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Oklahoma, Vatican Take Opposite Tacks On Evolution
nizcolas writes "Notable evolutionary biologist, author, and speaker Richard Dawkins was recently invited to speak on the campus of the University of Oklahoma as part of the school's celebration of Charles Darwin. However, Oklahoma lawmakers are working to silence Dawkins with the passage of House Bill 1015 (RTF), which reads in part: '... the University of Oklahoma ... has invited as a public speaker on campus, Richard Dawkins of Oxford University, whose published opinions, as represented in his 2006 book "The God Delusion," and public statements on the theory of evolution demonstrate an intolerance for cultural diversity and diversity of thinking and are views that are not shared and are not representative of the thinking of a majority of the citizens of Oklahoma ...'" Pending legal action, Dawkins is set to speak tonight at 7 pm. (Luckily, we no longer live in the era of Bertrand Russell's court-ordered dismissal on moral grounds from the College of the City of New York.) And reader thms sends word of the Vatican's Darwin conference (program): "The conference, marking the 150th anniversary of the publication of "The Origin of Species," has been criticized by advocates of Creationism or Intelligent Design for not inviting them. The Muslim creationist Harun Yahya, most famous for his Atlas of Creation, also complained about not being invited."
Summary is stupid. The reading of this resolution just looks like it "condemns" Dawkins, it's not going to "silence" him or boot him out of the state or any other such nonsense.
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
Um... no.
Toward the end of his interview with me, Stein asked whether I could think of any circumstances whatsoever under which intelligent design might have occurred. It's the kind of challenge I relish, and I set myself the task of imagining the most plausible scenario I could. I wanted to give ID its best shot, however poor that best shot might be. I must have been feeling magnanimous that day, because I was aware that the leading advocates of Intelligent Design are very fond of protesting that they are not talking about God as the designer, but about some unnamed and unspecified intelligence, which might even be an alien from another planet. Indeed, this is the only way they differentiate themselves from fundamentalist creationists, and they do it only when they need to, in order to weasel their way around church/state separation laws. So, bending over backwards to accommodate the IDiots ("oh NOOOOO, of course we aren't talking about God, this is SCIENCE") and bending over backwards to make the best case I could for intelligent design, I constructed a science fiction scenario. Like Michael Ruse (as I surmise) I still hadn't rumbled Stein, and I was charitable enough to think he was an honestly stupid man, sincerely seeking enlightenment from a scientist. I patiently explained to him that life could conceivably have been seeded on Earth by an alien intelligence from another planet (Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel suggested something similar -- semi tongue-in-cheek). The conclusion I was heading towards was that, even in the highly unlikely event that some such 'Directed Panspermia' was responsible for designing life on this planet, the alien beings would THEMSELVES have to have evolved, if not by Darwinian selection, by some equivalent 'crane' (to quote Dan Dennett). My point here was that design can never be an ULTIMATE explanation for organized complexity. Even if life on Earth was seeded by intelligent designers on another planet, and even if the alien life form was itself seeded four billion years earlier, the regress must ultimately be terminated (and we have only some 13 billion years to play with because of the finite age of the universe). Organized complexity cannot just spontaneously happen. That, for goodness sake, is the creationists' whole point, when they bang on about eyes and bacterial flagella! Evolution by natural selection is the only known process whereby organized complexity can ultimately come into being. Organized complexity -- and that includes everything capable of designing anything intelligently -- comes LATE into the universe. It cannot exist at the beginning, as I have explained again and again in my writings.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
You know, if you actually read the bill under discussion, you'd notice that it doesn't squash anything, much less anyone's "free speech rights". All it says is that the legislature opposes his appearance. They didn't ban him, and they don't order anything to be done about it. Oh, yes, they will "order" that their opposition message be sent to the University leaders.
"His science has become his religion, ..."
That makes no damn sense.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
A quick search of the Oklahoma state legislature status page (http://www.okhouse.gov/Legislation/Leg_Status.aspx) shows that HR1015 was introduced March 3 and nothing has happened since. In truth it has not been passed.
The real issue here is that, for the first time since possibly statehood, the Republicans have just taken over the Oklahoma state legislature. Since this is pretty much their first time ever to be relevant, they are really anxious to make their mark, and do it now. The fat kids who always had their faces pressed up against the glass at the legislative candy store suddenly have the keys, and they are going hog-wild. To give you further examples, in the last couple of weeks we Okies have also seen bills to: o Outlaw the wearing of Muslim head coverings on driver's licences o Weaken worker's comp o Prevent teacher's unions from engaging in political activity o Make it harder to persue "pain and suffering" claims in court. My personal favorite was the School Prayer bill we barely managed to get killed in committee. It would have allowed for student-led school prayer at mandatory attendence events, but stipulated that the prayer leaders had to be "school leaders". Their definition of school leaders included, I shit you not, head Cheerleaders and the captain of the football team. We were wondering aloud what would happen if a school just happened to have a Wiccan captain of the football team...
It is a fallacy because it is inductive logic, which is not always true.
Dawkins also uses "Strawmen" to describe religous people and religion, and does personal attacks on them as well. Not worthy of a great scientist.
Immanuel Kant proved that you cannot prove God exists or does not exist by Science long ago. Anything else is pure logical fallacies like inductive logic, which Dawkins uses as well as circular references and wishful thinking.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Dawkins is not making a case of mere ideas, opinions, or the evidence of hypothesis and testing.
Perhaps you have not actually read his books, or else you have not understood them. Dawkins' arguments on the demonstrable falsehood and general malevolence of religions are based on observable evidence and the testing of hypotheses. He is by no means the first or only such advocate, but at the present time he is the most visible and the most excoriated by his opponents.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Wow, you seem like a person who has never even read or heard Dawkins or his colleagues, ever. Dawkins of course says you cannot *prove* the non-existence of God. He then points out the same is true for sasquatch, FSM, Xenu, Apollo, Zeus, Thor, unicorns, fairies, elves, leprechauns...
The funny thing is that we have about the same level of evidence for sasquatch as God.
Anybody want a peanut?
He does not merely not believe in a God. He BELIEVES there is no God.
Direct citation required.
he point is that Dawkins certainly advances a religious belief - one which cannot in any way be proven one way or another.
He certainly does not. Also, one need no disprove religion as it lacks any credible proof in the first place.
Merely not holding an opinion on the subject of God is not a belief - that is an attitude and not an intellectual position.
Wrong. I (and most atheists) hold the same position about god that most people hold for other gods and myths.
I think it has to do with Dawkin's bashing of religion and religious people in his TV programs and books by using fallacies which some people call it as "Hate Speech".
I read that article, and I have to say the irony is pretty thick when a theist accuses an atheist of being intellectually lazy. However, I missed the part where Dawkins bashed anyone. In fact, the entire article was someone bashing Dawkins. If you have examples of Dawkins bashing people (not ideas) I'd be interested to read them.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
He's a scientist using science to claim a "delusion" in God. It's reasonable to assume he's using the scientific term. If he's claiming you can't disprove God, then where is the evidence to the contrary he is implying by the very title of his book?
Definition of "God" error, basically. The definition that Dawkins presents evidence against is a God that actively changes things in the world today and directly created the world 7000 years ago via special creation. Dawkins cannot present evidence against a deistic god that wound up the universe and let it go, and he does not attempt to argue against such a god (which is not much of a god, really).
If anything, Dawkins' book can be read as "The (personal, loving, etc.) God Delusion", because he is challenging the concept many people have of a friendly omnipotent guy (or trio of guys) in the sky who loves us but damns some of us to hell after testing everyone with pain and suffering in our earthly life, gave us rational minds that should be able to decide what is actually true and false and what makes sense and what doesn't make sense, yet requires blind faith (yes, a belief that pain and suffering in life can be justified by the afterlife requires, literally, blind faith; faith whose ultimate results cannot be seen during earthly life) in order to obtain infinite bliss.
The Bible never actually says anything about how long it took to create the world (unless, of course, you take a literal look at the Bible, and then it's 6 days).
The problem isn't the six days, it's the Adam and Eve mythology. The Bible clearly states that God created man, and all people were descended from Adam and Eve. That directly contradicts evolution, which states that man descended directly from animals.
Now, I realize that you can mangle the bible into fitting evolution if you accept that the bible is allegory, but unfortunately, too many Christians can't accept that. And truthfully, they *shouldn't* accept that the bible is allegory. It says what it says, right down to killing anyone who works on the Sabbath. Christians should accept ALL of the bible, from advocacy of slavery on down -- or none of it (as would be my preference). Most Christians are total hypocrites when it comes to accepting the word of God.
is it really such a big deal that people want something to believe in, even if you don't particularly want or need that?
It wouldn't be a big deal if people would keep their beliefs to themselves. Astrology is relatively harmless, because people don't generally want it taught to students as an "alternative theory" to astronomy. But when you have wackos who want prayer in schools, or who will never vote for an atheist into public office, then religion has very real consequences.
Of course, I shouldn't have to mention religiously-motivated terrorism.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Which is why he says "Why There Almost Certainly Is No God". But like all other fundies, you didn't even bother to read his books before spewing out nonsense.
Clever signature text goes here.
Religious people, at least in the US, have been ceding power to the secularists since the Salem Witch Trials.
The rest of your post is clearly anti-secularist, and I find it hysterical that somehow didn't notice that the above comment is incredibly pro-secularist. Unless of course you are of the view that returning to the Salem Witch Trials would be a GOOD thing.
suing to have christmas and easter displays removed from public grounds
Part of defending our Constitutional right of religious freedom.
The Constitution protects our individual freedoms against the force and powers of government. The government cannot oppress any disfavored religion. Nor can the government establish favoritism for any particular religion.
The First Amendment required that the FORCE and POWER of government remain neutral on religion. The force and powers of government cannot be used to infringe our individual religious freedoms, cannot be used to establish any religion as governmentally favored above any other.
The Government shouldn't be meddling in religious displays at all, and to the extent it is permissible at all it is only permissible if the government does not establish any religion above any other, like in Washington state had a display equally and non-nondiscriminatorily open to submissions representing any and all religions and religious viewpoints. You might remember some news stories about it - everything was peaceful and quiet until someone submitted an atheist sign for the display. And then of course there was a shitfit over it - a shitfit by Christians.
public for everyone but christians
The Constitution requires EQUAL treatment.
It only takes about 25 IQ points to see why Christianity is almost exclusively the religion involved in such cases - Christianity is the overwhelming majority religion. As such, in our Democratic system, it is generally the only religion in a position to attempt to hijack and abuse the force and powers of government to establish favoritism for itself. Christianity is the only religion in a position to commit constitutional violations, so obviously it is going to be the only religion involved in lawsuits for committing constitutional violations.
suing to remove moments of silence (cause someone might use the time to pray, ooohh)
The ACLU wins virtually every School Prayer case because they are defending the "reasonable middle ground" position, defending our Constitutional protection of freedom of religion against the force government.
The ACLU position is virtually identical to the Supreme Court position. The ACLU explicitly supports the right of students to pray in school. The ACLU position is that government officials cannot abuse their governmental powers to infringe upon students' protected freedom of religion. The government cannot favor nor oppress any religion, cannot promote nor suppress any particular religious beliefs or practice. Each and every case the ACLU has brought strictly targeted government officials attempting to use the force of government for the purpose of meddling in students' religion.
Students have the right to (non-disruptively) pray in school.
The force of government cannot be used for the purpose of promoting student prayer,
nor can force of government cannot be used for the purpose of suppressing student prayer.
Again again again, there is no problem no problem no problem with students praying in school. The problem is the use of government powers attempting to promote or suppress student prayer.
Being an atheist is not even scientific. A true scientist would be agnostic
Only if you apply a ludicrously extreme definition.
Are you "agnostic" about the existence of unicorns?
Are you "agnostic" about the existence of faeries?
You can't prove unicorns and faeries don't exist. If you were being truly rational you have to admit you are "agnostic" about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
Most self-defined atheists in the US are
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