Flat-Out Moronic: The Intellectual Pretensions of the Sub-Literati

Galileo was not brought before the Inquisition for saying that the earth goes around the sun. I'm going to repeat that in large font:

Galileo was not brought before the Inquisition for saying that the Earth goes around the Sun.


The Church punished Galileo for an error of theology: for stating that the observations of the eye were superior to the Revelations of Scripture. Also, for claiming that heliocentrism had been proven true when it had not, and mocking others who argued the contrary (including the Pope of the time) in print. His offense was relatively minor and possibly unintentional, so his punishment was light. But you cannot claim to be historically literate on the subject if you insist on repeating the old farcical lie.

And if you do so while mocking others for essentially, knowing more than you do, then you're claim of literacy is driven down to Kindergarten levels reserved for people who thought that the Boston Tea Party was in 1776.

Meanwhile, the Slapfight Over Evolution Continues

Carthago Delenda Est linked this amusing insistence that the Grand and Complex Theory of Evolution can be reduced to the tautology "Survivors Survive." The knife-point:

Richard Dawkins asserts that Darwin's theory allows one to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. As an example of the deep scientific insight provided by Darwin's theory, Myers notes that more successful replicators relatively more successfully replicate, and that birds that are better able to get food during famine are better able to survive.
Myers is an intellectually fulfilled atheist.

Atheism is a small cup.

I should mention that I don't really have a dog in this fight. I'm a Catholic, and the Catholic Church has for the most part wisely refrained from getting drawn into the weeds about evolution. The last Pope said the theory was "credible," and so long as the theory is not used as a springboard for atheism, the Church teaches it in its schools. So I don't really have anything to say on the ins and outs of evolutionary biology, and as long as the Grand Inquisitors of High Atheism leave it alone, so will I.

Richard Dawkins Struggles With the Whole Logic Thing

Via Carthago Delenda Est, this:

Because a university science department would be justified in turning down holders of these beliefs, Dawkins wishes us to think, it follows that UK was justified in rejecting Gaskell. Dawkins's illustrations are three cases of Biblical literalist YEC belief and three fantasy beliefs the likes of which no one you'll ever meet actually holds, certainly no one who could rise to a level of scientific achievement where hiring him to teach at a university would come up for practical discussion.

I don't necessarily buy ID, but I have noticed a similarity between ID-opponents and AGW-proponents: the willingness to malign and conflate their opponents.

If an Inquisition existed today, Dawkins would run it with glee