Dawkins Debates Flying Horses with Muslim

[Balthazar]

 

[Sovietsky]

I saw the whole interview and the journalist seemed to be somewhat smart but when it came to the flying horse he just lost all common sense.

The worst was when he said "can you disprove that he didn't fly on a horse to heaven?".... Havent he heard about Russell's teapot?

 

[Balthazar]

I saw the whole interview and the journalist seemed to be somewhat smart but when it came to the flying horse he just lost all common sense.

Yes, I watched the whole thing too. The journalist was indeed well articulated. It's always surprising when you see someone that appears rational and educated beliving in such laughable nonsense. It's like they have an on/off switch in their brain for rationality, and when the religion topic comes up the switch turns off.

Dawkins assumed that the guy didn't believe in flying horses at first, which is funny. The "can't disprove that he didn't do it" argument from the journalist was very intellectually weak, though.

 

[skiny]

In my opinion, the problem comes down to the burden of proof and what should be taught as scientific fact as opposed to what should be taught as faith based claims. A choice has to be made as to what we teach our children to be true because we have current, scientific studies that provide evidence for it's accuracy and what we may believe to be true even though there is no evidence other than claims made in ancient literature. What I don't understand is the reluctance to allow one to contradict the other.

There is a view held by many people of religious faith that if science disproves any claim made in ancient religious texts that the entire religion will fall apart and the point of following these teachings is lost. Personally, I think believing in supernatural causes for natural events is outdated but what is certainly outdated is the belief that to not believe in every ancient religious claim in it's entirety is apostasy or blasphemy. If anything, these ideas are what will eventually cause religion to fail. To some extent the Catholic church seems to understand this now. That is why time and time again the church must concede to scientific fact rather than struggle to deny it. There was a time when the church simply denied that the earth revolved around the sun in spite of evidence to the contrary. Galileo was imprisoned for claiming otherwise. About a hundred years later they finally had to concede to the theory that they sent more than one man to prison for teaching. 3 centuries later that church still stands. Allowing scientific evidence to prove the true path and motion of the planets rather than denying an indisputable theory could be true did not topple the church. The Catholic church has conceded that the theory of evolution is true since it too is an indisputable fact although many Christians hold firm to the belief that man has been created as is regardless of how absurd the notion has become.

We are more technologically and scientifically advanced than our parents and our children will be more technologically and scientifically advanced than us. Generally speaking this trend will continue and religion cannot simply deny every new thing we learn is true because our ancient literature disagrees with it. This practice has been a proven recipe for failure and I can't even begin to convey how wrong it is to deny children a scientific understanding because it contradicts a religious belief.

We are not at the center of the universe. This planet has been drifting around the sun for well over 4 billion years. We evolved from a lower form of life and share a common ancestry with every other species on the planet. These are not just things we believe. These are things we simply cannot deny. To teach children a religious principle is one thing. To force them to believe a religious fallacy is quite another.

 

[Balthazar]

To teach children a religious principle is one thing. To force them to believe a religious fallacy is quite another.

Preventing children to become scientifically literate by forcing science teachers to talk about "intelligent design" in classes, for example, is absolutely disgusting. They have to teach science and teach anti-science, that's pretty confusing for children. Then you have new generations of kids going around claiming that evolution is "just a theory"...

 

[dunover]

The crux of the matter is that religion was created in an age of virtually no education, mass illiteracy and very little scientific knowledge. Fast forward to now, and those religions which wish to maintain a presence and continue to have adherents (the Catholic example with Darwinism) will remain. Those that continue to be intransigent and remain in medieval times as if the last 1000 years never occurred will forever be in conflict with the world and either die out or be dragged into the 21st. century.

 

[Sovietsky]

I don't know if you have seen the "debate" with the creationist Wendy Wright.
I honestly dislike her and her smile just makes me dislike her even more.

 

[skiny]

Preventing children to become scientifically literate by forcing science teachers to talk about "intelligent design" in classes, for example, is absolutely disgusting. They have to teach science and teach anti-science, that's pretty confusing for children. Then you have new generations of kids going around claiming that evolution is "just a theory"...

The problem isn't that the teachers are being forced to teach intelligent design, young earth creationists want to teach this and can't bring themselves to teach anything that contradicts it. Personally I think one of the first things that children in science class should learn is what a scientific theory is. They need to understand from an early age that scientific theories are not just ideas that some scientists have. What is truly troubling are these science "teachers" using the word theory to mean simply an idea that may or may not be true while knowing full well what the true definition of a scientific theory is. This is an intentional deception and any teacher found guilty of this should not be allowed back in a classroom.

Any teacher qualified to teach science must know the difference between scientific theories and scientific laws. The idea that evolution isn't a scientific law so it may or may not be true is not how it works. Scientific laws are usually mathematical formulas describing fundamental principles while scientific theories are generally a larger picture incorporating the scientific laws which prove them to be true. I'm pretty sure anyone with a degree and a science background would know this.

If you're going to teach science, teach science. If you're going to teach religion be my guest. But get out of the science class.

 

[Balthazar]

The problem isn't that the teachers are being forced to teach intelligent design, young earth creationists want to teach this and can't bring themselves to teach anything that contradicts it. Personally I think one of the first things that children in science class should learn is what a scientific theory is. They need to understand from an early age that scientific theories are not just ideas that some scientists have. What is truly troubling are these science "teachers" using the word theory to mean simply an idea that may or may not be true while knowing full well what the true definition of a scientific theory is. This is an intentional deception and any teacher found guilty of this should not be allowed back in a classroom.

Any teacher qualified to teach science must know the difference between scientific theories and scientific laws. The idea that evolution isn't a scientific law so it may or may not be true is not how it works. Scientific laws are usually mathematical formulas describing fundamental principles while scientific theories are generally a larger picture incorporating the scientific laws which prove them to be true. I'm pretty sure anyone with a degree and a science background would know this.

If you're going to teach science, teach science. If you're going to teach religion be my guest. But get out of the science class.

Funny that you bring this up because I was just reading about scientific theory vs scientific law the other day (because sometimes gravity is described as a law and sometimes as a theory). Basic understanding of the language tells us that a theory is just an idea while a law can't be disproved, but it's not that at all when it comes to science. They are 2 different things of equal scientific value.

The meanings of the words changed over time and 200 years ago, Evolution and the Big Bang would have been called laws. The fact that they came with the word "theory" to describe a scientific theory is confusing to the general public, which is pretty sad.

 

[skiny]

Funny that you bring this up because I was just reading about scientific theory vs scientific law the other day (because sometimes gravity is described as a law and sometimes as a theory). Basic understanding of the language tells us that a theory is just an idea while a law can't be disproved, but it's not that at all when it comes to science. They are 2 different things of equal scientific value.

The meanings of the words changed over time and 200 years ago, Evolution and the Big Bang would have been called laws. The fact that they came with the word "theory" to describe a scientific theory is confusing to the general public, which is pretty sad.

The Germ Theory of Disease describes how microorganisms cause infection and carry disease and illnesses. This is a scientifically proven fact. I wonder if these same "science" teachers feel this is still open to debate because "it's just a theory."

At the same time I wonder if they feel that intelligent design is a scientific theory. ID can never be a scientific theory because it is impossible to replicate and impossible to test. It uses conjecture and assumption to provide answers and then claims they must be true bypassing a need to be proven. Part of it may be a lack of understanding of the process of evolution and natural selection but I think most proponents of intelligent design do understand these things but purposely make false statements about it to garner support. It's a method of gaining acceptance not through it's own merit but by ridiculing opposing theories and it severely backfires when people understand the theories better than the people ridiculing them.

They claim that evolution can't be true by showing a picture of a duck's body with an alligator's head. This species doesn't exist so we know one didn't evolve from the other. A banana fits perfectly in the human hand so it must have been designed for it. If you separate the human eye into various pieces the pieces on their own are useless so they must have been produced all at once as is. The list of claims goes on and on and every time a new one crops up it's a question answered with an unscientific opinion and then a claim it's the only possible solution.

For intelligent design theorists to be taken seriously they need to learn and use the scientific method. They also have to accept that if a hypothesis fails scrutiny they need to form a new one and start over. This can't happen when you mix science with religion because forming a new hypothesis means denying a religious claim. The theory of evolution does not deny the existence of a god but it does deny the idea of a god creating man. Some people are ok with this. Other people will never accept it. These people need to leave science to the scientists and make more accurate claims such as "I believe in intelligent design but I have no evidence for it." That's called faith and that is supposed to be the entire backbone of religion.

Attempting to scientifically prove the existence of God or any other supernatural occurrence is an exercise in futility. It's like trying to prove that you prefer a specific flavour or proving what someone is thinking. It's an intangible idea that produces no evidence. It requires faith and if you require proof over faith maybe you shouldn't be following a religion.