You're venturing into dangerous territory if you believe that if two people are debating on the internet, then the debater with the clearest writing style is more likely to be right.
True, I know of one creationist with good spelling, grammar and paragraph construction.
But he can't argue his way out of a paper bag, due to severe logic failure.
Now, I have wondered whether creationists were bad at logic because of creationist teaching, or whether people bad at logic were creationist because of bad logic, which of course can just be the ad hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.... but then I've known people with logical aphasia that are just as bad arguing FOR science (one working on his masters).
The writing style of creationists doesn't necessarily betray a lack of education, it's just that their writing style is usually unclear. Rational thinkers are much more concerned with clarity than irrational thinkers.
Nor are people satisfied with their current life-style interested in an education or learning anything outside their rose garden.
poepel aer godo ta nociting patrens evne tohgh ti mya nto eb a parten.
Juggs is infamous for just that. As are a bunch of other creos. Actually, now that I think about it, it's the rare creo who acknowledges his error!
And the rarest in my experience is actually changing to the correct usage of terminology and concepts.
It's more often that cognitive dissonance prevents corrections, and thus they just don't see it as the issue - they are right and you are wrong, not matter if you were the scientist who defined the term in the first place ...
What is it about some people that makes them want to not only discuss things they know nothing about, but even to insist, for literally pages and pages, that they're right?
It's called the "law of incompetence" - incompetent people are incompetent to see that they are incompetent because they are incompetent. If they were competent enough to perceive that they were incompetent, then they would be able to change and be competent (or at least know enough to know that they didn't know enough to know, know what I mean?).
Incompetent people also do not recognize competent people for the same reason, thus your incompetent boss will never recognize your competence and criticize you for not doing things his way no matter how good your way is.
It's very annoying to those few of us who are competent ...
We all only know a tiny bit of all knowledge, so we are all of us ignorant of almost everything.
We can represent this as follows:
(2) Another is the way this affects the degree of knowledge in different areas by different people.
quote:When in fact, the organised trained mind rarely understands anything outside of it's way of thinking.
That's crap, I do believe. Care to provide examples, or any sort of proof for this claim?
There are many. How many times do we see scientists quoted talking outside their field of expertise and the criticism is that they don't know what they are talking about. Certainly a physicist knows more about physics than a biologist and a biologist knows more about biology than physics. In this case both have "organised trained minds" but are not able to fully understand the other field.
Anyone can have special knowledge that other people do not have.
(3) The third issue is people talking outside their area of expertize, particularly Person A talking about Person B's area of expertize ...
... and because they do not know what the other knows, they are not competent to recognize when they say\think something wrong, AND not competent to recognize when the other person is right.
When you add to this a practice of feeding false information to person A about the area of person B's special knowledge, then you get a person who (1) thinks they have some expertize in the area and (2) think they know enough to correct person B.
You are allowing insignificant details to make you miss the significant ones.
Especially when you equate the insignificant details with a scorched earth exclusionary policy, and miss the significant detail that you should include everyone ... even if you need to change the name to do it
It is interesting how the debate can turn on the use of a single word that someone sees in a totally different (emotional?) light. The use of the word "evolution" alone (see for instance on the Evolution and the BIG LIE thread) seems to distract from the argument.
How would you know you had misconceptions? How many of your misconceptions are you carrying right now? Tell me about them. I may be able to clarify or I am sure someone will.
Yet you didn't answer the question -- who do I ask to find out? My neighbor? My dad? My mechanic?
How do I know if they are misconceptions? Buy checking my conceptions against some measure of reality in some way? The question is really how you validate your conceptions, isn't it?
Tell me about them. I may be able to clarify ...
How do I know that you know enough to correct or clarify my misunderstanding? You could just as easily be spreading your misunderstanding instead.
How do we come to believe that anything is real? What do you use?
Why did you say absolutely to this question when you don't have a clue what your misconceptions are? Do you think you have misconceptions or not?
When asked the same question, Radz response also inferred he knew the nature of his own misconceptions.
But your question was:
Message 165 Ask yourself if you would like to learn about the misconceptions you have on Evolution?
Saying yes does not imply you know what they are (they would then cease to be misunderstandings if that were true), but that you are open to the idea of having misconceptions and open to discussing them in order to learn.
The as yet unanswered question is who do you ask to find out if you do have misconceptions?
The once strongly held belief that the earth was the center of the solar system and the universe and everything revolved around it is one example.
Likewise believing that the earth is young or old does not make it so, rather it is old because that is the objective reality regardless of belief. Belief in a young earth is another example.
And how have you reasoned that the strongly held belief is indeed FALSE?
Not by reasoning but by testing it against objective reality. Reasoning alone won't tell you enough about the relation of belief to objective reality. Belief is not necessarily related to reality in any way, because if it was factual it would knowledge, not belief.
Let's talk about psychiatry and delusion:
A person that is clinically delusional has false beliefs strongly held in spite of contradictory evidence.
You can't answer the question of where you go to find out if you have misconceptions?
Then your dilemma would be........
Finding someone who does know about the topic, check that person with another authority, test what they say to check it's validity. Trusting just anyone is foolish, trusting a mathematician with a PhD from a major university to know about math is not nearly as foolish as trusting your local mechanic.
That gives you a tentative answer that you can test, based on knowledge you did not have before.
People grow up trusting their parents to know all and see all, and then some event happens, epiphany occurs, and they know that their parents don't know everything. The lesson is to not blindingly trust any authority, but to test concepts.
Great question. I'm stumped. I will give it some thought.
Perhaps you realize now that other people have already thought about this question, and some use a process that has been developed over the years for testing things against reality:
quote:1. Define the question 2. Gather information and resources (observe) 3. Form hypothesis 4. Perform experiment and collect data 5. Analyze data 6. Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis 7. Publish results 8. Retest (frequently done by other scientists)
quote:The essential elements[9][10][11] of a scientific method[12] are iterations,[13] recursions,[14] interleavings, and orderings of the following:
Characterizations (observations,[15] definitions, and measurements of the subject of inquiry)
Hypotheses[16][17] (theoretical, hypothetical explanations of observations and measurements of the subject)[18]
Predictions (reasoning including logical deduction[19] from the hypothesis or theory)
Experiments[20] (tests of all of the above)
While the scientific process won't tell you when you are right, it does tell you when you have false conceptions.
You would have to voice a concept that someone else disagrees with and then they would have to point out your misconception.
Or you can ask a question about something you are not sure of but believe to be true. You can even ask yourself the question and then use the method above to test it and see if you can find the answer.
quote:Belief can alter observations; those with a particular belief will often see things as reinforcing their belief, even if they do not.[8] Needham's Science and Civilization in China uses the 'flying horse' image as an example of observation: in it, a horse's legs are depicted as splayed, when the stop-action picture by Eadweard Muybridge shows otherwise. Note that at the moment that no hoof is touching the ground, the horse's legs are gathered together and are not splayed.
Earlier paintings depict the incorrect flying horse observation. This demonstrates Ludwik Fleck's caution that people observe what they expect to observe, until shown otherwise; our beliefs will affect our observations (and therefore our subsequent actions). The purpose of the scientific method is to test a hypothesis, a belief about how things are, via repeatable experimental observations which can contradict the hypothesis so as to fight this observer bias.
Muybridge was able to show that the strongly held belief in the "flying horse" position was a misconception. He didn't know it was a misconception until he tested it.
Thankyou for that information I did not ask for, nor was it relevant to this thread.
Sorry, I thought you did ask:
Heinrik Message 179 How would you know you had misconceptions?
Don't you agree that one way you could know would be to apply the scientific method to see if you can invalidate conceptions?
The relevance to this thread is the matter of how people test concepts for their validity - see if they are true or false statements. The relevance to this thread is the fact that many creationists post concepts that are falsified, known to be false, and they obviously use some other method to determine what they think is valid.
I've been trying to find out how that system works.
THIS IS THE COFFEE FORUM WHERE WE DISCUSS TOPICS OTHER THAN SCIENCE OR CREATION. THERE ARE SPECIFIC SCIENCE THREADS TO MEET YOUR SCIENTIFIC NEEDS, SO STOP WASTING MY TIME AND THE FEW POSTS LEFT WITH SHOWING OFF TO YOUR MATES.
No need to lose your temper. The point remains that the scientific method is one way we have for determining when beliefs are false. I don't see how discussing that truth suddenly forces a "science thread vs non-science thread" confrontation - it is just a way to validate belief, and I find your reaction rather amusing, given the "role playing" admission above. If you have other methods I would like to know, hence I asked what you use. You said you hadn't thought about it, which I find rather curious if you are also questioning the validity of concepts expressed by people.
You don't have to be "in science" to use the method, and using the method doesn't necessarily create science out of what you do with it. Of itself the method is a philosophical construction.
Message 239 I sent a post completely mispelled and no punctuation, only one person responded. Later I sent exactly the same post but this time it was corrected. This time it sparked a flurry of debate which is absolutely wonderful and continuing still.
I thought your first message was a blatant attempt to look unintelligent. I also agree with Dameeva on some points, but not on others.
Percy's point still stands - when people pretend to know something they don't they will get picked on by those that do, particularly if they use ridiculous falsehoods as arguments, and most particularly if they carry on as if they know the subject.
The evidence, in black and white is in this thread. It cannot be missed. It clearly shows the onus is on the educated to make the effort to listen and understand those who cannot improve their standards to meet yours. You are asking the impossible of them but it is so possible for you.
So when someone posts that the earth is young I should try to understand them?
Aren't you being a little condescending to say that it is impossible for them?
We've reached 300+ posts and time to make summary statements and close the thread. I would like to take this particular response as emblematic of where creationists typically end up -- in denial of contradictory evidence:
would you like to prove the god I believe in cannot exist, if I do not use any religion\science\evolution?
Are you saying that in order to believe in your god you need to deny all the knowledge and all the evidence of all religions\sciences (and "science" includes evolution)?
To me it is irrelevant how well people communicate, what is critical is logical thinking that is self-consistent and has a solid basis in reality (ie not contradicted by evidence of objective reality).
That is pretty much the argument in a nut-shell.
To Heinrik:
Perhaps you would care to continue the discussion on how one validates their concepts of reality on the thread Perceptions of Reality. I am interested in what methods (in addition to the scientific method) we can use to determine the validity of concepts.
edit: I have started a new Perceptions of Reality thread as the old one is near 300 posts.
One other thing I would like to add on the issue of comprehension, and that is about the use of words:
when person A uses a different definition of a word than person B they are not talking about the same thing.
when person A uses a different definition of a word than is used in a specialty field (science religion philosophy whatever) then they are not talking about the same thing, they are not talking about the specialty field (science religion philosophy whatever) but something else.
To Heinrik & Hill Billy: are you sure you are not also doing what you claim others are doing?
Enjoy.
Edited by RAZD, : added update
we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand
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