I have no objection to all kinds of daft ideas being taught in comparative religion classes but in science what we should teach is what there is evidence for and children should be encouraged to examine evidence – Richard Dawkins
Bobby is not the only Storey to have made the news in recent times. Also considered newsworthy was the DUP politician Mervyn Storey. Given that political differences between the two men are no longer what they used to be, it should hardly surprise us that the news teams will home in on a similar area of activity – escapes. In the case of Bobby the media have reminded us of his escape from the H Blocks; for Mervyn it has been an escape from reality.
Mervyn Storey is one of these people who think nonsense should be tarted up in educational attire and then inflicted upon our children. It is called creationism, a ridiculous religious perspective which holds that the earth is only a few thousand years old and anyone doubting it should go and read the bible. Now the bible always made a good smoke during the blanket protest for those who enjoyed a puff but as reading material it would not have been highly sought after, its status being that of any port in a storm. Empty cell, bored stiff, nothing to read but the hate filled bible. Some succumbed.
Those sceptics that join Sam Harris in experiencing incredulity that the world was created ‘a thousand years after the Sumerians invented glue’ are met with the type of response Richard Dawkins received in his documentary The Genius of Charles Darwin when he queried the basis of a science teacher’s assertion that the world was less than ten thousand year’s old: something to the effect that ‘I believe God because he was there and you were not and he knows better than you when he created the world.’
Listening to Mervyn Storey on BBC Radio Ulster attempt to describe the evolution process as being on a par with the immediate result of a massive bomb blast being the construction of a beautiful cathedral, the thought struck me that the man was indeed clueless. It is an old favourite plucked from the fundamentalist guide to stupidity which reveals a no-nothing approach to the world of science and evolution. No evolutionist bases their case against creationism on such a spurious contention. Conversely it is the illogic of creationism which rests on comparably intellectually indefensible founds. The biggest flaw in the Storey argument is that it merely raises all over again the problem it claims to have solved: how did an entity much more complex than any exquisite cathedral come into being? We are denied even the big bang theory to explain that. The absurd answer is that it was always there, was never created, never evolved. On the other hand what we scientifically know to have been there for billions of years is dismissed rather than explained away - explanation rarely figures in the non-thinking of the faithful - as having been there for only a few thousand years. There is something upside down, inside out, back to front about that.
Richard Dawkins is surely right in describing as sad the fact that ‘flat earthers’ are elected to power. ‘I think it's sad that people with ridiculous views do get elected because it suggests that the electorate is not sufficiently well-educated to see through them.’ Even worse when they become chair of the Education Committee. We would not want our children taught in school that the earth was flat – why should they be taught that the world is less than ten thousand years old?
Mervyn Storey thinks it would be an ideal situation that evolution not be taught at all. Moreover, he takes the view that creationism should be taught in the science class. Along with fellow DUP Assembly Member David Simpson, he pressed Catriona Ruane to include creationism in the science curriculum. ‘Creationism is not for the RE class because I believe that it can stand scientific scrutiny and that is a debate which I am quite happy to encourage and be part of.’ His Ballymoney Free Presbyterian church plans to bring speakers over from England to refute the views of Dawkins. Probably of the same quality that Paisley used to bring over such as former Spanish priest Juan Arrien to perform mock masses for the titillation of bible thumping eejits.
There is a place for creationism in schools. It should be stuck in the Religious Education class alongside other perspectives, none of which should be postulated as possessing any truth value whatsoever but simply studied as a social phenomenon much the same as witchcraft and superstition. Children should not be taught it but about it.
Thankfully there are enough people still around who take the view of blogger Johnny Guitar that
Had Mervyn Storey been born anywhere else in these islands it is unlikely that he would have been known for anything other than being the local buffoon who tried to spoil everyone's Saturday night by distributing peculiar Christian leaflets outside bars. Or perhaps he would have been that lone chap who ruins everyone's shopping trip on a Saturday afternoon by standing in a town centre shouting out lines from the book of Revelations into a loud hailer. But this is Northern Ireland and unfortunately here a halfwit can carve out a career for himself as a reputable member of the political establishment with relative ease.
Amen to that.
Thanks for the great quote about Sumerians & glue. As you're reading about Sarah Palin now according to your sidebar, perhaps a future entry might expand on how she, daughter of a science teacher, wants to give equal time to the teaching of creationism along with Darwin in classrooms. I think that Palin averred that she'd seen handprints "inside dinosaur tracks," therefore proving that humans and Triceratops walked, or ran, hand in hand into the lava-hued sunset.
ReplyDeleteFionnchĂș, you must have been reading my mind! I can understand people beieving in the concept of god as many a robust intellectual defence has been made on behalf of the existence of a deity. Science shows it as unlikely but does not disprove it. But science does disprove the nonsense of the bible. How people stick to a literal interpretation of it boggles the mind.
ReplyDeleteThe whole literal interpretation of the Bible is a relatively late concept, and would have made no sense in (and thereafter) the time it was recorded. It is quite sad that the whole mythos and logos have got quite confused post-1850-odd.
ReplyDeleteNot what I wanted to say, though.
What I did is that can you prove the Earth *isn't* flat? Isn't that just another believe-what-you-are-told? When I make it to the unoccupied twenty-six counties, I will challenge you to prove to me the earth is an oblate sphere. (Believe it or not, it takes quite a lot of physics to prove so, from a sat-in-the-pub position.)
I don't like Dawkins. At all. Smug git that he is. And that is the basis of it, I can't listen to the man. (Of course, most people don't realise the holes in evolutionary theory, and mis-represent it as survival of the fittest. I always suggest people read the *original* papers, not other people's interpretation of them.)
Science does not disprove the Bible. It is more a nonsense to try and *apply* science to the Bible. It isn't a text book (in that sense, heh.) Again, don't try and apply mythos to logos, and vice-versa.
Now, what annoys *me* is people who say they live their lives by the Bible. Absolute nonsense. They don't. (Much as I would like to put my wife out a week every month, I couldn't get away with that.) The thing is, most of these people don't read the source material. And those that do, cherry-pick. (I know you don't appreciate it, but I like reading theology. Political theology, philosophical theology, theological philosophy, and all the variations I am too tired to permutate right now, when there is booze awaiting me...)
Stray Taoist, don't suppose there is much chance of you making it to the unoccupied 26 soon! Too much of the easy life where you are. I would never dispute the flatness of the earth. I know a guy who fell off the edge and landed on his head and now believes decommissioning didn't happen. I do like Dawkins although I take your point about the smugness. I doubt if it is defensible to say that science does not disprove the bible. It does not disprove the existence of god but the bible is a different matter. It does not bear up to scientific scrutiny. Of course you are right it is not a text book but when some are intent on saying it should be taught in the science class as defensible science then there is the need to dismiss it on scientific grounds. Nobody lives their life by the bible so you'll get little in the way of argument from me on that. Now to surprise you, I do read theology. Just at the minute I am browsing through Frank Sheed's theology for beginners. Which is cheating a bit given that I am hardly a beginner. I read a lot of it in jail including six of Copleston's history which dealt with much theology. I have one by Hans Kung to start once time allows me. Hope all is well with you.
ReplyDeleteYes, Dawkins can be smug, but attribute that to his getting old. You cannot deny the impact of his monumental opus.
ReplyDeleteI strayed in here accidentally, an American PUMA and Dawkins fan. I admire Sarah Palin, even though I disagree with most of her positions. She did go on the record as saying that science ought only be taught in science classes. For the record, she never sought to ban any books, either.
AM,
In science, it's not about 'proving'. Anything that can't be/disproven/, then it must be rejected. As Feynman used to retort to students' conjectures: "That's not even good enough to be wrong!" (Stray Taoist, that answers your gripe viz. the veracity of the Bible.)
I upset a lot of folks by saying that I can substitute the noun of their argument (i.e., God, Chi, the Soul, meridians, subluxations) with "leprechauns", and the argument suffers no detriment logically.
Wow, you guys are in October. Oh well.
Tamerlane, not to worry about ariving late. You are welcome. Leprechauns - why not? Fair point about Palin
ReplyDelete