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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."
OMFG! This is after we had to put up with giant anti-abortion posters on campus during the presidential election week that just happened to have horrid pictures of late-term abortions that are already illegal everywhere as far as I know anyway. WTF. It's been a given for a long time that I'm leaving after graduating, but OK continues to find ways to make me worry less about what I leave behind.
"There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell them." ~ Louis Armstrong
No kidding. The resolution begins:
By paragraph THREE it is condemning Dawkins for, and I am not making this up:
Has anyone in the Oklahoma heard of the First Amendment? Cultural diversity? WTF does cultural diversity have to to do with science, anyway? Free speech was intended to protect offensive speech. This should apply especially when said offensive speech is based on solid scientific evidence.
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If the majority of the citizens of Oklahoma believed in a vast government conspiracy to cover up the existence of extraterrestrials as a result of watching one too many episodes of The X-Files, would be it okay for them to pass legislation to squash the free speech rights of someone proving that no such conspiracy exists? C'mon, this is just completely ridiculous.
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A government taking a stance against free speech does effect someones right to free speech, and in this case it also violates freedom of Religion in the constitution.
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I did. Whether they are simply advocating the squashing of Dawkins' freedom of speech or are actually squashing, if the University tells Dawkins' to pack it in, the end result is the same.
Let's also not forget that First Amendment also includes the freedom to practice a religion of one's choosing. This also includes the right to practice no religion at all. IOW, Dawkins' has a Constitutional right to be an atheist and to speak about his own beliefs (or non-beliefs) as an atheist.
I'm not an atheist myself, but I will defend the rights of atheists to believe (or not believe) what they choose.
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There are many religious people who value the bible yet don't consider it to be a literal encyclopedia of how the universe works. We are willing and able to reason enough to understand that it was written in a time and primarily for an audience with a significantly different understanding of the world from what science has provided for us today.
I've had many discussions with atheists where I am consistently asked to defend literal interpretations of the bible, when in fact I don't consider literal interpretations correct or useful.
There are many people out there who have decided to take much of the bible word for word as absolute truth, and I find that foolish. Please take care to not condemn all religious people just because some of them can't be bothered to think for themselves.
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You are correct: the state legislature is not banning the speaker. However, what happens if the university rescinds its invitation to the speaker for fear of losing any state funding? You don't have to state, "we forbid you for doing something we don't like" in order to get that message across.
I am not surprised at this turn of events because Dawkins' comments in the God delusion are widely considered to be hateful in nature. Consider that, in the United states, some 93-96 percent of people believe in God and some 40% of people believe in evolution. The intersection of these two is still significant, but the symmetric difference of these axioms is not. Dawkins holds that to be an intelligent scientific thinker you must hold to both strict naturalism and evolution apriori, which is not so subtly implying that all of the other 53-ish percent of humans living in the United states are basically drooling morons.
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Dawkins holds that to be an intelligent scientific thinker you must hold to both strict naturalism and evolution apriori, which is not so subtly implying that all of the other 53-ish percent of humans living in the United states are basically drooling morons.
No. You don't have to be a drooling moron to be Just Plain Wrong. Sometimes intelligent, honest people are Just Plain Wrong. Hundreds of years ago, the religious also honestly believed based on biblical evidence that the Sun revolved around the Earth. They deluded themselves, just as people today delude themselves about evolution, which is as absolutely factual as the Earth going around the Sun.
And hopefully someday people will realize they are Just Plain Wrong about the existence of God, but unfortunately that's not as easily proven beyond a reasonable doubt as evolution.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Name one of Dawkin's "fallacies". Go ahead.
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That science, which is the systematic and empirical study of the natural world, can prove the non-existence of a supernatural entity. ("Supernatural" being, by definition, outside of the purview of science.)
Dawkins is an impressive scientist, but when he ventures into theology, he reminds me of a Feynman quote: "I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy."
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What the hell do you think religious people have been doing? They've gone a hell of a lot further than 'bashing atheism and nonreligious people'.
I'm not a huge fan of Dawkins, but to be fair, there's a lot less of 'evangelical' atheists (and I'd bet a smaller percentage) than evangelical Christians/Muslims/etc.
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It is a fallacy because it is inductive logic, which is not always true.
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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.
Well, go ahead and explain how Kant's proof is still valid today (and will still be valid tomorrow). I bet you'll say something like "well, clearly logic isn't changing" but I dare you to use anything other than induction to prove such a statement. Humans inherently use induction when they assume that the universe, logic, or anything maintains its form over time. Specifically, you believe that because the proof has always been valid in the past (P(i), i<N, for the current time N), and a valid proof now is a valid proof in the near future (P(N) -> P(N+epsilon)), inductively the same proof will always be valid (P(t) for all times t).