Choco: It IS your job to be his science teacher if he doesn't understand your evidence. A single graph isn't evidence. You must tell what the graph actually says. This IS your job if you're going to be arguing for that point.
I would have to write multiple science textbooks to fill in the hole in his understanding. This is an unrealistic expectation; if someone is going to debate, they need to have an understanding of the subject matter- or at least be willing to do the research on their own.
Hell, Wikipedia is good enough for the layperson's understanding of most subjects, start there. Do this, then:
Read the wiki articles on cosmic background radiation, the COBE mission, introduction to evolution, evolution, evolution as theory and fact, misconceptions about evolution, and anything in blue text on those pages whose meaning is not wholly familiar to you.
There's plenty of evidence for it. If there wasn't, it wouldn't be a theory.
Utilitarianism is more metaethical than normative. It doesn't tell you what to value. In other words, utilitarianism does not mandate what utility exactly is... that's not the problem it solves.
You've dodged the question. What is the difference between what you are calling "atheistic religion" and "philosophy"?
Oh, indeed. Knowledge of the Koran, for example, is totally worthless, and surely has no relevance to the real world task of fostering positive diplomatic relations with Islamic countries.
It's worthless with regards to understanding of natural phenomena (in other words, science). Certainly knowing the contents of the book has value when you're dealing with groups of fanatics who treat the book as absolute truth regardless of evidence. That's true of any book.
The provision of evidence is what the theological field of apologetics is all about. If you ever bother to read some of the better Christian apologetics, you may just find that they do make a strong and well-reasoned case. Also:
I've read plenty of apologetics. They don't make a "well-reasoned" case because they do one of the following:
1- Start with the assumption that their holy book is true.
2- Start with the assumption that their god exists.
3- Argue from what they wish were true (things like "A world without a god would not be a world worth living in", etc).
4- (this one applies mostly to the amateurs on internet forums etc) Are mostly clueless with regards to the subject material and can't really go anywhere with the argument. Granted, this possibility exists with arguments on any subject, anywhere.
Apologists do not argue from mythology. They argue from the available evidence for the historical actuality of that which you call mythology. To the extent that they do so with sound methodology and intellectual integrity, their voice is as valid and important in debate as any other.
I've yet to see any that succeeded with the bolded restrictions. Most of the historical apologetics I've read start with either assumption 1 or 2 above; a few insisted on #3. Almost all of them were ignorant of the scientific reality (of course, at the time so were the scientists).
Modern apologetics, by and large, has become nothing more than a field of charlatans like Dinesh d'Souza. The religious leaders are far more interested in converting people via fear and indoctrination of children, not by logical persuasion.
I reiterate, there is no reason why people should be holding up their holy book as "evidence" of anything in a debate without first providing evidence that their holy book is factual. This societal bias towards religion is utterly ridiculous. There are scientific hypotheses that lack evidence and should be treated similarly- the misnamed String Theory comes to mind. Scientific theories that have evidence backing them up should not be treated as "equal" to religions which are devoid of evidence.
The problem I have with this kinda thinking is that LOTS of people that use science in their debates does not even realize what science is, or what goes into it.
I had someone argue me for pages that heisenberg's uncertainty principle could be applied to EVERYTHING. And he held it up in my face as fanatically as any religious person would hold their believes. He had NO understanding AT ALL about what it really meant, or the math behind it, but he felt he could apply it to what we were debating.
*facepalm*
I don't think it would involve going very far out on a limb if I blamed sci-fi for that one, considering how many bad sci-fi authors have savagely misused that principle.
Knowledge of ANY kind is better than ignorance in my book.
The contents of your typical religious book are not "knowledge", they are mythology. Trivia. Worthless in the real world. Arguments based on the Bible, the Koran, the Bhagavad-Gita, etc; are no more valid than arguments based on Tolkien's Silmarillion; unless the person arguing thereby can present evidence that indicates the truth of their specific ancient book.
Just because many people who attempt to debate the scientific side of things have next-to-nil understanding of the underlying science doesn't mean that all of a sudden arguing from mythology is any more credible. It's not.
this was a win for palin however i doubt the obama media will see it like that.
Anyone who thinks the media is "liberal" or "for Obama" needs to get a clue. The mainstream media in America is absurdly biased towards conservatives due to the ridiculous viewpoint that being "unbiased" means "presenting both sides as being equal". If they were really unbiased, McCain would be getting torn apart non-stop over his endless stream of flip-flops. But because calling McCain out on his BS would give the appearance of bias, they refuse to do so- which actually slants things in favor of McCain.
I am a scientist, and run my life using tools, like falsification. If something is credible based on observation and testing for flaws, i will 'run with it'. I do not believe so to speak. I find ignorance abound in people claiming they believe in evolution, when they literally believe in evolution! Some people know nothing of the testing, observations or literature involved in the current theory.
This is by and large a major failing in the education system, though it's critical to realize that the impact of the education system on society is time-lagged for obvious reasons.
It's also impacted significantly by the truly awful state of what passes for science journalism these days. It essentially boils down to "Some poindexter in a lab coat says that he's done an experiment which confirms evolution", and the ridiculous media paradigm that being "unbiased" means "presenting a conflicting viewpoint as though it were equally valid" results in articles on science which have- for no real reason- two or three lines from a religious figure declaring the science to be false.
This only further perpetuates the misinformation in the minds of the general public that "science and religion are equally valid".
Tossing in the fact that the conservative movement has made it a goal to discredit science (in the USA, at least- I'm not so sure about NZ) and you can clearly see why many of those people who do at least accept science do so on the following line of reasoning:
"hey, scientists figured out how to make my microwave work, I'll trust them on this other stuff"
and they still don't understand what science is really about. They just know a few of the scientific results, and that's it.
A religion is a doctrinal system that prescribes moral imperatives and rituals that have some developmental meaning toward a moral ideal, where the value that defines this morality is derived from an a priori philosophical worldview.
There are theistic religions, like Christianity or Islam.
There are atheistic religions, like Juche or La Vey Satanism.
What distinguishes what you have defined as an "atheistic religion" from a "philosophy" that determines morality (such as utilitarianism, etc)?
Did you see that part on the graph where it said "Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation from COBE"? That's your cue to use Google. I am not your science teacher, I am not going to teach you stuff you should have been taught in school (or if you're still in school- stuff that you should be learning in a few years).
Evolution by definition disproves Creationism (that is, the theory of evolution disproves the claim that man was created by god in our current form). Evolution does not disprove the notion of a creator god (that is to say, Theistic Evolution).
Initially you said that Religion deserves no more respect than any other idea. Now you're saying it deserves LESS respect than any other idea.
Religion deserves no more or less respect than any other idea that lacks evidence. It (and all other ideas that lack evidence) deserve much, much less respect than ideas that have the backing of evidence in one form or another.
And your saying that science has testable evidence is automatically biased against Religion. Religion says 'God did so and so'. For this to be testable, we have to somehow force God to do it again. This, by definition, isn't possible. And even if it was, it still wouldn't be in our control, and you would argue against it. Your entire argument is biased for Science because you can easily recreate a scientific experiment while the Religious argument can't be replicated. But, relative to the argument, the Religious argument doesn't need to be replicated.
Scientific tests are not the only means of demonstrating things. Historical evidence (and no, the bible is no more historical evidence than the Odyssey is) would suffice also. Interestingly, the Egyptians do not have records of the Jews being kept as slaves; the Roman records don't match up very well with many aspects of the New Testament; and so forth. The corrobating evidence for the bible is practically nonexistent.
Requiring actual evidence is hardly a bias. In fact, requiring actual evidence is the only way there is of removing bias. That's why the scientific method requires experimentation to confirm hypotheses.
The scientific method is inherently unbiased. So are mathematical proofs. So is formal logic. The legal system attempts to be unbiased.
The "layman" as you put it, is horrendously biased and not to be trusted.
Truth is not something to be democratically voted on.
And as for your bit about competing religions, you're straw manning now. What religion you believe in has nothing to do with the argument of religion versus science.
It's a perfectly valid objection. If you reject scientific evidence on the grounds that "these religions all say something else!" then you've got the clear problem that there's a mess of different claims with no evidence for any of them.
Agnostic, noun.
2: a person unwilling to commit to an opinion about something <political agnostics>
In this case, I'm unwilling to commit to an opinion about a religion.
You have committed to the opinion "(a) god exists", which is by definition a theistic position. You are likely irreligious, possibly a Deist of some sort; but certainly not an agnostic.
Bolding is mine, of course. Now, your first statement there says that the debate should require evidence. But you've also said there's no evidence for Religion. This adds up to "until religion gets evidence, it doesn't belong in the debate forum". The second bolding is a double standard on your part. You seem to want to compensate for society's automatic give to religion (something I notice and I agree it shouldn't exist) by automatically giving the automatic high ground to science and kicking Religion to the curb. Your attitude comes across as 'because its science, it's automatically more credible', which is just what you're arguing against but on the other side of the argument.
Let's see... Religion asserts non-evident things as true. Science requires evidence to be examined, reviewed, and corrobated before declaring something a theory. You're damn straight science is automatically more credible than religion. The mere fact that a claim is "scientific" means that there has already been tested evidence in favor of it.
If religious scholars can actually come up with evidence supporting their wild claims, then they can have equal footing. Not before. They certainly haven't done so yet.
The idea that religion should be given "equal footing" with science is preposterous. Where science and religion conflict, religion should give way for the simple fact that the science has testable evidence behind it and the religion does not. Furthermore, no religion has any more evidence for it than any other religion, and they often conflict with each other. If we reject evolution on the grounds that "religion says evolution is wrong" then we somehow (without evidence!) have to choose between the claims of many competing religions. This is an untenable position, and the only reason anyone advocates it is because they are the followers of some specific religion. (Curiously, they always declare that we should accept that specific religion's claims, and no other.)
And you're incorrect about the 'typical Creationist'. From what I understand, Creationism doesn't include Flat Earth.
You are incapable of understanding the concept of an "example"? I deliberately chose something else to make my point.
In addition, I didn't say 'valid' proof. I said proof. Their proof may be incorrect. But the Bible can be offered as proof that a religion is true.
That is not at all what the word proof means. You cannot "prove" something and have it turn out to be incorrect. The Bible cannot be offered as "proof" that Christianity is true unless you first prove that the Bible is true.
You may make a logically valid sequence of assertions based on a false principle and have a sequence of logically sound statements that nonetheless come to a false (or undefined-truth) conclusion. For example:
It rained on Tuesday. (false premise)
If it rains, I carry an umbrella. (true premise)
"Because it rained on Tuesday, I carried an umbrella" -> this statement is false as written because it is based on a false premise, even though it has sound logic.
Have you ever taken a course in formal logic?
Oh, and so you're aware? I'm Agnostic. I don't like religion at all. I believe in God, but not for the reasons that any religion that I"ve looked at so far has said.
The two bolded parts are a direct contradiction in terms. If you believe in god, you are by definition not an agnostic. I suspect you simply haven't read enough on this issue to have a good grasp on the terminology.
And I am not trying to "exclude religion from the debate". I am trying to get people to realize that the cultural bias of treating religion with "respect" and accepting the religion's holy book as evidence towards the validity of that religion is clearly unacceptable. If religious individuals are willing to argue from first principles (whether of math or of science) in a scientific context then that's fine; but this whole "<some book> is true because I believe it's true and <that book> proves my religion right which means <that book> is right!" thing is nothing more than an exercise in circular logic and has no room in logical debate.
You -can- have debate about non-scientific facts. Philosophy is a great example. How about the debates of 'Should we still be at war'? That doesn't follow your scientific method. It doesn't -have- to be scientific in order to be a debate, and you should stop arguing as such.
Funny that, my first post in this thread said:
A "debate forum" should require evidence (whether logical, mathematical, historical, forensic, or scientific depends on the subject matter in question) and failing to do so gives the debate forum an inherent bias.
The issue of creationism/evolution is, in fact, one where the debate requires scientific evidence.
Quote from Nai »
Furthermore, since we're bringing up the ancient Greeks? Their result was correct, though their methods may be archaic. Just because it's old and predates your oh-so-precious scientific method doesn't mean its incorrect.
Actually, the ancient Greeks were wrong on the diameter of the Earth, which is something we would not know had we simply accepted their ancient texts as fact on the surface of things (or even with the barest minimum confirmation that the earth is in fact round), which is precisely what the typical Creationist demands we do with the Bible (which you have declared is valid "proof").
Or perhaps some Solid Evidence that disproves creation, or Hard Evidence that Man came about strictly through Evolution? Evidence that Elvis is dead?
Solid Evidence? Hard Evidence? As opposed to what? Gaseous Evidence and Spongy Evidence?
Plenty of books exist that detail the evidence of evolution (which by definition disproves creationism), I'm not about to write another one.
Scientist spend there lives, as you say, "wasting their time" thinking about things to which they have little or no evidence at all, then they pursue finding that evidence to prove their theories. however long before they find their evidence, if they ever find it at all, they believe in their hearts they are right and that their theory is a fact.
Scientific hypothesis is a hypothesis (a testable conjecture) used as a tentative explanation of an observation, but which has not yet been fully tested by the prediction validation process for a scientific theory. A hypothesis is used in the scientific method to predict the results of further experiments, which will be used either to confirm or disprove it. A successfully-tested hypothesis achieves the status of a scientific theory.
____
Extremestan:
Declaring that the biblical claim that man was created from "dust in the ground" is in support of evolution seems strongly like a cop-out; a declaration that some phrase is figuratively only because its literal meaning has been thoroughly debunked by science.
It would be far more credible if there was a record of the Church (or, considering that the phrase is in Genesis, Jewish rabbis would work) declaring it to be figurative before Darwin's time.
To my knowledge, no such record exists and therefore I have to treat your declaration as highly unlikely- it is therefore extremely likely that the phrase was written with a literal meaning in mind, and it has since been debunked (taking the entire book of Genesis with it).
I would have to write multiple science textbooks to fill in the hole in his understanding. This is an unrealistic expectation; if someone is going to debate, they need to have an understanding of the subject matter- or at least be willing to do the research on their own.
Hell, Wikipedia is good enough for the layperson's understanding of most subjects, start there. Do this, then:
Read the wiki articles on cosmic background radiation, the COBE mission, introduction to evolution, evolution, evolution as theory and fact, misconceptions about evolution, and anything in blue text on those pages whose meaning is not wholly familiar to you.
There's plenty of evidence for it. If there wasn't, it wouldn't be a theory.
You've dodged the question. What is the difference between what you are calling "atheistic religion" and "philosophy"?
It's worthless with regards to understanding of natural phenomena (in other words, science). Certainly knowing the contents of the book has value when you're dealing with groups of fanatics who treat the book as absolute truth regardless of evidence. That's true of any book.
I've read plenty of apologetics. They don't make a "well-reasoned" case because they do one of the following:
1- Start with the assumption that their holy book is true.
2- Start with the assumption that their god exists.
3- Argue from what they wish were true (things like "A world without a god would not be a world worth living in", etc).
4- (this one applies mostly to the amateurs on internet forums etc) Are mostly clueless with regards to the subject material and can't really go anywhere with the argument. Granted, this possibility exists with arguments on any subject, anywhere.
I've yet to see any that succeeded with the bolded restrictions. Most of the historical apologetics I've read start with either assumption 1 or 2 above; a few insisted on #3. Almost all of them were ignorant of the scientific reality (of course, at the time so were the scientists).
Modern apologetics, by and large, has become nothing more than a field of charlatans like Dinesh d'Souza. The religious leaders are far more interested in converting people via fear and indoctrination of children, not by logical persuasion.
I reiterate, there is no reason why people should be holding up their holy book as "evidence" of anything in a debate without first providing evidence that their holy book is factual. This societal bias towards religion is utterly ridiculous. There are scientific hypotheses that lack evidence and should be treated similarly- the misnamed String Theory comes to mind. Scientific theories that have evidence backing them up should not be treated as "equal" to religions which are devoid of evidence.
*facepalm*
I don't think it would involve going very far out on a limb if I blamed sci-fi for that one, considering how many bad sci-fi authors have savagely misused that principle.
The contents of your typical religious book are not "knowledge", they are mythology. Trivia. Worthless in the real world. Arguments based on the Bible, the Koran, the Bhagavad-Gita, etc; are no more valid than arguments based on Tolkien's Silmarillion; unless the person arguing thereby can present evidence that indicates the truth of their specific ancient book.
Just because many people who attempt to debate the scientific side of things have next-to-nil understanding of the underlying science doesn't mean that all of a sudden arguing from mythology is any more credible. It's not.
Anyone who thinks the media is "liberal" or "for Obama" needs to get a clue. The mainstream media in America is absurdly biased towards conservatives due to the ridiculous viewpoint that being "unbiased" means "presenting both sides as being equal". If they were really unbiased, McCain would be getting torn apart non-stop over his endless stream of flip-flops. But because calling McCain out on his BS would give the appearance of bias, they refuse to do so- which actually slants things in favor of McCain.
This is by and large a major failing in the education system, though it's critical to realize that the impact of the education system on society is time-lagged for obvious reasons.
It's also impacted significantly by the truly awful state of what passes for science journalism these days. It essentially boils down to "Some poindexter in a lab coat says that he's done an experiment which confirms evolution", and the ridiculous media paradigm that being "unbiased" means "presenting a conflicting viewpoint as though it were equally valid" results in articles on science which have- for no real reason- two or three lines from a religious figure declaring the science to be false.
This only further perpetuates the misinformation in the minds of the general public that "science and religion are equally valid".
Tossing in the fact that the conservative movement has made it a goal to discredit science (in the USA, at least- I'm not so sure about NZ) and you can clearly see why many of those people who do at least accept science do so on the following line of reasoning:
"hey, scientists figured out how to make my microwave work, I'll trust them on this other stuff"
and they still don't understand what science is really about. They just know a few of the scientific results, and that's it.
What distinguishes what you have defined as an "atheistic religion" from a "philosophy" that determines morality (such as utilitarianism, etc)?
Evolution by definition disproves Creationism (that is, the theory of evolution disproves the claim that man was created by god in our current form). Evolution does not disprove the notion of a creator god (that is to say, Theistic Evolution).
Actually, every time I see someone attempt to define religion, I like to apply the Cheesehead test.
To wit:
If your definition of religion would consider Cheeseheadery a religion, you need a new definition of religion.
It applies equally well to serious attempts ("people meeting together for a common belief or cause") or comic ones ("people who wear funny hats").
Religion deserves no more or less respect than any other idea that lacks evidence. It (and all other ideas that lack evidence) deserve much, much less respect than ideas that have the backing of evidence in one form or another.
Scientific tests are not the only means of demonstrating things. Historical evidence (and no, the bible is no more historical evidence than the Odyssey is) would suffice also. Interestingly, the Egyptians do not have records of the Jews being kept as slaves; the Roman records don't match up very well with many aspects of the New Testament; and so forth. The corrobating evidence for the bible is practically nonexistent.
Requiring actual evidence is hardly a bias. In fact, requiring actual evidence is the only way there is of removing bias. That's why the scientific method requires experimentation to confirm hypotheses.
The scientific method is inherently unbiased. So are mathematical proofs. So is formal logic. The legal system attempts to be unbiased.
The "layman" as you put it, is horrendously biased and not to be trusted.
Truth is not something to be democratically voted on.
It's a perfectly valid objection. If you reject scientific evidence on the grounds that "these religions all say something else!" then you've got the clear problem that there's a mess of different claims with no evidence for any of them.
You have committed to the opinion "(a) god exists", which is by definition a theistic position. You are likely irreligious, possibly a Deist of some sort; but certainly not an agnostic.
Let's see... Religion asserts non-evident things as true. Science requires evidence to be examined, reviewed, and corrobated before declaring something a theory. You're damn straight science is automatically more credible than religion. The mere fact that a claim is "scientific" means that there has already been tested evidence in favor of it.
If religious scholars can actually come up with evidence supporting their wild claims, then they can have equal footing. Not before. They certainly haven't done so yet.
The idea that religion should be given "equal footing" with science is preposterous. Where science and religion conflict, religion should give way for the simple fact that the science has testable evidence behind it and the religion does not. Furthermore, no religion has any more evidence for it than any other religion, and they often conflict with each other. If we reject evolution on the grounds that "religion says evolution is wrong" then we somehow (without evidence!) have to choose between the claims of many competing religions. This is an untenable position, and the only reason anyone advocates it is because they are the followers of some specific religion. (Curiously, they always declare that we should accept that specific religion's claims, and no other.)
You are incapable of understanding the concept of an "example"? I deliberately chose something else to make my point.
That is not at all what the word proof means. You cannot "prove" something and have it turn out to be incorrect. The Bible cannot be offered as "proof" that Christianity is true unless you first prove that the Bible is true.
You may make a logically valid sequence of assertions based on a false principle and have a sequence of logically sound statements that nonetheless come to a false (or undefined-truth) conclusion. For example:
It rained on Tuesday. (false premise)
If it rains, I carry an umbrella. (true premise)
"Because it rained on Tuesday, I carried an umbrella" -> this statement is false as written because it is based on a false premise, even though it has sound logic.
Have you ever taken a course in formal logic?
The two bolded parts are a direct contradiction in terms. If you believe in god, you are by definition not an agnostic. I suspect you simply haven't read enough on this issue to have a good grasp on the terminology.
And I am not trying to "exclude religion from the debate". I am trying to get people to realize that the cultural bias of treating religion with "respect" and accepting the religion's holy book as evidence towards the validity of that religion is clearly unacceptable. If religious individuals are willing to argue from first principles (whether of math or of science) in a scientific context then that's fine; but this whole "<some book> is true because I believe it's true and <that book> proves my religion right which means <that book> is right!" thing is nothing more than an exercise in circular logic and has no room in logical debate.
Funny that, my first post in this thread said:
The issue of creationism/evolution is, in fact, one where the debate requires scientific evidence.
Actually, the ancient Greeks were wrong on the diameter of the Earth, which is something we would not know had we simply accepted their ancient texts as fact on the surface of things (or even with the barest minimum confirmation that the earth is in fact round), which is precisely what the typical Creationist demands we do with the Bible (which you have declared is valid "proof").
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Cobeslide36.jpg
Solid Evidence? Hard Evidence? As opposed to what? Gaseous Evidence and Spongy Evidence?
Plenty of books exist that detail the evidence of evolution (which by definition disproves creationism), I'm not about to write another one.
As for Elvis: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Elvis%27_tomb.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_hypothesis
____
Extremestan:
Declaring that the biblical claim that man was created from "dust in the ground" is in support of evolution seems strongly like a cop-out; a declaration that some phrase is figuratively only because its literal meaning has been thoroughly debunked by science.
It would be far more credible if there was a record of the Church (or, considering that the phrase is in Genesis, Jewish rabbis would work) declaring it to be figurative before Darwin's time.
To my knowledge, no such record exists and therefore I have to treat your declaration as highly unlikely- it is therefore extremely likely that the phrase was written with a literal meaning in mind, and it has since been debunked (taking the entire book of Genesis with it).