It was Mrs. Heinz-Kerry that momentarily got me on the "57" track, so that I was confused about the number of cards in a deck. But my true affections are reserved for Kathy.
Posted on 05/25/2005 3:41:22 AM PDT by billorites
Science feeds on mystery. As my colleague Matt Ridley has put it: “Most scientists are bored by what they have already discovered. It is ignorance that drives them on.” Science mines ignorance. Mystery — that which we don’t yet know; that which we don’t yet understand — is the mother lode that scientists seek out. Mystics exult in mystery and want it to stay mysterious. Scientists exult in mystery for a very different reason: it gives them something to do.
Admissions of ignorance and mystification are vital to good science. It is therefore galling, to say the least, when enemies of science turn those constructive admissions around and abuse them for political advantage. Worse, it threatens the enterprise of science itself. This is exactly the effect that creationism or “intelligent design theory” (ID) is having, especially because its propagandists are slick, superficially plausible and, above all, well financed. ID, by the way, is not a new form of creationism. It simply is creationism disguised, for political reasons, under a new name.
It isn’t even safe for a scientist to express temporary doubt as a rhetorical device before going on to dispel it.
“To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.” You will find this sentence of Charles Darwin quoted again and again by creationists. They never quote what follows. Darwin immediately went on to confound his initial incredulity. Others have built on his foundation, and the eye is today a showpiece of the gradual, cumulative evolution of an almost perfect illusion of design. The relevant chapter of my Climbing Mount Improbable is called “The fortyfold Path to Enlightenment” in honour of the fact that, far from being difficult to evolve, the eye has evolved at least 40 times independently around the animal kingdom.
The distinguished Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin is widely quoted as saying that organisms “appear to have been carefully and artfully designed”. Again, this was a rhetorical preliminary to explaining how the powerful illusion of design actually comes about by natural selection. The isolated quotation strips out the implied emphasis on “appear to”, leaving exactly what a simple-mindedly pious audience — in Kansas, for instance — wants to hear.
The deceitful misquoting of scientists to suit an anti-scientific agenda ranks among the many unchristian habits of fundamentalist authors. But such Telling Lies for God (the book title of the splendidly pugnacious Australian geologist Ian Plimer) is not the most serious problem. There is a more important point to be made, and it goes right to the philosophical heart of creationism.
The standard methodology of creationists is to find some phenomenon in nature which Darwinism cannot readily explain. Darwin said: “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” Creationists mine ignorance and uncertainty in order to abuse his challenge. “Bet you can’t tell me how the elbow joint of the lesser spotted weasel frog evolved by slow gradual degrees?” If the scientist fails to give an immediate and comprehensive answer, a default conclusion is drawn: “Right, then, the alternative theory; ‘intelligent design’ wins by default.”
Notice the biased logic: if theory A fails in some particular, theory B must be right! Notice, too, how the creationist ploy undermines the scientist’s rejoicing in uncertainty. Today’s scientist in America dare not say: “Hm, interesting point. I wonder how the weasel frog’s ancestors did evolve their elbow joint. I’ll have to go to the university library and take a look.” No, the moment a scientist said something like that the default conclusion would become a headline in a creationist pamphlet: “Weasel frog could only have been designed by God.”
I once introduced a chapter on the so-called Cambrian Explosion with the words: “It is as though the fossils were planted there without any evolutionary history.” Again, this was a rhetorical overture, intended to whet the reader’s appetite for the explanation. Inevitably, my remark was gleefully quoted out of context. Creationists adore “gaps” in the fossil record.
Many evolutionary transitions are elegantly documented by more or less continuous series of changing intermediate fossils. Some are not, and these are the famous “gaps”. Michael Shermer has wittily pointed out that if a new fossil discovery neatly bisects a “gap”, the creationist will declare that there are now two gaps! Note yet again the use of a default. If there are no fossils to document a postulated evolutionary transition, the assumption is that there was no evolutionary transition: God must have intervened.
The creationists’ fondness for “gaps” in the fossil record is a metaphor for their love of gaps in knowledge generally. Gaps, by default, are filled by God. You don’t know how the nerve impulse works? Good! You don’t understand how memories are laid down in the brain? Excellent! Is photosynthesis a bafflingly complex process? Wonderful! Please don’t go to work on the problem, just give up, and appeal to God. Dear scientist, don’t work on your mysteries. Bring us your mysteries for we can use them. Don’t squander precious ignorance by researching it away. Ignorance is God’s gift to Kansas.
Richard Dawkins, FRS, is the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, at Oxford University. His latest book is The Ancestor’s Tale
Red herring -- again, no one on this thread disputes that pi is not complex, nor does anyone dispute the relevancy of that to the discussion.
Yet with a telescope in his eye he fails to see that central point.
And that central point would be... Oh, Mr. Confused "forgot" to say what that might be, he just pretended he had one that actually rescues his errors. Red herring.
Another failing of the pegleg is his knowledge of how probabilities are determined.
Why would my knowledge of probability and statistics be a failing? Bizarre. If Mr. Confused actually could identify a gap in my knowledge of these things, or a flaw in my analysis of his errors, one presume he would have actually pointed them out instead of mumbled incoherently about my knowledge. The red herrings are getting too deep to wade through.
They are not determined by trial and error.
I didn't say that they were, nor does this rescue Mr. Confused's errors. The red herrings are FLYING today!
They are calculated.
Gosh, what a shocker. Red herring #832,485 (give or take).
That is why Buffon's question has a solution. It is not a guess.
I never said that it was, nor does this rescue Mr. Confused's errors. Increment the red herring count.
Mr. Confused also seems blissfully unaware that the "solution" to the Buffon process is only an EXPECTED VALUE, it is not a fixed outcome. If you throw a thousand coins, the expected value is that 0.5 of them will be heads (i.e. exactly 500 heads, 500 tails). HOWEVER, I will cheerfully bet you 20-to-1 odds that your actual 1000 coin flips resulted in something *other* than exactly 500 heads, and I will get *rich* doing it (the actual odds of getting exactly 500 heads in 1000 coin flips is 1000!/(500! * 500!) / (2^1000) = 0.025225 = 2.5% = 40-to-1 odds *against*).
I'll offer Mr. Confused even better odds -- he can pick any number of Buffon needle-drops he wants, then perform that number of needle drops, and I'll bet him a BILLION-to-1 odds that at the end of his drop-and-tally trial his results won't actually equal pi, the way he seems to fantasize it will. He is free to wager however large a sum he wishes to lose -- er, I mean, "bet".
Let's see, nope, no guesses in there.
That's nice. Here's a cookie.
No stumping the pegleg on incompressible and "random", he's sharp as a tack, but he's kinda dense on irony.
Yawn. This reply by Mr. Confused has a 100% red herring content. That's a record even for him.
The astute reader will note that while Mr. Confused attempted to imply that my identification of the errors in his argument were flawed, he still hasn't managed to refute any of my points. Keep watching to see how many more red herrings will be flung in order to try to distract from that fact.
Hah!
Much better than my vulcanism.
So did Genesis.
Mortality is your only problem and you want to know if I can fix it? Sure I can fix it.
Fire ants. The generalized itchy twitchies. A migraine.
There, now you have 4 problems.
As long as they take my money to pay for public education, and as long as public education is imposed by force of law on our children, I will continue to hope that force of law will be employed when insane village idiots try to take over the schools, and teach whatever they bloody well please.
I agree with most of your post: poor Greek, Mark as disciple of Peter (scribe actually), Markian priority, etc. But let me expand a bit:
All of the Gospels were redacted (edited) by the sect that formed around each apostle-church.
The Gospel of Mark seems to be the most original, but since he was not an eyewitness, he had to depend on Peter's story.
Matthew (an eyewitness) probably wrote the non-canonical Gospel of Hebrews, on which a later anonymous redactor augmented with "Q", Mark (and maybe Thomas) to produce the canonical 'Gospel of Matthew' that we read now.
Luke (admittedly a non-eyewitness) was the physician to, and a follower of St. Paul, another non-eyewitness. The parts of Acts, Romans, Corinthians, etc. where Paul is featured is likely to be authored by Luke, and those texts were wove in with the other Apostle's stories by a (again) anonymous redactor to produce the final book. It's possible that Luke wrote a gospel that would've circulated among the Pauline sects and a later redactor would have "polished" it up, same as Matthew.
The 'Gospel of John' however, is a weird bird.
First off, the gospel is not of Apostle John of Zebedee but of John the Baptist (Jh 1:6, Jh 1:15, Jh 1:19-23, Jh 1:25-33), or rather of his followers that switched allegiance to Jesus (John tB didn't last that long).
Matthew and Luke include a birth narrative. John, like Mark, begins the story with the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. The other three gospels recount only one year of Jesus' ministry, John records three years, or at least mentions three Passover(s).
As the church was forming this gospel became controversial. That's because the gnostic sect that "owned" the text revered Mary Magdalene and believed she was responsible for the testimony. The early church had very strong opinions about women in the hierarchy and the idea of a woman in a position of power was unacceptable.
Here's a plausible explanation (which I accept) of how 'John' was redacted and thus became acceptable to the orthodox church.
9) As none of the authors of the Gospels were Apostles or their companions, their writings cannot be seen as accurate accounts of what (an alleged) Jesus said and did.
10) The authors must have been unknown writers, living at late dates, expressing their beliefs in the form of stories.
What I said!
No 1-800 number ?
For this, and for several previous posts: [Thunderous applause!]
It was Mrs. Heinz-Kerry that momentarily got me on the "57" track, so that I was confused about the number of cards in a deck. But my true affections are reserved for Kathy.
[Thunderous applause!] You're having quite a night, aren't you?
Best of luck to you, Shalom
So you're NOT going to put in my "Ultimate" bit. I see how you are.
Longest. Crevo thread. Ever.
The Compendium? Ah, perhaps: Junior hauls out his Ultimate Resource! Is that what you had in mind? If so, I'll add it to the next edition.
What are the attributes of a hammer that lead you to conclude it is a man-made object?
I've got news for you: Yours isn't the only money paying for public schools. Neither are your beliefs about science the only ones worthy of credibility. You would, by force of law, prevent free inquiry among the body politic, and to that extent you are just like the Pope in Galileo's day.
It doesn't mean you couldn't in theory make a fine, honest, and impressive mathematical argument for design someday. The problem is that all the attempts of which I am aware look like deliberate hocus-pocus. There has been no effort to avoid strawman presentations of ridiculous models in which complex things are required to jump together all at once from tiny components. There has been no attempt to address the actual implications of abiogenesis research in selecting just WHAT to compute the probability OF.
This has so poisoned the well that I basically never bother to check the math and just go straight to playing "Find the idiocies in the model." They never fail to turn up.
We're dealing with phenomena that communicate either personally or impersonally with our reason and senses. It stands to reason that communication cannot take place without an assembly of some kind; an assembly that behaves with considerable constancy. Can the word "considerable" be quantified? Have I made too many assumptions so far? Are these questions only an "insane village idiot" would ask?
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