Okay, I knew the boss is religious. I knew he went to Baylor University (where the graffiti in the toilet stalls is bible verse). I knew he belongs to The Promise Keepers. But I’d always thought that he had some sense of logic.
He took the department out to lunch in batches of two or three. One of my co-workers who lunched with him said that he said that “evolution didn’t happen, because it would be like putting a bunch of metal into a forest and having it become a watch.”
Aiyiyi.
Regardless of religious preference, that’s just the stupidist thing I have ever heard…
Also, you can’t play cards at Baylor, not even solitaire.
My sister goes to Baylor…
She says it’s not as bad as everyone makes it out to be.
She is very religious tho’. I know I might be the only one, but I think that’s a good thing.
Johnny… I don’t seem to understand your point? Are you saying this makes your boss less of a boss? Less qualified to be your boss? Less of a person? Isn’t he entitled to his opinion?
Just asking… not flaming. Please enlighten.
I would start to think a little tolerance was in order here tho’.
I’ve heard similar arguments in regards to evolution being like watches ‘making themselves’. It usually involves parts of a watch layhing in a desert coming together to make a functioning watch.
No doubt, this bloke heard the retort to this argument and used the words “metal” instead of “watch parts”. Either way, it is a stupid argument. (Did he stop to think that the watch as also evolved over time??? :rolleyes: )
He’s entitled to it, sure. But he’s entitled to an opinion about addition, as well. If he thought 1+1 was really 3, he’d still be wrong. I don’t want this to turn into a debate. If you want to debate evolution, go to GD.
Simetra, I think you’re reading too much into it. I don’t want to start a debate about evolution here; there are threads in GD for that. I just find it amazing that anyone could compare the incremental process of living creatures evolving, with an inanimate object creating itself.
No, it doesn’t make him less of a boss, or less qualified to be one; nor less of a person. And he is entitled to his opinion.
But it’s amazing to know someone who doesn’t understand how evolution works, and comes to conclusions that simple logic would show are flawed.
Kwyjibo: Interesting.
Saying the American Civil War was motivated primarily by economic crisis is an opinion.
Saying it never happened because it would mean that purple aligators routinely eat spinning time cubes while worshipping The Deli Llama is stupid.
Um… kwyjibo?
Watches DON’T “evolve.” They CAN’T “evolve.” If the basic appearance and form of watches has changed over the years, that’s through DESIGN! YOUR analogy plays right into the hands of the fundies you look down on.
It so happens I’m not a creationist- but your post suggests that, while yoiu embrace Darwinian evolutionary theory, you don’t really understand it any better than the fundies.
Who the hell is the Deli Llama? A spitting camelid that works in a late night food shop? 
The Deli Llama is in Kandahar. Their service is very fast. 
Anyways, back to the OP in an intangical kind of way:
I feel your pain. It seems that those who are fundies/evangelicals/et al suffer clearly from a seperation of Church and brain.
fundamentalism stops a thinking mind
No, the Deli Lama is in Lhasa. The Llama Deli is in Quito.
My point was that even the watch didn’t ‘appear’ the way we know it today. It has changed over time, so his boss argument about a chunk of metal suddenly turning into a modern watch is nonsence. (But I’ll bet he believes that humans appeard from dirt.)
::Bangs his head looking for the cite where he read this knowing he is not explaining it quite right::
Forgive me if I’m reading this incorrectly, but are you implying that Fundies happen to be less likely to be logical? I know that the main point is that the boss is illogical, but I am feeling an undercurrent that Fundies are not expected to be logical.
If I missed the point, please forgive me.
Extreme religiousity doesn’t necessarily preclude the ability to use logic.
I can do differential calculus, spherical trigonomotry, and I know a number of computer languages.
I also believe that the world came into being as a result of an erotic dream that The Great Punta had at the beginning of time, which is just crazy.
Here is the retort to the “Watch” Argument.
(Explains it much better than I ever could.)
lel and Larry Mudd: Fundies do use “The Watch in the Desert” to “prove” evolution doesn’t exist. But they miss the basic premise that is outlined in the link Kwyjibo: that watches do evolve. Also, machines don’t mutate as animals do. Mutations happen all the time in humans and other living things. Some of them are good; perhaps an improvement to the circulatory system. Others are not good, like a “birth defect”.
Fundies who use the Watch Argument like to hold it up as a fine example of the poor logic and observational skills of evolutionists. But they fail to see that their logic does not hold up. Watches did spring up from the sand. But the raw materials were mined for centuries or mellennia before someone learned how to assemble them into a crude watch. Then the watches were improved over centuries. The watch in the desert did not spring up from the sand. It is the end result of watch evolution. The Watch Analogy assumes the former, which is of course ridiculous. But even casual analysis or intutive logic shows that this triumphant arguement is flawed.
I guess the point of the OP was that I thought that anyone with an education and who has used critical thinking methods should be able to see the flaw in the analogy. Maybe, since I was born and raised on the Left Coast and not in the “Bible Belt”, I just haven’t discussed evolution with anyone who is a creationist. Heck, the OP might not even have a point; hence MPSIMS.
I feel your pain, Johnny. My wife is a fundie, and holds the same opinions as your boss.
One the other hand, at least she doesn’t claim (as I once heard someone say) that she knows evolution isn’t true because she has pictures of herself as a baby :eek:
Oops. “mellennia” = “millennia”.
True, the watch argument just isn’t really convincing.
Also, strangely enough, I haven’t discussed evolution with anyone who wasn’t a creationist, save for skimming over some evolution threads here to get an idea what the main arguments are.
Good luck with your boss!