Intellectual dishonesty--Creationism Dept

[oldfart]

Kirk Cameron is shilling a free edition of Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species" this month around the nation. In his ads for the thing, he says there's a special introduction about evolution, from a creationist perspective, but that otherwise it's a free copy of Origin. It turns out that the special introduction is not only creationist, but they have abridged it by leaving out some very key chapters (I suspected as much since the book is about 1/2 as big as it should be).

Eugenie Scott, has written a brief response to the edition in USA Today:
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/god-and-...rts-darwin.htm

I don't intend to argue creationism here, but I am pointing out that one of its proponents is setting up a straw man by leaving out half of Darwin's book and falsely trying to introduce it into the market as the original. He's damn lucky the thing is out of copyright.

Jamie

[aka JenT]

well why would he take on the expense of publishing what he feels isn't relevant? He probably took the parts of Darwin's theory that are full of holes, that's what I would do. Otherwise the expense of the thing and shipping would be too much.

Here's an article about it

Kirk Cameron Stands Behind Controversial Darwin Statements He's used to getting love letters and high-fives as a former teen heartthrob, but onetime Growing Pains actor Kirk Cameron isn't letting the mockery and criticism dissuade him from promoting his controversial project to dispute evolutionary theory.

"Atheism has been on the rise for years now, and the Bible of the atheists is The Origin of Species," Cameron tells PEOPLE. "We have a situation in our country where young people are entering college with a belief in God and exiting with that faith being stripped and shredded. What we want to do is have student make an informed, educated decision before they chuck their faith."


FLASHBACK: Kirk Talks Being Religious in Hollywood

So what is the plan that Cameron, 38, has hatched to supposedly save the souls of freshmen around the country?

He and other creationists have created thousands of editions of Charles Darwin's landmark work explaining evolutionary theory, with a 50-page introduction that picks apart aspects of Darwin's work and try to link it to everything from Nazi eugenics to the scientist's alleged "disdain for women."


Distributing Books
On Nov. 19, three days before the 150th anniversary of the original publication of Origin of Species, Cameron and other religious activists will distribute their books at "the top 50" universities around the country.

An online video of Cameron describing his theory – and his controversial beliefs – has been circulated wildly across the Internet, where it has also inspired many many counterarguments and spoof videos.

But then, speaking out about his faith is nothing new for Cameron, who has been doing it since finding God 20 years ago during the height of his fame as wise-cracking Mike Seaver on the long-running ABC sitcom Growing Pains. Cameron has made a cottage industry out of starring in films that cater to evangelicals, such as the Left Behind series and Fireproof.


Fiery Reactions
But never has he ruffled so many feathers, especially among academics, as he has this week, slamming evolutionary theory as untrue, inherently un-Christian and the driving force behind some of the most horrendous catastrophes of the 20th century, including Adolf Hitler's plan to destroy "inferior races."

"You can see where [Hitler] clearly takes Darwin's ideas to some of their logical conclusions and compares certain races of people to lower evolutionary life forms," Cameron says. "If you take Darwin's theory and extend it to its logical end, it can be used to justify all number of very horrendous things."

But academics dismiss such arguments as ludicrous.

"This has been refuted many, many times. The anti-evolutionist fearmongers have to link Darwin to every perceived evil from mankind," says Kevin Padian, professor of paleontology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Berkeley. "The two kinds people who believe that religion and evolution can not coexist are extreme atheists and extreme religious fundamentalists. Everyone else doesn't really have a problem. [A majority] of Americans believe that a belief in god is compatible with evolution."


Willing Target
Cameron, who lives outside of Los Angeles with his wife of 20 years, Chelsea Noble, and their six children, realizes that he is making himself a target by being so outspoken, but is willing to do so for a cause that he believes so strongly in.

"I am proud to bring this to people's attention," he says. "You see things in the world that are truly distressing and you think, 'What can I do?' Well this is something I can do."

And if his own kids ended up believing in evolution? "Could I accept it? Yeah sure," he says. "I accepted a lot of things that are not true before I was able to sit down and listen to more then one side and think things through the issues. I would sit them down and tell them that I was happy that they were thinking about this stuff, now let's look at all of the information and see if we don't come to a better conclusion. If after that, they still come to the same conclusion, so be it."

http://www.people.com/people/article...307814,00.html

[oldfart]

You really don't have a problem with Cameron taking a book, omitting half of it to set up a straw man, and publishing it under the title and original author's name with his own introduction? Really? I don't want to go off just because I misunderstand you.

Jamie

[aka JenT]

Originally Posted by oldfart

You really don't have a problem with Cameron taking a book, omitting half of it to set up a straw man, and publishing it under the title and original author's name with his own introduction? Really? I don't want to go off just because I misunderstand you.

Jamie

Jamie, if Kirk took the backup, the proof, of Darwin's theory and omitted, then trashed the theory as unsupportable because of the missing information, then I wouldn't agree with his doing that. But I don't see even his critics claiming that, are they? (and if they were I wouldn't necessarily take those who push evo as fact over Kirk's word) but if I studied what Kirk did and that did in fact turn out to be what he has done, I would be seriously disappointed in the man.

But that's not what I've seen even the evo side claim, are they claiming that? Got a link?

Kirk DID point this out though, which I never considered:

"You can see where [Hitler] clearly takes Darwin's ideas to some of their logical conclusions and compares certain races of people to lower evolutionary life forms," Cameron says. "If you take Darwin's theory and extend it to its logical end, it can be used to justify all number of very horrendous things."

wow, I never considered that evolution could be used to support Hitler's actions but he's right, they would.

The theory of evolution. Sick stuff.

[oldfart]

Originally Posted by aka JenT

Jamie, if Kirk took the backup, the proof, of Darwin's theory and omitted, then trashed the theory as unsupportable because of the missing information, then I wouldn't agree with his doing that. But I don't see even his critics claiming that, are they?

Yes that is exactly what is being claimed. From the U.S. News (famous communist publication) article referenced above:

"Unfortunately, it will be hard to thoroughly read the version that Comfort will be distributing on college campuses in November. The copy his publisher sent me is missing no fewer than four crucial chapters, as well as Darwin's introduction. Two of the omitted chapters, Chapters 11 and 12, showcase biogeography, some of Darwin's strongest evidence for evolution. "

Originally Posted by aka JenT

if I studied what Kirk did and that did in fact turn out to be what he has done, I would be seriously disappointed in the man.

Study away. Four chapters and the Introduction is a lot to omit.

Originally Posted by aka JenT

Kirk DID point this out though, which I never considered:

"You can see where [Hitler] clearly takes Darwin's ideas to some of their logical conclusions and compares certain races of people to lower evolutionary life forms," Cameron says. "If you take Darwin's theory and extend it to its logical end, it can be used to justify all number of very horrendous things."

wow, I never considered that evolution could be used to support Hitler's actions but he's right, they would.

The theory of evolution. Sick stuff.

This kind of reasoning is just balderdash. Hitler drank milk as a child. Therefore drinking milk as a child makes you Hitler. In case you have forgotten, Hitler came to power to stop the communists. That's right, Hitler is your penultimate right-winger, worshiped to this day by skinheads of the Aryan Nation and other assorted people who are more than just sick. If Kirk Cameron is so anti-Darwin, his grasp of history probably allows him to be Holocaust denier as well. (This called an ad hominem argument. If you don't like them, stop doing them in virtually every post.)

Jamie

[PubliusInfinitum]

Never quite been able to understand how evolution contests Creationism...

I mean I understand the whole 'biological process' thing... but how understanding the biological process by which a biological comething 'evolves' in no way precludes that the process is not by design.

I have virtually no understanding of biology or chemistry... but I know that IF I were to create a species, I'd do so in such a way that the systems which comprise that species would evolve to meet their changing circumstances; so it serves reason that where a being vastly more intelligent than I, were to create such; that the means to evolve would be part and parcel of that species and the processes relevant to such would be a critical aspect of such.

Perhaps you can explain it to me OF... How does our understanding of the minute biological processes preclude the possibility; or from my perspective, the probability that such processes are a function of Creative design?

And while I appreciate that there have been those who've brought some fairly bizarre argument to the table; I would point out that I'm not one of them and I do not necessarily hold to their thesis, and as such will not be bound by any poor reasoning to which they may have fallen victim...

But I'm all about the learnin'... so if you could explan how Evolution somehow competes with the thesis that God created the Universe... I'd sure love to hear it.

[aka JenT]

Originally Posted by oldfart

Yes that is exactly what is being claimed. From the U.S. News (famous communist publication) article referenced above:

Study away. Four chapters and the Introduction is a lot to omit.

This kind of reasoning is just balderdash. Hitler drank milk as a child. Therefore drinking milk as a child makes you Hitler. In case you have forgotten, Hitler came to power to stop the communists. That's right, Hitler is your penultimate right-winger, worshiped to this day by skinheads of the Aryan Nation and other assorted people who are more than just sick. If Kirk Cameron is so anti-Darwin, his grasp of history probably allows him to be Holocaust denier as well. (This called an ad hominem argument. If you don't like them, stop doing them in virtually every post.)

Jamie

The only way your analogy could compare to my reasoning is if Hitler's mom told little Adolph to drink his milk, it would make him strong, and it would if it was a real/true glass of milk.

Except that, it never was a valid glass of milk in the first place, it was made-up milk, it never made him stronger because guessmilk never really helped anyone and they ought to take it off the school cafeteria menu/textbook.

that was fun

[aka JenT]

btw, that's a new (gulp) look for you...

you look like a splattered Gunny

[oldfart]

Originally Posted by PubliusInfinitum

Never quite been able to understand how evolution contests Creationism...


But I'm all about the learnin'... so if you could explan how Evolution somehow competes with the thesis that God created the Universe... I'd sure love to hear it.

It doesn't. Many evolutionists (probably a substantial majority) believe God created the Universe, and evolution is an explanation of how. The two concepts are complementary.

What evolutionists (and geologists, and just about every other physical scientist) dispute is the age of the earth set by a eighteen century English cleric who used the Bible to determine his date for Creation as 4004 B.C. Modern geologists and geophysicists accept that the age of the Earth is around 4.54 billion years (4.54 × 109 years ± 1%).

So if you believe that God created the Universe about 13.5--14 billion years ago, and the sun and earth about four and a half billion years ago, there is no problem. The problem is for people who want to peg the age of the earth at six thousand years ago.

Jamie

[Gnarly]

(John) Macquarrie is quite right to assert that, when studying a phenomenon, the scientist must always assume there is a natural cause. That is because natural causes are the only kind its methodology can address. It is another thing to insist that science has proven there can’t be any other kind.

Macquarrrie’s argument is ultimately circular. He says that science, by its nature, can’t discern or test for supernatural cause, and therefore, those causes can’t exist.

The philosopher Alvin Platinga responds:

“Macquarrie perhaps means to suggest that the very practice of science requires that one reject the idea (e.g.) of God raising someone from the dead….. [This]argument … is like the drunk who insisted on looking for his lost car keys only under the streetlight on the grounds that the light was better there. In fact, it would go the drunk one better: it would insist that because the keys would be hard to find in the dark, they must be under the light.” – The Reason for God, by Timothy Keller, p 85, 86

The view that there is a God, he (Oxford philosopher Richard Swinburne) says, leads us to expect the things we observe – that there is a universe at all, that scientific laws operate within it, that it contains human beings with consciousness and with an indelible moral sense. The theory that there is no God, he argues, does not lead us to expect any of these things.

Therefore, belief in God offers a better empirical fit, it explains and accounts for what we see better than the alternative account of things. – p 121

Stephen Hawking concludes: “The odds against a universe like ours emerging out of something like the Big Bang are enormous.” Elsewhere he says, “It would be very difficult to explain why the universe would have begun in just this way except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us.”

The most common rejoinder, which Richard Dawkins makes in his book The God Delusion, is that there may be trillions of universes. – p 130

As a clue that the Fine Tuning Argument has force, Alvin Platinga gives this illustration. He imagines a man dealing himself twenty straight hands of four aces in the same game of poker. As his companions reach for their six-shooters the poker player says, “I know it looks suspicious! But what if there is an infinite succession of universes, so that for any possible distribution of poker hands, there is one universe in which this possibility is realized? We just happen to find ourselves in one where I always deal myself four aces without cheating!” This argument will have no effect on the other poker players.

[NOTE: Somehow atheists seem not only to lap it up, but they even expect others to lap as well.]

Though you could not prove he had cheated, it would be unreasonable to conclude that he hadn’t.

The philosopher John Leslie poses a similar illustration. He imagines a man who is sentenced to be executed by a firing squad consisting of fifty expert marksmen. They all fire from six feet away and not one bullet hits him. Since it is possible that even expert marksmen could miss from close range it is technically possible that all fifty just happened to miss at the same moment. Though you could not prove they had conspired to miss, it would be unreasonable to draw the conclusion that they hadn’t. – p 131