DawkinsThinkTank

Staunch atheist. Literally nothing best explains the source of our existence. Plus, I hate God for not existing. #InContrariumDawkins(a motto for life)

[DawkinsThinkTank @ThinkDawkins]

Today, on world Atheist Day, here at DawkinsThinkTank we've summarised the completely rational approach of explaining:

Matter from nothing,
Order from chaos,
Mathematical laws from nowhere,
Life from dead things,
Complexity from accidents,
Mind from brain,
Love from chemical reactions,
Meaning from the meaningless.

We celebrate the day because in a billion years nobody will be here to remember how important it is.

Join us in singing 'The Atheistic Creed'.

@RichardDawkins @theAliceRoberts @danieldennett @ProfBrianCox @jason_lisle @DrJamesTour @leecronin @sygarte @RJABuggs @jordanbpeterson @LKrauss1 @StephenCMeyer @jwarnerwallace @BillNye @DennisPrager @ericmetaxas @rickygervais @stephenfry @neiltyson @JusBrierley @PageauJonathan

[DawkinsThinkTank @ThinkDawkins]

@RichardDawkins Are you including the faked ones?

Cherry-picking shares a common ancestry it seems.

Haeckel doctored his embryo drawings to fit his theories; reused templates for different animals; altered anatomy to force visual matches, and skipped early stages where species look unique.

[DawkinsThinkTank @ThinkDawkins]

@RichardDawkins Beware the sound of one hand clapping:

"..(the) central dogma (gene centrism), was made into popularisation by Richard Dawkins in his extraordinary book 'The Selfish Gene'. It's a fabulous story; it's just completely different to what actually happens in biology." Dennis Noble

[DawkinsThinkTank @ThinkDawkins]

@RichardDawkins ....mutations tracks to environmental contaminants/photons. Sexual pressure is ultimately about who controls food. Chlorophyll is the engine in the basement of food supply on land and sea. Hence, the sun, wind and rain are the gods of evolution.

[DawkinsThinkTank @ThinkDawkins]

@RichardDawkins Ah, the sound of 1 hand clapping. IF the parallel holds, u need to consider the implications in the opposite direction. In short, we're looking for the equivalent agency that the weather provides in crafting the human brain from stardust #biologicalselectiontracksbacktotheweather

[DawkinsThinkTank @ThinkDawkins]

@RichardDawkins I disagree. Because then you wouldn't be able to easily bury retractions(1) such as your comment that "95% of the genome may as well not be there, for all the good that it does". And we can't have open admissions like that, can we!?

Endnotes
(1) Retraction not yet published.

[DawkinsThinkTank @ThinkDawkins]

Today, on world Atheist Day, here at DawkinsThinkTank we've summarised the completely rational approach of explaining:

Matter from nothing,
Order from chaos,
Mathematical laws from nowhere,
Life from dead things,
Complexity from accidents,
Mind from brain,
Love from chemical reactions,
Meaning from the meaningless.

We celebrate the day because in a billion years nobody will be here to remember how important it is.

Join us in singing 'The Atheistic Creed'.

@RichardDawkins @theAliceRoberts @danieldennett @ProfBrianCox @jason_lisle @DrJamesTour @leecronin @sygarte @RJABuggs @jordanbpeterson @LKrauss1 @StephenCMeyer @jwarnerwallace @BillNye @DennisPrager @ericmetaxas @rickygervais @stephenfry @neiltyson @JusBrierley @PageauJonathan

[DawkinsThinkTank @ThinkDawkins]

@newscientist One hopes the article tells you which specific shuffling to favour your own position, because otherwise the headline reads "Moving chess pieces in a game of chess results in a win or a draw". Well, yeah.

[DawkinsThinkTank @ThinkDawkins]

@Maximumatheist Yes, just ignore the silly claim that everything came from nothing, and the personification of the magic wand-wofting goddess 'Evolution' (peace be upon her).

[DawkinsThinkTank @ThinkDawkins]

....but remember folks, we really wanted him to say what we believe now, which is "we descended from apes, therefore love one another", which makes much more sense.

[DawkinsThinkTank @ThinkDawkins]

...what a statement. And it indeed led to arguably the greatest 'descent of man'; namely, the horrors of the 20th century.

[DawkinsThinkTank @ThinkDawkins]

@ProfBrianCox Hmmm, are you asking us to ignore the total rubbish you spout about things that we have no evidence for, from the total rubbish you spout about things that we have no evidence for (dark energy)? Roger. Over.

[DawkinsThinkTank @ThinkDawkins]

@Phylio23 @Rabid_jackalowp @Agent_IsaacX @Mrmjbarber @jk_rowling Arguing that humans are "nothing but.." is extremely relevant in this debate. CS Lewis saw it coming and wrote The Abolition of Man.

[DawkinsThinkTank @ThinkDawkins]

@Agent_IsaacX @Rabid_jackalowp @Phylio23 @Mrmjbarber @jk_rowling No. It switched on an existing gene constitutively. Those bacteria have now been shown to be extremely sickly. The lack of innovation over so many generations in a relatively simple organism speaks volumes.

[DawkinsThinkTank @ThinkDawkins]

@Agent_IsaacX @Phoebobs @JohnOSh47431567 @jk_rowling There's a bad habit of people using the word 'emergent' in recent years. It somehow explains the gaping holes in understanding. The rest of us who can see the game being played just hear it as "we have no idea".

[DawkinsThinkTank @ThinkDawkins]

@Rabid_jackalowp @Phylio23 @Mrmjbarber @Agent_IsaacX @jk_rowling Yes, natural selection is a great conservator. It takes out individuals with mutations. All the examples of 'beneficial' mutations are the breaking of existing genes. Specialization leads to genetic isolation. Genome building needs something else.

[DawkinsThinkTank @ThinkDawkins]

@Agent_IsaacX @Phoebobs @JohnOSh47431567 @jk_rowling There's no way that anything in evolutionary theory approaches a 'simple law' akin to physics. That's why it's in such a mess.

[DawkinsThinkTank @ThinkDawkins]

@Agent_IsaacX @Shawls259 @JohnOSh47431567 @jk_rowling As I've said before:

"Slow, instant, or strictly none - Evolution isn’t belied,

Turn theory into axiom, so it can never be falsified".

[DawkinsThinkTank @ThinkDawkins]

@Agent_IsaacX @Shawls259 @JohnOSh47431567 @jk_rowling So what. If HGT was linked to orphan genes, they wouldn't be 'orphan' would they. The point is, orphan genes are unique with no evidence of gradual construction akin to homologous genes (and for those it's inferred, not observed).

[DawkinsThinkTank @ThinkDawkins]

@Agent_IsaacX @Shawls259 @JohnOSh47431567 @jk_rowling Inferred Horizontal gene transfer is an ad hoc explanation reacting to the non-predicted finding that Orphan genes are in all species, and tend to have functions that define species-specific functions.

[DawkinsThinkTank @ThinkDawkins]

@Agent_IsaacX @Shawls259 @JohnOSh47431567 @jk_rowling No, the evidence converges on a bush not a tree.