For those who jumped to Mr. Goodyear’s defence over his failed attempt at an explanation of evolution as though the man were Thomas Huxley reincarnated, here’s fellow Conservative MP James Lunney’s recent statement:
Mr. Speaker, recently we saw an attempt to ridicule the presumed beliefs of a member of this House and the belief of millions of Canadians in a creator. Certain individuals in the media and the scientific community have exposed their own arrogance and intolerance of beliefs contrary to their own. Any scientist who declares that the theory of evolution is a fact has already abandoned the foundations of science. For science establishes fact through the study of things observable and reproducible. Since origins can neither be reproduced nor observed, they remain the realm of hypothesis.
In science, it is perfectly acceptable to make assumptions when we do not have all the facts, but it is never acceptable to forget our assumptions. Given the modern evidence unavailable to Darwin, advanced models of plate techtonics, polonium radiohalos, polystratic fossils, I am prepared to believe that Darwin would be willing to re-examine his assumptions.
The evolutionists may disagree, but neither can produce Darwin as a witness to prove his point. The evolutionists may genuinely see his ancestor in a monkey, but many modern scientists interpret the same evidence in favour of creation and a creator.
Make NO mistake, the SoCon country Harper, Day and crew want to reach is one where the Earth is a little younger than conventional scientific wisdom might have you believe…
Now, can we get a real scientist into the Minister of Science position?
(h/t Pharyngula)
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His reason is so incredibly inept he actually does more damage to creationism than evolution.
Hey. Great blog. I agree completely that the science Minister and some of his colleagues are being idiots. As someone who does not believe there is a god/gods, I am totally onboard with evolution.
But here is my problem with the Canadian atheist movement: we have seemingly decided to align ourselves with the political left. This may seem like an obvious and stupid thing to say, but I live in a province (Saskatchewan) that has recently had an NDP government led by a Premier who is an ordained minister. Indeed, the CCF/NDP has a long history of being led by religious figures (Tommy Douglas was a minister as well). I also recently read that Stephen Harper is the first Prime Minister since Lester B Pearson who was not Catholic. And we will recall PM Martin publicly mused about his personal conflict over gay marriage due to his Catholic beliefs.
So as atheists are we just content to mock Evangelist Christians and happy to have Catholics in power? Or are we legitimately interested in having a reasonable, non-partisan debate about god & politics?
And I see that you seem to lean with the NDP – and that’s cool. But I’m worried that by aligning the Atheism with a particular political viewpoint we risk limiting the atheist viewpoint (eg, Sven Robinson).
See my point?
Cheers,
L
I completely agree and atheism as a movement ought to be non-partisan. This being my blog however, I discuss all my philosophies, socio-political, economic, religious etc.
I think the majority of the atheist movement that I’m aware of doesn’t care if our Prime Minister is religious, its just what they do with that religion. For example, I have no problem with Stephen Harper going to church on Sundays, but I worry about his long term goals for Canada if he believes Jesus is coming back within his lifetime. Similarly with the science minister, he ought to have a basic understanding of evolution. Not every MP needs to be a scientist, and Mr. Lunney can cheer all he wants about this, and I’m free to mock him about it.
I know quite a few atheists in the fiscal (but rarely social) conservative right all the way to libertarianism, but there do seem to be more atheists (or at least tolerant religions like the United and Unitarian Churches) on the left.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest that on your blog you couldn’t talk about all your ideas. You certainly should.
I just worry that titles like “Conservative Creationism” do the wider Atheist movement no good. Certainly the “conservative creationist” is a dominant trope in North America society.
The problem isn’t a particular “Conservative” stripe of creationism – it is *all* creationism!
And I’ve certainly met my fair share of creationists who are die-hard supporters of all parties to know that they are everywhere.
Attacking the Conservative party for its Science Minister’s stupid remarks might be a win-win from a Liberal-atheist, Green-atheist, or NDP-atheist point of view, but it threatens to alienate Conservative-atheists. And if we are interested in building up the strength of atheism in Canada, I don’t think we have luxury of doing that. At least not until we have more support.
This particular debate within Atheist circles (along with the debate about whether were should call ourselves Atheists, Freethinkers, or anything at all) is one of the vital points that we need to sort out before we can move forward. So I’m glad for this opportunity to think aloud. Thanks.
L
Atheism and socialism hehehehe……..The hypocrisy abounds to a hilarious degree…..
Atheism bases itself upon evolution being the reason that humans exist, and through natural selection we came to be what we are. A major tenet of natural selection is preferential survivorship within a species, as in greater survival rates for one more adapted for their environment, wheras those less suitable for their environment die, over time leading to progress in the species.
Enter socialism…the worst thing to happen to evolution since religious people evolved…by the redistribution of wealth from those who have proven their suitability for this world, to those who flounder, we have removed the primary evolutionary force: preferential survivorship. Unless the weak, and pardon the term, untermensch, are allowed to perish, we as a species stagnate. We cannot hope to evolve unless we accept that blind equality and thereby socialism does nothing for our species but hold it back from what it could be.
You’re a tool.
Their’s altruism and work for the greater good in many higher level organisms in nature. Why does one gopher stand guard? He doesn’t make more money, and it makes more sense for him to hide and cover his own ass. Yet if there were no guard and everyone just acted in their own selfish interest, then the whole colony could be wiped out by predators.
Finally, it’s worth noting that the rich, educated and “prosperous” tend to have fewer children, therefore in a natural selection system, it’s the poor and uneducated who’d take over anyway (see the film Idiocracy)
I’m not advocating a destruction of capitalism, I advocate an improvement to a broken system.
Shall we perhaps leave the personal jibes in the elementary school grounds? I would hate for a discussion of science to turn into a mudfight of childish name calling.
Speaking of the science, that is where you come up short. The ground squirrel is a common misconception of socialistic altruism.
Firstly ground squirrels only chirp to warn others when it is in a colony of its close relatives. A ground squirrel relocated to a colony that it is unrelated to will not chirp to warn of predators. This is not altruism, it is simply a mechanism of protection of its offspring and those sharing similar genes, further supported by the fact that it is largely the female squirrels that engage in this behavior. The males are more nomadic and travel between colonies inseminating other females. Due to their large number of offspring with their genes relative to the females, males follow the reproduction plan like todays 3rd world countries: lots of offspring and hope some live, whereas the female have less offspring associated with their genes, and as such self sacrifice of herself makes sense to help her genes survive. No so for the males with their many offspring.
The only actions of the ground squirrel is toward those sharing its genes. They are not altruistic or they would still warn of predators in a colony not of its kin; which is not seen occurring in nature.
Idiocracy has already begun. The dumbing down of the world is occurring thanks to unintended support from the worlds various socialistic countries. The poor and uneducated would have less chance to breed if there was no so called “safety net” to prolong their existence long enough to only breed more, and further diluting the gene pool with inferiority. And some want the net to become a golden pillow upon which more inferiority can spawn from….
try again, sugar,