I am amazed by many opinions people have about science. The Theory of Evolution is an obvious example. I now take it as a given and look forward to new discoveries and new insights. I watched an “interview” of Richard Dawkins by Bill O’Reilly only recently. I add the quotes because it was… it was a confrontational challenge; fairly typical O’Reilly shtick (and whether you agree with that statement or not, you certainly must agree that O’Reilly is not exactly carrying a torch for any responsibility towards the burden of proof on his part).There is much information available about evolution. I have not read Dawkins' new book, but I might. I have read The Ancestor’s Tale and The God Delusion, I enjoyed them both, but especially The Ancestor’s Tale. I believe Dawkins to be a fairly bright guy.

I was reading an article about the disappearance of the polar ice caps. Climate change (anthropogenic climate change, i.e. caused by the activities of human beings – just so there is no misunderstanding) is also a topic of debate among some. I am hoping we can move that debate towards debating solutions, but I’m certain we’ll have to drag some laggards along. I found the comments at the end of the article by Doctor Martin Sommerkorn, senior climate change adviser for the World Wide Fund for Nature's international Arctic programme sobering. He’s probably a fairly bright guy.

I’m sure Bill O’Reilly is a fairly bright guy, as well. There is something to be said for our opinions having been shaped by the information we have received and how - or if - we have processed it; and by information I - of course - include experiences. And… hey, what about those folks skiing over the polar ice caps: Starting off from northern Canada, Hadow, Martin Hartley and Ann Daniels skied over the ice cap to measure the thickness of the remaining ice, assessing its density and the depth of overlying snow, as well as taking weather and sea temperature readings. Is that totally cool, or what?

to climate change is to buy a sweater. Since there's no evidence whatever that the globe is warming. Or that carbon dioxide would cause the globe to warm. Which it simply is not doing, nor has it been for over ten years. It is presently cooling. Just like it did before, and will again.

"Moving beyond debate" would mean accepting an obvious lie as the truth, and inflicting misery on millions in order to not solve a nonexistent problem.

So no thanks on the moving beyond debate idea. Good work on reading an article, though! Keep it up!

O'REILLY: I'm throwing in with Jesus rather than be thrown in with you guys, because you guys can't tell me how it all got here. You guys don't know.

RICHARD DAWKINS, AUTHOR, "THE GOD DELUSION": We're working on it. Physicists...

Comment: Splendid answer any time you have no answer. Hence, you never will then feel as though you are on the hook. And until then, stand firm in your beliefs, i.e. no evidence for God because we just need time to debunk or disprove any manifestation or “miracles” that may suggest it.

O'REILLY: When you get it, then maybe I'll listen.

DAWKINS: Well, if you look at the history of science over the centuries, the amount that's gained in knowledge each century is stupendous. In the beginning of the 21st century, we don't know everything.

Comment: Which proves what? Nothing. To suggestyou will uncover the mysteries of the origin of life and / or God, to suggest you will discover what happens after death simply because science has made such great strides lately is nonsensical if not arrogant. Certainly it is ill-advised to ignore God because you are waiting your entire life for science to validate it for you first.

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O'REILLY: Tell me where I'm going wrong here. I believe in creative design. I believe in evolution, but I think it was overseen by a higher power, because as we just stated and you acknowledged, you guys still haven't figured out how it all began.

RICHARD DAWKINS, AUTHOR, "THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH": There's a great deal that science hasn't worked out, and we don't know how it all began. But it's the most extraordinary piece of warped logic to say that because science can't answer a particular question, you're going to throw in your lot with Jesus. And there's no evidence that he did it either.

Comment: Dawkins is right in his first comment that it makes no sense to accept Jesus just because science does not have the answers. However, that has never been our reason to accept Jesus. His next comment “there’s no evidence that he did it either” is one that can easily be argued, IMO.

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O'REILLY: Now, am I 100 percent sure that Jesus is God? No. But I choose to believe that, because the man was so extraordinary in what he did in his 33 years on earth, still resonates to this day.

Comment: Spare us O’Reilly, your witness makes me very uncomfortable. You are not doing any of the truest believers any service by, one, not being certain which suggests none of us can be certain, and by, two, offering up some pathetic justification that his proof for divinity is the sum of 33 years of good living and fame that lasts to this day. No one who does not already believe is listening to that kind of argument. .

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O’REILLY: OK. And I understand that, but I don’t think that my belief system contradicts science. And I believe there is a higher power and, in my life, I can point to it. I see it. But what disturbs me about you guys — and I’m putting you into this category, perhaps unjustly — is that you seem to look down on believers.

DAWKINS: Well, there is a problem when you guys, if I could turn it back on you, try to say that, because you believe what you do, because of a holy book and because of the way you’ve been brought up, therefore that entitles you to go into science classes and tell teachers what they can or cannot teach. You may think that God oversaw evolution, and that’s a point of view that you could probably defend, but leave it out of the science class.

O’REILLY: It’s not fair to leave it out of the science class if the science class is incomplete. And you, by your own admission, say we don’t know how it all began. So if the science class is going to say evolution only, but I really don’t know how it started, that gap has got to be explored.

DAWKINS: You must see that it’s quite remarkable peace of illogic to say that because science cannot fill a particular gap, therefore we have to turn to Christianity.

Comment: This is where O’Reilly makes a total baboon of himself and again offers an enormous disservice to those who doubt evolution. O’Reilly is making an argument that “God created the animals” should be taught in a science class room. That is exactly what evolution proponents want to hear from doubters --- a totally asinine protest for equal time in a science class. Of course that will be rejected and ridiculed, plus it will convince (incorrectly) the ambivalent and ambiguous out there that the argument against evolution is preposterous because the demand for God in the classroom is preposterous.

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O'REILLY: No. That's — that's fascism. For you to say that you can't mention (God or creationism in the classroom)

DAWKINS: Fascism?

O'REILLY: Yes, for you to say you cannot, in a public school classroom, a science classroom, talk about brilliant men, and I know brilliant, smarter than you, who do believe in a higher power, who do believe that there was an overseer of the universe, and you insist you can't even mention it, that is fascism, sir.

DAWKINS: What you called fascism was my statement that, if science can't answer something, you should therefore turn Christianity.

Comment: O’Reilly is pompous or dim-witted on too many occasions --- which is what prompted me to respond to your post.

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As far as your apparent grave concern about humanity and its effect on global warming, I think Urquhart said it well. I can think of 20 various serious national or global problems that require immediate attention and greater funding long before global warming ever gets a seat at the table. Some of the things liberals (more often than conservatives) promote to the highest levels of the urgent prominence makes me sigh. But just about everything and everyone does that to me lately.

Pretty much where I come down as well. I don't get the conflict between science and religion, though some atheists and some devout insist that they are incompatible. Demosthenes, for a start, would not find them incompatible at all. God created the world, and science attempts to figure out how it works, is how I see it. And O'Reilly did make some goofy arguments that really weren't on point.

Comment: Spare us O’Reilly, your witness makes me very uncomfortable. You are not doing any of the truest believers any service by, one, not being certain which suggests none of us can be certain, and by, two, offering up some pathetic justification that his proof for divinity is the sum of 33 years of good living and fame that lasts to this day. No one who does not already believe is listening to that kind of argument.

Still, a lot of professed Christians aren't that sold on the divinity thing, but like to treat the life of Christ and the Bible as just really nice and instructive stories. This seems to be the sorry state of the Church of England lately. Which is presumably why they lose members.

Nice work. You have earned your daily PEACE PRIZE.

Urquhart:

Pretty much where I come down as well. I don't get the conflict between science and religion, though some atheists and some devout insist that they are incompatible. Demosthenes, for a start, would not find them incompatible at all. God created the world, and science attempts to figure out how it works, is how I see it. And O'Reilly did make some goofy arguments that really weren't on point.

Comment: Spare us O’Reilly, your witness makes me very uncomfortable. You are not doing any of the truest believers any service by, one, not being certain which suggests none of us can be certain, and by, two, offering up some pathetic justification that his proof for divinity is the sum of 33 years of good living and fame that lasts to this day. No one who does not already believe is listening to that kind of argument.

Still, a lot of professed Christians aren't that sold on the divinity thing, but like to treat the life of Christ and the Bible as just really nice and instructive stories. This seems to be the sorry state of the Church of England lately. Which is presumably why they lose members.

Admitted: Some of my favorite Christians even in my own Church are believers in evolution. So, fine, regardless of who is right and who is wrong, neither of us have committed a mortal sin. My argument has primarily and always been ---- “fine, have your evolution, just do not tell me with any logic or reason that no higher intelligence was necessarily involved in the process.” And I want nothing to do with the notion that one of our main arguments (as a believer in creationism) is that we want it discussed as an alternative in a science class. We don’t! That would become a red herring pursuit.

You are also correct that many believers, if not a majority, are not certain that Jesus Christ is definitely with no longer any question the Son of the one and only God. I knew I was not being totally honest when I made that statement (that we believers are all totally certain), but I am not in the lot of those who carry some uncertainty. The fact they pray and believe but yet hold strong doubts, I say that to their detriment. They, I am guessing, are mostly lukewarm Christians in their actions, witness, and prayer life as well, which suggests to me they don’t care strong enough to go further, but to just qualify under the bar. Very bad. I am quite certain all of the great saints had zero doubt about who would be waiting for them on the other side.

Urquhart:

to climate change is to buy a sweater. Since there's no evidence whatever that the globe is warming. Or that carbon dioxide would cause the globe to warm. Which it simply is not doing, nor has it been for over ten years. It is presently cooling. Just like it did before, and will again.

"Moving beyond debate" would mean accepting an obvious lie as the truth, and inflicting misery on millions in order to not solve a nonexistent problem.

So no thanks on the moving beyond debate idea. Good work on reading an article, though! Keep it up!

My pleasure U, you should try it sometime.

For total dopes that don't bother to check that, no the globe isn't actually warming. At all. Other than that, the concern is valid and important and requires drastic action. To ensure the globe continues to not warm.

However, there is a more local concern for residents of Virginia. If you live there, be warned that Al Gore is coming in to campaign for gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds. So stock up on groceries and essential items. Whenever Al comes to town, blizzards swirl in his train. It's a documented fact. Sciency.

they actually increased in size this past year

and we're on track to have "the worst winter in 100 years"

but who are you going to believe? global warming alarmists, or your own lying thermometer?

It is interesting. Writing is to speaking somewhat as reading is to listening. Anyway… this is an interesting article. Tonight I am going to revisit King Lear, I think.

Mostly because science get you the mechanics and generally in an undisputable way but it doesn’t always produce causation (which is a more philosophical pursuit anyway).

My beef with ID is that it’s essentially piss poor Thomistic/Anselmian logic and metaphysics without the work that goes into getting to the proper proofs and conclusions. It’s dumbed down regurgitated work and that makes it poor scholarship and poorer philosophy (and it doesn’t even come close to being science—or even a theory since it’s by definition not an analytic theory designed to be tested against an empirical set of observations and doesn’t subscribe to any of the tenets of the scientific method).

In short—it’s been done before and done better. But even Aquinas recognized we have proved the existence of a thing that we know nothing about—i.e., we can prove the primum mobile deductively and mathematically but it doesn’t tell us anything about the nature or qualities of that cause.

Which is why faith is always going to be a part of that piece of the puzzle. I mean, even if you reduce that leap of faith to three centimeters at some point it's still feet off the ground time. What most puzzles me is the notion that an infinite concept can be circumscribed by a finite mind so easily as to exclude other modalities completely. Seems awfully arrogant to me (and I’m no stranger to that).

How are you otherwise, Urq?

Hey there JV, aren't you holding science to a different standard than religion?

Science has to "prove" everything it says, and until then, you (and O'Reilly) will stick with religion, whose standard of proof is only faith. That seems a litle unfair.

Shouldn't science go head to head with religion using the same faith-based standard?

In this corner, religion: God created the world in seven days. He did this about four, no ten, thousand years ago. Man came pretty much as is, and woman came from man's rib. It all started with this guy named Adam, and then a whole lot of begatting. Dinosaurs? Well, um, well, say, I think we have a bad connection..... *crackle*

In the other corner, science: life on earth has been evolving for several million years, we are not quite sure exactly how it started, but we are looking into it, the records are a little spotty going back that far you see.

So, using the "faith" burden of proof, what makes the God thesis more convincing than the science one?

... is that it has all the markings of covering a retreat.

Christians clung to the creationist thing until long after that became a ridiculous stance. So they tried the modified creationist story in a few flavors, which bought them a couple more decades. When that failed, they came up with ID.

The only question I have about ID is what story will they fall back to when they are finally forced to abandon that?

that the article you very helpfully linked from DemocracyCorps.com about conservatives is not entirely favorable. Just at a guess. I'll be sure and hook you up with a helpful article from FreeRepublic.com about liberals. Which will be equally illuminating. I'll be sure and get right on that. Yup.

About the time I get my brain replaced by a cauliflower.

Agreed…

And it’s a good question, but I think you’re precisely on point on the differences of the burden of proof between scientific theories and matters of faith (which is why I like to remind people that even Aquinas stated that he had proved something we know nothing about. Yes, you get a first cause but no qualitative analysis of the properties of that unmoved mover. Which, of course, why God belongs in classrooms other than the science classroom.

And it is a retreating position (and a poorly crafted one at that) because… well… basically when you have creationist museums showing cavemen riding dinosaurs a scan few thousand years ago and pretend that legitimate scholarship looks like the Flinstones you kinda get what you deserve. (Do note the cave girl happily sitting beside the Allosaur.)

Now, if you’ll excuse me I need to put the bird’s beak down on the record so I can listen to some nice music.

you do realize that you are conflating two concepts when you mention global warming as a response to a mention of climate change. they are not the same issue.