Simon and doubting Thomas.

So I get blog posts. The best place to respond is clearly on the blog.

Simon writes:

There are many different thoughts in Science and religion on the start of the world. So what is right? Are any of them right? The fossil record leaves more questions than it answers. The biblical guide to creation leaves more questions than it answers. So that gets me nowhere.

We're off to a staggeringly confused start. Which one is right, science. Why is science the correct answer, because it changes it's opinion all the time based on the evidence to have the answer that gets closest to the truth and when it finds errors it corrects them. The fossil record sometimes does raise interesting new questions and sometimes there are more questions than answers. Likewise religion's claims in genesis certainly does give us more questions than answers. The problem here is the quality and quantity of the answers given and the questions raised. For example the latest bipedal ape fossil is that of Ardipithecus does the critter raise more questions than it answers, perhaps. The staggering difference between this and the Biblical account is that it actually answers *some* questions. And the questions that it raises in turn are smaller and more specific. We have a much clearer picture as to what our side of the family looked like some 4.4 million years ago, however is Ardi a prime example of what such bipedal apes looked like or is there more variation among bipedal apes. How much did the chimpanzee line change if bipedalism was already pretty common 4.4 million years ago? The questions we ask because of the fossil finds are specific and able to be investigated.


Now, comparing this to the Bible we note that Genesis solves no problems whatsoever. And it does raise questions like what the fuck? And seriously dude, clay?

Fossils in areas that we don't have much information on do give rise to questions, but these questions are a result of our mapping the perimeter of our ignorance. We may not now know what we want to know but we have a better idea of what we don't know. We have better questions to ask. Science and religion differ greatly on this point, because regardless if we become better versed on what we don't know the absolute volume of our ignorance goes down. We actually learn things about the world. And answer one big question and replacing it with three smaller questions is an a fantastic deal in my book.

So you then have a dilemma. Do you accept flawed model 1 or flawed model 2?
You can argue either case as much as you like and never find a happy common ground other than "I believe this because I think it seems reasonable" So I wanted to have a better reason to believe either.

Wrong. I can find fantastic ground that certainly isn't common ground. I'm fine basing many of my beliefs within the firm foundation of science. I don't want common ground with religion. Religion is a swamp of nonsense and flawed epistemological reasoning. I'd rather use a good foundation and get rid of things that do not work. It isn't that I think it's reasonable. It's that there is literally a world of evidence supporting it.

I know you probably think Jesus is just a big joke, but he is historically proven.

As I said before, I'm about the evidence. Go ahead and show me this historical proof. I'm actually quite well versed on the evidence for historicity of Jesus and this is part of the reason why I don't believe in a historical Jesus. Further historical evidence is hardly proof of anything magical. Unlike Jesus or Buddha (though the Buddhists don't really care) there is fantastic evidence that Muhammad existed. I'm talking real evidence of actual places and actual people who saw and recorded his existence, contemporary sources, and archeological evidence. There's really no question about it. Does that therefore prove Islam?

There is as much evidence for Jesus as Julius Caesar (more in fact, but not the point here).

There is significantly less evidence for Jesus than for Julius Caesar. In fact, if there were as much evidence or even a fraction as much then there would be no place for any debate. Julius Caesar likewise has actual people and places contemporary which record his existence, extra-Roman sources that speak of the same events as the Roman sources and clear archeological evidence of the events. Julius Caesar is said to have taken Rome from a Republic to a Empire, and we find exactly that in the historical records as well as many independent confirmations of various events within Roman politics.

SO if Jesus existed, he was either a) the biggest liar ever, b) totally deceived, or c) telling the truth. You probably wonder why I am even writing this.

I'm certainly not wondering why you are writing this, I'm quite well versed on apologetics and notice the most blatant attempt at invoking C.S. Lewis' Lunatic, Liar, and Lord argument ever. What's more amusing is that you don't even bother to follow through with the rest of the argument. You're suppose to say he wasn't a liar because he said some general platitudes in the Sermon of the Mount that people agree with, and he wasn't a lunatic because something-something, and therefore he was really Lord. The argument itself is rather silly and is an obvious false trilemma and excludes more the reasonable answer of Legend. I'm not sure if Robin Hood existed and he certainly seems like a stand up character so am I to accept that if he claimed to be God incarnate he really would be? He's a character in a book and a corpus of various legends that builds up remarkably quickly. King Arthur sounds like a stand up guy, but am I really suppose to accept that he pulled the sword from the stone and was given Excalibur by the Lady of the Lake? I certainly shouldn't call such stand up people liars or lunitic.

The answer is that I was very much where you are now 10 years ago. I spent a lot of time trying to "prove" evolution and atheism, and all I got was more questions and issues.

Another classic claim and it is on the surface false. If you actually were where I am, you certainly wouldn't be making these claims today. I'm far better versed on theology and apologetics than you and your obvious ignorance of the serious problems precludes the chance that you were a healthy minded empirically driven atheist with a functional epistemology. This claim is often employed by people who weren't as churchy as they now are. It's a different category all together. I'm fine with evolution and atheism and I get more and more answers. Science is one of the only things that gets bigger and better and more beautiful the more you dig.

When I looked at God's principles and word, I had to ask a bigger question. I had to ask what the penalty for being wrong under either option was.

God doesn't have principles. God doesn't exist. And punishment is a smaller and petty question, not a larger one. It's a weak notion that doesn't really matter. You should always do what is right in every situation and damn the consequences.

This was my starting point. A lot of things happened after this that convinced me beyond doubt that God and Jesus are real, which I could go through but will refrain (unless you want to hear them at some point).

I'm quite interested. Evidence would be a nice change of pace. Considering how much Allah is going to have you tortured in the hereafter is a terrible reason to accept religion. If you don't give me 1000 dollars, you are going to be tortured by ants in the after life who spend all day long eating your eyes. Sounds pretty gross, so you should pay up. This is the sum of your "evidence": threats. I'd prefer actual evidence rather than bold-faced claims and threats.

Don't discount God because of his followers.

I certainly don't. In fact, I find the most reasonable religions to be the ancient pantheons like the Greek, Roman, and Norse. I think they are significantly more reasonable than the Christian God and they don't have any (many) followers at all. I don't discount God because of the followers. I discount God because God doesn't exist.

So many people stuff it up and make silly points because they want to look godly. You obviously have researched this, but in the end it comes down to weather you are willing to bet your life on it..

Pascals wager is a particularly pathetic argument. It's not even an argument for God, it's a pragmatic argument that you should accept God whether it's true or not.

I'm privy to the atheists wager as a reply because frankly it makes a lot a sense. There are three possibilities. Either God does not exist, God does exist and is an evil jackass who punishes people on the basis of beliefs, or God exists and is fair and just. The end conclusion is that you should do good. If God doesn't exist, then doing good is it's own reward. It makes life good and safe and prosperous. If God exists and is a jackass who thinks Anne Frank should be supernaturally abused and murdered forever for the same reasons the Nazis thought Anne Frank should be abused and murdered (Being Jewish and not accepting Jesus) then screw that God. Seriously any God who would damn Gandhi to burn in hell forever but feel that Torquemada warrants eternal bliss is a piece of shit. And finally if there's a fair and just God, then the obvious staggering lack of evidence makes it pretty easy not believe and certainly wouldn't punish individuals for having entirely reasonable beliefs. In which case doing good has an infinite reward. In all the cases the best answer is simply to do good.

You however argue that your God is the second variety the kind of God who does to Anne Frank what the Nazis could only do briefly forever for the unconscionable sin of failing to accept bad and lacking evidence for an absurd claim by suspending her basic use of reason and upbringing.

Thanks for your time.

And thank you for yours, I hope you respond.

Shroud of Turin, still fake.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091005/sc_nm/us_italy_shroud

It's only a matter of time before we start mass producing them with the same techniques as the original was made with in the middle ages.

Using science and religion for good and evil...

People could use science for good or evil, just as people could use religion for good or evil.

I disagree with that assessment. Science helps give one a good idea of how to do things. If you want to create crops that are resistant to parasites or drought you use science to that end. It's a way of doing things more effectively. It has no real bearing on what things you want to do. It only answers the question of what you should do if you want to do this. Religion largely does the same thing but rather than providing a clear and functional picture of what you need to do get some result it paints a vastly flawed version of reality. So if one lives a purely scientific life and wants to help and decides to contribute to the green revolution, then they will feed people and help the world. Whereas if somebody is religious and has the same desire to help the people of the world, they might simply pray that the people be fed.

So yes, one could use science for good or evil, but I don't think it's the case that you can use religion for good or evil because, frankly, religion doesn't work.

Quote: Pliny the Younger to Emperor Trajan

On Christianity,

Accordingly, I judged it all the more necessary to find out what the truth was by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses. But I discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/pliny1.html

Christianity: depraved, excessive superstition since 111 CE.

Darwin and the Fossil Record.

I don't see many people calling "bullshit" properly on the apologetic that the fossil record is some kind of Achilles heel to the theory of evolution. The fossil record is actually great evidence for Darwin's theory and the objection he rendered to his own theory actually implies something vastly different than we are lead to suppose.

But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed on the earth, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.

- Chapter 9, On the Origin of Species

He says that if his theory is true there should be a lot of previous life forms that aren't found in the fossil record. To explain why geology does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chains, he suggests that the fossil record is extremely imperfect. He's right. We understand the processes involved and have a better view of the fossil record and significantly more fossils than we did in Darwin's time. He was specifically saying that his theory calls for a lot more organisms than we're finding in the fossil record and the explanation for this is that the fossil record is much much worse than many people of the day were advocating.

Rather than an Achilles heel to his argument, this would seem to be a remarkable prediction of his theory. That his theory predicts that there were massive numbers of gradually changing ancestors to all the species on the planet and the reason we didn't find them in the fossil record is that fossil folk are grossly wrong about how very very few fossils we have. We have good areas of fossils and a lot of really good fossils, but Darwin never suggested that we needed all these fossil but rather suggested that there were massive gaps in the fossil record, a fact we know to be true. If life forms don't evolve than one could be sated to believe that a new fossil represented a new species that was created by God wholecloth out of nothing. There's no reason to think anything is missing.

Darwin said we were missing large tracts of fossils.
Today we understand that we are missing large tracts of fossils.

Darwin was right. It's not a condemnation of his theory it's yet another example of Darwin making an amazing prediction by using his theory that we later confirmed to be absolutely right. Next time a creationists gabs on about how there are massive gaps in the fossil record, you can understand that this fact was *PREDICTED* by Darwin. You could tell them, but it might be akin to talking to a coffee cup.

It's just something to think about.

Godless Girl

Beware of The Godless Girl!

Earth, the third rock...

About half the time (probably a bit less than half), Earth isn't third rock from the Sun.

Trying my hand at mocking again...

Dollhouse, almost good. (wha?)

Apparently Dollhouse had planned a great closer (with things left open) episode in case the show got canceled and didn't get a second season. However, watching the episode "Epitaph One" just kind of reminds me how crappy the show is. This episode is actually Firefly quality (I don't say that lightly). And they have the first episode thus far when they stop being whores. I'm very annoyed by the whole, "they are all whores" thing and the show has so much potential but seems to pretty slowly drudge on with silly plots about people being hunted by crazy people shooting arrows at main characters and such. It's a bit like my suggestion at the time to save the long canceled Hidden Palms.

TV is so depressing sometimes.

Quote of the Day: Robert Ingersoll

A fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of wonders. A fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether it is or is not a fact. A lie will not fit anything except another lie.

-- Robert Green Ingersoll

What science is and why religion gets no credit for the Big Bang.

Science is a process of making models to describe the world less and less wrong. What explained 99.5% of the data is fixed and expanded to explain 99.9% of the data and then 99.99% of the data. The best a good theory can do is explain 100% of the current data we have available which is why when we find an exception and something that isn't explained by the theory we finally have an opportunity to expand and refine our theory and make it less wrong. The truth of an idea, not only, must be conducted by explaining all of the current data but all of the future data as well. If you get distinct and new data that fits perfectly into the current theory or data that is predicted as an expansion of the theory... that's good science.

Did science accept the steady state universe just to destroy God? Wasn't that a step backwards?

When science accepted a steady state universe there were good reasons to accept this. There was no data to suggest that the universe had a beginning. In fact the considerable amount of evidence seemed to firmly support the unchangingness of the heavens as observed by Aristotle in his book On the Heavens. This was first refined when one of the later Aristotelian thinkers observed what was probably a supernova that showed that the unchangingness of the aether was false and we should start writing down what the sky is doing and looks like. From the origins of science the observations were firmly on the side of the universe being largely unchanged and immutable. The Big Bang only became an acceptable theory in the 1960s with the discovery of the CMBR.

There are real examples of stepping backwards.

One need look no further than Copernicus the first of the modern heliocentrists who wrongly insisted that the planets traveled at constant speed and distance from the sun. This oversight lead to heliocentrism stagnating as Ptolemy's towering genius laid out a way of figuring the epicycles (the little bits where the planets seem to go backwards because the earth passes them in orbit) of the planets and this model can give exact locations of the planets at anytime. Whereas Copernicus for being right, stripped out the varying speeds and ended up with a system that couldn't properly calculate the position of the planets. The Copernican system was largely inexact and didn't work very well until Kepler restored the Ptolemy assumption of varying speeds. Which after Newton invented calculus (precisely to solve this problem) made the heliocentric model simpler and more able to do the same precision of calculations as Ptolemy could.

Though placing the sun at the center was certainly more correct, it didn't explain more of the data, it did create a much simpler model. However this simply lead to hybrid models where heliocentric models were used in theory and Ptolemy was invoked when calculations needed to be done.

However, the end result is that science progresses. Even if it needs to go through ebbs and flows. At no point did we accept the worse calculations while tangentially accepting the better theory (at least after Galileo). However, it was not a scientific belief that the universe had an origin from the dawn of science. The data we had were of a universe that didn't seem to vary much at all. It wasn't until we started seeing different stuff in the distant parts of the universe (and thus in the distant past) that were different, detected the red shifted hiss of the big bang, and observed as the universe flung apart that we accepted the theory.

As there are only two possible considerations that the universe began or the universe didn't, there isn't much credit to be given to having picked one on the basis of no evidence. The history of science has always been that of an unchanging universe. Similarly that seems the thrust of most religious thoughts as well. God made the universe one day, just as it is today. There's a pretty considerable difference between the theology of creation and the science of the Big Bang. In fact, I've seen a number of Bible Believing Christians attack the Big Bang theory precisely because of these differences.

Norman Borlaug, hero, is no more.

Norman Borlaug died today.

He saved more than a billion lives and kicked off the green revolution. The world is a little worse off today.

Brilliant things in distant places: Neo-Newtonainism?

Hips do not change accordingly to a species' wishes, moreover, there is no "requirements" in mutations, there's no such thing like "a trait that needed shifts". The word "needed" is non-sensical in this context. Further on, the 7 million years is not just to get bipedal, it's to get to Cro Magnon, or to a look-alike (which means a look-alike of us, skeleton-wise).

What molecular biology delivered us is the certainty that if the 3% active part of the genome (90 million bases) need to be changed for the assumed 1% genetic difference between humans and chimps in this active part, that's a required change in 1 million different bases. This is where the proposals came from to stop talking neodarwinism and rather speak about extended evolutionary synthesis of similar terms - simply because there's way too much changes to Darwinism & neo-Darwinism (that would be like talking about neo-Newtonianism all the time). And that's simply the acknowledgement of Darwinian theory (the kind of "a bit of hip modification" theories as you mention) being largely insufficient. When we start considering molecular buffering systems and all that jazz, that's not Darwin's theories anymore - not even by a mile's length. Of course, everything is build upon everything - but that's not the point here. (Einstein has build upon Newton - but we don't call it neo-Newtonian gravity).

--

The 3% of our genome that codes for things has about 1% that doesn't code for things but triggers and influences the genes. Just looking at the protein changes gives one a very incorrect view as most of the changes between chimps and humans as well as between humans and other apes are changes in the gene regulation. We are built with the same set of tools, but built in different ways.

Neodarwinism is simply a reaction to genetics figuring out heredity. The reason we use neodarwinism is because it explains things that Darwin didn't know and fleshes out the parts of the theory that were not very good because Darwin didn't have genetics. It's not Darwin's version of evolution because it's better by having a functional model of heredity. It's still evolution as Darwin laid out in his day, but it's a new kind of Darwinian evolution, it's neo-darwinism.

The changes between the two is largely just a shift of bringing genetics into the fold. That's what changed. The base theory is there, and if you want to learn more about evolution, I'd actually recommend The Origin of Species as a good book on the subject.

We refer to Einsteinian physics and Newtonian physics because these men largely established that understanding of physics. Newton wasn't wrong and certainly did physics a great favor by expounding on the subject. However Einsteinian physics can rederive Newtonian physics but does not need to as it stands on it's own. In many ways he didn't build on Newton but rather expounded on Physics and was right, in much the way that Newton was right... and then some. Einstein can derive Newton's physics but it is not simply a modified version, it's a new version altogether and a radically different way of seeing the entire universe.

However, that's not to say there isn't exactly what you're so oddly suggesting. One major player in some very modern debates is MOND or MOdified Newtonian Dynamics seeks to modify Newton's equations to account for the observations we see with galaxies. The math of solving the for the rotation of a galaxy using Einstein is too hard, so we cheat and use Newton and as a result find our math is off by an order of magnitude. So we propose Dark Matter to account for this in invisible halos around all galaxies. MOND proposes we modify the equations as Newton's equations only have been demonstrated for very low velocity objects.

Just as Modified Newtonian Dynamics modifies what Newton did, neodarwinism adds to what Darwin put forth. Most of your post simply fails to understand the differences between Newton and Einstein. They have radically different equations for figuring out how the universe works, which isn't to say that they are wrong. Just that Einstein is less wrong than Newton and his equations account for more of the universe than Newtons' did. Einstein didn't modify Newton, he described the universe again in a new way. This is something that nobody has done since Darwin. Darwin's theory is still at the core of all biology. Evolution by natural selection has been expanded and promoted as the underlying explanation. Darwin makes biology make sense. Much of biology over the last 150 years has been adding to Darwin and making his suppositions into facts and his arguments into observed reality.

Neodarwinism pulled genetics into evolution just as Evodevo is poised to bring in developmental biology, genetic expression, embryology, and other somewhat dispersive fields into the explanations of evolution largely due to molecular genetics showing how genetics achieves development, which in turn, shows how these developmental changes evolved and how evolution changes the development of organisms.

I feel like a cat bringing you folks the corpse of a half eaten lizard. But, as I'm pretty sure all my great points are just going to fall on deaf ears I need to preserve it. I mean, I spend a good amount of time writing brilliant things to not brilliant people. If I punched a hole in a wall, I'd take a picture of it and post it to the blog too. That way my unseen posts will be unseen by more people.

What the Ancients Did For Us.

As a fan of history of science this is a very nice find. It was referenced in a podcast with Richard Carrier discussing the history of science.

Part 1. Part 2. Both quite worth the time involved. Even if you don't care about the apologetics book in reference.


Having found a copy of the videos, I must post them. They are just fantastic.


Playlist.

America makes me sad.

A Darwin biopic doesn't get a distributor but Expelled does? Seriously?

Critics really like this movie whereas Expelled was shit. I'm not talking on substance but actually filming. It was long and boring and crazy terrible.

Humans from a single pair?

A theist wrote me as part of a longer post:

The idea of all humans originating from one single human pair was a brilliant insight not found in all cultures.

To which I replied:

The idea of all humans coming from a single human pair is firstly scientifically wrong, and secondly found in most mythologies. I'm at a loss as to recall one that doesn't have a first couple from Odin making Ask and Embla out of driftwood to the Navajo myth of the insect people traveling to the fifth world and making the first man and woman or the Apache myth of creator making Girl Without Parents and Small Boy out of dirt from his hands rubbing together into clumps.

I really am at a loss here. Is there any mythology that doesn't start with a first couple? Does anybody know of a creation story that doesn't explain the first couple but the first group of humans larger than two or something that would qualify as not a first two humans story?

You gotta serve somebody?

There are a few great musical replies to nonsense, this is one of them.

Science is Real

When it comes to thermal energy and carbinated refreshments...

Less is more. -- Though not enough is kablooey.

Monkey vs. Tigers

You know, I've been racking my mind as to how to pretend there's an evolutionary reason for this behavior for a joke like why do monkeys have brown fur (to blend in with the coconuts). I can't even figure out a fake reason. It's funny as hell and that's the honest to goodness reason.