1251. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164622 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 1:15 pm

Comment #164619 by Kardashovel

Science is another input, but it is hardly the only relevant factor in such a discussion.

So how are you going to understand the universe? Seances? Tarot cards?

We have come to the point where we can breed any sort of animal at all for particular traits we desire...

That sounds to me more like manufacturing rather than evolution.

Should we talk about the evolution of cars?

Karda is implying that evolution as observed was designed. We see nothing but the process of Natural Selection. Natural Selection is not a process of design.

Let's not forget for his future God to come back and design evolution, he would need some kind of Tardis.

1252. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164618 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 1:10 pm

Comment #164616 by ThoughtsonCommonToad
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0308_060308_evolution.html

1253. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164614 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 1:05 pm

Comment #164611 by Frankus1122

What do you think of Kardashovels question about intelligence such as we have becoming a factor in our own evolution, as it has in the evolution of dogs and sheep and the like?

I think that point is answered by recent findings that we have been evolving over the past few millenia but no-one knew it was happening.

1254. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164612 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 1:03 pm

Comment #164609 by ThoughtsonCommonToad

I have in the past suggested the quantity of genetic information in the zygote. The human genome (coding regions, not junk DNA) is small compared with many other species.

1255. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164610 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 1:01 pm

No PBUM. Evolution never tends to make things more complex. Humans are but a piffle compared with our mighty fish ancestors. Just look at the evidence. [/sarcasm]

Humans can't develop in a range of different ways from egg to adult depending on the environment. They can't live at a wide range of internal temperatures. They can't change sex (well, not naturally). They can't change colour. They can't deal with liquid environments at a range of osmotic concentrations. They have no electric field sense.

1256. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164607 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 12:58 pm

Comment #164601 by Peacebeuponme

Well, there has been an observed general trend towards greater complexity (though I know there are some great individual examples of the reverse). Would this not be expected once speciation occurs and there is more competition and need for specialism?

I used to think this was the case, but I now I don't think any such general trend can be guaranteed. It seems to depend entirely on the environment. There is certainly a trend towards a wider variety of phenotypes, but the number of "body plans" today is less than it was in the past, as a result of the extinctions of phyla.

Also, there is little doubt that mammals are the most successful large animal group on the planet today. But, are they the most complex? I would say not - their types of metabolism and developmental pathways are much less than those of amphibians or even fish. People talk about brains being complex, but they aren't in terms of basic structure. They are complex when they are filled with information, and that is not much to do with development. I think it is worth remembering that almost all the complexity of life is contained within the cell, and there were probably cells pretty much as complex as those in life now around a billion years ago.

Clearly, evolution does tend towards complexity up to a point, but I would say that past the level at which the eukaryotic cell arose, the overall complexity of organisms has varied back and forth considerably. The cell allows a huge variation in structural form of an organism at the cost of not much additional complexity.

1257. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164600 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 12:47 pm

Comment #164595 by Diacanu

Wonderful.

1258. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164593 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 12:35 pm

Comment #164592 by Frankus1122

So what?

Dammit, he is trying to take my precious science and torture it to make it fit his wild ideas. I have to rescue it from him. I can't stand to see it suffer.

1259. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164590 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 12:32 pm

You may safely ignore me, if you feel that force of numbers is what merits reckoning when dealing with theists.

I am not going to ignore you on that basis. I am interested in how you suggest that a TARDIS is constructed.

1260. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164585 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 12:30 pm

Comment #164583 by MPhil

Yes :)

1261. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164584 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 12:29 pm

Comment #164581 by ThoughtsonCommonToad

I believe we are talking about what has been observed through the fossil record.

1262. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164579 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 12:28 pm

You never speculate, and enjoy the freedom of that type of though? You will only consider a hypothesis that can be tested?

Some of us know the difference between science and science fiction. You are the one who believes in TARDISes.

1263. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164577 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 12:26 pm

Not even natural selection any more, but it is still evolution.

Not really. It is called "breeding".

Does that mean that all of evolution serves some grand purpose? Perhaps. But Steve, what you said is that evolution cannot serve a purpose. Do you recant? Just say yes... it was a trivial mistake, made all the worse by all this flailing around.

If you want to talk about selection by intelligence, that is a different matter. It is not evolution as we understand it.

simple initial conditions, potentially complex organisms, exploratory algorithm => tends to lead to more complex forms.

No. It leads to more forms, not necessarily more complex forms. It increases the range of forms explored.

1264. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164563 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 12:16 pm

perhaps they flew closed timelike curves around loops of cosmic string?

You would need to construct and maintain that string arrangement... it would have to be held in a very unstable arrangement! Cosmic strings tend to fly around at the speed of light.

1265. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164557 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 12:07 pm

Unsuccessful parry. I am challenging the idea of yours that evolution can serve no purpose, not the idea that natural selection itself has intent. Try again.

Evolution can only serve a purpose if it is guided. There is no indication that it is guided, as the history of evolution has been a history of random events. Oh, and by the way, a section of this weeks' New Scientist magazine backs up my comments that evolution does not always or necessarily proceed in the direction of increased complexity.

Anyway, how did your "God aliens" get back to before their own origins, to control evolution?

1266. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164548 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 12:03 pm

make my speculation actually walk?

Details of your speculation, please, including the physics behind it.

1267. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164544 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 12:00 pm

That brain evolved to be as wonderful as it is because of the intent of your ancestors to survive and reproduce. Once evolution produced an organ capable of intent, that became a factor in natural selection.

That does not mean that natural selection itself has intent.

Oh, and perhaps you could remind us how your future God is supposed to have got back to 3.5 billion years ago to have guided evolution? The new physics you suggest for this must surely be interesting to many.

I should remind you that general relativity indicates that we can't build a time machine to take us back to before we have built it.

So your extensions to Einstein's theory, please...

1268. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164536 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 11:47 am

Comment #164533 by Kardashovel

I'm biding my time, but I wish to return to this absolutist statement of Steve's, that the randomness of mutations shows that evolution cannot have a purpose. The purpose is survival.

No. Purpose implies intent. You might as well say that thermodynamics has a purpose - the increase of entropy.

Also, mutations and selection may not result in survival. There are some mutations that are selected for, yet which result in their own destruction. Genes can encourage their own spreading through a population, even though it is harmful to the population as a whole.

Also, as we have shown that your "understanding" of reality makes a nonsense of our understanding of physics, I don't see why you don't just say you believe in magic and save yourself the bother of involving evolution. It would be far simpler than to try and distort evolution beyond breaking point like you have done with physics.

1269. Interviews with Richard Dawkins and Michael Shermer

Comment #164532 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 11:26 am

For some reason Talk Origins does sound religous. I have confused the two myself.

Me too. I have to keep checking it to ensure I have got the right site.

1270. Gods and earthlings

Comment #164523 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 11:11 am

Science is neither cozy nor edgy -- it's just science, the description of what is.
The problem of science getting mixed up with advocacy is that when it does, it stops being science. I "seem" to be alone here as an advocate of science for science's sake. (Hopefully not!)

I am an advocate of science for humanity's sake. We are at a time when national and international policies need to be based on a sound understanding of science. Your NOMA attitude would prevent this.

1271. Interviews with Richard Dawkins and Michael Shermer

Comment #164517 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 11:03 am

Your only problem is simple: you trust others too much. Don't. Dont' trust me at all. Simply collect all the facts you can find -- the Internet, thanks to human ingenuity and the priceless First Amendment of the US Bill of Rights, is a wide depository of forbidden knowledge -- then instead of counting heads, use your own.

No, it isn't. I have quite a bit of scientific knowledge in various fields, and I find much presentation of those facts "on the internet" to be dreadful, particularly in areas of controversy, such as evolution. I would even say that most popular science books are no way to get the true story.

The way to find out what is really happening in science is to find out what the consensus is in a field. It helps if you know a bit about the subject yourself, but anyone can read around. The internet is largely useless in this regard, as it is democratic, and the truth isn't that democratic.

So, given a particular subject or topic, find, say, five or six different experts, preferably with different views, and see how they agree. Then see if you can get a coherent story out of what they say.

What you don't do is seek out a particular story, or hunt for those who support your views, or find out what is the most popular view on the internet. That is no way to find out anything.

One good indication of someone who has done precisely that is their constant reference to just a few websites and sources, which all refer back to each other, like a fan club. (Incidentally, this is why I am slightly uncomfortable when people here regularly refer creationists to the Talk Origins site. Excellent though it is, it suggests a single portal on the internet for those who support evolution. We need to show dozens of such sites every time someone points us at Answers In Genesis).

So, show me five or six different, respected, top-of-their field historians, with different views. Tell me how they agree and disagree. Show me the consensus. Then I'll see if I can be bothered to take a look at your views.

1272. Gods and earthlings

Comment #164503 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 10:42 am

Dawkins's writing just doesn't compare with any of these or with similar books that promote science from a thoroughly positive foundation and which are not involved in trying to tell readers what to believe, think, etc.

If even a significant group in the USA still believes in some vague way that the Earth is only a few thousand years only (and they say they do), then we are in deep trouble. Check out the AnswersInGenesis site. The anti-science attitude is about more than just evolution. It is combined with global warming denial as well. I don't care if people only disbelieve in global warming in a moderate way if they are still pumping CO2 into the atmosphere.

Those nice and cosy science books you referred to don't help. We need many more people like Dawkins going on the attack.

1273. Gods and earthlings

Comment #164470 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 9:50 am

Dawkins doesn't do science, sadly, he rants. He isn't even interested in science!

Please give an example of such a rant. I agree with your praise of du Sautoy, but Dawkins is one of the finest scientific prose writers in the English language.

1274. Interviews with Richard Dawkins and Michael Shermer

Comment #164468 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 9:48 am

Comment #164449 by ASMarques

So?

It means that you are either a genius or a nutter. I know which one I am going for.

1275. Gods and earthlings

Comment #164466 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 9:44 am

And thus ironically he devotes his attention to an audience incapable of accessing independently any claims he makes of a scientific nature (though honestly I couldn't find any science in the book I looked at).

The "Ultimate 747" argument is entirely scientific. As is the discussion of the anthropic principle.

1276. Gods and earthlings

Comment #164458 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 9:29 am

Mr. Zara

If you are getting formal, it is Dr Zara. Otherwise, "Steve" is fine.

Scientific education, however, needs to be concerned with educating those who "get it," and Dawkins advocacy is a distraction from all that.

The numbers who have apparently written to him, and who have attended his talks suggests otherwise.

1277. Gods and earthlings

Comment #164448 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 9:13 am

The fact that science can co-exist with religious expression would suggests to me that you use scientific arguments to make scientific claims.

It can, but not easily. The time when a leading scientist can be deeply religions without seeming a bit odd has long past.

Why abandon a plan that works?

It doesn't work much any more. Things change.

Traditionally science textbooks made no reference to religion at all.

They do, actually. They talk about cosmology and evolution. Those are religious matters too. The problem is that the religious approach to those is in conflict with science.

1278. Gods and earthlings

Comment #164435 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 8:54 am

My visiting the site was prompted by curiosity about Dawkins's popularity -- I'm guessing it is not popularity with scientists as with disaffected religionists of various stripes.

Dawkins is a Fellow of the Royal Society, and one of the great promoters of neo-Darwinist theory. He is deeply respected in the science world.

I'm guessing few. And obviously the kinds of scientists engaged in cutting edge work haven't got the time for this sort of thing.

Nice little snide remark there. He has has a long and very successful career as a scientist. Just check his list of Nature publications.

1279. Gods and earthlings

Comment #164430 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 8:47 am

As to disproving religion, to what end? What is the point of trying to run the lives of billions of your neighbors? Isn't that kind of their business what they believe?

Not when some of us have religions trying to run our lives.

1280. Gods and earthlings

Comment #164421 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 8:37 am

Comment #164412 by MPhil

...how's your rebuttal of Bnonn coming along?

Starting to put "pen to paper". (I spend most of the time thinking rather than writing) I think it is going to be easy. As you have said, he is mistaken about cause-and-effect in terms of how we reason. He is mistaken in his reductio-ad-absurdum argument that "it does not make sense to say that anything physical is about something". The first mistake seems to me to be a simple category error in his understanding of how reasoning is done. The second is much more fun to deal with, and I intend to attack it using the foundation of Godel's and Turing's work on incompleteness: That certain kinds of symbolic manipulations of necessity contain meaning and can express ideas about themselves. (I may not be phrasing this quite right). I thought I may also throw in a bit of Hofstadter, about how trying to look at how one's own mind works is like attempting to see the back of one's own head.

Most of the rest of his response seems to me to be theological fluff, and not worth dealing with, as it all begs the question as to his earlier "proofs". As for the PM... expect a reply soon.

1281. Gods and earthlings

Comment #164410 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 8:19 am

Comment #164409 by robotaholic

You are right. I was thinking of things from the perspective of educated science-literate people. Aliens with that technology would almost certainly be considered god-like by the majority.

1282. Gods and earthlings

Comment #164408 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 8:17 am

Comment #164407 by MPhil

You are right. What seems like magic can happen, but it would only be chance, and would not be the result of anything supernatural.

1283. Interviews with Richard Dawkins and Michael Shermer

Comment #164405 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 8:12 am

Comment #164401 by ASMarques

Let's put things this way.

You are in a tiny minority. You post selective stuff to back your points. Just about everyone who holds tiny minority viewpoints like yours has been wrong. The exceptions have been geniuses like Newton. You aren't a genius, so I feel very comfortable ignoring you.

We use good statistical arguments to show that the idea of Gods is silly. The same kind of statistical arguments show that your ideas are silly. You can keep hanging onto your faith, but don't expect anyone here to follow you.

1284. Gods and earthlings

Comment #164402 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 8:05 am

Comment #164400 by MPhil

I am not sure I agree with "prove". There is the possibility that reality is nothing more than a series of isolated snapshots, each of which arises spontaneously from some random background, and each of which simply seems to succeed another in time (this is not too difference from some pretty weird multiverse theories). In that case, anything can appear to happen at any time.

1285. Sex for diploma offer caught on tape

Comment #164393 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 7:32 am

Comment #164391 by Bonzai

IMHO PZ is hardly an example of outstanding journalism. Some times he comes off like a hack.

To be fair, it is a blog.

I also wonder how someone who is supposed to be doing active research and teaching has so much time for his blog and extra curricula atheistic activism. It is not that I think these activities are not valuable, but I just want to know his secret so I can organize my time better.

If you find this out, could you let me know as well?

1286. Sex for diploma offer caught on tape

Comment #164392 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 7:27 am

I don't think its overly interestin myself, but the proof of the pudding is the numbers of comments.

Many of the comments have been about whether or not it is relevant :)

I am not that concerned about it, really. However, it does seem just a little bit like gloating to me... let's watch a religious person be brought down, because after all, we really don't like religion, do we? Maybe it is just me, but I find this piece "lowers the tone". But, I realise I am a raging elistist snob, and I know this is just a matter of taste. On the other hand, I do find myself joining in the (presumed) gloating.

1287. Gods and earthlings

Comment #164385 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 7:07 am

Comment #164265 by ramiejae

Therefore, we, in our limited human minds (who have not been studying, researching, and discovering for very long, especially in light of the earth's alleged billions of years) cannot truly know if there is something infinite outside of our finite and limited thinking.

I agree, so the best approach is just to shut up until we have some way of extending our finite minds.

But we do! It is called science. We collaborate to explore reality carefully, one simple step after the other, realising that our minds are flawed and everything needs to be checked. It's going to take some time to get to studying infinity and eternity, so probably best keep quiet about wild ideas like God, because you would not want it thought to be just a whacky idea of a finite flawed mind, would you?

1288. Sex for diploma offer caught on tape

Comment #164377 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 6:45 am

Comment #164373 by Peacebeuponme

There is another consideration that I am raising here. Promoting stories like this seems to trivialise things. If we are going to take an interest every time a preacher or school founder shags someone he shouldn't we are going to be very busy indeed. So why was this posted here? Because PZ picked up on it? But, again, if we use that as a criterion we are again going to be busy, as he posts sometimes many times a day.

However, I don't mean to generalise. This is a great site. I am only quibbling about one article.

Perhaps this article is funny, and I am suffering from my usual humour deficiency? :)

1289. Sex for diploma offer caught on tape

Comment #164371 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 6:26 am

Comment #164368 by Peacebeuponme

I think it looks a bit like you are saying you don't want it up because it doesn't interest you.

Not at all. This does interest me (just not that much). This story is local newspaper stuff. What this story says is the founder of a school has gone bad. It seems to have little to add to any on-going discussions of the nature of religion, or philosophy or ethics or science or politics.

I feel that "promoting" stories like this can do harm, for reasons others have already indicated. If we go "look - a Christian has gone bad", then those who oppose reason can easily find an atheist who has gone bad, and what does that achieve for us?

If the story had been a report on a general trend, or a historical record of school founders who had been hypocrites, then I could have seen some useful reason for posting it.

Single data points tell you nothing, and there is a tendency to extrapolate from them, which can be problematic.

1290. Sex for diploma offer caught on tape

Comment #164366 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 6:08 am

Advance which discussion?

Discussions of science and rationality.

1291. Expelled Overview

Comment #164364 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 6:07 am

How does your evolution theory explain that?

Life started, then there were archaea and bacteria. Some of these started to produce oxygen. Then eukaryotic cells appeared, then wormy things. Then larger animals, including fish and amphibians. Some of these went onto the land. Then most died. The the dinosaurs appeared. Then most of things died again. Big birds dominated for a while. Then mammals took over. Some of those were apes, and some of those apes got pretty intelligent, and started writing.

Read the Read the Vedic version of how life began. It's much more logical than evolution theory, and it's a much better fit to the archaeological evidence. version of how life began. It's much more logical than evolution theory, and it's a much better fit to the archaeological evidence.

I would like you to point out where in those texts it explains the nature of DNA and by what mechanism new species are generated.

Silly person. It doesn't explain the fossil record, or DNA similarities.

1292. Sex for diploma offer caught on tape

Comment #164355 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 5:41 am

Comment #164351 by Peacebeuponme

Why should it not get posted and discussed here?

You have answered this yourself:

There is no "point" to the story in the sense that it proves something wider about religion, but it is a story about a Christian school head acting terribly.

How does this single story advance the discussion? If this was someone with national or international authority (such as Bishop or Archbishop), I could see the point.

1293. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164347 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 5:19 am

You may think that you can find all the AnswersinGenisis, but step outside the bubble just for a short while to discover some objections to your 'truth'.

Of course, AnswersInGenesis doesn't provide any answers. It simply questions (in a very clumsy way) evolutionary theory. It should really be called

NaahIJustDontBelieveYouCosOfGenesis

1294. Expelled Overview

Comment #164344 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 5:15 am

Comment #164342 by HaveEngngDegreeHeHe

So how do new species appear? How does God tweak the DNA? Do you realise that this would contravene the principle of conservation of energy? Please, I am waiting to be educated. I want to know what tools God uses to generate the appropriate DNA. I am sure that you must know this, or else you would not have questioned the well-tested and well-established theories.

1295. Sex for diploma offer caught on tape

Comment #164336 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 4:57 am

Comment #164333 by clintonjason

I personally believe this is typical "religious" Hypocrisy.

I don't think this is justified. To say something is typical, one really needs a good sample. This is one story.

I think the message we should be putting out (if we want to put one out) should be that you don't need religion to be moral. This story just shows the hypocrisy of one man, and seems more along the lines of "even religious people can be bad". I am not sure what that is supposed to be saying. He isn't typical of religious people.

EDIT: Quetz largely beat me to it, so I will add something a bit stronger: I think we should do better than picking up on stories like this. I would rather that stories here were of greater significance. They are understandable on PZ's blog has he posts stories of all kinds, and posts often.

1296. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164328 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 4:35 am

Comment #164326 by Vaal

I think I am perhaps trying to be optimistic. Stupidity isn't curable, whereas ignorance may be.

1297. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164324 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 4:29 am

Comment #164323 by Vaal

I think it is too easy to just call creationists we encounter here stupid. I think it can take quite a bit of brain power to try and squish science and the bible together into some kind of festering model of the world.

1298. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164315 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 3:34 am

Comment #164313 by MPhil

Thank you - I remember reading about that, but that was about 8 years ago :)

I may be wrong, but I can almost sense the lack of excitement when you read it, even after 8 years :)

1299. Sex for diploma offer caught on tape

Comment #164310 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 3:28 am

Comment #164308 by phil rimmer

Until then, proving religion poisons everything from this thin stuff just looks a bit desperate.

I agree.

1300. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164309 by Steve Zara on April 20, 2008 at 3:27 am

But isn't there always and everywhere cosmic background radiation so that there is nowhere ever "absolutely nothing"?

That stuff only has finite density, and is made out of discrete photons.

In that case I take it it's the math that tells us that in the creation of virtual particles they are not "converted" from the ever present background radiation-energy.

Yes. It is actually nothing to do with the background radiation - it is a fundamental property of the vacuum in our universe that it generate such particles.