DP latches on to another dubious miracle story

[drumdude]

On page 10 of The Spiritual Brain, Beauregard and O’Leary recount a story that I had forgotten about the terrible crash of an Air France airbus at Lester Pearson International Airport on Tuesday, 2 August 2005. There was a torrential downpour that day, and the plane, which was carrying 309 people, overshot the runway and, as a result, burst into flames.


After the rain had stopped and the smoke had subsided, though, it was discovered that, although 43 passengers had suffered minor injuries, not a single person had died in the crash.

How was this possible?

The aircraft had come to a halt near Highway 401, Ontario’s main traffic artery. Here’s what Mark Steyn had to say:

Eyewitness accounts vary: some people are said to have panicked, others to have stayed calm. . . . Passing motorists pulled off the road and hurried toward the burning jet to help any survivors. Of the eight emergency exits, two were deemed unsafe to use, and on a third and a fourth the slides didn’t work. Nonetheless, in a chaotic situation, hundreds of strangers coordinated sufficiently to evacuate a small space through four exits in less than a couple of minutes before the Airbus was consumed by flames.

Beauregard and O’Leary continue:

Many evacuated passengers were later picked up on the shoulder of the 401 and driven by strangers to Air France’s terminal.

So . . . hundreds of unrelated people who would never see each other again cooperated to ensure that all got out in time? People offered rides to strangers from other parts of the world . . . ?

It’s a wonderful story, but it’s also a story that raises a very important question. (And there are innumerable stories like it.)

Why would people do such things, why would people risk their lives, for complete strangers? How does evolutionary psychology explain such actions?

First of all, DP plagiarizes many sentences of the book as his own. He has a real aversion to proper attribution.

Secondly, the book omits this wonderful undermining part of the story Mark Steyn relayed:

Eyewitness accounts vary: some people are said to have panicked, others to have stayed calm. The co-pilot was reported by police to have abandoned the plane and scrambled away to Highway 401, whereas passing motorists pulled off the road and hurried toward the burning jet to help any survivors.

Apparently the co-pilot's selfish gene was working as designed.

Finally, the real story seems to be a bit different from what a random columnist relayed:

The first fire crews were on the scene incredibly quickly, in about one minute or so. By that time, fire crews estimated that the 10 flight attendants had already evacuated 200 of the 297 passengers out of the plane. And that was out of only 4 exit doors. Four other doors were not useable.

It's unlikely the passing motorists risked their lives pulling people out of the burning plane, like DP needs for his story to fit his thesis. More likely that motorists simply pulled over the side of the road and took the survivors back to the airport. Not exactly threatening their lives, and not exactly the posterchild for altruistic behavior.

Altruism may be an unsolved mystery as it relates to the hypothesis of the selfish gene, but fortunately today it is not under any meaningful attack by DP.

Remember all of these blogs are notes for his upcoming book. Ultimately one wonders how DP will manage to tie in all of these plagiarized ideas with Mormonism. Or perhaps his upcoming book will be completely silent about Mormonism and end up being just a complete rehash of the Christian apologetics already out there?

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... ruism.html

[Moksha]

Over at the aptly-named Peterson Obsession Board, a frequent commenter who goes by the moniker of “Dumb Dud” (or something of that sort) — one of the more hostile and more obsessively consistent readers of this blog, but also one of the consistently least competent of them — says that I’m claiming that the story of the August 2005 Air France crash (and the survival of all of its occupants) was a “miracle.” I’m not, though. I think it a remarkable story, but I don’t claim it to have been miraculous. That’s not even remotely my point.

Got to be careful what you write or you might be chastised in the SeN blog.

[Kishkumen]

Got to be careful what you write or you might be chastised in the SeN blog.

Get off DCP’s lawn!!!

Don’t even look at it!

[Everybody Wang Chung]

Dan Peterson,

You're a buffoon.

Sincerely,
Uncle Wang

[Gadianton]

Altruism may be an unsolved mystery as it relates to the hypothesis of the selfish gene, but fortunately today it is not under any meaningful attack

I think you nailed it, Drum Dude. I believe you perfectly grasped the article and fairly represented the author's point.

Indeed, the author is claiming a "miracle" happened, because in a materialist world, it would have been impossible for altruism to be explained at the crash site where the good deeds weren't done by genetic relatives.

The author could quibble that it isn't a "miracle" per se because a properly functioning person has goodness within that doesn't come from genes, that's part of the person's immortal spirit, and not necessarily a miracle, but if that's the case I think it's hard to say there are a such thing as miracles at all. What is a miracle, after all? If an angel came down and rescued everyone would that be a miracle? Can't the rigging be done before the fact rather than at the fact?

Just as angels are a part of the real world but "science" doesn't know it, so are person's who posses an immortal spirit. It's a miracle when the scientific explanation fails and the things of God complete the explanation.

Of course, this gets really tricky with IDers like this particular blog author. If it were up to them, there would be no miracles at all, because it's never the case of science vs. God, but scientism vs. God. Real science would allow God into the equation. It's only atheist scientists improperly using the tools of science who come to wrong conclusions and left scratching their heads at the disconnect where the believing scientist smiles knowingly, having the full equation.

If you want to escape reductionism as a believer, you must allow for science proper to be inadequate, not merely science done by angry, bitter, groupthink unbelievers. Science proper might explain everything in principle when believers do it right by following the breadcrumbs under the promptings of the spirit or simply by not closing their minds to radical alternatives.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

but also one of the consistently least competent of them … says that I’m claiming that the story of the August 2005 Air France crash (and the survival of all of its occupants) was a “miracle.”

That’s funny. Drumdude described it as a “miracle story”, not a miracle. Dowsin’ Dan, in his usual attempt to quibble language to score a rhetorical point, overshot the target and revealed himself to be a silly goose. Competency, thy name isn’t Daniel C. Peterson.

Also, Plagiarizin’ Peterson is in rare form lately. He can’t help but to steal other people’s words and ideas and pass them off as his own. Like a dog to his vomit, I suppose.

- Doc

[drumdude]

For a man who doesn’t read this forum, he sure responds awful fast!



I should have expected, of course, that he would latch on to a quibble over semantics instead of addressing the point. He is the type to read a headline and make a hasty comment without actually reading the substance of the article.

It’s always fun running down the stories he tells to get the details. The omitted part where the co pilot runs away in instinctual protection of his selfish gene made me laugh. The truth behind these faith promoting stories is always there just waiting to refute them.

[Alphus and Omegus]

Apparently no one told Dan that "evolutionary psychology" is not a widely accepted academic discipline. Mostly it's a thing for amateurish online libertarians who want to believe deterministic "just so" stories.

As also evinced by his constant attempts to argue with a man long dead (Christopher Hitchens), Peterson seems utterly out-of-touch with atheist thought. Hitchens was never regarded as a leading philosopher, just a polemicist. But Dan enjoys debating him since he can't defend himself. And that's also how he runs his online commentating. He's a classic midwit who can't debate and so has retreated behind his censorship wall.

Deep down, Dan must know this. I suspect it's why he doesn't seem to engage with actual philosophic atheism, or even living proponents.

Perhaps he has though. I've only rarely read his little blog after seeing it occasionally mentioned here.

[drumdude]

Apparently no one told Dan that "evolutionary psychology" is not a widely accepted academic discipline. Mostly it's a thing for amateurish online libertarians who want to believe deterministic "just so" stories.

As also evinced by his constant attempts to argue with a man long dead (Christopher Hitchens), Peterson seems utterly out-of-touch with atheist thought. Hitchens was never regarded as a leading philosopher, just a polemicist. But Dan enjoys debating him since he can't defend himself. And that's also how he runs his online commentating. He's a classic midwit who can't debate and so has retreated behind his censorship wall.

Deep down, Dan must know this. I suspect it's why he doesn't seem to engage with actual philosophic atheism, or even living proponents.

Perhaps he has though. I've only rarely read his little blog after seeing it occasionally mentioned here.

You are correct. FAIRMormon had a young fellow last year actually argue against the best atheist philosophers and it was fantastic. Dan should have learned from him to punch up, not down. Literally 6 feet down in Hitchens case.

[Moksha]

The omitted part where the co pilot runs away in instinctual protection of his selfish gene made me laugh. The truth behind these faith promoting stories is always there just waiting to refute them.

So what is the truth on that odd point of the story? What happened with the co-pilot?