This week, Carson restated his belief that the pyramids were built by the biblical Joseph to store grain, and not by Egyptians to entomb their kings. He believes that Vladimir Putin, Ali Khamenei and Mahmoud Abbas attended school together in Moscow in 1968. He believes that Jews with firearms might have been able to stop the Holocaust, that he personally could stop a mass shooting, that the Earth was created in six days and that Osama bin Laden enjoyed Saudi protection after 9/11.
As against, say, the idea that raising the minimum wage won’t cause unemployment? Or, indeed, the belief that “I’m from the government and I’m here to help” isn’t one of the most frightening phrases in the English language?
Given that he’s not going to start building pyramids to store grain I think that first set might be the less frightening myself.
One or two odd beliefs, but most of that is just a member of the (White) Upper Middle class expressing contempt for a (Black) member of the lower middle classes.
So frickin’ what? Even quoting these scumbags gives their smears power. The only rational response to this sort of media smear is to tell them to f**k off, or at best, asking them by what God given right do the pretend they have the moral authority to question anyone.
We know from a vast weight of empirical evidence that, although there are theoretical reasons to support the hypothesis that raising the minimum wage causes unemployment, this isn’t actually what happens.
SMFS: brain surgeons are upper-middle-class.
johnb78 – “We know from a vast weight of empirical evidence that, although there are theoretical reasons to support the hypothesis that raising the minimum wage causes unemployment, this isn’t actually what happens.”
Make it £100 an hour then.
“brain surgeons are upper-middle-class.”
Sure but they are not his origins are they? He is a poor man, if you will forgive the expression, done good.
Did introducing the minimum wage cause masses of unemployment that the doomsayers were predicting? Obviously Worstall is one of these alarmists if he can claim that a rise in minimum wage is more ‘frightening’ than a potential president of a superpower being slaved to Creationism and believing that a biblical Joseph built the pyramids as grain stores.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/288841/The_National_Minimum_Wage_LPC_Report_2014.pdf
This sounds like pure snobbery: the dim Middle Classes picking up on something which goes against what they believe and seizing on the opportunity to pronounce somebody they don’t like as being dim. We saw it with George W. Bush and Sarah Palin. There’s nothing the dim Middle Classes like more than to point out that somebody else is dim.
The problem is, the dim Middle Classes are not quite bright enough to figure out why what is being said is so wrong. I doubt arming the Jews would have saved them from the Holocaust completely, but it would have made the price paid by whomever was doing the rounding up much higher (groups survived in the forests of Belorussia thanks to being armed). It’s certainly an idea worth exploring, but to the dim Middle Classes this is a preposterous idea because they’ve been brought up on a diet of appalling history and anti-gun propaganda. Giggling at this gives them a sense of intellectual superiority, an opportunity which doesn’t come along very often for these types. No wonder it appears in The Guardian.
SMBS
“Make it £100 an hour then.”
Pathetic.
TN
“..[thinking that believing] Jews with firearms might have been able to stop the Holocaust is a preposterous idea because [the dim Middle Classes] have been brought up on a diet of appalling history and anti-gun propaganda”
Not sure who’s being the snob here. Wait. Oh yes, I am sure.
What are you going on about?
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005213
“…that he personally could stop a mass shooting…”
Anyone could, if they were suitably armed and in the right place and time. What’s so bizarre about this belief?
It is a point of fact that had the Jews been allowed to form a heavily armed militia across the borders of various European borders then the Holocaust would have been harder
Currently minorities in Europe that could end up in a similar position include Muslins, Gays, Roma and Nationalists
Kalashnikovs all round?
It’s little wonder that people with simplistic solutions to complex issues scare me
It’s always the people who ignore simplistic solutions who frighten me. Because while they’re dreaming up complex solutions, simple people with simple solutions are several streets ahead of them. Then it is kalashnikovs, all round.
If the pyramids were built as grain stores, then they are pretty pathetic grain stores. There is not much space inside them and it would not be possible to store much grain.
As for being able to stop totalitarian governments just by being armed with a cheap russian made assault rifle….
Governments have access to armoured vehicles, artillery, combat helicopters , war planes, and pretty much an unlimited supply of ammunition.
Dream on.
@salamander
I would have thought the lesson of VietNam was guys with cheap Russian assault rifles could be remarkably successful against armoured vehicles, artillery, combat helicopters , war planes, and pretty much an unlimited supply of ammunition.
@Bloke in Spain
That only works if you have a jungle to hide in and you don’t mind being a casualty of war.
The Vietmise where killed at a horrible rate. The Americans were killing dozens of Vietmise for every American killed. The Vietmise were simply willing to sacrifice a large portion of their population in order to kick the Americans out.
Arnald: Pathetic is an excellent self-penned epitaph for your worthless life. Minimum wage has indeed caused lots of job losses–although many of them are in the form of jobs that will never now exist. A holocaust of jobs? No–because most aren’t on the minimum wage. Although your fast-food career down in Gurn-sea has prob blinded you to that fact. Don’t let the chip-fat burn you– you rambling, slobbering socialist turd. If the Jews had been armed and had fought Adolf would have had a huge shitload of extra trouble on his murdering hands.
Salamander:
“As for being able to stop totalitarian governments just by being armed with a cheap russian made assault rifle….
Governments have access to armoured vehicles, artillery, combat helicopters , war planes, and pretty much an unlimited supply of ammunition. ”
Nonsense–if they are going to round you up they are going to have to get up close and personal. Like Daleks, tanks have trouble with stairs. Yeah–they can shell the whole area but that would mean–as it did in both Warsaw uprisings–diverting huge amounts of military junk away from the war. Helicopters haven’t given the Yanks victory anywhere.
The biggest asset the National Socialists had was that people had never experienced and didn’t believe (didn’t want to of course) that they were really going to their deaths. Like individual crime victims they believed their murderer’s lies . “I’m not going to hurt you” (If some criminal cunt says that he is obviously thinking about hurting you). There is no excuse today for anyone to believe the state’s lying bullshit.
“That only works if you have a jungle to hide in”: every city is a potential jungle.
“The Vietmise were simply willing to sacrifice a large portion of their population in order to kick the Americans out.” Rather, the North Vietnamese government was willing to sacrifice a large portion of its population in order to gain control of South Vietnam.
the pyramids were built by the biblical Joseph to store grain
Balls
Vladimir Putin, Ali Khamenei and Mahmoud Abbas attended school together in Moscow in 1968
Dunno.
He believes that Jews with firearms might have been able to stop the Holocaust
Mighta helped
he personally could stop a mass shooting
Correct: if suitably armed and in right place, right time.
the Earth was created in six days
Balls
Osama bin Laden enjoyed Saudi protection after 9/11
Plausible.
So, a better batting average than the Tox Dadger ever achieves.
I wonder what what questions would be asked of a Muslim? Because of course the Muslim faith accords totally with reason, doesn’t it.
Mass shootings have often been halted by armed individuals, that’s why they overwhelmingly take place where guns are banned.
Osama bin laden was the scion of a wealthy well connected Saudi family. He was also popular. I’d be surprised if he didn’t get help from Saudis.
Oh and he actually said that he believed that armed Germans- not just Jews- could have checked Hitler. It would be nice if reporters could do their job.
Oh and I think that disarming the law abiding when the non law abiding have access to weapons is a simplistic solution to a complex problem.
“Vietmise”
New one on me.
Is this now the correct appellation amongst the ever burgeoning nail bar community?
I see Arnald doing his usual trick of twisting a statement. No one says a minimum wage causes mass unemployment or “masses of unemployment”. However, if you raise the minimum an employer is allowed to pay for labour above what a parson’s labour is worth, they won’t employ them.
£100 an hour was an exaggeration, but why not £15 an hour? Do you deny that would cause unemployment?
I think Carson is wrong about the Germans/Jews and guns but not for the reason most think. Germans just don’t do that sort of thing – the almost complete absence of partisan activity in occupied Germany suggests that.
I wouldn’t expect the dim middle classes to know that.
He believes that Jews with firearms might have been able to stop the Holocaust
What an idiot.
We all know that the men who liberated the camps were armed only with rolled-up copies of The Guardian.
Tim Newman,
“The problem is, the dim Middle Classes are not quite bright enough to figure out why what is being said is so wrong. I doubt arming the Jews would have saved them from the Holocaust completely, but it would have made the price paid by whomever was doing the rounding up much higher (groups survived in the forests of Belorussia thanks to being armed). It’s certainly an idea worth exploring, but to the dim Middle Classes this is a preposterous idea because they’ve been brought up on a diet of appalling history and anti-gun propaganda.”
The problem with the dim Middle Classes is that they just take second hand opinions (Amazon aren’t paying enough tax, build more windmills to save the planet, vaccines are bad, buy organic), generally from people they view as being authoritative rather than thinking about it themselves. They don’t get it, but they’re doing exactly the same thing as poor, working-class black people who go to evangelical churches and believe in creationism.
And he’s not exactly right about the Holocaust. It wasn’t that they didn’t have weapons, it was that so many Jews acted like individuals rather than as a people. They individually tried to prolong their lives rather than taking risks for others, knowing that others were also taking risks for them. Even after mass murder in the Warsaw ghetto, people accepted deportation rather than taking a shot at resistance. It doesn’t matter if you’re armed or not, if you’ve got big enough numbers.
I think that what got the Jews in the holocaust and why being armed might not have helped much was the kind of salami tactics used by the Nazis. They didn’t just immediately drag them off to the death camps. 1st it was smash up the shops, then wear the yellow star, then stay in the ghetto, then come to these work camps where you will be housed, then before they know it they’re being murdered. Maybe if they were armed they wouldn’t have organised to defend themselves suitably?? That said it couldn’t have made it any worse, could it?
Afghanistan.
Guys with rifles versus a superpower that had tanks, artillery, helicopters etc. Fighting the soviets they won.
Guys with rifles fighting US, UK and whatever forces – again the guys with rifles they won.
Heck, think of pretty much any guerilla movement, they either win or die. Chairman Mao was at one time fighting both government forces and invaders.
salamander – “Dream on.”
The Germans brought their tanks, artillery and guns to Warsaw. They fought the Poles armed with whatever weapons they could scrounge. And they fought the Jews armed with even less in the way of weapons they could scrounge. They thought it was worth doing. Just not worth doing together.
The Germans won but they did pay a price. Isn’t that a reason in and of itself to allow people to own guns? Isn’t it better than going to the gas chamber quietly?
” I think that disarming the law abiding when the non law abiding have access to weapons is a simplistic solution to a complex problem.”
The problem isn’t complex.
It’s “How do you avoid being killed, or wounded by bad guys”
And the simple answer is “Be prepared to kill or wound them first”
Deterrence.
Gun control is the simplistic answer to an entirely different & artificial problem, runs something like “How do you avoid being shot by bad guys who legitimately purchase firearms from legitimate firearms dealers from some date in the future, (unspecified)”
A very small subset of the original problem.
“Isn’t it better than going to the gas chamber quietly?”
My motto: “If you’re going to go regardless, take as many of those bastards with you as you can.”
Arnald – “Pathetic.”
How is it pathetic Arnald? Can you explain why a £100 an hour minimum wage is a bad thing but a £15 an hour one only has positive effects? Where is the tipping point when it stops being good and starts being bad? Does it mean there is a neutral point, say £54 an hour, which has neither good or bad effects?
Dongguan John,
“1st it was smash up the shops, then wear the yellow star, then stay in the ghetto, then come to these work camps where you will be housed, then before they know it they’re being murdered.”
But there’s plenty of resistance movements that started kicking off before anything as bad as the 1935 Nuremberg race laws.
I think it’s probably about ratios. If you’re too small a minority, fighting back seems impossible. Or maybe some people just didn’t want to believe what was likely to happen. It’s clear that Israel (rightfully) stand up for themselves today.
I would ask all proponents of the minimum wage how much they pay their cleaners. After all they all have a room that needs some cleaning. If they are actually paying their proposed minimum then I might accept that they mean what they say- otherwise I conclude that they are either virtue signalling or begging.
In any case understanding the effect of a minimum wage is vastly more important in the here and now than understanding long dead civilisations or the origin of the universe, or indeed where people went to school.
That schoolchildren are told the use of pyramids but not the use of a broom or a rag is a sign of the hobby (and sometimes snobbish) nature of education. Were it done otherwise there would have been no jobs for foreign car washers and cleaners- the two million unemployed would have got the jobs first.
Isn’t the proof of the pudding of this guns/ minorities thing in the eating.
You don’t go f****g around in the black or hispanic areas of US cities coz those guys got guns. Even the police go carefully. To “pacify” some areas would require full scale military action.
“That schoolchildren are told the use of pyramids but not the use of a broom or a rag is a sign of the hobby (and sometimes snobbish) nature of education. Were it done otherwise there would have been no jobs for foreign car washers and cleaners- the two million unemployed would have got the jobs first.”
Can’t argue with that.
You could live a useful & productive life without having ever heard of ancient Egypt. Many people have.
I can understand people being surprised by the grain store thing, but I honestly though everyone knew that minimum wages caused more unemployment. A child can puzzle that out.
When the pharaohs introduced the minimum wage they recognised, like Beveridge, that idleness was corrosive of society. So they built the pyramids.
QED.
It’s rather like the assumptions Tim’s school history lets him make about the pyramids. As projects, they weren’t like the construction of the Panama canal or the US railroads to the Pacific. Not something they threw a load of grunt labour at to dig millions of tons of mountain out the way. They were complex construction projects. Grunt labour couldn’t quarry, move or erect all that stone. It required a variety of highly specialised skills coordinated in a complex manner. There was relatively little grunt labour in them.
Look, Carson is an uppity nigger who’s gone off the (democrat) reservation and he needs slapping down.
And he will be. Hard. To stop any other blacks getting the idea that their (democrat) overseers are keeping them down and that liberty might be better than their current (democrat) slavery.
There’s nothing the dim Middle Classes like more than to point out that somebody else is dim.
So true, Tim.
Not that I’m a proponent of the minimum wage but the cleaning company gets £60. Which buys two ladies for 90 minutes to two hours depending on how filthy the cats (and kids) have been.
Honestly, I have no idea how much the actual cleaners get paid (and their web ad doesn’t say) but the limited times I’ve been home when they’ve come round, the ladies seem entirely cheerful so it’s not an entirely unreasonable assumption that they are pretty happy enough with their lot.
You’d get f*ck all cleaners round these parts for much less than £8/hr, and that would be for a decent number of hours per week. If you want just a couple of hours it’ll be £10+. I pay £12-50 to mine, she’s a treasure and worth every penny.
Cleanering (of private homes at least) is not a minimum wage job. I know one lady who now owns a house out in the country outright, all paid for by her cleaning for private clients.
The question seems to be whether his religious beliefs would affect his decision-making ability as President.
His medical career shows tremendous problem-solving ability, and his comment about current US-Cuba policy (“I don’t know”) is very refreshing.
However, during his medical career there was little or no danger that his solutions would run counter to his beliefs.
Pat
“That schoolchildren are told the use of pyramids but not the use of a broom or a rag is a sign of the hobby (and sometimes snobbish) nature of education.”
You are confusing education – which is meant to be a transformative experience giving pupils some access to high culture — and instruction and training, which is concerned with the world of work. Schools try to do both, and they aren’t mutually exclusive.
When did cleaning become THE job to be sniffy about? It used to be check-out girls.
Anyone who thinks cleaning is easy hasn’t done much of it, and probably hasn’t done it very well.
BiS
“You could live a useful & productive life without having ever heard of ancient Egypt. Many people have.”
Useful and productive — perhaps. Fulfilled in the sense of reaching their full human potential — unlikely, unless they were very thick.
As J S Mill argued, the vast majority of those who know both pushpin and poetry prefer poetry. And they would prefer to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.
Jack C @ 5.34
Exactly! You’ve nailed it.
I can well remember one of the products of your education system. Much against better judgement & to placate a parent, we got a privately educated undergraduate at one of the respected universities for what any normal person would call a “holiday” job. The cvnts probably have a Latin for it.
Given a simple job, a box of nails & a hammer. Nail these floorboards. Shown how it was done.
Assole decided to revolutionise the construction industry, save half the labout & half the materials & nailed every board straight down the middle. Got noticed about a fortnight later, when all the pipes & cables he’d nailed through leaked & shorted. Cost about £10,000, that one did.
You could take a Paddy straight out the bogs of Western ireland with the moss still growing on his monobrow, would have looked how everyone else had done it for the past 4000 years, reckoned they probably knew better than he did & copied them.
I believe the functional moron was studying law or accountancy or something. No doubt passed with honours.
There is absolutely no connection between level of education & dimness. Except, maybe, one reinforcing the other.
The first two weeks of my basic training, back when Centurion was a rank not a tank (sighs) were all to do with marching or cleaning.
Okay, some of the cleaning was pretty military – bulling boots, cleaning rifles – but most of it was the usual dusting, hovering, scrubbing and polishing.
Luckily, I earn enough that it is somebody else’s problem now. Although the medals got polished twice today (it was wet out) and I was bulling my shoes at 0630 this morning.
The poster-person for the NMW campaIgn was the (usually brown) woman working in a textile factory in Leicester. Someone pointed out that if a NMW was introduced she’s be as likely to get sacked as paid the NMW. So Blair passed a law saying, inter alia, it was illegal to sack someone just because they got a rise to NMW. As tim loves to point out it was predictable that companies would go bust.
Over 90% of those working in the UK textile induistry in 1997 have lost their jobs.
Experiment – introduce NMW in a low-wage industry. Prediction – job losses. Result 90% lose their jobs.
Arnald and others just choose to ignore the experimental evidence staring everyone in the face.
Theophrastus. I can think of endless numbers of people, have fulfilled their potential to a degree much greater than you or I have, who haven’t a clue about classical or ancient history. It’s a hobby subject of not the slightest relevance. It simply has value because certain people assign it value. Like classical music, poetry, literature & much else.
Virtue signalling.
Cleanering (of private homes at least) is not a minimum wage job
That’s probably because it is tax free income. 😉
” …people, have fulfilled their potential to a degree much greater than you or I have, who haven’t a clue about classical or ancient history”
You miss the point. Those who have done or learned whatever your acquaintances did or learned, and who know some classical history, appreciate classical music, read Shakespeare etc, are more fulfilled than they would have otherwise been.
As for virtue signalling, I don’t think you understand the use of the term.
Taking the BiS argument to its logical conclusion, I suppose being able to discriminate between their and there will soon be a snobbery signifier, when we could perfectly well manage with microsoft spellcheck, couldn’t we?
“of not the slightest relevance.” Relevance to what? Relevance isn’t a floating, abstract property, it has to refer to something or other. Maybe you mean relevant to the building trade, that exemplar of honesty and competence.
1) Says who? Other than your bald assertion, I mean? Given that “fulfilled” is a pretty nebulous state of being, I wonder just how you would back this up.
Which is pretty-much the definition of a tautology; if you define knowledge of classical music, Shakespeare (etc) as ‘fulfilling:’ people who do “X” will have done more of “X” than they otherwise would’ve.
We can confidently make the same assertion about knowledge of linear algebra, thermodynamics, computational chemistry, or Inuit throat-singing. There is a question as to which of these pursuits will be most “fulfilling” for any given individual, and also which of them will provide the greatest benefit to society at large – but you preempt that discussion by defining some of them as “fulfilling” in advance, since by implication the others are “not fulfilling.” It may be that our society (and many individuals) would benefit from that discussion – we should not thank those who cut it off.
2) It’s not ‘virtue signalling’ – it’s class signalling. It signals that one was raised in an upper-middle class environment where the resources to pursue such knowledge were available (and valued) in the school system, or to parents who could afford them as extra-curricular activities. In some contexts, it also signals that you could afford to look down on people whose interests were in practical matters that might have immediate concrete use – some people thought that important.
I was raised in one of those upper-middle class environments, and while I am grateful for my appreciation of Shakespeare or the Bach family, I am equally grateful that I was raised with an appreciation of Euler and the Bernoulli family – and of the two, my appreciation for Euler and the Bernoullis has probably contributed ore to my (personal) sense of fulfillment. God knows, it’s put more meat on the table.
Yes, of course, if the Jews had had guns, they might have mounted greater resistance. But then, the citizenry of the Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, etc. (who hated the Russians and hence sided with the Germans) would also have had guns, and that would have cancelled things out a bit, dontcha think? Having said that, some Jews and other anti-Nazi forces did have guns and did mount organized resistance, and are still hailed as heroes today. But it seems unlikely that widespread availability of guns, open to all, would have been better for the Jews, given that not only the invading German forces, but also the native citizenry, among whom they dwelled, were strongly on the Nazi side.
Let’s also note that if the Israeli Arabs and West-Bank Palestinians had free access to arms, it would be much more difficult for the Israeli gummint to keep them down. Of course, that would be a good thing, because we all know that “gummint is the problem.” Why don’t we see Ben Carson arguing that the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs should have a 2nd amendment, too?
And during the 2nd Iraq War, I didn’t see 2nd-amendment conservatives arguing that all Iraqis should be allowed to possess firearms. In fact, we often used the mere observation that some of them were bearing arms as sufficient justification for shooting them down.
Sam Adams the Dog, Umm the Iraq’s were allowed to keep weapons for personal protection and the rules of engagement did not allow for force to be used just because they were armed.
But other than the facts good point.
Plenty of people down the ages in positions of power have believed that Jesus was born of a virgin and was son of god and after been cruelly tortured to death rose again after 3 days. Plenty still do.
That hasn’t made them bad people – arguably protestants informed by new testament values, fully subscribing to the above nonsense have tended to form the wisest and most decent governments in history.
My point is that what counts is not necessarily the detail of the most absurd thing they are on record as believing – but rather what have done and their fundemental decency and intelligence.indicate they will do next, and react of any given circumstance.
And on that basis Carson looks a rather better bet than the current occupant of the white house, and most of his fellow candidates.
Dcardno
“Says who?” John Stuart Mill, who points out that those who know both pushpin and poetry prefer poetry, would rather know both than only pushpin and find poetry more fulfilling.
Mill, who was a great logician as well as economist, was not defining poetry as fulfillment: he is pointing to an empirical connection between fulfillment and high culture. And high culture includes linear algebra, thermodynamics and computational chemistry as well as poetry, history, art and classical music.
As for your class signalling, perhaps. But I note that my plumber and my GP attend the same classical music concerts as I do. And good state schools offer access to high culture to their pupils.
Intelligence takes several forms – analytical, verbal, mathematical, musical, practical, social….Increasingly, all forms are valued highly.
As for putting meat on the table…man does not live by bread alone.
Sam Whatever: So what if all God’s chillen got guns? Then everybody knows the danger and the potential. Firearms would have increased massively the “price” of attacking Jews–regardless of the odds against them. Yeah all the various National Socialists and their supporters could have flung themselves at the Jews to try and wipe them out–but that would involve a mini-civil war and would have been very bad news for a gang already trying to take on the world. If you can defend yourself and retaliate –well you may still die–but your foes have to reckon with you.
If the arabs had guns that might increase slightly the danger of their already murderous attacks on Israeli civillians. Many of whom shoot back anyway. What is stopping said arabs from getting guns? They have plenty of “friendly” neighbours who should be happy to arm them. Except their fellows in Jordan/Egypt etc don’t want them armed any more than they were willing to grant them “uman rights” or acknowledge the supposed existence of their country.
john77
“Over 90% of those working in the UK textile induistry in 1997 have lost their jobs”
There you again. Absolute bollocks.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nationonfilm/topics/textiles/background_decline.shtml
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/uncategorised/summary/changing-shape-of-uk-manufacturing—textiles/sty—textile-industry-average-wage-lowest-within-uk-manufacturing.html
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/414323/facts.pdf
http://cep.lse.ac.uk/research/labour/minimumwage/WP1481c.pdf
Empirical evidence? Where the hell do you get your empirical evidence?
Where do you get any of your ‘facts’ from. Even Mr Ecks knows more than you.
Stig,
> The problem with the dim Middle Classes is that they just take second hand opinions (Amazon aren’t paying enough tax, build more windmills to save the planet, vaccines are bad, buy organic), generally from people they view as being authoritative rather than thinking about it themselves. They don’t get it, but they’re doing exactly the same thing as poor, working-class black people who go to evangelical churches and believe in creationism.
This.
Whenever someone starts crowing about how ignorant the bloody Creationists are, I ask them why giraffes have long necks. Nine times out of ten, their explanation will somewhere contain the word “stretch”.
Now, I don’t actually mind someone not understanding evolution properly and just taking the word of an authority figure that it’s true. There’s too much knowledge in the world for us all to learn all of it ourselves. But for one group who believe what they’re told by authority figures without understanding it to belittle another group who believe what they’re told by authority figures without understanding it on the grounds that they picked the wrong authority figure is nothing more than puerile snobbish ignorance, which is certainly not grounds to feel superior.
Moreover, I find Creationists often understand evolution much better than those who believe in it. They just find the idea preposterous — which, to be fair, it is. As are many truths.
BII,
> My point is that what counts is not necessarily the detail of the most absurd thing they are on record as believing – but rather what have done and their fundemental decency and intelligence.indicate they will do next, and react of any given circumstance.
This too. It seems so obvious, and yet so many have trouble with it. Why the fuck would I vote for a political leader based on their views on transsubstantiation or reincarnation or whether Moses ever met a talking bush? Why would anyone ever give the remotest fuck about this stuff?
> And on that basis Carson looks a rather better bet than the current occupant of the white house, and most of his fellow candidates.
I love Carson, and I’m an atheist. I think it’s been a long time since either party put forward such a good candidate.
” Why the fuck would I vote for a political leader based on their views on transsubstantiation or reincarnation or whether Moses ever met a talking bush? Why would anyone ever give the remotest fuck about this stuff?”
Because belief in the irrational is not guaranteed to be limited to areas, are relatively harmless. They could easily extend to PQE. They have extended to QE.
That said, if you barred all politicians held irrational beliefs, you’d be holding Parliament in a phonebox on the Embankment.
> Because belief in the irrational is not guaranteed to be limited to areas, are relatively harmless. They could easily extend to PQE. They have extended to QE.
This is absolute bollocks. If you want to know what Carson thinks about PQE, you ask him about PQE; you don’t ask him about Deuteronomy and then go “Aha! I bet I can tell from that answer what he thinks about PQE.”
@dcardno
Oh, I’d say it was virtue signalling rather than class signalling. Those espousing those pursuits are signalling their desire to be included in the “class”. Of course, those most firmly ensconced in the “class” they aspire to generally don’t give a monkey’s about fulfilling pursuits & are keener on X-Factor & strip clubs.
S2
Hmmm. As long as the devout politician doesn’t start proclaiming that God will judge their decisions and so absolve themselves of responsibility and to clear their conscience.
Would you expect that politician to endorse actions that run contrary to their religious beliefs? If so, doesn’t that make that individual open to contradiction and hypocrisy, and more importantly project themselves as having no real moral or ethical position by clearly not being as devout as the electorate had been led to believe?
It’s quite different to say “I have profound Christian beliefs” than to start going off on one about Genesis and the Book of Revelations, or indeed have strong opinions about Transubstantiation.
@ Arnald
I get my fact from ONS data. You get most of yours from idiots publishing on the web.
Looking at *your* carefully selected facts one sees a NET drop in employment of *only 75%* due, in part, to non-compliance with NMW, and part due to growth in employment in the fashion industry and high-performance textiles, which fails to refute my assertion, based on analysis of government data that 90% of those working in UK textiles in 1997 have lost their jobs..
If I was an unemployed musician scanning the web I could probably find a link to a report saying that the moon is made of blue cheese, but you have failed a single one to say that NMW didn’t hurt the textyile industry.
None of your references dispute my observation – one only covers the textile industry up to 1980, one shows a dramatic fall in textile production, worse than halving (in a period during which general manufacturing output has oscillated while employment has slumped) with productivity more than doubling by 2011. The third is simply government propaganda. In the last one the only mention I can find of the textile industry is a small firm that survives by NOT paying the NMW. It has pages and pages explaining why the NMW wil cause a fall in employment “the productivity growth in textiles and security was attributed mainly to a substitution of capital for labour”.
1997 is after 1980, by the way.
So you are claiming that the growth in the fashion industry, one of “British successes” under Blair, and high-performance textiles for sport and outdoors, another growth area (Cotswold Outdoors etc), means that the NET drop in employment in textiles is *only 75%*. How many textile workers from Leicester are now working in Newcastle making waterproof jackets instead of ladies’ dresses? Not many.
77
Your statement:
“Experiment – introduce NMW in a low-wage industry. Prediction – job losses. Result 90% lose their jobs.”
From the ONS link, specifically for textiles, which you mentioned, showing your 90% figure.
No mention of NMW, or a cut-off at 1997. It says about wages:
blockquote>The textile industry has the lowest average weekly wage of any manufacturing sub-industries, at £371 in July 2014. This compares with an average weekly wage of £564 for manufacturing as a whole and £714 for chemicals and man-made fibres manufacturing (the manufacturing sub-industries with the highest average weekly earnings)
So, for a 25 year old working 40 hours a week, is £371 above the minimum wage? If it is then your argument about the NMW killing textiles is bunkum.
I am happy to be proved wrong. If you posted links to back up your assertions things would be a lot easier.
There is a lot of analysis out there.
Arnald
Can I explain one minor point that you have overlooked? An average takes all the wages, including those of the CEO, adds them up and divides by the number of workers. It is NOT the same as the pay of the lowest-paid worker.
Last time I had this recurring argument I dIdn’t find an ONS source specifically for textiles so I was taking my numbers from data for employment by sector up to the time when ONS stopped showing textiles separately, then what current data was availkable and adjusting for companies which didn’t exist in 1997. By that time 90% of 1997 workers had lost their jobs – the number cannot have reduced since then even if some of them have acquired jobs in the meantime.
You seem to think we are stupid claiming “the ONS link, specifically for textiles, which you mentioned” immediately below a post wherein I nowhere mentioned a ONS link.
” If it is then your argument about the NMW killing textiles is bunkum. I am happy to be proved wrong.”
Rejoice, therefore, again I say rejoice! The link you yourself provided proves you wrong. The NET drop in textile employment since Blair introduced NMW is over 75%.
The major use of NMW workers is now in the care sector where employment numbers are unaffected by price.
Mr. Ecks: “Yeah all the various National Socialists and their supporters could have flung themselves at the Jews to try and wipe them out–but that would involve a mini-civil war”
Most of the local citizenry was pro-Nazi and the Jews were a small minority in most places. There weren’t enough Jews in most places to start a mini Civil War. Nobody knows what would actually have happened, but it is far from clear that the result would not have been the opposite; namely, the murder of more Jews, faster, by the overwhelming number of their neighbors.
“What is stopping said arabs from getting guns? They have plenty of “friendly” neighbours who should be happy to arm them.”
What is keeping the general Palestinian population from getting guns now is the Israelis, and to some extent the Palestinian Authority, in the West Bank, and Hamas in the West Bank. Supply is not a problem.
By the way, Israeli civilians, including Jews, cannot and do not “bear arms”, except in some settlements on the West Bank. Their firearms regulation is far stricter than that in the U.S.
@ Squander Two
Well said!
When someone (I can’t remember who, but clearly not my son who would have told me, at length, why its proponents wre wrong) told me about claims for “Intelligent Design” my reaction was “well, yes, of course, that what an omniscient creator did” – that’s how we got apricots. A lot later I found out that ID is either a front for, or has been taken over by, “Creationists”. What a waste! When I point out that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution (developed by a trainee theologian) is a Theory I am treated as an idiot. It is called a theory because it IS a theory – try explaining that to a liberal arts graduate …
77,
Sorry, I didn’t mean to give the impression that I believe any of that bullshit. It’s just that I don’t think any of it’s remotely relevant in most elections.
> When someone … told me about claims for “Intelligent Design” my reaction was “well, yes, of course, that what an omniscient creator did” – that’s how we got apricots.
Well, no. The whole point of evolution is that the mechanism is sufficient by itself; it doesn’t require an intelligent guiding hand. Bolting intelligence onto it is unnecessary — and therefore the antithesis of God.
One could still believe that God’s guiding it if one chose, of course, just as one may believe God got you a promotion at work or cured your malaria or whatever. But the ID proponents of cousre want it to be taught in science classes in schools. Which is wrong for the same reason you don’t teach geology in music lessons.
So it’s not that ID is a front for Creationism. It simply is Creationism. It’s a campaign to include “God made it all” as part of school science lessons.
> When I point out that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution (developed by a trainee theologian) is a Theory I am treated as an idiot. It is called a theory because it IS a theory
Well, yeah, but that word “theory” covers a broad range, from theories that get chucked out after a year to those that stand the test of time. Theories get tested. Evolution has been tested A LOT. It’s as close to an absolutely proven fact as science ever gets. It’s not a hunch.
Also, if evolution ever does get disproven (which I think would be like relativity disproving Newtonian mechanics: it would remain true in most cases, but we’d discover some special circumstances in which further explanation is required), it’ll be replaced with some new, probably more complicated scientific theory, based on new empirical evidence. It won’t get replaced with “Oh, turns out it was God all along. Whoops!”
> try explaining that to a liberal arts graduate
I agree, however, that arts grads usually haven’t a clue about what scientific theories are. Which may be why they insist on using them as these bizarre sociopolitical litmus tests.
Those pesky theories of general relativity and quantum mechanics, too. Those liberal arts graduates vociferously deny that they’re nothing more than theories. They should be treated in the same way as virgin births and walking on water!
@ Squander Two
I am not suggesting that Intelligent Design (let alone “Intelligent Design”) has the same status as Darwin’s Theory, which is not looking too battered after more than a century. You are quite right that Evolution does not presuppose a guiding hand. I just said that when someone mentioned the phrase Intelligent Design my reaction was “of course”. Sadly neither #1 son, nor you, was on on hand to tell me that “Intelligent Design” is a load of nonsense dressed up as science.
NB Intelligent Design is not Creationism – “Intelligent Design” is.
And: No, it is not relevant in any election (except possibly, the Conclave of Cardinals, who know the difference between Intelligent Design and “Intelligent Design”).
> You are quite right that Evolution does not presuppose a guiding hand.
No, the point is that it doesn’t require a guiding hand.
> I just said that when someone mentioned the phrase Intelligent Design my reaction was “of course”.
If you believe in Intelligent Design — with or without the quote marks — then what you believe in is not Darwinian evolution. This is the entire point of Darwinism.
@ Squander Two
” You are quite right that Evolution does not presuppose a guiding hand.
No, the point is that it doesn’t require a guiding hand.”
I thought that my statement was stronger.
“If you believe in Intelligent Design — with or without the quote marks — then what you believe in is not Darwinian evolution.” You seem not to grasp “omniscient” which means knowing everything including everything that can happen in the future so Darwinian evolution can be a tool of Intelligent Design.
Personally I disagree with “Intelligent Design” but if you have a better explanation for apricots than the benevolence of our Creator …
If you want “Darwinism” as part of atheism, then you probably, need quotation marks, just as “Keynesianism” has very little to do with the views of J M Keynes.
@BiS, @dcardno
virtue signalling rather than class signalling.
What it used to signal was ‘I (or my family) are rich enough I don’t need to learn a trade. In a sense a useless education was the most valued because it implied having money to throw away. But then a Civil Service was created to provide jobs for all these useless people and things have been going down hill ever since.
The only signalling going on here is of chips on the shoulder.
> If you want “Darwinism” as part of atheism, then you probably, need quotation marks
Not really. Darwinism is the only practical refutation of the teleological argument. (Yes, I’m aware that there was a logical refutation of it prior to Darwin. That logical refutation simply ignores biology, hence, for all its technical logical correctness, holds sod-all water in the real world.) It’s that simple: before Darwin, some sort of god was by far the best explanation for the world; after Darwin, it wasn’t even necessary.
> just as “Keynesianism” has very little to do with the views of J M Keynes.
That’s a false conflation. What you mean in that second part is that Keynesianism has very little to do with the economic views of Keynes. For that to be a good analogy, Darwinism would have to have very little to do with Darwin’s views on the evolution of species via mutation and natural selection.
What Darwinism is has fuck all to do with Darwin’s religious beliefs. Gauss was a devoted believer in astrology, but we can correctly talk about Gaussian curvature without bringing star signs into it.
> I thought that my statement was stronger.
No, it was much weaker. I think that displays the basic misunderstanding of science that you’re making here. In science, if a causative explanation is not required, it gets chucked out.
> You seem not to grasp “omniscient” which means knowing everything including everything that can happen in the future so Darwinian evolution can be a tool of Intelligent Design.
No, what you’re describing there is not Intelligent Design. Darwinian evolution works without a guiding hand. If there’s a guiding hand, it’s not Darwinian evolution. This is what Darwinian evolution is. What you’ve just described is an intelligence setting up a system that will evolve Darwinianly and then leaving it, knowing how it’ll all work out. That’s not Intelligent Design.
@ Squander Two
“That’s not Intelligent Design.”
Tripe!
Sam: “Most of the local citizenry was pro-Nazi and the Jews were a small minority in most places. There weren’t enough Jews in most places to start a mini Civil War. Nobody knows what would actually have happened, but it is far from clear that the result would not have been the opposite; namely, the murder of more Jews, faster, by the overwhelming number of their neighbors. ”
Sorry that is piffle.
The only reason for trouble in the first place is that the Jews were being rounded up for death. That might still have died in the scenario I am proposing. But there would also be a shitload of dead evildoers and lots more still alive who wished to fuck they had stayed in bed that day. My scenario is all around better than what actually happened. Or your gutless “Don’t do anything to make them mad” tripe.
Even if “ordinary” Germans joined in attacks on Jews so what? 6 million Jews died anyway and they can’t be any more dead if they had died fighting. Which is not true of their tormenters.
> Tripe!
Well, these guys are ID advocates, and they say I’m right:
i) They are talking about “Intelligent Design”.
ii) They have got their theology wrong: if you believe in an omniscient, omnipotent GOD, then natural selection is *not* an undirected process because everything in the universe is either part of God’s eternal plan or a misdirection due to the wrong use of mankind’s freewill (and/or that of the parallels to mankind on other planets). So “Round-up”-resistant crops are not part of natural selection, but giraffes are.
This is an application of logic rather than religion. I don’t know what you did before working in financial services – I studied maths before training to be an Actuary so I did a little bit of mathematical logic but if you studied Euclidean Geometry for ‘A’ level you will have some training in logic and I hope that you can get my point.
Mr. Ecks: ‘Sam: “Most of the local citizenry was pro-Nazi and the Jews were a small minority in most places. There weren’t enough Jews in most places to start a mini Civil War. Nobody knows what would actually have happened, but it is far from clear that the result would not have been the opposite; namely, the murder of more Jews, faster, by the overwhelming number of their neighbors. ”
Sorry that is piffle.’
Saying “That is piffle” doesn’t go very far. You seem unaware that relatively few German Jews lost their lives and that most of the Jewish victims resided in countries invaded by the Germans. And it is well established that the local populations of these countries were strong allies of the Nazis and actively participated in the killings.
The reason is not difficult to understand. For example, in the Ukraine, Stalin starved about 7 million Ukrainians in the 1930s for resisting collectivization. The Germans were fighting the Russians for control of the Ukraine. The Ukrainians sided with the Germans against the hated Russians, whereas for the Jews, the Russians were liberators.
That is not “piffle”. It is for the most part uncontested. Ukrainians (and Poles, and Lithuanians) actively participated in the killings. If they had had access to guns, they would have been used to support the invading Germans against the invading Russians, and against the Jews, who supported the Russians. It’s called war.
john77,
You don’t seem to have made it clear what you think is the difference between Intelligent Design and “Intelligent Design”.
What is it, in your view?
“They have got their theology wrong: if you believe in an omniscient, omnipotent GOD ….. ”
Neither do you say what is wrong with their theology. Belief in such a God is also a justification for Creationism of course; it covers a number of bases.
I think I see the difference. The proponents of “intelligent design” are basing their belief on evidence they think shows their assertion. Where as the theological position is that *no evidence whatsoever* is the proof of intelligent design by the creator of the universe. The lack of evidence being the clincher. It’s t̶u̶r̶t̶l̶e̶s̶ belief all the way down
Incidentally, i do think Carson’s correct. Joseph did build the pyramids as grain stores. The mistake the people laughing & pointing the fingers are making, is thinking the pyramids would then be big hollow things with a pointy lid you lift, to get at the grain. Stupid Stupid
Remember. Joseph needed to store grain to get the Children of Israel through the seven years of famine. That’s not three fucking great pyramids of it. Actually it works out at about 40 cubits3. So he built chambers to hold the grain & concealed them by building pyramids over them. And to make sure the grain wasn’t plundered, there were no passages whatsoever connecting the outside to the storage chambers.
And then the seven years of famine came along…..
@ bis
“no evidence whatever” is not proof of anything.
The “Intelligent Design” people say that natural selection is contrary to belief in Creation. Intelligent Design says it is pefectly possible, and indeed logical, for natural selection to be a tool of the Creator.
@ Jack C
You need to try reading the whole sentence.
Sam Adams the Dog – “And it is well established that the local populations of these countries were strong allies of the Nazis and actively participated in the killings.”
No it isn’t. Some of the locals in those countries supported the Nazis. A tiny insignificant percentage of them actively participated in any killings.
This is simply a blood libel. Stop it.
“The Ukrainians sided with the Germans against the hated Russians, whereas for the Jews, the Russians were liberators.”
Opposing the Soviets doesn’t mean siding with the Nazis, I doubt most peasants had a clue what the Nazis intended; siding with the Germans does not mean taking part in, or even being aware of the Holocaust.
“Ukrainians (and Poles, and Lithuanians) actively participated in the killings.”
Some tiny percentage of them did. Just as a tiny percentage of Jews actively collaborated with the Nazis. So what?
“If they had had access to guns, they would have been used to support the invading Germans against the invading Russians, and against the Jews, who supported the Russians. It’s called war.”
One does not follow from the other. They may have fought the Soviets but that does not mean they would have killed the Jews.
77
But are you talking about “Tripe” or Tripe?
“my reaction [to claims for ID] was “well, yes, of course, that what an omniscient creator did” – that’s how we got apricots”
Heat Death (or “Heat Death”) is a bit of a design flaw, isn’t it? I can see that Intelligence getting the piss taken by other Intelligences and saying “Yeah well I meant to do that and and and… look at my apricot! Just fucking look at it, for fuck’s sake!”
the weird emergent belief is that the Nazis and only the Nazis wanted to kill Jews…unlike the Lithuanians, Poles and the Estonian basketball team…hell. the womens’ basketball team took turns to kill those Jews, who had been rigorously selected, with machine guns. According to a plaque in Tallinn.
john77,
The problem here, to reply in kind, is that they’re talking about natural selection, whilst you’re talking about “natural selection”.
diogenes – “the weird emergent belief is that the Nazis and only the Nazis wanted to kill Jews…unlike the Lithuanians, Poles and the Estonian basketball team…hell. the womens’ basketball team took turns to kill those Jews, who had been rigorously selected, with machine guns. According to a plaque in Tallinn.”
Why is it weird? I tend to think that the people who are responsible for killing Jews are the people who killed Jews. Not the entire nation. After all, Israel shameless exploits the memory of more Poles who saved Jews than any other nation on the planet. Why aren’t all Poles judged by those among the Righteous? If the Polish women’s basketball team killed some Jews, then the Polish women’s basketball team is guilty. Not all Poles. Not all basketball players. Not all women.
We have experience of this you know. As in “His blood be on us, and on our children”
Sam: You still don’t answer the point. Who cares who was doing the killing? Do nothing, be passive, go along with them and you die and they walk away laughing. Fight and you may still die (you certainly will if you don’t) but lots of them die too. That is a direct disincentive to them.
And SMFS makes the point nicely. Poles, etc,etc may have been anti-Semitic. That does not mean they were slavering to commit mass murder as you claim.
> Heat Death (or “Heat Death”) is a bit of a design flaw, isn’t it? I can see that Intelligence getting the piss taken by other Intelligences and saying “Yeah well I meant to do that and and and… look at my apricot! Just fucking look at it, for fuck’s sake!”
Never thought I’d see the day when Arnald won the thread. Hats off.
@john77
>Intelligent Design says it is perfectly possible, and indeed logical, for natural selection to be a tool of the Creator.<
You do realise, John, that's a totally illogical statement. As soon as you define "natural selection to be a tool of the Creator", you are proposing natural selection would not have come about, or proceeded as it has, without a creator's intervention. So it therefore ceases to become natural selection & becomes "natural selection". Which is indistinguishable from intelligent design.
Either your guy's got his thumb on the scales, or he hasn't. It's a binary.choice.
77,
They haven’t got their theology wrong at all. In fact, it’s not even theology; it’s a purely logical point about the nature of design via selection.
You appear to think that setting up a system that can evolve via natural selection and then leaving it to its own devices means that each stage of the subsequent design is directed. This is nonsense. The whole point of setting up an evolutionary system and then leaving it is that you do leave it. And the idea that some deity might have done so is completely irrelevant to Darwinism, as Darwinism concerns each stage of design, not the set-up of the original system.
Intelligent Design — with or without quotes — is a technical term that means something. If you want to talk about something else, use a different term. But it is actually quite a good and well thought-out term, which means what it says. The whole point of Darwinism is that it explains how we can have design without a designer. Without Darwinism, the Teleological Argument works; with Darwinism, it doesn’t. Darwinism turns intelligence from something that is required for design into something that isn’t, and therefore deity from something that has significant scientific support for it to something that science effectively makes irrelevant.
What you are describing is the intelligent set-up of a system that enables design without intelligence. “Intelligent design” is very much the wrong term for that.
> This is an application of logic rather than religion. I don’t know what you did before working in financial services – I studied maths before training to be an Actuary so I did a little bit of mathematical logic but if you studied Euclidean Geometry for ‘A’ level you will have some training in logic and I hope that you can get my point.
I don’t go on about it, but since you ask, I studied Logic & Philosophy of Science at the best philosophy department in the UK.
BIS,
> As soon as you define “natural selection to be a tool of the Creator”, you are proposing natural selection would not have come about, or proceeded as it has, without a creator’s intervention. So it therefore ceases to become natural selection
True, but I’m reading 77’s use of “tool” to mean “creation”. He seems to be saying that his Creator doesn’t intervene at any stage of actual evolution — in which case it’s not a tool, is it, since a tool is something one uses.
@SQ2
Again, that doesn’t make sense. Either the god sets the initial parameters for the creation. In which case evolution proceeds from those parameters & not from the infinity of alternate parameters. Intervening at first cause. Or it’s a creation with random parameters & the god just observes, with no intervention.. In which case, for practical purposes, it doesn’t matter whether or not there’s a god at all. The two states are indistinguishable.
As far as “creation” concerned, I have much more time for Creationists, of whatever stamp, than i have for what passes as mainstream Christianity, these days
If you’re going to say the Bible’s not the literal “word of god” the whole thing falls apart. There’s too much of it depends on “the word of god”. Without that, what you’re left with is some Middle Eastern folk tales & a Jewish shaman who may or not have existed.
Bunch of theologians dancing around in circles on the pinhead of their religion..
I suppose there’s *belief* of course. Irrational belief. Coz it’s like….compleeecated an’ that. In which case Christianity gets shoved well to the back in the competition amongst goofy ideas.
Surely heat death is part of our sadistic intelligent designer’s Plan (or “Plan”), along with the myriad, horrible, painful, long and drawn out experiences and deaths that many humans suffer.
Hat’s back on again, UK Lib.
He’s made the standard error of basing his assumptions on the starting conditions, then leaving the starting conditions out of his calculations.
Almost university grade intellect, is Arnald.
You start with a god who created & controls the universe. So how the universe ends is up to the guy with the beard, isn’t it? Astrophysics Nobels can go take a hike. Not within their area of competence. You need a qualified god-botherer..
Personally , I reckon the universe will end with a clonk & the tinkle of breaking glass. God may be able to steer Creation to the end of time. Doesn’t mean She can park.
@ Squander Two
i) Right. so you know more logic than I and I fail to see why you do not follow my bit of logical analysis.
Omniscience means that one knows what the result of Darwinian “natural selection” will be so HE can choose the outcome by selecting the parameters at the start of the process. *You* may think the process is unpredictable, but omniscience includes foreknowledge.
ii) You shouldn’t use a technical term without quotation marks if it is phrase in normal non-technical English (or Gaelic, or French or Russian or …).To someone not habitually engaged in debate with narrow-minded Americans intelligent design can be a (regrettably rare) compliment to an architect or, somewhat less rare, to Apple or, even more rare, to a civil engineer (because we *expect* him to produce an intelligent design). It can also be the assumption that the omniscient Creator of the universe knew what He was doing (because He is omniscient this is a corollary) and set things in motion in a way that would produce His desired end. As you are an atheist, you don’t believe that there is an omniscient Creator BUT I contend that it is a logical consequence of His omniscience that He does (and always did) know what He is doing so the process of natural selection is not outwith His plan.
The Creator does not *need* to intervene in natural selection as He has set it up to operate without any further intervention.
I don’t expect you to agree with my assumption, but I can’t see what’s wrong with my logic.
Thinking about it, it’s not necessarily sadism, but that alien, incomprehensible and utterly indifferent intelligence Lovecraft described. We mean less to it than an insect means to us. Can a microbe fathom human purpos? On the scale of the universe, a planet of several billion human-level intelligences is less than noise. Etc.
I prefer the Norse gods. At least you can have a pint with them.
@ Arnald
You’re not intended to plant apricots in the Sahara or the Amazon rainforest, so any “heat death” is due to human stupidity.
There is an adequate supply of apricots (I can buy semi-dried apricots in Waitrose which is one of the two reasons to walk to the next town two or three times a month if I’m not busy working) so why complain that you can only grow apricots in the right conditions?
Don’t try to be a fan of Richard Dawkins – Murphy’s head may be as big as his, but hgis brain is a fraction as good – and Dawkins’ brain isn’t as good as he makes out.
@ S2
Arnald is, as usual, wrong. Sin has consequences and when that sin is planting an apricot tree in the Sahara the consequence is that the tree dies or in California’s Central
Valley the fruit suffers. Some people might say that the diversion of millions of tons of water every year to California’s Central Valley to support an unnatural farming industry is a sin in itself.
Maybe Arnald will tell us that it is a desighn flaw that we cannot grow cucumbers in the Sahara.
@ uk liberty
“I prefer the Norse gods. At least you can have a pint with them.”
Only Thor – and he was conned by a giant into trying to drink the Ocean dry, so a pint is not *quite* the word I should use
@ bis
No He doesn’t have his thumb on the scales – He has a whole hand lifting up the scale which should be weighing our sins.
That is the difference between Christianity and all those religions that say that we shall be punished for our faults.
@ bis
In case this hasn’t already been covered: natural selection or “natural selection” makes no difference as I start off with the notion of an omniscient Creator (hey! – omnipotent hasn’t needed to feature so far, and stiill doesn’t) so He knows what will happen without intervention and He can set it up to produce the desired result without further intervention.
“As far as “creation” concerned, I have much more time for Creationists, of whatever stamp, than i have for what passes as mainstream Christianity, these days”
This is rather an important point. There is a strong argument that Christianity only makes sense if you believe in the whole Bible. That is, Creation, followed by Adam and Eve, followed by the Fall, followed by Christ and His payment of our sins on the cross.
If you take away the Old Testament, the narrative is hugely compromised. Further, if you have faith in the (whole) Bible, then confrontations with scientific evidence can be ignored. Everything is as written in the Bible, and that’s it. When you mix a belief in Jesus with a belief in Evolution, etc, things get rather muddied and complicated.
By the way, “mainstream” here in the US is very different to “mainstream” in Europe.
There are many forms of Christian belief; john77 should not assume that his sect is correct.
California’s drought may in fact be a “drought”. Tap water is ever available, the grass impressively green and there are a colossal number of swimming pools. And California remains an exporter of water.
Is it also a sin to grow potatoes and tomatoes in Europe, and tea in India?
I’m pretty sure all the gods drink in Valhalla with the dead. A raven told me.
77
They use seawater and solar in desert climates, for instance:
http://news.sciencemag.org/asiapacific/2013/11/desert-farming-experiment-yields-first-results
Saharan apricots agogo
“Sin has consequences and when that sin is planting an apricot tree in the Sahara the consequence is that the tree dies”
!!!
I live in a climate that’s actually drier than the Sahara. And I grow apricots.
Of course I do meticulously enjoy every opportunity to sin, comes my way. Is that why the apricot tree’s been struggling a bit. The figs are doing extremely well, though & we get more membrillo (quince, sort of apple) we know what to do with.
The wages of sin?
“(hey! – omnipotent hasn’t needed to feature so far, and stiill doesn’t) so He knows what will happen without intervention and He can set it up to produce the desired result without further intervention.”
No John. I dealt with omniscient at 18:55 yesterday, in response to SQ2. And a little further down, to Arnald. It’s “omniscience” removes the division between the Creationists'” “intelligent design” (your scare quotes) & intelligent design. (your lack of same). They’re functionally indistinguishable.* There is no natural selection.
But like ineffable, omniscient isn’t a word I’ve found a lot of use for.
*Logic for those with important things to do:
x(large mathematical equation with a lot of Greek letters in it)=0, y(large mathematical equation with a different lot of Greek letters in it)=0
Therefore x & y are the same thing & who gives a f**k what goes on inside the brackets/ They’re both worthless.
BIS,
> Again, that doesn’t make sense. Either the god sets the initial parameters for the creation. In which case evolution proceeds from those parameters & not from the infinity of alternate parameters. Intervening at first cause. Or it’s a creation with random parameters & the god just observes, with no intervention.. In which case, for practical purposes, it doesn’t matter whether or not there’s a god at all. The two states are indistinguishable.
I agree with everything there except the first sentence.
77,
> You shouldn’t use a technical term without quotation marks if it is phrase in normal non-technical English
I have throughout used a capital I and a capital D. Not my fault you can’t read.
> Omniscience means that one knows what the result of Darwinian “natural selection” will be so HE can choose the outcome by selecting the parameters at the start of the process. *You* may think the process is unpredictable, but omniscience includes foreknowledge.
I didn’t say it was unpredictable. Obviously anything is predictable to an omniscient being, by definition. So what? You can place such an omniscience anywhere in the chain, with no evidence or reason, just because you feel like it. You can say that God created DNA or viruses or bacteria or proteins or the planet Earth or the extreme tides and volcanic activity that probably gave rise to self-replicating molecules or the solar system or just the Big Bang, knowing what the result would eventually be. Or you could say that he created all of us, with fake memories, thirty seconds ago. You can do this, and, having faith, no doubt you will. But it’s immaterial to any arguments about science.
Darwinian evolution is a (proven) theory about a design mechanism, not a starting point. Arguing about the starting point is completely irrelevant to it. Even if you’re right about the creation of the starting point by the omniscient God, what you’re positing is still neither Intelligent Design nor intelligent design, since the design in question is the mechanism. The God you believe in intelligently set up a system so that its mechanism would design without the need for the intervention of intelligence.
@SQ2
We’re proving the impossibility of discussing religious belief, from outside the belief system. To us, outside, everything inside depends on a belief we don’t share. So all the x’s & y’s & the rest or the celestial alphabet of the belief system are equivalent to zero & functionally identical.
bis
“I dealt with omniscient at 18:55 yesterday, in response to SQ2. And a little further down, to Arnald”
Was it this post?
” Almost university grade intellect, is Arnald.
You start with a god who created & controls the universe. So how the universe ends is up to the guy with the beard, isn’t it? ”
That was the basis of my little joke. The Intelligence wasn’t very omniscient to have not seen that the Creation was finite, and was therefore duly laughed at by his mates.
Did I just have to explain that?
There’s no implication of a finite Creation there, Arnald. The god, having an unspecified number of mates, suggests that the god may belong to an infinite set.
So it’s turtles all the way up, as well as down.
bis
There is no god.
The apricot has an existential crisis.
Only the cold, flat line.
Well, I got Arnald’s joke. But 77 apparently thinks heat death means dying in really hot weather. [sigh]
S2
I was wondering if 77 was also joking….I hope so anyway.
I did a deconstruction of the joke for bis so that I could take my hat back off, complete with a list beginning at zero, but because I made “the standard error of basing [my] assumptions on the starting conditions, then leaving the starting conditions out of [my] calculations”, I felt too humble.
I love that a joke is not valid if it’s based on erroneous metaphysics.
A dog walks into a bar and orders two pints of bitter and a packet of dry roasted.
EXCUSE ME THIS JOKE IS WRONG DOGS CAN’T TALK YOU IDIOT.
Tsk, if you must tell bar jokes at least tell the good one.
White horse walks into a bar and the barman says “We’ve got a whisky named after you”
“What? Eric?”
Don’t worry, I got your joke Arnald. Although crediting a divinity with apricots would be less than amusing to the Chinese. Who bred the fruit up from the wild variety. But that’s the problem with intelligent design (John’s version – not the “Intelligent Design” of the Creationists) So many of the examples of the deity’s benevolent handiwork, offered up for admiration, are actually rather shoddy designs needed a lot of human work to bring them up to scratch.
Within the belief system, the Creationists’ deity gets a free pass here, because he created the apricots AFTER the Chinese apricot breeding program, not before.
Next time we meet, Tim, remind me to tell you the duck joke.