Heads Up: Mark CC=Woo Killing?

Mark Chu-Carroll has an excellent post up over at Good Math/Bad Math.

He manages to roll a precise and coherent definition of tautology together with an anti-creationist smackdown, an explanation of why all scientific theories can be described to be tautologies and a personal explanation of why all this means so much to him.

Perhaps the best part is how well he points out the fallacy of using tautologies to attack evolution.

The theory of gravity? If you let go of something, it will fall – therefore, if you let go of something, it will fall.

Relativity? Light bends when it passed through a gravitational field – therefore, if I shine a light through a gravitational field, it will bend.

Evolution? The things that survive to reproduce are the things that survive to reproduce.

All true statements and the last, a classic creationist canard.

The question is about trying to describe why and how things survive and not simply claiming they have survived. The theory of gravity isn’t as much about saying that something will fall but rather in predicting how it will fall.

But creationist attack scribblers like Casey Luskin or ‘Dr’ Michael Egnor don’t ever seem to understand this. I present medicine á la Dr. Egnor. If you give a patient a remedy, they will get better, therefore, if you give the patient the appropriate medication they will get better. (Saves research costs – just give the patient what they need to get better.)

Why are you still here? You should be there reading his stuff.

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