Posted by Hemant Mehta in The cover of November’s Wired magazine featured “The New Atheists.”
Obviously, there were going to be many letters in response… but were the letters angry? Were all the Wired editors told they’re going to hell?
Nope. They got very little brimstone. And more response than ever before. They talk about the reactions here.
They also posted every received letter here.
Some random comments from the page:
Since I’m a Christian and a life member of Mensa I was surprised to learn that religion was only for the ignorant.
Furthermore, we can also use science to prove that evolution is in fact impossible.
No one wants to agree with an asshole, even if he’s right.
Enjoy.
[tags]Wired, The New Atheists, atheist, atheism, Christian, God, religion, MENSA[/tags]
Someone want to comment on what Wayne Watne said?
Here’s what Watne said (not gonna touch the ‘biblical prophecy’ part!):
I found this interesting, particularly in light of reading The God Delusion (which I’m about halfway through). In it, Dawkins continually returns to the point that via evolution everything goes from simple to complex – rather the opposite of Watne’s point, above, about order and disorder?
Dawkins seems to be saying that evolution shows that life develops from the simplest, most basic unicellular forms through to the myriad, highly complex forms we see today. Positing that a vastly-more-complex entity (such as a supernatural god) is behind all life is illogical because it completely violates what we know about life and only introduces a much more difficult problem to solve, i.e. where did god come from?
He uses the analogy of evolution being a “crane” (building structures very slowly from the ground up) versus creationism being a “skyhook” (having something dropped down summarily from “above”).
So, does Watne’s point conflict with Dawkins’, agree with it, or is Watne going in a totally different direction? As a non-scientist, but highly interested in the discussion, I’d appreciate some enlightenment on this one.
No it doesn’t. See here:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CF/CF001.html
actually, if he’s claiming to be scientist, Watne totally missed the steps of the scientific process. maybe he missed that day in science school. But you take your theory, test it, observe, make needed adjustments then repeat. It’s how we learn it’s how evolution has been proven over and over, not just by one branch of science but many.
Speaking as a scientist, and IMHO, the “foundation” of science is making observations about the world around us, to make theories that explain the facts that everyday normal people can observe. Everyone can see a rainbow, but scientists are supposed to explain why rainbows happen (water droplets are acting as prisms to split light into different nanometers of wavelength which our brains interpret as different colours).
Now, Mr. Watne is correct in saying that matter can not be created, and that everything goes from order to disorder, but in both of these statements he flat out ignores energy, which is not a good idea.
Basic chemistry and physiscs classes should teach you that energy and matter are conserved: that neither can be created or destroyed, just changed. If you boil water, the water doesn’t go away, it just becomes a vapor. However, this law breaks down when the laws of physics break down, such as at the event horizons of black holes and at the time immediately following the Big Bang. I’m no cosmologist so my wording here might be bad, but all energy ever in this universe started existing at the BB. Since then, there has been a conversion of energy to matter (as famously summed up by Einstein as E=MC2). This process might still be going on now: matter could be “popping” into existence out in space, as the universe continues to cool down and become less energetic. This doesn’t violate science.
Similarly, entropy has been increasing since the beginning of time, so that in un-modified systems, order turns into disorder. However, this process can be stopped (albeit it temporarily) by the addition of energy. Our planet is constantly getting energy from two sources: radiation from the sun above us, and radiation from radioistopes in rocks below us. These two processes, that have been going on for ~4.5 gigayears, make life and its complexity able to exist. This doesn’t violate science.
This, in essence, is the answer to your question, Karen. Watne’s point conflicts with Dawkins’s point because Dawkins incorporates more data. Dawkins is being a better scientist.
Also, and I don’t want this to sound like an ad hominem, but from what I can figure out from the internets, Mr. Watne is a scientist who is concerned with managing natural resources, and helping groups make decisions about how much forests/rivers/such will be affected by the demands of civilization. It is somewhat frightening to me that a guy who is making decisions which affect nature seems to have such an awful understanding of science. But then again there are doctors who also don’t understand science, so…I’m just plain scared, often.
I don’t think that’s correct though. See my link above. Order can increase in the local environment, like crystal growth. Consider the ecosystem of Earth to be the local environment of the solar system, whose entropy overall is increasing with time. So it’s deceptive to say everything goes to disorder. Also entropy and disorder are not exactly equivalent.
Ah, the second law of thermodynamics. Well, I was looking for an excuse to educate myself, so this is as good a time as any. I kind of suspected that’s the old canard that Watne was trotting out, just because it’s so ubiquitous in creationist discussions. I even remember that being tossed out by pastors back in my fundy days (along with “no one can logically be an atheist!”), and me scratching my head going, “Huh?”
Thanks for the web link, that was an easy and simple explanation. So, to use Watne’s analogy about your home getting messier and messier – all it takes is inserting some energy (i.e., elbow grease applied to a broom and a dust rag) to reverse the order-to-disorder trend. I’ll have to try and remember that one.
Yeah, it is scary. Thanks for your explanation, cautious. Much appreciated!
Foob,
It is indeed true that entropy and disorder are not necessarily equivalent. I shouldn’t berate someone-I-don’t-know’s science by being scientifically inaccurate myself.
Although I am not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination, I am pretty sure that Wayne thought he was putting up a good counter to Dawkins, in which he horribly failed. I would ask if it is utterly absurd to believe that God may have built from the ground up rather than from the sky down. I haven’t gotten to that part of The God Delusion yet so I’m sure I don’t fully understand what Dawkins crane theory is about but the question stands nonetheless.
Boyd’s reply is exactly what I would expect to hear from a believer who isn’t really sure he is able to coherently defend what he believes. Some of us can read all the way through a Dawkins book without pitchin a fit.
Dave makes a really good point though and I think we should discuss it a little. I know that the common form of evangelism is put forth in a very offensive manner, which is very counter-productive because the message is offensive enough already. But we cannot effectively discuss worldviews if I play Pat Robertson and you play Richard Dawkins. What a useless discussion!! Hilarious thought though. We have to find some common ground, like a genuine willingness to discover and understand truth. This must be our foundation to start from in order for you or I to get anywhere in our dialogue otherwise we will just spin our tires and create alot of smoke (and that just stinks)
Please help me understand what he meant by the last line: