“Expelled the movie” is being sued by Yoko Ono, in what may be the best thing she ever did.It seems our less-than-honest friends at Expelled not only lied to viewers about the intellectual viability of an invisible man in the sky, but they also used IMAGINE without permission. Lennon’s song is anything but religious, and Yoko wants to make sure her husband’s name is not used for such tripe.
Yoko Ono is suing the producers of a movie that challenges the concept of Darwinian evolution, saying they used the song “Imagine” without her permission and led the blogosphere to accuse her of “selling out.” …Ono’s lawsuit claims the producers did not ask for permission either because they knew they could not get it or because they did not want to pay for the rights. It objects to the way “Imagine” is listed in the film’s credits, saying it suggested to members of the news media and others that the song’s use had been approved. “Internet ‘bloggers’ immediately began accusing Mrs. Lennon of ‘selling out’ by licensing the song to defendants,” says the complaint, filed this week. The lawsuit calls “Imagine” Lennon’s signature song, saying it “has become closely associated with and is synonymous with John Lennon.” The complaint, which also names other firms involved with the movie, asks the court to stop the filmmakers from distributing, selling and promoting the movie, and it seeks financial damages. It was filed on behalf of Ono, Lennon’s sons Sean and Julian, and EMI Blackwood Music Inc.
Instead, check out the Forgiving the Franklins Movie, which looks more interestinghttp://www.forgivingthefranklinsthemovie.com/press/atheist.pdf
Are we supposed to be talking about abiogenesis or biological evolution?
I can’t speak for anyone other than myself, but I have deduced that there is insufficient information to justify a belief in the existance of a God, entirely different.
Again, speaking myself here, I do. And there’s still insufficient information.
What theory is that? So far, I don’t think we’ve actually gotten anywhere besides defining, very loosely, some terms you’d like to use.
Really? I was going to say ‘insufficient information’ again, but apparently you have alot I don’t know about. Care to share?
Work? What work? All I’ve seen come from those guys is empty rhetoric.
jcc,
You have a fundamental misunderstanding about atheism. It’s not germane to this discussion, but I’ll correct it anyway.
Since when do I suppose that no deity exists?
I don’t know anything about the existence or nonexistence of deities.
You’re correct that I am biding my time and doing my best to be objective about it. That does indeed include accepting the possibility of the existence of a deity or deities. I can only positively disagree with the existence of specific deities like the vanilla Biblical God (which you may or may not believe in, I don’t know). I cannot come to the conclusion that no deity exists.
Since I’m not a theist, I’m an atheist.
I know it’s tempting to paint atheists into the box labeled “the opposition,” but it’s simply not fitting. The generic atheist is simply unconvinced. In my limited experience, the generic atheist is also the most common.
Rail against those who believe that no god exists all you want, it’s no skin off my back.
Which brings us back to the fact that this is an argument from ignorance. There’s a lot we don’t know about DNA, you’re making the assumption that when/if we do find out, your theory will be upheld. That is an argument from ignorance.
JCC
You finished yourself off when you gave the definition of the verb “design”. Ideally you would have, on your own, worked through the implications of the definition as pertains to your ID assertion. Instead you came here and indirectly asked us to do the work for you. You can add lazy to the list of adjectives that describe you.
JCC
Really. Show us how you make that calculation. What model and what ignorance of the pertinent variables is assumed.
It happened, so the probability of it happening is one.
I like those chances.
The same could be said about you winning the lottery, but someone always wins don’t they.
jcc
If you are still plying ID as science, yes.
Considering he realized he’d been had, and managed to stay courteous, I’d say he did well to respond at all, knowing that the producers were going to use whatever they got of him on film.
And when you show evidence that how you are interpreting the findings is true, or that evolution isn’thappening by natural means, you can start to call what you’re doing science. Saying “goddidit” when you reach an impasse is like giving up. Scientists say, “we don’t know, but we’re not going to stop looking for the answers.”
I don’t know about other people, but I don’t think about atheism much except when I’m on the blogs. When I’m learning about something new, I don’t think about it in terms of whether it supports humanism or gives credence to the concept of deities. Sometimes I do, I admit that, but not as a general rule.
If I did a simple experiment in my home, say with laundry detergents, to see which one worked best, do you think I would approach it differently if I believed in a god?
Why would work with data and materials in a lab be any different?
karen,
You might be praying that the cheap ass detergent performs just as well as the expensive one, if you believed in god that is.
As a christian you would tend to find your answers in the oldest text available that provides an answer. You might want to update yourself to mormonism. It has the same dishonesty as other christian religions that you know about but, it happens to be the most recent directive of any christian god-idea.
People that live in the real world try to get the most recent information available. That is because thinking humans are always learning new things, that is how people who think do things.
In othere words, you are either lying again or you are using outdated information. JCc there is nothing that points to the need for any god-idea and there is certainly no evidence that any god-idea exists.
Other than you JCc, I see none here that are angry. Only some that are either laughing at or disgusted with you, if they aren’t patiently but vainly trying to teach you about reality.
Hey rna2dna do you work in the field that your screen name suggests? If so maybe you can point our misguided friend toward some of the latest research in that area in order to answer his question.
alatham:
I disagree. The information in DNA is ?understood? by and made use of by the cell that has stored it?that analogy can?t be made to the rings or ice.
And I am a programmer as well.
I know, (and I didn?t say they were fundamentally different) that?s why I qualified it by putting it in the ?scientific vernacular? context (and for the record, I have heard that qualification in 3 different universities in two different states)
I beg to differ, I believe I do know quite a bit about atheism?and your stating:
made it germane as I pointed out in my reply.
It?s a consequence of calling oneself an ?atheist.?
Then that disqualifies you as an atheist?agnostic would be a more appropriate description.
That is contrary to the definition of atheism – a: disbelief in the existence of deity b: the doctrine that there is no deity.
Not knowing everything about an object doesn?t automatically preclude knowing some things about it?you seem to be asserting a false dichotomy there. I do know that information couldn?t be stored in DNA by random chance, natural selection or by chemical affinities and self-ordering. Francis Crick, himself has said,
And Stephen Meyer puts it quite eloquently:
I believe you should brush up on your etymology.
Theism = belief in god(s)
A-(prefix) = no or not
Therefore, Atheism = no belief in god(s), or not believing in god(s), indicating a lack of belief not a belief in lack.
Bullshit….
I really want to know what these guys mean by ‘information’.
Stephen Meyer isn’t a scientist. Why do you quote him? Simply because he makes the same untestable assertions as you? The moron, like you, simply does not understand what probability is. Probability does not cause. Nobody with a brain has ever said otherwise. Get an education and a life.
JCC
Here’s a simple test for you. Your response to it will determine whether you understand anything about probability.
You flip a coin which lands on heads. What was the probability that it would land on heads?
Nope. You folks don?t get to keep it. Nor do you get to dictate the dialogue. Language is fluid.
Evolution is blind, messy, violent. But it fashioned us. (Don?t care if you want to play semantical games, anyways.)
Note that crystals design themselves.
Typical Republican red herring.
1. A quantity or amount.
2. A specified portion.
3. Something that can be counted or measured.
4. Physics.
a. The smallest amount of a physical quantity that can exist independently, especially a discrete quantity of electromagnetic radiation.
b. This amount of energy regarded as a unit.
Oh, I see. We can?t infer the logical progression. We have to demonstrate it down to the smallest detail. Let?s dispose of induction, folks! It?s too much to ask! Leave it to a creationist to call a straight line a magical connect-the-dots-it?s-god!
Still waiting for your construction of my clue, thou-who-knoweth-me-so-well. As well as an admission of my accurate assessment of the pre-release DVD. I shan?t hold my breath.
So what does the sweet nothing whispering in your ear tell you to say?
Did you read the Hume link I provided? Again, I won?t asphyxiate in anticipation.
KIP is right – & you call yourself a programmer AND a scientist? Geez, which dictionary are YOU using? The King James concordance? Goofy is too kind a word.
Science isn?t a democracy. Really, the efforts to paint the colors of martyrdom are pathetic.
ID has no merit. It gives nothing but assertions to the anthropic biases of the creationist. It is a cheap effort to keep your fables alive in the minds of the many. It is the arrested adolescence writ large.
Grow up.
JCC
A flip-flop stores a zero or one. Information. Tree rings store the age of a tree. Information. What is there to argue about there? Can you admit that you are wrong? Can you admit that you are being dishonest? Yeh, that’s tougher isn’t it.
Comment from: KnowledgeIsPower
I really want to know what these guys mean by ‘information’.
Anything that their Big Book of Religious Fairy Tales says is true.
This has been another edition of Obvious Answers to Questions About Simpletons.
jcc,
I’ll read the rest of your post later, I’m not at work yet. But I have to respond to this glaring error:
I agree with the definition that atheism is a “disbelief in the existence of a deity.” That does not run contrary to my explanation, though you think it does.
Let’s look at the definition of ‘disbelief’:
“Refusal or reluctance to believe.”
-From answers.com
I am reluctant to believe in a deity. Anyone who is reluctant to believe in a deity can rightly be called an atheist. If you want to get really specific you can call me an agnostic atheist, but I find the word ‘agnostic’ to be very poorly defined so I prefer to do without it.
Most of the time ‘agnostic’ is defined as “the belief that the existence of a deity is unknowable.” That definition does not describe me. Other times it’s defined as “one who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.” (answer.com again). The problem here is that they don’t go on to define “true atheism.”
The really sad thing is, I just explained all of this higher up within this same thread when I was responding to uoflcard. And now here I am again trying to teach yet another theist something about atheism. I was under the impression that you had been following the thread up until now, I guess I was wrong.
anadrol wonders:
No, it is just a process that I am interested in, first exposed to it at a public lecture I attended. If you are interested look for “RNA world”. Wikipedia has an article but, it doesn’t really get into what I want to show, that is, the process.
JCc has been provided with lots of links and information but he just ignores anything that fills in his precious gaps. That’s, I think, why he continually brings up old arguments. JCc is ignorant by choice not because others haven’t tried to help him. When JCc is shown examples of speciation he has two responses; that change doesn’t represent a new species (well duh, it is a veerry slow process generally but, that is evidence (like, seriously mentally damagingly, boring – if an intelligent force was doing it – and for what if not deception – and why since the process happens naturally) that no god-idea is involved.) or his response is there is a gap (meaning to JCc that his god idea is needed to fill in the gaps.)
I don’t think biologists care to track down each and every incremental change. That is, reconstructing the proof is just as boring (and more difficult) as it would have been if it had been performed originally by a god-idea (what of all the obvious mistakes, woopsie it wanted a booboo?). Certainly such a mythical creature would surely have nary a moment to devote to real estate sales, especially since we have seen that knee repair is NOT something that happens magically.
rna2dna,
Speaking of our friend he admitted that change does occur. So I believe that he is a little bit time challenged, by that I mean he doesn’t comprehend just how long evolution has been occurring on our planet. I can’t see why he can’t put 2 and 2 together and realize that a bunch of small incremental changes adds up to one mighty large change over 100′s of millions of years. Further more these changes are not random but are selected for based on the environment that the organism is living in. Of course a marine critter is going to look completely different to a land dweller the environments are vastly different. This is all very simple stuff that a 6 year old can understand, that’s what makes IMHO Evolution such an elegant thing.
I just read a quote posted on Ed Brayton’s site that is quite an interesting look at ID and Evolution from the other side. I would hazard to guess that if I was to seed a planet with life I would use the concept of Evolution to do it as well. This is a no brainer really, why do the work yourself when you can set the wheels in motion and sit back and enjoy the show.
jcc,
Regarding the difference between ‘data’ and ‘information.’:
If we’re talking within the context of science, then that is a fundamental difference.
I’d be willing to bet that you’re talking about the difference between ‘pure data’ and ‘program data’ within the programming world. But there is no fundamental difference between the bits that make up a jpeg and the bits that make up Minesweeper.exe
There is a difference in the way they’re formatted, and if you want to argue that DNA is formatted in a way that could only have been brought about through intelligent means, while the information in a tree’s remains is ‘non-intelligently’ formatted then go ahead and make your argument. The big problem here is that ‘formatting’ is an abstract concept that’s defined by the one doing the interpreting.
Format (from answers.com):
“A plan for the organization and arrangement of a specified production.”
Once again, you have to identify this plan and determine how we can positively assert it’s existence.
Agreed.
This is where my so-called ‘false dichotomy’ comes in. You’re asserting that you know that DNA can’t have come about through purely natural means. We would like you to prove it. This is actually a scientific hypothesis, so if you can defend it well then you’ve made a big step towards the acceptance of ID. But if the only defense you have is “well, we haven’t found any contrary examples,” you have a classic argument from ignorance.
Stephen Meyers is making exactly the same argument you are, so this criticism applies to his quote as well.
I’m responding to his entire quote. I don’t disagree with it. Almost a miracle is a good description. But ‘almost’ is pretty subjective and so is ‘miracle.’ This quote does nothing to support your idea. In addition, that quote is now 26 years old (it’s from a 1982 book), I wonder if he would still say the same thing today.
I’m curious as to why the Intelligent Designer seems to make so many mistakes. The fossil record contains many examples of transitional forms (see link below).
I wonder: was the Intelligent Designer just screwing up over and over again?
http://tinyurl.com/2n5dhx
anadrol,
I agree, evolution as a natural process is fascinating. Each little part is so simple but taken together it is wonderfully complex.
Certainly a step in the right direction. That would at least free biology from interference by the god-ideas. It also moves towards the deist idea which, in practice as far as the issues that humans can influence, doesn’t conflict with reason and reality.
It is the conflict that religions like christianity cause that bothers me. Deists are fine, no problem, they don’t claim to possess magical powers or a magical path nor do they; kill, harass or, torture for a god-idea. As a result humans can get on with finding solutions instead of being burdened by the baggage of myth.
However, I suspect the preist that was quoted still wants his god-idea to control social aspects of life, which still causes conflict for the purpose of defending myths. We don’t need myths to realize that abusing others is wrong. Most christians aren’t willing to think through or admit to the problems caused by their god-idea.
rna2dna,
Yeah, I concur. I don’t have any issue with Deistic ideas at all. It’s the people that believe that god has an active role in our lives and that they can influence his decisions simply by being incredibly subservient to him and grovelling on their knees, that I have a problem with.
Alatham
JCC would first need to define “unnatural means” and show that they exist. Silly assertions lead to a silly defense of the assertion.
Krystalline Apostate:
Wow. Classic relativism. Can?t argue with you ?cause you claim license to alter definitions mid-sentence?and always for your benefit.
Ahh, so that?s what?s behind your moniker! But really, that?s the funniest thing you?ve said yet?inanimate crystals designing themselves?you?re a hoot!!! (Pssst. But hey, come on, if that was really so, then why do all crystal forming compounds always end up ?designing? the same lattices under identical conditions [that only vary between left- and right-handed] every time they form??could it be they?re like me?just not so smart?)
Not when your side screams for proof of everything?sorry pal, can?t have it both ways. But, ya know, just to be nice, I?d even settle for evidence of an ?intermediate? form that was at least ?half terrestrial, half aquatic??but like you, I ain?t holdin? my breath.
Sorry to disappoint Krys, you?re just too deep for me.
You know, Krys, I don?t know how to respond to you anymore. You?re like a little kid who, no matter how hard he tries, just can?t convince someone else that he?s right?and that eats you up on the inside. We?ve been at this almost 3 years now and you haven?t made any headway with me at all?so why do you keep coming back for more? This infantile fighting with you has gotten really old for me now and I?ve decided I?m done with it. All we?re doing is consuming bandwidth with mutual barbs that serve no practical purpose. You want to keep communicating??fine, then from now on I?m only responding to direct, unemotional, and impersonal questions from you?to which I will reply in kind and nothing else.
JCC
The argument is over already. You implicitly admitted the predictable defeat when you gave your definition of design. Everyone here understands this. Any further “communication” with you will no doubt be for the purpose determining just how lacking in integrity you are.
Quick question: why is the theory called Intelligent Design when design necessitates a designer and a designer necessitates intelligence? Isn’t that redundant? Or could it be that your strict definition of what design is doesn’t follow the commonly understood meaning?
Either you’re being ignorantly dense or you’re being purposely dense. Neither is very flattering to your persona.