[leighton] Yesterday I found this in the main site’s email account. It sparked quite a bit of conversation between Kirk Hasting’s and myself and even generated a beloved cartoon starring me(Not as beloved as a Jack Chick tract, but it’ll have to do.). There are quite a few stumpers in this list of questions such as, “If life DID “evolve”, then why did it ever evolve beyond weeds, ants and cockroaches, which are much better equipped for reproduction and survival than we are?”
I’m putting this up here so you all can answer and enjoy the foray as you see fit while we put the final preparations on this week’s episode. So please, enjoy the words of the enlightened vs. the neanderthal.
43 Responses to “Kirk Hasting’s “Top Ten Questions for Darwinists””
Perhaps the guy could read a book on science and maybe another on ethical philosophy — first.
Pretty lame
finally! but unfortunately I’ve already converted…. Heathens!
What impressed me the most about that exchange was Leighton’s professionalism and restraint.
Who is Kirk Hastings?
Oh, my bad~ I forgot to check to see if it was actually a podcast >: /
I should have known that I would be teased like this~ who wants to F-ing read??? Thats why I LISTEN!
Just debate already …………waiting
Yes, because the obvious course of action when you have ten questions about evolution is to ask a layman, and to neglect asking a person whose expertise is much more robust, such as an evolutionary biologist. Why, it’s almost as though they’re not really interested in having their questions answered!
Kirk Hastings is the author of “What Is Truth?”, frequent guest and current cohost of Evidence 4 Faith while Dr. Lurakis is away.
You started fight clubs!? My god you are a badass, Leighton. A tiny-penised badass.
I just read that~ Leighton, you made Freud proud! A very interesting discussion….
But yet, where is my podcast?
I was waiting for the “if evolution is true, then why haven’t I ever seen a dog give birth to a cat?” classic to appear on that list. That’s about the level of understanding of natural selection and evolution that Craptain Kirk has demonstrated. What year are we in again? Oh and Leighton, I think next time you should tell this guy how you really feel. Don’t keep it all inside.
#’s 5 & 8 are the same question, so that eliminates one off the bat.
#1 Abiogenesis and Spontaenous generation aren’t the same thing, and not related to evolution, stupid cliche falsehood to start us off. And if you can’t tell the difference between RNA strands replicating and a mouse popping out of a bag of grain than what the fuck is wrong with you?
I took care of two. It’s not as horrifically painful is you only do a few at once!
Jesus fucking Christ, Leighton. That e-mail exchange really brought out the drama queen in you.
Leighton, I might just nail you to a cross because you’re my new Jesus! That was brilliant! Hmm, maybe I’ll just nail you.
And after going through the E4F archive for the past few weeks I am crazy excited for anther debate between both of you.
A couple weeks ago I was in midtown Manhattan and saw Don King stick his head out of a limo and yell at a homeless guy. But still this email chain is the most depressing thing I’ve seen this year.
Some questions are so penetrating and insightful that they actually give one a headache. Some are the exact opposite of that, but also give one a headache. If only there were a way for the enquirers to tell the difference. Lacking a method to do so they confuse the one for the other, usually in the more flattering direction.
Oh, Cock Hastings. You could have said.
This guy reminds me of a chick that used to troll a forum i was on. I’d get crazy pages long emails of sheer inanity.
I’d say mark him as spam and see how fast he comes up with a new email. You could even make a game out of it.
This is off topic and I’m pretty sure this is the wrong place to post this.
http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/f9vui/my_6_year_old_son_is_terrified_that_because_i/
I love the podcast, and that includes the brash nature and humor of it all, but this email exchange seemed pretty douchy.
Got to love those questions… The majority can be answer by “No it doesn’t”
Science tells us…..No it doesn’t
According to Darwinism…..No it doesn’t
Science Demonstrates that….No it doesn’t
The whole thing is a series of straw men. Gratz on learning about Darwinian evolution from answers in genesis.
Leighton is a boss! But who let him use email, Poor decision!
Those dickheads! I wrote that email, and sent it to the “good” doctor. After I found out you guys were debating them, I listened to a few of their shows and got upset that they put forth bullshit as evidence/fact so I wrote an email while in a drunken stupor. I had no idea they even addressed it until I was reading the back-and-forth between Leighton and Dr. Bullshit. I just listened to the show wherein they discussed my email and became annoyed that they refuted my claims without any evidence or citing their sources. These should be Skunk Dicks of 2011!
P.S. That’s Dr. Prescott Hensley to you, Evidence 4 Faith fuck-wads!
Did they really make the claim that since the Exodus events occurred over 4000 years ago we shouldn’t expect to find much evidence if any? What about the Franchti cave in mainland Greece where we found evidence of human life/community from 20,000 BCE? What about all the archaeological evidence we have from the neolithic revolution (around 7,000 BCE)? Fucking dickheads!
@Discord.agent: I’m thinking that maybe Leighton’s email was also a product of drunken stupor.
@Leighton: Kirk and his ilk are not debaters. They are baiters. They use passive aggressive tactics to bait you into a fight. Then when you go to fight them, they passively resist the fight. This makes you look like the aggressor. You walked right into the trap, and in doing so, shifted the focus from the stupidity that Kirk put forth in his top 10 list.
@all: Kirk’s cartoon makes much more sense when you make Leighton-Dilbert and Kirk-the other dude.
Thanks very much Chuck and Leighton for introducing the evidence 4 faith podcast to me. It’s so bad, I’ve had to listen to all of them. What a load of creationist shite. Please take them down as soon as you can.
Respect from the UK.
It’s amazing that anyone would attempt to debate a subject without knowing a thing about it. An hour spent carefully researching the subject on the internet could have raised his second grade level understanding of evolution quite a bit.
Let’s start with “Darwinism”. There is no such thing. That’s like “Newtonism” or “Eisteinism”.
It’s called the “Theory of Evolution”. If you call it anything else, you demonstrate that you lack adequate education to debate the topic.
If someone is confident of their evidence AND profess expertise , they should be confident enough to put their balls on the chopping block. Refusing to debate on one hand and then sending emails with their best questions on the other is, exactly as Leighton said, cowardice. And sorry, inexperience in podcasts and poor oratory skills are, as excuses go, slightly better than “I am washing my hair”.
Mr Hastings, you are worthy of my contempt for two reasons:
1) The questions you have posed I had learned the answers to before I finished middle school and that only because the abiogenesis experiments were mentioned in 8th grade. Not to mention the abysmal ignorance evident on what evolutionary theory is all about and what is natural selection. If you have internet access to send emails with, you have access to a search engine, ergo you have access to all sorts of websites designed by specialists for laymen, who cite their sources and, as I have mentioned before, put their balls on the chopping block.
2) I am not a native speaker of english. I had to learn it as a foreign language and part of what I had to do (and an important part of any foreign language exam I had to take) was writing two essays in 150 words or less (or 200, depending on the level) in, if I remember correctly, less than an hour.
Many times the topic was defending, or refuting, a position. I, and all the other students, had minutes to fully understand a question and get to the point within the time and word count limitations. I would expect a native speaker of english, who is an adult and an author, to fare better than my twelve-year-old self. Apparently, I am expecting too much.
Leighton, please allow me to declare my undying (platonic) love for you. That was fucking badass.
I don’t see any point in continuing this “debate.” Anyone who asks questions such as these is a massive hypocrite. Asking a question indicates that you want an answer. These yokels are clearly not interested in learning the answers to these questions. As has been pointed out, the answers are readily available to anyone with a fourth grade reading level. We all figured it out with out anyone holding our hands. These fools are contemptible.
I for one will not be paying attention to anything these know-nothings have to say. Cut ’em loose and get back to the good stuff.
Since your debate with these guys I’ve listened to a number of their podcasts. It is clear they use only Christian sources (though they do not cite their sources on the air nor do they list them on their website). Thus, they are constantly bringing up very old and naive arguments that were long ago debunked. Recycling these old arguments is not only irresponsible, it is intellectually incestuous.
I’m only a high-school student and no scientist or philosopher, but I can still think of an answer to all ten questions on the top of my head. Admittedly there are one or two questions that I am tempted to think about for awhile (meaning of life), but that`s not because I don`t think my answer is incorrect (of course there is no objective meaning, reason and meaning are inventions of the subject), but because the answer is not to my liking, and it seems that’s exactly this Kirk-guy’s problem.
Uh, now that I’ve read the email exchanges all I have to say is, “Uh, Leighton? Is that really you using ‘pusillanimous’ and analyzing the Brontes? Hehe, you go man!”
These E4F Fuckwads are absolute proof against intelligent design. If anyone else said that already, my fault for not reading thru every word of their nauseating BS, straw men, incoherence, and utter stupidity.
Anyone wanna make a collective evidence 4 faith debunking blog? Loads of fun for everyone!
Sorry, had to add this. How about we set up a schedule where everybody here takes a Sunday and has their day to call in to the E4F show and talk to ’em live? Some of us may even win Kirk’s book since every time they offer a book on their show nobody calls in.
I thought the ten questions were lovely. They could form the basis for a 10 week lecture series on logical fallacies, or as a warning to kids not to do ID. I can see a TV add “This is your brain, This is your brain on ID”.
Just makes it incredibly clear that E4F has no idea what it is they are arguing against.
Jesus, is there anything Leighton *hasn’t* done?
I personally wouldn’t have been such an asshole to Keith, but props to him for trying to fight back! The e-mails were highly entertaining nevertheless.
As for the questions:
1) Spontaneous generation =/= abiogenesis
2) Question implies that 2nd law of thermodynamics applies to non-isolated systems like earth, organisms, cells, etc.
3) Question assumes that there *is* some kind of genetic barrier which stops/regulates mutation after a certain point. This is just bullshit as far as I know, I’d have to be presented with something (a paper or something at least?) to believe otherwise.
4) Genetic fallacy.
5) Interesting question, although I don’t see its intended purpose of putting a hole in evolution. From the top of my head, it seems reasonable to assume that an animal that’s able to perceive and react to other organisms intentions (theory of mind – assuming that’s what we mean by consciousness) will be more fit to survive and pass on it’s genes then the same animal with no consciousness.
6) Wow @ this question.
First of all, I’m sick of you calling it Darwinian evolution. It implies that we still adhere to what Darwin thought (we don’t). Evolution has evolved (stupid pun, I know) quite a bit since Darwin’s time, and some predictions that Darwin made in his day have been refuted (trivial things, given that he predicted the whole concept of evolution).
Secondly, total non-sequitur. Evolution doesn’t necessarily imply atheism (depends on your particular concept of theism), and it also has nothing to do with how we make our morals. “Right” and “wrong” is how we deem it, to say that morality objective is an oxymoron, since morals are of the mind – they’re conceptual in nature. The conceptual is not objective.
We *do* rape, steal, murder, lie, etc. Whether or not it’s sometimes a survival instinct or not is besides the point (or whether or not it’s an effective way to survive is another question which depends on the situation), but regardless; we also have empathy/sympathy and compassion – we put ourselves in other peoples shoes and we relate to them. We have a sense of community as well, we’re all trying to survive after all and we want to help each other out.
There’s so much more you could say on this question, including the fact that god’s morals also need accounting for given your stance on morals (euthyophro’s dillema) and the fact that god does the things you’ve in the bible (or creates a situation where it’s inevitable).
7) Question implies that the very infancy of life was complex at all. Once matter get’s over the hump of abiogenesis (which it did), then evolution takes over, and given enough time anything can happen. It also implies that evolution is efficient and necessary – it isn’t. It’s a crude mechanism, but it works nevertheless. Evolution also has nothing to do with the survival of the universe.
8) See my response to question 5 and 8.
9) See my response to question 8. Also, evolutions goal isn’t immortality.
10) Evolution necessarily isn’t a conscious endeavor. It’s not like animals *think* that they need to reproduce or do X in order to pass on their genes. We do think about it though, because we have the knowledge of evolution; but that’s besides the point, because even then we’re not necessarily conscious of trying to achieve survivability. Even given this, humans do stupid shit anyway – we don’t always do what’s in the best interest for our survival. In short: we make our own purpose, whether it has to do with evolution and survival, or blowing yourself up for ones ideology (random example to counter survivability).
JESUS CHRIST THAT TOOK LONGER THAN IT SHOULD HAVE!
I’m not checking for typos, so yeah.
Did I say Keith? I meant Kirk.
Whatever!
Now, I have to ask myself what would I gain from reading this email exchange? After reading the comments on this post, I can only conclude “indigestion”. But I’ll probably read it tomorrow.
Way to go Leighton, you called it as you saw it and you were right. His excuses were laughable- he starts by saying he doesn’t want to debate because he’s not a public speaker. Wtf? I didn’t realise you had a live audience for your podcasts, where do I go to buy tickets? His next reason is that he doesn’t think he can adequately articulate his own beliefs off the top of his head, and is not good at rote memorization, again wtf? These are his own beliefs, shouldn’t you know your OWN beliefs off the ‘top of your head’? Like I said, these are laughable excuses.
The impressive critiques of several classic works of literature was a nice touch that no doubt made him contemplate that he was in way over his head!
A little advice from Jay-Z for ya Leighton:
a wise man told me don’t argue with fools
cause people from a distinct can’t tell who is who
between Kirk Hastings and yourself, not Kirk Hasting’s and yourself!