Posted on 04/04/2009 12:10:35 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
==I’d be interested in hearing your impressions after you’ve seen them tangle.
I was not impressed. William Lane Craig made it a point to distance himself from biblical creation (and concede evolution) right from the beginning. This prompted Hitchens to thank Craig and others like him for making such a big concession to atheistic evolution, which he promptly followed with a diatribe about what this says about Craig’s God (”so you worship a God who created a world filled with suffering, disease and death right from the beginning...what kind of God is this”...blah, blah, blah).
It ruined the whole debate for me.
During the cross examination phase of the debate, Hitchens asked a number of questions that were designed to make Christians look stupid (at least to people who think like Hitchens). The first question was whether Craig believed in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. Craig said he was “agnostic” on the virgin birth. Hitchens then asked Craig if he believed Jesus Christ sent a legion of “devils” into a “flock of pigs.” Craig seemed equally uncomfortable with this question, and then protested that the debate was whether God exists, not about specific Christian doctrines. Needless to say, this ruined the debate for me even more...so much so, that I left early.
Maybe because you're an idiot. I have a PhD in chemistry, have been "doing science" for forty years, and studying it for fifty. I sort of think I understand my own profession.
"Maybe because you did not debate a single point?"
Why waste my time???
"You guys never cease to amaze me — trying to claim the mantle of “science” without making a single rational point. “We hereby declare that ID is unscientific and evolution is pure science, by definition. No discussion necessary.” Yeah, right."
Just because you know zip about science and how it works is your problem, not mine.
"The only question in my mind is whether you have really fooled yourself or you are just trying to fool others."
No fooling of self or others involved. Just hard knowledge and real facts. Anybody who thinks the stuff that G3 is constantly spamming the forum with has any resemblance to scientific facts are those who are fooling themselves.
Sorry about that.
The debate I posted was pretty good.
Hitchins basic argument was that he disliked God, therefore God does not exist.
Hitchins refused to answer the arguments raised by the other panelists (at least 10) -- both philosophical and empirical.
As a former college debater, it was evident to me that Hitchins lost hands down.
==The simple fact is that “intelligent design” is not science in ANY sense.
It’s a battle over inferences my FRiend. Darwood’s fanciful creation myth interprets the data based on materialist inferences, whereas ID interprets the data based on design inferences. And Creation Science interprets the data based on design inferences —and— God’s historical account of CREATION. The question is, which interpretation explains the facts better. To my mind, CREATION SCIENCE is the superior interpretation, by far. Take for instance Darwood’s “tree of life.” The Evos have long maintained that every organism descended from a common ancestor. Whereas, the Bible predicts and orchard, or forest of life...with each ancestral organism being created separately, and descending separately. And guess what, the Evos have been forced to backtrack on Darwood’s so-called tree of life, and are now putting forward the idea of (drum-roll please) a forest of life!
“Evolutionary-genomic studies show that natural selection is only one of the forces that shape genome evolution and is not quantitatively dominant, whereas non-adaptive processes are much more prominent than previously suspected. Major contributions of horizontal gene transfer and diverse selfish genetic elements to genome evolution undermine the Tree of Life concept. An adequate depiction of evolution requires the more complex concept of a network or ‘forest’ of life.”
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2651812&tool=pmcentrez
He lost hands down in terms of the debate format, but Craig severely weakened his Christian witness by conceding evolution, disease and suffering before sin, not to mention his agnosticism on Jesus’ virgin birth, etc. But yes, if you confine it strictly to the confines of the debate question, Craig won because Hitchins ignored it and went after Christianity directly, as opposed to answering the question of whether or not God exists.
You are living proof that having a Ph.D these days proves essentially nothing about understanding the philosophy of science. And you’re an arrogant jerk too. Did these scientists know anything, genius?
“This most elegant system of the sun, planets, and comets could not have arisen without the design and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.” —Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), The Principia
“Overwhelmingly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie around us. ...the atheistic idea is so nonsensical that I cannot put it into words.” —Lord Kelvin (1824-1907)
“The more I study nature, the more I am amazed at the work of the Creator.” —Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)
“One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without concluding that there must be design and purpose behind it all. ... The better we understand the universe and all it harbors, the more reason we have found to marvel at the inherent design upon which it is based. ... I endorse the presentation of alternative theories for the origin of the universe, life, and man in the science classroom.” —Wernher von Braun, father of the American space program
“I have said for years that speculations about the origin of life lead to no useful purpose as even the simplest living system is far too complex to be understood in terms of the extremely primitive chemistry scientists have used in their attempts to explain the unexplainable that happened billions of years ago. God cannot be explained away by such naive thoughts.” —Ernst Chain, Nobel-laureate biochemist
“So if one proceeds directly and straightforwardly in this matter, without being deflected by a fear of incurring the wrath of scientific opinion, one arrives at the conclusion that biomaterials with their amazing measure of order must be the outcome of intelligent design. ... The notion that not only the biopolymer but the operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.” —Sir Fred Hoyle, British astonomer (and self-professed atheist), from a lecture in 1982
“A superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology.” —Sir Fred Hoyle
“The Darwinian theory has become an all-purpose obstacle to thought rather than an enabler of scientific advance.” —Robert B. Laughlin, Nobel-laureate physicist
“Much of present-day biological knowledge is ideological. A key symptom of ideological thinking is the explanation that has no implications and cannot be tested. I call such logical dead ends antitheories because they have exactly the opposite effect of real theories: they stop thinking rather than stimulate it. Evolution by natural selection, for instance, which Charles Darwin originally conceived as a great theory, has lately come to function more as an antitheory, called upon to cover up embarrassing experimental shortcomings and legitimize findings that are at best questionable and at worst not even wrong. Your protein defies the laws of mass action? Evolution did it! Your complicated mess of chemical reactions turns into a chicken? Evolution! The human brain works on logical principles no computer can emulate? Evolution is the cause!” —Robert B. Laughlin, Nobel-laureate physicist
The following quote is attributed to Isaac Newton on a creationist website, but no reference was cited, and I have not confirmed its authenticity. Does anyone know the original source of this quote?
“Can it be by accident that all birds beasts & men have their right side & left side alike shaped (except in their bowells) & just two eyes & no more on either side the face & just two ears on either side the head & a nose with two holes & no more between the eyes & one mouth under the nose & either two fore leggs or two wings or two arms on the sholders & two leggs on the hipps one on either side & no more? Whence arises this uniformity in all their outward shapes but from the counsel & contrivance of an Author? Whence is it that the eyes of all sorts of living creatures are transparent to the very bottom & the only transparent members in the body, having on the outside an hard transparent skin, & within transparent juyces with a crystalline Lens in the middle & a pupil before the Lens all of them so truly shaped & fitted for vision, that no Artist can mend them? Did blind chance know that there was light & what was its refraction & fit the eys of all creatures after the most curious manner to make use of it? These & such like considerations always have & ever will prevail with man kind to beleive that there is a being who made all things & has all things in his power & who is therfore to be feared?” —Sir Isaac Newton?
==The following quote is attributed to Isaac Newton on a creationist website, but no reference was cited, and I have not confirmed its authenticity. Does anyone know the original source of this quote?
Here’s a source from the “The Oxford handbook of religion and science”:
Hey, thanks for that reference. I tried and tried but could not find anything on it.
Can you believe that guy trying to use his Ph.D to end the debate? I work with all sorts of Ph.Ds, and I am certainly not in awe of them. In fact, I’ve had several several Ph.Ds in physics do software support for me over the years. Having a Ph.D improves the odds that you might be capable of thinking clearly about the philosophy of science, but it certainly does not guarantee it.
“The simple fact is that “intelligent design” is not science in ANY sense. It is a philosophical construct that belongs in philosophy classes, not science classes.”
I would be hard pressed to find claims about science and philosophy more ignorant than these — and from a Ph.D no less. To say that ID “belongs in philosophy classes, not science classes,” as if philosophy is somehow “below” science, is absurd. Science and the scientific method is *defined* by philosophy, which means that science is “below” philosophy, not above it.
Have you heard of SETI? Do you realize that SETI is precisely the search for “intelligent design” of signals from space? Is SETI “science”? Think about it, Mr. Ph.D.
You are living proof that the title of Ph.D — Doctor of Philosophy — is given these days to people who don’t even know what their own degree means.
As I wrote in the previous post, I work with many Ph.Ds, and in fact, several have worked for me as programmers in support of my research over the years. At least three of them had Ph.Ds in physics. I’d put a Ph.D in chemistry at a level below that. If you think having such a degree makes you superior, you are sadly mistaken. And if you think it gives credence to your mindless parroting of the PC line on ID, you are very confused.
In case you are interested, you can find a list of my publications at http://RussP.us/publist.htm
Sorry to hear that. Biola/Talbot is generally recognized as a solid Christian institution. IIRC, John MacArthur is one of their grads.
Craig, may well be an exception. According to his CV, Craig did his doctorate studies in Europe. I am not familiar with the quality of the programs he attended, but European schools tend to be very liberal.
Craig won because Hitchins ignored it and went after Christianity directly, as opposed to answering the question of whether or not God exists.
I've attended several of these types of debates over the years, and this has been a problem common to each. Atheists/Agnostics simply cannot overcome the various arguments developed over the years by Christian apologists and philosophers. They therefore fall back on the "God is bad -- I don't like God" arguments (without even bothering to examine the basics of theodicy, I might add).
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