The Centre for Inquiry is sponsoring a brunch with Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss on Wednesday morning. You can sign up at Brunch with Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss. There are only 12 tickets left.
Here's the information you need.Join us for an exclusive engagement with Richard Dawkins, named top world thinker by Prospect magazine, and Lawrence Krauss, renowned theoretical physicist and cosmologist.
It is rare for these two giants of science to visit Toronto so don’t miss this opportunity!
Please note that there are a limited number of tickets available for this event.
Standard Admission $250
Includes:
Admission to event
Light breakfast service
Brunch service
$200 tax receipt
Premium Admission: $300 (sold out)
Includes:
Admission to event
Light breakfast service
Brunch service
Preferred seating
Copy of Richard Dawkins’ new book The Magic of Reality
$230 tax receipt
Location: Park Hyatt Toronto, 4 Avenue Road, Toronto ON
Day and Time: Wednesday, May 1st
Please arrive by 8:30 am; the event begins promptly at 9:00 am.
120 comments :
Imagine paying $250 to see and hear a charlatan who's too chicken to debate William Lane Craig!
Did Craig ever debate John Loftus? Hmmm...
Why should anybody debate a crazy nonsensical imbecilic charlatan like WL Craig? People of reason can go check Craig's nonsense without the need for a debate.
Why are Christians so afraid of thinking for themselves and prefer debates where thinking might be the last thing they do as opposed to swallow fallacious rhetoric such as Craig's?
Whatever Craig is, he is not an imbecile.
Live debates only settle the question of who is the best debater. W.L Craig is good at creating the impression that he has handed it to his opponent.
He would create a very good impression of having wiped the floor with Dawkins if they ever debated.
While I totally accept Dawkins reasons for not debating Craig and that they have nothing to do with cowardice, the fact remains that such a debate would be a public relations disaster for Dawkins.
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.dk/2013/03/an-update-on-why-william-lane-craig.html
If I were to go there, they would have to kick me out, because I would tell those two morons straight up: They are trying to persuade the public to abandon religion-myths and superstitions and turn into their “religion” based on reason and evidence??? Regrettably, their (Dawkins & Krauss) religion is based neither on reason nor on evidence. Therefore, in the end those two morons offer people one religion instead of the other. They can call their religion anything they want; science, the best explanation available, the best theory but that is where it ends and I don't care what people on this blog choose to believe or not to believe. This is just the truth.
Here are some examples, so that I’m not empty handed.
Dawkins is my favorite :)
He used to claim, that life originated spontaneously few billion years ago in a warm pond. Now it seems, he says that he doesn't know how life originated but he knows it was with the first self-replicating molecule. He could neither prove it nor repeat it. So, his saying that life originated by chance is in what category? Can anybody guess? It's nothing else than myth. What is the difference between the religious claiming that life was created and him that it arouse spontaneously? There is almost none. Well, if scientist can't replicate the origins of life, reason and logic suggest that there has to be much more intelligent cause of the origin of life than them. However, this doesn't sit well with his bias and selective beliefs and anti-theistic doctrine.
So, Dawkins simply substitutes one religion for another and says that his psychotic visions are better. Anybody with me?
Here is another one. Dawkins claims that it is possible to find evidence for some sort of a designer; his signature when looking at the details of chemistry and molecular biology. Now, guess what kind of designers does he allow but one? Do I really have to spell it out? Again, he has no proof for his claims and his “reasoning” is bias because he just happens to believe in his own myths and he is the ultimate authority.
He also publically admitted that he is more than 50% sure that God doesn't exist. In what category of unbelievers does this admission place him? Atheists or agnostics?
Dawkins: “…Believe without evidence is what faith is…” Which believe is he talking about? His or the theists?
Krauss is another chameleon and moron. Up next when I'm in the mood :)
What is the difference between the religious claiming that life was created and him that it arouse spontaneously? There is almost none.
Actually, there's a very big difference. Religion requires the existence of a powerful supernatural being. Dawkins and Krauss (and all the rest of us) are asking for rational evidence that such a being exists.
He also publically admitted that he is more than 50% sure that God doesn't exist. In what category of unbelievers does this admission place him? Atheists or agnostics?
He is an agnostic atheist, just as he describes in his book. It's not difficult to understand as long as you can read.
You would be kicked out because your ignorance does not justify your calling these guys morons. You have no idea, obviously, of what they know and they don't know. therefore you are far from qualified to judge what they say as "faith" or as science and reason. You have shown here that you lack even the most shallow knowledge to understand the answers we give you when you plagiarize misguided and misinformed questions from elsewhere. Truly I can't understand what makes you think that your pedestal of ignorance qualifies you to judge Dawkins or Krause. Obviously you have not read any of Dawkins' books, otherwise you would not be so categorical about what he has said or has not said. You rely on misinformation/misquotations from some creationists who are better at misrepresenting scientists than you are. Again, get an education, get an education, get an education. A real education. Repeating some creationist bullshit is not an education Dominic.
He used to claim, that life originated spontaneously few billion years ago in a warm pond. Now it seems, he says that he doesn't know how life originated but he knows it was with the first self-replicating molecule.
No he doesn't, Dawkins has never claimed to know the origin of life. In one of his books (the blind watchmaker if memory serves) he offers A G Cairns Smith's hypothesis of crystalline ancestry as a bit of speculation. That's about it.
If Dawkins and Krauss, are, as you say, just trying to substitute one religion for another, why do you give a shit ?
@Larry,
"Actually, there's a very big difference. Religion requires the existence of a powerful supernatural being. Dawkins and Krauss (and all the rest of us) are asking for rational evidence that such a being exists".
I think you need to define what you mean by "powerful supernatural being".
"He is an agnostic atheist, just as he describes in his book. It's not difficult to understand as long as you can read."
Dawkins is known, or he portrays himself as the world's most zealous and enthusiastic proclaimer of atheism. Why would you even consider him being an agnostic? I have asked 9 people who they thought was the best known atheist in the world today. Can you guess how many thought Dawkins was?
BTW: Did you read Krauss' book "A Universe from Nothing"?
@Negative Entropy
This is the last time I'm responding to your unsubstantiated accusations. If you can't google, ask a 6 year old or just ask for a link and don't make assumptions about what I have read or where I found information, because you simply don't like what I write.
Quite frankly, I don't give a shit what you think.
Dawkins and a ID signature:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP6JQ9fIqH8
Dawkins and Darwinism explaining life:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY1uTlaP2Pc
Dawkins described as the world' most famous atheist admits he calls himself agnostic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3_rGbiT_3c
What else would you like you stupid shithead?
@steve oberski
"If Dawkins and Krauss, are, as you say, just trying to substitute one religion for another, why do you give a shit ?"
I simply hate hypocrisy
@Rumraket
Double facepalm...
http://www.motifake.com/double-facepalm-stupid-idiot-lol-ignorant-demotivational-posters-34183.html
Another moron who claims to know everything and knows nothing.
Maybe you should read some of Dawkins books like "The Selfish Gene". Ask Negative over. Maybe he'll learn somethin?
Dominic,
Unsubstantiated assertions? You gave us the link to the place where you took those questions from yourself. therefore those were plagiarized questions. That you did not know what those questions were about was evident when we answered them and you just ignored the answers, not knowing how to clarify their nonsensical nature. That you insisted that we went there, even after I told you that evolution was not mere randomness, and despite numerous comments at that place misrepresenting evolution in that very same way shows that you have no idea. So how do you mean unsubstantiated?
I have heard many interviews and talks and debates with Dawkins. Your links only come to prove that your sources are creationist bullshit as I said.
Link number one: a mockumentary produced and edited by creationists to make Dawkins look bad. How reliable.
Link number two: Lennox talking about whether evolution explains life or not (it doesn't, it explains life diversification, Lennox had it right). But Dawkins has never said that evolution explains life itself. So what did Dawkins say himself rather than what did Lennox attribute to him? How showing me Lennox explains your stupid assertions about what Dawkins thought before and after about the origin of life? Not once do I see what Dawkins thinks in this video. I see Lennox talking. So?
Point three: An interview that was not very clear. Yet, of course Dawkins has said that he cannot categorically prove a universal negative. But when allowed to talk fully, he clarifies that gods like the Christian god are certainly false because they are nonsensical. That those gods that he would be agnostic about are not personal gods, et cetera, et cetera. So what? You are still misinformed by creationist propaganda.
So, your sources are clearly creationist bullshit. Yes, I can google stuff. After googling I can only be more convinced about your sources: Creationist bullshit. Showing me some videos where Dawkins is not even able to talk fully and develop the ideas clearly are not proof of anything but your lack of a proper education and your lack of critical thinking. Further proof that your sources are creationist.
Get an education you stupid shit-head. Stop pretending that creationist propaganda bits have any meaning. I truly cannot understand why you think that your ignorance qualifies you to comment about what scientists know or ignore.
But have it your way. Come and show us your ignorance heralding that creationism requires people to be proudly ignorant and openly imbecilic. That will only convince more people about how wrong it has to be to believe in gods, if you have to remain so stupidly misinformed in order to keep believing.
I read the selfish gene Dominic. Dawkins does not claim to know how life originated in that book. What about you read some books yourself you illiterate moron.
@Negative Entropy
I lied. This is the last time I'm responding to you just to show you what a moron you are:
Page 15 of the Selfish Gene: "At some point a particularly remarkable molecule was formed by accident. We will call it the Replicator."
Read few pages before starting on page 13 and after so that you can't claim I took it out of context or copied it from creationist literature.
I will give you the link because I'm sure you don't have the book and now I know you have never read or else, you are a oxymoron, which is possible.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=0ICKantUfvoC&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=%22At+a+particularly+remarkable+molecule+was+formed+by+accident.+We+will+call+the+replicator%22&source=bl&ots=yVaRqGHaYQ&sig=5pTvpd25NytGJrhozfyL7oXByl0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jH-AUeOUFK3d4AOf2oH4Dg&sqi=2&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22At%20a%20particularly%20remarkable%20molecule%20was%20formed%20by%20accident.%20We%20will%20call%20the%20replicator%22&f=false
BTW: From now on, your comments will be ignored. Don't waste your time, because I will not read them.
Let Darwin be your light in the the valley of your own shadow!
I've read The Selfish Gene too. In fact, I happen to have it right here next to me (paperback of the new edition, Oxford University Press, 1989), so I can check any passage you would care to cite.
Now, do you happen to be talking about the passage in chapter 2 (page 14 in my edition) which Dawkins calls a "simplified account" that is "necessarily speculative"?
Because if you are, I don't think that this contradicts Rumraket's point that Dawkins has never claimed to know the process by which life emerged on this planet.
Called it!
This is the last time I'm responding to you just to show you what a moron you are:
Page 15 of the Selfish Gene: "At some point a particularly remarkable molecule was formed by accident. We will call it the Replicator."
So your evidence to refute NE's statement that "Dawkins does not claim to know how life originated in that book" is to cite a sentence where he says that a replicating macromolecule emerged at some point by some process. Yeah, that's really specific and clearly is an assertion that he's got it figured out. Never mind that you had to skip past the portions where he called this scenario "simplified" and "speculative".
Perhaps you should stop being so full of shit, then people wouldn't be calling you on it all the time.
Dominic, Nullifidian will be happy to argue with you forever over the slight meaning of words. Perhaps Dawkins doesn't claim to 'know' the origin of life, but with a few caveats, in the passage you cite, he does describe a process that he clearly has a great deal of confidence in, one which he holds to far in excess of any other type of theory that may exist, and one which he wishes readers to consider quite seriously ( I don't know where he stands now as regards this particular passage) .
I can't think of a single reason why someone would be unwilling to give you the benefit of the doubt that this is what you meant. ;)
In any case, it cannot be argued (who am I kidding? Of COURSE it can among those who are so predisposed) that you have refuted Rumraket's statement,"Dawkins has never claimed to know the origin of life. In one of his books (the blind watchmaker if memory serves) he offers A G Cairns Smith's hypothesis of crystalline ancestry as a bit of speculation. That's about it." In the passage you cited (and in a different book than the one Rumraket has mentioned) he does far more than a 'bit of speculation' about crystalline ancestry. That's not about it.
Dominic, Nullifidian will be happy to argue with you forever over the slight meaning of words. Perhaps Dawkins doesn't claim to 'know' the origin of life, but with a few caveats, in the passage you cite, he does describe a process that he clearly has a great deal of confidence in....
Yeah, he holds the idea that a catalytic self-replicator emerged through natural processes at slightly higher probability than it was poofed into existence by a Magic Man in the Sky or planted by ancient astronauts from the planet Nibiru.
What Dawkins described is simply a bare bones outline for any natural and unaided emergence of life. Perhaps you don't recognize it as such because you don't know anything about origins of life research, but that is not Dawkins' (or Rumraket's) problem.
In the passage you cited (and in a different book than the one Rumraket has mentioned) he does far more than a 'bit of speculation' about crystalline ancestry.
In the passage he cited, Dawkins explicitly labels the scenario as speculative. So how does that make characterizing it as a "bit of speculation" wrong?
Nully....sigh....
My congratulations. That's the most substantive thing you've said in ages.
why do I bother? You'll pick this to death, but I guess I just have to accept that that's like, your thing. Whatever.
Still, 'a bit of speculation' would very naturally be worded very differently than someone confidently stating what they feel is the most plausible scenario.
You would look for words such as (well, YOU wouldn't, but that's besides the point) "nobody is really very sure what the process entails", "this is just still in the very rudimentary stages, but..."
Why would they use that language? Because it would be responsible of them to do so, especially if they were writing to lay readers. They wouldn't write as if they were laying out a clear process for how something came to be that they have a great deal of confidence in, which is what Dawkins does. A 'bit of speculation' requires couching ones language in far less certain terms than Dawkins uses in the passage Dominic has provided. And I must have missed the part where either Smith's hypothesis or crystal formations are mentioned, to boot.
You're right. I wouldn't look for language like that to keep on cropping up throughout the discussion, because I read books written by people who write as if their readers are not ferrets with ADD on cocaine and can remember what was written from one page to the next. Writers like the ones I read would presume that introducing the discussion with a caveat along the lines of the following would be sufficient:
"The account of the origin of life that I shall give is necessarily speculative; by definition, nobody was around to see what happened. There are a number of rival theories, but they all have certain features in common. The simplified account I will give is probably not too far from the truth."
They wouldn't write as if they were laying out a clear process for how something came to be that they have a great deal of confidence in, which is what Dawkins does.
And how does Dawkins do that? Perhaps I'm at a disadvantage in having only previously read the entire book, rather than a snippet read this evening, but I would say that Dawkins' point is not to defend any specific scenario on the emergence of life, but to start the reader thinking about the origin of replicators. By a strange coincidence, the title of this chapter is "The replicators".
And I must have missed the part where either Smith's hypothesis or crystal formations are mentioned, to boot.
Then try the endnote for the paragraph I reproduced above. The one denoted by the asterisk after the word "truth".
And even if he hadn't specifically mentioned Cairns-Smith in the text, the point of the simplified scenario he lays out is that it combines what many of the "rival theories" he mentioned have in common. The scenario works just as well if the first replicator or subunits of the replicator are formed on catalytic clays.
Nully, you remind me of that Monty Python sketch where the guy goes into a room looking for an argument and meets with nothing but contradictions. "No you didn't, no it isn't, no I didn't", etc. Except in your case it is always peppered with your forced superior tone, so it's more like, 'no it doesn't, you pusillanimous toad'.
I guess the best thing to would be to ask Rumraket, then. Rumraket, were you aware of the passage that Dominic cites, and if you weren't and were just now made aware of it/ reminded of it, would you have changed your wording from the part I cited in any way?
And you remind me of Otto in A Fish Called Wanda, although that might be unfair to Otto, who simply mangled philosophy and didn't decide to pronounce on the content of scientific books he hadn't read.
In this analogy, I'm Wanda, and I'm telling you that Aristotle wasn't Belgian. I'm also telling you that Dawkins doesn't "describe a process that he clearly has a great deal of confidence in," nor "one which he holds to far in excess of any other type of theory that may exist, and one which he wishes readers to consider quite seriously".
In fact, in that endnote I mentioned, Dawkins specifically says "In neither book [The Selfish Gene or The Blind Watchmaker—this endnote is obviously written for the 1989 edition] did I commit myself to the particular hypothesis chosen."
But as I say, I clearly made the mistake of actually reading the book, when more authoritative pronouncements can be made merely based on reading from the snippet view on Google Books.
Why is Dominic so angry anyway? What could motivate this ridiculous level of hatred and vitriol?
Good show, Nully. The question still remains, for Rumraket:
Rumraket, I'm guessing the passage Dominic cites isn't the passage that you referred to. Do you still stand by 'he offers A G Cairns Smith's hypothesis of crystalline ancestry as a bit of speculation' and 'That's about it', and/or do you feel that Dawkins fleshes out his own views more assertively than you thought?
They have nothing but revisionism to respond with here. I've read The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker and The Ancestor's Tale, and in none of these books does Dawkins ever claim to know how the origin of life happened.
In fact, Dawkins has been asked about the origin of life on multiple occations in his public talks, and the answer he's given every time is that "we don't know yet, we're working on it" and every time he gets the opportunity, he likes to ask (organic) chemists if they can imagine a scenario that could give rise to a self-replicating molecule.
Rumraket, does 'revisionism' apply to your own quote above as well? Dominic may well have overstated/overinterpreted the passage, but NE suggests that he gets all his information from creationist sites, and here he has produced a passage directly from a Dawkins book. And this passage a. does not seem to be the one you referred to, and b. proceeds confidently, walking readers through a process in a way that most people wouldn't describe as 'a bit of speculation'.
So he doesn't say he knows, but he has said that he is nearly certain that the origin of life, though as yet unknown, will be found to have come about through 'Darwinian' mechanisms. If he can be said to 'know' anything, he 'knows' that life came about through purely naturalistic processes. Which, I think, is what Dominic is saying. I will leave it to him to clarify.
Here's Dawkins concluding remarks on the origin of life in The Ancestor's Tale(after having elaborated on a version of the RNA-world scenario, again speculatively):
"There are many other theories that I have not gone into. Maybe one day we shall reach some sort of definite consensus on the origin of life. If so, I doubt if it will be supported by direct evidence because I suspect that it has all beenobliterated. Rather, it will be accepted because somebody produces a theory so elegant that, as the great American physicist John Archibald Wheeler said in another context:
... we will grasp the central idea of it all as so simple, so beautiful, so compellingthat we will say to each other, *Oh, how could it have been otherwise! How couldwe all have been so blind for so long!'
If that isn't how we finally realise we know the answer to the riddle of life's origin, I don't think we ever shall know it."
Doesn't read to me like somone who's confident he knows how life originated.
No Andy, it doesn't appply to my own quote as well. I stand by what I've said, Dominic is demonstrablyfull of shit, and you have an emotional bias against Dawkins jumping on every bandwagon that finds a way to criticize him.
Of all things you do on Larry's blog, whining endlessly at Richard Dawkins is the most prevalent among them.
Almost by definition, you opinion of the man can be dismissed out of hand has frothing hate against a man that apparently pisses you off to no end. It shines through every post you make wherein his name is mentioned like the light from the sun through interstellar void.
I have the three books I've mentioned, so if you're going t quotemine, be prepared to be double checked.
There are perfectly valid criticisms to be leveled against Richard Dawkins, this isn't among them. Go find a better reason to continue your entirely irrational hate of the man.
that's just nonsense, Rumraket. Why is there anything so damning about it IF Dawkins claims he knows how life began? What on earth would I fault him for that about?
I'm just standing up for Dominic, not because I agree with him or think he's going about this the right way, but because I think you and NE are just wriggling away from everything he writes even though sometimes you could just say, as in this instance, 'okay, you got me there'.
I don't like Dawkins because he is so dismissive of other peoples' ideas and philosophies, not because he has his own. If he goes on to write a book that tells everybody that now he knows how life started, I won't agree with it, but it won't get under my skin. You've misinterpreted this.
Thanks Andy :)
I have learned something recently from a colleague of mine who used to argue evolutionists and atheists on blogs and such. He quoted me a Bible passage: Matthew 15:4
"Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit."
No matter what evidence you present to them, they can't see it because they are blind; it's blindness due to materialism. No reasoning or logic allowed.
Dominic, you wrote, "He used to claim, that life originated spontaneously few billion years ago in a warm pond."
Then you produced a passage from TSG in which he does just that. He doesn't say he 'knows' that's how it happens, and neither do you. You use the word 'claim'. But nobody was willing to admit that you shored up your statement with an actual reference.
I suppose we could go through the whole business of sorting out whether or not 'claim' and 'know' mean the same thing, but what's obvious is that when he writes about the warm pond in TSG, he is writing with a fair amount of confidence. He is describing what he believed (at the time) happened.
Brilliant prophecy there Dominic. It's almost as if you could prophetically use the same excuse to dismiss any criticism on any subject, as long as you make sure to write in your book that those who disagree are blind.
And don't talk about reason or logic, you understand neither.
Dominic, you wrote, "He used to claim, that life originated spontaneously few billion years ago in a warm pond."
Then you produced a passage from TSG in which he does just that.
No he didn't. He produced what was openly stated to be speculation. The only hint at certainty is when he says that however it happened in detail, it's probably going to be along those lines.
He doesn't say he 'knows' that's how it happens, and neither do you. You use the word 'claim'. But nobody was willing to admit that you shored up your statement with an actual reference.
That's because the reference he gives doesn't support his statement.
I suppose we could go through the whole business of sorting out whether or not 'claim' and 'know' mean the same thing, but what's obvious is that when he writes about the warm pond in TSG, he is writing with a fair amount of confidence.
Oh, a "fair amount of confidence". Well I guess that settles it. Dawkins claimed to know how life originated. *facepalm*
and on and on it goes....anything but concede a point.
I am willing to bet that an unbiased group of people would agree that when Dominic wrote, "he claimed...." and then proceeded when challenged to produce the passage he did, he made it through that particular set of goalposts.
'Yep, works for me, what's next?' is what most people would say. I don't KNOW they would say this, of course......
You've demonstrated beyond all shadow of doubt, that any discussion that centers around something said or done by Richard Dawkins, renders you completely unable to remain objective or reason properly.
Interesting fact is that you're not the only person I've observed this behavior in. Apparently he's become a bit of an obsession to a lot of religious people.
Every tiny word from the man, movement of his body, squint in his eye or catch in his voice, is analyzed in painstaking detail. No opportunity to disagree with him, dismiss him, offence or accuse him of something is missed, whether warranted or not.
It would make for an interesting psychological case study. The Dawkins Obsession, ironically perpetuated by supernaturalists.
Rumraket, I am still very curious....why do you think I would have any issue whatsoever with Dawkins claiming to know how life came about? What is so wrong about that in the first place?
Just because I would argue that he most certainly doesn't, where comes this notion that it would be so objectionable to me?
Scratching my head on this one.
Andy,
Are you seriously saying that if Dawkins said that he would present a speculative scenario, therefore he claimed to know how life originated? Do you really not see the difference? I am flabbergasted.
I am not wriggling away from everything Dominic writes. Dominic is an ignorant fool, and he shows so. Since you think that I am wiggling around, please show me how any of those videos that Dominic presented can possibly present fairly what Dawkins thinks? If I am wiggling around, then why did I confirm that Dawkins has said that he would have to be agnostic of some sort of god, only clarifying that he did not mean the Christian god or a personal god?
If Dominic presents a comment where one or two details might be kinda correct, but incorrect in the way Dominic interpreted or presented them, and most other stuff is quite inaccurate, it shows what I said it to show: that Dominic is an ignorant thinking that from a foundation of ignorance and misrepresentations he can call someone else a moron. Check my first answer to Dominic's bullshit above carefully please (Tuesday, April 30, 2013 3:26:00 PM). I did not say the each and every word written was wrong, I said that Dominic had no idea, just like other comments by the same Dominic showed ignorance, even plagiarism from other creationists. Please check and double check.
Dominic, you wrote, "He used to claim, that life originated spontaneously few billion years ago in a warm pond."
Then you produced a passage from TSG in which he does just that.
This is not true. For someone who was so obsessed about finding a direct reference to "where either Smith's hypothesis or crystal formations are mentioned", you seem curiously blasé about the fact that "warm little pond" doesn't appear anywhere in the cited passage. Nor does Dawkins specifically claim that this replicator is living. His response to the question he himself raises is, "Who cares?" One might almost get the impression that he was trying to make a more fundamental point to which the origin of life is at best tangential.
NE, first things first. Yes, Dawkins never says he 'knows' how life came to be. He doesn't say that in the TSG passage Dominic cites either.
Dominic doesn't use the word 'know' either, though it may belabor the point. He said Dawkins 'claimed that' it came from a primordial broth. As I read the entire passage, albeit with its caveats, he DOES lay that out as a scenario. He also assures his readers that even though he is somewhat simplifying and perhaps conjoining theories a bit, the truth is very likely to be found to be a manner close to what he describes. That is claiming, NE.
At other times, such as in his debate with John Lennox, he has stated that biology is basically a solved matter, and that 'the cosmos hasn't yet found its Darwin'. Lennox pointed out to him how premature it is to even suggest that biology is 'solved' without knowing more about how it came to be in the first place.
It's interesting that in that debate (it happens in the first few minutes so you don't have to watch the whole thing) he speaks as if biology is a solved matter, then goes on to speak of the laws that brought the universe into being, assuring us that we can take no comfort in thinking that we see evidence of design in its laws, because 'we got our fingers burned' thinking that life was so mysterious as to have required a designer. He neglects to mention abiogenesis, as if it either isn't worth considering alongside biology and the universe (which it obviously IS, from a metaphysical standpoint) or as if it can be handily tossed in with 'biology' as a matter that is essentially solved.
It is obvious that although he doesn't say he 'knows' how life came about, he is very confident, to the point of overconfidence, that we know enough to rule out anything that isn't strictly naturalistic and materialistic. In other words, he is very close to 'knowing' (at least he thinks he is) that life came about through unguided processes.
I will happily agree with you about some of the other things that Dominic has argued, how I find them unconvincing, and his manner rude, but in this case I feel that he has produced a citation that is sufficient to support the statement he actually made ('He used to claim...')
rather than the one people here are saying he made (that Dawkins 'knows'; Dawkins is a scientist, I think it is understood that scientists are very judicious in the usage of that word).
He is writing about the replicator in reference to a step toward, and progenitor of, cells.
I will admit I'm wrong if I am, but now I'm going to the passage to find statements that will support that.
Andy,
Please read carefully what I am saying and those comments:
Dominic produced that passage as answer to my question:
I read the selfish gene Dominic. Dawkins does not claim to know how life originated in that book. What about you read some books yourself you illiterate moron.
Also, the complete claim by Dominic was:
He used to claim, that life originated spontaneously few billion years ago in a warm pond. Now it seems, he says that he doesn't know how life originated but he knows it was with the first self-replicating molecule.
See? Dominic is unambiguously contrasting "claim" with "doesn't know." He used claim to mean that Dawkins presented such thing as if he knew how life originated. Dominic did not tell me "I never said that Dawkins claimed to know!" but rather presented me with that part of the book. Therefore, Dominic was not meaning "Dawkins used to speculate such, now he speculates differently." Dominic was meaning "Dawkins claimed to know one way, not he claims to know another way." Poor Dominic, not having read the book himself, googled for some piece found in a creationist place, did not care to check the whole thing, and presented that. Obviously Dominic thinks that the creationist propaganda is sincere. Otherwise he would not have presented that without a careful look. Only he thought he had me, so he could not resist.
Again, check and double check. Had I been mistaken, Dominic could have just clarified. But Dominic answered in a way that confirms that "know" is what he meant from the very beginning. Look at what I said yet again. I did not say "Dawkins never presented a speculation."
If my insistence in proper presentation, and proper reading comprehension, of people's positions is wiggling. I would like to know what changing meanings in what Dominic said would be.
I know what Lennox meant, but that's still far from making Dominic's point. I insist, Dominic did not present me with Dawkins words, but with Lennox's. As per the know and speculate, check what I said before Dominic answered (and below for good measure). I did not say that Dawkins never speculated about the origins of life. I choose my words carefully and according to what the person on the other side of the discussion presents. If I am presented with nonsense, I call it nonsense. If I am presented with ignorance, I call it ignorance. If the ignorance is presented the way Dominic presented it, I describe the ignorance accordingly. What's so wrong about that?
"I will try to explain the great theory (Darwin's TOE) in a more general way than is customary,
beginning with the time before evolution itself began."
"Darwin's 'survival of the fittest' is really a special case of a more general law of survival of the stable"
"This is where Darwin's theory, in its most general form, comes to the rescue. Darwin's theory takes over from where the story of the slow building up of molecules leaves off."
Please note that Dawkins' caveats about speculation come after these statements.
"At some point a particularly remarkable molecule was formed by accident. We will call it the Replicator."
"This is how crystals are formed" I write this as a concession to Rumraket. I still doubt this was the passage he was referring to, but nevertheless.
"We do not know how accurately the original replicator molecules made their copies. Their modern descendants, the DNA molecules, are astonishingly faithful...."
"Evolution (please note how he uses the term here to apply not only to biology but also to refer to replicators) is something that happens, willy nilly, in spite of all the efforts of the replicators (and nowadays the genes) to prevent it happening."
Hardly 'tangential'. This 'more fundamental point' he is making is inextricably linked with the origin of life.
NE, you are a good and honorable man. I regret having offended you by implying that you were not forthright. You didn't 'wriggle'. I apologize.
I simply hate hypocrisy
And since you have claimed the moral high ground here, any action, no matter how dishonest, is allowed ?
There just has to be more than 1 person posting under the name Dominic Nikel, the variations in spelling, grammar, coherence and tenor are far to great to be the output of 1 person.
to clarify, when I write 'these statements' I am referring to the three above where I wrote that. All statements below come after he writes that his account is 'necessarily speculative'.
(I deleted my comment because now I see you were answering to Nullif, so Nullif should be the one to continue on that conversation.)
Please note that Dawkins' caveats about speculation come after these statements.
So? None of them deal with any specific scenario or "claim" about the origin of life. Indeed, only one—the first one—discusses it at all, and all you can conclude from that is that some point before the process of biological evolution began, life emerged. That is hardly an extravagant claim to make—in fact, it's true by definition.
Hardly 'tangential'. This 'more fundamental point' he is making is inextricably linked with the origin of life.
Then why do none of your quotes address specific origins of life scenarios in any detail? If Dawkins' point were so "inextricably linked with the origins of life", he would take a great deal more time to show that the replicators he's talking about are actually life forms and much more care to establish that his ideas are consistent with origins of life research. But he doesn't have to do that, because Dawkins point is—as I have stated repeatedly—about replicators being critical to the existence of life, not necessarily its origin. The only way your claim could be true is if you reduce it to a triviality that these replicators have to emerge before Dawkins can talk about them. But Dawkins is well aware of this, which is why he's giving this simplified scenario, and that replicators haven't always existed in the universe is a given and not a major or controversial claim. And in any case, it does nothing to strengthen Dominic's assertion that "[Dawkins] used to claim, that life originated spontaneously few billion years ago in a warm pond." Dawkins obviously didn't do anything of the kind. Relating a hypothetical scenario no more commits you to the accuracy of that scenario than Shakespeare is committed to the existence of Prospero and Caliban.
Thanks Andy. I try. I count you as "one of the few," so I was fearing that we might have been about to "lose our edge" (for lack of better words).
See ya around.
The fundamental point is actually beautiful: once there's self-replicators, evolution cannot but happen.
:)
The fundamental point is actually beautiful: once there's self-replicators, evolution cannot but happen.
Yes, although to be completely accurate, we should specify imperfect self-replicators.
It's a point that creationists, of course, fail to grasp. When they say they only accept "microevolution" or "change within kinds", there are in effect postulating the existence of some sort of physical barrier that limits the degree of change that a genome can undergo. Somehow, they never get around to demonstrating the existence of this barrier.
BTW: From now on, your comments will be ignored. Don't waste your time, because I will not read them.
Right, because Dominic has read my answers every other time until now. I don't write for your benefit Dominic, but for the benefit of onlookers. I already knew that you are a lost cause. You won't get an education despite how much your ignorance hurts your position.
@Nullifidian,
The point is not that replicators are alive. This has never been a point I have tried to make, or claim Dawkins as having made, nor is it even necessarily an integral aspect of Dominic's argument.
The fact that Dawkins refers to DNA as 'their modern descendants' is all that is really necessary to establish the connection. But I have provided other quotes as well, sequentially, as a sort of summary of the point he is making. You wrote 'so what?' above, but none of the quotes is meant to be looked at in isolation.
It is not like Dawkins is implying that replicators establish a kind of field or groundwork, that makes the emergence of life possible. The analogy here would be that of a soil facilitating the development of a seed.
Nobody would use the word 'descendant' if that was the type of relationship of replicator-to-DNA they were trying to establish. If they did, they would need a better editor.
For your reference, here is the definition of 'descendant', from the first online dictionary I googled:
1. A person, animal, or plant whose descent can be traced to a particular individual or group.
2. Something derived from a prototype or earlier form: Today's bicycles are descendants of the earlier velocipede.
I am not asking you to agree, or concede this point, because I understand that this is impossible for you, and may possibly result in you breaking out in hives. I just don't want to be responsible for that.
I am posting this for any other readers who may come across it.
NE, I would really regret it if my foolishness caused that to happen. I am truly grateful for the fact that you and I can disagree, even profoundly, and still maintain respect and good feelings. :)
It is not like Dawkins is implying that replicators establish a kind of field or groundwork, that makes the emergence of life possible.
That is exactly what he's saying. The fact that replicators sit at the very heart of the origin of life (whatever point that is and by whatever process that came to be) is one of the reasons why he's making replicators his central theme for the rest of the book. The book you haven't read.
Nobody would use the word 'descendant' if that was the type of relationship of replicator-to-DNA they were trying to establish.
How did you get from "replicators made the emergence of life possible" to "DNA is the descendant of early catalytic replicators"? Because there is no apparent necessary connection between these two statements. It certainly doesn't give you a basis for accusing Dawkins of poor writing when the problem may simply be your lazy thinking.
Again, Dawkins writes, "We do not know how accurately the original replicator molecules made their copies. Their modern descendants, the DNA molecules, are astonishingly faithful...."
Would anyone else like to explain to Nullifidian what this means?
It means we don't know the degree of fidelity of the first replicators, but the fidelity of DNA is extremely (but not perfectly) precise.
when I get back, I'll explain how it means a tad more than that, although it wouldn't surprise me if someone hasn't already done the job for me.
Lutesuite, for one, seems to make the connection when he writes, above,
"The fundamental point is actually beautiful: once there's self-replicators, evolution cannot but happen.
Yes, although to be completely accurate, we should specify imperfect self-replicators."
While you're scratching your head and griping about what Dawkins may or may not say or think, science is actually looking for the origin of life. For example:
http://www.nrao.edu/pr/2013/newchem/
What has theology-spirituality-creationism-ID discovered lately, or ever?
@Nully,
Re: A tad more
First of all, there is that word, 'descendant'. You, for example, are not descended from a field of corn, and can't claim yourself to be a descendant of a cornfield, even though there may have been a time in the past when a cornfield played a crucial role in the survival of some of your ancestors. You are descended from your ancestors, not the cornfield that sustained them.
Similarly, if Dawkins merely wanted to suggest that replicators created a fertile environment from which life would ultimately emerge, he would not have called DNA the 'descendants' of his replicators.
As to why it is important (as Lutesuite points out that) the replicators need to be 'imperfect': Dawkins is suggesting that these replicators 'evolved' (in the 'more general way than is customary' that he referred to and I cited) similarly to how their descendants did, by errors in the duplication process. This would result in there being a large variety of replicators over time. Eventually, (at least) one of them would evolve into something that was definitively 'alive'.
Following the thread of Dawkins' scenario, we could go full circle and say that this event (the emergence of living replicators) would almost certainly have occurred in prebiotic soup, because that was where all the replicators were. Although, I suppose it is possible that in another part of the book, Dawkins theorizes that by the time the first living molecules arrived, the condition of the earth had altered somehow. If you have such a citation, please share it. Otherwise, it appears that Dominic is not far off in his assertions. One can still argue over the word 'know', or 'claim', but beyond that, he cited a passage in which Dawkins describes - in a certain amount of detail - the process through which life came to be on earth - the descent of the first biological replicators from prebiotic ones.
Might as well let Dawkins have the last word (and up to this point from the passage, he has not taken us out of the prebiotic soup, and seems to envision all activity taking place within it):
"They have come a long way, these replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines."
Andy, I'm having a hard time following what point you are trying to make here.
Is it simply that Dawkins believes the "prebiotic soup" hypothesis of the origin of life is correct? If so, I am not aware that he has ever stated this, and I can't see where you have supported you position that he has.
If you're trying to make some other point, then please state explicitly what that is. Especially if you're going to cite my post as evidence in support of it.
Lutesuite, right now the argument I am having with Nullifidian is over statements of his like this:
"But he doesn't have to do that, because Dawkins point is—as I have stated repeatedly—about replicators being critical to the existence of life, not necessarily its origin."
If you look over the thread you will see a few others. N is disagreeing with the concept of replicators being described as direct ancestors of living forms in the passage Dominic cites and in TSG in general. I am making it clear that Dawkins is suggesting EXACTLY that.
I find it odd that this is even a point of dispute, as Dawkins' words are there for anyone to see.
As for your question, "Is it simply that Dawkins believes the "prebiotic soup" hypothesis of the origin of life is correct?"; well, yes, in TSG he seems fairly convinced of this, although he now may no longer be, as the book was written over thirty years ago.
But it isn't my point; it's Dominic's. I simply that he has argued in good faith, for the most part. Rumraket's statement (or at least portions thereof) in particular, is refuted by what Dominic reproduced. So Rumraket could simply concede that point, that Dawkins engaged in rather more than a 'bit of speculation' about crystal formation, and in fact laid out a whole scenario about life origins, and then move on. No big deal.
Oh, I don't need to be convinced that Dominic argued in good faith. I have my doubts, yet he might as well. My problem with Dominic is that he argues from a foundation of ignorance and misinformation perpetuated by his reliance in creationist bullshit, which, despite his constant denial, he confirms time and again. Dominic did not read what Dawkins wrote directly until someone helped him find some passage in TSG, and then failed to check that Dawkins said, clearly, that what followed was speculation. It does not matter if Dawkins elaborated a lot or just a little, Dawkins did not say that he knew, and Dominic meant knowledge, not speculation. This is easily demonstrable if we look carefully at the discussion above.
Dawkins' point about the first self-replicators is not the same as saying that Dawkins 'knew' that life arose in a warm pond. The self-replicator is a point where most-if-not-all origin of life scenarios have to converge (maybe metabolism-first does not, but I doubt it, I have to think about it). So, it is obvious that replicators would be central in most-if-not-all speculations. That Dawkins would then call DNA the descendants of the first replicators does not mean that therefore he "claimed" that life arose via a warm pond, and that today he no longer "knows" that. I truly don't see the connection with warm ponds that would justify Dominic's comment and disdain for Dawkins changing the scenario now that there's more information about how life might have arisen. There's what, 36 or 37 years since the publication of TSG?. Again, Dominic's comment comes only to show that Dominic has no idea, and therefore offers criticism against Dawkins and Krause on a foundation of deep ignorance and misinformation. This is undeniable no matter how sincere Dominic might have been.
As per the semantics. Please. There's nothing wrong to call DNA the descendants of the first replicators. It is natural that if self-replicators were at the heart of the origin of life, then DNA, being the main replicators around, would be called descendants, in the sense that DNA plays the role of replicator, and the originals would be behind the origin of life. Still nothing there that would tell me that Dawkins claimed to know how life originated. Was Dawkins very convinced that such scenario was plausible? Sure. That still does not mean that he claimed to know that warm ponds were involved.
I insist, it is not how well or how bad each and every sentence in Dominic's discourse could be. Nor on how far or how close they are to what Dawkins or any other person said, or claimed, or claimed to know. It is how the whole comment betrays Dominic's ignorance and reliance in creationist misinformation.
I hope I did not make this discussion into a worse mess. If the focus is still whether Dominic was right or wrong, well, he was wrong. If he presented the passage thinking that he had found Dawkins guilty, well, of course he thought so. That he failed to check a bit more is, again, what betrays his ignorance and reliance in creationist bullshit, his lack of critical thinking, his need for a much better education.
That's it from me for now.
Lutesuite, right now the argument I am having with Nullifidian is over statements of his like this:
"But he doesn't have to do that, because Dawkins point is—as I have stated repeatedly—about replicators being critical to the existence of life, not necessarily its origin."
Then it would be helpful if you'd post something that directly bore on the truth or falsity of this statement. Because so far you haven't done so.
I am not arguing that Dawkins does not outline a hypothetical scenario for the origin of life. That would be obviously false and fatuous. I am merely trying to point out that this is not his focus, and that his overall scenario could be reduced to "replicators are a necessary precondition for life and evolution" without losing anything by it. The reason why he outlines an origin of life scenario is not to argue for its accuracy, but to make a rhetorical point that emphasizes that replication is a central part of life itself, not just its origin. It is not "a process that he clearly has a great deal of confidence in", nor "one which he holds to far in excess of any other type of theory that may exist", nor "one which he wishes readers to consider quite seriously". All he wants the readers to take seriously is the proposition that life is inextricably tied up with replication.
Similarly, if Dawkins merely wanted to suggest that replicators created a fertile environment from which life would ultimately emerge, he would not have called DNA the 'descendants' of his replicators.
Why wouldn't he?
1) DNA is the central replicator today.
2) DNA couldn't have been the first replicator.
3) Ergo, there was a hand-off of replication function from earlier replicators to DNA.
1) Living things reproduce themselves.
2) Ergo, for something to be considered alive, it must have some replication function.
3) But replication is not a sufficient condition to determine that a thing is living.
4) Therefore, if life emerged from primitive catalytic self-replicators, then these replicators, while not necessarily alive, provided the necessary conditions for the later emergence of life.
There is nothing contradictory about these two arguments. One can make one, the other, or both at the same time, which is what Dawkins did. But neither does one argument either entail or preclude the other. They are logically independent. (Which is a good thing, because I happen to think both are true.) So when you claimed that Dawkins' use of the word "descendant" meant that Dawkins couldn't have been "implying that replicators establish a kind of field or groundwork, that makes the emergence of life possible", this claim was a giant non sequitur.
One can still argue over the word 'know', or 'claim', but beyond that, he cited a passage in which Dawkins describes - in a certain amount of detail - the process through which life came to be on earth - the descent of the first biological replicators from prebiotic ones.
And one should still argue over the words "know" and "claim", since that was the point of contention from the outset. I can outline in a certain amount of detail the way in which the U.S. government conspired to destroy the World Trade Center towers in a controlled demolition and fire a missile at the Pentagon all to give it a causus belli for invading almost any majority-Muslim country it cared to. But it would be foolish to argue that just because I could outline such a scenario, it follows that I must be claiming that this is how it happened. In fact, I know how to outline the standard conspiracy theory scenario on 9/11 from long experience arguing against the claims of the Troofers.
Like NE, this is it from me. I'm tired of discussing what Dawkins was actually saying with someone who, to all appearances, has never yet read the book under discussion in full. If you want to continue arguing what Dawkins was really saying, shoot him an e-mail and take it up with him.
@andyboerger
I can't recall reading anything Dawkins wrote about the "prebiotic soup." However, I have read his description of the crystal formation hypothesis. And while he does go on at length about it, this is simply with the intention of describing a (then) new and interesting possibility about the origin of life, and he takes no position on whether it is true or not. So if you are basing you argument on that, then you are wrong.
You are also wrong in claiming that his belief that replicators existed that were ancestral to RNA/RNA has any implications regarding the origin of life. It remains possible that pre-biotic conditions could have primarily involved metabolism and other biochemical processes, and reproduction only arisen relatively late in the game.
I think that you have covered every nanometer possible of the words "claim" and "know". You have also assured yourselves, except for Andy, that I was wrong and your religion is not threaten by any creationistic ideology.
How about commencing a novel discussion on how exactly Dawkins ("claims" or "knows") that the possibility of finding the "...signature of some sort of a designer when looking at the details of biochemistry and molecular biology..." excludes WHO-God?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoncJBrrdQ8
I'm quite convinced that all but one of you are more than willing to concede that "The Dawkins' Obsession" is exaggerated to the breaking point just by looking at his guiltlessness itself.
If anybody had any doubt that Dominic's sources are creationist propaganda, here you have it.
Please a round of applause to Dominic the clown.
Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap ...
Does it mean that Dawkins is an intelligent design creationist just not spelled with capital letters? I wonder what the judge in Dover court would say about this kind of evidence? "Intelligent Design is not science, unless it is spelled with lowercase "id"!!!" lol
I think Judge Jones would recognize that there's a difference between offering a hypothetical and accepting that hypothetical as fact. This is the second time you've failed to grasp that necessary distinction.
Are you really so deluded as to think that Dawkins believes in extraterrestrial designers?
Wow, what did those poor clowns ever do to deserve such an invidious comparison ?
Dominic, sorry, not with you on this one. Although Stein frames it as a 'gotcha!' moment, it isn't really.
Dawkins is speculating, and nothing he says is inconsistent with what he usually has to say. He maintains that any 'creator' would require its own explanation, its own logical scenario for how it came to be. To him, you can't just posit a 'god' and be done with it - you have to account for how he/it came to be. Which he does, regarding the aliens that he speculates about. He says they will have come about through some incremental process, probably Darwinian. This is not an anomalous or inconsistent statement of his, and moreover it is hardly a possibility that he considers to be anything more than 'interesting'.
Lutesuite writes, "You are also wrong in claiming that his belief that replicators existed that were ancestral to RNA/RNA has any implications regarding the origin of life."
I will assume that you haven't read the passage that I am quoting from and which Dominic provided above, from TSG. The book is more than thirty years old; we all know that. But in that section there are clearly "implications regarding the origin of life".
Nullifidian, I too am happy to end this discussion. But what you call a non sequitur is hardly that. You seem to be ignoring the difference between 'field or groundwork' and 'ancestor'.
They are not the same thing. The former doesn't have 'descendants', the latter does. The connection between an ancestor and a descendant is much closer than that between a groundwork and something that arises from it.
As for continually suggesting that I haven't read the book; it is basically a meaningless dismissal, since we are dealing with the words that are in front of us for all to see, as linked to by Dominic. If someone wants to argue that the Hebrew God did a very nasty and unfair thing by turning Lot's wife into a pillar of salt for breaking an arbitrary rule of his, it would be meaningless for a believer to insist that the person read the entire Old Testament before claiming such.
cont.
For example, the United Nations is a 'descendant' of the League of Nations. The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 laid the groundwork for the League of Nations.
The relationship between first replicator and living replicator that Dawkins describes in the passage is analogous to LoN to UN, not Paris Peace Conference to UN.
I'm trying very hard to believe that you are not a stupid person. I really am. But you do yourself no favors with responses like this.
I am not arguing that the two statements are the same. They do not have to be for your statement to be a non sequitur. I explained why it was a non sequitur: because you took two logically independent statements and treated one as if it precluded the other. Nothing you wrote had any bearing on what I actually said. Do you do this deliberately or do you just not notice?
I am not dismissing your statements simply because you haven't read the book. (Again, do I really have to tell you what I am not saying?) If I were, then I wouldn't waste time typing out full responses. However, there is a difference between Lot's wife and The Selfish Gene. Lot's wife is an episode in a larger text, whereas The Selfish Gene is a coherent work of argument. In order to understand the argument, it helps to read the thing in full. There is no such requirement for a one-off story in a larger text.
Nully, it makes no difference to me whether or not you think I am stupid. You still are not getting the point. I am not saying that replicators CAN'T be 'a field or groundwork'. Who cares if they are that, when they are so much more than that to Dawkins in the passage at hand? They, or at least one of them, are direct ancestors of organisms.
You are right, there IS 'nothing contradictory' about the two statements. I am saying that in the passage, Dawkins does something MORE significant than establishing replicators as a groundwork or field. He is positing them as a direct lineage to organisms, and THAT is why he uses the word 'descendants'. He is indicating that organisms evolved from replicators, hence Dominic's point about life beginning in a prebiotic soup is consistent with the passage he offered. Because, that was where the replicators were, and eventually one of them evolved that was definitively 'alive'.
Perhaps I should have written, though I didn't see the need at the time, 'It is not like Dawkins is implying that replicators MERELY establish a kind of field or groundwork, that makes the emergence of life possible."
Nullifidian writes, 'However, there is a difference between Lot's wife and The Selfish Gene. Lot's wife is an episode in a larger text, whereas The Selfish Gene is a coherent work of argument.'
Subjective and unimportant. A rabbi might easily argue that the OT similarly needs to be read fully in order to understand any of its passages. For example, he might argue that without reading the Book of Job, one cannot fully evaluate the relationship God has with his chosen people, nor how he can treat them in a way that we find to be appalling.
Furthermore, one does not need to understand the central argument of TSG to see that Dawkins is talking about how living things came to be in the pages that Dominic provides.
Nullifidian writes, 'And one should still argue over the words "know" and "claim", since that was the point of contention from the outset.'
Yes, but only because people here chose to make an issue of that. Dominic was not using inconsistency as a reason to criticize Dawkins. He could just as easily have written, "He used to BELIEVE, that life originated spontaneously few billion years ago in a warm pond. Now it seems, he says that he doesn't know how life originated but he knows it was with the first self-replicating molecule." His charge would have changed not one whit.
He is saying that Dawkins doesn't know how life came about, and is essentially employing the same 'faith' that he labels as 'belief without evidence'.
The fact that numerous people chose to get picayune about one mere word rather than address the ACTUAL charge Dominic was making is not my problem.
Nullifidian wrote,
"So your evidence to refute NE's statement that "Dawkins does not claim to know how life originated in that book" is to cite a sentence where he says that a replicating macromolecule emerged at some point by some process."
And this is where this whole rabbit hole started. By using the term 'macromolecule', Nully is creating distance between a replicator and a living organism. And there is no need to. If Dominic were merely relying on the 'sentence' that Nully refers to he (Nully) would have firmer ground to stand on. But that is NOT what Dominic did. He lifted a sentence for demonstrative purposes, and then placed it - as he specifically stated he was doing - within a context that DOES describe 'how life originated'. Therefore, the notion of him merely referencing a 'macromolecule' is irrelevant UNLESS Dawkins did not suppose that one of the macromolecules created a duplicate at some point that was definitively 'alive' - in the same prebiotic soup that Dominic refers to as a 'warm pond'. If such were the case, the meaning of 'descendant' could be used to argue Nully's point.
So Nully has either quote-mined in order to misrepresent (and trivialize) what Dominic presented, or he has some passage from TSG which he keeps hiding that shows that Dawkins maintains that the emergence of replicators did NOT directly lead to the emergence of life. He keeps telling me I haven't read the book. I would like to see that passage he's concealing, or at the very least, have it explained to me.
Andy,
I said I would not interfere more, but I am puzzled. I really don't see why you cannot see the obvious. Dominic argued from ignorance. Nowhere in that book does Dawkins claim that life originated in a warm pond. That Dawkins would call DNA the descendants of primeval replicators does not change that one bit. I explained above. Nullif explained in different words. What is it that you are missing?
And again, I did not say that each and every word in Dominic's bullshit was wrong. I said, again, and again, that it shows that Dominic talks from a foundation of ignorance. His first attempt at an answer was a set of videos that only betrayed Dominic's foundation to be exactly what I said: creationist propaganda. Then, I said that nowhere in the selfish gene did Dawkins claim to know how life originated. Dominic linked to a passage that does not say "this is how life originated," but rather "the following has a bunch of speculation." That Dawkins went from some unidentified replicators to DNA does not mean "I claim that life started in a warm pond." Remember that Dominic was answering my comment, and my comment clearly was that Dawkins did not claim to know how life started anywhere in TSG, and I was right. Let me repeat, Dominic was answering me, and I said, clearly and unambiguously, that Dawkins did not claim to know how life originated in that book. Let me repeat: Dominic was answering my comment, and my comment was that Dawkins did not claim to know how life originated in that book. Let me repeat: Dominic was answering my comment, and my comment was that Dawkins did not claim to know how life originated in that book. Let me repeat: Dominic was answering my comment, and my comment was that Dawkins did not claim to know how life originated in that book. Let me repeat: Dominic was answering my comment, and my comment was that Dawkins did not claim to know how life originated in that book. Let me repeat: Dominic was answering my comment, and my comment was that Dawkins did not claim to know how life originated in that book. Let me repeat: Dominic was answering my comment, and my comment was that Dawkins did not claim to know how life originated in that book. Let me repeat: Dominic was answering my comment, and my comment was that Dawkins did not claim to know how life originated in that book. Let me repeat: Dominic was answering my comment, and my comment was that Dawkins did not claim to know how life originated in that book. Let me repeat: Dominic was answering my comment, and my comment was that Dawkins did not claim to know how life originated in that book. Let me repeat: Dominic was answering my comment, and my comment was that Dawkins did not claim to know how life originated in that book. No matter how much you play with the words, or how much Dawkins strongly accepts the possibility that replicators are at the heart of the origin of life, that still does not mean "I know that life originated in a warm pond." It means what it means: "I regard the replicators as very important in the origin of life." Please understand that many other scenarios for the origin of life converge at replicators. Therefore, however strongly Dawkins could hold to replicators, that does not mean that he is sure and claims to know that life originated in a warm pond. Let alone that Dawkins claimed to know how life originated. Let me repeat, let alone that Dawkins claimed to know how life originated.
I hope that was clear enough, and truly, I'm out. This goes and goes in circles, and if you don't understand it, well, that's all I can do.It remains certain (yes certain), that Dominic argues from a foundation of ignorance, and his (Dominic's) reliance on creationist propaganda, which he continues to demonstrate, is also undeniable.
Hasta la vista.
NE, Dawkins DOES explain how he thinks life originated in TSG.. AND it was never an important part of Dominic's argument whether he claimed to 'know', 'claim', or even 'suppose that'. Dominic is arguing that Dawkins is as susceptible to faith as any theist he criticizes.
Pouncing on the word 'claim' or 'know' is a distraction, at best. Dominic would probably like someone to argue how, in the absence of direct knowledge (RD himself says his scenario is 'necessarily speculative' because no one was there to witness it), Darwin's 'faith' is any different from a theist's
This is an easy argument. He practically gift wrapped it to you guys. But instead, you chose to focus on the meaning of 'claim' and 'know'.
I will, in my next post, point out EXACTLY how Dawkins, in the passage Dominic provides, claims/speculates that life began in prebiotic soup. I will lay out each step, and supply a quote from Dawkins, in Dominic's citation, to support this.
NE, this is not about you. You have a complete right to challenge him about 'claim/know'. But he, in good fath, refuted an essential part of Rumraket's statement, and made Nullifidian's facile dismissal completely unnecessary. This is what he wrote, and Nullifidian chose to ignore:
'Read few pages before starting on page 13 and after so that you can't claim I took it out of context or copied it from creationist literature. I will give you the link...."
How Richard Dawkins, in The Selfish Gene, claims/knows/speculates/describes (It really doesn't matter, as this is NOT CENTRAL to the argument Dominic is making, guys) life began:
1.) Life arose through Darwinian mechanisms. RD quote: "Darwin provides a solution, the only feasible one so far suggested, to the deep problem of our existence."
2.) One does not need to begin with living organisms to begin postulating about the Theory of Evolution. The TOE precedes life. RD quote: "Darwin's 'survival of the fittest' is really a more special case of a more general law of survival of the stable."
"The earliest form of natural selection was simply a selection of stable forms and a rejection of unstable ones."
3.) Although nobody was around at the time, and thus it is necessary to speculate about the origins of life, there is a thread that runs through differing theories, and so by simplifying them and presenting the gist of them, you can provide a highly likely scenario. RD quote: "The account of the origin of life that I shall give is necessarily speculative; by definition. Nobody was around to see what happened. there are a number of rival theories, but they all have certain features in common. The simplified account I shall give is probably not too far from the truth."
4.) The most likely environment in which life evolved (at the time of the writing of TSG) was a prebiotic soup. RD quote: Processes analogous to these MUST HAVE given rise to the 'primeval soup', which biologists and chemists believe constituted the seas some three to four thousand million years ago."
5.) With the appearance, in the primeval soup, of replicators, the foundations for life were laid. RD quote: "What does matter is that suddenly a new kind of 'stability' came into the world."
6.) Replicators, like cells, do not reproduce with complete accuracy, thus resulting in the potential for evolution, and its expression. RD quote: "But now we must mention an important part of any copying process; it is not perfect. Mistakes will happen."
"...it was essential for the progressive evolution of life that some errors were made."
"Their (replicators') modern descendants, the DNA molecules, are astonishingly faithful...but even they make mistakes, and it is ultimately these mistakes which make evolution possible."
7.) Replicators flourished, and a wide variety of them came to exist in the primeval soup. RD quote: "...the primeval soup became filled by a population of not identical replicators, but of several varieties...all 'descended' from the same ancestor.
8.) Beyond this point, whether or not the replicators can be said to be 'living', natural selection was fully operative. RD quote: "...if you had sampled the soup at two different times, the later sample would have contained a higher proportion of varieties with high longevity/fecundity/copying-fidelity.
This is essentially what a biologist means by evolution when he is speaking of living creatures, and the mechanism is the same - natural selection."
9.) These evolved replicators were our ancestors; a direct lineage has been established between non-organic and organic molecules. RD quote: "Whether we call the early replicators living or not, they were the ancestors of life; they were our founding fathers."
Pouncing on the word 'claim' or 'know' is a distraction, at best. Dominic would probably like someone to argue how, in the absence of direct knowledge (RD himself says his scenario is 'necessarily speculative' because no one was there to witness it), Darwin's 'faith' is any different from a theist's.
Dominic, of course, is a lost cause. But surely you don't need an explanation of the difference. Do you?
NE, Dawkins DOES explain how he thinks life originated in TSG..
No. He. Does. Not.
He explicitly does not commit himself to the scenario advanced in the endnote which I already quoted from for you—"In neither book did I commit myself to the particular hypothesis chosen."
And this is where this whole rabbit hole started. By using the term 'macromolecule', Nully is creating distance between a replicator and a living organism. And there is no need to.
Yes, there damn well is. I'm creating the same distance that Dawkins does when he disdains to speculate on whether his hypothetical replicator is alive (pg. 18).
This is what he wrote, and Nullifidian chose to ignore:
'Read few pages before starting on page 13 and after so that you can't claim I took it out of context or copied it from creationist literature. I will give you the link...."
This is not evidence of good faith, or even of having read the passage cited. In fact, it's evidence against because if Dominic had read that this was a "necessarily speculative" and "simplified account", then why did he state that Dawkins claimed this is what happened?
He could just as easily have written, "He used to BELIEVE, that life originated spontaneously few billion years ago in a warm pond. Now it seems, he says that he doesn't know how life originated but he knows it was with the first self-replicating molecule." His charge would have changed not one whit.
Nor would the truth value of it have changed: it would still be bullshit. Dawkins never claimed to think the prebiotic soup hypothesis was true either, nor did he use the term "warm pond".
He is indicating that organisms evolved from replicators, hence Dominic's point about life beginning in a prebiotic soup is consistent with the passage he offered.
That organisms evolved from replicators is also consistent with an RNA world model, a metabolism-first model (though more indirectly), and so on. It is trivially true based on how we define "life". The prebiotic soup is merely one hypothesis about the origin of life. Knowing that life emerged from something that could self-replicate does not commit you to a particular scenario of how it emerged. To claim that Dawkins either "claimed" or "thought" that the prebiotic soup hypothesis was the way that life emerged, you have to show that he specifically took a view that denied the possibility—or at least plausibility—of other competing models (and yes, both the RNA world and metabolism first had already been discussed, if not necessarily under those names, in the scientific literature prior to 1976). If he were trying to establish this, then I think the discussion would have been a hell of a lot longer than four or five pages out of a 351-page book.
Pouncing on the word 'claim' or 'know' is a distraction, at best. Dominic would probably like someone to argue how, in the absence of direct knowledge (RD himself says his scenario is 'necessarily speculative' because no one was there to witness it), Darwin's 'faith' is any different from a theist's
This is an easy argument. He practically gift wrapped it to you guys. But instead, you chose to focus on the meaning of 'claim' and 'know'.
Naughty us, ignoring the gift-wrapped invitation to shift the discussion to masturbatory disquisitions on the meaning of "faith". Shame, shame.
Andy,
This is about me. Look at the comment where Dominic linked to the book at google books:
"Dominic Nikel Tuesday, April 30, 2013 10:58:00 PM"
Who is Dominic addressing there? What did the addressed person say that Dominic is answering?
Please check it out.
@andyboerger
You don't have to be sorry. You have fallen victim of your own shortcomings... That is why your are not getting much support on this query from "the unbelievers" because they probably already know exactly that you have not done your homework as a alleged believer.
I can help you but I don't think I should. I think you are smart enough to find your own answers to the uncertainties or doubtful thoughts you have encountered. However, you are in good space and your thinking faculties are on the right track. Here is s tip: What would you do if you encountered the same questions you have yourselves from the unbelievers?
NE, when I say it isn't about you, what I mean is, it was entirely appropriate that you challenged him about his statement, which prompted him to provide the link. But after he did so, the argument over 'claim' should have been over and done with. It should not have become a crucial sticking point. Because, as I wrote earlier, Dominic is NOT criticizing Dawkins for changing his story. Why wouldn't he (RD)? Scientists are not expected to cling to earlier views, hypotheses, etc. as data changes.
Read Dominic's criticism again:
"He used to claim, that life originated spontaneously few billion years ago in a warm pond. Now it seems, he says that he doesn't know how life originated but he knows it was with the first self-replicating molecule. He could neither prove it nor repeat it. So, his saying that life originated by chance is in what category? Can anybody guess? It's nothing else than MYTH. "
He is saying that because Dawkins doesn't know (and thinks that we possibly can't know) how life originated exactly, that is an 'article of faith' similar to what he criticizes believers for. As I said, 'know/claim' is just a distraction. To make a big deal about it is quibbling, since it is not an important part of Dominic's criticism. He could just as well have used 'speculated', 'believed'. Indeed, he SHOULD have used those words, but that would NOT have changed his argument.
Once Dominic reproduced the passage from TSG, the most practical thing to have done would have been, say, "okay- got it. We could quibble over the word 'claim', but I get what you are saying. Now let's move on to this point about 'faith'....."
Andy,
I do not understand why you try so hard to excuse Dominic's problems. He was criticizing Dawkins for changing his mind. He was. Otherwise, he could have told us that we were missing the point, yet he insisted that Dawkins claimed to know. Look at the exchange.
As per the entirety of Dominic's bullshit, I said it before, it betrays his reliance in ignorance and creationist misinformation:
He used to claim, that life originated spontaneously few billion years ago in a warm pond. Now it seems, he says that he doesn't know how life originated
1. Criticizing Dawkins for changing his mind (wrongly, because Dawkins did not move from I know, now I don't know). Classic creationist M.O.
but he knows it was with the first self-replicating molecule.
2. Dawkins did not claim to know, but he holds strongly to a first replicator. There's scientific reasons to do so. That Dominic would make fun of this shows his ignorance of the most basic science around origin of life, and that his only source is creationist propaganda..
He could neither prove it nor repeat it.
3. Even more display of ignorance. Dawkins does not work on origin of life. Expecting that Dawkins would solve every problem in biology is beyond stupid. More reliance on creationist propaganda, and ignorance of the way science operates, and of the most basic logic.
So, his saying that life originated by chance
4. Dawkins did not say that life originated by chance. The "by chance" cartoon is one more of those classic creationist rhetorical straw-man bullshit. So what sources does Dominic rely on? How much does he know and/or understand about science? Not one bit.
is in what category? Can anybody guess?
5. None, because Dawkins did not say that.
It's nothing else than myth.
Well, you can conclude anything if you rely on ignorance and creationist propaganda. This is why I called Dominic on his bullshit. He responded by trying to demonstrate that Dawkins held one thing then the other. First by using what? A creationist video, the words of Lennox, and an interview where Dawkins could not elaborate into what he thinks. Then he insisted on trying to show that Dawkins claimed to know in the selfish gene.
Therefore, Dominic was indeed criticizing Dawkins for changing his mind, et cetera.
Now, even if we left all of Dominic's bullshit aside and were kind enough to suppose that Dominic meant to say that Dawkins does not know how life originated, yet holds that it must have been natural. Well, that Dominic does not understand the clear indicators that life originated naturally, even if we don't know the exact process or history, and thus thinks that Dawkins just "believes in a myth", comes only to show, yet again, Dominic's profound ignorance of science and reliance on creationist propaganda. Worse yet, equating a creation myth such as Genesis (a fantasy with nothing to work as evidence for it, let alone any evidence of the character(s) doing the creation), with an argument built on some basic understanding about how nature works, plus experimental results that become more promising with time, is beyond ignorance. It's plainly stupid.
Therefore your defence of Dominic's bullshit relies on you being too kind to a guy who criticizes scientists from as foundation of deep ignorance and proudly displayed creationist misinformation. He did not even have the honesty to admit that his basis is creationist propaganda. He denied it only to contradict himself with the "evidence" he was providing.
I'm done with this now Andy. It's been too much for something too obvious. I'm pretty sure that even if you don't know the evidence, you understand the huge difference between believing a myth and trusting something out of the evidence available (which continues to accumulate) and some understanding about how nature works.
NE, of course I know the difference. And it doesn't mean a thing to me if you waltz Dominic across a floor on his behind a few times for saying that abiogenesis theories are no different from creation myths. Which you have just now, finally, done.
I defended him because a. I have a knee jerk reaction to piling on; b. Nullifidian used one sentence of Dominic's (the Dawkins line about a replicator) to trivialize his argument, when he himself specifically wrote underneath that sentence that he was couching it in context, provided the link, etc.; c. because although you may be entirely correct in that he relies on creationist sites and arguments for his material, he, in this particular case, refuted your charge by presenting you with a whole sample of Dawkins' thoughts directly from the source, etc. Etc. And rather than having that acknowledged, everyone decided to quibble about 'claim/know'.
My defense of him has nothing to do with what I feel about his argument, his personality, etc. But even a broken clock is right twice a day, as the saying goes, and providing the Dawkins citation, I maintain, was a fair course for Dominic to follow. It's the best thing he could have done. Would you have expected him to have just conceded without putting up a fight? Does ANYBODY do that here? ;)
@Moron Krauss really an unbeliever? It is for the logic to decide...
Apparently, in the late 80-ties and 90-ties Krauss published several papers on origins of universe etc. including the possibility of the existence of dark energy. He also calculated many fine tunings of the universe, including its total mass, which is so fine-tuned according to him, that if we were to remove a dime from the mass of the universe, according to him and many scientists now, the universe would collapse upon itself. He also suspected and now it is a fact that the expansion of the universe is accelerating and not decelerating, as it was previously thought. Krauss, and many others like him are trying to explain this phenomenon in materialistic terms; with the omission of an "external Agent"? Does he fail miserably? Here is the real kicker...
In his book “A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing” he actually contradicts himself. I have read the book, so I was quite amazed that he actually wrote, “…that the universe is a product of physical laws, and these laws had to originate somehow…”-something to this nature.
Does he even dare to suggest that those laws are products of an external and intelligent “Agent”, and he calls it “a law of physics generator” or something to this or nature? Well, the unbelievers would probably say: “no” What a surprise it is to learn, that the moron Krauss contradicts himself again and I quote: page 173 of the moron’s bible:
“The apparent logical necessity of First Cause is a real issue for any universe that has a beginning. Therefore, on the basis of logic alone one cannot rule out such a DEISTIC view on nature. “ Anybody knows how to use wiki?
So, what is the problem then? It seems that Krauss has no problem admitting that a deity could have been the First Cause. He has a problem with the deity of the predominant religions in the world.
So moron Krauss goes on:
“But even in this case it is vital to realize that this deity bears no logical connection to the personal deities of the world’s great religions…”
So according to moron Krauss, logic cannot allow one to deny the existence of the First Cause (because the universe had a beginning), but he is sure that First Cause has nothing to do with the deities of world’s great religions? What about small religions? Could their deity be the First Cause? Anybody here is trained in bias detection?
That's very gracious and principled of you, andyboerger, to provide such a detailed account of the evidence that demonstrates that you were wrong all along. It takes a big man to admit that.
you're funny, lutesuite, but in fact I have done nothing of the kind. You are welcome, of course, to go beyond mere facile one liners and point out exactly how the above post demonstrates that I was 'wrong', so that I can do my usual thing of ripping your arguments to shreds. ;)
It's right here near the beginning of your summary (my bold):
"The account of the origin of life that I shall give is necessarily speculative; by definition. Nobody was around to see what happened. There are a number of rival theories, but they all have certain features in common..."
Lutesuite, is that it? I think perhaps you haven't been following this thread closely.
I have already written that I think it was fine for NE to challenge Dominic's statement about Dawkins 'claiming".
But look at the two statements later on, one by Rumraket and the other by Nullifidian, that are both refuted by the segment of TSG that I have summarized here.
Rumraket says that in another book, Dawkins engages in 'a bit of speculation' that involves another scientist's theory about crystal formation, and adds 'that's about it'.
So here we have Dawkins laying out a very neat scenario that goes so far as to suggest that natural selection was operative even before organisms evolved (and that statement was before he wrote the comment that you cite).
Rumraket makes it sound like Dawkins was just tossing out an idea that wasn't even his own, when in fact he does something much more impressive than that.
Then we have Nullifidian trying to abort Dominic's argument at the stage of replicator emergence. But Dawkins DOESN'T stop there. He goes on to take us to the point where replicators evolve in the prebiotic soup in such ways that it becomes possible to accord them the very same traits that biologists accord living things - fecundity, longevity, and a high degree of reproductive fidelity. He doesn't even stop THERE, but goes on to name replicators the ancestors of living things.
It's a long thread, and you don't have to read through it if you don't want to. But if you do, and follow it carefully, you'll see no 'demonstration' of me being wrong all along.
So... Krauss' and Dawkins' bullshit propaganda boils down to this: "Imagine no religion that we don't accept. Our religion is better, because our religion bears neither accountability to a personal Superior Being, nor any possible hope beyond our miserable life. Yahoooo!
Exactly. None of which even remotely ammounts to Dawkins having "faith" in a specific hypothesis (Dominic prefers the term "mythology") about the of life. Which is the claim Dominic is making. I think you need to re-read the thread yourself and remind yourself of exactly what claim you are trying to defend.
Lutesuite, do you understand what the following sentences mean/imply?
"Darwin provides a solution, the only feasible one so far suggested, to the deep problem of our existence"
"Darwin's 'survival of the fittest' is really a special case of a more general law of survival of the stable."
"This is where Darwin's theory, in its most general form (do you understand what he is referring to here?), comes to the rescue."
After that he goes on to say that he is going to give a 'necessarily speculative' (because no one was there) account of the origin of life. But he has already committed himself to a pre-life operation of 'natural selection', ultimately resulting IN life, without any caveats whatsoever.
This is what Dominic means by 'faith'.
"Darwin provides a solution, the only feasible one so far suggested, to the deep problem of our existence"
"A solution", not "THE solution".
"...the only feasible one SO FAR suggested..."
Meaning there may well be others to come.
"Darwin's 'survival of the fittest' is really a special case of a more general law of survival of the stable."
That's really just a tautology. By definition that which is more "stable" is going to survive longer. It hardly requires "faith" to accept a tautology as true.
"This is where Darwin's theory, in its most general form (do you understand what he is referring to here?), comes to the rescue.".
Yes, I understand. He is referring to the same tautology I refer to above.
So if by "faith" you and Dominic both mean acceptance of processes that have been empirically demonstrated to occur, and claims which are trivially and even tautologically true, then you both need to review what the word "faith" actually means.
Lutesuite, I officially give up on this. You are right! My god, how could I have not seen before!
Wow, I'll never make the mistake of arguing with you again!
by the way, I don't know where you get the idea that I and Dominic are in lockstep over this. Unlike members of an echo chamber, I tend to 'freelance', and if I see someone providing a better case than their opponents, I recognize it. In this particular case (don't worry, I would never think to ask you to admit it) Dominic leaves Rumraket and Nullifidian in the dust.
So now I've got lutesuite arguing with me that the 'tautology' that stable things tend to be more stable is all you need to account for the emergence of life.
Okay, guys, you can all go home now. Make sure you drop your lab coats in the laundry bin on your way out.
You are a good and sincere guy Andy! You have done a lot of hard work trying to pursued these morons to think. Unfortunately, it did not work. Wanna know why? There are few aspects to the issue and I can only see the one. So, as a "colleague", here it goes. The morons can't get past materialism, which means you can apply logic unless it is what "they like within their boundaries. Why? I don't know, but it has gotta be an disorder of somekind.
You really have a hard time with basic reading comprehension, don't you Andy? Maybe you and Dominic can find a remedial English class you can both take.
@lutesuite
You really think that this will make up for your unfounded faith? Well, get a psychiatrist and a good one too. Maybe you should be observed in 24/7 detention center?
How lutesuite would respond to this:
You said I have a 'hard time'. No where did you write that I am unskilled or incapable of basic reading comprehension. You might even be suggesting that I find it 'hard' because basic reading is too basic for me. You might also be suggesting that to attempt to read something basically that ISN'T basic is difficult is simply stating a tautology. Next.
You phrase it as a question, by finishing with 'don't you Andy'? In other words, the answer might be 'no'. You have not committed yourself in any way shape or form to the proposition that I have a hard time with basic reading comprehension.
You begin your next sentence with "Maybe". Again, there is no certainty. There is still nothing but the merest suggestion that I might possibly have a hard time with basic reading comprehension, if that.
You write 'you and Dominic'. In other words, you could be suggesting that I might want to take a remedial English class with Dominic so that I can help him with his homework.
I see nothing in your comment to indicate that you think I really have a hard time with basic reading comprehension.
How'd I do?
In this particular case (don't worry, I would never think to ask you to admit it) Dominic leaves Rumraket and Nullifidian in the dust.
Well, then maybe I should start calling scientists "morons" if I hope to achieve the refined excellence of Dominic's form of 'argument'.
@Andy
They have no real "ammunition", so they are shooting at you and I with "blanks". Anything will do, as long as it hurts a little. Look at the theme about Krauss' book. Nobody is touching it. Why?
Andy,
I think you really don't realize, but you are encouraging an imbecile (Dominic) to continue arguing from a position of ignorance and misinformation. I have tried to show Dominic how his comments betray his ignorance, and he pays no attention. The least we need is for this imbecile bigot to be encouraged in his ignorance and misinformation.
I know this sounds harsh on Dominic, maybe you don't understand how ignorant and misinformed he is. But encouragement in error is not really making Dominic any good. No matter how deep you feel about coming to the defence of something you seem to have misunderstood yourself. Please read carefully what I told you (others told you too, but maybe different wording helps). You might notice that Dominic does not leave anybody in the dust. But do that. Most of your answers seem to ignore many things I have said (as if either you did not see my comments, or you did not read them all the way through).
Have a great day.
Dominic:
Do you know what the term "deistic" means?
Does it represent the views of the "world's great religions"?
Do you think Krauss believes the universe necessarily had a beginning?
Andy,
I just realized that my comment just above is in the wrong place. Still, it stands for what it stands, and I hope you realize that it belongs somewhere in the comments above this particular exchange about tautologies, which I have no idea how it started, nor do I want to butt in.
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