Etude: In case you want to twist that into something else, I meant something involving how a fish takes a lure.
No thanks, my point has been made.
Dawkins-The Greatest Show on Earth
by KateWild 189 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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snare&racket
We are watching,
I havent had time to read all the thread, just pages 1-3, firstly THE DUDE ABIDES and I am often mocked for drinking way too many white russians than could be considered 'cool' (why wont you just drink lager... Nope!)
secondly, laugh and call into question everything everyone has said here if you want, in fact it is encouraged because WE ARE NOT the giverning body or JW's. I would love for people to go read this stuff for themselves,but most don't and thats why people here tend to get a little frustrated. The evidence is right here ready to be read.
Ok, so single celled organisms to bears... I imagine you said that assuming the only evidence we have is.... Single celled organisms and bears. You may know we have fossils from early earth where only single celled organisms existed at that time on earth, knowing we now have bears, well possibly we just added 2+2 and got 4 ?
The truth is, that IS WHAT WE DID, but we did it 100 years ago. There are branches of specialised, specialised, specialised sub specialised biology that works on specific cell machinery and its evolution (we call them organelles). We have computers and papers churning out data on this stuff daily. We have been doing this for some decades now too, so in reality we actually DO have lots of data and information to look at..... How mich have you looked at? How hard have you looked for it?
One big piece of the jigsaw you may not have thought of, as well as observing the early single celled organisms and bears ...... DNA.
Because the DNA of all living things have has CLEARLY EVOLVED as predicted, from the DNA alone we can work backwards and look at all the organisms on that DNA code's branch in the tree of life. We can even see past virus infections and bacterial infections that DNA chain endured and the immunity it formed to beat those infections, I know, amazing hey! The DNA analysis has reached the stage now, that fossils have preety much become irrelevant to the study of evolution for obvious reasons. importantly to us, analysis of our dna alongside the analysis of bacterial and viral dna is essential to modern pharmacology. We study the evolution of bacterial attack mechanisms and host defence mechanisms over millions of years in order to better understand how to defend ourselves now.
There is TOO MUCH evidence and data to convey in a forum here, so please dont take our word for it and check it all out for yourself, if you are sincerely interested.
in our humble defence, imagine if what we are saying is true, imagine coming to a forum and being told the evidence we ourselves have read and maybe spent years studing so we could appreciate it, for someone to simply laugh and say it didnt exist, then call us Jehovah's Witness like for trying to encourage people to look at this life changing evidence.....
something to ponder.....
snare x
p.s. We are even studying the DNA of single celled organisms and their organelles (cell machinery), largely with mitochondria in mind (they have their own dna) to establish how even the single celled organisms evolved. There are fascinating papers on early single cell development, check out the papers on ENDOSYMBIOSIS.
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Etude
Huh?
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snare&racket
Etude, at the end of the day, dawkins could be a genocidal, infanticidal, racist, sexist, homophobic, murderer .... But unlike the god of the bible, his message is backed by evidence.
People attacked Darwin too for his personal life because they couldn't attack the evidence he highlighted. Dawkins could be a saint or a shit bag, but the issue of his personality could not be more irrelevant.
I realised my opinion of Darwin and Dawkins was born out of being told that anyone that dares to say 'god is wrong' must really think highly of themselves! Of course this is not the case, they are just brave enough to say 'hey look at this, it proves x and y wrong. Doesnt this make believing in x and y a bit silly?'
Keep in mind, believers in x and y, dont sit back passively, they have dominated belief for centuries even via torture and death,me en today they try to quash science and its communication! If you were an expert in a topic and an organisation with bias and motive attempted to missdirect their members and called you a deciever.... Would it annoy you a little? Would it come across in your approach?
Dawkins was a professor at Oxford, his role being a "communicator of science to the public", check out his early Christmas lectures for children (a uk tradition at xmas). In this role he came up against much opposition and attack for SIMPLY TELLING THE TRUTH. He had to fight people who tried to bantext books or brought out their own spurious textbooks, people that denied fossils existed showing adaptation, these are sll very frustrsting scenarios.
Most dont appreciate how his angst with religious bodies began... But maybe knowing that helps.
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Etude
"dawkins could be a genocidal, infanticidal, racist, sexist, homophobic, murderer .... But unlike the god of the bible, his message is backed by evidence"
Essentially I agree with your statement. I don't completely because it implies (whether purposely or not on your part) that everything Dawkins states is backed by science and therefore correct. Even if his entire discussion is founded on science, not all of his conclusions necessarily follow without fault. I guess that's the subtle point I feel has been missed throughout this entire conversation. I think the guy is brilliant. But I also think he's fallible and can sometimes be smug in his criticism of those who have the right to criticize him. I'm not suggesting that would be you or me, but instead credentialed individuals who know what they're talking about.
I keep looking back at my previous posts to find if I have made a denial of Evolution or Natural Selection or if I've even suggested that what Dawkins writes is crap. I think he is a bright and provocative individual with a lot of good things to say. But I fail to understand those who worship him and don't want to take note of the flaws that other scientists point out about his work. It seems that not only are the other scientists somehow diminished but also anyone else who points to those authoritative individuals.
I have read three of his books. I've seen many interviews with him and have heard a lecture or two from him. I'm not an authority on him as you seem to be. However, I don't need to be in order to explore both sides of an issue the way experts debate them. That I have done. And that is my main incentive for concluding that Dawkins is not correct in some of his postulates. I've admired him for exposing religious hypocrisy and vitriol, not only in a historical context but by current examples. Yet, I differ from others in that I don't believe the guy walks on water. Perhaps that is an exaggeration of how vehemently he is defended. But the lack of effort from many individuals to directly address some of Dawkins' problematic proposals is enough reason for me to think they lack a certain degree of criticality.
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cofty
Etude I think you are the only person I have ever encountered who hears Dawkin's name and thinks memes.
I think he invented the term, and it is a useful model, but if you want to take issue with it you will need to speak to Susan Blackmore or Daniel Dennett.
Using language like "worship" is silly.
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snare&racket
Etude, do you think that saying Dawkins is fallible is unique?
I encourage people i like and love to read Dawkins because its the shortest route to very good informstion, but there is much I disagree with him about, including some hard science. His job as a communicator of science makes his a very talented man in ...communicating science. So he is a great place to start!
Dawkins helped me out with a paper I wrote on medicine and evolution, I actually met with my university to discuss publishing it this afternoon. He is very blunt and doesnt always have the best approach. I think his views on some evolutionary matters are likely going to be proven wrong, but the fundamentals are all water tight, it isnt his work, it is a body of evidence, he simply signposts it, discusses it and even encourages questioning it. He isn't perfect, but he is bloody good, so much so I would encourage my loved ones to read his work. You do realise, he is just a man and even in my eyes (i'm a fan of his) I see him as equal to me and you in ability and means, he simply has read more than us and can communicate it well. I dont use Dawkins or ANY PERSON to get my data, I tried that once with 8 men in Brooklyn, I was duped! But i do use reliable scientist with a history of good science, to help me point to WHERE the evidence and research is, for ME to then examine.
By the way, I am not unique, this is how science works.... nobody worships Dawkins, what a very immature thing to say buddy. Religious people throw the worship card out st anything and anyone that weakens their faith or beliefs, only last week somone was saying we worship research, two weeks before someone here said we worship the scientific method.... its just bizzare!
So no offence, but you get no awards for saying a man is fallible..... The first thing they teach you in science is how to critically appraise work...why? Because there is a lot of shit science out there.
But the evolutionary foundationary science that has been devoured for over a century and all evidence so far supports it, is as watertight as our beliefs on gravity or the galaxy or our sun etc etc.
snare x
p.s. Out of interest, if I asked you how to look for scientific evidence on a topic, would you know how to go about it? ....... Most don't and that is where Dawkins steps in.
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cofty
Please give us a heads-up if it gets published. Good luck with that.
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KateWild
Seriously Cofty its bedtime in the UK. Go get some sleep mister. Kate xx
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adamah
Etude said-
Yet, I differ from others in that I don't believe the guy walks on water.
Uh, did you forget that none of us atheists believe anyone walked on water, including Jesus, let alone Dawkins? Why would you even state that?
See, it's exactly that kind of hyperbolic religious-inspired nonsense that I picked up on when I said you seemingly still harbor such beliefs within your brain; worse, you seem to use it to attack others (including Dawkins), and that kind of thing makes it incredibly-easy to dismiss you, to not take you seriously (although having read some of your past posts, you have shown that you do know of what you speak on some topics).