PNAS rightly slapped him down.
The talk page for the PNAS slappage is a good ‘un, even by conservapedia standards:

Particularly, at the very top:
“Notice: misrepresentations are not going to be allowed on this page. Substantive comments only, please.”

Followed by a list of bile-ridden, small-minded (etc etc) misrepresentations.

An intuitive approach might conclude that they don’t want to risk further “Liberal Satirists” logging on.

Shame, I was desperate to post an item about the use of rectal dilation in the diagnosis of satanic abuse in children. Of course the truth does make the best satire sometimes.

It’ll have to wait.

I attended a bog-standard (no Irish slant intended) secondary school in Blighty alongside Christians, Jews, Hindus, Moslems and atheists. Many years later I still know many of them. I can’t see that happening under the Faith School Initiative.

Since its suppression of rational debate as a problem solving medium only really occurs at the extreme edges of religion (and in the Vatican from time to time), religion presents far more of a threat to society and humanity as a whole in its attempts to segregate children’s education along sectarian lines. This trend comes from the centre, and is in the words of my local vicar “… deeply unchristian, in that it attempts to treat one group of people differently from another because of their beliefs.”

Dawkins may have ascribed too much value to sectarian divisions (in what the BBC among others described as “sectarian violence”), but the segregation of Northern Irish schools allowed the divisions to entrench and persist long after any rational examination would have allowed. Across generations in fact.

31,500 generations is a very long time in human evolutionary terms. Fortunately other factors seem to have been at work.

All I am saying is that these narratives have nothing to contribute on the theory of evolution – the bible is not a scientific treatise and was never meant to be read that way, neither was it meant to be read as a consistent linear narrative, not is it a verifiably accurate narrative of Jewish history. What it is, is a religious text which repays study, contemplation and prayer.

The difference between me and Mr Schlafly is that I am prepared to recognise the scientific method and use it where appropriate, and I don’t confuse a religious text full of metaphor with a scientific one which isn’t.

quoting Genesis 1 is fine, but ignores the fact that Genesis contains two competing creation narratives – chapter 2 is the Adam and Eve version, which does directly contradict the chapter 1 seven day version if read literally. The Bible is like that all over the place – multiple perspectives on the same event because it is a mash up of different sources.

I agree chapter 1 is more evolutionary inclined and pretty much leaves room for humanity to evolve as part of creation, whereas chapter 2 explicitly doesn’t – the Adam’s rib nonsense.

This comes from a practising, church going Christian, albeit of the Rowan Williams persuasion. The fundamentalist claim to the literal truth of Genesis has to be nonsense, because it contradicts itself if taken literally. Try reading someone like the excellent Karen Armstrong on how the Bible was written and how it was supposed to be read at the time it was written, and stop confusing it with a scientific paper.

But:

Dr. Lenski manages to be both civil, engaging, and entertaining and shows a clear difference between a diligent seeker of truth and a dogmatic seeker of heresy.

Galileo would be proud. “Yet still it grows.”

-GR

(I’ve *GOT* to find a t-shirt about E. coli, unicorns and creationists. Got to be one out there somewhere…)

I just hope you enjoyed writing this as much as we enjoyed reading it. At least then it could be chalked up to entertainment rather than a waste of your valuable time.

Hahahaha!

What amazes me is Lenski’s patience. Sure, he’s clearly angry but he still took the time to write a full reply insted of filing the letters in the shredder.

“Richard Lenski’s defenders finally admit that the data underlying his claims (which Lenski still has not disclosed) are not too voluminous. Also, his defenders all but concede that no meaningful peer review of Lenski’s paper occurred in the mere 14 days that his paper was supposedly being reviewed prior to publication. See Conservapedia talk:Lenski dialog.”

It seems Conservapedia want him to hand over every notebook and test result.

and Vertigowooyay

Loved that cartoon, esp the bit about the new drugs being intelligently designed.

galtroarc.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/1218doonesbury_lg.gif

We’re not just talking about Dawkins attacking Gould’s sincerity over an idea Gould briefly played with and threw as a bone to get religious types off his back.

With the idea of non-overlapping magisteria, Gould was ready to explore the idea of religion and such being useful regulators of group behaviour – something science can’t be. Just as religious practice can’t be used to reach scientific conclusions, science can’t usefully shape group morality.

This is directly linked to the idea that some religions give some benefit to some discrete groups by promoting useful behaviour and punishing destructive behaviour.

The thing is, Dawkins can hardly admit groups exist in any evolutionarily meaningful way.

So when Dawkins dismissed NOMA partly by dismissing the idea Gould ‘meant it’, he was dismissing one of the arguments against his own conception of evolution as a struggle on eensy weensy, definitely non-groupy genetic level by dismissing the idea his opponent ‘meant it’.

That’s not just insulting. It’s lazy, it’s unprofessional, and it’s what someone does when they’ve ran out of real ideas and arguments. It’s obnoxious. It’s twonky.

About as twonky as the idea that you can ascribe a primary importance to Catholicism and Protestantism in the long life of the Irish conflict.

Religion didn’t make things there any better, but to call it either the chicken or the egg or anything but one of the banners two opposing groups opposed each other behind is just plain lazy.

Or possibly – and it’s the possibility that leaps to mind when the idea comes from the, shall we say, ‘butch’ half of the couple – a cop-out.

Dawkins didn’t tiptoe around Ireland in the ‘God Delusion’. He ascribed too much importance to the religiosity of school segregation there; dominantly secular school systems in France, Turkey, and even old Blighty manage to keep social elements far apart from each other even today.

He generally didn’t give nearly their due to the other socio-economic factors in play there, in play in the Middle East, or in play in every conflict that 24 hour news channels and a lack of research will let you think are about religion. And he could have, while still making the point that the God hypothesis didn’t make sense. But he didn’t. He was lazy.

I know the man made a lot of fans by making it okay to call yourself an atheist instead of just looking vague all the time, but ‘The God Delusion’ was an obnoxious book that mixed good, ridiculous, and self-serving arguments up altogether in one big mess. And calling me a twonk won’t change that. It’ll just make you look real mature.

Can’t quite put my finger on it ..

Its the way they identified themselves, and perpetuated their differences over an otherwise unfeasable period of time ..

Oh yes ..

Religion.

you twonk.

I guess Dawkins book could have usefully covered other purveyors of unreasonable, unjustifiable and untrue dogma in the world, (no-one denies there are others), but he choose the big one. Good for him :0)