Honest Debate: how do you read?

I read mostly in order to refute. The reason I do this is that intellectually I fully accept evolution but struggle with full emotional acceptance - and refuting arguments against evolution (particularly ones I haven't thought about before) helps me clarify the evidence in my own mind. I'm aiming to achieve internal alignment on this issue - and it's slowly working.

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I read mostly in order to refute. ...
... and refuting arguments against evolution (...) helps me clarify the evidence in my own mind.

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I'm not sure how that works, can you give me an example?

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Hi RAZD,as an example, I was discussing the origin of whales in EvolutionFairytale with someone alleging that evolutionists could produce no facts in support of whale evolution - that all was mere assumption and supposition. So I researched some of the facts, and put a reply together.I learned something about whale evolution. But also I made a connection in my own brain between two lines of evidence that supported each other in a way I hadn't previously seen.These were the fossil record and genetic studies. Both of these, as I think you know, point to the origin of whales from a common ancestor with ungulates 55mya.Normally of course, creationists are able to make the point that genetics and fossils align because the morphology of species is obviously aligned with their genetics - so under creation, we should also expect morphology and genetics to line up. Similar looking species will have similar genetics.But with whales, the morphology of whales is radically different from that of the common ancestor. We should NOT therefore expect the a creator would give them similar genetics to ungulates. But this is what we actually find. The fossil record and the genetics line up in this unexpected way.So for me, this was an 'Aha' moment - this is really good evidence in favour of ToE and against creation and helped increase my emotional belief in ToE.

Hi Bluejay,

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Is emotional belief a good thing to have?

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For me, yes. When my 'head' says something and my 'heart' says something else then I am uncomfortable. If the two are aligned I feel much better.Edited by Peepul, : No reason given.

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The really concerning thing for me is when you run into people who feel like they have found the answers. Usually, what follows is the impression that no more corroboration is necessary, and that no new information will change the results. That's where the confirmation bias sneaks in and gets uncautious folks to rail on any point made by any creationist, just because one already "knows" that organisms evolve.

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Yes, that definitely is a risk.

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Excellent point, but I'm still not sure how "reading to refute" is what is necessary to get you here (although I'm sure Phil Gingerich would be pleased).

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It isn't necessary - it's just the approach I took.

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In other words, you found confirmation evidence and it made you feel comfortable with the results?

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That's right. It helped me shift my emotional belief towards accepting that actually, this might be real, and reduced conflict between what I think I 'should' believe and what I actually believe.

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This is what worries me about focusing on the refutation rather than the understanding, that you can fall prey to confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance and, perhaps, miss some nuanced point that you may not have agreed with originally.

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I'm suffering severe cognitive dissonance all the time and I'm trying to reduce it! I'm hoping that with increased knowledge and a confidence that the evidence is very good, I become more open to genuine challenges. So far, that does appear to be the case, but I do agree that there is a risk of overlooking something valid and important in an opponents argument with this approach.