There are a number of forum guidelines for posting behavior. Basically they deal with being honest: honest in who you are, honest is what you say is your content, and honest in your portrayal of what people being quoted are actually saying (whether forum members or other people).
8. Avoid any form of misrepresentation.
The best way to pursue this that I can see is to try to understand what is being quoted before making the quote.
What I proposed at the time, was that Kaichos_Man was not reading to understand the evolution position, but to be able to refute it, poke holes in, find inconsistencies, etc. His lack of understanding led him to see what he considered big problems with evolution in the material he was quoting.
From my personal observations on this and other forums, he is not alone in this type of behavior, and it is fairly common in creationist posts to see vast misrepresentations of evolution presented as common knowledge, but I have also seen this behavior in non-creationists. The issue crops up whenever someone says "you've misunderstood\misquotd\misrepresented what I said" -- and this should be a big red flag to anyone who considers themselves an honest poster.
So do you read for understanding (as best you can)? Or do you read to find and pick out points to base a refutation on?
I think it is easy to get caught up in this last behavior in the heat of a debate, but this doesn't excuse not back-checking when the red flag is raised.
We, as evolutionists, are constantly fighting strawmen on this forum. It seems, in fact, that creationists are not even making any effort to understand at all. ... Some questions to ask:
Does belief always come before understanding? Should it? How large is the role of confirmation bias in our learning process? ...
I'm starting a new thread because (a) I did not want to tie up someone else's thread with my argument/s, (b) I wanted to expand on reasons for lack of understanding rather than focus on the rest of Bluejay's questions, and (c) because I didn't want to focus on evo vs creo, but on general human behavior.
Let me answer these questions here to start the ball rolling on this thread:
Does belief always come before understanding?
Yes. Evidence shows that the human mind makes a decision to believe or disbelieve a new conept, and then looks for reasons to justify that decision. (Sorry, I had a reference for this but I've lost it - anyone who can point to it, please do. I believe is was a psychology paper).
This ties in to my argument regarding worldview/s: that any concept that fits with the worldview is easily accepted, and any concept that is contrary to, or contradicts, the worldview is not accepted.
Concept fits: dig up worldview evidence for why it fits. Concept doesn't fit: dig up worldview evidence for why it doesn't fit.
Should it?
No, but the fact is that it does, so we should learn to accept this and try to recognize when it occurs to avoid making decisions to believe or disbelieve that are not supported by empirical evidence, and are more likely the result of opinion and personal bias/es.
How large is the role of confirmation bias in our learning process?
Huge, as almost everyone on that thread acknowledges. However the companion behavior, cognitive dissonance, is also a major player, imho, where people (or their subconscious minds) actually fight against new information because it is contrary to, or contradicts, a worldview.
I sort of 'nod-off' often while reading YEC explanations so I know exactly what you are describing above.
In other words, by the time you reach the end of the argument, your mind has already rejected the beginning, and you are left with a vague "what did they say?" feeling. Even going back and rereading the section doesn't necessarily result in any increased understanding, the concept is too foreign to the worldview.
Personally, I believe this is most applicable when one has an "ide fixe that is being contested, even when one is not aware themselves of the fixation.
So when this happens with a poster, do you ask for more explanation, or do you blunder on, using your rapier wit to dispose of your perceived goblins, confident in the belief that if you don't understand it, that it must be wrong?
Honest Debate: how do you read? So do you read for understanding (as best you can)? Or do you read to find and pick out points to base a refutation on?
Failure to understand the position you are supposedly replying to inevitably means that you are talking about something else, and when you build later conclusions on these false understandings, all you are doing is erecting a house of cards based on straw men, in the end accomplishing nothing.
Bottom line, you cannot understand what a person means more than the person themselves. If they are confused, all you can do is show that you are confused by their post/s and ask for clarification. If they say you have missed the point in any way, you can be sure that you have.
An example here would be Bolder-dash and his thread Has natural selection really been tested and verified? where the whole thread was tied up by his complaining that he was not understood, and his inability at the time to explain what he meant in greater detail: an exercise in frustration for both sides of that debate.
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