Ha ha, I'm flattered. I think this is the third or fourth thread I have been mentioned in.

How are you getting on with the book? I'm actually quite jealous, it's not available as an audiobook in the UK yet. I have the hardback, but enjoy listening to books at work.

The link above is a talk by Jerry Coyne that I thought you may be interested in. It's the sort of talk he has been invited to give all over the world. (Talks for which he recieves no money. He only asks that he is fed as many local dishes as he can handle during his stay. Some of the pictures of these can bee seen on his website and are hilarious)

I hope you enjoy the book and I really can't wait for your feedback.

The book is really good. The statistics and the evolutionary trees (i.e. this came from that) is really interesting and makes me wish i had photographic memory to remember so many details.

I'm at Chapter 4 right now... trying to pay attention and taking notes when something sounds cool like this from the Preface:

The Galapagos Island has a 7th Day Adventist Church that is now teaching about Creationism. Think of the Irony.

That's too funny. Poor Darwin.

So far, I don't like that Coyne keeps bashing creationists with a silly question such as this:

why would a Designer (i.e creator) use this or that?

Wouldn't a Designer simply design something that worked and not reused parts or a flawed process? (i need to get the right quote


One exact quote from chapter 1:
[a creator]ID doesn't seem too intelligent to design millions of species that are destined to go extinct and then replace them with other similar species most of which will also banish.

my question is: if there were a Designer - wouldn't it have a reason to allow this?

In the case of Christianity, this is exactly what we say and hold: that God must have a valid reason to allow certain things or to have design the universe a certain way. And this is a rational assumption/deduction if God exists.

Anyway, the books is pretty good. I'm enjoying it.

The YouTube video is like 60 minutes. Looks great so I'll check it out over the weekend. 3 little kids and 11 hours a day-job is killing me a'la "independent george".

I'd maybe only watch the first 40 or so minutes of the YouTube video. I posted the link AS I was watching it, I hadn't got to the nasty parts...lol

Unfortunately Edgar, this book is only necessary because of creationists and ID, so he's going to put comments like that in there and they are valid questions I think. Saying

God must have a valid reason to allow certain things or to have design the universe a certain way. And this is a rational assumption/deduction if God exists.

Just doesn't cut it in Science. Evolution explains all of these things beautifully, so is by far the more rational explanation, much like many of the other things better explained by science than scripture.

I am glad that, on the whole, you are enjoying the book though.

I thought you'd like to see what Hugh Hewitt said in regard to Bad Design, when interviewing Richard Dawkins...

HH: You argue in the book at one point that the retina is so poorly designed, that it argues against the idea of a designer, because it’s such a messed up job. Conversely, though, if the object of the designer was to create a world in which faith was possible, but also disbelief, in order to make faith a choice and not an obligation, wouldn’t then you have to say that the world was wondrously constructed to that end, to preserve free will and the choosing?

RD: You mean that God deliberately made mistakes so as to deceive us?

HH: Not mistakes, that God created a world in which faith was possible by an order of its complexity, to allow for the Richard Dawkins of the world to exist, and be completely, absolutely convinced that He did not, that that’s the only situation in which faith is real.

RD: So in order to make that the case, God said well, now let’s make the eye look like a botched up job so that…are you saying…

HH: I think you understand what I’m saying, and you’re saying no, you don’t believe that, that it would not in fact fit that, a giant…for example, have you read the Harry Potter novels?

RD: No.

HH: Do you read any fiction at all?

RD: Of course.

HH: What’s the most complicated bit of fiction you’ve read? Like War and Peace?

RD: Yeah, what’s your point? What point are you making?

HH: That complexity in design, and counterintuitive steps, et cetera, don’t disprove the idea of genius at work. Genius at work often works through complexity and through misdirection.

RD: I think that what you’re kind of saying is that God made the world look as though it had evolved in order to test our faith, when it didn’t evolve.

HH: No, not test our faith. I’m saying that the world has been made as it is to allow for faith, because if it was made too easy for the simple-minded, it would simply be routine, and everyone would believe, and then there would be no faith.

That just seems so grasping. I could just imagine Dawkin's face as he was hearing it, I bet his mouth was open. You almost wonder what the point of talking to people like that is.

Hi Johnny,

I finally saw that video of Jerry Coyne on YouTube. He's quite likable but he really dislikes the creationist... lol.

Richard Dawkins has put on some pounds in the belly too. :-)

The whole idea that God created the universe in such a way as to trick us is bad marketing for God. This is not how the God of The Bible works.

People should stop defending God with such illustration. It will be best to say what the Scientist say: We don't know how just yet but we'll continue to investigate.

The World as we know it has been created by God. Some stuff we have been able to discern via Science and the rest we really don't know. That's all the Christian has to say. I don't know but God must have a reason.

If you grant me that the God of the Bible exists (just for the sake of the argument) - that he knows everything, and is all powerful and all loving, etc... then it must follow that he must have a good reason for what we see in the universe. Whether we think it makes senses or not, or whether we think it is evil or not, God must have a good reason for it.

I don't know but God must have a reason.

I don't know why other religious people don't say that. Maybe it's because they are trying to use their beliefs to disprove a very well established scientific theory, so saying that you don't know why it's wrong, just doesn't cut it? In many other respects, I think it is a perfectly reasonable position to take.

However... in the case of Evolution, there is so much that can ONLY be explained by it, so why not accept it and just say that it was God's work? That is the position of the vast majority of Christians in Europe, including Darth Razinger.

Ok so today I went to the book store and got the book. Now it's getting serious.