The Rational Response Squad has released an amateur video of their debate with Cameron and Comfort.
I didn’t care for the argument that the universe might be infinite, but otherwise, not bad. Not great, either, but then they were just presenting the sensible position. Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron were terrible. They quickly abandoned the pretense of providing scientific evidence, and instead reached for the bible and simply asserted its truth.
I just have to expand on something in the face of a lot of criticism of the Rational Response Squad in the comments. I agree that they weren’t as polished as we might have wanted, some of their arguments weren’t very sharp, and there were missed opportunities…but the important thing is that they stepped up to the challenge and confronted those creationist kooks. Maybe deGrasse Tyson would have done a much better job, but so what? He’s one guy.
We aren’t going to win this conflict when a few of our very best speakers give an eloquent speech. We are going to win when every average Jane and Joe in the country realizes that they are smarter and better informed than clowns like Comfort and Cameron, and when half the audience at these kinds of events rises out of their seat to confidently argue with them…and the other half are sitting there laughing at the creationists.
So sure, we can and should quibble with their presentation—that’s how it will get better—but keep in mind the last time you got up to confront a creationist in public.
The Rational Response Squad would had a much more entertaining debate if they debated a pair of bonitos.
Did anyone else giggle at Ray chanting “painter, painting” while holding a cheap mass-produced poster?
‘Course, maybe I’m wrong; maybe he had the real thing. In which case it was awfully gracious of the Louvre to loan it to him. Maybe if I promise to make an ass of myself on American television, they’ll let me borrow a Rembrandt.
Comfort & Cameron were worse than terrible. Because the Rational Response Squad were not good debaters and spent much of their time rambling and stumbling. I’ve seen HS debaters that could kick their tails. Yet they smashed Comfort and Cameron, who, without their convient scripts and editing, coudln’t sell their lies.
Relatively interesting. The banana didn’t show up (kinda doubted it would).
I think there was an error, though, when Brian brought up ‘Why can’t the universe be infinite’, when it’s fairly established that it isn’t, i.e., the big bang theory.
I say energy (of some form) is infinite, but that’s my pet theory.
Also, as I understand it, the 1st law of thermodynamics doesn’t seem to apply on microcosmic levels or on broader cosmic scale (dark matter, etc.)
As to the painter/watchmaker crap:
I have always maintained that all creators are bound by the same physical laws of the created.
The Rational Response Squad needs wardrobe help.
Yes, folks, framing.
ray and kirk didn’t look so good here:)
People are kinda hard on the rational responders debating skills but, these are some young people out doing something that really hasn’t been done before. They are doing it in front of such a large audience(TV)too. I think they should be given allot of credit and if anyone wants to help them with some technical info……….well they are easy to find on the Internet
The redhead from the Rational Response Squad seems like some pretty good evidence of a benevolent god.
A few thoughts from someone who was actually at the debate:
Frankly, I have no interest whatsoever in hearing four non-scientists discuss evolution. Brian and Kelly, well intentioned as they were, simply didn’t have the chops to explain clearly how uninformed Bashir’s views on evolution were, much less Cameron’s and Comfort’s. (When Bashir said, “I’m a transitional form? Are you saying I’m different now than I was as a baby?”, all I wanted was for someone to say, “Organisms don’t evolve! Species do!” Alas.)
And I don’t want to throw this potential discussion onto a tangent, but I was let down a bit by B&K’s lack of charisma. Don’t they host a radio show, for Maude’s sake? Brian came off surly and bothered, half the time reading off his notes and not looking up. Kelly fared slightly better, more self-assured and composed (the fact that she’s stunning didn’t hurt her presentation), but when things got emotionally heated, she tended to get a bit haughty. I certainly understand the impulse, seeing as how K&R threw the match within five minutes by going straight for the Bible at the first available opportunity, not to mention the fact that their arguments were at best transparent claptrap, but getting riled up never helps anyone. K&R were smooth, savvy, and charming throughout, despite their utter lack of any substance whatsoever. You can’t hurt an empty suit by hitting it harder. I think the best way to deal with such ridiculous people is not to debate them earnestly, but to respond with detached bemusement, as Dawkins tends to do. You can’t outargue people (like Kirk and Roy) who aren’t interested in real dialogue, but you can win quite easily if you get the audience laughing with you.. and at them.
No Coke cans or Pepsi products used as evidence. This simply will not do. I expected at least some appeal to carbonation from the “C” squared gang.
No Coke cans or Pepsi products used as evidence. This simply will not do. I expected at least some appeal to carbonation from the “C” squared gang.
At this point it may be appropriate to cite the proverb…: “Debate is whatcha put on de hook to catch de fish.”
Let me play Caledonian: Populations do. :-)
At this point it may be appropriate to cite the proverb…: “Debate is whatcha put on de hook to catch de fish.”
Let me play Caledonian: Populations do. :-)
The RRS were put in a difficult situation. Their presentational skills were not quite good enough and I’d have preferred a more experienced debater to pit against Com/Cam.
I also had some problems with their arguments. It’s true that we don’t presently know of any way to violate energy/mass conservation, but that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to posit an as yet undiscovered process which could do this. Even if energy/mass conservation held perfectly at all times, that in no way disproves a God. Who’s to say that Satan isn’t God’s anti-matter negative-energy form?
I also disagree that the essential difference between a painting and the universe is that we can look the painter up, whereas we have no access or phone number to God’s ‘creation factory’. I think most people would be happy to conclude that a painting by a completely untraceable painter who had since died- would still have been painted by someone. We know of only one process that can create paintings. They are all created by painters, whether we can locate them or not.
Uh, folks.. contrary to popular belief, the verdict is still out with cosmologists on how big the universe is and whether or not it’s finite.
Standard inflation theory already predictions that the observable universe (somewhere > 78 billion light years in diameter according to WMAP data) is probably a very small fraction of the total universe and doesn’t rule out infinite scenarios. And that’s before you start looking at the various string theory and brane theory models, many of which embed our three dimensions inside a much larger reality.
And yes, that 78 billion light years is far bigger than the 13.7 billion year age suggested by the same data. Inflation theory invalidates a lot of the “classical” arguments about the universe being finite.
Aaaarrrggghhhh!!!
This gets worse and worse!
Many physicists do not agree that the universe is infinite in duration. It’s quite possible that time began near or at the big bang.
Of course, this has precious little to do with the existence of God- but I wouldn’t predicate my entire argument against a Deity based on the finiteness (or not) of the universe.
I’m sorry- but the RSS messed up this debate.
I have scientific proof there is a god.
Crap, no, it’s in my other pants pockets. Maybe next time.
I was quite amused by the use of the Mona Lisa. After all, its “creator” began to rapidly lose religious faith in his own life. It seemed oddly appropriate
Well, I may try and watch this tonight, but it appears the verdict is pretty well in. But RRS brought up what I think is really a key strategy in debating religion’s real effects on society: historical record.
For example, we know that God was invoked for both good and evil throughout history, and today. God was invoked by people sailing over from Britain to take Native American land, by the Spanish to enslave the peoples of Central and South America and to take their resources and gold, by popes to oppress the Jews or as an apologetic for enslavement of African peoples. The list moves on further, to many other instances, but the history is clear: if God has been invoked to do good, he has without question been invoked to commit history’s most brutal acts as well. We don’t even have to broach the 20th century to comprise a convincing case.
What does this tell us? That religion’s prominence in history is significant in that it is used as an excuse for bad, and is less often the moral impetus for actual good. Our Civil War is a perfect example, a schism more about the economics of ending slavery than about the true question of whether African Americans should be freed from bondage. It means that it wasn’t so much a force for good as it was an animating ethos used by the rich on the poor. That it was truly with reason that good changes occurred, and not by divine decree. And the proof is there today, what with the Bible being invoked to denounce gay and lesbian people.
People say science is what turns most people away from God – any god – but for me it has been an examination of history, that points to the same conclusions. Any more, I think if you take a real hard look at history, even just American history, and pore over its minute details – the very same ones few if any of us were actually taught in grade school – religion and God are forces none too good on very many occasions.
Perhaps this is why the Religious Right has invented their own American history, so they can keep kidding themselves, their children, and if they have their way all of our kids, that God was the only reason we got here. I’m sure it’s the reason they hate public universities, which actually get the truth out.
Brian and Kelly aired the entire debate on their site yesterday with no editing. I thought they did a fantastic job under the circumstances. Of course they hit some slippery spots, but they have to start somewhere, and they were themselves, whether you agree with them or not. I think it’s bullsh!t to expect them to represent all of atheists. They don’t, they only spoke for themselves, and I think they did well. As long as ABC edited it right (which I doubt) I think rational people in this country will be impressed with the honesty that Brian and Kelly portrayed. They may not have had all the answers, but the showed themselves to be much more rational than Kirk or Ray.
As far as Kirk and Ray, they really did a horrible job. For large parts of the debate they sat silently with big goofy “Oh shit” looks on their faces. They didn’t bring their “A” game, or at least they didn’t bring their writers along.
I personally am convinced that the universe is infinite in its “time” of existence, based on the works of people like Stephen Hawking and the theories behind the multiverse.
((YAWN)) same old tired arguments. Gee, I’d have hoped they’d have come up with something new to refute.
Jamie G- Hawking argues precisely the opposite- that time was created along with the other dimensions at the beginning of the universe.
However, it doesn’t matter a bit whether you are convinced or not about the infinitude of the universe. Physicists are still debating the answer and your certainty is mostly based on opinion- not fact. In any case, a finite universe does nothing to increase or decrease the likelihood of a deity.
I absolutely criticize the RRS for not getting their science right in a televised debate! They used poor arguments, muddled up the science and did atheism a disservice. I’m sorry, but that’s my opinion.
Christian,
It seems we are arguing semantics, when I mean universe I mean to imply beyond our known universe and include the multiverse. Hawkings mentions near the end of “A Briefer History of Time” as well as David Mills in “Atheist Universe” discussed the implications of an ever existing reality that includes the multiverse. I think this goes a long way in disproving the Christian God “Yahweh”. The saying goes that an absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence, but by default if we had to decide I would say that there are no deities, at least no personal gods, and absolutely the Christian/Jewish/Islamic god does not exist, but this is not by this argument alone (there are lots of arguments that better articulate this).
No, our universe may have began at a singularity, but the theory of the multiverse is showing some promise.
But I am no great physicist, hell, I ain’t even a good amateur. But because I don’t know all the greatest arguments in the world doesn’t mean I should just accept good arguments from Christians and become one. This is why I think they did a great job. Say what you want, and be a condescending ass, but for what it was I am happy with the results. If you can do better, call ABC.
I am astounded that anybody even gave a second look at his, “this painting proves the existence of a painter.” In reality he was holding up a color photocopy of a painting on a piece of cardboard. That proves the existence of cardboard, and perhaps color photocopiers (or a color printer), perhaps a photographer and some computer filters to make it look more like a painting.
The infinite universe is certainly more plausible than God. However, modern cosmology is more apt to conclude a causeless origin of the universe arising from nothing. Certainly you can’t destroy matter or energy though you can smash matter together with antimatter and perhaps do so enough to get back to a zero sum result. Though, to be fair, their argument is less bizarre to the non-inducted.
At best if the item in question doesn’t reproduce we can conclude it did not evolve. Random, Design, and something unknown are still on the table.
Why do they assume the “creator” is a god?
Because that’s what the bible says.
Why do they assume the bible is right?
Because it was dictated by the “creator”?
It can’t be much fun to be forever reduced to “the bible says so” explanations.
It’s like they’re permanently stuck in an evidence-free bible bubble.
Doesn’t that get a little old after a while?
I am going out on a limb, but I am trying to remember where I read that the total energy in the universe is 0. Somehow the positive and negative energy (not in the woowoo sense) balances out to zero.
I realize no matter how old the universe is or isn’t doesn’t disprove a god or gods. I just bought Victor Stenger’s “God: The Failed Hypothesis” and am looking forward to reading it.
My point to Christian is that an average guy like me may not have all the knowledge out there to easily argue my opinion, but I respect the RSS for standing up for themselves no matter how socially unacceptable it is. We little guys appreciate that, and are quit to defend those that do, no matter how messy it may turn out. I give them credit for at least jumping out there and doing it. Good for them!
OK, so I’m a ‘condescending ass’ if I think the RSS did a bad job? Sorry for letting the team down! In future, I’ll agree with every atheist on a point of principle- even when they mess up the science or use poor arguments.
And- invoking the multiverse does little to prove/disprove the existence of a deity. (Well, I guess if anything- it makes a deity more likely, since in a big enough universe, there actually is a guy named Jesus somewhere who right now is turning water into wine.)
The multiverse theory is also highly controversial, and there’s no consensus in the peer-reviewed literature.
That’s a poor argument. You could equally well support Comfort/Cameron for standing up for themselves and their beliefs. I don’t think that a committed atheist is any better than a committed Christian, unless they can articulate reasons for their POV.
…
…
Heh. I think the main point to take away from all this is that, amateurish as they might have seemed, the RRS team still scored.
If they came across as the high school freshman team, it was only because they were in a major-league stadium, where we unconsciously expect to see polished pros.
We have to remember, though, that the atheist team has never even been allowed on the field. For a first showing, they kicked major ass. And they’ll get even better.
Getting onto the field was the breakthrough. Our team’s game skills will undergo rapid evolution in the next handful of years. The voice of atheism, unbelief, science, reason, whatever interest you might see here, at last has a chance to go head to head with the power players on the side of religion.
If our interests are heard on TV today, they’ll be heard in Congress tomorrow. Someday, Reason will win an equal voice, equal rights, in America.
…
…
I just wish they’d invoked “Who created god?” when it came to “everything must have a designer”. And one *always* needs to invoke Plato’s Euthyphro when they start babbling how there can be no morality without god.
Maybe it’s just me, but these two always do it for me. They just can’t be answered without begging the question. There’s no need for e-mailing painters or calling attention to christian repentance.
“People are kinda hard on the rational responders debating skills but, these are some young people out doing something that really hasn’t been done before. They are doing it in front of such a large audience(TV)too. I think they should be given allot of credit and if anyone wants to help them with some technical info……….well they are easy to find on the Internet”
They aren’t that young. Brian is 32 years old. Sam Harris was about 34 years old when he completed The End of Faith, and that book is far more rigorously and eloquently argued than anything produced by the RRS. Granted, writing a book allows you to organize your thoughts more clearly than being in a live debate, so I ought to cut some slack there, but I can’t help but agree with some of the others here that Brian’s arguments were really bad in some cases. As champions of critical thinking and substantiated knowledge, we shouldn’t tolerate bad arguments anywhere, even in our own camp. Allowing bad arguments from atheists to get past us just makes it look like we’re not really interested in good knowledge and reason for its own sake, but rather, we’re interested in advancing an “atheist agenda” at all costs.
I will agree with others though that Kirk and Ray were far, far worse than Kelly & Brian. That doesn’t excuse Kelly & Brian.
Um, what exactly do people mean by infinite? Many big bang models feature a universe that is infinite in extent, but has an initial singularity some time before “now”.
The “visible universe” is finite, being bounded by an opaque plasma horizon. It would not surprise me to see some sources leave off the qualifier “visible”, after all most of them report it as being 14 billion light years in radius. (It’s not, for any sane definition of radius).
I’m going to point out for posterity here that Cameron used to be a tv star — he’s spent an awful lot of time doing what is, essentially, performance in front of an intimate audience. I wouldn’t expect much of anyone to come off looking polished compared to him; he’s simply had far more practice at this sort of thing than most.
Well, I guess guys like me should just shut up then and mind my business. Since I didn’t graduate college and was never on a debate team I should just let all the smart people with high IQs speak for me. And some day I guess I need to check here with all of you just to make sure I learned enough before I decide to speak up for myself that I don’t except religious dogma and the Christian expectation for me to just get it. Brian and Kelly should do the same as well before they embarrass the rest of us.
Jamie G., it has nothing to do with your level of education. You can be a high school dropout and still make brilliant arguments. But if you make a bad argument, you WILL be called out on it one way or another, if not from us atheists (since you SO don’t want to hear it from us), then from the Christians you are debating, which is even worse! It’s only because Cameron and Comfort have no clue what they’re talking about that Sapient wasn’t called out. But there are theist scientists out there that do know enough to be able to tell Sapient that his argument from the first law of thermo to the infinite past of the universe doesn’t work. And there are theist philosophers out there that can tell Sapient that his characterization of the principle of parsimony as “the simplest explanation is best” is really, really just bad.
I’m not saying that Brian and Kelly should stop debating. I like what they’re doing. But they need to be more careful. Actually, I am going to post feedback for this vid on their forum.
Jamie G. wrote
You’re certainly improving your sarcasm!
On a more serious note- I don’t expect people who aren’t good at baseball to play it on national television. I don’t expect people who are bad at math to be invited onto CNN to talk about their equations (though this does happen!). Similarly, I don’t expect someone who is bad at debating to be chosen for a national televised debate.
I think there is such a thing as expertise and ability when it comes to debating and forming convincing arguments. I think that PZ, Dawkins and the Bad Astronomer have enormous ability to form coherent arguments and present them in a clear and powerful manner. I don’t know how much of this is learnt and how much comes through practice.
Yes, I’m elitist. I want to see the very best that atheism has to offer when its presented on national television. I think that the RRS members were good, but not yet good enough for a national stage.
I don’t think that any of this detracts from your ability and responsibility to articulate your own arguments. You may have a perspective that the ‘expert’ atheists haven’t thought of yet. Even looking at this page you have come up with arguments that are original and need to be discussed and thought through.
There are primitive versions of the teleological argument, as popular among non-philosophers, and there are stronger versions, such as Robin Collin’s confirmatory version. Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron settled upon a weaker version. Their version is primitive enough such that the objection “Who created God?” becomes an actual concern. Now, even with, for example, Collin’s version of “confirmation,” I think there are a few problems.
First, I’m not so sure that the confirmatory teleological argument makes probable a sentient Designer. First, the analogy of humans creating things to extend to the natural world and the universe may be an unwarranted leap, due to the great analogical differences. The second is that I personally think that the teleological argument indicates more of an ordering principl strictly. The leap to a sentient Designer is not justified by the above. This ordering principle can be identified as natural law.
However, I myself would be hesitant of concluding that it is necessarily natural law. It may well be a Designer. However, given the indifference the world at large shows, apparently one is not justified in concluding that there is a personal ordering principle i.e. a god of some type. Obviously though, nothing indicates which specific god, since the teleological argument is one of natural theology.
Thus, at best, I think the teleological argument is insufficient and can even be perhaps utilized to confirm, with the same degree of tentativity, a claim antithetical to traditional theism. It can instead confirm metaphysical naturalism as well.
Given my current philosophical ignorance on matters of philosophy of religion, I am not aware of whatever replies Collins has to this objection.
IF the universe could be infinite and eternal, you have provided a basis for the justification of the idea of the infinite and eternal.
So God could be eternal, eliminating the question: “Who made God?”
Clarissa,
The question is eliminated at the same time that the argument that it counters (“Who made the universe?”) is eliminated.
Can someone explain who the RR Squad is and why they were set in opposition to Comfort?
The real takeaway here is that we don’t NEED to have any sort of definite answer about the universe to refute goofy arguments about it. The only honest thing to say is that we just don’t know much of anything about the universe: not just that we don’t know how it started, but even that we don’t know if it makes sense to talk about it starting. We just don’t know. All we really know is that the universe appears to have once been all very squished and hot and then expanded. It might have been a singularity. We don’t know. And if it was, we don’t really know what that was like, because none of our physical theories can really describe that very well.
The End. Talking about the beginning of the universe, or fine tuning, or any of that, and claiming that science supports it is just flat out lying. Science doesn’t have the ability to nail down whether or not we know the right questions, let alone any of the answers, right now, and it may never be able to.
“I didn’t care for the argument that the universe might be infinite”
What else do you propose?
Good grief, Robin Collin’s arguments are TERRIBLE. Half the time, he sets out to refute some objection and somewhere halfway through seems to forget what the objection was in the first place and never actually delivers anything. He repeatedly accepts arguments for theism that he almost literally just before rejected when used against theism.
I don’t understand why people as sloppy as this can get cushy teaching jobs, and schlubs like me can’t.
I can only sit here and fantasize what an almighty beat-down Hitch would have inflicted on those chumps.
Sorry folks, but don’t Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron just look and sound like a closet gay couple?
Well, if by infinite, you mean no beginning & no end, you’d be spot on.
1. The big bang/bounce is generally accepted by consensus of astrophysicists, so I’m going w/the experts here,
2. There was a contracting universe that preceded this 1, http://www.world-science.net/othernews/060514_bouncefrm.htm
3. 2nd law of Thermodynamics is apparently ineffective on the nano level – http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2135779.stm
(ramification here is that thermodynamic laws aren’t absolute, nor universal)
4. the multiverse is an interesting idea, but mostly in the speculatory stage,
5. 1st law of thermodynamics -Zero point energy is a result of the creation & destruction of sub-atomic particles – http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/zero_point.shtml
I’m strictly an amateur – but I think PZ mentioned that this might be the next battlefield, so groaning, I’m boning up on it.
Half-sense beats nonsense.
This is encouraging.
You can’t have a cardboard glossy imitation Mona Lisa without an imitation Mona Lisa factory.
You can’t have an imitation Mona Lisa factory without a Mona Lisa (and some carboard).
You can’t have a Mona Lisa without a Leonardo da Vinci.
You can’t have a Leonardo da Vinci without a Leonardo da Vinci Sr. and spouse.
The rest is evolution until you get to the pre-life earth, which is a product of the big bang, which has not been fully explained but if one thing is certain: god is not part of the equation because god is clearly a bad guess made a long time ago by clueless individuals doing what humans do so well: making stuff up.
Time to give up the parallel universe, Ray and Kirk, and accept the wondrous world of fact and reality – where you look like nothing more than a couple of foolish middle-aged con men.
Yes, better presentation by the RRS would have been more enjoyable from my point of view but still, this is an old fashion “pasting”, which must have some relationship to the old fashion law “post no bills”.
Though presentation is an important consideration when one is speaking to a rapt audience, pointing out a knuckleheaded statement to a larger and unknown audience carries a lot of thunder. More so when they get the point. You never know, though.
I thought the godboys were gonna do this without reliance on the bible or recourse the the ultimate showstopper, “Well, I, er, we, believe . . . ” Where did I ever get that idea?
Gaaahhhh. I only managed to get about 2/3rds of the way through watching; it was just too painful. Maybe I’ll come back to it later.
I didn’t think the RRS did that well, but Cameron and Comfort were worse than terrible. There were several occasions on which they just seemed completely stumped for answers. I guess maybe they’re a little too used to not having their silly pronouncements directly challenged.
A few things I didn’t like about the RRS responses (just take the silliness of Cameron/Comfort as read for now):
The response to the builder/painter argument was weak, and I think maybe missed an opportunity for talking about the word “proof”. It isn’t the case that we have “proof” for the existence of a painter in the given example, and it isn’t true that we can call him up (in the Mona Lisa example). Rather we have evidence for the existence of a painter because we have many, many examples of paintings and we understand the process of producing them. From that, we look at a painting, perhaps analyze its composition and work backwards from there to find the process by which it came to be by finding the closest fit to what we already know. In so doing we’re creating an inference for which we have evidence.
That process does not apply to the universe; we don’t have millions of other examples of universes we observed being created from which to draw such an inference about the one we can see.
I didn’t like the thir^H^H^H^H first law of thermodynamics argument much either. I don’t think it is true that we can infer that the universe has always existed from that data. The fact is, our observations of the first law are limited to a particular slice of time in which a particular set of conditions applies. I don’t think that can necessarily be extended to infer that the first law has in fact, always held.
Irrespective of that, I think the argument was just a little too complicated and it felt to me like it was going off into the weeds somewhat.
The “argument from ignorance” point that was made was a nice strong comeback. They should have just stuck with that. It was clear that Cameron/Comfort had no repsonse to that.
Notwithstanding all of that, they did pretty well, and I’m sure other posters will set me straight if my reasoning here is anyway off base…
Hmmm, I finally made it to the end of the video.
I thought the female RSS debater (sorry I don’t know her name) was much better than her male colleague and put forward some good points.
As for the painting question:
It’s absolutely true that any painting of similar detail to the Mona Lisa must have had a human creator. We know of know other process by which paintings can come into being- and we have enormous experience and knowledge of the process of how humans can make paintings.
The line becomes a little more blurry for a Jackson Pollock or a Rothko. Their paintings are more abstract and some of them might conceivably have come from a more natural unplanned process, such as spilling paint on a canvas, rather than as a deliberate act of design.
I’d also be unsure whether it’s absolutely impossible for a photograph to have a non-intelligent creator. It seems possible to me that some entirely natural process, e.g. sunlight through a small hole impinging on the right chemicals could produce a photograph under the right circumstances.
———————————-
The analogy that Com/Cam are drawing is that animals and the universe itself are so manifestly complex-much more so than a painting- that they must have had a designer.
I think that’s a completely fair point to make- that is, if you’re wholly ignorant of the theory of natural selection. Natural selection shows exactly how an animal, which appears to be a complex machine, can be blindly ‘designed’ without forethought or any intelligence whatsoever. It completely decimates the ‘watchmaker’ argument so beloved of Com/Cam. Never mind the law of energy conservation or whether the universe is infinite or not. Natural selection is a complete and sufficient answer as to how complex things can arise from simple things without an intelligent designer.
As for the creation of the universe- I think Dawkins nails it using these two points:
1) Yes- you could posit that the universe has a creator, but that just begs the question.
2) Science does not currently have a complete theory for why the universe goes to all the effort ‘to be’. I don’t think anyone has a full understanding of why there is something rather than nothing.
Even so, what little we (scientists) know about the universe dwarfs the empirical evidence obtained through any religious method. Science might not have all the answers, but it is going in the right direction.
———————————————-
The problem with the RRS speaker, is that he attempted to give plausible sounding scientific reasons as to why God should be ruled out of physics. I think that was a mistake. I don’t think there are any laws of physics which can disprove the existence of a deity. All we can do is to keep on using the scientific method which involves looking for naturalistic explanations and see how far we can go. We can’t be absolutely sure that science will solve everything, but we can be sure that religion has got us nowhere.
I don’t care about anything in the debate (well, I truly do…) except one thing: The looks on their faces when they’re stumped. Aw. Absolutely precious.
Who are the Rational Response Squad people? For better or worse, they represented the rationality side for this debate and it would be nice to know who they are and how exactly they ended up being the official face of reason.
I made the mistake of going to their website and it seems they can’t articulate their thoughts effectively in any medium. The website is not only incoherent and hard to navigate, it is ugly and the gray-on-black text hard to read. The website’s main function seems to be to raise money by selling memberships — it reminded me of a religious website. I don’t want to be mean, or seem petty, but I’m disappointed that the RRS ended up representing me.
___________________________
Comment #48 suggests something interesting. Yes, Cameron and Comfort sound like cretins, but it’s always possible to use some judoka tactics on them and crush them with their own, feeble weapon (I mean, of course, the “Mona Lisa” argument). They say: “You can put a crack team on scientists on it, and they will come to the same conclusion…”. What do they mean by that? Obviously, they seem to imagine that the scientists will repeatedly look at the painting, and that’s it.
This is a great opportunity to reply with a quick lesson on science, and especially on how it works. What would scientists do (WWSD?) when facing such a problem? What exactly goes on in a laboratory? Well, there would be historians scanning the archives… and chemists analysing the pigments… and physicists revealing the brushstrokes with some imaging techniques… and a final, collective conclusion saying that so many clues pointing in the same direction lead to (almost) certainty.
That would enlighten everybody, and perhaps even Cameron and Comfort.
Oh, and they’d need a crash course in botanics, about the artifical selection of the banana, too…
I smell rank amateurs. BAD all around. What a waste of time.
Aris #52:
I counted about 25 ads/banners on the RRS page. Not good. I agree- they need to ease up on the homepage.
Also-according to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_Response_Squad
The two RRS members who appeared in the debate are boyfriend/girlfriend. That’s quite a coincidence! Just imagine- the two people who get to defend atheism in a national debate happen to be dating each-other.
BTW- for fans of sexist language, the WIkipedia article describes Kelly as ‘the girlfriend’
of Sapient (as opposed to Sapient being described as Kelly’s boyfriend).
Why did the bad science people hate Jesus so much?
Why were they so mean to Mike Seaver?
Christian,
Good replies..seriously, no sarcasm. If a guy like me honestly wanted to learn more about making better arguments, spotting crappy ones, and finding out more about logic and critical thinking, where can I go to sharpen my skills? Do you guys recommend any sites/books?
>The big bang/bounce is generally accepted by consensus
>of astrophysicists
At least they haven’t put it to a vote.
At its extreme edge, cosmology is starting to sound more and more like religion. “I don’t know… but if I postulate that the universe is actually an infinity of parallell dimensions then that’s consistent with… blah blah blah” Personally, I’m very uncomfortable with that kind of reasoning and prefer to sit back and wait until the evidence is in. Isn’t that what scientists are supposed to do when they don’t know?
mjr.
Jamie G:
I very rarely win an argument, so don’t take my advice!
However, if you want to learn, the way of the master, then I suggest the following sites:
1) Pharyngula. It’s run by some hirstute guy who’s obsessed with squids, but other than that- PZ is a great writer.
2) Badastronomy.com The ‘Bad Astronomer’ Phil Plait is a ninja at demolishing pseudo-science. He also does it in an entertaining way.
3) James Randi at randi.org. Randi is the godfather of the skeptic movement.
Here’s the thing- it’s OK to disagree with any of the above. In fact, it’s mandatory! It’s not about towing the line or parroting what you think the standard skeptic response should be. It’s about thinking for yourself and being able to defend your point of view based on reason and evidence.
You also don’t have to be a super-science geek in order to be a skeptic. A lot of scientists are fooled as easily if not more easily by the simplest of cons or the dumbest of ideologies. Randi is the most respected skeptic I know of, and he’s a professional magician, not a scientist. He has taken on many many scientists who believe the weirdest things.
But- if you are going to use arguments from science, then do so in a humble way. I like multiverses, you like multiverses, but the jury is out as to whether they’re true or not. It’s ok to say that you don’t know, or that scientists don’t know.
I guess it gets a bit confusing, what with the Christian right trying to sow seeds of doubt about global warming and evolution. It seems taboo for any skeptic to even question the exalted scientists on these matters. However, I think we need to tread a tricky path- everything is open to question (evolution included!), but we’ve got to remind ourselves that sometimes the scientists have a lot of evidence (evolution) and sometimes they have barely any evidence at all (superstrings, multiverses).
For better or for worse, the fact that RRS did this public debate means that they are likely to be asked to do it again — you know how the media goes back to the same trough again and again and again and some more agains.
The best thing we can do is get them constructive feedback so that they do better the next time.
Boring. Utterly boring. Not one decent argument on either side. How your average Christian moron who wouldn’t know how to spell “science” can assume s/he can provide proof for the existence of god – that boggles the mind. And how such dreck gets on tv is absolutely beyond me. But I guess it’s the same line of thinking that presents us with endless coverage of Paris Hilton and Anna Nicole.
Yea, both sides were not quite the brighest crayons in the box. I mean, come on guys, how about something more along the lines of the oxford debate in 2005. I’d like to see that televised.
The edit embedded here on pharyngula can fairly face the accusation that it was unfairly cut only to show Cameron and Comfort as slackjawed fools. I didn’t hear any contributions that Cameron made, due to the poor audio.
I was disappointed that the editors choose to retain a long cut of Cameron being dumbfounded by a question; not that I have much sympathy for the fool, but it is a similar trick to the one played on Dawkins when they claim he couldn’t answer a simple question about creationism. I dont’ think anyone needs to do this to Cameron. Show the parts in which he opens his mouth to prove he is a fool.
I am trying to decide whether or not to watch the full debate, just because I was not impressed enough with the RRS’s favorable edit.
I haven’t watched the debate yet, so I don’t know the context of the “infinite” quote, but my understanding is that according to the current state of our knowledge, the universe could very well be infinite, both in size and in duration.
The observable universe is finite in size, but there is no reason to suppose that’s all there is. Our observable universe could be just one small piece of the larger universe which is infinite.
About the duration, a universe that starts at the big bang and then never ends has an infinite duration, right? What would you call it, half-infinite?
See more:
Misconceptions About the Big Bang
The existence of a god must surely prove the existence of a godder.
Please explain how that works. I don’t get it. Inflation, fine, but how does light that has, erm, been inflated away from us reach us?!?
That produces a lot of energy — all the matter gets turned into energy: E = mc2.
That’s about energy and gravitation (potential energy) balancing, yes.
Ignorant question: Does “in 4 dimensions” count as “sane”?
Please explain how that works. I don’t get it. Inflation, fine, but how does light that has, erm, been inflated away from us reach us?!?
That produces a lot of energy — all the matter gets turned into energy: E = mc2.
That’s about energy and gravitation (potential energy) balancing, yes.
Ignorant question: Does “in 4 dimensions” count as “sane”?
J, if you want to read up on debate you could do worse than read about policy debate or Lincoln-Douglas debate.
Nizkor has a good list of logical fallacies, which is a good way to recognize and label poor arguments.
IMO, it’s important to have a strong set of factual resources so you can recognize false premises, provide citations for your arguments, and also avoid wasting time when someone floats a previously disproved argument. The talk.origins FAQ has a lot of great refutations and citations for common creationist arguments.
Christian Burnham beat me to it in comment 50, but I thought the same thing about paintings. I was just listening to the audio, and not watching the video because I was working. So when I heard Comfort start talking about paintings, Jackson Pollock was the first thing that popped into my head, and I thought that it would be kind of hard to know if many of his paintings were intentional or not without knowing the history of the work.
Anyway, it’s just a crappy analogy, for all the reasons other commenters have already pointed out.
@Christian
I think though, that it may be difficult to find more experienced speakers who would be willing to debate with this duo. Who said it? : “That would look great on your CV; not so good on mine.”
Even though i think some of their arguments were shaky at best, I’m glad the RSS agreed to do this. To echo the comment someone else left here: half sense trumped nonsense.
Reaction from a non-scientist (me):
I thought the rapid responders did a good job. The fact of the matter is, it doesn’t take much to prove the problems with the religion based rationalizations coming from anti-evolutionists like Comfort and Cameron. A child of 6 would have no problems poking holes in their arguments.
Hopefully seeing this video will inspire more people to go ahead and confront creationists who have anti-science agendas. Yes, the RRS could use some honing on their responses, but I think this debate shows that you don’t necessarily need to have a degree in a scientific field, or complete knowledge/recall of all of the facts on talkorigins.org (definitely the snopes.com for ignorant creationist garbage), to respond to their nonsense effectively. Considering that this is an issue that effects our whole society, many members of which are decidedly not scientists, isn’t that a good thing?
More. I want MORE of this stuff.
Stanton wrote, “The Rational Response Squad would had a much more entertaining debate if they debated a pair of bonitos.”
Sorry. At first glance I thought you wrote “burritos.” Which would have been more interesting and intelligent also.
So Comfort admits early on you can’t see, touch, or hear God. I was happy to hear him acknoweldge that very obvious point. However in the VERY NEXT sentence he proclaims if you “harden your heart” to God you won’t be able to hear His voice.
What the hell Ray? I understand it’s hard not to contradict yourself when you claim to be able to prove the existence of God, but come on, the very next sentence? That’s pathetic
The RRS showed it doesn’t take much to refute these clowns. My favorite part had to be Cameron’s consistent deer in headlights look at the most simple points made by Brian and Kelly. I look forward to seeing how the edited version comes out on Nightline.
For those of you who want to read a more thorough and complete destruction of Ray and Kirk’s arguments visit ironchariots.org. One of the contributors there has broken down several of the Way of the Master videos and overall it is a nice anti-apologetics site.
For those of you who want to read a more thorough and complete destruction of Ray and Kirk’s arguments visit ironchariots.org. One of the contributors there has broken down several of the Way of the Master videos and overall it is a nice anti-apologetics site.
Here is the problem with this particular televised format:
Regardless of who may or may not have won the “live” debate, Nightline’s ultimate goal is to create compelling television, and that means a compelling dramatic narrative.
Godzilla vs. Bambi is not compelling. Mayweather vs. De La Hoya — compelling. So as an editor and producer, if my job is to make compelling television, I am going to edit the event so that the two opposed forces appear as evenly matched as possible. There is absolutely no way around this. The medium is the message, and when this show goes to air it will look like each side scored points equally — because it has to look that way to be interesting.
As a believer in Jesus, I must say that I too thought Kirk and Cameron were just awful. While Brian and Kelly probably didn’t convert anyone to atheism, they were certainly better prepared for the debate.
Some people have paid good money for paintings done by chimpanzees.
But call me once Comfort and Cameron have evidence of a painter willing a painting into existence by sheer will-power.
During the exchange regarding Christianity allowing you to do whatever you want, I really wish they had brought up Pat Robertson’s intercession on behalf of Karla Faye Tucker, who murdered two people with a pickaxe and was sentenced to death by lethal injection. Because she became (or claimed to have become) a born-again Christian while sitting on death row, her having killed two people with a pickaxe no longer mattered, and Robertson (as well as that bastion of morality, Newt Gingrich) tried to get her off death row.
Quite simply: if you kill two people you deserve to die and burn in hell, unless you convert to Christianity, where even a double murder won’t keep you out of heaven.
During the exchange regarding Christianity allowing you to do whatever you want, I really wish they had brought up Pat Robertson’s intercession on behalf of Karla Faye Tucker, who murdered two people with a pickaxe and was sentenced to death by lethal injection. Because she became (or claimed to have become) a born-again Christian while sitting on death row, her having killed two people with a pickaxe no longer mattered, and Robertson (as well as that bastion of morality, Newt Gingrich) tried to get her off death row.
Quite simply: if you kill two people you deserve to die and burn in hell, unless you convert to Christianity, where even a double murder won’t keep you out of heaven.
During the exchange regarding Christianity allowing you to do whatever you want, I really wish they had brought up Pat Robertson’s intercession on behalf of Karla Faye Tucker, who murdered two people with a pickaxe and was sentenced to death by lethal injection. Because she became (or claimed to have become) a born-again Christian while sitting on death row, her having killed two people with a pickaxe no longer mattered, and Robertson (as well as that bastion of morality, Newt Gingrich) tried to get her off death row.
Quite simply: if you kill two people you deserve to die and burn in hell, unless you convert to Christianity, where even a double murder won’t keep you out of heaven.
Oops, sorry for the multiples. *idiot*
My two cents on some of the “science says” issues above. I’m not a cosmologist but have taken a graduate cosmology course and I work in particle physics. Some of this has been pointed out by posters above.
The “observable” universe is finite due partly to special relativity, nothing moves faster than the finite speed of light so one can only see distant objects further back in time. In principle then if we go far enough back we would see things get so hot that everything is plasma and essentially opaque. We do and this is the much celebrated cosmic microwave background.
There is another complication because expansion and inflation (a period of really fast expansion) mean objects far enough away can never see each other because they are moving apart faster than the speed of light. Imagine a balloon with a set of evenly spaced points. As you blow it up each point moves away from its neighbors at the same (subluminal) speed. But if you look at two points with enough other points in between they will be moving apart from each other arbitrarily faster and you can beat the speed of light. But locally, from the points perspective, you never see this and special relativity is not violated.
Anyways, when physicists say the universe sometimes they mean the observable universe because they are being good little empiricists. However, for the sake of theory and metaphysics we can talk about the Universe which may or may not be finite spatially speaking.
As for time, the Big Bang is just what you get if you consider that the universe is expanding and run things backwards until you get a breakdown in your equations. This does not mean everything sprang from a point but that we don’t know enough physics to go beyond a certain energy density. (Almost) certainly the universe was much smaller than it is now and you can figure out the time in some sense that the universe evolved according to known physics. I think it’s currently around 13-14 billion years. It’s not clear if time has a meaning before the Big Bang, it might be that there were previous bouncing universes, etc. There are interesting hypotheses, no solid theories.
The first law of thermo (conservation of matter/energy) is an empirical observation, not a first principle although so well established that we write it into fundamental equations as a principle.
The second law (increase of entropy/disorder) is a statement of probability, it is true for large numbers of particles and long times. It is in this sense a first principle with the normal caveats about probabilities. Hence on small enough scales/times it is not necessarily applicable and it’s only true for closed systems.
If the universe is infinite one would expect it has infinite energy. However, quantum field theory gives you calculations that show apparently infinite energy density. (This involves particle-antiparticle pairs creating and annihilating “out of the vacuum.”) Probably this is because, again, we don’t know the underlying physics to go up past certain energy regimes. The weird thing is you can ignore that infinity because it’s not directly observable and still get sensible physics answers so we don’t need a complete theory.
The observable energy/mass density of the universe appears to be just right so that we have a flat universe. This is one of the reasons to believe in inflation. None of these are reasons to believe in god.
Pedantry: off.
David Marjanović,
Spacetime is not a “normal” 4-dimensional space, and a surface of constant distance from us is not really a hypersphere. So no, I wouldn’t count a distance between two events separated in time as a radius. (The symmetries of the universe provide a natural choice of time coordinate and hence a concept of “different times”).
Now, it is in fact quite possible to define a “distance” between events (points) occurring at different times.¹ But one of the quirks of spacetime is that the distance between two disparate events can be zero, and it can be imaginary. And the distance between the plasma then that we’re seeing as the cosmic microwave background and us now is in fact zero. The distance between where “we” were when the plasma of the early universe condensed to gas and us now is 14 billion years (approximately). But that’s a factor of i different from 14 billion light-years, and the plasma where we were is/was in a different location than the plasma we’re seeing.
¹ This gets more complicated in GR, where there can be more than one geodesic (“straight line”) connecting two events. To be entirely proper you would want to specify for which path you’re giving the distance.
Many of our intuitive concepts of the world don’t translate cleanly into the framework of modern physics; I realize I’ve probably been unclear and confusing, but I hope I’ve at least given some flavour of the issues involved.
The RSS did a pretty good job in my opinion. There were probably points where they could have done better, but at least they got the message out, and it’s great that they actually go out and DO something. I can’t help but wonder what kind of massacre would have ensued if these clowns were up against Dakwins and Hitchens though. :)
Am I the only one who gets a kick out of Comfort’s repeated use of the phrase “100% scientific proof”? I mean, science never proves anything with 100% certainty. There’s always room for a better theory. Any time someone tells you they have “100% scientific proof” for something, based on that alone you should start to question their claims.
Also, to answer PZ’s challenge, two years ago I heard that a “scientist” would be giving a presentation on intelligent design at a local church and staying for lunch afterwards. I went to his talk, sat down next to him during the lunch, and proceeded to debate evolution vs. intelligent design for the next hour. And I’ll be honest, I probably missed a few points here and there; I don’t have a recording of the event. But if there could be someone like me at all of these pseudo-scientific revivals, people could get the message that more scientists are learning about intelligent design — and how much it threatens to undermine intellectual freedoms in this country.
Krystalline Apostate: Actually, that’s a misrepresentation. The big bang is the origin of our local hubble volume; by itself it says nothing about the eternity of the world.
Andrew Wade: Also – singularities are in the equations, not reality itself, so a singularity is just an expression of our ignorance.
A.Y.: All fine tuning arguments can be refuted by several remarks. One is that improbable events do occur all the time. Second, of course the universe is fine tuned to us; we wouldn’t be here if we weren’t compatible with it – EXCEPT in a supernaturalist world view. Astronomer Bill Jeffreys points out that that if anything fine tuning supports naturalism. Finally, we don’t even know that the constants of nature are subject to variation at all. To insist that of course god could tweak them is to beg the question, needless to say.
The rational response squad focuses on rationality and using whatever resources they have to point out those who are not. They use science and respect science, but they never claimed to be scientists. I luv em ! GO RRS!