His thesis

I was digging around for stuff on uniformitarianism, because it is an interesting point that creationists make (and one whose arse I have been gently kicking on Wikipediamakes it) that science works with the assumption that what goes on today has always gone on, that the processes of today are unchanged through history and were not different in the past. Uniformitarianism leads many into gradualism but so long as catastrophes can be shown to be the outcome of the same processes that work today, it need not. I think there is no good reason to assume that science is not uniform, and that processes we have observed in some cases for a couple of hundred years can be assumed to have worked the same for all time. In other words, I think it is reasonable to assume that the laws of physics and chemistry are eternal where they apply (there is in fact good reason to believe they are, because it is quite basic to them that they are not time-specific! Time is an outcome of the laws of physics, not part of them).

So I came across this, which explains how Satan infiltrates music. Now, had the guy suggested that Satan has a grip on the music business and is inflicting Maroon 5 on us for some undisclosed but undoubtedly infernal reason, I would have been nodding along with him. But I felt:

Some of the people who produce New Age music, for example, are not aware that demon spirits are secretly implanting this music in their minds. But many are aware and approve.

was a little harsh on the hippies who make birdsong tapes.

I'm not convinced that being possessed by a demon wouldn't liven up the day so I'm off to put on the Pearl and see what happens. Knowing my luck, I'll be possessed by the dumb fucking demon who is responsible for Delta Goodrem and I'll become a sopping handkerchief of a human being.

***

These nutters can though be persuasive and like those skeleton guys that Jason fought they cannot be killed by reason. The argument from design -- a more bogus "proof of god" you couldn't wish to find -- was forcefully put by Paley some 250 years back. It was demolished by Hume (although Hume, having demolished it and having left himself with no credible -- to him -- alternative, actually went back on himself and accepted it) and never has had a stick of evidence to support it beyond "come on, it's obvious, it all looks like God did it". But here it is again. This is very cogent, and I imagine powerful stuff for those unaccustomed to thinking.

"There is absolutely no naturalistic, gradual, evolutionary explanation for the bacterial flagellum." The argument runs: it looks like a motor; motors are human inventions; humans are intelligent; motors are designed by intelligent beings...

The counterargument is obvious if you do think though. It has three parts: one, "motors are human inventions" is wrong IF there are many motors in nature (there are, of course, of a huge array of types, not least the many different types of flagella; there is the astonishing propulsion system of the squid, which only now is being exploited by humans, who have taken a lot longer than nature to think it up); two, "there is no gradual evolutionary explanation for the flagellum" is wrong if there is in fact such an explanation (which of course there is); three, lack of an explanation does not verify another explanation! It only means there is no explanation just now. This is what creationists seek to do. Find a hole in biology, and claim because that hole cannot be filled that its hypothesis should be accepted (if you are sniffing a "God of the gaps", your nose is working correctly).

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The creationists say that if they accept naturalistic explanations of how the world is, science will simply razor out their God. This is what I said on Wikipedia about it, and I think it is precisely what both sides often forget:

"Yes, but bear in mind that Occam's Razor only works for comparing explanations. It doesn't speak to their truth or otherwise, although people make the mistake of thinking that it does. If God did in fact create the world, and does in fact make all changes to all lifeforms, then Occam's Razor does not in fact make him disappear.
"I feel strongly that it is creationism's desire for its explanation to be on a par with science, to be accepted by science, that is most of the problem, and most of the dispute. The difficulty is, of course, that science considers explanations and creationists consider truths. Transitional fossils just cannot be true for you, so you explain them away. But science is not about explaining away what you don't want to be true. It's about explaining, period. Science prefers "evolutionists'" explanation of fossils partly because it is simpler, not necessarily because it's truer (because "trueness" is not necessarily a part of what science investigates -- how can it? We could all truly be figments of God's imagination that he plays with as he chooses). Your explanation requires nature to have worked differently at diverse times in the past. Well, it may or may not have done but it is most simply explained as not having done. This is why I am not wasting time trying to convince you of the truth of what I say. You are welcome to your truth. I'm satisfied to restrict myself to correcting you when you do not tell the truth about what people said, which is there to be seen."

posted by Dr Zen @ 2:41 pm