Monday 22 February 2016

Rossiter's Mind over Matter

Among other things, the Sensuous Curmudgeon tracks "self-published geniuses".  #42 was Wayne Rossiter and his book Mind over Matter. Wayne and Brian Rossiter have a Facebook page for their book and they were sufficiently open to criticism to post a link to the Sensuous Curmudgeon. On their Facebook page I posted this review of a sample of their book (text also pasted below if the picture is unclear):

I came here from Sensuous Curmudgeon and read the free sample at amazon. My thoughts on that small piece:
1) I love it when Creationists defend their position using William Lane Craig’s name. It is almost as if they aren’t aware that he strongly supports evolution.
2) Chapter one “Debating 101 Many shutter at the idea of debate.”
Do they shutter their doors?
3) The chapter 2 arguments, “Replace God with science” summarize the evolution position so briefly that they are useless. If “Replace God with Science” included examples such as lightning, it would make more sense. Rossiter’s response “How exactly does science create or cause anything?” is a strange twisting of the argument. Science explains, it doesn’t create. Done.
4) For “We have the fossils” in Chapter 3, Rossiter's response is “We all have the fossils. Our theories are supposed to explain them.” Yes, and evolution does that, while creationism doesn’t come close. Rather than circular logic, "We have the fossils" is a pithy summary. Rather than discuss circular logic, Rossiter should discuss transitional fossils, such as Tiktaalik and six other fish-to-amphibian transitions and Archaeopteryx and dozens of other featured dinosaurs – and look at the debating fallacy of making strawman arguments.
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I've now been blocked from their Facebook page - this is why I took the screenshot above.

Saturday 13 February 2016

Happy Darwin Day! And Creationist agrees that the evidence points towards evolution

It's the 13th here in Korea, but still the 12th in many countries, so I think I'm in the clear and don't have to add an embarrassed 'belated' to the title.

Nice work, Mr President.*

Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky offered remarks about the discovery of gravity waves - I really should learn what their significance is.
Mohler said Christians believe the universe is telling a different story: as the psalmist puts it, “The heavens declare the glory of God.”
Mohler said part of being created in God’s image is an innate desire to understand and know the cosmos around us. At the same time, he warned, much of what is presented as scientific proof is at odds with the Bible, including the historical account of creation recorded in the opening chapters of the book of Genesis. 
“Now to be candid, I don’t believe that the world is 1.3 billion years old, certainly not billions of years old,” Mohler said. “I don’t even believe that is actually millions of years old. But one of the interesting things we need to note here is that the scientists who believe that believe it because they are looking at certain patterns that, to their observation, tell them that. And what we need to note is this, if we ourselves were operating from a simply materialistic and naturalistic worldview, we would probably come to the very same conclusions.”
Does this say that Mohler agrees the evidence, as viewed objectively, supports evolution?
“And we also understand that we are fallen, fragile, fallible thinkers and so as we look at this, if we’re operating from a basically secular worldview, if we believe the universe is going to have to tell us the story all on its own, then there’s no way we’re going to come up with the right story.”
It think it does.
Via the Sensuous Curmudgeon.
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*Thanks, photofunia.

Thursday 11 February 2016

Ruben Bolling does it again

I follow 'Take That Darwin' on Twitter and s/he is able to find variations on the "If humans came from apes..." argument everyday.  Today's Tom the Dancing Bug comic describes what creationists seem to think should happen when they use this argument. To encourage people to see the original, I have shrunk the image and cropped it significantly.

I also moved the 'Tom the Dancing Bug' title to the right so it would be in the cropped image.  Ah, if anyone reads this, have I gone too far in my 'I'm not stealing this image' routine?  Or not far enough?