All of Jim Balter's Comments + Replies

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2022/10/24/one-way-to-be-less-wrong-is-to-avoid-faulty-premises/

"evolution polemics"

There's a beam in your eye (and it's distorting your perception).

"I'm not sure you can assume that Odin isn't around."

It's an inference, not an assumption.

"no evidence for him is not proof that he doesn't exist"

Who said anything about proof?

We should teach epistemology in kindergarten.

"one has to keep in mind that evolution has no goal"

To what end must one keep this in mind?

"it is inherently neither positive nor negative. it simply occurs, for better or worse"

For whom?

"until death do us part"

Evolution operates on populations, not individuals.

"Since absolutely no one has ever come up with anything even approaching a plausible naturalistic explanation of the origin of life from non-life, the obvious truth is that the first DNA based bacterium (the simplest life form we know of) with it's staggeringly functionally complex digital code was created by a supernatural intelligence."

Even if your antecedent were correct (and it definitely isn't), this a textbook fallacy.

There's a danger in posting comments like that ... they make it clear that IDiots are arguing in bad faith.

"That's not evidence for evolution! "

It wasn't offered as such. It's simply an analogy that refutes a particular fallacious argument from the IDiots.

You're not merely not an expert ... you lack a fundamental understanding.

"I disagree with just about everything you said."

All the worse for you.

"We cannot just be evolved just randomly"

Indeed; evolution is not random.

"there has to be a creator"

Bzzzt! Wrong.

"there are no proven facts, and no evidence has been proven since charles darwin populized it in 1859"

Very very wrong.

"there are advantages to having the retina at the back"

Such invented reasons are irrelevant because they aren't why the eye is the way it is.

"But it can, if you consider a toaster to be an embodied meme. "

"it" is "evolutionary biology", not "evolution", so no, it can't. And saying that "evolution" can explain something is a category mistake.

So?

"Calling evolution uninteligent is foolish egocentrism. "

No, it's just a fact.

"It is our concept of intelligence that is deficient in not accommodating other minds so different from our own."

The concept of intelligence is about intelligence, not something else.

"that would follow the same sort of engineering logic as putting a fuse on a toaster"

Not really.

"What do you think about it?"

It's wrong.