Daily Mail backs Richard Dawkins

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

Ok, it is only because he is criticising Islam though.....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...lassrooms.html

Usual fun in the comments though!

Here we go Mr. Fundamentalist propagating his Evolutionary faith again, any one would think that Evloution wasn't just one theory amongst others but the way the truth and the life. Why can't our children be presented the evidence for and against evolution, or is his faith so blind that he refuses to interact with evidence that questions his position. Parents guard your children from this narrow minded fanatic!!!!! My Kids can cope with evidence "for and against" why can't he?

But Evolution Theory is just that- a theory. It has major flaws, if you care to learn about it, which advocates cannot, at the moment, answer (obviously that may change in the future). Giving equal credence to the African tribal belief quoted to that of OUR Christian heritage, and the hundreds of millions of Muslims is obviously fake. Mr Dawkins fails to realise the psychological background to religion, rather than it's improbable science. If you rid the world of religion, another religion/s would simply take it's place. As Chesterton said, when you stop believing in God, you'll believe in anything.

Strictly speaking Evolution is also a theory... I'm a scientist who believes in God -I'm Christian- but does not favour evolution over creationism and vice versa. Until we know better we should keep an open mind.

[Mike Hall]

Blimey - I knew the Mail was a squalid little rag, but I didn't realise the extent of the ignorance within its readership. I didn't know the "evolution is just a theory" argument held any sway in the UK.

[Mike Hall]

I've submitted the following to the Mail in response. I doubt it'll be published, however.

To say "evolution is only a theory" is missing the point. A "theory" in science means something very different to a "theory" in common parlance. Theories and facts are not mutually exclusive.


A scientific theory is well supported by a large amount of evidence, the term does not imply lack of certainty. In this sense, magnetism is also a theory. Atoms and cells and sexual reproduction are theories. Gravity is a theory.


And like gravity, evolution is one of the strongest, most well supported theories in science - the evidence for it is utterly overwhelming. Supporting observations are made throughout the fields of genetics, anatomy, ecology, animal behaviour, palaeontology and more.


You can argue "teach for and against" but there is no real evidence "against" evolution. There is no controversy to teach. Evolution is as much a fact as gravity. Teaching creationism is the scientific equivalent of teaching that magic pixies hold your feet to the floor!

[Mojo]

Blimey - I knew the Mail was a squalid little rag, but I didn't realise the extent of the ignorance within its readership.

Well, the Wail has been working on it for over a century now.

[Furi]

Teaching creationism is the scientific equivalent of teaching that magic pixies hold your feet to the floor!.

**** you and your anti-pixietic ****tard theories

[filippo lippi]

"Since using PixieGard footspray I now fly everywhere. Also works on crabs"

FL, Nottingham

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

I'm sure if any studies were done, they would prove those comments are representative of the average Daily Mail reader.

I think we forget someones that to most of the population, the Daily Mail just seems like another half-decent newspaper. In my view, it is far, far worse than the Sun in the amount of rubish it puts out into the public domain. The Sun is crap, but it doesn't have the ability to maintain the same rhetoric for years the way the Mail does.

[Mike Hall]

There's that old Baudelaire line about the greatest trick Satan ever pulled off was convincing the world he didn't exist.

Talking to my Dad the other day, he said said "the greatest trick the Daily Mail ever pulled off was convincing the UK it was a respectable newspaper".

[wagdog]

You can argue "teach for and against" but there is no real evidence "against" evolution. There is no controversy to teach. Evolution is as much a fact as gravity. Teaching creationism is the scientific equivalent of teaching that magic pixies hold your feet to the floor!

What the Teach the Controversy strategy is really all about, is the application of a double standard. Why single out only the science some people disagree with? (evolution, climate change, stem cell research, etc) Gravity is just a theory, too. And likewise for what creationists claim about evolution being flawed, there are also anomalies that cannot yet be explained by the theory of gravity. Are the anti-evolution crowd advocating teaching the controversy here too? Perhaps the competing "theory" of Intelligent Falling needs another serious look by the scientific community.

It is more entertaining to push the anti-science crowd to the other extreme (as above), showing how their attacks on a scientific issue that they consider to be controversial, can be adapted as an attack on science they already accept (usuall Newton's laws of motion, gravity, etc). Then, they end up defending some science as being good science while anything else is bad science, and start fumbling about trying to rationalise their biased criteria.

[Tony Williams]

What always intrigues me about creationists is the way in which they focus on evolution (with the sub-text "we did not evolve from monkeys!").

I can't recall reading much from creationists about the massive cumulative evidence from a wide range of scientific disciplines proving the vast age and slow development of the universe, including this planet as well as the life on it. If the creationists were right, the basis of every branch of hard science would have to be completely wrong. And there's rather a lot of evidence that it isn't.