Saturday Links

LLama Butchers - Season Three Commences - Yips and orgles to Steve and Robbo. On the completion of two years before the blogs, Steve offers his insights and lessons of blogging. Very well done.

Krauthammer - Phony Theory, False Conflict - Sir Charles takes apart ID. Yes, Bill, I’m doing the wave along with John Cole and Jack Grant.

In order to justify the farce that intelligent design is science, Kansas had to corrupt the very definition of science, dropping the phrase ” natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us,” thus unmistakably implying — by fiat of definition, no less — that the supernatural is an integral part of science. This is an insult both to religion and science.

The school board thinks it is indicting evolution by branding it an “unguided process” with no “discernible direction or goal.” This is as ridiculous as indicting Newtonian mechanics for positing an “unguided process” by which Earth is pulled around the sun every year without discernible purpose. What is chemistry if not an “unguided process” of molecular interactions without “purpose”? Or are we to teach children that God is behind every hydrogen atom in electrolysis?

The Onion - Just time for Thanksgiving? - It’s making me hungry.

Classic LLamabutchers - The Scottish Dwarf - Nominated for “Best Post Ever.” Read it, and find out why. Written by the inimitable Bill, in one of his typical disguises.

Comments

  1. Steve wrote:

    Arguments about religion.

    It boils down to this.

    Reason is cumulative. We begin to reason when we are young. And each line of reason is built on the previous lines of reason. After a few years the relationships between lines of reason can get pretty intricate.

    We can’t know everything, so part of the reasoning process is to fill the gaps in information with best guesses and assumptions.

    Religion offers us a set of ready-made assumptions – even some full lines of reason. Many of us depend on these instead of figuring things out for ourselves.

    A religious argument is usually an argument about trusted rules of thumb and assumptions that someone has reasoned with their whole life. So, in arguing about religious precepts, what you’re really doing is asking them to start over, scrapping all those lines of reason you say are flawed. That demand runs deep and covers a lot of ground.

    And the chances of success? Slim to none.

    A statement of logic is virtually irrelevant to someone who has based forty or fifty years of reason on assumptions endorsed implicitly trusted sources.

    So the strategy of using logic to argue against religion is flawed. In matters of religion logic falls on purposefully deaf ears. It’s a matter of reflex – of self-protection.

    And inevitably the religious zealot remains a religious zealot. It’s probably best to forget about trying to convert him with logic. For him, it’s too late. The better plan is to head off the damage he can do.

    The real damage is done by parents and teachers who perpetuate the problem by indoctrinating the kids before they know any better – before they learn how to defend themselves. Surely it’s a cardinal sin to mislead your own progeny.

    But, maybe I shouldn’t care. After all, they’re not my kids. On the other hand some assumptions are valid. And I think that it’s safe to assume that what goes around does indeed come around.

    Steve

    Posted 19 Nov 2005 at 7:47 pm

  2. Pixy Misa wrote:

    The Krauthammer article also popped up at Roger Simon and LGF, resulting in predictable bunfights (which I naturally took part in, heh heh). And it got linked by Insty as well.

    Whatever one might think of the way OSM has gone so far, these guys are all on the right side of this issue.

    As for the article itself, it’s a good one for you and me, but it’s too densely written to make any impact on ID followers. Since they typically have little knowledge of Evolutionary Theory or (say) Thermodynamics apart from some half remembered high school classes and what the IDists have fed them, you have to patiently chip away at the nonsense before you can actually make any progress.

    It still amazes me how many people trot out the Second Law argument, though. I mean, it can be dismantled in two sentences. And I did so, about fifteen times.

    Posted 21 Nov 2005 at 1:29 am

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