[mycroft]

Again, "do you believe in evolution?" is not the question most people answer when they hear it.

Yes, I believe in evolution - I've seen it happen; I've done the fruit fly experiment, and I've seen the "white moth/black moth" thing. What else can I say, except "I believe in evolution the way I believe in black ice - it happens"?
I believe in evolution-caused speciation - I haven't seen it, but I have read enough of the literature of those who have to believe that they're not faking *all of it*.

Do I believe that evolution is the cause of *all* speciation on Earth? Well, that's an interesting question. I'm weird, and tend to believe in God the Tester and/or God the Experimenter; yes, that puts me in stress with more mainstream Christians (of the leftie persuasion, at least - I want to scream the bible reading we had this week at the more rightie types that seem to be in power in the States). So I'm very willing to believe in "let's set physics to work *this way* in this universe, and see what happens". Is that the same thing as the original question? In theory, no. In practise, yes.

So, shorter me: "Fact: evolution happens. Fact: evolution can cause speciation. Theory: evolution has caused all speciation in nature, now and formerly. That theory has not been disproven. Other theories account for all the facts; Occam's razor cuts them, though. But that doesn't mean they're wrong. Oh, and in Science class, you do science. If you don't do science, you fail. Your choice."

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2011-January-30, 17:30, said:

So are the polls purposefully skewing results with this subtle poisoning of the well?

Imagine the above as a poll question: Do you believe that the polls purposefully skewing results with this subtle poisoning of the well? My answer is naw.

Try it differently: Do you believe that this poll question adequately measures the public attitude toward evolution? Again, no.

Most people I know have come to some sort of reasonably comfortable resting place, on one side or the other, concerning the existence of God. Often they have little interest one way or the other in evolution.

So any poll that really tries to determine public attitude towards evolution should include an option such as "Haven't thought about it at all and don't intend to". The usual "No opinion" doesn't quite do it. "No opinion" sounds wimpy."Don't give a rat's" would often be closer to the truth.

[barmar]

PassedOut, on 2011-January-29, 18:02, said:

FWhat's interesting to me is that people like Kern and Brecheen (following the example of St. Peter on Good Friday) are perfectly willing to deny their religious beliefs when expedient.

They're not denying their beliefs, just denying that they're trying to proselytize.

They're not hypocrytes or flip-floppers, they're just liars.

[barmar]

Gerben42, on 2011-January-30, 15:57, said:

What evolution and quantum mechanics have in common: Both scientific theories are well-tested and for both the consequences can be profound. That's life. Denying it doesn't make it go away.

Where they differ is that quantum mechanics has little effect on one's self image, or view of man's place in the universe. People like to believe that there's something special about us (we're "made in God's image"), and evolution's explanation that we're just the result of lucky accidents contradicts this. On the other hand, being made up of quarks has little impact on this.

The possibility of evoution creates cognitive dissonance, quantum mechanics doesn't. When you have cognitive dissonance, a deeply held belief will prevent you from believing the conflicting concept, no matter how convincing the evidence is when viewed logically. The brain is good at manufacturing excuses around this.

[Winstonm]

The more I learn and understand about how and why humans hold irrational beliefs, the less harshly I judge others as irrational actors - until an attempt is made to impose personal beliefs on others.

In that sense, I can find no other explanation for the "Why?" question in this topic heading than to answer because they want to impose their personal beliefs as a fundamentally correct interpretation of reality and how reality functions.

But in that same sense, how is an attempt to impose a creationist belief fundamentally different between the Christian creationist lawmaker introducing a creationist bill and the Islamic Mullah ordering prayer in schools 5 times a day? Either way, it seems to me an attempt to alter the perception of reality based on an individual's or group's-in-power belief system.

[luke warm]

Winstonm, on 2011-February-01, 10:38, said:

But in that same sense, how is an attempt to impose a creationist belief fundamentally different between the Christian creationist lawmaker introducing a creationist bill and the Islamic Mullah ordering prayer in schools 5 times a day? Either way, it seems to me an attempt to alter the perception of reality based on an individual's or group's-in-power belief system.

i thought we'd long ago settled on "might makes right" as the only viable philosophy

[Winstonm]

Not a philosophy - practical reality.

[barmar]

Winstonm, on 2011-February-01, 10:38, said:

In that sense, I can find no other explanation for the "Why?" question in this topic heading than to answer because they want to impose their personal beliefs as a fundamentally correct interpretation of reality and how reality functions.

I don't think it's so hard to understand, and it isn't necessarily nefarious.

Suppose you believe that a person who doesn't believe in God will be damned for eternity. Shouldn't you do what you can to prevent people from encountering such a horrible fate? Converting them can be seen as an act of altruism.

Some religions have proselytizing as a specific doctrine. So if you adhere to the tenets of the religion, you must try to convert others.

These explanations mainly apply to the lay people. For religious leaders, I think it's mostly about power -- converts are more people for you to have control over. And people's willingness to believe in something, anything, means that becoming a religious leader is one of the easiest routes to that kind of power. It's much easier to form a cult than a country.

[kenberg]

Yes, religious people often feel that it is their duty to convert others. In some cases this spills over to it being their duty to convert us by force. I think the answer to this is to look at the two statements "I am doing this because I want to" and "I am doing this because God told me to" as being essentially equivalent from a legal point of view and from a moral point of view. My imagined response to the claim that God requires some action or the other is "I was just talking with Him yesterday about this matter and He says that you misunderstood".

About irrationality: As I look over my actions and beliefs I regard myself as far from a rational person. I have learned somewhat how to avoid the grossly stupid, for example at imps if I have the needed tricks on top I am (usually) careful about taking any finesse that might jeopardize the contract. But fully rational I am not and I am not at all sure that I would want to be. The important thing is to not try to impose my irrationality on others. For example, I don't balance as often as some do, but I respect their right to do so.

[hrothgar]

luke warm, on 2011-February-01, 16:12, said:

i thought we'd long ago settled on "might makes right" as the only viable philosophy

No, people simply decided that it was pointless to try to engage with you on these topics...

Hence, your reduction to sitting on the side lines making pissy comments while the aduilts have conversations.

[Winstonm]

If we remove the term irrational in order to minimize friction and substitute instead simply personal belief, then what is the motivation for one who believes in Santa to force a non-believer in Santa to hang stockings from his mantle?

I can see no other motivation than a desire to impose a personal belief system - nothing altruistic about it.

[phil_20686]

I am always amused by they people who get annoyed by (non-violent) prosletysing. After all, it is precisely the heart of a democratic society. A politician trying to convince you that his views on taxation are better than his opponents is not fundamentally different than a preacher claiming his belief system is better than yours. The only difference is that you are probably interested in the one rather than the other.

Many Eminent philosophers have argued that "all differences of opinion are essentially political", although some are more semantic than others, and this really is at the heart of the argument. Its facile to argue that religion should be confined to the private life, as it has real and observable effects on people. Not least their voting preferences. I have argued before that the primary difference (in UK politics) between left and right wing is in the essentially different view of man. For the extreme left man is an infinitely malleable creator shaped entirely by social and cultural forces beyond his control. For the extreme right wing you are entirely a product of your own choices, and that if you are "poor" it is because you somehow chose not to work hard. All main stream religions have a very definate point on this spectrum, in that they all believe in the reality of free will, and hence the necessity of personal responsibility in ones life. Nevertheless, all mainstream religions also believe that our free will is imperfect. That is we are not always capable of conceiving of the best possible course of action, and even when we are we are often incapable of choosing it for reasons that are only vaguely within his control. (E.g., on a particular day a man is physically and mentally abused until his temper snaps, and he kills an assailant (which we shall assume to be an overreaction for the purposes of discussion). Now it may very well be that on the given day he could not have adequately controlled his temper, but had he forseen the danger far in advance he might have been able to practice controlling his temper so as to have been in a position to control it on the day in question. To what extent is he morally responsible for his actions on that day?). Following this line of argument, at least in the UK, it is not at all surprising that virtually all the extreme left wingers are atheists. In America you could also argue that this is the reason that this is the reason that nearly all extreme right wingers are Religious. Indeed, as an aside, I have noticed from dialogue that fundamentalist Christians in the USA are rather more extreme on the concept of personal responsibility than is the norm for mainstream Christian churches in Europe.

Anyway, my point was that religious differences lead inevitably to real political differences, so it is not at all surprsing or indeed unexpected that we should find religious in certain spheres of political dialogue. Nor is it desirable to curtail this.

Returning to the Topic at hand. I strongly believe that the fundamental responsibility for determining what children learn should be parents. If you can get enough parents together who believe that their children should learn a certain thing, way or belief, then I think that it is the State's duty to provide for that. Those who believe that schools should only teach evolution, and those who believe schools should teach creationism, are as arrogant as each other, for both wish to mandate what you should teach to somebody else's children. By all means let us argue against the bad science of creationists. And indeed, the bad Theology of creationists, but attempting to win the argument in by mandating what your opponents teach their children is underhanded, and wrong. Moreover, we are fortunate to live in a society where anyone who wishes can educate themselves further upon any topic, and it is naive in the extreme to think that just because people dont learn something at school that they are incapable of every learning it in their adult lives.

In a democratic society the proper place for the arguments about the validity of any particular idea, is in the public sphere, adult to adult. Let us have vigourous public debate, such that no adult is ignorant of the issue. But let us also accept that the responsibility for raising children properly belongs to their parents, and that the state should not trample on this responsibility my mandatating that any particular thing must be taught to all kids, irrespective of their parents values, wishes, or beleives.

[luke warm]

hrothgar, on 2011-February-02, 07:45, said:

No, people simply decided that it was pointless to try to engage with you on these topics...

Hence, your reduction to sitting on the side lines making pissy comments while the aduilts have conversations.

how rude (too pissy?)

kenberg, on 2011-February-02, 07:23, said:

Yes, religious people often feel that it is their duty to convert others.

speaking as a christian (but not for christians), that's because people don't understand that they can't convert anyone

Quote

My imagined response to the claim that God requires some action or the other is "I was just talking with Him yesterday about this matter and He says that you misunderstood".

and you'd have a better than 50% chance of being correct, even for those who "hear" in scripture

[barmar]

phil_20686, on 2011-February-02, 14:24, said:

IReturning to the Topic at hand. I strongly believe that the fundamental responsibility for determining what children learn should be parents. If you can get enough parents together who believe that their children should learn a certain thing, way or belief, then I think that it is the State's duty to provide for that.

Even if all those parents are wrong? Sorry, but reality is not up for a vote, it is what it is. It's the job of scientists to discover what it is, and science teachers to teach what they've discovered.

The fact that a significant majority of Americans don't believe in evolution is the evidence I need to say that they shouldn't be allowed to decide what kids learn.

Have you seen the movie "Idiocracy"? That's the future we'll get if we let the ignorant majority decide what kids should be taught.

[phil_20686]

barmar, on 2011-February-02, 23:01, said:

Even if all those parents are wrong? Sorry, but reality is not up for a vote, it is what it is. It's the job of scientists to discover what it is, and science teachers to teach what they've discovered.

The fact that a significant majority of Americans don't believe in evolution is the evidence I need to say that they shouldn't be allowed to decide what kids learn.

Have you seen the movie "Idiocracy"? That's the future we'll get if we let the ignorant majority decide what kids should be taught.

In order to claim someone is wrong, you must set up some rival authority which you claim has more authority than a group of people. In practice what this means is that you are simply restricting the people who get a say in democracy to those who agree with you. I would contend that at its heart this is about a philosophy that would set up science as the only appropriate path to knowledge. This is really just a matter of faith. It is not intrinsically contradictory to believe that God literally created the World in 7 days, or that the universe is only 4000 years old. Scientists would do better arguing that creationism is bad Theology, on the old grounds that you must engage someone in a debate on their own terms, and not just argue from your own disputed assumptions.

However, none of that is my principle objection. The real problem lies in the fact that it is really not very far from "No child must learn creationism because its wrong" to "Every child must learn that communism is the ideal form of government". Ultimately, the authority to decide what children learn must reside somewhere, and I would argue vehemently that the appropriate repository for that authority is the Parents. Indeed, it cannot be the State, which derives its authority only from the consent of the People it governs. The only question is whether people who do not have children of their own should have a say in what children learn, and I think the answer to this is probably no. Nevertheless, the authority must reside with communities, and may or may not be restricted to current parents in that community. Indeed, you wish to remove authority from the "ignorant masses" and give it to the "enlightened few" which is the very definition of authoritarianism, and antithetical to democracy.

Besides, the concept of an education is to put someone in a position to decide/learn things for themselves. If someone leaves school then without the ability to critically evaluate their own positions and beliefs then that is an abject failure on the part of your education system, and a far more significant flaw than to have learned a few wrong things, which, in practice, will make very little difference to the lives of 99% of school leavers.

*On a side note, if you were to look up British biology curricula from the inter-war period you would be learning about the benefits of systematic eugenics program for "strengthening the gene pool", and "improving the character of mankind". Which, imo, is a pretty morally bankrupt thing to teach - proof that scientists can be as screwed up as anyone else.

[Winstonm]

The argument that science and religion are equally matters of faith IMO is inherently weak. There is no need for competing authority - one only has to establish a dichotomy and resolve it in valid fashion to determine a binary yes or no, false or true conclusion. It is then an organized system of resolution that is the contradicting authority, not opinion.

Teaching of science in schools is about teaching an organzied method of discovery and testing - the scientific method. Whether or not one accepts the conclusions may be based on opinion, but the method is not. Evolution has been shown to be a valid theory with 150 years of supportive data - whether or not one believes the theory true is irrelevant - scientific theory is not offered as proof but as a possible naturally-occuring explanation.

It can be objectively demonstrated that Mitochondrial Eve is 150,000-200,000 years old, which surely eliminates the young-earth creationist's 7000 year-old-claim, which is based on nothing more than some ancient writing in a collection of ancient texts, which are more likely a collection of moral legends than a collective supernatural documentation of the timeline of the natural world. How these two claims can be argued as equals is beyond me.

Instead of promoting belief in science classes, I would think that the religious would be terrified of placing in classrooms their untestable, unverifiable supernatural claims of faith for comparison against the testability and reliability of the scientific method.

No one is saying religious views cannot be taught in school - but a world religions class would be the proper place to teach those viewpoints.

The argument presented that science and relgion are both based on faith is the creationist/Intelligent Design argument, and the purpose of that argument is not to elevate religious beliefs to the status of science, but to lower science to the status of just another belief system, and it is then that equality as beliefs that allows science and relgion to be taught side-by-side.

In my opinion, these types of arguments are a disengenuous attempt to make apples appear to be oranges.

[luke warm]

Winstonm, on 2011-February-03, 07:37, said:

Evolution has been shown to be a valid theory with 150 years of supportive data - whether or not one believes the theory true is irrelevant - scientific theory is not offered as proof but as a possible naturally-occuring explanation.

what definition do you use for a "valid theory?"

[Winstonm]

My quoted sentence was my error - I should have said a valid scientific theory, not simply valid theory.

IMO, a valid scientific theory is a falsifiable explanation that uses only natural means to demonstrate a method that is both a possibility and a potential cause of recurring natural events.

In the case of Darwin, the recurring natural event is evolution which was known and documented pre-Darwin, while Darwin's explanation of a possible potential natural method of evolution was natural selection, which Darwin showed could be falsified by the discovery of any complex organ that could not have appeared incrementally over time.

In this sense a valid scientific theory remains valid until falsified or abandoned by concensus due to improved understanding, discovery, or observations. A valid scientific theory never attempts to prove but to explain. And it is never proved, only supported.

[Winstonm]

Quote

Ultimately, the authority to decide what children learn must reside somewhere, and I would argue vehemently that the appropriate repository for that authority is the Parents.

I think for the most part there is agreement here.

Quote

Indeed, it cannot be the State, which derives its authority only from the consent of the People it governs. The only question is whether people who do not have children of their own should have a say in what children learn, and I think the answer to this is probably no. Nevertheless, the authority must reside with communities, and may or may not be restricted to current parents in that community. Indeed, you wish to remove authority from the "ignorant masses" and give it to the "enlightened few" which is the very definition of authoritarianism, and antithetical to democracy.

But here you seem to indicate that a majority in a democracy can decide what the state school is to teach, even if the minority disagrees. How is that anything other than majority totalitarianism?

Here in the U.S. we have what is supposed to be a Constitutional representative republic, which simply means that these types of questions about what the government can and cannot do are established by law, not by vote, and thus the primary minority rights are preserved from the whims of a majority. Unbridled democracy is majority mob rule, and it strips freedom from the minority, so it is not always a positive occurence.

Your argument sounds more like one for government sponsored home-schooling, but not everyone would be capable of that task. Come to think of it, your argument sounds more to me like a conservative fantasy.

[barmar]

The argument that popular vote should determine what gets taught seems to me to be analogous to saying that attendance should be used to decide the best movies. Forget "Citizen Kane", give the award to "Transformers".

The simple fact is that different people have expertise in different areas. We don't have people vote on what crops will be planted, we expect farmers and other agriculture experts to decide this. Why would you allow people without a scientific background to make decisions on how science should be taught?

The idea of a representative democracy is that you elect people who are hopefully smarter than the average citizen, to make decisions on our behalf. I don't know anything about operating a trillion-dollar economy or international politics, so I don't expect to be consulted when the government is working on these. Why should lay people have any more direct say in science education?

The only reason is because society has elevated religion to a special place in human discourse. You can almost get away with murder if you provide religion as an excuse. Parents can use religious objection as a reason to refuse medical treatment for their child; but if they just said "we don't think the treatment will be effective, and it's a waste of money", and they have no medical expertise to back it up, the state would probably intervene to protect the child's welfare.

It wouldn't be as much of a problem if religion didn't enter the public sphere so much. Medical research has been slowed due to restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, which came almost entirely from religious concerns over the "soul" in a clump of a few dozen cells. People say that religion is personal, but too often it influences public policy; the 1st Amendment can't do anything about legislators whose morality is colored by their religious background, or trying to appease a constituency with such beliefs.