I think some of my readers will find this quite amusing. Over on In the Agora, the comments after a post about Bush's statement on teaching ID in schools has spawned about 100 entries. About half way down the discussion is joined by someone with the nickname "lawyerchik" and it really gets funny. She trotted out the old "2nd law of thermodynamics" argument and it went rapidly downhill from there. After getting hammered from piller to post, she declared victory. It's quite like the Black Knight from the Holy Grail as he got his limbs cut off but kept shouting, "It's just a flesh wound". Anyway, go here and read. But don't leave any more comments, please.
She trotted out the old "2nd law of thermodynamics" argument...
She did? I'm floored. I had believed that the creactionists had given up on that one long ago.
BTW, I have a master's degree in physics, and understand the 2d thermo law quite well.
I have just finished a highly entertaining debate(along with several others) with the redoubtable Jerry Don Bauer on just this topic. Jerry Don claims not to be a creationist, but his ideas on the 2nd law and evolution (two subjects he knows little about) are priceless and certainly ones that creationists can admire. He has debated exactly the same ideas at least 3 times now, and has been crushed each time. He just moves on to another website and starts anew with the same arguments.
To witness a particularly nice smack-down (mostly from the thermodynamics side), check out the following link -
http://www.arn.org/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=12;t=001486;p=0
raj wrote:
Well, the brighter ones have. It's a lot like the moon dust argument. When you hear someone using it, you can be absolutely certain that not only are they ignorant concerning science they are ignorant of creationism as well. It's a sure credibility killer.
Yeah, that's the typical idiot's declaration of victory: "nothing you've said actually forced me to change my opinion, therefore my opinion is unchanged and I win! NYAAH!"
These IDiots are an even bigger joke than I had thought. (Has anyone heard from "island" since we got all factual on him?)
Thanks Ed, that was fun reading. I quit visiting In the Agora a few months ago and removed it from my favorites list because I felt like Eric Seymour was a real detriment to the kind of measured, non-politicized, philosophical discussion that first attracted me to the site. He takes such narrow and political positions on issues and slings mud like an old Washington pro. I can get that from a thousand other sites, I don't need it on what I used to rely on as a mature source of philosophy.
And when I realized that you were the only one I regularly read and thought "Yeah, I like that", I figured I'd cut out the middle man and just come here instead :-)
Jeff-
Oh, don't let that keep you from reading In the Agora. Eric and I obviously have some major disagreements, but he is one of many writers there and the others are all worth reading. I'm sad that Jonathan Bunch won't be writing there anymore, as he has taken a position with the Missouri Supreme Court and is forbidden from taking public positions on political issues. While he and I had our disagreements as well, I enjoyed interacting with him. He's a very bright guy, and a gentleman as well. And that certainly goes for Josh, Paul, Adam, Zach and the rest of the crew there.
I get the feeling that the sundry arguments lawyerchik cribs have been formulated not to persuade objective scientists, but to flatter the religious masses, unaccustomed to critical thinking, into believing they are actually intellectually superior to the foolish scientists who simply cannot accept what is right before their atheistic eyes. A patently ridiculous argument like "nothing is ever created by an explosion" is just the kind of thing you might hear from a group of holy rollers chortling amongst themselves about the laughable mental errors of the scientific elite.
I have been following this since Friday. This has been truly entertaining. If this women (I assume) is really a lawyer I would be interested to se how well she can reason in a courtroom after a display like that. You guys also might be interested to know that mynym has surfaced again over at pharyngula and he is as crazy as ever.
http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/sothe_designer_is_jesus/
Ed,
That was a mind numbing experience! All I remember about high school school science is the frog. With no other science education, I was still able to follow most of what you and the others were talking about.
In the end, either she didn't care or she really just didn't get it. I think it was both. I know there are alot of people out there who are just like her but this was a prime example of how they refuse to interact / have a two sided discussion. The moment you started to pin her down she started on her spiritual tangent.
To witness a particularly nice smack-down (mostly from the thermodynamics side), check out the following link....
Thanks Dave, but I have better things to waste my time on than to watch wrestling particularly when I understand the issues ;-)
I go to talkorigins.org and pandasthumb.org on a fairly regular basis.
Hmmmm.... Not that it's likely the first time someone has used arguments you find absurd, but what point is there to repeating them unless it's to try to make yourself look better by putting this person down? Sounds pretty pathetic to me...
anonymous - okay, not so anonymous, it's someone at the law firm of O'Reilly Rancilio in Sterling Heights, Michigan, presumably wasting company time - wrote:
As I said, I thought my readers would find it amusing. When someone is being both ignorant and obnoxious, is it somehow out of bounds to point out their behavior?
And outing someone who wanted to remain anonymous isn't obnoxious? I wouldn't go so far as to say ignorant, because you obviously know that you can't get away with that on the Agora, but definitely obnoxious.
anonymous - okay, not totally anonymous: this comment was made by someone in Lansing, Michigan, the town of my birth and my hometown until about 3 years ago, so it could well be the same almost anonymous person that left the other message - wrote:
I'm a bit baffled by the reference to In The Agora. I certainly could post such information in response to someone who posts anonymously on that page. In fact, when I first started writing for that page there was an "anonymous" poster who had been posting there for quite a while and the other contributors actually knew him by name and exposed him as such. Eventually, they just banned him. As for whether it's obnoxious to expose someone who wishes to remain anonymous, anyone who knows the first thing about the internet knows that IP addresses are stored when you visit a webpage. If you truly want to remain anonymous, you shouldn't be posting comments on a blog. And you certainly shouldn't be posting insults aimed at the person who runs the blog, thus giving him an incentive to want to know who you are. Let the commenter beware. But if you wish to consider me obnoxious for doing so, by all means be my guest.
Ed is correct. Anonymity over the Internet is a fiction. Every message transmitted over the Internet has a traceback (which is usually not posted but can be logged) to the ISP from which it was sent, along with the dynamic address associated with the sender of the message. It is a simple matter to contact the ISP manager to find out who the sender was. And the ISP will give it up.
BTW, this is true of any postings on the Internet, not just blogs. And that includes emails as well.
Right, but usually netiquette requires a little more maturity than a blog host outing someone who posts disapproval of something he did that he knows (or if he's a grown-up, should know) was nothing more than online bullying.
But out me all you want - if it makes you feel better!! ;)