. . . imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in’an interesting hole I find myself in’fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’ This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it’s still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything’s going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.
From a Speech given by Adams at Digital Biota 2, Cambridge, UK, 1998. Later quoted in Richard Dawkin’s Eulogy for Douglas Adams.
Posted by probabilityZero on 2008-07-19 | Filed under: Atheism | 30 responses
No, that isn’t a contradiction. Evolution is both fact and theory.
Stephen Jay Gould wrote a paper called “Evolution as Fact and Theory,” and it sums up the issue quite nicely:
In the American vernacular, “theory” often means “imperfect fact”–part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory to hypothesis to guess. Thus the power of the creationist argument: evolution is “only” a theory and intense debate now rages about many aspects of the theory. If evolution is worse than a fact, and scientists can’t even make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in it? Indeed, President Reagan echoed this argument before an evangelical group in Dallas when he said (in what I devoutly hope was campaign rhetoric): “Well, it is a theory. It is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science–that is, not believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was.”
Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world’s data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don’t go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein’s theory of gravitation replaced Newton’s in this century, but apples didn’t suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin’s proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.
Moreover, “fact” doesn’t mean “absolute certainty”; there ain’t no such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science “fact” can only mean “confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent.” I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.
Evolutionists have been very clear about this distinction of fact and theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory–natural selection–to explain the mechanism of evolution.
Most anti-evolutionists oppose it on both grounds, ie: they reject both the fact of it occurring, and the theory as to how exactly it works. Some anti-evolutionists have come to understand the difference, however, and changed their arguments. They now claim to accept “microevolution” (as it can now be easily and overwhelmingly proven over observable periods of time) but not “macroevolution.”
There is still some controversy over the exact mechanisms of how evolution works. Intelligent design and creationism are not, however, valid explanations. Supporters of both generally misunderstand evolution (often drastically misunderstand it), sometimes bringing up absurd arguments that have nothing to do with evolution (”how does evolution explain the origin of life?”) or that have been answered a million times (”where are the transitional fossils?”). The truth is, neither ID nor creationism are real science. Neither is falsifiable, and both are just religion trying to masquerade as science.
Anyway, that isn’t my point. Those people are generally too far gone to save. The people I’m more concerned about are the people who still bring up the argument that evolution is “only a theory” and hasn’t been proven, and the people who don’t understand why evolution can be a fact and a theory at the same time.
The most obvious and most common misunderstanding to confront here is a misunderstanding of the word “theory.” We are talking about a scientific theory, not a theory in the colloquial sense. To quote the National Academy of Sciences:
Some scientific explanations are so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter them. The explanation becomes a scientific theory. In everyday language a theory means a hunch or speculation. Not so in science. In science, the word theory refers to a comprehensive explanation of an important feature of nature that is supported by many facts gathered over time. Theories also allow scientists to make predictions about as yet unobserved phenomena.
It constantly surprises me how many people don’t understand this. I think it is a sort of willful ignorance on their part. They can be shown all of this information and more, mountains of evidence and lengthy, in-depth explanations and definitions, yet they manage to ignore it and go put an “evolution is just a theory” bumper sticker on their SUV.
Posted by probabilityZero on 2008-06-16 | Filed under: Atheism | 22 responses
- If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him?
If he is infinitely wise, why should we have doubts concerning our future?
If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers?
If he is everywhere, why erect temples to him?
If he is just, why fear that he will punish the creatures that he has filled with weaknesses?
If grace does everything for them, what reason would he have for recompensing them?
If he is all-powerful, how offend him, how resist him?
If he is reasonable, how can he be angry at the blind, to whom he has given the liberty of being unreasonable?
If he is immovable, by what right do we pretend to make him change his decrees?
If he is inconceivable, why occupy ourselves with him?
If he has spoken, why is the universe not convinced?
If the knowledge of a God is the most necessary, why is it not the most evident and the clearest?
- Nature rejects the monarch, not the man;
The subject, not the citizen; for kings
And subjects, mutual foes, forever play
A losing game into each other’s hands,
Whose stakes are vice and misery. The man
Of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys.
Power, like a desolating pestilence,
Pollutes whate’er it touches; and obedience,
Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,
Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame
A mechanized automaton.
- Fear not the future, weep not for the past.
Posted by probabilityZero on 2008-05-09 | Filed under: Atheism, Other | 24 responses
Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago) interrupted atheist activist Rob Sherman during his testimony Wednesday afternoon before the House State Government Administration Committee in Springfield and told him, “What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous . . . it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists!”
Yup, this actually happened. This person was actually elected, and as a Democrat no less.
“This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God,” Davis said. “Get out of that seat . . . You have no right to be here!”
This is especially ironic, since Lincoln wasn’t the most religious man himself. He once said: “When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.”
I guess this incident just serves as a reminder that this is what some Christians think. Freedom of Religion sounds nice, but when it really comes down to it, some Christians just can’t accept it. I’ll add this to the list of things to bring up whenever a Christian tries to pull the whole “atheists are persecuting us!” act.
Posted by probabilityZero on 2008-04-09 | Filed under: Atheism, Fucked up | 3 responses
- My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or her as far away from a church as you can.
- Tax the FUCK out of the churches!
- Get smart and I’ll fuck you over — sayeth The Lord.
- The essence of Christianity is told to us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the Tree of Knowledge. The subtext is, All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on. You could be in the Garden of Eden if you had just kept your fucking mouth shut and hadn’t asked any questions.
- Those Jesus Freaks
Well, they’re friendly but
The shit they believe
Has got their minds all shut
An’ they don’t even care
When the church takes a cut
Ain’t it bleak when you got so much nothin’
Posted by probabilityZero on 2008-03-15 | Filed under: Atheism | 8 responses
Thomas Paine was a revolutionary and an intellectual that was influencial in the American revolution. His famous works include Common Sense, which advocated independence of the American colonies, and The Age of Reason, which criticized Christianity and the bible.
- “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”
- “There is scarcely any part of science, or anything in nature, which those imposters and blasphemers of science, called priests, as well Christians as Jews, have not, at some time or other, perverted, or sought to pervert to the purpose of superstition and falsehood.”
- “I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.”
- “It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man.”
- “To argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine to the dead.”
- “A man will pass better through the world with a thousand open errors upon his back than in being detected in one sly falsehood. When one is detected, a thousand are suspected.”
- “He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression.”
- “The Christian system of religion is an outrage on common sense.”
- “All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”
Read more…
Posted by probabilityZero on 2007-06-14 | Filed under: Atheism, Noteworthy, Other | 4 responses
