Was forwarded a great article on similarities between creationism and some blatant misconceptions followed by 'evolutionists':
http://neuroanthropology.net/2009/09/23/sympathy-for-creationists/
I'd like to add that belief in evolution is about as insane and irrational, in principle, as a belief in creation. Evolution must be understood and critically analysed at every step in order to be 'practised' correctly. It seems most people still insist on believing...
For some reason, believing in gravity sounds substantially more awkward...
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3 weeks ago in Genomics, Medicine, and Pseudoscience
Good point. I've often argued that while one does need to 'believe' in things in order to stay sane - we can't test every possible hypothesis all of the time (e.g., I believe that my house isn't being robbed at the moment), when the issue comes down to dispute and evidence is at hand, there's no need to believe. I think Dawkins said we should believe in evolution, but rather accept that the available facts overwhelmingly support the theory of evolution.
ReplyDeleteI posted comments on that post that I need not repeat here. I do not think that I stated strongly enough, though, that scientists are not dogmatic about evolution. This may be because I work with people who take it for granted, or because I live in a country that has better science education than the US. But even looking at the most "strident", confrontational proponents of the theory (Dawkins or Myers, for example), one does not encounter anything like the dead certainty that the religious fundamentalists find so virtuous. Nobody claims that Darwin is the last word on the topic. We are very willing to talk about the limitations of current knowledge, and about where the scientific community (and Darwin as well) got things wrong. And this is in a community that has been continuous with that of Darwin's, without anything comparing to the sorts of schisms that have caused religious sects to multiply.
ReplyDeleteNow, it is certainly possible that many scientists outside of evolutionary biology have dogmatic views about the field, or that (for reasons I explained at the other site) what evolutionary biologists say is misinterpreted. It is even possible that there is some great unseen (by me) multitude of dogmatic evolutionary biologists, and that I have only ever encountered the exceptions. But I can say for certain (is that dogmatism?) that Dawkins, Myers, et al. are not dogmatic, and do not regard evolution as something in which one believes as in the manner of the religious.
Actually, that brings up another point: I am always annoyed at the concept of "believing in" evolution. Once when asked by a creationist whether I believed in evolution, I almost said "no", but I did not think I would have a chance to explain that belief is irrelevant. Belief applies to hypotheses. In science, belief is not held for long, as one works as well as one can to substantiate one's belief. Fundamentalists have no concept of that sort of provisional belief; the sort of unshakable certainty that the fundamentalists recognise is both unknown in science and denounced by its best voices.
Evolution has gone far beyond the point of belief. It is truly frustrating that we couch things in such terms, and it would be a boon to all that we point this out as often as possible -- except, I suppose, that people would assume us to be fundamentalist about it ourselves. Really, with this sort of accomodationist attitude, there is no way to win.