Debate, or train crash? Matt Dillahunty vs Michael Egnor

Two hours, or more? Did I really want to watch a debate that long on the topic Does God Exist? Maybe I'd watch the first 20 minutes, and give up if it didn't seem to be going anywhere. In the event I watched the whole thing without a break (and slept in the next morning).

It started off amicably enough, though the production quality of this live-streamed YouTube video left a lot to be desired, both technically and from the moderating point of view.

Here's the video, hosted by the Theology Unleashed YouTube channel:

 

It was streamed live last September and has to date been viewed over 136,000 times, with over 8,000 comments. As far as I can tell (not having scrolled through all of them), the comments are overwhelmingly in favour of Matt Dillahunty, or against Michael Egnor. This will not be a surprise if you watch the video first.

Michael Egnor has blogged about the debate at the Discovery Institute and on Evolution News, though you'd be forgiven for thinking he was at a different debate in an alternative reality.

Matt Dillahunty has posted his own preliminary analysis of the debate on his own YouTube channel, with a promise of more in-depth analysis to come:

 

The most gobsmacking moment in the debate for me was when Michael Egnor claimed that the singularity at the Big Bang that began the universe was supernatural (therefore God). Less of a surprise (because one gets used to such shenanigans from the Discovery Institute) was Egnor's unwillingness to engage in proper debate, instead resorting to personal attacks on his interlocutor. Even less surprising, therefore, is Dillahunty's refusal to debate Egnor again.

The ultimate photographic adventure

For my photographer friends (and my skeptical friends, because I'm aware there is some overlap, and I think this has some relevance to skepticism) I'm linking to a video that I think you'll find interesting and inspirational.

First, some background. Some years ago when I decided it was about time I took my interest in photography more seriously, I began consuming a load of free internet photography content. (My thinking on this was simple: get the free stuff before deciding what you're prepared to pay for.) One particular producer of this free content was Adorama TV. Adorama is a photography store in New York, and they put out a massive amount of short photography content in video form, available mostly via their YouTube channel, entirely free, and in HD. It's professionally produced and surprisingly not entirely US-centric. Of the dozens of presenters on Adorama TV my favourites are Mark Wallace and Gavin Hoey. Mark Wallace is an American (and the subject of this blogpost), while Gavin Hoey is a Brit whose videos appear to be all based in the UK. Indeed his most recent video was, as far as I can tell, shot in Fishbourne on the Isle of Wight, next to the ferry terminal where I've spent many an hour over the years waiting for the car ferry to take me back to the mainland.

A few months after I started watching Adorama TV Mark Wallace announced that he and his friend (and model) Lex were going to sell everything they owned so they could travel the world. Now, two years later, Mark Wallace is back to tell the story of their travels (although throughout them he has still produced regular videos for Adorama). The video embedded below is a talk he gave recently at the Adorama store.

His story, however, is more than "this is where we went, and this is what we saw" — it's a story of a life-decision that affected his outlook on everything else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICDJwpeu4AU

An essential aspect of management

I'm a fan of YouTuber QualiaSoup's counter-apologetics videos, and was surprised to discover that his comprehensive and concise presentations range beyond the goddy. This is a video about workplace bullying, and ought to be viewed by all managers.

http://youtu.be/wAgg32weT80


(Via Ophelia Benson.)

Last year's Law/Craig Evil God Debate — full video

Last year I went to the debate between Stephen Law and William Lane Craig. Though the audio of the whole thing was made available for streaming and download (and still is) the day after, it's taken a while for the video version to surface. But here it is, along with a promo or "taster":

http://youtu.be/9yytiT9h8TQ


http://youtu.be/w7FhphWDokA


There's plenty of debate about the Debate too, by both participants and others — just Google "Craig/Law debate" for a profusion of links.

The three Pauls discussed the debate on Skepticule Extra 16, available here:
http://www.skepticule.co.uk/2011/11/skepextra-016-20111030.html

It's that man again — the Craig "itch"

Regular readers of this blog (and listeners to Skepticule Extra) will know that I have an oscillating attitude to William Lane Craig. No sooner have I concluded that he has nothing new to tell me and therefore I can forthwith ignore him, than I find myself irresistibly scratching at something he's said, knowing that it's wrong without being able to put my finger on precisely why. But I think Thunderf00t has nailed it:

http://youtu.be/4u6Mz21jTaA


Being a confident speaker will go a long, long way towards convincing people that what you say is true. If you behave in a way that says loudly and clearly that of course what you say is true, many people will believe you by default. But with Craig there is always that niggling doubt that his approach to his various arguments for the existence of God rests on something not just unsound but profoundly silly. This video exposes that doubt and parades it for all to see.

Moral imperatives explained

It's been a while since I embedded Morality 2, but here's the third instalment of QualiaSoup's excellent YouTube series on morality:

http://youtu.be/sN-yLH4bXAI


Seventeen minutes of astounding moral clarity — definitely worth the wait. So far this series has turned out to be the most lucid, concise and comprehensive analysis of morality I've seen.

Oh Kalamity — a cosmological debunking

The Kalām Cosmological Argument is a favourite of William Lane Craig. It's formulated in such a way as to preempt objections, though as I've previously mentioned on numerous blogposts this disingenuous wordplay — an attempt to insulate the argument from criticism — fails.

This great video is as comprehensive a take-down of the Kalām's flawed logic as we're likely to see for some time — at least until some new cosmological theory emerges from legitimate science. The analysis and arguments presented here are thorough, properly referenced and in many cases from the very mouths of the cosmologists themselves.

http://youtu.be/baZUCc5m8sE


Here's the info on the video, copied from YouTube:

We hope this is the definitive take down of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. We show how it is contradictory and that the physics being used to support it doesn't do so. We also had this video reviewed by Marcus, one of the Cosmology Advisers on Physics Forums to make sure there were no errors, his words
"I think it is excellent.Your narrator comes across as really smart and personable....I don't see any glaring errors, really amazingly good
it's charming, intelligent, visually engaging, sporadically really beautiful like the brief cut of the Hubble telescope and the volcano etc. Well-made!"

And here's what P. Z. Myers says in his Pharyngula post (credited to Skepchick) that alerted me to it:

This is a wonderful video debunking the Kalam Cosmological Argument. What I really like about it is that it takes the tortured rationales of theologians like William Lane Craig, who love to babble mangled pseudoscience in their arguments, and shows with direct quotes from the physicists referenced that the Christian and Muslim apologists are full of shit.

Watch and enjoy.

Moral authority

More first class analysis of the source of morality from QualiaSoup. I don't know how many of these there will be in total, but judging by the first two it seems likely that the complete set would be an excellent resource for schools (and politicians, for that matter).

http://youtu.be/hSS-88ShJfo


The dissection of "the Bible as moral authority" is probably the best I've come across — comprehensive, clear and succinct. (It should be required viewing for anyone holding to biblical inerrancy, but given that mindset it's unfortunately unlikely to make much impression there.)

The moral argument

One thing that never fails to make me sigh with frustration is the so-called moral argument for the existence of God. I can deal dispassionately with the argument itself, but what wears me down is the prevalent theistic assumption that whatever atheists may claim about the origin of their morals, morality is irrevocably woven into God's nature, and atheists are therefore merely borrowing morality from the deity. This is bunk, but it's such an ingrained assumption that the mechanism of it is adopted throughout theism, with a version of it even evident in presuppositional apologetics.

I've grown tired of explaining that human morality is an evolved attribute (and anyway it seems many theists just can't get it), so from now on I'm happy to leave the explication to QualiaSoup:

http://youtu.be/T7xt5LtgsxQ


Subscribe to QualiaSoup's YouTube channel for subsequent instalments of what will no doubt be an excellent educational series.

Why don't anti-evolutionists understand evolution?

I sometimes wonder if certain Christians' objections to "Evilution" would be less if they understood even the basic idea of evolutionary theory. If someone goes to the trouble of producing a YouTube video claiming that evolution is a fairy tale because the theory claims that an animal evolved in a particular way for a particular reason, it's a good idea to know what evolutionary theory actually states.

http://youtu.be/p_Kgv_iJ8hA


In this video much scorn is poured on the reason given for the evolution of the giraffe's long neck. But anyone with even the slightest acquaintance with the process known as "Darwinian evolution by random mutation and natural selection" will be aware that the giraffe's neck did not get longer by stretching. So this video misses its target completely.

The video's producer is in need of some fairly basic education regarding evolutionary theory, and usually there's no shortage of commentary in that vein. But in this case comments are disabled. Why is that, I wonder?

Is there life after death? Yes/No/Maybe

From BBC TV programme The Big Questions, broadcast yesterday:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6WD_l1Ud6g

Can you answer this question in 16 minutes? Indeed you can: the answer's "no."

Maybe you think that's too glib, and some effort ought to be expended assessing the evidence. But in this discussion the evidence is not in evidence — that is, no-one actually presents any. The person who gets first go (Mohammed Hatehit, from Didsbury Mosque) simply assumes the existence of the soul, and uses its separateness from the body as definite proof of life after death: you bury the body, but where does the soul go? It must go somewhere. However, if the soul doesn't exist then obviously it doesn't go anywhere as it wasn't there to begin with. (He doesn't suggest why the soul, if it exists, couldn't be buried with the body....)

Spiritualists such as Steven Upton like to cite anecdotal evidence of communication with "the other side" — but as Michael Marshall of Merseyside Skeptics ably points out, such parlour tricks can be convincingly replicated by stage magicians.

Anglican bishop Stephen Lowe demonstrated a shade of tentativeness — so typical of the Church of England — that threatens to subsume Anglicanism beneath a welter of uncertainty. At least Penny Mawdsley from Sea of Faith was prepared to concede that there are Christians who don't believe in God.

Jewish Chronicle columnist Angela Epstein's comment that she sees this world as "almost a waiting room for the world to come" is symptomatic of faith that casts reality as something inferior to unreality. This is the kind of thinking that leads to notions of the Rapture. Why bother doing anything at all, if we're simply enduring this life while waiting for eternal bliss?

Naturally this 16-minute discussion couldn't conclude without someone (it was Ajmal Masroor) proposing Pascal's Wager — an argument so bad that anyone using it should be automatically disqualified from participating.

Why do people laugh at creationists?

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=AC3481305829426D



This is a selfish blog-post on my part. I simply wanted this series of Thunderf00t's videos in a convenient, easily accessible place.

Thoughts on the Thunderf00t - Ray Comfort discussion

After some ignominious shenanigans concerning his (surely not serious) request for a $100,000 honorarium (payable to the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, no less), Ray Comfort took up Thunderf00t's offer of a recorded discussion. Here is the result - 90 minutes of YouTube video well worth watching.

http://www.youtube.com/p/762A731FA12BCB57

(via The Atheist Blogger, from whom I also nicked the playlist embed code)

Some random thoughts after viewing:

Ray Comfort doesn't understand evolution - this is clear from his failure to engage in the basic concepts. He says he doesn't believe evolution is true (elsewhere he repeatedly describes it as "a fairy tale for grownups"), but if he doesn't understand it he's attacking a straw man - whatever he thinks evolution is, rather than what it actually is.

Given what he's said (and published), this isn't surprising, but it raises an interesting parallel with his own reasons for believing in God. During his discussion with Thunderf00t he mentioned that there was much in the Bible that he didn't understand until he accepted Jesus Christ into his heart as his personal Saviour. Relative to this he's previously stated that the evidence for the existence of God is available to everyone - all they need to do is do as he did: open their hearts to the Lord.

Atheists who have honestly tried this route, without the promised revelation, are told they're obviously doing it wrong. This is a self-fulfilling/defeating prophecy - just like the mediaeval dunking stool used to test witches. Any suspected witch who uses her craft to survive the test is proven guilty and shall not be suffered to live. If she drowns she was clearly innocent - no powers, no witch, and she will be set free to live her life in peace, unmolested. Unfortunately she's already dead.

With most atheists the "you're doing it wrong!" excuse understandably won't wash - it's a "heads I win/tails you lose" kind of reasoning.

Ray's argument in this part of the discussion also seemed equivalent (though with less sophistication) to the reasons given by theologians who object to Richard Dawkins' refutation of "simplistic" theism. A theologian will claim (with suitable snootiness) that the religion Dawkins attacks is "not my religion", and will then expound on some abstruse and intensely personal - but most importantly incomprehensible - faith (usually with profligate redefinition of terms), to the extent that the only other person who could share it is God. PZ Myers satirised this style of theology in his Courtier's Reply.

One could argue, however, that atheistic objections to theology are similar to creationists' simplistic objections to evolution. We complain that the likes of Ray Comfort have no real grasp of the principles of evolution, though they decry it as fictional. Conversely, many a theologian has complained that Richard Dawkins has no real grasp of theology, while at the same time he decries the subject as vacuous.

Of course, there is a crucial difference between the two disciplines. Evolution (by random genetic mutation and natural selection) is documented science that makes predictions (such as what we should expect to find in the fossil record) and so far its principles have not been disproved. In fact, each new discovery whether in genetics, paleontology or any other evolution-related field, has further confirmed evolutionary theory, to the extent that it is as near to a scientific fact as the theory of gravity. Theology, on the other hand, appears to be entirely made up. Theologians of a particular creed may agree on a core set of theological principles, but these result from consensus only, and cannot be falsified. This would be all fine and dandy for literary criticism, but for telling us anything at all about the real world, or the people in it, it's useless.

UPDATE 2009-08-02: A good summary of the discussion here:
Angry Astronomer: Ray Comfort vs. Thunderf00t

JREF YouTube account suspended - why?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7Cn_gjevik



What's going on? This is madness.

The JREF YouTube channel is an invaluable resource, a growing repository of sanity in today's woo-woo-obsessed world. If - like me - you want it reinstated forthwith, let YouTube know. (Full instructions are in the video's description where it appears on YouTube.)

UPDATE 2009-04-03:

It's back!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zngwTpkogeE

Harlan Ellison: "Pay the Writer" - an outdated concept? (repost from other blog)

Harlan Ellison is well known for being . . . forthright.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5IV23g-fE



(via WritersWeekly)
His point of view is a valid one, but it's also a little dated in this age of new media. For all his maverick bluster Ellison is an established writer who got where he is today by traditional methods. Those methods have become less appropriate now that so much free stuff is available.

New writers ('underpublished' writers, as Evo Terra of Podiobooks.com calls them) would do well to explore the alternatives. Slavishly insisting that every word carries a price-tag can be counterproductive. In essence Ellison is right, but it's worth remembering that writers can receive 'value' for their work in other than money.

YouTube 4 U

For your entertainment and contemplation, Edward Current and Pat Condell:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnjfxCp92pc




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIq7tsVvEoY

What is a blog? (repost from other blog)

Not only a succinct explanation of what a blog is, but also what it's for:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2I1pWXjXI

Who are the lucky ones? (repost from other blog)

We are. That is, those of us lucky enough to be within broadcast reception range of BBC1 television at 7:10 on Saturday evening.

I've waxed ecstatic previously on this blog about the spin-off series Torchwood, and now I can do the same about its 'parent', Doctor Who.

Doctor Who? Kid's programme, innit? Maybe so, but it has all the ingredients of ideal family viewing -- something for the kids, something for the grown-ups. The latest series (number three of the 'reincarnated' version), with David Tennant really getting into his stride as the Doctor, and Freema Agyeman in her first series as his not-so-ditsy companion, has shown us some impressive spectacles, including the strangely art deco Daleks in a decidedly art deco New York, as well as the Bard of Avon in mischievous mode.

But the zenith of series three so far for me has been the two-parter that concluded last week: "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood". Scripted by novelist Paul Cornell (who adapted his Doctor Who book Human Nature), these two episodes reveal characterization to a much greater depth than previously seen, and reinforce the notion that I've always felt about great science fiction -- that it tells us more about how we live our lives in the present, than how we might live in the future. Not that this particular story was about the future, despite the tantalizing glimpses of times that might have come to pass for some of the characters.

The Doctor is being pursued by the Family of Blood -- a group in search of a Time Lord for its own nefarious purposes -- and the only way he can evade detection is to become completely human. And he does so in a pre-First-World-War English public school, leaving Martha to look after not only herself, but his own Time-Lordly essence. When, at the beginning, he asks her if she trusts him, he's really asking himself if he trusts her.

Despite its historical setting, this story exhibits well-known SF tropes, such as an invisible space-ship, time travel (of course) and (hooray!) ray guns. (Or should that be hooray guns...?)

I'll not risk spoilers here, as I know that there are people not as lucky as those of us in the British Isles; impoverished souls who have yet to relish these episodes, condemned to wait until their local TV networks deign to show the latest series, and therefore reduced to squinting disjointedly at blocky YouTube fragments, or ploughing through online directories purporting not actually to host anything at all (apart from dubious thumbnail images that predominate in an excess of exposed skin).

For those less fortunate, but willing to search, may I suggest that entering such terms as "Doctor Who Human Nature Family of Blood" will harvest a veritable torrent of results.

Oh my, you have a treat in store.

Apple TV: useful at last? (repost from other blog)

Steve Jobs gave tantalizing glimpses of some Apple related things, and remained tight-lipped about others, in this interview with Walt Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal's D Conference (via Podcasting News).



The stuff about Apple TV is what interests me. To date I've remained unconvinced that Apple TV would be useful to me (see my previous rant here). But now that Apple TV is offering YouTube browsing, I hope that this signals further developments that might make it more useful to me. Apple have announced a fatter version of Apple TV with a 160 GB hard disk, so this does seem likely.

But what I need to know, before even considering buying one of these, either fat or thin, is this: will the Apple TV work with a monitor rather than a widescreen TV? I can't justify the purchase of a widescreen TV, but I do have a 19" widescreen computer monitor with a DVI input. This works with my Panasonic DVR using an adapter cable (HDMI to DVI) and it works with my MacBook using the same cable plus Apple's adapter. It seems reasonable to suppose that this set-up would work with Apple TV, but I don't know.

Anyone?