Ray Comfort and the Origin of the Feces

First, let me say that if you take information and intentionally misrepresent it, you are a liar. If you have others point out where your assertions are wrong (on national TV), but you continue to repeat your lies anyway, you’re also a hypocrite. If, in addition to that, you call those who have demonstrated that you lied, immoral, ignorant liars, and you claim moral superiority for yourself, you are an evil, sociopathic scumbag, Ray Comfort.

I just read the 50 page introduction that Ray Comfort has added to “The Origin of the Species” in the editions that he is donating to Universities. He is doing this, in part because he says he has learned that up to 60% of psychology and biology professors in major universities don’t believe in a god. So, he sees that persons who, almost by definition, are much better educated and more intelligent than average, have used that education and intelligence to arrive at the conclusion that there is no god, and he thinks a book, that’s already ubiquitous, can be given away with 50 pages of untruths, misconceptions, and unsupportable suppositions added and convert these professors.

This is a very typical collection of Xian apologist arguments that every supporter of evolution has heard before. Inexplicably, (after a quick biography of Darwin) it begins with a section about the structure of DNA. Since DNA structure was identified 96 years after “The Origin of the Species” was written, it is quite clear that this introduction has nothing to do with the book it introduces.

Not only is the introduction not specifically about the book, it appears that Comfort hasn’t even read the book. He presents a quote that’s footnoted as from pages 133-134 of the 1872 ed. I checked and it is from those pages, that is, one must combine sentence fragments from both those pages to achieve that “quote”. Later he employs the famously misrepresented introductory remarks about the complexity of the eye. He does mention that Darwin thought he could (not, noting that Darwin actually did) explain the evolution of the eye, but Comfort didn’t buy it anyway.

In case readers are not persuaded by the blatant misrepresentation of science, Comfort brings out the big guns for his final argument. It’s his own special version of Pasqual’s wager. According to him everyone needs religion and, although there are many choices, Christianity is the best choice because, if it turns out to be real, the punishment of burning and torture for eternity is worse than for any other religion. What a great way to choose a religion! Pick the one that has to threaten you the most to get you to join.

In summation, Ray Comfort, in a stroke of brilliance that exceeds his miraculous banana theory, is giving away a book that includes an introduction that can be rebutted simply by reading the rest of the book and the people to whom he is sending this book are among those most likely to have already read the book and whose backgrounds make them among the best equipped persons to demonstrate what a load of crap the introduction is. I think we should all applaud Ray Comfort for publishing and donating these books, in fact, I think we should encourage him to do the same thing with all the books that Darwin wrote, anyone named Darwin. Let’s keep him spending his money in this way until he’s as financially bankrupt as he is morally.

Free Audio Books and the Beagle

I like to put audio books on my MP3 player and listen to them while working around the house or down in my wood shop. I'd been getting them through the Columbus Library's website where they have a fair selection of nonfiction and the books are professionally recorded. If you have a library card somewhere, check your library's site. You might have a similar deal. Recently I found another source that's very cool. Internet Archive has a large collection of audio, videos and Ebooks that are in the public domain. There are also opportunities to volunteer to record books into the audio collection (I may do some, but I talk so slowly that it may take half an hour to listen to a book title). Check it out, volunteer, donate and enjoy the accumulated knowledge.

The last book I listened to was "The Voyage of the Beagle" by Charles Darwin. I'd read a lot of his writings, but thought this book, usually described as a travelogue, would be no big deal. Boy, was I wrong. I think this book gave me more insight into the way Darwin's mind worked and his amazing powers of perception than anything else I've read by him. While his later works display the end results of his brain power, "The Voyage of the Beagle" allows the reader (or the listener, as it were) to observe the gears turning. Darwin not only seemed to gather more information from his observations than most people, he was then able to compare species he observed to taxonomically similar species in other parts of the world and determine the direction and possible methods of migration of flora and fauna. After reading this book, natural selection seems a more natural conclusion from the accumulated data than I had previously thought. I don't mean that reading about the Beagle voyage would allow anyone to reach the same conclusion, that obviously didn't happen, but, rather that Darwin's incredible intellect was so apparent that of course he figured it out.

Doing the Homework

I've been thinking back on a lot of the conversations, or maybe they're arguments, I've had with creationists and one thing stands out. I've read their bible and I've read some of the books written by Xian apologists, but it is clear that most, maybe all, of the creationists with whom I've conversed have never read anything that actually explains evolution, not even a Wikipedia article.

They all think they know what they're arguing against, but I seem to spend a lot of time explaining that the ideas they oppose are not really part of evolutionary theory and the ones who think they are most knowledgeable on the subject have only read the books that argue against evolution so they're just more adamant about their misconceptions. Basically, they are like someone who thinks he's an expert on a book because he's read a few reviews.

I was going to say something about how I wouldn't base my opinions on a critique of an idea without researching the actual idea, but that may be a big part of why I argue in support of evolution, and education in general, and they don't.

What I plan to do, and suggest others who support reality based concepts may also want to try, is start insisting that before a person can argue evolution, they must read at least one real book on the subject. If it's someone I trust I'll even loan them a book by Dawkins, Gould or the like. I also think I'll recommend, especially to those who have read some the apologist junk, that they read On the Origin of the Species just so they can see how often it is misrepresented. Everything by Darwin is available on line, so they have no excuse for not reading it unless they're Amish.

I don't know how well this strategy will work; maybe some people will end up reading some real science or maybe I'll just stifle communication, but it seems to me that we need to be more insistent that those who oppose evolution demonstrate that they've at least done a little homework on the subject they argue against. What do you think?