Does belief always come before understanding? Should it ?
I guess it does in the vast majority of times. I can't say if it should, but I'm pretty sure it can't be any other way. We naturally try to understand things that we believe in, and the few times we try to understand something other than what we believe in, it is to compare it with our POV.
How large is the role of confirmation bias in our learning process?
I actually think it has a much larger role in adults than in children. Because by definition this involves us choosing what we decide to learn, which only happens when we get older. Young children don't choose what they learn, they simply take on whatever we decide to give them. Seen this way, the bias comes from the parents/educational structure.
In the case of adults, the personnal confirmation bias is a lot more active, because we are the ones deciding what we learn. And naturally, we are going to want to learn things we already think hold truth.
Are we doing the same thing to Intelligent Design that they obviously are to the Theory of Evolution?
This question is a bit harder to answer because I think it is badly stated. Some IDers also believe in the ToE. Some also believ in the Fact of Evolution. I think it would be more appropriate to replace ToE in this question by Abiogenesis.
In any case, I do think the same is being done to ID. I've noticed that many atheistic evolutionists here pride themselves of their understanding of ID, when actually it sometimes quite faulty.
Are any of us really beating up anything other than strawmen?
This question is rather interesting. If we are talking about conscious strawmen, then I think the answer is no. Not many willfully misrepresent the other's case in order to discredit it.
If we are talking about unconscious strawmen, then the answer is different. It happens when we misunderstand the other person's position, and I don't think this always happens. At least not with everyone. I can take myself as an example and I pretty much have the same understanding of evolution is the evolutionists around here; I see this when I think of the same answers to the faulty creationist arguments as you guys.
What does this mean for science education? Surely our professors (are ourselves, for those who are professors) have their "own theories": won't this color their lectures?
How do we define personnal bias ? If a teacher talks about the most popular theory on a given subject, and it also happens to be his own personnal view on the subject, is it personnal bias ? As compared to when he talks about his own view on a subject, but this time it is not the commonly accepted view on this ? Is it any more or less personnal bias in this case ?
I can't think of a profesor teaching something he doesn't think is true, because he will always want his students to know what is true, not false. It isn't more or less personnal bias when this just so happens to be the common view then when it isn't. The way to get out of this would be to teach both the common view and the personnal view, which can be done in obejctive sciences such as Math, but harder as you go to physics, biology, geology, anthropology down to psychology, sociology, etc. because of time limits.
The other way would be to impose what teachers have to teach, and nothing else. But then it only becomes the bias of those at the top who decide what will or will not be taught.
Much more could have been said about each question, but I'll leave it to that as I will continue ruminating these questions ...
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