Science is under attack by pseudo-intellectuals who, in their attempt to rescue their religious beliefs from overwhelming and growing empirical evidence to the contrary, manipulate ordinary people's gullibility and lack of critical thinking abilities by creating the illusion that there is a controversy among the scientific community regarding the theory of evolution when, in fact, there is no such thing.These charlatans and pharisees, understanding their lack of scientific evidence and credentials, have sought to fight this battle outside of the scientific jurisdiction and bring it to the court of popular opinion, which they distract with platitudes and superficially persuasive rhetoric. More troubling still are their successful attempts to gain political power by manipulating high-ranking officials in the Vatican and even the president of the most powerful nation in the world.
To watch more videos about this troubling issue, check out the creationism tag.
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Would you not agree that there are as many pseudo intellectuals who claim that their belief in evolution is reason enough not to believe in god. Would it not also be true that many of these people know nothing of what they claim is not true, but only of what they themselves believe to be true much of which is not proven or confirmed but merely theorized and supposed.
ReplyDeleteDawkins the champion of many of these arguments is himself guilty of many contradictions and assumptions. He claims that his atheistic view of the universe is based on faith ! When asked what he believed to be true even though you cannot prove it he replied " I believe that all life, all intelligence, all creativity and all design anywhere in the universe, is the direct or indirect product of Darwinian natural selection. It follows that design comes late in the universe, after a period of Darwinian evolution and therefore cannot underlie the universe." So Dawkins rejection of an ultimate intelligent designer is a matter of belief without proof.
Neil, thanks for your comment. There are plenty of atheists whose atheism stems from bad reasoning, that's for sure. Having said that, however, atheism is not a particular set of beliefs, it is an absence of belief in deities, and as an absence of belief, it does not need evidence or proof in order to sustain itself.
ReplyDeleteJust the opposite, skepticism is the default rational position: we should not believe anything until there is some sort of argument or evidence backing it up. Until someone gives you some reliable evidence, you are perfectly well justified in believing that the Flying Spaguetti Monster doesn't exist, and it's not incumbent on you to prove his non-existence, it's incument on those who believe he does exist to prove their case.
The statement you mention by Dawkins does not fit in to the same definition of faith as faith in god. Dawkins is extrapolating from evidence that we do have. Just like Newton extrapolated from the motion of the moon and the motion of the apocryphal apple to the entirety of physical objects, so Dawkins too is extrapolating from the evidence of evolution on Earth to evolution in other parts of the universe. Sure, he has no proof of what is happening in the rest of the universe, but his contention is consistent with the evidence we do have here on Earth. That's simply an inductive argument.
Belief in god, on the other hand, is much more complicated, since we have no direct proof whatsoever of the existence of god. This faith is not simply an extrapolation from principles demonstrated and confirmed to that of yet unobserved facts; it is faith despite the existence of any evidence.
Love to continue the conversation if you're interested.