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zBrown
Ice climber
Chula Vista, CA
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Feb 14, 2012 - 01:30pm PT
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Sadaputa Dasa ?
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Feb 14, 2012 - 01:41pm PT
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Some people are trolling. WBraun is a troll.
If something was supported by a lot of evidence and had a probability of being true of 99999 in 100000 I would call it a fact. WBraun would call it a belief if it fitted his purpose.
If something unsupported by evidence had a probability of being true of 1 in 100000 and someone claimed it to be a fact, I would say: No it's not a fact, it's only something you believe in unsupported by evidence. WBraun would call it a fact if it fitted his purpose.
WBraun is the Buddha-spinning equivalent of a top dog spinning Republican.
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rectorsquid
climber
Lake Tahoe
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Feb 14, 2012 - 01:47pm PT
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Marlow,
You hit the nail on the head with that post. Thanks.
Dave
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Feb 14, 2012 - 01:53pm PT
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Marlow, jo visst! HaHaHa!
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TradEddie
Trad climber
Philadelphia, PA
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Feb 14, 2012 - 02:05pm PT
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If you are asked to teach any form of creationism, politely point out that you have no training in theology or mythology.
Creationism as a theory has one interesting paradox; it is the only one that can ever be proven correct...
TE
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
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Feb 14, 2012 - 02:13pm PT
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Do you have faith that if you drop a rock off a cliff that it will fall?
WBraun would call it a belief if it fitted his purpose.
Good posts, esp pointing out Wernie's weakness, obscurantism, analogies to GOP rhetoric, etc., but...
For sake of advancing the conversation...
Sounds like you tie in with a number of other people who think of "belief" as something more or less than a mental holding one supports.
Or, along similar lines, the Abrahamic religions it seems have soiled the word "faith" as well in the minds of many atheists, agnostics, naturalists, scientists, etc. when outside of religion the word is simply a synonym for trust.
Why be so inclined to disparage these words or not use them or let religions have them? These English words are too important, too useful outside religious context, to let them sink or die with archaic religious systems.
Examples: (1) I have scientific beliefs. I believe in (i.e., support) the heliocentric model of the solar system. It is evidence-based belief. It is a reasonable belief. (2) I have trust (in other words, faith) in science as an investigational tool for figuring out how things work. It's a reasonable trust or faith, as well, not an unreasonable one, that's earned its place in my thinking and decision-making. I have faith (an evidence-based faith, an experienced-based faith) that if I drop a rock off a cliff it will fall. What's important is that it is not a blind faith, which is what Abrahamic religion, most notably Christianity, praises, promotes, and values. Big difference.
Really, it's not that hard to distinguish between general faith and religious faith or between general belief and religious belief.
I would encourage modern progressive thinkers not to confine these words to a religious context. -But instead to rescue them from the Abrahamic supernaturalists. Food for thought.
.....
I believe in my rockclimbing gear. I trust it. I have faith in it. This belief (holding) and this faith (trust) are not religious or supernaturalistic or nonrational (or irrational) in any way. Since it's the 21st century, time we climbers young and old esp the old moved beyond the standard religious-theistic usages, contexts, rhetoric and definitions, they're too confining.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Feb 14, 2012 - 02:28pm PT
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Rather than drawing the distinction between beliefs supported by evidence and beliefs not supported by evidence, I would like to draw the distinction between beliefs and facts. Instead of saying that something is a belief supported by strong evidence I would like to say a fact.
If not we leave room for the WBraun way of thinking: beliefs supported by strong evidence and beliefs not supported by evidence is seen as the same thing. It's still just beliefs isn't it. It's all beliefs, all the same.
To me such a way of thinking doesn't make more sense than someone saying "The Bible" and "The origin of the species", it's just words isn't it, it's all the same.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
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Feb 14, 2012 - 02:29pm PT
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Instead of saying that something is a belief supported by strong evidence I would like to say a fact.
Why not both?
Why not simply distinguish between different forms: (a) different forms of belief and (b) different forms of faith. As well.
"Belief" and "faith" are English words too good to leave to what they mean to those in fundamentalist religious context which by all accounts is dying out anyway.
I see it as strategy. I see it as strategic. Part of a big picture. Part of something of a playbook, too. Time will tell. Probably the difficulties (e.g., Wernie's relentless obscurantism) will be worked through by use of many and various strategies.
.....
If not we leave room for the WBraun way of thinking: beliefs supported by strong evidence and beliefs not supported by evidence is seen as the same thing. It's still just beliefs isn't it. It's all beliefs, all the same.
Yes, but one could say the same about a lot of things. It's the nature of words and language.
The eye sees what the mind knows. Through education and training (or experience) finer forms and distinctions (begin to) separate in the mind.
.....
Anyway, it's nice to discuss if not debate ideas or subjects amongst modern progressives for a change (as opposed to the standard fare between progressives and religionists). For lack of better terms or labels. Thanks.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Feb 14, 2012 - 02:47pm PT
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HFCS
I'm pragmatic about ordinary language, but when I hear someone say that both evolution and ID are beliefs and when they also refuse to give evolution any stronger status as fact than ID, I always draw a distiction between what we know/facts supported by strong evidence (evolution) and what someone just prefer to believe in unsupported by strong evidence (ID).
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
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Feb 14, 2012 - 02:53pm PT
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Marlow, I hear you.
Or, in the words of Neytiri and Sully, I see you. ;)
lol
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 14, 2012 - 03:21pm PT
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I stopped responding to Werner because this is a tiresome subject that had been hashed over in the distance past on this Forum...
but science is science...
what is important in this conversation is not to overstate what "fact" is, remembering that science is about testing the predictions of theories against data with the aim of uncovering inconsistencies in the theory, and then considering the implications of those inconsistencies to that theory
Evolution is a theory whose goal is to explain the diversity of "species" in space and time observed on the planet. I put species in quotes above because the concept of species has changed as we learned more biology, and it might be somewhat different from what Darwin knew.
Darwin's theory of evolution lays out an explanation which was consistent with observations made at the time (and since) of the spatial distribution of species and their relationships, as well as the time distribution, through the fossil record. Darwin's theory is consistent by construction, so it has been criticized as being untestable, but at the time it was made Darwin was very forthcoming in pointing out the two major conditions for it to happen:
1) there had to be enough time, that is, conditions on the Earth had to have existed long enough for evolution to occur
and
2) there had to be a mechanism through which attributes had to be inherited in reproduction
The first of these "predictions" seemed to be inconsistent with estimates by physicists that put the age of the Earth to be much younger than Darwin's estimate of the time required for evolution. Darwin what fully aware that this would be a fatal blow to the theory. Later on, the age of the Earth could be measured and found to provide enough time for evolution. Further understanding of the geological changes in continents also explained some of the similarities of current day isolated populations which were not isolated in the past.
The second of those predictions had a glimmer in the contemporary studies of heredity, but the connection to some biological process was not conclusively made until the discovery of genetic material, and the subsequent understanding of how this genetic material is expressed as actual physical attributes. This biological process provides the mechanism necessary for the theory to work.
Now we know that the theory of evolution is consistent with the observations, and that the two fundamental conditions for the theory are also consistent with subsequent studies, that is, the theory predicted both the age of the Earth and the existence of DNA put in the grandest of terms. As such, evolution can be used to understand biology, the nature of species and their relationships, and to predict other relationships, many of them of great practical use in medicine.
It is a triumph.
But in no scientific sense is evolution "proved," even though it provides the absolute best way to understand living things on Earth. Scientific theories are not proved, they are disproved.
Creationism, etc, are also consistent with the observations, by construction. However, creationism provides no scheme to make predictions that can be tested in a meaningful way. It offers no guidance to medicine, nor to biologists trying to understand living things. It's basic tenets are not testable and offer no clues for deeper understanding of biology.
It cannot be disproved as it makes no testable prediction.
So following the logic provided by evolution, it is relatively straightforward to state that humans are the result of evolution, that they have evolved from ancestral animals who were different from humans, etc, without evoking any supernatural (or external) cause.
It is not a controversial statement within evolution, and it is fully consistent with what we know about evolution.
Werner is concerned about truth, I wish him well in his quest. I am interested in understanding, and I'm not going to get drawn into arguing with him. But I'm also not going to ask Werner to explain biology to me, his explanation wouldn't be very practical or illuminating.
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Double D
climber
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Feb 14, 2012 - 03:23pm PT
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It takes way more faith to believe in evolution than Jesus.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Feb 14, 2012 - 03:31pm PT
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Yo Double D, faith is " belief not based on proof." Which fits that bill better, evolution of jesus?
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Feb 14, 2012 - 03:47pm PT
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I wouldn't even bother with presenting anything related to the "controversy" as to whether it is true or not. Reasonable scientists and educated people assume it is true. Any controversy should be valid, interesting controversy like selection at the gene level vs organism level vs group level, or constant vs "punctuated" rate of evolution. I think it is the kind of subject that could set a fire under some otherwise underachieving student.
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Ashcroft
Trad climber
SLC, UT
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Feb 14, 2012 - 03:55pm PT
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I echo Ed's suggestion that you teach evolution "as science," but the hitch is that many people don't understand how science works. Before delving into evolution, it would probably be worth your while to recap the rules of the science game.
The way science works is that the simplest theory that explains the most is the winner until a better theory comes along to explain even more observables more elegantly. A theory that "apples are attracted to the Earth" is superseded by a much more general theory that all objects feel a gravitational attraction proportional to the product of their masses. In fact, that latter theory is so good that it successfully predicts the shape of the orbits of planets around the Sun. If one theory predicts things that are consistent with what we observe, while another theory does not, the first one is the winner.
Among scientific theories about the origin of life on Earth, evolution is the reigning champ. It's a very simple concept that explains a tremendous amount of what we observe. While there are certainly many unanswered questions, it's hard to imagine that the best scientific theory of 500 years from now won't include some component of natural selection.
This doesn't "prove" that life arose spontaneously through natural selection, it just says that that's the best scientific theory so far. Someone can choose to believe something completely different (e.g., the universe snapped into existence a millisecond ago, complete with our illusions of memories), but they shouldn't ascribe that belief to science. That would be a religious belief. There is nothing wrong with religious beliefs, and they may even turn out to be right, but they are not science.
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crusher
climber
Santa Monica, CA
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Feb 14, 2012 - 05:45pm PT
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When I was a kid we used to raise tadpoles into frogs (well, watch them evolve into frogs) in a bucket of water in the backyard. Seeing them go through the process, as well as watching caterpillars turn into cocoons and then moths or butterflies were early and easy ways for us kids to start learning about evolution.
Maybe you can get some tadpoles or conduct some other similar experiments in the classroom. Of course you could have kids who are going to write these things off as "acts of God".
Then there are always the Darwin Awards - depending on the age of your students read them some examples of human survival (or not) of the fittest!
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hobo_dan
Social climber
Minnesota
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Feb 14, 2012 - 08:14pm PT
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Teach the science buddy- that's what you're paid to do.
Bowing to the anti-evolution crowd would be candy assed and it would not be fair to your students. If some complain tell them they can get a first rate science education in Tehran or Alabama
The Evolution stuff can be great and its hard to argue with the logic.
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
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Feb 14, 2012 - 08:19pm PT
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What about the theory that God made aliens and then they put all the stuff here?
That would explain a lot. Plus it either gets people real excited or freaks them out.
Huh?
Teach that and see what happens.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Feb 14, 2012 - 08:22pm PT
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Creationism as a theory has one interesting paradox; it is the only one that can ever be proven correct...
"Creationism" isn't a theory. It's at most a hypothesis, or mental speculation.
There's no way to prove that it's correct. It's accurate but meaningless to say that creationism can't be disproven, as by definition it's not falsifiable. Every scientific theory is falsifiable, by objective experiments and tests.
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 14, 2012 - 08:24pm PT
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There's no anti-evolution, as evolution is a bonafide fact.
Some of you people drink too much kool aid and make up sh!t and try to put into peoples mouths due to letting your fertile minds run amok.
The only thing I said is science has faith in their theories and hypothesis, speculations etc.
You can't even discount faith in science.
Modern science is boxed in a rigid dichotomy that has moved into the destructive realm of gross materialism.
That is my big beef .....
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