Militant Theism Analyzed
Meantime, the Karl Popper issue surrounds this quote, from an Atheist author at Scientific American who interviewed Popper:
"Dubitable Darwin? Why Some Smart, Nonreligious People Doubt the Theory of Evolution"Popper allowed himself to be bullied by evolutionary dogmatists into accepting the unprovable dogma, after correctly calling it non-falsifiable and therefore not science. Late in life he recanted his "change".
Early in his career, the philosopher Karl Popper (yes, cited by F and P-P) called evolution via natural selection "almost a tautology" and "not a testable scientific theory but a metaphysical research program." Attacked for these criticisms, Popper took them back. But when I interviewed him in 1992, he blurted out that he still found Darwin's theory dissatisfying. "One ought to look for alternatives!" Popper exclaimed, banging his kitchen table.
13 comments:
Im skeptical fired a shot:
Quote"His reading of Popper is certainly selective. His insistence that evolution science is non-falsifiable is in direct disagreement with Popper. Of course, all science denialists have to be very selective about what evidence they consider. That's a key feature of ID or creation science. You have to ignore so much of reality, and look only for the bits that help you make your case."Quote
Yes. Absolutely a selective reading of Popper.
Popper never re-reversed his position on falsifiability. He was always somewhat dissatisfied with the evolutionary mechanism of natural selection (note - not with evolution in general). That never changed.
This article describes his position pretty well. And it is worth noting that he never accepted any theistic explanation.
Says im-skeptical:"...And it is worth noting that he never accepted any theistic explanation.
This Atheist is attempting to accuse all those critical of evolution as being creationists. This is the "theistic explanation" he's referring to and it fails under several fallacies, namely:
straw man - attacking a position not adopted by the opponent.
false dilemma - either evolution or creationism is correct. There could be a third option available such as an agnostic position. After all, Atheists are known to celebrate uncertainty.
Guilt by association - because creationists are also critical of evolution, therefore all critics are creationists. Inductive failure.
Red herring - diverting the topic to avoid having to address his failure to produce evidence.
Stan has clearly demonstrated his creationist beliefs. I don't have to guess about it. It's a fact.
IMS,
Still doubling down on your smear-bullying, I see. Still presenting no actual material, empirical, scientific hard facts either. And still declaring your opinion to be a "fact". That seems to be all there is to your position. Rather empty, in the sense of an intellectual void.
IM Skeptical: you share the same quality I find in most other online atheists: you're living in a fantasy world. There, you are smarter than the rest of us *because you said so*. You don't even have to reason on the internet - all you have to do is fling poop and run.
You're no different from any of the others who wander in here for their own amusement. But do keep in mind one thing - none of your writing makes the slightest bit of difference in the real world, because none of your writing is based on anything but self-delusion.
Logic and reason, on the other hand, never go out of style.
Just a note: I've frequented several Theist blogs where IMS has appeared to argue with regulars, Victor Reppert's - http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/ and Edward Feser's - http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/. At Reppert's blog IMS spent months offering the same refuted answers, if asked for evidence would resort to quote mining Wikipedia and other internet sources which it seems he barely understood, some of which actually helped his opponent, rather than himself. A frequent poster named "Crude" handed his ass to him regularly, and IMS would dither, change the subject and months later when the same topics reappeared it would be as though the previous discussion never took place, IMS was impervious to reason. Eventually, VR decided IMS was no longer contributing anything of value to the blog and blocked him after months of various posters trying to engage him rationally.
I suspect you already realize arguing with IMS is a waste of time, but if anyone is interested in a bigger picture of how he operates and (poorly) parrots the usual Atheist nonsense, a check of the blogs I mentioned might be educational and humorous, Crude's skillful take-downs of IMS were always a joy to read.
Talon, thanks.
I spent a few minutes at dangerous idea, found and IMS thread. Yep, he will never grow up. It's hard to know what he thinks he is proving by showing off his ignorance that way. Also hard to know what Joe Hinman sees in him. He is best just ignored. Or blocked if he can't be ignored.
On IMS's site, he has a blog entry about ex-atheists:
The Skeptic Zone: The Ex-Atheist
In the comments section, they talk about someone named Aaron Boyd who allegedly exposes Feser's book for the foibles it supposedly has:
Review of The Last Superstition
I e-mailed Feser, and he said that Boyd was mad at him (a former colleague or assistant or something), so he wrote this scathing review.
Also, another commenter had this "wisdom" to share:
Quote"But of course, as the community faces future challenges it becomes ever clearer theology "is but the ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system." [Philosopher Paul Henri Thiry]"Quote
Science of the Gaps: Scientism. There is only one philosophy these days: monist, reductionist, determinist Materialism. Anything else will be labelled with pejoratives such as "creationist", "sky daddy" "magical thinking". That sort of rhetoric is necessary to avoid having to analyze criticisms of their own fallacious premises.
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