Discovery Institute: A suppurating cesspool of stupid

Shrunk · **#21** by **Shrunk** » Jun 24, 2010 12:58 pm

tnjrp wrote:Agreed on the first, and on the questions I have not seen any such. But what I really just asking is if what they claim Prof. Dawkins says (I can watch his lips move but I can't hear what he says) is what he really means or if they are just creatively quoting select bits and presenting their own interpretation. Seemed like a good thread to put such a question in, seeing as DI is behind the "news item".

The quote is accurate. Their interpretation is, well, I don't really have to tell you, do I?

That the mechanism behind the evolution of reptilian scales to avian feathers was natural selection is not a proposition that we are in a position to verify or refute (though we can verify that they arose thry a gradual process of evolution). Given that we have abundant irrefutable evidence from elsewhere that evolution and natural selection occurs and is the only mechanism by which we know such processes occur, it is the only plausible explanation for how feathers arose. Sure, Jesus could have materialized 150 million years ago, waved a magic wand at a bunch of reptiles and caused them to grow feathers. However, since we have no reason to believe this occurred, we stick with NS as the most likely explanation. Dawkins does use the term "faith" to describe this position, but I think its "faith" of the sort that also leads us to believe the sun will rise in the east tomorrow morning.

That's my very loose paraphrase of what Dawkins is saying. The DI then makes the entirely unwarranted leap from that to saying that natural selection as a whole is unfalsifiable. Suppuratingly stupid.

Nautilidae · **#22** by **Nautilidae** » Jun 24, 2010 1:14 pm

The Discovery Institute needs to die. They don't actually "discover" anything. They simply recycle classic arguments in a new form. IC is simply a rehash of the intellectually dead "LOOK HOW COMPLEX THE WORLD IS!!" view.

Alan C · **#23** by **Alan C** » Jun 24, 2010 7:58 pm

Nautilidae wrote:The Discovery Institute needs to die. They don't actually "discover" anything. They simply recycle classic arguments in a new form. IC is simply a rehash of the intellectually dead "LOOK HOW COMPLEX THE WORLD IS!!" view.

They 'discover' a fair few gullible people to subject to their mind-virus it seems :nono:

Nautilidae · **#24** by **Nautilidae** » Jun 24, 2010 8:01 pm

Alan C wrote:
Nautilidae wrote:The Discovery Institute needs to die. They don't actually "discover" anything. They simply recycle classic arguments in a new form. IC is simply a rehash of the intellectually dead "LOOK HOW COMPLEX THE WORLD IS!!" view.

They 'discover' a fair few gullible people to subject to their mind-virus it seems

Ah yes, that is certainly true. Thank you for correcting me.

Calilasseia · **#25** by **Calilasseia** » Jun 24, 2010 8:49 pm

Oh dear, not more in tray junk to deal with ...

Robert Byers wrote:I am YEC.

We know. You don't need to tell us this. Your reputation precedes you. You're known on four continents for this.

Robert Byers wrote:Yet I find discovery to be quite good on many points of creationism.

Oh, you think that a cadre of professional liars for doctrine has "good" answers, do you? You have pathetically low evidential standards if this is the case.

Robert Byers wrote:They represent well degree ed people

Who are prostituting their gifts by duplicitously treating science as a branch of apologetics. We're supposed to be impressed by this, just because they wave their Ph.Ds around in a Pharisaic display of posturing?

Robert Byers wrote:who have become famous and many siccessful [sic] book sellers.

Only because the education system in America has been corrupted by these pedlars of lies amongst others.

Robert Byers wrote:They have made a imprint and are agents of change in origin issues.

Bollocks. They are nothing but professional liars for doctrine. They tell lies, Byers. Indeed, another Christian who accepted their invitation to engage in so-called "debate" discovered this for himself, and lamented this fact in a public blog post. Another poster has provided the relevant link in another thread. I suggest you read it, and find out how another Christian feels about having his words twisted to suit duplicitous apologetic ends.

Robert Byers wrote:they are a threat to the establishment here

Scientifically, Byers, they are irrelevant. They only pose a "threat" because they are well funded, politically well connected, and prepared to lie and cheat to propagandise for their doctrine. The only "threat" they pose is because of political skulduggery.

Robert Byers wrote:and are growing in influence.

Bollocks. Scientists regard them as an irrelevance. The only people who listen to the lies they disseminate are people who never paid attention in a science class.

Robert Byers wrote:They have helped biblical creationism with ideas and concepts

If you call lying for doctrine "help", Byers, they've certainly done that. Read the Wedge Strategy document have you, where they explicitly state that their mission is to destroy real science and replace it with a bastardised version subservient to religious ideology? In other words, Byers, they want to turn the clock back to the days before Galileo.

Robert Byers wrote:but also practical politics.

Oh we've seen their "practical politics", Byers. Which involves political skulduggery. "Cdesign proponentsists" anyone?

Robert Byers wrote:By I'D;s enemies attacking them as biblical creationists, in order to discredit them, they gave to us more publicity and credibility.

HA HA HA HA HA!

Byers, they explicitly present their creationist agenda in the Wedge Strategy document that they themselves compiled. We don't have to "discredit" them, they do that themselves by their actions.

Robert Byers wrote: I.D is well known and has interest in them in academic circles and culture

Bollocks. ID consists of nothing more than "Magic Man did it" repackaged. Since when did any real scientists consider this worthy of consideration?

Robert Byers wrote:and by lumping them with us brought us more attention.

None of it the sort of attention you really want, Byers.

Robert Byers wrote:Cause and effect.

Ha ha ha ha. You do realise, Byers, that you've just admitted in this post of yours that you think a bunch of publicly exposed professional liars for doctrine somehow enhance your asinine cause?

johannessiig · **#26** by **johannessiig** » Jun 24, 2010 9:00 pm

Robert Byers wrote:I am YEC.

I am so sorry for your loss of intelligence.

(In other words, that single sentence renders you on the same level of intelligence of a brain-damaged dog and makes the rest of your argument, which I never bothered to read because it would have been unintelligent as fuck anyways, invalid. I mean, I get being an OEC, but a YEC! That is on a whole new level of stupid. And you didn't even use the article "a" in front of it, which means you just said "I am Young Earth Creationism")

Darkchilde · **#27** by **Darkchilde** » Jun 25, 2010 8:54 am

johannessiig wrote:
Robert Byers wrote:I am YEC.

I am so sorry for your loss of intelligence.

(In other words, that single sentence renders you on the same level of intelligence of a brain-damaged dog and makes the rest of your argument, which I never bothered to read because it would have been unintelligent as fuck anyways, invalid. I mean, I get being an OEC, but a YEC! That is on a whole new level of stupid. And you didn't even use the article "a" in front of it, which means you just said "I am Young Earth Creationism")

!

MODNOTE
Johannessiig, please familiarize yourself with the Forum User's Agreement, to which you agreed when you signed up for this forum. You can attack a post, idea, etc. all you want, but it is a violation of the FUA to attack and/or insult a poster. The above post of yours is insulting to another member of this forum. This is an advisory, and a strong suggestion to familiarize yourself with the FUA, which you can find here: http://www.rationalskepticism.org/announcements/forum-users-agreement-t76.html

tnjrp · **#28** by **tnjrp** » Jun 25, 2010 10:32 am

Shrunk wrote:The quote is accurate. Their interpretation is, well, I don't really have to tell you, do I?

Not so much, no.

The DI then makes the entirely unwarranted leap from that to saying that natural selection as a whole is unfalsifiable.

Yep, they would do just that.

Made of Stars · **#29** by **Made of Stars** » Jun 27, 2010 7:34 am

Robert Byers wrote:I am YEC. Yet I find discovery to be quite good on many points of creationism.

I'm betting you're the only one surprised by this coincidence Robert, but I don't expect you to get the point here either.

Robert Byers wrote:I.D is well known and has interest in them in academic circles and culture and by lumping them with us brought us more attention.

I wonder if you can provide us with an example of an academic circle at a legitimate university that is interested in ID creationism.

Robert Byers wrote:Cause and effect.

Cause: Ignorance + desperate need for confirmation of closely held ideology.
Effect: Idiot Doctrine (ID)

johnbrandt · **#30** by **johnbrandt** » Jun 28, 2010 4:16 am

Darwinsbulldog wrote:DI is an inane concentration of mind-pus. One wonders what would happen if they succeeded in their goals. Instead of a noble intelligent species reaching for the stars, we would have a stupid ape, sitting in the dark on a pile of its own feces, to stupid to move, and quivering in fear at the "magic" that surrounds it. [Like lightning and thunder]. So instead of "childhood's end" and the progress of humanity, we would revert to helpless, neurotic children in the dark, catatonic in our fear and superstition. That it the Discovery Institute's "gift" to humanity.

...but how are we supposed to control people and make them keep paying us a regular tithe if they aren't pig-ignorant savages who think every natural phenomena is the result of some bearded guy snapping his fingers and going "cha cha cha!" (while wearing a fez, probably :lol:

)...?

Robert Byers · **#31** by **Robert Byers** » Jun 29, 2010 6:46 am

Made of Stars wrote:
Robert Byers wrote:I am YEC. Yet I find discovery to be quite good on many points of creationism.

I'm betting you're the only one surprised by this coincidence Robert, but I don't expect you to get the point here either.

Robert Byers wrote:I.D is well known and has interest in them in academic circles and culture and by lumping them with us brought us more attention.

I wonder if you can provide us with an example of an academic circle at a legitimate university that is interested in ID creationism.

Robert Byers wrote:Cause and effect.

Cause: Ignorance + desperate need for confirmation of closely held ideology.
Effect: Idiot Doctrine (ID)

A university is not just the bosses. In fact there is opposition from them. A Movie are made about it.
Yet ID largely moves amongst serious thinking people who take the time to think and read about these matters.
Its quite successful. Thats why its a growing threat.

Largenton · **#32** by **Largenton** » Jun 29, 2010 7:59 am

Hello Byers, I see you've continued your streak of masochism by becoming a member of a board made up of former RDFers. Good, it means that when I finish writing my article on what causes creationism I can find you.

*waves hello to the others*

Robert Byers wrote:A university is not just the bosses.

A Chancellor or Vice Chancellor does not consist of the academic circle. Provide the example asked for.

Robert Byers wrote:In fact there is opposition from them.

You mean the bosses are trying to promote creationism whilst the academics object? I see you still haven't brushed up on your grammar yet....

Robert Byers wrote:A Movie are made about it.

Yes Expelled, which demonstrated the depths of what the DI would sink to and has been thoroughly debunked several times on a variety of sites.

Robert Byers wrote:Yet ID largely moves amongst serious thinking people who take the time to think and read about these matters.

Can you provide some examples of serious academics though?

Robert Byers wrote:Its quite successful.

Lie

Robert Byers wrote:Thats why its a growing threat.

No, having people like yourself promoting scientific illiteracy is a threat as it promotes the other pseudosciences such as homeopathy.

tnjrp · **#33** by **tnjrp** » Jun 29, 2010 8:04 am

Largenton wrote:*waves hello to the others*

Largenton! Long time no sea!

Alan C · **#34** by **Alan C** » Jun 29, 2010 8:06 am

Welcome back as it were
:cheers:

Yes, I fully agree that the threat here is functionally retarded and/or thoroughly disingenuous fetishists for mythology seeking to overturn empirical science [indeed the very science that is responsible for a great many improvements, health for example] in favour of surrendering to an invisible magic-man in the head sky.

xrayzed · **#35** by **xrayzed** » Jun 29, 2010 8:08 am

Alan C wrote:
Nautilidae wrote:The Discovery Institute needs to die. They don't actually "discover" anything. They simply recycle classic arguments in a new form. IC is simply a rehash of the intellectually dead "LOOK HOW COMPLEX THE WORLD IS!!" view.

They 'discover' a fair few gullible people to subject to their mind-virus it seems

They also seem to 'discover' new ways of extracting money from the rubes.

Edit: adding my "hellos" to Largenton as well. I was hoping you'd finally show up here. :cheers:

Largenton · **#36** by **Largenton** » Jun 29, 2010 8:15 am

tnjrp wrote:
Largenton wrote:*waves hello to the others*

Largenton! Long time no sea!

I'm going on holiday soon anyway...

Thanks for that, I've been busy trying to become a teacher then withdrew from the course because the sheer amount of paperwork is a ballache.

Calilasseia · **#37** by **Calilasseia** » Jun 29, 2010 3:15 pm

Let's see what excrement has landed in my in-tray THIS time, shall we?

Robert Byers wrote:A university is not just the bosses.

No kidding? What are you going to do for an encore here, Byers, tell us that water is wet? Oh, that'll be a step up for you after your "ice and frozen water are different entities" hilarity over at RDF.

Robert Byers wrote:In fact there is opposition from them.

Oh really? And your citation to support this assertion is what, precisely?

Robert Byers wrote:A Movie are made about it.

Did you intend to post that sentence in LOLCat, Byers?

I feel the urge to fire up PhotoShop welling up within me ... :twisted:

Robert Byers wrote:Yet ID largely moves amongst serious thinking people

No it doesn't, Byers. The world's practising research scientists regard "Magic Man did it" as a primitive, childish, superstitious irrelevance. One that is flushed down the toilet by their own researches.

Robert Byers wrote:who take the time to think and read about these matters.

Those of us who genuinely take the time to think and read about it, Byers, are busy reading the large body of peer reviewed scientific papers that shove your worthless mediaeval superstition down the toilet. We're busy reading documentation of the hard evidence from the real world that magic isn't needed to run the universe. We're busy reading direct experimental test and verification of proper postulates about reality. ID is something that we only bother with because its duplicitous ideological stormtroopers engage in political skulduggery. If it wasn't for the fact that ID is expounded by professional liars for doctrine with large bank accounts and political connections, no one with a minimum of ten functioning brain cells would waste time on it. Because "Magic Man did it" is a fatuous, inane, cretinous, droolingly encephalitic, palsied, verminous, pestilential, suppuratingly gangrenous, bubotic, ideologically malodorous and perniciously neurotoxic cancer of the psyche that some humans have thankfully grown out of.

Robert Byers wrote:Its quite successful.

Bullshit, Byers. That movie that was "are made of it", to use your above piece of LOLCat hilarity, was a box office failure. It was put together by incompetents who were so stupid and inept, that when they tried to keep PZ Myers from turning up at a screening and telling everyone how they lied through their teeth in order to secure footage of him for their tacky little propaganda screed, they didn't notice who his guest was, and let that guest in. The guest in question was ... Richard Dawkins. This is the level of fuckwittery that surrounds ID, Byers. Fuckwittery that is manifestly lame and stupid. The only "successes" these people have enjoyed have been successes in the field of political skulduggery, because they have tame lawyers to do their dirty work for them, shysters and charlatans such as Philip Johnson and Casey Luskin, who will lie through their teeth and distort to an extent that would make a Calabi-Yau manifold look straight in order to push this mythology-based drivel.

Robert Byers wrote:Thats why its a growing threat.

Bollocks. From the standpoint of science, Byers, it's an irrelevance. The only "threat" it poses arises from the duplicity and political mendacity of the professional liars for doctrine pushing this drivel.

johannessiig · **#38** by **johannessiig** » Jun 29, 2010 3:25 pm

Robert Byers wrote:A university is not just the bosses.

No shit.

Robert Byers wrote: In fact there is opposition from them.

From who?

Robert Byers wrote:A Movie are made about it.

What Movie?

Robert Byers wrote:
Yet ID largely moves amongst serious thinking people who take the time to think and read about these matters.

A thinking creationist is an oxymoron. A non-thinking creationist is just a moron.

Robert Byers wrote:
Its quite successful.

It is successful, because people believe whatever story was told to them in their childhood and unconsciously stick to it.

Robert Byers wrote:
Thats why its a growing threat.

It's a growing threat because it is trying to stop ACTUAL SCIENCE from happening and it is stopping our race (the HUMAN race) from advancing.

Please, back up your claims with evidence.

dionysus · **#39** by **dionysus** » Jun 29, 2010 3:44 pm

Robert Byers wrote:
A university is not just the bosses.

Nobody said universities were the bosses of anything except, of course, the professors that work there.

Robert Byers wrote:In fact there is opposition from them.

Liberty University is not an accredited university.

Robert Byers wrote:A Movie are made about it.

All your movie are belong to us! Oh, you mean Expelled? Someone set us up a (box office and intellectual) bomb!

Robert Byers wrote:Yet ID largely moves amongst serious thinking people who take the time to think and read about these matters.

Kent Hovind is not a serious, thinking person.

Robert Byers wrote:Its quite successful. Thats why its a growing threat.

In what bizarro universe has creationism achieved any academic success?

xrayzed · **#40** by **xrayzed** » Jun 30, 2010 2:43 am

johannessiig wrote:
Robert Byers wrote:
Yet ID largely moves amongst serious thinking people who take the time to think and read about these matters.

A thinking creationist is an oxymoron. A non-thinking creationist is just a moron.

I just got myself a new sig file... :lol:

Discovery Institute: A suppurating cesspool of stupid

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