1. Ben Stein Wins Intelligent Design Money

Comment #128100 by pedlar on February 16, 2008 at 7:09 am

Sally at comment 1:

This is seriously depressing. Let’s hope it never gets made.

As others have pointed out, not only has it been made and pre-released, but Dawkins (and PZ Myers among others) were deceived into appearing in it. PZ’s blog has followed the story closely, i.e.:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/09/expelled_comes_to_the_ny_times.php

On a more cheerful note, it looks like a bust for the Idiots:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/01/expelled_not_even_released_and.php

I honestly don’t know how these people sleep at night.

2. Why Darwin matters

Comment #124143 by pedlar on February 8, 2008 at 1:04 pm

I’m afraid this short paragraph:

Maybe the "fittest" firms survive in the marketplace of commerce, or the fittest theories survive in the scientific marketplace, but we should at very least be cautious before we get carried away. And of course there was Social Darwinism, culminating in the obscenity of Hitlerism.

just screams “quotemine”. Expect to see bastardised versions of it on the ID blogs any day now. Like a couple of earlier commenters - and like Charles Darwin himself - I am not happy with the Spencerian connotations of the word ‘fittest’. I wish the great man had listened to his instincts and avoided it.

At its simplest natural selection is merely an unarguable tautology: those organisms best at producing the most offspring, produce the most offspring. (Or, in post-Darwinian terms - those best at passing on their genes, pass on their genes.) Phrasing it in that unthreatening way can get you quite deep into enemy territory before they even realise they’re under attack.

3. Atheism and Violence

Comment #118012 by pedlar on January 30, 2008 at 8:18 am

IanG at #117991

asked for the "killer refutation" to the Hitler/Stalin argument. Waste of time, I'm afraid. As Sam Harris noted: they just DON'T LISTEN. Over and over again.

Meanwhile, to repeat something I posted on another thread, I can get by quite happily with this:

There are no atheist regimes. Never have been. Never will be. Never can be.

Atheism is non-belief in gods. Belief - and lack thereof - is a human attribute. Parrots cannot be atheist. Bananas cannot be atheist. Regimes cannot be atheist. Only people can be atheist.

What these idiots mean - and are too stupid to understand they mean - is either:

secular regimes - those whose government and institutions are not subject to religious pressures. The people who run such regimes may be believers or non-believers, usually a mixture of both. Think Sweden; think France; think (severely endangered) US of A. Or:

totalitarian regimes run by an atheist dictator. Think Stalin; think Hoxha; think Kim il-Sung. (But don't think Hitler. His was a totalitarian regime run by a - perverted - Christian dictator.)

In other words: Individual atheists can be evil shits.

Granted.

Next argument, please.

4. Atheism and Violence

Comment #117970 by pedlar on January 30, 2008 at 5:16 am

(Chrono Tata at #117811 got there first but I still can't let this go ... )

From Oakes' last paragraph: "... these recent tub-thumping accusations that believers are the sole source of violence."

... the sole source of violence ... ?

Show me one such quote.

Liar.

Liar.

Liar.

Liar.

Liar.

Liar.

...


P.S. Liar.

5. New atheists or new anti-dogmatists?

Comment #117375 by pedlar on January 28, 2008 at 5:11 pm

Ah well, I see Artful Dodger is trying to slip the 'Evil Atheist Regime' meme in thru the side door.

How long will such idiocy be allowed to go unpunished?

There are no atheist regimes. Never have been. Never will be. Never can be.

Atheism is non-belief in gods. Belief - and lack thereof - is a human attribute. Parrots cannot be atheist. Bananas cannot be atheist. Regimes cannot be atheist. Only people can be atheist.

What these idiots mean - and are too stupid to understand they mean - is either:

secular regimes - those whose government and institutions are not subject to religious pressures. The people who run such regimes may be believers or non-believers, usually a mixture of both. Think Sweden; think France; think (severely endangered) US of A. Or:

totalitarian regimes run by an atheist dictator. Think Stalin; think Hoxha; think Kim il-Sung. (But don't think Hitler. His was a totalitarian regime run by a - perverted - Christian dictator.)

In other words: Individual atheists can be evil shits.

Granted.

Next argument, please.

* * *
Incidentally:
Stalin's Russia
Khrushchev's Russia
Gorbachev's Russia.
Compare and contrast (to the tune of Sergeant Pepper's 'Getting Better'.)
Hm. Guess this puts me the Great Man Theory of History camp.

* * *

Once you have disabused a believer of the nonsensical idea that atheism is a belief system like communism or christianity (yes Virginia, there are half-intelligent theists out there somewhere) he will perhaps manage to formulate what he really means.

No, he probably won't, so I'll do it for him.

God is necessary to prevent people succumbing to evil. (Strong TheismTM)

* Wrong, obviously. People do succumb, therefore either God does not exist or his existence doesn't prevent people succumbing.

Okay. A BELIEF in God is necessary to prevent people succumbing to evil. (Weak TheismTM)

* Wrong. There are good atheists. There are bad believers. Belief is neither necessary nor sufficient to prevent evil.

Try again. A belief in God HELPS prevent people from succumbing to evil. (Really Feeble TheismTM)

You're sure about this? The Crusades? Nazi Germany? Al Qaeda?

Ah yes. Stalin. Pol Pot. Mao-tse Tung. And we're back where we started. Individual atheists can be evil shits.

This gets old very quickly.

6. The real danger in Darwin is not evolution, but racism

Comment #115737 by pedlar on January 24, 2008 at 3:15 pm

#202

"So I don't think that there's any question that Darwin wrote things that we'd certainly consider to be racist, assuming that the above quote is accurate."


Yes, it's accurate. It's also barely relevant.


We are in the 21st century. The age of genetics, psychology, sociology.
In Darwin's day, the tools were cruder.
You judged by what you saw. You saw mud huts, wooden spears, grass skirts.
You compared that to your own country.
You said: I am civilized, he is savage.
A crude, surface comparison, yes. But not unreasonable, all the same.

And worth saying:
Darwin may have been a racist. In his time All men were racists.
A racist simply assumes races can be ranked, some superior to others.
This was a universal belief then.
(Even the 'inferior' races bought into that: the Incas acceptance of Pizarro is a classic case.)
BUT he was not a bigot.
He did not hate or despise 'the savage'.
That is an important distinction.
And it raises him far above the accepted morality of his time.

Darwin was a good man.