Richard Dawkins talks about reaching the fence-sitters, and education is an important first step. When I get into an argument with a confirmed creationist, someone who is clearly not sitting on the fence, I’m not trying to convince that person—I’m trying to reach all the others who are listening in. If an opponent throws out a claim that is patently a product of abysmal ignorance—such as, “If evolution is true, then why are there still monkeys?” or “The Cambrian explosion was a sudden event that can only be explained by the work of a designer”—it’s very helpful if the audience is already aware of how silly those arguments are; it spares me time that otherwise has to be spent addressing the most elementary basics, and suddenly, the creationist is looking very, very ill-informed. It’s great!
I wrote another response to Doug's Evolution post, wherein Doug said this;
As for Richard Dawkins, I viewed a film regarding his thoughts before, and was able to discount almost all of it with common sense.
There's more I need to get to (bad math, etc.), but I was compelled to revisit some points I've made before. That is, because one credentialed biologist does the "I have no idea how this works, so God did it" argument.. because, you know when Doug thinks it's "common sense" to discount Dawkins, he's discounting virtually the entire body of Science in the field.
And he calls me "fringe".
....
*Sigh*.. okay.. Here's a link to Behe's NYT article on his book. Please see the 4th paragraph, where he states;
I want to be explicit about what I am, and am not, questioning. The word "evolution" carries many associations. Usually it means common descent -- the idea that all organisms living and dead are related by common ancestry. I have no quarrel with the idea of common descent, and continue to think it explains similarities among species. By itself, however, common descent doesn't explain the vast differences among species.
Note the lack of a "phyla" qualifier.
Behe believes that Darwin was forced to rely on a biological "black box" as certain methods of evolution were not within his scope of understanding at the time. Behe shifts the idea of the "black" box from the mechanisms of evolution, to the complexity of the cell itself. He calls this "irreducibly complex", in that he uses the same logic you've been offering up.. i.e., because science can't explain it, the answer has to be "god did it".
Behe is essentially pointing to Darwin's "black box" and creating the exact same "black box" but just earlier in the process. The thing is, Darwin did explain this process in theory, and modern biologists have uncovered a mountain of evidence to support it.
Behe's Book, "Darwin's Black Box" was resoundly rejected by the scientific community, while simultaneously rejecting any peer review of his work. It's also important to note that Behe's "irreducible complexity" does not state that Evolution does not happen, but rather states that it's incomplete. Most scientists, however, insist that the evidence exists and that Behe simply rejects it.
Of course, it's impossible to evaluate Behe's claim because he doesn't actually provide any credible evidence what-so-ever. What it simply does is say that he's doesn't understand what's going on, so the answer is "god did it". This is what's known as "argument from ignorance". Google that phrase.
The argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam ("appeal to ignorance" [1]), argument by lack of imagination, or negative evidence, is a logical fallacy in which it is claimed that a premise is true only because it has not been proven false, or is false only because it has not been proven true.
Further, Behe's own university has this declaimer on their web site;
"It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific."
When I use the word "fringe", this is exactly what I'm talking about. On the one hand, you have Behe offering zero evidence that has not been soundly debunked by his colleagues. On the other side, you have the rest of the scientific community.
Your response to that fact is, apparently, the scientific community is a big conspiracy to promote Atheism. You refer to "science" as a collective, as in "the motivation of science to disregard anything they deem as spiritual"
I don't know any other plain way to phrase this.. but science is not a big One World Government conspiracy theory. The vast majority of scientists in the US don't even reference religion in their work because "god did it" is not evidence. It never comes up in lectures. It's never used in peer reviewed journals. It's a complete non sequitor.
The only people that are bringing religion into the argument (from the frame of reference of actual science) are the creationist fringe like Behe.
We're obviously talking past each other, and I'll keep at it but as you pointed out, it takes time to get to it all. But I will. You've made some claims (like the math one) that need some sorting.
Oh.. and I don't suspect I'm allowed to use the words "carbon dating" without running into a conspiracy theory accusation again?
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