Sunday, December 02, 2007
“Good heavens! You’re the culture minister..”
On Radio Ulster’s Sunday Sequence this morning, Will Crawley hosted a discussion [Realplayer file] between Al Hays, an American professor of politics currently working at Queen’s University, Ruth Yeo, the recently appointed Humanist Chaplain at Queen’s University, Times columnist Matthew Parris and the Northern Ireland Culture Minister, the DUP’s Edwin Poots, on the religious views of politicians. Will has blogged a section of the transcript of that discussion where Edwin Poots is, admirably, honest about his religious views - he believes in ArchBishop Ussher’s 17th Century chronology.. as do Lisburn Council.. and Matthew Parris resists, just, the temptation to call NI’s Culture Minister a “nutter”.. Which may help explain the Environment Minister’s official written answer on the age of the Giants’ Causeway.. although it also highlights the concern about what scientific literature will be provided in any Causeway interpretative centre.
That transcript
Edwin Poots: He [Dawkins] wants to indoctrinate everyone with evolution. And whenever people suggest that you can teach something other than evolution, and that there might be others theories about how this earth actually came to be, such as intelligent design, Richard doesn’t want children to have the option of actually hearing those things and making their own minds up. So it’s very interesting that evolutionists are very dictatorial in what they suggest.
William Crawley: Matthew Parris ... you’ve just heard the culture minister in Northern Ireland speak, Matthew. Would a politician in Britain ever use words like that? A minister ingovernment?
Matthew Parris: Absolutely not. No. And I would use the word “nutter”—not of Edwin, obviously. But I do use the word ‘nutter’ of people who think that what informs them religiously entitles them to say that evolution is a form of indoctrination. I mean, there’s absolutely no question where science points, and it can only be some feeling that you’ve got a direct line with revelation with the Almighty that could lead you to stop wanting children to be taught that evolution is the best available explanation of where we are now.
Edwin Poots: Matthew, you’re telling me that cosmic balls of dust gathered and there was an explosion. We’ve had lots of explosions in Northern Ireland and I’ve never seen anything come out of that that was good. And you look at this earth and you tell me that there was a big bang and all of a sudden all tat is good about this earth came out of it?
Matthew Parris: Good heavens! You’re the culture minister and you don’t believe in evolution?
Edwin Poots: Yes, absolutely. And you’re telling me that all of this evolution took place over billions of years, and yet it’s only in the last few thousand years that Man could actually learn to write?
William Crawley: How old is the earth?
Edwin Poots: My view on the earth is that it’s a young earth. My view is 4000 BC.
Somehow I doubt that the Culture Minister is familiar with Francis Bacon’s ‘New Instrument for Rational Thinking’..
One more time then..
“The use of the word ‘theory’ can mislead those not familiar with science..”
Btw.. Where are those Department of Education guidelines?
Pete Baker @ 05:11 PM
Does anyone know Poots’ religion?
I assume he’s a Free P?
Willowfield,
He’s a Free P deacon.Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 10:19 PMeyes obviously started out as simple light sensitive cells that were acted upon autonomically say as in single cell ocean creatures who float to the surface or sink down depending upon the sun. As the “eyes” grew more complex and they could process more data then obviously the need to process this data and form a myriad of responses was needed and as one increased and proved an advantage then the other advanced apace.
All biological entities are little more than data collation systems that aquire data and process it as needed and as aquired. Simple creatures need simple responses and require far less data so they have simple collection systems.
Why do we have 2 eyes thats easy its the same reason we have 2 hands, symetry. nature loves symetry and externally atleast thats why we have pairs of everything.
And there is no such thing as optimum placement of eyes thats why differen species have them plaved in different places. Predators generally have them face forward so they can judge distance and speed, prey generally have them on the sides of their heads so they have a greater field of vision to look for predators and amphibians on the tops because that is generally where there prey and predators come from.
Why do eyes generally point in some way forward? Because whether prey or predator its more important to see where you are going then where you are coming from?
Its all logical really
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 10:20 PMIt’s all missing the point, actually. And you might want to count your nose and mouth there, Shawn. You have two eyes because they’re needed for that important factor called ‘depth perception.: ;)
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 10:24 PMwhat about the nose and mouth?
the nose has two nostrils which is symetry and the mouth is also similarily equal from one side to the otherAnd its you that misses the point child
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 10:43 PMOh ... my ... God!!
I honestly, swear to god, can’t believe what i’m reading.
Dubliner,
Do you honestly believe that a single peer respected evolutionary biologist in the world believes that the whole eye appeared as a random variation!?
Do youself a favour. Spend 5 minutes to browse a couple of theories of eye evolution.
A quick starter, check Nilssons model.
Are you denying the existence of photo-sensitive skin-cells. Are you denying the existence of animals with rudimentary optical sensory organs? Really? Who told you that the first “eyes” had to fully realized as the organ that you know?
If no animal had ever been discovered without rudimentary optic sensors, or ‘primitive’ photo-sensitive organs, then you would maybe have some semblance of a valid point.
Momkeys at typewriters!! Sure shakespeare like the rest of us, was nothing more than a differently evolved monkey. And apparently it only took one of him to write the complete works of shakespeare!!
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 10:45 PMdepth perception is only important to predators thats why cows dont have forward facing eyes.
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 10:46 PM“Which leads to the other question: which came first, the ability to process depth perception or the ability to acquire the data, i.e. the discovery that two eyes were better than one?
You’re making a couple of very basic errors here, in that you appear to be falsely assuming that “having two eyes” and “having depth perception” are the same thing, and that two eyes are required in order to perceive depth. Neither of these is the case. Plenty of two-eyed animals - most notably those with eyes at the sides of their heads - have very poor depth perception, and are more sensitive to movement; and it’s entirely possible to perceive depth with one eye. Even if I close one eye, I can still tell that my keyboard is closer to me than my monitor.
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 10:56 PMI agree with nuttal - some of you people here need to spend less time time typing and more time reading.
I know he can be irritaing but some of you go read Dawkins...blind watchmaker...for starers there is a lovely passage about disbelief by personal incredulity...as you might imagine it is not too robust an approach.
this discussion just sums up NI’s crazy society perfectly - dozens of people happy to be stuck in the intellectual ages.
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 11:00 PMOh dear… I seem to have become the new Sam Hanna.
It’s a shame folks don’t read what is written before replying to it, but I put that down to inheriting a gene that rearranges the words into a randomly mutated order. ;)
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 11:21 PM*eyes obviously started out as simple light sensitive cells that were acted upon autonomically say as in single cell ocean creatures who float to the surface or sink down depending upon the sun.*
I mean s’obvious innit?
Pray tell then how the flying fuck did those single cell ocean creatures who do this phenomenal trick of responding to the the sun’s light come about? What did they evolve from, given that they don’t mate? At what point do you accept that this random coupling theory ain’t working?
Furthermore why do they happen to still exist today? Surely they would have evolved into something more sophisticated by now like we did?
In fact these single cell sea creatures are the new born babies that never grow old of my earlier analogy, they have never evolved since time began, if evolution explained everything there would no longer be any creature less primitive than humans because they would all have evolved just like us.
Anyway, I’ve heard nothing to convince me that my original assertion that there are massive holes in the Evolutionary argument and the more the evolutionists shriek hysterically about how the sceptics are nothing more than god botherers the more convinced I will remain that my scepticism is justified.
I’ll let the Dub go on about thwacking the evos’ arguments out of the park.
Posted by on Dec 04, 2007 @ 12:46 AM“What did they evolve from, given that they don’t mate?”
Horizontal gene transfer, friend (e.g. plasmids or via viruses): the way most evolution on the planet has happened (as most of the biomass on the planet is single-cell). Also, you can still get mutations and evolution in the absence of sexual reproduction: the error rate in DNA replication is 10E-9/base pair/reproduction cycle. [For RNA viruses, its more like 10E-4 to 10E-5/nucleotide/replication: on average, each progeny flu virus will have one mutation from its parent virus]
Posted by on Dec 04, 2007 @ 01:07 AMOh dear Harry - you seem to misunderstand the premise, that these single celled creatures are successful means that they are evolutionary proven; and as to holes in evolutionary theory this means the theory will be refined and, if necessary discounted for something with better analysis and observational data. The ‘belief’ that geologists are wrong (rock strata and dating), biologists are wrong (evolutinary biology, genetics, memes etc) astronomers are wrong (the inconvenient truth that 6,000 year creation ‘dating’ is blown away by speed of light observations which calculate how long light takes to arrive at earth from distant stars) and philosophical arguments (of which there are many as related in Hitchens’ collection ‘The Portable Atheist’) Obviously if you read a sacred text they’re all wrong...errrrr or they’re attempting to find what is ‘right’
Posted by on Dec 04, 2007 @ 01:11 AMHarry Flashman
Furthermore why do they happen to still exist today? Surely they would have evolved into something more sophisticated by now like we did?Since others covered the first bit let me answer this one. Just because an organism has evolved to fill a higher niche does not preclude that the lower niche is irrelevant and therefore unneeded.
In other words, just because we have fresh water fish does not mean that salt water fish are no longer a viable species
Posted by on Dec 04, 2007 @ 01:26 AMWhy don’t we stay on the eye for now? Here’s what Charles Darwin had to say about it, acknowledging that his theory was deficient in explaining it:
“To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree. Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound.”
It isn’t good enough to say ‘this is how the eye evolved because if it isn’t then my theory is fucked’ and leave it at that. If your claim is that minor variations in the design of the eye (so minor that evolutionists agree that the process could not have taken less than half a million years) gave one species an advantage over another such that the fitter species survived leading to the ‘improved’ design being adapted by natural selection, then you need to show that such a minor variation such as a few extra photosensitive cells could have conferred that dramatic advantage leading to the generation either gaining more food or more sex, causing those minus a few light-sensitive cells to be wiped out, and so on over a few hundred thousand years. How exactly could that occur? Is a species that has very extra light-sensitive cells but doesn’t have the pupil, lens, the retina, the part of the brain that processes visual information, the part that associates blurs with danger, food, and so forth, really all that fitter in any environment? In reality that is such an absurd claim to make that it is tantamount to a faith that is accepted without any proof, whatsoever. I fully accept that evolution exists, but I don’t accept that it is the initial designer. There is something else at work there, an outworking of some information in the system by some process not yet understood - and as I said before, there are many new sciences working on what exactly it is.
Posted by on Dec 04, 2007 @ 02:16 AMTypo: “Is a species that has a few extra light-sensitive cells...”
Posted by on Dec 04, 2007 @ 02:21 AM*Horizontal gene transfer, friend (e.g. plasmids or via viruses): the way most evolution on the planet has happened (as most of the biomass on the planet is single-cell). Also, you can still get mutations and evolution in the absence of sexual reproduction: the error rate in DNA replication is 10E-9/base pair/reproduction cycle. [For RNA viruses, its more like 10E-4 to 10E-5/nucleotide/replication: on average, each progeny flu virus will have one mutation from its parent virus]*
Or to put it another way;
“Frankly we haven’t got a clue, so we’ll just make some stuff up to keep the God botherers off our backs”.
As I suspected.
Posted by on Dec 04, 2007 @ 02:23 AMMy apologies if this link has already been referred to as i haven’t had time to wade through each and every comment. Somebody thinks Mr Poots is a bit of a traitor to other Free P’s given that he is a deacon within the “church” :
http://www.ivanfoster.org/article.asp?date=7/29/2007&seq=1019
burning bush......
Posted by on Dec 04, 2007 @ 02:34 AMShawn, the theory of evolution says nothing about whether a species is “needed” or not, it simply says that through the progress of time and natural selection species will automatically evolve, not “necessary” species (whatever they may be) but all species will evolve over time.
Simply restating the obvious fact that some creatures have evolved and some have not, does not explain why those that did not, er, did not.
What prevented the single celled sea creatures from evolving? It’s not like they haven’t had the time or anything.
Posted by on Dec 04, 2007 @ 02:50 AMWell, I’m still waiting for them to show how a randomly mutated light-sensitive pigment on skin could have given the holder of that gene a survival advantage so great that all non-holders of the gene became extinct and that all modifications to it were equally great to ensure the same fate for all non-modified gene holders, and so on despite modifications being so far from great that the process would take half a million years to fully ‘evolve’ as an eye, and given that said initial mutated light-sensitive pigment (evolutionists attempt to explain the origin of the eye) wouldn’t be any use without a processor to attach meaning to the data - a raft of other ‘mutations’ that it is dependent on yet initially independent of. If the selector is natural selection (a form of design by non-design), then that pigment would have been discarded by that process as being about as advantageous as a pimple. They are left arguing that it must be the process because it is theoretically possible and they can’t admit any other theory or fundamental doubt into their thinking – with no regard to probability or practicality.
Posted by on Dec 04, 2007 @ 06:45 AMHarry
Are you suggesting that for evolution to make sense to you, ALL examples of an organism must mutate simultaneously and identically?
Because otherwise, why would you expect ALL examples of an organism to mutate? Surely by its nature, mutation occurs as the exception rather than the rule?
Extinction arises when two organisms compete in the same niche, and one is better fit than the other to the point of the exclusion of the other.
But a mutated advantage might place the ‘new’ organism in a completely new niche, thus not competing with the original and allowing both to flourish in peace - the success of the new does not necessarily mean the obliteration of the old.
Dub
“Well, I’m still waiting for them to show how a randomly mutated light-sensitive pigment on skin could have given the holder of that gene a survival advantage so great that all non-holders of the gene became extinct.”
Sorry, Dub, who said the original organism would become extinct? The advantage, surely, merely needs to be an advantage enough to ensure the continuance of the mutation, not so large as to swamp the original?
Are you not confusing evolution with “survival of the fittest”?
The other thing that occurs is that “eyes” are a fairly universal vertibrate phenomenum - in which case why do animals with little or no use for eyes still have them - moles, bats - etc?
Posted by on Dec 04, 2007 @ 09:11 AMOneill
He’s a Free P deacon.
Thanks oneill for answering my question.
Why are there so many fundoes in the DUP? They have a completely disproportionate influence on public life here.
Of the other DUP ministers, we have the two Paisleys who are Free Ps, and Robinson who is some in some sort of fundamentalist church (although, in fairness, he rarely, if ever, talks about his religious views publicly). What about Dodds and Foster – are they fundoes?
Posted by on Dec 04, 2007 @ 10:29 AMDubliner, and harry
Err.. the species with the light sensitive pigmentation will maybe have a slight advantage over it’s competitors. Allowing it to be slightly more successful reproductively, and therefore increasing the likelihood of the genes that cause the light sensitive cells to develop to be carried on. It’s very very basic statistics.
Simple case, look at the jellyfish. No eyes, no brain, no sensory organs as we would consider them. Just some photo-sensitive cells and a rudimentary nervous system. You might label jellyfish as “primitive”, but you can’t say they’re not evolutionarily successful.
Now imagine some jellyfish reproduced and by a genetic mutation their offspring had no (or even less effective) photo-sensitive cells. Do you think they are going to be as successful as their siblings. They might even live long enough to produce, but their offspring are going to be less likely to have photo-sensitive cells, and therefore less likely to survive long enough to be reproductively successful. Again, it’s very very basic statistics.
The mutation doesn’t have to be one that will allow a total domination of the individuals within a species. For the mutation to be long-term successful, it only has to have a higher (even slightly) chance of replication than that of its competitors.
Do you think that all the animals that you see around you are the pinnacle of evoultion? Are we the pinnacle of evolution?! We may have plateaued in a evolutionary sense, but we are all works in progress. All it would take is a bit of competitive pressure, and humans could start evolving physically again.
Posted by on Dec 04, 2007 @ 10:35 AMDubliner,
if you supposed that by superiority, the individuals would totally dominate the species, and cause all others to become extinct within the species, then life would only ever have evolved along one line.
Posted by on Dec 04, 2007 @ 10:44 AMDubliner,
It’s not that hard to find this stuff out, just go to wikipedia. Or, if you don’t trust it, check out Hegemann given in the references.
“The eyespot apparatus (or stigma) is a photoreceptive organelle found in the flagellate (motile) cells of green algae and other unicellular photosynthetic organisms such as euglenids. It allows the cells to sense light direction and intensity and respond to it by swimming either towards the light (phototaxis) or away from the light ("photoshock" or photophobic response). This helps the cells in finding an environment with optimal light conditions for photosynthesis. Eyespots are the simplest and most common “eyes” found in nature, composed of photoreceptors and a signal transduction system generating a phototactic response.”
Apparently even a single cell algae can benefit from light sensitivity without a “processor”.
Do you even understand that not all eyes are the same? Some are complex, some are rudimentary. Some are complex but ineffective. An “eye” doesnt have to have a lens, a processor, a retina etc etc. to be effective.
Posted by on Dec 04, 2007 @ 11:05 AMHowever to extrapolate from this intra-species development the claim that the magnificently developed, superbly adapted, multifarious life forms that exist on the planet today simply emerged by random chance over the eons is utter twaddle.
Harry, this statement shows your total ignorance of evolutionary theory, besides which, the idea of things suddenly emerging whole, is exactly what creationists argue, their magic man just appeared,started to exist, or always existed, no explanation ,we’re just supposed to accept it.
It simply defeats logic to say that the perfectly developed cockroach, the beautifully designed elephant or the amazingly versatile chameleon came by their attributes over a period of time utterly by chance and random experimentation among breeders.
Again it wasn’t by chance, it was by natural selection, if you can’t even grasp this simplest of concepts, how can we expect you to believe or understand the more complicated parts of the process.
Dear knows how you’d react to the Burges Shale.Posted by on Dec 04, 2007 @ 11:12 AM
