4 posts tagged “science”

I have been thinking of starting a new blog, and I need help with a name.  You see, I'm going to try to make this a snazzy blog with its own domain name, so it has to be something short, clever, and easy to spell.  (Before you suggest it, I would use Vox, but I want to have more control over user registration and commenting than Vox currently allows.)

The new blog will be targeted at folks who are searching for information about the evolution vs. creation debate, and will present the scientific side in a simple, easy-to-understand, non-confrontational manner.  In my Internet perusing, I often find that the scientific viewpoint is misrepresented or omitted by creationists and intelligent design proponents, and I would like to contribute in some small way to addressing these gaps in their arguments.  Evolutionists are often guilty of simply dismissing creationist arguments without actually addressing them, which just makes us seem arrogant and doesn't provide any basis for the average person to make an informed decision about what to believe, as they don't have balanced information from both sides.  I would also like the blog to be a forum for a respectful discussion of the facts by readers on both sides of the debate.

So, with that said, do you have any suggestions?  It would ideally have 'sci' or 'science' in the name somewhere, and maybe also a reference to design or faith or god or something of the sort.  Please help!

I still can't believe that Randy has banned me from commenting on his blog.  I find the whole thing childish and totally shocking (the whole thing = the fact that I had no contact with him whatsoever and he banned me from commenting).  I'd really like to comment on his most recent post, where he goes on and on about how he and Shirley Phelps-Roper don't "serve the same god" (Shirley Phelps-Roper is a member of the Westboro Baptist Church of 'GOD HATES FAGS' fame).  And that might well be true (although, honestly, even saying that kind of implies there is more than one god to serve, which kind of tosses Randy's religion out the window... He ought to watch his words).  The problem is, Shirley is clearly the one who is serving the god of the Bible.  Because god does hate fags.  He says so, right in Leviticus, in "his word."  He also hates adulterers, and people who curse their parents, or pick up sticks on Sundays.  They all deserve death.  About that, god is very clear.

So, what's the deal, Randy?  How can you possibly (even if you have disregarded the laws of the old testament because of the new covenant) possibly blame someone for following them?  Or claim that the god of the old testament is somehow "not your god"?  What's that about??

(Randy won't answer this, so anyone else, feel free to explain this to me.  I am totally baffled. Honestly.)

Apparently, there is a small group of (*shiver*) ex-gays using Vox to talk about all the "ex" "gay" "conferences" they go to, and how ""god"" "loves" "them."  (For those of you who don't know, ex-gays advocate changing or ignoring one's true sexuality to conform to "biblical" "principles.")

Let me be blunt for a moment (as if you would expect anything less from me):  I hate these cunts.  With a passion.  Instead of just being adamantly anti-gay and up-front about the whole business, like some folks, they instead act like they are "compassionate" and "loving."  Unless, of course, you follow your heart.  Then you'll burn in hell for eternity.  But compassion!

They also have the endearing tendency of calling anyone who disagrees with them a bigot.  They've learned well from their bible teachers, it seems, and are quite good at spouting nonsense.

I actually found this small neighborhood (which links almost-exclusively with itself) a few months ago.  At the time I just vomited in my mouth a little, marked all of the posts on their blogs as offensive, and went on with my day.  But today, thanks to the terrible new "Recently Favorited" box on the homepage, I accidentally clicked and ended up at one of these blogs again, where the writer was showing off some ex-gay postcards (see here).  Seriously, people, why are you so evil??  Like gay kids need more confusion in their lives.

I actually would have let this go, too, except that I started browsing through the archives of said blog and discovered that the blog writer had played the ultimate Christian nonsense card: science is nonsense (Dark Matter: a modern myth?).  To be blunt again, I fucking hate this cunt of an argument.  Richard Dawkins rightly names this the argument from incredulity: "I cannot possibly imagine it to be so, so it is false (or has a creator, or is "intelligently designed" etc.)!"  Let's be clear, ex-gays and others: just because you are too thick to understand something does not make it false.

In the corpse of the post, he then plays yet another Christian nonsense card: "Well, it's just a theory!"  Let's be clear here, too: there are two meanings of the word "theory," one of which is non-technical and one of which is technical.  The non-technical, everyday word means "guess, conjecture;" this is presumably what this breed means when they make their arguments.  What they have missed, however, is that in science (i.e., as in the phrase "scientific theory"), "theory" means something else.  The scientific equivalent of the common meaning of "theory" is "hypothesis."  In science, a "theory" is (from dictionary.com): "a more or less verified or established explanation accounting for known facts or phenomena." When you say "It's just a theory," what you are really saying is, "Well, there's just lots and lots of evidence for it."  As someone somewhere once said, "that word doesn't mean what you think it means."

Finally, let me address another aspect of this line of argumentation which I find absolutely infuriating: if you want to be a backwards, worthless Luddite (instead of just backwards and worthless), you have every right to do so.  What you do not have is the privledge to pick and choose your science.  The scientific method and various tests of rigour used therein are common to every discipline which might be remotely considered science, from anthropology to biology and from astronomy to electrical engineering.  If you do not believe in the veracity of science, fine.  Stop using Vox.  And the rest of the Internet.  And your cell phone, cameras, cars, contact lenses, medicine, plastic, smelted metals, airplanes, etc. ad naseum.  You cannot ridicule scientists for the claims they make and all the while use the fruits of their labor to make your life, and your biggotry, easier.

There, I've destroyed that argument in one fell swoop.  Not that that will stop them, I'm sure.  *sigh*

Update!

Richard Dawkins--far more eloquent that I could ever be--on what a 'theory' is:

"[Evolution is] a theory in a special philosophical sense of science, but in terms of ordinary laymen's use of language, it's a fact, ... Evolution is a fact in the same sense that it's a fact that the Earth is round and not flat, [that] the Earth goes round the Sun. Both those are also theories, but they're theories that have never been disproved and never will be disproved."

If that man were just a few years younger and a 'mo, I would hunt him down and make him marry me.

I read the first 100 pages or so of Richard Dawkins's The Ancestor's Tale tonight.  If you haven't read Richard Dawkins, he is definitely worth the time.  This book runs to something like 700 pages, and is rather sciencey so it might take a bit of time, but the man has an absolutely amazing ability to explain complicated concepts in a totally accessible way.  The book is structured as a "pilgrimage" which begins with modern humans and ends with the ancestor of all life on Earth, with important scientific concepts explained as "Tales" along the way.  It makes for quite a fun read.

I'd also suggest Unweaving the Rainbow, which is also quite stunning in both structure and content.