Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Refuting the 'Irrefutable' (or 'I see by your ignorance...')





"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." Charles Darwin

I've been watching a series on YouTube (laugh if you like...) about what should be frivolous frippery; the pathetic attempt by Creationists - in faux debates with actual scientists - to disprove (or, at least call into question) the veracity of Evolutionary Theory.

It should be a romp, given that Creationists are saddled with the woeful ignorance of the natural world as 'revealed' in the Bible. (nota bene: There are other religions who cite their ancient tomes but most Creationists are of the Protestant-Christian sects.)
And in the other corner... the abundance of scientific data from a myriad of scientific disciplines should be able to simply overwhelm the absurd Bronze Age theories about how the world got this way.

Should be...
But, it isn't.
Not in the United States.
The trifle turns into a full-blown gorge-fest of info; gruesomely distorted facts entwined with out-and-out balderdash, countered by steely-eyed recitations of referenced scientific findings and supported sources.

One of 'god's prophets on Earth' is a yokel named David C. Pack, who pastors 'The Restored Church of God
' (sic). Pack has a video series (remember video?) that promises irrefutable proof that 'god' exists and concurrently disprove the Theory of Evolution, plate tectonics, modern cosmology, the origin of the universe, quantum physics and the beginning of time.

That's a fairly large hurdle to leap in a 5-part video series. (Carl Sagan had much less to cover in 'Cosmos' and it was 13 episodes.) It is especially daunting given that David C. Pack knows absolutely nothing at all about evolution, cosmology, or anything else that pertains to scientific method or study in the slightest degree. The man would not be able to pass an 8th grade general nature science course in Iowa (no offense to Iowa), yet he sincerely and passionately promises that he will be able to prove conclusively that 'god' exists using 'science' as his proof.

Pack fails miserably, as might be expected.
Imagine if David had had neither sling nor stone. Or arms. Or feet. Or a brain.
Talk about bringing a knife to a gun fight...
Pack brings nothing but a smirk and a smile to a nuclear detonation.

Once again - Dunning-Kruger Writ Large!
Mr Pack is simply too stupid to know how just how ignorant he is.
My trouble with this is this: There are many Americans who believe in what he blathers in his utter and contemptible ignorance. They accept what Mr Pack and others of his despicable ilk sputter and spew.

Understanding a bit of science wouldn't be too difficult for them but for the fact that they have shut off their brains. 

Don't get me wrong. Christianity has some very sensible humanistic tenets - 'Love thy neighbor as thyself', for instance, but the dogmatic, blindly ignorant acceptance of allegory and metaphoric story-telling as historic fact (i.e. Walls of Jericho, 40 years in the Desert, etc) is flabbergasting and frankly offensive to any rationally minded person.



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