Such is the case with anyone who uses the terms “Darwinism” and “Darwinist”.

Why is it? Because those terms are both inaccurate, and loaded.

They’re inaccurate because modern evolutionary theory, much like any science, has itself evolved, and biologists know much more about the workings of evolution than Darwin did, more than 150 years ago. While, say, religious beliefs themselves change and evolve with time (anyone who believes today’s Christianity has anything to do with what Jesus preached is completely deluded, and should someday try to read the gospels as what they really say, without any preconceptions), they don’t do that openly. In other words, there are branches of Christianity which claim to want to “go back to the basics”, but, typically, you don’t see “Christians” claiming that “Jesus was on to something, but we’ve improved over his primitive teachings“. They do that (after all, the apocalyptic, “sell everything you have, the end is near” trappings of Christ’s Christianity couldn’t have lasted long as a religion, at least with any degree of earthly success), but they don’t claim that — or, if they do, then they have to accept that Jesus was just a man, and such a belief can no longer be called “Christianity”. Islam is a popular example of that (to them, Jesus was just a mortal prophet).

Science, however, evolves, and while the founder / discoverer of a branch is honored and respected, scientists don’t treat his or her words as “holy” or as dogma. No biologist would ever say something like “it’s like this, because Darwin said so.” In science, reality is the final arbiter, and no hypothesis or theory is ever sacred. If anyone ever disproves (with evidence) evolution as we know it, science will abandon it and replace it with a better predictive explanation; the fact that nobody has managed to do it in almost two centuries (and it wasn’t from lack of trying) should tell us something.

We don’t call gravity “Newtonism”, because Newton wasn’t the be-all, end-all of gravity — nor did he claim to be. His writings aren’t the final word on gravity. There is no “final word”, but any new “words” must be tested against reality, and must be able to predict new situations as accurately as possible (say, the orbits of planets). “Newtonism” would suggest that modern physicists worship Newton, that they take his word as dogma, that modern physics are just a case of spreading Newton’s word to the unenlightened. You know, much like religion?

“Darwinism” is exactly the same. The implication of the term is that evolutionary biologists worship Darwin, that modern biology is just the study, understanding and spreading of Darwin’s word. That such a belief is dogmatic, and taken on faith. You may not mean it that way, but that’s what the word implies. If you disagree, consider what saying “Newtonism” instead of “gravity” sounds like.

And yet I keep seeing the term tossed around. Especially — of course — by intelligent design advocates. Who, as Expelled has shown, are not necessarily the most honest people around. Now, if you say “Darwinism” instead of “evolution (by natural selection)”, which are you? The deceiver, who fully knows the implications of such a loaded term, but wants to promote the idea of evolution as a Darwin-worshipping cult? Or the deceived, who was fooled by the former?

Source: Cectic

This shows perfectly what the theists’ beef is, IMO. No matter how much they deny it, their goal is to insert religion in science classes, nothing more… and they won’t be satisfied with a truly neutral position, where science classes only teach science. To them, not saying “goddidit” is “promoting atheism”… and they can’t have that.

While not very well known compared to others, this was always one of my favorite parts of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and I even told it to friends and co-workers a couple of times in my youth. To see and hear Adams himself reading it is a treat, to say the least. Also, Dawkins looks incredibly young — it feels a bit weird, in a way, as I’d just been watching his talk at UW Madison, from just 2 days ago (look here), and the difference is astounding, though I’m glad to see that he hasn’t yet lost his sense of humor.

P.S. – if you don’t see the video above, it’s probably because you’re reading this in an aggregator; in that case, just look here…

There are several ways to approach this one. One of them is this: just because a result is “unlikely”, it doesn’t mean that it’s impossible; after all, all of them are equally unlikely, but every time you roll the dice, you will get one result, and it wasn’t any more miraculous than the last time. The fact that we are here, alive, and arguing about this is proof enough that it happened at least once, so, after a result happens randomly, it is absurd to consider it “too unlikely to have happened by chance”, since, well, it just did…

Who knows, maybe there are, or have been and will be, many “failed” universes — at least, “failed” in terms of being able to support (our kind of) life — out there. There are some hypotheses about multiple universes, which I have not investigated, but, still, they sound less “wild” and “fantastic” than a divine creator.

But if multiple universes sounds too Marvel Comics for you , just consider this one: is the universe we live in actually fit for life? Only if you consider an incredibly huge — much, much bigger than the whole Earth — arid desert with but a 2-foot puddle of water “fit for fish”.

Yes, any considerations of “this universe seems designed to support life” might have made sense in the Middle Ages, with an Earth-centric view of the universe… but now? This universe is incredibly, absolutely, hostile to life (at least, carbon-based life, as we know it), and this incredibly insignificant little planet is an exception… and not even a complete one, as more than half of it is hostile to life as well — indeed, we can only live in many parts of it due to human ingenuity and science, not because it was “just perfect” for us.

It’s normal to consider that this planet is the whole universe — hell, it’s normal for many to consider their neighborhood the whole universe! — but if you think about the real vastness (and age) of it, and about what virtually all of it is like, then to say that it “looks designed for us” sounds absolutely medieval.

This reminds me of the interviews at the end of the The God Who Wasn’t There documentary, where one interviewee mentions that, if this universe looks designed for something, that’s designed for forming black holes, not life. Are we to assume that God loves black holes, or even that God is a black hole, and created a universe to honor him…?

I don’t know if most theists have really thought about what they mean when they say that. Think about it: when they say that the universe’s existence is evidence for a god, the implication is that, without a god, there could be no universe.

But now I ask the obvious, but not often asked question: why does the universe require a god to exist? The answer, I believe, is that you don’t know any other way, can’t conceive of any other possibility. You don’t understand how the universe could exist, except by divine creation. But isn’t that just the God of the Gaps fallacy, all over again? You don’t know, so it must have been God? Much like diseases were thought to be caused by demons before we knew about germs?

Sure, science can’t yet explain the origins on the universe; we have only hypotheses, such as the Big Bang, which are currently imperfect and incomplete. But science evolves, and we can today explain many things that were "obviously" supernatural centuries ago. Why not the origin of the universe, a few decades, or even centuries, from now? It’s possible.

You may now reply: "ah, but God could have created the universe with its natural laws, so that everything occurs naturally, but God did provide the original intent, the original authorship. In other words, God created a completely natural, self-sustaining universe."

But… then, why is God needed at all? If a universe can "happen" naturally without a god, then we must at least concede that this one could have, and the "evidence for God" thing goes out of the window.

Or consider another approach. Let’s assume you’re a theist and you believe that this universe was created by God. Fine. Now imagine, please, how a universe would be like without God, a universe which "happened" naturally in every respect, which doesn’t have any kind of conscious being at its origin.

Imagine that universe. A universe where there is no heaven, no hell, and no supreme being taking care of us. Where everything happens according to natural laws, and nothing more. A universe where no miracles happen, at all. Where prayer doesn’t work, doesn’t make impossible things happen, and doesn’t even affect probabilities of possible things. An incredibly complex universe, at the same time harsh and uncaring, and beautiful, but one which science increasingly understands, and can be used to grasp patterns and predict behaviors.

Now… how could you distinguish that universe from ours? Could you, at all? Doesn’t our universe, at least from appearance, fit that description to a T?

From the initial comment:

I’ve noticed that many slashdot articles about evolution seem to attract a sizeable number of creationists. Because of this, I’ve decided to address the serious (i.e. non-trolling) creationists that frequent slashdot in the hope that I can prevent you from making the same easily avoided mistakes that make so many of your brethren sound like ignorant cretins. Here are some common arguments that creationists use, and why I think that you shouldn’t use them… unless of course you want to be ridiculed. Note: this is by no means a comprehensive list.

(1) “Evolution is just a THEORY”

This is the most common (and the most disappointing) creationist argument I hear on a regular basis. While it’s true that evolution is a theory, this statement is made in an attempt to cast doubt on evolution by implying that evolution is akin to a wild guess that scientists came up with after a night of heavy drinking. Newsflash: it’s not going to work. Most educated people understand that you’re confusing the word “theory” (which means an explanation or model that is capable of predicting future events) with the word “hypothesis” (which means an educated guess). Calling evolution a “theory” isn’t an insult. For the millionth time, I will repeat this: gravity is also “just” a theory (for example, google the “General Theory of Relativity”). I might even add that most scientists would consider evolution to be a better-supported theory than gravity, because of the fact that gravity cannot (currently) be quantized, despite decades of attempts. If you want to debate evolution, fine- but don’t play these childish word games.

Of course, it goes on. Really, read it.

And from his reply, to another user who suggested he participate in a public debate about evolution / creationism:

(2) Creationists often make statements like “Evolution can’t produce new information in a genome” or “We don’t know how old the earth is because carbon dating isn’t useful on large timescales and we don’t know the initial amounts of isotopes and polonium halos disprove old ages anyway”. Answering each one of these statements would require hours of boring, dry lecturing- something that simply isn’t going to happen. And the problem is that creationists don’t just make one of these statements, they make DOZENS of them. Answering this kind of deluge of mis-information in such a way that it can be intelligible to the average person would take an unbelievably long amount of time. As such, even answering questions from the crowd can be a tricky business. How do you explain isochronology and radioactive dating methods in 2 minutes to a young earth creationist? I can barely explain it to a fellow scientist in less than 15 minutes. Now imagine someone standing up and asking two or three of these questions in rapid fire mode, and ridiculing you for not having a snappy answer. This kind of public failure would not look good.

Again, follow the two links and read the entire comments. The first one is “print out and give to friends and family” material, and the second explains the frustration of discussing science with non-scientists to whom “quick, easy answers” (such as “God did it”) often sound a lot better than the inevitably more complex truth.

The beginning of wisdom is the statement “I do not know.” The person who cannot make that statement is one who will never learn anything. And I have prided myself on my ability to learn.

– Thrall (from the Warcraft series)¹

A common argument by theists is this: the universe exists. It couldn’t have appeared out of nothing, so there must be a creator. That is, God.

However, we used to be equally sure about the divine origins of, say, the weather. Storms? It was obvious that the gods were angry, or fighting among themselves. But now we know better. We may not know everything, but a lot of it has been successfully explained by science… and, guess what, it’s all natural, so far. No divine intervention required.

Science has been widely successful. It has moved us from the cave to the hut to the skyscraper, more than doubled our life expectancy, and explained a lot of phenomena — once attributed to gods or demons — as natural. But it is not perfect. And it “knows” it. It is always prepared to discard an hypothesis when it comes up with new data that contradicts it. While some would accuse science of “flip-flopping”, of not providing us with absolute, final certainties, that is actually the best thing about science: it’s about understanding reality, but it’s reality itself that is “in charge”, and no scientific hypothesis, or even scientific theory (which is something a lot stronger — tested against available evidence, peer-reviewed, etc. — than what the word “theory” suggests in common language: merely an idea or wild fancy, as in “I have a theory…”), is ever set in stone.

In short, science is capable of saying “I do not know.”

In the opposite corner, ladies and gentlemen, we have religion. Religion doesn’t know the words “I don’t know;” it replaces them with “God did it.” Both in primitive times, when little was known of the workings of the world, and now, religion always claims to have a perfect, complete answer to everything. “God did it.” How? “Who knows? God works in mysterious ways. No need to understand; just have faith.”

What is the origin of the universe? God. How did life appear? God. Where does mankind come from? God. What is the source of morality? God. What happens to us after we die? God.

“God”, as an answer to a question, is nothing more than the fear of saying “I do not know”, even to oneself. Apparently, such an honest admission is scary to many theists; it is much more comfortable to cease all questioning, stop any investigating, turn your mind off, and say “God did it. That’s good enough for me.”

Good thing it wasn’t “good enough” for many people throughout history, or we would still be living in caves, huddled in the dark, afraid of terrible demons and unknowable gods. We don’t live like that anymore, however, all because some people were honest and brave enough to say “I do not know”… and then went and did something about it: they began to learn.

1. more about the character here.

The problem with that is that the awe of religion is the awe of not understanding. And you aren’t even supposed to understand, in fact. You’re supposed to “just know” (since it says so in a holy book), but never actually think too hard about it. It’s the awe of ignorance.

On the other hand, the awe of science is the awe of beginning to understand. It’s the awe of a child, when he realizes that there’s a wondrous universe out there, and that he can understand things about it – that there’s an infinity of new things to learn. It’s the awe of starting to grasp something, and realizing that it opens so many new avenues, that there’s so much out there that you can now comprehend — or begin to.

In fact, it’s religion that is resistant to awe.

Take the example in Sagan’s quote. Once, we didn’t really see much of the universe, and we understood it even less; to us, it probably appeared magical. We thought it was young, ridiculously small, and that our world (which we also believed to be much smaller than it is) was at the center of the universe. Anything we saw on the sky was close to us, and not really that big. Many things — the sun, animals, plants, etc. – were so useful. Therefore, it was natural to conclude that the universe was made just for us.

And, as that was what people believed back then, so it was included in religion.

Much later, we began to realize that the universe was much larger, much older, and that there was a lot of stuff out there. Nebulas, pulsars, stars of many sizes. Entire galaxies. And space – distances almost inconceivable to us (have you ever thought about how much a single light-year is? Try calculating it, just for fun.) And it had also been there for much longer than we first thought — indeed, for much longer than our puny little planet, or our puny little sun.

To me, that’s like being blind, and suddenly starting to see. To me, that is awe. Beginning to understand.

As Sagan says, religion could have made use of it. It could have used this newfound vast universe to show a much greater god, an infinite, complex, cosmic god, a deity that wasn’t restricted by what little was known by Bronze Age shepherds. A god who didn’t reflect the prejudices of its time, and who didn’t act much like a human, only “bigger”.

But no.

They’d rather keep their deities small and petty, our earth absurdly young (despite all the physical evidence to the contrary), our universe as an irrelevant backdrop for the real reason everything exists: to decide whether our souls are saved or not.

Can you really be awed by that, after you know the least bit about what the universe is really like?

Moderator: We’re here today to debate the hot new topic, evolution versus Intelligent Des—

(Scientist pulls out baseball bat.)

Moderator: Hey, what are you doing?

(Scientist breaks Intelligent Design advocate’s kneecap.)

Intelligent Design advocate: YEAAARRRRGGGHHHH! YOU BROKE MY KNEECAP!

Scientist: Perhaps it only appears that I broke your kneecap. Certainly, all the evidence points to the hypothesis I broke your kneecap. For example, your kneecap is broken; it appears to be a fresh wound; and I am holding a baseball bat, which is spattered with your blood. However, a mere preponderance of evidence doesn’t mean anything. Perhaps your kneecap was designed that way. Certainly, there are some features of the current situation that are inexplicable according to the “naturalistic” explanation you have just advanced, such as the exact contours of the excruciating pain that you are experiencing right now.

Intelligent Design advocate: AAAAH! THE PAIN!

Go read it.
(seen on The Martian Anthropologist)

The Bible is true in passages relating to human salvation, they say, but continue: “We should not expect total accuracy from the Bible in other, secular matters.”
They go on to condemn fundamentalism for its “intransigent intolerance” and to warn of “significant dangers” involved in a fundamentalist approach.
“Such an approach is dangerous, for example, when people of one nation or group see in the Bible a mandate for their own superiority, and even consider themselves permitted by the Bible to use violence against others.”

Now, it only remains for the American Fundamentalists… sorry, “Religious Right”, to do the same. I don’t know, 500-1000 more years should do the trick.

When will people put in their minds that religion does not belong in a science class, and that not being satisfied with religion classes and having to introduce it in science classes as well, disguised as a science, is cowardly and dishonest?

And what does it say about religious people, by the way? I thought lying, and dishonesty in general, were sins…