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
On the subject of poots in government. I see no reason how anyone could ever be denied a place in government due to religious beliefs; but I also see no reason why someone in government should be allowed to use their position of influence to enhance the influence of their religious beliefs.
But would Poots et al be eager to defend the rights of (hypothetical) pagans or even satanists using their position in office to enhance the exposure to their beliefs. I doubt it.
I believe that any beliefs that a person in the public eye publicly professes should be fully open to public ridicule; especially when they run for public office.
Personally, i think Poots is a superstitious nutter who deserves no public authority whatsoever. But that is a matter for the electorate, Poots and the DUP.
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 02:59 PMahem, why exactly do you think people with poots beliefs should not hold office? can you describe where you see a problem between his beliefs and running a department?
“the universe did not just pop into existence it became a mathematical certainty at some point”
shawn, ‘became’ implies a passage of time. time and mathematics only exist inside the universe. the universe cant just appear because sooner or later it was mathematically going to happen because time and mathematics didnt exist prior to the universe appearing. ouch!
“not meeting those nasty caflicks and their leprechaun language”
hating catholics or a language is not Christian. you’ll have to think of something biblical and not just NI peoples hates. if you exclude hateful people from office then who would run the country??Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 03:04 PMEranu,
I’ll give you one.
Zionism (bible bashers par excellance) - they are working away clearing Palestinians from ‘their’ land, planting the best of the land and expanding, ever expanding.
The justification for this terriotorial expansion and the clearing of other peoples? Because God said they could, in the Bible.
Now I can just about understand someone who is devout (Jewish or Christian) saying well God said that it was o.k so we suspend International Law in this case, but then you find out that large numbers of settlers are secular and doubt even believe in God, they only believe in that bit that says they can steal the land.
A bit like Christians, they are obsessed by ‘sodomy’ because of a few passages in the bible but there are thousands of passage promoting tolerance and they are basically ignored.
“shawn, ‘became’ implies a passage of time. time and mathematics only exist inside the universe. the universe cant just appear because sooner or later it was mathematically going to happen because time and mathematics didnt exist prior to the universe appearing. ouch!”
So you believe in a deity restricted by thr physics of space-time? I think I’ll look out for a God that is a wee bit more powerful than that, anyone have any suggestions?
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 03:17 PMEranu
I never said it was christian just that he professes tto be one. Its his assetion that what he does is morrally correct and therefor christianAs for your mathematical and time assertions, I wouldrespectfully disagree time has not begining and no end if it did it would make it linear and controlable. If time was linear we should be able to move up and down the time scale. Time comes as close as any natural law to allowing for a spiritual componenet because as near as man can tell it has been and always will be existing.
the only thing is man has applied a scale to time that does not necesarily exist in the natural world.
Math has a truth and beautty to it in which only it can be the word of god because it is all knowing all seeing, predictable and unasailable.
2 + 2 = 4 and always will regardless of centuries of interpretation and re-interpretationPosted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 03:18 PMEranu, my poor, dear friend, I think precisely that Poots should be free to continue in office without being subject to the imposition of a test on his private religious beliefs. And without such, this entire thread, by the hysterical anti-Poots brigade, has been even more full of hot air than Slugger’s usual warm quotient. Swift explains the clunkingly unsubtle nature of my argument.
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 03:25 PMThis is the same Minister who said no to an Irish Gaelic Act because of cost issues and then announced at the weekend that his department sent £10m back to the government as they had not spent it!
It’s nearly as unbelievable as his medieval beliefs. But then again, maybe God told him not to give the money to Irish speakers…
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 03:41 PMBecause God knows without British government money, they wouldn’t speak it.
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 03:45 PMahem, you said “So it’s agreed then, Poots’ religious beliefs should disqualify him from public office? Jolly good.” did i pick you up wrong?
shawn, “Its his assetion that what he does is morrally correct and therefor christian”
it would have to be something from the bible to be Christian, rather than something he came up with. people cant just say somethings Christian if it contradicts biblical teaching. if you disagree with or dislike him fair enough, what im wondering is what people would object to about Christianity in office? but if you dont object to that then fair enough.
you’ve lost me with the maths bit there. im fairly sure time is the 4th dimension and it exists inside the universe.mark, Jews and Christians arent the same thing. i think it does say in the old testament that God gave israel to the jews though. i just dont know enough to comment on that.
“So you believe in a deity restricted by thr physics of space-time?” i didnt say that. as a creator he would have to exist outside his creation.Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 04:22 PMYes, quite painfully so. The point I was evidently unsuccessfully trying to make was that people who say Poots’ private beliefs should disqualify him from public office are employing exactly the same rationale as those who once supported the Test Acts. Swift, in case this needs explaining too, was a reference to Dean Swift. Dean being his job - or calling if you prefer - not his name.
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 04:27 PM“i didnt say that. as a creator he would have to exist outside his creation”
Why?
Could creation not be part of God and vice-versa?
“Jews and Christians arent the same thing”
Don’t really see a huge difference. That Jesus guy was Jewish you know, Christians for the first few hundred years regarded themselves as a Jew. Indeed I have heard RC priest preach that all christians are by definition Jewish.
In fact I would view some of the christian sects out there are being neo-Judaist rather than Christian as they clearly prefer the message of the Old Testament over than the new.
“i think it does say in the old testament that God gave israel to the jews though. i just dont know enough to comment on that.”
It does, and alot more than that! Thanks God!
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 04:30 PMA most hideous and heinous consensus actually exists between the two majority parties in N.Ireland, most unfortunately, also to be found in their disgraceful attitude to homosexuals, i.e. against both Catholic and Protestant morality, apparently. All very insulting to and unrepresentative of decent religious believers.
And when that twerp calling hismelf Flashman comes along with his conspiracy theories - it was the left that caused it all!, atheism and famine - you know you’re onto a lunatic. In some respects the writing is on the wall.
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 04:45 PMsorry ahem, busy in work. didnt read all the thread. sort of lost my train of thought at this stage..
mark, im not trying to be cheeky but i dont think you have enough knowledge of Christianity. an alpha course is a good way to learn. no offense intended. im no expert either but i do understand the general stuff.
basically i was wanting to see someone show how a Christian, because of the things they believe and how they try to live their lives, would not be suitable for a job in stormont.
have to go.
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 05:02 PMI am surprised he didn’t use the story of Jesus turning water into wine, wine takes time to ferment yet it was made ‘instantly’ demonstrating the power of God!
Sorry I forgot, in the Free P/DUP bible it was non-alcholic wine, it had to be ir it would mean Jesus endorsed the demon drink, it was an early form of Ribena!
Anyway thats what my Granny told me as a child
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 05:31 PMFor those who doubt our place in the evolutionary chain.
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 05:57 PM“It’s a cumulative effect. In no single generation will a bat suddenly develop 20/20 vision, but over the generations, the bats with the slightly better vision will tend to do slightly better than their rivals.” - nuttal
That is natural selection - which doesn’t address the question of how or why an eye is designed. On that level - adapt or die - evolution is spot-on, so the problem is not with the environmental adoption or rejection of the adaptation; it is with the initial design of the adaptation. An eye, undoubtedly, gave one species an advantage over another species in the search for food and the detection and subsequent avoidance of danger. However, the species would have required other designed abilities and learned data and considerable time for the eye to have the advantageous effect. The eye merely detects data, but it is useless without a data processor and a mechanism to attach meaning to the data. All of these profoundly complex yet initially separate processes would have had to cooperate in immaculate synchronicity toward a brilliant feat of discovery and engineering – and so blind (so to speak). The odds of this process occurring by chance - outside the process of natural selection (since the amazing feat of discovery and engineering had not been designed and ergo not testable by the environment) is akin to the proverbial monkeys at a row typewriters randomly typing the complete works of Shakespeare. Something else is at work that is not explained by evolutionary theory: this brilliant engineering is not random, but an outworking of information in the system with the ability to self-organise and self-inspect.
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 06:35 PMTypo: ...and doso blind…
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 06:37 PMJust to make that point less obscure: if the optimum location for the eye was determined by natural selection to be the front of the head, where on a body did it randomly appear prior to evolutionary optimisation - under the right armpit? And at what point did natural selection determine that two eyes were better than one? Was it before or after the brain randomly evolved the ability to process depth perception while sans the ability to detect depth? In short: evolution doesn’t explain how the design came to be (processes the information to make the initial selection and the do the engineering), it only explains how the optimum design could be selected by the environment.
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 07:43 PMDoes anyone know Poots’ religion?
I assume he’s a Free P?
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 07:48 PMWhat Is Evolution (From Larry Moran)
Most non-scientists seem to be quite confused about precise definitions of biological evolution. Part of the confusion is because the word “evolution” has many different meanings, depending on the context. When we talk about biology we are thinking about biological evolution and that’s the term I want to define here. What do biologists mean when they refer to biological evolution?One of the most respected evolutionary biologists has recently defined biological evolution as follows:
Biological (or organic) evolution is change in the properties of populations of organisms or groups of such populations, over the course of generations. The development, or ontogeny, of an individual organism is not considered evolution: individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are ‘heritable’ via the genetic material from one generation to the next. Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportions of different forms of a gene within a population, such as the alleles that determine the different human blood types, to the alterations that led from the earliest organisms to dinosaurs, bees, snapdragons, and humans.
Douglas J. Futuyma (1998) Evolutionary Biology 3rd ed., Sinauer Associates Inc. Sunderland MA p.4Note that biological evolution refers to populations and not to individuals. In other words, populations evolve but individuals do not. This is a very important point. It distinguishes biological evolution from other forms of evolution in science (e.g., stellar evolution). Another important point is that the changes must be genetic, or heritable—they must be passed on to the next generation. Evolution is the process by which this occurs and it is spread out over many generations. Thus, the short minimal definition of biological evolution is,
“Evolution is a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations”
No more no less
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 07:52 PMJust to make that point less obscure: if the optimum location for the eye was determined by natural selection to be the front of the head, where on a body did it randomly appear prior to evolutionary optimisation - under the right armpit?
You’ve got this rather arse-about-face, if you will; eyes (or at least photosensitive cell structures) predate heads by a long, long time. I’m no expert, but it seems reasonably sensible that any structure required to process the data from a given sensory organ would arise in close proximity to the organs in question (given the slight advantage that a shorter time lag between the organs generating a signal and that signal being processed would confer), and that brains (and eventually heads) thus have a sound evolutionary reason for forming around the eyes.
I think it’s more pertinent to ask, if evolution didn’t take place, why is there so little variation in basic morphology within biological classes? Why no bipedal insects or eight-legged mammals? If you’re assuming a designer, surely this displays a rather pitiful lack of imagination on their part?
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 08:25 PMJoe, reread it with a view to grasping the point this time: the initial design is not determined by natural selection. In fact, the design is far too optimised to be in any way random. If it was, then the eye would have appeared randomly on a body and the optimal position would have been determined by natural selection. 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? Two eyes are useless without the brains ability to process depth perception and the brains ability to process depth perception is useless with two eyes. Two separate yet interdependent processes whose design that cannot be explained by natural selection.
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 08:37 PMTypo: “Two eyes are useless without the brain’s ability to process depth perception and the brain’s ability to process depth perception is useless without two eyes.”
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 08:39 PMIf it was, then the eye would have appeared randomly on a body and the optimal position would have been determined by natural selection
I can’t help but feel that this assertion indicates that your basic difficulty with the process of evolution is that you have absolutely no understanding of what it is or how it works.
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 09:02 PMAnd yet you are the one who is confusing the designer with the process that merely selects the design that is deemed best suited to its environment. You are welcome to try to answer the question and to show how evolution could design an eye, optimise it to proximity to the brain, and develop depth perception before optimising the quantity of eyes to two simply by random mutation - but do ask your basket weaving teacher to explain it to you first. If you can’t answer it (and you can’t), then your claim to understand evolutionary theory is bogus. ;).
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 09:53 PMAnd just in case you’ve forgotten what the question was:
“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? Two eyes are useless without the brains ability to process depth perception and the brains ability to process depth perception is useless without two eyes.”
The clue in the question, child, is that the selector for the initial design is not the selector for the chosen design, nor is it a random mutation that develops the brain’s ability to process depth perception and then links it random to the nose, the ear, the lest testicle, etc, until it discovers an earthly use for the mutations by natural selection. Get it now? Probably not.
Posted by on Dec 03, 2007 @ 10:03 PM
