Ingersoll's Vow

Few have expressed the feeling of freedom from that dungeon, which is revealed religion, better than Robert G. Ingersoll. I only ask that while you read this vow of a courageous man, you remember that he lived and died before another great mind would evince the comparatively superior importance of imagination over knowledge; and this individual was talking about actual knowledge not the pretend knowledge of faith when he stated:


"Imagination is more important than knowledge."—Albert Einstein


INGERSOLL'S VOW

Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899) was a famous attorney and orator whose brilliant lectures drew thousands. As a political figure, he came close to achieving the Republican party's nomination for governor of Illinois, but prejudice and intolerance denied him the opportunity because he was an atheist.

When I became convinced that the universe is natural—that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light, and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world—not even in infinite space.

I was free—free to think, to express my thoughts—free to live to my own ideal—free to use all my faculties, all my senses—free to spread imagination's wings—free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope—free to judge and determine for myself—free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the "inspired" books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past—free from popes and priests—free from all the "called" and "set apart"—free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies—free from the fear of eternal pain—free from the winged monsters of the night—free from devils, ghosts, and gods.

For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought—no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings—no chains for my limbs—no lashes for my back—no fires for my flesh—no master's frown or threat—no following another's steps—no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.

And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain—for the freedom of labor and thought—to those who proudly mounted scaffold's stairs—to those whose flesh was scarred and torn—to those by fire consumed—to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still.

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Imagine (a powerful function & freedom of the mind when supported by evidence) what humanity could have achieved by now, if only our minds were free to soar without the shackles of superstition holding us back.


From a time long before I realized just how different I was, for I have always been atheist, I have seen the tragedy that is the change that comes from inculcation into the superstitions. General Robert G. Ingersoll—so much for that lie about atheists in foxholes—here expresses, better than most, the feeling of shedding those shackles, or should I say mind vice (vise works well, too), but in actuality, it is a virus, a cultural meme that both spreads like a virus and acts like a drug.

A Creationist's Sophistic Argument

While in a conversation with a fellow philosopher, I noticed this exchange slide by on my computer screen and found it interesting, then somewhat disturbing, and finally, typical of the sophistic mind set. But not the mind set of the one I've recorded here, no. The pictured comments that follow are the result of inculcation and indoctrination, not thinking, maybe rationalization, but not thinking.

You make a claim, therefore you need to support it with evidence. It is a consequence of the properties of logical, honest discourse that the one asserting the premise be able to support it with evidence, otherwise there is no case to be made for your assertion. The veracity of a claim is directly connected to, and wholly a function of, the quality and quantity of the evidence. Even in informal discourse there is the need for the one asserting a claim to support it.

This is the first sign that the argument which is to follow will in no way be an honest discussion, but rather an attempt to deride that which shows his world view to be untenable. This is typically a creationist tactic, but of the deluded. Noting the mention of 'naturalistic' very early in the discussion, it indeed suggests a sophist of a creationist bent; this tact is typically their only means of argumentation as the fundamentalist creationist world view has no supporting evidence.

I think it is diagnostically informative to analyze how this person views and defines the atheistic worldview. For instance, his inference in the above claim that atheism has some bearing, one way or the other, on the logical, conceptual, or immaterial is asinine taken at face value. It is merely a feeble attempt at conflating atheism with some sort of philosophical stance (a caricature of an irrational form of materialism supposedly representing evolution, a relatively simplistic strawman, actually) by asserting it holds to some claim. I don't think it's based on his confusing the supernatural with the immaterial. It may be that he has been inculcated into believing that the atheist is in a state of irrational denial of the immaterial aspects of the world. Or, is it because he thinks he can obfuscate the atheistic worldview with something negated by his God's logic? I think it may simply be that he has no idea that the atheistic worldview is comprised of a mere lack of belief, or he is just a creationist sophist conflating atheism with that which negates his creationist view and eliminates the need for a deity, evolution by natural selection.

Now this is the crux of his obfuscation. Not the argument, per say, but I think he is either claiming that evolution (without exactly stating it, of course) while calling it atheism (actually mischaracterized as a worldview), cannot account for logic (a tool of cognition, the function of an evolved brain, a conceptualization, used to discern the logical parameters, limits of material interaction, by which the material universe is integrated), or he is attempting to use his caricature of atheism (elucidated above) to claim that atheistic views of a material universe are incompatible with the existence of thought. Of course, both are absurd.

By denying that logic is a product of cognition in the material world he hopes to both deny atheists their ability to use logical argumentation and claim that logic is only in the realm of his god. Of course, neither of these are true, for I am using logic, the conceptual principles for reasoning, as it is part of the thought process of a material brain. As I just explained without appealing to the existence of any deity, and thereby not contradicting atheism; which is merely a lack of belief in god(s).

Here, he is just making unsubstantiated claims similar to any delusional claims one might hear during a stroll through any asylum full of psychiatric patients. In accordance with the typical fear motif common to delusions based on phobias, in this case theophobia, we are all supposedly in danger from his platonic monster. Notice his immediate attempt to give it force from this delusion's source of propagation and pseudo-authority. A book, necessary for fundamentalists, which is actually a collection of books most of which were written pseudonymously for different Jewish sects. Collected then accepted or rejected based on their political value and ease of conformity through redaction and interpolation to the conscripted mandates of a 4th century Emperor through his church historian, a confessed liar and fabricator: Eusebius.

Remember it is easy to show that this individual's beliefs are basically based on ignorance. Ignorance of the history and evolution of deities and their mythos in the Judeao-Christian tradition. Ignorance mimetically inherited from antecedents professing to know that which is impossible to know.

From this authority, he goes on to mischaracterize the actual stance of atheism which is that there is no evidence for a deity, one version of which is the Abrahamic deity. Again, this is done without his proffering any evidence for the claim; it is merely a bold assertion of his opinion as based on a book of fiction. This is similar to those that claim that the end of the world is nigh based on interpretations of that same collection of fables. Absurd!

Notice that he seems to be projecting the unsubstantiated existence of his deity on the mind of atheists, something that is impossible for him to know, even if he presumes to know every non-Christian has read his delusion's authoritative source, he can't possibly know the level of their comprehension. This is an excellent example of delusion in the mind of a fundamentalist. The authority of his delusion's sacred book above all else. This mind set is truly dangerous.

In the above comment, he is trying to hide the actual authority of an atheist which is evidence. Notice when he did use the word evidence, and then only once, it was seemingly to deride the scientist's insistence upon it. This exemplifies his deceit better than any prior comment. He may be attempting to inject Cartesian dualism (we are all god's automatons) into his derision of, his obfuscation of evolution (characterized as atheism). Science and the naturalistic view are based on reasoning supported by empirical evidence. While his delusion is only extracted by the rationalization of ancient myth.

Again, this comment asserts unsubstantiated claims that seem to stem from his mischaracterization of atheism and misconceptions regarding atheists' use of scientific concepts. This is actually easy to explain when one realizes that he is using the word atheist to represent, first, evolution and evolutionary concepts that contradict his pet belief of creationism, and second, those concepts of logical empiricism in opposition to claims which appeal to the  supernatural. It could possibly be a comment evincing a miscomprehension of the unguided properties of a natural universe, an over emphasis of random and chance, a creationist's favorite effigy of evolution. This would explain his almost insulting caricatures of the atheistic stance as the result of his being excruciatingly ill informed. This is no surprise considering the religiose have an almost disdainful view of evidence and education in the sciences. While there is little doubt this interlocutor is insane, he is at the same time inculcated with enough disinformation that his rationalizations can be somewhat complex in their structure, but nothing that can't be sorted out by an over-achieving fifth grader.

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Note:

In a discussion with someone else, this fundamentalist expressed a view that scientists' assumed uniformity could not come from chance. In his view it had to come from design. In his view he further evinced a notion that it was an atheistic view that was untenable as it held to that chance. I think he may be using an atheistic view to represent evolution which means he is a creationist sophist.

This confuses a couple of issues as I see it. First, scientific assumptions of uniformity are concerned with the continuity of physical parameters over time and space. A magical friend would interfere with this uniformity in several ways, for instance, answering prayers or intercession, a preference for one life form over another, or one people over another, etc.

Even with the universal application of physical parameters being uniformly distributed through time and space, there is still mostly chaos in the universe. It is from chaos that the universe is formed, and reformed. If this creationist were sincerely pursuing the facts he would know this, at least generally.

Since this individual is most likely a creationist, his main complaint is just as likely to be against evolution, and therefore what he is hiding behind the scientifically supported notion of "uniformity" is actually design. To show the fictitiousness in his assertion with this in mind, one need only point out the laryngeal nerve, the appendix, parasitic worms, or the fact that the world is full of suffering. Animals eating animals, insects eating animals and other insects, in a never ending cycle of feast, famine, or flood.

It is, in fact, his world view that cannot explain these occurrences in a world created by a supposedly benevolent god; the idea is absurd. And as a sophist he would know it, but as a fundamentalist he may not.

In discussions on the theory of evolution, a creationist is commonly found to be fond of over-emphasizing the role that chance plays in the evolutionary process. The truth of the matter is that chance plays a role in the random formation and distribution of mutations, but this is a very small part of the puzzle. By far, the majority of evolving is done by the recombining of well tested, and well utilized, genetic material. But try to tell this to creationists.

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Now this interlocutor thinks he has disarmed the atheist argument with his unsupported assertions. While at the same time allowing him to presume that he needn't adhere to the mutual concessions of logical discourse. This presumption  can, of course, be defeated in one sentence: Any assertion put forward without evidence can be ignored without evidence, or even an explanation, for that matter.

This is, of course, where it starts getting ugly from my point of view. Following in the line of his obfuscation concerning atheistic supplication

to reason as an ultimate authority, when, in fact, it is the evidence that holds the authority. A point he is loath to admit given that faith is evidentiarily vacuous. Considering that his god is also evidentiarily untenable and definitely a construct of his own ego, whether he realizes it or not, his ultimate authority becomes himself. The power of the creator of the universe which this commenter imagines as agreeing with his own whims, values, and opinions. This is the ultimate in arrogance. In claiming that his ultimate authority—as he imagines it, as supported by equally arrogant writings of Iron Age theologically bent politicians—an authority that is irreproachable, he has set himself up as the dictator and his ilk as his advisors. Hitler did it; Stalin did it, too. As has every Monarch in human history, but none exemplifies the horror of this power better than the Popes: Innocent VIII of witch trial infamy, Nicholas V of industrialized slavery and genocide infamy, and Alexander VI for adding indigenous peoples of the Americas to the genocide and slave trade. Granted, there are far too many despots to mention; but none that contradict the evidence that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Now this, astonishingly, is the most powerful argument against an ultimate power of which I can imagine. Imagining—then by some illogical extension of an illusion, claiming to know—the opinion or thoughts of a supreme power, and interpreting the related sacred texts in a way that supports your delusion is mainly why Thomas Jefferson said, "In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own."

The question is: how is this supposedly  authoritative knowledge communicated to mortals here on Earth? Answer is, it's not. It's imagined by those that stand to gain the most from their utterances, such as, priests, preachers, imams, bishops and popes. Meaning that this interlocutor's "ultimate authority" is none other than the very same, and all too human, despots who would enslave him with their opinion. Pretending to know the mind of some deity is a short cut to positions of tyrannical power over those with theophobia, the god-fearing or devil-dodgers, as I have seen it written recently.

This is exactly why our Founding Fathers use the words "We the People" in our Constitution so as to give the ultimate power back to the consensus of the people of this country. It is why the power of religion was effectively neutralized by not only religious freedom and a wall of separation, but also, freedom from religion. In this way our Founders took all claims to ultimate power away from those despots who imagined, or pretended to imagine, they knew its opinions; their claims to such knowledge are, of course, absurd for far too many reasons to list. Not the least of which is that this supposed deity is not, nor has it ever been, in evidence. Jefferson knew this, and he also knew that morality came from the people as a cultural consensus that progressed as human intellect improved and understanding increased while evolving over time.

This comes very close to defeating his argument as he actually states it. Then he goes on, shamelessly...

Alas, without the first shred of evidence in support of any of the previous assertions, he argues that Christianity, biblical Christianity no less, is the only source of knowledge of the universe. Ignoring the centuries of history that attest to exactly the opposite; that era we now know, and refer to, as the Dark Ages. (Also, I'm sure it's creationism, to which, he is actually alluding.) But this isn't his approach, as he evinced earlier, he is convinced what he terms an atheistic view (evolution), as he defines it as some sort of unrealistically strict even irrational caricature of a naturalistic or materialistic view, means that atheists (actually scientists and evolutionary biologists) deny the very logic that we use in concert with evidence to support everything from the steam engine to space flight.

His problem is that science works; as evidenced by this very computer with which I am working. His religion's claims concerning the universe have been soundly refuted by the great minds of knowledge for longer than his religion has been in existence.

The point of this blog isn't to refute this person's claims. It is not his inane claims, which, of course, it is beneath me to even give credence to via respectable debate. No! I'm concerned about his delusion coupled with what appears to be a very lopsided education. I don't think I would be too far off in thinking it to be of an extreme fundamentalist bent.

In making this point, he obviously sets himself up for a logical comparison; for he could be said to be a rebel for his imagined deity, and fall under the same claim of bias concerning truth. Only, this is a smokescreen; his whole argument ignores the actual atheistic stance, which states, there is no evidence for the existence of his, or any other, deity. The atheistic stance is a neutral position, as it is the evidence that determines the current view. And, considering he has neither alluded to, nor proffered any evidence in support of his claims, I would say this appears to be an inculcated rationalization that we are to accept a priori from his ultimate authority. Which is, of course, himself. Further, it is, however, his continued denial of the idea that people could actually not see any evidence for the existence of his imagined ultimate authority that suggests his delusion is of a deleterious nature.

Considering that his premises are false, hence the charge of sophistry for this excruciatingly unsound argument, his conclusion, as an extension, is as well. And this is as far as the argument goes. But, it is the cocoon that his inculcators have constructed around his delusion that is the most interesting. By misrepresenting the atheist world view as somehow ultra materialistic and illogical, he has deluded himself, or has been deluded into seeing his imagined ultimate authority as the only possible truth.

The delusion itself need not be dangerous, but it can be due to the protective encapsulation of this particular mindset, and the bigotry that inevitably ensues, in more than a few cases. There will be no debating this individual, or those like him, to a productive conclusion. His fundamentalist brainwashing has done its job, as this poor wretch is thoroughly deluded and all but unreachable with reason.

Creationist's Fictions Rehashed, Again!

On June 1, '11 I fired up tweetdeck to see what follows in my timeline. To be honest, I expected something of the sort. I had communicated with this individual the night before. I am sorry to say creationism isn't dead, yet! What I want to do here is bring into stark relief the number one intuitive oversight that is displayed by the typical creationist. They don't seem to realize that creationism, like religion in general, is worthless because it has no supportive relationship with any epistemological endeavor. It doesn't help in medical research, zoology, biology, anatomy, even botany or anything else for that matter. It is not supported by any scientific claims, at all. Furthermore, fact is creationism doesn't even support the claims of the Bible for which it was contrived to support. This new-ish ID only wants to make religion more scientific[ee] by discrediting scientific claims. They want to replace science with religion like in the good old days of the Dark Ages. Creationism stands as another belief system, just something else to take on faith, which is nothing more than denial in the face of overwhelming evidence.

I know I've debunked these same claims hundreds of times. Only, it fascinates me that the religiose, in general, and creationists in particular seem not to comprehend the fact that the truth of a claim is directly related to its supporting evidence, and to the claims of which it stands in support, but the true strength of a claim is in its predictive power. Since religion's core claims have no veracity, are supported by absolutely no evidence, and since creationism shares this weakness while not being able to make any predictions that can be used in medicine, say virology for example, it seems clear to me that the only reason the two exist is to support each other in flim-flamming the credulous. Now, I know these are obvious claims, but I have lately been thinking about the implications of this resurgence of the two in concert, worldwide. Considering the last time this happened in world history was in Nazi Germany with Herbert Spencer's elitist eugenics, a spin-off from Lamarckian evolution by acquired traits, in concert with Hitler's fundamentalist Christian Supremacy, I see something horrendous building in the atmosphere. If you are familiar with the creationist's arguments, you may as well stop reading after this introductory paragraph because it is the same claptrap that creationist demagogues have been proffering for decades.

What follows is a long tweet in response to a video [below] I sent to... well see for yourself. But like I said, we have had previous conversations. I have edited it for clarity, only.


From: @TertiusIII Top Ten Creationist Arguments  Enjoy! <-- Cute, but not really very enlightening. It was also a little confusing as whose arguments were being presented against what. It was called the Top Ten Creationists arguments, but it wasn't clear if the point was really theist arguments against atheism or creationism arguments against evolution or what the real point was. It just seemed to take claims that some (may have) made in the past against either atheism or evolution. But for the purposes of engaging in honest discussion, I will note that there were a couple of 'creationist' claims that I personally would never make, such as if evolution were true, why are there still monkeys. I have never heard a creationist make that argument, though honestly, I do remember having that question asked in a high school biology class where we were taught evolution and had to explain why we really do have monkeys, and why we don’t have monkeys turning into humans continuously. In my mind, this is not an argument against evolution. Nor is the argument that Hitler was an atheist an argument against atheism. The video did (correctly) note that Hitler's true religion is still in dispute, but clearly to imply atheism is somehow false or necessarily evil because Hitler may have been one is not a valid argument against the veridicality of either atheism or evolution. Now, having said all that, several of the arguments (I believe) are legitimate arguments against evolution, (up to now, we haven't been debating the merits of theism vs atheism, we can do that if you want, though I would prefer to defer that one until after we have vetted this one further). Let's look at some: 1. Radiometric dating methods are not valid. The video basically said 'yes they are and scientists use them all the time.' Actually, while it is the case that scientists use them, this does not negate the fact that ALL radiometric methods are based on several assumptions which, to the extent that they are reliable, will produce accurate dates, but to the extent that they are unreliable, will produce faulty dates. These assumptions are:
a) We know the rate of decay and it has always been constant. For uranium-lead with a multi-billion year half life, which we've only been measuring for 75 years or so, we cannot possibly know it's been constant for 4.5 billion years. But of all the assumptions, this one's probably the safest.
b) We know the ratio of parent to daughter elements when the rock formed. This is critical, because to the extent that daughter elements are present at the rock's 'birth' the results will be biased towards greater age. Since the decay process occurs when the elements are both embedded inside a rock or when free outside the rock, this is a highly suspect assumption since a rock, when solidifying may trap numerous previously existing daughter elements as it hardens.
c) Over the life of the specimen, there has been no migration of parent elements or daughter elements into or out of the rock. Ours is an extremely dynamic planet and this assumption is absurd on its face. To assume that the specimen has been sufficiently isolated from its environment to prevent highly mobile elements from this migration becomes even less likely the older we assume the planet to be. The fact that we find sea shells on mountain tops is a pretty clear indication that there are few places on our planet that were not once very different in the past. (But then, I believe in a global flood, a fact which these sea shells tend to support.)
d) When a rock is born, it can be dated and will be shown to be 0 years old. Of all the assumptions, this is the only one that can actually be tested as there are numerous active volcanoes today producing rocks we can examine. Your own local University of Hawaii tested this a number years ago with rocks known to be produced recently by local volcanoes and all tested out to be many millions of years old. This is pretty clearly a false assumption.

The truth is, when a rock is dated, the geologist (technician) doesn't simply take a sample with instructions to "please date this for me." The specimen is described by the scientist who also identifies the layer in the geologic column from which the specimen was taken. Since the column was constructed assuming evolution is true, the rough age of the specimen is already known by the technician before the 1st radiometric test is performed. The technician will then use numerous radiometric methods which will typically give a very wide range of ages, all of which are discarded except the ones consistent with the layer in which the rock was found. Hence evolution is used to prove an old earth which is necessary to prove evolution. This is absolutely how it is done. Verify this. It is very circular and very bad science.

Now, as it turns out there are other fundamental weakness of radiometric methods and that is that they are necessarily local in nature. I.e. at best they may tell us something about the local environment from which the specimen was taken. There are however other, global phenomena called 'geo-chronometers', almost all of which yield significantly younger ages for the earth. A couple of examples include the amount of helium in the atmosphere, the amount of salt in the oceans, the rate at which the moon's orbit recedes from the earth, the decay of the earth's magnetic field intensity and magnetic field reversals, and on and on.

2. Next, chance. To claim that evolution is not supposedly driven by chance is lunacy. Yes, since the fall of man, the competition for scarce resources is fierce, so what you call natural selection is observed (it is after all a tautology - what are the 'fittest' if they are not the ones that 'survive'?), however what are random mutations if not chance events? 3. Thermodynamics - As I have already tweeted numerous times, even Stephen Hawking argued in his book "A Brief History of Time" that the 2nd law doesn't always hold. The fact that neither most creationists, nor most atheists, nor most evolutionists in general can recite the other laws of thermodynamics is completely irrelevant. And while it is the case that the earth is not a closed system, the universe is, and yet we see an incredible order present in the structures of the universe. In fact, part of what the big bang cosmological model seeks to explain is how these structures developed (i.e. how we got this order we see.) There are other flaws in the video I could address, but as this tweet is already too long, I'll just leave it at that.

A subsequent comment:

From: @TertiusIII It is easy to understand why a people of one book; the Bible, Qur'an, etc., would not comprehen… (cont)  <-- Very foolish tweet @beechbum. The Bible explains my theology, but to claim that Christians reject science is tantamount to the "atheism is false/bad because Hitler was an atheist argument." As your (otherwise) silly video showed, many prominent scientists of the past were Christians. Then, to further indict yourself, you claim: "evolution is a fact, while it is a theory that is supported by many facts which actually makes it stronger than a fact." Dude, I'm sorry, but 'a theory supported by many facts makes it stronger than a fact' - that's just plain stupid. You need to start trying to be honest in our debate. I invite the others who have been following our tweets on this topic to weigh in on this one. Is a theory supported by many facts made stronger than a fact?



To which I replied:

To: @TertiusIII Your whole argument against radiometric dating displays the number one weakness of AiG and ICR based assumptions as suffered by all would-be creationists and religionists, the mindset of one book, you do not want to accept the strength, through support via corroborating results, of multiple testing procedures (see listing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometric_dating ) many different types (eg. ice cores, tree rings, varves, annual-layering methods, thermoluminescence, Electron Spin Resonance, Cosmic Ray Exposure Dating) of dating methodologies, each of which confirms the accuracy of radiometric dating and our understanding of the geologic column due to the cross corroboration. What I am saying is: you are in denial, as is, every creationist I have encountered to date. Alas, since you don't want to accept the evidence as proffered by an atheist, then, try this: http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/wiens.html a Christian perspective. Also, you underestimate me in that you do not seem to realize that all of your claims have been refuted by me and many others over the years. Oh, and one more thing, sea shells don't float which means that mountains were once at the bottom of the oceans. It also means that the trilobites are a direct refutation of your world view http://goo.gl/69KhT  and your disdain for fossil evidence for evolving phyla. What you and your ilk do not want to apprehend is that we use evolutionary theory to understand fossils, so much more than, we use fossils to substantiate evolutionary theory; the Genome Project does a far better job at that endeavor.

Your claim about some University of Hawaii tests is a fabrication of the Discovery Institute, ICR, if it is the tale I have encountered before. Details of those tests were, in fact, manipulated by means of contamination, but were actually discovered and corrected by subsequent tests of various methods to bring the dates to a more accurate conclusion. Also, of course, there are test results that give erroneous results, those are thrown out when they are not corroborated by many other testing means; it is these discarded test results that ICR et al. jump on in an attempt to discredit radiometric dating, to no avail.

This "when a rock is dated" testing scenario you anecdotally proffered in the next paragraph is so familiar, and inaccurate, that I'm sure it is born of the Discovery Institute, via AiG or Conservapedia (and uh, no! that's not how it is done). The funny thing is, creationists never attempt to contradict the findings with data, nor do they submit, for peer review, findings of their own (you know, we found this fossil in the ground and... uh, god did it). It is a simple process, anyone is able to test the results of scientific findings for themselves (see Dr. Richard Lenski's work with E. coli verifying evolution by natural selection via observed data and the conflict with that fraud at Conservapedia, Andrew Schlafly). It also neglects the fact that many paleontologists, for example, are in competition with each other and at the same time in cooperation all across the world making discoveries and corroborative links to past and contemporary findings that overlap, even intertwine. Also, a young scientist (as most post-docs see themselves) would like nothing more than to correct a Senior member of the faculty, talk about keeping the findings honest. A factual anecdote: tree rings from petrified trees correspond to rings in ice cores which line up with climatic events as recorded in strata via particulate fossils (eg. pollen, etc.) showing archaeologists clues as to, say, why a people migrated to the coast some 9-12,000 years ago across the Andes Mountains. This is also how Israel Finkelstein developed very strong evidence against the historicity of the tales about David and Solomon and most of the rest of the Old Testament. Hell, we have trees that are older than YEC creationists, like you, think the entire Earth is: http://bit.ly/j4J58E This is why people laugh at creationists.

Only, this corroborative power is nothing compared to the predictive power of the dating methodology as it is being perfected today. Few instances exemplify this better than the discovery of the specimen Tiktaalik roseae which was discovered in the Devonian strata as stratigraphy, zoogeography and paleontology predicted (see Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish http://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/ ). And this transitional (as if any fossil could be anything else) fossil is at the cusp of sea-to-land animal transition and it already shares many anatomical features of most extant animals in its lineage. Very strong evidence for the accuracy of our dating methodology—if you're asking me.


Geochronometers, which is what we've been talking about all along, have nothing to do with your connivance with ICR knavery. Let's take the helium falsehood first, shall we. It is a lie. To you and most other creationists they have lied. Like every other word that has spewed forth from those mountebanks of mythology. The claim is that helium doesn't escape from the exosphere as put forward by one L. Vardiman and Morris in 1974, but the truth of the matter is that helium does escape from the atmosphere at the rate of 2 to 4 x 10 ^6 ions/cm^2.sec of 4He. This is almost exactly the same as the decay rate production flux of (2.5 ± 1.5) x 10^6 atoms/cm^2.sec Calculations for 3He lead to similar results, i.e., a rate virtually identical to the estimated production flux. And since there is also another possible escape mechanism of direct interaction of the solar winds with the upper atmosphere during the short periods of lower magnetic-field intensity while the field is reversing, Sheldon and Kern estimated that 20 geomagnetic-field reversals over the past 3.5 million years would have assured a balance between helium production and loss." —Dalrymple, 1984, pg. 112.

I'm afraid the rest of the creationist flimflam falls under the weight of similar scrutiny. An example in my opinion, would be the mere mention of saltwater should be avoided by creationists due to the fact that it puts the fatality of saltwater fish getting emersed in rainwater and vice versa, in stark relief. Which, of course, eliminates Noah's flood as an excuse for sea shells floating up the side of a mountain, which they don't, of course. Such as your claim that fittest and survive are somehow a tautology, which it is not, especially in the context of reproductive fitness and survival of the genome; that is, in the context of evolutionary theory.

Or, as I wrote earlier concerning your bit about the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, Stephen Hawking was expressing, on page 103 of his A Brief History of Time, the relationship of entropy as a closed system passed over the event horizon of a black hole. At that point the entropy may decrease. These are not Laws that someone or something makes the universe follow, but descriptions of parameters that nature appears to follow as matter interacts. As it seems your idea of entropy is somehow related to visible order in the universe, which only displays your lack of understanding of entropy, generally, and the 2nd Law specifically, I would urge you to read Peter Atkins on the subject. Simply stated, the entropy described in the 2nd Law is the decay of the quality of energy through its dispersal. This means that the 2nd Law in no way supports creationism nor weakens evolutionary theory.

Regarding your next assertion in which you claim that I "claim[ed] that Christians reject science" is unfounded and misses the point, because my statement was: "It is easy to understand why a people of one book ...  would not comprehend the incredible strength of many books ... being in full and complete agreement, ... ." This is not me stating that Christians reject science; this is me stating that fundamentalist Christians in general, and creationists in particular, are so enamored with the idea that the claims expressed in the Bible as being the absolute truth, and the idea of absolute authority generally (which is 'tantamount' to evidencing a very real (and low) upper limit to the ratio of honest analytical capabilities to the overriding cognitive compartmentalization due to the cognitive dissonance present in a mind torn between wishful thinking and the observable facts), that they can't comprehend a concept which holds that the more supporting evidence there is concerning a claim, the more likely, the more powerful the veracity, of that claim, of a theory, of an observation becomes.

This agreement, this corroboration across all sciences, across all epistemological disciplines is exactly what makes the Theory of Evolution so powerful, and such an untenable state of affairs for science deniers (typically they only deny the facts that are inconvenient, which is where the charge of hypocrisy comes into play), like creationists. Notice that I didn't write Christians. Further, claiming this is tantamount to "atheism is false/bad because Hitler was an atheist argument" is totally unrelated and untenable for many reasons; the first of which is, obviously, that I am concerned with the creationist's lack of understanding regarding the accumulation of facts as evidence in ever increasing support of claims made. This is exactly the methodology in our legal system. Second, I am not claiming to know the opinions in a dead man's mind (see note 1 below), nor am I generalizing one person's presumed beliefs across a whole group of people. It seems you have also incorrectly labeled atheists with a philosophical identity, by the way. Atheism is not a belief, so it cannot be false or bad.

This "scientists of old were religious" assertion is usually a very telling claim. Of course, many scientists of the past were Christians, Muslims or Jews, or at least claimed to be. In those years before the Enlightenment, even for many years afterwards, one would be the evening's entertainment for claiming otherwise. If one had the smell of burning heretics in their nostrils, yet none of the evidence that we have garnered since the days when philosophers regarded intuition and introspection more reliable than observation and experimentation (per the Church's insistence, of course), ie. Newtonian physics, Darwin's natural selection, the scientific method's track record of success,  Einstein's Relativity, or space travel, etc., it would be a fatalistic act of defiance to claim what would have been an illogical, and not an evidentiarily supported view. Your claim displays a projecting of today's knowledge back on historical figures, first. This, in turn, shows you know the strength of knowledge as garnered by science today. As if claiming, "scientists know all this stuff, and they still believe"; or as you've projected, "they're scientists, and they were religious"; thereby, empowering the very discipline you are illogically attempting to refute using religious means. Yes, very telling.

What you did concerning my statement, "at your level of understanding, evolution is a fact, while it is a theory that is supported by many facts which actually makes it stronger than a fact" is known as quote mining. It is a typical creationist ploy when attempting to cloud an issue or an idea. It is an evasion of honest discourse, a lie, and should be derided as such.

Concerning the matter at hand, a claim of innocence by the accused, in a court of law, is ever more substantiated as evidence accumulates in support of that claim, a theory as substantiated by more and more facts; making your assertion pathetically absurd through example. Evolutionary theory like electrical theory, gravitational theory, and cosmological theory, etc. etc., is solidly substantiated by facts at all but the very cutting edge of new knowledge on the subject. Moreover, this, much like your previous claims, is an example of a mindset; you seem to have a cognitive block regarding evidence that is not in support of your views, again, very telling.

You know @TertiusIII on a personal note, as I read your writing, I am reminded of an observation shared by the wickedly astute Dr. Peter Medawar about the spread of secondary, and latterly, of tertiary education which has created a large population of people, often with well-developed literary and scholarly tastes, who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought.

Notes:
1. Hitler was not an atheist by any evidentiary model of which I am aware. (Hitler was a fundamentalist Christian acting as a soldier of god in eliminating the Jews according to his own words and writings in Mein Kampf. http://bit.ly/kcyKWK & http://bit.ly/laRWck & http://bit.ly/k2ksoO This is what most would call evidence that Hitler was by no means an atheist. You see, the only reason there is any controversy concerning Hitler's piety is, again, Christians are in denial. That is, Hitler's religiosity is just another denial that Christians cling to in a feeble attempt to defend their delusions. Only, what they seldom want to talk about is the fact that, regardless of Hitler's views, the people of early 20th century Germany (and surrounding countries) were enthusiastic about putting him in power, complicit in horrendous atrocities because they were motivated by dreams of National, racial, and Christian Supremacy into supporting his agendas. Furthermore, the Catholic, that is Universal, Church was complicit in many of those atrocities as the exemplar (Spanish Inquisition), as an accomplice and supporting authority (Concordat of 1933 with Hitler's regime) and the active involvement of the church through the atrocities committed by the likes of Fr. Jozef Tiso and Ante Pavelić, and after the fact, via the Rat-Lines through which the Vatican shuttled Nazis out of Europe to places like America by way of South America. Point being that regardless of Hitler's personal views (about which I have no doubt based on the overwhelming evidence), Christianity, by way of its claims of divine authority, played a major role in the atrocities of the mid-twentieth century, not to mention the entirety of its history of inhumanity.

I know this is uninteresting to most people, but if it gave you some ideas or information you didn't know before maybe it was worth the trouble. Thanks.