151. Revealed: Secrets of the Camouflage Masters

Comment #130880 by Donald on February 21, 2008 at 12:27 pm

Experiments in Dr. Hanlon's lab have shown that they are color blind. They see a world without color, but their skin changes rapidly to any hue in the rainbow. How is that possible?

Excellent example for future textbooks when discussing the "blind watchmaker" concept. Genes are blind too. They don't know they are creating an eye, for instance. If it works, it gets selected. Great example.

152. Don't blame Islam for terrorism, expert says

Comment #130868 by Donald on February 21, 2008 at 12:13 pm

Todd does not say whether Fuller addresses the issue of the specifically territorial claims of Judaism and Islam in their religious texts. Could that have anything to do with the above-average intensity and duration of the Middle East conflicts?

153. Fleabytes

Comment #130859 by Donald on February 21, 2008 at 12:03 pm

Comment #130781 by clearthinker:

...as has happened with other threads, I am likely to be banned and posts removed...

The site gave you a platform to post your "dawkins delusion" as a featured article, which has not been removed:
http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,300,Dawkins-Delusion-3rd-article-Same-Stupid-Title,David-Robertson,page1#comments

There are a large number of your comments currently on view, including a few diverted to the alternative threads.
Had you noticed the site now gives links to all comments by given users?

David A Robertson (43 comments): http://richarddawkins.net/userComments,page1,2572
stpetes (15 comments): http://richarddawkins.net/userComments,page1,5721
The Wee Flea (107 comments): http://richarddawkins.net/userComments,page1,8260
clearthinker (13 comments): http://richarddawkins.net/userComments,page1,25843

You also had an alias "weefree".
That one didn't show up when I did an article search just now using the site's search facility.
Perhaps Josh removed that one in its entirety. If so, I suggest it might be because you used that alias to make allegations about Josh and the website which I think were false and perhaps slanderous, for example:

"Once again the incompetance, intolerance and ignorance of this site is being demonstrated."
"It is incompetant because despite being contacted by myself and my publishers you manage once again to give my book the wrong title and the wrong cover."
"I have to wonder why Josh does not correct this and continues to post information which is false."
"If the website manager wishes to perpetuate myth and falsehood then I guess it is in keeping with the rest of the site."

When I saw that post of yours, I responded.

Out of curiosity, and because I believe that all errors and misinformation should be corrected when identified, I sent an email to the contact address on the contact page of this site. It was a short polite email, pointing out your complaint above.
One day later your draft cover (with typo) had been replaced with the current cover as in your link above, as you can now see.

You continued to make allegations about Josh and the site management. It's one thing to insult other posters. It's a bit more serious to make allegations of deliberate malpractice against the site management. That might have been a factor in getting some of your comments removed, but I don't know the full story, and I didn't see all your posts.

Currently you are posting as "clearthinker" and "clearthinker"s posts have not been removed, or diverted to the alternative thread, at the time of this post.

If you are bothered about some commenters here being rude to you, I suggest you ignore them (instead of using them as propaganda) and give calm, sensible replies to calm, sensible points put to you (which would generate respect for you).

This site is actually outstandingly open, liberal, and transparent in allowing posters the freedom to directly post a wide variety of opinions without filtering by moderators. Your own website "www.freechurch.org" only presents comments that have been inspected individually by moderators - effectively "banning" every post they don't approve of.

154. Fleabytes

Comment #130702 by Donald on February 21, 2008 at 7:14 am

David,

The posting guidelines, and troll policy, have been slightly changed since the board was set up. Did you notice? They now say:

Please keep your comments clean and on-topic. Comments posted with the intent of instigating a negative response will be marked as troll comments and moved to the troll thread for that article. Repeat offenders may be permanently relegated to the troll threads.

In other words, posters are not necessarily diverted to the alternative thread. If they post appropriately on one thread, those posts can remain, even if posts on another thread have been diverted. And note, posts are not deleted - they are still there for all to see, and respond to, when they get placed in the alternative thread.
Your "clearthinker" alias has not been marked as troll, despite Josh being notified months ago that clearthinker seemed to be you. So, I think it would be possible for clean, on-topic, non-trolling posts by clearthinker to remain on this thread.

Your demand to be "unbanned" seems to me to be an excuse for not responding to Paula, rather than a real reason.

P.S. If you want to make sure a response to Paula by you appears on this thread, sent it to me by private message, and I'll post it. (And, if you don't fancy using me as your postman, I'm sure there are plenty of reliable others here who will be willing to do it instead.) You can get a reply posted here, seen by everyone, in the main thread, if you want to.

155. Fleabytes

Comment #130611 by Donald on February 21, 2008 at 1:49 am

Excellent reviews, Paula.

While I'm posting, here are a couple of couple of additional comments on David Robertson's letters.

In the first, introductory, letter he refers a couple of times to Dawkins' phrase "raising consciousness". He does not seem to realise that Dawkins meant "raising awareness", i.e. bringing the matter [of problems due to religion] to the conscious attention of people. Robertson has interpreted "raising conciousness" to mean a higher level of consciousness, i.e. a claim of superiority. Having failed to understand Dawkins on this point, Robertson goes on to criticise Dawkins for, in effect, insulting people with religious belief.

Robertson accuses Dawkins of "seeming to think that anyone who is religious is actually at a lower level of consciousness and needs to be set free by becoming an atheist". At this stage, I think Robertson has a good point in mind. Robertson is using the wrong word. He is using the word consciousness, echoed out of context from Dawkins. But I think that what Robertson really has in mind is that Dawkins "seems to think that anyone who is religious is actually at a lower level of knowledge". Although this is still wrong [Dawkins does not think that all people who are religious lack knowledge], this is getting to a valid point. Dawkins does indeed think that religious beliefs are associated with lack of knowledge, and that much religious belief would fade away if people were better educated about some of the things that the last three hundred years of scientific endeavour have discovered.


Robertson also seems to have failed to understand Dawkins on another matter and writes "you tell us that although when it comes to biology you are a strict Darwinianist, when it comes to politics, society etc you cannot go that route. Social Darwinianism would bring Hell on earth." It is clear from this writing, that Robertson has failed to understand Dawkins, and, if he read "The Selfish Gene", did not understand a crucial section. Yes, genes are selfish. BUT, the creatures they specify, and in particular humans, need not be. Genes can, and do, specify creatures that behave altruistically. Societies of such creatures can be, and are, very sucessful in evolutionary terms, i.e. sucessful in creating more and more creatures containing those genes. "Social Darwinism" is another straw man thrown up by Robertson. Dawkins does not advocate it, it is NOT a consequence of atheism, and it is wrong to smear Dawkins by placing a mention of "Social Darwinism" in connection with Dawkins' books.


Clearthinker writes:

Why is the Wee Flea not allowed to respond? If the official Dawkins website sees fit to post a whole article which deconstructs his book, then why ban him from responding to it? It only provides ammunition to the accusation that this is a closed minded site only for the true believers. And it allows the Wee flea (aka David Robertson) to tell people that the Dawkins website has banned him. And I am still unclear as to why he was banned. Invite him to return and respond. I'm sure Josh and others know how to get hold of him.

David, your "clearthinker" alias has not been marked as a troll, even though Josh was informed that "clearthinker" seems to be you. So Respond away - just put your real name at the foot of your postings as you did before with the previous aliases....and follow the posting guidelines

Please keep your comments clean and on-topic. Comments posted with the intent of instigating a negative response will be marked as troll comments and moved to the troll thread for that article.

[Edit]: I accidentally submitted a partial version of this post, and immediately deleted it, to give me time to repost it, but such is the speed of this board that Roland_F had already seen the partial version and responded! So that is why post #130602 is missing, yet post #130609 refers to it!

156. Happy Birthday Josh Timonen!

Comment #118935 by Donald on January 31, 2008 at 7:36 am

Happy Birthday Josh.
You've done a fantastic job on this site, and all without any help from god.
No reward from god either, so you'll just have to make do with the thanks and support of thousands of fellow humans.
Happy birthday.

157. New Findings Confirm Darwin's Theory: Evolution Not Random

Comment #113455 by Donald on January 19, 2008 at 3:28 pm

Ok, I've read the paper now. http://www.current-biology.com/content/article/fulltext?uid=PIIS0960982207021938

Cancel my inappropriate speculations.

It's an interesting paper, but it's not about whether variations tend to be favourable or not.

It's about alternative ways to get a successful result in the adult organism. The question was: do the different developmental steps found in different worms (for "development" read "growth from egg to adult via embryo") arise from neutral variation in the genes (neutral = giving neither advantage nor disadvantage to the individual) or from natural selection pressure.

They found that the gene evolution (as inferred from gene similarities) was largely due to natural selection pressure, not drift amongst equally satisfactory alternatives.

Apologies for the earlier post.

158. New Findings Confirm Darwin's Theory: Evolution Not Random

Comment #113433 by Donald on January 19, 2008 at 3:00 pm

Steve:
I haven't read the paper. All my speculations in the previous post should be taken as just that - speculations.

Plus, the ScienceDaily article confuses development with evolution. I thought I could read though that to a reasonable interpretation of what the paper said. But on reflection I'm much more doubtful. Thanks for the sentence from the abstract Vinelectric - do you have the whole abstract?

As far as genes controlling direction of variations goes - I didn't have in mind direct control of mutations. I rather had in mind that things like size might be the result of promoter genes or other forms of control gene that might be switchable up or down from generation to generation.

159. New Findings Confirm Darwin's Theory: Evolution Not Random

Comment #113403 by Donald on January 19, 2008 at 1:59 pm

[ Edit: This post was made before I read the paper, and turned out to be irrelevant and inaccurate speculation. I have left it here because later comments referred to it. ]

I think what is being claimed is that observed variation is not random in respect of whether it is advantageous or disadvantageous to the organism. Rather, that advantageous variation is much more common than disadvantageous variation.

This implies that there is well-developed layer of genes that control variation (I nearly wrote "control mutations", but it might be necessary to distinguish the two).

How could that possibly be?

Well, one obvious suggestion is that species on earth have gone through numerous repetitive cycles of the environment. Evolving for a warmer climate, then evolving back to a cooler climate, evolving for wetter conditions, then drier, etc. (Perhaps on a faster scale, for much simpler organisms that reproduce in days rather than years, evolving for longer days, then for shorter days, etc.)

In such an evolutionary history, if any genes existed that could control the direction of evolution of certain other genes which themselves directed such things as size, weight, bodily proportions, etc, then genomes with that extra layer of elaboration would evolve/adapt faster than simpler organisms. For example, imagine a master gene that could be switched to "mutate to larger size more often than smaller", or "mutate to smaller size more often". An organism with such a master gene would adapt to changes in environment that favoured a change in size, faster than random mutations. Those organisms with the master switch set to larger would tend to die out in environments that favoured smaller organisms until the organisms were about the right size, than the allele frquency of the master switch would again approach 50-50 until the next change in the environment.

To go back to the nematodes, perhaps the nematodes being studied did not come from an environment in which they had achieved evolutionary equilibrium, and evolution control genes were biased in a favourable evolutionary direction.

In general, of course, environments are continually changing due to evolution itself. The environment of orgainsisms is partly non-biological and partly the presence of the other species, all continually evolving too, and providing competitive pressure along the way. Master genes, controlling the mutation/evolution of other genes might themselves be subject to natural selection. I suspect there is a whole complex layer of master genes in higher animals.

160. The Group Delusion

Comment #112430 by Donald on January 17, 2008 at 5:04 am

Clicking the troll button only generates a message for the attention of the admins.
You have to directly email "design@richarddawkins.net" to get Josh's attention.
However, solving the wooter problem may not be simple, because the database(s) behind the site have accumulated minor inconsistencies - wooter was showing as "does not exist" long before your comment #111944 ~168.
I suspect the database anomaly has prevented a simple diverson to the ACT.
I emailed Josh a couple of days ago to draw his attention to the database anomaly. It may not be a priority, given all he has to do. If more users email about it though, it may raise the priority.

161. The Group Delusion

Comment #112413 by Donald on January 17, 2008 at 3:55 am

Wooter, you are right. Elementary reason does indeed tell us that there is a god that created everything, and it makes me sad to see insults posted on this site.

Found on the internet: 'Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggie" while looking around for a rock email to Josh.'

162. Science, Evolution, and Creationism

Comment #112402 by Donald on January 17, 2008 at 3:35 am

Re: NOMA in the NAS publication

Here is the text from the summary:

Science and Religion Offer Different Ways of Understanding the World
Science and religion address separate aspects of human experience.
Many scientists have written eloquently about how their scientific studies of biological
evolution have enhanced rather than lessened their religious faith. And many religious
people and denominations accept the scientific evidence for evolution.
Our education system and our society as a whole are best served when we teach science,
not religious faith, in science classrooms.

I think sentences 1 and 2 are ambiguous, but I think the other statements are clearly true, and I especially like the final sentence. The NAS is relecting the reality that at the present time, significant numbers of scientists accept NOMA. It is a report by committee (which will include some god-believers) addressed to a vast and diverse community containing large numbers of people who will reject (without rational consideration) anything which does not give room for them to maintain their belief in god.

I'm for what works, and dislike appeasement policies, which so often allow bad situations to grow, but trying for too much at once is also unwise. The NAS is not aiming to get religious belief out of society, it's limiting its objective to get religion out of science teaching. Seems appropriate for an organisation called NAS, in the present circumstances in the USA.

163. The Group Delusion

Comment #111391 by Donald on January 14, 2008 at 1:56 pm

tribalypredisposed:

It's a colourful metaphor - selfish mutants as infecting agents in altruistic groups (an alternative would be the cancer cell metaphor). But I very much doubt that interference between selfish mutants could be sufficient to hold them in check in any realistic model.

Your metaphor suggests reduced "virulence", due to simple-selfishness being too lethal to the group. I assume you have in mind that altruism/selfishness would be a variable (like height) rather than an on/off switch. I suppose there might be some reason why the effect of variable degrees of selfishness in individuals could be different from the effect on the group of varying numbers of selfish individuals, but I can't immediately see any clear reason.

In any case the hoped-for model would have to exhibit co-evolution of the altruism/selfishness attribute together with between-group evolution to sustain low levels of selfishness in the population. It is perhaps possible given suitable assumptions about the groups (which would have to be held together by more than altruism I think).


Here is how I see the main issues of group selection:

I think the key to a theory of group selection is not to involve altruism initially. If group selection really is a significant factor in evolution, I think that genes for group formation would have evolved first, and non-kin-altruism (& selfishness) would be follow-ons.

I would think that genes for group formation would generate behaviours such as: discrimination between in-group (familiar individuals) and out-group (unfamiliar individuals); avoidance or hostility to outgroup individuals; cooperation in food finding, food sharing, within group members; reciprocity, tit for tat; obedience to dominant leaders; division of labour (eg lookouts, scouts, food and territory defence, hunting) etc. At the very earliest stages of group evolution, groups would be family. In later stages, communities of cooperating families could be groups. Group selection pressure would come from (a) success in cooperation (b) fighting for territory or other resources.

In humans, language would have exploded the possibilities available to groups by transmission of skills and knowledge, e.g.: fire and cooking (perhaps the biggest single skill that separated humans from other primates); farming with the key skills of gathering and planting seeds, plus storage of food between seasons; clothes; boats; etc (not to mention weapons and warfare, of course). Such transmissible skills could have provided huge survival differentials between groups.

The group selection sceptic might say, " but all those things could happen without group selection". Indeed they could. But the question is whether, if genes promoting group formation exist, the evolution might proceed faster with groups than without. If genes for group formation exist, and credible mathematical models were to show that evolution would proceed faster with the aid of groups, then there would have to be a very strong reason indeed to disbelieve in group selection.

Is the argument "free-loaders would wreck group cooperation" that strong reason? No, because I am postulating that cooperation and tit for tat would be the principal drivers for group success - no altruism required.

So, could groups speed up evolution? Speed up = explore a larger fraction of the genome space in a given time. Two things assist here. One, a larger diversity of genomes, and two, a larger difference in survival rates between phenotype vehicles. Can it be shown that groups enhance these two things? I don't know, but it seems quite possible to me.

If it could be established that groups could speed up evolution, and it could also be shown that altruism could subsequently be ESS against selfishness in a group-oriented population, then DS Wilson could eventually be a happy man. (And RD would of course willingly accept group selection if it were based on credible mathematical models and sound biological evidence - his past objection has been mainly to faulty arguments.)

164. George Scales, War Hero and Generous Friend of RDFRS

Comment #111382 by Donald on January 14, 2008 at 1:41 pm

What a heart-warming story!

Best wishes to you George, and congratulations.

I am glad to see such inspirational stories coming from atheists - it is such a welcome change from the "praise be to god" variety.

165. The Group Delusion

Comment #111225 by Donald on January 14, 2008 at 4:46 am

SZ: I agree that people use the word troll somewhat differently. I react to what I perceive as the ratio of disruption to useful stimulus, and to what I perceive as the possibilities for education and enlightenment (in either direction). Wooter scores so low on those measures that I flagged him as a troll (in the hope that he would be sidelined into the alternate comment thread - we agree about that). I regarded DR and DG as scoring much more favourably on those measures.

166. The Group Delusion

Comment #111219 by Donald on January 14, 2008 at 4:11 am

Comment #111210 by wooter:

I will go on asking my questions. Actually the answers lie in the questions;

Wooter is right. It is clear from his questions that the answer wooter seeks is: "you are right wooter".

This post is not to answer wooter though, it is a request to everyone else. Please, please, do not reply to wooter any more on this site. (Do not feed this troll.)
I rarely make this kind of comment. Heck, I even requested Josh to untroll David Robertson back before he sprouted aliases (Josh replied courteously to me, but he had already made up his mind.) But wooter is polluting this site. He has already been given lots of opportunity to post freely, and has been answered politely and informatively many times. Enough. Troll.

167. The Group Delusion

Comment #110772 by Donald on January 12, 2008 at 11:20 am

Thanks for that spiderdancer. You are right that we should distinguish kin altruism from group altruism.
And you are right that "pure" group altruism is subject to subversion from within, and so the relative timescales (in terms of number of generations) within group and of entire groups would require particular conditions.

However, altruism does not have to be all or nothing. It can be about taking risk. If risk-takers within the group receive mating preferences within the group, the risky-and-altruistic behaviour could be ESS.

The group-selection question is really about whether these familiar evolutionary processes are enhanced if the species forms competitive groups, or whether they would proceed at the same rate without. The groups have to have certain properties. They must have genetic variance (the more numerous they are, the stronger the effect), and compete/thrive/wither/splinter sufficiently rapidly to achieve significant natural selection effect. I'm not sure if there are sufficiently detailed models of the right kind yet.

168. The Group Delusion

Comment #110760 by Donald on January 12, 2008 at 10:31 am

Yes, but not all levels of selection work. Genes just don't seem to express their function at the level of a group. It is primarily within individuals and kin, as measured by "inclusive fitness".- Steve Zara

This is the 64K question. Do any genes have the effect of creating groups, and do their alleles significantly help or hinder those groups in reproductive fitness, leading to the familiar evolutionary spiral?

What do we mean by a group? I'd say its a mating pool within a species. I.e. a group of individuals that have a preference for mating within the group, rather than with non-group individuals.

As far as humans are concerned, we'd have to ask:
Do groups exist?
Do groups compete? I.e. does their reproductive success depend on competition with other groups for limited resources, rather than on other (environmental or accidental) factors.
Are genes capable of influencing behaviour at a detailed enough level? (Or is group behaviour almost entirely cultural = memetic)
If genes are capable, have they in fact supplied significant influence, or are human groups purely cultural (in which case we are looking at memetic evolution, not genetic evolution).
If so, has this been going on long enough to have applied significant selection pressure on the gene prevalences?
If so, has Altruism developed because of its benefits to the group, as well as to kin close enough to have significant genes in common?

It seems to me that genes promoting Altruism, and well as genes promoting cooperation and communication, could have received selection advantage via groups.

As ever, IMO, YMMV.

169. The Group Delusion

Comment #110757 by Donald on January 12, 2008 at 9:59 am

Being altruistic sometimes and selfish sometimes is also good for allowing a balance between individual fitness competition within the group and the group fitness needs that follow from group selection (and also from other possible circumstances).
I attempted to get to the point in another thread where I could introduce my own attempts at solving all of this, but could not get to the point where the evolution of altruism was even accepted as a problem. If people here are interested I will attempt it here. - tribalypredisposed

I'd be interested.

170. The Group Delusion

Comment #110750 by Donald on January 12, 2008 at 9:27 am

It has been addressed by scientific research, and group selection is shown to be untenable when side by side with gene-selection. The frustration shown by Richard is because Sloan Wilson has continually ignored the science. I have been to several of SW's talks on Group Selection and the rise of religion - and he says nothing new, and nothing that cannot be explained by good old gene selection. - beth

It hasn't received much scientific research, in part because of Richard's influential writings. Such research as there was, consists of models which failed to show group selection being part of ESS's. This could be because Richard is right that group selection does not occur, or it could be because the models are too crude. Recently there has been some research into new models, e.g. under the label "multi-level selection". It's a resurgence of group selection theory. My money would be on group selection.

I'm never sure what different people mean when they say "gene selection". I hope it is understood by all that:
o) gene evolution is a property of the entire population, not individuals;
o) natural selection never takes place at the gene level, only at the level of their reproduction vehicles (i.e. individuals in the population, and - the contentious one - groups of individuals);
o) "gene" is ambiguous - at times meaning a protein-encoding sequence of codons, at times meaning whatever collection of codon strings within the genome is a "unit" of selection (i.e. thrives or withers within the population as an entity), and at times meaning an allele (gene variants).
o) the prevalence of a gene in the population is the result of historical natural selections acting on individuals.

What did you mean by "gene selection"?

171. Why (Almost All) Cosmologists are Atheists

Comment #110603 by Donald on January 11, 2008 at 3:17 pm

I have no training in this field but Brian Greene in his "Fabric of the Cosmos" explains that the second law of thermodynamics is time symmetrical. He gives an example of a melting ice cube.
In reverse theres is an apparent decrease in entropy as the water freezes but this comes at the expense of the cooling device operating to bring this about and, effectively, increasing overall entropy.
Is this not true? - Vinelectric

I haven't read "Fabric of the Cosmos", so I don't know exactly what Brian Greene said there, but the second law applies to closed systems only. If you consider only the ice cube in the forward direction of time, and the ice cube plus a cooling device in the backward direction, you are not considering the same system. If you only consider the ice cube part of the ice+fridge system, in either direction of time, the ice cube will not be a closed system.

172. Why (Almost All) Cosmologists are Atheists

Comment #110596 by Donald on January 11, 2008 at 2:59 pm

Differential equations are the "patterns" that Carroll talks about.

Perhaps, but there is more to physics than just differential equations. My critical reaction to Carroll's piece was because I felt he was introducing significant distortions into his descriptions of modern science, even though he ended up with a conclusion that I agreed with.

173. Why (Almost All) Cosmologists are Atheists

Comment #110575 by Donald on January 11, 2008 at 2:01 pm

If you are dealing with laws that are time symmetric you can just as easily calculate what happened before your boundary conditions as after. So there is no justification for saying that the "after" case was caused by the boundary conditions, but that the conditions before were not. - Friend Giskard

Only if time-symmetric laws are a complete physical description. It is clear from QM that current laws of physics are not a complete description, even though they make stunningly accurate predictions. It is a matter of practical experience that time is asymmetric, and although there is no consensus on why practical experience and the second law do not derive from current physics alone, mainstream science does not assume that it is equally correct to say current states cause previous states. What has this got to do with differential equations?

174. Why (Almost All) Cosmologists are Atheists

Comment #110549 by Donald on January 11, 2008 at 1:21 pm

Donald and Steve Zara you are both talking out of your arses. - Friend Giskard

Presumably you mean that I said something incorrect. What do you think was incorrect?

Do you know anything about differential equations? - Friend Giskard

Yes. One of my degrees is in Mathematics. Your point is?

(BTW the 2nd law of thermodynamics is not a fundamental law.) - Friend Giskard

I agree that it isn't a fundamental law in the sense of describing particle motions and interactions. That is why I referred to it using the terminology: "regularity uncovered by physicists". Do you have a point other than criticising the entrenched terminology of "second law"?

175. Why (Almost All) Cosmologists are Atheists

Comment #110536 by Donald on January 11, 2008 at 12:45 pm

You might be tempted to say that the particular state at the first time ''caused'' the state to be what it was at the second time; but it would be just as correct to say that the second state caused the first. - Sean Carroll

The second half of that sentence is rubbish. It is true that many of the regularities that physics has uncovered in the last century are symmetric in time, and thus could be regarded as operating in either direction, but others are not, e.g. second law of thermodynamics. Mainstream scientists do not believe that it is "just as correct to say that the second state caused the first".

176. Why (Almost All) Cosmologists are Atheists

Comment #110523 by Donald on January 11, 2008 at 12:31 pm

It is important from the outset to distinguish between two related but ultimately distinct concepts: a picture of how the world works, and a methodology for deciding between competing pictures. - Sean Carroll

This illustrates a common error amongst non-scientists. They often see science as primarily providing explanations, or stories, or descriptions of the world. This is a far-reaching conceptual error. Science is about predictions. Explanations, narratives and descriptions are useless to science, and are not scientific, unless they supply testable predictions. This error (of overlooking the need for testable predictions) is so pervasive that I think scientists need to mention predictions every time they offer a scientific explanation or description for consumption by non-scientists.

177. Another critic who hasn't read the book

Comment #110512 by Donald on January 11, 2008 at 12:14 pm

Comment #110486 by emilycondon:

The piece I wrote was initially somewhat longer, and the line about Dawkins was an attempt at a little playful humor that as it stands falls somewhat flat.

Any chance you could post the original version here, so we could enjoy your humor as intended?

178. The Group Delusion

Comment #110458 by Donald on January 11, 2008 at 8:12 am

Interesting, this group selection controversy. I mean the hostility in the language used betwen DS Wilson and Dawkins is interesting, not so much the issue of group selection itself.

Group selection seems compatible with natural selection. All that is required is for genes to set up groups, and those groups to persist long enough for selection between groups to be a significant force in the evolution of the species. Whether this actually happens in species other than ant colonies is an interesting scientific question. It could be addressed by calm scientific research, in polite tones. Yet Wilson and Dawkins have been trading insults for years.

THAT is an interesting scientific question for sociologists I guess. I am reminded of the advice of Deep Thought to the philosophers: "argue vociferously in public and you'll be on the gravy train for life". I am sure that Wilson and Dawkins have not entered into their dispute frivolously or cynically, but it is an interesting social phenomenon.

Just an observation, Richard, in case you read this. No need to direct any fire in my direction.

179. Religious Freedom in Military Questioned

Comment #100915 by Donald on December 19, 2007 at 3:25 pm

al-rawandi wrote:

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam really misses the point. It is fundamentalist Christian ranting. Robert Spencer has a Master's degree (UNC), he focused on Monophysites and Catholicism(John Henry Newman). It doesn't seem he has bothered himself with Arabic, Persian, or Urdu. He is a waste of time as a scholar, and his books suck.

Spencer is a Catholic, so does not have my unequivocal support, but when I have inspected his claims about the Koran and Hadith in the context of the teachings of Islam, I have have found them accurate. He is an Arabic speaker and reader.

180. Clegg 'does not believe in God'

Comment #100907 by Donald on December 19, 2007 at 3:06 pm

I can't comprehend how an atheist would be committed to bringing up his children as Catholics.

The Roman Catholic church has a long-standing policy of requiring its deluded to get the prospective spouse to agree, prior to any commitment to a wedding, to bring up the children as Catholic. This is a non-negotiable condition for Catholics marrying non-Catholics. In theory at least, the deluded cannot remain Catholics if they cannot get the prospective spouse to agree to this condition. I.e. the penalty for non-compliance is excommunication.

This is a despicable feature of Catholic indoctrination, but is (ironically) transparently darwinian in terms of the propagation of the RC memes.

Nick would have had to agree to this to obtain the woman he chose. It speaks to his honesty that he is keeping his word. (I suspect, and hope, that he is nevertheless talking to his children about his own views, and instilling some ideas of critical thinking and scientific knowledge.)

181. Debate: Ayaan Hirsi Ali vs Ed Husain

Comment #93578 by Donald on December 3, 2007 at 2:27 pm

In this thread a query was raised, to paraphrase: "why criticise Ed Husain for not taking the Koran more literally?"

Some people support EH for being a moderate and trying to reform Islam - some people condemn him for not rejecting Islam.

Although RD does it in a very restrained and polite way, RD condemns religious moderates, because they give cover to the fundamentalists.

As regards why it is rational to criticise EH for not interpreting the Koran as the Wahabis do, here is why. It comes from the "reject Islam completely approach". EH is setting out on a path that requires balancing two conflicting demands. One demand comes from the centre of all mainstream Islams. This demand is that the Koran be regarded as the direct and final word of Allah, and declares that anyone who says otherwise is not a true Muslim. The other demand is from the combined weight of accumulated human knowledge, including humanity's moral codes outside Islam, which calls for re-interpreting the Koran.

The result of these conflicting pressures is not satisfactory. Essentially EH's compromise is to pay lip service to the idea that the Koran is the direct word of Allah, while offering new interpretations.

The weakness of the EH approach is that the root of the trouble is the belief that the Koran is the direct word of Allah. Humanity will not be rid of outbreaks of fundamentalist Islam until that belief is discredited.

So it is rational to challenge EH to take the Koran more literally, in an attempt to introduce cognitive dissonance within EH. Perhaps EH could become like AHA and be a voice against the belief that the Koran is the direct word of Allah. But it may be hoping for too much - AHA requires 24 hour protection. I doubt EH is up for that lifestyle. Anyway, that is why I see rationality rather than fundamentalism in the "you aren't taking the Koran literally enough" criticism thrown at EH.

Of course, it is also rational to applaud Islamic moderates like EH, even though it weakens the "where are the moderates?" cries which have been rather effective in criticising Islam recently. Those EH supporters might ask which is better - the loss of the "where are the moderates?" cry, or the conversion of hardline Muslims to a milder ideology?

Me? I favour the RD approach.

182. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #92893 by Donald on December 1, 2007 at 5:18 pm

Ludacrispat26: Well done for organising this debate, and posting the videos. My verdict is that Dennett did a great job. No other antagonist got D'Souza to admit that religions were man-made inventions, forced him into defending a Deist position only, and got him to admit that he (D'Souza) needed to read Dennett's books on morality and consciousness. As usual, D'Souza sprinkled so many false statements and non-sequiturs into his rapid-fire delivery that it was exceedingly hard to pin him down.

Regarding the fine-tuning argument, Russell writes:

People here often seem to miss the strength of the fine-tuning argument. It's not really that the universe is fine-tuned for life. It's that the universe is fine-tuned for any sort of complexity at all. It looks as if there has to be an explanation as to how there is an internally-complex universe, when almost any combination of possible physical constants and other basic givens would yield a universe without complexity - perhaps one that doesn't last long enough, perhaps one that never expands, perhaps one that expands too fast, etc.

It is worth noting there is a difference between current theories of the universe and the universe itself. Our best current theories are excellent at predicting physical behaviour with unprecented, amazing precision. But they are mathematical formulas combined with various assumptions. We don't know what the actual universe is.
Ante Kepler, the motions of the planets could be predicted to high accuracy, by means of circles, and circular motions around the current point on that circle, and then circular motions about the current point on that circle, etc. The system was called epicycles. It had a long history. Thousands of years ago, the greeks made gadgets called astrolabes, looking like 19th century clockwork, that computed the positions of the planets by this means. To get high accuracy, multiple epicycles were needed, making it possible to predict planetary motions with high accuracy, but the theory had complex structure, needing various critical numbers (the ratios of the various diameters of the circles, and the speeds of movement around each circle) to get the desired accuracy. The theory was successful however, and people at the time generally assumed that the planets moved in epicycles, rather than regarding epicycles as merely the best available model of the motions.
Post Kepler, the same accuracy could be obtained by far fewer numbers and a simple formula, operating on a quite different principle. Universal gravitation was discovered soon after, and the complex epicycle theory was seen to be a poor theory, despite its great precision (for its time) because there was a simpler, even more precise way to describe the motions, which was discovered to apply to all motions observed throughout the universe.
In the 20th century a proliferation of "elementary" particles was discovered, with even more "magic numbers" than the current theories. The best available model of physical motions today, the "standard model", is simpler, using only 26 (currently) key numbers, and if those 26 numbers are chosen right, they model the entire universe as perfectly as we know how to measure it. But it is still a model. Most physicists suspect an even simpler model will one day be discovered, using different principles and fewer numbers still.
We just don't know whether the actual universe requires fine tuning to obtain interesting complexity within it or not. The fact that our current best model requires fine tuning is a property of the model, and we should not assume, as so many popular science writers do, that the underlying universe is (in the sense of perfectly isomorphic to) our current model. That wasn't true for past models, and there are good reasons to think it isn't true of our current models.

183. Debate: Ayaan Hirsi Ali vs Ed Husain

Comment #92707 by Donald on December 1, 2007 at 9:14 am

Vinelectric refers to:

Quran 60:8
Allah forbids you not, with regard to those who fight you not for (your) Faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them: for Allah loveth those who are just.

This says "allah does not forbid, i.e. allows". In other words, you are not obliged to treat nonbelievers harshly. The following verse, 60:9 says:

Allah forbiddeth you only those who warred against you on account of religion and have driven you out from your homes and helped to drive you out, that ye make friends of them. Whosoever maketh friends of them - (All) such are wrong-doers.

In other words, you are religiously obliged to treat those who have warred with you on account of religion as enemies, and any muslim who subsequently makes friends with such people is a wrong doer.

So, 60:8 contrasts with 60:9 in that 60:9 forbids fraternising with the enemy, but 60:8 says muslims can still treat them with justice.

Incidentally, chapter 60 is not talking about apostates, rather it is about the people mohammed has been fighting while still in Mecca.

Chapter 60 ends with 60:13

O you who believe! do not make friends with a people with whom Allah is wroth; indeed they despair of the hereafter as the unbelievers despair of those in tombs.

Elsewhere there are numerous verses which state in perfectly clear and unambiguous terms that allah hates nonbelievers and will throw them into hellfire. And other verses which state that allah will reward those who follow his path.

Where there are anti-hate-propagating laws, the Koran should be the first to be banned!

To be fair, the Koran also contains even more numerous verses advocating peace, kindness, mercy, etc. Great, but careful reading, in context, and taking the Koran as a whole, leads me to the conclusion that those benign instructions are for muslims towards other muslims. Religion of peace? Well, yes in one way - but only when all people in the world have been converted to muslims.

My source: http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/

184. 'Muhammad' teddy teacher arrested

Comment #91422 by Donald on November 28, 2007 at 9:18 am

From the article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7117430.stm :

Foreign Secretary David Miliband has said he will summon the Sudanese ambassador "as a matter of urgency". A spokesman said the first step was to "understand the rationale behind the charge", something which would be discussed by Mr Miliband and the ambassador as soon as possible.

Using my telepathic precognitive powers gifted to me by my imaginary friend, I am able to share this future conversation:
Miliband: Why have you charged Ms Gibbons with serious charges simply for letting children name a teddy bear?
Sudanese ambassador: To get rid of interferring westerners and scare off any others from coming here, so we can get on with our genocide in Darfur and the Islamic totalitarianisation of Sudan.
Miliband: Oh, that's all right then. We thought for a moment you had something against Ms Gibbons personally. I hope you will be able to keep us informed of the developments in this case?
Sudanese ambassador: We will do that.
Miliband: Thank you very much. That's very helpful.

The days of gunboat diplomacy are gone. But I'm not too sure that appeasement and softly-softly are any better.

185. Bankrolling Ali's Asylum

Comment #91348 by Donald on November 28, 2007 at 5:38 am

To give Ali two million dollars per year so that she can live in the country she likes when in her own country of Somalia so many children die of hunger right now – is obscene. (See:
http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2007/11/22/fighting_fractures_families_in_somalia/ ) - Dianelos

From that article:

The fighting intensified after Islamic insurgents killed and publicly mutilated several soldiers from Ethiopia, which is allied with the government here.
In all, 1 million Somalis have been displaced by the violence, the United Nations refugee agency said Tuesday.

The war in Somalia is driven by, amplified by, supported by, the very religious belief that Ayaan is telling the world about. Ayaan's life story brings attention to the religious madness that is at the heart of this war. She is doing humanity a long-term service by publicising it, and I wholeheartedly support that.

I also gave money to the Red Cross for refugee relief. But that's merely alleviating the symptoms. I'd rather deal with the cause.

However, I agree with you that 2 million per year is grossly disproportionate if she could remain in Holland. That is why my own donation was aligned to a more modest (hypothetical) goal of supporting her safety on intermittent travel, rather than 24/7/365 protection in the USA.

BTW, did you read her book Infidel? If not, I recommend it.

186. Bankrolling Ali's Asylum

Comment #91221 by Donald on November 27, 2007 at 4:56 pm

Hi again Dianelos,

First, let me apologise for leaving our short exchange about QM on one of the McGrath threads unfinished.
As you probably guessed it was not that I felt your response had floored me, but rather that I was trying to spend more time on other things.
Steve99 gave you a number of very good comments afterwards, so I felt it was not too important for me to respond.

Regarding your "New Atheism" comments on this thread, I actually agree with some of your points. Of course, it is not really the case that "Religion poisons everything" - that's just a title to generate book sales. Religious belief does a lot of good in the world.

However I thoroughly support Hitchens and Harris, and Dawkins of course, in their attacks on religion, and their focus on the bad effects of organised monotheistic religions. On this site, commenters concentrate on the bad effects of religion, and barely acknowledge the good. That's ok with me. My judgement is that the bad heavily outweighs the good.

The good comes mostly from the effect on individuals, and I think nearly everyone here is ok with individuals holding whatever personal beliefs about deities they like, provided those beliefs don't include telling non-believers what to do, teaching that non-believers are bad people, claiming the right to rule whole communities on behalf of their imaginary fairy, indoctrinating vulnerable people with beliefs in their fairy, and simultaneously indoctrinating them with memes that suppress any expression of dissent, doubt or disrespect for belief in the imaginary fairy in question.

And it is from the proviso that the bad effects come. Those bad effects are amplified by the tendency of religions to latch onto and perpetuate - for centuries - conflicts arising originally from fighting for control of resources, which would have been forgotten a few generations later without the ingroup-outgroup labelling which accompanies the propagation of each particular brand of imaginary fairy.


As regard charitable donations, I give to worthy causes, worldwide. I would give more if there was greater transparency, and finer control over the destination of the funds.


I made a small donation for Ayaan's security guards. It wasn't large since (as I understand it) the Dutch were prepared to continue protection indefinitely if she was living in Holland.

Will you be contributing, Dianelos?

187. 'Muhammad' teddy teacher arrested

Comment #91183 by Donald on November 27, 2007 at 1:38 pm

Vinelectric wrote:

[...] read this link and educate yourselves about the status of non believers in Islam.
http://www.gawaher.comindex.phps=1e37472418d0f894aef12903fbf5d3ba&showtopic=33947&pid=464895&st=340&#entry464895

This link took me to a post that refers to Sura 2:285 which contains the sentence:
"We make no distinction between any of His messengers"

This sura is talking about the biblical prophets and mohammed - they are the "messengers", and says nothing about the status of disbelievers within Islam.

In the next sura 2:286 there is:
"Give us victory over the disbelievers"

This implies disbelievers are to be fought and conquered (as mohammed had been doing successfully prior to dictating this sura).


What was the educated point of view that you expected readers to obtain by following the link?

[EDIT] The link above is broken. It was copied from comment #91127 and shows up as identical in my text editor. As I don't know how to copy or correct the original link, here is an alternative, go to:
http://www.gawaher.com/index.php?showtopic=33947&st=340
and scroll down to post 345.

188. 2006 Charles Simonyi Lecture: 'Can the Internet Save The Enlightenment?'

Comment #90924 by Donald on November 26, 2007 at 4:59 pm

I enjoyed listening to this talk.

Can the internet save the enlightenment?

I hope so.

Oh dear. I have been deeply shocked. I did not realise the deeply poisonous nature of the Templeton Foundation. The distance between my John Barrow and Paul Davies books and my rubbish bin shall be considerably reduced tomorrow. - Steve99

I was really pleased to see this! (I had been earlier disappointed by comments on the "Taking science on faith" thread that seemed to offer Paul Davies undue benefit of the doubt.)

But informing and connecting is only part of what's needed. Any change can only come about from the actions of the informed. And in their wake will come actions by the equally well informed-and-connected believers in imaginary instructors. I welcome the internet and its benefit to anti-theists, but am cautious about assuming that it swings the battle in our favour.

Entwined with the intellectual debates is the struggle for POWER. Religions (as movements, not necessarily the deluded individuals within) seek to propagate themselves as organisations of control and influence. This has been the pattern for millennia. It's not going to be overthrown by the introduction of new communication technology, or advances in scientific understanding by a tiny minority of the world's population. Thousands of years ago the Greek intellectuals (and I suspect, other pagans throughout the world, their reputations rewritten by their conquerors) understood that gods were human inventions.

I think the most important contribution of this website is that it assists individuals to identify actions they can take, from writing to newspapers, blogs, MPs or other representatives, and community actions related to schools, local authorities and their policies, and particularly to education policies that will improve the understanding of the next generation, and thus weaken the grip that religites have on the handles of power in human communities.

189. Can we at least demand 'Secular Communion'?

Comment #86958 by Donald on November 10, 2007 at 2:44 pm

Well, that was a surprise.

After getting used to finding myself in agreement with PZ Myers, and applauding his outspokenness in demolishing nonsense and supporting rational thought, things change. I now discover he disdains humanism and "he won't join a group that wilfully excludes squid". [Ha ha, but I am not amused at the implied attack on humanism.] Also that he "won't refrain from criticising [humanists, reasonable Christians & reasonable Muslims]".

Oh dear. He manages to demean humanists as a group because he doesn't like an article by Richard Norman. Worse, his wording creates an implied association of humanists with "reasonable Christians" and "reasonable Muslims".

Perhaps his usual clarity has deserted him, and he merely meant that he won't refrain from criticising certain people just because they happen to be humanists, reasonable Christians or reasonable Muslims. But I suspect not. I suspect his clarity of expression is at its usual high level, and he meant to say and imply exactly what I read.

Well, I support humanism. I support most movements that are engaged in countering religious influence, ignorance, dogma, and belief in the supernatural.

If PZ feels he has nothing better to do this week than criticise an article by a long-standing humanist who is, in essence, on the same side in the struggle for education, truth against ignorance, and human values against religious dogma, so be it, but I don't take kindly to his side swipes at humanists in general. Humanists do not belong in category together with "reasonable Christians and Muslims".

And I hope PZ can find a more deserving target for his next blog entry.

190. Sam Harris at AAI 07

Comment #82328 by Donald on October 26, 2007 at 4:29 am

Sam Harris' AA talk was brilliant, eloquent, and makes many good points, as usual.

But his discussion of the use of the label 'Atheist' was unbalanced.

In focusing on some negative aspects of the label, and some disadvantages of the grouping around atheism as a common cause, he distracts attention away from the positive aspects.

The positive aspects seem very important to me. Here are some of them.

o) There is enormous benefit to individuals who feel that they are "isolated exceptions in their society" to know that there are many many more people who share their disbelief in religious stories, or disbelief in god. The publicity accompanying "atheism as a grouping" encourages people to "come out" as atheists and find they are not alone.

o) The community aspect. Religions are packages, not only only of religious memes, but also of social activities. Atheists tend to be disadvantaged by this. I never felt able to join a church community because the church community was based on things I did not believe in, and it was required that community members should profess those things, and I did not feel comfortable "living a lie" in order to gain the social benefits. Atheist organisations and internet forums may be a poor substitute for rich religious communities, but they are better than nothing. (Of course, we hope atheist organisations will be temporary arrangements in the longer term scale of history - but they may be appropriate until humanity overcomes religious influence.)

o) The intellectual dimension of this struggle. "Atheism" provides a focus for people to share and refine the rebuttals to the wide range of arguments provided by religious proponents. The arguments against religious absurdities are as old as the religious myths themselves, but they are hard to find in one place, unless one is a scholar of religious philosophy. I find that the current surge of "atheism" has enabled me to find and deploy arguments that I would not have previously had to hand, and that a community of "atheists" is the source of this useful information.


I think that given the current state of the world, and the current extent of religious influence, the explicit promotion of an atheistic viewpoint is more valuable than the negative effects Sam identifies. YMMV.

I'd rather see atheist organisations grow in visibility and strength until humanity has left religious belief far behind. Atheist organisations will then wither or mutate of their own accord. No need to discourage atheists from banding together while it is beneficial to do so.

Also, I think religious memes will only be overcome if Humanist organisations expand to supply the social activities that religions currently dominate. So I support Humanist organisations in particular.

I think Sam's points about negative aspects of our label are strongest in respect of 'Atheist'. They becomes weaker when he generalises it to Humanist as well. I see nothing wrong with having Humanist organisations or identifying as Humanist. They can usefully serve humanity long after religions fade away.

I'm a Sam fan, but think Sam seriously over-stated this particular line of thought in writing this particular AA talk.

(this comment repeats some of my comment in the "Response to my Fellow Atheists" thread, but I thought it belongs here)

191. Debate between Michael Shermer and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #80515 by Donald on October 22, 2007 at 3:17 am

quote D'souza "universe as a whole is rational, i.e the universe as a whole follows laws"
Actually, this is exactly how science does work; ie start with the premise that the universe follows laws. State hypothesis, propose experiment(s) to test it, collect data, deduce the laws of nature thus revealed. - hotshoe

No. Part of what you say is quite right. Hypothesis - design experiment - collect data, is central to classic science. But I suspect you have been influenced by some poor descriptions of the scientific process.

The process starts one step earlier. It starts with observation.

Here is the full sequence:

Observe. Form hypothesis that would explain observations and predict others. Design experiment. Collect new observations. Reject hypothesis if it conflicts with observations.

There is no initial assumption that the universe follows laws, or that the hypothesis has to be in the form of a mathematical formula. The earliest "science" observed storms, tragedy, good fortune, etc and their occurrence in relation to human actions, and formed the hypothesis that the world consisted of spirits that moved things as they pleased and that these spirits reacted to human actions (sacrifices, rituals, etc). No laws of any kind, but this was still science. For millennia, this theory was the best theory available for some phenomena, but made unreliable predictions. This is what Dawkins means when he says "religion is bad science".

Over the centuries since the enlightenment, the amount of evidence that the universe consists of matter moving in accordance with mathematical formulas has become overwhelming. It is a conclusion that the universe follows those laws.

The hypothesis that god exists and answers prayers is also scientifically testable. Here would be no laws, only the will of god, but the hypothesis is a scientific one, and it has been tested. It failed the test. Prayers are not answered more than chance. So science rejects that hypothesis.

192. Debate between Michael Shermer and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #80412 by Donald on October 21, 2007 at 5:59 pm

Dinesh D'Souza is a menace to clear thinking. He is a eloquent purveyor of slick non-sequiturs, just like so many preachers and theologians (ugh, I shudder to write that word).

Here is the section that had me hitting the pause button:

After some contentious claims, including that Christians were the force that overthrew slavery, he proceeds to claim that Christianity is the "soil" from which the abolition of slavery and democracy grew. According to D'Souza, Christianity is the enabler of Science as well. I'm getting very uneasy by now, but he hasn't yet done more than expressed some opinions I disagree with.

Then he says the reason that science has developed as it has because "science is based ultimately on an assumption, that can only be described as theological." [Eh!?] He goes on: "In fact, not one, but three" (holds up three fingers) "theological premises, all derived from Christianity" (holds up one finger). [Sigh, looks like we've got a seriously deluded nutcase here.] "(1) The universe as a whole is rational, i.e the universe as a whole follows laws. (2) The universe is comprehensible in the language of mathematics - how does an electron know what to do - how do inanimate objects know how to follow rules - we have matter behaving as if it was purposeful." [This is getting much worse than I thought.] "(3) The laws of the universe are compehensible to us."

I stopped there.

He has it completely backwards. He is quite wrong to assume that science starts with those 3 assumptions. Science starts with observations, generates copious theories, most of which are discarded because they do not match some of the observations. Science keeps only theories which match all the observations, and make predictions that can be tested with more observations. Then science, as a conclusion has been able to announce "hey, how about that, the universe consists of matter which moves according to these mathematical formulas!"

D'Souza also misuses key words. He does not understand the difference between "laws", "obey" and "rational" as used in colloquial language, and their use in physics.

D'Souza's thoughts are like those of a man standing on his head, wondering why water flows uphill. He is seriously crazy. His thoughts are faulty, and he is spreading faulty thoughts into others.

193. God's honest truth?

Comment #79968 by Donald on October 19, 2007 at 10:19 am

Re AB's misrepresenting of Dawkins, he has now apologised, but it's not forthright:

"I'm very glad if Richard Dawkins does not in fact have a policy of prohibiting parents from passing on to their children religious beliefs he finds obnoxious, but I don't know how else to interpret his approving cite of Nicholas Humphrey's statement that "We should no more allow parents to teach their children to believe, for example, in the literal truth of the Bible or that planets rule their lives that we should allow parents to knock their children's teeth out or lock them in a dungeon." (God Delusion, p326 in my hardback copy)." - Andrew Brown, Comment No. 875372 October 19 14:44

My twopennyworth:

There is a clear distinction between a "policy of prohibiting", which presumably means campaigning for a law against the religious indoctrination itself, and Richard Dawkins' campaign to get people's attention on the issue and make them conscious of the bad effects of labelling children by the religion of their parents.

Andrew Brown would do better to make a clear and unequivocal apology, instead of trying to wriggle.

(BTW, that's page 367 of the UK paperback edition.)

194. God Hates the World

Comment #79857 by Donald on October 18, 2007 at 6:28 pm

I am one of Fred's sons who left.

I am delighted to hear that this has happened. You are very welcome.

This site has a "convert's corner". It seems to me that your story would be a particularly good one to place there.

195. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #79703 by Donald on October 18, 2007 at 8:57 am

apart from ridicule, I don't really think he [Hitchens] said all that much or made any real incisive in depth argument. - The Wee Flea

"we have better explanations for the origin of the cosmos and our species now, so much better that if they had been available to begin with, religion would never have taken root - no one now would want to go back to the time when we didn't have real philosophy, only mythology, when we thought we lived on a flat planet, or when we thought the sun went around us, instead of the earth rotating, when we didn't know there were micro organisms, when we were fearful in the infancy of our species, we would not have taken up Theism if we had known then what we know now" - Hitchens

yes, but apart from pointing out the bible's wrong explanations of the cosmos, its scientific errors about the earth and sun, its errors about the cause of disease, and its exploitation of people's fear, what real incisive arguments did Hitchens make?

"[christian] religion is not moral or ethical - is it moral to believe that your sins, yours and mine, can be forgiven by the punishment of another person? Is it ethical to believe that? I submit that the doctrine of vicarious redemption [of sins], by human sacrifice, is utterly immoral. I might pay your debts, even take your place on the scaffold, but that won't take away your responsibility, I can't say you didn't do it, I can't make you washed clean."

yes, but apart from pointing out the bible's wrong explanations of the cosmos, its scientific errors about the earth and sun, its errors about the cause of disease, its exploitation of people's fear, and pointing out the immorality of the idea of punishing and sacrificing one human for the sins of others, what real incisive arguments did Hitchens make?

"The name for this immoral doctrine [of sacrificing someone for the sins of someone else] is scapegoating. It has its origins in primitive middle eastern society - you pile the sins of the trible on a goat, you drive that goat into the desert to die of thirst and hunger, and you think you've taken away the sins of the tribe. A positively immoral doctrine that ablishes the concept of personal responsilbilty upon which all ethics and all morality must depend."

yes, but apart from pointing out the bible's wrong explanations of the cosmos, its scientific errors about the earth and sun, its errors about the cause of disease, its exploitation of people's fear, pointing out the immorality of the idea of punishing and sacrificing one human for the sins of others, providing an interesting fact about where the idea for the story of the sacrifice of Jesus came from, and pointing out that ethics and morality must depend on personal responsibility, what real incisive arguments did Hitchens make?

"There is something very sinister about monotheism and religious practice in general. It is implicitly, and often explicitly, totalitarian. [according to christianity] I am born under a celestial dictatorship that I could not have had any hand in choosing nor choose to put myself under its government. I am told that it can watch me while I sleep, it can convict me of thought crime. I may be convicted and condemned for what I think."

yes, but apart from pointing out the bible's wrong explanations of the cosmos, its scientific errors about the earth and sun, its errors about the cause of disease, its exploitation of people's fear, pointing out the immorality of the idea of punishing and sacrificing one human for the sins of others, providing an interesting fact about where the idea for the story of the sacrifice of jesus came from, pointing out that ethics and morality must depend on personal responsibility, and pointing out that religions are totalitarian, and will convict for thought crime, what real incisive arguments did Hitchens make?

"Not only in life, but even after I am dead. Even the OT, gruesome though it is with genocide, racism, tribalism, slavery, genital mutilation, does not promise to punlish the dead. It is only in the stories of the NT, when gentle Jesus meek and mild, makes his appearance that those people who won't accept the religious message told that they will suffer everlasting fire. Is this morality?"

yes, but apart from pointing out the bible's wrong explanations of the cosmos, its scientific errors about the earth and sun, its errors about the cause of disease, its exploitation of people's fear, pointing out the immorality of the idea of punishing and sacrificing one human for the sins of others, providing an interesting fact about where the idea for the story of the sacrifice of jesus came from, pointing out that ethics and morality must depend on personal responsibility, pointing out that religions are totalitarian, and will convict for thought crime, and complaining about the religious invention of blackmail by threat of everlasting fire, what real incisive arguments did Hitchens make?

"There is a claim that people do not have a innate moral sense, that they get their morality only from the celestial dictatorship. Until they got to Sinai, Jews were under the impression that murder, adultery, theft, perjury were all fine.
This is nonsense and an insult [to humanity]. Of course, people did not believe that. Humanity would not have got as far as Mt Sinai, or anywhere else. Humanity has been around for at least 100,000 years. For 100,000 years humans were born, often dying in the process, or dying of hunger, or of micro-organisms that they didn't know existed, or in events such as tsunami, earthquake, as well as turf wars over women, property, land etc. According to the Christian faith, God watches this for 98,000 years and only then decides it's time to intervene. And He decides that the best way of doing this would be a human sacrifice in primitive Palestine, where the news would take so long to spread that it still hasn't reached all parts of the world. This story implies God is unbelievably lazy and inept, or callous and cruel, indifferent and capricious. This is the case with every argument for design.

yes, but apart from pointing out the bible's wrong explanations of the cosmos, its scientific errors about the earth and sun, its errors about the cause of disease, its exploitation of people's fear, pointing out the immorality of the idea of punishing and sacrificing one human for the sins of others, providing an interesting fact about where the idea for the story of the sacrifice of Jesus came from, pointing out that ethics and morality must depend on personal responsibility, pointing out that religions are totalitarian, and will convict for thought crime, complaining about the religious invention of blackmail by threat of everlasting fire, demolishing the idea that god gave us morality via scripture, and showing the irreconcilability of the biblical stories and the history of our species discovered by science, what real incisive arguments did Hitchens make?



I'd just like to respond to that if I may. Go ahead, Alister. I think what I'd like to say in response is that I think he is right to make those points, and that we need also to go further and begin to explore, and the kind of questions I would like to discuss in response are whether these are typical or fringe points. It seems to me that there is real need to try to make this kind of distinction. But I'd also like to try and make a more general point, and that is that world views in general, whatever they are, have the capacity to animate people to the extent that they feel that they must go and do things. Now, I would not argue from that that that shows that atheists in general, or atheists on particular, are mistaken or violent. Is it God that is doing this? A very important question, it seems to me, is how we know what God is like. The point I want to make is that what you think God is like has a profound impact on what you think God is urging you to do.

Thank you Alister.


No, Mr Reverend Robertson, Hitchens did not ridicule christianity. Christianity ridicules itself. It just has to be read while not under the influence of mesmerising claptrap. BTW, Hitchens makes many more real incisive, indepth arguments.


(With apologies to "What did the Romans ever do for us?".)

196. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #79246 by Donald on October 16, 2007 at 2:57 pm

Let's hope the debate serves it's main purpose of raising awareness of the atheist "uprising" in Washington DC. I don't expect it will change any of the minds on this site. Here is how I saw it:

Hitchens gives a typically hard-hitting well-focused rundown of religious nonsense, the immorality of OT fables, and the immorality of god waiting 100,000 years before sacrificing a special human to counterbalance the sins of future humans, provided the future humans agree to love and fear him. Also gives an origin of the term "scapegoat" which I had not heard before.

McGrath spends the first couple of minutes on his background as an atheist in Northern Ireland. It's carefully crafted stuff designed to generate emotional empathy in the audience, and has nothing about the topic of debate.

Then he announces his intention to be respectful and polite, and have a debate in which he challenges, agrees on some points and will raise some points out of curiousity. Ok.

At last he says "I want to focus on CH's main arguments". Well, he's wasted 3 minutes so far, but better late than never. He summarises CH's points as "religion is immoral and toxic" and then says "these seem to be very significant arguments and very significant claims, and therefore I want to engage with them".

Yes, that's what you've been brought here to do - are you going to start now?

He spends the next minute saying he won't have time to interact with CH properly, and he apologises at length to CH and the audience for that, but he hopes that he can "begin to get this conversation moving forward".

I am poised on the edge of my seat - perhaps this is the point at which he starts the debate proper?

Well, no. The next thing he says is more delaying tactics: "[referring to CH's initial speech] there are aspects of this I would love to have heard more about, for example about the empirical effect religion has on people".

Does he mean suicide mombers? I suspect not. It turns out he has in mind a study which shows a positive correlation between religious commitment and wellbeing.

Then we get the bland "this does not prove there is a god, and does not prove that all forms of religion are good for you".

Good - he gets some things RIGHT!

He goes on "there are some forms of religion which are pathological - that damage people".

Good - RIGHT - but I think I know what his next claim will be.

I am wrong. His next point is "there is a need for a discussion about what is pathogical and what is normal".

Are we headed for metaphysics?

"what are the centre and what are the fringes and what is the impact of religion in general".

No, fortunately his direction does not seem to be metaphysics, more an attempt to distract the audience from the key points about whether religion is truth or fable, moral or immoral, to distract attention away from the obvious harm religion does, into discussions about fuzzy goodness he claims the milder infections produce.


I switched off at this point. I needed to recover - I couldn't take any more of McGrath for a while - I was feeling queasy.

197. Richard Dawkins receives the Deschner Prize

Comment #78863 by Donald on October 15, 2007 at 5:59 am

Another well-deserved prize, and a superb acceptance speech. I hope it gives Richard the strength to tackle some more live debates with the deluded - it's a more difficult task than delivering lectures, with less reward, but it helps to reach people who would not otherwise hear anything of Richard's messages.

Well done Richard.

198. Ayaan Hirsi Ali at AAI 07

Comment #78557 by Donald on October 13, 2007 at 3:29 pm

I've read her book, but I enjoyed hearing this talk as well.

I liked the moment about 9 minutes in, when Ayaan, feeling obliged to be politically correct and criticise "Fundamentalist Islam" stutters and then simplifies her statement to just "Islam". There is a ripple of applause, and she says with a smile, "I always stutter when I try to be politically correct."

Later Ayaan talks about reading the Koran after Sept 11 2001 (as did so many of us!) as a response to her disquiet at the justification offered by Bin Laden for killing innocents by flying planes into the twin towers, and how she found that allah did indeed sanctify the killing of those *we* consider innocents. [Because the god of the koran considers all non-believers to be guilty (and deserving of eternal fire). They are therefore *not* innocent and allah hates unbelievers.]

She tell how she read the books of Spinoza, Popper and Bertrand Russell, and found a new world of knowledge and thought (compared to Islamic teaching). She remarks that she found violence right in the heart of the Koran, in black and white.

Another key point of her talk was at about 17 minutes. She remarks that secular states do not forbid religion, but that they allow different faiths, including those who not have any faith in god, to co-exist. However, she says that acceptance of this secular framework by people from some faiths is impossible because it clashes too directly with their belief system. [Right! This is perhaps the largest problem we face in the west.]

On morality she says: "no god, no religion, no organised system of faith, is better at dictating right and wrong than that compass we have in our heads and the instincts that are coded into our genes". That's a powerful and succinct way to say such an important truth!

Another sound bite "I see much good come from man, but very little from god." How true.


[ Her talk made a stark contrast for me with the talk today by Gordon Brown, UK prime minister, who delivered a personal message of Eid al-Fitr warm wishes to UK muslims http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5NjnqKUTa8&feature=dir without a trace of a stutter, but what looked to me like false smiles inserted intermittently. It was yet another example of a western politician making an obsequious bow to religious issues instead of sticking to secular matters. Religious influence grows ever deeper and more pervasive. Did you notice his statement "Islamic science philosophy and thought have enriched our lives over many centuries"? A bit like saying that that the horse and cart enriched our transport systems. ]

199. Response to My Fellow 'Atheists'

Comment #77179 by Donald on October 8, 2007 at 4:57 pm

Sam Harris is as brilliant and eloquent as usual. And his AA talk makes many many good points, as usual.

But his talk at AA is unbalanced.

In focusing on some negative aspects of the label "atheist", and some disadvantages of the grouping around atheism as a common cause, he distracts attention away from the positive aspects.

The positive aspects seem very important to me. Here are some of them.

First, there is enormous benefit to individuals who feel that they are "isolated exceptions in their society" to know that there are many many more people who share their disbelief in religious stories, or disbelief in god. The publicity accompanying "atheism as a grouping" encourages people to "come out" as atheists and find they are not alone.
Second there is the community aspect. Religions are packages, not only only of religious memes, but also of social activities. Atheists tend to be disadvantaged by this. I never felt able to join a church community because the church community was based on things I did not believe in, and it was required that community members should profess those things, and I did not feel comfortable "living a lie" in order to gain the social benefits. Atheist organisations and internet forums may be a poor substitute for rich religious communities, but they are better than nothing. (Of course, we hope atheist organisations will be temporary arrangements in the longer term scale of history - but they may be appropriate until humanity overcomes religious influence.)
Third, the intellectual dimension of this struggle. "Atheism" provides a focus for people to share and refine the rebuttals to the wide range of arguments provided by religious proponents. The arguments against religious absurdities are as old as the religious myths themselves, but they are hard to find in one place, unless one is a scholar of religious philosophy. I find that the current surge of "atheism" has enabled me to find and deploy arguments that I would not have previously had to hand, and that a community of "atheists" is the source of this useful information.

So, how does this relate to Sam's illustrative questions to Bush?
Well, Sam's second version is a caricature for effect. A more realistic version would be:
"Joe Scribbler, Atheists Alliance. Mr President, what rational basis....[as in version 1]"

I.e., the questioner would self-identify as atheist, but the question itself would be the same.

Then the issue is: what effect does the explicit association of the questioner with atheism have? The negative side is that it invites a knee-jerk reaction from religious defenders, who may otherwise have treated the question more objectively. The positive side is that is makes atheists more visible, thus encouraging other atheists to speak their view on future occasions.

Atheists will vary in their judgement here. I think that given the current state of the world, and the current extent of religious influence, the explicit promotion of an atheistic viewpoint is more valuable than the improved effect of the question on the immediate issue. YMMV.

I'd rather see atheists organisations grow in visibility and strength until humanity has left religious belief far behind. Atheists organisations will then wither or mutate of their own accord. No need to discourage atheists from banding together while it is beneficial to do so.

And if I find myself shouted down by Sam's fans, so be it. I'm a major Sam fan myself. I just think he seriously over-stated a particular line of thought in writing this particular AA talk.

200. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #68548 by Donald on September 7, 2007 at 2:47 pm

[metaphysical gobbledegook discussion deleted]
Concede idealism to prove that the argument for or against it is trivial. - Dr B

I won't do that, because to me Idealism is a kind of category error. Idealism says everything is just ideas. Thoughts, observations, our planet, the stars, scientific theories, god, angels - all ideas. It's as bad an error as someone saying that living cells are "just atoms" - which ignores emergent properties. Idealism ignores the property of prediction.

Reality is what happens, and science is theories that predict what will happen. If one concedes that scientific theories, based on centuries of observations, and confirmed by innumerable predictions, are to be described using the same term "ideas" as ideas of god and angels, etc, then the door is open to wild misjudgments of what is real and what is not. And Dianelos has gone through that door to help him conclude that god exists. Everything you want can be found in metaphysics land - except reality.