SomethingSuitablySharp alliteration, neuroscience and sea otters.

Ex-Atheist

Below is a video I came across recently. Be careful, it's really, really bad:

So what is so wrong with this video? Well it all starts when this poor girl states "Once upon a time, billions of years ago...time and chance came together and magically created this entire universe..."

She then goes on to say that evolution is a "fairy tale for adults", apparently just a "story" which was "created by" Charles Darwin. She misrepresents Darwin further by saying he came up with his ideas without any scientific evidence or methods! She also radically misquotes from Origins and makes a mockery of his life time's work.

There's a whole lot of wrong here, and this is just in the first minute. Maybe it's a good point to stop and reflect on a few points...

1. Saying that time and chance came together billions of years ago is a misleading statement, and evolutionary theory certainly doesn't involve any magic. She implies that it all happened at once - maybe she has some serious misconception of the big bang theory. She certainly is hiding any knowledge she might have of the very slow nature of evolutionary change over time - especially the theories on early cell development.
2. The whole fairy tale for adults thing is a turnaround of a statement commonly directed at religions, which made me think this was a parody at the start!
3. To say Darwin created the idea of evolution is again misleading. Evolution by natural selection and by genetic drift occurs all around us in the world today. Darwin helped formalise the theory of evolution by natural selection. Like most significant steps in science, other scientists were thinking along the same lines at the time of Darwin and scientists before had laid the ground work allowing Darwin to reach his conclusions.
4. One only has to read the first chapter of On the Origin of Species to realise that Darwin was incredibly cautious about gathering evidence and applying it in a scientifically appropriate way.

But of course, no point going into detail here...this is obviously the dramatic and ear-catching opening to her speech/argument. She's clearly more focused on projecting and winning the audience with hype than truth or knowledge.

On the other hand, this opening and the rest of the speech is dangerous. Dangerous because it implants these blatantly false notions into susceptible young minds.

She obviously hasn't given any serious thought to a lot of what she is saying. It seems to be to be a collection of popular anti-atheist and anti-evolution writings stitched together. This isn't necessarily a "bad thing" in terms of talking about a view, and in this case, it makes sense when one thinks about another motive for this speech: to promote P4CM...

The focus of her organisation, Passion for Christ Movement, is focused on youth. Judging by their website one could easily get the idea they're all about selling tshirts and being hip.

Their latest shirt, the Ex-Masturbator, is testament to this. Along with their other shirts, this one is pushing the risqué/edgy angle as much as any theological angle. Make a stand, be different, belong to something.

Is this a common method of operating for youth-oriented churches? The only way in 2009 to get the kids involved? It begs the question if the majority of members are in it for the hype and the sense of belonging, or the actual message and the ideas. Actually, wait, hasn't that been the story with all religions over the years?

Young people are also more prone to lapping up anti-establishment ideas, e.g. anti-science ideas. An essential part of growing up is critically analysing or dismissing the existing ideas and paving ones own road. However this church is giving poor youth a faulty compass to work with with.

Later on in the video she pulls out the latest and greatest anti-science idea of recent years: intelligent design. All the usual popular arguments for ID are present. No major surprises.

The worst thing she comes out with is comparing a single cell to New York City. She goes to town on someone's probably offhand remark that a cell is more complex than NYC - dramatically describing how complex NYC is on the way, like the analogy is actually valid and can be taken further...subways!

As expected her conclusion is that NYC is massive and complex and functions and hence can not have been created by random chance. Therefore, cells as well can not be created by chance (her view of evolutionary processes) but must have been designed by god! Some points are needed here:

1. First off, comparing a single cell to a city is not a valid analogy. Any conclusions drawn from this do not follow. A city is a complex man made entity only really defined in sociological terms. A cell is a distinct biological entity.
2. Parts of the evolutionary process, such as genetic drift and mutations, are relatively governed by chance. Others, such as natural selection are not: species are selected by their ability to reproduce, which often involves being the fittest for the environment. This is not a random process.
3. She is also making the "change must have purpose" mistake. There is no hidden or greater purpose behind the evolutionary changes in an organism - simply adaptation to the environment and survival of the reproductive fittest. These are obviously completely context dependent. NYC on the other hand is designed and planned by humans with purposes in mind.
4. NYC didn't just spring up over night in a perfectly functioning state. It is the process of years and years of ongoing human labour and problem solving.

She then goes into the irreducible complexity argument. Sigh. I'll pass you on to the excellent article by Steven Novella on breaking down the arguments of ID.

So all in all a real shocker. I hope she isn't indicative of any sizeable chunk of modern day US youth! Maybe it's just a Texas problem?