Robert Paton (chemist)

Transcription

This is a response to ShockOfGod’s video “The Great Evolution Debate.” I have to admit that deciding to make this video left me facing what at first appeared to be an impossibly complex conundrum. You see, the only thing I find shocking about you and the material that you present on your channel and webshite, is the mind-bending combination of stupendous ignorance and stupidity that you try to peddle as fact. As a result I found it almost impossible to decide whether to call you CockOfGod or ShockOfShite, since both seemed both equally amusing and appropriate. And then, I had an epiphany. Unfortunately for you it didn’t involve angels or a bearded old transcendental gentleman, but instead a solution to unraveling my troublesome little Gordian knot. So for the purposes of this video response, I shall both have my cake and eat it and will be referring to you as Cockshite. So now that I’ve dealt with the formalities, let’s roll up our sleeves and get stuck in, shall we? "And when you get there click right here on the right where it says “Music and Podcasts.” I want to get your opinion of this. I want to get your opinion of these errors of evolution." So you want my opinion, do you Cockshite? Well since you asked so nicely it’d just be plain rude for me not to acquiesce to your request now, wouldn’t it? But as I do just that, you might want to consider being a little more careful about what you ask for in the future. Not unless, that is, you’re particularly partial to a good old-fashioned reaming every now and again. So with that in mind, I did as you asked and followed the link you kindly pointed out and what do you think I found there? A thirty-five minute diatribe of outrageous dishonesty from that repulsive fleck of tuberculotic sputum otherwise known as William Lane Craig. According to his Reasonable Faith webshite, this is a podcast from a regular Sunday school indoctrination session he holds and calls “Defenders.” Now, Mr. Craig generally confines his dishonesty to the area of philosophy where he’s in somewhat less danger of being called out on his bullshit by minor inconveniences such as the facts and reality. Since I don’t make pretensions in this arena, I’ve pretty much given him a wide berth in the past and merely stood on the sidelines laughing as his arguments were rammed unceremoniously back into place by those much more capable than I. In this instance, however, Billy Boy decided to “educate” his flock on his version of the subject of evolution, and that’s something that I’m more than willing to correct him on. However, the fetid toilet that passes for Billy’s brain was so stopped up in this lecture that it would take me literally hours mop up all the pseudo-cerebral sewage that it disgorged over the course of this fine example of mental masturbation, willful ignorance and deliberate dishonesty. So because you’re the subject of this episode, Cockshite, I’m going to stick to addressing the points you made in your poorly argued and appallingly disingenuous video. However, since you based all of your dubious assertions on this sole Craig podcast, I think it’s only fair to spend some time in addressing the quality of your one and only source. Let’s take a look at how Billy-Boy kicked-off his disgusting spew-a-thon. “Today we have our third lesson on tape…eh…during which we’re going to describe the scientific evidence pertinent to the origin and evolution of biological complexity. “ I found the irony of this introduction really quite stunning, because this appears to be from the very same William Lane Craig who arrogantly dismisses the ideas of those without formal training in his own field as being unworthy of consideration. I find it difficult to find words to describe the kind of two faced shit-wad that can hold that kind of opinion and then expect himself to be afforded any kind of respect when expounding on subjects in which he himself holds no qualifications. Now I don’t want that to be taken as an ad hominem attack, because even two-faced shit-wads can be right. The sole purpose of the previous statement was to demonstrate Billy-Boy’s shit-wad status, mainly because I had the opportunity to do so but also because he deserves to be exposed for what he truly is. So with that said, let’s go on to see why this particular wad also happens to be full of shit. “So that the Christian is open to following the evidence wherever it might lead. The Christian, unlike the atheist, is not committed to just one view of biological origins, but rather can afford to follow the evidence where it leads.” This sentence in itself demonstrates the brazen and unashamed dishonesty of this smug and arrogant little pustule of a man, and why he’s a disgrace to the academic tradition to which he disingenuously pretends to hold. By this, Craig means that the atheist is unable to consider theistic explanations for origins while the “open-minded” Christian is able to follow the evidence freely. The utter banality of this statement itself demonstrates the intellectual bankruptcy of this pathetic excuse for a thinking man because it fails on pretty much every level conceivable. Firstly in the context of his diatribe, Bilbo is falsely conflating everyone who accepts a naturalistic explanation of origins under the title “Atheist.” Of course a large number of working scientists that accept evolutionary theory, including some very prominent names, are theists and Craig I’m sure is more than aware of this. Somehow these theists, most of them Christians, have managed accept the modern synthesis of Darwinian evolutionary theory and so it is hardly the sole domain of atheists. Could Bill really be stooping so reprehensibly low as to conflate evolution with the bogeyman of atheism just to sway his young and impressionable audience? What a quite spectacular turd. Secondly, why is it that Billy-Boy doesn’t seem to think that the Christian is in any way constrained in exploring the evidence in directions that might suggest the absence of a creator? Doesn’t this reasoning seem a little one sided to you? It certainly seems to be a little less than rigorous coming from someone who claims that he’s a professional philosopher and not just a dishonest spiv with an agenda. Finally, Craig completely misses the point of the scientific enterprise, and that’s to discover the truth, regardless of what that might me. In reality, the only view that any scientist is committed to is to finding the best explanation for the physical evidence possible, regardless of the philosophical or theological implications of that explanation. To date we’ve been unable to empirically determine the existence of any kind of non-naturalistic phenomena in any field of study including evolutionary biology, and therefore are compelled to exclude them from our current models of reality. If Mr. Craig were to stop producing brain farts for a moment and instead produced some solid evidence of magic, then scientists would be happy to incorporate his observations into their models of reality where appropriate. Instead he contents himself on playing word games for a living with the apparent conviction that he can discover something concrete about the nature reality just by talking about it instead of actually testing it. Now, while this isn’t one of the points you raised in your video, Cockshite, I brought it up here because the entirety of this podcast is peppered with a seeming endless array of similar examples of sloppy thinking, misrepresentation and appeals to personal disbelief, misplaced authority and quite astonishing ignorance. I decided to use this particular example in order to demonstrate the quality of the material on which you’ve based your sad excuse for an argument. But before I get back to that, I just wanted to point one more thing, and that’s the nature of the material that Billy-Boy himself is relying on to pontificate about fields of study that he obviously had not one whit of a clue about. Let’s take a look that the four books he cites to back up his repulsive lies. "'The Mystery of Life’s Origin' by Thaxton, Bradley and Olsen; Phillip Johnson’s book, 'Darwin of Trial'; Michael Denton’s book, 'Evolution: A Theory ion Crisis'; Michael Behe, 'Darwin’s Black Box.'" OK, Cockshite, let’s take a quick look at these four pillars of piss and then I’ll get back to you. “The Mystery of Life’s Origins” is published by The Foundation for Thought and Ethics, a Christian non-profit based in, surprise, surprise, Texas. Furthermore Thaxton was the editor of the first edition of “Of Pandas and People,” the intelligent design propaganda tract that was proved in a court of law to be a blatant rewrite of a previous overt creationist handbook. “Darwin on Trial” is written by a lawyer and according to Eugenie Scott, the Director of the National Center for Science Education "teaches little that is accurate about either the nature of science, or the topic of evolution. It is recommended neither by scientists nor educators." “Evolution: A Theory in Crisis,” while written by a biochemist, Michael Denton, has been extensively eviscerated by the scientific community. This is a perfect example of why credentials don’t always translate to competence; William Lane Craig, I’d posit, being another. I, for example, don’t expect people to take my PhD as a sign of infallibility and encourage them to verify my claims themselves. It appears that Mr. Craig doesn’t share this sentiment. Finally, what’s left to say about Behe and his book that I haven’t already said about Denton? Oh yes, I know. In addition to being panned by all of the members of his department at Lehigh University and almost the entire biological research community, poor old Michael and his ideas on irreducibly complexity were even found guilty of horseshit in the first degree by a federal judge who happens to be a conservative Christian. So there we have it. The sum total of Billy-Boy’s source material. Not a shred of real evidence from the opposing view. Not one piece of peer-reviewed scientific literature. And the most appalling thing is that this is coming from someone who claims to be an academic when it appears that he’s nothing of the sort, and instead a disgrace to the word and all that it stands for. And just to nail that home; just to show how little Mr. Craig knows about the subject on which he’s hanging his rapidly shriveling credibility, just listen to this… "When you think the age of the Earth…er…itself, is probably…er…five to six billion years old." “Probably 5-6 billion years old?” Try 4.54 billion years plus or minus forty million or so, fucktard. And that wasn’t a slip of the tongue either, because he repeated it elsewhere in the podcast. Now I know that that might seem like a minor point, but don’t you think, Cockshite, that you should use a little caution when taking the word of an imbecile that can be so wrong about such a simple fact? Obviously not, because swallowed what he was spurting like starving dog let loose in a wiener factory, so let’s get back on track and see exactly what you took away from this festering epitome of creationist dishonesty. "Do you know that scientists are coming out all over the world admitting that evolution has some serious errors? In fact they’re now saying that macro-evolution has yet to be proven and the fossil record is embarrassingly lacking. In fact, with all the species that we have of animals, we should have not just thousand but millions and millions of fossils that show that all these animals are transitioning." If by scientists you mean the collection of misfits and unqualified charlatans who wrote the supposed references used by your intellectual prostitute, then you might have a point. Of course if you’d done some real research you’d have found that there is no controversy in the real scientific community over the veracity of evolutionary theory and any disagreements that exist are over the minutia of the how and not of the convincingly answered question of “If.” Macroevolution has been proven irrespective of what you, Craig or any other passing dishonest tosser has to say about the state of the fossil record. From the concordant nested hierarchies derived from both morphological and molecular analyses; the patterns of endogenous retrovirus distribution; the existence and equally importantly the phyletic distribution of atavisms and vestigial organs; and many other equally robust lines of evidence, macroevolution has been demonstrated to as high a level of certainty as the scientific method allows. And not only that, it’s also been observed. Numerous speciation events in both plants and animals have been described, confirmed and documented in the literature, as has the phenomenon of ring speciation whose existence can be exquisitely explained in the framework of evolutionary theory without invoking either magic or clandestine genies with serious insecurity issues. And as for your claim with regard to the perceived paucity of the fossil record, well that comes to you straight from up William Lane Craig’s arse, possibly after it had been lovingly placed there by one of the authors of those trashy novels he seemed to be so fond of. The reality is that geologists and paleontologists have long known that fossilization is an exceedingly rare event for a number of biological and physical reasons. This isn’t a big secret and you can find out what these reasons are by reading some real scientific literature instead of listening to dishonest, mentally flatulent toads. In fact, using parameters determined from empirical observation and experiment, it’s been calculated that only approximately 1% of all extinct species have been preserved in the fossil record, and most of these will be sparsely represented at best. Now you could still argue that this 1% should contain millions of species, and if that’s what Billy-Boy was alluding to, then the number you’d expect to find would come down to exactly what you mean by a transitional fossil. In reality, all species are transitional forms, but closely related inividuals can usually only be distinguished by experts with years of training in a given specialized area of paleontology. These individuals might well be able to distinguish a series of transitional forms in, say, a series of Miocene bivalves while ‘tards like you, Cockshite, and your pal Bill, would turn your nose up at them and in the arrogance born of your seemingly infinite self-imposed ignorance declare them all to be “just clams.” The more dramatic transitional forms that even delusional nutjobs like you have trouble denying are between the major evolutionary lineages which number in the thousands to tens of thousands. Take 1% of that and where are your millions of fossils now, Cockshite? And just to prove my point, just listen to this… “No one’s arguing that there’s a few examples, but we really should have millions and millions of examples of transitional species if we are to believe that macroevolution is true.” Apparently, Cockshite, you’re behind the times because I’ve heard countless other ignorant fuckwits argue that there are absolutely no such examples. Of course, I’m not surprised you said this because you’re simply parroting your boy-toy Bill again, almost verbatim. The only thing you left out was the particular fossil he gave as an example. Can anyone guess what it was? That’s right – Archaeopterix. I think that illuminates my point perfectly. If this is the only kind of transitional fossil you’re willing to acknowledge, then by definition you’ll find them extremely rare. The dishonesty or downright stupidity of this argument jumps starkly into focus here, because in effect the creationist cretin is saying – “evolution must be false because we’re missing millions of fossils where we should be finding thousands.” Anyway, even with all this in mind, you’re still wrong because the scientific literature is positively teeming with reports of transitional fossils that have been verified and accepted by the leading experts in their fields. Hardly the handful that your dipshit friend would have you and his flock believe, eh Cockshite. And by the way, don’t think that it escaped me that you mate Billy admitted that transitional fossils do exist. I found that interesting, Cockshite, because it implies that even pathologically delusional fuckers like him must be coming to realize that they’re looking like world-class morons by denying what’s obvious to even the average kindergartener. And if you’d paused for thought for a moment before just regurgitating his festering intellectual vomit, you might have realized it too. "Listen to this right here. How evolution drove me, an ex-atheist, to now believe in God as a Christian." Of course, there are two major flaws here, Cockshite, so I’m going to wrap up by pointing them out so you can go and find yourself a bucket of ice. Firstly, if you think that anyone believes that you’re an ex-atheist (along with the presumably fictional “friends” that you mentioned elsewhere) then you must think that we’re as stupid as you are. But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. If you can’t grasp the simple concept that asking someone to justify the accuracy of a position that makes no positive claims is meaningless, then I suppose it’s too much to ask for you to realize that not everyone is operating under the same cognitive disadvantages as you are. Secondly, the evidence you presented in this video and Billy’s podcast conclusively proved that you haven’t spent a moment studying evolution, but rather a sickly, stunted parody of it being peddled by a bunch of the lowest, dishonest scum-sucking shit-bags imaginable. Asking lowlifes like William Lane Craig for their opinion on evolutionary theory is about as likely to lead to a fair and balanced view of the subject as asking the CEO of BP whether offshore drilling is beneficial to marine ecosystems. So hold that thought for a moment, Cockshite, because you, and anyone unfortunate enough to come across the insidious misinformation you’re your spreading over Youtube like a slick of malodorous sewage, would be well advised to bear in mind that old IT maxim - garbage in, garbage out. �