51. Stop distorting young minds!

Comment #200230 by hungarianelephant on June 27, 2008 at 6:05 am

113. Comment #200214 by Gregg Townsend on June 27, 2008 at 5:18 am

But we will find it very difficult to defend an argument that faith schools should receive no public money simply because they are associated with faith.

I find this a curious statement; why would it be 'difficult' to defend? Government isn't in the business of advocating for faith. In my mind, this should be an easy argument. Is this just a cultural thing for the UK and Europe (MPhil has a lengthy lament to a similar situation in Germany)?

Artist formerly known as Podaar - Because you're assuming what you're trying to prove. In a democracy without an equivalent to the first amendment, government is generally in the business of whatever the electorate tells it to be in the business of. If we want to make a principled objection then we have to be clear about exactly what we are objecting to.

Is it objectionable if a priest teaches geography? Unless he's a flat-earthist, then the black dress is surely irrelevant.

Does it matter if a church runs the school? No, what matters is the content of what it teaches, and arguably its selection criteria. As Steve Zara says in Comment #200193:

I think faith is a real problem here. Is it right to allow parents to threaten their children with everlasting torture, or to corrupt forever their understanding and acceptance of science with creationism? This is not just a case of parents suggesting these things, but telling children that they are certain.

This seems to me a typically nice way of saying that some aspects of religion constitute child abuse. It's the content that we should be objecting to, just as we should be objecting if a teacher in a secular school is pushing a religious agenda.

106. Comment #200198 by epeeist on June 27, 2008 at 4:20 am

I'm sure even [David Robertson] wouldn't sanction a free-for-all which allowed publicly funded Satanist schools.

Assuming they had the all the ticks in the boxes, followed the national curriculum etc., then on what grounds could he object?

I didn't say he would have a logical and consistent objection.

110. Comment #200204 by clodhopper on June 27, 2008 at 4:32 am

It is true that child protection legislation is not sophisticated enough to recognise 'indoctrination'as potentially psychologically damaging to the child. Let's face it, a lot of parenting practice might be viewed as damaging in some ways - who was it said "Your parents fuck you up, they do?" Too true. But I'd be very wary of legislation that tinkered with this. I don't know what it would look like...

So would I. The state has not proven itself very good at child welfare.

And I think the answer to your question is Philip Larkin.

Philip Larkin - This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

52. Stop distorting young minds!

Comment #200191 by hungarianelephant on June 27, 2008 at 4:04 am

I'm not going to respond directly to clearthinker until he answers Steve's questions. And then it will be to request an answer to my question as to why procedural justice is impossible without God.

But anyway.

Buried in the mess of contradictions, fallacies and attempts to abuse which constitute his post, lies a serious question: To what extent should parents be entitled to choose how to educate their children? I haven't yet seen it satisfactorily answered. That's not to say that Robertson is right, of course: I'm sure even he wouldn't sanction a free-for-all which allowed publicly funded Satanist schools. But we will find it very difficult to defend an argument that faith schools should receive no public money simply because they are associated with faith.

Btw, the "argument" that non-believing parents frequently send their children to faith schools because they achieve better academic results is true but irrelevant. The reason for sending your child to that school is the expected outcome, not the mumbo jumbo. Parents gravitate towards better schools regardless of what type they are.

Here in Ireland, some of the most oversubscribed schools are "Educate Together" schools (their not awfully impressive website), which explicitly reject sectarian approaches to education. They were created, and are maintained, by parents who are prepared to act to get things done better. It's no coincidence that they also do well academically.

I'd suggest that faith schools tend to do better in the UK because they managed to minimise the interference from local government during the dark days of the 1960s and 1970s, when a bunch of Marxists had taken over the teacher training colleges. Their legacy is still being felt.

53. Spanish parliament to extend rights to apes

Comment #199759 by hungarianelephant on June 26, 2008 at 10:30 am

Not that I want to be a damp squib or anything, and it's good to see the status of higher animals finally being discussed seriously, but

"We have no knowledge of great apes being used in experiments in Spain, but there is currently no law preventing that from happening," Pozas said.

Seriously, don't they have anything better to do in the Spanish Parliament?

54. God hates Mars

Comment #199723 by hungarianelephant on June 26, 2008 at 8:47 am

Anna - How on earth did you survive infancy? My little one is intolerant to cow's milk, even the hypoallergenic formula, and that's a nightmare enough. But without soy, she'd have been in a really bad way. (Before she got onto solids, she was downing 40oz a day. There are cows who don't produce that much, so you couldn't blame her mum for having to top up.)

55. God hates Mars

Comment #199703 by hungarianelephant on June 26, 2008 at 8:07 am

111. Comment #199698 by esuther on June 26, 2008 at 7:59 am

There is a reason that you have to have training and a license to become a "chocolatier".

Yes. But not the one you think it is.

56. Saudi Marriage Officiant : 'It Is Allowed To Marry A Girl At The Age Of One'.

Comment #199686 by hungarianelephant on June 26, 2008 at 7:31 am

199. Comment #199485 by steveroot on June 25, 2008 at 8:24 pm

Well, I see the Supreme Court has decided that the death penalty is not appropriate for people who do what Mo did:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5ieOwbLBQkG1bX04WhYzu255nr7aQ
Apparently they are concerned about "cruel and unusual" punishment... not OK for the perp, but no problem for the child. ;-)

Yes, the Supreme Court applied to the Constitution that critical interpretative canon known coloquially as "making it up as you go along".

Lest it be forgotten, Kennedy was also the swing judge in Bush v. Gore. He later admitted to a group of Russian students that his reasoning didn't make any sense (and neither, he said, did the other side), but that someone had to put a stop to this nonsense or America would be a laughing stock everywhere. Now I'm not saying I disagree, exactly, but did he really learn that in law school?

57. Mormons urged to back ban on same-sex marriage

Comment #199639 by hungarianelephant on June 26, 2008 at 5:47 am

Tyler - You speak the truth.

Now, what time are we heading over to Bar Code?

58. Saving Us from Darwin

Comment #199628 by hungarianelephant on June 26, 2008 at 5:10 am

I suspect there may be an "institutional" aspect to perceived sexism too.

As we all know, the legal profession is a bastion of male domination.

Except that it isn't. More than 60% of newly qualified lawyers in commercial firms are women. Taking all types of legal work into account, the figure is higher than that.

However, go up the scale, and you find a smaller and smaller percentage of women. This is partly because many fewer women qualified 20-30 years ago, and it takes time for the "equality" to push its way through. But it's also because the profession is losing a disproportionate number of women along the way.

Why is this? The traditional explanation is that there is covert discrimination going on - young upwardly mobile men being marked for partnership early; women being taken less seriously unless they are more aggressive than their counterparts; jobs for the boys. Maybe even that the women are considered useful for giving clients something to look at, and consequently not being regarded as professionals. (There's one London firm which seems to have a policy of hiring bimbos for three years, then offloading them and replacing them with people - men and women - who can actually do the job well. No names, as I'm sure they have an excellent libel department.)

But I think there's also something more subtle going on. The legal profession rewards people who are prepared to work long hours, no matter how unproductively, spend evenings with clients and Sundays in the office. And the higher up you are, the more committed you generally have to be.

There are certainly women who are happy to do this, and there are certainly men who are not. But on the whole, when you are in your mid-twenties and looking at your future, your gender has an impact on how you view this. A key time in your career is around the time when you are making key reproductive decisions, and let's be clear that this is much more pressing if you own a uterus. A job which involves difficulties with career breaks (even if your employer encourages them), long hours and inflexibility is not conducive to being around a young family. It is not attractive if a family is what you want. Putting in the effort to achieve something you don't really want makes no sense. So your promotion is held back, or maybe you drift away to another job. Thousands do, women disproportionately so.

The net effect is the appearance of a glass ceiling, even if it doesn't actually exist.

This is going to change, in time. Sooner or later, a few large firms will cotton on to the idea that they are simply going to have to make themselves more attractive to people who want a better work/life balance (principally but not exclusively women) because that is the only way they will be able to attract the best candidates. They will have to abandon the 9pm-jacket-on-the-chair paradigm and work out a way of working for clients more effectively. Perhaps they will do most of their work for fixed fees instead of hourly rates. Perhaps they will turn away clients who continually insist on unreasonable hours (would you expect your dentist to see you in the evening just because you felt like going then?) - then clients might have to decide whether they value quality or availability higher.

In the meantime, there will be some for whom "sexism" is a much more convincing reason. It will make them feel better, but offers no practical solutions.

59. Mormons urged to back ban on same-sex marriage

Comment #199615 by hungarianelephant on June 26, 2008 at 4:29 am

Personally I find Irish women's underwear much more fun. But we digress.

I think there must be some rule that you are not allowed into a club in Dublin while in possession of a vagina unless:
(1) your clothes are the size you want to be rather than the one you actually are;
(2) your shoes are higher than you can possibly walk in without looking ridiculous; and
(3) your face is painted so as to resemble either Chi-Chi the Panda or that bloke in the Tango adverts.

If you meet a good looking woman there who doesn't meet those criteria, for FSM's sake have a good look at the size of her hands.

60. Band T-shirt draws charge

Comment #199614 by hungarianelephant on June 26, 2008 at 4:25 am

41. Comment #199384 by Dispiracist on June 25, 2008 at 4:28 pm

Like most of us, the police aren't easily offended

So why do they arrest you for telling them to fuck off?

61. Mormons urged to back ban on same-sex marriage

Comment #199607 by hungarianelephant on June 26, 2008 at 4:13 am

102. Comment #199583 by Tyler Durden on June 26, 2008 at 3:13 am

So why don't women hold the door for me? Maybe it's just Irish women? Or maybe it's me? :)

It's a matter of practicality. If you ever tried to walk in such ridiculous shoes and hold the door open at the same time, you'd see why.

62. God hates Mars

Comment #199591 by hungarianelephant on June 26, 2008 at 3:34 am

71. Comment #199584 by phil rimmer on June 26, 2008 at 3:15 am

That reminds me. Does anyone remember Fry's Chocolate Cream?

The first chocolate bar ever, apparently.

Yes! For two reasons. First, my Nan used to love it. And secondly, there was a very important libel case involving it.

Fry's ran an ad portraying an amateur golfer (one Mr Tolley) as enjoying the chocolate bar in question. But they did it without his consent. Tolley sued, saying that it suggested that he had compromised his status amongst amateur sportsmen by accepting the filthy lucre to appear in the ad, even though the general public would not think any worse of him. He won. This established the precedent that an innuendo is enough for a libel, and that it's a libel even if only a particular group would consider it defamatory.

I'm confident that you were dying to know that.

63. Mormons urged to back ban on same-sex marriage

Comment #199191 by hungarianelephant on June 25, 2008 at 9:52 am

al - You sound like you've been reading your John Waters. Quite right too.

I'm frankly amazed at the positive reception here for the idea of getting the government out of the marriage business. Until fairly recently, I thought I was the only one.

Maybe we can poke some sacred cows after all.

64. Saudi Marriage Officiant : 'It Is Allowed To Marry A Girl At The Age Of One'.

Comment #199189 by hungarianelephant on June 25, 2008 at 9:45 am

Of course, it's questionable whether parenting makes any difference to a child.

http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_6.html#harris

65. Science is not philosophy

Comment #199019 by hungarianelephant on June 25, 2008 at 4:29 am

49. Comment #199015 by Steve Zara on June 25, 2008 at 3:45 am

The problem is that in everyday use...

"philosophy" = "just finkin', innit?"

Yup. And abstract, impractical finkin' at that. And there's a deep distrust in Anglo-American culture of anything perceived as intellectualism. Some of us will remember the bizarre spat a few years ago between John Major and others about who got the worst O-Levels. Visiting aliens would have shaken their topmost appendages and gone off to watch the tennis.

I have to say that some of the comments on this thread rather sadden me. Philosophy and science grew up together, but now seem to be barely on speaking terms. But science can't answer questions about how the technology it spins off should be deployed. In fact, it expressly disclaims the questions. If scientists and philosophers insist on seeing themselves as opposites, there's going to be a vacuum in this territory.

Guess who will be first in the queue to fill it?

66. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #199002 by hungarianelephant on June 25, 2008 at 2:28 am

I feel your pain. Why couldn't they ring me during Liverpool v. Fulham? There's 90 minutes of my life I'll never get back. And it seemed much longer.

67. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #198997 by hungarianelephant on June 25, 2008 at 2:03 am

Vaal, why don't you just not answer the phone? When did ringing phones acquire a right to be answered?

68. Evolutionarily Preserved Signature Found In The Primate Brain

Comment #198636 by hungarianelephant on June 24, 2008 at 10:29 am

9. Comment #198592 by Spinoza on June 24, 2008 at 9:25 am

TeraBrat, even if [homosexuality] WEREN'T a natural occurrence that occurs in the animal kingdom... so what?

You can also turn that question around.

Even if it is a natural occurrence, what justification is there to prevent parents from selecting against it (if they can: it's far from certain that it is solely genetic)?

69. 'I despise Islamism': Ian McEwan faces backlash over press interview

Comment #198616 by hungarianelephant on June 24, 2008 at 10:03 am

AllanW - I understand that there was a great deal of tutting in the editorial room of the Indescribablyboring, and someone at the BBC turned their back on him in a rather pointed fashion.

70. 'I despise Islamism': Ian McEwan faces backlash over press interview

Comment #198519 by hungarianelephant on June 24, 2008 at 7:46 am

149. Comment #198192 by Fanusi Khiyal on June 23, 2008 at 10:42 am

Sorry for the delay in replying.

"Islamism" means the belief that political sovereignty belongs to God, that the Shari'ah equates to state law, and that it is a religious duty on all Muslims to create a political entity that reflects the above.

And this is different from standard, orthodox Islam - how, exactly?

Sorry, I'm really not trying to pick a fight or anything, it's just that this needs to be understood. Islam is first and foremost a political project, then a system of spirituality.

That is very probably true.

On the other hand, I'm not yet ready to buy into the notion that Islam within the West can't be contained. Those pessimistic opinion polls we keep referring to can be read in quite another way: 99% of British Muslims think the 7/7 bombings were wrong; 75% feel no sympathy with the feelings and motivations of the bombers. More than 40% don't even want Sharia introduced in the UK, let alone think that it's a religious duty to bring it about.

At the moment, people are broadly self-identifying as Muslims. If the underlying Muslim project really is global domination, then allowing that to pass without comment is a really bad idea. Not least because if Islam is the enemy, we have 2 million enemy citizens in our midst.

Whereas if we force the distinction between private faith and politics, it might lead to some cognitive dissonance, it might not even be coherent in religious terms, but at least we give a chance to people to distance themselves from the nutjobs. Get the (fairly) reasonable people onside, marginalise the troublemakers.

This is not at all what is happening now. Politicians are going around doing their "peace be upon him" routines, trying to pretend that the issue is of who blows up whom, rather than focussing on the Islamist / jihadist ideology itself.

71. 'I despise Islamism': Ian McEwan faces backlash over press interview

Comment #198184 by hungarianelephant on June 23, 2008 at 10:23 am

My attempt:

"Islamism" means the belief that political sovereignty belongs to God, that the Shari'ah equates to state law, and that it is a religious duty on all Muslims to create a political entity that reflects the above.

"Islamist" means (1) a person holding the beliefs of Islamism, as defined above; or (2) a person taking an action with the object of the furtherance of Islamism.

You'll need more than this defining a criminal offence, but it's a starting point for defining what you do and don't condone.

In answer to the last question, I'd suggest a strongly worded letter to the Daily Mail.

* ducks *

72. 'I despise Islamism': Ian McEwan faces backlash over press interview

Comment #198076 by hungarianelephant on June 23, 2008 at 6:50 am

To Fanusi's point, it's worth remembering that even Hitler made common cause with the Japanese, who are not notably Aryan, and admired Islam as a religion of strength.

73. 'I despise Islamism': Ian McEwan faces backlash over press interview

Comment #198073 by hungarianelephant on June 23, 2008 at 6:47 am

116. Comment #198061 by Steve Zara on June 23, 2008 at 6:13 am

I think there is a difference between showing a lack of tolerance for beliefs, and providing cover for racists who want to show a lack of tolerance for people.

I admit I don't have any easy solutions, but I would be deeply uncomfortable about tolerating racism.

I totally agree. IMO the only way around this is to be utterly clear that the distinction is based on religion and not race, and to repeat it loudly at every opportunity. This of course requires clear policies in the first place.

Part of the problem is that this is simply not the British way. Politicians like to deal with issues by fudge. They dance around the periphery instead of diving into the central issue. Much of the time, I suspect they don't even understand what the central issue is.

The hand-wringing on stop-and-search is instructive. It is a bureaucratic nightmare. In an effort to show that the police are not being institutionally racist, whatever that was supposed to mean, they now have to waste countless hours justifying what they are doing rather than actually going about the business of fighting crime. Which, one might suppose, was the reason officers joined the force in the first place. That and the fast car.

Who is hurt most by this? Well, that would be people whose skin is not white. Because a disproportionate amount of crime, especially violent crime, is committed by non-whites on other non-whites. The politicians are so worried about the perceived racism of stopping and searching a non-white person that they end up with a racist outcome.

A better approach might be to declare the intention clearly at the outset: To reduce crime in high-crime areas. We do not care what colour the perpetrators are, or what colour the victims are. You get no special treatment either way. Don't bleat about racism because your alternative means more non-whites being victims of crime.

In this case, if you have a clear policy of "No Muslim immigrants, apostates welcome regardless of origin", then it's crystal clear from the outset that while the policy may be disrciminatory, it is not racist. (I'm yet to be convinced that this is an appropriate blanket policy; just using it as an example.) That will still upset people, but in difficult times, clear communication is more important than sensibilities. Pissing around with contrived criteria designed to do something similar while appearing to be nice is only going to be counterproductive.

74. It Doesn't Take an Einstein

Comment #196604 by hungarianelephant on June 20, 2008 at 7:57 am

al-rawandi - Fair answer. Given how badly the land for peace deals went the last couple of times, how do you propose to persuade the Israelis that this is their best shot?

I think I might like advocatus_diaboli's plan too. Though it would probably have to be a very large Twister mat.

75. It Doesn't Take an Einstein

Comment #196597 by hungarianelephant on June 20, 2008 at 7:39 am

OK, let's all agree that the seizure of Palestine in 1948 was a cynical act and a grave injustice to the inhabitants of Palestine at that time.

Now what?

76. It Doesn't Take an Einstein

Comment #196575 by hungarianelephant on June 20, 2008 at 7:15 am

Funny, isn't it?

For centuries, Jewish people were regarded as an Asian people unreasonably foisted on Europe.

Now, they're a European people unreasonably foisted on Asia.

77. Muslim countries win concession regarding religious debates

Comment #196562 by hungarianelephant on June 20, 2008 at 6:56 am

104. Comment #196554 by Podaar on June 20, 2008 at 6:43 am

It seems I've read that republics have an expected run of 200 years or so.

Bah. They're not even trying.

In that time, France managed five republics, two empires and the fag end of a monarchy.

78. Teen's death blamed on faith healing

Comment #196523 by hungarianelephant on June 20, 2008 at 5:24 am

8teist - Is your avatar also a proposal for a revised Obama slogan later in the year?

79. Muslim countries win concession regarding religious debates

Comment #196516 by hungarianelephant on June 20, 2008 at 5:01 am

Barry Pearson - You are quite right. I should not post here without coffee.

So what I should have said is that the EU isn't doing 9/10 of bugger all. It's actually doing bugger all. Glad to have got that cleared up.

80. Muslim countries win concession regarding religious debates

Comment #196481 by hungarianelephant on June 20, 2008 at 3:05 am

57. Comment #196464 by FightingFalcon on June 20, 2008 at 2:27 am

Yes, but not all international law threatens to destroy our Bill of Rights. The right to a due process in an AMERICAN court is a right that all American citizens enjoy. I don't want to bring up the ICC arguments again but we simply will never join that organization. Ever.

Actually the arguments used by the Bush administration are better than this. They are that the ICC will not guarantee what the US would recognise as due process, and would not allow trial by jury. This is an entirely reasonable position. There's no sense in limiting the power of your own government over your citizens, and then allowing some unaccountable international authority to violate those limits.

While I'm sure we all suspect that there are other reasons that the US doesn't want to get involved, it's all a little too easy to sound off about it in a fit of anti-American pique. In the real world, you can absolutely guarantee that within months, the process would be hijacked by politics, with subpoenas flying not for the purpose of enforcing international law (whatever it is), but for disrupting the policies of the elected governments of nation states. Is that really what we want?

81. Louisiana's latest creationism bill moves to House floor

Comment #196431 by hungarianelephant on June 20, 2008 at 12:28 am

I found recently that my ZX Spectrum still works. That's to say, it performs the functions it was intended to. It doesn't "work" in the sense of doing anything particularly useful.

My 18 year old sister didn't believe anything of the kind existed. And she still doesn't believe in 10lb telephones with dials that slipped against your finger, that you had to rent from British Telecom because they didn't allow you to buy your own, and that were available in black, putrid green or vomit yellow on a 3 month waiting list.

Oh for those days. Still, we might get a chance to go back to them if the anti-science lobby gets its way.

82. Muslim countries win concession regarding religious debates

Comment #196422 by hungarianelephant on June 19, 2008 at 11:59 pm

22. Comment #196401 by black wolf on June 19, 2008 at 9:44 pm

I'm glad that the EU takes a much clearer and firmer stance:
Resolution 1464 (2005)1

Are you kidding? If the EU took a clear and firm stance, it would hardly require the (elected) Parliament to petition the (unelected) Council to actually do something.

83. We Urgently Need Your Help Now!!

Comment #195983 by hungarianelephant on June 19, 2008 at 6:32 am

78. Comment #195961 by Jaffas85 on June 19, 2008 at 6:03 am

Isn't it a criminal offence to sign into law a bill that clearly contravenes the U.S. establishment clause and separation of church and state?

Any lawyers here?

Yes to the second. No to the first.

84. Logical Proof of the Existence of a Divine Creator, Why Atheism is Not Logically Sound

Comment #195922 by hungarianelephant on June 19, 2008 at 3:30 am

irate - I thought your motto was "Careful Now"?

Down With This Sort Of Thing.

85. Logical Proof of the Existence of a Divine Creator, Why Atheism is Not Logically Sound

Comment #195917 by hungarianelephant on June 19, 2008 at 3:16 am

Guys - thanks for spending time on this. The question was actually intended for Mr Postelnik. Given his last offering, I'm frankly amazed that you bothered.

86. Logical Proof of the Existence of a Divine Creator, Why Atheism is Not Logically Sound

Comment #195904 by hungarianelephant on June 19, 2008 at 2:44 am

Before I waste any more of my time, does this one have any actual content, or is it more argument from personal incredulity?

87. We Urgently Need Your Help Now!!

Comment #195892 by hungarianelephant on June 19, 2008 at 2:03 am

63. Comment #195872 by keith on June 19, 2008 at 12:18 am

I'm a bit confused. Is this about trying to stop the teaching of Intelligent Design in science classes? If so, I thought the Dover trial had put paid to that. Or does the same fight have to be waged in every one of the 50 states of America? And will the same fight have to be waged again when the IDers change their name once more?

Technically, the Dover case is only binding on federal courts in the same circuit, and then only on points of law.

There don't actually seem to be any points of law in the Dover decision. The key point was that the judge found, as a matter of fact, that ID is not science. What that means is that the case doesn't establish a broad binding legal precedent. The IDers could have another go elsewhere, or with a slightly different approach, and it would have to be litigated all over again.

As a practical matter, though, the Dover decision will be highly influential, in that it will most likely stop many school boards from entertaining this nonsense in the first place.

88. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #195503 by hungarianelephant on June 18, 2008 at 11:08 am

8061. Comment #195458 by Jethro on June 18, 2008 at 9:07 am

Ma heid's spinning.

This site will do that to you occasionally. It's kind of fun, though.

One minute someone says complexity can only come from simplicity, God is complex ergo God cannot be creator. Next someone else says design must be a complex process. Then we've got the old hoary about who created the creator, yet when the existence of cuddly 'nature' is invoked, everybody goes soft and nobody asks about her origin.

I'm not sure which posts you're referring to, but I don't remember "nature" being invoked. There are certainly unanswered questions about where the universe came from, but they're being worked on as we speak. The Oystein Elgaroy thread has some interesting stuff on it.

I agree with the power and the elegance of evolution, and I don't feel any need to defend the tendentious film 'Expelled', the dogma of creationism or even ID which seems to me to be impossible science.

The point about ID is that it isn't science at all. It doesn't attempt to explain anything. Instead it says, "there's some stuff we can't understand, therefore it must have been designed". The judge in the Dover trial described this as "breathtaking inanity". Which is nothing to what irate_atheist calls it. Science classes can teach things which evolution hasn't explained yet. What they can't do is pass of the absence of an explanation as evidence of something else which they won't attempt to explain.

You made a point earlier which seemed to suggest that scientists work within a given frame, assuming that the underlying theory is true. I'm still not quite sure whether this was the point you were making, but if you were, it's probably a fair one. That's how science works. When it finds anomalies, it tries to incorporate them into its existing theories, by refining them. If it can't, it tries to come up with a new hypothesis which explains both the anomalies and the old data.

Scientists don't always explain that very well, and scientific communication is a particular bugbear of mine. This gives ammunition to the anti-science crowd to allege that science simply finds what it expects to. No doubt this is the case in some projects, but it isn't the case in science as a whole.

What I don't get is why I have to choose between science and faith. I think I can have both - apart from apparently on this thread.

As you'd expect, nearly all of the posters here are atheists. We don't generally see how science and faith in any kind of interventionist god are compatible.

But that said, what you'll generally find is that most of us don't object to faith at all. It's dogma that's the problem. It permeates religion. It tells people that, on the basis of no evidence other than their because-I-say-so book, they can tell the rest of us how to run our lives; that they are entitled to special consideration for their beliefs; and that anyone who objects is immoral and to be disregarded. It is not by any means confined to religion, but religion is probably the most powerful source of dogma.

We all have to build our own personal models of the world, and very few of us - even amongst self-proclaimed rationalists - will be fully rational about everything, not least because we have to live in the irrational world we find. What I and some others hope to do is to persuade people that whatever personal beliefs they entertain, the only way to make reasonable decisions as a society is on the basis of empirical evidence and logic.

So don't feel you have to abandon your faith if you want to stick around and learn things here - and there's huge amounts to learn from posters who share their expertise in many different areas of science, philosophy, 12th century theology and even the old-fashioned art of personal abuse. Just don't be someone like ReceivedTheGift. Who seems to have gone now.

89. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #195339 by hungarianelephant on June 18, 2008 at 4:47 am

Jethro - I'm probably being slow, but I don't understand what your comment 195335 means.

Are you saying that scientists sometimes start from the assumption that evolution is true and look for reasons based on evolution why a particular attribute of an organism might have conferred an advantage?

90. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #195329 by hungarianelephant on June 18, 2008 at 4:28 am

7994. Comment #195317 by Jethro on June 18, 2008 at 4:07 am

"any alleged problems with evolution are dwarfed by the gaping holes in the creation hypothesis."

I don't know. It seems plausible to me that Life, the universe and everything could be produced by a creator who was by definition capable of doing so. No more tautological than saying that since there is a priori no creator, and life the universe and everything exists, there must be a creatorless mechanism for producing it.

What Steve Zara said.

Also I don't think anyone here is arguing a priori no creator. The point is that the case for a creator still has to be made. It can't be assumed.

91. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #195315 by hungarianelephant on June 18, 2008 at 4:04 am

phil rimmer - That is all true. I was making the point that before Darwin, there was no actual alternative explanation, not that there was no possibility of an alternative explanation arising.

The things you mention tend to give weight to evolution and take weight away from creationism. What I was getting at is that creationism didn't have much weight to begin with. Even in the absence of evolution, it is a poor explanation of anything.

92. Oystein Elgaroy - the Christian defender who became an Atheist

Comment #195307 by hungarianelephant on June 18, 2008 at 3:43 am

70. Comment #195240 by pobalob on June 18, 2008 at 1:08 am

to begin with, your post is unnecessarily long. To me, posts that are succinct are the most effective. Address the salient points, not *every* point.

He doesn't address every point. If you get a response, he handwaves the first of your points. This is frequently with guff that shows he doesn't know what he is talking about. The rest of your points will be ignored, as will any rebuttal you produce to his arguments.

Unless, of course, there is something he can quote-mine.

When he tells Steve whether or not he's a creationistm, he owes me his definition of "justice", which he says can't exist in an atheistic worldview. I'm not holding my breath.

93. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #195300 by hungarianelephant on June 18, 2008 at 3:23 am

Sorry to continue flogging this horse, but I can also see what Steve is saying. It's just that I think he's a step ahead of where this particular debate is.

If you take Darwin out of the equation, you're back to pre-Darwinian times. The default position was god-creator/designer. But this was not based on logic. It was simply a cultural preference. Hume had debunked all the existing arguments for a god. What he lacked was an alternative explanation.

The genius of the Brian English strategy, IMHO, is that it forces the creationist away from the false dichotomy between creation and evolution, and focuses on just how devoid of content and explanatory value creationism is. To show that it is a more viable explanation than, say, spontaneous life, he will have to use some sort of empirical Paleyan argument. This can only lead three ways:

(a) a designer is always more complex than the thing designed
(b) a designer may be of equal complexity to that of the thing designed
(c) a designer may be of lesser complexity than that of the thing designed

(a) gives you the Ultimate 747 objection. (b) gives you tortoises all the way down. And he can't concede (c) without dropping the a priori objection to evolution.

Even if we then agree that creation is more likely than spontaneous appearance, the creationist has to establish up front the attributes of the supposed creator. He also has to establish that the universe was created on purpose, rather than by Janet's physics experiment in some other universe going awry.

By the time we're finished, the dichotomy is dead, since any alleged problems with evolution are dwarfed by the gaping holes in the creation hypothesis.

So I think everyone's partly right.

94. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #194847 by hungarianelephant on June 17, 2008 at 10:30 am

irate, further intervention needed, if you please.

95. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #194846 by hungarianelephant on June 17, 2008 at 10:28 am

epeeist - He reminded me of wooter too. This seems to have happened to me a lot lately.

I'll have to leave you guys to it for now. Someone wake me up if RtG produces any evidence for a creator, won't you?

96. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #194841 by hungarianelephant on June 17, 2008 at 10:22 am

7834. Comment #194838 by ReceivedTheGift on June 17, 2008 at 10:18 am

Easy. If you admit defeat, in that Evolution theory is dead, you are left with only one choice. A designer/creator. It's that simple. The end. What don't you understand about this?

No, this was gone through yesterday. You attempted to hand-wave it away using the argument from personal incredulity.

You now have to show that designer/creator is a better explanation than the spontaneous appearance of life. When you've done that, we can move onto the supposed attributes of your designer/creator.

97. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #194834 by hungarianelephant on June 17, 2008 at 10:13 am

7829. Comment #194832 by ReceivedTheGift on June 17, 2008 at 10:11 am

Evolution theory is dead.

Yes, that was agreed upon yesterday.

Now may we please see your evidence for creationism. You said it was obvious, so this shouldn't be too difficult.

98. Saving Us from Darwin

Comment #194815 by hungarianelephant on June 17, 2008 at 9:55 am

172. Comment #194804 by severalspeciesof on June 17, 2008 at 9:46 am

They also call these things a 'mystery' as in God works in mysterious ways. Whenever I hear the word mystery (in religious terms) I immediately know that the 'mystery' term is used because the alternative answer is always in contradiction to their beliefs.

I feel that way when politicians use the term "most people". The alternative answer is something that makes more sense, but if you don't agree with "most people" then it must be because you are a maverick, and definitely not a democrat.

No names, obviously.

99. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #194811 by hungarianelephant on June 17, 2008 at 9:51 am

7815. Comment #194807 by ReceivedTheGift on June 17, 2008 at 9:48 am

Carl Sagan? He's a has been. Nobody believes in his works anymore.

Thanks for that well-reasoned post.

I see Steve has already trolled you. Cretin.

100. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #194808 by hungarianelephant on June 17, 2008 at 9:48 am

7810. Comment #194801 by ReceivedTheGift on June 17, 2008 at 9:45 am

I am assuming a lot of you are British. What happened to the cooking gene in your evolutionary process? That alone proves that evolution is false. British food kills all. You all should be history by now.

This coming from ... an American???