Greetings all,
As you may know, a paradigm is a model or a pattern. According to John Harrison, Program Director for the National Stuttering Project, It’s a shared set of assumptions that have to do with how we perceive the worldBut when data falls outside our paradigm, we find it hard to see and accept. This is called the paradigm affect. And when the paradigm effect is so strong that we are prevented from actually seeing what is under our very noses, we are said to be suffering from PARADIGM PARALYSIS.
I have a couple examples specific to the evolution/creation controversy. I am a science guy who has married into a fundamentalist Christian family. The community of friends I inherited have a very dogmatic Christian worldview, seeing the world from one particular literal biblical perspective. They hate the word "tradition" (since it sounds so Catholic), but their favored literal interpretation is in the tradition of Henry Morris' creation science.
My first example happened at a social gathering. A loud uncle yelled across the dinner table that I was one of those "Darwinists". I replied back, "You reject evolution, yet you have no idea what it is. Am I wrong? What is the definition of evolution?" He replied so that everyone could hear, "You think we came from monkeys!" I then replied, "No where does evolution claim that and Darwin never suggested that." I then received a chorus of three of his fellow believers touting, "Yes it does. You just received your education from Darwinists."
My argument continued, but the four-on-one scene gave them of feeling of winning the argument. The other problem I was faced with is that a proper answer required time and they were not interesting in listening objectively. After about an hour all of them went relatively quiet, so I believe I finally made my point. This certainly was a "shared set of assumptions" on their part. I also realized that these four, along with most of their religious community, received their science education from anti-evolution sources. Their anti-evolution tradition, or paradigm, is so strong.
My second example was with an intelligent design proponent, yet within the same fundamentalist Christian community as the first example. I'll make this one a brief. After an argument about irrreducible complexity (which went nowhere, since he stated, "Well, you can believe what you want and I can believe what I want."), I told him that Behe believed chimpanzees and humans have a common ancestor. I knew this would catch him off guard, because he was a young earth creationist. He called me a liar and walked away.
Do these creation/evolution experiences sound like paradigm paralysis?
Best,
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