TheLivingDinosaur's video: Holy Hallucinations 24: SOG and WLC - The Blind Craptalkers

This is the first time I've addressed ShockofGod, mainly because he's generally more concerned with trying to bash atheism with his incredibly banal and ignorant mental flatulence than with attacking evolutionary biology. In this instance though I for some reason decided to check out the source he quotes in the video below and it was then that I felt compelled to respond: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lcLcWnknQs Shock disingenuously claims he was converted to Christianity from atheism following his study of the subject of evolutionary biology under the auspices of that well know expert in the field, William Lane Craig, and in particular the festering, septic ulcer of a lecture that he calls "How evolution drove me to believe in God," and that can be found here: http://shockawenow.webs.com/apps/podcast/ Now, I've said it before but I'll say it again. I enjoy watching videos about philosophy, but that's about where it ends for me. I don't consider myself particularly knowledgeable in the area and avoid addressing these kinds of issues, so I've not had reason until now to comment of William Lane Craig. I have, however, seen countless criticisms of him in the past and am more than aware of his intellectual dishonesty and infuriatingly smug and self-satisfied demeanor. My opinion of him, however, plunged to previously unimagined depths when I heard this podcast. It is without doubt one of the most reprehensibly dishonest pieces of shit it's been my misfortune to hear. Craig claims to be discussing the current state of Science with regard to questions of origins and yet only quotes creationist propaganda. He claims that his mind remains undecided on the question of "God's involvement" in evolution and yet all he does is spout his pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo to the contrary with not even a nod in the direction of what the vast majority of biologists, paleontologists and geologists have to say on the matter. And all of this is dishonesty is delivered with a straight face to young, impressionable minds under the guise of "education." The man is a shit-bag of indescribable immensity and I personally would be hard pressed to bring myself to piss on him if her were on fire lest I waste some perfectly good urine. The lecture itself quite frankly deserves to be dissected in detail, but is so full of lies that I doubt there's enough room on my hard drive to hold the resulting HH episode. For the time being I've settled for explaining to Shock why his research methods leave a lot to be desired while telling exactly what I think of his source. As an aside, I'd like to thank everyone who help mirror the VFX video -- I very much. At almost 125K views I think I can safely say it was a success! Music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Symphony No.45 in D major (K 95) -------------------------------- References --------------- Speciation: Crossley, S. A. (1974). Evolution 28: 631-647. de Wet, J. M. J. (1971). Taxon 20: 29-35. Dobzhansky, T. and Pavlovsky, O. (1971). Nature. 230: 289-292. Feder, J. L. et al. (1988). Nature 336: 61-64. Gottleib, L. D. (1973). Am. J. Bot. 60: 545-553. Macnair, M. R. and Christie, P. (1983). Heredity 50: 295-302. McPheron, B. A. et al. (1988). Nature 336: 64-66. Pasterniani, E. (1969). Evolution 23: 534-547. Shikano, S., et al. (1990). Ecology 20: 75-84. Smith, D. C. (1988). Nature 336: 66-67. Waring, G. L. et al. (1990). Evolution 44: 1648-1655. Weinberg, J. R. et al. (1992). Evolution 46: 1214-1220. Transitional Fossils: Ahlberg, P.E. and Johanson, Z. (1998). Nature 395: 792--794. Ahlberg, P.E., et al. (2008). Nature 453: 1199--1204. Anderson J. S., et al. (2008) Nature 453:515-518. Berman, D.S., et al. (1992). J. Paleontol. 66: 481--499. Brazeau, M.D. and Ahlberg, P.E. (2006). Nature 439: 318-321. Clack, J. A. (2002). Nature 418: 72--76. Ji, Q., et al. (2002). Nature 416: 816--822. McFadden, B.J. (1988). Evol. Biol. 22: 131-58. Paton, R.L., et al. (1999). Nature 398, 508-513. Shu, D.G., et al. (2003). Nature 421: 526--529. Thewissen, J.G.M., et al. (1994). Science 263: 210-212. Zhu M., el al. (2009): Nature 458: 469-474. Miscellaneous: Glassburn, T. (1995). Palaeontology, 38, 133-151. Joseph, L.. et al. (2008). Proc R Soc B 275: 2431-40. Kidwell, S.M. and Holland, S.M. (2002). Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 33: 561--88. Kidwell, S.M. and Sepkoski, J.J. (1999). Paleontological Society, Spec. Publ. vol. 9, ed. J. Scotchmoor and D. A. Springer, p.61-76