Dennis Prager Goes Berserk
I usually like Dennis Prager's radio program, especially when he discusses moral and ethical questions and deals with things such as relationships and social trends and pathologies. This morning, though, I was listening to a recording of a program done yesterday about evolution. Prager cannot believe that deliberate design is not part of the process of evolution. A caller tried to reason with him, and, admittedly, did a very poor job of it, but after the call Prager went ballistic.
I've always believed that the folks who don't buy evolutionary theory can't buy it because they've haven't really grasped the elements of the theory. I think one of the difficulties people have is understanding the vast expanse of time that life has been on this planet. The age of the planet itself, four and a half billion years, is difficult to fathom. I have difficulty comprehending it.
But the process of evolution is so overwhelmingly supported by evidence, I cannot understand how people could deny it, if they understood it. I mean we have many instances happening right before our eyes in the here and now. Take the changing nature of disease causing organisms and the problem with finding drugs that kill them. The organisms have evolved and the drugs have become ineffective. That, dear friends, is evolution and it's happened rather quickly because the life cycle of those organisms is very short. The shorter the life cycle of an organism the more quickly changes appear, that is IF something in the environment creates the conditions where change is the only hope of survival and IF the organism undergoes mutations or has within its DNA the characteristics that support a workable adaptation.
Far, far more species have become extinct because they were not able to adapt to a change in their environment than have survived because by sheer luck, they had the genetic inheritance that favoured a workable adaptation. There is nothing willed about the process, other than perhaps the process itself at a very fundamental level. And more over, none of that suggests there can be no God. It simply suggests that the bogeyman in the sky who goes around smiting sinners with a lightening bolt is a childish and simplistic notion.
I've always believed that the folks who don't buy evolutionary theory can't buy it because they've haven't really grasped the elements of the theory. I think one of the difficulties people have is understanding the vast expanse of time that life has been on this planet. The age of the planet itself, four and a half billion years, is difficult to fathom. I have difficulty comprehending it.
But the process of evolution is so overwhelmingly supported by evidence, I cannot understand how people could deny it, if they understood it. I mean we have many instances happening right before our eyes in the here and now. Take the changing nature of disease causing organisms and the problem with finding drugs that kill them. The organisms have evolved and the drugs have become ineffective. That, dear friends, is evolution and it's happened rather quickly because the life cycle of those organisms is very short. The shorter the life cycle of an organism the more quickly changes appear, that is IF something in the environment creates the conditions where change is the only hope of survival and IF the organism undergoes mutations or has within its DNA the characteristics that support a workable adaptation.
Far, far more species have become extinct because they were not able to adapt to a change in their environment than have survived because by sheer luck, they had the genetic inheritance that favoured a workable adaptation. There is nothing willed about the process, other than perhaps the process itself at a very fundamental level. And more over, none of that suggests there can be no God. It simply suggests that the bogeyman in the sky who goes around smiting sinners with a lightening bolt is a childish and simplistic notion.
posted by Louise at 7:30 am
8 Comments:
If you know anyone who denies adaptation such as bacteria resisting anti-bacterial drugs, ignore them. They don't matter. Thoughtful people don't think like that, including Prager and Behe.
You disqualify yourself as a candidate for serious discussion when you flog a case like that. For one thing, environmental adaptation is a far cry from speciation. And if you listened to the program, you would have heard that in fact, Behe accepts common descent. He just believes that the evidence is suggestive of a designer in the process and not self-generating.
Prager was angry when a caller suggested that all of science and medicine (for example) is dependent on the acceptance of Darwinism, which is claptrap.
By the way, I don't myself necessarily accept common descent. I Blogged on the conversation at http://larryperrault.blogspot.com
Geez Louise:
--I am surprised. I had you tagged as a right wingnut and thus a anti-evolution blockhead. I guessed wrong. Your belief mindset is more flexible that the usual neo-con right wing nutters.
As for you Larry, puleeze, give your head a shake. If you believe the Big Guy in the Sky is controlling evolution and probably everything else, you are truly simpleminded. You still write letters to Santa clause, put your teeth under the pillow for the toot fairy and eagerly await the easter Bunny in spring?
Larry, your use of the term "self-generating" is as good an indication as any that you do not understand even the most basic premises of evolution. No organism can will itself to evolve. It's a crap shoot in which some win and most lose.
And by the way, what surprised me most about Prager's temper tantrum is that he's always saying that he seeks clarity. He made no attempt whatsoever to seek clarity on the words of the caller. Frankly, I think the caller just didn't articulate his ideas clearly enough. I suspect what the caller meant to say is that anyone who accepts the great advances made in medical sciences due entirely to the rigorous application of the scientific method but rejects the fact of evolution is being hypocritical. Both sciences use the same rigorous methodology and therefore to accept one and reject the other is just plain silly.
Canuckguy, someday I may be able to say the same thing about you, but so far you are conforming to T to my original assessment of you. Your stereotyping is highly revealing of a certain inability to think critically or in abstractions, your notion of God being a Big Guy in the Sky, being one example.
In the meantime, I'd like to hear your more than simple minded explanations for the following: What happened before the Big Bang?
Was there time and space and matter before that event?
If so, who or what created it?
If not, who or what started the process and how did it just suddenly start out of nothingness?
If there was not beginning of time event, then is time infinitely extending into the past as well as into the future?
Can mere humans imagine such a concept?
Is there room in there somewhere for a creative force or being that did more than produce a big explosion?
It takes more than a simple rejection of literal interpretations of Biblical stories (or creation myths from any creed, for that matter) to assert there is no Creator. To arrogantly assert that you know for sure, is not only the height of folly, but reflects badly on your own level of maturity.
Better luck next time.
Stop Louise, your universal questions are hurting my head. The whole issue boggles the mind and there is no point to it. It will never be figured out, at least not in our lifetimes or the lifetimes of our children.
Human kind will just have to figure out how muddle through their lives place on this planet.
The mysteries of the great cosmos are beyond us except for the simple minded who believe in the Big Guy in the Sky
Actually, Canuckguy, there is a point to it. Questions such as these have engaged philosophers since time immemorial. Not only are they are fascinating to contemplate and discuss, but by their very nature, they should keep us appropriately humble and unassuming.
For example,people who triumphantly and contemptuously declare themselves to be atheist, and therefore superior to people of faith, are claiming to know what is unknowable and are, in that respect, little different than rigidly fundamentalist believers of whatever creed.
In fact, I feel rather sorry for you if you think there is no point to it. The subject is as awe inspiring as it is humbling. Both positions - inspiration and humility - are the very stuff of spiritual growth and the development of a deep sense of well being. If you haven't experienced that yet, I hope you soon do. After all, you only pass this way once.
Maybe Louise, when you are up in the Great Blog in the Sky, maybe then, as you strum your harp and flap your wings, maybe then, you will have all the answers.
Anyway, aside from that silly nonsense, it does boggle and intrigue my mind about what the cosmos is all about and how the hell it all started. The issue is as awesome and vast beyond what you can imagine.
You can wax poetic all about it as you wish, but we are not going to conclusively figure it out. Scientists have only scratched the surface.
My bottom line is that I just don't believe in a god. Remember, the operative word is 'believe'.
Yet you believe there is a great unknown. Pretty much the same thing, if you ask me. I suspect you're just hung up on the bogeyman in the sky with thunderbolts version (or harps and wings, as you put it) and haven't bothered to question whether there are other ways of conceiving a Divine Power or Ultimate Source, or whatever/however you want to call it or define it. Perhaps if I use the term Mysterious Singularity, you might begin to understand what some of the rest of us contemplate when we ponder the nature of God. I still maintain that those who say there is no god just haven't quite understood that their analysis is still a might short of the mark.
Of course I am being facetious about my depiction of god and heaven. The term "Mysterious Singularity" does not do it for me either. Still some big Guy in the Sky theory.
Anyway, 'nuff said. You have your stance and I have mine, we will not change each other's mind on that topic(or any topic as far as I can see). It's not like you're some crazed loner in your beliefs. You have lots of respectable company.
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