General
Is Evolution Untouchable?
I’ve noticed the complaint from a few different sources lately that evolution is simply ‘untouchable’. It usually is attacking atheists for clinging to evolution so devoutly, claiming that anyone with a religious background is simply unable to even question the theory. Is there some truth to that claim? Trying to think about it objectively… well, maybe so. But it’s not what they would have you believe.
Let’s examine the situation a little more deeply. Question: What is the real connection with evolution to any kind of disagreement on theology? Answer: Absolutely nothing. Unfortunately, evolution has been dragged into this fight presumably without first consulting it. There is nothing about atheism that connects with evolution any more than atheism connects with gravity or knot theory. But evolution had the misfortune to have some implications that certain religious groups couldn’t reconcile with their long held myths, so it has been branded a religious debate. Let’s not pretend that this is a completely one-sided fault either. While there may have been some Christian science watchdogs analyzing the theory of evolution and its implications from the start, there probably was an equivalent force on the other side, waiting for the opportunity to say “Hey! Look, you guys are wrong, and we have proof!” The debate is what it is today, and it’s short-sighted to claim that it was one side’s fault over the others.
But is it really untouchable? I don’t think that it’s completely out of line to say that this debate has become so polarized, that some people are so incredibly invested in one side or the other, that they may ignore any criticism from the outset. Honestly, I’ve spent enough time on the internet to know that these people are around for just about every debate you might have. It’s only because of the enormous fame of this one that these people have actually gotten real publicity. But I think that the real problem comes from a confusion of terminology that plagues evolution already. People who don’t understand the terms that scientists use will snicker at the “theory of evolution”, when it’s actually quite a solid idea. The terminology that gets lost here, though, is what people mean when they say “Evolution”. Richard Dawkins is often misinterpreted when he says that there is no doubt in his mind about evolution. “Oh REALLY?” his opponents say. “You must have some strong FAITH in that THEORY!” Or something like that. But it’s all rubbish. There is evolution the theory and evolution the fact, and it’s important to understand the distinction.
When Dawkins says that evolution is a fact, he’s stating something that we can be almost 100% certain of – creatures evolve. It has been seen; it’s a known effect. The overarching principles, the explanation of the effect, the reasons, that’s the theory. Suppose that someone said that gravity was a fact, and he was dead certain about that. Any qualms with that? Nope, he’s perfectly justified in saying that because we see the effect. Things fall down; masses are pulled together. We see it. It happens. Fact. Why does it happen? How does it happen? Can we quantify it? Those are questions for the theory. The Law of gravity is, essentially, wrong. Newton described things quite well, but he was ultimately wrong. So our theory changed, but the fact is still true. The one we have now seems pretty good, but who knows? It could change again, but I still will see things falling no matter what our best understanding is of the reasons.
I think that very few real thinkers would actually claim that we have an exact scientific theory with no holes or open questions, which will be solid forever, about evolution. What they get defensive about is that people are trying to force the idea out of consideration all together. “Look at this problem with evolution…” is ultimately followed by “Life doesn’t evolve”, which is the mistake. It would have seemed incredibly silly for Einstein to say “I see problems with the Law of Gravity… Gravity must not exist!” But it happens every day for evolution. Science progresses by observing and theorizing, then repeating, over and over and over. Claiming that problems with our theory discount the observation is backwards – so don’t do it.
Yes, evolution is somewhat untouchable – evolution the fact. We’ll be refining evolution the theory for a long time to come.
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Hospitals and the Supernatural
It’s been an interesting week for thinking about my usual topics. There’s been a little bit of family medical stuff going on, and it’s the first time since I really started thinking about religion that I’ve been in this kind of situation. The things that seem just normal to most people are very odd to me indeed now.
For one thing, as you may know from the FAQ, I’m from a Catholic family, and it would seem that not very many of my family members have strayed from that. I’ve reached an age now where politely refusing the communion being brought around the hospital room is no longer a silly kid trying to rebel. Now, it’s cause for self-righteous glares and smug comments. It’s interesting the things you pick up on as an adult that never seemed to be present. Do you ever think back on little exchanges from your childhood that didn’t make a lot of sense until you reconsidered them as an adult? It seems to happen to me all the time. Hospitals tend to have a lot of praying going on, and that’s really no problem to me. As long as the doctors have a sane approach, patients and families are more than welcome to soothe themselves as they please. And yet, it can never stay that way can it? I happen to be an only child, so if there are ever any tough medical choices to be made for my parents I get the final say. But it makes me wonder about what would have happened in my family if one of my aunts or uncles had been so openly not-Catholic in that situation. Especially with Catholicism, the rules are very well defined. Do this, and do not do that. If one of them disagreed, how do you resolve that? It’s an unfortunate example of the problems that come with a dogma – you don’t get to think for a given situation. The answer is already decided.
The other thing that comes to mind is a brush with the supernatural I had. Well, not really of course, but it almost could have been. One night after coming back from the hospital, I was getting ready for bed and I felt a sort of brush on my shoulder. Nothing much, but it seemed quite more than a breeze. Yet, I was alone. I go back the next day and find the shocking information that…. nothing special happened last night. Yeah, the odds were against me on that one, but what about the odds overall? How often do we dismiss sensations as nothing, simply because nothing special is happening at the time? Is it so hard to imagine that a few people might feel that brush around the same time as a loved one dying and forever sing the miracle of ghost contact? In fact, I’d be surprised not to see those events correspond at least some of the time, to some of the people out there. Yeah, nothing happened to me, so I forgot about it (until now). But if something HAD happened, think how moving it would be!
It’s also a reminder of the old question “How much do you humor them?” When someone close to you is struggling and they want you to pray with them, how much do you do? I’m pretty sure that it helps no one to be harsh and confrontational. Maybe you agree to stand there respectfully and listen. Maybe you take the next step of some sort of participation. If you grew up in the tradition, you could probably even lead the prayers if you were asked to. It’s a little different than being asked to lead a prayer before dinner. These people need serious comfort in a very hard time.
Yes, I’m all over the place. It’s just that sort of time right now. Plus, I have a cold I just can’t shake, so my brain is a little fuzzy and hard to follow. Anybody got any miracle cures?
Ray Comfort’s Introduction (Released Version)
A while ago, I mentioned how Ray Comfort was redoing his introduction for the “special” release of (On) The Origin of Species. At the time, he hadn’t put it up, but it is out now (and interestingly, so is the rest of the book, though it says only the introduction). Check it out for yourself.
So I finally got to reading it. Did he do what he said? Is it more even-handed and honest about its intentions? Let’s take a stroll through the introduction together, and I’ll just throw out my thoughts as they come up, ok?
<stream of thought>
Starting with a (brief) biography of Darwin. Ok, not much to say about that, if it’s factual. Not really relevant to the validity of the theory, but interesting to know I suppose.
Seems very interested in 1) Not getting good grades 2) marrying his cousin
P4: Second time he refers to Cambridge as “Christ’s College”
P5: And we start the discussion of Darwin’s religious views. Come on. What does that have to do with evolution? This is exactly the problem all over this debate. Religion has absolutely NOTHING to do with science. Evaluate a theory for its own merits. Portraying Darwin as a godless heathen to make him seem less credible, or to make it seem like a religious debate is wrong.
P9: The DNA code… So, did Comfort read this book before adding an introduction?
As you can see, random letters rarely produce words that make sense. But in time, mindless chance formed them into the order of meaningful words with spaces between them. Periods, commas, capitals, italics, quotes, paragraphs, margins, etc., also came into being in the correct placements. The sentences then grouped themselves to relate to each other, giving them coherence. Page numbers fell in sequence at the right places, and headers, footers, and footnotes appeared from nowhere on the pages, matching the portions of text to which they related.
This is nothing like evolution, and pretending so is either blatantly misleading, or it shows a complete lack of understanding. Here’s a better example, easy to visualize. Take 100 dice and throw them on the table. What are the odds you get all 6’s? Pretty slim. Do it again? Still pretty slim. How many times do we have to do this to get all 6’s? A huge number (think almost 100 digits). Now, play this game: take one die and roll it until you get a 6. Set that one aside. Take another and roll it until you get a six. Set it aside too. Continue to do this until you have 100 sixes. How long would that take? A while, but not really, compared to the first. It isn’t magic ink falling from the sky into perfectly formed words in one shot.
P11: DNA similarities -
To the question of whether sharing 96 percent of our genetic make-up with chimps makes us 96 percent chimp, Steven Jones, a renowned British geneticist, humorously commented, “We also share about 50% of our DNA with bananas and that doesn’t make us half bananas …”
Well of course not. Who said it did? I have two parents – am I half of each of them? I have 4 grandparents, am I 25% of each of them too? So I’m 200% of a human already, how far back do I go and still say I’m xx% of that? When you say that DNA is similar, it’s an observation. He’s trying to use that as evidence for a “common creator”, but at the same time acting like it’s ridiculous to consider. Pick one, man.
p15:
The creatures that Gingerich was looking at were simply different animals with similar hearing ability, and his conclusion was merely unscientific speculation.
Oh the irony of “unscientific speculation” in this context! Still, discussing “transitional forms” and lack of a “missing link” is interesting. Sure, on some level we will always wish for more fossils than we have. But what if we found some sort of transitional form between two species? Actually now there are 2 gaps to fill! Now we need to find two transitional forms to convince him! In all seriousness, evolution doesn’t happen linearly or on an even time scale. Changes in environment cause the need for a species to evolve, which happens in spurts and jumps. The fossil record is not going to be quite the pretty picture that Comfort seems to demand.
P 20:
Admittedly, this puts a tremendous responsibility on mutations to accidentally create complex new body parts, and on natural selection to recognize the benefit these new parts will eventually convey and make sure the creatures with those new parts survive.
Is Comfort admitting this? That doesn’t count as “admitting”, since you’re arguing against it. And really, he’s talking about irreducible complexity. I’ve said my piece on ID before.
P 23:
Therefore, mutations are not logical adaptations that make a creature better suited for its environment. They are completely random—the result of mindless, undirected chance.
Yes! Precisely! But I don’t think that means what you think it means. They are mindless and undirected, but that doesn’t mean that some of them don’t happen to be beneficial. The unhelpful ones don’t have any reason to propagate, and the helpful ones do. Mindless, undirected, but when viewed over a large population and large timescale – evolutionary.
P 26: Evolution’s difficult questions.
I’m a little tired of this. Does anyone actually claim that evolution is perfect and ties up everything in a perfect package? I doubt it. That’s not how science works. The real error is to say “Evolution isn’t perfect, ergo – GOD”. Science works on improving theories and finding better and better explanations (a little evolutionary, no?). So, yes we should ask the tough questions, but not having an answer for them (yet) isn’t checkmate – it’s how we make the theory better.
P 27: Which came first blood or heart?
Oh Good! This one again. Here’s the answer. Also, quit using irreducible complexity as a scientific rebuttal. There’s no prediction of the theory, it just says “is this one irreducibly complex? No. Ok what about this one? No. Ok what about…” How long do we have to play that game to satisfy you?
P 30:
However, if an organ were no longer needed, it could at best be considered devolution. This is consistent with the Law of Entropy—that all things deteriorate over time. What evolution requires, however, is not the loss but the addition of information, where an organism increases in complexity. “Vestigial organs” therefore do not serve as evidence for evolution.
Oops, nope. Let’s remember to keep our vocabulary correct. Evolution is the name of the theory and refers only to change. There is no ultimate goal of evolution, and no such thing as devolution. A species could perfectly well evolve to adapt to a certain change, and evolve back if a new change spurred it. There is no “perfect species” that we’re all progressing toward, and evolution doesn’t say that. It merely makes us fit together. If you can’t live in your “niche” then you either evolve or die.
Plus – Entropy? Really? That’s not exactly what entropy is about. By your logic, we shouldn’t be able to build a car, because that’s not deteriorating those specific atoms, which violates thermodynamics.
P 31: Darwin’s unsavory views, Atheism, Christianity
I knew it… <sigh>. Here’s a fun list of topics we get to enjoy: social darwinism, Darwin’s racism, atheists agree he was a racist, disdain for women, Hitler (!), lots of Hitler, Darwinism = Atheism = do-whatever-you-want-no-morals-ism, nothing created everything, theist scientists from history, lots and lots of “let me save you from Hell”, analyzing other religions as answers to Christianity’s questions?, go love Jesus, go love Jesus, come on just be a Christian!
An atheist wrote and said, “What do Darwin’s personal views on race have to do with our modern understanding of evolution? Nothing. Absolutely nothing, Ray. Even a fool knows this.” Indeed, Darwin’s racism has nothing to do with the credibility of the theory of evolution. It should stand or fall on its own merits. However, the theory itself teaches that all men are not created equal. Darwinian evolution doesn’t say that human beings are made in the image of God and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. It rather states that they are mere animals, some closer to apes than others, and it therefore opens wide the door to racism.
He was so close to an intelligent thought I got chills, but then another flatline. No, the theory says nothing about rights, a God or anything like that (including some people being closer to apes than others, which is a blatant lie). There are many ways we can derive morals and rights, which have nothing to do with being told how to live by a God. It doesn’t open the door to racism, but what if it did? I don’t advocate racism in any way, but the social implications of a theory don’t make it wrong. What if I had some crazy way to connect gravity with killing babies. Does that mean that you’re going to stop believing in gravity because you think killing babies is wrong? Evolution stands or falls by itself, and clouding the issue with this is incredibly misleading, dishonest, and sad.
</stream of thought>
Well, I have to say that whether or not he actually changed the introduction to be more fair like he said he would, it’s exactly what I expected. There are blatant lies, misleading facts and irrelevant crap all over the place. It’s a shame that he did it, but What do we do about it? Exactly what I’m doing. Share your thoughts. Expose the crap that doesn’t belong in this discussion. As he notes just before the actual text:
Someone once graciously said, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” However, it seems that some contemporary atheists don’t share such honorable convictions. When they learned about this publication they threatened lawsuits, book burnings, and even censorship in vowing to tear the Introduction out of the book.
And for once, he’s entirely right. This is exactly the wrong reaction. If ideas are good, they will be judged as good. It’s not up to us to keep ideas from anyone, only to combat the bad ones with even more good. Instead of burning them or tearing out the pages, why not get out a red pen and mark the crap out of it, go back to the street and hand it out to someone new?
Something We Can All Agree On
(The pedant in me really wants to re-title this “Something on which we can all agree”, but I’m fighting the urge…)
I usually stop by XKCD on update days (MWF) just because it’s my kind of humor, a little nerdy, sometimes topical, sometimes reminiscent. But today’s was less funny, and more meaningful.
And this calls to mind an issue that I think the secular and non-secular worlds can agree on. You have no reason not to be an organ donor. To me, death is death. The end is the end, and I will be none the wiser when it happens. This is a perfect reason to allow my body to be used for organ donation, or be given to science if organ donation isn’t feasible. In any case, I’ll be done with this body, so someone else should benefit as much as we know how.
For the religious person, I’d wager that most could agree on this as well once they get down to thinking about it, for reasons put succinctly in this comic (though maybe the blood transfusion thing would make Jehovah’s witnesses give some pause). Regardless of whether or not you believe in a soul, if you think it through, your body should have no ties to that soul. If you lost any specific part of your body, but were still able to live, did you lose some of your soul? Of course not. So why stay attached to this configuration of atoms (which we know it is) after you die? Either you think you’ll be tied to it and stuck lying in the ground forever (in which case you may as well donate and see the world after you die!), or you think you’ll be free of it. Why can’t someone else live with your help?
It’s not a complex issue. People live because of organ donors, and it costs you nothing. So go do it, if you haven’t already.
Conversion out of Atheism
It seems to be a popular idea among some strong atheists that de-converting from theism is common, but the reverse is hardly ever true. Interestingly, I don’t notice the opposite from the other side of the argument. Many theists are indeed very aware that they lose people (right or wrong) to atheism. But I also have a hard time accepting that it doesn’t happen; I think it’s more a matter of outspokenness. In the atheist community, it’s almost taken as a badge of honor. “I was once a Christian, but through my own super reasoning skills I overcame the beliefs and dug out of the oppressive brainwashing…” But is there a corresponding mark of pride for leaving atheism? Actually, I think that there’s enough of a taboo about atheism in Christian circles that it may even be held back. Whereas a Christian-turned-atheist would be proud of (to them) throwing off the shackles that their parents put on them from birth, the reverse doesn’t seem as gleaming. Sure, we hear about the prodigal son, and how great it was that he came back… But all he got was a nice party. Remaining steadfast in your beliefs is portrayed in a much fairer light.
In hearing about leaving atheism for Christianity (or whatever other religion) you also have to watch out for the inevitable “No true Scotsman” retorts from atheists who don’t think that out. Phrases come out like, “Well, he may say that he was an atheist, but he must not have truly understood what that means.” First, let’s leave the logical fallacies to others. What do you mean by “atheist”? Is that exactly the same thing I mean? What about that atheist that lives down the street? There isn’t a dogma to point to that says, “An atheist is A, B and C.” Sure, we could try to pick out the common points, or define it with a dictionary, but it reminds me of Plato’s forms. What is the form of a human? Well, it may not have arms, because we still call people without arms human. Or legs, or hair, or ears, or the left half of your brain, or the right half…. Why pigeon-hole atheists in order to say that the conversion didn’t mean anything? Frankly it shouldn’t really matter anyway. Being a convert (or de-convert) only would help convince someone else in the sense that you would have some idea of what they may believe. It’s not convincing in and of itself.
Maybe I’m biased too, because I think I’m right (don’t we all) so it might seem silly to go away from atheism to me. But really, that’s no sillier to me than converting from one religion to another. Maybe if you stay in the Judeo-Christian family you can claim some semblance to consistency. Maybe. But it still seems like you’d be going from one set of unsubstantiated beliefs to another (contradictory, I might add) set. Really, it seems almost laughable that you can recognize one religion as false without looking as scrutinizingly at the next one. Once you’ve realized that it’s up to you to accept or reject a belief system, how do you validate the next one? In the simplest terms, being an atheist could mean just that you accept that no belief system holds any more weight than any other.
Nerd cookies!
This is probably my first completely off topic post, but I couldn’t resist. Everyone check out my nerd cookies! They took a long time to piece together, and I doubt I’ll do this again anytime soon. Still, it’s fun once in a while…
In God We Rust
How poetic! I couldn’t have said it better. The “In — We Trust” campaign was one-upped by the US mint. Check out a description here. The Kansas quarter was minted with an imperfection, reading “In God We rust”.
Obviously, it’s a mistake, but of all the imperfections that we might see, I happen to like this one the best. It’s an apt analogy to consider closed-minded religious beliefs as the vehicle of our “rust”, our mental and social stagnation. The linked site says that these imperfections usually only fetch a few dollars at most. But I’m predicting that there are plenty of atheists out there who have had their qualms with the motto on our money that we’ll see these actually become somewhat of a hot commodity. I’m actually wondering how I might get my hands on one…
Sneaky Scientologists!
You may think that nobody around you could possibly be taken in by the cult of Scientology, but let me tell you – they sneak into your life one way or another. Someone I know, who will remain anonymous for the sake of not embarrassing them, has recently surprised me by having posters and books on Dianetics and other Scientology goofiness. He claims that he has no interest in the ‘religion’ side of it, but that he likes the way that they teach you to understand and interact with people. I don’t claim to know much about that, other than to know that the whole thing is a ridiculous farce that only is taken seriously because it’s so harmful to people that get sucked in too deep. But now I see how they claw their way into your brain.
In the last couple of days, this person has begun talking about a new weight-loss regimen he’s beginning, with inspiration from… wait for it… Scientology! Let me describe this simple procedure for you: you take a couple of pills (no, I have no idea what’s in them, could be dangerous, could be a placebo, who knows), you go jog for 30 minutes, then you go sit in a sauna. Sounds fine right? Millions of people take diet pills, jog and enjoy a sauna. Oh, wait, I forgot to mention how long you’re in the sauna: 4 hours. What?! When asked if any medical professional was overseeing this or had signed off on it, we find out that it’s just someone at the “church” watching over his well-being. This goes well beyond a simple appreciation of their social interaction teachings, and frankly it’s already dangerous. Just because he hasn’t signed his life over to them legally, he’s on the path. It starts small, and grows little by little. Pretty sneaky, guys! Remember kids: Friends don’t let friends be Scientologists!
Soul Ponderings
So I took a little time off of writing, and it was nice. I actually expected to come back with lots of things to talk about, but it was less crazy than I expected. I had a little vacation to visit some family, and between the very liberal and very conservative members present, I expected more of a clash. Way to go everyone for keeping it friendly.
Still, there were a couple of interesting topics brought up that got me thinking. They have to do with the idea of a soul, and how to reconcile that with various situations. Personally, I have trouble with the word “soul” because it’s so inimately tied to religious connotations. On top of that, people generally describe a soul as “non-physical”, which leads me to ask what that actually means, usually to unsatisfying answers. Anyway, the topics that really made this conversation interesting to me were these: What would be the implications of being able to transfer consciousness between people/bodies? What are the implications of a soul in evolutionary terms?
First scenario – If you believe in a soul, do you think that it might be possible (in theory) to move consciousness from one body to another. To put it another way, if we had the ability to exactly reproduce the electrical workings of your brain in another body (or even some mechanical replica), would that still be you? Is there something beyond this that makes you, you? It’s an interesting possibility. For people who think that there is a non-physical soul that is really “you”, how would this get transferred, or would it? If it did not, what happened to it? If it did, are there some rules involved in how much of your brain activity needs to be transferred before the soul makes the jump too? What about if we just copied your consciousness over, and now there are two places your soul needs to be associated with? For those that think that you couldn’t transfer a soul this way, I want to know why. What is it about this body that ties it to my soul? If I lose some part of my physical body, I assume that I retain my soul. Then what’s the tie to my physical body? And if we can reproduce my consciousness, did we implicitly reproduce my soul somehow? If we copy my consciousness into a mechanical replica, do you have the same moral obligations to it that you do to me? What a metaphysical can of worms this is.
Second scenario – Does evolution lead to rejecting the idea of a soul? Most soul-advocates would agree that animals do not have one (except sometimes the family dog, which we’d like to see again in the afterlife). Many of them also want to be science-savvy and open-minded about evolution, but I have to ask, are the two compatible? To accept evolution is to accept that we share a common ancestor with creatures that have no soul. So then, somewhere along the way some creature must have had no soul, but given birth to one that did have a soul. Is this what we’re really saying? Where did that soul come from? At which point in the evolutionary line did we become just-human-enough to deserve a soul? Did that child have the same moral responsibility to its mother that we grant to fully human parents and children, or was its mother just an animal?
I don’t have good answers for most of this stuff, but it sure is mind-bending to think about and discuss. If you have good answers for what I see as logical problems with a soul here, let me know. I’m very interested.
Hijacking Science – Everybody does it
Today I’d like to try to instill a sense of skepticism about lay-people’s interpretation of scientific or mathematical results. I don’t think it’s any big secret that the popular media outlets tend to fail miserably at accurately reporting on the meaning of scientific discoveries, and instead focus on the hype factor. And it’s also not a big secret that the opinions that float around the internet (including mine) are just that: opinions. I think researching and interpreting things for yourself is a wonderful thing – but it’s important to remember to take everything with a certain degree of skepticism.
I’m reminded of a recent exchange I had regarding the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin result in cosmological physics. In short, it states that inflationary physics models do not mathematically permit infinite-past universes. Now, this is a great example of a result that is very easily adapted to whatever conclusion you’ve got in mind. There are a couple of ways to interpret this result, like this one: “That’s EXACTLY what we’ve been saying! There had to be a definite beginning, so therefore God is real!” And then there’s another interpretation that would go something like this: “This poses a problem for inflationary physics. If it’s true that there was a definite beginning to time, what does that mean? We can’t very well ask what happened before it to cause that, because there was no ‘before’ to talk about…”. And then on the complete other side of the gamut we have this: “Inflationary physics must be wrong. All scientific theories need to be improved as we gain more information. Thus, we just don’t know enough yet, but I KNOW that the universe did not have a beginning.”
Personally, I’m somewhere between the second two. Frankly, I find both the idea of the infinite and the finite to be perplexing when we talk on a universal scale. It’s hard to imagine a universe that has absolutely no end… you can go farther and farther and never reach any boundary. But then, it’s just as hard to think of a boundary. What’s on the other side? No, wait, that doesn’t mean anything. What if I push through it? I can’t? What if I push reeeeeally hard?
But this kind of result is always going to be twisted. William Lane Craig, whose website name has some unintentional resemblance to mine, is happy to discuss his feelings on the matter. I don’t think that he does a terrible job of researching and thinking about his answer to this question, which is a compliment to him. I don’t necessarily agree with him, but that’s another matter entirely. But what we need to be careful about is people finding this answer and calling it scientifically proven that God created the universe. (In his defense, his final point is that you are not outside of mainstream science to believe in a definite beginning to the universe.) Treat it with the same skepticism as anything else. If only my audience had more overlap with his, I would be reaching the people most likely to make this mistake.
