Richard Dawkins Believes in E.T.

I was on browsing on the web today and I fould something very entertaining. I watched Richard Dawkins, talk about that life may have been created by aliens !

He would rather beleive that little green men may have created life than God. This video is only about 90 seconds long. He has made a right fool of himself. It was embarasing that he has made such statement.

http://tr1.harunyahya.com/Detail/T/E...oductId/18787/

Let me know what you think.

Thats amazing!, so this guy can't figure out how life could have formed and he comes up with a logical solution = little green men.
One should ask him that who created these green men ? some other men ?

I think Harun Yahya sucked you right in with his quote-mined bullshit.

See: www.expelledexposed.com/

From the interview;

BEN STEIN: What do you think is the possibility that Intelligent Design might turn out to be the answer to some issues in genetics or in evolution.

DAWKINS: Well, it could come about in the following way. It could be that at some earlier time, somewhere in the universe, a civilization evolved, probably by some kind of Darwinian means, probably to a very high level of technology, and designed a form of life that they seeded onto perhaps this planet. Now, um, now that is a possibility, and an intriguing possibility. And I suppose it's possible that you might find evidence for that if you look at the details of biochemistry, molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer

@louis
I know what abiogenesis (a hypothesis) and Evolution (a theory) are.
When you said that he says that those aleins may have formed on another planet by evolution and natural selection, then you are wrong because evolution is not concerned with how life forms it deals with how it progresses and develops. When e ask how those aleins formed the answer can't be evolution it can either be:

1- intelligent design or
2- abiogenesis



The point is that a top atheist scientist considers the possiblity of intelligent design, read this page http://www.willyhoops.com/richard-dawkins-aliens.htm

When Richard Dawkin can think intelligent design might have taken place (and you might find scientific evidence for it) then when theist argue it took place why do you ridicule them ?

I don't want to get into an argument on who is stupid and who is foolish as it's just a waste of time.

Fizanali, I don't think anybody here is arguing against the idea that life here on Earth may have been designed or "seeded" by some other, more advanced, form of life. Conceding that life on Earth may have been sown by some advanced intelligent being(s) is in no way any kind of acceptance of the non-science that the ID crowd is pushing. It only moves the question of where all life began back a step further (the question of first causes). Where did the sower-of-life-on-Earth come from? They were either created or began via abiogenesis, too. And so on ad infinitum.

It seems most likely (to me, at least) that this turtles-standing-on-turtles event chain probably doesn't extend very far, if it exists at all. I think abiogenesis occurred in at least one place and possibly many. That's also what I get out of Dawkins' response to Stein's question. I have seen video and read quite a bit of Richard Dawkins' musings on that exchange in "Expelled". Quite frankly, presenting anything from that dishonest piece of garbage of Ben Stein's is an indication of one's inability to objectively distinguish valid data from spurious rubbish and misrepresentation. That production has been very effectively exposed as disingenuous, religious propaganda. Quoting from it does not support your argument, it detracts from your credibility and increases your apparent credulity.

This is not an ad hominem dismissal. It's simply that nearly all the information presented in "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" has been shown to be misleading, misrepresentative, mistaken or outright lies. Pretty much the same can be said for most of the ID advocates associated with the Discovery Institute, Ken Ham, Kent Hovind and Harun Yahya, as well. Quote mining and misrepresentation are such standard fare from these people that I wouldn't trust them to relay the weather.

Originally Posted by Blondin

Fizanali, I don't think anybody here is arguing against the idea that life here on Earth may have been designed or "seeded" by some other, more advanced, form of life. Conceding that life on Earth may have been sown by some advanced intelligent being(s) is in no way any kind of acceptance of the non-science that the ID crowd is pushing. It only moves the question of where all life began back a step further (the question of first causes). Where did the sower-of-life-on-Earth come from? They were either created or began via abiogenesis, too. And so on ad infinitum.

I know that, the point I'm saying is that if Richard Dawking can think that life on Earth could have an intelligent designer, he says you may even find some type of scientific proof or signature for that too, then when other scientists or theists argue the same point why are they ridiculed ? I'm only focusing on this one point only lets leave aside what the other arguments are, the topic is "Was there intelligent design on EARTH or not ?" (leaving out who did that intelligent design)

Are you sure there's no scientific argument or evidence for theist concepts ?

Why did the famous british atheist philosopher Antony Flew have a change of mind who's now a theist (I know he doesn't have the same concepts as mine or other theists) read this page: http://www.arn.org/docs/williams/pw_antonyflew.htm
Why does he say that now there's a lot of teleological evidence for theism ? http://www.gotquestions.org/teleological-argument.html

Originally Posted by Blondin

Quoting from it does not support your argument, it

detracts from your credibility and increases your apparent credulity.

I wouldn't wish to continue the discussion further if my credibilty is affected and if it may lead to me being banned.

But still one thing; Do you believe Richard Dawking said those words or are they lies ? If you think he didn't say them then why would you give the turtle on turtle example ?

Besides my reply was for Louis because he thinks that Richar Dawking did say those words.

The argument can only continue if you agree that Richard Dawking said those words, otherwise it ends here.

Have you seen the 'moon landing hoax', 'the international flat earth society' ? Our discussion would start to resemble that, I'm not saying that you are in their position, I'm saying either I or you are in that position either way it's the same.

One more thing, I read that Harun Yahya challenged Richard Dawking to a debate to which Richard Dawking doesn't agree.

What's your position on this?

There seems to be some misunderstanding here. Of course Dawkins made that statement. I certainly do not deny that exchange between Stein and Dawkins took place. What I am saying is that Ben Stein obtained that interview under false pretenses and then quote-mined it for sound-bites he could spin to his own advantage. I have twice linked to the Expelled Exposed website so you should be familiar with the deceitful methods employed by Stein & Co to obtain that interview (and many others). Here is an excerpt from Richard Dawkins' article titled "Lying for Jesus":

Toward the end of his interview with me, Stein asked whether I could think of any circumstances whatsoever under which intelligent design might have occurred. It's the kind of challenge I relish, and I set myself the task of imagining the most plausible scenario I could. I wanted to give ID its best shot, however poor that best shot might be. I must have been feeling magnanimous that day, because I was aware that the leading advocates of Intelligent Design are very fond of protesting that they are not talking about God as the designer, but about some unnamed and unspecified intelligence, which might even be an alien from another planet. Indeed, this is the only way they differentiate themselves from fundamentalist creationists, and they do it only when they need to, in order to weasel their way around church/state separation laws. So, bending over backwards to accommodate the IDiots ("oh NOOOOO, of course we aren't talking about God, this is SCIENCE") and bending over backwards to make the best case I could for intelligent design, I constructed a science fiction scenario. Like Michael Ruse (as I surmise) I still hadn't rumbled Stein, and I was charitable enough to think he was an honestly stupid man, sincerely seeking enlightenment from a scientist. I patiently explained to him that life could conceivably have been seeded on Earth by an alien intelligence from another planet (Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel suggested something similar -- semi tongue-in-cheek). The conclusion I was heading towards was that, even in the highly unlikely event that some such 'Directed Panspermia' was responsible for designing life on this planet, the alien beings would THEMSELVES have to have evolved, if not by Darwinian selection, by some equivalent 'crane' (to quote Dan Dennett). My point here was that design can never be an ULTIMATE explanation for organized complexity. Even if life on Earth was seeded by intelligent designers on another planet, and even if the alien life form was itself seeded four billion years earlier, the regress must ultimately be terminated (and we have only some 13 billion years to play with because of the finite age of the universe).
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My concern here is that my science fiction thought experiment -- however implausible -- was designed to illustrate intelligent design's closest approach to being plausible. I was most emphaticaly NOT saying that I believed the thought experiment. Quite the contrary. I do not believe it (and I don't think Francis Crick believed it either). I was bending over backwards to make the best case I could for a form of intelligent design. And my clear implication was that the best case I could make was a very implausible case indeed. In other words, I was using the thought experiment as a way of demonstrating strong opposition to all theories of intelligent design.

It should be clear that Dawkins' point (and the point I was trying to make in my previous post) is that, regardless of whether we concede that life on Earth may have orginated through actions of some kind of intelligent agents, it doesn't eliminate the requirement that Life must have arisen from inanimate matter somewhere at some time. It is ironic that the ID/creationist crowd like to point and laugh at current theories like abiogenesis and the big bang theory for suggesting that "something came from nothing" while they insist that life and the universe "came from nothing" at the hands of a divine being who came from nowhere.

Panspermia is not Intelligent Design. It is simply one proposed explanation for how life may have arisen here on Earth (and possibly on some other planets). Implying that acknowledging the possibility of Panspermia is tantamount to accepting Intelligent Design is worthy of ridicule.

On the subject of debating creationists I agree completely with Richard Dawkins' position. Debates can be useful for inspiring ideas and further research but only when they are entered into with complete intellectual honesty on both sides. I've seen too many so-called debates where the ID proponents simply regurgitate tired old straw men or misrepresentations or just make shit up. Ultimately, scientific questions can never be settled by debate.

Incidentally, you needn't worry about being banned for quoting or linking material from "Expelled", but be prepared to be ridiculed for doing so.