothesis which suggested that there may have been another planet, which would have be why Uranus was moving badly (without the annoying innuendos).

Sure enough, they found a planet, Neptune, and the theory of gravity was saved from being falsified.

So how is this different from creationism? Well, I would happily argue that this hypothesis was inderpendently testable, and, could actually be tested. But when a creationist says that the reason that there aren't any human fossils amonst dinosaurs is because God destroyed all the evidence, well, that's taking the biscuit.

Secondly, I wouldn't be too sure about that Dawkins comment. Yes, he would be pretty hostile to say creationism, but then again, it is a theory which is based upon a fairly old book/text, as opposed to observation. And it's not as if it would only be creationism under attack. Lets not forget Lamarkism, eh?

I don't see how Harry Potter is any more dangerous than the Bible. Can you offer me evidence, that it is having a bad effect on us?

As for your last comment (summmed up: "who actually believes teaching evolution causes racism?"), I can present to you, this. One of the main sources for creationist teaching says that evolution is racist. Henry Morris said some crazy things about that...

This is a very basic post, I'll add to it later, but the other comments have got my blood moderatly boiling....

Response to "eworkhard".

I am replying to a comment left by a creationist on one of my entries.

I have often heard of Dawkins as being arrogant. After reading his piece in (I believe TIME) on Science vs. Creation, I came to believe that myself. What is the guys mission? Motivation? He is not simply an evolutionist. It is almost as if he has a hate against God/Bible.

When you say he is not simpily an evolutionist. It is almost as if he has a hate against God/Bible, I got the idea that you meant this as a critisism. I got the idea that you thought it was bad that Dawkins wasn't just talking about Biology. However, it would be fucking stupid for you to ignore the fact that many theologins and Christians have tried to explain things outside their field (an example being, oh let me think, science?). I don't see them suffer as much critisism as when Dawkins moves into philosophy...

Do not say that he is simply showing that the Bible is wrong. If that was the case he would also be raving against such books as Harry potter.

What? The difference between Harry Potter and the Bible is that Harry Potter isn't followed (in terms of morality and pratice). However, the Bible still influences and controls billions of people. Stop using fucking straw-man arguments against Harry Potter. It does not "entice" people into praticing witchcraft, it does not "corrupt the minds" of people, and it most certainly does not damn their souls forever. It's a straw-man argument, pure and simple...

Also he is not trying to show that the Creation view is wrong. The only way to do that is to actually PROVE the THEORY of evolution. To do that he must make something of nothing. There every theory runs into a roadblock.

What is he trying to do then? Contempory science (and empirical evidence) leans heavily towards the theory of the big bang, evolution, and the wacky idea that the Grand Canyon was not designed by Noah's flood, as creationists would like you to believe. Creationism is not science, because if it was, the creationist theory would have been discarded many years ago. Instead we have creation scientists constantly adding ad-hoc hypothesises to prevent the data being falsified. These ad-hocs often conatin theories which are not inderpendently testable, so they can never be disproved. The only reason that creationism is constantly bought back is that Christians (who believe in a literal Bible) believe that it has to be taught in schools and whatnot. Also, thay believe some wacky things, such as the teaching of evolution as being the cause of racism, rape etc.

You use the word "theory" in a way that would suggest that scientists are still unsure of whether or not evolution actually happened. But then again, I suppose evolution is a theory, in the same way gravity is. When you say "something of nothing", I assume you're saying that the non-creationist theories can be falsified because the "flaw" with the theories is that we haven't (yet) discovered how the universe coming around to be, with you suggesting it spontaniously came out of nothing. Of course, I could ask you how your God came into extistence. I'm assuming that if you believe in creationism, you believe in a diety from a Judaistic religion, which pretty much says that God is the alpha and the omega. But that doesn't really answer my question, so what created God, and how?

I would genuinly like to take this discussion further, as it is very interesting. Please continue to comment...

Something for Willifer...

Please note that this post has a lot of links in it. This is because I'm trying to back up my points here, and so that Willifer relises that I wasn't joking around when I was talking about creationism.

I've been trying to tell one of my friends that there is a group of people called "Young Earth Creationists", the group of people who believe in a literal Genesis, basically implying that the Earth is around 6000-12,000 years old (depending on how you add up the ages on all the people in the Bible). One of their most popular websites is Answers In Genesis, which has many experts in different fields of science write about why evolution (and other areas in physics, biology, geology etc) is wrong. Here are some of the claims AiG and other creationist sites like to bring up:

• The Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood.
• Any light that is over 10,000 years old was artificially created by God. This pretty much suggests that God is a deciever.
• UFOs are the apparitions of Satan.
• Evolution is the sole cause of Rasism (of course there was a lot of racism and slavery in the deeply religious south of the US a while back).
• Athiests believe morality is relative.
  
• Dinosaurs lived with man (some creationsists believe that anyway).

Of course, these guys are cherry-picking from the Bible. For example, if you are to believe in a literal Bible, you have to believe that bats are a type of bird, grasshoppers only have four legs, and disobedient children should be stoned to death. Of course, the creationists don't really believe this, so they are being hypocritical. I also got the idea that he didn't believe that creationism was going to be taken seriously. Wrong!

This is just a taster of what they believe really, but there are some other crazy beliefs worth looking out for.

Willifer, I wasn't bullshitting...