At yesterday’s very successful Boston Skeptics Nerd Brunch, friend and skeptic event regular Aaron tipped me off to this hilarious graphic, posted on io9 a few months ago. It’s a nice Science vs. Scientology timeline to go along with yesterday’s creationist vs. science timeline.
While I’m here, Thunderf00t has posted a new episode of Why Do People Laugh at Creationists? in which he rips Casey Luskin a new one:
Thanks for sharing that video. That was great.
The graphic was slightly disturbing (our solar syatem is a dumping ground for alien convicts? OooKaaaaay….)
Most of the time, when we’re talking about people spewing pseudoscientific nonsense, I get the feeling that they’re not really frauds so much as deluded into thinking something stupid. I do not know what to think with these guys who seem to be redesigning their rhetoric constantly in blatantly inconsistent ways. It is like they do not even believe what they’re saying, they just want to bring down evolution by any means necessary.
I think they genuinely believe what they’re saying, but there’s something else they believe much more strongly, so when they’re proven wrong, or fail to convince others, that surface belief is endlessly malleable.
I believe that the laws of physics don’t change, and that observations today can be used to reliable predict the future and interpret the past. On top of that I trust the system of science to ensure that reliability.
Luskin believes, I think, that the laws of physics don’t change, except when God wants them to, with emphasis on when God wants them to. So he desperately goes out looking for a) evidence of god, b) failing that, lack of evidence for no-god, and c) failing that, plain lack of evidence. And since his target is acceptance for “science with god”, whenever he realizes science is going against him, he adapts, without changing.
That he tries/tried to brand this as “science with room for something outside physics, doesn’t have to be God, really”, while openly in secret stating that “actually it’s the God of the bible”, is just a tactic dictated by the battleground. Both out in the world, and quite possibly in his head.
Man, it is so easy and lazy to take that mindset.
ON a scary side note, I saw a Scientology television commercial last night on the Food Network during Iron Chef America. I could have barfed. >_<