Apathy Sketchpad

Here are some of the comments from a recent Times Online article about Richard Dawkins. I have no idea what this one is even about:

Darwin on Dawkins would be preferable - evolutionary thinking would be divided overnight - DAWKINS -v- the rest of us !!!!

Ian Payne, walsall,

Leon from Melbourne very nearly understands the phrase “mathematical precision”, but not quite.

The mathematical precision of space, galaxies and ourselves (DNA etc) is no more than chance; formed from a big bang lie in a nano second 1000 billion years ago.

This is an insult to intelligence.The only worship today is material gain. Sell more Books Richard.

God forgive us.

leon, melbourne,

J Geraci has a defective irony gland.

Dr. Dawkins’ arrogance is astounding. I can imagine how wonderful it must feel to know, without any doubt, that his view is the only correct one. Apparently he has a “curious ambivalence towards Christians who accept” evolution. That is, of course, the majority - including my Catholic Church.

J. Geraci, Austin, Texas

Robin here has scientifically proven the existence of Sauron.

Atheist Supremacist Richard Dawkins displays plenty of ignorance and foolhardiness himself in his attacks on God, theists and religion. . . I invite Richard Dawkins to look skywards on August 1st and explain why the total solar eclipse so distinctly resembles the pupil and iris of an “Eye of God”.

Robin Edgar, Montreal, Canada

SD Goh is mounting an Appeal to Long-Winded Authority

Atheists can be so arrogant that they only believe what they want to believe. Augustine Ong with a PHD from King’s Cllge.in Organic Chemistry, a Fulbright-Hays scholar at MIT, was Visiting Prof. at the Dysons-Perrin Lab,Oxford University, Pres.of the Malaysian Scientists Ass. is a staunch Catholic.

SD Goh, PJ, Malaysia

I can’t work out if Dennis is arguing for an old Earth or against dinosaurs:

The Catholic Church were the first to work out he age of the Earth using the Bible (A continuous story that runs from creation to Christ) They concluded that the Earth was created in 4004 BC. So, Dinosaurs came into existence, lived, became extinct and fossilized all within 6000 years. Believe it ??

Dennis, Gaithersburg, USA

Greg, who we will meet again later, tries his best to promote creationism, but then remembers that he doesn’t believe in it.

Scott:”Creationism/ID is not science.”

In part science is the observation of nature. If nature has been influenced by intelligent forces (God in the first place, us latterly) then that is part of science also, else our observations will not be comprehensible.

Catholics can accept evolution.

Greg Lorriman, Leatherhead, UK

I think Richard is more used to questions about immigration. He gets confused easily. But he tries ever so hard, bless him.

The subjects of science and maths etc are meant to educate and train students in the scientific method, analytical thinking, logic, not to contrast beliefs and viewpoints. I can assure you, most people in the UK taking postgraduate technical phds and the like are not english. WAKE UP.

Richard, Newcastle,

Kurt is ignorant of many things, notably “how to safely contain snakes”.

Humans create things all the time, including habitats for animals that have no concept of our existence, from bee hives to python cages at the zoo. Our fiction is rife with “superior aliens”. Why is it so hard in science to AT LEAST CONSIDER that our habitat was designed by an architect, God?

Kurt Heckman, Hagerstown, USA

The imaginary version of Expelled in Chucks Own Little World is much better than the real one. I imagine.

Too bad he gets owned by Ben Stein in “expelled”. So much so that he files a lawsuit to stop the release of the movie in hopes that people won’t see that he became a creationist for a few minutes. People reject God because they WANT to… very simple. “They did not LIKE to retain God in their minds”

Chuck, Grand Blanc,

I think JL may be attempting sarcasm here.

WOW! This is exciting news! Now we can all have no hope in the future and all embrace the fact that nothing happens once we die! This is fantastic. I can’t wait to ruin everyone’s lives and shatter little childrens dreams with this news!

JL, Deadwood,

Simone has been talking to JL.

I can imagine a primary school class in evolutionary theory based on Dawkins’ book: “kids, to start with, there is no hope in the universe and when people die they just rot, no matter what mum or dad say about going to Heaven. And now let’s talk about this fluffy chimpanzee…”

Simone, derby,

Robin isn’t going to shut up without a fight.

What ignorance Linnet? It is a fact that total solar eclipses distinctly resemble a gigantic “eye in thy sky”. The odds against this *purely symbolic* “Eye of God” occurring by random chance “coincidence” are astronomically high. Do the math. Intelligent Design *is* a plausible explanation here. . .

Robin Edgar, Montreal , Canada

rustan has invented a new argument, which I shall call “Pascal’s Personal Ad”.

B.R.R. There are two ways and two outcomes.Outcome 1 (There is no God); Outcome 2(There is God); Way1: Believer, Way2: Disbeliever; Assumption: life after death is for keeps, then the LOSS of a disbiliever in the Outcome 2 is infinitely larger than the LOSS of believer in the Outcome 1. U decide!

rustam, Stuttgart, Germany

I don’t know if the quote in this one it right, but it sounds like something Jesus might say.

I have read Dawkins and admit it is a most readable book. But it has done nothing to shake my faith. He has become a millionaire based on a lie that God does not exist. I am surprised that so many gullible readers have swallowed Dawkins completely.”Be a believer and not an unbeliever” (Jesus)
John

J.M.Job, LLanfairpwllgwyngyll , Anglesey

A Don supports the downgrading of religion to the Class C Narcotic of the Masses.

Many people love living life in a structure that resolves difficult questions and also creates a community space to interact with others. As my tennis coach says to me “You play tennis better when you don’t think” Religion may be the drug of the masses but what’s wrong with that? Leave them alone.

a don, Sydney, Australia

I have literally no idea what Guy is trying to say.

I wish people would leave Christians, Muslims and Jews alone. People who have deep cultural beliefs should be supported by others. When they are gone we will miss them. It’s a shame for their children, but who are we to judge others beliefs? Religious faith should be encouraged as far as possible.

Guy Smith, Bexley, UK

DM sets a challenge: spot as many different foodstuffs in his comment as you can. I can see four.

Ok so evolution is how we arrived where we are now , just one thing ..which evolved from the soup first ..the chicken or the egg?.. or should that be the egg or the chicken ?
One day we`ll all find out ..roll on that day .

DM, Craigavon,

Jessica considers all researchers arrogant:

The only “stupidity” here is for anyone to assume they can answer a question of faith which has existed for thousands of years.
Do you truly think you know more than anyone else who ever lived? Now that is arrogant.
As to stupidity being proven by a belief in God..someone should warn my patients.

Dr Jessica S, Wrexham,

Michael Walsh makes up any bits of the world he doesn’t know about.

Mark, Brisbane, Australia:
i hate to put it so bluntly, but: why not believe in god? god is impossible to prove and impossible to disprove, so basically: why not? faith in something greater than yourself & a sense of duty towards others has much to reccommend it, as does something to pray to, no?

michael walsh, Manchester,

Peter really fucking hates his dog.

My dog is an intelligent creature, he believes in food and being loyal to me his master, but I don’t think he believes in God (I’ve never heard him pray)
Frankly I don’t care, he’ll be dead in a few years and I’ll get another dog, he’ll be just a memory
People want to be like dogs, no more no less

Peter B, Lincoln,

Matt from Omaha is making a stand for the silent majority of Christians who don’t believe in any of that “god” nonsense.

You know what I hate most? It’s people that judge Christians as a whole group saying we are ignorant for belief in God. I believe that people who continually bash on groups with differing views than their own (both Christians and Atheists) are inherently ignorant.

Matt, Omaha,

HT has not read the Qu’ran lately.

Surely, billions of Christians, Muslims, Jews can’t be wrong saying something else each one of them for thousand years. Surely, God exists, Jesus is his son, Mohamed is his prophet, their land is promised, etc. All of them are right, all in the mind, all in the barrel of the gun.

HT, Geneva,

“EO” writes under a pseudonym so that her friends don’t realise what kind of weird shit she believes. She’s not very good at it, though. I appreciate her typing like she’s one of the Wurzels, though.

There is absolutely no reason why a refusal to believe in a God for whom there is not the slightest shred of evidence should also mean that the theory that we continue, after the body dies, in some other doimension, should be thrown overboard. And DO learn how to use the adverb ‘hopefully’.
EO

Eileen O Conor, Cordoba, Spain

Greg’s back, having carefully calculated the exact chances of God existing.

“to believe in a God…not the slightest shred of evidence”

Even discounting people’s personal experience of God (which *is* evidence): the probabilities of an orderly universe are so extreme that atheist scientists are desperately inventing multi-universe theories. So right now it is 50/50.

Greg Lorriman, Leatherhead, UK

He could have worked it out for sure, though, as there are 6 billion humans and only 1 god, and as we all know, minorities do not exist.

“Religions could have adopted evolution as another evidence of the work of God ”

The only formal creationists are protestant biblical literialists. By far the majority of Christians are not literalists, and are open to Biblical interpretation. Dawkins is using strawmen: he is a hypocrite.

Greg Lorriman, Leatherhead, UK

In fact, nothing outside Tyler’s apartment exists.

I am sick and tired of people shielding evolution behind the term “science” and believing that it settles it. There is about as much “scientific evidence” in support of evolution as there is in support of midichlorines being the catalyst for the force in Star Wars. Its “science fiction”

Tyler, Greenfield, USA

Carmine invites Dawkins to kill her. She also cites her sources, in case people don’t believe that Jesus was crucified.

I believe in d Big Bang 2: God spoke and “BANG” there it was!

I believe in God b/c Jesus walked d Earth 2000 yrs ago n there r witnesses 2 attest that.

Mr Dawkins, u can criticize n laugh at Christians, no biggie, people criticized n laughed at Jesus 2, infact they even killed him. 1Cor 1:21

carmine cicchiello, adelaide, australia

Hindu philosophy apparently isn’t up to much.

@ Adam: all of them? As a Hindu philosopher once put it, the various religions are like the spokes of a wheel.

As you move towards the centre of the wheel on your particular spoke, you also get closer to all the other spokes.

Richard Flynn, Huntingdon, UK

Chris has missed one very small logical step.

Every book has an author.

Chris, London,

Alan Eric worships the Zimbabwean Dollar.

If Darwin’s therory of evolution were true, the fossil record would be exploding with intermediates! I mean real differences, not the kind of changes found WITHIN species, but BETWEEN species. AND we would find intermediates alive today!
Hawkins god is Father Time. He gets bigger when you add 0’s.

Alan Eric, san antonio, texas

Carmine is reading a lot into 1 Corinthians 1:21.

I believe in d Big Bang 2: God spoke and “BANG” it happened!

I believe in God b/c Jesus walked d Earth 2000 yrs ago, he died n resurrected 3 days later. There were many witnesses 2 attest those events , not one of them was taken to court 4 spreading lies, either under Jewish law or Roman (there were 2 many living witnesses)!

Mr Dawkins n company, u can criticize Christians all u want, but u r disregarding truth to ur eternal peril ! 1Cor1:21

carmine cicchiello, adelaide, australia

I have it on good authority that Dawkins will never debate against an invisible talking giraffe either.

Dawkins assumes that all creationists know nothing about the origin of species, that’s why he won’t share a stage with them. However surely he would share a debating platform with a creationist who also happens to be emimently qualified in appropriate fields of science. Interestly, no he won’t.

Russ, Nth Lincs.,

Al Bloom has found the three least-unanswerable questions in the world.

I know this probably won’t change the fortress of ignorance that is the religious person’s mind but how do you all answer these questions:
Why did God create Dinosaurs?
Why did he decide to make horses run faster, birds fly. etc.
Why did he cover 2/3 of the Earth with water?
You get the picture

al bloom, london, united kingdom

Simon has been talking to JL as well, I think.

But it is not debated by anyone who knows anything about it.

How ridiculous. One of so many reasons why Dawkins is so lamentably comic. He is destined to be forgotten; his lifes work crumbling into an empty nothing.

Simon, Birmingham,

The answer to David’s question is “because he was making a show about creationism, genius.”

I am frustrated by Dawkins’ refusal to engage with the idea that God works at a higher level than physically tinkering with His creation. He chooses to ignore approaches to religion that don’t conflict with science. Why?

The original Bible was written and edited by the Catholic Church btw.

David Burke, Manchester, UK

I like to think the exclamation mark in Barry’s post is there because he is posting from an aeroplane and has just realised something is amiss.

where are the wings??!

Barry Bethel, Tamworth,

Gary just made one small error in this post.

scientists keep saying how much ‘evidence’ they have for religion, but i’ve yet to see any. even if i did it wouldnt change my mind about it. as far as im concerned the bible is the exact words of God and any ‘evidence’ which contradicts it has to be, by definition, wrong.

gary, cheam,

Charles doesn’t credit Muslims with much practicality.

“I said something about Islam, but not as much…”
” I know more about Christianity, so I emphasised it.” He doesnt know much about it at all except that Christians wont saw his head off for mocking them. Dawkins is a coward.

Charles, Columbia, USA

David credits Noah with lots, though.

Noah’s Ark: 2 by 2 or just the DNA? How you look at it doesn’t have to be dark-aged.

David Smith, Stourbridge, UK

Robin keeps defending God by talking about eyes and hasn’t yet mentioned how they couldn’t possibly have evolved.

Leon, most people who believe in God are monotheists these days. This is certainly true of Christians, Jews and Muslims. They just have differing beliefs about God aka YHWH aka Allah. No atheist can authoritatively assert that, “There is no God.” There IS evidence of God for those with eyes to see.

Robin Edgar, Montreal, Canada

Greg’s back for yet more, and hasn’t read the Papal Bull lately.

“any semblance of intellect religion doesnt withstand the most basic of scrutiny”

That may be true of protestant christianity, which is riddled with nonsense (like justification by faith alone), but not of Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. ie. a Catholic priest invented the Big Bang theory.

Greg Lorriman, Leatherhead, UK

Guy has discovered two new planets.

Dawkins is as ignorant and arrogant as those he mocks. How can a tiny organic speck, on an irrelevant planet -1planet of 10, part of 100 billion stars in 100 billion galaxies presume to understand the whole of creation. Atheism/ religion - 2 sides of the same galactically irrelevent human viewpoint.

guy , london,

Edward is not satisfied with arguing creationism, and wants something sillier to defend.

How can a scientist of such brilliance write so much sense and then totally destroy his credibility by exposing factual ignorance of the simplest kind.eg his piece on Dowsing was simply a joke I imagine.The desert peoples have been very happily dowsing for water for centuries!

EDWARD SYNGE, TISBURY, UK

The important thing is that Mark was wearing an onion, which was the style at the time.

In old communist times, in Moscow a young party activist walks in into the old church. He spots an old women praying in a dark corner. “How can you believe in this nonsens?” he asks her. “Some people believe He exists, some people believe He does not” is her answer.(nothing to do with evolution).

Mark, York, UK

Andrea provides not only an analogy, but a demonstration.

“A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell.”

CS Lewis

Andrea B, Canterbury, UK

As a scientist, Dan knows all about different kinds of space.

Is intellectualism being ignorant of someones beliefs as well, as dawkins is when he will not give oxygen space to creationists. Nothing, science or religion, an be totally proved. Why “attack” those with beliefs. Wouldn’t leaving them be more “intellectual”. Hypoctritical. And i am a scientist.

Dan, Mitcheldean,

I wonder if “Leatherhead” is Greg’s hometown or occupation. (The link here is my addition to his post.)

“Amazing in this day and age that some people still actually believe in stories of invisible god-creatures and magic heavens”

That’s because you’ve been fooled by Dawkins in to thinking that the concept of a supreme being/God is equivalent to fairies and unicorns. Silly you.

Greg Lorriman, Leatherhead, UK

Before you read this post, a quick Bible lesson. Order of creation events in Genesis: light, water, plantlife, the sun, fish, birds, animals, people.

Science and God are not necessarily opposites to be pitted against one another. It is quite possible that God could have created science and evolution. The order of events in Genesis is exactly the same as in evolutionary theory, it is only the timescale which differs.

NM, Bristol, UK

Chris Nel does not own a calendar.

So his book has sold 1,5 million copies and translated into 31 languages. The Bible has been around for over 3000 years, is translated in most languages of the world, continues to sell millions each year. It will be loved and read when Dawkins is long forgotten & Jesus will still be changing lives!

Chris Nel, Ripon, England

I actually met Jeff Richmond once. Nice guy. Made entirely from straw.

It’s been scientifically proven that organisms control there own evolution. A hundred million years ago after several generations of fish staring up at the shore a fish grew legs. Other fish saw this and they grew legs to. Was God involved? that is the question to answer

Jeff Richmond, Vancouver, Canada

I guess I must just not be smart enough to understand Drew’s strange, self-referential meta-proverbs.

Scourge? More someone who is flogging a horse that is deader than the proverbial. Next he’ll declare that artists/poets can’t possibly have a basis for their views of the world as science disproves their notions of beauty and aesthetic. His philosophy is bankrupt!

Drew, Los Angeles, USA

For balance, a dumb post in favour of evolution.

If God exists and was truly supreme he would have devised evolution as a neat way for life to self-regulate and adapt without constant intervention or design. Only a stupid god would not do such a thing. Seems many religions think their god is stupid.

Roger Thornhill, London, UK

Too noisy, is the problem with the Big Bang.

Many Christians are comfortable with Darwin. No atheists are comfortable with the Big Bang.

Kevin Dunn, Perth, Australia

Martin would make a really crap lawyer.

“Creationists never come up with any proof, evidence.”
Evidence is not proof but facts to be interpreted which is why Dawkins does not have proof either.
To interpret evidence requires belief about what the evidence shows. Belief therefore affects the conclusion. Dawkins has faith in his beliefs.

Martin, Skye,

Greg has run out of things to say, but is going to keep posting anyway, dammit.

“..what created God?”

God would be existence itself: your question is a nonsense. You are attempting to reason from nothingness, the perverted reasoning of the atheist, but it’s not possible. There is no such thing as nothingness: the default is existence. The question is does it have personhood?

Greg Lorriman, Leatherhead, UK

I’m pretty sure I can mock whatever the hell I like.

good grief - look at yourselves. Everyone of us has the right to believe in whatever we want and no one has the right to mock or deride what anyone else believes. If you believe in God then live your life accordingly. If you don’t then don’t worry about it.

David, London, UK

I really hope RW is joking.

If the universe is infinite, every possible event has happened, or will happen somewhere in the universe. The existence of God is a possible event, ergo God exists.

RW, Sta Eulalia, Spain

G P is Helping!

“…people still actually believe in stories of invisible god-creatures and magic heavens, made up by stoned hippies living in the desert a few thousand years ago. I want some of whatever it is that they’re on!”

Alastair, you can find it on any given day day; the Holy Spirit

G P, Milton Keynes,

Let’s watch Greg get progressively dumber.

” please stop taking the moral high ground when neither side of the argument can successfully be proven.”

A true atheist is irrational, and an agnostic who doesn’t give the benefit of the doubt is likewise.

Since a God could prove His own existence religious do have an advantage.

Greg Lorriman, Leatherhead, UK

Yeah! Naleen really told those creationists who’s boss: they are!

I love to put a creationist in his/her place. How can you ignore the scientific work behind evolution and its evidences. But on the other hand, how did it all began? Evolution only shows what happened once a single cell got here but not how it got here. God made Earth billions of years ago.

Naleen Lal, Northern California,

Simon is not crazy. Don’t say he’s crazy.

“Dawkins slaps creationists into … soup”
… NO!!!

All you people probably don’t realise that the single cell evolution to man is still a theory - not proven! It’s just easily accepted by the ignorant. So darwinism is also a faith, yes?

PS. Dawkins is the devils work, who also exists

Simon Chung, Edinburgh, UK

Virginia thinks people were designed and robots evolved.

Zim of Wolverhampton, you have just proven that evolution is rubbish by admiting that this is a stupid age! If evolution is true, we would not evolve to be stupid and no one will have the concept of God. We will all just behave like robots and react predictably. The evidence is crystal clear.

virginia, Brisbane , Australia

There are many ways to state the first law of thermodynamics. This is none of them.

The 1st law of thermodynamics states matter & energy need no creator, they simply always existed. The second applies only to closed systems where we are gaining energy from nothing - in our universe we have the sun. Both are arguments FOR evolution, and AGAINST the existence of an intelligent god.

Isabel, Bournemouth, UK

Greg has moved the bar of “evidence” yet lower. By now he has buried it in his yard.

“the Athiest stance is that there is no evidence for god, nothing, not a jot”

Nonsense. Just 1 believer *is* evidence. My Uncle was a nuclear phycisist and said that he saw “the finger prints of God everywhere”. Atheist multi-universe theories exist to avoid the otherwise inevitable conclusion.

Greg Lorriman, Leatherhead, UK

Ah, but where does the Bible address that episode of The Next Generation with Locutus of Borg in it?

Belief in God is more that an intellectual exercise - it’s lifestyle changing event. Where does Dawkins world view address the 20+ teenagers killed by knives in London? Living true to your faith changes people and would give these kids an alternative hope in their lives. Dawkin’s worldview doesn’t.

Pete B, London, UK

I don’t think “hypocrite” means what Anne thinks it means.

The religious can publically talk against gay people, athiests and those of other religions. But the moment someone believes in something other than creationism, they are fiercely attacked. The word hypocrites comes to mind.

Anne, Nottingham,

Andy has a pretty dystopian view of comfort.

Religion is psychological comfort by forcing groups of people to think and act the same. Have your religions I dont mind them . . . . but at least stop hurting other people.

andy, London,

Reto kills people who work weekends.

Mr Darwin introduced the theory of evolution but also scientifically “proved” the intrinsic inferiority of Africans and other “dark” peoples as well as the superiority of the NW Europeans over other whites. Evolutionists cannot pick and choose what they like–have some intellectual integrity man!

Reto, Cape Town, South Africa

Theodore Shulman has not quite got the hang of this.

If there is a god of comedy, PG Wodehouse is it.

Theodore Shulman, NYC, USA

Ika is scary.

Dawkins can believe what he wants now, but the time will come when wishes he didn’t believe in what he believes now..the end is near…

ika, Darwin, Australia

Greg clearly has not actually bothered to read The God Delusion.

David:”we don’t believe in a god or gods.”

…which is not the definiton of an atheist; it is a form of agnostic. Go and join your chums at dawkin’s website, where they will confirm that you have made a mistake on the definition of ‘atheist’. And stop reading wikipedia.

Greg Lorriman, Leatherhead, UK

I have no idea. Anyone?

Dawkins is wrong to espouse atheism. Religious belief is no more than another theory with a claim to verification, just as scientific theory is. Science is the winner because it can come up with its verifications in the here and now.

Kevin Straw, Leicester,

Greg promises to do the world a favour, although only because Jesus made him sign an NDA.

David”Merging with the holy spirit…god module installed. ”

I appreciate the effort, but no. I can’t say more without inappropriately giving positive clues to something you don’t deserve to know, and I am not permitted to tell you:Matt7:6″Do not cast your pearls before swine”. Time to clam up.

Greg Lorriman, Leatherhead, UK

I was going to mock David Jones for thinking there were Christians in 1CE, but then I remembered that of course the Bible had been around at least 1000 years by then.

Presumably for 1CE Christians, the notion of the trinity and sacraments like holy communion were dangerous in a strictly montheistic society. However, hiding behind a ‘pearls before swine’ injunction now to create a woo factor when the details are published by the church anyway is mere flamboyance.

David Jones, Loughborough, UK

A few days ago, a reader sent me a link to this Channel Four report. It’s a five minute video, so here it is:

There are some scary quotes in there, but the stats are worse. From their own survey, 80% of 50 Muslim, Jewish and ‘accelerated Christian education’ schools taught Creationism as fact and ignore evolution. Of those, five were state-funded schools. That’s 74% of 19 Jewish schools, 100% of 21 Evangelical schools and 50% of 10 Islamic schools. None of these schools is breaking a law*, although of course Paul Kelley would have been had he been reckless enough to educate in a secular way. The law, as has been mentioned, is an ass.

Personally, I think the best argument for teaching evolution in schools is that it’s the only way I know that you can make biology into a passably interesting subject. I for one always found it crushingly dull — because it was mostly a list of information presented in a “here’s what happens; don’t ask why, just learn it” kind of a way. Throw in evolution and you can explain why these things happen. You can talk about DNA and all the weird ways genes try to get copied. You can tie biology in to all kinds of other subjects much more effectively. I’m sure you can teach vast tracts of biology without mentioning genes or evolution, but I defy you to make it interesting.

That aside, the best reason I know of not to teach Creationism is simply that it’s patently false. Of course, Creationists won’t accept that, so a better argument is that there is no evidence to support it (because it’s so false). The only argument in favour is the whole stupid “parents’ rights” thing. And I do accept that parents have a right to educate their children in whatever way they want — but I think they should be made to look up the word “educate” before they start paying someone to preach at them, because filling impressionable young minds with damaging lies to promote an ideology is nothing more or less than exploitation — and it’s not even for personal gain: we’re talking about exploitation for the sake of an abstract concept. And I think it’s utterly abhorrent that the government would fund this.

I blame the parents for this. They should be outraged if their kids are being taught such bullshit, and they should get something done. The government are also in the wrong, of course, but you can hardly expect the government to act if the people don’t care. (You know, because the government only ever does what the people want.) People listen to parents. God knows why.

I’m not against the ides of schools being different and parents having choice. I’m not against the idea that some of those differences might be based on a religion — a school aimed at Muslims that makes sure the textbooks don’t have illustrations in articles about Mohammed, or a school aimed at Jews that only serves kosher food, that’s fine. And hopefully the genuine followers of those religions would be able to get places in those schools, because since all schools would be required to teach the same curriculum non-religious parents presumably would just pick the nearest school, or the one the kid’s friends were going to. The moment you let them teach different things then the idea of “choice” becomes an illusion: when you’re presented with one good school and one bad school, you don’t have a choice. Everyone with a brain will try to get into the good school and then you’re back to pot luck (or selection, if it’s a faith school). It’s just the same as the ridiculous claim made by the Department of Health the other day, that “operation success rates help patients choose treatment”. Their theory is that by publishing statistics on survival rates at different hospitals, they give patients a choice. No, you don’t. You just make life difficult for everyone, and worry people who can’t get into the best one. The stats should be public, certainly, but not for that reason. I think that all schools and hospitals should be good enough that you don’t care which one you use, and I think that if they’re not then you should fix it rather than shifting the onus onto patients and parents to find an acceptable one.

More to the point, if it’s legal to teach Creationism, that must mean there is no requirement for schools to teach facts that are true.

But of course, I don’t get a say. Because I don’t live in Normanton. If I did, I’d be allowed to vote against Ed Balls’ continuing reign of lunacy over the Department of Children, Schools, Families and Kittens, or whatever they’re calling Education now. (Honestly, the system of government we have here is utterly mad if you look into it for any length of time.)

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* According to the video, anyway. My understanding is that the teaching of evolution is compulsory in publicly funded schools, but I don’t know where I can find an authoritative source of information.

“America is supposed to be God’s nation.”

Not Israel, then? Okay. Makes sense, I suppose, a country 1700 years younger than Jesus. Sure.

I’m watching Jesus Camp on More4. It follows a group of Evangelicals: they’re exactly how you expect they are. you see them on their awful camp and in their awful churches, and they’re brainwashing children in the sickest way I’ve ever seen — and sometimes rather stupidly. At one point, one of them had a load of mugs with the word “GOVERNMENT” scrawled (really, scrawled — sometimes upside down) on them, and after a short rant about how “corrupt” (read: ‘too secular for them’ — scary) government was ruining America, shouted “who wants to smash this cup?”, then the kids would come up and hit a mug with a hammer. Very strange. At another point, Fischer analogises sin to a cute little tiger cub, explaining how it seems attractive, but one day, “you got yourself a tiger by the tail” — while she swings around what is very obviously a toy lion.

But it’s as alarming as it is stupid: the pastor shouted “who here believes that God can do anything?” and you see a woman raising her children’s hands — one of whom was young enough he didn’t even get his own chair. She has them chanting and clapping and generally acting like she runs a cult.

Which she does.

The terrible bit, though, was in private, talking to the cameras. They say things like “[children] are so usable in Christianity” and don’t realise what that sounds like — and indeed, what it is. The thoroughly shitty Becky Fischer explains how Islam trains its children from the age of five, that they’re trained to use grenades, rifles and bomb belts, then says she wants to see children that willing to “lay down their lives” for Christianity. She understands perfectly that she is pushing an almost military campaign to get Christianity running the world — she believes that Christianity is true, but she uses that not as her chief weapon but as her justification. And she can’t see the hypocrisy. Here is a speech of hers from near the start of the film:

I can go into a playground of kids that don’t know anything about Christianity, lead them to the lord in a matter of just no time at all, and, and just moments later they can be seeing visions and hearing the voice of God, because they’re so open. They’re so usable in Christianity.

If you look at the world’s population, one third of that 6.7 billion people are children under the age of 15. One third. Where should we be putting out efforts? Where should we be putting our focus? I’ll tell you where our enemies are putting it: they’re putting it on the kids. They’re going into the schools. You go into Palestine, and I can take you to some websites that will absolutely shake you to your foundations, and show you photographs of where they’re taking their kids to camps like we take our kids to Bible camps and they’re putting hand-grenades in their hands, they’re teaching them how to put on bomb belts, they’re teaching them how to use rifles, they’re teaching them how to use machine guns. It’s no wonder, with that kind of intense training and discipling, that those young people are ready to kill themselves for the cause of Islam.

I want to see young people who are as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam. I want to see them as radically laying down their lives for the gospel as, as they are, er, over in in Pakistan and in Israel and, and Palestine and all those different places, you know, because we have — excuse me — but we have the truth!

She also talks to a young boy called Levi, asking him what he is expecting God to do for him at camp, and he says “get [him] used to meeting other people”, as that’s always been a problem for him. Well of course it fucking has — he’s an evangelical, which is incredibly annoying, and his mother’s pulled him out of school to teach him a strict diet of creationism, anti-global warming propaganda and bad haircuts. (”If you look at Creationism, you see that it’s the only possible answer to all the questions.”; “Did you get to the part on here where it says science doesn’t prove anything? And it’s really interesting when you look at it that way”.) What did you all think was going to happen there? And sure, he probably will meet people on camp — but they’ll all be as obnoxious and evangelical as him. Real people will still think he’s a dork.

Levi’s mother justifies this “education” by saying

God didn’t say have children and give my kids to someone else for eight hours a day. And if I can homeschool them as well as the school can public-school them, why would I send them somewhere else for eight hours a day? Our nation was founded on Judaeo-Christian values. We know when things started changing, you know, prayer got taken out of school, and erm… oh! The schools start falling apart. And now the rest of us are going “Wait a minute! Where is my country?”

Our firm belief is, there are two kinds of people in the world: people who love Jesus, and people who don’t. And I want my kids to grow up knowing, you know what, it’s, it’s a good thing to be a Christian.

One child, Rachael, is so far gone that she prays over her bowling ball (which promptly goes straight in the right gutter) and then wanders up to the woman in the next lane and says

Hi, erm, God’s just telling me that he… You’re on his mind, and he just wants to take you and he just wants to love erm you, and he has special plans for you and your life, and he just wants you to be able to follow him with your whole heart and–

–and then the woman says “thankyou” and she wanders off, leaving a little booklet.

Fischer also spend a good solid minute praying over her PA equipment, just to be on the safe side. That was just surreal. She was listing potential electrical faults and commanding God and Satan to lay off for that night. You can listen to a clip at Kidology, as well as the cup-smashing madness. (Kidology is a Christian group, and it’s hard to find an opinion about the content of the film on the site.) Also she says that President Bush “has really brought some real credibility, erm, to the Christian faith”.

Yeah, that’ll be it. He’s got credibility in spades, Bush. She even has a cardboard cutout of him that she talks about as if it’s real. To be fair, it might as well be for all the useful input either one gives.

The bottom line is that I don’t really think there’s anything in this film that I didn’t know was going on — I’m just shocked by how openly the perpetrators will admit that they’re using the same tactics as their “enemies”, that they’re “using” children because what they learn at that age is pretty well stuck there for life, and so forth. Sometimes I think that these people are deluded but basically trying to do the right thing, albeit in their own wrong-headed way — but now I’ve seen this I’ve no sympathy at all. They know what they’re doing.

This is another sciencey post. If you want something more trivial, read Channel Flip, although lately I have been mostly discussing science there as well. I’ll try to blog about something trivial later on. If not, then hey, it’ll be September soon and I’ll need a new Religious Crackpot…

In the meantime, here’s a Clever Analogy. There are people, or at least Creationists, who are, apparently, quite prepared to accept “microevolution”, the idea that small changes within a species can be explained by natural selection, but not “macroevolution”, the idea that cumulative small changes can eventually cause large changes and speciation. This is foolish, andI have a Clever Analogy to explain why.

Also, many people think glass is a liquid. This is also wrong. They usually have some spurious evidence for the claim, but it’s still wrong. Glass is a glass. Rubber, on the other hand, is a rubber. According to molecular physics, there is no structural difference between a rubber and a glass. Both take the form of a tightly packed mess of long polymer molecules, which are much like the cables behind your computer, unless you use a Mac in which case I’d like to know why you lot insist on that ridiculous one button mouse. Except that the molecules in rubbers and glasses are interlinked, so the object keeps its shape. Hence, a good rubber band could be all one molecule, theoretically.

The difference between a glass and a rubber is in temperature. A glass is cold, and as such the molecules can’t move around much, so when you hit it, it can’t distort so it fractures. A rubber, on the other hand, is warmer, and can simply bend out of your way as the molecules flow over each other. The reason some things are glassy and some are rubbery is that different materials have a different glass transition temperature. If that’s above room temperature, it’s a glass, otherwise a rubber. If you dunk rubber in liquid nitrogen, it turns to a glass and shatters on impact. You’ve probably seen it done, which is good because anagloising an obscure process we can’t observe to another obscure process we can’t observe is a bit pointless.

But here’s the thing: it’s all about molecule speeds, so instead of making the molecules faster, you could just make the impact slower. If you hit a glass very slowly, you could get it to move like a rubber. Or, if you have a very slow metabolism then you might see things we think of as glasses acting as rubbers. Equally, if you hit rubber fast enough, you can make it shatter. In theory.

“Micro-” and “Macro-evolution” seem very different. They have very different results, although the underlying process is the same. But my point here is that a single process can produce dramatically different effects when viewed over different timescales. There’s absolutely no reason why that shouldn’t be the case.

It’s a common Creationist argument, but more than that I think it’s an important part of how evolution works that’s rarely explicitly addressed. If I can remove a mental block to understanding something as brilliant as the theory of evolution, I’d like to do that.

Well this is interesting.

The other day, as you may have read, I removed Scott Adams’ blog from my list of links because he was acting like a moron and arguing against atheism in a rather stupid way, and then trying to justify it by saying it was amusing to watch atheists get angry at this. Today’s entry on his blog is much better. I shall quote a bit here, to save you clicking on links, since I know all internet users hate doing that:

I can’t reconcile the Richard Dawkins theory with my personal theory that I’m always right. Something has to give.

My best guess is that Richard Dawkins and I agree on all the big questions. It just seems like we don’t because my writing often triggers cognitive dissonance in readers who need to think of their world view as infallible.

…

The other possibility is that I’m a moron, since we all agree Dawkins is brilliant.

This has largely come about because Adams generally likes to assume that all current theories are wrong and come up with his own (hence while he doubts evolution he also doubts creationism). This is one reason why I like most of what he writes: it’s a good way to be interesting because you’re very likely to say something new and that promotes good discussion. It’s also what made Newton, Darwin and Wallace, and Einstein such great minds: they did very much the same kind of thing, detatching themselves from assumptions and common theory and thinking ‘afresh’, although they were rather better at it than any cartoonist. Of course, this could also be said for Mark McCutcheon and his laughably insane “final” theory — which interestingly is a theory Adams also posited in chapter 14 of The Dilbert Future. The difference is that Adams was raising it purely as an object for discussion, and so the fact that it really doesn’t work in real life isn’t massively relevant, although it does somewhat diminish his point somewhat. (The competing interpretations of quantum theory would have been a far better example, but they’d have been harder to elucidate, particularly since Adams doesn’t understand quantum theory particularly well.)

The problem with this kind of thinking is when you start to assume that your theory is correct and therefore the other theories are wrong. If you want your theory to be accepted then you have to prove it, and if you want the conventional wisdom to be forgotten then you have to debunk it. This is what McCutcheon abjectly failed to do: he wrote a book and appealed directly to a public who are mostly massively ignorant of the physics he was claiming to debunk. Had he “clearly debunked” relativity in a scientific paper instead of a book and a website then it wouldn’t have got past peer review. Instead he bypassed this and simply assumed that his theory was correct and the others were wrong, purely on the grounds that he couldn’t (or, though he presumably didn’t know this, didn’t) understand the conventional theories and he did understand his own (though again, in fact he didn’t understand it because if he had he’d have spotted the gaping holes in it).

The same mental block is evident in Adams’ recent writings (he even jokingly refers to it in the quote above, which is a little worrying now I think about it) and even more so in his blog’s comments (many of whom seem to genuinely believe Richard Dawkins is the same person as Richard Dawson, to the point where one commenter who implicitly refers to a TV show called “Dawkins’ Creek“). He said in a post some time ago that “evolution looks like a blend of science and bullshit, and have predicted for years that it would be revised in scientific terms in [his] lifetime. It’s a hunch – nothing more.” Now the second sentence of that quote is nothing more or less than a lie, albeit one predicated by ignorance rather than the intention to deceive, and quite an offensive one at that, if you happen to be one of the many scientists whose life’s work is tied up in the theory (and here I switch from the colloquial to the scientific definition of “theory”). As such I shall concentrate on the first sentence, as that appears to be the source of the ignorance that predicated the second.

The problem with this argument is that Adams has, like McCutcheon, failed to understand the theory he is attempting to debunk. I can’t claim to know how well Adams understands evolution, beyond what little I can reliably infer from his writings, but it would seem highly probable (especially since he says he hasn’t read The Selfish Gene) that the theory of evolution as he understands it in fact quite literally is “a blend of science and bullshit”. I know that my understanding of evolution could be quite reasonably described that way before I read Darwin’s Watch. It was the version of evolution I was taught in school, by teachers who thought it more important that I accept than understand the theory, and by teachers who didn’t, I presume, understand the theory any better than I did pre-Darwin’s Watch. As such the version of evolution people are taught is the basics of the science, padded out with bullshit as well-meaning and intelligent teachers answer pupils’ youthfully inquisitive and often very good questions as best they can given that they haven’t mostly read any Dawkins either, resulting in people having a simplistic and distorted view of how the universe operates.

And a major problem is that this version of evolution is quite easy to debunk. There are any number of creationist websites which will quite happily point out the flaws in it, but a better understanding of the theory can easily show that these flaws are not present in the actual theory of evolution as believed by credible scientists working in relevant fields. And just as McCutcheon debunks Special Relativity using the Twin Paradox, conveniently ignoring General Relativity which specifically exists to address exactly that point, people who don’t actually understand evolution claim to have debunked it by citing flaws in the slightly stupid version of evolution they do, and it’s very, very difficult to argue with them, because they are in one sense right: evolution as they understand it doesn’t make sense. Telling them “oh, you just haven’t understood it correctly; you’d believe it if you had” is a very difficult thing to do without seeming very arrogant. In this case, when Adams says that his “best guess is that Richard Dawkins and [himself] agree on all the big questions”, the truth is that he and Dawkins agree that the versions of evolution and of atheism that Adams sets out to debunk is bunk.

(Adams wears his ignorance on his sleeve, which sometimes makes his writing more interesting, because it makes it much less pretentious and as long as he isn’t too aggressively certain of his often-crackpot theories it makes it easier to approach them as interesting hypotheicals rather than, well, crackpot delusions to be pitied. Unfortunately, this pro-ignorance stance means that when he fails to do the proper research before attacking a subject, he does so by conscious decision. I think he should stick to proposing theories, rather than attacking them, if he doesn’t want to have to do the reading first.)

I think, therefore, that it is important that people care careful not to misrepresent evolution, as well as things like relativity — McCutcheon’s problem with it appears to stem from bad teaching: he says “The Twin Paradox Thought Experiment… famously appears in nearly all introductions to Special Relativity ever presented, as evidence for the bizarre truths of this theory, yet it is always retracted when challenged (and usually only when challenged).” And this is broadly true: I’ve heard similar scenarios presented as examples (not evidence) of the seemingly unlikely implications of relativity many, many times. But all this proves is bad teaching: Special Relativity only holds when considering inertial frames (or more accurately, frames in freefall in uniform gravitational fields), because it is a special case of the General Theory of Relativity, which applies everywhere (in theory: in reality it breaks down at a quantum level for reasons we don’t yet understand). There’s absolutely no excuse for using such a scenario to explain Special Relativity, unless you do so with sufficient layers of caveat that people couldn’t go away thinking Special Relativity was true in the general case. While it has been shown that the story usually trotted out in introductions to relativity (get two clocks, send one into orbit going really fast for a while, then land it and compare them and oh, look, the one that went fast is a few seconds behind) is true, it isn’t true simply because of Special Relativity, as the Twin Paradox shows.

Similarly, if you subscribe to a simplistic kind of “Special Evolution”, then you run into all kinds of problems, like irreducible complexity or the question of where the evolving lifeforms came from in the first place. These are valid criticisms of “Special Evolution” but they are addressed very well by the “General Evolution” theory explained in The Selfish Gene. Anyone being taught evolution must at least be made aware that the “general” theory exists and what apparent flaws in the “special” theory it addresses, even if they are only being taught the simplified “special” case.

Anything less is simply lies-to-children: very useful, but also potentially very dangerous if it isn’t made clear that that’s what you’re presenting.

• There is no way that chickens and pigs could have evolved in such a way that chicken wrapped in bacon tastes so good. Only an intelligent designer could cause this phenomenon.
• The human ear is shaped to hold a pencil, and yet the pencil was not invented until millenia after the ear supposedly evolved. Only an intelligent designer could have such prescience.
• There is no evolutionary advantage to spoilt mussels hermetically sealing them to avoid contaminating other foods, and yet they do. An intelligent designer could have made this happen.
• Evolution should have removed all homosexuals from the gene pool by now. Only an intelligent designer could create such sinful and wicked creatures. (His reasons are His own.)
• If mankind has really existed for more than 6000 years, then surely they should have grown out of all this childish “religion” by now? Only a young Earth can explain religion.
• Total morons believe in creationism. Logically, therefore, intelligent people should understand it even better.
• If people had evolved to be good at passing on their genes, they wouldn’t have their own children murdered the moment they got the chance to do so. Only an intelligent designer can explain mindless brutality. (Honestly, I wouldn’t mind one bit if this kind of crime was punished with the death penalty. The only argument against it is one of “animal cruelty” and the dangerous dogs act sees to that.)

I’ll be honest with you: you might sometimes hear these arguments. I tried, but I’m not sure they’re any sillier than the real ones. I honestly have seen a creationist, apparently quite earnestly, cite some obscure Bible passage and say “go on, explain how that happened”: starting by assuming the Bible to be literally true and from there proving that the Bible is literally true by using the Bible to discount other theories. There’s a redundant step in there somewhere.

If you’ve seen any of these used in earnest, I’d love to hear about it.

See, I really didn’t intend for Religious Crackpot Of The Month to be a regular thing. I thought, I’ll just do it once, and call it “of the month” anyway. But then, the new month rolls over, and almost immediately a perfect Crackpot sends a long and brilliantly angry email to Pharyngula, one of my new favourite blogs. I’m not going to go through and address each claim individually, as that would just be tragic, but let me just show you one or two of the best bits. You should read the rest yourself, because it’s more or less solid insane gold from start to finish.

I mean, a lot of it is just gibberish. Have a look at this, for example. I’ve found that if I turn my mind on its side and think in just the right way (and not to hard) then I can get this to sound like semi-reasonable logic (try it; it soon passes):

16. DNA of humans differ/vary by about 10-12% from each other. 50% of human DNA is identical to the DNA of a banana. Humans and apes have no common ancestor.

You have to get yourself into a frame of mind where individual words and what a sentence sounds like are more important than the actual concepts being discussed, and then you have to repeat the phrase “if human DNA is so similar to a banana’s, we shouldn’t be surprised if it’s similar to an ape’s” over and over until it sounds like it makes sense. And this is just ingenious:

18. There is no real vestigial/useless organ. There is no junk DNA. Note: Males’ nipples “arouse” women.

It particularly entertained me when I read this:

29. Atheism or evolution does not provide a solid foundation for morality. If there is no God, there is no good nor evil.

Because, yeah, it’s true. But then, the Bible doesn’t tell me what football team to support, so I guess that’s not true either. But this is my favourite one of his arguments, by some way:

11. The Earth is not millions of years old. Notes: Magnetic field decay; Archaeology; History, other “Time limiters.” Ancient people were as smart as modern men. Evolutionists have no excuse.

DNA cannot exist in natural environments longer than 10,000 years; yet, DNA have been FOUND in Neanderthal bones, insects in amber, Dinosaur fossils, etc. A dinosaur fossil was discovered still having soft tissue and blood cells.

DNA in amber? This Crackpot thinks Jurrasic Park is a documentary!

Well, okay, so fragments of DNA have been found in amber. Fragments. Small little strings of genes which scientists aren’t at all sure are preserved ‘as-was’. That’s hardly at odds with the fact that DNA decays over time, is it?

26. Evolution is science fiction (a myth). It is similar to the story of the Centaurs (horse-men) and Mermaids (fish-women). I don’t believe in Centaurs and Mermaids.

No, but you do believe in Jurrasic Park. It’s not fair. I want to get emails like this. Maybe I should write one of those suddenly fashionable atheist books.

Lastly, I leave you with one of the postscripts from the above email:

Notes for Jews:

Your Messiah (Saviour) has arrived over 2,000 years ago: He is the Son of God who became a man (while still being God), suffered and died on the cross, and lived again from the dead; was prophesied in Isaiah 53, and in the book of Daniel.

In case you haven’t heard of the Atheist Test, it is essentially an attempt to logically disprove atheism. This is obviously a very doomed idea, since all religions are based on faith, whereas atheism is largely founded in cold, unemotional logic. If you really want to, you can take the test yourself at quo.cc/atheist.htm, but I’m going to explain most of it here anyway.

It starts by telling a story about how the Coca-Cola can evolved out of rocks and aluminium, which is clearly silly (because as everybody knows they were originally made of steel and only evolved aluminium to avoid being hunted to extinction by the Magnet Fish). Then it suggests that “to say that the banana happened by accident is even more unintelligent than to say that no one designed the Coca Cola can”, based on the observation that bananas taste nice and are easily unwrapped. They seem to be missing a few key point here, which are that apes spread banana seeds by eating bananas, bananas which are pleasing to apes will therefore survive better, and apes are a lot like people. They then apply much the same argument to the human eye.

Having demonstrated that he has zero knowledge of evolution, the author (Ray Comfort) demonstrated a similar grasp of statistics:

Could I convince you that I dropped 50 oranges onto the ground and they by chance fell into ten rows of five oranges? The logical conclusion is that someone with an intelligent mind put them there. The odds that ten oranges would fall by accident into a straight line are mind-boggling, let alone ten rows of five.

Yes, that is exactly what happens inside molecules, but with two small changes. First, there are millions of atoms and therefore some of them are bound to be neatly arranged. Secondly, and more importantly, the atoms are nudged into a regular arrangement by electrostatic forces.

Clearly unsatisfied with his demonstrations of foolishness thus far, he decides that the reader may still suspect he has some idea of logic. Never one to resist a challenge, he quickly debunks this theory as well. He claims (essentially) that to prove God does not exist, you would need to know everything about everything, or else God might simply be hiding somewhere you haven’t looked yet. I take issue with this for two reasons. The first is the Problem Of Evil, which states that if god is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, then no evil can exist in the world, and since it does, logically God does not. There are a lot of arguments against this, mostly involving free will, but I’m not going to get into a philosophical debate here. The second reason is that religion is based on faith, and therefore if he calls someone who believes there is no God but can’t prove it an agnostic, then logically he must call himself an agnostic, since he has faith but can’t prove anything either. But don’t worry, he can allay your fears:

Almost every question you have about suffering humanity etc., can be adequately answered.

Exactly what the answers are appears to be left as an exercise for the reader, but it’s good to know there are answers, isn’t it?

His next argument is that God only appears to those who have no sin, and that you have sin. Yes, you personally have sin. In fact, you are very probably a murderer, since he classifies hatred as murder, in accordance with some obscure throwaway comment in the book of John somewhere. In fact, by his logic, God broke most of the commandments Himself. He doesn’t actually mention that the whole thing is rigged from day one in any case because everybody is born carting around something called “original sin”, but if he had it would lend weight to his argument (as well as the argument for “God is a jerk”). He signs off with a brief summary and a bible quote:

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Yes, that’ll be it. Forgive my cynicism (lest I die in Hell), but what right did God have to do that? Jesus didn’t want to do it; God made Him. If God was such a nice guy He should have come down here Himself.