[Tomalak]

This guy can write!

[Khepera]

I believe God created the heavens and the earth as well as all that is upon it. He even gave it the appearence of great age. In fact he created it with great age so it would be appropriate for sustaining the kinds of life he put upon it.

[RaceBannon]

Write what? Trash? Constant ridicule and insult? This writer would make a nice liberal.

[That Subliminal Kid]

I hate to break it to you- all but the most foam-at the mouth, fire breathing, anti-religious nut jobs think Rick Dawkins is a mental case.

He's been quoted as saying (among other absurdities) that people who question Darwinism are "either insane, stupid or both (or perhaps wicked but I'd rather not consider that)".

For a real treat, check out ID'er Phil Johnson's critiques of Dawkins. Some can defend Darwinism quite well. Dawkins is not one of them.

Another one of his big gafaws is that he tries to use Darwinism to prop up his atheism. A greater betrayal to objective science I cannot think of.

For further fun, read his debates with prominent neo-Darwinist Stephen Jay Gould. They were mortal enemies because Gould dared to question traditional Darwinian orthodoxy and once even lamented that "darwinism is on its way out".

[ko_kyi]

Anyone for a Creation/Evolution moratorium in FR? Speaking for myself, I find following the convolutions in creationist thought very tiring.

[Frumanchu]

This guy can write!

(from article) Want a bet?

Um, that would be "wanna bet?" as in "want to bet?" That's about as annoying as writing your instead of you're.

And yes, he can write. It's the condescension and smug arrogance behind the words I take issue with. Bullsh*t, however eloquently stated, is still bullsh*t.

[DinkyDau]

What ever happens, I hope I'm stoned at the time.

[beckett]

If being enlightened means I have to cast my lot with a nasty, snotty, cynical, know-it-all, ad hominem attack artist par excellence like Dawkins, I'd rather stay benighted.

[ECM]

Having actually read this book, I must say that this review is a bit lacking. He harps on two points and ignores the rest of the concepts argued.

Even if you don't agree with the guy (there are points, such as the age of the Earth that are very questionsable) it would be nice if this reviewer had actually proved that he'd read it...which I get the feeling he didn't.

And one other thing that gets on my nerves: you don't need a Phd to comment ably on any number of heady scientific concepts. It's simpy the ivory tower dwellers protecting their turf agains the imposition of the serfs.

[Junior]

Come one, come all you evil-utionists and creatins!

[stanz]

ping

[steve-b]

Would they publish - for this book is approximately as silly - a claim that the Romans never existed and the Latin language is a cunning Victorian fabrication to keep schoolmasters employed?

We have a security leak. Terminate with extreme prejudice.

[PatrickHenry]

This guy can write!

Agreed. It's possibly the most erudite and elegant demolition job on junk science I can ever recall reading.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Perhaps the world really did bounce into existence in 8000 BC.

The world is only 43 years old.

[Old Professer]

Darwinism is a zero-sum game; one must first presume that there is a finite resource and a static future for it to work.

The larger and more gut-wrenching debate centers around the purpose of sapient life, for sentience itself is insufficient to explain the the nuance of thought.

One's first encounter with death as an observer is difficult enough to unhinge the weaker screws among us, but the extrapolation to our own inevitable crux is devastating eventually.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

By Dylan Thomas

"Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

"Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night."

"Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

"Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night."

"Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight "Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

"And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Dylan Thomas died at the age of 39.

Not a single one of us wants to go gentle into that goodnight, yet few of us fight against the fading of the light.

Our father on the height is not just a figurative term but the sum of all fathers back to the beginning of time; why must some people persist in rubbing our noses in the unchallengable fact that the basic curse of mankind is ignorance?

In Genesis it is written that the first sin was the arrogance of omniscience, it seems from these threads that it must always be so.

May the force be with you.

[pabianice]

Old news. We know from "The X-Files" that humans were planted on Earth by extra-terrestials.

[AndrewC]

Any specific reason for choosing an article nearly ten years old? There seems to be no lack of present-day drivel over which to argue. Anyway, in light of the archival search for bones over which to contend, though Dawkins may write well, he lacks the perspicacity to correctly describe the Apostle Thomas story. From a slightly more recent exposition of Dawkins

Is Science a Religion?

Why else would Christians wax critical of doubting Thomas? The other apostles are held up to us as exemplars of virtue because faith was enough for them. Doubting Thomas, on the other hand, required evidence. Perhaps he should be the patron saint of scientists.