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Comments by Quine


251. My Response to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Comment #177174 by Quine on May 8, 2008 at 5:28 pm

Spinoza, was that the artist formerly know as "Prince" until he was not known as "Prince" but is now know as "Prince"?

252. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #177144 by Quine on May 8, 2008 at 4:43 pm

txpiper, please watch this clock evolution simulation and then try to calculate the probability of the positive mutations. Note how little progress is made until the first couple of parts come together.

Oh, and Flood?

253. Faith in Britain today

Comment #177083 by Quine on May 8, 2008 at 2:21 pm

Double-talk, double-talk , double-talk and more double-talk. No way am I going to put in the time to straighten that pile of mental spagetti. Here are some telling things:

Our faith is not founded on the conclusions of reason, but it is grounded in the Logos, the expressive Word that comes from God, and it is compatible with reasoned thought.


Translation: "It's not reasonable, but we pretend it is reasonable."

The atheism we see around us today perhaps flows from an apologetic which attempted to prove God's existence independently of any religious tradition or faith, ...


Translation: "Oops, we tried to work this out logically, but messed up. Never mind!"

God is said by Christian theology to be ineffable, beyond our categories and thought capacity.


Translation: "Look, it's unthinkable, so don't try to think; just take our word for it."

Prof. Dawkins, yes go on the radio and start listing all the deities you do not believe in, so this guy can get a clue. Make sure that the listeners understand that humans have made up a very large number of deities over the ages, and if O'Connor cannot find his in there, it is probabily because it is too small to notice.

254. Gene map proves platypus is part bird, mammal and reptile

Comment #176948 by Quine on May 8, 2008 at 11:27 am

So, here you go. Any deity could convert the scientists of the world by having left a copy of scripture encoded in the junk DNA of the platty. Clearly, the animal is so strange that it screams "LOOK HERE FOR CREATION EVIDENCE!!!" however, look we do, and it is going to turn out to be just the reverse.

255. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #176893 by Quine on May 8, 2008 at 9:19 am

We are all familiar with the expression, "seeing is believing." Unfortunately, this is turned around (illogically) to "what I don't see happening, isn't happening" (although, imaginary friends seem to get a free pass on this part). Indeed, many who do not except the origin of species ideas of Darwin will, inconsistently, allow for so called "micro-evolution" because it can be seen, and thus, is much more difficult to deny. You can't deny that someone can walk down the street, but the idea that a vast number of footsteps could take you across a continent (so called "macro-evolution") is out of the question (except that it has and does happen).

So, what to do? First, it must be kept very simple. Yes, I know, the truly great parts are not simple, and you need to study how all this biochemistry works to see their grandeur. However, to make progress a simple, clear cut goal is needed; after such a goal is reached (high enough percentage understand) the next goal can be selected. The presentations by Prof. Dawkins and the writings here lead me to believe there is such a goal, and it is simply to get the public to see that the environment can do the selective breeding that we know passes down adaptation.

Why this and not the full mutation and natural selection picture? It is because they can see it. They can accept that milk cows are much changed from the wild African beasts that are those cow's ancestors. They can see all the changes in breeds of dogs. They may be willing to step up to beak changes in finches. The point is that the population in general will accept adaptation, so we should press that to get as high a percentage understanding in the population as a new base from which to extend to the next level.

Before you jump on me for this, please understand that in no way am I suggesting that evolution be watered down in the classroom; I think it should be strengthened and given to the students as the key to biological science. No concession should be made to establish that there really is any significant distinction between adaptation and speciation. The idea is simply that the talking-point style of addressing the public (which cannot convey complex classroom education) can gain us some ground, step by step, to take us to the long run destination of fuller understanding.

256. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #176668 by Quine on May 7, 2008 at 9:01 pm

Yes, Brian, I like it. Thanks.

257. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #176663 by Quine on May 7, 2008 at 8:55 pm

I guess I am going to have to get used to saying this over and over again: that evolution happens and has happened is a fact; how it happens is the subject of Darwin's theory which has been subsequently refined and supported by evidence beyond any reasonable doubt.

258. An Atheist Goes Undercover to Join the Flock of Mad Pastor John Hagee

Comment #176651 by Quine on May 7, 2008 at 8:37 pm

"Neurons that fire together wire together" Repetition of ritual rewires brains through neuroplasticity. This is, and has been, a main tool of cults (religions) throughout history.

259. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #176606 by Quine on May 7, 2008 at 6:46 pm

Chato, can you elaborate as to the nature and properties of this "spirit" concept?

260. Ken Miller on Intelligent Design

Comment #176418 by Quine on May 7, 2008 at 9:39 am

Ken Miller gave a talk at Pepperdine University in November on Darwin and Christian Faith. I give this link out to any religious person I run across because Ken is talking directly to students of religious studies on their own turf and in their own language.

261. Dumb and Dumber: A discussion between Ben Stein and Glenn Beck

Comment #175600 by Quine on May 5, 2008 at 4:58 pm

Anyone else notice the deep (and disturbing) irony of the long accusation of science killing people and then the quick mention of stem rust, which could cause the starvation of millions if those with real knowledge of biological science are not there to stop it?

Edit: also see stem rust article in the NY Times.

262. Dumb and Dumber: A discussion between Ben Stein and Glenn Beck

Comment #175500 by Quine on May 5, 2008 at 2:06 pm

As for Stein's remark about reception of his movie by believers, see my comment on the Open Letter thread.

263. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175339 by Quine on May 5, 2008 at 9:22 am

The study of formal logic has ruined me for survey questions.

264. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #175321 by Quine on May 5, 2008 at 8:31 am

Comment #175268 by BNCbright:

From a philosophical and physics perspective it's interesting to posit/assume them - but for someone trying to advocate reason and science, for the mainstream, sticking to something a bit more 'certain' might be better.


Yes, this is also a concern I have. It would not be good to make statements that can be spun around (like the aliens ref in Expelled) by calls for "Evidence?"

There is experimental evidence that (at least some parts) of the Universe behave in accordance with mathematical models developed by physicists (that is their job, after all). However, it does not follow that the numeric quantities in the models have some kind of independent existence. Someone can always come up with a different mathematical model that happens to give the same results in the experimental conditions we can test, and then claim that their numeric quantities are the real determiners of the Universe. Also, just because one can independently manipulate the value of a quantity in a model, there is no evidence that the corresponding thing (if there is one) in the Universe can be, or could have been, different, and there is no evidence that it could have been different without other changes having to go along with it.

Just stick to the evidence.

265. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #175192 by Quine on May 4, 2008 at 7:39 pm

Chris Heard, Associate Professor of Religion at Pepperdine University has written a review of Expelled on his blog. I recommend this link be given to any theists you know who might think that there is any truth in the movie. It contains things about Jonathan Wells that I did not know.

Chris also linked to this thread about the letter from Mr. J.

266. Evolution's Critics Shift Tactics With Schools

Comment #175044 by Quine on May 4, 2008 at 9:05 am

In this piece of church news it looks like the ID folks may be able to get the churches to provide an alternate venue for teaching "their side of the controversy." They are clearly justified keeping it in the church with the other unjustified beliefs, but of course, as it festers there will be constant attempts to have it ooze over onto the schools.

Also, they seem to have come around to the fact that they are going to have to concede on natural selection with regard to changes within species. I think we should take that as a win and proceed to ready all our speciation evidence for the next round.

267. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #175034 by Quine on May 4, 2008 at 8:20 am

In view of this, I believe any theist of that persuasion we can push over to, lets say, the Ken Miller wing, is one less supporter for the nutters. Probably easier said than done, but perhaps easier than trying to completely de-convert them.

Ken Miller has worked long and hard to educate young people about real science and I, for one, am thankful for what he has done, although I am not in the least happy about the church he supports. I agree that moving people from the anti-science positions over to the Ken Miller position is a worthwhile first goal. I often send links to his videos to religious people I meet to get them to consider the idea that real science does not have to be rejected out of hand.

Also, I direct the more evangelical Christian types to Francis Collins' book (even though the "inspirational" part really creeps me out) because it tells them, in their own language, that evolution is a fact and that they need to get over it.

268. Evolution's Critics Shift Tactics With Schools

Comment #175028 by Quine on May 4, 2008 at 7:53 am

(minor edit 'plus' I can't seem to get the 'plus' sign - minus '-' works fine??))


I do not know why the php code for this site filters out the + sign. You can use a character insertion code for it where &#43 gives you +. It is a bit of a burden, but then you can type 2 + 2 = 4, or the creationist form 2 + 2 = 5.

269. Evolution's Critics Shift Tactics With Schools

Comment #174924 by Quine on May 3, 2008 at 9:17 pm

This foreign enrollment will only increase while American students enrollment will decrease.

This strikes me as the most effective way to frame the subject to the elected officials. They need to understand that if they vote for bad education, the kids of their constituents will be loosing college entrance slots to kids who come from places where standards are higher (other countries or other states).

270. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174869 by Quine on May 3, 2008 at 5:21 pm

In my comment about not holding religion against earlier people, I did not intend to imply that I don't give credit to people such as Laplace and the Epicureans, and others who thought their way clear of religion even earlier.

Neither Darwin nor DNA prove the absence of all deities, but do show that the teachings of our ancient mythologies do not comport with objectively observed reality.

271. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174808 by Quine on May 3, 2008 at 3:19 pm

I should point out that Euler was a religious fanatic.

I don't hold that against anyone from before Darwin, or perhaps even before the knowledge of DNA. In the same way, it means nothing when the religious trot out such folks as "believers" to try to add weight to their myths.

272. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174804 by Quine on May 3, 2008 at 3:07 pm

Corylus, if you have not seen these, they may make you feel somewhat better:

Expelled: Ben Stein's Fall from Disgrace... to... Something Even Lower

Even right-wingers know Ben Stein is a moron

Repelled

Conservative Ben Stein insists, "Science leads you to killing people"

Arianna v. Ben Stein: Apocalypse Soon?

273. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174772 by Quine on May 3, 2008 at 12:48 pm

exp(2*i*pi)=1, welcome aboard. Another Euler fan, I presume. If you read through some of these long threads, I think you will find many things of interest.

274. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #174383 by Quine on May 2, 2008 at 10:51 am

While reading these recent invectives from the right wing I am trying to see what is causing the writers to go to such mental gymnastics to try to keep the public ignorant. There is a consistent linking of evolution, and science in general, to philosophical materialism as in the quote mining of Alfred North Whitehead in this piece.

Of course, it is easy to quote some philosopher of the past who has not seen the recent DNA sequencing results, and never heard of Tiktaalik. I think there is a deeper fear that without dualism there is no means of breaking symmetry with regard to who deserves to have the respect (and social/economic status) of righteousness and who does not.

275. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #174180 by Quine on May 1, 2008 at 8:10 pm

Thanks, Brian, for the blog link.

276. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #174140 by Quine on May 1, 2008 at 6:20 pm

Is Expelled exploiting an existing Christian game plan to link Darwin and Hitler? This piece seems to say so.

277. Pat Condell: Anthology DVD available now!

Comment #174047 by Quine on May 1, 2008 at 1:39 pm

I was very glad to hear in his latest video that "they" had measured eternity and it came out to exactly forever.

Also, I like his image of religion as the clothes on the invisible man. This explains why the pope needs that hat.

278. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #173538 by Quine on April 30, 2008 at 8:54 pm

Dick, there will be a plan for all of this if we collectively wake up and take the responsibility to make one. Else is just wishful thinking.

279. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #173503 by Quine on April 30, 2008 at 8:19 pm

Back on ontology, I usually try to do it by starting, "It is a logical contradiction to assign, to any being, the properties of ..."

I know Mike likes to take on the properties of omnipotence and omniscience. You can go on to several other properties that people have made up to assign to their deities over the centuries.

The point of Russell's Teapot is that you cannot strip away all the properties so as to leave nothing. There can always be some kind of being that we do not know about, however, it would not be like the kind of cartoon character you get in catechism class. (Yes, Dick, I also went to Catholic school.)

280. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #173492 by Quine on April 30, 2008 at 8:05 pm

Didn't we have this whole discussion a few months ago when DR didn't understand about the tiny elephant in Paula's frig?

281. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #172576 by Quine on April 29, 2008 at 6:43 pm

Yes, I know. It is an ultimate fallback they will bunker down in after loosing on heliocentricity, lightning, demon possession, faith healing, evolution, dualism, abiogenesis and fine tuning. For the laws of logic they will claim that we do not get to use the laws of logic to force a loose on them as in all the other battles.

282. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #172565 by Quine on April 29, 2008 at 6:22 pm

Well, please don't tell the IDiots or they will claim that mathematics is too complex to have been constructed without supernatural intelligence. We don't need that can of worms crawling up the blackboards.

283. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #172562 by Quine on April 29, 2008 at 6:11 pm

Bonzai:


I wonder how people would have reacted if Srinivasa Ramanujan had told us that his mathematical ideas were passed to him by the voice of Krishna.
I don't know. When I heard that I just said "fuck me!" and thought maybe I should shave my head.


Yes, the world of reason dodged a theological astroid on that one. Think about how it must have been in the ancient world when some savant was born, and then at some point in childhood started telling things that no one could figure out how he/she knew. They would call the savant "gifted" because the conventional assumption was that it was a gift from their deity (this is why the word "gifted" is now out of my vocabulary in this context, and also note that they did not tend to hold the deity responsible if the "gift" was a crippling birth defect).

From a simple probability argument you would expect that, some of the time, the "gifted" would also start telling what the voice of the deity was saying. Now you have a prophet and perhaps a religious mutation will branch off. The bottom line is that just because we cannot explain any given event of prophecy at this time, it does not mean no one will ever be able to explain it, nor does it mean that it is necessarily coming from a supernatural source.

284. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #172304 by Quine on April 29, 2008 at 12:59 pm

There is an opportunity to have a kind of "common ground" discussion with those who do believe in a "higher power" but agree that we are all better off if we (at least) drop the childish parts of religion. I would like to see this continue.

285. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #172285 by Quine on April 29, 2008 at 12:39 pm

Yes, Bonzai, he is clearly informed and so there is an interest here in him. I am interested in how parts of the brain manage to work on problems and then present the "ideas" to other parts of the brain so as to enter into the dialog of cognition. There are so many stories of how things came to people without the memory of having "worked it out" or any sense of how one came up with that.

I wonder how people would have reacted if Srinivasa Ramanujan had told us that his mathematical ideas were passed to him by the voice of Krishna.

286. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #172262 by Quine on April 29, 2008 at 12:06 pm

Karda,

I don't know if you are familiar with the work of Dr. V. S. Ramachandran at UCSD. He studies information processing in human brains. Part of that is about information origination due to some signals coming in through one modality, and then crossing over to generate experiences in another. He started with the phenomenon of synesthesia and followed that into aspects of abstract thinking. He also studies temporal lobe epilepsy and in doing so interacts with folks who report voices form supernatural beings. He has reported that some of those folks will spontaneously start writing new Gospels.

There seems to be intermediate steps and it becomes very difficult to find the line where internal experiences of cross signal metaphoric realizations go over into internal experiences of receiving communications from the supernatural. If you have not thought about this, you might want to watch this video in which he talks about the signal redirection.

287. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #171844 by Quine on April 28, 2008 at 11:38 pm

Karda:

... I suggested that the barest essence of consciousness, trapped in a time loop from the primordial universe, would be necessary to select from the extremely improbable, but infinite number of universes that would support life.

This requires two controversial physical possibilities: 1) A naturally occurring time "machine", with sufficient stability to permit the observation to happen. 2) A mechanism for a measurement, or observation to take place. The stability requirement for possibility 1 is not necessarily that stringent if the initial measurement mentioned in possibility 2 takes little time.


Did you happen to leave out:

0) the "primordial universe"

and

3) a means of selection

It seems to me that you do not get (0) until "someone" uses the time loop to go back and create (0), and you do not get "someone" unless you already have (0).

How is the "barest essence" going to do the selecting? It seems like a big job for such a bare essence, what with having to consider the vast possibilities of universes without any prior input as to how they would work out in practice. It would need to get it right (a universe with evolving life) on the first go or there is no second edition.

My basic problem here is that I am trying to see where you have something over basic Deism. Right now, I don't see it. You are postulating an uncaused cause powerful enough to make a universe with life, and then using the edit loop to bootstrap it up to a full Biblical Hairy Thunderer. My tendency at this point is to wonder if you have not, through progressive iteration, packed this with just enough complexity so you, yourself, do not see it won't work. This comes up often with inventors of purported free energy machines.

288. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #171831 by Quine on April 28, 2008 at 10:35 pm

Adam, as per your post today stating that the ID proponents were trying to poke holes in evolution, do you understand that to be poking holes in common descent, or the mechanism of diversity? Of course it could mean both, but it makes a difference in terms of what you called "the only other viable alternative."

289. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #171749 by Quine on April 28, 2008 at 6:59 pm

Karda, I thought your model had a first edition; is that wrong? Is it edits all the way down?

290. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #171743 by Quine on April 28, 2008 at 6:39 pm

I am fond of this contribution to philosophy by the Python.

291. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #171717 by Quine on April 28, 2008 at 6:08 pm

I am waiting a bit to see if Karda hangs in past the speculative physics discussion so we could move on to the associated theology. For example, suppose Fred and Ernie are two super advanced beings in the far future:

Fred: Hey Ernie, you know at some point we need to use the reverse time travel technology to start this Universe going. Is it time to go now?

Ernie: No, we can do it later, after all, we KNOW it does get done because we are here having this conversation.

Fred: Okay, but what, next week?

Ernie: Look, it really doesn't matter; whenever it gets done, that is when it gets done. I am not even sure we actually have to get it done, because the fact that we can do it may, in itself, mean that we never really have to get around to doing it.

Fred: Wow man, far out.

292. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #171708 by Quine on April 28, 2008 at 5:48 pm

Hi Steve,

I worked my way through Chalmers' book about eight years ago. Mostly what I remember is thinking that if I never read another argument from supervenience it will be too soon. However, the last time I went to Chalmers' web pages and read some recent work, I thought better of him in general.

293. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #171454 by Quine on April 28, 2008 at 1:50 pm

Dick:

... so I don't have any knowledge of the language than what I've been told.


Now you are on the right track. Go find out. Also find out if what they told you about how the texts came into existence (and were copied) is true. Read some books by historians and archeologists who have professionally worked to find out.

You can do it!!

294. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #171391 by Quine on April 28, 2008 at 1:19 pm

A reasonable interpretation of the ancient texts is that Baal has been on vacation off on another world for about 3000 years. If that is the case, I certainly hope he stays on vacation, because if he comes back here, there is going to be a whole lota smiting going on.

295. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #171259 by Quine on April 28, 2008 at 11:54 am

Well, Don't Cats Hate Dogs?

I have been noticing some patterns in comments that make me think about the biology of hate. Yes, everyone is familiar with the classic cat v. dog animosity, but we also know that if you raise kittens and puppies together, this does not happen. What is going on in the post birth mammalian brain development, and what does that tell us about ourselves?

There is a branch of psychology which deals with in-group v. out-group development and subdivisions of that are looking into the evolutionary biology and brain imaging. I am sure things will be coming out of these studies faster than I have time to track, but as for what we see here I have noticed that posters who were raised in families with more isolated subcultures tend to carry these negative preconceptions of the "others."

For example, we have had posters who did not realize they were racists (or homophobes, or blatant sexists) until they moved into communities where the things they automatically said caused umbrage. We have religious folks popping up thinking that Atheists believe in (and serve) Satan, although it makes as much sense as thinking that those who call Harry Potter fiction are actually servants of (He who must not be named).

So now we see that in-group v. out-group also seems to apply to those raised in families with heavy military participation. In this case the out-group are those who are not in this culture, and do not automatically buy into the ethos with the attached religious righteousness.

I might be all wrong, but again, it looks like a pattern from here. I salute those posters who have been able to look back at the culture of their early years and change themselves based on the power of their adult reasoning capabilities to sift out the truth.

296. Science leads to killing people

Comment #170742 by Quine on April 27, 2008 at 11:40 pm

I think I need to listen to some Vogon poetry to recover from that.

297. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #170729 by Quine on April 27, 2008 at 11:10 pm

My favorite evolution example is Bar-headed Geese. They evolved the ability to fly at over 30,000 ft because the northern drift of the Indian subcontinent pushed the Himalayan mountain range up under their migration path. This slowly selected the highest, toughest fliers each generation for thousands, if not millions, of generations.

298. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #170723 by Quine on April 27, 2008 at 10:55 pm

Remember that when Prof. Dawkins says that no species can go back down hill to get out of a local sticking point, this assumes we are talking about a constant environment or ecological niche. If you are stuck on a bad eye design, and then the environment changes (such as having your descendants swim down a cave where there is no light), down hill moves on your eye won't hurt you, so they may happen. If yet further descendants swim into a part of the cave where there is some light (and get a chance before being eaten) they will start going back up the hill and may end up on a different path.

299. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #170714 by Quine on April 27, 2008 at 10:43 pm

Adam, you will probably see this tomorrow, but on your 1% question, there is a good change the single organism that got the mutation will not make it even though it is 1% better. But with the kind of time frames in the geologic record, that same mutation will come around and other individuals will get a chance. Statically, that is all that is needed, as evolution not only works on long time intervals, but usually (especially in tiny life forms) also with numerous populations. Steve has pointed to cases when single changes in single individuals have won the day, so yes, that can happen as well.

300. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #170698 by Quine on April 27, 2008 at 10:27 pm

Adam, there are two different concepts, here, you need to follow. The first one is about the line of ancestry of living things. The second is the mechanism that drives the diversity of living things. In the first case, the fossil record and the backtracking through DNA shows that all living things are on branches of a tree structure of ancestry going back to simple single celled life. That is what we mean when we say life evolved. Parts of the ancestor picture were known before Darwin, but how that could work was not known.

The second part is about how it works: natural selection of those who can better pass on the results of random mutation, Darwin's great observation. The last 150 years have been about finding the details of this.

When people on the creationist side talk about "holes in evolution" the best they have are debates among scientists about the details of the second part. However, in the public debate, these 'holes' are redirected to sound as if they are in the first part, common ancestry. If you look carefully, you will see that ID folks do not have any case against common ancestry; the best they can do is to try to argue about the origin of life, abiogenesis. You can see that it is harder to get the public excited about the start of microbes, so they frame it as if it is about humans descending from apes, which does get to some folks.

The bottom line is that, regardless of the start of microorganisms, or some of details of the molecular mechanics of the theory, the evidence is conclusive that we did decend from ancient apes (who are now extinct) by a series of very small changes happening in each generation over a few million years.

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