If you accept microevolution

Creationism, Evolution, and other science issues

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jamesmorlock
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If you accept microevolution

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Post by jamesmorlock »

Simply because they are identical.

Consider an analogy:

Imagine that you can travel across the universe by walking. You have an infinite amount of time to do this, but you must make your journey by taking small steps. You have no destination, but you can go anywhere and you must never stop walking.

A thousand years pass. Where are you now? Further.
A million years pass. Where are you now? Even Further.
A billion years pass. Where are you now? Far, far away.

For every iteration of time, you will have traveled further and further. It is inevitable, for every small step takes you further. It is not possible to not travel far.

Microevolution is the small step. Macroevolution is the collective of small steps over a large period of time.

When walking for billions of years, how can you not be far away from your starting point?
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Re: If you accept microevolution

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Post by Tcg »

Purple Knight wrote: Sat Mar 13, 2021 5:46 pm
Dimmesdale wrote: Thu Mar 11, 2021 6:51 pmTake the Holocaust. From a purely philosophical POV, yes, it is actually POSSIBLE (technically speaking of course) that it didn't happen. But what would occur if we took this posture in the histories? Many things, no doubt. Racist groups would latch onto the alternative history and try to minimize Jewish suffering, downplay their hurts, and just spread hate and sow distrust and racism. That is not a good thing. The fact that we ought to learn from history, shows that the history we do have, means something. Collectively, the heritage we have should be honored. That is just normal, decent human nature in my view.
Yes, allowing people to decide for themselves whether or not the Holocaust happened would be disastrous. It would be disastrous because people actually need to be guilted and beaten over the head into respecting other people. In the future I'm wishing for, that would no longer be needed.

But I've already admitted we're not there yet.

And the decide-for-yourself thing is really a package deal. If you actually teach people to question as part of science instead of giving them the answers, they'll question the Holocaust too. So, for now, people do need to be spoonfed the answers, instead of being given nothing but the tools to figure things out for themselves. So if not evolution, for now, find something else that should be taught as the answer, as in, you put it down on a test, you get it right.

Teach creation for all I care. It doesn't really matter as long as you also teach them to respect other people.
Who gets to decide which truths should be taught and which should not?


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Re: If you accept microevolution

Post #332

Post by Purple Knight »

Tcg wrote: Sat Mar 13, 2021 10:29 pmWho gets to decide which truths should be taught and which should not?
I think ultimately the majority will decide (or the vociferous minority) because people will complain if they don't get their way and their little brat doesn't get spoonfed the information they want it fed but are too lazy to feed it.

It's not a matter of what should happen, but what will happen. It's something you can't really stop from happening. The best you can do if you want decent science taught is either have atheists be a primary demographic or have the religious demographics pushing each other away at the door like Mr. Burns's panoply of diseases.

[video][/video]

...But when one disease becomes dominant, the facts of the matter are simply thus: If the country becomes a devout theocracy, that religion's idea of truth is going to be what is taught. And if you don't like that, pull your kid out of school. But best you don't, because you don't want your child to be the one singled out, laughed at, and mocked because it has ridiculous false ideas. Perhaps your child has better evidence but they won't look at it. As far as they're concerned, the truth has already been proven. The teachers wouldn't lie.

What I was trying to get across to Dimey (who I quite like) is that I agree with them that evolution should not be taught in schools. It's a theory, not a fact. Everything but math is, actually. And I would like nothing more than for people to be taught no "facts" but instead given the tools to find the facts for themselves; it would be a world of heretofore unknown enlightenment. Unfortunately, however, you teach people to question and they start questioning the Holocaust and hating Jews again. I want the enlightened world but the world isn't ready to be that enlightened. People do have to be told certain things (...such as, that Nazis are bad...) and they have to be made fun of and ridiculed when they question those things, otherwise all we get is hate.

So now we come round to your bit and pretty much full circle. Most people believe evolution is true. So when you have to teach something as fact, that's simply what it's going to be, and you can be a sourpuss about it, and you even might be right that evolution never happened, but something had to be for dinner and you were just outvoted.

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Re: If you accept microevolution

Post #333

Post by Tcg »

Purple Knight wrote: Sat Mar 13, 2021 11:00 pm
It's not a matter of what should happen, but what will happen. It's something you can't really stop from happening. The best you can do if you want decent science taught is either have atheists be a primary demographic or have the religious demographics pushing each other away at the door like Mr. Burns's panoply of diseases.
Given that many theists accept evolution as a fact, it isn't an atheist vs. theist issue. Presenting it as one isn't helpful nor does it resolve the question of what should be taught. I'm not convinced there is any reason we should teach that which is known not to be true or refuse to teach that we know is.


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Re: If you accept microevolution

Post #334

Post by Tcg »

Dimmesdale wrote: Sat Mar 13, 2021 9:41 am
In my worldview, illusion is all-pervasive, but it is not total. It is controlled by God. God is the source of truth and the dispeller of illusion. If we submit to him, our illusion is lessened.
How do you know that the bolded unsupported assertion is not also an illusion?


Tcg
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- American Atheists


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- Irvin D. Yalom

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Re: If you accept microevolution

Post #335

Post by Purple Knight »

Tcg wrote: Sat Mar 13, 2021 11:12 pmGiven that many theists accept evolution as a fact, it isn't an atheist vs. theist issue. Presenting it as one isn't helpful nor does it resolve the question of what should be taught.
I didn't mean that and I don't think you'd think I meant that if you'd read the rest of my post. But to clarify, most Western theists don't have an absolute overriding creation myth that conflicts with evolution, so evolution specifically is not a theist vs. atheist issue, but if they did, it would be, and the majority, or the vociferous minority, would win out. The only possible guarantees of no myths overriding any sort of teaching is A) atheist majority B) religious people are a majority, but each individual religion is a minority.

As to what will be taught, the majority will generally get its way.

As to what should be taught, if it's different than what will be taught, one would have to justify intervention against the many, for some particular few, and then, you would have to justify why those few. I can't justify that and I don't plan to attempt to.

My fantasies about an enlightened society where facts aren't taught but discovered, are just that - fantasies. They have no bearing on reality and aren't practical and I know so.

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Re: If you accept microevolution

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Post by brunumb »

Purple Knight wrote: Sat Mar 13, 2021 11:00 pm What I was trying to get across to Dimey (who I quite like) is that I agree with them that evolution should not be taught in schools. It's a theory, not a fact. Everything but math is, actually. And I would like nothing more than for people to be taught no "facts" but instead given the tools to find the facts for themselves; it would be a world of heretofore unknown enlightenment.
I think what we would actually end up with is stagnation. Everyone would be essentially reinventing the wheel. There are billions of facts. Specialists in their fields have studied them and made sense of them and built theories around them. Scientific theories are the best explanations for the facts that we have already gathered. Each succeeding generation takes up the baton and continues the race. Adding, refining, improving on the work that has already been done. They need to know what has already been found, so not teaching any facts leaves a big hole in that process. The tools they need are the ability to think, and plan, and investigate, while keeping their minds open all the time and not being sidetracked by such things as religious dogma.
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Re: If you accept microevolution

Post #337

Post by Purple Knight »

brunumb wrote: Sun Mar 14, 2021 12:49 amEveryone would be essentially reinventing the wheel.
They absolutely would be charged with reinventing the wheel, and it would be fantastic. Instead of being crammed full of dry facts to vomit back up on cue, children would be participating in actual experimentation from Day 1. Guided yes, but on the basis of showing them, not just telling them. I don't think they would necessarily learn any slower. They'd be eating, and actually getting fatter, carrying that weight they earned with them throughout their lives, instead of just being bulimic. (May have... not been the best metaphor...)

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Re: If you accept microevolution

Post #338

Post by Dimmesdale »

Tcg wrote: Sat Mar 13, 2021 11:28 pm
Dimmesdale wrote: Sat Mar 13, 2021 9:41 am
In my worldview, illusion is all-pervasive, but it is not total. It is controlled by God. God is the source of truth and the dispeller of illusion. If we submit to him, our illusion is lessened.
How do you know that the bolded unsupported assertion is not also an illusion?


Tcg
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Experience doesn't need endless supports. It supports itself, by itself. Self-authenticating. Otherwise, you can't come to any firm conclusion, being awash in the mind's speculations.

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Re: If you accept microevolution

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Post by Tcg »

Dimmesdale wrote: Sun Mar 14, 2021 1:50 am
Tcg wrote: Sat Mar 13, 2021 11:28 pm
Dimmesdale wrote: Sat Mar 13, 2021 9:41 am
In my worldview, illusion is all-pervasive, but it is not total. It is controlled by God. God is the source of truth and the dispeller of illusion. If we submit to him, our illusion is lessened.
How do you know that the bolded unsupported assertion is not also an illusion?


Tcg
Experience.
So you claim that your experience is perfectly free of illusion and all you can provide as evidence that this is true is that it is your experience?

I have experienced the reality that god/gods don't exist. It looks like we are now at a stalemate unless you can provide some verifiable evidence that your experience outweighs mine. What have you that qulifies?


Tcg
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- Irvin D. Yalom

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Re: If you accept microevolution

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Post by Tcg »

Purple Knight wrote: Sun Mar 14, 2021 12:36 am
Tcg wrote: Sat Mar 13, 2021 11:12 pmGiven that many theists accept evolution as a fact, it isn't an atheist vs. theist issue. Presenting it as one isn't helpful nor does it resolve the question of what should be taught.
I didn't mean that and I don't think you'd think I meant that if you'd read the rest of my post. But to clarify, most Western theists don't have an absolute overriding creation myth that conflicts with evolution, so evolution specifically is not a theist vs. atheist issue, but if they did, it would be, and the majority, or the vociferous minority, would win out. The only possible guarantees of no myths overriding any sort of teaching is A) atheist majority B) religious people are a majority, but each individual religion is a minority.

As to what will be taught, the majority will generally get its way.

As to what should be taught, if it's different than what will be taught, one would have to justify intervention against the many, for some particular few, and then, you would have to justify why those few. I can't justify that and I don't plan to attempt to.

My fantasies about an enlightened society where facts aren't taught but discovered, are just that - fantasies. They have no bearing on reality and aren't practical and I know so.
Fantasies don't interest me much. I made the mistake of thinking you were making claims about reality. Given that you are describing a fantasy then yes, anything is possible.


Tcg
To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods.

- American Atheists


Not believing isn't the same as believing not.

- wiploc


I must assume that knowing is better than not knowing, venturing than not venturing; and that magic and illusion, however rich, however alluring, ultimately weaken the human spirit.

- Irvin D. Yalom

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