[Reviewing Richard Dawkins' "The Ancestors Tale"]
Dawkins presents an excellent and informative account of evolution in this skillfully crafted and well-written tome. However, as some recent reviewers have noted, Dawkins is operating within benighted scientific orthodoxy and is therefore completely wrong. A simple syllogism proves that existence must have been Created:
Things that exist must have been created
Existence exists
Therefore existence must have been created
Another problem with evolution is the well documented 'dinosaur problem'. If the world was based on survival of the fittest, humans (and most other animals still around today) would have been killed off by the dinosaurs several hundred years ago.
So in conclusion: an excellent book despite its wrongness.
60 comments
"Several hundred years ago?"
I bet Tanya Tanya thinks that Columbus stumbled upon the Lost World instead of the New World.
It's amazing that she has this view of "giant man-eating dinos" that couldn't be affected by, say, dust in the air or anything.
And that has got to be the most circular logic ever.
This is going under my "Worst mutilation of the first cause argument--EVER!" category. It's also fantastically circular and a red herring.
"humans ... would have been killed off by the dinosaurs several hundred years ago."? Even if she had said <I>million</I> years ago... wha?
Maybe she means that if the world were really fair according to the survival of the fittest, asteroids wouldn't kill things (arguably) fitter than us. I dunno...
Our squirrelly subterranean ancestors were just more fit in that suddenly different envoronment. Nobody said that accidents don't happen and environments don't change.
Just a sidenote: The premise "Existence exists" - which, try as I might, I cannot make much sense of - was originated by none other than the patron saint of secular fundies: Ayn Rand! I bet this "Tanya" person has read some Rand. Or something.
I knew a girl in high school who knew that the dinosaurs were fake. She knew this because any time you see a picture of a dinosaur, it's in color, and they didn't have color photography back then.
So help me, she was completely serious.
(She wasn't a fundi, she was just "dumb with 2 'm's".)
"If the world was based on survival of the fittest, humans (and most other animals still around today) would have been killed off by the dinosaurs several hundred years ago"
Good God, Chris Morris posts on Amazon.com!
Existence is not a thing, it's a state of being and therefore does not follow that line of logic... if it can be called logic.
That reminds me of the Ontological Argument for the existence of God which also prooves nothing because existence is not proof of greatness.
King Spirula: Leave us homeschooled kids out of this, we're not all idiots.
Parody? Hmmmmm, how many fundies would use the word "tome" instead of "book"? Uses the word "benighted", etc and then goes on to present the "well documented dinosaur problem". I think someone was having a little fun, but you never know what's going to come out of a fundie's head.
Okay first, dinosaurs died out 65 MILLION years ago, not a couple hundred, mammals as we know today were not the same then because the dinousaurs kept them small and burrowing, that is how they survived the asteriod impact which can and probably will be our end someday too.
Strider: That is so funny, it hurts. Did you point out that her great-great grandparents didn't exist either, because all you could find of them were color pictures from the 1700s or something?
Anyway, "existence exists," huh? My mind just exploded.
"Things that exist must have been created "
False premise ---> incorrect conclusion
There is no dinosaur problem. Dinosaurs were killed off by an environment that changed too much too quickly.
PS There are about 65 million years between us and them, so it's fairly safe to say no dinosaur has ever had the opportunity to kill a person or vice-versa.
PPS "Fittest" in survival of the fittest means more like "best fit" between organism and environment not "most fit" like some kind of ubermensch wet dream.
"Things that exist must have been created
Existence exists
Therefore existence must have been created"
Logic dictates then that what existed created God, He couldn't have existed without it
I'd slow down with that circular argument if I were you. You'll make yourself dizzy and fall off a cliff.
I had to laugh at the idea of dinosaurs killing people off several hundred years ago, though. You know, Tanya, if you cling to the idiotic fiction that the world is 6000 years ago and try and fit dinos into that time frame, you really are going to end up chasing your own tail.
And in conclusion, the Bible is a crap book because of its wrongness.
continuing this syllogism...
that which has created the 'existence' could obviously not have been part of 'existence'.
therefore, whatever you're trying to prove to exist with this syllogism is non-existent.
Something tells me Tanya never actually read the book. Dinosaur problem? That's not a problem, except for young-earth evolutionists, who I believe don't exist.
As for your formal argument... Well...
1. Things that exist must have been created? An unfounded assertion, so not great as a premise, and also a paradox in its own right! If all things which exist are created, then they must have a creator. Ergo the creator exists and therefore was created. Ergo the creator of the creator exists and therefore was created. This leads to the necessity of either something creating itself (which may as well be the universe as God), or something which does not exist creating all other things, which proves if the universe was created, God does not exist.
2. Existence exists? And I guess height is tall, and ownership owns, and weight is heavy, and intelligence is intelligent?
3. Okay, by 'existence' you meant not 'the quality of existing', but 'all that exists'. All that exists exists. So that wasn't an absurdity; it was a tautology. Either way you could drop that line.
4. Your one good point is that the argument is formally valid: assuming the two impossible premises are true, then the conclusion would logically follow. Moot point though, as the premises are bullshit.
Also, using Rand to support the existence of God? Interesting. I suppose she did base her 'philosophy' on assumptions that are demonstrably false, so fundies must love her just for that.
Something tells me Tanya never actually read the book. Dinosaur problem? That's not a problem, except for young-earth evolutionists, who I believe don't exist.
As for your formal argument... Well...
1. Things that exist must have been created? An unfounded assertion, so not great as a premise, and also a paradox in its own right! If all things which exist are created, then they must have a creator. Ergo the creator exists and therefore was created. Ergo the creator of the creator exists and therefore was created. This leads to the necessity of either something creating itself (which may as well be the universe as God), or something which does not exist creating all other things, which proves if the universe was created, God does not exist.
2. Existence exists? And I guess height is tall, and ownership owns, and weight is heavy, and intelligence is intelligent?
3. Okay, by 'existence' you meant not 'the quality of existing', but 'all that exists'. All that exists exists. So that wasn't an absurdity; it was a tautology. Either way you could drop that line.
4. Your one good point is that the argument is formally valid: assuming the two impossible premises are true, then the conclusion would logically follow. Moot point though, as the premises are bullshit.
Also, using Rand to support the existence of God? Interesting. I suppose she did base her 'philosophy' on assumptions that are demonstrably false, so fundies must love her just for that.
Killed off by the dinosaurs several hundred years ago?
You, madam, are an idiot, which is basically indistinguishable from a young earther. The dinosaurs were killed off 65 million years ago by an extra-terrestrial event. If that meteor had never happened, they'd have continued to evolve, would most likely still be here today, and humans would not in all probability never have existed.
Creation has fuck all to do with any of that.
Does God exist?
If he does, he must have been created.
Survival of the most adaptable, silly. "Fittest" does not mean strongest or fastest, but the one who best fits into a certain environmental niche. Our rodent-lie ancestors (at the time of the dinosaurs) were small and didn't attract the attention of the dinosaurs. Besides, some of the dinosaurs were fairly small and herbivorous.
Dinosaurs died out about 65 million years ago, so they couldn't do anything "several hundred years ago".
So, in conclusion, a ditzy and delusional review, by Tanya-Tanya.
"humans (and most other animals still around today) would have been killed off by the dinosaurs several hundred years ago. "
Dinosaurs alive several hundred years ago? Seriously? Like George Washington crossed the Deleware on a sauropod?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
"Things that exist must have been created"
Uh....that's what you're trying to PROVE, remember? You can't start with your conclusion and say it proves your conclusion.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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