The blatant irony of intelligent design creationists is always such a laugh. I mean, the Discovery Institute is like the Black Knight - no arms, no legs, but still blustering against King Arthur that he has beat him in battle and that's why the King is "running away." A house of cards is all creationism is, built on religious belief in religious doctrines based on religious myths in a religious book.
The irony of Bethell complaining the science is based on authority rather than evidence is almost to rich, as well. Creationists are primarily motivated by the desire to re-establish a society in which submission to authority replaces reason.
"The great problem with science, as it is understood today, is that authority, more and more, replaces evidence." - Tom Bethell
The irony is so delicious...except that I've been puking for the past 18 months having been force-fed the disinformation and blatant lies coming from Trump and his crew.
What, pray tell, are religious claims based on, other than a mindless belief in the authority and inerrant word of gawd, to the extent that any questioning of their dogma is considered blasphemous, disrespectful, and in some cases - death.
The religious-right's total lack of cognitive dissonance is alarming, and a clear sign of mental illness.
Er..ma..gerd! That is a devastating rebuttal to 150+ years of research on the theory of evolution! And a [sputter] journalist discovers it??? Well, he is British, and older than I, so I guess he is right and a million biologists were wrong....
Wow, he's been slugging away for 41 years already. Any time soon... Any time soon... Lets compare this with real life scientists. Would any grant organization fund a scientist for 41 years, when this scientist can't produce *any* *single* bit of *evidence* to support his claims?
Well, it's true that the original ideas about evolution rested heavily on Victorian ideas of progress. Too bad he persists in attacking a Victorian notion that went extinct decades ago.
He's big on the notion that natural selection is tautological
And way too stupid to realize that would not necessarily incorrect.
1+1=2 reduces to 2=2, a tautology. Every logical truth reduces to a tautology. (For creationists, who seem to have trouble with elementary logic, I add this does not mean every tautology contains mathematical or scientific truth, or even that it is objectively true. But it certainly doesn't mean things that can be reduced to logical tautologies, like mathematics for starters - after all, what is a mathematical proof? - are either untrue or not valuable, significant and useful.)
So, AIDs denialism, creationism, relativity is wrong (facepalm) - the "crank magnetism" is strong in this one.
What a goof. I wonder if he can explain how his GPS works. Maybe he thinks its witchcraft.
This seems to me an example of the strain of anti-intellectualism that pervades the political right at the moment. Relativity is just too difficult to understand, compared to nice and neat Newtonian physics. It must really gall him to live in a universe the understanding of which requires understanding of advanced mathematics and extensive training, and whose nature is actually quite different from what his everyday experience would tell him. Much more reassuring to pretend that he actually understands how things are, and that all those pointy-headed scientists are just deluding themselves.
That said, I shouldn't attribute this attitude solely to the right, though on the left it takes a somewhat different form e.g. being certain that GMO's are poison and "natural" health remedies work.
It sounds more like he thinks it is not necessary.
"For example, the famous equation “E = mc2” was derived using relativity theory. But later Einstein re-derived it, this time without relativity." http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/31/relativity-and-relativism/
When is Mr. Bethell going to explain how relativity, which presents a value for the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron that agrees with experimental measurements to 10 significant digits is wrong. The best the babble can do is 1 digit (e.g. the value of pi is 3)
If relativity is difficult to understand, quantum mechanics is much worse. As Lawrence Krauss opined, nobody understands quantum mechanics (see also Steven Weinberg and Richard Feynman)
I chuckle at that picture. Evolution theory is so much the opposite of a house or cards. Creationists often labor so hard to dispute one small aspect of it and think the whole thing will fall, but actually evolution is supported by multiple lines of evidence and fits into a larger, well-supported picture of geology and astronomy. To knock down evolution theory you'd have to kick out a lot of supports in several fields or -- and this is the real challenge or creationists -- produce a new, better theory that explains the evidence for evolution and more.
22 comments :
Would this book be anti-evolution if it didn't contain the mentioning of your baby the ransom generic draft?
The blatant irony of intelligent design creationists is always such a laugh. I mean, the Discovery Institute is like the Black Knight - no arms, no legs, but still blustering against King Arthur that he has beat him in battle and that's why the King is "running away." A house of cards is all creationism is, built on religious belief in religious doctrines based on religious myths in a religious book.
Larry,
You'd better start some propaganda with the some shit you believe in. Just look at laituesuie. He just loves your set of religion...
The irony of Bethell complaining the science is based on authority rather than evidence is almost to rich, as well. Creationists are primarily motivated by the desire to re-establish a society in which submission to authority replaces reason.
"The great problem with science, as it is understood today, is that authority, more and more, replaces evidence." - Tom Bethell
The irony is so delicious...except that I've been puking for the past 18 months having been force-fed the disinformation and blatant lies coming from Trump and his crew.
What, pray tell, are religious claims based on, other than a mindless belief in the authority and inerrant word of gawd, to the extent that any questioning of their dogma is considered blasphemous, disrespectful, and in some cases - death.
The religious-right's total lack of cognitive dissonance is alarming, and a clear sign of mental illness.
Bethell also thinks that relativity is wrong! And we have it on his authority that science is more and more replaced by authority.
Note, it's not "Darwinism" that he is attacking. It's "evolution".
As a "house of cards", evolution is about to collapse any minute now. And has been for the last 41 years. Here he is, in Harper's Magazine in 1976.
He's big on the notion that natural selection is tautological, a moldy old creationist classic.
Er..ma..gerd! That is a devastating rebuttal to 150+ years of research on the theory of evolution! And a [sputter] journalist discovers it??? Well, he is British, and older than I, so I guess he is right and a million biologists were wrong....
Wow, he's been slugging away for 41 years already. Any time soon... Any time soon...
Lets compare this with real life scientists. Would any grant organization fund a scientist for 41 years, when this scientist can't produce *any* *single* bit of *evidence* to support his claims?
Well, it's true that the original ideas about evolution rested heavily on Victorian ideas of progress. Too bad he persists in attacking a Victorian notion that went extinct decades ago.
He's big on the notion that natural selection is tautological
And way too stupid to realize that would not necessarily incorrect.
1+1=2 reduces to 2=2, a tautology. Every logical truth reduces to a tautology. (For creationists, who seem to have trouble with elementary logic, I add this does not mean every tautology contains mathematical or scientific truth, or even that it is objectively true. But it certainly doesn't mean things that can be reduced to logical tautologies, like mathematics for starters - after all, what is a mathematical proof? - are either untrue or not valuable, significant and useful.)
So, AIDs denialism, creationism, relativity is wrong (facepalm) - the "crank magnetism" is strong in this one.
...not necessarily *make it* incorrect.
The bestest irony: he would have it that 'Darwinism' is based on an argument from analogy ...
You will be shocked, I'm sure, to learn that Bethell's been saying the same thing about relativity... for almost as long.
Hey Hugh,
Bethell's book is propaganda about some nonsense he believes in (like all other creationist anti-evolution hit pieces), so that angle is covered.
What a goof. I wonder if he can explain how his GPS works. Maybe he thinks its witchcraft.
This seems to me an example of the strain of anti-intellectualism that pervades the political right at the moment. Relativity is just too difficult to understand, compared to nice and neat Newtonian physics. It must really gall him to live in a universe the understanding of which requires understanding of advanced mathematics and extensive training, and whose nature is actually quite different from what his everyday experience would tell him. Much more reassuring to pretend that he actually understands how things are, and that all those pointy-headed scientists are just deluding themselves.
That said, I shouldn't attribute this attitude solely to the right, though on the left it takes a somewhat different form e.g. being certain that GMO's are poison and "natural" health remedies work.
Populism - combining the best from all crackpot theories!
"Bethell also thinks that relativity is wrong!"
It sounds more like he thinks it is not necessary.
"For example, the famous equation “E = mc2” was derived using relativity theory. But later Einstein re-derived it, this time without relativity."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/31/relativity-and-relativism/
The comments are as interesting as the article.
Bethell is also a relativity denier. I think it might be hard to find a scientific theory that he doesn't reject.
Te txpiper
When is Mr. Bethell going to explain how relativity, which presents a value for the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron that agrees with experimental measurements to 10 significant digits is wrong. The best the babble can do is 1 digit (e.g. the value of pi is 3)
Re lutesuite
If relativity is difficult to understand, quantum mechanics is much worse. As Lawrence Krauss opined, nobody understands quantum mechanics (see also Steven Weinberg and Richard Feynman)
I chuckle at that picture. Evolution theory is so much the opposite of a house or cards. Creationists often labor so hard to dispute one small aspect of it and think the whole thing will fall, but actually evolution is supported by multiple lines of evidence and fits into a larger, well-supported picture of geology and astronomy. To knock down evolution theory you'd have to kick out a lot of supports in several fields or -- and this is the real challenge or creationists -- produce a new, better theory that explains the evidence for evolution and more.
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