Horizon tonite - BBC2 9pm - Evolution vs Creationist twaddle

[andygates]

"Before" the big bang? Time gets kinda funny when you squash a lot of matter into one place, and I believe that relativity predicts a time asymtote at the big bang. So there is, quite literally, no meaning to "before".

Dawkins is an annoying and belligerent man but he's as sharp as a new pin. Good brain, annoying gob.

Using "irreducible complexity" is simply invoking the "god of the gaps" - this is clearly nonsense. In the middle ages, a god of the gaps would be responsible for holding us onto a flat earth and our sin caused diseases in our humours. In the seventeeth century, such a god would be packing phlogiston into wood in order for it to burn (that's "dephlogisticate" to you). We will always have gaps and as our knowledge extends, they'll shrink and grow gradually weirder. Invoking god just because you haven't worked out what's going on is really, really weak.

Logos and mythos. Keep 'em apart.

 

[Cosmo Topper]

I saw a bit of the Hawkins programme on a few weeks ago and couldn't watch more than 5 minutes of it. It was so obviously a back-slapping 'oh aren't we clever althests' polemic.

Whether you beleive in a God or evolution or both or none, you must admit that fundamentalists exist on both sides, and do neither any good. The Muslim fundamentalists that spout complete hateful rubbish which most Muslims despise are partly responsible for the attacks on anyone who looks Muslim (whether they are or not) by thugs who call them all 'suicide bombers'. The Christian fundamentalists (in the US especially) cause all sorts of grief by banning abortion and sticking their noses into education and politics where it's not wanted.

Everyone has a right to beleive what they want, and hard-nosed narrow-minded atheists are just as bad as their religious counterparts in denying others this right. There are infinite arguments for both sides of this.

I've yet to see the scientific fundamentalists (or 'hard-nosed narrow-minded atheists') bombing churches, mosques or synagogues though, or killing in the name of no-one. That Good men do evil thing has a point.

Dawkins style as a presenter completelly undermined him though, because he wouldn't even make a pretence at listening to what was being said and just pretty much went ballistic each time. Granted most of what was said to him was complete bollocks, but a softer tone may have been more effective. Seemed to pick easy targets as well, though that may have been the point.