More fun with Ray and Southern Comfort...

Ok, so Mr. Comfort has some more inane comments about a bible and the things it mentions. For clarification, I'll put these things back into context.
So, for the first one:

Verse 15: "Behold now behemoth . . . "

Verse 15: ". . . which I made with you; he eats grass as an ox."

Verse 16: "Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly."

Verse 17: "He moves his tail like a cedar . . . "

Verse 17: " . . . the sinews of his stones are wrapped together."

Ok, so, let's start with the first part: it's talking about a large animal, ok, fine, it's a big animal, got it. It's huge, eats grass, and is very strong. One little thing Mr. Comfort overlooks is that "tail" and "stones" in the bible often reference a penis and testicles; examples include "flesh" (Ezekiel 23:20) and "loins" (Ezekiel 29:7-9) and many others that I care not to list, I'm sure the Skeptic's Annotated Bible has a list somewhere. Think about it, though, it's a symbol of virility (from the Latin "vir" meaning "man." But I'll get to that later.

I would encourage everyone to read the Vulgate version of Job translated. Compare that one to the King James Version. Notice the line shifting and the subsequent removal of many lines.
Also notice that it's funny to mention "tail" and "testicles." "Cauda" was actually "penis," as well as "tail." It makes sense, now, doesn't it? To talk about a strong, virile beast and saying how difficult it would be to tame. Having a long tail doesn't do anything for the story, but a huge penis, well, that's a whole other story.

So, what have we learned?
1) Mr. Comfort doesn't know Latin, or has never read a translation of the Vulgate
2) his bible has more errors than a spam e-mail
3) He ignored the part about the animal living in the water and eating on land because it didn't fit his hypothesis (ignoring something just because it doesn't fit is bad)
4) either he knows he's really stretching the stories and trying to make it fit with his young earth idea, or he's being dishonest, or he's just stupid, I'm not sure which at this point.

See my next post when I tear into his conclusions
This is so much fun.

The Not so Blind Faith of the Theory of Evolution

I'm going to have some fun with Ray Comfort's attempt at taking apart evolutionary biology, and we'll just see how wrong, misguided, intellectually impotent, and stupid he really is. Without further ado:

"Evolution is responsible for life's diversity, not for gravity. You are a bit misinformed. 'Gravity' is in the 'physics' section. 'Evolution' can be found at the 'biology' section. Evolution is not 'the creator,' it is a natural phenomenon. There is no such thing as 'Creation,' except in poetic terms." G.E.

Well, it starts out nearly accurate, but this isn't his saying, it's from this guy. So I can't give him credit for it.

If (as is commonly accepted) the natural phenomenon of evolution had no end in mind when it created all living things, it is incredibly intelligent, but it forgot that they would go spinning into space without the law of gravity. So it was fortunate for us that gravity just happened to be around to stop that disaster.

Actually, evolution has nothing to do with this, it's a red herring, it does nothing to say evolution didn't happen, it just says that, somehow, without gravity, evolution wouldn't happen. It doesn't mean evolution didn't happen. I suggest leaving this one into the theoretical physicists, I'm kind of limited in my physics education. Notice, however, what he did, though, he led in with a quote about WHY evolution has nothing to do with physics, and then continued to say that it was without ever making a case for that premise. He is also describing evolution (a process) as a living thing. This is akin to saying gravitational acceleration was smart to come up with matter. It makes NO sense. So what does this paragraph demonstrate? 1) Mr. Comfort thinks evolution thinks; 2) He thinks evolutionary theory should somehow explain gravity; 3) because it doesn't address gravity, it isn't a valid theory. I guess unless we have ONE theory that explains the entire universe, Mr. Comfort just won't be satisfied...

Where did gravity then come from? If evolution had nothing to do with it, who or what created it? "Chance" or "accident" is too bigger leap of blind faith for me. The evolutionist's version of "just believe" isn't good enough. I want verifiable scientific facts.

I could probably toss out that recent understandings of gravity indicate that it is the interaction of particles in space and time and simply one of the many means by which matter interacts. It is a weak attractive force which follows a fairly predictable mathematical model on the macroscopic scale, we're still trying to understand the microscopic scale, but evolution doesn't say ANYTHING about it, it deals with anything capable of self-replication. And if he wants verifiable scientific facts, why is he so happy to embrace a religion which has so few?

And while we are looking for facts, explain to me where the other laws that govern the universe came from, i.e. the laws of thermodynamics, of motion, and the laws of heat? Why don’t we see chaos everywhere instead of order?

NONE of these are arguments against evolution, they are arguments toward physics, not biology. But I'll take this time to point out one nifty little thing, all "laws" which govern the universe come from the properties of our universe, the way matter interacts, the properties of said matter. Trying to assign "god done did it" to questions which have answers we just don't know yet still begs MANY questions, namely "why?" And to answer that last question, there IS chaos everywhere, the order we "see" is simply our brain's way of categorizing and understanding it.

Of course your "scientific" answer will be, "We don’t yet know where they came from, but one thing we are sure of, God didn’t create them."

And your only arguments are those of "first cause." Shame on you for not studying up on your very BASIC cosmology. There is no "before" matter because matter and energy are responsible for this thing we call "time." So there need be nothing before matter and energy because "before" doesn't exist.

It was Newton's law of gravitation that showed science that the gravitational constant is in direct proportion to the product of the masses divided by the square of the distance apart. However, that doesn't explain the nature of gravity. Despite its mystery, the brilliant Newton attributed its origin to the genius of Almighty God. So do I.

Here's another blatant fallacy and I'll see if you can spot it. (hint: appeal to auth___)
Now for some fun stuff, here's the list of things that are attributed to "god" but we're pretty sure don't come from anything supernatural:
Seeds to sprout
Diseases
Weather
Volcanoes and earthquakes
Stars to shine
Sun to move
many others...

So please, pinning "gravity" on there is akin to all these other ones that were pinned to "god." We don't understand it yet, but that doesn't mean something supernatural did. It's a non-sequitur. This whole argument of his was a non-sequitur, and he should seriously learn more about his religion and my science.

WOW!

I don't even know where to begin on this one.
Thankfully, Dr. Myers did...

Just...wow, I mean, I know each and every problem with what these people are saying, not to mention the logical fallacies, misrepresentations of facts, and complete lunacy, but where could I really start on it...

So, read, laugh, enjoy, this one's up for your reading pleasure.
Also, whois came back with this:

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AiG needs a lesson in biology

Answers in Genesis has this thing up on their website that I stumbled across when I ran a google search on "liger." (I was trying to remember if a liger was a male lion and female tiger or male tiger and female lion; it's the first one) But this brings up an interesting point; they fundamentally misunderstand (or misrepresent) what the classification systems are used for and are engaged in intellectual dishonesty. While I do occasionally make an argument against a straw man of their claims, it generally is for humor, and I hope my audience understands that I was putting up a straw man for humor rather than intellectual discussion. It is doubtful his straw man arguments were for the same purpose.

They use the hybrids (the heterozygous sex is sterile, I might add) as examples of "kind." This is probably the most annoying part about it because they imply because they are the same "kind" and they can produce hybrids, then they violate what scientific classifications say and somehow do not violate their classifications. In biology, we have this handy little set of rules for classification, and when things don't work, we know WHY they don't work and that usually, we won't have to worry about it. When it is a problem, we bring it to the attention of everyone and try to find a solution, not attempt to put forth these arguments as to why we were right all along. When evidence goes against what the young-earth creationists say, the pseudointellectual tapdancing beings.

So, here's why we don't have to worry about hybrids of most species (not including domestic/wild hybrids). When you have an uneven number of chromosomes, as many hybrids do, gametogenesis stops; viable gametes are not formed, animal is sterile. This lack of reproductive viability is part of the reason why two separate species present in the same local don't fuse into a single species. In most other hybrids, the heterozygous sex is sterile.

Now for the non-sterile hybrids which are "the same created kind." This is probably the biggest non-sequitur and tautology I have yet to read which blows up in their faces upon further analysis. Simply because they can hybridize and are reproductively viable, they are the same "kind"? I'm still trying to figure out how you define a "kind" aside from another category. They are the same "kind" because they can hybridize and they can hybridize because they are the same "kind"? Then how is it you conclude that these "kinds" were created? The ONLY conclusion you can draw from hybrids is that the two species in question can produce a hybrid.

Now, they imply that these "kinds" were "created" at some point about 6000 years ago, which is completely fallacious for a number of reasons, namely that many, if not most or all of these "species" would need much longer (multiply by at least 5) than 6000 years of total isolation to develop the degree of genetic difference they have now. Lions and tigers, for example, diverged at least 30,000 years ago (that's just going from the African Lion to Cave Lion with a super-conservative estimate, the real number is more like 300,000, tigers diverged long before). So this means that even if these "kinds" were "created," the "creation" would have needed to be more than 294,000 years before they say it does. That's not a small number, physically modern humans have only been on earth for 250,000 years. Hell, Neanderthals used glue 50,000 years ago; did their god set this all in motion because it needed a way to hold two thing together before creating the universe? Or did this god need a really good glue like the ones the Sumerians invented 7300 years ago and it took 1,300 years to get off of its lazy ass to make the universe? (see the straw man? I see no need to knock it down)

So, I'm going to do some reading on this author and see what comes up...

...Well, that's done, after I continued digging into the life of one Don Batten; it's kind of funny, his research is dull, his arguments are silly, and I'm pretty sure he's full of more shit than the port-o-lets after a college football game. Check out his publications! For someone in the field of AGRICULTURAL research, he didn't do much... But I digress, his articles on this website are mixes of intellectual dishonesty, more of it, and some complete nonsense thrown in. Seriously, information content in a genome? Methinks this guy, one Lee Spetner, intentionally set up a very complex straw man. After some checking, I was right, most of this guy's claims are as devoid of claims as postmodern literature. Read his articles though, they're pretty funny.

Cars, trucks, hybrids, and fuel

Wow, who would have thought fuel would hit $4/gallon here in the states...fortunately, it's finally happened. Why do I say this is fortunate? Well, for one, it makes alternative fuels economically viable now, so companies such as PML Flightlink can produce nifty little parts for cars such as this one. Couple this with a battery pack, electronic control system, and a generator of any kind and you get a really neat electric car. Neat because four of these motors have enough torque and horsepower to propel a car to 70 mph down a highway.

Remember that little review of Kent Hovind's dissertation?
Well, this is what a real dissertation should look like. And notice, Duke University lets anyone download it in .pdf format any time. It's also a good paper, read.

How funny is Kent Hovind?

Well, here's a review of his dissertation.
It's pretty good stuff, I mean, since he wants to be called "doctor," why not go through the same scrutiny as any other Ph.D. holder has?
For example, if I want to get any of the dissertations done at LSU, I simply have to go to the basement of Middleton library, it's not that difficult. This is, in part, why every time I see a "doctor" anywhere proudly exclaiming that they have a doctoral degree (and are not in the twenty-something range and seem like they just received their doctorate), I tend to first look up a biography to find out where he or she got said doctorate from. Unaccredited universities aren't too bad in themselves, but perpetually unaccredited universities which have been around for decades and still have not gained accredation tend to raise an eyebrow. Wikipedia has a nice list of unaccredited universities which makes for a nice reference.

Next topic for today: Evolution of snakes; my personal favorite, this demonstrates how interesting evolutionary arms races

Now for politics:
Obama loses any support he may have had from me...
McCain also forced me to do the same...
So, who do I vote for? I cannot support any candidate that supports a "faith-based initiative" because, quite frankly, anyone that thinks religious affiliations should be promoted is completely and utterly in conflict with what I would like to see occur. As such, I cannot vote for either of these men.

That's all for now...