Thursday, September 1, 2022

Science illiteracy


One serious irk I have is when people try to refute science when they have no understanding of the science they’re referencing. This happens all the time amongst amateur apologist for ‘god’ – particularly the god of the Bible.

One such amateur apologist might begin by claiming that they can disprove Evolution. When asked to defend their argument, they immediate go to abiogenesis; ‘Well, where did the first cell come from?’ glossing over their claim to disprove evolutionary theory by natural selection completely and pole-jumping to abiogenesis. 


When abiogenesis is explained briefly to them, the apologist jumps the rails again to question the ‘Big Bang’ cosmological hypothesis. 


(Citing the ‘Big Bang’ seems to bring some delight to the apologist; I think because it’s an easy phrase to say and is alliterative and easy to remember. They seem torevel in the silly, simplistic image, thinking that the image is debilitating, derogative and deleterious to a counter-argument.)


Once the ‘Big Bang’ is discussed as a concept even the garbled cogency of the initial claim to refute evolutionary theory gets chucked in the bin, generally.  


If led back to the initial claim, (i.e. Evolution is wrong!) the apologist will attempt to assert a complete dearth of transitional creatures and/or fossils - easily refutable - before returning to the cycle of non-sequitur and rail-jumping obfuscation. 


One wants to scream.


Science is refuted by better science. Yet, there are some apologists who attempt to refute science by offering no evidence and falsely citing their timorous, erroneous grasp of the theories of science as the proposed evidence to refute science.


Huh?


One retort, when backed into a corner, is ‘Well, what I’m doing is just what science does.” This reveals just how ignorant the speaker is about the scientific method; as if scientific method was just a gaggle of dudes in lab coats seizing on any and every hare-brained, disjointed notion and holding onto it for dear life. 


Infuriating.  Read a fucking book.


“I’m talking about infinity," states our hypothetical apologist - "… a bigger infinity.


Oooh! Are we flabbergasted yet? Flummoxed by deputies?


What does this say about your ‘’god’?


… that 'father/god' designed a scenario, a world, in which there are people who are totally unconvinced of the presence or even the existence of a god but who would be immediately convinced if the ‘god’ revealed himself in a ‘Road to Damascus’ moment. Would that be too much for your ‘god’ to do?


Couldn’t It (father/god) provide a personal revelation to everybody on earth at the same time? How ‘bout to just a few people? Penn Gillette, maybe. 

Ricky Gervais… ?

Richard Dawkins…?


If god appeared to any of them, the world would change. If your god could do that, why hasn’t it?

It’s not that this is desired or yearned for; it simply meant to point out that a solution to non-belief in any specific god would be, could be swept aside by such a manifestation.