What's the best strategy for defending evolution?

In fact, I don't tend to trust my doctors. Although I recognize that a physician is highly trained and knows more than I do about medical problems (and has access to fancy diagnostic tools that I don't), I never assume that the doctor really knows what is going on in that particular case. I am merely playing the odds; I am more likely to live a longer, healthier life if I follow the doctor's advise than if I don't.That is quite a bit different from evangelical Christianity, where actual honest trust and belief is a requirement.

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"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

It's like the old canard "God always answers prayer; it's just that sometimes the answer is 'No.'"

Avoiding the issue of whether intention removes the inherent fallacy, I agree that it's an effective argument in many quarters. If pointing out the fallacy isn't an effective counter, what is?--Percy

Heheheh... in short the issue is what the official has put their trust in: a system one can also avail onesself to in order to double-check, or a system set to avoid double-checking.

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holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)

I never blankly trust doctors. They have to explain their diagnosis and solution in a way that makes sense. I suppose the only person I do trust is the surgeon, but that is more about technical skill.Last year I had a doctor telling me all sorts of shit. He wouldn't even listen to what I was saying. I actually felt like punching him out. Some time after I visited him, he made the news for doing an incorrect procedure (it wasn't necessary) on a young girl.And of course one has to remember that doctor death character in England.

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holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)

So, to bring this back to topic (well, not really I guess), what we are saying is that one shouldn't trust one's religious leaders overly much, accept what they say provisionally and act according to their suggestions and guidelines in order to effect the desired results, but be prepared to seek a second (and even third) opinion, and dump them when it becomes obvious that their "diagnoses" and "prescriptions" are not working as they should.

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"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

Here you go trying to equivocate science with religion as so many others have on this site. Faith in scientific inferences does not equivocate with blind faith in some religion. You need to understand that what scientists really have 'faith' in is *a process* - a process for rooting out falsehoods - not faith in particular sets of data or particular inferences. We call it the 'scientific method', a method that has been unequivocally shown, over the past several hundred years, to bring us closer and closer to accurate representations of the natural world. Faith in the scientific process is NOT a religion - it is based on the fact that no superior method of approaching truth has yet been discovered. Perhaps not, but they are sensible enough to trust the consensus of opinion of those who do, unlike those who would deny the obvious truths of evolution for sake of gratifying their religious convictions when faced with contradictory evidence. I don't have a problem with that. More people need to have faith in the scientific method and what it teaches us, even if it falls to handful of intellectuals to explain it to the rest us. All people really need to trust is the scientific method itself. I can't understand the mathematics of particle physics, but I 'have faith' (=trust) that the current concepts categorizing subatomic particle designations constitute the 'best fit' to the myriad data sets that have been produced in particle accelerators. If they weren't, someone would already be famous for pointing out why. That's the beauty of science - the biggest payoff is for detecting false inferences that everyone else assumes to be correct. Now if only every religion had a similar mechanism.... Direct observation of your surroundings should help you verify the veracity of the scientific method. How many technological innovations do you use in the course of a single day? How many would be possible without someone understanding the scientific principles behind them? How many were produced or modified because some religious theory proved scientific inference to be wrong? Science is 'more true' than any religion simply because it is vastly more powerful in both theory and application. When religion controlled the scientific process we ended up with the dark ages, remember? So have drugs and alcohol, but they haven't served to elevate human civilization and technology. Yes to the first part, no to the second.
As I point out above, and Crash, Jar and others have already explained on this thread, you are quite blatantly and deliberately equating 'faith' in some imaginary deity and the divine texts attributed to it with faith in a validated process of human reasoning and verification of factual evidence. One is religion, the other is science, and they cannot be equated.This message has been edited by EZscience, 03-01-2006 12:44 PM

My reply to Crash was a follow on from a point made earlier to EZscience and it is that context that it should be examined. I see from replies that some have switched tracks to debate "what is faith" It was not the trust of my pointMy point was that, whatever about the potential anyone has to educate themselves to a sufficient level so as to satisfy themselves as to the accuracy and validity of evolution evidence, this will never actually occur. So if a large number of people who are not in a position to truly evaluate the evidence believe in evolution it will remain a trust-based belief for them.The predictable response is to point to the empirical nature of science as if this were the only way that facts can be established to a persons satisfaction (for that is what matters to a person). It cannot demonstrate with any degree of probability why anyone should take its word on this however. Cannot, except perhaps to point to the opinion of the many - as if this ever mattered in establishing veracity. Whereas science might comment on the probability of choosing the correct lotto numbers tonight, it can do so only when there are limits placed on what is possible. In an open-ended system such as that in which science and everthing else exists, no calculation of probability posing that what it describes is dealing within the boundaries of what is possible to be described, is possible.Therefore not even scientists can escape faith-based belief that evolution (for instance) happened, simply because they have no true boundaries within which to ascribe probability that it happened. In asserting that their faith or trust is different that a person who holds to religious belief, they can only point to the trust they have in a system which has erected artificial (in the sense they they are not objective) boundaries as to what constitutes knowledge, ie: "empiricsm is the only way we can know we know". Whilst agreeing that this is necessary in order for science to function, one should not forget that those boundaries are indeed artifical, not to say unquantifiable as to sufficiency.Without an anchor firmly attached to something solid somewhere along the line, science floats along in a sea of subjectivity. It is consistant only with itself and within its self-imposed limits. And its when its proponants forget the circularness of their reasoning and assume to assert even a probable level of certainty as to definitive fact is when Science is left behind and Scientism is embraced.Such scientists become the High Priests. The Peer-Reviewed papers treated just like Holy Scripture. And a raft of non-scientific science adherants, the congregation. We even have evangelists sent forth to the likes of EvC to spread the good news. Can you not see the hallmarks of classical Religion here?

But this has already been rebutted. It's honestly not that hard to be sufficiently educated. It takes a high school education in biology. Spoken like someone who has never taken a math class. Probability deals with open-ended system all the time. Ever seen a normalized distribution? This is exactly the sort of nonsense I would expect from the adherents of philosophism - a dogma perversly obsessed with what other people don't know and completely unconcerned with actually generating knowledge of their own.Iano your post is all sound and fury, signifying nothing. It's a lot of words that don't add up to anything, mostly because they're based on a complete ignorance of how science is actually done.

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My point was that, whatever about the potential anyone has to educate themselves to a sufficient level so as to satisfy themselves as to the accuracy and validity of evolution evidence, this will never actually occur.

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But this has already been rebutted. It's honestly not that hard to be sufficiently educated.

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This was the topic of the very first contributions that iano made on this forum. It was pretty well rebutted, in my opinion (oh, am I sounding like randman?). But evidence, logic, and common sense are easily disposed of when they point in directions away from the one's preferred "truths".

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"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

As a general response to your post Crash, could you tell me how we verify that the scientific method supplies us with any degree of definitiveness as to objective truth or fact. In doing so, can you avoid pointing to the products that Scientific Methodology has produced. That would using SM to verify SM. Which would the circular bit I spoke of earlier

Do you agree with this CP. Or would it be more accurate to say that a high school student is only able to comprehend the structure when they accept that the companants are going to behave in a way they are told they behave? And do you accept that they are not in a position of expertise to decide for themselves that the componants will indeed act in the way they are told they will act?"Billions of years ago" they will be told. But they won't understand the intricacies of radiometric dating in order to understand whether the world is indeed old enough to provide the canvas on which evolution is presented. That the world is billions of years old or not is irrelevant. The student takes it on faith - not through self-establishment through expertise.If that is rebuttal then dearie me....

The scientific method is sound, and I believe is the best method for seeking knowledge regarding natural phenomena. Even still I was taken back by your deification of the process. It is not perfect. It has known limits.I am not about to advocate religion as a means of collecting data, but this is the kind of religion-bashing which is not useful for advancing science. This is a frightening thought. No people do not need to have more trust in a method, even if it falls to a handful of people to explain it. That is faith.People need to become more critical and find what systems have worked over time, and test them out for themselves. They should exhibit patience and tolerance in this quest, but remain questioning.Of course it cuts both ways. They don't get to pick and choose what to be critical of. That is patently untrue. Why couldn't they be wrong and no one discovered it yet? As it stands you are encouraging people to simply take their word for it, and thus not take an active part in finding out if they are wrong.

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holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)

Yes, trust and belief in the scientific process as the best way to weed out falsehoods like creationism and ID. Not the only way, but up to now at least, the best way. Putting a man on the moon wasn't enough for you?
Giving you a car to drive, a computer to communicate with, medical 'miracles', a million technological conveniences all based on sientific principles, and you still don't trust science to provide you with an accurate description of the world? It doesn't. What matters in science is not public opinion, but informed consensus. There is a BIG difference. You don't trust the inferences of scientific experts because you don't understand them, but you should trust the scientific *process* to ultimately expose the fakers and the falsehoods. !!!??? We have the 'boundaries' set out by the scientific method that permit us to identify and dismiss what cannot be true, which is more than can be said for any alternative 'theory' (and I use the term loosely). 'Artificial' in the sense of being man-made as opposed to heaven-sent?
The same argument could be applied to all models of human reasoning.
Science, indeed, welcomes artificial constructs of how things 'might work'. We call them 'heuristic devices'. However, they are constructed to be falsifiable and they have 'boundaries' built into them that make them testable. These 'boundaries' do not detract from the veracity of inferences from such models, they increase it. What sort of anchor do you have in mind and where would you attach it?
I would argue that the best anchor on reality you can get is the self-corrrecting nature of the scientific method.
Nothing subjective about that. You think that because the scientific method is the only way to measure scientific veracity, that this somehow makes the whole process circular and subjective?
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Science is the most objective form of reasoning we have.
It is *constantly* being modified, adjusted, corrrected and improved on various scales.Your attempt to equate science with religion falls flat.
When you say 'consistent only within itself' you are clearly describing a religion.
Science must be consistent with direct observations and welcomes real evidence that contradicts established models.
In contrast, religious dogmas seek only to defend what they have already decreed to be true. They don't seek enlightenment, only validation of pre-determined beliefs.

It is not designed to necessarily arrive at objective truth or fact. Hopefully it will, but it is based on a concept of seeking models or paradigms of natural phenomena which allow us greater control and predictive value. Thus "knowledge" and not "truth". Though as I say, hopefully the two eventually merge.Given the criteria above we can point to the products of SM as "successes". That would not be circular at all. We have greater control and predictions regarding the world than we once had.Whether that means we are reaching "truth" I do not know. Does having greater control and predictive value in the world indicate having moved closer to the truth to you?This message has been edited by holmes, 03-01-2006 08:47 PM

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holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)