Richard Dawkins wants to reach out to the Muslim world. The question is: how will he do it?While copies of his books like The God Delusion and The Greatest Show on Earth (the former about atheism and the latter about evolution) routinely come off book store shelves in the western world, Richard Dawkins acknowledges that there is one place where his books don't sell nearl as well:The Muslim world.“To be a bestseller in a Muslim country would be a personal triumph,” he muses.“I would like to see my books translated into Arabic," Dawkins insists. "They haven’t been. They are all translated into Hebrew. Persian, I’m not sure. My books are translated into Turkish and they regularly get censored and suppressed.“The experience of my Turkish publisher of The God Delusion was that he...
Comfort, Cameron, Stein and critics all indulging in revisionist historyAs Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort continue their campaign to distribute copies of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species with a specially-written introduction, many of those who are concerned about their campaign are still struggling to formulate a fitting response.Randy Olson seems to have predicted that particular response.Well, maybe predict isn't the right word. As Olson notes, the response to the kind of ideas proposed in Comfort's introduction -- blaming Darwin's theory for the Holocaust and for the Eugenics program carried out by Nazi Germany -- has been seen before.It was seen throughout 2008, as critics vented their spleen at Ben Stein's Expelled."Both Stein and Cameron invoke the dishonest and inaccurate...
Darwin, from the Creationists ought to be countered with Jesus, from the DarwinistsKirk Cameron and Ray Comfort did the intellectual discourse surrounding religion a few -- but not many -- favours when they took Brian Sapient and Kelly O'Connor from the Rational Response Squad and spanked them on national TV.The debate, in which both sides exchanged some silly arguments over the question of whether or not God exists -- an insipid topic for a formal debate -- revealed Sapient and O'Connor for the vapid, pretentious and self-righteous thinkers that they are, and spoke droves about those who have chosen to fall into lock-step behind them in their so-called "Rational Response Squad".Now Cameron and Comfort are replicating the feat -- this time by embarking upon an endeavour that reveals...
Someone please alert ZorpheousSome may recall the witch hunt that ensued even after Canadian Minister of State for Science Gary Goodyear affirmed his belief in evolution.Various ridiculous excuses have been offered for the continuing witch hunt well after such hysteria may have been warranted. Some attempted to argue that because Goodyear spoke about adaptation he wasn't talking about evolution -- some of those individuals ahve been forced to eat their words after admitting that not only is adaptation central to the process of evolution, but that the specific examples cited by Goodyear fit squarely within that context.Another, particularly insipid, argument is that Goodyear merely accepts adaptation but not the common ancestry of species. This argument basically amounts to the argument...
Gary Goodyear, Canada's federal minister for science and technology, was recently accosted by a Globe and Mail reporter and questioned about his religious beliefs. To be exact, the reporter wanted to know whether Goodyear believed in creationism or evolution. When the minister declined to answer such a silly and ridiculous questions, on account of being just that, silly and ridiculous, the newspaper and several leftist bloggers started a hate campaign designed to ridicule Goodyear and what they perceive to be his religious beliefs. Since the start of this latest anti-Christian witch hunt, Goodyear has taken pains to explain himself to......
Evolutionary theory being bastardized in the name of manufactured scandalA controversy was recently sparked when federal Science Minister of State Gary Goodyear recently refused to answer a question about whether or not he believed in evolution."I'm not going to answer that question. I am a Christian, and I don't think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate," Goodyear explained."I do believe that just because you can't see it under a microscope doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It could mean we don't have a powerful enough microscope yet. So I'm not fussy on this business that we already know everything. I think we need to recognize that we don't know," Goodyear later added -- a comment that some individuals have jumped upon as apparent proof that Goodyear believes in...
Vatican concerns that science is for everyone, not just atheistsWhen someone who uses science and rationality as the backbone of his cause is found to be far more out of touch with science and rationalism than his allegedly irrational and superstitious opposition, one simply knows that individual is in trouble.This is the dilemma that crusading Atheist Richard Dawkins finds himself in recently, as the Catholic Church, of all places, has cast some serious doubt on some of the conclusions Dawkins has reached and the obvious absence of the scientific method therein.Richard Dawkins has been known to insist that the theory of evolution decisively proves that "God almost certainly does not exist".At a five-day conference commemorating the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of the Species,...
Dawkins should trounce Ray Comfort and get paid for itMost of thsoe truly rational-minded people who've paid any passing amount of attention to Richard Dawkins have long realized that he isn't good for much of anything.Once upon a time Dawkins was an educator. However, since retiring from Oxford Dawkins has dedicated himself to single-mindedly promoting atheism. Which would make him about as useful as Canadian Cynic on Valentine's Day.However, some use for Dawkins may have just come up.Eager to test the arguments from his most recent book, You Can Lead An Atheist to Evidence But You Can't Make Him Think, Ray Comfort has offered Dawkins $10,000 to participate in a debate.Comfort's intentions are very simple -- he wants to convert Dawkins."Richard Dawkins is arguably the most famous living...
Expelled controversial, mostly benign and -- unsurprisingly -- a targetTo a certain extent, there's a degree of silliness enrapt in the Evolution/Intelligent Design debate that lies at the heart of Expelled.Proponents of the theory of Evolution insist they can't be bothered to share academic space and time with proponents of Intelligent Design because it reeks too much of creationism. Meanwhile, those studying Intelligent Design -- who are applying engineering principles to molecular biology -- implicitly suggest that they deserve as much academic time and space as the theory generally accepted as the basis of modern biology, and one of the historical heavyweights of scientific thought.Although trying at length throughout the film to make himself seem like an impartial observer abruptly...
I suppose this might appear to be in questionable taste, given how close we are to Christmas, but I came across a fascinating YouTube video (via Metafilter) which shows the results of a program designed to reproduce the elements of evolution — using rudimentary clocks and clock-related mechanisms as the building blocks of life.
The person who wrote the program intended it as a refutation of the argument that evolution must be wrong because complicated mechanisms such as clocks (and eyeballs) don’t just emerge by themselves. I don’t know whether it solves that debate or not, I just thought it was a cool video — given a supply of hands, gears, springs and other elements that are endowed with affinities similar to biological entities, and an evolution-like system, it...
Just a quick post to mention that I was approached awhile back by the folks from Internet Evolution — the blogging and discussion-forum site set up by CMP and some of the team behind Light Reading (which I’m a fan of) — to see if I would contribute articles from time to time, which I agreed to do. Their list of contributors includes Cory Doctorow, Craig Newmark and infamous former hacker Kevin Mitnick (I come right before Quincy Jones on the list, which I must admit is kind of cool).
My first piece went up last week, in which I talk about the clash between the open nature of the Internet and the traditional walled-garden approach of content providers such as the major TV networks and broadcasters — sparked by my inability to watch any of the clips posted by Comedy...
In light of the recent opening of a creationism museum in Alberta, I have to say a few words about this evolution vs. creationism debate.
1.The whole debate is nonsense. We're all here now, and that's what matters. I am more concerned about where we're headed than where we've been.
2.Those creationists that say that the Bible must be taken "literally" should have their heads examined. As a translator and linguist, I can tell you that whatever version of the Bible you read today, it's not the "real McCoy". Originally written in some archaic language, then translated, translated again and translated and edited some more, with tons of mistranslations and misinterpretations each time a translation from language A into language B was made, it hardly looks like a model example of...
Click the photo to see it at full size. Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi...