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Does anybody have a link to the video of Dawkins on the Late Late show?

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  • 05-10-2008 10:41pm
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 469 ✭✭


    I remmeber seeing it a year or so ago, would love to see it again. If anyone knows of any way I can watch these again please let us know!


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  • Registered Users Posts: 5,406 ✭✭✭Pompey Magnus


    The best I could find is this short clip. Its from the Irish evangelical website so I assume they think the guy in the audience somehow got one over Dawkins.


  • Posts: 5,121 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Apologies - never mind.


  • Registered Users Posts: 190 ✭✭limerick_woody


    when was this shown?


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,888 ✭✭✭AtomicHorror


    Charco wrote: »
    The best I could find is this short clip. Its from the Irish evangelical website so I assume they think the guy in the audience somehow got one over Dawkins.

    The guy in the audience had a really hard time grasping what "survival instinct" is.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,229 ✭✭✭Dan133269


    this was on youtube i remember watching it about 6 months ago, doesn't seem to be on there now. Can't see why it would be taken off :(
    I'd say if you go onto the forums on richarddawkins.net and request it it'll be there somewhere :)


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 246 ✭✭Shinji Ikari


    Its on Dawkins net.You'll have do a search for it though.They also have Dawkins and Quinn.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 469 ✭✭0utpost31


    Its not on Dawkins net....


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,646 ✭✭✭cooker3




  • Registered Users Posts: 2,793 ✭✭✭oeb


    That was my first time seeing that and I thought it was very interesting.

    I must say how I love the way the Gerard Casey indicates that the fact that we are here means there must be a creator. Does the creator have a creator? If not, by that logic he would not be there either. Do we just have an endless chain of creators going back for all eternity?


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,534 ✭✭✭Soul Winner


    oeb wrote: »
    Does the creator have a creator? If not, by that logic he would not be there either. Do we just have an endless chain of creators going back for all eternity?

    If we define the "Creator" as the first "causer" then no, the creator does not need a first causer. Why? According to the “Kalam Cosmological argument”, only that which "begins" to exist has a cause. And we now know from scientific observations that time "began" to exists. So if the Kalam Cosmological argument is sound, then that means that time has a cause. So if time has a cause, then that cause is not part of the time that it caused which means it is not in time and is thus eternal in nature and therefore does not have a beginning therefore does not have a cause.

    If there is no such thing as this Eternal Being then it still stands that He has no cause, because He doesn't exists. So whether the Creator exists or not He has no cause because if He doesn't exist then He doesn't exist hence no need for cause, and if He does exist then as the creator He is not part of the creation as time is and thus not part of time and thus is eternal and therefore has no beginning and therefore does not begin to exist and therefore has no cause.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 3,809 ✭✭✭CerebralCortex


    oeb wrote: »
    That was my first time seeing that and I thought it was very interesting.

    I must say how I love the way the Gerard Casey indicates that the fact that we are here means there must be a creator. Does the creator have a creator? If not, by that logic he would not be there either. Do we just have an endless chain of creators going back for all eternity?

    He didn't seem very convincing as counter to Richard Dawkins he was quite offensive and I don't want to sound like I'm pro Dawkins but as usual it was an imbalanced debate on the late late whats new.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 469 ✭✭0utpost31


    If we define the "Creator" as the first "causer" then no, the creator does not need a first causer. Why? According to the “Kalam Cosmological argument”, only that which "begins" to exist has a cause. And we now know from scientific observations that time "began" to exists. So if the Kalam Cosmological argument is sound, then that means that time has a cause. So if time has a cause, then that cause is not part of the time that it caused which means it is not in time and is thus eternal in nature and therefore does not have a beginning therefore does not have a cause.

    If there is no such thing as this Eternal Being then it still stands that He has no cause, because He doesn't exists. So whether the Creator exists or not He has no cause because if He doesn't exist then He doesn't exist hence no need for cause, and if He does exist then as the creator He is not part of the creation as time is and thus not part of time and thus is eternal and therefore has no beginning and therefore does not begin to exist and therefore has no cause.

    It's just an argument. Pertinent to Islam. Not fact. Not even close. :cool:


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,793 ✭✭✭oeb


    .. which means it is not in time and is thus eternal in nature and therefore does not have a beginning therefore does not have a cause.

    I presume you have evidence or precedent to suggest that something can even be eternal? Or that you can point out something else which has a cause?

    That's the problem with the 'God of the gaps' argument. It uses god as a cop out for anything that can not be explained (yet). Logic like that gets very dangerous, very quickly.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,534 ✭✭✭Soul Winner


    oeb wrote: »
    I presume you have evidence or precedent to suggest that something can even be eternal?

    Up until relatively recently science stated that the universe itself was eternal. Now we know from science - no less - that it is not. The universe is made up of all matter, energy, space and time. If it had a beginning then it must have had a cause. If it had a cause then this cause does not exist in what we call "real time" i.e. our time which itself came into existence from nothing. Which means that this cause is eternal in nature. Now if the universe has no cause then that means that the universe - all matter, energy, space and time - came from nothing and by nothing. All I was pointing out is that that's harder to believe than believing that a timeless entity caused it. If you come home and see a cup of steaming hot tea on the table you would concede straight off that someone most likely still in the house made that cup of tea. It did not get there by itself. Likewise the universe did not get here by itself. If the universe created itself or brought itself into being from nothing then the universe would have to exist in order to do that. I already believe that God created the universe long before I knew from science that it had a beginning. When I found that out I just said, "Well that makes sense".


    oeb wrote: »
    Or that you can point out something else which has a cause?

    Cups of tea have causes. That good enough?
    oeb wrote: »
    That's the problem with the 'God of the gaps' argument. It uses god as a cop out for anything that can not be explained (yet). Logic like that gets very dangerous, very quickly.

    Who said anything about God of the gaps? Where are the gaps? If - as I believe - God created the universe then everything in it came from Him. No gaps. Just because we can't explain things that we study to have come from the Creator does not prove that they didn't. The only gap is in our understanding not what is to be understood. The scripture itself declares that the greatness of God is unsearchable. We may never know how great and marvelous are His works.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,793 ✭✭✭oeb


    Cups of tea have causes. That good enough?

    Err, that was a typo. That was supposed to say 'something else that does not have a cause'


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,534 ✭✭✭Soul Winner


    oeb wrote: »
    Err, that was a typo. That was supposed to say 'something else that does not have a cause'

    OH! Ok. Eh.. no then I don't. I don't know anything else that exists now that didn't begin to exist at some point and that hasn't got a cause. Some think that subatomic particles that seem to pop in existence from nothing, but this has never been observed nor can it. It might appear to us that they appear from nothing but do they really appear from nothing? Apparently their mass and location or something cannot both be measured at the same time, as soon as you measure one then the other one changes or something like that. In short no I don't know of anything else that exists now in our universe that is causeless. Do you?


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,793 ✭✭✭oeb


    OH! Ok. Eh.. no then I don't. I don't know anything else that exists now that didn't begin to exist at some point and that hasn't got a cause. Some think that subatomic particles that seem to pop in existence from nothing, but this has never been observed nor can it. It might appear to us that they appear from nothing but do they really appear from nothing? Apparently their mass and location or something cannot both be measured at the same time, as soon as you measure one then the other one changes or something like that. In short no I don't know of anything else that exists now in our universe that is causeless. Do you?

    No, I do not.

    So what precident to you have to assume that a devine being is cause-less? As far as we are aware, everything has a cause.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,809 ✭✭✭CerebralCortex


    Oh this old chestnut again where we map SW beliefs on the nature of the universe on top of everyones limited knowledge of the subject including his own.
    I'm feeling sleepy.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,418 ✭✭✭JimiTime


    Just to clarify, is that a scientific stance? The comment that 'Nothing that we know has no cause'. Is cause and effect the scientific standard?


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,793 ✭✭✭oeb


    JimiTime wrote: »
    Just to clarify, is that a scientific stance? The comment that 'Nothing that we know has no cause'. Is cause and effect the scientific standard?

    I don't know, I'm not a scientist. I just can't think of anything =)


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  • Registered Users Posts: 2,534 ✭✭✭Soul Winner


    oeb wrote: »
    No, I do not.

    So what precident to you have to assume that a devine being is cause-less? As far as we are aware, everything has a cause.

    Anything outside of time must be 'timeless' and therefore has no beginning point and therefore does not have a time when it was caused and is therefore 'causeless'. If the God of the Bible exists then this is what is claimed of Him. "In the beginning God created..." That one verse tells us God existed before the beginning of what we call "time". If everything came from nothing, and this God exists, then it was God that created everything from nothing. Now the most popular, accepted and most attested to theory as to the origin of the universe is the Big Bang model. This model postulates a nothingness state prior to the beginning of the universe. So if you are an atheist and a proponent of the big bang theory then you must believe that it created itself from nothing. Now if nothing existed prior to the beginning of the universe then how could it have created itself? It would need to have existed in the first place in order to have done that.

    Maybe our universe is one of many multiple universes that ours originally sprang from? There is no evidence whatsoever that that is the case. So if the big bang model is the best theory we have at present scientifically and the Bible declares that God created it outside time, then isn't there a meeting point here between science and theology? Surely one must concede that the centuries old Biblical claims in this regard about God have some sort credence at this stage? I think it is amazing that claims as old as these can have any baring whatsoever on current scientific advances in cosmology.

    Like I said before I already had an intuitive belief as a child that the universe must have been created or ordered somehow. Never did it enter into my head that it was a random chance happening from nothing. In a state of not knowing either way I find that option is harder to believe than the option that it was purposely ordered. The chances that a life permitting universe like ours could have sprang into existence from nothing by chance is as Dr. Don Page puts it, in the order of 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 124 that figure only has scale when you put it along side the amount of seconds in the universe which is by comparison only 10 to the power 18, and the number of subatomic particles in the entire known universe which is supposedly somewhere in the region of only 10 to the power 80 that alone looks like this: 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000


    EDIT: This was my 666th post :eek:


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,793 ✭✭✭oeb


    Anything outside of time must be 'timeless' and therefore has no beginning point and therefore does not have a time when it was caused and is therefore 'causeless'. If the God of the Bible exists then this is what is claimed of Him. "In the beginning God created..." That one verse tells us God existed before the beginning of what we call "time". If everything came from nothing, and this God exists, then it was God that created everything from nothing. Now the most popular, accepted and most attested to theory as to the origin of the universe is the Big Bang model. This model postulates a nothingness state prior to the beginning of the universe. So if you are an atheist and a proponent of the big bang theory then you must believe that it created itself from nothing. Now if nothing existed prior to the beginning of the universe then how could it have created itself? It would need to have existed in the first place in order to have done that.

    Firstly, you are making the assumption that the bible is a verified historical document. It is not. That's like assuming that there were hydras around on the basis that it is discussed in Homers Odyssey.

    What ever gave you the idea that the big bang theory states that there was nothing before it happened? The big bang states that the universe has expanded from a primordial hot and dense condition. There are many different theories of how the universe actually started, but they are all speculative. Now as I have said, I am not a scientist (specifically I am not a theoretical physicist, but this is my understanding of it. I could very well be wrong.)

    Maybe our universe is one of many multiple universes that ours originally sprang from? There is no evidence whatsoever that that is the case. So if the big bang model is the best theory we have at present scientifically and the Bible declares that God created it outside time, then isn't there a meeting point here between science and theology? Surely one must concede that the centuries old Biblical claims in this regard about God have some sort credence at this stage? I think it is amazing that claims as old as these can have any baring whatsoever on current scientific advances in cosmology.

    Once again, when people are talking about theology and it's relation to science they confuse a theory and wild speculation. There is no evidence to support that claim. It is once again, employing the god of the gaps method. That is not scientific and it leads to complacency and retards progress. If everything was passed off as 'God did it' what is the point in examining anything if we know already? If people left that explanation satisfy them, would we still think the earth was 6,000 years old? And for that matter, why your god? Why is your story correct and the story of let's say the Ainu not? Or the dreamtime stories of the native Australians? Theology is the study of religious tradition, I don't see how it applies to science at all.
    Like I said before I already had an intuitive belief as a child that the universe must have been created or ordered somehow. Never did it enter into my head that it was a random chance happening from nothing. In a state of not knowing either way I find that option is harder to believe than the option that it was purposely ordered. The chances that a life permitting universe like ours could have sprang into existence from nothing by chance is as Dr. Don Page puts it, in the order of 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 124 that figure only has scale when you put it along side the amount of seconds in the universe which is by comparison only 10 to the power 18, and the number of subatomic particles in the entire known universe which is supposedly somewhere in the region of only 10 to the power 80 that alone looks like this: 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

    Stating that obviously that is what happened (which I don't btw, because I just don't know), because we are here, has EXACTLY the same weight as suggesting a creator god did it. Either way, it is simple speculation.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    Some think that subatomic particles that seem to pop in existence from nothing, but this has never been observed nor can it.

    Er, excuse me it can and has been observed.

    You are right that it comes down to the definition of "nothing", but for all known understanding these particles come from nothing.

    But it ultimately comes back to the realization that our intuitive view of the universe, including concepts like "nothing" and "cause" are ultimately not particularly relevant to the way the universe actually works.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    JimiTime wrote: »
    Just to clarify, is that a scientific stance? The comment that 'Nothing that we know has no cause'. Is cause and effect the scientific standard?

    No, it has been demonstrated that our view of cause and effect (causality) does not apply to a number of things in our own universe, there is little reason to speculate that it has to apply to the "creation" of the universe itself, and in fact because time is most likely a product of the big bang it is doubtful that causality even applies.

    That is not to say there wasn't some cause for the Big Bang, simply that the assert there had to have been one is misguided.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,417 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    I don't know anything else that exists now that didn't begin to exist at some point and that hasn't got a cause. Some think that subatomic particles that seem to pop in existence from nothing, but this has never been observed nor can it.
    As wicknight says, this can be observed and has been observed. All the time. The universe does not operate the same at all scales -- the very small is different from the very big, the very fast is different from the very slow, the very cold is different from the very hot and all are very different from our everyday experience.

    For more details on things popping in and out of existence, check out the wiki articles on Vacuum energy, the Casimir Effect and Quantum foam.
    I already had an intuitive belief as a child that the universe must have been created or ordered somehow. Never did it enter into my head that it was a random chance happening from nothing.
    As we have said times without number, EVOLUTION IS NOT RANDOM and a child's understanding is not the same as an adults. Heck, even the NT got this bit right:
    When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

    .


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,534 ✭✭✭Soul Winner


    robindch wrote: »
    As wicknight says, this can be observed and has been observed. All the time. The universe does not operate the same at all scales -- the very small is different from the very big, the very fast is different from the very slow, the very cold is different from the very hot and all are very different from our everyday experience.

    For more details on things popping in and out of existence, check out the wiki articles on Vacuum energy, the Casimir Effect and Quantum foam.

    I'm actually reading 2 books at the moment. The Cosmological Anthropic Principle and The Physics of Christianity by Tipler and Barrow and Tipler respectively. Heavy S**t.
    As we have said times without number, EVOLUTION IS NOT RANDOM and a child's understanding is not the same as an adults. Heck, even the NT got this bit right:

    .

    I wasn't referring to EVOLUTION when I said random in my last post. The randomness I was alluding to is that of the coming about of the universe by a chance happening. If there is no order in or plan for the universe by any creator of it then the randomness is obvious isn't it?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    I wasn't referring to EVOLUTION when I said random in my last post. The randomness I was alluding to is that of the coming about of the universe by a chance happening. If there is no order in or plan for the universe by any creator of it then the randomness is obvious isn't it?

    depends on what you mean by random?

    do you mean anything that is not the product of an choice by an intelligent entity?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    The Physics of Christianity by Tipler and Barrow and Tipler respectively. Heavy S**t.

    It gets some, er, "interesting" reviews. For example from New Scientist -

    Allow me to give several cases in point: Tipler claims that the standard model is complete and exact. It isn't. He claims that we have a clear and consistent theory of quantum gravity. We don't. He claims that the universe must recollapse. It isn't. (The current evidence indicates that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate.) He argues that we understand the nature of dark energy. We don't. He argues that we know the origin of the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe. We don't. I could go on, but the point is made.

    When stretching the limits of knowledge beyond the pale doesn't suffice, Tipler resorts to some interesting a posteriori uses of probability. For example, he argues that the resurrection of Jesus was accomplished as the atoms in his body spontaneously decayed into neutrinos and antineutrinos, which then later reconverted into atoms again to reconstitute him. He invokes here the fact that within the standard model of particle physics the decay of protons and neutrons is possible, although he recognizes that the mean lifetime for such decay is some 50-100 orders of magnitude longer than the age of the universe. Thus, the probability of such an occurrence is essentially zero. However, using a strange "Christian" version of the anthropic principle -- a subject he co-authored a book about with John Barrow -- he then claims that without Jesus's resurrection, our universe could not exist, and therefore when one convolves this requirement with the near zero (but not exactly zero) a priori probability, the net result is a near certainty.


    Something to keep in mind as you are reading it ...


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,534 ✭✭✭Soul Winner


    Wicknight wrote: »
    It gets some, er, "interesting" reviews. For example from New Scientist -

    Allow me to give several cases in point: Tipler claims that the standard model is complete and exact. It isn't. He claims that we have a clear and consistent theory of quantum gravity. We don't. He claims that the universe must recollapse. It isn't. (The current evidence indicates that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate.) He argues that we understand the nature of dark energy. We don't. He argues that we know the origin of the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe. We don't. I could go on, but the point is made.

    When stretching the limits of knowledge beyond the pale doesn't suffice, Tipler resorts to some interesting a posteriori uses of probability. For example, he argues that the resurrection of Jesus was accomplished as the atoms in his body spontaneously decayed into neutrinos and antineutrinos, which then later reconverted into atoms again to reconstitute him. He invokes here the fact that within the standard model of particle physics the decay of protons and neutrons is possible, although he recognizes that the mean lifetime for such decay is some 50-100 orders of magnitude longer than the age of the universe. Thus, the probability of such an occurrence is essentially zero. However, using a strange "Christian" version of the anthropic principle -- a subject he co-authored a book about with John Barrow -- he then claims that without Jesus's resurrection, our universe could not exist, and therefore when one convolves this requirement with the near zero (but not exactly zero) a priori probability, the net result is a near certainty.

    Something to keep in mind as you are reading it ...

    Hey!!! You're spoiling it for me. I'm half way through. Leave me alone to read it myself, I'll make my own mind up thank you very much :mad:

    In any case, isn't the New Scientist the same subscription Rob un-subscribed from and to which you said Scientic America was much better?

    Tipler is a highly respected physicists, you should read it yourself first instead of talking someone else’s opinion for granted on it.

    So far I've found it a fascinating read. I have a few problems with it myself but I won't give the game away. I will say this, he is very thorough in his arguments.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 17,371 ✭✭✭✭Zillah


    When considering the nature of the universe and the technicalities of modern scientific understanding, "making up your own mind" simply isn't good enough.


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