a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by theadvancedapes
theadvancedapes  ·  3835 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: An Open Letter to Evolutionary Anthropologist Cadell Last - Evolution News & Views  ·  

I'm really busy today so I can't respond right now... however, I will rebut a few of his comments here on Hubski and send them to him via email since he emailed me this article yesterday asking me to respond. I won't be responding in a blog post as my site does not function to discuss the non-controversy between evolution and pseudoscientific creationism. Furthermore, if my writing starts to attract a wider audience I should suspect that more people in the "Intelligent Design" community will start to draw me into discussion and debate. Stephen J. Gould and Richard Dawkins took/take the stance that they wouldn't/won't debate Young Earth Creationists (YEC) because you give them exactly what they want: credibility (i.e. a scientist is taking our arguments seriously enough to debate me!). I know "I.D." is not the same as YEC but they are equally wrong (even if one is more intellectually untenable than the other).

During the first two years of my exposure to science I spent a great majority of my time debating the validity of evolution. I found this to be exhausting and actually subtracted from what I wanted to discuss... which was the science itself... not the validity of science. Historians of Rome don't have to constantly defend whether Rome actually existed. Physicists don't have to constantly defend whether or not atoms exist. Evolutionary scientists shouldn't constantly be burdened with defending evolutionary theory. Evolutionary theory is supported by more evidence than perhaps any theory in science (with the only possible exception being Quantum Mechanics). Therefore, my blog has always functioned to discuss the science - not the non-controversy. In short, I take the stance that even acknowledging a debate with pseudoscience gives them the fuel they want to keep the controversy alive. I don't want to give them any fuel.





mk  ·  3835 days ago  ·  link  ·  

That's a very reasonable approach.

That said, what I found missing in his argument is that you suggested that if physical laws fail to predict the behavior, perhaps intelligence is involved; the phenomenon that he describes (the dynamics of millions of information-rich sequences of base pairs of nucleotides in DNA) can be predicted by physical laws, at least we have yet to find a place where they cannot.

It's a false analogy.

stacker  ·  3835 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I am quite new to Hubski and I didn't know who you were before this post. I have great respect for you Mr. Last. Just keep using your knowledge to further our understanding of the world and don't mind those who try to drag you down with their pseudo-intelligence.

I've had "debates" with a fellow coworker who, unfortunately, was indoctrinated since birth and told that evolution is false. I have also told her that evolution has more evidence for it than basically every other scientific theory but all she says is, "no it doesn't". And when I offer to personally show her the evidence she declines.

theadvancedapes  ·  3834 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Thanks stacker I appreciate the support :) Also, more importantly, welcome to hubski!

ooli  ·  3835 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Dont loose time responding rationally to those guys. As you stated that's exactly what they want. And by email, he will cut and rewrite stuff to make you look stupid and push his agenda.

Just say he's totally right: you think some gods created dual-star, and we should worship them by eating fish on Friday and ban sex from our lives for their utmost glory. Starmen.

Anyway, pretty nice to be the target of some zealous website. Hopefully you'll get some traffic out of it, and some young Christians will get a kick for science.