Darwinists Running Scared

[phildwyer]

I've no idea what you just said, but I strongly suspect that it has nothing to do with anything.

Why pick on me, I'm not the one blathering about "Zipf's law," "salami publishing," and "1.10 relations." Parse *that,* if you please.

 

[pinkmonkey]

Fridge, you can do better than this. Only a bigoted thug (naming no names) or an innocent naif (ditto) would dispute the complicity of Darwin and capitalism. Gould again: "the theory of natural selection is, in essence, Adam Smith's economics transferred to nature." (2002, 122) Is this "self-justifying semantic waffle," Fridge?

innocent naif? That's your 'pet insult' isn't it?

<rushes off to make badges>
<changes tagline back again>

 

[revol68]

The theory of gravity is oppressive to the working classes. We need only look at Wells' definition of the classes: those who move objects at or near the surface of the earth, and those who supervise the above. What is is that keeps The Class stuck there, eh, eh?

Moreover the theory of gravity denies the essential telos that is revealed to me by my spiritual experience that you can't contest because it's a private quale, so nyer. The pre-Socratics had it right when they said that apples want to be closer to the Earth, just as Joe Hill had it right when he sang of Big Rock Candy Mountain - and, again I ask, what is it that's keeping The Class from soaring thereon?

Furthermore, the theory of gravity was foisted upon humanity by a mad alchemist, a probable Mason, and a paid-up member of the Ruling Class - Keeper of His Majesty's Mint, no less - and was inspired by the observations of a known Catholic who was ipso facto a believer in Papal infallibilty and therefore an intellectual authoritarian. I can argue until the cows come home about history and literary inspiration, so don't you come bullying me with your determinist empiricalist F = G * m1 * m2 / d^2 malarkey.

I therefore wish the theory of gravity out of existence. Any suggestion that I should rather seek ways in which The Class may liberate itself in the presence of this malign force is defeatism of the worst stripe, and offends my religious beliefs - for I Am and my telos is to destroy all wrong thought. (But I'm not a Descartean idealist. Ooops.)

If you do not immediately grasp the validity of this argument it's because you're stupid. Read some Kant. No, read it all.

tone it down a bit and you might get yourself published in Social Text or some other post modern wank rag ala Alan Sokal.

 

[King Biscuit Time]

How many times do we have to say that it doesn't matter what Darwin thought? There are no orthodox Darwinists who stick to the pure Darwinian line, rejecting the heresies of 20th/21st century science! This isn't how science works.

Word. Science isn't religion, politics or footie! - People don't latch on to and defend theories for ever.


Isn't well known and accepted that evolution doesn't always produce increasingly complex 'higher' animals - It produces animals which snungly fit an environmental niche, whether thats producing an animal with a huge neck that can graze on trees, or producing a tapeworm, which (I think) evolved from worms that were acually more complex. All the Tapeworm needed was a simple repeating body that made shitloads of eggs, and a few hooks at one end.

 

[treefrog]

Are we? I don't recall having to run from anything, with the exception of my neighbours dog when I was five...

Scientists and rational people who have read and understood the theory of evolution seem to have to do a lot less in terms of compromise and weakening their position than creationists, which I would take to mean that it's the "Intelligent Designers" who seem to be more defensive...

Unless I've got it utterly wrong and it turns out to be the Flying Spaghetti Monster after all...

 

[gurrier]

For anybody who wants to see fairly irrefutable evidence of Phil being dishonest (as well as a prize-muppet), check this comment by snorkelboy refuting phil's claim about Darwin being committed to gradualism:

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=2731146&postcount=179

But I must here remark that I do not suppose that the process ever goes on so regularly as is represented in the diagram, though in itself made somewhat irregular, nor that it goes on continuously; it is far more probable that each form remains for long periods unaltered, and then again undergoes modification.

....

It is a more important consideration ... that the period during which each species underwent modification, though long as measured by years, was probably short in comparison with that during which it remained without undergoing any change.

....

natural selection will generally act very slowly, only at long intervals of time, and only on a few of the inhabitants of the same region. I further believe that these slow, intermittent results accord well with what geology tells us of the rate and manner at which the inhabitants of the world have changed.

If anybody really wants to read more of Phil's brilliance, it is fully displayed in this wonderful thread:

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=107109

If you read the whole damned thing you will see that Phil has repeatedly made all these claims, repeatedly had it patiently explained clearly to him where he was wrong, ignored these responses and just keeps repeating the assertions. In several of the cases (including the current one about Darwin) it has been demonstrated irrefutably to Phil that his points are unambiguously wrong. This does not affect his propensity to repeat them with every more crazed vehemence.

If you read that thread, you will also perhaps understand why he is the one occupant of my ignore list.

He is a liar. He is a pompous fool and an ignoramus. He frequently boasts about having gone to an oxbridge university. He regularly calls his interlocuters 'half-educated' and never misses a chance to brag about his knowledge and learning. He is a classic (almost charicatured) example of the half-wit outpourings of the elite institutions. They learn nothing except that they are superior, a conviction that they cling on to with all their might in the face of infinite evidence to the contrary. I've endured enough of these morons in my time and it's no fun. I think that the ignore option is a sensible one. He won't shut up as long as people pay attention to him.

 

[slaar]

Oi, phil would be hounded out of Oxbridge, there's no need to drag other issues into the task of busting an obvious set of fallacies that he's peddling. You can find obnoxious pedants in nearly every walk of life.

 

[phildwyer]

SCENE: The Sisters of Perpetual Medication Hospice for the Terminally Deranged, somewhere deep in the Gaeltacht, year 2020. Patients sit around quietly playing dominos, dozing in front of Terry Wogan etc. In the corner, a hunched figure sits trembling with wrath, bathchair to the wall, furiously waving walking stick as if at inner demons.

Gurrier (for it is he): 'Curse you Phil! Will you never leave me in peace? Hegel was a fool, do you hear? Plato was a moron! Have you *read* this (brandishing bedraggled copy of _The Origin of Species_)? Eh? Have you? (Checks to see if book has been opened). Hah, just as I thought, NO-ONE has even looked at a single page! Why am I the only one who reads the Master? Why am I surrounded by doubters? Nurse, nurse, have you read this? Eh? Have you...?

Nurse: 'Now now Mr. Gurrier, isn't it time for your "ignore list"? There we go... (inserts large syringe into Gurrier's shoulder).

Gurrier: (going into violent spasm) 'Idiot! Back to your twelve-dimensional rabbit friend! And this time, make sure he READS this... (attempts to stuff book down nurse's throat)... Creationist scum! Bow before the idol!'

Nurse: 'Quickly Doctor, he's not responding, for God's sake, the screens....'

The other patients look up idly from their pastimes as large men in white coats hurry in...

 

[phildwyer]

Oi, phil would be hounded out of Oxbridge

Are you a betting man, Slur?

 

[slaar]

Oh dear, you haven't been have you?

There goes my argument.

 

[phildwyer]

Oh dear, you haven't been have you?

There goes my argument.

*waves goodbye to Slaar's argument as it weaves drunkenly down the garden path...*

 

[nino_savatte]

For anybody who wants to see fairly irrefutable evidence of Phil being dishonest (as well as a prize-muppet), check this comment by snorkelboy refuting phil's claim about Darwin being committed to gradualism:

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=2731146&postcount=179



If anybody really wants to read more of Phil's brilliance, it is fully displayed in this wonderful thread:

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=107109

If you read the whole damned thing you will see that Phil has repeatedly made all these claims, repeatedly had it patiently explained clearly to him where he was wrong, ignored these responses and just keeps repeating the assertions. In several of the cases (including the current one about Darwin) it has been demonstrated irrefutably to Phil that his points are unambiguously wrong. This does not affect his propensity to repeat them with every more crazed vehemence.

If you read that thread, you will also perhaps understand why he is the one occupant of my ignore list.

He is a liar. He is a pompous fool and an ignoramus. He frequently boasts about having gone to an oxbridge university. He regularly calls his interlocuters 'half-educated' and never misses a chance to brag about his knowledge and learning. He is a classic (almost charicatured) example of the half-wit outpourings of the elite institutions. They learn nothing except that they are superior, a conviction that they cling on to with all their might in the face of infinite evidence to the contrary. I've endured enough of these morons in my time and it's no fun. I think that the ignore option is a sensible one. He won't shut up as long as people pay attention to him.

You aren't wrong there. Indeed this would also sum up our friend
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/n/narcissus.html

 

[nino_savatte]

What I would like to know is why Creationists seem to think they have a cast iron argument, when their nonsense can esaily be refuted with a blast of logic.

 

[phildwyer]

What I would like to know is why Creationists seem to think they have a cast iron argument, when their nonsense can esaily be refuted with a blast of logic.

You need to distinguish between Creationism (which is indeed nonsense) and Intelligent Design (which is not).

 

[Dante]

Gosh. What a thread.
I most say that thats the first time ive seen Darwins theory compared with Smiths.
an observational with an extrapolated though?
what larks for a Thursday afternoon.

 

[nino_savatte]

You need to distinguish between Creationism (which is indeed nonsense) and Intelligent Design (which is not).

The only reason I saw your post was because I accessed Urban via my Yahoo account. You shall be returned to my 'ignore' list once I have dealt with this.

Intelligent Design is also nonsense because it is simply a selectivisation of Creationist ideas that have been fused with other ideas. ID simply doesn't hold water. ID is not scientific either. It is an attempt to apply creationism by the back door.

 

[laptop]

You need to distinguish between Creationism (which is indeed nonsense) and Intelligent Design (which is not).

When Dembski, for example, says he makes that distinction, he's lying.

 

[Brainaddict]

The theory of gravity is oppressive to the working classes. We need only look at Wells' definition of the classes: those who move objects at or near the surface of the earth, and those who supervise the above. What is is that keeps The Class stuck there, eh, eh?

Moreover the theory of gravity denies the essential telos that is revealed to me by my spiritual experience that you can't contest because it's a private quale, so nyer. The pre-Socratics had it right when they said that apples want to be closer to the Earth, just as Joe Hill had it right when he sang of Big Rock Candy Mountain - and, again I ask, what is it that's keeping The Class from soaring thereon?

Furthermore, the theory of gravity was foisted upon humanity by a mad alchemist, a probable Mason, and a paid-up member of the Ruling Class - Keeper of His Majesty's Mint, no less - and was inspired by the observations of a known Catholic who was ipso facto a believer in Papal infallibilty and therefore an intellectual authoritarian. I can argue until the cows come home about history and literary inspiration, so don't you come bullying me with your determinist empiricalist F = G * m1 * m2 / d^2 malarkey.

I therefore wish the theory of gravity out of existence. Any suggestion that I should rather seek ways in which The Class may liberate itself in the presence of this malign force is defeatism of the worst stripe, and offends my religious beliefs - for I Am and my telos is to destroy all wrong thought. (But I'm not a Descartean idealist. Ooops.)

If you do not immediately grasp the validity of this argument it's because you're stupid. Read some Kant. No, read it all.

Just seen this. Very good

 

[nino_savatte]

Interesting article from The New Yorker

In the end, it’s hard to view intelligent design as a coherent movement in any but a political sense.

It’s also hard to view it as a real research program. Though people often picture science as a collection of clever theories, scientists are generally staunch pragmatists: to scientists, a good theory is one that inspires new experiments and provides unexpected insights into familiar phenomena. By this standard, Darwinism is one of the best theories in the history of science: it has produced countless important experiments (let’s re-create a natural species in the lab—yes, that’s been done) and sudden insight into once puzzling patterns (that’s why there are no native land mammals on oceanic islands). In the nearly ten years since the publication of Behe’s book, by contrast, I.D. has inspired no nontrivial experiments and has provided no surprising insights into biology. As the years pass, intelligent design looks less and less like the science it claimed to be and more and more like an extended exercise in polemics.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050530fa_fact

Have those 'scientists' who support ID actually conducted any experiments in order to produce evidence to support their notions?

 

[nino_savatte]

ID is simply a way of saying "We believe in the divine hand of God and we believe in science too". The two are incompatible in my view.

I also find the thread title somewhat revealing too: The word "Darwinism" is often used by the opponents of evolutionary theory as a pejorative. Scopes Monkey Trial anyone?

Does any of this sound familiar?

Who would dominate American culture--the modernists or the traditionalists? Journalists were looking for a showdown, and they found one in a Dayton, Tennessee courtroom in the summer of 1925. There a jury was to decide the fate of John Scopes, a high school biology teacher charged with illegally teaching the theory of evolution. The guilt or innocence of John Scopes, and even the constitutionality of Tennessee's anti-evolution statute, mattered little. The meaning of the trial emerged through its interpretation as a conflict of social and intellectual values.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/evolut.htm

For "modernists" and "traditionalists" read "Liberal" and "Christian conservative". Who says history doesn't repeat itself?

 

[phildwyer]

Interesting article from The New Yorker

What's much more interesting is that you believe The New Yorker to be an authority on intellectual affairs.

 

[phildwyer]

I most say that thats the first time ive seen Darwins theory compared with Smiths.

Its not usually the best debating tactic to announce your complete ignorance of the subject under discussion as your opening gambit.

 

[phildwyer]

The only reason I saw your post was because I accessed Urban via my Yahoo account. You shall be returned to my 'ignore' list once I have dealt with this.

Er, "returned" to your ignore list? But I thought you only saw my post because your accessed Urban through a different account? Which suggests that I am in fact still on your ignore list. Not telling fibs are we?

 

[Crispy]

Gosh. What a thread.
I most say that thats the first time ive seen Darwins theory compared with Smiths.
an observational with an extrapolated though?
what larks for a Thursday afternoon.

You must have missed this corker of a thread:

http://urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=125501&page=8&pp=40&highlight=darwin

 

[treefrog]

Its not usually the best debating tactic to announce your complete ignorance of the subject under discussion as your opening gambit.

Compared to your staggering intellect? Have you a degree in evolutionary biology? Biology? Even an a-level? I'm sure if you have a grub around you might find an O-level in it or something, which makes you far more qualified to tell people on hear who's studied science (and biology in particular) for years what's right and what's not.

I wonder what Darwin had to say about the evolution of trolls....

 

[revol68]

this cock philwyer is really doing his best to further descredit the arts and humanities. He's like those fuck strong textualists who claim E=MC2 is sexist cos it previleges speed (which we all know is code for big phallics ).

Anyway his argument for intelliegent design is fucko'd cos the logic of it means one would have to consider what created this intelligent "watch maker" in the first place. Of course this is were are friends drift back into blind faith and irrationalism, "it was always there".

 

[phildwyer]

Compared to your staggering intellect? Have you a degree in evolutionary biology? Biology? Even an a-level? I'm sure if you have a grub around you might find an O-level in it or something, which makes you far more qualified to tell people on hear who's studied science (and biology in particular) for years what's right and what's not.

I *really* don't think you want to get into a competition over academic credentials with me. But I won't go into details here, for fear of incurring the Wrath of Gurrier. He bites, you know.

 

[revol68]

to be honest alot of academics I know are really quite dim, they just display a great ability to quote other people and making the most mundane point sound profound.

Anyway even ole Gangster from class war has got a phd and he's thick as champ.

Back to the point though, why are viruses part of nature but atoms aren't. I mean surely even from a textualist analysis it would hold that viruses are as much a construct as atoms afterall they are both conceptual models.

Your not even consistent in your textualism you muppet.

 

[Fruitloop]

He's like those fuck strong textualists who claim E=MC2 is sexist cos it previleges speed (which we all know is code for big phallics ).

I've always found that speed = very small phallus, if at all. I thought it was due to adrenaline, but you can't have adrenaline without atoms

 

[TeeJay]

You need to distinguish between Creationism (which is indeed nonsense) and Intelligent Design (which is not).

I have no problem with either of these two theories being discussed in a philosophy or theology course, but neither of them have any place on a science course. They are theories, but they are not *scientific* theories.

I suppose it might be worth having a section on a science course explaining why they are not science - that's about as far as I would go, but even this would be problematic since it opens the gates for swamping science subjects with all sorts of bullshit and sets the precedent that it should spend it all its time batting away whatever nonsense people want to throw at it. People would demand that science teachers spend time explaining why fantastic claims about Roswell, UFO-ology, ESP, spoon-bending, card tricks and ghosts are also not "science".