This video is a couple years old, but it makes a worthy point for those of us who sometimes get weary of hearing how foolish and vile we are when we are accused of these things by people who don’t even know us.
Foolish and vile atheists
- Post author:Erich Vieth
- Post published:February 22, 2009
- Post category:Bigotry / Religion
- Post comments:183 Comments
Erich Vieth
Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.
Good points, Stacy – and thank you. You make an excellent point. I was never unhappy as a theist, believing dutifully in God growing up and as a young adult. I just never completely believed it. I tried, but questions were never answered satisfactorily. I *wanted* to be able to suspend my disbelief so that I could buy into it all, I felt guilty for not being able to do so. I tried. But it never, ever rang true for me, and the more I learned and grew and questioned, the more certain I was that organized religion was built upon varying and elaborate collections of myths. And I don't begrudge anyone their beliefs, contrary to what some would suggest. I am working on a post about this, based on the weekend I am spending right now.
Critical thinking, ah yes.
Here is how I understand it to work.
People establish their languages and values based upon the cognitive linkages they have associated with the pleasant and also the unpleasant aspects of the things they have experienced in life.
These premises combine together into logical frameworks that either reinforce one another, or which can sometimes call for a need to revamp the truth value that one originally assigned to one's original premises.
When one develops sufficient cognitive dissonance over the use of deductive logic in relation to ones assumed premises, one is often said to be overwhelmed by the need to change something about the truth value of the originally induced premises. This is how to convince someone that what they once believed included assumptions that were untenable.
For example, Some people still believe the historic records of what was written in the Bible and will not permit anyone to alter the basis that they believe these historic writings are accurate.
Others will believe there exists an alternative "undocumented" historical account that has been derived to be more reliable because of the formulation of intricate nested loops (supported by scientific assertions) by those who really were biased in their intent to build an alternative account.
Science did not discover these "facts," they were inferred from observations that were purposely interpreted to build evidence against recorded historical documents. Now that the science is "crafted," peer review and the like prevents any other attempts to validate any perspective other than the one which assumes the earliest Biblical recorded histories are anything more than myths.
The problem then comes when different premises are pitted against each other. Which premises are more credible? Who was/is more reliable in stating how they determined the premises from which they reason?
One set of premises contains a trusted historical record verified by generations of readers, the other is an inferred "scientific" construct that can not be fully proven experimentally. The scientific perspective however contains logical accounting using interpreted evidences. Those interpreted evidences have been shown repeatedly to be based upon the desired truth of the premises, and alternate interpretations are indeed also reasonable.
Critical thinking doesn't just consider alternatives because one doesn't like the personal ramifications of what the existing premises mean, it considers the ongoing give and take of the interaction of deductive reasoning upon the truth value one assigns to the original premises, as well as any alternative premises to see which is building more logical thought processes, or which one creates ongoing and undeniable cognitive dissonance.
Here is the kicker for me, if one set of premises is offered in direct opposition to an existing set of premises, the matter has now become a dualistic interpretation of the evidences of life's observations and when does one have the right to throw out historical writings of others because you want to believe something else?
At these levels it then becomes imperative for the individual to place faith in one set of premises and presuppositions which I call faith and of a religious nature. Those who think they are not being religious call it an intellectual matter and try to say they are "stoic," but really their bias is clearly seen for what it is by those who willing will admit their own bias.
Every person approaches language and ideas from a very biased perspective that contains many different asserted values associated with statements that are essentially differing levels of belief concerning dualistic connotations directly related to experience.
For example, for several years, now we have a controversy over trends of global warming/global cooling. Several years ago we had what many stated was a trend of unceasing global warming that was directly related to human activities. Sure has been a rather cool month on June this year.
After enough experience we come to understand that these are all differing levels of sensory observation related to the concept of the average kinetic energy of the particles and the direction of heat flow that seeks to prevent a large build up of heat in anyone place by spreading it to places without as much kinetic energy in the particles in those places.
Do we look at short term observations, moderately long term observations or extremely long term observations?
I happen to believe there has been gradual long term global warming with cyclical short terms cycles of both warming and cooling going on ever since the end of the Global flood which left about half of the earth as a frozen ice ball. Man is a slight factor, but there are other factors that are much more significant than man's piece of the puzzle.
This works for me because I can manage to look at evidences from more than one perspective and not feel obliged to rule out recorded historical documents as distortions upon the truth.
Those however whose sole purpose is to create an alternative explanation for everything about life that shows the flaws in the Biblical recorded facts reveal their bias by what they refuse to reconsider.
Refusal to reconsider scientifically inferred beliefs is a sure sign of non-critical thinking.
I knew it…Karl is a post-modern deconstructionist christian. If everything is essentially a "narrative" no one explanation has any more (or less) credibility than any other because as narratives all explanations spring from innate biases that are (a) language based and (b) culturally reified myth testaments. Ergo, they all have equal value and it remains only to select among them for reasons other than external (objective) validity, as there can be no such thing. That which resonates most strongly with inherent predispositions become the active meme in a moral structure that, while not necessarily providing accurate pictures of historical and/or natural processes, offer communal continuity that supports ethical behaviors and offers base-line recognition among members, which is far more reliable than the admittedly distanced architecture of comparative deductive conclusions because it gives us a common narrative by which to measure real-time behavior as moral syncresis.
I see…
"Refusal to reconsider scientifically inferred beliefs is a sure sign of non-critical thinking."
And I expect that a similar refusal to reconsider beliefs based on comforting cultural memes (beliefs which are, more often than not, entirely dependent on the culture in which a belief holder is raised) is the epitome of Vulcan logic, the ultimate in honest, objective introspection and the surest path to distinguishing fact from fiction.
'Scientifically inferred beliefs' (what a very quaint term) are based on observations, testable, repeatable and falsifiable evidence and are completely conditional. If new evidence or observations come along which contradict current beliefs, those beliefs MUST be at least reconsidered (if not discarded entirely) if the holder of those beliefs can claim in any way to be a critical thinker (fossil rabbits in the pre-Cambrian!). The same can not be said for any beliefs based on nothing but persistent cultural memes or mythology. I held such beliefs. When new evidence convincingly contradicted them, I discarded them. I still re-evaluate my beliefs on a near-constant basis, weighing them against all the relevant input that I receive.
Unfortunately, despite its length, tone and use of polysyllables, Karl's post is the same tired apologetics, this time dressed in the emperor's new clothes of a postmodernist "anything is as true as anything else and you can't prove otherwise" false equivalency. My belief, for example, that Christian apologists can bring no new argument to the table that will make me seriously reconsider their claims of Divine truth, is based on observations of and discussions with many, many people of that stripe. So far, none have presented anything compelling or original so my belief stands … conditionally.
"Those however whose sole purpose is to create an alternative explanation for everything about life that shows the flaws in the Biblical recorded facts reveal their bias by what they refuse to reconsider."
And now the true colours are finally shown: we're just out to discredit the freakin Bible with all our strident, militant insistence on things like "facts" or "evidence", not to pursue and put forth explanations which make sense, can be repeated and rely on no myths, leaps of faith, cognitive dissonance or other similar mental gymnastics. How dare we cranky old curmudgeons be so disrespectful to make our "sole purpose" to give lie to the Bible's accounts and rain on every Christian's parade! Well, not every Christian, it really must be said – just the ones who confidently assert that it's a collection of facts in the same way an atlas is a collection of locations.
It is in fact the Bible alone which has shown itself to be an error-riddled alternative explanation for "everything". The Bible itself, with its contradictions and inaccuracies, has given lie to its own accounts of history. If someone wishes to use the Bible as their spiritual or moral guide, there is no serious objection I will make to that. However, if people wish to hold up the Bible as a factual account of events, from Genesis onward or only using the New Testament (or bits of it), then it must be put to the same scrutiny as other books which purport to do the same thing. In this, the Bible fails, or is at best so vague as to fall into the category of useless.
It's not us militant in-your-face atheists that are out to prove the Bible wrong; we believe its falsity should be self-evident (to anyone who reads it objectively) and as such it is nothing approaching a reliable record of science or history (though as a study of ancient culture it's fascinating). Our opposition is not to people believing the Bible, it's to people using the Bible as a textbook or to presenting Biblical accounts as factual. To a lesser extent, it's to arguments which basically say "your science-based beliefs are just as flimsy and unsupported and subjective and culturally dependent as my religious beliefs, except my religious beliefs ARE actually better than yours because they've been around a long time and lots of people share them. And you're going to hell."
Karl, here's a tip: in order to avoid looking silly you should know what you're writing about before you spend 21 paragraphs writing about it.
Critical thinking is about how to analyze and judge competing claims, premises, and evidence. It is not about how to construct a specious "argument" to support something you happen to believe in.
"Others will believe there exists an alternative 'undocumented' historical account that has been derived to be more reliable because of the formulation of intricate nested loops (supported by scientific assertions) by those who really were biased in their intent to build an alternative account."
Karl, who were these people who set out "biased in their intent to build an alternative account"?
"Science did not discover these 'facts,' they were inferred from observations that were purposely interpreted to build evidence against recorded historical documents."
Really, Karl? And what do you base that statement on?
Do you accept the findings of archaeologists and historians who tell us the difference between Homeric Troy and what has been determined to be true about the real Troy? Because the same methods have been applied to biblical accounts of "historical" events. How do you feel about the methods of text criticism that tell us that the writers of the Iliad and the Odyssey were probably working from the same "school" (style)–and the same person may indeed have written both–but the "Homeric Hymns" were clearly written by others? Because the exact same methods are used to analyze the authorship and the redaction of the bible.
"…Now that the science is 'crafted,' peer review and the like prevents any other attempts to validate any perspective other than the one which assumes the earliest Biblical recorded histories are anything more than myths."
Oh, I see. All the scientists (in all the different scientific disciplines, in all the world), (and all the historians, folklorists, text critics, and scholars of comparative mythology) are conspiring together to deny the "Biblical recorded facts".
And all this modern stuff about cosmology (the bible sez the universe is geocentric, Karl), biology, paleontology–they're all part of the conspiracy, too?
–And all of it was patched together for the express purpose of denying "Biblical history".
Ah. I see.
And do you trust the experts in all those disparate fields when they're talking about anything other than the epistemological status of your sacred document, Karl?
"The problem then comes when different premises are pitted against each other. Which premises are more credible? Who was/is more reliable in stating how they determined the premises from which they reason?"
Um, once again, this is where critical thinking comes in. I highly recommend you look it up. Really.
"One set of premises contains a trusted historical record verified by generations of readers, the other is an inferred “scientific” construct that can not be fully proven experimentally."
How exactly did those generations of readers "verify" that "trusted historical record"? By believing in it? How does that qualify as verification?
What does experimental proof have to do with ancient history? How would one conduct such an experiment?
"Those interpreted evidences [the bad, anti-bible ones] have been shown repeatedly to be based upon the desired truth of the premises, and alternate interpretations are indeed also reasonable."
Which is based on the desired truth of the premises: the evidence, or the interpretation?
"Shown repeatedly"–by whom, Karl?
Who thinks those "alternate interpretations are indeed also reasonable"?
(If the answer to that last question is "Only my fellow conservative Christians", that ought to suggest to you that you're bearing the standard of a mighty unconvincing argument.)
Thanks, Mindy–I'm looking forward to your post!
Mark–I see tenure in your future, if you ever want it. 😉
Great response Stacy.
Once again, Karl's apologetics raise questions that can only really be answered with still more apologetics (unless he's prepared to employ critical thinking, once he learns what it REALLY means as opposed to the distorted definition that confirms his own views … doesn't that sound familiar? Hmmm … ). The false equivalency he attempts to introduce between science/critical thinking and religious belief speaks volumes about the intellectual bankruptcy of his central thesis, not to mention his own biases: "critical thinking is really just an attempt to find information that confirms one's own biases, just like my religion is, except my religion is right and critical thinking isn't". I don't buy that and neither should anyone else. I'll wager that Karl probably doesn't buy it either and this false equivalency is a rhetorical ploy; an attempt to put religion and science on a level playing field when no such thing is warranted. It's transparent and vapid. Two opposing or contradictory views are not necessarily equally valid and that's why we have peer review, courts of law, red-light cameras and slow-motion replays – to counter innate human biases and attempt to provide objective evidence!
And I've shown that once again, here I am wading back in when I said I wouldn't. Clearly my belief that some people simply are no longer worth responding needs to be reconsidered, based on this new evidence.
Hank points out: "My belief, for example, that Christian apologists can bring no new argument to the table that will make me seriously reconsider their claims of Divine truth, is based on observations of and discussions with many, many people of that stripe. So far, none have presented anything compelling or original so my belief stands … conditionally."
Yes. Exactly. And when I said, much earlier, that I was certain I would never become a (Christian) believer because I've BTDT, this is a much more eloquent version of what I meant. If I were shown evidence so compelling as to convince me that all the pesky facts and evidence I've seen convincing me otherwise were wrong, or could be explained differently, I am open to reconsidering. I just can't see it happening – but that doesn't mean I am dug in where I could never dig out.
"Beliefs" and "evidence," as far as I have learned, are far from the same thing.
Stacy, thank you so much for taking the time to define critical thinking and ask questions here – I just don't have it left in me to do so!!
I am working on putting down my thoughts of this weekend, but it may take a few days to form them into coherence. . .
If anyone thinks I'm afraid of looking silly then you just don't realize the nature of critical thinking from any perspective, other than your own bias confirmation tool.
I can bear to consider the extent to which catastrophism needs to be written back into descriptions of the geological strata, but there are untold numbers of geologists who will not consider if anything millions of years apart could ever be linked together, because of the deep time they have super-imposed even upon events that could have been witnessed in the real recorded history of the earth.
There are so many that refuse to consider that there is any credible evidence for a world wide flood because that was the intention of both Hutton and Lyell, to establish a whole new line of geo-history that removed the need to consider what could have happened during this Global Flood.
Their intention was to superimpose deep time upon even the Biblical account of the flood to discredit the Biblical flood account in its entirety. By the crafting of an alternative geological and historical model that could be scientifically supported by specific interpretations of evidences by plausible naturalistic theories, there would be no need to refute anything else in the Bible.
Like other Deists of the enlightenment period, Hutton's desire was to establish "reason" above the personal nature of existing forms of knowledge by impressing the impersonal nature of any God that might actually exist even above the very plain meaning of the Bible. This was done to make any person's knowledge concerning the naturalistic world seem potentially reasonable, by keeping at arms length anything in a scientific sense that might not be totally naturalistic and materialistic.
Without any clear descriptions and explanations for what actually happened to change the earth at the time of the global flood, uniformitarianism was the safer scientific routes to take. This is because although deep time couldn't be proven by science directly, it was not as supernatural sounding as cascading interlinked catastrophic events all condensed into a matter of months with the bulk of the resulting changes mostly resolved in a few years.
Deep time's as applied to geologic and earth's natural history can only be falsified, is if its assumed unrelated ages are some how actually linked by real evidence for cascading catastrophic events. This is why they claim there is absolutely "no evidence" for a global flood because it has all the evidence haws been interpreted away into millennia of separated ages that will never be in any way acknowledged or linked.
Anything that tries to bridge the gaps down to even the same million year period is held as suspect because of the implications of what that might mean to the entire concept of deep time.
When repeated changes must be made to models to make/keep them scientifically credible, one might start to question where the changed model will eventually end up?
People cringe when others suggest that evolution as a theory has a few dents in its armor and that it should cry that it should continue be taught from a non-critical perspective because it is only scientifically reasonable way of approaching life on earth and the history of the earth.
I have discussed the manner by which the historical contents of the Bible were recorded and verified by the best scientists (such as they were) of their day. Unfortunately there was precious little in credible peer reviewed journals by "qualified" geologists concerning the pre and post flood world. Whoever put Noah's journal or diary into print obviously didn't think there was a need to describe the extent of the huge changes to the earth that occurred during the flood.
But the writers weren't ignorant of the fact that it happened. This is where I draw the line on critical thinking. Call me stubborn, call me biased about my own bias, call me "silly old Karl." I'll gladly live with the label as I can live with the "post-modern deconstructionist Christian" that Mark has for me.
If they don't apply to me as far as I'm concerned, I don't let labels get to me.
If that's what Mark thinks, he has a right to think it despite what I might think. Any one can also accuse me of not understanding critical thinking skills and methodology, same result.
I try to understand when and why I'm being biased in my thinking process, that is the only way for anyone to truly "know they self" as Socrates would put it.
Karl, your bias is profound. You have decided that there was a Great Flood in the Biblical sense. You bend the history of geology as well as geological history around into five-dimensional pretzels in order to find a way to accommodate this view with something that resembles science, without once seeming to concede that just maybe the chroniclers of the Great Flood were describing nothing more than a local or regional event.
We have conceded here the possibility—even the probability—of flood events that could have been seen as the source of the Great Flood stories. Our biases notwithstanding, we have often shown considerable tolerance in accommodating Biblical accounts insofar as they were based on something real.
Just not what the Bible says they were.
No more would I accredit the Bible as proving the occurrence of a global flood (or any number of other events) than I would credit the Epic of Gilgamesh with substantiating the existence of firebreathing monsters or immortality. That is not to say that I would not use the Epic as a referent in the actual history of ancient Sumer.
You have a bias toward miracle. Miracle must be there. Ergo, anything that says it was something else is not so much wrong as it is "merely" an indicator that we have biases in a different direction. And since bias subverts objectivity, our reality becomes as conditional as anyone else's and therefore insufficient to discredit your claims.
Well, shit. Life's a bitch and doesn't care.
You have the cart before the horse here. Lyell and company didn't really want to disprove the Bible—they were forced to their conclusions by evidence. And given the period in which they worked, it took a bit of courage to speak truth to power.
But your bias paints them as early purveyors of a secular plot to rid us of religion.
There is a point at which this becomes ridiculous.
But I will say this, Karl—I'll never accuse you of being afraid to look foolish.
If anyone has noticed that I've stayed out of this thread, please be assured that I am paying attention.
My primary reluctance was uncertainty as to which side is the windmill, and which the Spaniard.
However, it now seems that Karl is tilting at the sturdy windmill of solidly established knowledge.
Yes, exactly. It can be proven false in any of a myriad ways. And no piece of evidence or consistent theoretical model has ever been presented that came close to doing that. Deep time was not an idea that someone invented and then went to look for evidence. It was a hard won conclusion from millions of observations in dozens of fields of study, gradually forcing the understanding of the age of the Earth up from the totally accepted Biblical time-line to the present accepted age over the last couple of centuries.
Also, Karl claims:
He is apparently unaware of the asymptotic and recursive nature of most theory shifts in the last 400 years. Scientific theories do change whenever new evidence becomes readable. But most of these changes are significantly smaller than any previous change.
For example: That we are still modifying the theory of the formation and behavior of our planetary system, and are well aware that this will probably be changed again, casts no doubt on the original theory that the Sun is its center as per Copernicus, or that the orbits are conic sections defined by Newton, or that planets precess as per Einstein, or that the Sun's heat comes from fusion, or…
But none of this has to do with whether one believes in a particular Creator; it is merely the accurate study of the creation. Of course, as mystery recedes, so does the need for a Creator meme to explain anything.
There is something everyone should understand about historical records. They are ofted inaccurate for many reasons.
First historical accounts always show the bias of the writer. What we call terrorists are hailed as heroes by their supporters. Stories of ancient Teutonic tribal huntaers wearing wolf skins and imitating the hunting methods of a wolf pack become the basis for the tales of the Beserkes and werewolve over time. The reports of the total destruction of two Roman conlonies by the pyroclastic eruption of a volcano become combined with ancient tales of the burning of two cities as holy retribution.
Often historical events become exaggerated over time, especially if passed down in oral tradition. George Washington could not have posibbly thrown a dollar coin across the Potomac River. It is also obvious that Beowulf, if he really existed, did not spend several days swimming to shore in the icy nordic waters in full armor and carrying his sword, during a storm.
A large part of archeology involves separating the truth from the legend, like the ultimate cold case investigation.
On occasion in such endeavors, the archeological assessment is wrong, but when more data becomes available, the incorrect assessment is corrected.
On example is the case of the "Banner Stones" found at various sites in the southeast USA. These are sculpted stones, about two or three ounce in weight, with a conical hole drilled through them. many were quite ornate and usually had wing like extensions on opposite sides.
When they were first discovered, archeologists could not determine their purpose and assumed they were some ornamental or religious artifact. Several years later, that found a cave drawing that depicted a bannerstone in use. It was part of an ancient weapon called an atlatl.
The point is that science allows critical reassessment that religion does not.
Sigh.
Hell, forget "post-modernist de-con Xtian" or any other intellectual-sounding handle, this Karl cat's just a garden variety flood-believing young-earth creationist conservative Christian with an vocab expansion pack and a pretty standard case of "I've got it but so do you – but yours is worse" confirmation bias.
Yawn.
Stacy asked –
'Karl, who were these people who set out “biased in their intent to build an alternative account”?'
Thought this posted yesterday, but didn't see it.
Here is the basis of Hutton's work and the link between Hutton and Lyell.
http://www.allaboutcreation.org/theory-of-the-ear…
So why did Lyell perhaps even twist the evidences to favor long periods of time while simultaneously ignoring the evidences that suggested these formations were produced rapidly? The answer becomes apparent when one reads his private letters, later published by his sister: "..I had conceived the idea, about five or six years ago, that if ever the Mosaic chronology could be set down without giving offense, it would be in an historical sketch …"
(K.M. Lyell, Life, Letters, and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell, John Murray, London, 1881, vol. 1, p. 253)
This writing specifically stated his goals and intentions: To debunk the writings of Moses (the bible, Genesis) indirectly, that is, cause people to question the bible, rather than directly attack it. He would do this using an "historical sketch", that is, he would make up his own history.
Arguably, this has been the single most powerful weapon ever launched against the recorded histories found in the Bible.
When ever a modern scientist looks for rationale to ignore the Global Flood of Biblical proportions, they need look no further than Lyell's alternative geological history, nearly all of which was and remains speculations from either assumed or interpreted evidence.
Dan states –
"And no piece of evidence or consistent theoretical model has ever been presented that came close to doing that."
This is of course a matter of confirmational bias as well. Some people see evidence all around that disputes your claim Dann.
Potential "real evidence" as Dann would call it that has been found concerning out of place fossils is consistently down played as insignificant or "planted evidence" or simply "mis-interpreted" evidence. Let the experts have a chance to write a few peer reviewed articles and presto chango – the emperor has new clothes again that are no worse for the ruckus.
Even the finding of non fossilized organic material that appears to have been trapped inside of 50 million year old bones are seen as a pesky little problem that can be handled given enough time and "scholarly articles" debunking what the direct evidence would indicate.
Potential weaknesses in the theory of evolution or the geologic record are seldom openly discussed except by the "heretics" who certainly are less than scientific in their approach to these matters.
A part of the "biblical flood as proof of the veracity of the bible" makes several assumption about historical context.There is geological evidence that near the end of the last ice age a flood occured in the Jordan valley as the result of the collapse of a glacial ice dam that held back a glacial lake. The subsequent draining of the lake would have seemed all-incompassing to the people in the area at the time, and would have covered most of their lands. Passed down through oral tradition, tales of this flood would have been embellished to include all their world (they had no concept of planet, just of the lands known to them), and to surviving witnesses of such catastrophes, they probably thought they were seeing the end of the world.
By the time the story had found its way into written form, it was undoubtedly set within the framework of the current religion.
Karl,
It would perhaps help your case if you did not crib from people who have shit for brains.
http://www.earthage.org/youngearthev/niagara_fall…
Karl,
I will continue to research this. I do not have a copy of the Letters and Journals of Lyell, but when you go to google books or amazon books you can call up the pages. The letter referred to by your post and the post in Mr. Juby's blog post from whom you evidently lifted the quote indicates page 253. No such quote can be found on page 253. So either Mr. Juby got the wrong page or…
In any event, the quote refers to an idea Lyell came up with "six or so years before" the date of the letter. All the letters on those pages in the book referred to are from the 1860s. Lyell did his groundbreaking work in the 1830s. So I must assume that if your point is that he envisioned his plan to discredit the Bible first and then found evidence with which to do, then you're wrong. Thirty years wrong.
Besides, any sincere study of Lyell's life would show that the man was a tormented christian. He didn't like what his research suggested, and he never fully reconciled himself to Darwin.
This is the kind of cherry picking that drives me nuts. That quote was pulled out of context by someone who has a plainly stated agenda of discrediting science with regards to geology and evolution and then that quote is apparently lifted by you without checking. I've looked in two online copies of those letters and cannot find the quote. I have just checked to see if our local library has a copy of the book, perchance it is to be found in a later reprint, but they don't have it, so if anyone out there can lay hands on it, please verify this for us.
Since the online books are copied from the original printing, one can assume later editions might have different paginations—in which case, Mr. Juby should have stated which edition he was using.
But for the moment I can only assume that this is a fine example of the kind of sloppy bullshit argumentation people with—wait for it!—strong confirmation biases use without question.
Pending confirmation, as far as I'm concerned, your credibility is shot.
Well, I'm satisfied. If you go to Amazon and look up the titles of the Life, Letters, and Journals of Charles Lyell, you will find that on Vol. 1 and Vol 2 it will allow you to LOOK INSIDE. You can punch in page numbers and phrases. I did both. Both the page numbers, in volumes one AND two produced nothing matching that quote. So I copied and pasted the quote. Zero match in either volume.
Short of reading the entire thing, I am satisfied for the moment that not only did Mr. Juby list the wrong page, he probably listed the wrong book, and maybe…
We won't go there. Now, I suppose that Amazon could be part of the great scientific establishment conspiracy to suppress the Truth As Karl Sees It, but that's a bit of a stretch.
Still, pending further evidence…
I dunno Mark.
Biology, geology, palaeontology, archaeology & anthropology; philosophy, logic & mathematics and physics, astronomy & cosmology (not to mention most of the internets) are already deeply involved in the conspiracy to thwart TAKSI (Truth As Karl Sees It), so why not that monolithic purveyor of all knowledge, Amazon? After all, someone has to balance out the "Whine, Votebot & Shutdown" power the creationists have at Youtube.
Karl brings up the soft organic tissue recently found in some dinosaur fossils. It turned out to be microorganism colony tissue. The DNA is of modern non-multi-cellular organisms. Such colonies are common in voids found in semi-pervious rock.
Different biases applied to newly discovered goo in a fossil:
Young Earth: They have found soft tissue in a fossil! It must be fresh dinosaur ooze. Therefore it is proof the the fossil cannot be old. P-r-o-o-f! Spread the word, fast.
Rational: What is it?
Competing labs run tests, everyone waits while speculating in non-official, casual channels.
Eventual multiple results: It is modern colony organisms. Therefore no conflict with all the other measures of the age of the fossil.
We have a distinct bias: To wait for evidence before claiming truth.
Interesting facts:
Mary Schweitzer, the paleontologist who found the T. rex fossil that appears to retain some soft tissue, is an evangelical Christian. And according to smithsonianmag.com, "when creationists misrepresent Schweitzer’s data, she takes it personally: she describes herself as 'a complete and total Christian.'"
And Tom Kaye, who did the study that suggests that the dino soft tissue is really just bacterial slime deposits, thinks the jury is still out:
"'There will be arguments,' said Kaye. 'And I hope to be proved wrong.'" http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/07/preserv…
How 'bout that. A Christian paleontologist who isn't a young-Earther. And another scientist who presented his findings, yet still hopes to be proved wrong [because the possibility that soft tissue was somehow preserved and that we therefore have some dino tissue is such an exciting one].
Karl, tell us again about how everybody just points to evidence that confirms what they already want to believe.
Mark,
Here is a link to a google books copy, page 271, for the quote in Lyell's own words.
http://books.google.com/books?id=XMQQAAAAIAAJ&…
It matters some but not a great deal to me when Lyell wrote the actual letter. It nonetheless reveals the mind set he had for his approach to the model he had been developing and which in later years he proposed as the geological foundation for both conjecturing and re-interpreting all manner of earth's features and processes.
His most obvious flaw comes whenever one tries to imagine catastrophic events of such magnitude as never witnessed in his time frame. Sure he could imagine steady state on going processes, but he couldn't explain how catastrophic events in real time could really be linked in ways beyond his imagination.
In such cases the present could never be the entire key to the past, until an event of never before imagined magnitude has been witnessed. When Mt Saint Helens was studied in real time in our modern era, the stuff Lyell would have claimed took very long time frames to process only took days and months.
How under the sun can anyone fully imagine all of the ramifications of a planet being hit by an impact as happened at Chicxulub?
Why can't people just admit that the work had a basic bias and that Lyell's work wasn't somehow raised to some higher plane of objectivity just because He chose to search for an alternative geologic history grounded upon his desire to tear down existing confidence in the Mosaic recorded history of early man?
Lyell states himself that one of his main thrusts was to establish disbelieved the idea of a global flood by the use of uniformitarian principles.
If the evidences used by Lyell really have only one valid interpretative sense, he has in essence constructed his own alternative history even more removed from first hand witnesses than Mosaic recorded history.
I'm sorry, I'll still go with the human eye witnesses who of course saw and experienced something that was catastrophic and colossal with major earth changes.