Wednesday, August 17, 2016

IM Skeptical Tries His Hand At Refutation

IMS takes umbrage with regard to the quotations listed in the post HERE.

In his attempt to refute the positions that were taken in the quotes from people such as Darwin’s teacher and mentor, Dawkins, Gould and others, IMS takes to refuting, not the statements which are made, but the characters of the persons making the statements. He even attributes quotes not presented by me as if those were the quotation he is attacking. Or maybe he thinks his quotes cancel out the original thoughts which were presented. They don’t. The quotes are real; they stand.

When IMS “critiques”, he does nothing of substance. It is always in the form of attacks on the persons who make the arguments. His title for this particular Ad Hominem Abusive Article is not fully appropriate: “Intellectual Dishonesty of Creationists”. He presents no “intellectual dishonesty”, only the hideous specter of a proposed evil character flaw in the subjects. His favorite response to any actual contrary attack is to shout, “CREATIONIST”, “ANTI-SCIENCE”, and other pejoratives because when he needs to discredit the attack on his belief system, he really has no other weapon than to attack using the deviational fallacies, not actual empirical data. Why? Because: evolution does not have any empirical data. IMS cannot present data that does not exist. So he must attack the people, not the non-existant data.

Neither of two quotes which IMS presents refute the actual quotes which were made. He doesn’t have a prayer (not that he’d want one) of disproving the quotes, as they stand: these are honest opinions of the authors, without any scent of creationism attached to them. They are direct hits on evolution, and by extension the blind believers in the untestable, unprovable, unfalsifiable cult of Atheist origins and Philosophical Materialism which constitutes the several, mostly mutually exclusive, Theories of Evolution.

Let’s take the following false analogy:

”But Stan refuses to recognize just how widely supported evolution theory is, preferring instead to paint a picture of divided opinions, and suppression of minority views. Imagine a similar statement in support of the theory of gravity, which is similarly accepted my most scientists. Would Stan call that a religious cult? ”

How many scientists have lost their jobs for claiming that the source of gravity is unknown, but that the effect of gravity is at least measurable? None. Category Error: unrelated variables of unlike kind; rhetorical failure. Physicists claim knowledge ONLY of that which they can test by making actual gravitational measurements under repeatable and falsifiable objective conditions, which anyone with a weight and stopwatch can demonstrate for himself. But as for the cause of the effect, no claims are made, much less claims that are required to be believed as Truth.

Not so with Evolution. Evolution does, in fact, make truth claims which cannot be proved by anyone, much less some outside observer with a stopwatch or other physical instrumentation. And being unprovable, the truth claims cannot be proven false. And here is the rub: True Believers insist that their unprovable truth claims must be taken as immutable Truth – not by evolutionists of course, who are constantly writing new stories to replace the old stories which cannot possibly work in light of the complexities discovered by modern biology (the only REAL science of biology). No. The external world is assured that there is no internal conflict on "basic True facts" of evolution, as if there actually were some. The claims made by evolutionists are vague and abstract enough, unfalsifiable enough, and Materialist enough, that they got them declared Truth in court in order to force these faux Truth claims into school systems without any fear of any critical thinking being applied to them; dissent successfully disabled.

Thus the IMS analogy fails, pitifully, painfully. Fallacy: False Analogy.

It is presupposed within the Evolutionary Cult that non-falsifiability means that if it can't be disproved, then it must be True by default. Nonetheless, it is obvious to the critical thinker (which exists only outside of the carefully thought-controlled interior of the Cult) that non-falsifiability does NOT confer truth by default, as evolutionists assume. But what it does do is to deny the validity of any Truth Claim being made for such non-falsifiable claims, and it denies the intellectual respectability of those who claim otherwise.

The quotes presented in the post at this site are intended to demonstrate factually that there is no internal law of evolution which is accepted as causal, even after 150 years of internal conflict within the rarefied, oxygen-free atmosphere of the Evolutionary Cult; that there is no provable mechanism, not only for the source of life, but for the increase in complexity which is claimed for the fossil record – which merely shows animals which existed, not evolution in progress… certainly not macroevolution; that the entire claim of “Theory” is a sham because it consists of nothing at all except for science-fantasy stories.

The quotes are taken from many more which could be assembled into a book. The internal conflicts have gone on from 1859 through today and will not stop, because there is no possible determinative data which can provide an actual objective fact that could be weaponized to stop it.

Evolution is a fine field in which to be employed because there are no objective metrics to gauge the value or productivity of an evolutionist, save for the volume of science-fantasy stories he tells which get published. There is no limit to the imaginary fantasies which can be attached to DNA, or to bones, or to the new type of fossilization which didn’t turn bone into rock and still contains DNA in the soft tissue. The obvious falsifiers don’t matter because, in principle Evolution as a theory is so abstract that it has no actual meaning which can be falsified even at the metanarrative level, on top of having no possible data to examine for the possibility of falsification, as required by REAL sciences including modern biology.

So here’s what happens when the impossibility of evolution crops up in one of its various forms, say complexity requirements or the existence of the numerous creatures which have no lineage (platypus for example). First comes Radical Scientism: “science will advance someday, and then we’ll know the unfalsifiable ‘truth’”. Then comes the heated invective discrediting of the source of the contentious information: “Creationist! Anti-Science!” And then, if the unwitting source of the contentious information is employed in thrall to the Cult, he is fired. To present any contentious information which threatens Evolution is “treason to science”, and punishable by expulsion from the tribe and suppression of the claim.

This is hide-bound, dogmatic, political correctness [Note 1] which is designed to strike fear in the hearts of all who want to keep their employment as story tellers safe. Expulsion from the tribe carries the stank of perceived incompetence, and the weight of the black-ball. One who is ejected from the Cult is unemployable except as night clerk at the local convenience store. The devastation is physically and fiscally palpable as well as emotional and reputational.

So IMS is merely doing what the entire industry does: he attempts to destroy the character of anyone who presents the actual, valid, logical and demonstratively true case against Evolution which is this: the theory is totally empty of any conceivable capacity to prove, objectively, the truth of any of its fantasy stories, and completely unable to maintain the stance that there is just one comprehensive theory which has substance and is believed by all the experts in the field. Evolution has no testable, falsifiable hypotheses for First Life and goes out of its way to deny any responsibility for explaining that. Evolution cannot explain the creation of the eye when considered as a complete vision system, despite the claims of 1800 steps from pre-existing light sensitive packages to round packages… an absurd attempt in the first place, yet which is hailed as highly meaningful within the Cult. Evolution cannot prove, yet presupposes, that mutations of some sort can create massive amounts of new information, despite the entropic impossibility to do so. (Thus establishing that nothing is “impossible” for a pursuit that cannot be falsified).

Any story will do, if it can’t be experimentally falsified. And that’s despite the incredibly vast odds against it, in its simplest form, much less in the necessity of its hugely complex reality.

So all that is needed, within the cult anyway, is the Ad Hominem, whether it applies or not. The Ad Hominem is just another faux story from a non-empirical, fact-free Cult, this time a faux story about a human, directed at the character of that human. And all their faux stories demand belief. Or else.

One last thought. The weapon of political correctness likely descended from the “science” of Darwinian tribal exclusionism. The ejection from a tribe is a traumatic event, especially when it is accompanied by denial of career, denial of personal integrity, denial of personal value, and persistent public denigration. This was illuminated when The Amazing Randi made his fatal faux pas, and was attacked, de-tribed and denigrated voluminously until he barely recovered his status by fully recanting his faux pas publically and accepting his disgrace meekly. He essentially did a submissive belly crawl before his attackers in order to get back in the tribe.

These tactics are de rigueur amongst the gate keepers of the Cult. They employed their armaments of personal denigrations in full volley against the Premier Atheist of the 20th Century, Antony Flew, when he recognized that the information content in the huge molecule, DNA, was a physical refutation of Materialism and a blatant case for Deism. He was attacked mercilessly, publicly, and relentlessly; he did not recant, and was permanently de-tribed. The tribalist attacks of political correctness did not prevail against this man of intellectual integrity.

Many third-tier evolutionists such as Jerry Coyne and PZ Meyers are tribal gatling guns overheated with constant rhetorical attacks on tribal outsiders. It’s their job to keep the cult tribally purified of actual disciplined deductive logic, and keep the science-fantasy stories sanctified. (Even Coyne admits near the end of his book, “Why Evolution is True” that he can’t prove any of the stories he presents in his book. So everything about the book, from title to the admission, is not falsifiable and yet completely true. Not just true, but True.)

The cult’s passion, from the gate-keepers to the least of minions such as IMS, demonstrates the lack of objectivity inherent in the tribe. If objectivity is part of science, and it was at one time, then evolution is definitely not science. If science necessarily provides only contingent knowledge based on non-falsification, then evolution is definitely not science. If science pursues physically demonstrable causal hypotheses in pursuit of support for overall narrative, then evolution is definitely not science. If science is dispassionately self-correctable with the advent of further causal demonstration, then evolution is definitely not science.

If passion and non-falsifiablity of dogmatic principles within a protected tribe define a cult, the evolution definitely is a cult. Stephen Jay Gould said so.

To conclude, IMS is an inveterate liar; he was removed from this blog for that reason.

Notes:
1. Political Correctness is designed specifically to strike the fear of losing one’s tribal association. “I’m sorry I said that ‘all lives matter”! I now understand that only ‘black lives matter’ – Forgive Me!!” To be called “intolerant”, “racist”, etc. is to lose your personal credibility as a “nice” person, and to be seen as an evil-doer, and shunned for it. This fear of loss of personal integrity is the weapon, the lever which wrenches the unwary from logical reality, in order to avoid loss of association with the presumed, self-anointed “moral class”.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good job, Stan.

Yes, that's all he does. On his blog, he attacks people that banned him or beat him at arguments, like you, Crude, Joe Hinman, and Victor Reppert.

And, remember Martin (the guy that you debated evolution with on this site before)? He had problems with this clown as well. On Feser's blog, he was unhappy that Skeppy was commenting on there. He also tried to explain something once to him, and IMS just argued against it when he couldn't understand it.

I told Martin about my encounters with IMS on his blog (Rocket Philosophy) a few weeks ago, and he told me to stay away from him.

Anonymous said...

Oh, and BTW, the two-year old had a response to this entry as well in the comments. He thinks that you are scared to argue with him there.

Stan said...

The best approach to him is to quarantine him. Complete isolation.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, he won't stop with these silly posts until people ignore him. Those three need to grow up.

Stan said...

Arguing points of fact is one thing. The actual facts can be examined and people of integrity will come to rational consensus.

Arguing points of ideology is totally fruitless, because Truth is declared for non-factual points of fuzz, which are actually doctrinal dogma.

Arguing with a liar is irrational.

Stan said...

Actually, I suppose that I should have ignored him altogether.

Anonymous said...

Stan,

In these other links, there is a quote from a materialist physicist named H.P. Lipson, a Professor at the University of Manchester:

UK Apologetics: Charles Darwin-It's time for the truth to be told

Design and Universe: Objections to Creations

Lipson said this:

Quote"I think we need to go further than this and admit that the only acceptable explanation is creation. I know this is an anathema to physicists, as indeed it is to me, but we must not reject a theory that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it."

I went to TalkOrigins to their quote mine section:

Talk Origins: Quote Mine Section

Lipson's is Quote #59 on the page.

After the quote above, they have this quote from him:

"Several people have given clear indications that they do not understand Darwin's theory. The Theory does not merely say that species have slowly evolved: that is obvious from the fossil record."

- H. J. Lipson, "A physicist looks at evolution - a rejoinder", Physics Bulletin, December 1980, pg 337.

That quote really doesn't contradict what he said above, though, so I don't know what the big deal is.

Phoenix said...

This was illuminated when The Amazing Randi made his fatal faux pas, and was attacked, de-tribed and denigrated voluminously until he barely recovered his status by fully recanting his faux pas publically and accepting his disgrace meekly. He essentially did a submissive belly crawl before his attackers in order to get back in the tribe.

Stan, are you referring to Randi's soliciting of a minor which was tape-recorded by the FBI? Or some other ill conduct?

Phoenix said...

http://bolenreport.com/mike-adams-natural-news-attacks-skeptics-center-point/

Check the link for the audio recording of James Randi soliciting sex from a young boy on the telephone.

Stan said...

"Stan, are you referring to Randi's soliciting of a minor which was tape-recorded by the FBI?"

Oh my, NO. That's no problemo, just like Shermer's perversions are no problemo. What Randi did was the unforgivable: he said that AGW critics "might have a point". That blew the doors off. The Cult went into full meltdown, excommunicating the now-evil/perverse Randi. Randi had to accept his public humiliation with a full recantation of his evil statement.

Stan said...

"Check the link for the audio recording of James Randi soliciting sex..."

Nah. Fully expected, but nauseating nonetheless. Randi is a thoroughly disgusting person. Actually all of the New Atheists are personally disgusting, each for his own reasons.