Category Archive

I am going to use the discussion points found on RichardDawkins.net as the basis of this feature.

Calilasseia is the author of the post and deserves many rich accolades for assembling so much useful information in one spot.   This constitutes an open thread of sorts, please leave your opinions and observations in the comment section.

Enjoy!

[9] The infamous “chance” and “random” canards (now with “nothing” side salad).

Few things are more calculated to result in the critical thinkers here regarding a poster as a zero-IQ tosspot with blancmange for brains, than the erection of the “chance” canard. Usually taking the form of “scientists think life arose by chance”, or variants thereof such as “you believe life was an accident”. This is, not to put too fine a point upon it, bullshit.

What scientists actually postulate, and they postulate this with respect to every observable phenomenon in the universe, is that well defined and testable mechanisms are responsible. Mechanisms that are amenable to empirical test and understanding, and in many cases, amenable to the development of a quantitative theory. Two such quantitative theories, namely general relativity and quantum electrodynamics, are in accord with observational reality to fifteen decimal places. As an aside, when someone can point to an instance of mythology producing something this useful, the critical thinkers will sit up and take notice, and not before.

Likewise, erecting statements such as “random mutation can’t produce X”, where X is some complex feature of multicellular eukaryote organisms, will also invite much scorn, derision and contempt. First of all, drop the specious apologetic bullshit that “random” means “without rhyme or reason”, because it doesn’t. In rigorous scientific parlance, “random”, with respect to mutations, means “we have insufficient information about the actual process that took place at the requisite time”. This is because scientists have known for decades, once again, that mutations arise from well defined natural processes, and indeed, any decent textbook on the subject should list several of these, given that the Wikipedia page on mutations covers the topic in considerable depth. Go here, scroll down to the text “Induced mutations on the molecular level can be caused by:”, and read on from that point. When you have done this, and you have learned that scientists have classified a number of well defined chemical reactions leading to mutations, you will be in a position to understand why the critical thinkers here regard the creationist use of “random” to mean “duh, it just happened” with particularly withering disdain. When scientists speak of “random” mutations, what they really mean is “one of these processes took place, but we don’t have the detailed observational data to determine which of these processes took place, when it took place, and at what point it took place, in this particular instance. Though of course, anyone with a decent background in research genetics can back-track to an ancestral state for the gene in question. Indeed, as several scientific papers in the literature testify eloquently, resurrecting ancient genes is now a routine part of genetics research.

Then, of course, we have that other brand of nonsense that creationists love to erect, which also fits into this section, namely the fatuous “you believe nothing created the universe” canard, and assorted corollary examples of palsied asininity based upon the same cretinous notion. Which is amply addressed by the above, namely that scientists postulate that well defined and testable natural mechanisms, operating upon the appropriate entities, were responsible for real world observational phenomena. In what fantasy parallel universe does “well defined and testable natural mechanisms, operating upon the appropriate entities” equal “nothing”? If you think that those two are synonyms, then again, you are in serious need of education, and you are in no position to lecture those of us who bothered to acquire one.