Az Shooter Was An Atheist

[Balloon guy 158]

BG's Law: All information must be reducable to a flow chart, otherwise it is false.

Seems to be pretty useful here.Guess I tested your theory, it is plausible, therefore I will hold to it until such time as there needs to be a change.

[timwakefield 68]

So given enough time, things should become more complex?

No. Given enough time, many different things can happen.The question is ridiculously broad, I'm not sure how you expect me to answer it.

[Balloon guy 158]

No. Given enough time, many different things can happen.The question is ridiculously broad, I'm not sure how you expect me to answer it.

The only ridiculous broad I see is SB

[Roll the Bones 74]

That's different than saying somebody believes in creation because evolution is too hard to understand.

Ann Coulter wrote a book called Godless and has repeatedly said there is no evidence for evolution. I was looking for an interview where she basically said, "It's to hard to understand" but I couldn't find it so instead here is PZ Myer's reply to her.That claim is that there is no evidence for evolution. I know, to anybody who has even a passing acquaintance with biology, that sounds like a ridiculous statement, like declaring that people can live on nothing but air and sunlight, or that yeti are transdimensional UFO pilots. Yet Coulter baldly makes the absurd claim that "There's no physical evidence for [evolution]", and insists in chapter 8 of her new book that there is "no proof in the scientist's laboratory or the fossil record." This is like standing outside in a drenching rainstorm and declaring that there is no evidence that you are getting wet.Let me introduce you to PubMed. This is a freely accessible online database of articles published in the biomedically related fields of the life sciences. It indexes over 4800 journals and contains about 12 million articles going back to 1966, and it's growing constantly. It's very good if you are interested in looking up literature in medicine, zoology, biochemistry, etc.; it's rather incomplete if your interests run to botany, paleontology, or geology, other fields that are rich sources of research in evolution. (By the way, another incredibly useful adjunct is HubMed, an alternative interface to PubMed that lets you get search results as an automated RSS feed. I've got a whole stack of automatic HubMed searches in my newsreader; how do you think I find all these cool articles?)Here's a simple thing you can do: search PubMed for all articles that discuss evolution. It's not a very practical search, because it returns too much; you're also going to get some number of false positives, because "evolution" is a word used in other contexts than evolutionary biology, but at the same time remember that PubMed doesn't address all fields that deal with evolution equally well, and many papers discuss the details and mechanisms of evolution without putting the word in a title or abstract. When I just did that search, it came back with 177,396 articles on the subject, 25,759 of which were review articles…which means that in the somewhat limited PubMed database, there are about 150,000 primary research articles on evolution.150,000.That's a big number, representing a huge amount of work. To narrow the scope a little bit, you can limit the search to the last 30 days; when I did this just now, it returned a list of 697 current articles on evolution. I'd have to read over 20 articles a day just to keep up! I feel like I've been diligent if I read one or two articles in depth during a day, and skim through a handful more—these aren't light reading, after all, but data-rich technical papers loaded with big words and acronyms and referencing tens to hundreds of other papers. Here's another source of information: the Library of Congress. Go ahead and search for books on evolution, or to be really specific, search for Library of Congress numbers QH35-QH425. You'll be busy for a while. Again, to narrow it down to something more accessible, I searched the University of Minnesota library system to see what they had on hand. 4,445 books. Even restricting myself to just books acquired in the last year, it's about 330 (again, with some false positives for books on stellar evolution, for instance, or evolution of economics). Discounting that number a bit, it still means that to just keep up with the books my library acquires on this one subject, I'd have to read one every other day…on top of the 20 research articles I'd have to be reading every day.I'm feeling tired already.My point here is that there is an incredible amount of evidence for evolution, far more than any one person can digest, and that it is a vital field, still growing and still producing new results. All those papers don't get published unless they contain some new observation, a new experiment, a new test of the idea…and evolution has weathered them all.Perhaps you aren't a scientist yourself, and you really don't want to wade through stacks of technical papers to find out what scientists say about evolution. There's a shortcut, if you're willing to accept the authority of professional organizations of scientists. Scientists often group themselves into societies for the purposes of organizing meetings and publications, and they have meetings and committees and elections in which they establish a representative consensus. In light of the politicization of evolutionary biology in the US, many have asked their members about the importance of evolution, and written formal statements summarizing their position on the subject. The NCSE has a list of statements from scientific societies, all in support of evolution. The vast majority of all biologists, people who have extensive training in the subject and use biology day by day, see that evolution is well supported by the evidence and is a solid foundation for research.It's not enough to ask people to simply trust scientists' opinions, of course; we also have to make available to everyone the information used to come to those conclusions. Science is a transparent process, and in addition to the raw data in primary research papers being open to all, many organizations provide digests and summaries to help navigate the immensity of the subject. The National Center for Science Education, for instance, has an excellent resources page with links to further information, as does the National Association of Biology Teachers, the National Academies, and the Society for the Study of Evolution. There are no secrets in this business.Maybe you'd just like to get a general overview of the concepts of evolution, and don't really want to invest your whole life trying to get a handle on this huge subject. UC Berkeley has an excellent online tutorial, Understanding Evolution, and in conjunction with their series a few years ago, PBS has an evolution site that introduces you to the basics. For the natural historians among you, the Tree of Life project is a wonderful overview of systematics and the diversity of life on earth. The Talk.Origins Archive isn't so much a tutorial as a place where you can ask questions and get replies to major criticisms of evolutionary theory. In particular, Douglas Theobald's evidence for evolution page is indispensable—it's a thorough overview of the many different lines of evidence that support the theory of evolution. I point all my introductory biology students to it. Another page that everyone ought to bookmark is the Index to Creationist Claims. It contains pithy rebuttals to the most common creationist canards, and it's very easy to use. Coulter should have referred to it: when I looked at the first paragraph of her evolution chapter, her half dozen claims about evolution were all wrong, and were all answered in the Index. All I had to do was link to that page.The world of blogs is full of information on evolution. In addition to The Panda's Thumb and Pharyngula, there are quite a few blogs out there that discuss the science of and evidence for evolution, and that are often written by highly qualified scientists themselves. Try browsing Aetiology, Afarensis, All-Too-Common Dissent, Ask The Scientician, The Daily Transcript, De Rerum Natura, Evolgen, Evolution 101, EvolutionBlog, Evolving Thoughts, Good Math, Bad Math, The Intersection, Living the Scientific Life, The Loom, Mike the Mad Biologist, The Questionable Authority, Recursivity, The Scientific Activist, Stranger Fruit, Thoughts from Kansas, and Thoughts in a Haystack, just to get you started. The advantage of weblogs is that you can engage the author and other readers, leaving comments and having a conversation about the subject.If you don't trust web sources, there are plenty of books to help you out. I've made a long list of evolution books suitable for kids and general readers.Another effect of the rising sludge of creationist nonsense is that more and more people are getting motivated to become activists for science education. Citizens for Science groups are forming all over the country, and you can find organizations in many states, such as Alabama, Colorado, Washington DC, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota (we will soon have a new Minnesota citizen science organization—look for an announcement this fall), Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. Follow the link for your state, and sign up: you'll get announcements and news on the web or in your email, you'll connect up with local, knowledgeable people, you'll hear about free seminars and opportunities to meet and talk face to face with biologists.Any journalists reading this? Go immediately to the Panda's Thumb media advisors page and copy all of those contacts into your rolodex or PDA. This is a list of people ready and willing to talk to you about evolution and give you the scientific side of the story.Now look: I've been telling you all about how you, with negligible effort, can find buckets of evidence for evolution. I haven't actually recited any of that evidence yet, and that's because I and many other biologists have been telling everyone about that evidence for years: there comes a point where you have to recognize that the other side has simply put their hands over their ears and are shouting "LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA" at the top of their lungs. If you want evidence from the fossil record, here, go read about Tiktaalik, a fossil tetrapod that was predicted by evolutionary theory. If you prefer some of that laboratory evidence that Coulter says doesn't exist, here's a story about selection and evolution of a polyphenism in the laboratory. These are just two of many thousands of published pieces of evidence.It takes minimal scholarship to discover that there is quite a lot of evidence for evolution. Coulter did not rise to even that level, and worse, she had this tripe vetted by some of the big names of Intelligent Design creationism: Behe, Dembski, and Berlinski. That is shameful. I am at a loss to say in words how abysmally awful this book is.Like I said, I'm not going to take this trip apart sentence by sentence, even though I could, given enough time and interest. I will suggest instead that if anyone reading this thinks some particular paragraph anywhere in chapters 8-11 is at all competent or accurate in its description of science, send it to me. I couldn't find one. That's where the obligation lies: show me one supportable claim in Coulter's farrago of lies and misleading statements and out-of-context quotes, and we'll discuss it.

[speedz99 145]

Math and medicine were invented by guys who believed in Zeus.

Heh.

[Skeleton Jelly 2]

I would say it's certainly possible I don't really know what "Intelligent Design" is. I kind of just thought it was: the world is the way it is because a higher power designed it that way. Maybe that's a different theory? God-directed evolution or something.I thought ID reasoning was: this shit is so amazingly complex that we think it's more likely that an omnipotent and omniscient being created it all. Not: ow my brain lol yo help.This is probably because of my general distaste for the argument that Christians believe in God because they're stupid. Now, admittedly, this is entirely due to personal experience. I know many incredibly smart people who believe in God. There's at least a couple of really smart posters on here who are Christians (they don't necessarily post in here (no offense, BG)).Plus, I assume tim is using all kinds of fallacies in his arguments.

[brvheart 1,752]

Thanks SJ, I really appreciate your kind words!

[Balloon guy 158]

I would say it's certainly possible I don't really know what "Intelligent Design" is. I kind of just thought it was: the world is the way it is because a higher power designed it that way. Maybe that's a different theory? God-directed evolution or something.I thought ID reasoning was: this shit is so amazingly complex that we think it's more likely that an omnipotent and omniscient being created it all. Not: ow my brain lol yo help.This is probably because of my general distaste for the argument that Christians believe in God because they're stupid. Now, admittedly, this is entirely due to personal experience. I know many incredibly smart people who believe in God. There's at least a couple of really smart posters on here who are Christians (they don't necessarily post in here (no offense, BG)).Plus, I assume tim is using all kinds of fallacies in his arguments.

ID doesn't have a real focused definition inside its own camp, but from the outside its based on the watchmaker argument. That the complexity and purpose of so many moving parts that result in a machine that tells time must have a maker.Having so many co-dependent animals and complex systems in life from the blood governor in the neck of the Giraffe preventing it's head from exploding when it bends over to drink to the needs of the flowers to have bees exist in order to pollinate all point to a Designer.After you get by that you have some who hold that God used evolution ( which I don't because of the utter cruelty of survival of the fittest ) some beleive that God made the earth but it took millions of years, just for man who is relatively young ( again, I don't subscribe to this ) and then the smartest cream of the crop, the ones that realize that the earth is about 6,000 years old, give or take a century.But ultimately, being right about evolution or ID is irrelevant, because there is only one question on the test for admittance to eternal life: Did you accept Jesus' sacrifice to pay for all your sins?

[Roll the Bones 74]

I would say it's certainly possible I don't really know what "Intelligent Design" is. I kind of just thought it was: the world is the way it is because a higher power designed it that way. Maybe that's a different theory? God-directed evolution or something.I thought ID reasoning was: this shit is so amazingly complex that we think it's more likely that an omnipotent and omniscient being created it all. Not: ow my brain lol yo help.This is probably because of my general distaste for the argument that Christians believe in God because they're stupid. Now, admittedly, this is entirely due to personal experience. I know many incredibly smart people who believe in God. There's at least a couple of really smart posters on here who are Christians (they don't necessarily post in here (no offense, BG)).Plus, I assume tim is using all kinds of fallacies in his arguments.

No, it's the idea that creation was started by a God about 6000 years ago and that he created man as we are. It is opposed to the theory of evolution because it disproves the creation myth of the bible.Some will say that God went as far back as creating the Big Bang and evolution, which is kind of moot, since if he doesn't interfere, what good is he?

[vbnautilus 48]

I would say it's certainly possible I don't really know what "Intelligent Design" is. I kind of just thought it was: the world is the way it is because a higher power designed it that way. Maybe that's a different theory? God-directed evolution or something.I thought ID reasoning was: this shit is so amazingly complex that we think it's more likely that an omnipotent and omniscient being created it all. Not: ow my brain lol yo help.This is probably because of my general distaste for the argument that Christians believe in God because they're stupid. Now, admittedly, this is entirely due to personal experience. I know many incredibly smart people who believe in God. There's at least a couple of really smart posters on here who are Christians (they don't necessarily post in here (no offense, BG)).Plus, I assume tim is using all kinds of fallacies in his arguments.

In order to understand ID you have to understand the intentions behind it. The courts ruled that creationism could not be taught in public schools because it is religion. Some creationists decided to use the strategy that if they made creationism look like science, they could get away with teaching it in school. The "Intelligent Design" movement is just that: an elaborate attempt to make creationism appear to be a scientific theory. However, creationism is not a scientific theory. It does not meet criteria. This has always been overwhelmingly clear to scientists, and has also now been ruled in court (Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District).

[Skeleton Jelly 2]

In order to understand ID you have to understand the intentions behind it. The courts ruled that creationism could not be taught in public schools because it is religion. Some creationists decided to use the strategy that if they made creationism look like science, they could get away with teaching it in school. The "Intelligent Design" movement is just that: an elaborate attempt to make creationism appear to be a scientific theory. However, creationism is not a scientific theory. It does not meet criteria. This has always been overwhelmingly clear to scientists, and has also now been ruled in court (Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District).

Right. I got involved in this discussion because tim said Christians are anti-evolution because it's too hard to understand and because it goes against the Bible. I've never argued against the latter part.

[Roll the Bones 74]

Right. I got involved in this discussion because tim said Christians are anti-evolution because it's too hard to understand and because it goes against the Bible. I've never argued against the latter part.

One of the reasons this is important to many people is that our schools are performing dismally and it can be linked back to students having a poor foundation of comprehension and critical thinking. We shouldn't be encouraging more of it and having a vast majority of the christians in this country help to perpetrate this idea, or waging campaigns against science, isn't helping anyone. Answers in Genesis and others have conferences all over teaching people this junk.http://www.answersingenesis.org/outreach/event/6915/That and my former state is building a goddam ArkPark. :headbang:We need to teach critical thinking, not magical thinking if we are ever going to make some steps forward.

[Balloon guy 158]

In order to understand ID you have to understand the intentions behind it. The courts ruled that creationism could not be taught in public schools because it is religion. Some creationists decided to use the strategy that if they made creationism look like science, they could get away with teaching it in school. The "Intelligent Design" movement is just that: an elaborate attempt to make creationism appear to be a scientific theory. However, creationism is not a scientific theory. It does not meet criteria. This has always been overwhelmingly clear to scientists, and has also now been ruled in court (Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District).

Here's the real truthBut I do love the 'science' guy using the US courts to determine 'truth'....OJ anyone?

[Balloon guy 158]

No, it's the idea that creation was started by a God about 6000 years ago and that he created man as we are. It is opposed to the theory of evolution because it disproves the creation myth of the bible.Some will say that God went as far back as creating the Big Bang and evolution, which is kind of moot, since if he doesn't interfere, what good is he?

Strawman thy name is RTB.

[vbnautilus 48]

Here's the real truthBut I do love the 'science' guy using the US courts to determine 'truth'....OJ anyone?

The point was that ID, a movement originated to get creationism into school, failed at getting creationism into school. We don't need the courts to rule that ID is nonsense any more than we need them to rule on when Sagittarius actually starts.

[Balloon guy 158]

The point was that ID, a movement originated to get creationism into school, failed at getting creationism into school. We don't need the courts to rule that ID is nonsense any more than we need them to rule on when Sagittarius actually starts.

Yet using false data we got evolution into the schools where it is taught today....

[Spademan 94]

I thought ID reasoning was: this shit is so amazingly complex that we think it's more likely that an omnipotent and omniscient being created it all. Not: ow my brain lol yo help.

The rationalization is the former, the reason is the latter.

I know many incredibly smart people who believe in God.

Your difficulty is in the different shades and flavors of "smart". I've worked with a guy who knew all kinds of facts. Facts about history and art. He could read reports and remember almost every fact from that report. But everyone, and I mean everyone, knew the guy was an idiot. They knew because he was socially inept. Literally stupid when it came to social interaction and devices. Neither could he cross reference the facts that he could memorize. He couldn't draw any conclusions by combining information from varying reports. There are savants who can break down incredible mathematical theorems, but cannot, say figure out how to tie their shoes or why people shy away from them when the don't shower for a few weeks. Rote memorization, knowledge of one subject or another all the way up to PhD, or being a genius at a discipline does not prevent one from idiocy on huge issues. The skills necessary to travel all subjects "intelligently", the skills necessary to avoid stupidity, idiocy, contradiction and absurdity are: logic, reason and critical thought. It is absolutely possible to be "smart" on a great many things (usually by rote memorization) and be an absolute idiot on things people of average knowledge without a "genius" for anything in particular can formulate, traverse or understand with little effort.I've met very few people who believe in one Unicorn Overlord or another who have a heavy measure of the big three. In all cases I had thought them reasonable and logical people prior to discovering they believed in Santa Claus. Obviously, when this nasty fact comes out it becomes the focal point of our discussions.And those rare few (I mean somewhere around 3 or 4 people) I've met who do have powerful logic, reason and critical thought have only propped up the most, relatively, reasonable defenses of their nonsense. In almost all cases "free will" in defense to the problem of evil, "watchmakers argument" for design and, of course, personal and anecdotal "feelings". The most telling thing about these particular individuals however is, after the flaws and fallacies and absurdities in their arguments are pointed out, the response is almost unanimous: "Hmm, hadn't thought of it that way before." This is, in all cases, followed by an examination of their beliefs that have ended in an outright abandonment or, in one instance, a sort of "ok, well, it doesn't really make sense but I'm going to believe it anyway. haha. Ya, ya, I know, 'a causal look in a loony-bin shows that faith proves nothing'... I'm going to believe it regardless."People who believe in a personal god usually have poor logic, reason and critical thought. This makes them stupid in a very important way, regardless of how knowledgeable they are in their particular field.Sometimes they have a passable affinity with the big three but compartmentalize in order to preserve what makes them feel good in the dark, or what their parents taught them. They are idiots too, but you can hang out with them from time to time and not want to bash your head against the table, call them names and walk out. And there are the exceedingly rare few with great skill in the big three who "believe regardless of how stupid it is", and you can hang out with them without limit and just laugh at/with them from time to time for choosing to be an idiot.

[brvheart 1,752]

The point was that ID, a movement originated to get creationism into school, failed at getting creationism into school. We don't need the courts to rule that ID is nonsense any more than we need them to rule on when Sagittarius actually starts.

My preference here would have been something along the lines of "we don't need the courts to rule that ID is nonsense any more than we need a War on Jealousy".

[brvheart 1,752]

Your difficulty is in the different shades and flavors of "smart". I've worked with a guy who knew all kinds of facts. Facts about history and art. He could read reports and remember almost every fact from that report. But everyone, and I mean everyone, knew the guy was an idiot. They knew because he was socially inept. Literally stupid when it came to social interaction and devices. Neither could he cross reference the facts that he could memorize. He couldn't draw any conclusions by combining information from varying reports. There are savants who can break down incredible mathematical theorems, but cannot, say figure out how to tie their shoes or why people shy away from them when the don't shower for a few weeks. Rote memorization, knowledge of one subject or another all the way up to PhD, or being a genius at a discipline does not prevent one from idiocy on huge issues. The skills necessary to travel all subjects "intelligently", the skills necessary to avoid stupidity, idiocy, contradiction and absurdity are: logic, reason and critical thought. It is absolutely possible to be "smart" on a great many things (usually by rote memorization) and be an absolute idiot on things people of average knowledge without a "genius" for anything in particular can formulate, traverse or understand with little effort.I've met very few people who believe in one Unicorn Overlord or another who have a heavy measure of the big three. In all cases I had thought them reasonable and logical people prior to discovering they believed in Santa Claus. Obviously, when this nasty fact comes out it becomes the focal point of our discussions.And those rare few (I mean somewhere around 3 or 4 people) I've met who do have powerful logic, reason and critical thought have only propped up the most, relatively, reasonable defenses of their nonsense. In almost all cases "free will" in defense to the problem of evil, "watchmakers argument" for design and, of course, personal and anecdotal "feelings". The most telling thing about these particular individuals however is, after the flaws and fallacies and absurdities in their arguments are pointed out, the response is almost unanimous: "Hmm, hadn't thought of it that way before." This is, in all cases, followed by an examination of their beliefs that have ended in an outright abandonment or, in one instance, a sort of "ok, well, it doesn't really make sense but I'm going to believe it anyway. haha. Ya, ya, I know, 'a causal look in a loony-bin shows that faith proves nothing'... I'm going to believe it regardless."People who believe in a personal god usually have poor logic, reason and critical thought. This makes them stupid in a very important way, regardless of how knowledgeable they are in their particular field.Sometimes they have a passable affinity with the big three but compartmentalize in order to preserve what makes them feel good in the dark, or what their parents taught them. They are idiots too, but you can hang out with them from time to time and not want to bash your head against the table, call them names and walk out. And there are the exceedingly rare few with great skill in the big three who "believe regardless of how stupid it is", and you can hang out with them without limit and just laugh at/with them from time to time for choosing to be an idiot.

You don't hang out in the correct places.Also, you sound exactly like my buddy JZ. Nearly every time we get together he shifts the conversation to religion and repeats some line about not understanding how his reasonable and sane friend could believe in God. I love it.

[Mills 0]

You don't hang out in the correct places.Also, you sound exactly like my buddy JZ. Nearly every time we get together he shifts the conversation to religion and repeats some line about not understanding how his reasonable and sane friend could believe in God. I love it.

Dick...

[BaseJester 1]

Having so many co-dependent animals and complex systems in life from the blood governor in the neck of the Giraffe preventing it's head from exploding when it bends over to drink . . .

Exploding giraffes wouldn't reproduce and pass on their genes.

[timwakefield 68]

Exploding giraffes wouldn't reproduce and pass on their genes.

They would be morbidly hilarious though.

[Balloon guy 158]

They would be morbidly hilarious though.

"Man its hot today, throat is parched..you know what I mean Steve?""Don't even think about it Don, you know what happened to Frankie when he bent over to get a drink""Come on man, that was because the guy worried too much, it will be perfectly safe for me to..."BOOM"Dang man, that's messed up"

[timwakefield 68]

Plus, I assume tim is using all kinds of fallacies in his arguments.

Heh.Well, I was being a bit hyperbolic when I said they don't believe it because it's too difficult for them to understand. The issue is really about who and what a person is willing to believe, not necessarily just how much knowledge and intelligence that person has. Basically, does a person believe in the scientific method, or not? What I really meant is that not believing in the scientific method is stupid, and people who think that way are thinking stupidly.There simply isn't any positive evidence that evolution is "designed." There isn't any because it definitively doesn't exist. ID muddies the scientific waters by pretending that it is science, when in fact it is theology, or metaphysical philosophy. Evolution is one thing, and it is factual. Whether or not God exists is another topic, and there's no more (or less) proof of Him in the evolution of species than there is proof of Him in the beauty of nature. 'Evolution is so intricate and incredible that God must have made it,' is no more provable than, 'Women and trees and mountains are so incredible that God must have made them.' It's philosophy, not science. That's why ID is such an embarrassment: because God is irrelevant to the studies of evolution, biology, geology, genetics, etc., as they are dictated by the scientific method. As vb said it's, "an elaborate attempt to make creationism appear to be a scientific theory."

[Spademan 94]

You don't hang out in the correct places.Also, you sound exactly like my buddy JZ. Nearly every time we get together he shifts the conversation to religion and repeats some line about not understanding how his reasonable and sane friend could believe in God. I love it.

I immediately had three responses to this. None of them were all that funny so I'll post them all:1. Brag post, obv.2. THERE IS NOBODY LIKE ME.NOBODY.3.

Also, you sound exactly like my buddy JZ. Nearly every time we get together he shifts the conversation to religion and repeats some line about not understanding how his reasonable and sane friend could believe in God.