No IDea

Fisking gloves on, it's time to destroy some creationist bollocks. I know, I know, that doesn't show the respect that a fellow human deserves, but dude, respect has to be earned. I won't comment on this post stylistically. Some of our more easily led fellows believe it was well written. If it is, I'd hate to see "badly written mess".

The post, with my comments, follows.

Indisputably, in the realm of biology, evolution is the “establishment”

Along with the likes of gravity, Newton's laws of motion, the standard model of particle physics, the theory of relativity etc etc. Why are these the "establishment"? Each has a simply enormous body of evidence to support it. Each fits the facts better than any other explanation that has been posited, and makes predictions that are borne out by observation. None is true. Science doesn't do truth. You need religion for that. But they are the explanations that are winning, if you like. Our best approximations to how things actually are.

—and the fact that it isn’t available for target practice ought to make us all suspicious.

When I say that evolution is not true, I mean it. Everything in science is contingent, replaceable. There is no dogma. Yes, of course, some treat science as though it dealt in truths and as though it included irrefutable truths. But it does not. Anyone can take a potshot at evolution. However, we demand evidence. We demand that you don't simply posit a negative ("evolution doesn't explain X, so ID must be right") but supply positives ("ID explains this and this and this, which evolution cannot"). Proposed flaws in one theory do not support another. They do not for any theory in science. Each must come with its own evidence. IDers tend to argue by insisting that evolution and ID are binary opposites. They are not. At best, ID is one explanation from a range. If evolution were wrong, it would not make ID right.


I object to evolution at a number of levels

I said I wouldn't cavil over this guy's style, but let's face it, a man who doesn't even know to write "on a number of levels" is not quite the excellent writer his supporters make him out to be.

and find myself unsure of where to aim first, but this point seems as good a place as any.

Kof. "This point seems as good as any." If only the antievolutionists were literate! They'd be so much more fun to talk to.

In a culture as cynical and doubt-ridden as postmodern America, when a societal mainstay goes unchallenged there must be a catch, a caveat. Caveat being: Evolution is a crutch for far too many worldviews to go down without a fight.

Well yes, okay. Evolution is a "crutch" for modern biology. Let's get rid of that nonsense, shall we?

He didn't mean that? Well, what did he mean? What "worldviews" is it a mainstay of then? I mean, I am an "evolutionist". I consider it to be correct (with the caveat I gave about science's never being "true") but it's almost entirely irrelevant to my "worldview". I believe I am descended from a monkey, yes (well, of course, I still am a monkey, as are we all), but it's of no import to my thoughts on any other score.


And, understandably, the fight is rigged.

Well yes, it is. Here's how: science does not permit supernatural explanations of natural phenomena. It's the rules, dude. It's what science is. We aren't hiding anything. God has no place in science.


The increasing vociferousness of Darwinists these days argue the theory’s untouchable status.

Man, that's not even English! He means to say that "Darwinists" these days argue vociferously that the theory is untouchable. Or something. No, dude, we argue vociferously that you may not substitute religion for it. Not in a science class.


If you suggest that evolution might be off the mark, wonder aloud if it’s really science, you’ll be favored with an ugly stare and called religious bigot.

You will if you argue that without giving a shred of evidence. If you wonder aloud whether evolution is science, we'll wonder whether you have the faintest idea what science actually is. Evolution is science in excelsis. It's a brilliant project of science: a synthesis of two great ideas, a fertile ground for thought (and conflict -- there is a huge amount of fighting over the details), an explanation of the proliferation of life we see around us that has no rival (this is why it is "unchallengeable"! Simply because it is unchallenged, not that it couldn't be. It saw off its (plainly wrong) rivals, which simply could not explain the facts.

This is a fairly convenient arrangement for dyed-in-the-wool evolvers, but ultimately it’s a trick that boomerangs on its owners. People start asking questions.

Sorry, what argument? You are saying that it will boomerang on "evolvers" if they suggest you are a religious bigot (I prefer clown, if that's okay) if you "wonder aloud whether evolution is science"? How will that "boomerang" on me? I'll have egg on my face when I find out that science is not about making a hypothesis and then seeing whether observations match it? Yes, won't I?

And what is science then? Is it the weighing of ideas without reference to the observed world? I'm afraid not. That would at best be philosophy. Or religion.

For example: Where are the knock-out demonstrations of Darwinist supremacy?

Erm. Hello? Try "why do whales have no legs?" Or "what are all those funny bone things in the ground and how come they don't look like the bones of anything alive today?" Or maybe "why are there no human skeletons alongside the dinosaurs' bones?" Or "why do giraffes have the same number of neck vertebrae as I do?" Or "why did the 'designer' not make rabbits who could digest their food first time round?"

Shouldn’t they be paraded through the public eye in light of recent challenges from the (bigoted, narrow-minded, moronic) Intelligent Design movement?

You need to have a word to the people who run your press and TV, mate. Did they not carry the story of Flores Man? Did you just not grasp why that made the news?

Where are the big guns?

Frankly, the "challenges" to evolution are barely worth getting heated about. They're laughable. Geniuses such as Behe say things like "you couldn't evolve a flagellum". A scientist shows him precisely how you could and he scuttles off like a whipped dog, only to pop up a month later with something else he doesn't think you could evolve. What doesn't happen is Behe's saying "fuck yes, you showed how you evolve a flagellum, so you're right and I'm wrong". He says "you're wrong because of this" and then when he is shown to have erred, he finds another "this". And this is the best of it. Most of the "challenge" comes from your common and garden bigot, who simply says "I know evolution must be wrong because Goddidit". They don't find evolution a satisfactory answer because it doesn't fit their creed. We must accommodate that? Well, we try. We explain to the fools that they can still have their god, so long as they accept that he created us by means of evolution. Actually, it was very clever of him. It's a wonderful mechanism, which has served to populate this planet with descendants of the first lifeform (or few lifeforms -- unlike IDers we don't make pronouncements that we can't substantiate, and we simply don't know what it was or how many of it there was), and has weathered catastrophe, feast and famine, and is still here, in enormous variety. It's a wonder.

In reality, the stock responses to I.D. are sneers and caricature. As the late Steven Jay Gould wrote, re: the Kansas Board of Education controversy: "They still call it Kansas, but I don’t think we’re in the real world anymore…Why get excited over this latest episode in the long, sad history of American anti-intellectualism?"

The irony is almost painful. This slam on Gould appears in a piece that is entirely anti-intellectual, attacking evolution without foundation, without any evidence, without even a decent attempt at coherence.

And, as if sensing my need for a current example, the people over at Wickipedia have helpfully provided this entry—a phenomenon at which both sides may laugh over, but hardly for the same reasons. If I were an honest Darwinist, this would make me a little queasy; if I’m arguing from a position of strength, why am I shooting rubber band bullets instead of flexing intellectual muscle?

Get over yourself. IDers insist that they are not pushing creationism because they do not say the "designer" is God. We all know it is but they pretend it isn't because if they keep God out of it, they hope to push their nonsense into science classes. So we ask them, if it's not your god, what is it? We can't say, they say. Just a designer of some type. Could be anything. Okay, we say, what characteristics does it have? Can't say, they say. It could have any characteristics, we don't know. So some wag has provided them with a candidate.

When we talk about "intellectual muscle", perhaps we should focus on the many thousands of articles in scientific journals about evolutionary processes, on the countless books, on the vigorous debate on evolution that has shaped modern biology? The bottom line is, science doesn't need to "flex its muscle" in the public arena, because it doesn't mistake empty posturing for actually having anything "intellectual" to say.

When juvenile rhetoric passes as “defense” for a “scientific” movement, cultural weather-watchers may wonder if the ship is going down.

Perhaps those weather-watchers might like to consider the enormous scientific literature on evolution? Or, if that's too difficult, perhaps they could look at other articles on Wikipedia? Or are you deciding that one spoof of creationist charlatanry is sufficient for you to conclude that the entire edifice of science is bankrupt?


In reality, the reasons for sinking have been present for awhile...

So they were present but the ship was not sinking? Dude, learn to use a metaphor!


Biological evolution fails as a science because it relies, ironically, on ex nihilo realities. In the beginning, says the Darwinist, was a morass of unstable chemicals suspended in a volatile soup.


As I noted in this clown's comments, this is a fundamental error the unlettered creationist makes. "Darwinists" do not believe that evolution relies on "ex nihilo realities" (one presumes that he means to say that it relies on abiogenesis). Darwin himself believed that God created life. It was immaterial to his theory where the life came from (and still is). The theory of evolution accounts for how a wide variety of lifeforms could have arisen from one or a few forms. It does not have anything to say about where the one or a few lifeforms might have come from.

Still, perhaps someone should point out to our friend that he is a morass of unstable chemicals himself. We all are. What do you think we are made of? Sugar and spice? Snails and puppy-dog tails? I know, it would be nice to believe we had some substance different from the world around us, but we do not. We are made of horrid chemicals just like everything else is.

But wait!—last time I checked, carbon had no self-generative properties!

You didn't check hard enough. If you had, you would have noted that we do not only consist of carbon.


“Oh, you silly,” says the patient biology teacher, “That problem is explained because we evolutionists posit a Big Bang.”


Sorry, what the fuck? The problem that you invented (of abiogenesis) is explained by a Big Bang?

No, it isn't. You have the problem with abiogenesis, not evolution. It simply isn't bothered where life came from. Check it out: evolution = the origin of species; abiogenesis = the origin of life from nonliving material. Can we not keep that clear? Dude, if you're going to flex your "intellectual muscle", perhaps you should get straight what exactly you're flexing it at?

As it happens, most evolutionists would consider a Big Bang a sound explanation of how things are. It fits the facts (not entirely well, so that many are dissatisfied with it). But to attack evolution on the grounds that it requires a Big Bang (which, I repeat once more, it does not) is, what did Gould call it, well, I call it, dumbarse anti-intellectualism. You are simply attacking all of science because it doesn't say what you want.

And what you want it to say is Goddidit. The lumping together of the origins of the universe, the origins of life and the origins of the species is driven by creationists' need to attack any and all explanations that do not include God. Well, that's okay. You are welcome to accept whatever explanation you like of the world and the things in it. You are free to believe whatever you want.

But you can't teach it to kids in a science class.


And you will hear our mocking laughter if you insist that the three are interconnected. For us, they are not. They are perfectly discrete areas of science. None depends on either of the other two. If you were more cluey about the actual science, and not so keen on simply disparaging what you don't understand, you'd know that.

Ooh. Well, that explains that.

As I write this, I feel slightly embarrassed, as if I’m picking on the fat kid or engaged in voyeurism, looking in on someone’s childhood fantasy.

“Mother!” said Tommy, from inside his crayons and construction paper, “Mother, the world began with a Big Bang!” Tommy’s mother smiled, patted him on the head, and returned to her knitting.

And yet you do not offer any evidence for your view. You do not say "this is how the universe would be distinctive if God made it". But we do. We say "if there was a Big Bang, it would have been so hot that you could still distinguish the warmth in space". And we sent up a satellite, to measure that warmth, if it existed. Had it not been there, the theory of the Big Bang would have collapsed. Had it not been within the (very narrow) range that the theory predicted, the theory would have been abandoned.

When we send up a satellite to check out your "theory", what are we looking for?

We found the background radiation by the way. It's real. It's in every part of space, just as we predicted. If there wasn't a Big Bang, your boy must have made the universe so it looked as though there was.

A Big Bang. At it’s most rudimentary level, evolution is simple, dogged materialism

Yes. We call that "science".

Could a god have created the world? No, definitely not.

We don't say definitely not. We say, if he did, it's not part of science to say so. If you want to be, show how the universe would be different if he had.

Here's the problem creationists really do face with science. We'll give you a fair go. If your "theory" can explain our universe better than ours, believe you me, we'll take yours. But you won't risk your god. Make a prediction by which your god stands or falls. We made one for the Big Bang. It stood the test. Make one for your god.

Of course, you cannot. Your belief in your god has nothing to do with science, and that's okay.

Could a Big Bang have done it? Well, of course. This bias, favoring the seen over the unseen, is inexplicable and laughable, as well as the modern trend. To say it’s “objective” or “scientific” is pure charade.


Well no. It's what actually distinguishes it as "objective" and "scientific"! Science doesn't pretend not to make that distinction. It offers explanations for what is seen, and has nothing to say about what is "unseen". Read Gould on the magisteria of science and religion. Actually, read. If you were better informed, you wouldn't write this nonsense.

In any case, the reason the Big Bang is "favoured" over Goddidit is simply that the Big Bang made predictions about what we would find if we looked, and we found it. Goddidit has made no predictions. We don't know what's distinctive about our universe that goes to show God made it. We just have your word for it. Science relies on replicability. We must be able to repeat your results (in principle if not in practice). But when all you have to offer is your opinion, how can I replicate that?

But evolution has other problems.

Someone should point out to this guy that we haven't yet presented one problem.

Foremost on my list is the way we learn of this pristine and mythic reality—via human minds.

Oh.

Because of course that wasn't how we learned of Goddidit.

If evolutionary theory is true, and we’ve gradually gathered ourselves piecemeal from the rubbage heap of cosmic accident and brutal chance, then the human mind is the last place we could hope to learn of it.

Erm. Why?

A patch-made mind is hardly safe in the kitchen, much less for pronouncing life's origins. To assert otherwise is to say, in effect, “Thanks to the efforts of these fools, we have arrived at the foolproof system.”

Erm. Well, look at it like this. The sea is definitely a fool. It has no intelligence whatsoever (don't start, you know it doesn't!). But it carves coastlines. It has made our world look the way it does.

How did something so foolish make such a beautiful thing as Lamorna Cove?

In a post full of the worst kind of illiterate nonsense, this is perhaps the worst. He is suggesting that the human mind could not discern evolution because it evolved through the action of chance. Well, it sounds good, doesn't it? Let's not bother the poor fool with insistence that he should say why!

In other words, the answer impinges upon itself. While depending on the viability of scientific brains, evolution debunks the reliability of the human mind—leaving majority vote as the only truth-arbitrator.

Erm. Can all those who claim this guy can write please present their arses for the kicking they so thoroughly deserve? If your children wrote stuff like this, you'd send them to bed without their supper.

Pure democracy, especially among trend-conscious scientists, is a chancy road to reason.

Is it? Is saying "this is how I think things are; I prove it with this and this evidence; you can see for yourself" a bad way to reason? Is it better to say "I know better than you; I cannot prove it, nor will I try, but I know better"? Perhaps you're right, but our way built computers, cars, airplanes and the wonders of our world; and has provided a route to understanding the world that surrounds us. Yours would have tied us to our villages, lost in ignorance, dead before we were forty. You probably need to be as close to forty as I am to feel the pain of that!

In this sense, Darwin was at his most appealing when he was the only Darwinist, and still had the chance of being a mad genius (thus transcending his genus).

Pure ignorance. This guy presumes to discuss evolution but doesn't know even that it was discovered by Wallace contemporaneously with Darwin.

But my diatribe goes on. (And note that I have yet to scratch the surface of the argument from Intelligent Design, a system that is sophisticated, cogent—and viciously maligned at every opportunity.)

I note that you don't even present the "argument" from intelligent design, a system that is far from sophisticated, consisting as it does of saying "it looks designed so it must be". I can see why you'd think it's "cogent". You have no idea what evolution is, what the evidence for it is or what meaning it would have for your worldview. Most of the parts of science you have slammed in this post are not even part of the theory of evolution and are wholly irrelevant to it.

I’m puzzled by the perplexing lack of sincerity shown by evolutionists everywhere

Erm.

who evidently don’t consider their discovery suitable for passionate implementation.

I did implement it! I have three kids. What more could I do? I passed on my genes, they were shuffled and dealt, and will continue in their new form into the next generation. With luck -- and it takes luck (remember that blind chance thing?) -- they will be fitted to the environment they find themselves in, and will have kids of their own. In perpetuity, hopefully.

Or not. Because, like most evolutionists, I suspect, I don't place any personal stake in evolution. I realise that it has moulded me and everyone round me, but I don't worry about whether my genes will be fit for the future. That's for them to worry about, not me.

Consider: A true revolutionary begins by complaining about the fly in his soup, and ends by confronting the world because her people have no soup. But so few Darwinists get past the fly.

Erm. What was the soup again? This guy should be barred from metaphors until he learns to write in plain English.

They shrug off the chains of damning morality

Oh, I see. Morality. But what does morality do with the origin of species? Perhaps he could have explained a bit more carefully.

Of course, I do know what he means. He thinks that if I can explain my origin by natural means, I do not have a purpose. And if I do not have a purpose, I cannot have a morality.

As well as being a dunce in science, this guy is bottom of the class in philosophy.

Perhaps he does not mean that. Perhaps he means that in a purely mechanical universe, there cannot be a morality. It's true that it's difficult to trade in absolutes without an Absolute to refer to, but morality is not necessarily a question of absolutes, and even if it is, they do not necessarily need to be the dictates of an Absolute. Perhaps we are moral because it helps us survive?

—and then content themselves with snug materialism and occasional consensual sex.

Is there something wrong with occasional consensual sex?


Such efforts are half-hearted.

Mrs Z might well concur. But because I've now procreated, perhaps I could be forgiven for it? After all, evolution doesn't require that you be any good at sex, only that you do it successfully.

Where are the hordes of pragmatic dictators, flaunting our ethics and mores at will?

Kof. One thing this world is not short of is pragmatic dictators.

Where are the megalomaniac playboys, assembling harems by brute force and parading them down the city streets? Such efforts in the direction of self-interest, while utterly justifiable, are bafflingly covert when they do occur.

Are they? Have you studied nature? It's fucking grim out there. Red in tooth and claw. Darwin marvelled at how vicious it was. Many have questioned how a loving God could have created a natural world that is so gruesome. It's all gore.

Google "digger wasp". Do it before you have your tea though.


If that doesn't convince you that the natural world is not "moral", what will?


What? Oh, I see. You forgot that the theory of evolution concerns all of the natural world, not just human beings?

Where are the books? The Case for Rape? Pillage for a Better You?

Check out a biology textbook. Clearly, you're not aware that rape, pillage, slavery, murder are all features of the natural world.

Do you know, they eat one another? Animals! They eat other animals. It's cruel, don't you think?

But nature is cruel. That's because it is shaped by chance, not by a moral absolute.

And where are the apologists who will champion such behavior, and stir up hedonists and sadists and racists and atheists for the betterment of our race?

Man, way to parade your ignorance. When you're done with digger wasps and carnivores, google eugenics.

Numerous parishioners are evolutionist-revolutionists to the extent that they can live irresponsibly and pursue self-deification.

But evolution does not give advice on how to live. It simply suggests that if you are fitted to your environment, you will survive long enough to reproduce, and if you are not, you will not. That is all it's about.

The rest is the invention of men. Not a lot to do with science.

But do you truly not know that most animals "live irresponsibly" (well, all of them really; there aren't that many lions with a sense of responsibility -- it doesn't actually mean anything to anything but a human being)?


Few, however, make the nihilistic connections screaming to be made.

Well, knock yourself out. You don't have to believe that if you were not created by God, you need not believe in anything. How limited your thought is!

It's a conclusion, and it's probably part of most people's means of living, to be honest. Do we avoid the bad because of our beliefs? No, we mostly avoid it because of a pragmatic concern for the consequences. That's if we avoid it at all. I'm not sure where the saintly types who "live responsibly" are hiding, but they're mostly avoiding the places I frequent, which are jampacked with citizens climbing over one another to get to the top, or out from under, or whatever it is they imagine they're doing.

Ultimately, I'm a nihilist. I don't believe in anything fundamentally. Except I do! How is that possible? Surely, I should implode into my core.

Well, one need only think how unpleasant implosion would be to realise why even the hardcore nihilists among us generally adopt a shroud of beliefs and bullshit to make life liveable.

This is all very perplexing, but ultimately, because the evolutionist’s demands are too modest, we must question their legitimacy.

Erm. We demand you don't preach in science class. Do you think we should be asking for you to exterminated to prove how serious we are? Would it be sufficient to demand your whipping?

It’s like claiming one holds the Pope for ransom, and then demanding a mere two million for his return.

No, it isn't.

The situation begins to look like a farce, and one suspects that evolution is merely a prop, an expedient apologia for the more self-centered impulses of our race. It’s all too convenient.

It would be if we used it as an excuse for those things. Which we don't. The theory of evolution helps explain why we are self-centred (Goddidit doesn't even begin to -- it simply says we were born "sinful"; it's not too clear on why).

To sum up: Evolution is an easy target because of it’s ludicrous backstory

When Darwin hypothesised that species had originated in evolution, he gave as its "backstory" that God had created one or a few lifeforms. I'll leave it to you to decide how "ludicrous" that is. It's of no account to the theory of evolution.

the insincere demands made by its adherents

The only demand that they make is that religious beliefs not be taught in a science class.

and its childishly insecure efforts at self-defense (“Intelligent design? Ha! No one believes that.”)

Hmmm. Anyone would think that the entire field of biology did not have evolution as its bedrock, with an enormous literature on the subject. You would also think that ID actually did meet a "challenge" in scientific terms. It doesn't. There is no spirited self-defence because there is a very weak attack. A visit to the Talk Origins archive though would suffice to demonstrate to the openminded that ID has no leg to stand on. Otherwise, try the Panda's Thumb. Those guys occasionally shred a creationist if they have time. Address in the links at the right.

Other comments could be made, say, about the tinkering with timelines that evolutionists have found so addictive.

Erm. Care to provide some?

Every few years we learn that the earth is a few thousand millennia older than we previously knew

LOL. It's a complaint against science that it becomes more accurate? We should say as a matter of dogma that the world is X years old if we want to be taken seriously? Yeah whatever, dude.

the idea apparently being that infinite tedium makes infinite complexity more tenable.

Well, certainly a world that is four billion years old is a more likely scene for the evolution of complexity than one that is only a few thousand years old. It was hardly tedious though. Life changed continuously. You could find that amazing, were you not such a fuckwit.

However, these comments have been in numerous other places, and by numerous other people more qualified scientifically.

Well, no. Generally they've been made by people whose grasp of science is on a par with yours.

I’ll close my harangue with a word on Intelligent Design, which is not inherently Christian

Kof. It isn't? And yet you were thoroughly upset by the idea that it might concern the spaghetti monster!

and which is, incidentally, a carefully-developed theory.

Erm. Actually, no it's not. It consists of easily shot down mathematics and nitpicking about evolution. It doesn't actually amount to a "theory". Because you know no more about it than "God designed life; we know it because it looks designed", you aren't able to show how it was "carefully developed".

ID deals with the same ex nihilo dilemma that evolution attempts to blur, but with a notable difference: ID confronts the issue in the open.

You fucking what? The "dilemma", let me remind anyone who has bothered reading this, is that life arose from an organic soup (not even anything to do with evolution). How does ID "confront" this "issue"? It says God did it. Way confrontational!

It does not say how he did it. It does not explain how you can tell he did it. It doesn't even show what difference it makes to evolution whether he did it or did not. It simply says "a designer made life".

Resources, widely available, but generally unmentioned:

Oh boy, do they get mentioned! Most of this shit has been so heavily fisked that even the clowns who wrote it don't talk about it around anyone but the rubes.


Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution – Michael J. Behe

In which Behe concludes that you could not evolve a mousetrap. I urge anyone interested to google up the spanking Behe got on that score. Sorry, I don't have the URL to hand but it's legendary. I myself fisked one of his articles a few months ago. Behe's the poster boy of ID because he has a biochemistry degree. But guess what? He doesn't research ID at his university, nor does he teach it. Why not? Is he being suppressed by the authorities? No, he is not. He knows it's not science and he'd be laughed out of class by anyone who's done year ten biology. His best hope is to get ID into schools, so that his students will be clueless.

Evolution: A Theory in Crisis – Michael Denton

Evolution is supported by millions -- literally millions -- of pieces of evidence. It is accepted by practically all biologists, not without question, but because the evidence is compelling. It is not under attack from scientists because it is so well attested. Is that a crisis? Look, I had a few ants in my office last summer. They were barely even irritating. If you can describe that as Zen's basement room: an office in crisis, then evolution is in crisis.

Darwin on Trial - Philip E. Johnson

Johnson is a dyed-in-the-wool creationist. He thinks Behe is a Satanist, to give you a clue.

Icons of Evolution: Science of Myth? – Jonathan Wells
The Design Revolution – William A. Dembski

Dembski is the big boy of ID. He provides the mathematical basis for it. He does this by writing down a big number, multiplying it by a squintillion and then writing "evolution is this likely, see?" He generally scuttles off into his corner when it's pointed out to him that he pulled the big number from his arse and that it doesn't actually match anything that can be observed.

Doubts About Darwin: A History of Intelligent Design – Thomas Woodward

Cunt. Okay, that's not a reasoned discussion, but neither's Woodward's book.

As well, numerous articles are available; try a keyword search for “Intelligent Design” on the ATLA database, or similar engines featuring scholarly journals.

And note that there are no articles in peer-reviewed journals, which should tell you all that you need to know.


Sigh. You know, it's an uncomfortable fact for Christians that we evolved and God did not in fact create us in his image, or if he did, he took the long way round. But it's not a disproof of God, nor is it intended to be. Yes, it does make it more difficult to believe that the purpose of your life is to please God but, let's face it, that was a scarcely tenable belief to begin with .(I have never been comfortable with the notion of a God that loves me but gives me seventy years of wonderful life and an eternity potentially of pain, without hope of remission and without furnishing me with the sense to do the right thing.) But it's what it is. We all learn through our lives to abandon beliefs that are shown to us to be wrong. I know Granddad was Santa Claus and that there is no Tooth Fairy. In a broader sense, I have adapted other beliefs to the world, as it's become clearer (or less clear to me). Sometimes it was painful. But lying to myself would have been more painful. I sometimes wonder, does Mike Behe have difficulty sleeping? He knows that evolution is a fact. He knows that ID is bollocks. The cognitive dissonance must be killing him.

posted by Dr Zen @ 1:36 pm