TurboFool (Neither, really)

I just watched a great video by potholer54 on the “controversial” (among people who don’t know wtf they’re talking about) subject of carbon dating and just had to post it here:

It leads me to question these unfortunately common tactics of creationists to explain their ideological viewpoints. In this case the never-failing-to-amuse Kent Hovind manages to quote-mine papers, skew findings to achieve his desired explanation, ignore already well-known limitations of the technology within the scientific community to show what’s already been found and worked around, and ignore direct warnings from scientists over the fact that the results he’d get were KNOWN to not be of what he was trying to find. And yet he goes right ahead anyway and does all of this to “prove” that carbon dating doesn’t work when it’s clearly only HE that isn’t working properly.

Now most assume this guy is just plain dishonest. And given his history of and imprisonment over tax evasion, it’s a fair assumption. But it’s not definitely the case. It’s also entirely possible that this guy is a complete idiot. Yes, yes, he’s a “doctor,” and he speaks in a way that suggests some level of intelligence, but those aren’t proof either. And then there’s the old cognitive dissonance issue where he believes his viewpoint so strongly that he’ll do anything to back it up, justifying the dishonesty to the point where he doesn’t even realize he’s being dishonest. I think it’s likely the first problem or the last, the first placing the blame entirely on Hovind, the last putting more of the blame on the overall concept that’s poisoned his mind so deeply against reality.

At the end of the day, believe what you will, but don’t fucking lie about it to me or impressionable people. Stick to facts, stick to proof, stick to reliable evidence, stick to reality, or STFU. You’re not helping yourself or anyone else by spreading arguments that are provably wrong, and especially arguments that were already proven wrong to you BEFORE you used them. Adjust, learn, adapt, and evolve your arguments as you learn. I know it runs contradictory to your view that the world is nothing but cold stone facts written in an ancient book, but the truth is our survival depends on adaptation, and you know it. Why else would you have renamed “creation” to “intelligent design?” You know your tactics have to change if they’re going to have any shot at success, and this tactic of continuing to use arguments that were disproven is one of them. Move on. And if you run out of such arguments, maybe it’s time to reconsider your position. You know, the way rational people do.

All right, finally getting around to posting this on my own blog since it went up yesterday. The latest episode of Mr. Deity is up, and it features yours truly. Check it out:

As the head of R&D for the entire universe, I think you can understand why I’ve been too busy to blog much.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed it, and look forward to more coming soon. We’re filming another one later this week!

Found this on Pharyngula. In case you’re unfamiliar, one of the common arguments against evolution is that so-called “micro evolution” exists (tiny changes between generations), but that there’s no such thing as “macro evolution” (massive changes that lead to new species). Those who have any remote understanding of evolution, and aren’t blinded by ideology, can clearly see that millions of tiny changes lead to something one could consider a massive change if you ignore all the steps in between. For those who have no imagination, though, this video fills in those blanks visually by taking five skulls from throughout the history of our evolution and computer generates the countless generations that came between. Powerful, compelling stuff. Sadly, the true believers will surely ignore it or make up whatever contradictions they can think of to further convince themselves that their ancient book knows better than reality and evidence.

Over at Conversational Atheist they’ve posted a pretty cool answer for one of the most complicated arguments to respond to from the religious: atheism has lead to more deaths than religion.

This is usually in response to us pointing out just how many horrible things have been done in the names of various religions throughout history, with genocide, ethnic cleansing, witch hunts, crusades, etc. wiping out countless people, all to appease their deity of choice. Now most people you make this argument to really DON’T have an answer for it. But the educated(ish) ones will start pointing out Hitler (not accurate, his propaganda was filled with Christianity and talk of God), Pol Pot, Mao, and several serial killers. Their point being that atheists have killed as many people, if not more.

I’ll let their article go into the details, but calling out the horrors performed by those who don’t believe in Zeus does a pretty good job in calling out the flaw in their counter-argument. See, when we point out the evils done in the name of religion, we’re not describing things done merely by people who were religious. I don’t go around pointing to people on death row and saying, “Christian, Muslim, Christian, Christian, Catholic, Baptist, yep, look at all these people who killed their wives, neighbors, coworkers, strangers for reasons unrelated to their religion. See how evil religion is?” But I will point out when entire populations of people are slaughtered for belonging to the wrong religion. I will point out when planes are flown into skyscrapers for the glory of their god who they believe they’re doing the work of. I will call out when someone believes their god ordered them to kill an innocent person.

But their counter-argument doesn’t take this into account. Instead it equates unrelated concepts. “Lucy hates pizza and kicked a dog. Pizza-haters are mean to dogs.” They’re missing our entire point, and proving it by spouting back something completely nonsensical. Now this may stem partially from their constant inaccurate belief that atheism is a religion. That one’s infuriating enough. I guess since they can’t imagine a life without religion, they can’t imagine anyone else living without one. So our lack of beliefs must BE our belief. But even this misses the point. The atheists they call out for committing crimes don’t do so in the NAME of no god. Their crimes are not connected to their lack of belief.

In the end, this is just more evidence of an argument Phil Plait made in a recent blog post about paying attention to what you argue. It’s easy to get drug down into trying to argue the facts, which are frequently useless against the reasonless, but sometimes if you just pay close enough attention to the question and find the flaw there, you can nip the whole thing in the bud. The creationists (or Intelligent Design advocates, or whatever they are now) have proven extremely good at adapting (but, but, isn’t adaptation an attribute of evolution?) and adjusting not only their arguments, but their entire strategies. From what I’ve heard out of Texas recently, the scientific community has finally stepped up, got their ducks in a row, and headed them off relatively successfully. We all need to learn this strategy and start thinking differently, and learn to bob and weave at least as well as they do.