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Arrogance, dogma and why science - not faith - is the new enemy of reason
by Melanie Phillips
Reposted from:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/columnists/columnists.html?in_article_id=473347&in_page_id=1772&in_author_id=256
Our most celebrated atheist, the biologist Professor Richard Dawkins, has briefly turned his attention away from bashing people who believe in God.
Instead, he is about to bash people who subscribe to 'new age' therapies which he says are based on 'irrational superstition'.
In a TV programme to be shown later this month, Dawkins looks at a range of ludicrous therapies and gurus, including faith healers, psychic mediums, 'angel therapists', 'aura photographers', astrologers and others.
Not surprisingly, he is horrified by such widespread irrationality, not to mention an exploitative industry that fleeces people while encouraging them to run away from reality. He is right to be alarmed.
What previously belonged to the province of the quack and the charlatan has become mainstream. The NHS provides funding for shamans, while the NHS Directory For Alternative And Complementary Medicine promotes 'dowsers', 'flower therapists' and 'crystal healers'.
Indeed, such therapies aren't the half of it. Millions of us are now eager to believe that the world is controlled by conspiracies of covert forces, for which there is not one shred of evidence because such theories are simply bonkers.
Thus Press articles and TV documentaries seriously advance the belief that the 9/11 attacks on America were orchestrated by the U.S. government itself. Similarly, thousands believe that Princess Diana was murdered at the hands of a conspiracy composed of the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Charles and MI5.
Bestselling books by the former TV sports presenter David Icke, who has announced he is 'the son of God', argue that Britain will be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes, and that the world is ruled by a secret group called the 'Global Elite' or 'Illuminati' which was responsible for the Holocaust, the Oklahoma city bombing and 9/11.
These trends are not just nutty but sinister. Thousands of cults now combine similar crazy beliefs with programmes to control people's minds and behaviour.
Their techniques include food and sleep deprivation; trance induction through hypnosis or prolonged rhythmical chanting; and 'love bombing', where cult members are bombarded with conditional love which is removed whenever there is a deviation from the dictates of the leader.
Disturbing indeed. But where Dawkins goes wrong is to assume this is all as irrational as believing in God. The truth is that it is the collapse of religious faith that has prompted the rise of such irrationality.
We are living in a scientific, largely post-religious age in which faith is presented as unscientific superstition. Yet paradoxically, we have replaced such faith by belief in demonstrable nonsense.
It was GK Chesterton who famously quipped that "when people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing - they believe in anything." So it has proved. But how did it happen?
The big mistake is to see religion and reason as polar opposites. They are not. In fact, reason is intrinsic to the Judeo-Christian tradition.
The Bible provides a picture of a rational Creator and an orderly universe - which, accordingly, provided the template for the exercise of reason and the development of science.
Dawkins pours particular scorn on the Biblical miracles which don't correspond to scientific reality. But religious believers have different ways of regarding those events, with many seeing them as either metaphors or as natural occurrences which were invested with a greater significance.
The heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition is the belief in the concept of truth, which gives rise to reason. But our postreligious age has proclaimed that there is no such thing as objective truth, only what is "true for me".
That is because our society won't put up with anything which gets in the way of 'what I want'. How we feel about things has become all-important. So reason has been knocked off its perch by emotion, and thinking has been replaced by feelings.
This has meant our society can no longer distinguish between truth and lies by using evidence and logic. And this collapse of objective truth has, in turn, come to undermine science itself which is playing a role for which it is not fitted.
When science first developed in the West, it thought of itself merely as a tool to explore the natural world. It did not pour scorn upon religion; indeed, scientists were overwhelmingly religious believers (as many still are).
In modern times, however, science has given rise to 'scientism', the belief that science can answer all the questions of human existence. This is not so.
Science cannot explain the origin of the universe. Yet it now presumes to do so and as a result it has descended into irrationality.
The most conspicuous example of this is provided by Dawkins himself, who breaks the rules of scientific evidence by seeking to claim that Darwin's theory of evolution - which sought to explain how complex organisms evolved through random natural selection - also accounts for the origin of life itself.
There is no evidence for this whatever and no logic to it. After all, if people say God could not have created the universe because this gives rise to the question "Who created God?", it follows that if scientists say the universe started with a big bang, this prompts the further question "What created the bang?"
Indeed, if the origin of life were truly spontaneous, this would constitute what religious people would call a miracle. Accordingly, this claim in itself resembles not so much science as the superstition that Dawkins derides.
Moreover, since science essentially takes us wherever the evidence leads, the findings of more than 50 years of DNA research - which have revealed the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life - have thrown into doubt the theory that life emerged spontaneously in a random universe.
These findings have given rise to a school of scientists promoting the theory of Intelligent Design, which suggests that some force embodying purpose and foresight lay behind the origin of the universe.
While this theory is, of course, open to vigorous counter-argument, people such as Prof Dawkins and others have gone to great lengths to stop it being advanced at all, on the grounds that it denies scientific evidence such as the fossil record and is therefore worthless.
Yet distinguished scientists have been hounded and their careers jeopardised for arguing that the fossil record has got a giant hole in it. Some 570 million years ago, in a period known as the Cambrian Explosion, most forms of complex animal life emerged seemingly without any evolutionary trail.
These scientists argue that only 'rational agents' could have possessed the ability to design and organise such complex systems.
Whether or not they are right (and I don't know), their scientific argument about the absence of evidence to support the claim that life spontaneously created itself is being stifled - on the totally perverse grounds that this argument does not conform to the rules of science which require evidence to support a theory.
As a result of such arrogance, the West - the crucible of reason - is turning the clock back to a pre-modern age of obscurantism, dogma and secular witch-hunts.
Far from upholding reason, science itself has become unreasonable. So when Prof Dawkins fulminates against 'new age' irrationality, it is the image of pots and kettles that comes irresistibly to mind.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/columnists/columnists.html?in_article_id=473347&in_page_id=1772&in_author_id=256
Our most celebrated atheist, the biologist Professor Richard Dawkins, has briefly turned his attention away from bashing people who believe in God.
Instead, he is about to bash people who subscribe to 'new age' therapies which he says are based on 'irrational superstition'.
In a TV programme to be shown later this month, Dawkins looks at a range of ludicrous therapies and gurus, including faith healers, psychic mediums, 'angel therapists', 'aura photographers', astrologers and others.
Not surprisingly, he is horrified by such widespread irrationality, not to mention an exploitative industry that fleeces people while encouraging them to run away from reality. He is right to be alarmed.
What previously belonged to the province of the quack and the charlatan has become mainstream. The NHS provides funding for shamans, while the NHS Directory For Alternative And Complementary Medicine promotes 'dowsers', 'flower therapists' and 'crystal healers'.
Indeed, such therapies aren't the half of it. Millions of us are now eager to believe that the world is controlled by conspiracies of covert forces, for which there is not one shred of evidence because such theories are simply bonkers.
Thus Press articles and TV documentaries seriously advance the belief that the 9/11 attacks on America were orchestrated by the U.S. government itself. Similarly, thousands believe that Princess Diana was murdered at the hands of a conspiracy composed of the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Charles and MI5.
Bestselling books by the former TV sports presenter David Icke, who has announced he is 'the son of God', argue that Britain will be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes, and that the world is ruled by a secret group called the 'Global Elite' or 'Illuminati' which was responsible for the Holocaust, the Oklahoma city bombing and 9/11.
These trends are not just nutty but sinister. Thousands of cults now combine similar crazy beliefs with programmes to control people's minds and behaviour.
Their techniques include food and sleep deprivation; trance induction through hypnosis or prolonged rhythmical chanting; and 'love bombing', where cult members are bombarded with conditional love which is removed whenever there is a deviation from the dictates of the leader.
Disturbing indeed. But where Dawkins goes wrong is to assume this is all as irrational as believing in God. The truth is that it is the collapse of religious faith that has prompted the rise of such irrationality.
We are living in a scientific, largely post-religious age in which faith is presented as unscientific superstition. Yet paradoxically, we have replaced such faith by belief in demonstrable nonsense.
It was GK Chesterton who famously quipped that "when people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing - they believe in anything." So it has proved. But how did it happen?
The big mistake is to see religion and reason as polar opposites. They are not. In fact, reason is intrinsic to the Judeo-Christian tradition.
The Bible provides a picture of a rational Creator and an orderly universe - which, accordingly, provided the template for the exercise of reason and the development of science.
Dawkins pours particular scorn on the Biblical miracles which don't correspond to scientific reality. But religious believers have different ways of regarding those events, with many seeing them as either metaphors or as natural occurrences which were invested with a greater significance.
The heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition is the belief in the concept of truth, which gives rise to reason. But our postreligious age has proclaimed that there is no such thing as objective truth, only what is "true for me".
That is because our society won't put up with anything which gets in the way of 'what I want'. How we feel about things has become all-important. So reason has been knocked off its perch by emotion, and thinking has been replaced by feelings.
This has meant our society can no longer distinguish between truth and lies by using evidence and logic. And this collapse of objective truth has, in turn, come to undermine science itself which is playing a role for which it is not fitted.
When science first developed in the West, it thought of itself merely as a tool to explore the natural world. It did not pour scorn upon religion; indeed, scientists were overwhelmingly religious believers (as many still are).
In modern times, however, science has given rise to 'scientism', the belief that science can answer all the questions of human existence. This is not so.
Science cannot explain the origin of the universe. Yet it now presumes to do so and as a result it has descended into irrationality.
The most conspicuous example of this is provided by Dawkins himself, who breaks the rules of scientific evidence by seeking to claim that Darwin's theory of evolution - which sought to explain how complex organisms evolved through random natural selection - also accounts for the origin of life itself.
There is no evidence for this whatever and no logic to it. After all, if people say God could not have created the universe because this gives rise to the question "Who created God?", it follows that if scientists say the universe started with a big bang, this prompts the further question "What created the bang?"
Indeed, if the origin of life were truly spontaneous, this would constitute what religious people would call a miracle. Accordingly, this claim in itself resembles not so much science as the superstition that Dawkins derides.
Moreover, since science essentially takes us wherever the evidence leads, the findings of more than 50 years of DNA research - which have revealed the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life - have thrown into doubt the theory that life emerged spontaneously in a random universe.
These findings have given rise to a school of scientists promoting the theory of Intelligent Design, which suggests that some force embodying purpose and foresight lay behind the origin of the universe.
While this theory is, of course, open to vigorous counter-argument, people such as Prof Dawkins and others have gone to great lengths to stop it being advanced at all, on the grounds that it denies scientific evidence such as the fossil record and is therefore worthless.
Yet distinguished scientists have been hounded and their careers jeopardised for arguing that the fossil record has got a giant hole in it. Some 570 million years ago, in a period known as the Cambrian Explosion, most forms of complex animal life emerged seemingly without any evolutionary trail.
These scientists argue that only 'rational agents' could have possessed the ability to design and organise such complex systems.
Whether or not they are right (and I don't know), their scientific argument about the absence of evidence to support the claim that life spontaneously created itself is being stifled - on the totally perverse grounds that this argument does not conform to the rules of science which require evidence to support a theory.
As a result of such arrogance, the West - the crucible of reason - is turning the clock back to a pre-modern age of obscurantism, dogma and secular witch-hunts.
Far from upholding reason, science itself has become unreasonable. So when Prof Dawkins fulminates against 'new age' irrationality, it is the image of pots and kettles that comes irresistibly to mind.
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Posted: Monday, August 6, 2007 | PermalinkComments 1 - 50 of 145 |
Reload Comments | Back to Top | Page Numbers2. Comment #61778 by BAEOZ on August 6, 2007 at 9:26 pm
The heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition is the belief in the concept of truth, which gives rise to reason. But our postreligious age has proclaimed that there is no such thing as objective truth, only what is "true for me".
No, the heart of Juedeo-Christian tradition is cultivated ignorance. The truth is there is no evidence to support it, therefore it isn't honest to believe in it. The second part, about postreligiousness giving rise to relativism is because people are now told that all views are equal by the politically correct in society. Something I'd attribute to the likes of William James (I'm probably wrong here, but didn't he say it's right to believe in something if you feel it's true?) and similars, not scientists.
It's something christians and muslims like, so that they can keep their faith and have it treated as equal to reason. Not something RD or others have supported.
Moreover, since science essentially takes us wherever the evidence leads, the findings of more than 50 years of DNA research - which have revealed the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life - have thrown into doubt the theory that life emerged spontaneously in a random universe.
Equivocation, every believers favorite form of arguing. First we have DNA research, which shows complexity of genes. Something plenty of time and natural selection can ratchet up. But we jump to abiogenesis, that produced life, and gloss the two into one idea. Evolutions isn't concerned with how life started, and how life started isn't related to how complex life is now.
Do you think this person is an apologist for creationists as well as faith sufferers?
Other Comments by BAEOZ
3. Comment #61779 by Goldy on August 6, 2007 at 9:29 pm
The truth is that it is the collapse of religious faith that has prompted the rise of such irrationality
Nope, they were there before, during AND after :-) There has not been a rise of irrationality, just a distrust of rationality.
A throw away remark which people will pick up on. I guess belief in drinking water blessed by a bishop or touching a fragment of the true cross or one of John the Baptist's toe bones for an illness was not considered irrational and so doesn't count.
Other Comments by Goldy
4. Comment #61781 by bruce on August 6, 2007 at 9:35 pm
The Bible provides a picture of a rational CreatorYah, when he's not PMSing (sorry for the stereotyping gals).
Other Comments by bruce
5. Comment #61782 by german-atheist on August 6, 2007 at 9:58 pm
not knowing which category of paper the daily mail is in,i went through some online articels.it`s mainly about david hasselhoff being too fat,intelligent women not beeing able to find mr right and britney spears wearing a see-through dress in public.need one say more ?
Other Comments by german-atheist
6. Comment #61783 by Andrew Brown on August 6, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Science cannot explain the origin of the universe. Yet it now presumes to do so and as a result it has descended into irrationality.The most conspicuous example of this is provided by Dawkins himself, who breaks the rules of scientific evidence by seeking to claim that Darwin's theory of evolution - which sought to explain how complex organisms evolved through random natural selection - also accounts for the origin of life itself.
I'd love to see the "evidence" as to where Professor Dawkins has ever said anything so utterly ludicrous.
She really needs to go back and sit her Science GCSE all over again, as it would appear she knows the sum total of bugger all.
Other Comments by Andrew Brown
7. Comment #61784 by BAEOZ on August 6, 2007 at 10:00 pm
german-atheist:david hasselhoff being too fat
Don't use the Hoffs name in vain. Blasphemer!
Other Comments by BAEOZ
8. Comment #61785 by Andrew Brown on August 6, 2007 at 10:00 pm
PS how do you get the quotes to appear in those nice little boxes?Other Comments by Andrew Brown
9. Comment #61788 by BAEOZ on August 6, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Doh! third try:type the less than symbol "<" then type the word "blockquote" then greater than symbol ">" then the text you want quoted then the less than symbol "<" then the slash "/" then "blockquote" then the greater than the ">" symbol.....
Other Comments by BAEOZ
10. Comment #61789 by Janus on August 6, 2007 at 10:13 pm
Ugh. So much nonsense it's next-to-impossible to address everything. I'll get started, someone else can finish the job.Disturbing indeed. But where Dawkins goes wrong is to assume this is all as irrational as believing in God. The truth is that it is the collapse of religious faith that has prompted the rise of such irrationality.
We are living in a scientific, largely post-religious age in which faith is presented as unscientific superstition. Yet paradoxically, we have replaced such faith by belief in demonstrable nonsense.
It was GK Chesterton who famously quipped that "when people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing - they believe in anything." So it has proved.But how did it happen?
The big mistake is to see religion and reason as polar opposites. They are not. In fact, reason is intrinsic to the Judeo-Christian tradition.
The Bible provides a picture of a rational Creator and an orderly universe - which, accordingly, provided the template for the exercise of reason and the development of science.
1) It is true that an uncompromising, fundamentalist belief in Christianity (or Islam or some other similar religion) effectively stops its followers from believing in a lot of nonsense. But it's not because these religions favor rationality. It's simply because the fundie believer sees everything that doesn't fit with his faith-based picture of reality as false by definition. A fundie Christian will believe that Islam, mystical chi energies, and evolution are all false, not because Christianity gives him a rational picture of the world, but because his version of Christianity dogmatically excludes these three things, and more. What Ms Phillips is doing is akin to praising an extremely dangerous and devastating bacterium because it also happens to kill many other pathological bacteria while it is killing its human host.
2) Another point that needs to be made is that, of course, while a fundamentalist view of Christianity does mean that the "natural" universe must behave in a coherent manner, it doesn't make Christianity a rational worldview. All of Christianity is still based on faith, that is to say, belief without evidence, and in order to sustain itself, Christianity elevates faith as the ultimate virtue, making it one of the greatest anti-reason forces in the history of mankind. Also, by explaining everything by appealing to an incomprehensible, unexplainable entity, Abrahamic religion blocks the way to complete understanding, which is why methodological naturalism is such an essential part of science.
3) Unfortunately, as much as I wish that Ms Phillips was right about this, we are NOT living in a "scientific age". Some parts of the world are irreligious, true, but that doesn't mean that a majority, or even a significant part of the population thinks scientifically. To think scientifically means to be sceptical, to only hold falsifiable beliefs, to refrain from resorting to cop-out answers which explain nothing, etc. A scientific age is very, very far away indeed.
4) Ms Phillips seems to think that belief in new age nonsense is somehow worse than religious beliefs because it is _demonstrable_ nonsense. But in truth, it is precisely as demonstrable as religious beliefs. That is to say, it is as demonstrably false as its believers make it. When his belief is criticized, a religious believer will say, "Oh, but my god doesn't _do_ these kinds of obvious miracles", or "Oh, but that was meant to be interpreted figuratively, not literally", or "Oh, but my god works in mysterious ways". Likewise, a believer in new age nonsense will say, "Oh, but my powers only work in conditions X and Y, not in these conditions Z", or "Oh, but that paranormal phenomenon can't be detected by mere physical senses, because it's beyond nature", or "Oh, but Guru Apapablanca works in mysterious ways". It is precisely the same kind of cowardly evasion.
Dawkins pours particular scorn on the Biblical miracles which don't correspond to scientific reality. But religious believers have different ways of regarding those events, with many seeing them as either metaphors or as natural occurrences which were invested with a greater significance.
The heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition is the belief in the concept of truth, which gives rise to reason. But our postreligious age has proclaimed that there is no such thing as objective truth, only what is "true for me".
That is because our society won't put up with anything which gets in the way of 'what I want'. How we feel about things has become all-important. So reason has been knocked off its perch by emotion, and thinking has been replaced by feelings.
This has meant our society can no longer distinguish between truth and lies by using evidence and logic. And this collapse of objective truth has, in turn, come to undermine science itself which is playing a role for which it is not fitted.
This isn't a bad analysis of the post-modernistic attitude which reigns in our societies, but it is profoundly ironic that Ms Phillips simultaneously praises religious moderation, which claims that all the miracles (e.g. the falsifiable parts of Christianity) are only metaphors, and that all religions are different paths to truth, and criticizes the post-modernistic mentality which says that nothing can be learned about objective reality.
Earlier in this post I was careful to say that a fundamentalist view of Christianity is a fairly effective defense against other kinds of irrationality, and so it is. But this doesn't apply at all to this modern form of moderate, post-modernistic Christianity which all "sophisticated" believers like Ms Phillips advocate. Christianity as practiced by fundies is indeed about truth. Christianity as practiced by moderates is about what feels good. It can't be any other way, because if Christianity is the One True Religion, then the two other thirds of humanity is simply wrong and deluded, either by themselves or by Satan. This thought is displeasing to modern intellects, which is why the metaphorical, fuzzy-wuzzy, post-modernistic, moderate version of Christianity came into being.
In order to be able to grant equal respect to all beliefs, so that we can be nice and polite and tolerant and open-minded towards all religious and philosophical beliefs, truth must be done away with. As Ms Phillips says, what matters to moderate religious believers is what is "true for them", which means "comforting and the truth be damned".
If anything is responsible for this departure from the search for truth, it is moderate religion.
When science first developed in the West, it thought of itself merely as a tool to explore the natural world. It did not pour scorn upon religion; indeed, scientists were overwhelmingly religious believers (as many still are).
In modern times, however, science has given rise to 'scientism', the belief that science can answer all the questions of human existence. This is not so.
Science cannot explain the origin of the universe. Yet it now presumes to do so and as a result it has descended into irrationality.
Utter nonsense. Like all religious believers, Phillips attempts to divide reality into two parts, "the natural world", where the rules of evidence, logic, and reason apply, and "the spiritual world", where they think they are allowed to believe anything they like on faith without having to justify their beliefs. In truth, no such division exists. There is only one reality, over which science holds absolute dominion, because science is purposefully designed to know everything that can be known about reality. The limitations of science are pragmatic, not dogmatic. That is to say, the scientific method incorporates all methods for discovering truth that _work_, and discards all methods that _don't work_. If theology did work, it would be incorporated into science. But of course it does not.
If there are things which the human mind cannot comprehend, which is certainly possible, then of course these things are beyond science. That does not mean they are within the reach of theology or of religion in general. All that faith "allows" us to do that science does not is to make ignorant, unfalsifiable, meaningless guesses. A guess, such as "God created the universe", is not an explanation. It is just a guess, and we know from experience that guesses about the nature of reality are almost always false.
There is no evidence for this whatever and no logic to it. After all, if people say God could not have created the universe because this gives rise to the question "Who created God?", it follows that if scientists say the universe started with a big bang, this prompts the further question "What created the bang?"
This is a complete misunderstanding of what the Big Bang theory (and science in general) is about. The ambition of science (and human reason) is to explain complexity down to the level of fundamental, ultimate simplicity. Goddidit doesn't work because it "explains" complexity by positing a Mind as the ultimate explanation, which doesn't explain anything because a mind is complex by definition. The Big Bang, inflation theory, etc, on the other hand, do explain complexity in terms of simpler entities, which is what a real explanation does.
This is why Intelligent Design fails. We are trying to explain complexity. If we "explain" it by appealing to a complex entity, we haven't made a single step forward.
Intelligent design is only a valid explanation when it is an intermediate explanation, not an ultimate one. For example, explaining a watch by saying it was made by a human is fine because,
a) The evidence shows that watches are made by humans.
b) We don't say that humans appeared magically or are timeless or always existed, we explain humans themselves in terms of simpler entities and their coming into being by a simple process.
The most conspicuous example of this is provided by Dawkins himself, who breaks the rules of scientific evidence by seeking to claim that Darwin's theory of evolution - which sought to explain how complex organisms evolved through random natural selection - also accounts for the origin of life itself.
No, he doesn't. This is simply a lie. Evolution starts after the formation of self-replicating molecules, and Dawkins has said this many, many times.
Indeed, if the origin of life were truly spontaneous, this would constitute what religious people would call a miracle. Accordingly, this claim in itself resembles not so much science as the superstition that Dawkins derides.
Spontaneous doesn't mean magical or supernatural. We know that amino acids and many other complex molecules form "spontaneously", but this is because of known and understood laws of chemistry. It is certainly no miracle.
Moreover, since science essentially takes us wherever the evidence leads, the findings of more than 50 years of DNA research - which have revealed the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life - have thrown into doubt the theory that life emerged spontaneously in a random universe.
Ah, so this is what Ms Phillips misunderstands. As I said above, evolution starts with self-replicating molecules, not with fully-formed cells. The complex nano-machinery of cells _was_ formed via evolution by natural selection.
Other Comments by Janus
11. Comment #61790 by Damien White on August 6, 2007 at 10:19 pm
The author certainly hasn't read TGD very well, has she?Science does not lay claim to knowing how the universe was created. That information is still unknown. The difference between science and religion is that science admits to gaps in its knowledge. Religion does not.
Science is searching for truth. Religion claims to have found it, but doesn't like us asking how.
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12. Comment #61792 by Russell's Teapot on August 6, 2007 at 10:41 pm
It was GK Chesterton who famously quipped that "when people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing - they believe in anything." So it has proved.
Because all these nutters are atheists...Honestly, where do these people get this stuff?
Other Comments by Russell's Teapot
13. Comment #61793 by BAEOZ on August 6, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Russell's Teapot:Honestly, where do these people get this stuff?
Christians think that lack of belief in christianity leads people to need to fill the void that christianity supposedly filled. They can't conceive of people not needing to have their hand held and have it all explained. So if you don't believe in god, obviously you'll believe in something equally as silly.
Other Comments by BAEOZ
14. Comment #61795 by dancingthemantaray on August 6, 2007 at 10:56 pm
not knowing which category of paper the daily mail is in,i went through some online articels.
it`s mainly about david hasselhoff being too fat,intelligent women not beeing able to find mr right and britney spears wearing a see-through dress in public.need one say more ?
The Daily Mail is one of the dreadful tabloid tosh papers we have in the UK, spouting low brow right wing yellow journalism. If there was a theme to the DM it would be "the Muslims are coming" or "foreigners are coming to our country and taking our jobs/causing crime/spreading disease". I really would discount anything it says as nonsense without having to read it.
Love the quote:
The most conspicuous example of this is provided by Dawkins himself, who breaks the rules of scientific evidence by seeking to claim that Darwin's theory of evolution - which sought to explain how complex organisms evolved through random natural selection - also accounts for the origin of life itself.
confusing natural selection with primogenesis is a classic sign of ignorance (and to ascribe these views to the good professor is surely libelous....)
Other Comments by dancingthemantaray
15. Comment #61796 by Lauregon on August 6, 2007 at 11:09 pm
In fact, reason is intrinsic to the Judeo-Christian tradition.
The Bible provides a picture of a rational Creator and an orderly universe - which, accordingly, provided the template for the exercise of reason and the development of science. - Phillips
Most people today know that dead bodies don't rise from the crypt, and yet, the resurrection of Jesus Christ remains the cornerstone of Christian faith, closely followed by the requirement of belief in vicarious atonement through Jesus' death as the means to salvation and escape from hell. Neither of these are rational concepts, and yet they are the basis of Christian faith. Rational? Not really.
Dawkins pours particular scorn on the Biblical miracles which don't correspond to scientific reality. But religious believers have different ways of regarding those events, with many seeing them as either metaphors or as natural occurrences which were invested with a greater significance. - Phillips
Miracles? When a huge majority of the people in the pews refuse to participate in professing belief in traditional creeds, and rise up and demand that creeds and articles of faith be changed to unambiguously abandon the doctrines of the resurrection of Jesus and of salvation achieved through vicarious atonement and all the other supernatural elements of Christian orthodoxy, Phillips might be taken seriously about this. Until then, no.
Other Comments by Lauregon
16. Comment #61798 by epeeist on August 6, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Comment #61782 by german-atheist
not knowing which category of paper the daily mail is in,i went through some online articels.
Unfortunately yes, one of the aims of Lord Northcliffe (the owner of the paper) was to give its readers a "daily hate".
It still aims to do that.
Other Comments by epeeist
17. Comment #61800 by Apemanblues on August 7, 2007 at 12:37 am
Most of this article is a long winded way of saying "My religion is the only true one" and the rest of it is just an example of how little the author knows about science.Same old same old.
Other Comments by Apemanblues
18. Comment #61801 by Wadsworth on August 7, 2007 at 12:43 am
There is so much wrong with Melanie Phillipos article; one long Argument from Ignorance in fact. Chesterton was wrong; religious beliefs themselves are so multifarious as to constitute "belief in anything". So-called J-Christian reason is just a closed logical loop of false conclusions derived from false dogmatic premises. Does she actually believe that the Big Bang and the Origin of Life are not scientific questions,--or that the Cambrian "explosion" was an overnight miracle, rather than a 10 million year gradual process which was caused by thoroughly naturalistic environmental processess? Has she not heard of the pre-Cambrian era, or primitive Archaea organisms? Apart from using the insulting term "scientism" to dismiss real science does she actually believe in "spontaneous generation" of life,-disproved long ago by Pascal? She does no better on the philosophical front either; scientists are not relativists, but realists, they assume the existence of a real world of truthful facts (apart perhaps from quantum uncertainty),--otherwise science would be impossible. Nor are atheist scientists moral relativists either , in the sense she means. Universal moral principles can be derived from human society, and does not require a fairy in the sky who has to be specially invented so as to "explain" everything. Phillips says "she does not know"; therefore the best approach would be to avoid making dogmatic ,arrogant anti-science and anti-rational statements in her article.Other Comments by Wadsworth
20. Comment #61804 by german-atheist on August 7, 2007 at 1:10 am
if you use the link to the articel in the daily mail you will find a comment by a reader who seems to have learned from the articel that a scientist called richard dawkins developed a theory he called "big bang"!could someone inform me if this comment is serious or a joke. my english is not good enough
to decide.
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21. Comment #61805 by somersetsimon on August 7, 2007 at 1:14 am
Disturbing indeed. But where Dawkins goes wrong is to assume this is all as irrational as believing in God. The truth is that it is the collapse of religious faith that has prompted the rise of such irrationality.
What? So what percentage of new-age therapy believers are atheists and what percentage have some religious faith? I know where my money would be.
While there probably are some true believers in these quack therapies, I suspect that most people who use them aren't aware of how false they really are. I wonder how many people who use homeopathy actually understand the wacky concept behind it and are aware of all the studies that have proven it to be useless?
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22. Comment #61806 by Jiten on August 7, 2007 at 1:18 am
german-atheist That comment is not a joke but is made by a deeply ignorant person in all seriousness.He is also confusing Dawkins for Hawking.
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23. Comment #61807 by Wadsworth on August 7, 2007 at 1:30 am
Correction: In my article above, I meant "Pasteur",--not "Pascal".Other Comments by Wadsworth
24. Comment #61808 by gibodean on August 7, 2007 at 1:38 am
So much crap in this article, but I'm going to pick my favourite:These findings have given rise to a school of scientists promoting the theory of Intelligent Design, which suggests that some force embodying purpose and foresight lay behind the origin of the universe.
No, emphatically not. What has given rise to that "school of scientists" is that some fundies have gone and got science degrees (somehow) and deliberately chosen to not let any of the information received actually sink in to their brains. They then go and release books and articles that deliberately misrepresent the science to the layman who hasn't got the knowledge to realise.
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25. Comment #61809 by MagratGarlick on August 7, 2007 at 1:43 am
"The author certainly hasn't read TGD very well, has she?"I don't think she's read anything very well.
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26. Comment #61810 by nickthelight on August 7, 2007 at 1:46 am
"This has meant our society can no longer distinguish between truth and lies by using evidence and logic."Speak for yourself Melanie. You have no right to lump others in with your nonsense comments.
Other Comments by nickthelight
27. Comment #61811 by Robert Maynard on August 7, 2007 at 1:47 am
This has meant our society can no longer distinguish between truth and lies by using evidence and logic...Didn't you just say a few paragraphs back that this stuff is "demonstrable" nonsense? So which is it?
Science cannot explain the origin of the universe.I don't see why not, and I eagerly await the day top physicists can retort with some degree of confidence, "Yes, actually, we can," or, "Hm.. if only it were that simple.. ya douchebag."
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28. Comment #61812 by scottishgeologist on August 7, 2007 at 1:50 am
A lot of the faith heads are guilty of new age BS as well. I remember once, about 15 years ago - it was when I had just started "going to church" again (sorry, I apologise, shame....) anyway, I heard this idiot in the pew behind me talking to his wife about how is horoscope had been accurate that week... And I know a lot of christians who use homoepathy and other quack cures.I dare say the real fundies avoid these things "they are of SATAN!!!" but some of the more mainstream ones are into it.
Of course a lot of the real fundies are into demon possession, fake (sorry faith) healing, "spiritual" warfare and all that crap. I know a woman telling my wife recently that she felt she was "under attack" because of a few domestic disasters - broken washing machine, rain coming in and car had died - all at the same time. A clear sign that the ghosties, ghouls and things that go WOOO WOOO were ganging up on her. All propelled and marshalled by the horny goat with the trident no doubt.....
Other Comments by scottishgeologist
29. Comment #61813 by scottishgeologist on August 7, 2007 at 1:54 am
Hey, just noticed, 9:52 BST (bullshit time maybe?!!!) this morning, and all 10 comments are on the same articleOny two possible explanations:
1) An idiot has penned some complete garbage
2) The Flea is on holiday
Or both? :-)))
Other Comments by scottishgeologist
30. Comment #61814 by jaf on August 7, 2007 at 1:54 am
Presenting this article here is giving the crazed Melanie Phillips (Polly Filler) too much undeserved credit for having any idea whatsoever WTF she is talking about.She clearly has no understanding of the matter, at all.
Other Comments by jaf
31. Comment #61815 by Tyler Durden on August 7, 2007 at 2:02 am
One wonders if she has she read anything written by Dawkins?The big mistake is to see religion and reason as polar opposites. They are not. In fact, reason is intrinsic to the Judeo-Christian traditionI'd love to know what this "thinking" is actually based on.
The Bible provides...Oh!
Other Comments by Tyler Durden
32. Comment #61816 by Tyler Durden on August 7, 2007 at 2:11 am
The most conspicuous example of this is provided by Dawkins himself, who breaks the rules of scientific evidence by seeking to claim that Darwin's theory of evolution - which sought to explain how complex organisms evolved through random natural selection - also accounts for the origin of life itself.Is she implying that Prof Dawkins has somehow confused evolution with abiogenesis?? I'd love to see her research notes on that!!
Richard, have you ever confused evolution with abiogenesis?? :-)
Any idea where this outrageous and insulting claim came from?
Did Melanie Phillips contact you for a quote?
Other Comments by Tyler Durden
33. Comment #61818 by _J_ on August 7, 2007 at 2:25 am
epeeist, 17,Unfortunately yes, one of the aims of Lord Northcliffe (the owner of the paper) was to give its readers a "daily hate".
It still aims to do that.
Yet what The Daily Mail does even more effectively is to provide non-readers with an ongoing hatred of The Daily Mail.
I think what makes my blood boil is the unearned certainty with which Ms Phillips states her case. She's allowed her uninformed lunacy if she wants it, but it maddens me to find her advancing it in such confident terms: 'The Bible provides [...]', 'There is no evidence [...]', 'the West [...] is turning the clock back'. She gives no evidence to support her contentions (which themselves indicate her profound ignorance of all the relevant areas) yet speaks in terms that an academic with a bibliography a metre thick would shy away from.
That little bracketed aside on ID - 'Whether or not they are right (and I don't know)' - sticks out like a sore thumb. I wonder whether this is simply what passes for adequate journalistic caution in Daily Mail offices, or whether even Ms Phillips is aware that ID is so far away from science as to have been found so in a US federal court.
The shallow certainties of religious reasoning are manifest again. Ms Phillips should absolutely have the right to express her views freely, just as supermarkets should be able to sell microwave meals loaded with salt. But in both cases a good clear health warning should be attached.
Other Comments by _J_
34. Comment #61819 by bamboospitfire on August 7, 2007 at 2:35 am
Melanie Phillips, for all the reasons given above, you are a reckless idiot. Other Comments by bamboospitfire
35. Comment #61820 by Donald on August 7, 2007 at 2:38 am
I submitted a comment to the Daily Mail last night.My comment suggested that science and the decline of religion were not a cause of "new age" irrationality, but that failure by the media to present science responsibly coupled with a focus on the sensational, the absurd, the attention-getting, and the ill-informed was.
It is perhaps not surprising that my comment was not selected for publication, but I notice that the number of comments has remained the same (4) since last night. Could the
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36. Comment #61821 by JimmyT on August 7, 2007 at 2:46 am
"There is no evidence for this whatever and no logic to it. After all, if people say God could not have created the universe because this gives rise to the question "Who created God?", it follows that if scientists say the universe started with a big bang, this prompts the further question "What created the bang?""I stole the quote below from a talk that Mr. Dawkins did at a university in America on his TGD tour. It repeats something that everybody on this site has heard a thousand times, but it's seemingly not something Ms. Phillips has heard once.
"Complex things come into the universe late, as a consequence of slow, gradual, incremental steps. God, if he exists, would need to be an extremely complicated thing indeed. To suggest a creative intelligence at the beginning of the world, as an answer to the riddle of the first cause, you shoot yourself in the conceptual foot because you are suggesting something far, far more unlikely and complicated than that which you are arguing against. It is orders of magnitude more complicated to say a complex intelligence was there at the outset. If you have problems seeing how matter could just come into existence, try thinking about how complex intelligent matter, or complex intelligent entities of any kind, could suddenly just spring into existence."
Other Comments by JimmyT
37. Comment #61822 by rokort on August 7, 2007 at 2:59 am
Oh dear...so much work ahead of us still. Perhaps journalists/columnists should be held more accountable for what they write. It doesn't seem she has thought for more than 2 seconds about what RD tries to translate to us about evolution, religion, and ratio. Why is she entitled to airing an opinion on such scale then? So we can mock her? But more important: howcome yesterday evening South Park episode 615 (Dutch TV; Comedy Central) was about psychics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Biggest_Douche_in_the_Universe), while only very recently on this site the discussion on New Age etc started, because RD's book comes out soon.
This can't be a coincidence, right? Must be our minds bending the TV-programming, if i think rationally. Yup, that the episode was aired yesterday should be proof enough that our collective thinking on the no-use of irrationality created a universal energy bending the brain of the person aligning the episodes. Halelujah!
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38. Comment #61823 by _J_ on August 7, 2007 at 3:00 am
Donald, 36failure by the media to present science responsibly coupled with a focus on the sensational, the absurd, the attention-getting, and the ill-informed
Clearly you can't be talking about The Daily Mail.
(I can't see my comment appearing on their list, either. For people who are happy to put the boot into entire fields that they know nothing about about, they're a sensitive lot.)
Other Comments by _J_
39. Comment #61824 by bitbutter on August 7, 2007 at 3:03 am
Here's the comment i posted over there:----
For a thorough dissection of this confused nonsense check the response on the Richard Dawkins site: http://tinyurl.com/2h9tve
[Dawkins] breaks the rules of scientific evidence by seeking to claim that Darwin's theory of evolution - which sought to explain how complex organisms evolved through random natural selection - also accounts for the origin of life itself.
Dawkins breaks no such 'rules'. He explains a set of rival darwinian theories of abiogenesis, the most plausible scenarios we have thought of for the origin of life.
if people say God could not have created the universe because this gives rise to the question "Who created God?" ...
People don't say that. They do say though that positing an incredibly complex creator does nothing to help explain the complexity in the universe. Please (re)read The God Delusion where this is explained very clearly.
Other Comments by bitbutter
40. Comment #61826 by Duff on August 7, 2007 at 3:18 am
I think all you people have been taken in by "Ms Phillips". There is no way any person could actually believe that much nonsense and still be a functioning human being. What real, thoughtful, intelligent person would actually, sincerely claim that "...reason is intrinsic to the Judeo/Christian tradition"?She's just trying to get a rise out of you folks.
Other Comments by Duff
41. Comment #61828 by pyota on August 7, 2007 at 3:41 am
i looked up the author on wikipedia, just another creationist. i doubt this article would be very convincing to anyone who wasn't already infected with religion. but in defense of the daily mail, at least they gave away the new prince album for free! Other Comments by pyota
42. Comment #61829 by mmurray on August 7, 2007 at 3:43 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanie_Phillips Other Comments by mmurray
43. Comment #61831 by windweaver on August 7, 2007 at 3:52 am
I've just read a profile on Phillips. Turns out she's an incredibly narrow minded rightwing ideologue. Here's what she's got to say on evolution:Phillips argues that evolution is "merely a theory." She writes that it "does not explain the irreduceable complexity of certain cells for example, which cannot have been formed by simple organisms coming together". She claims that it "does not explain human self-consciousness; it does not explain altruism; it does not explain how existence began." She has also defended the teaching of creationism in schools
Other Comments by windweaver
44. Comment #61832 by the_assayer on August 7, 2007 at 3:55 am
""""Yet distinguished scientists have been hounded and their careers jeopardised for arguing that the fossil record has got a giant hole in it. Some 570 million years ago, in a period known as the Cambrian Explosion, most forms of complex animal life emerged seemingly without any evolutionary trail.These scientists argue that only 'rational agents' could have possessed the ability to design and organise such complex systems.""""
Yes yes!! a rational agent whose existance however doesn't need to be rationally validated.
Other Comments by the_assayer
45. Comment #61833 by leodavinci on August 7, 2007 at 4:26 am
How much does this wagon get paid for writing this crap? Other Comments by leodavinci
46. Comment #61834 by Cartomancer on August 7, 2007 at 4:37 am
I never normally read the Daily Mail. I wouldn't even wrap my chips in it. Seeing the occasional article from it reposted on this site or elsewhere reminds me why from time to time.Has anyone else noticed that Daily Mail articles are all written as strings of disconnected sentences without any attempt to organise them into proper paragraphs?
Other Comments by Cartomancer
47. Comment #61835 by TinyRobot on August 7, 2007 at 4:45 am
On the whole biogenesis issue i found the following article from one of my national newspapers interesting. William Reville is, as he states himself, a fairly committed theist. He frequently uses his weekly column to propagate logically ( and sometimes scientifically) flawed arguments in favour of his religious beliefs. But like any reasonably bright person he occasionally hits the dartboard (if not the bullseye). Of course my own investigations into biogenesis reveal a plethora of plausible explanations. I would however object to the use of the word 'spontaneously' in this context. Am i wrong to say that even molecular ("evolution") would be governed by natural (physical and chemical) laws? I'm hoping i can post this in full right here:Why we will answer life's big question
Under the Microscope/Prof William Reville: Scientists, myself included, believe that life spontaneously arose on earth from lifeless chemicals almost four billion years ago, but we still have a long way to go to figure out the details of how this happened.
Many religious people believe that God directly created life, even if the subsequent development of that life can be fully explained by the scientific theory of evolution through natural selection. I will argue here that the natural spontaneous origin of life from lifeless chemicals is far the more likely explanation.
Science has shown that the material world has developed and operates in a self-sufficient manner that is fully explicable in terms of the laws of physics and of the nature of the material fabric of the universe. There is no need to invoke divine intervention to help things along the way.
We now understand how the world began about 15 billion years ago in a massive explosion of energy called the Big Bang. Ever since then, the universe has been expanding outwards from this point origin. Two of the 92 natural elements were made in the Big Bang - hydrogen and helium. Most of the remaining elements were later bred in the interiors of stars.
We understand how stars first formed as vast clouds of hydrogen and helium gas coalesced under gravity, eventually bunching so tightly that nuclear fusion was triggered to make the stars "shine". In the first generation stars, heavier elements such as carbon, nitrogen and oxygen were formed, and ageing first generation stars expelled these elements into space. We humans are made almost entirely from these hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen atoms - literally from star-dust. The heaviest of the 92 elements were made when later generation stars exploded in supernovae.
We understand how the planets formed as material coalesced under gravity. We understand how our solar system was formed about five billion years ago. We understand in principle, although not yet in any significant detail, how life began on earth about 3.8 billion years ago, probably as a simple single form. And we understand how life evolved from that original simple form into the myriad life forms, including humans, that now occupy every environmental niche on earth.
The entire material world sequentially bootstrapped its way from pure energy in the beginning through sub-atomic particles, hydrogen, helium, stars, galaxies, the remaining 90 elements, planets, life, consciousness, and eventually to self-conscious readers of this page. This was all made possible by the nature of the laws of physics and the innate properties of matter and energy.
You have to be awe-struck at the amazing fruitfulness of the laws of nature that can explain and underpin this stupendous development. But, why are the basic fabric and laws of the universe so fruitful. There are two possibilities - either they just happen to be so, or else God designed them for the purpose of achieving the sequential development that I briefly outlined above.
NOW TO MY main point. Since, using the laws of physics, we can explain how the entire complexity of the physical universe evolved from fundamental particles and how complex life forms evolved from simpler ones during biological evolution, it is surely reasonable to extrapolate that these laws also allowed life to originate spontaneously, whether or not these laws are designed by God. In other words, whether we approach the question of the origin of life from a theistic or an atheistic philosophical perspective, we should still predict that life arose on earth by natural causes.
Life today is biochemically complex and undoubtedly much more complex than the simple form that first arose. Nevertheless, by studying life today we can make certain predictions as to the essential characteristics that the original form of life must have had. There are many scientific efforts ongoing around the world to figure out how the original cells arose from a chemical soup. Progress is being made, but slowly. I predict that the conundrum will eventually be solved scientifically, but we must wait and see.
Many readers will have heard of the recent change of mind made by Antony Flew, the English philosopher and long-time champion of atheism, who declared that he now believes in a "Designer God". Apparently his reason for changing his mind is the lack of scientific progress in explaining how the fantastic complexity of life could arise from lifeless molecules. As a believer myself, I am naturally welcoming of any atheist who wishes to change his/her mind and to join the ranks of believers. However, I think Antony Flew is changing his mind based on very dodgy reasoning.
Scientists freely acknowledge that progress is slow in elucidating how life spontaneously arose on earth, but they are optimistic that this puzzle will be solved in due course. It would be very unwise to bet against science in such a situation. So many matters have already been explained by science that once seemed to be almost impossibly difficult, for example the molecular details of heredity. Also, as I already said, it seems unlikely that a creator would design laws of physics that are almost capable, but not quite, of developing the entire world, because they cannot surmount one intermediate step. That would seem to be inelegant, indeed downright clumsy, of the creator.
Scientific explanations are usually simple once they are figured out, and this will also probably eventually apply to the origin-of-life problem. As Albert Einstein said: "The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."
William Reville is Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Public Awareness of Science Officer at UCC - understandingscience.ucc.ie
© 2007 The Irish Times
The Irish Times, July 19, 2007
Other Comments by TinyRobot
48. Comment #61837 by Yorker on August 7, 2007 at 4:55 am
The first sentence told me all I needed to know, further reading not required."Our most celebrated atheist, the biologist Professor Richard Dawkins, has briefly turned his attention away from bashing people who believe in God."
Idiot! Dawkins bashes God, not those who believe the tale!
Other Comments by Yorker
49. Comment #61838 by infidel_michael on August 7, 2007 at 5:07 am
This article is so stupid that it hurts, but at least it makes scientific prediction: According to Philips there should be a statistical coincidence between atheism and new-age beliefs (why not to do such statistics?).I really doubt it, because all atheists I know are laughing at all this non-sense, and all christians I know believe at least homeopathy or faith healing, or they defend these charlatans because "science cannot explain everything".
However, many christians are rejecting some superstitions, but not because it is irrational, but because it is the work of devil :) Apparently you can reject irrationality due to irrational reasons too ..
Other Comments by infidel_michael
50. Comment #61841 by phasmagigas on August 7, 2007 at 5:41 am
the DM often has its resident astrologer jonathan cainer on the front page (and alwasy on the inside). I wonder what that guy gets paid (hopefully not more than a school teacher)or does he simply allow them to use his photo and the tea boy collects old horoscope readings from doctors surgery magazines to be reused in the daily mail. Other Comments by phasmagigas
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1. Comment #61775 by Crazymalc on August 6, 2007 at 9:12 pm
Try reading "The Ancestor's Tale" for a blow by blow account of how life arose.
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