Thetownend.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFjoEgYOgRo

Right now I feel as though I want to batter the fuck out of the dumb bitch cunt, and I haven't even finished the first part yet. How could somebody genuinely be that fucking thick?

Do her Dawkins.

She is indeed just thick as shit/brainwashed. Its a shame that such stupid views will get passed down to their children but its best laughed at by the rest of us sane people. As long as the only exposure that my children get to this drivel is in RE that's OK by me. Its when people try and get it taught as a science that narks me off.

Mind you, to me that's like any religion. I find a lot of religion a bit stupid. Creationism doesn't make me as angry as idiot Jehovah's Witness who deny their own life saving blood transfusions, based purely on one interpretation of a 2000 year old relic of a book that even if genuine has probably been mistranslated many many times from its original form.

Let me guess, straw man argument?

Just watched that, did you watch the same clip as me, she floored him, he's clearly edgey and uncomfortable. Massive credit to her, whoever she is, for going toe-to-toe and delivering a very cogent argument.

 As for your comment:

Last sentence: 'How could somebody genuinely be that fucking thick?'

First sentence; 'Right now I feel as though I want to batter the fuck out of the dumb bitch cunt'

Oh dear, oh very dear indeed! Evoloution?  :no:

he lost the plot - go back to Popper - "science can be refuted"
That's the point, by experiment , not belief - her description was invalid
derrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

"very cogent argument"
 let's discuss

Could a mod please check shady's ip. Methinks we have a troll, quite possibly a reincarnation of one that has been previously killed.

Science constantly looks to refute science.

But her argument seemed to consist of "there is no evidence for evolution", and then refusing to listen to the fact there was.

Really.

Watch Dawkins about half way through the second part. I am convinced that he was about to deck her.

What is she "concerned" about?

She is utterly ignorant to the most basic principle's of science.

Dawkin's has even argues that high ranking Bishop's and other religious figures agree with evolution. She's just stupid.

She is an idiot with an extremely punchable face and he looks a bit like Fitton.

She keeps on saying that there wo

Bangkok, I repeat:

As for your comment:

Last sentence: 'How could somebody genuinely be that fucking thick?'

First sentence; 'Right now I feel as though I want to batter the fuck out of the dumb bitch cunt'

Oh dear, oh very dear indeed! Evoloution? 

-- What a completely cretinous comment, maybe you should embrace evoloution a little more because you clearly are a neanderthal throw-back, advocating violence against a woman.

 As for that, don't be a twerp.

I would suggest that taking anything posted on an internet forum, especially one that proclaims itself '80% Bollocks' is, in itself, retardation of epic proportions.

Maybe where football's concerned, but it's a free-for-all where other things are considered, and I ain't a 'yes', 'amen', them 'stupid imbecile religeous type bigots' blah blah blah, easy target cretins

......................

Well yes. Anyone that refutes scientific evidence in favour of religious mysticism is indeed an easy target.

Because they are wrong perhaps? 

That clip is from his 2008 documentary series The Genius of Darwin. I didn't watch it, but I watched another one a few years back when he went to the bible belt in the USA and got exactly the same response from pretty much everyone.

Personally, I'd like to punch Dawkins on account of me failing to understand anything that he's ever written. His books are pushed as popular science but they went way over my head and I've read a fair bit on the subject before. Though I didn't get A Brief History of Time either and that was apparently physics for dummies. I must be thick. I'd still like to punch him though.

Well done for creating  :D one of the most dumb witted, ignorant, rash, confoundedly divisive threads. Heh, i'm all for debate, but your opening stance is imbecilic in the extreme. Plead irony now, that's the default mode most fall back upon. Lame Brain.  :hmmm:

I add my name to the list of those who'd like to slap Dawkins with a Arbroath Smokey around the bonce  :crash:

Are you a religious man Jonny?

I look forward to your response because I am confident that whether or not you do, you will still give a reasoned response.

Plenty of people on here know my religious beliefs, but I assure you I'm going to try to approach this with my social scientist hat on...

The first thing to note is that the woman is clearly not a scientist, whereas Dawkins is. This means that she is approaching the subject with a very limited knowledge base. She is very dismissive of all the science that Dawkins claims is out there, yet cannot come up with any strong counterarguments beyond saying "what we believe is..." and highlighting mistakes from history.

Meanwhile, Dawkins has this disastrous inability to talk to anybody (who is not a serious academic) on their own level. He doesn't explain his points. He says that similarities in DNA are a proof of evolution, she doesn't see how, and with my limited knowledge of science I can't claim to see how it is proof, yet he doesn't explain it to her. He suggests an elementary text book on biology contains evidence for evolution, but she quite rightly points out it doesn't - they just tell us it exists. It is a well known fact that science taught to 11-16 year olds is largely watered down, to the extent that some of the things being taught are simplified to the point of becoming untrue.

One argument that the woman ignored completely was that science is not only refuted by science but also by the social sciences, which look at the political dimensions of all truth claims. In recent times this has been especially evident in the field of environmental research, and the same sort of examination can be applied to research on the origins of the human race.

Personally, I do not find Dawkins' argument in this video convincing as he fails to explain anything in any sort of depth. The woman provides no strong argument either, making it difficult to say either of them was particularly convincing. Saying she has been "brainwashed" and calling her "insane" is an equally blinkered view, coming from people who I am sure would consider themselves rational people, yet are drawing conclusions based on a very limited personal understanding of the science.

Fuck, the God Squad's arrived! That's it, I'm off! (Only joking Alex)

Her argument is: "If there was proof, the there would be tonnes of evidence"

His argument is: "Guess what biatch, there is millions of tonnes of evidence"

She is asking for the evidence and he is presenting it. She is not even refuting the evidence, because she cannot. Rather she ignores it.

The closest she can come is the "missing links" and she failed miserably

What is the missing link between 1 & 2..........

Answer is 1.5.

Not Good enough.

What is the missing link between 1 and 1.5

Answer is 1.25........

Not good enough.

A pattern is emerging, yeah?

Imagine this (slightly odd) scenario, if you will.

You meet a person who has never heard an argument for creation, and has never heard an argument for evolution, but has an ability to understand any scientific argument that is clearly and logically presented to them. Using only what Dawkins has said in that video, you must convince them that evolution is true. There is no way you could do it. He says 2 things. (1) The evidence is out there and (2) Similarities in DNA prove it.

For (1), Dawkins needs to actually explain his argument thoroughly - what evidence? where? how reliable? how does this prove her wrong? Admittedly this can't be done in a ten minute interview, but he doesn't do it outside of interviews. His quick turn to a "hidden motive" argument is quite typical - always examining the views of others rather than trying to convince them of his. For (2), as I said before, he gives no explanation and expects to be taken at his word.

Not at all. I'm 100% atheist. But I still think Dawkins is a cunt for being too fucking clever and writing stuff I don't get.

I tried reading The Selfish Gene years ago when I was studying for a Psychology degree and it was covered briefly in the course. It fucked with my head so much I believe it caused irreparable brain damage. I tried a few more of his books as well and the same shit happened. Which is my reasoning for thinking he's a cunt.

You're right that he can't explain all the evidence there is for evolution in a five minute debate with a woman who in any case refuses to accept that evidence that he presents.

Fortunately he's written it all down in a book, that is pretty simple to understand:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Greatest_Show_on_Earth:_The_Evidence_for_Evolution

I can't help but note that your posts seem to place much more of a requirement on Dawkins to justify his position and "prove her wrong" than on her to prove fucking anything.

There is obviously  NO fucking evidence that the world is only 10,000 years old, and that all the creatures still alive and in the fossil record were created in the same week and lived side by side up until the flood, because it's utter bollocks.

You can't disprove that kind of thought because it isn't based on reason and evidence.

I can prove that Lumpy Humpy is a political fossil though xxx

That is genuinely the only reason I can think of that would lead to anybody believing in creationism.

Personally I dislike Dawkins intensely because he's every bit as hectoring, arrogant and evangelical as those he opposes. He may be right but he's still a git.

And BR if it annoys you so much, I'd suggest not watching it. Just a thought, like

EDIT: For the record, creationists are fucking idiots though. They should lock the pair of them in a room and let them beat each other to death with (respectively) the Bible and The Ascent of Man

This is also my issue (not with r4e I might add). I'm an atheist and have been challenged to "prove" my thinking. I don't have to prove anything. Because by being an atheist I'm not choosing science over religion, I'm choosing no religion, nothing, so therefore I don't have to justify and find proof for anything. I always had an issue with the, "if you can't prove it to be false, it's true" argument. See Pastafarianism and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

And exactly how is he supposed to do that when she won't accept the very existence of fossils that do exist? He is always going to struggle to get past the first hurdle when she wont even acknowledge the vast amount of evidence that does, as a FACT, exist?

As I have already said, she brings absolutely nothing to the debate and clearly does not understand what she is talking about in terms of the science. But you've obviously chosen to ignore that just because I wrote an extra line or two about Dawkins' side of the argument. Perhaps Dawkins could get a bunch of creationists to read his book THEN talk to them about the issue, rather than picking some ignorant woman (from a group/organisation for whom evolution is a side issue rather than their sole focus) and presenting her as the face of that epistemic community.

I haven't read his book on evolution myself, maybe I will get round to it one day.

Would such an attitude towards discussion not make this forum a tad redundant Paul?

I think that anyone who thinks they know the definitive answer to the creationism vs evolution debate is deluded.  I don't buy the literal creationist argument that the earth was created in 7 days etc., and I've read Dawkins' first book and it seems compelling to me.

Where it all gets a little grey for me is that while evolutionary theory and science do a good enough job of explaining observable phenomena during the last few million (or even billion) years, they are unable to go back any further.  Science is unable to explain anything before a point a few milliseconds after the Big Bang.  It cannot explain how or why the Big Bang happened, because the rules of science as we understand them breakdown if you go any further back than this point a few milliseconds after it.

So what led to the Big Bang?  No one knows.  And until we find an answer (and I'm not sure we ever will), I think it's a little naive to completely rule out some sort of creationist explanation...created by a god or some other force/power that we do not understand.  Just my take on things.

I agree Ardiles.

How can we discount something that we don't know about? Personally I am open to the idea of some sort of higher being provided that it is part of science rather than fantasy. What is daft though is those who believe in things like Adam and Eve to the point that they reject evolution. Why not just compromise and accept that if there is a god, then could he not have created evolution?

Spot on.

I think you've summed up my own point of view rather well there BR. Would you mind if I printed it out and put it on some kind of laminated card that I could proffer at people in lieu of having to explain stuff? Obviously one with nice sharp edges for dealing with the extreme Dawkin-ists/creationists who aren't prepared to listen to anyone else :)

The creationist we were laughing at here believes that the world is 10, 000 years old. That is unquestionably incorrect and completely different to what ardiles posted about. As pointed out religious belief and evolution are not mutually exclusive.

To be fair, evolution (and evolutionists) doesn't rule out there being some form of super being / force - they're just pretty sure it isn't a bloke with a grey beard wearing sandals and that the biblical account is bollocks.

I think that anyone who totally refutes the possibility of a higher force is as close-minded as the Creationists. I'd like to think that there was unknown power at work.

What I completely refute is all organised religions spouting their drivel. There was a documentary series on Darwin recently, where they linked his theory of evolution to ethnic cleansing. While that may, in part, be true how many people have/are suffering as a direct result of religious bigotry?

I was forced to attend Sunday School as a child.

I am still scarred by the experience thank you.

The whole literal creationism thing is only for the crazy hardcore evangelical culty type denominations isn't it? I'm pretty sure that even the amazingly progressive religious body, the catholic church, has been fairly accepting of evolution. I don't think the Church of England give a shit about anything as long as you enjoy sitting down and having a cup of tea.

cake or death?

the churches keep changing their religions to suit the new evidence they get presented with.
the catholic church more than any of them i think.

Ace.  :D

Sadly, if you ever read the Dawkins book I linked to, it highlights that over 40% of the population of the US when asked about their position on evolution vs creationism, will select the answer which says "God created everything, all at the same time, Earth is 10,000 years old; fuck off science".

I'd make all people that take this attitude live with the fucking Amish frankly. "You don't accept the principles of scientific evidence,  ok fine...... now out of the fucking car.... ok we'll let you have the wheel.... but put down the fucking antibiotics and forget about the I-phone. Live in the bronze age if you like that's your choice ... but NO you can't have the assault rifle!

Thought it best to drag up an old Dawkins related thread rather than start a new one, but I had a Dawkins marathon this evening. My mate sent me a link to a video and then suddenly I'd watched 5 hours or so of Dawkins and Hitchens on YouTube. Some of the questions he gets posed and answers can make you mad and amused in equal measure. Some people (creationists and masses of yanks) are barely functioning retards.

I need sleep now.

God loves America

I had to write to Dawkins last week. True story.