Richard Dawkins (UK Times) - Creationism: God's gift to the ignorant

[Dudley_DUright]

Science feeds on mystery. As my colleague Matt Ridley has put it: “Most scientists are bored by what they have already discovered. It is ignorance that drives them on.” Science mines ignorance. Mystery — that which we don’t yet know; that which we don’t yet understand — is the mother lode that scientists seek out. Mystics exult in mystery and want it to stay mysterious. Scientists exult in mystery for a very different reason: it gives them something to do.

Admissions of ignorance and mystification are vital to good science. It is therefore galling, to say the least, when enemies of science turn those constructive admissions around and abuse them for political advantage. Worse, it threatens the enterprise of science itself. This is exactly the effect that creationism or “intelligent design theory” (ID) is having, especially because its propagandists are slick, superficially plausible and, above all, well financed. ID, by the way, is not a new form of creationism. It simply is creationism disguised, for political reasons, under a new name.

It isn’t even safe for a scientist to express temporary doubt as a rhetorical device before going on to dispel it.

“To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.” You will find this sentence of Charles Darwin quoted again and again by creationists. They never quote what follows. Darwin immediately went on to confound his initial incredulity. Others have built on his foundation, and the eye is today a showpiece of the gradual, cumulative evolution of an almost perfect illusion of design. The relevant chapter of my Climbing Mount Improbable is called “The fortyfold Path to Enlightenment” in honour of the fact that, far from being difficult to evolve, the eye has evolved at least 40 times independently around the animal kingdom.

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,592-1619264,00.html

[Sparkman]

1. Gene Scott once said he has no problem with evolution...God's free to

make things look like they were created billions or millions or thousands of years ago. He espoused that man like beings could have been evolving for millenia, and then God breathed his spirit into a creature, we call man. The "3000" year creationist has to acknowledge that science can prove millions of years of geological history, and Dr. Scott explains one possiblity.
You deny science, and you look nieve and sophomoric. You deny religion, and you look intolerant and spiritually deficient. There has to be room for both in the world. So either accept both, or live in a diminished world, dismissing the majority of people who profess spiritual faith.
Dr. Scott died this year, he was a highly educated pragmatist, born to spiritual parents from the Assembly of God, full gospel church.
Many Spirit filled Christians can EASILY handle all that science has proven, including evolution and the seeming impossiblity of miracles.
The battle roils when a scientist or an spiritualist feels threatened.

[AtTheEndOfTheDay]

3. Malarkey!

If you deny science you look stupid. If you deny religion you look like you engage in critical thinking. Just because the majority of people may profess spiritual faith doesn't mean they're faith is well placed. The Maya believed throwing maidens into underwater caves would induce rainfall. I bet their faith was just as strong as any.

[understandinglife]

2. " Don’t squander precious ignorance by researching it away."

"Ignorance is God’s gift to ...."

Those who always leverage it to grab power, squander resources and commit atrocities.

Truth and knowledge are always the most effective tools against all forms of repression and lust for riches. And, throughout history, it is interesting how frequently some version of "god" adorned the banner being carried by the repressors; by the torturers and murderers.

Peace.


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