I don’t watch TV but became aware of Republican candidates’ 2007 anti-evolution stance when Sen. Brownback posted a “retraction” in the N.Y. Times. I assume his NY Times contribution was intended to appeal to rationalists, but he must not have expected many to read all the way through since the closest he comes to endorsing Darwinism is:
(Yes, man has known about dog-breeding for many centuries, Senator; we were asking if you know anything about evolution.)
BTW, wolf_meister, I’m slightly older than you and one of my first glimpses of world events was when my father excitedly said “there’s a new moon in the sky, kids!”
We should not be getting our information about scientific matters from priests.
Many of the people saying that (or the equivalent) didn’t hear their priests say that in Sunday school. Many Catholics won’t accept evolution, and yet that is not what the priests, etc, are telling them.
I wonder what point he was trying to make. I think the statement has some merit -but more as an observation rather than as some sort of proof. Yeah, when you’re scared out of your mind and your brain isn’t functioning clearly, it’s so intense that you’re going to grasp at any sort of comfort you can. So is the guy’s point “when your brain is stressed to the max and you can barely function, then you will come around to my way of thinking!”? Great point there…
Ugh, this is equivocation using the word “faith” in different contexts. One can throw around the word “faith” to mean less than actual unfaltering religious-style belief. For instance, you could say I have faith that my car will start up when I turn the key because it doesn’t have any mechanical problems - but if it doesn’t, it’s not like my world view is shattered. And you can believe that the scientific method is the best way to learn about the natural world, and coloquially you could be said to have “faith” in that fact, but that again does not mean unthinking, unquestioning devotion. The whole “haha science is your religion!” thing is the dumbest fucking thing that people feel clever about declaring.
Science occasionally arrives at incomplete conclusions due to the limitations we have at the time. For instance - Newton wasn’t exactly wrong, but he didn’t understand the components of relativity. But science is the methodology by which we keep testing and refining our knowledge, so when Einstein came along we were able to expand our understanding of physics. That doesn’t mean that we had blind faith in Newton and we were proven wrong - the nature of science is self-correcting, our knowledge gets better over time. Religion, on the contrary, is quite inflexible.
This is so fuckingstupid I don’t even know where to begin with this. None of what you said even remotely approaches anything anyone has ever said to you - and besides that, why are you using this particular example (religiosity and ignorance) as a way that society has declined from your mythical ideal? The people who deny evolution are the good god-fearing people like they made back in the 50s! You should be happy!
I looked up this thread again in which Starving Artist basically indicates he doesn’t believe in evolution. He doesn’t quite come out right and say that, because he knows how much we’d ridicule him, so he hides behind it by basically repeating debunked creationist arguments and then declaring that’s why it’s reasonable for people to not believe in evolution.
This is as direct as he’ll get, but it’s pretty damning:
“As for myself, I’m taking a more wait-and-see approach but I do have to admit that I find evolution alone as an explanation for all this to strain credulity as much if not more than belief in God.”
So for him to come into this thread, and indicate that this particular ignorance spreading in our society is THE FAULT OF LIBERALS and that in the good old days we wouldn’t have this problem WHILE HE DEFENDS PEOPLE WITH THIS PARTICULAR BELIEF and seems to believe it himself, is fucking retarded.
You act as if you have first hand experience in every known scientific subject and it is only you and the scientific method. There is no subject area where you must simply take anothers word for it.
Straw shaped as a man.
I didn’t say science = religion, I said the scientific minded are apparently unaware of how little they actually know personally and how much they rely on the testimony/opinions of others.
I’m not making the claim that religious faith is any substitute for our combined body of knowledge, my posts were just trying to answer the OP, as in ‘why are many Americans as dumb as a shit sandwich?’.
So, what’s your point? I’ve never been to Australia or had first hand evidence that exists, but I trust that there’s not some giant conspiracy to make me think it exists. I cannot be an expert in every field possible, but I could be an expert in any particular one - and I trust that other people have chosen that path and became experts in their fields and then share their findings with me. This isn’t “faith” in the same sense of religious faith anymore than taking my friend’s word that he went to Australia and it really exists is taken on faith.
Edit: And taking this back to the original issue of whether or not to “believe in” evolution or the big bang - I learn enough to understand the issues but for the most part trust the experts. There’s no excuse for promoting ignorance over trusting actual experts. I don’t understand quantum physics very well, but I’m not about to tell all the PhDs working at particle accelerators that what they’re seeing is actually the result of fairies being rammed together at high speed, spreading fairy dust everywhere.
I don’t buy that anyone can be too dumb to understand a simple concept like evolution, but even so, if you’re ignorant of the facts and can’t make a proper judgement, then the default course of action is to trust the consensus of the people who actually do understand it, not declare them to be wrong and instead promote whatever seems intuitive to you as the truth.
Maybe I misread a message that wasn’t there into your words. I’m a little jumpy because of all the retarded fuckers who do try to pull the “science is your religion!” bullshit.
But what Sitnam and I are saying (I hope I’m not putting words into your mouth, Sitnam) is that you’ve never done any experiments involving cosmic microwave background radiation. You’ve likely never studied the theories in depth. I know I only have a 101 education on the subjects and that’s more than most people.
So if you’ve never done the experiments, how do you know they were done at all? Now, you can use any evidence you want to demonstrate why those sources should be trusted, but that’s neither here nor there. The point remains that you’re using some metric to evaluate your source. It doesn’t matter if the topic is particle physics or “Australia exists”. In the end, you’re relying on other human beings to tell you the truth about something that you have no first-hand knowledge of.
Why is such an obvious point relevant? Well, let’s backtrack a little:
OP and others - How can American’s (sic ;)) believe such silly shit? Sitnam and me - Because someone told them A was true and B was false. OP et al. - But how can someone just trust another person like that, when it’s clearly false? Sitnam and me - People do it all the time. You do it on almost every topic, from “Australia exists” to Special Relativity.
This last line is what Sitnam meant by saying if you push most people up against a wall in regards to scientific knowledge, it will always boil down to “My high school teacher said it was true” and what I meant by saying that cites need cites, which need cites and eventually, you just have to trust someone.
But the metric matters. If your source has a well established track record at being right, that means your using a better metric than someone who’s source is some guy who’s only qualification is that he can type. Science has a well established track record at not just being right, but on being able to correct mistakes. Religion, on the other hand, does not, it’s pretty much as far from reliable as you can get. I don’t have to do the experiments to know stuff for myself, my metric is satisfied by science’s strict process. At the same time, my metric is not satisfied by religion, so I do not trust it as a source like I would for science.
But who you trust matters. Relying on the word of an evolutionary biologist who is an expert in his field and well respected by his peers is much different than relying on the word a priest when discussing evolution. The two are not equivalently reliable. Someone who’s metric is satisfied by a priest’s qualifications and trusts them on scientific matters is being intellectually lazy, substituting belief for knowledge. Either way, they’re using a bad metric, and an unreliable source.
Not defending anything one way or the other, but maybe it is because we are allowed to think (and even speak and write!) for ourselves and not force-fed any governmental party dogma?
We all know that the average person is no sharper than a sack of hammers. Hell, most folks don’t even know what century WWII happened in.
If 45% of US adults agree with a simple statement that affirms the basics of evolutionary theory, that’s a whomp-ass lot more than I thought believed in it! Apparently even in very secularized, pro-science countries (whatever that means), you’re not gonna get much higher than 80%.
So I’ll take the 45% happily, and put up with the occasional mindless creationist (I’m sorry; that’s a redundancy, I do believe! :smack:) whenever I have to.
Cyningablod
I don’t mind the occasional mindless creationist believing in the “God Did Everything” view of the Universe. However, when they think that view should be taught with an equal emphasis along with evolution, that’s going much too far. :mad:
OK, fine. I assumed too much. Pick anything about oceanography then.
Well of course it matters. And of course it’s bad. No one has said otherwise. But that’s not the point I’m trying to make. The point is that it’s very unsurprising that people that have not studied a subject will just believe what people tell them about it. Sure, not just any old person off the street, but if your friends, family, clergy, and community all tell you that Goddidit, then it’s not surprising that you’d believe it.
I’m saying that the rebuttal “But they don’t have any evidence” isn’t a valid counterpoint. Because you, too, accept truths without any real evidence. You just take people’s word for it. Whether or not you should or whether or not that’s justified doesn’t change the fact that you do it. And that’s all that’s required to make my point stand.
So sitting here wide-eyed going “What were they thinking?! How dumb can they be?” isn’t a fair appraisal of the situation. It’s very understandable how someone could not believe in evolution when all they’ve got to go on is other people’s words.
If someone tells me the wrong city is the capital of New Guinea, I’ll probably take their word for it, because it’s not a particularly important part of my world view and it’s not likely I’ll come across the truth anytime soon.
But the issue of evolution is contentious - it gets a lot of media time, it’s a “culture war” issue, etc. I can’t buy that no one has really been exposed to opposing views and so they just go with whatever is easiest to grasp. Everyone has at least some idea that this is an important issue, and so you can’t treat being ignorant of it being as excusable as not knowing the capital of New Guinea. Besides that, a significant fraction of the people who are ignorant about it would support it being taught their way in school - that’s not just ignorance, but a deliberate intent to keep others from learning the truth as well.
No, all these justifications are inexcusable. Don’t be apologists for ignorance.
But I do have evidence, I have evidence that science works. Science has a proven track record, religion does not. Accepting something backed by science is a much different thing than accepting something backed by religion.
First, they have much more to go on than other people’s words. And second, as I said before, who’s words they take matter. People who simply take the word of a priest on the matter of evolution are at the very least lazy. If they wanted to, they could go get more information on the subject, and from real sources. Instead, they choose to place faith in something that is obviously not a reliable source, and end their inquiry there. They are ignorant and not only happy about it, but insistent that they are right and further inquiry is not required.
I’d hope you wouldn’t take their word so soon, as any answer given is wrong. New Guinea is an island, not a country, and thus has no capital. The eastern part is Papua New Guinea which does have a capital, as well as the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua.
Folks, priest usually refers to clergy in the Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox, and Lutheran traditions. Most are in favor of evolution except the more conservative Lutherans (Missouri and Wisconsin synods in the US), and I’m not 100% sure about Orthodox. Use the term minister or pastor, it’s more accurate here.
Port Moresby, Jayapura, and Manokwari if you care.