Just when you thought that Western cowardice vis-a-vis islam couldn't get any worse, along comes YouTube and shows that it is possible to set a new low:
An atheist commentator, Nick Gisburne, has been posting videos presenting his logical arguments against Christianity, but when he tried the same with islam, YouTube removed his video and... canceled his account. His "offense" wasn't even on par with the famous Dutch cartoons - he wasn't openly ridiculing islam or its holy cows, he was merely quoting from quran to make a point. Of course, as a private company, YouTube has the right to say what can or can not be posted on its servers - but isn't their selectiveness at least a little suspicious? Would they be showing the same amount of "sensitivity" toward Christianity, if Christians went on a rampage every time somebody in the West said something "disparaging" about their religion? (Moslems slaughtering other moslems and blowing up their mosques apparently isn't offensive enough to cause mass demonstrations, but that's another story.) Is it just a coincidence that YouTube is now owned by Google, the same spineless company that meekly agreed to carry water for Chinese censors??
Showing posts with label Religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Religion. Show all posts
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Friday, January 5, 2007
Evolution of stupidity
A friend sent me a link to a lecture by the geneticist Roman Giertych, a well known (at least in Poland, if not in Europe) critic of evolutionism. (Un?)fortunately, this lecture is in Polish, and so unless you speak the language, you're out of luck. Or, rather, a lucky bastard, as Prof. Giertych is a living proof that you can amass a bunch of Ph.D.s and still be an idiot. Listening to him was a mild perhaps, but nevertheless a torture. Painful as it is for me to admit, after this experience I now understand the anger and hostility of people like Richard Dawkins much better. This doesn't make Dawkins less of an arrogant asshole, but at least I can see why he is so pissed off - it truly is a travesty that people like Giertych are allowed to call themselves "scientists" and thus gain instant credibility with their audiences, which they then proceed to bullshit with religious mumbo-jumbo.
As the imaginary god is my witness, I did genuinely try to approach this with an open mind. I've been very disilussioned with the politicization and dogmatization of science, where voices straying from the currently reigning dogma - whether it is "global warming" or "educational benefits of diversity" or evolutionism - are viciously attacked, ridiculed, supressed. And yet, listening to Mr. Giertych I found myself longing for a sort of credentialing body for scientists, which would have the authority to ban a person whose conduct or pronouncements are damaging to science, from calling himself a "scientist".
It isn't to say that the entire lecture was nonsense. In fact, Giertych has brought up some interesting points, including examples of sloppy, tendentious science. At the same time, it quickly became pretty clear that he was making these points not to lead his audience to truth, but to confuse and twist the truth in order to cast doubt on science and present it as just a system of belief, not much different from religion. He was shockingly disingenuous and manipulative. For example, he talked at length about the eruption of Mount St. Helen in Washington State and how geologists were supposedly stunned after discovering that this catasprophe had produced, in a matter of days, such ordering of geological materials that until then had been widely believed to require centuries. His conclusion? Well, maybe the Great Canyon was formed in the matter of months and not millienia, as claimed?
Even assuming that the geological "surprise" of Mount St. Helen was indeed such a huge surprise for geologists, I seriously doubt that it invalidated all the previous research and methods of geological dating, as Giertych seems to be suggesting. He jumps to a conclusion (or at least wants his audience to do that) that this one event and the anomaly it produced is not an anomaly, but evidence of how this must have happend in all the other cases of stratification. His purpose is clear: the Bible says that the Earth was created a few thousand years ago, so let's cast doubt on the evidence that it took much, much longer. Never mind that the evidence is ovewhelming - we'll just show one hole and the gullible and the biased will just see that hole and nothing else.
What about carbon dating? Oh, this is just a minor dissonance that Giertych just glides through, mumbling about "known problems with carbon dating". An example of these problems? The Turin Shroud. Now, what about this shroud, Professor? Wasn't it examined by two independent research labs, both of whom concluded that this was a medieval forgery? So wherein lies the "problem" with carbon dating, Professor? Oh, the Church says that the shroud has the image of Christ imprinted on it, and that doesn't square with the lab results, so these results must clearly be off... We just can't trust carbon dating, can we?
And so it goes. Perhaps the most revealing example of Giertych's illogic came in his answer to a question from the audience, when he contrasted science and the Church: it is science that keeps changing and whose theories are being proven wrong time and again; the Church's teachings stay the same. Hard as it is to fathom, Giertych actually believes that this makes science inferior! Science is only searching for the truth; religion already knows the truth - so there you go. You can ridicule the evolutionists, who still haven't found the "missing link", but the talking bush and the immaculate conception are not subject to scrutiny - these are facts. The Bible says so.
One thing I would like to give Giertych credit for is that he at least didn't seem to be especially concerned about sticking to the Intelligent-Designs-is-not-Creationism line. At least that's a sliver of intellectual honesty. On the other hand, he gave his talk at the catholic Stefan Wyszynski University, to an audience probably more sympathetic to creationism than evolutionism, so he could afford to be less careful.
As the imaginary god is my witness, I did genuinely try to approach this with an open mind. I've been very disilussioned with the politicization and dogmatization of science, where voices straying from the currently reigning dogma - whether it is "global warming" or "educational benefits of diversity" or evolutionism - are viciously attacked, ridiculed, supressed. And yet, listening to Mr. Giertych I found myself longing for a sort of credentialing body for scientists, which would have the authority to ban a person whose conduct or pronouncements are damaging to science, from calling himself a "scientist".
It isn't to say that the entire lecture was nonsense. In fact, Giertych has brought up some interesting points, including examples of sloppy, tendentious science. At the same time, it quickly became pretty clear that he was making these points not to lead his audience to truth, but to confuse and twist the truth in order to cast doubt on science and present it as just a system of belief, not much different from religion. He was shockingly disingenuous and manipulative. For example, he talked at length about the eruption of Mount St. Helen in Washington State and how geologists were supposedly stunned after discovering that this catasprophe had produced, in a matter of days, such ordering of geological materials that until then had been widely believed to require centuries. His conclusion? Well, maybe the Great Canyon was formed in the matter of months and not millienia, as claimed?
Even assuming that the geological "surprise" of Mount St. Helen was indeed such a huge surprise for geologists, I seriously doubt that it invalidated all the previous research and methods of geological dating, as Giertych seems to be suggesting. He jumps to a conclusion (or at least wants his audience to do that) that this one event and the anomaly it produced is not an anomaly, but evidence of how this must have happend in all the other cases of stratification. His purpose is clear: the Bible says that the Earth was created a few thousand years ago, so let's cast doubt on the evidence that it took much, much longer. Never mind that the evidence is ovewhelming - we'll just show one hole and the gullible and the biased will just see that hole and nothing else.
What about carbon dating? Oh, this is just a minor dissonance that Giertych just glides through, mumbling about "known problems with carbon dating". An example of these problems? The Turin Shroud. Now, what about this shroud, Professor? Wasn't it examined by two independent research labs, both of whom concluded that this was a medieval forgery? So wherein lies the "problem" with carbon dating, Professor? Oh, the Church says that the shroud has the image of Christ imprinted on it, and that doesn't square with the lab results, so these results must clearly be off... We just can't trust carbon dating, can we?
And so it goes. Perhaps the most revealing example of Giertych's illogic came in his answer to a question from the audience, when he contrasted science and the Church: it is science that keeps changing and whose theories are being proven wrong time and again; the Church's teachings stay the same. Hard as it is to fathom, Giertych actually believes that this makes science inferior! Science is only searching for the truth; religion already knows the truth - so there you go. You can ridicule the evolutionists, who still haven't found the "missing link", but the talking bush and the immaculate conception are not subject to scrutiny - these are facts. The Bible says so.
One thing I would like to give Giertych credit for is that he at least didn't seem to be especially concerned about sticking to the Intelligent-Designs-is-not-Creationism line. At least that's a sliver of intellectual honesty. On the other hand, he gave his talk at the catholic Stefan Wyszynski University, to an audience probably more sympathetic to creationism than evolutionism, so he could afford to be less careful.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Science as religion
I've been watching the recorded sessions of the conference Beyond Belief with very mixed emotions. This conference, organized by the Science Network and held November 5-7 at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, gathered together scientists and philosophers, ostensibly to try to answer questions such as, "Can science help us create a new rational narrative as poetic and powerful as those that have traditionally sustained societies? Can we be good without God? And if not God, then what?", but mostly to bash religion, Intelligent Design, and... George W. Bush.
Now, bashing religions, if done well, is music to my ears, if only because religions have enjoyed the status of holy cows in our society way too long. However, seeing this being done by arrogant assholes like Richard Dawkins or Lawrence Kraus makes me cringe at calling myself an atheist (I so do not want to be like them!) I actually have more respect for the compassionate, soft-spoken Joan Roughgarden, who actually defended religion, that for the condescending, haughty atheists like Dawkins, regardless how many books the latter wrote.
As much as I despair over the resurgence of religious fanaticism in the world, currently unleashing mayhem and threatening to destroy our civilization, I do not see science offering a better alternative to religion as the ultimate guide for our actions. Anybody who believes science to be free of ideology and dogma obviously hasn't been paying attention. One only needs to recall the treatment given by fellow scientists to Bjorn Lomborg for his book "The Skeptical Environmentalist" to know that the price for challenging the currently dominant and politically-correct dogma is steep indeed. While "heretics" who dare to cast doubt on the junk science presented in support of "global warming" as man-made phenomenon do not face being burned at the stake, they do it at a tremendous risk to their careers - a modern day equivalent of being driven out of a medieval village, covered in tar and feathers.
And what's with this visceral hatred of George W. Bush? The cheap, gratuitous jokes would have been embarassing at a divorce lawyers convention, let alone a gathering of people who undoubtedly think of themselves as "luminaries of science". ("Our current president's support of Intelligent Design is surprising, considering that his very existence disproves it." - is just one example. One has to give a bit of credit to the audience, which, although almost certainly not sympathetic to GWB, responded with few laughs.) These people are supposed o be role models??
Now, bashing religions, if done well, is music to my ears, if only because religions have enjoyed the status of holy cows in our society way too long. However, seeing this being done by arrogant assholes like Richard Dawkins or Lawrence Kraus makes me cringe at calling myself an atheist (I so do not want to be like them!) I actually have more respect for the compassionate, soft-spoken Joan Roughgarden, who actually defended religion, that for the condescending, haughty atheists like Dawkins, regardless how many books the latter wrote.
As much as I despair over the resurgence of religious fanaticism in the world, currently unleashing mayhem and threatening to destroy our civilization, I do not see science offering a better alternative to religion as the ultimate guide for our actions. Anybody who believes science to be free of ideology and dogma obviously hasn't been paying attention. One only needs to recall the treatment given by fellow scientists to Bjorn Lomborg for his book "The Skeptical Environmentalist" to know that the price for challenging the currently dominant and politically-correct dogma is steep indeed. While "heretics" who dare to cast doubt on the junk science presented in support of "global warming" as man-made phenomenon do not face being burned at the stake, they do it at a tremendous risk to their careers - a modern day equivalent of being driven out of a medieval village, covered in tar and feathers.
And what's with this visceral hatred of George W. Bush? The cheap, gratuitous jokes would have been embarassing at a divorce lawyers convention, let alone a gathering of people who undoubtedly think of themselves as "luminaries of science". ("Our current president's support of Intelligent Design is surprising, considering that his very existence disproves it." - is just one example. One has to give a bit of credit to the audience, which, although almost certainly not sympathetic to GWB, responded with few laughs.) These people are supposed o be role models??
Monday, November 27, 2006
The End of Faith
I have just finished reading Sam Harris' phenomenal book, "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason". Without hesitation, I would call it the most important book of the decade. Reading it was both uplifting and depressing. Uplifting, because it is a wonderful feeling to have someone much smarter than I express with such clarity and force ideas that I could very well call my own. The only thing better than that would be if I were able to write so well myself, and be read by so many (this book was a bestseller in the US). Depressing, because there seems to be no viable alternative to the path of apocalyptic destruction we appear to be on. That is, Sam Harris does offer such an alternative - abandoning irrational beliefs in exchange for spirituality and ethics anchored in reason and honest inquiry - but I just can't imagine enough people taking up his challenge for it to make any difference. At least not during my lifetime, which, incidentally, may be cut short by maniacs smart enough to make and use nuclear weapons, but dumb enough to believe that for mass murder they will be rewarded in the afterlife with their own personalized bordellos, each with 72 horny virgins.
Part of the problem, paradoxically, are the very people whom one would naturally expect to provide a counterbalance to religious lunatics, namely the secular liberals. As Sam Harris points out in his book, and in the excellent essay in The Los Angeles Times, "The End of Liberalism", Western liberals have been so blindsided by self-hatred and its monstrous children: moral relativism and dogmatic multiculturalism, that they actually play into the hands of those, who want to destroy Western civilization. To know that this is true one needs only to look at the treatment the erstwhile icon of the European Left, Oriana Fallaci, received from liberals for daring to criticize... islam, and for speaking about the cultural values of the West as if they were (oh, what blasphemy!) superior to the cult of death and destruction emanating from the "islamic world". Sadly, it appears that only the religious lunatics of the West are willing to take a stand against the lunatics of the Middle East - if that's the case, I'm with the former. I can coexist with Jerry Falwell and George W. Bush, but not with Bin Laden or Ahmadinejad. There are people far scarrier than Dick Cheney. The Left, in the grips of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome), disagrees. To hell with them.
Here are the major points from Sam Harris' book (as I recall them):
Part of the problem, paradoxically, are the very people whom one would naturally expect to provide a counterbalance to religious lunatics, namely the secular liberals. As Sam Harris points out in his book, and in the excellent essay in The Los Angeles Times, "The End of Liberalism", Western liberals have been so blindsided by self-hatred and its monstrous children: moral relativism and dogmatic multiculturalism, that they actually play into the hands of those, who want to destroy Western civilization. To know that this is true one needs only to look at the treatment the erstwhile icon of the European Left, Oriana Fallaci, received from liberals for daring to criticize... islam, and for speaking about the cultural values of the West as if they were (oh, what blasphemy!) superior to the cult of death and destruction emanating from the "islamic world". Sadly, it appears that only the religious lunatics of the West are willing to take a stand against the lunatics of the Middle East - if that's the case, I'm with the former. I can coexist with Jerry Falwell and George W. Bush, but not with Bin Laden or Ahmadinejad. There are people far scarrier than Dick Cheney. The Left, in the grips of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome), disagrees. To hell with them.
Here are the major points from Sam Harris' book (as I recall them):
- The human species is on the brink of annihilation because of a clash between worldviews that spring from irrational beliefs
- We live in the Age of Unreason
- This really is a war with islam, and not with terrorism
- Islam is not, and never was, a "religion of peace"
- The role that religion plays in the current conflict has been taken out of discourse
- Islam as a religion is not unique in its aggresive stance against non-believers; the Old and New Testament also contain unambiguous calls to exterminate the non-believers. The only difference is that the adherents of Judaism and Christianity either don't read their holy texts, or don't take them seriously any more.
- Religions have been a tremendous burden on human societies, causing untold suffering and destruction, and hampering progress throughout centuries
- The current predicament of humanity is different from past ones in that now people who disdain life and crave death can get their hands on weapons with the ability to annihilate the human race
- There must be a way to have ethics and spirituality without religion. In fact, we better find it fast, otherwise we may not survive next 50 years
- Happiness and suffering could well form the basis on which to build a rational, non-religious system of ethics