The Professor Said That There Is No God. The Student Gave Him an Awesome Answer!

[Deeje]

Deeje thinks all the points are valid, because she believes that the arguments are valid.

Why do she believes that the arguments are valid?
She probably will answer that is because she think all the points are valid.

All the points are valid because the arguments are valid.
The arguments are valid because all the points are valid.

That is circular reasoning.

When asking Deeje why she thinks the arguments/points are valid, she cannot explain why and elaborate how the details of the arguments/points is valid.

Are you talking to me....or only about me?

I can see one of us is going round in circles....

 

[Pudding]

Are you talking to me....or only about me?

I'm talking about you to show your circular reasoing.
Please correct me if you think you do not engage in circular reasoning.

I said when asking you why you thinks the arguments/points are valid, you cannot explain why nor elaborate how the details of the arguments/points is valid.
Do you disagree with my statement?
If you do, then please explain why.

I can see one of us is going round in circles....

I don't know why you'd see that.

 

[Pudding]

Example to show that how will it looks like to use circular reasoning in a discussion:

Arguments and points have been presented in a thread.

A: I think the points are valid.

B: Which points? Why do you think the points are valid?
A: I think all the points are valid, because i believe the arguments are valid.

B: Why do you believe the arguments are valid?
A: Because i think all the points are valid.

B: Please elaborate how you think all the points are valid.
A: I think all the points are valid because i believe the arguments are valid.

B: ...

 

[Jenny Collins]

There are true elements in what the believer said, for instance when he turned the tables on the professor. But a lot of what he said wasn't very good. He makes a poor defense when he can't explain why God allows suffering. There are good explanations for that. And when he says man is evil, if he means in relation to God, I understand. But there are many references to good, righteous people. People have inborn weakness, which is why they sin. I am never very impressed by the answers that born again Christians give, esp in the movie God Is Not Dead. Very poor movie. Although the kid did say some things against evolution and made good points. And all of the evangelicals in the movie were nice people. Online and in person, I would say some of the nastiest hypocrites have been born again types. Some nice ones too, but there are enough that I see, that would prevent me from ever considering the faith.

 

[Jenny Collins]

There are true elements in what the believer said, for instance when he turned the tables on the professor. But a lot of what he said wasn't very good. He makes a poor defense when he can't explain why God allows suffering. There are good explanations for that. And when he says man is evil, if he means in relation to God, I understand. But there are many references to good, righteous people. People have inborn weakness, which is why they sin. I am never very impressed by the answers that born again Christians give, esp in the movie God Is Not Dead. Very poor movie. Although the kid did say some things against evolution and made good points. And all of the evangelicals in the movie were nice people. Online and in person, I would say some of the nastiest hypocrites have been born again types. Some nice ones too, but there are enough that I see, that would prevent me from ever considering the faith.

 

[Jenny Collins]

There are true elements in what the believer said, for instance when he turned the tables on the professor. But a lot of what he said wasn't very good. He makes a poor defense when he can't explain why God allows suffering. There are good explanations for that. And when he says man is evil, if he means in relation to God, I understand. But there are many references to good, righteous people. People have inborn weakness, which is why they sin. I am never very impressed by the answers that born again Christians give, esp in the movie God Is Not Dead. Very poor movie. Although the kid did say some things against evolution and made good points. And all of the evangelicals in the movie were nice people. Online and in person, I would say some of the nastiest hypocrites have been born again types. Some nice ones too, but there are enough that I see, that would prevent me from ever considering the faith.

 

[Jenny Collins]

There are true elements in what the believer said, for instance when he turned the tables on the professor. But a lot of what he said wasn't very good. He makes a poor defense when he can't explain why God allows suffering. There are good explanations for that. And when he says man is evil, if he means in relation to God, I understand. But there are many references to good, righteous people. People have inborn weakness, which is why they sin. I am never very impressed by the answers that born again Christians give, esp in the movie God Is Not Dead. Very poor movie. Although the kid did say some things against evolution and made good points. And all of the evangelicals in the movie were nice people. Online and in person, I would say some of the nastiest hypocrites have been born again types. Some nice ones too, but there are enough that I see, that would prevent me from ever considering the faith.

 

[Jenny Collins]

There are true elements in what the believer said, for instance when he turned the tables on the professor. But a lot of what he said wasn't very good. He makes a poor defense when he can't explain why God allows suffering. There are good explanations for that. And when he says man is evil, if he means in relation to God, I understand. But there are many references to good, righteous people. People have inborn weakness, which is why they sin. I am never very impressed by the answers that born again Christians give, esp in the movie God Is Not Dead. Very poor movie. Although the kid did say some things against evolution and made good points. And all of the evangelicals in the movie were nice people. Online and in person, I would say some of the nastiest hypocrites have been born again types. Some nice ones too, but there are enough that I see, that would prevent me from ever considering the faith.

 

[Jenny Collins]

The professor reminds me of the doctor on house, cocky, arrogant and impressed with himself. Thinks his argument is so solid, when it isn't.

 

[Jose Fly]

That's fine, I'll happily change my description to, "lying or cluelessly deluded."

To be clear, while I don't think Deeje knowingly posted a fake story, I don't think she really cared about its authenticity either. For folks like her, accuracy is secondary (at best) to whether or not it supports her beliefs.

 

[Jose Fly]

Yes indeed. It's a real rock and a hard place for science, isn't it?

No, it's not. The only dilemma here is your constant self-contradiction.

You cannot "prove" that evolution ever took place

Yes I can. Populations evolve all the time, every single day. Undergrad students conduct experiments where they document populations evolving new traits every year.

Your only response to this reality is to weakly cry "it's adaptation, not evolution". But as this thread shows, it turns out that even your sources recognize that they are effectively the same thing (populations adapt by evolving). But I'm quite sure none of this will stop you from repeating this silly, rather stupid argument ad nauseum. It's all you have.

 

[Jose Fly]

I actually watched the video that supposedly refuted Mr Comforts video. It was a joke. I found the students more than the professors to be completely brainwashed about evolution....none of them had a clue how to prove it.....the professors had no answers either.

Now you're just trying to cover one dishonesty with another. Dr. Myers directly answered the question and Comfort deliberately edited it out....he even admitted it.

I think he showed science up to be what it has become.....a fraud factory

Well, I guess if there ever was any question about your approach to science, you've definitely shown your hand. Science is nothing but a "fraud factory", eh? Then how about you list one of these frauds that have perpetrated in the last 20 years?

Please answer with real evidence for macro-evolution that does not require faith or belief.

I already did when I posted examples of the observed evolution of new species. Your response was to say that you didn't understand any of it followed by an accusation that the scientists deliberately used technical jargon to cover for a lack of data.

That rebuttal was incredibly stupid then, and it remains so today.

You mean us poor deluded souls who can't quite grasp the concept of amoebas turning into dinosaurs and anything else you can name?

No, I mean those of you who keep posting deceptive or fraudulent material. One has to wonder, if you're the ones on the side of God and truth, why do you have to engage in such constant dishonesty?

 

[Sapiens]

Deeje thinks all the points are valid, because she believes that the arguments are valid.

Why do she believes that the arguments are valid?
She probably will answer that is because she think all the points are valid.

All the points are valid because the arguments are valid.
The arguments are valid because all the points are valid.

That is circular reasoning.

When asking Deeje why she thinks the arguments/points are valid, she cannot explain why nor elaborate how the details of the arguments/points is valid.

She does the same thing with her denigration of people, she says nasty things about them without support save a form of circular non-reasoning. Witness:

I notice that Jerry Coyne, (in his video of the same name linked below) referred to "shared sililarities" quite a bit as "evidence" that one species evolved into another.

The shared similarities are the result of descent with modification and are evidence. Evolution is based on shared similarities of phenotype that results from shared similarity of genotype.

When does "similarity" mean relationship?

Similarity means relationship when the similarity is based on homology rather than analogy.

Since a phylogenetic tree is a hypothesis about evolutionary relationships, we want to use characters that are reliable indicators of common ancestry to build that tree. We use homologous characters — characters in different organisms that are similar because they were inherited from a common ancestor that also had that character. An example of homologous characters is the four limbs of tetrapods. Birds, bats, mice, and crocodiles all have four limbs. Sharks and bony fish do not. The ancestor of tetrapods evolved four limbs, and its descendents have inherited that feature — so the presence of four limbs is a homology.

Not all characters are homologies. For example, birds and bats both have wings, while mice and crocodiles do not. Does that mean that birds and bats are more closely related to one another than to mice and crocodiles? No. When we examine bird wings and bat wings closely, we see that there are some major differences.

Bat wings consist of flaps of skin stretched between the bones of the fingers and arm. Bird wings consist of feathers extending all along the arm. These structural dissimilarities suggest that bird wings and bat wings were not inherited from a common ancestor with wings. This idea is illustrated by the phylogeny below, which is based on a large number of other characters.

(thanks to MVP, UC Berkeley)

are many 'similar' creatures in the world who aren't related.

You are likely confused by analogous structures, but that is to expected when you know no biology.

Relationship is therefore "implied", not proven....but you would never know it.

No, it is not "implied," it is inferred from multiple sources. You might never know it since you are dedicated to disbelieving even in the face of definitive data, but that is a demonstration of your lack of knowledge, not of fact.

He referrs to the 'similarity' of ear bone structure as "evidence" that whales evolved from land animals. It's hard to watch a video like this without cringing.

Your cringe is based on your self-identified ignorance of the subject.

You see him constantly leading his audience, which I assume are students, by suggesting that evolution is fact, but repeating that creation is only for "dumb" people.

He teaches by presenting the data from which the multiple supporting inferences are drawn, as contrasted with your approach of ignorance, libel, clueless delusion and lies.

Perception management much?

That is your approach and I fear that you lack to ability to see that others have better ways.

It is also interesting to see that in his presentation Coyne admits that only 16% of Americans accept evolution. 40% believe that God created everything and 38% believed that God guided evolution.

So what? That's the logical fallacy of argument from popularity.

So how many evolutionists in the US actually accept evolution with no intelligent direction whatsoever? The stats do not indicate that there are many at all. So what percentage of the population in the US are scientists then? These figures are interesting to say the least.

The United States National Academy of Sciences is composed of about 2,000 members and 350 foreign associates of the , each of whom is affiliated with one of 31 disciplinary sections. Better than 95% of the members support Darwinian Evolution.

 

[Sapiens]

Beyond that, let's look at what mainstream religions have to say:

It is far from accepted

You would consider 95% of the most knowledgeable people on Earth to be "far from accepted?"

and Coyne suggests that Americans are basically "dumb". Not a nice assertion to make about his own nation.

According to wiki:

The vast majority of the scientific community and academia supports evolutionary theory as the only explanation that can fully account for observations in the fields of biology, paleontology, molecular biology, genetics, anthropology, and others.[19][20][21][22][23] One 1987 estimate found that "700 scientists ... (out of a total of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists) ... give credence to creation-science".[24] A 1991 Gallup poll found that about 5% of American scientists (including those with training outside biology) identified themselves as creationists.[25][26]

Additionally, the scientific community considers intelligent design, a neo-creationist offshoot, to be unscientific,[27] pseudoscience,[28][29] or junk science.[30][31]The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has stated that intelligent design "and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life" are not science because they cannot be tested by experiment, do not generate any predictions, and propose no new hypotheses of their own.[32] In September 2005, 38 Nobel laureates issued a statement saying "Intelligent design is fundamentally unscientific; it cannot be tested as scientific theory because its central conclusion is based on belief in the intervention of a supernatural agent."[33] In October 2005, a coalition representing more than 70,000 Australian scientists and science teachers issued a statement saying "intelligent design is not science" and calling on "all schools not to teach Intelligent Design (ID) as science, because it fails to qualify on every count as a scientific theory".[34]

In 1986, an amicus curiae brief, signed by 72 US Nobel Prize winners, 17 state academies of science and 7 other scientific societies, asked the US Supreme Court in Edwards v. Aguillard, to reject a Louisiana state law requiring the teaching of creationism (which the brief described as embodying religious dogma).[3] This was the largest collection of Nobel Prize winners to sign anything up to that point, providing the "clearest statement by scientists in support of evolution yet produced."[23]

There are many scientific and scholarly organizations from around the world that have issued statements in support of the theory of evolution.[35][36][37][38]The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's largest general scientific society with more than 130,000 members and over 262 affiliated societies and academies of science including over 10 million individuals, has made several statements and issued several press releases in support of evolution.[22] The prestigious United States National Academy of Sciences, which provides science advice to the nation, has published several books supporting evolution and criticising creationism and intelligent design.[39][40]

There is a notable difference between the opinion of scientists and that of the general public in the United States. A 2009 poll by Pew Research Center found that "Nearly all scientists (97%) say humans and other living things have evolved over time – 87% say evolution is due to natural processes, such as natural selection. The dominant position among scientists – that living things have evolved due to natural processes – is shared by only about a third (32%) of the public."[41]

Makes me wonder why they don't all desert that country full of "dumb" creationists?

Because we are of the opinion that the problem is not one of stupidity (which is life long) but rather of ignorance (which is curable, in most cases).

Not even close, except in the minds of those who want to believe it. What is a "genuine scientist" after all? Who wants to be relegated to the ranks of those disagree with "genuine scientists"?

People who are on the cutting edge of their fields, who are the most respected and praised often get there by effectively demonstrating with a plethora of evidence that their disagreement with other scientists is correct. The reason you fail in this endeavor is that you lack both the evidence and the skills to critically examine the evidence, so no one (save your fellow travelers) takes you seriously.

He is leading his audience again....but not with facts....only by asserting that you have to be brainless to accept ID and reject all the supposition put up by the likes of Jerry Coyne. He might be your idol, but he is certainly not mine.

Yes, he does present so much and such telling evidence that it easy to reach that conclusion, but the conclusion of brainlessness is an obvious conclusion, not an a priori condition as you are claiming.

There is nothing more than conjecture to back up anything he says.
"Branching" is not supported by real evidence. "Similarities" in structure prove nothing. "Divergence" cannot be seen except within a species as adaptation, only adding variety to a species. "Embryology" again points to similarities and suggestions, but nothing more substantial than assertion is presented as fact. This is pure deception. A con job....and you think we are easily fooled!

Yes, I suggest that you have already more than demonstrated how easily fooled you are.

It is clear to me that egos drive science, not truth or facts.

That seems to be your complaint concerning everything. But it is just another ad hominum that fails to actually couple the accusation of being ego driven to any real critique of the "fact" of evolution.

The power of suggestion, made by a good salesman (especially someone with celebrity status in academia) is worth its weight in gold....ask any advertising agency.

"Power of suggestion?" "Salesman?" "Celebrity?" More ad hominum attacks. You have not refuted a single data point that Jerry presented, all you've done is call him names. Is this really the best you can do?.....sorry, not impressed.

 

[Deeje]

@Jenny Collins. You can delete excess posts by clicking the delete button in the bottom left hand corner of your post, next to "Edit".

 

[Pudding]

She does the same thing with her denigration of people, she says nasty things about them without support save a form of circular non-reasoning. Witness:

I will have to think about it.

 

[Pudding]

I will suggest that calling people or their thinking/ideas/views dumb, silly, stupid, brainless, unintelligent, uneducated, deluded, fool or idiot, is not a good way to convince people to listen and understand what one wants to convince them about.

Group A and Group B insulting each other back and forward.

What is the meaning for them to insulting each other back and forward?

I admit i had done the same mistake which is calling a person's opinion to be uneducated, or insult some interpretation's of God/god which believe by a specific number of people, but i also admit i shouldn't have done that, it's rude for me to use discriminating words to insult them.

 

[Sapiens]

I will suggest that calling people or their thinking/ideas/views dumb, silly, stupid, brainless, unintelligent, uneducated, deluded, fool or idiot, is not a good way to convince people to listen and understand what one wants to convince them about.

Group A and Group B insulting each other back and forward.

What is the meaning for them to insulting each other back and forward?

I admit i had done the same mistake which is calling a person's opinion to be uneducated, or insult some interpretation's of God/god which believe by a specific number of people, but i also admit i shouldn't have done that, it's rude for me to use discriminating words to insult them.

This is kind of a special case. Deeje is self-described as "ignorant" and she has repeated stated that she is proud of her condition. It is hardly rude to describe a person in the way in which they state that they prefer to be styled, especially when it is so apropos to the discussion.

 

[Jose Fly]

I will suggest that calling people or their thinking/ideas/views dumb, silly, stupid, brainless, unintelligent, uneducated, deluded, fool or idiot, is not a good way to convince people to listen and understand what one wants to convince them about.

Let's be perfectly clear about what's going on here. We have in our midst a person (Deeje) who makes grand, sweeping accusations of wholesale dishonesty against scientists, even though she presents absolutely no evidence of such. When presented with scientific information that contradicts her talking points, she says she doesn't understand it......but rather than saying "I don't understand that so I can't comment on it", she has the nerve to accuse the authors of deliberately using technical jargon to cover up a lack of evidence. She refers to science as a "fraud factory", even though she's the one repeatedly posting fraudulent material. She makes ridiculous arguments and when questioned on them, she leaves the thread, waits a few days, then comes back and repeats them all over again as if nothing had ever been said.

So please don't paint this as some sort of equivalency, where it's nothing more than two equal sides being mean to each other. This is one person being habitually dishonest and accusatory, and the rest of us calling her on it.

What is the meaning for them to insulting each other back and forward?

First, don't assume that I'm attempting to persuade Deeje. I carry no illusions that such a thing is even possible. She has far too much of her personal life and emotional safety tied up in her religious beliefs to ever change them.

Second, her arguments, accusations, and copied material are so ridiculous that responding to them at face value grants them a legitimacy that they don't deserve. Simply put, I refer to them as "stupid" because they are stupid.....very stupid. It's as H.L. Mencken put it....

“The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous."​

 

[Derek500]

What's wrong with you people? You really don't see the difference between a simple mistake and "bold faced lies"?

I can actually. In this case it wasn't a simple mistake. Not when all it takes is a click of the button to discover that the whole thing was untrue and made up, yet the originator of this thread repeated the same untruths.

And what do you think this sort of irrational hyper-emotionality makes you look like?

Good, actually. I called a spade a spade. Some people can't distinguish between a garden spade and a kitchen fork, yet pretend that those are the same. I don't. An untruth is a untruth. No matter how much it's tried to be covered in word salads.