I sometimes wonder just how messed up some people’s logic can be.
The answer, in many cases, is none. None more messed up.
I present to you one Rob Hood, commentator on The Conservative Voice. He has written a remarkably logic-free screed saying that the Mars Phoenix Lander is a waste of taxpayer’s money. Why?
Because searching for conditions supporting life on Mars is silly. We already know where life came from. Can you guess? Bueller? Bueller?
Mars is a desert planet and perhaps there is ice and maybe even water there. So what? Who cares? It’s water! That doesn’t mean a thing. Life originated on Earth when God spoke it into existence and there is no need in wasting billions of dollars of taxpayer money searching for an answer that is based upon faulty evolutionary ideas.
Ignoring the fact that we’ve known about water ice on Mars for decades, and that Phoenix didn’t cost billions, and that lots of people care about exploring the real universe around us, and that evolution is a fact, there is still a pretty big hole in his logic.
Applying his (heh) reasoning, I guess there’s no reason for, say, research into malaria. If God created it, why cure it? It’s part of God’s plan. Same goes with cancer, smallpox, lupus, Down’s syndrome, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, glaucoma, pertussis, and oh, say, one million other ailments. After all, as he points out in the case of astrobiology, all our medical research — all of it — is based on "faulty evolutionary ideas".
Not to mention trying to predict earthquakes, or tornadoes, or floods, or hurricanes, or meteor impacts, or solar flares, or heat waves, or ice storms, and thus potentially saving millions of lives. After all, this science is based on the same principles that show that the Earth is older than 6000 years, and that clearly can’t be correct, right?
What’s funny is that he actually contradicts himself here in his own essay:
The same billions of dollars that goes into these hopeless projects to look for water on Mars or other places could be better spent. We people of Earth need new bridges, new highways, new dams. We could use the money to feed people, fight disease, rebuild our infrastructure, research cancer (ethically, of course), and to help those who have little or no clothing, shelter, food, etc.
Ignoring this same tired false dichotomy trotted out by everyone who doesn’t understand anything about space exploration, I find it very funny that he uses God to deny funding to us understanding the Universe, but then invokes God to fund what is essentially the very same thing.
Sorry, dude. You don’t get to pick and choose what aspects of science you’re willing to believe in and what you’re not. Reality is a package deal. If we can use science to develop the engineering to build dams, to develop the medical knowledge to cure cancer, and to develop the agricultural methods necessary to feed the hungry, then we also have to acknowledge that science works.
It does. So you may wail and rant about reality-based scientists exploring Mars all you want, but you’ll be wrong. And while Phoenix buries its scoop into the Martian sand, you keep right on burying your own head in the sand here on Earth. I myself, and millions of others, prefer to look upward and outward.
Tip o’ the Phoenix TEGA to BABloggee dehbeaver0.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
… I knew this day was coming. I new a retarded creationist would say such a mind-wrecking line someday.
“Why are you looking for life? There can’t be life anywhere else but on Earth! Life came from here and only here and we’re the center of the universe!”
In other good news, that guy surely does not believe in alien abductions.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
You could also argue that if God gave us the intelligence to build a robot to search for life in Mars, clearly He is ok with us doing it. He could of made all of stupid after all, and not centered the stupidity around his most ardent supporters.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
yay for the spinal tap reference!
June 25th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
When you are about to be exposed, change to plan B.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Ah, but the gods hate Kansas!
June 25th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Even within the context of his belief, he’s limiting himself. God isn’t allowed to create life on Mars, and we shouldn’t look for it in the context of better understanding God’s actions? I’m not a believer, but if I were, I’d want to believe in a God that is capable of bringing life to more than one single planet in the entire universe.
What’s sad is that natural history *began* as the work of devout people whose motivation was to better understand God by understanding his works. And it still goes on in some places, but the most ardent and visible theists are all content to find their truth in a single book instead of looking to the universe to see what their god did. I guess it’s easier to maintain your faith when you don’t have to deal with facts and reality.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
One must wonder how much of his own money he is spending on these things he thinks are more worthy than what NASA is spending money on!
June 25th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Ugh, the stupid, it burns.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Oh great! Now I expect Fred Phelps and his merry band of bigots from Westborough Baptist Church to show up at the Kennedy Space Center with signs saying, “God Hates Mars”.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
You can comment on his blog (assumign he’ll post them) here
http://robhood.us/weblog.php
June 25th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
My I.Q. dropped about 50 points just reading a few sentences from this guy. I suddenly have this odd urge to sit on the couch tonight and watch television…
June 25th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
I wonder what 3rd world country god will smite to exact his punishment for us daring to dig in the soil outside of earth?
June 25th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
If he’s going to hang his hat on false dichotomies… here’s one he should consider: How much money did he just hand over to his church last year? How much money did his church collect? We people of Earth need new bridges, new highways, new dams. We could use the money to feed people, fight disease, rebuild our infrastructure, or research cancer.*
(* I’ll leave out the part about helping those who have no clothing, food, shelter, etc., as I would never argue the point that many church organizations do precisely that with the money they collect, and don’t want to ignore or belittle that fact.)
However, having said that, I will also state that where I live in upstate NY, every small, poor farm town I drive through, the best looking, most up to date, grand, well built, and expensive structure in any town is almost always a church or house of worship.
So wouldn’t that money be better spent elsewhere? I’m not advocating an answer to that, merely pointing out an equally false dichotomy that I bet never occurs to him.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
I may be wrong, but didn’t the ancient and medieval church frown on attempts to relieve pain with the rudimentary medicines of the time because to do so was seen as interference with God’s wishes?
COD: Sadly, most true believers will simply blame Satan for any application of human intelligence that they don’t like.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Most Christians I know believe the Bible is an “earthly” book, thats doesn’t address issues elsewhere. They believe there very well could be life elsewhere in the universe, and could have possibly exsisted on Mars, or anywhere else for that matter.
Rob Hood just sounds like a loon using religion to try to back up his ideas, to make a more striking point, after all, the majority of people in the U.S. are religious.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
I´m constantly disturbed by this whole “god did it” thingy- isnt`t that what kept science backwards in the dark ages?
June 25th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Arg!!! I’ll bet all those families of researchers and engineers (not to mention the researchers and engineers) that worked on Phoenix wouldn’t call it wasted. Why does every anti-space goon always say that?
As for life outside of Earth, didn’t some Catholic authority figure say something about that? While the government may not have aliens, I’ll be those bishops have been hiding theirs for years!
June 25th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Reading his entire statement makes me wonder where the intelligence in this country is going. If ignorance is bliss this guy must be the happiest person on the planet. I mean really…he didn’t even know the difference between the rovers (which have been there for how many years?) and the Phoenix lander. It’s a lander….it doesn’t move…no roving. Stupidity makes my brain hurt. Stupidity combined with religious zealotry just makes me sad for the future. I mean these are the people who breed most prolifically it seems.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
If he’s so concerned about billions being better spent on such good causes here in the US, why don’t he and his ilk persuade his fellow Christian in the White House to stop wasting it all in Iraq?
What a prat. They’re all prats.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Oh woes me, what a waste of billions. What was the NASA budget this year, under 20 billion? Heck, the Pentagon has more than that unaccounted for in Iraq.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Am I the only one who thinks that anti-scientists like this one should be banned from using the technology they clearly don’t believe in? No computers to write their babble on, no internet or satellite tv to spread it, no telephones, no electricity, no cars, no microwave ovens, no light bulbs etc. That would leave them with a soapbox in the village square, where they belong.
Oh dang! There is that whole “Do unto others…” - thing. Oh well.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
NASA FY 2008 Budget: $17.3 billion.
Estimated cost of the Iraq War as of March 2008:
“Five years in, the Pentagon tags the cost of the Iraq war at roughly $600 billion and counting. Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and critic of the war, pegs the long-term cost at more than $4 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office and other analysts say that $1 trillion to $2 trillion is more realistic, depending on troop levels and on how long the American occupation continues.”
http://www.nasa.gov/news/budget/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/washington/19cost.html
June 25th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
@ pontoppi
I can’t be the only one who read this then immediately had the following words pop into their heads:
“With Gilligan… the Skipper too… the Millionaire, and his wife”…
I need coffee.
June 25th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Only thing worse than knowing that garbage exists is knowing I just wasted 10min thinking about it. So in moving on . . . I wonder what they just posted on the Phoenix Twitter site? Hmmmm. Click click click.
June 25th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
According to the BBC, its count is $23 billion missing in Iraq.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7444083.stm
June 25th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
I’d say, “unbelieveable” but unfortunately, it is very believeable in this day and age. No one reads anymore - no one tries to form their own rational opinions….it is whatever their televangelist, preacher or right-wing radio nut job is telling them to believe.
Not to paint with too wide a brush, I believe you know what I mean.
June 25th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Hey, Doug, no fair! There are plenty of intelligent things on television.
June 25th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
“You don’t get to pick and choose what aspects of science you’re willing to believe in and what you’re not.”
I don’t see why not. They’re well known for interpreting the Bible as they see fit. There’s no reason they can’t apply their “scientific method” to actual science, in their own hollow heads at least.
Take the old testament for example, it obviously has nothing to do with Judaism. Do most Christians care one bit about Judaism? No, of course not, because Jesus was a Christian, not a Jew.
In the new testament, most ignore the cherubim, and the seraphim. Angels are dead peoples. To others, cherubim aren’t these:
http://www.bible-history.com/art/cherub9.jpg
they’re these of course:
http://www.fromoldbooks.org/Sterne-SentimentalJourney/pages/045-winged-cherub-firing-arrow/045-winged-cherub-firing-arrow-q75-500×287.jpg
June 25th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
I’m not of a religious bent, but the most reasonably religious position on these issues would seem to be that it’s a GOOD THING to better understand the majesty of god’s creation, that better understanding would make us appreciate his brilliance even more. Also, where science and religion do tend to agree is on this point: there’s a lot going on we don’t understand.
What this mental midget is setting himself up for is a fall due to pride. He’s claiming he understands god’s mysterious ways so well he knows Mars exploration cannot find life. If they do, he will have to reject at least part of his faith. And once one part goes, more may follow.
Perhaps Mars has a chance to save a few minds, even if a few souls are lost.
I’ll be optimistic and hope so.
June 25th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Just more convoluted, easily challenged thinking from the new-and-improved American version of status quo xtianity.
But, there are several gods! Don’t risk their anger by invoking the singular! You know what happens when they fight!
It’s also in the news today that a kid had his arm bit off by an alligator and then says he has god to thank. Apparently his god was distracted and couldn’t arrive a few seconds earlier…
June 25th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Pthe BA wrote “Bueller? Bueller?”
ugh! a quote from ben stein!
oh, and it is obvious that god hates mars. look at the success rate for probes reaching that planet–it is only 50%.
on second thought, maybe mars just doesn’t like getting probed by alien life forms.
June 25th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Rob,
After all the alien a*** probes we’ve been subjected to, it’s about time we stuck it to them!
June 25th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Nope, Jeffersonian, that was all Satan’s doing — he was obviously distracting G-d with another ridiculous gambling bet.
Just like Thomas Paine wrote — in Christian beliefs, Satan’s practically more omnipresent and all-powerful than G-d himself.
June 25th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
NASA really needs to build that B-Ark…
June 25th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Actually, that’d be pretty funny. Heck, maybe we can get him and his crew pad-side seats next launch.
And by “pad-side” I mean “at the very edge of the launch pad.”
June 25th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Phil,
I’m really glad you bring these things up … it’s nice to get slapped hard once in a while and realize what kind of morons still live among us.
June 25th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
@ GoatTuber
1. Most mainstream Christian people belive Jesus was a a Jew.. infact, he is the fulfillment of Jewish law.
2. Angels are NOT dead people. They are created beings, separate and distinct from humans.
I agree with the BA on this, though. I am tired of jerks like this hijacking my Christianity. Phil, I may not always agree with you, but thank goodness for that… ideas must always be challenged. You rock!
CJSF
June 25th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
“It’s part of God’s plan. Same goes with cancer, smallpox, lupus, Down’s syndrome, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, glaucoma, pertussis, and oh, say, one million other ailments”
Still… we shouldn’t try to cure lupus. It’s never lupus.
June 25th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
He won’t think those billions exploring Mars were wasted when we find evidence that Mars has a Plutonium 239 Exploding Space Modulator and plans to use it on Earth later this year when we block their view of Venus.
He’ll be in line behind Colin Powell at the U.N. demanding that we invade Mars before it’s too late!
June 25th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Is it me, or are all of the best dichotomies crafted by carefully cherry-picking from made up crap?
Which begs the question: Why bother cherry-picking dichotomies?
They are all a bunch of poopy pants, so why not form The International Dumbass Dichotomy Liquidation and Elimination Squad - or TIDDLES for short!
June 25th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
@Mike Brotherton - you said “Also, where science and religion do tend to agree is on this point: there’s a lot going on we don’t understand.
”
Actually science and religion do not agree on that at all. Religion always has an answer - that answer always defaults to “God’s will” or some other “god did it” line of non-reason. Science will admit that there is far more not understood than understood, but not religion. That’s the basic point of conflict between science and religion. Science operates from a zero knowledge starting point while religion claims to have all the answers from the start - no matter what the question is!
June 25th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Why is god wasting time on other planets while he should be here curing diseases, fighting our wars and smiting our enemies. Thats right he is off chaniging the DNA in E. coli small petrie dish in some scientists lab.
June 25th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
I am a firm believer in evolution because it makes more sense to me. However, how do we know it’s fact? Where is the proof? So when someone comes up to me and says I am wrong, I would like to have some fire power. Please let me know. Somewhere it can explain it in “laymen terms”? Thank you!
June 25th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
”In other good news, that guy surely does not believe in alien abductions.”
Sure he does, except that people are simply misidentifiying the angels that are abducting them as aliens. Well…the ones that give people free rides around the universe are angels, I think the anal-probers are demons or something.
June 25th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Total amount budgeted for NASA 1958-2008: $592.38 Billion
Cost of Afghanistan and Iraq wars: $604 Billion and counting… in 7 years.
50 years of exploration, science, understanding, and just plain betterment of the human experience… worth every damn penny.
7 years of an illegal war, countless dead, countless wounded… not so much.
June 25th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
*golfclap*
Well said, Phil.
June 25th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
justcolby:
To answer your question, consider that in the Middle Ages, the Church established what we now come to know as hospitals. So no, the church didn’t oppose medicine.
June 25th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Doesn’t he know? We have to fight them up there… so we don’t have to fight them down HERE.
June 25th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Didn’t god create stupid too? Isn’t that a disease? Oh wait… we have a cure for that.
To bad it doesn’t come in powder form so we could add it to the global water supply.
June 25th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Murff is correct in that most Christians regard the bible as having the main focus as Earth. Specifically, mankind and mankind’s redemption. Whether or not there’s life on other worlds isn’t addressed, and we would err in staying that it does one way or the other. This doesn’t mean that some might, but for most of us it’s a non-issue.
It also doesn’t mean that to oppose Mars exploration is to oppose all scientific research, in the same way as to support unmanned missions over manned isn’t a rejection of scientific research, either. Rob Hood apparently sees it as an attempt to confirm evolutionary theory, and sees funds spent looking for life on other planets as a waste of money. BA, for the record, I know of a very competent engineer *who considers the space program a waste of money.* He’s in favor of Earth-centric projects, like satellites, but considers anything else as a siphon diverting funds better used elsewhere.
This is how Rob Hood sees it. I agree he’s wrong, but I also think his position is misunderstood as being anti-science when it’s an opinion on where the funds would be better spent. *It is very important that we understand this, for regardless of who wins the election, we’re going to see more of it.* This will be a function of economic pressures. If Obama is elected, he’s going to be pressured by some in his party to trim space exploration funding for pretty much the same reasons as Mr. Hood gave in his diatribe. McCain will face similar pressures.
June 25th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
I wonder how long Mr. Hood would last in a simulated Martian environment? Sadly, it wouldn’t look like what happened to people in the film Total Recall, but that’s the mental image that comes to mind.
June 25th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Here’s an interesting experiment: Ask as many Jews as you can if Jesus is the fulfillment of Jewish law… and tally the results. Makes sense right? Ask a Jew about Jewish law.
The proof is in your own body — in human chromosome #2.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK3O6KYPmEw
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
June 25th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
What….God didn’t create the Earth in seven day’s!!!
What is to be exposed next….are we going to be told that Santa does not exist?
Or maybe Santa is God?.ah, you never see the two in the same room!!
June 25th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Your second to last paragraph is going into my favorite quotes collection
June 25th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
=LOL= I immediately thought of this. Maybe God Himself should write something on His Blog about Mars.
@ RevBigDumbChimp: I just woke up from a nap, and when my still-bleary eyes saw your link to the guy’s blog and thought it said “robohead.”
Estimated costs of war in Iraq and Afghanistan: Read ‘em and go ballistic. Almost $285,000 <i/per day of which $238,000 is being dumped into the Iraq occupation. The $23 billion is the estimated amount that’s unaccounted for, presumably disappeared into the pockets of various profiteers. (I was going to say “gone down the black hole,” but I didn’t want to insult a freekin’ awesome astronmical phenomenon.)
@ Chapio:
Understanding Evolution at UCBerkeley
Evolution at UCMP
The Evolution Channel>/a> at How Stuff Works
resources and links from the National Center for Science Education
TalkOrigins - especially their extensive Index to Creationist Claims
Lots of others, but here’s a start.
June 25th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Christopher Ferro said: “2. Angels are NOT dead people. They are created beings, separate and distinct from humans.”
Hey Christopher, I have always wanted to ask this to a Christian; if male angels are not male humans, then why is it considered a “homosexual” act for a male human to have sex with one?
If what you say above is true, then the entire gamut of reasoning behind Christian persecution of homosexuality is completely moot!
June 25th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
@ Chapio: Heads up; I just posted a list of evolution links for you, but my post got hung up in the spam filter.
June 25th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Speaking of ignoring science, how long will that particular strawman of biology scare the crowds?
Evolution theory isn’t dependent on the origin of the root populations anymore than gravitation theory is dependent on the origin of mass-energy, nor does it predict that origin anymore than gravitation theory predicts how mass-energy originates. In fact, universal common descent (one originating gene pool instead of several independent) is an observation rather than a prediction.
I wish those ignorant commentators would open a basic biologic text book and find out how gene centered evolution theory is. Abiogenesis may involve evolutionary phenomena, but it would need complements to explain how genes evolve, and it would have to incorporate initial open productive systems rather than fully rely on feedback reproductive systems.
Hereditary closure, and hereditary closure compatible with evolution (i.e. with a feasible rate of variation), is rather simple. See for example Scostak’s work on vesicles and replisomes which combines a naturally too faithful replicator with a naturally too faithless one into a stable system. In such a variable hereditary system there is even a marked darwinian state transition between faithless goo and faithful replicators.
But metabolic closure is more complex; it was likely a gradual process.
June 25th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
>>>”If what you say above is true, then the entire gamut of reasoning behind Christian persecution of homosexuality is completely moot!”
It’s wrong cuz God sed so.
But then God also sed love thy fellow man.
June 25th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
I decided to go straight to the Source, and inquired of the Almighty Himself:
We’ll see.
June 25th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Not really. We now know the limits of small scales (Planck volume) and large (Hubble volume), as well as the boundaries of content (entropy density and fundamental forces). There is AFAIU roughly place for one fundamental theory like string theory before we run up into the entropy bound, beyond which there isn’t any structure. So we have, or will likely have, a good handle on the general stuff.
OTOH there is a truth in Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. For all practical purposes we will never run out of real and possible detail compared to what we have resources to tackle.
I would answer that it is basic biology, because it is. (And if they don’t believe you, it is easy to find out from national science organizations.)
But if that isn’t enough, there is plenty of references to the science on the web, for example TalkOrigins which is created to answer antiscientists usual fallacies (they are endlessly repeated in the face of existing science) but also have basic biology and how it is tested. But I would rather recommend you to open some good basic biology book.
Btw, no one can prove observational truths by deductive reasoning, instead science validates facts and theories by discarding what doesn’t work (and provisionally keeps the best of what explanations remains). “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? [Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.]”
Science is observational and so provisional, not axiomatic and so dogmatic.
June 25th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Thanks for all the awesome links everyone!
June 25th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
i’m really in favor free speech. i’m really in favor of lunatics having free speech. there must be a way to allow lunatics free speech without threatening all of humanity. i think its the standards. we don’t hire pedophiles as teachers or principals in our schools. but they could sweep floors some where kids aren’t. they can say any damn thing they want… just not to kids.
these nuts… lunatics… should have the right to say what they want. they don’t have the right to be taken seriously. GW is probably a great beer drinking buddy. but he isn’t qualified to be the president of the united states. he can say we should nuke iran but he should never be left alone with the button. there are ample videos of the drunken president of the united states telling us how…. i don’t know. i don’t make much sense of it. i’ve tried to get drunk and listen. didn’t work… i’m not president. who has the football when GW is crying in his beer in front of the world?
its the standards. we need to find some standards. these people should be laughed at but we got to keep the keys away from them. damn. since i was a kid… 5 or 6 or so… god didn’t make sense to me ever. i made it all work by thinking they were all faking it. like when you wonder if everyone else is a robot… they were all faking it. i still have that feeling but the reason for it all seems pretty… sinister. they need to be deprogrammed. we need standards.
June 25th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Man, don’t these kinds of people have at least one drop of curiosity of how the world works?
June 25th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
“Total amount budgeted for NASA 1958-2008: $592.38 Billion
Cost of Afghanistan and Iraq wars: $604 Billion and counting… in 7 years.
”
By the deuce!
More people ought to be made aware of those figures.
June 25th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Nope. It was six. He rested on the seventh because omnipotent beings need to rest after bringing stuff into existence.
June 25th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
@Stark:
“Actually science and religion do not agree on that at all. Religion always has an answer - that answer always defaults to “God’s will” or some other “god did it” line of non-reason. Science will admit that there is far more not understood than understood, but not religion. That’s the basic point of conflict between science and religion. Science operates from a zero knowledge starting point while religion claims to have all the answers from the start - no matter what the question is!”
While I don’t disagree with you that this is a major source of conflict between science and religion, and there are a lot of religious people guilty of this sort of thinking, like this guy, there are a lot more religious people who do believe that god moves in mysterious ways and that it’s arrogant to believe that anyone knows god’s plan. They’ll all swear that he has one, that they’re sure of it, but not what it is. Now, I do have a lot more problems with the religious, but I’m not in the mood to rant about it today for some reason.
June 25th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Man BA I always knew you were cool and have been an avid reader for years , but this blog takes the cake as the coolest thing I’ve read in a long time. GO YOU!
I hope soon you get in the mood to ‘rant’ about Religion , I can’t get enough.
June 25th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
I think that the main reason that we explore the universe is to find a safe place to get away from those who refuse to explore it.
June 25th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
He obviously hasn’t seen Red Planet Mars (1952) and the christian world Peter Graves discovered there. Pi anyone?
June 26th, 2008 at 12:08 am
I always sorta thunk God hated Venus, what with the sulfuric acid and the 100 atmospheres of pressure and the balmy 900 degree surface. That’s a world He really went medieval on.
I can’t imagine what the Venusians did wrong.
Hey, there’s a book there…
June 26th, 2008 at 12:12 am
“Reality is a package deal.” is without a doubt my new favourite saying.
Thanks Phil
June 26th, 2008 at 12:35 am
I love you Phil.
June 26th, 2008 at 12:42 am
Just curious,but what was god doing before he created this little goldfish bowl called earth?
Perhaps Mars is the goldfish bowl he forgot about when he went on vacation.
June 26th, 2008 at 1:07 am
“If God created it, why cure it? It’s part of God’s plan.”
Hell, this argument works not only with illness, but for everything else as well. Why preserve the environment? Why not just ask Jesus to forgive and sit around until you starve to death? It is beyond me why or how Christians justify their actions, or inactions, given the implications of their own theology. The psychology of the anthropomorphically inclined remains a mystery to me.
June 26th, 2008 at 2:51 am
@ SOS
‘ “Reality is a package deal.” is without a doubt my new favourite saying.’
Mine too!
June 26th, 2008 at 7:14 am
Wow, ignorance of the Bible is rampant here! HELP! HELP! I’m being overrun by straw men arrggghhh! Straw men that talk like pirates even!
I guess ignorance is excusable as long as it’s about something you don’t agree with. I would bet the average Christian Theologist is better versed in evolution than most of you that believe in it, and is certainly far more versed in evolution than most of you are in theology!
So, for all of those ignorant of religious matters amongst you, I present: Religion is a part of the cultural and anthropological development of mankind through the ages, and is part of our social fabric, the basis for our laws and ethics, and the origin of not only our morality, but our self-image and social interactions with others. To remain completely ignorant of a huge portion of what makes humankind what we are is simply - sophmoric.
So, IF any of you really want to know the answers to some of those questions, feel free to ask. Politely.
Does God want us to explore Mars? (Oh, BTW, for those of you ignorant of all things religion, Mars was the Roman god of war…, see, you’ve learned something about religion already!)
The answer: Yes. He told us to explore, to learn, and even stated that whatever we can imagine, we can do.
There you go, lesson 1 is complete.
Now, please, fight down the OBE tendencies, and stretch your minds to learn about something that a MAJORITY of Americans believe in!
Robert
June 26th, 2008 at 7:20 am
Oh, yes, I almost forgot! A TRUE skeptic would fully understand theology before he or she dismissed it! Most of you are confusing skepticism with humanism. René Descartes must be rolling in his grave!
June 26th, 2008 at 8:24 am
I suppose I just see it as everyone is entitled to their opinion and thanks to the power of the Web, we now can see everyone’s opinion.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:52 am
Shane:
The term “rested” here means to cease from exertion or labor. We use the term in this same sense when we say a body at rest tends to stay at rest. We obviously don’t mean that a body is sacked out on a recliner and doesn’t want to get up.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:55 am
Wonderful, another who thinks that atheists are only around because they haven’t read the bible. Sorry Robert, but most atheists in the U.S. became so because they read the bible. Knowledge of religion is the driving force for my lack of respect for it. First take the straw out of your own eye, then feel free to complain about strawmen.
I now return you to my original intention, which was to give a similar example from 300 years ago. Ben Franklin figured out that lightning was electricity and invented the simple lightning rod to prevent damage to buildings. Maybe he hadn’t read his bible recently, because his device was in direct opposition to the theory of theological meteorology. Many religious leaders resisted because redirecting god’s “divine displeasure” was an impious act.
“In America the earthquake of 1755 was widely ascribed, especially in Massachusetts, to Franklin’s rod. The Rev. Thomas Prince, pastor of the Old South Church, published a sermon on the subject, and in the appendix expressed the opinion that the frequency of earthquakes may be due to the erection of ‘iron points invented by the sagacious Mr. Franklin.’ He goes on to argue that ‘in Boston are more erected than anywhere else in New England, and Boston seems to be more dreadfully shaken. Oh! there is no getting out of the mighty hand of God.’”
“As late as 1770 religious scruples regarding lightning-rods were still felt, the theory being that, as thunder and lightning were tokens of the Divine displeasure, it was impiety to prevent their doing their full work. Fortunately, Prof. John Winthrop, of Harvard, showed himself wise in this, as in so many other things: in a lecture on earthquakes he opposed the dominant theology; and as to arguments against Franklin’s rods, he declared, ‘It is as much our duty to secure ourselves against the effects of lightning as against those of rain, snow, and wind by the means God has put into our hands.’”
Primary source: http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/whitek04.html
June 26th, 2008 at 8:58 am
Ah, Robert, you’re missing the point. Yes, humans have an intrinsic need for something to believe in. It provides stability and that implies hope(hope that disease, earthquake, storm, etc may be survived). However,,,don’t confuse RELIGION(a dogmatic, rigid interpretation of one individuals spiritual experience) with the spiritual experience that gives rise to the religion.
In Tales of the Dervishes, by Idries Shaw, example after example is rendered to show how dogmatic religion is derived from the individual spiritual experience. We are only now beginning to understand some of the neural structures responsible for that experience and from what I’ve read, the lab created version is a pale reflection of the spontaneous experience, which is unique to the individual. It is that very uniqueness that gives the lie to the religion developed from the individual experience. Religion says ” Follow this Path and you will know God,,,”, but the problem is, each sentient life path is unique and must therefore lead AWAY from the religion.
,,,which is no way to make a living as a priest,,,
Sufiis were Rationalists, believing in the fundamental unity of all reality and the necessity to pursue knowledge wherever it might lead.
Which is one reason they are adjured by contemporary Muslims,,,
Gary 7
June 26th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Chalmer:
There are some very key points here that should be considered:
1. The Christian concept of a fallen world.
This means that by human choice we live in a world where evil exists, with all that implies.
2. Christians see humans as stewards.
This means that humans are caretakers of what ultimately belongs to God. This and similar themes run through the New Testament. We are responsible to provide a helping hand to one another, and are held accountable when we don’t.
Incidentally, I suspect Tolkien had his Stewards of Gondor as a commentary on Christians who forget who’s in charge . . .
June 26th, 2008 at 9:09 am
“they need to be deprogrammed. we need standards.”
Excuse me? Are we paying attention to what we are saying here?
We are commenting on someone’s beliefs. If we disagree, we disagree.
But this is heading down the exact road that we are criticizing in the first place.
When someone holds to a different set of values, no matter how sophomoric they seem, it is our responsibility to respect those values. Even finding humor in them is okay as long as we can “give and get”.
Suggesting deprogramming, labelling all Christians as bigots and idiots…we’re above that, no?
June 26th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Trapper John:
Ah, “deprogramming”, another euphemism for brain washing,,,
Respect is something earned, by exemplary word and deed. Just because someone holds a different view, we are not bound to respect that view, if it does not correlate with reality.
When someone holds beliefs that are in direct contradiction to reality, we refer to them as “woo-woos”. We have a responsibility to attempt to educate them but education is not brain washing. Education is showing how reality really works, then letting the individual make up their own mind. Many individual humans are incapable of changing their world views to accommodate the complexity of reality. As far as they are concerned, physics is just another word for “magic” and they will likely prefer the “magic” which is believed by their ancestors. At least that way, they’re in comfortable company.
Gary 7
PS. Few respondents here label Christians as bigots and idiots.
June 26th, 2008 at 9:50 am
No.
It is not our responsibility to respect other people’s “values.”
In the interests of creating / maintaining a decent society people should respect other “people,” including their right to hold whatever values they wish. Respect in this case not meaning “to hold in high esteem,” but “to avoid violations of their rights.”
June 26th, 2008 at 9:56 am
“Applying his (heh) reasoning, I guess there’s no reason for, say, research into malaria. If God created it, why cure it? It’s part of God’s plan. Same goes with cancer, smallpox, lupus, Down’s syndrome, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, glaucoma, pertussis, and oh, say, one million other ailments.”
Two problems with this comment. First off, you err in basic theology. God didn’t create these things, they began to appear after humans allowed Satan to corrupt us thereby ruining God’s plan for perfection. Kinda like an early version of the Pandora’s Box story.
Second, if you accept that as a logical argument, then this one is just as valid: people are part of the natural world, therefore any change we wring on the environment is part of the natural progression. If we, or any other creature, fail to adapt to changes in our environment and die off, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. So saving the whales, seals, wetlands, etc. is just a waste of time and morally wrong, because we’re interfering with the fundamental tenet of evolution.
June 26th, 2008 at 10:02 am
I know it’s been mentioned here multiple times before, but whenever I see one of these morons blithering about wasted money I get the feeling that they think NASA loads up rockets with crisp $100 bills and blasts them into space. Besides the scientific and technological benefits it yields, the money spent on space exploration is a vital portion of the economy of many states, particularly Florida, Texas, and California. Those dollars pay thousands of employees and find their way into the tills of hundreds of businesses large and small in/around Titusville/Cocoa Beach, Houston, Pasadena…
KC:
1) Why would a god tolerate evil in a creation he/she/it meant to be perfect? If you have a good answer to Epicurus’ riddle, several million atheists would love to hear it.
2) That is not a universally or seemingly even a majority held belief among Christians. Note the current conflict within evangelical circles regarding global warming and whether we should take responsibility and protect our planet or exploit it to it’s maximum and either trust that Jesus will make it all OK or not worry because the Rapture’s next Tuesday anyway.
June 26th, 2008 at 10:17 am
I was going to refer to Father George Coyne, the Vatican Astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory, who has been a champion of evolution and reason in the Catholic church for a quarter century. Several stunning videos are available on youtube describing his beliefs and discussing the intersection of religion and science. Well reasoned and thought provoking. A rational voice in the cacophony created by fundamentalists and atheists railing, ad nauseam, against each other. I was, but Pope Benedict XVI decided to replace him with an Intelligent Design proponent. Everything old is new again. (The videos are still a must see for everyone interested in the subject, though!)
June 26th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Oh and by the way, the current Vatican Astronomer doesn’t agree with Rob Hood,either:
“In my opinion this possibility exists,” said the Reverend José Gabriel Funes, head of the Vatican Observatory and a scientific adviser to Pope Benedict XVI, referring to life on other planets. How can we exclude that life has developed elsewhere,”
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/14/news/vat.php
Many theologians (perhaps most?) understand that the Bible and all other religious texts were written in response to man’s achievements and moral beliefs not as a catalyst for them. Murder wasn’t seen as OK before the 10 Commandments were codified. Nor was theft, or adultry, or any of the other prohibitions. The reason that God was supposed to have created the Universe in 7 days (including His weekend downtime) was because the tribes already had the concept of a week. The operant sentiment in the first verse of Genesis is that God created the heavens and the Earth. It’s irrelevant how long or by which means.
Religion and science were both invented by humans to accomplish the same thing, to explain the world around them. To paraphrase Steven J. Gould, they are colliding magisteria. If there is a God; if there was an intellegent, purposeful, creative entity that planned and initiated the Universe, do either science or religion represent it?
June 26th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Grand Lunar:
Yeah, and NASA only give us all peeks at other planets, better weather forcasting via sattilites, spinoff technologies, areospace research that makes commercial air traffic safer and more reliable, cutting edge engineering that ends up on the Militaries plate, the ISS, tourisim in FL, internatinal cooperation, exo-solar planets, asteroid early warning, mission to planet Earth, Climate Change monitoring, etc.etc…
Whereas with Iraq we got… um… er…
More terrorists?
An international relations black eye?
More expensive gas?
Yeah… big bargain there!
June 26th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Ragutis:
For question #1, I remember that C.S. Lewis was not able to persuade everyone he met. If the most articulate Christian debater of the 20th Century could not manage the task, then I doubt I shall be able to do much in that regard.
The Christian perspective is that our current situation is entirely based on mankind’s free will. Consider the hypothetical situation of a US couple who immigrated to the USSR in the early 1920s. They discover it wasn’t quite the worker’s paradise they imagined, but also find they are unable to leave. Is their situation the fault of the US or of the couple?
Now, imagine if the couple defected not to the USSR, but a country that has declared war on the US and you are close to the Christian view. Mankind has aligned itself with the enemy of God. From that point of view, the question is then not why God permits evil, but why does God allow anything *good* to happen to us.
That’s the default situation. The other is evil that directly results from someone’s choice, and the only way to do that is to prevent all actions of a voluntary nature. In other words, free will.
As for question #2, that’s a mischaracterization of the situation. The debate among Evangelicals isn’t so much whether we bear a responsibility of stewardship for the world, but whether certain environmental causes and views are valid and whether we should be caught up in them.
June 26th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
“Mankind has aligned itself with the enemy of God.”
Because that’s how the religion defines it; all of mankind is damned by default because of blood-relation to the first man, who did not follow orders to the letter. It’s my Deistic view that the punishment does not quite fit the crime. It appears to me as more of a carrot-and-stick to lead and push people into the faith; “This world is corrupt and bad and icky and wrong and only by doing things our way can your life have any meaning, and only that in a hereafter that demands your belief sight unseen.”
This is the universe set up by the God who is the summum bonum, who, as the prime motivational agent, is just as responsible for creating evil as He was for creating good. Milton tried to get around this by arguing that God’s plan, which cannot be violated or deviated from (which means that this was planned all along, and God is additionally responsible for the fall of man), had man fall only so the greater good of the Christ’s sacrifice would become possible. Therefore God threw His Creation in front of a bus so He could provide the greater benefit of saving it.
So yes, Adam ate the apple of his own free will, but, as it was predestined, there was no possible way for him to say “no” and when it all comes down to it Adam was no more than a clockwork orange, a complex biological machine doing what he was programmed to do without realizing said self-same programming because it was not at a level he could inspect (and thus attempt to interrupt). This turns the argument that the fall of man was the result of free will into a sham, because it all goes back to an omniscient and omnipotent clockmaker God which deigned it all happen and, as the creator of the plan, is responsible for the consequences.
Let’s say an architect designs a building so it will fall after about twenty years, maybe due to subsidence of the foundation or the propagation of stress cracks through its structure, so he may then do the better good of creating a much larger and better building. It then falls twenty years later. Is the fall of the building and its concomitant suffering the responsibility of those who paid for it, the laborers who built it, the tenants who lived in it, or is it the responsibility of its designer?
The problem of evil, as it relates to the Christian God, is not resolved by an appeal to the fall of man being the result of free will. It still requires a God that is responsible for the apparent need of babies to die and puppies to drown, which seems incompatible with the simplistic view that God is the summum bonum. The obvious response to this is that because God defines the good, whatever God does must by definition be good, therefore what we percieve as evil is actually good… and Pollyanna called, she wants her game back.
June 27th, 2008 at 5:11 am
You address several issues. One key think I think you’ve missed is free will, as you say that Adam was predestined to sin. That’s a rather Calvinist interpretation. I think a more accurate description is that God knows what our choices will be before we make them, but the option to make them remains our own. This isn’t such an alien concept if the regard ourselves as living in time and God as living outside of time, yet able to interact with us.
History is full of one-way decisions. Caesar could cross the Rubicon but once. History is also full of one-way decisions that affect our descendants. A king who abdicates has endures that none of his children from that point on is in the line for the throne. Immigrants who chose to come to America have made their any children they might have Americans.
You dismiss the idea that mankind has a default setting of evil as a religious argument intended to whip the gullible into shape. Yet observation shows that the human race isn’t very nice. If you think otherwise, read the police blotter. Eastern Europe is shocked by an incident where a group of young men killed a middle aged man by tossing him onto a flame honoring WWII dead. Was it the fault of God, or the fault of those who chose to commit murder?
I get a sense that you realize this, but then blame God for the conditions. The only way to really do so is to ask God why He allows free will. OTOH, if God did not allow free will, would we be conscious intelligent beings? Is it better to live as automations? I don’t think so.
June 27th, 2008 at 9:37 am
No, I don’t “blame” God for these conditions. I did, for a time, then followed the advice of the Powerthirst: Rocket Edition commercial by Picnicface (long before I saw it, actually): When God gives you lemons, you FIND A NEW GOD! [Said tongue in cheek, of course.] I have to admit that my deistic conceptualization of God is far more nuanced and subtle than the theologically simplistic Christian standby of the summum bonum. The connotations of “blame” and “responsibility” are different… and even if “blame” were the right one in this case, well, it only makes sense to blame the one responsible, no?
Back to the point, this is the perpetual argument between actual philosophical free will–true free agency–and perceived free will. Perceived free will exists by self-evident inspection and this has been recognized since at least Descartes: “I think, therefore, I am.” All decisions we make have at the very least the appearance of free agency on our part.
Now let us take a purely materialist conceptualization of the universe: physical laws are constant and the interactions of mass and energy with themselves are purely deterministic. Entropy ensures that the arrow of time goes in only one direction, but other than that, if all mass and energy in the universe could be perfectly defined in terms of magnitude and velocity at any instant of time, one would have a model that could, with perfect accuracy, be wound back to the beginning of time and forward to the end of time. We, existing inside this framework, still appear to have free will because we perceive it to be so, but we are in reality no more than complex organic machines playing out simple reactions on the molecular, atomic, and subatomic scales stacked on top of each other in fractal complexity. While we are not aware of the clockwork in the orange, we are, by the very laws of nature, bound strictly to them. It appears we have a choice between piety and sin, but will inevitably choose what we must choose because our free will is only a mirage, an apparition without real existence and no capability of objective actualization. The stacking of trillions of collisions between atoms, electrons, and molecules, the most basic exchanges of energy demand we move this way, and we are beholden to them as they are reality and we exist in reality. In this way, one can be materialistically predestined by mere physics.
Now, I find Calvinism as detestable as the next right-thinking person (
) but it is essentially the logical end result of having an omnipotent being with omniscience and a plan. Mere omniscience is not enough; I can know that you’re going to eat the banana sitting in front of you and that knowledge has no bearing on your choice to eat that banana, if I’m not the designer of the situation. Again, as in the above materialistic example, reality is strictly defined: in this case, the fulfillment of the plan of an omnipotent, omniscient God. God knows exactly what you are going to do and when you are going to do it; not only has He planned for it in advance, but, God being infinite and universal, your actions are indeed part of His plan. You have the apparent choice of free will, to pick A and B, but God, long before your generation, has planned that you should pick A. As you exist in and are defined by reality which is defined by God, it is by definition absolutely impossible in that situation to pick B despite the apparent choice. Again, in this situation, free will is merely apparent with no objective power to change the path of things.
Indeed, the concept of God’s plan is just as deadly to free agency as pure materialism as God’s plan has, through omniscience and perfection, perfect resolution. God knows exactly what you are going to think as you think it, and indeed those thoughts are His plan. Once again the clockwork orange has been achieved.
Was it in the architect’s perfect plan, so the man needed to die because it could not possibly be any other way because any other way would be deviation and a perfect plan by a perfect God cannot possibly be deviated from? Does true free will exist, or is it only apparent? People say that atheism leads to a loss of morality; if that’s the case, then why did God make me do it?
To me, it’s the men’s fault because God need not plan, only create, and I choose to believe in free will (more on that later). That the capacity for such action even exists is God’s fault.
On the subject of the crass and base nature of mankind, well, what else do you expect from animals? I can let the newspaper tell me about how vile humanity is, with blood dripping from each page, or I can look up from my monitor and see good people treating each other decently. Good people treating each other decently is, on the whole, actually far more prevalent than bad people trying to screw each other over, because humans are social animals whose survival has become dependent on cooperation in large groups. Now, with my limited information and world view, I can either choose to believe that people are generally neutral, good, or bad. That humans are generally blessed, neutral, or fallen. My scientific nature suggests that the human animal is born neutral, but generally made good as society functions best when made of good people. I therefore choose to believe that mankind is not fallen from some state of ignorant innocence, but actually a good and decent creature actually capable of good and decency through its capacity for reason, free agency, self-actualization, and abstract emotions. Any animal can be sad, but it takes a human to be guilty about surviving. Any animal can be pleased, but it takes a human to joyously follow some sort of higher goal, even a completely made up higher goal with no physical or perhaps even objective reality.
As far as science goes, there is no justice, no beauty, no honor, no good. These are all things that humans made up, and by making them up, humans have endowed them with existence. Even if they are not real, we make them real through our actions and beliefs. Just because something is not true does not automatically mean that it is not worth believing in.
As you say, observation shows the human race isn’t very nice. Observation also shows that the human race is the kindest and most compassionate species on the planet. Such is the crime and glory of being human, and such is the reason I forcefully reject the notion of the Fall. I forcefully reject the concept of some time in the past being perfect, as that has been sufficiently disproven in my eyes through the work of science. The world doesn’t need to end for us to improve ourselves, and God doesn’t have to commit suicide for us to improve ourselves. We can, and to the best of our limited and fallible ability are, improving ourselves day by day, and the nobility of something so base and mundane as the human animal reaching out to better itself is more glorious, beautiful, and affirming to life and the self than God from upon high condescending to sacrificing Himself because otherwise we are just too dirty and damned to matter.
But that’s all just my opinion; I’ll believe what I like and you’ll believe what you like and neither one of us will put knives to the other’s throats or teach creationism in science classrooms.
June 27th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Behold, The Almighty hath answered my prayer and hath revealed unto me his thoughts about Mars:
I answered and said unto Him:
And God blessed me and said unto me:
And I felt blessed. And highly relieved that He Smoted me not, for He is alarmingly adept at Smiting, and being Smoted doth cause great Suffering, and great Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth (or Dentures, if thou hast not Teeth), and Boils, and Plagues of Locusts and Frogs and other Yucky Stuff.
But I know not why He calleth me Stranger. For surely he knoweth my name: hath not the Almighty Himself said He called me while I was yet in my Mother’s Womb? But who can know all the Wondrous Ways of God? for He worketh in Mysterious Ways.
Amen.
June 27th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
So, we can’t “pick and choose” which parts of science to believe in? so, does that mean we have to hang on dearly to all those past scientific beliefs that have been disproven or similarly replaced? according you you that would be true. What a narrow view.
Science is all about continual refinement. sometimes errant ideas are entered into the mainstream and held onto dearly. sometimes it takes a very long time to work those out of the system. Flat earth believers still hang onto some of those ideas. they’re still around. They’ll even give you a run for your money if you were to try and use science to prove them wrong. mostly they can do this because no one can prove anything to their satisfaction. when one group sets the rules, it is that group that will win any argument. It was done in the past with religion against science, and now the tables have turned so that science is doing it against religion. eventhough, scientifically speaking, they can’t honestly rule anything out.
believing in God does not preclude one from believing in science or from trusting in the vast majority of it. Science on the other hand seems to require itself to disallow the very concept of God, eventhough its not very scientific to be excluding possibilities without having some sort of proof that they can be safely ignored. Last I heard, Science has no proof of the inexistence of God. have you heard otherwise? They also don’t seem to have any actual, empirical proof of many closely held beliefs like the origin of the universe, the origin of life, and evolution. All they have are ideas, theories and possible explainations. an honest scientist will admit that no such proof can be presented for those topics.
sadly all that mindless sheep like yourself and many commentors here are capable of entertaining are those very ideas, theories and possibilities. the need for proof and evidence is no longer relevant to your religion of Science, it is all taken merely on faith that whatever the oracles of Science tell you is true.
also, if you’re going to criticize someone’s religious views you should first truly understand them. you obviously don’t understand the Bible or what it actually says. that is evident in the connections you try to make between what Mr Hood said and how you responded to it. you added more to what Rob Hood said than was represented in his quote. that’s simplly dishonest argument.
you also seem to attribute all of modern science to having stemmed from “evolutionary ideas”. where did that come from? in the big picture of science, evolution is a relatively recent idea.
exploration of space may result in some developments that are usefull here, but mostly it is a vastly cost-inefficient process. its no surprise that you disagree with this, since astronomy is your lifes calling. but don’t pretend for a second that everyone else in the world shares your interest in the subject or believes that it is as truly beneficial as you believe. Mostly space exploration is done simply because we can.
If anyone is betting on the eventuality of off-earth settlement they’ve got a serious reality check coming. Sci-fi is great, I’m a big fan myself, but this old world is not going to last long enough for us to achieve much that it represents.
as for the rest of the commentors: you should all learn alot more about what you are talking about before you try to criticize it. ignorance just makes you look stupid.
June 27th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
^Henry, read better and fail less. He’s talking about medical research, which stems quite directly from evolutionary concepts. Also, depending on where your perspective lies, “humanity” is a relatively new development. Moving on…
Overall a nice article. I’ve been re-reading Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot” recently, and all I’ve got to add is that at least people who challenge the unquestionable Truth that is religion aren’t being put under house arrest anymore. Science makes people feel small and insignificant, because that’s what we are as a species. People don’t tend to take well to the notion.
June 27th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Remember, this is the same guy who 500 years ago would have reminded us that the world was flat and at the center of the universe. I’m surprised he even acknowledges Mars, instead of the typical “The devil created the extra planets to fool us!”
June 27th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
and Debbie continues into the inevitable flame dispensing.
criticizing that which you are ignorant of is simply moronic.
thanks for playing. here’s a cookie.
Now, show me the empirical proof mentioned above.
oh wait. you can’t. funny how “scientist” skeptics like yourself always seem to require that of someone with a religious point of view and yet can never manage to produce it yourselves.
June 27th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
so, Kevin…
the research and development of the artificial heart is a direct development of evolutionary concepts? which ones exactly?
and what about the development of pasteurization? that led directly to the scientific belief that life emerging from non-life was impossible. correct me if i’m wrong, but that particular belief is no longer in active scientific service.
I think you overstepped a bit when he said “all”. perhaps he’s simply responding to something that he didn’t bother to quote. perhaps its simply another example of reading into someone’s statements that which simply is not there in order to further support his own argument.
June 27th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
oops. should say he overstepped.
I looked at the linked article and the word medical doesn’t even appear.
so where is it that our host gets the idea that rob hood actually says that all medical research is based on faulty evolutionary ideas?
a quote would be helpfull.
sounds to me like he just wants to take the oportunity to spout off at the “heretic” who questions his closely held beliefs. why, that does sound rather like how Debbie tried to describe me above.
interesting reversal.
June 27th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Question: Can Aliens get Abortions without pissing god off than?
June 27th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
what aliens?
be scientific and show me empirical evidence of these aliens.
and no, the movie “E.T.” doesn’t count.
June 27th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
are abortions now so revered that we capitalize the word?
June 27th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Bad Astronomy? bad science. but hey, anything in defense of “the faith”. shut down the heretics. competing ideas will not be tolerated.
when does the inquisition start? I promise I won’t tell.
June 27th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
looks like i’m to be moderated.
probably means “booted off”.
June 27th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Hrm. This is such a controversial topic.
I don’t think he knows any more about God and what his intentions are anymore than a fish in the ocean. Just my 2 cents.
June 27th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
“Ruh roh, Raggy, rit’s ruh roll!”
“Hey, Scoob, we’d better not feed it any of our snacks! Zoiks!”
>believing in God does not preclude one from believing in science or from trusting in the vast majority of it.
The belief in God itself? No. Many religions, especially those who espouse the literal truth of ancient texts, are by their dogmatic and unvarying nature unscientific.
> Science on the other hand seems to require itself to disallow the very concept of God, eventhough its not very scientific to be excluding possibilities without having some sort of proof that they can be safely ignored.
Um, no.
Science itself, as a methodology, defines itself by excluding the supernatural as an acceptable explanation for the causes natural effects. This is how it works. Science can not and does not say that there is no God because God, being supernatural, is not one of the effects it can explain, by definition. Science can say, if one’s being cheeky, that there appears to be strong evidence against an intercessory God that does not play by strict rules–in other words, if there is a God, It doesn’t go about changing dogs into cats. Naturalistic causes for naturalistic effects does not philosophically preclude God from acting through those causes, but science is by definition materialistic and mechanistic.
> Last I heard, Science has no proof of the inexistence of God.
Science has loads of proof that intercessory Gods of the water-to-wine variety, or the literally-made-the-universe-in-six-days variety, do not exist. Meanwhile, science by definition cannot disprove a being whose existence is by definition supernatural.
Science can’t disprove the existence of, say, spirits, but it can prove that spirits are not necessary to adequately explain why creepy old houses creak in the night.
> have you heard otherwise?
Dawkins goes a bit further than I do on the same evidence, but that’s his choice to make. I’d say no, others would say yes, as is our wont.
> They also don’t seem to have any actual, empirical proof of many closely held beliefs like the origin of the universe,
Except for the fact that the currently accepted model seems to fit observations as currently understood better than previous ones…
> the origin of life,
Self-replicating prions aren’t evidence enough of a gap between ‘living’ matter and ‘dead’ matter?
> and evolution.
Sweet Fanged God. It’s been honestly and openly observed in E. coli in a lab now. More than adaptation, we’re talking does-not-occur-in-nature-hey-that’s-new evilution. Then there’s the fossil record, demographic trends of populations showing physical adaptation to environmental stimuli, the fact that evolution fits the observational data much, much better than anything that came before…
> All they have are ideas, theories and possible explainations. an honest scientist will admit that no such proof can be presented for those topics.
Then what’s Universal Gravitation, then? An honest scientist will say that the model will always adapt to better fit observational data, but it must always include what made previous models right. Here’s a simple example: geocentrism explained why nearly everything in the sky moved in circles. Epicyclic geocentrism explained why some things in the sky moved in weird loops. Epicyclic heliocentrism dramatically simplified the explanation while maintaining predictive accuracy. Keplerian eccentric heliocentrism simplified the explanation further and removed error from the epicyclic models. Newtonian gravity provided a method for the eccentric system to work, did not require that the sun hold a special place in the universe, and increased predictive accuracy immensely (although Mercury was still problematic). Relativity brought the predictive accuracy issues of Mercury in line and seems to be universally applicable…
BUT. Solve relativistic equations correctly, and convert them to the right reference frame, and they can still reproduce the results of the geocentric model. Everything moves in crazy curlicues, yes, but the validity of geocentrism (from the viewpoint of standing on the Earth, things go in circles) still stands.
As evolution has large amounts of validity to it, any future theory must take this validity into account and explain everything that evolution does.
> the research and development of the artificial heart is a direct development of evolutionary concepts? which ones exactly?
The design iterations required to build it and improve it, for one, but that’s me being cheeky and you being dishonest. Gene therapy, based on evolutionary principles, works. Drugs designed to combat bacteria that evolved resistance to penecillin work. Genetically modified crops, which is just us taking evolution by the reins, work.
> and what about the development of pasteurization? that led directly to the scientific belief that life emerging from non-life was impossible. correct me if i’m wrong, but that particular belief is no longer in active scientific service.
And there’s you being dishonest again. Spontaneous generation of complex life certainly was disproven by Pasteur. No one in science seriously advocates that some gunk suddenly became some cells. No, there were transitionary elements between dead matter and complex life. Prions are a modern example, but there is an entire, widespread class of items which science still argues about whether they are actually living or not.
They are called virii and there’s probably a few billion floating around you right now.
> sounds to me like he just wants to take the oportunity to spout off at the “heretic” who questions his closely held beliefs. why, that does sound rather like how Debbie tried to describe me above.
And you’re really being a big boy right now playing into the cards of the ideologues who like to say people with your opinions are poorly informed.
Interesting reversal. (Yes, I know, I just undercut myself with that, but I just could not resist ^_^ )
> be scientific and show me empirical evidence of these aliens.
I think he was speaking in the hypothetical.
> are abortions now so revered that we capitalize the word?
Wow, grammar Naziism and ideology in one compact sentence. Actually, no, Abortions are now discouraged by the Ruling Liberal Elite. We prefer the phrase Preemptively Euthanizing Excess Population Units Legally (PEEPUL).
*waits for KC to get back, because KC is cool*
June 27th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Who said anyting about knowing God’s intentions?
If the displayed level of ignorance is any indicator, it appears that I know more about God than all of the previous commentors combined.
to say that its a controversial topic implies that its not the slam dunk win for science as the blog’s host would have us believe. I wish he would chime in. I’d love to see his response to some of my comments.
June 27th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Great article, I truly believe authors like this are needed to make sure sensible people can still see the truth.
The only fault I find with it is that the author states that evolution is a fact. This is not true, and asserting it as such removes some of its meaning. We should remember that evolution is a product of science and that it is still in development. It is a very difficult concept to prove. So, it is still a theory, a powerful and useful theory.
Accepting that evolution is a theory gives those who use it the mindset and ability to assert that it came as a result of the scientific method. If we remove the scientific method from our theory, it becomes an assumption.
Creationism is an assumption and a belief. Evolution is a theory and an idea. In my mind evolution is more powerful and more developed in this way, so can we as an online community start calling evolution what it truly is?
June 27th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
“The belief in God itself? No. Many religions, especially those who espouse the literal truth of ancient texts, are by their dogmatic and unvarying nature unscientific.”
well. sure. lots of things in our lives are also by their nature unscientific.
what’s your point?
“Science has loads of proof that intercessory Gods of the water-to-wine variety, or the literally-made-the-universe-in-six-days variety, do not exist. Meanwhile, science by definition cannot disprove a being whose existence is by definition supernatural.”
wow. contradict yourself much? first they have loads of proof that they don’t exist, then by definition they cannot disprove their existence.
please do share some of this “loads of proof”.
“Science can’t disprove the existence of, say, spirits, but it can prove that spirits are not necessary to adequately explain why creepy old houses creak in the night.”
ok. that provides a possible explaination. but that’s all. religion itself also provides a possible explaination. how about we stay away from the ridiculous examples of creaking houses and get on with what proof we have of life emerging from non-life. proof mind you. not possible explainations. without proof you are going on faith that what you believe is true, no matter how you came up with the idea.
“Except for the fact that the currently accepted model seems to fit observations as currently understood better than previous ones…”
and, that’s basically nothing more than a possible explaination. the flat earth used to be a “currently accepted model that seemed to fit observations as currently understood”. I wonder what ever happened to that?
self replicating prions?
“A prion is a nonliving, self-replicating infectious agent made of protein. It can reproduce with the aid of its host’s biological machinery, like a virus. “Prion” is short for “proteinaceous infectious particle.” http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-prion.htm
“Sweet Fanged God. It’s been honestly and openly observed in E. coli in a lab now.
so what did the e coli turn into? a frog? a bird? what? or was it just another tired example of socalled micro evolution that we continue to hear about?
“More than adaptation, we’re talking does-not-occur-in-nature-hey-that’s-new evilution.”
thats the problem. man-induced results in a lab are hardly proof of evolution. we would really need to see it occur in nature.
“Then there’s the fossil record,”
its just as possible that any two compared sets of bones were simply two different species to begin with. since we’re allowing possible explainations.
“demographic trends of populations showing physical adaptation to environmental stimuli, the fact that evolution fits the observational data much, much better than anything that came before…”
again, not really what the idea of true evolution is all about. just what they trot out to show as some sort of proof when they really have none. they say “if this can happen in x time, then y can happen in 10,000,000x time.” and yet it hasn’t been *proven*.
“An honest scientist will say that the model will always adapt to better fit observational data, but it must always include what made previous models right. Here’s a simple example:”
woo. like those australian scientists did recently with their altered ocean temperature readings that were made to fit their model?
“Then what’s Universal Gravitation, then? ”
geez man. im not disputing all of science here.
“Drugs designed to combat bacteria that evolved resistance to penecillin work. ”
what about hot sauce? silly you say? maybe. but its a real example.
hot sauce is, well, hot. by its nature. kids and some adults even can’t deal with the “heat” and don’t like it. I personally know some kids under the age of 5 that will literally take a cup of hot sauce that is hot even for me (and I love the stuff) and down it in no time. i’ve never seen that in any other kid. ever. is that evolution at work? or should we really be calling it something else?
“No one in science seriously advocates that some gunk suddenly became some cells.”
they most certainly did. until Pasteur came along. Now, it seems, they’re back at it. only now they call it abiogenesis.
“They are called virii and there’s probably a few billion floating around you right now.”
no need to patronize. just because I don’t buy everything science tries to sell me doesn’t mean Im totally uninformed.
“playing into the cards of the ideologues who like to say people with your opinions are poorly informed.”
they like to say that because they need to believe it in order to be right. this is clearly illustrated by the level of ignorance about the particular religion represented here as well as a total lack of knowledge about the author of the article or myself. they see a target and they swarm it. all they need to know is that the target doesn’t think the way they do. that’s enough to warrant ridicule.
“Wow, grammar Naziism and ideology in one compact sentence.”
efficiency in action. hey, I didn’t say anything about the use of the word “than”. give me some credit. the alien comment was pure sarcasm and deserved no better in return. dang. I almost spelled return “retern”. that would have been bad.
June 27th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
“The belief in God itself? No. Many religions, especially those who espouse the literal truth of ancient texts, are by their dogmatic and unvarying nature unscientific.”
well. sure. lots of things in our lives are also by their nature unscientific.
what’s your point?
“Scie