A Cosmos Apart

Over thirty years ago, Carl Sagan kickstarted a decade-long science boom with his show, Cosmos.  Millions were influenced, and a generation of kids wanted to become scientists when they grew up.  Now, imminent astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson takes on the mantle of science popularizer and educator with his take on the award-winning program, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, produced by Seth MacFarlane (of Family Guy fame):

I watched the first episode with bated breath.  I'm quite familiar with Tyson and Sagan, so I knew they'd do a pretty good job with keeping the "spirit" of the original series.  And they did.  With updated graphics and scientific understanding, the show is poised to once again inspire people to look deeper into how we know what we know.

Given that I converse with scientifically illiterate people regularly, I couldn't help but view the show through the eyes of an uneducated theist.  With this exercise I was able to see that, given the what the material is presented, hardcore theists and science-deniers have their work cut out for them.  The show is meant to inspire, to fill the viewer with curiosity.  When Tyson makes statements of fact, it's supposed to get the viewer to think, "how is that true?" and then go seek the answer.

But just as with Bill Nye's approach to the debate with Ken Ham, this tactic won't work; the average viewer isn't going to look any of this up.  A lot of them have their minds made up already, as one tweet read: "i can answer where life came from. God Next question."

I'm not giving into despair though.  I believe the new Cosmos will spark discussion and invite viewers into the world of science at a time when we desperately need it.  But I don't know just how big the impact will be.  It's my hope that science can once again become popular enough that people begin to understand and appreciate the methods and not just the results it give us.


-STA

Should Scientists Debate Creationists?

I spend a lot of time in online forums, chat-rooms, and the comments sections of blogs and videos talking with people about religion, philosophy, and theism.  Often I have great, civil discussions with my "opponents", but in almost every case, I can find that guy whose not willing to offer anything other than bible verses and wild, unjustifiable statements.  And I still attempt to communicate with those individuals until it becomes pointless.

That's because I understand that in those cases I'm not going to change that person's mind.  But there are other people watching and listening.  Debates are often not about the two debaters; they're for the audience.  As in a courtroom, the truth isn't necessarily reached simply because one side has more charismatic orators. I'll answer a person's hate-laced attempt at conversation specifically for the benefit of those who happen to read the exchange (in part as a testament to how civil a nonbeliever can be).

On the Nature of Addressing Walls of Brick
When it was announced that Bill Nye would accept Ken Ham's challenge to a debate at Ham's Creation Museum in Kentucky, many were disappointed or even outraged that Nye would do this.  Scientists should never debate creationists, many said, because it gives the impression that there is something to debate over.  As the late Stephen Gould pointed out, you have lost the moment you step on the stage because what they want is the oxygen of respectability -- to be seen on stage debating a real scientist.  It lends a credibility that is unfounded, similar to an obstetrician debating a stork-theorist.

Now, I'm not a scientist (unless you count computer science), though I am scientifically minded.  Nevertheless, I'm of two minds on this issue. should scientists debate creationists?

On the one hand, I agree that it grants them with far too much clout and makes it seem to an audience that they have an argument that is on equal grounds with established scientific fact.  However, 33% of people reject evolution, despite the observable evidence for it.  That number might seem small, but it makes up for over one hundred-million people in the U.S. that don't accept reality for whatever reason.  That's an insanely large number.  Many of those people are teaching their children to eschew scientific methodology in favor of faith.  Many of those people will never attempt to actually understand what the theory of evolution says on their own, preferring instead to stay inside their bubble of self-confirming feedback.

So yes, at some point those should be forced to confront the evidence.  They have to have the chance to understand if we're going to make any difference at all in lowering that number.  I see it as compassionate, even though we elevate them up to the stage of equal footing with science.  It basically says, "Look, here's your beliefs.  It's okay to believe things, but here's why we believe differently".  I've found in my discussions with them that the less marginalizing you start with, the more they actually listen to.

But we have to be careful how we go about it.

They Win Anyway
Ken Ham announced yesterday that he's raised enough money to begin construction on his Ark Encounter project, due to be finished by the summer of 2016.  He said the debate with Bill Nye earlier this month helped boost support for the project.

The debate in many ways was a win for Ken Ham and creationism the moment Bill agreed to it.  It was held at the Creation Museum, so the money went to them.  The "museum" sells DVDs of the debate, so proceeds go to them.  It projected the idea that creationism was worth debating for those 33%, so they rallied more money.  Ken knew what he was doing all along.

But it was good to at least force science into the closet of faith for the believers and creationists who watched it, and being a life-long educator and champion of science, Bill Nye 'The Science Guy' was the one to do it.  If 33% of the population actually believed that babies come from storks and vehemently rejected the observable evidence to the contrary, at some point a scientist would have to stand up and say, "No, you idiots! Look at the evidence!".  For the sake of our future as a species, learn what knowledge we know, people.  Learn real science.


-STA

Creationism Debate Q&A

My video review of the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham discusses the majority of the debate, except for the final question-and-answer portion.  It was an important part of that night, and took nearly half of the debate time.  To streamline the review, I decided to handle the questions one by one here on the blog, rather than in video form.

Each question was written in by an audience member, and was addressed to either Ken or Bill, who then had two minutes to answer.  Then, the other got a one-minute chance to answer that same question.  Ken Ham went first, and then they alternated, with a total of sixteen questions in all.

The questions are verbatim, but the answers are not direct quotes (unless stated).   I’ll give a paraphrased answer from each debater so you can get a sense of what they said in their one-to-two minutes.  I'll offer further criticisms and comments in red text.  Obviously you should watch the full debate yourself before coming to any conclusions.

Question 1:  How does Creationism account for the celestial bodies moving further and further apart, and what function does that serve in the “Grand Design”

            Ken: Our Creation scientists observe the universe expanding, as do the traditional scientists, and the Bible says God stretches out the heavens.  This is another example of how observational science proves Creationism.  As to “why” God did it that way, I can’t answer that, but the Bible says that God made the heavens for his glory and to tell us how great and powerful he is.  And looking at this awesome power demonstrated by an infinite God makes you feel small, and makes you think about how special we are that God considers this planet so significant that he created us knowing we would sin and stepped into history to die for us to forgive us and let us live forever.

            Bill: We’re all born with a desire to know the answer to the question ‘why’.  To a Creationist, when your religion gives you the answer -- when it says "He made the stars also" -- that’s a satisfying answer to you.  You stop looking for reasons (even though religion is supposed to explain the “why” while science explains the “how”).  You give up on wanting to know.  To me, I’m driven to learn the truth.  (Bill also challenges Ken in the last few seconds of his time to deliver an example of something in the Creation model that predicts something that will happen in nature, once again trying to get him to address his earlier points.) 

Question 2:  How did the atoms that created the Big Bang get there?

            Bill: This is the mystery that drives us.  It’s what makes us keep looking, keep searching.  When I was young, it was believed the universe was slowing down in its expansion.  Scientists conducted experiments and took observations to find out the rate of the supposed deceleration, but they discovered that it is in fact accelerating.  And do you know why?  No, nobody knows why!  This is what drives us to find out!  Imagine a student from your local school who is excited about science and pursues a career in it, and one day discovers the answer to that deep mystery.  To us scientists and searchers this is wonderful and compelling and what makes us get up in the morning -- the Creationist just says, “God did it” and goes back to sleep.

            Ken: I just want to let you know that there is a book out there that actually tells us where matter came from, and the very first sentence in that book says “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”.  And really that’s the only thing that makes sense.  Matter can never produce information.  No matter how much energy you put into a stick, it will never create life.  The Bible tells us that the things we see are made from things that are unseen: an infinite creator god.  The only thing that makes logical sense!

Question 3: The overwhelming majority of people in the scientific community have presented valid, physical evidence…to support evolutionary theory.  What evidence, besides the literal word of the Bible supports Creationism?

            Ken: I often hear that the majority believes there is evidence for evolution, but it’s not the majority who is the judge of truth.  Just because the majority believes something doesn’t mean it’s true.  Observational science supports the biblical predictions, as I’ve shown before.  If the Bible is right, that we’re all descendants of Adam and Eve, there’s one race of humans; science has shown that.  If the Bible is right and God made kinds...I talked about that in my presentation.  Really that question comes down to, there are aspects about the past that you can’t scientifically prove because you weren’t there, but observational science in the present does.  Understanding the past is a whole different matter.

            Bill: If anybody makes a discovery that changes the way we view natural law, scientists embrace that person.  That’s the greatest thing in scientific thought: to be challenged and shown where we’re wrong.  You may have misunderstood something in evolution -- it’s the method by which we add complexity.  The energy we get from the sun is used to make life-forms more complex. (That last point was to Ken’s claim in his previous answer that matter can’t create complexity.)

Question 4: How did consciousness come from matter?

            Bill: Don’t know.  Another great mystery.  The joy of discovery drives us to find these things out.  We don’t know where consciousness comes form, but we want to learn.  I challenge the young people to investigate that question, and I remind the taxpayers and voters that if we do not embrace the process of mainstream science, we will fall behind economically as a nation.

            Ken: I just want to let you know that there is a book out there that does document where consciousness came from.  In that book, it says that the one who made us breathed into man and made him a living being.  That’s where consciousness came from: God gave it to us.  I have a mystery, Bill: you talk about the joy of discovery, but you say that when you die, it’s all over.  And if you believe that, then what’s the point of being alive and making discoveries in the first place?  I love the joy of discovery because this is God’s creation and I want to find out more about it for man’s good and for God’s glory.

(There's nothing really to do here.  Bill is showing why we use science, and Ken is saying "God Did It!"  You can't convince these people.)

Question 5: What, if anything, would ever change your mind?

            Ken: I’m a Christian.  I can’t prove it to you, but God has shown me himself through his Word and the person of Jesus Christ.  I admit that’s where I start from.  I challenge people to go and test that, you can make predictions based on that, you can check the prophesies in the Bible.  I can’t prove it to you, all I can say to someone is, if the Bible really is what it claims to be: then check it out.  The Bible says if you come to God he will reveal himself to you, and as Christians, you can say we know.  So as far as the word of god is concerned, no.  No one's ever gonna convince me that the word of God is not true.  We build models based on the Bible and they’re not subject to change.  The facts can’t be disputed; only the methods by which those facts occur can be disputed because we observe in the current world and can’t observe in the past. (Ken then asks Bill to answer this question, as if he’s forgotten that they’ve been doing that for the last four questions.  It’s a telling bit that reveals further illustrates how much he wants to get the topic off of his unquestionable faith.  I encourage you to watch him answer this question.  From the very beginning you can tell he is uncomfortable and having a hard time figuring out how to answer.  I think it’s because he knows his answer is close-minded and groundless: No, nothing will change my mind because I really believe in Jesus and don’t make me think about it, next question!)

            Bill: One piece of evidence.  Show me one out-of-place fossil (such as a rabbit in the Precambrian, as Haldane said) or evidence that the stars appear to be far away but they’re not.  We would need evidence that you can somehow reset atomic clocks and keep protons from becoming neutrons.  Bring on any of those things and you would change my mind immediately.  (Once more, Bill challenges Ken:) What can you prove?  You’ve spent your time coming up with explanations about the past.  What can you predict and prove in a conventional sense?

Question 6: Outside of radiometric methods, what scientific evidence supports your view of the age of the Earth?

            Bill: The age of stars I guess?  Radiometric dating is pretty compelling.  There were attempts in the past to try to find how the earth could be old enough for evolution to have taken place.  Then radioactivity was discovered.  This question to me is akin to saying, “if things were any other way, things would be different”.  Radiometric dating works, protons become neutrons, and that’s our level of understanding today.  These are provable facts.  The idea that there was a flood four thousand years ago is not provable and I think that there is ample evidence that disproves it.  And Ken, you haven’t addressed my point about how the various skulls support evolutionary theory.  (Bill was cut off there at the end for time, but I think that like the last question was Ken’s stumbling block, this one was Bill’s.  He seemed to have a hard time answering the question, and like Ken did, at the end he tried to divert the topic away.  Of course, Bill was stating provable fact and when you’re doing that it’s hard to keep from just doing that.  But I think he could have answered the question better with the fact that we use a variety of dating methods that all support one another.  When you have different sources pointing to the same relative time-frame, it makes a more convincing argument.)

            Ken: There was no earth rock dated to get the date of 4.5 billion years.  People think that, but they actually dated meteorites and because they assumed they were the same age as the earth left over from the formation of the solar system, that’s where that date comes from.  Look at my slide again as proof. There’s no dating method that proves young or old. (Ken is engaging in misinformation here to make it seem like scientists don't check these things constantly.  Is it reasonable to think that no earth rock has ever been dated, or that it would be difficult to just go out and do so?  What Ken is disingenuously alluding to is that the oldest rocks we've ever found came from meteorites that are 4.54 billion years old.  Earth rock has been dated to 4.47 billion years -- so yeah, 4.5 billion, Ken)

Question 7: Can you reconcile the change in the rate at which the continents are now drifting verses the rate at which they must have traveled 6K years ago to reach where they are now?

            Ken: This again illustrates what I’m talking about with regards to observational science vs historical science.  I’m not an expert here, but we have Creationists with PhD's and they’ve written papers on this stuff.  If you look at the plates today and you assume that the rate has always been that way, that’s an assumption and you can’t prove that.  That’s historical science.  We would believe in “catastrophic plate tectonics” as a result of the Flood and what we’re seeing now is a remnant of that catastrophic movement.  (And this is a direct quote:) “We do not deny the movement, we do not deny the plates; what we would deny is that you can use what you see today as a basis for just extrapolating into the past.”  (I’ve made a video that shows Ken Ham in his own words stating that, on the one hand you can’t assume laws worked in the past as they do today, and on the other hand God created the laws to be unchanging and that gave us the basis for doing science, and the writings from Creation scientists further proves this.)

            Bill: One of the reasons we think that the continents are drifting apart is sea floor spreading in the mid-Atlantic: the earth’s magnetic field has reversed over the millenia, and as it does it leaves a signature in the rocks as the continental plates drift apart, and so you can measure the speed – that’s how we real scientists do things.

Question 8: Favorite color?

            Bill: Green.  It’s an irony that green plants reflect green light.  Most of the light from the sun is green and yet they reflect it, it’s a mystery.  Science is cool!

            Ken: (points to his shirt) Observational science: blue.

(Time for some comedic relief, I suppose.  I found it telling that even though it was a lame question, Bill used it to continue his point about how science fosters our curiosity.)

Question 9: How do you balance the theory of evolution with the second law of thermodynamics, and what is that exactly?

            Bill: It’s basically where energy decays to heat.  The fundamental flaw in this question is that the earth is not a closed system, it’s powered by the sun.  It’s that energy that drives living things.

            Ken: You can have all the energy you want, but energy or matter will never produce life. God imposed information and a language system and that’s how we have life.  Before man sinned, there was decay such as in digestion, but after the Fall things are running down and God doesn’t hold everything together as he did back then. (Ken answered this scientifically-based question with complete religion-infused non-answers.  He explained entropy by saying God doesn't keep everything working like it used to!  That's like saying objects float in space because God isn't pushing them down. Mind-numbing!)

Question 10: Hypothetically, if evidence existed that caused you to admit that the earth is older than 10,000 years and that creation did not occur over six days, would you still believe in God, and the historical Jesus, and that Jesus was the son of God?

            Ken: I’ve been emphasizing all night: you cannot ever prove the age of the earth using science in the present, so there is no hypothetical.  We can make assumptions but you can’t ultimately prove the age of the universe.  You can see there are methods that contradict the billions of years, and as the creation scientists said in my video earlier, there’s nothing in science that contradicts a young earth.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the reason I believe this is because of the Bible’s account of origins.  There is no hypothetical, bottom line. (Ken might as well have had his fingers in his ears and going "nana-nana-na no it's not no it's not nana-nana-na I can't hear you!")

            Bill: You can prove the age of the earth with great robustness by using the universe around us.  Ken wants us to take his word for it that his interpretation of an ancient book is more compelling than what you and I can observe around us today with our own eyes.  Ken, you asserted that life can’t come from non-life – are you sure?  Are you sure enough to say that we shouldn’t look for life on other planets, that it’s a waste?  One again, what can you predict, what can you tell us about the future, not just your ideas about the past?

Question 11: Is there room for God in science?

            Bill: Billions of people embrace science and are religious.  Everyone has a cell phone, uses medicine, and befits from agriculture.  So if you reconcile those two things, that’s not really connected to your belief in a higher power.  I see it as a separate point, and I see no incompatibility between religion and science for each person.  The problem I have is that Ken wants us to take his religious word for it in place of what we can observe on our own. (Here, Bill tried to stay away from theology.  While it's true that one can believe in both God and science, the idea of theism isn't scientific.  But Bill didn't need to go into all of that, and did a good job of keeping on the real point: Ken just says the bible is true, even when it is contradicted by things any person could see.)

            Ken: I think God is necessary for science.  We love science here at Answers In Genesis.  You talked about cell phones and satellites and technology, I agree – those are things that can be done in the present with observational science.  In order to do science you have to assume the uniform laws of nature and logic, and where does that come from if the universe is here by natural processes?  The bible and science go hand-in-hand, but inventing things is very different from talking about our origins.

 

Question 12: Do you believe the entire Bible should be taken literally?

            Ken: I would need to know what that person meant by literally.  If you meant “naturally”, then yes.  If it’s history, as Genesis is, you take it as history.  If it’s poetry, as in the Psalms, you take it as poetry.  You take what is written in the context that it is written in and let it speak to you.  The bible says that all scriptures are inspired by god.  You have to take the bible as a whole.  If it’s really the word of god, then there’s not going to be any contradictions, which there’s not.  And Jesus said marriage is between one man and one woman. (Ken has a Clinton-esque "what is is" moment with this one.  He, like many others, take literally what they want, and things they don't agree with are figurative.)

            Bill: When the facts contradict the things you take as literal interpretations, and then you want me to take other parts of your bible as literal, it's unsettling.

Question 13: Have you ever believed that evolution was accomplished via a higher power? [Literally: Have you ever believed that evolution partook through evolution?]

            Bill: Intelligent design has a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of nature.  Nature is bottom up design, not top down.  If you found a watch on a beach, you’d recognize it was designed.  But that’s not how nature works.  Nature has its mediocre designs eaten by its good designs, and the perception that there’s a designer isn’t needed because we have model that makes predictions and repeatable, testable claims.

            Ken: Bill needs to show some new function that arose that was not previously possible from the genetic information that was already there.  There’s no new information or function that can be added to a kind via evolution, and there is no example that you can give that shows this.

Question 14: Name one institution, business, or organization (other than a church, amusement park, or the Creation museum) that is using any aspect of Creationism to produce its product.

            Ken: Any scientist that is using the scientific method is using Creation!  They’re borrowing from a Christian worldview.  Because, in a naturally arising universe there can’t be logic and you couldn’t trust the laws of nature.  A lot of scientists in the past were Creationists.  And if we don’t teach our children about this, they’re not going to be innovative or come up with inventions to advance our culture. (Ad hoc arguments, appeals to authority, and general misunderstanding of real science from Ken here.  I find it hilarious that he claims we couldn't trust the laws of nature in a natural system.  That's precisely why they're the laws of nature!  And if they changed all the time, they wouldn't be laws -- which are descriptive, not proscriptive, Ken.)

            Bill:  The reason I don’t accept the Creation model is because it has no predictive quality.  Many people are religious, but not all of them share the same religious views as you do.  What happens to those people? Are they doomed? (Oh Bill, don't get into grade-school theology here.  Stick to holding him accountable for claiming books trump eyes.)

Question 15: Since evolution teaches that man is growing smarter over time, how can you explain the numerous evidences of man’s high intelligence in the past?

            Bill: Evolution doesn’t say we’re getting smarter.  Survival of the fittest doesn’t mean those who are the most physically strong or the smartest will survive.  It means those that fit into the environment the best.  Sure, our capacity to reason has taken us to where we are now, but if the right germ shows up, we can be taken out.  It has nothing to do with smarts.

            Ken: I remember one of my professors at university was going to give us an example of evolution, and he showed us cave fish that are blind.  He said, 'look these fish have evolved not to see.  They’re evolving because those who are living in this dark cave had ancestors who had eyes and now these ones don’t', and I said, 'but now they can’t do something that they could do before!'  They might have an advantage in this dark cave now, but it could be that those who had eyes got a disease and died out and those with a mutation to have no eyes survived.  (Direct quote:) "It’s not survival of the fittest; it’s survival of those who survive."  You’re not getting new information or new function.

Question 16: What is the one thing, more than anything else, upon which you base your belief?

            Ken: The bible.  It’s the most unique book out there.  There’s no other religious book that talks about an infinite God, the origin of the universe, the origin of matter, the origin of light, the origin of darkness, the origin of day and night, the origin of the earth, the origin of dry land, the origin of plants, the origin of the sun/moon/stars, the origin of sea creatures, the origin of flying creatures, the origin of land creatures, the origin of man, the origin of woman, the origin of death, the origin of sin, the origin of marriage, the origin of different languages, the origin of clothing, the origin of different nations – it’s a very specific book with a detailed account of history.  And if that history is true and so is the rest of the book, then that means man is a sinner, and he needs the saving power of Jesus Christ who died for you so that you can live forever with God.  If this book is true -- and has no contradictions, which it doesn't -- it should explain what we see in the world today.  There was a global flood; yes, we see fossils.  There was the Tower of Babel; yes, we have different languages around the world, and they have flood legends and creation legends very similar to the Bible.  There’s prophecy you can look at as well.  The bible says, if you seek God, you’ll find him.

            Bill: Science.  I base my belief on the information and the process that we call science.  It fills me with joy to make discoveries, and to know that we can even ask the questions and pursue the answers.  It’s astonishing to think that we are one of the ways for the universe to know itself.  We are created from the universe, it’s in all of us.  And we want to know if we are alone in the universe.  It’s the process of science that will help us find this another other things out.  If we abandon all that we’ve learned through science, if we stop using it and stop looking for the answers, we as a nation will be out-competed by other countries.  We have to keep science education in science classes.

###

So that was the other half of the debate.  It was very telling and reveled the positions of both sides a little better than their illustrated presentations were.  Here are some of my final thoughts:

• Bill said a lot by his facial expressions during the times Ken was answering questions.  Bill kept things very formal, and did a good job of sticking on point, only getting off into the you-can't-be-serious-how-is-your-religion-true avenues once or twice.  But you could see on his face at times, he wanted to.  You could see him saying to himself, "oh really?" and "you've got to be kidding me!"
• You could tell Bill Nye doesn't debate these people often.  He had questions that were rudimentary and didn't use answers that are generally presented, some of which I pointed out in my comments.
• Creationism is a thought process that is “almost there”.  Creationists agree that science works…but you can’t make assumptions that things worked in the past just because the do today.  And they agree that evolution happens…just not enough to make one thing so different from it’s "kind" that it becomes something distinct.  And that the genes for a life-form to have incredible complexity are all already within it, apparently eschewing the mechanism of mutation.

See other Creationist questions from the audience here.


-STA

Happy Darwin Day 2014

In honor of Darwin Day this year, I wanted to take a little time to encourage those of you who haven't given creationism or evolution much thought to do so.  Picking a side isn't the point.  It's a bit like voting: both sides have a stance on something.  The "winner" of the argument will go on to affect change in your world.  Therefore, getting to know the stances of both sides helps you to make informed decisions about things that will effect you, and aid you in realizing in what context information in the future is being presented.

On A Lack of Substance
If you've never really thought much about the Evolution vs. Creation discussion before, I encourage you to take some time to look into each side in as much depth as you can.  Maybe you're on the fence about which side you agree with.  Maybe you're a Christian or a spiritual person and think that necessarily means you must be a Creationist.

Evolution has nothing do say about any God.  To accept the fact that things change over time doesn't mean you have to not believe in a Supreme Being.  Evolution doesn't talk about how life began, only how life changes.

The biggest arguments against it as an means of explaining life boils down into these fallacies:

#1: God of the Gaps
All throughout human history, there have been things we don't understand.  Even still, there are lots and lots of things we don't yet fully understand, and even more things we have no clue about at all.  The problem is that these gaps in our knowledge are a great fit for God.  Any time we can say, "I don't know" or "I can't explain it", a believer in some kind of deity will answer with their god, even though that explains a mystery with an even bigger mystery.  Where our knowledge ends, religion and god-belief begins.

2: Personal Incredulity
If you've never really thought about evolution before, you might be thinking, "I can't imagine how that works".  This is a common starting point for a lot of Creationists, and indeed before Charles Darwin uncovered the method in 1800's, it was the starting point for all of humanity.  But simply not being able to understand how something works doesn't make the thing nor its explanation any less valid.  That's like saying, "I just can't believe people could build a rocket ship!" is a valid refutation of the 1961 orbit by Yuri Gagarin.

3: Not Enough Time
When it comes down to it, a lot of Creationists today accept evolution -- they realize things change over time.  They just stop before one thing changes into another.  That is, given enough time, an organism can evolve into a separate species.  Yet Creationists claim that no one "kind" of animal changes into another "kind".  The problem they have is simply with time.  Evolution works given enough time, but due to a human's relatively short time to live, this idea makes it harder to put into perspective, because we don't see change occurring fast enough.  And since the hard-core Creationists believe the literal interpretation of the Bible and only allow for 6,000 to 10,000 years, they don't allow for the millions or billions of years such a change needs.

The Parnell Building at the University of Queensland, Australia, houses the world's oldest continually running experiment: a funnel of tar pitch (bitumen) sits inside a glass case at room temperature.  The pitch looks solid (and in fact it can be shattered with  a hammer) but it actually flows at an extremely slow rate.  It takes about a decade for it to drip.  The experiment was set up by a physics professor in 1927, and it as dripped eight times, and is due to drop very soon.  The rate is very slow in our perspective.  The continental drift of Australia is ten times faster than the flow of this stuff.

A Creationist looks at the time it takes for evolution in much the same way as someone who, for example, could have taken the pitch-drop experiment home with them, lived with it, perhaps got a Ph.D in something along the way, and every day looked at it and concluded, "it doesn't drip".

We can't generally see evolution occurring because it takes generations to work.  We do, however, see it occur in bacteria because they go through generations within a matter of hours.  Following the evidence, we see that Earth is millions of years old, 4.5 billion in fact.  Even without the evidence for evolution (fossil record, comparative biology, DNA, etc.), it should be easy to see that small changes over a time on that scale could result in great diversity.

Dig For Yourself
This blog post by no means should convince anyone of anything.  Its purpose is to encourage you to start looking into things for yourself.  Read and watch all that you can on both evolutionarily science and Creationist information.  Ask critical questions of everything you find.  Try to falsify, try to debunk, try to dismantle every argument you hear.

Think for yourself.


-STA

Grand Designs

Since I've decided to make a new effort to blog again, I've been reviewing some old drafts and talking points that have been accruing dust.  Yesterday, I came across a post that I never got around to finishing.  It was written when Ray Comfort called into the Atheist Experience show near the end of March in 2011.  I just heard that Matt and Ray are supposed to debate again this coming Friday, and since this is the eve of the Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham "debate", I thought it fitting to finish up the post for you.


Bananas!
As I press play on a video of the Atheist Experience TV show, I find myself reaching for a stress ball.  This is a special episode in which evangelist Ray Comfort calls the program.  I'm familiar with Ray and his favorite arguments for the god of the bible, and I'm more than certain he's going to use one that falls into the category of PRATT (Previously Refuted A Thousand Times).

Sure enough, Ray began his argument from design right out of the gate.  In Ray's view, anyone who has a brain and eyes should be able to look around at the world and see design.  How this apparent design points to his particular god is still a mystery, but the flaws to this argument are not.

And while you might think I'm about to list all the reasons why this argument is flawed, I'm not (you can find those on your own).  Instead, I'm actually going to -- for the sake of this post -- concede that nature has been designed.

"STA, have you lost your godless mind?!" No, no yet anyway.  But if we analyze this "designer" vis-à-vis its "design" we can examine the aptitude of this being.  It's irrelevant if this designer is the god of the Bible or the Qur'an, Zeus, Baal, FSM, or shape-shifting lizard men from the Andromeda galaxy.  If we assume that whoever created and/or designed life as it exists on our planet was indeed a conscious designer (or group of designers) that has a mind either dependent or independent of a body, we can examine its work and know it, as Matthew 7:20 states.

I Don't Need No Proof
I'm a somewhat musician and I love to sing and strum to a variety of songs, several of which come from a band called Live.  (At the time of writing, Live has disbanded and apparently the lead singer has now fully embraced Christianity.)  My guitar-playing buddy and I used to cover one of their songs entitled Heaven, whose chorus lyrics are:

I don't need no one to tell me about heaven
I look at my daughter, and I believe.
I don't need no proof when it comes to God and truth
I can see the sunset and I perceive.

I have to admit that once I truly became aware of my disbelief in a god, I could no longer perform this song -- even though I still perform many songs that reference ideas about heaven, god, angels, etc.  This song embodies the argument from design (in some ways a subset of the argument from ignorance) so completely that I can't bring myself to perform it for people.  It's still a good song in its own right, with a great hook, catchy melody, and it's well performed as many of Live's songs are.  But the narrator of the song (and now the actual singer, apparently) believes that God exists because things like sunsets and babies are beautiful.

Pay No Attention to the Flesh-Eating Bacteria

This kind of argument is put forth almost every time I ask a theist to give me reasons why they believe in god.  The response usually goes something like, "Look at the trees, birds, and the magnificence of a baby's eye and tell me how you don't believe in a god!"

But what about the very unpleasant in the world: ichneumon wasps, childhood leukemia, necrotizing fasciitis.  It's always amazing to me that I have to point out this bald-faced cherry picking of nature.  They might say, "look at this wonderful flower!  Only a God could have made it!" and then I turn over the flower and find ten kinds of bug that can kill you ten different, horrible ways.  Where's the credit go then?

Were we to examine the enumerations of our world's supposedly grand designs, we would see that a better design could be easily proposed.  Neil deGrasse Tyson said it well:

As Mr. Tyson points out, the world doesn't seem designed with us in mind.  Indeed, even our own bodies are lacking when it comes to functionality.  There are a myriad of ways to die without the aid of external forces, such as choking to death.

The theistic claims generally rest upon the idea of an all-powerful, all-knowing designer, and the fact that we, a supposedly fallible and broken creation, could suggest a design that is better than "perfect" should be a red flag.

It is not hubris to claim that the designer could have done better.  For the "designer" is blind.

The Blind Watchmaker
Nature has been designed -- by nature herself.  The puddle of rain was not designed for the divot in which it rests.  The hand was not designed for the glove.  Creationists too oftentimes put the cart before the horse.  Had enough metaphor yet?

The "designer" simply used the tools that were available, molding and shaping fauna and flora by jerry-rigging haphazardly working with what it has.  It's like giving a child a set of blocks and telling him to build various things with them. Whereas the child is given only a finite number of blocks, a truly omnipotent designer wouldn't have to stick with the pool of resources to create, it could simply create from nothing the parts it needed.

Only in reality, the "designer" is mindless.  There is no direction or goal to the design.  It's not a true design in the sense that we know it, and that's one of the main problems with the watchmaker argument, a favorite of Ray's.  But we can look around and easily see how much of the universe isn't designed for us.  We can examine ourselves and discover problems with our parts and systems as a whole.  We see design because life works and we're used to thinking that things can't work unless they are created with a goal to do so.

If a designer made nature, it could have done better.  Fortunately, we have found that by putting the evidence first -- not the conclusion that we are designed -- we find life changing and evolving without the need of a designer.  The results look designed, but only in the same sense that the puddle looks designed for the hole it lands in.

I Look At My Daughter
Even if evolution were to somehow be disproved, some kind of intelligent designer wouldn't automatically win the top spot for explanation.  Instead it must be proven on its own merits that this designer made things like trees, birds, cholera, and eyeballs.

Since the time of this writing, I have had a daughter.  The first time I saw her, I was filled with emotion and love.  She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.  Now, looking back at this post, I'm reminded of those lyrics in the song.  I don't need anyone to tell me a god designed us.  I look at my daughter, and I perceive the little shifts that life took, over millions of years, to "design" such a wonderful thing.  To claim that a god poofed her into existence is to deny facts and evidence we've gathered through diligent study, not reading from a book.  And we I look upon a sunset, I believe that humanity can and will learn more through the use of science and the eschewing of religion and ideas of intelligent designers.

But I'll admit my version's not as catchy.


-STA

An Updated Origin

November 21, 2009 will mark the exact 150-year mark since the publication of Charles Darwin's book Origin of Species, and a group is actually going to provide over fifty college campuses with free -- yes, FREE -- copies of the book. Who is this group, and why would they go through all that trouble? Why, for God, of course!

That's right folks. The group is the 'Living Waters' ministry. But why would I care that a Christian evangelical collective is giving away Darwin's book? Because this is not the book Darwin wrote. This special-edition version includes a hidden 50-page introduction written by Ray Comfort. And therefore, as you should be able to guess, starts the book off by claiming evolution can't happen, and then proselytizing for Jesus. I say "hidden" because the book does mention Ray's name until after the introduction.


Ray's Fractal Wrongness
You can read Comfort's introduction at the Living Waters site. Here's some random lines from Ray's special introduction, to give you an idea into Ray's way of thinking:

"Here’s the argument: There was nothing. Then paper appeared, and ink fell from nowhere onto the flat sheets and shaped itself into perfectly formed letters of the English alphabet." -pg. 9

If you're familiar with Ray Comfort's style of argument, then this should be par for the course. Ray thinks that evolution is cosmology and abiogenesis all rolled into one. He thinks natural selection should explain the expansion of the universe, and that the traits of animals just popped into being.

"Do you think that DNA’s amazing structure could have come together by accident? Or does it point to an intelligent Designer?" -pg. 11

Ray thinks because Francis Collins, the director of the Human Genome Project, thinks God made DNA (and he IS a scientist, after all!), then DNA = ID = Jesus. He also mentions Anthony Flew's conversion, as if it made a difference.

"There is a mountain in South Dakota that proves what evolutionists have been saying all along: if you just have enough time, wind, rain, erosion, and pure chance, you can get a mountain with the faces of four U.S. presidents on it!" -pg. 13

"Here are some interesting questions for the thinking evolutionist: Can you explain which came first—the blood or the heart—and why?" -pg 23

Ray Comfort, Kirk Cameron, and the like have never understood evolution, nor do I think they ever will.

After citing hoaxes of "missing links" (which were discovered using science!), Ray quotes Darwin out of context, and even uses the oldest trick: quoting the bit where Darwin admits that the evolution of the eye seems absurd, and then stopping before quoting the VERY NEXT LINE that shows how. Ray does however mention that next line, here:

"Even more incredible, though, is that Darwin went on to say that he believed the eye could nonetheless have been formed by natural selection. He was right on one point. If a Designer is left out of the equation, such a thought is absurd in the highest degree." -pg 28

The oldest Creationist canards are stuffed into these 50 pages of drivel. All the misunderstandings a religious person who is uninformed about science could make are in here.

"But even if an organ were no longer needed, wouldn’t it only prove devolution? This fits well with the Law of Entropy— that all things deteriorate over time." -pg 29

Ray not only fails to understand evolution, but he also fail to understand any tacit of science, it seems, including Thermodynamics. And after showing us he can't comprehend things such as biology, palentology, geology, cosmology, and physics, he goes on to show how racist and sexist Darwin was -- as if that has anything at all to do with his ideas.

The next logical (for him) tact is to claim that believing in evolution creates people like Adolf Hitler.


One of his funniest lies is this:
"If you find it hard to believe that there was an Intelligent Designer, give this some thought. Man, with all his genius, can’t make a grain of sand from nothing....Did you realize that if we could simply make one blade of grass without using existing materials, we could solve the world’s hunger problem?" -pg. 31

Remember, he's arguing for an intelligent creator god who CAN make things ex nihilo. So Ray, why doesn't your God solve the world's hunger problem?

"Richard Dawkins, arguably the most famous of atheists, can’t claim the title 'atheist,' because he understands that something must have created everything. He said, 'Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.' " -pg. 37

This comes after Ray redefines the term "atheist" to someone who doesn't accept an initial cause. Wrong again, Ray.

At the end of this special introduction, Ray gives us the meat of what he's really after: evangelizing for Jesus.

"Please think about your sins, then think about the Savior and what He did for guilty sinners such as us." -pg. 40

Ray offers a scenario of four choices (the Mona Lisa original, a car, a million dollars, a parachute), says you can pick just one, then tells you "but first you have to jump 10,000 feet out of an airplane". You're supposed to pick the parachute out of necessity. He then takes this same logic and offers the choice of all the world's religions, then goes into his have-you-ever-broken-the-Big-Ten spiel. You're supposed to pick Christianity, because it fixes the problems it creates.

The rest is pure proselytizing, spewing unfounded claims about God and Hell.


They're delivering this bastardized version of the Origin of Species to college campuses nationwide on November 19. They're also calling on people to buy copies and give them out at their schools and churches.


Might Be Okay?
As I was writing this, I was thinking about how scarily-ignorant America is when it comes to science -- BASIC science -- and how this will only continue to fuel the problem. But then I started thinking, maybe this isn't such a bad idea. I mean, they will be getting the copy of the book into people's hands for free. As far as anyone knows, the rest of the book is unchanged. That means that thousands copies of Darwin's work will be in churches all across America. Hopefully, some people will actually read it and realize how what they thought Darwin said and what he actually said were two totally different things.

Another side affect is getting the book to college kids, and hopefully people who know Ray Comfort is full of shit. I think a lot of college students are intelligent and can easily spot the flaws that a 9th grade science student could find. Plus, they won't have to pay for a copy of Darwin's book. They'll just have an easy reference to the "counter-arguments" that fundamentalists make.


-STA

How to Argue Like a Theist

So what am I doing making a post with such a title? Over the years of arguing with them, I've learned to anticipate the arguments that theists will use in a discussion. It's like you can write a script for nearly every single debate (at least the ones with theists who haven't really debated before, or haven't given much thought as to why they think what they do). We nonbelievers have learned all the theists' tricks simply because these arguments are all that they have. They just keep using them again and again, no matter how many times they've been proven wrong.

• Attack #1: Shift the burden of proof ("Can you prove God doesn't exist?")
• Attack #2: What did God do to make you so angry?
• Attack #3: Can you prove love?
• Attack #4: Pascal's Wager
• Attack #5: Watchmaker and other painter/painting Ray Comfort BS pseudo-arguments
• Attack #6: Since science doesn't know how we got here, it must be God.
• Attack #7: Offer personal experiences (you can't say I'm wrong now...I just *feel* it!)
• Attack #8: Then what do you believe in? (purpose in life, morality, etc.)
• Attack #n: see Ways to Annoy an Atheist
  

The first step (depending on how threatened the theist feels) is to attempt to rid themselves of the burden of proof. They may also falsely confuse passion with anger and try to use emotional arguments, claiming that the atheist must have been "hurt" by religion in the past. When these attempts fail, the next step is to argue from design. As the nonbeliever will typically use current scientific understanding to combat these weak attacks, the believer's next attempt is to attack science itself, claiming that scientific methods are invalid or flawed and will commonly use the "well, it's just a theory!". Once shown that science works, they resort to the only thing the atheist can't take away from them: personal experience. By the end of the discussion (if both parties ever reach such a point), the theist will throw out an argument from morality and begin considering what would be required to "believe IN" if one doesn't believe in God.

This is in no way a complete list, nor is it a script that occurs at each encounter. As I said earlier, it's the most common arguments that I find believers using to try to justify their unjustifiable beliefs. Yet the nonbeliever usually finds that every counter-attack has the opposite result: the more you show them there's no proof, the stronger they become in their belief! Faith is the evidence of what you can't see or prove. That's how you know, you just HAVE to know, and then you know. Faith (read: ignorance) can prevail.

Tracie Harris (who writes the Atheist Eve web comic) provides a similar list of theistic tactics, though in a different order:



-STA

Happy Darwin Day '09

As most of you probably know, today marks Charles Darwin's two-hundredth birthday. Sharing his birthday with another great liberator, Darwin helped us to understand where the diversity of life came from: small changes over time.

Today, why not take some time to explore the world around you? Go visit a zoo or aquarium. Or sit in with a good book. Here's some of my favorite videos discussing Darwin's wonderful theory.

• Thunderf00t's Evolution vs. Creationism
• potholer54's Made Easy series
• cdk007's Evidence for Evolution
• AaronRa's 15th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism
  
• Michael Shermer's Evolution Rocks
• shanedk's How Evolution Is Scientific
• Zuke696's Massive Playlist
• C0nc0rdance's Uses for Evolution
  

Those videos should help you get started if you don't know what evolution is (or if you think you do). There are many others -- visit my YouTube channel for more. Hit talkorigins.org for facts on how evolution works and what it does for us today.



-STA