Dawkins Destroys Perry on Evolution

[Tank]

Dawkins Destroys Perry on Evolution

We all know Texas Governor and GOP Presidential Candidate Rick Perry is full of it with his anti-science agenda as well as his close ties to a cadre of religious extremists who want to anoint him because of those anti-science beliefs.

But a smackdown from Richard Dawkins on the subject of said beliefs has a particularly satisfying highbrow but low-blow quality to it. He delivered such a smackdown to Perry in the course of a Q and A in the Washington Post's On Faith column...

And

Attention Governor Perry: Evolution is a fact

Q. Texas governor and GOP candidate Rick Perry, at a campaign event this week, told a boy that evolution is "just a theory" with "gaps" and that in Texas they teach "both creationism and evolution." Perry later added "God is how we got here." According to a 2009 Gallup study , only 38 percent of Americans say they believe in evolution. If a majority of Americans are skeptical or unsure about evolution, should schools teach it as a mere "theory"? Why is evolution so threatening to religion?...

'Pissing in the wind' is the phrase that comes to mind when it comes to getting anti-Scientists to listen.

[OldGit]

Agreed  You can't talk reason to nutters.

IMO Dawkins is absolutely right, but talking himself into another big row from which nothing will be gained.  As usual.

[Tank]

Agreed  You can't talk reason to nutters.

IMO Dawkins is absolutely right, but talking himself into another big row from which nothing will be gained.  As usual.

Dawkins is a media whore so he'll be as happy as a pig in shite! 

[Sweetdeath]

*facepalm*  How can anyone acyually be anti science and evolution in this day and age?

Oldgit's term godthink  comes to mind again.  I just say, plain dellusional.

[MinnesotaMike]

*facepalm*  How can anyone acyually be anti science and evolution in this day and age?

It will remain so until people quit having a gross misunderstanding of the word 'theory.'

It's an inherent problem really... when the average person says 'theory' they are at step one of the scientific process. That is to say, what they call a 'theory' a scientist calls a 'hypothesis.' Until my second year of college (and I'm not joking, this is how bad the education is here) I didn't know scientific theory was too far off from hypothesis. I knew they weren't entirely synonymous, but if someone asked if scientific theory was borderline concrete I would've said no.

[DaemonWulf]

I suppose the assumption of creation as fact would be easier to forgive if evolution were harder to understand. If it took a brain like Dawkins or Hawking to comprehend evolution, I could almost understand the religious types giving up and throwing in with faith just based on it being the easy path. Especially here in America, where we prove on a regular basis how lazy a populace we really have. But saying evolution is the explanation to why we're here is like saying "you can't use a fork to eat that soup, here... this spoon will do just fine." But as usual, the whole "ordained by God" rationale is used as a crutch by the easily confused. I don't mind them believing it, it's when they teach children that crap that it bugs me.

[xSilverPhinx]

I like Dawkin's wit. He has a way of putting things into perpective and even if it doesn't amount to much, at least people can be entertained by it all (till, that is, you realise the finer points about what he's talking about and see that it's no laughing matter).

*serious face*

[Tank]

I suppose the assumption of creation as fact would be easier to forgive if evolution were harder to understand. If it took a brain like Dawkins or Hawking to comprehend evolution, I could almost understand the religious types giving up and throwing in with faith just based on it being the easy path. Especially here in America, where we prove on a regular basis how lazy a populace we really have. But saying evolution is the explanation to why we're here is like saying "you can't use a fork to eat that soup, here... this spoon will do just fine." But as usual, the whole "ordained by God" rationale is used as a crutch by the easily confused. I don't mind them believing it, it's when they teach children that crap that it bugs me.

That is so true, evolution is so simple and elegent one has to be either sub 75 IQ or have an 'agenda' not to understand it.

[DaemonWulf]

That is so true, evolution is so simple and elegent one has to be either sub 75 IQ or have an 'agenda' not to understand it.

And that's really what it amounts to. The "well it's not in the Bible" is all the agenda they need. Personally, if I were a theist, I would have much more respect for a deity that created something as intricate and beautiful as evolution and natural selection than some lazy ass who just "poofed" everything into existence in a week. Not to mention the idea doesn't pass any scrutiny, like the whole Noah's Ark argument.

[xSilverPhinx]

That is so true, evolution is so simple and elegent one has to be either sub 75 IQ or have an 'agenda' not to understand it.

And that's really what it amounts to. The "well it's not in the Bible" is all the agenda they need. Personally, if I were a theist, I would have much more respect for a deity that created something as intricate and beautiful as evolution and natural selection than some lazy ass who just "poofed" everything into existence in a week. Not to mention the idea doesn't pass any scrutiny, like the whole Noah's Ark argument.

Also, when one of that deity's creations (that we know of so far) can think up ways to improve themselves, then what does that say about that deity's designing competence?

[DaemonWulf]

And that's really what it amounts to. The "well it's not in the Bible" is all the agenda they need. Personally, if I were a theist, I would have much more respect for a deity that created something as intricate and beautiful as evolution and natural selection than some lazy ass who just "poofed" everything into existence in a week. Not to mention the idea doesn't pass any scrutiny, like the whole Noah's Ark argument.

Also, when one of that deity's creations (that we know of so far) can think up ways to improve themselves, then what does that say about that deity's designing competence?

Actually, a robotics or computing tech is considered pretty competent if they can come up with a self-sustaining, self-improving device, but I get where you're coming from. If the concept were perfect to begin with, we wouldn't be able to improve upon it. And actually, ALL the species that are alive today are improved versions of what they started as, in line with adapting to their ever-changing environments. Some in much smaller increments than others, but all have evolved; so what does that say of the original? But as life is overwhelmed by change, a system like evolution is the best possible option. If "god" actually had come up with something like that, only then would I consider "him" worthy of praise.