🎓 Doc Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@qoto.org

@freemo Well, you're describing only one motivation of many for veganism, but for that particular motivation, I'd generally agree.

That said, making the personal choice to abstain may not necessarily translate into wanting to impose that decision on others... i.e. someone can simultaneously be both pro-choice and decide that an abortion would never be morally appropriate for themselves.

@ambulocetus @freemo Yeah, I watched it. I saw the things you mentioned but I don’t think he has as much of an agenda as you claim. Maybe he does but it wasn’t obvious to me. More than anything it was obvious he knows fuckall about high school biology, which *was* a bit of a shock to me. As for his religious beliefs, he’s an engineer, not a scientist and his beliefs reflect that mindset.

All in all it struck me more as watching someone who doesn’t know much about something and is really amazed by it because he doesn’t understand it very well.

@freemo I gave you a long answer to your question that took me quite a while to write, but you replied by asking me to be even more detailed. That seemed to me that you were being disingenuous to ask for more after that, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt. If you really want, we can go back to the video and download the entire transcript to give you a sentence by sentence breakdown.. I don’t want to do it because I don’t think it is a good use of my time, especially since I feel that my first reply was more than sufficient, but I will do it if you really want me to. I would rather just go about my business, but I don’t like people getting the wrong impression about me. How about we compromise. You go download the transcript and post it here and I will do the rest of the work.

@freemo @ambulocetus I heard that someone once posted ‘that to say “I was wrong” is a sign of maturity.’

To take one’s own advice is next level.

@ambulocetus I agree with @freemo: SmarterEveryDay is not spreading misinformation. In no part of the video, he lied.

The suggested book is controversial, but he warns about this, and he specifies that it is mainly a philosophical book, to read with open-mind. So, he is fair.

IMHO, the misunderstatement is here: he compares the sense of wonder observing the flagella in the small, to the sense of wonder observing the Universe in the large (and this is fair); science cannot explain why the Universe and/or its laws exist; because science cannot explain all, philosophical reflections are legitimate; he miss to underline that science can explain how flagella evolved and there is consensus about this.

He should be more precise/pedantic in the last point, but the focus on the last part of the video was about the wonder of Universe and life, and not anymore about scientific truth, so if it is an error, it is an error made in good faith.

@ambulocetus

No, I won’t give you specific word for word examples, because that smells like a trap to me, and I’m not falling for it.

What does a “trap” mean.. If it means somethign that may prove your assertions wrong, then I fail to see how its a bad thing. If you think it will be used in bad faith, then when have I ever argued with you in bad faith?

Refusing to be specific and to only speak in vaguties that simply arent supported by what actually said sounds like the real trap to be honest, though if you gave specific examples I might have changed my mind.

If you disagree with me, that’s your prerogative, but I’m not watching it again just because you can’t see my point.

The part where he talks about creationism lasts for about a minute or two, so not really a huge ask when I just watched the whole 30 minutes in consideration of your own point. But do as you like of course.

I never said that he said anything factually incorrect, maybe you should read what I wrote one more time.

You used the term “misinformation” many times. Misinformation is by definition “factually incorrect”. Can you explain to me how you feel he stated misinformation that was somehow also factually correct then? Sounds like back peddling though I give you the benefit of the doubt your discussing in good faith and it is unintentional.

In my experience, when someone creates a straw-man like that, it usually means they have an agenda.

Strawman, what strawman is that?

People can watch the video, and keep in mind what both of us have said, and make up their own minds.

They sure can, problem is you didnt actually elucidate your point of view or how you arrived at it in any meaningful way what so ever. You claimed he did several things then when asked for examples to back that up made no effort to really do so. Saying something is so isnt really getting you anywhere if you cant even point int he general direction of the examples that back up your claim. So you simply havent given anyone any real content with which to even consider your point.

In fact I detect a strong undertone to what your saying and defensiveness to an earnest inquiry on your perspective. It seems to me the most likely explanation is you have a strong bias and disgust on anyone who would even discuss spiritual matters along side science (even me who has not explicitly supported the argument) and that that extreme hate/bias is likely fueling your perspective here more than an objective reading. I think this is causing you to attribute things by reading between the lines that simply isnt even there. This is evident because you kept talking about a book you swear this guy is promoting and yet he never mentioned it once in his videos. So clearly you were filling in some things with your own emotional response here that led to a distorted view of what was said. Again I think this is all in good faith and not something you are doing knowingly.

@freemo No, I won’t give you specific word for word examples, because that smells like a trap to me, and I’m not falling for it. If you disagree with me, that’s your prerogative, but I’m not watching it again just because you can’t see my point. I never said that he said anything factually incorrect, maybe you should read what I wrote one more time. In my experience, when someone creates a straw-man like that, it usually means they have an agenda. If so that is one more reason to not spend any more time on this. People can watch the video, and keep in mind what both of us have said, and make up their own minds.

@ambulocetus

That’s the one. If a creator wants to talk about their religious beliefs, great. But this video from Destin didn’t do that. It was using really cool science to misinform about an antiscientific religious belief of his.

This simply doesnt track with the video… can we get specific here, what did he say (word for word example) that was factually incorrect (misinformation). I was careful when i listened and nothing he said seemed even remotely factually incorrect, so im not sure where you are getting this “misinformation” stuff from.

Here’s what happened. He read a book by a creationist on irreducible complexity of flagella evolution. And he went and talked to some scientists about really cool cutting edge science on how flagella motors work. I don’t know if he read the book first or started reading it after he already planned to talk about it. He didn’t say in the video.

I dont recall him saying he read a book on the matter (though that was the origin of the ensuing debate). He may just as well have just been privy to the debate itself. I am well aware of the molecular motor argument as a pro-creationist debate point, and have heard the argument many times over, but I never read the book making that claim. It is very possible dustin is int he same boat, he has witnessed the debates, and understood the point of view from the perspective of the debates, but he may have never read the book.

Either way, the video starts by saying the complexity and the necessity of every component raises real philosophical debate about the origin of life. It, in fact, does not.

But it very much does. Not saying that scientists are assuming evolution might be in question, they very much assume evolution is still real we just dont have the answers (yet) to explain the intermediate steps leading to the molecular motor. So this is very much true, the evolutionary process leading to the molecular motor is not well known and even speculation is still developing and far from complete. While a scientist wouldnt use that to go “oh god made it”, it is fair to say the specifics as to the how we went from nothing to a molecular motor is still highly debated with any scientist worth his salt admitting we cant really state the steps it took to evolve (partly due to the trouble in evidence you pointed out).

Long story short, what he said is entierly true, we do not have any good theories explaining the intermediary steps for the motor at the moment, and this leaves room for a lot of debate.

Then, in the outro, he used more intelligent design buzz words, both sidesed the “debate” recommended a book by a creationist, and told people to look into it further.

I will watch again, but I did not hear him say anything about reading a creationist book, or even mention the book. He said not to plant your flag in one absolutism or the other and to approach this and other problems with a less tribalistic approach (defending a philosophical point).

Anyone who doesn’t already know this stuff who tries to look up papers using the buzz words he used, especially that author, will find creationist papers that appear, to a lay audience, to be scientific. But to anyone who knows the field, they are junk.

I havent read this papers so I cant speak to their quality. But again, he made no suggestion to anyone to read a book nor did he name any creationist books. He only refernced a debate some creationists have had and where it fits into known gaps in the scientific knowledge, and urged people to not be dogmatic on either side. Good advice I’d say.

@freemo That's the one. If a creator wants to talk about their religious beliefs, great. But this video from Destin didn't do that. It was using really cool science to misinform about an antiscientific religious belief of his. Here's what happened. He read a book by a creationist on irreducible complexity of flagella evolution. And he went and talked to some scientists about really cool cutting edge science on how flagella motors work. I don't know if he read the book first or started reading it after he already planned to talk about it. He didn't say in the video. Either way, the video starts by saying the complexity and the necessity of every component raises real philosophical debate about the origin of life. It, in fact, does not. It is cool science and an interesting debate within evolutionary theory, but mainly because flagella don't fossilize, so we have to piece the evolution together by looking at extant organisms as well as lab experiments and simulations. Regardless, his video wasn't about evolution, it was about the molecular machinery, very cool science. Everything between the intro and the outro was great, as his videos always are. Then, in the outro, he used more intelligent design buzz words, both sidesed the "debate" recommended a book by a creationist, and told people to look into it further. And in response to critical comments he told people to read the scientific papers. Anyone who doesn't already know this stuff who tries to look up papers using the buzz words he used, especially that author, will find creationist papers that appear, to a lay audience, to be scientific. But to anyone who knows the field, they are junk. It's a sneaky and dishonest way of appearing impartial, while actually giving credence to a hypothesis that was debunked decades ago.