Probably a stupid move, but I'm truly irked with the way these kind of philosophizing threads on science vs religion tend to spin out. Has Dawkins and ilk really got all the theists on the ropes as assumed? Is it really all down to arguing about the right to take comfort in religious-ideals-as-opiate-of-the-masses? Can someone point me to a truly objective, point-by-point comprehensive rebuttal to what this credentialed individual has to say:
I do NOT apologize for the fact he is not a polished orator like say Kenneth Miller. But then I've never been impressed by style as against substance.
Most British scientists: Richard Dawkins' work misrepresents science
- Thread starter paddoboy
- Start date
What does this have to do with Richard Dawkins? It's just another creationist. His argument goes like this: there are still gaps in our knowledge, therefore God. But knowledge of God is all gaps. So...
Last edited:
Agreed.....Sadly though, this thread does now appear to have been sidetracked to a religion versus science debate, whereas, being the initiator, my whole premise was in comparing the styles of Dawkins and Sagan.
Again, while both are essentially saying the same thing, they are saying it in totally two different styles.
danshawen
Valued Senior Member
http://americanloons.blogspot.com/2012/03/315-ed-peltzer.html
A credentialed lunatic is still a lunatic.
Check out the posts previous page. Including your own btw. Yes my post was strictly off topic but then so has this thread become.
I dime a dozen huh. And just an 'it' - perhaps not even human. Unlike the precious jewels of OP mention. That's an opinion - or putdown on the cheap.
Unbelievably trite. I'd say, given the strength and breadth of his detailed critique, the onus is on the materialists to provide credible counterarguments. Which brings it back to Dawkins & Sagan. Neither one afaik ever addressed let alone came close to answering the abiogenesis show-stoppers that Peltzer sets out very clearly. Which imo makes them both either knowing liars or sadly deluded. Given both claim naturalistic abiogenesis was a certainty and 'merely down to the details'. Except, the devil is in the details.
That Peltzer happens to believe in a particular offshoot of a bronze age religion is neither here nor there in respect of the key issue - abiogenesis - how could it really? Wonder if Dawkins and Peltzer ever clashed in a debate? I know which one my money would be on.
Who is the loon? Anything there that would answer anything Peltzer presents in the Youtube vid I linked to? Cheap comments are cheap.
No. There could be no explanation for the origin of life whatsoever, it doesn't make the God hypothesis any more credible.
In your opinion. Others see it quite differently. At the very least, the likes of Sagan, Dawkins, Attenborough, Miller, Gould,... should have honestly acknowledged the huge barriers to a naturalistic abiogenesis paradigm, and given the show-stopper issues due weight. None ever have. That approach of blithely sweeping serious issues under the carpet is imo not just sloppy, but irresponsible and morally wrong. The result of total commitment to a naturalistic/materialist ideology, similar to most of their opponents commitment to a religious ideology.
Firstly, we can be confident that abiogenisis did occur: The debate on the probability is the theoretical exersise, that Dawkin's and Sagan often spoke on.
On that subject of Abiogenisis........
https://reflectionsofayoungcontrari...13/05/addressing-creationist-fallacies-21.pdf
"Can life arise from non-life? In January 2001, scientists from NASA’s Ames Research Centre and the University of California, Santa Cruz, surprised many of their colleagues and created headline news by announcing the results of experiments which produced complex organic molecules under conditions resembling those which exist in interstellar clouds of gas and dust. In these experiments, a mixture of the kind of icy material known to exist in those clouds (composed of water, methanol, ammonia and carbon monoxide frozen together) was kept in a cold vacuum and dosed with ultraviolet radiation. Chemical reactions stimulated by the radiation (typical of the kind of radiation from young stars which zaps real interstellar clouds) produced a variety of organic compounds which, when immersed in water, spontaneously created membranous structures resembling soap bubbles. All life on earth is based on cells, bags of biological material encased in just this kind of membrane. The implication of this work is that space is filled with chemical compounds which can easily give a kick-start to life if they land in a suitable environment, such as on the surface of the earth. The comets which proliferate in the outer part of our Solar System and occasionally pass through the inner regions near the earth are known to be made of almost pristine interstellar material left over from the formation of the Sun and planets out of one of these interstellar clouds. It seems very likely, therefore, that any planet like the earth will be seeded with the raw materials necessary for life almost as soon as it forms. The discovery seems to have taken the researchers themselves by surprise. In the issue of The Independent dated January 30th 2001, Lou Allamondola, the leader of the team, was quoted as saying: We expected ultraviolet radiation would make a few molecules that might have some biological interest, but nothing major. Instead, we found that this process transforms some of the simple chemicals that are very common in space into larger molecules which behave in far more complex ways, which many people think are critical to the origin of life. There now seems very little room to doubt that life must be a common occurrence across the Universe, i.e. that chemical evolution is the reason for our existence".
On the subject matter of comparing Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan, I found the following.........
http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com.au/2011/04/sagan-beats-dawkins-in-related-news.html
"Sagan beats Dawkins. In related news, education overcomes superstition
by Massimo Pigliucci
I have been doing public outreach for science since I originally moved to Tennessee in 1996. It has been a fun ride, and I’m sure it will continue to be that way for many years to come. But two of the first things I learned when debating creationists and giving talks about the nature of science were: a) nastiness doesn’t get you anywhere; and b) just because you have reason and evidence on your side doesn’t mean you are going to carry the day.
Hence, my sympathy for the mild mannered approach of Carl Sagan as evident in, say, The Demon Haunted World, or The Varieties of Scientific Experience, and my dislike of the more in-your-face take of those such as Dawkins, as fun as the latter may be for the in-crowd. Up until recently, however, I could only back up my preference with reasons of personal taste and anecdotal experience. Not any longer, now there is hard data"
And here's Richard Dawkins himself on Carl Sagan.......
On that subject of Abiogenisis........
https://reflectionsofayoungcontrari...13/05/addressing-creationist-fallacies-21.pdf
"Can life arise from non-life? In January 2001, scientists from NASA’s Ames Research Centre and the University of California, Santa Cruz, surprised many of their colleagues and created headline news by announcing the results of experiments which produced complex organic molecules under conditions resembling those which exist in interstellar clouds of gas and dust. In these experiments, a mixture of the kind of icy material known to exist in those clouds (composed of water, methanol, ammonia and carbon monoxide frozen together) was kept in a cold vacuum and dosed with ultraviolet radiation. Chemical reactions stimulated by the radiation (typical of the kind of radiation from young stars which zaps real interstellar clouds) produced a variety of organic compounds which, when immersed in water, spontaneously created membranous structures resembling soap bubbles. All life on earth is based on cells, bags of biological material encased in just this kind of membrane. The implication of this work is that space is filled with chemical compounds which can easily give a kick-start to life if they land in a suitable environment, such as on the surface of the earth. The comets which proliferate in the outer part of our Solar System and occasionally pass through the inner regions near the earth are known to be made of almost pristine interstellar material left over from the formation of the Sun and planets out of one of these interstellar clouds. It seems very likely, therefore, that any planet like the earth will be seeded with the raw materials necessary for life almost as soon as it forms. The discovery seems to have taken the researchers themselves by surprise. In the issue of The Independent dated January 30th 2001, Lou Allamondola, the leader of the team, was quoted as saying: We expected ultraviolet radiation would make a few molecules that might have some biological interest, but nothing major. Instead, we found that this process transforms some of the simple chemicals that are very common in space into larger molecules which behave in far more complex ways, which many people think are critical to the origin of life. There now seems very little room to doubt that life must be a common occurrence across the Universe, i.e. that chemical evolution is the reason for our existence".
On the subject matter of comparing Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan, I found the following.........
http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com.au/2011/04/sagan-beats-dawkins-in-related-news.html
"Sagan beats Dawkins. In related news, education overcomes superstition
by Massimo Pigliucci
I have been doing public outreach for science since I originally moved to Tennessee in 1996. It has been a fun ride, and I’m sure it will continue to be that way for many years to come. But two of the first things I learned when debating creationists and giving talks about the nature of science were: a) nastiness doesn’t get you anywhere; and b) just because you have reason and evidence on your side doesn’t mean you are going to carry the day.
Hence, my sympathy for the mild mannered approach of Carl Sagan as evident in, say, The Demon Haunted World, or The Varieties of Scientific Experience, and my dislike of the more in-your-face take of those such as Dawkins, as fun as the latter may be for the in-crowd. Up until recently, however, I could only back up my preference with reasons of personal taste and anecdotal experience. Not any longer, now there is hard data"
And here's Richard Dawkins himself on Carl Sagan.......
https://richarddawkins.net/2014/03/carl-sagan-took-my-faith-and-gave-me-awe-onfaith/
extract:
https://richarddawkins.net/2014/03/carl-sagan-took-my-faith-and-gave-me-awe-onfaith/
"While Sagan’s personal views set him safely in the camp of atheism, he was more comfortable claiming the title of agnostic. He certainly never made it his mission to destroy anyone’s faith. His sights were always set on something far higher. His mission was to build up, not tear down.
As I read, I began to wonder—why had Sagan been so reviled? His manner was so meek, his words so respectful, his position so evenhanded. He was compassionate and affable, even when he quarreled. Certainly, he was nothing like the thought leaders of modern unbelief, such as Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens, who take pride in their public disdain for religion. Sure, Sagan was staking a position against mythology, irrationality and pseudoscience, but he was so, well, kind about it.
Perhaps it was this very gentleness, warmth and humanity that made him so much more menacing than his ideological peers, then and now. He did not attack so much as elevate. He spent only as much time as was necessary dismantling those things that posed a significant threat to rational living, instead focusing most of our attention on the wonders science had revealed"
extract:
https://richarddawkins.net/2014/03/carl-sagan-took-my-faith-and-gave-me-awe-onfaith/
"While Sagan’s personal views set him safely in the camp of atheism, he was more comfortable claiming the title of agnostic. He certainly never made it his mission to destroy anyone’s faith. His sights were always set on something far higher. His mission was to build up, not tear down.
As I read, I began to wonder—why had Sagan been so reviled? His manner was so meek, his words so respectful, his position so evenhanded. He was compassionate and affable, even when he quarreled. Certainly, he was nothing like the thought leaders of modern unbelief, such as Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens, who take pride in their public disdain for religion. Sure, Sagan was staking a position against mythology, irrationality and pseudoscience, but he was so, well, kind about it.
Perhaps it was this very gentleness, warmth and humanity that made him so much more menacing than his ideological peers, then and now. He did not attack so much as elevate. He spent only as much time as was necessary dismantling those things that posed a significant threat to rational living, instead focusing most of our attention on the wonders science had revealed"
No, you can't. If you are so confident, go ahead and explain - really explain - why for instance Maillard reactions won't screw up any chance of precursor chemicals joining up in the ways required for large biologically useful protein chains to form. As detailed by Peltzer. Link to anyone, any atheist evolutionist hero of yours, that can. Shock me.
danshawen
Valued Senior Member
You don't get into The Encyclopedia of American Loons without being a lunatic. He is one of those because he seems to think that creationism (a very young Earth, creationist myths, infallible scripture) is compatible with science (fossil records, carbon dating, dispassionate assessment of science vs scripture without preconceptions). The Encyclopedia also offers a diagnosis for this one (Peltzer):
"Diagnosis: Another otherwise intelligent chap who is willing to throw critical thinking and science under the bus if the results don’t fit sufficiently smoothly with his preconceptions. It’s sad, really."
danshawen
Valued Senior Member
You say that as if you expect that only chemistry is involved in the reactions leading to the long chains of organized molecules. Life doesn't currently exist (at all) without photosynthesis or some other energy source driving it. How many combinations of such conditions were involved in abiogenesis, no one yet knows in any detail. Evidence that it somehow worked is all around you, and made these conversations possible. But you will likely never find out what happened exactly if you are satisfied that all of the answers are in scripture. They aren't. Those scriptures don't even mention genetics or DNA or evolution. That's because they aren't, nor were they ever meant to be, science.
That's your opinion, and I believe you certainly can. What other answer is there available? Sure we may not have direct evidence for such, but it is the only scientific answer. And of course the link I gave,
https://reflectionsofayoungcontrari...13/05/addressing-creationist-fallacies-21.pdf
gives some support to that most likely outcome.
Three things.....I don't believe I have the need to explain, as already said, it is the only viable answer, Secondly, I have no hero/s only those whom I respect more than others, thirdly of course shock me! And of course my post on Abiogenesis was in reply to the video you posted.
This thread is primarilly with regards to Professor Dawkins and Sagan and their personal delivery and educational styles.
And please do not get me wrong. I'm in no way degrading Dawkins, simply a subjective view re Sagan's style as more effective in comparison.
Wasn't aware he subscribed to YEC dogma. It's irrelevant to the strength of his criticisms regarding naturalistic abiogenesis, which iirc made no connection to YE notion. Nothing you repeat here meaningfully addresses #46. You should know better than to use linkage as an argument.
You need to raise straw-man nonsense suggesting e.g. photosynthesis is something apart from chemistry? Or that Peltzer never discussed energy transfer mechanisms? I won't suggest to try harder - just don't try.
Go read again last part of #45. Pay attention. And given your particular religious bent, with a superstitious need to use 'G_d', maybe time to look in the mirror.
Not recalling any YEC rhetoric from Peltzer, I went back to review that Youtube lecture, and beginning around 17:40 mark, it becomes perfectly clear he is no YEC believer. Hence the loon label all the more obviously an ideologically driven smear. Just another instance of Dan screwing facts up, sadly. My fault for not checking before in #57 giving you too much credit for getting Peltzer-as-YEC claim right.
danshawen
Valued Senior Member
I didn't create 'The Encyclopedia of American Loons", but a resource like that saves the embarrassing situation of having to defend being taken in by their lunatic ideas, which are in all cases peppered with reliable facts to lend credence to their less palatable ideas.
If you don't already use such a resource, I would highly recommend it, and also fact checkers like Snopes. Either of these are more credible than the claims they check, or the people who make them. The sciences and academia in general could certainly use such a resource. Not to mention government.
I'm not in there, but Ray Kurzweil and Oprah Winfrey are, and with good reason. Kurzweil for believing that preserving his own questionable intellect preserved in perpetuity in cyberspace is worth anything to anyone but him, and Winfrey for peddling junk self help quick quack remedies for weight gain.
Peltzer seems to fancy himself a credentialed and respected scientist. His profile on Loons says otherwise.
Last edited: