Sunday, June 21, 2009

An Exersice in Frustration

Over the last month we've had a lot of family visiting to help with the new baby. It has been really nice to have so much help, and now that we are on our own again we are doing are best to keep up with everything. When the family finally did leave they 'forgot' and left a book behind even though we kept reminding them not to forget it.

Any way I'm trying to be fair and so I've been reading Science Discovers God by Ariel Roth in some of my free time. First off, the book has been very predictable. All the usual subjects: Issac Newton was a brilliant scientist and a christian, living things are very complicated, some bad statistics, a few Albert Einstein quote mines and a really horrible understanding of evolution. Really nothing new. I can't decided if I'm going to feel sorry for the author or angry at him. This is a new book (2008) but he is still beating the 'irreducible complexity' of cellular flagella and the eye into the ground. Now Darwin's Black Box came out in 1995, and maybe some of these things could have been taken seriously at the time. But in the last 15 years the whole idea has been thoroughly debunked. That is in addition to the inexplicably bad explanations of how evolution is supposed to work. So, either Dr. Roth is decidedly ignorant and out of date or he is lying to influence those who don't know any better or would rather ignore what they do know. I'm leaning towards the latter explanation. Dr. Roth earned a Ph.D in Zoology. Even if it was over 50 years ago, I'm sure he had to demonstrate an understanding that surpass my slight self-directed learning. Based on that I'm convinced he is a lying scumbag. I'm also sure he is thoroughly deluded, but I do not think that excuses his deceit. Still nothing surprising here.

What is a little more interesting is the motivation for 'forgetting' the book here in the first place. I think I understand very well why it was left, and I can't blame those responsible for trying to do what they think is right. However, I also know that those that left us the book have not read it. Said it was 'over their heads' etc. So, since they aren't really sure what they are trying to convince me of and aren't interested in discussing, how do they think this is going to lead me where they want me to go?

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Home on the Web

This is a quick post that follows from a discussion Lori and I had this morning. Yes, Brewster does have a Wikipedia entry.