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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Two for the price of one
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
According to this Slate article the discovery of a transitional fish-to-land-animal fossil is enough to make Creationists (and IDers) unhappy, and, at the same time, to force people to deal with the idea of climate change.
As the palaeontologist says, presenting evidence, in the form of casts of the actual fossil and of the changes in the Arctic during the time he has been investigating, forces people to have a discussion, rather than just saying "My Book has the answer" well, except for Ken Ham, of course.
This relates to the thread on consciously choosing to believe, of course.
Is it possible that the presentation of interesting evidence will actually change a denier's "My book is the only answer" routine? Or is this scientist living in a dream?
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
Is it possible that the presentation of interesting evidence will actually change a denier's "My book is the only answer" routine? Or is this scientist living in a dream?
I'd like to think presenting (alleged) evidence will tend to change the terms of a discussion about evolution / creationism, and that's what the article says is actually happening. So, yeah, go science!
Thanks for the post, by the way; I found the article very interesting and will be sharing it on Facebook shortly!
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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
Posts: 3309 | From: The south coast (of England) | Registered: Jan 2011
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
I'm not sure the Slate article is very helpful. It reinforces the false notion (beloved of YECies) that biology works like maths, where one counter-example disproves everything. But its an observational, statistical, science; consensus is built from many (sometimes millions) of observations. Natural History, not Natural Philosophy. Based on populations, not imaginary essences.
And its rather gushing about this one fossil, as if it somehow changes everything. But it doesn't. We've been digging these things up for eighty years or so. Mostly in Greenland. Try searching for Erik Jarvik, or Jenny Clack, or Per Ahlberg.
This one doesn't change everything - quite the opposite, it fits into and makes clearer a strong pattern that's been emerging for decades. And that's why its important and that's why the YECcies have no scientific answer to it.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Really good beliefs are never ruined by nasty little facts.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
ken: I think that one of the points about the article is that the scientist in question is pushing his science into the stronghold of "them science guys don't know anything" thinking. By turning up and presenting interesting stuff to think about, he is actually penetrating the shell of indifference.
Other science people write or present to those who already have interest in science. Just like most church members (who do not go out to meet people outside their group), scientists prefer to stay in the comfort zone of like-minded people, and rather dislike people "not like them"
One of the reasons that the whole "flight from science" took place lies in the outcome of the Scopes trial in Tennessee in 1927. The people who disagreed with the teaching of evolution actually won their case(to get Scopes out). But Clarence Darrow, for the defence, made so much fun of the "ignorant" religionists that he won in the court of opinion across the US.
The religionists then gave up on the social gospel and the idea of science and retreated into "them outsiders don't know nothin'", and this ghettoization of the evangelicals has only grown since that time. The drawbridge has been up against the scientists since then, exploited by the leadership of the churches in the South of, and elsewhere in, the US. Why? In order to keep control of a docile base population.
If that population starts actually thinking, the power base will dissolve.
This is a caricature in one sense, but there is an element of truth in the idea that the retreat from science has been engineered by various leaders, especially in the church, in the interest of maintaining control. Further appeals to (subtle) racism, headship, anti-gayism, etc. have been brought up to confirm the control of that flock. Any action to loosen that control involves having the members do some active thinking and realization of evidence.
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
ken: I think that one of the points about the article is that the scientist in question is pushing his science into the stronghold of "them science guys don't know anything" thinking. By turning up and presenting interesting stuff to think about, he is actually penetrating the shell of indifference.
Other science people write or present to those who already have interest in science.
Though, I suspect that those who turn up to see him are already self-selected as those more open to question the anti-evolution view, and may well be those in town who are not Creationists for whom being with a group of local people prepared to reject the assumptions of many Christians may be a vital part of their faith development.
I've been to some Answers in Genesis events in my time. But, I was in a very small minority of people there who didn't accept the Creationist view present. Most people were there simply as a prop for their faith (which being in the UK is a minority view and often criticised in church and elsewhere). Most people I know who totally reject the Creationist position wouldn't even think of hearing what Ken Ham has to say.
I strongly suspect that the audiences coming to see an actual intermediate water-land animal fossil would be as strongly biased, just in the opposite direction.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Liopleurodon
Mighty sea creature
# 4836
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Posted
It's not going to make any difference, because the YEC narrative just doesn't allow for evidence to change minds. If it did there was more than enough evidence before this discovery. As far as I can see, though, the hardcore YEC narrative relies on:
- All of these things in this Bible interpretation must be literally true.
- If any of it is false, then all the stuff about Jesus could be, too.
- I'm pretty sure Jesus is real and if people don't think that they're going to hell and I don't want to go to hell.
- Therefore, whatever your evidence is it must be mistaken.
You can apply this circle of reasoning to absolutely any kind of evidence, however accurate, compelling or irrefutable. It just plain isn't about the evidence.
Posts: 1921 | From: Lurking under the ship | Registered: Aug 2003
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
In a way I don't mind that so much. Especially of they have the honesty to talk about what it implies about the relationship between God and creation.
What gets my back up is the fake pseudo-science, the lies, and the personal attacks on palaeontologists and other scientists.
If they just stuck to "this is what the Bible says so I believe it" they would be easier to respect.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Grokesx
Shipmate
# 17221
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Posted
quote:
It's not going to make any difference, because the YEC narrative just doesn't allow for evidence to change minds.
No narrative does.
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
Posts: 373 | From: Derby, UK | Registered: Jul 2012
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
quote:
It's not going to make any difference, because the YEC narrative just doesn't allow for evidence to change minds.
No narrative does.
I do not disagree that many people operate this way, but if everyone did, the site itself would not exist.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
/tangent on mind change
One of Edward de Bono's best insights is illustrated by this Q&A.
Q. Why do people think?
A. In order to stop thinking.
Analytical thinking is relatively hard work. Much easier to find the well known and well loved "tape" and replay that for reassurance about the world we think we understand.
What has always puzzled me about conservative Christian beliefs is a blind spot about Christian discipleship. Mathetes. - disciple - has the twin meanings of both learner and follower. In conservative belief, leaner is subsumed by follower. You are expected to follow what has already been learned about the nature and application of our faith. So it all becomes about obedience. As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be.
I guess I can see there might be some comfort in that, but it always strikes me as a stultifier of that most remarkable aspect of our nature. Our ability to be creative, to see the significance of new information and insight, adapt to those things and make good use of them.
One of the characters in James Blish's classic novel "A Case of Conscience" is summarised in these terms.
"He had wanted nothing to change and was now, unchangeably, nothing".
Blish saw it as a tragic example of wish fulfilment. I think that can often be the case. The dark side of these kind of wishes is that they do seem to deny something special about human nature. The ability to discover.
[ 21. April 2014, 09:16: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Grokesx
Shipmate
# 17221
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Posted
quote:
I do not disagree that many people operate this way, but if everyone did, the site itself would not exist.
"No narrative does" overstates the case, but as the article says, it applies to deeply held convictions. I suspect it's universal enough to be a feature, not a bug.
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
Posts: 373 | From: Derby, UK | Registered: Jul 2012
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
"No narrative does" overstates the case, but as the article says, it applies to deeply held convictions. I suspect it's universal enough to be a feature, not a bug.
If you were presented with evidence that it wasn't true would you still believe it?
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Grokesx
Shipmate
# 17221
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Posted
quote:
If you were presented with evidence that it wasn't true would you still believe it?
Maybe not. Normally when I say, "I suspect..." I'm not uttering a deeply held conviction.
Edited to add "not".
[ 21. April 2014, 14:38: Message edited by: Grokesx ]
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
Posts: 373 | From: Derby, UK | Registered: Jul 2012
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Really good beliefs are never ruined by nasty little facts.
LOL, yup.
Years ago a friend explained to me that when God made Adam and Eve, they looked 20 years old (or pick any age) when they were IN FACT one day old. God made them look as if they had lived 20 years, they weren't created as newborn babies but as adults. Similarly the Earth was created to look as if it had a past.
Discovery of fossils that are a "missing link" in evolution would simply join dinosaur bones and rocks supposedly multi-million years old as proof of how creative God was in giving the Earth the look of having a past.
Or there's the "test of faith" argument, God created those fossils (as fossils, not as fossilization of living creatures) to test our willingness to believe the Bible.
(I figure God has enough trouble getting us to have faith, he doesn't need to invent artificial tests, but I hear the concept "testing our faith" much more broadly than just from young earth folks.)
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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