Kent: microcosm of apologetics

[Tator]

Beastie, you would have to show that I've been uncharitable in my evaluations of the paranoia here.

I haven't said anything that implies Dan is generally unreliable, by the ordinary meaning of the term.

It's been repeatedly shown you're being uncharitable by calling us paranoid for suspecting you're not being completely forthright.

You say you're an atheist, yet your views and arguments are unlike the vast majority of atheists. You say you have nothing but a slight connection to DCP and apologetics, and yet you've spend an inordinate amount of time on this board defending him.

Now, while you may really be an atheist, and just one with unusual views, it's hardly paranoid for people to be skeptical. And while you may, indeed, have minimal connections to DCP and just happen to want to spend a lot of time here defending him for some unknown reason, it's hardly paranoid for some to suspect otherwise.

Of course, this has been explained to you repeatedly, and you still don't get it.

If you can not grasp my simple diagram, on top of darth j's extensive explanation, and bret's simpler explanation of why you are, indeed, saying that DCP is an unreliable source of accurate information in regards to LDS apologetics, then it's just not possible to have genuine communications with you. I don't know the reason for that, because you appear intelligent, but it's clear this is pointless.

[_EAllusion]

EA, the stats you relate about belief in evolution may be highly misleading. The question appears to be too ambiguous to take the results at face value. Many who believe evolution is how life came to have the forms it does would answer in the negative about whether it explains the origin of life (taken by many to be a question of abiogenesis, not evolution). Many LDS believe God set up the conditions of evolution and let it do the work, but might answer the question posed in the negative.

Go ahead and justify that. Please provide evidence this is the case. When you are doing so, qualify what you mean by "many." I've read at least one survey indicating a strong majority of LDS are young earthers, and there is less ambiguity in asking about the age of the earth.

Most LDS appear to be highly skeptical of evolution. This is one example of a survey that gets at the broader point. I agree there are better ways to word the question, but this is unfortunately typical of evolution surveys. Pew needs more scientific consulting on the wording of these surveys. It is true that people could interpret the question in the way you state, but that would be a misinterpetation. After all, it didn't ask about the origin of life as you described it, but the origin of human life. If you think God started life and let evolution take over, then human life would be the result of evolution, no? The reason Pew and sociological organizations take these surveys as measures of evolution-belief in a population is because they map on well to other measures of evolution skepticism.

[_Bret Ripley]

Bret, if all you mean by skepticism is to not generally take Dan's unqualified claims as necessarily verified ...

I'd add something like "and possibly incorrect if it's based on unreliable source material."

... then yes people should have that degree of skepticism. But that doesn't entail not believing Dan's unqualified claims in any general way...

Dude. :/

In this context, the difference between "not take at face value" (my words) and "not believe" is a hair I'm not sure is worth splitting.

[_EAllusion]

I've made this exact same argument here before. EAllusion, you're being really disingenuous on this point. All of these surveys which pit evolution against religion are worded in such a way that you either have to choose the pro-God religion or choose the anti-God religion. I accept evolution to the extent at which it's scientifically observable. It's stupid to reject observation. I don't think everything about the current theory is correct however. A lot of pseudoscienists with letters behind their name love to draw far-reaching conclusions which simply don't bear out from the observable evidence.

Many hardcore young earth creationists are willing to say as much. They'll say they accept evolution, but only "microevolution" which they define as evolution within an ill-defined border described as a kind. (Microevolution in biology generally just refers to population genetics) This, of course, is a rejection of evolutionary theory proper, which is the hypothesis that biodiversity is the result of common descent with modification.

Some creationists will argue, falsely, that science requires direct observation and if you haven't seen species A evolve into species B in real time, then it is unscientific to conclude that evolution occurred. In short, they wrongly think historical inference from observation is unscientific. Your language seems right along these lines, but it is sufficiently vague that it is hard to definitely say that is what you are arguing.

[_EAllusion]

You're kind of making my point for me though. For the record I do not agree with the "hardcore young earth creationists" in the least. I think they are idiots.

If you want to share vague innuendo rather than describe your views, that's your prerogative.

My point is that when you offer a viewpoint that is a frequent refrain of the most strident rejections of evolutionary theory, you aren't really demonstrating how you can accept evolutionary theory while rejecting some ill-defined aspects of it you do.

But what I'll say in their defense is that there is truth to the argument that science requires direct observation. It does. It either requires direct observation or something that amounts to direct observation, as in the fossil record. Being honest about what we don't know is just as, frankly more, important as accepting what we do.

It is simply untrue that science requires direct observation. You don't appear to realize how radical of a thesis you are endorsing. It would make the historical sciences: geology, paleontology, cosmology, archaeology, astronomy, forensics, evolutionary biology, etc. not science.

But then you confuse the point by referring to the fossil record as "direct observation." What work is the word "direct" doing then? Science obviously requires observations. Direct observation usually is a reference to data that is observed in real time as opposed a record of past events*. The fossil record is an example of a past event. If that counts as direct observation, it's hard to imagine what doesn't. But if all observation is "direct observation" then there's no point in using the word direct.

*Technically, all observation is a record of past events because by the time your brain is able to sense an event, it already is just perceiving the effects of a event that occurred in the past and reconstructing it. This may seem overly technical, but is important for understanding why the thesis that reconstructing the past through observation is scientifically illegitimate is wrong.

[_EAllusion]

But then you confuse the point by referring to the fossil record as "direct observation." What work is the word "direct" doing then? Science obviously requires observations. Direct observation usually is a reference to data that is observed in real time as opposed a record of past events*. The fossil record is an example of a past event. If that counts as direct observation, it's hard to imagine what doesn't. But if all observation is "direct observation" then there's no point in using the word direct.

You could argue that science requires the person making the scientific inferences to directly observe all data that is used to draw an inference. Trusting the reporting of others through a system of source-checking such as peer-review literature would then not be scientific.

This also would be both incorrect and a radically different way of viewing science.

[_EAllusion]

It's not vague innuendo but a blatant refusal to bow down to what is obviously your god. It's me rejecting the tyranny of the thought police. I said I accept evolution, but that isn't good enough for you.

You said you accept evolution, but said it in a way that people reject evolution and redefine the term to to mean something else say it. Hey, it's no skin off my back. But let's not pretend like you said something that would allow the reader to reasonably conclude that you accept evolution as that term is normally understood by evolutionary biologists.

It's really not a complicated thing. The young earth creationists (YEC) to a large extent reject evolution simply because the evolutionists are snobby jackasses.

Interesting sociological thesis, which no doubt you have ample support of.

I'm an engineer, in my field the standards for observation are as strict as they can possibly be. We do not work on assumptions or conjecture, even if it "seems" to fit historical observations. We take theories and prove them mathematically. We then test the theory in the real world and and measure the results. An experiment must be reproducible. Conclusions are only regarded as scientifically sound if the theory can be proven mathematically based on accepted physical phenomena (which became accepted through the same process) and reproduced through experimentation.

The idea that experimental science is superior in the surety of its conclusions to non-experimental scientific inferences such as those found in historical science is false. You referenced the Nye/Ham debate where Ham kept trying to advance this thesis as well. Fortunately, this produced a parade of commentators explaining why it is totally wrong.

But what does this have to do with harassing Grandma about evolution? Leave her alone, who cares.

Who is harassing grandma about evolution? This thread of conversation started out simply by me pointing out that LDS, as a population, are quite fundamentalist and one piece of evidence of this is the level of skepticism towards evolution in LDS populations.

[_EAllusion]

Sigh.

Your statement was the sort of statement that is similar to one hardend skeptics of evolution make about evolution all the time. "I believe in observable microevolution, but not macroevolution" is a common creationist statement. Let's search far and wide for an example.

...

Oh, here's a thread on the front page of this message board that contains this post from the evolution-skeptic, fundamentalist evangelical littlenipper:

http://www.mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3 ... 53#p810753

I find that most, if not all Creationists, accept variation within a kind or type: Dogs and wolves for example or donkeys, zebras, mules and horses. Where they draw the line is where a single celled organism could ever produce a multi celled organism offspring, or that a creature with no "eyes," could produce a mutation with eyes. This is where theory becomes fiction or a systematic belief is expressed/promoted as an "absolute." Now, I would agree that God may have changed various animals to "Create" a very wide range of animals. HOWEVER, such transformations (IF THIS IS INDEED HOW GOD CREATED THE ANIMAL KINGDOM) would be the at God's prerogative and have absolutely nothing to do with animals eating animals ----- as clearly, there was NO DEATH before the Fall of man (per divine revelation), and God created everything (space, matter, time, environment/ecology, animals, and man) in the period of 6 days (per divine revelation). And that man was originally created good apart from the animals (per divine revelation). This is clearly where evolutionists and creationist part company. Your evolutionist does have SOME facts at his disposal. However, he doesn't have ALL the facts.

For you to say what you did and not immediately infer you are repeating this common creationist canard requires some lenience. Certainly, one wouldn't be able to conclude that you accept evolution from your qualified statement that seems to repeat the rhetoric of those who reject evolutionary theory almost verbatim.

I accept evolution up to the point that it can be directly observed. The rest is pseudo-scientific speculation and has a lot of holes. Um, that's the sort of comment an evolution skeptic normally makes, not someone who understands evolutionary biology. So you might forgive someone for not upon hearing it immediately concluding you think evolutionary theory is correct.

Interesting sociological thesis, which no doubt you have ample support of.

Yeah, this thread, hint, hint.

This thread has resulted in a bunch of conversions to young earth creationism? I didn't know. Thanks for pointing that out. I get my understanding of the genesis and prevalence of young earth creationism from scholars like Ron Numbers in his work The Creationists. Where might I find scholarship demonstrating your thesis that young earth creationism's prevalence can be explained by the fact that evolution supporters are jackasses?

First, define fundamentalist.

Well I did reference both the preeminent scholar on fundamentalism and the modern family resemblances interpretation of fundamentalist movements. If only there was some sort of searching mechanism that allowed one to find information on the web about this stuff.

Second, where's your evidence? I'm skeptical of your statement that LDS are fundamentalist and skeptical about evolution.

*points up*

[_RockSlider]

poor dan, this is really sad

[_RockSlider]

Kent, say hello to everyone at geeks for me.

I can't help but wonder if Dan now claiming to be a "Popularizer" and his alter ego Kent, the atheist is not a result of the BYU honor code (and current sabbatical agreements) and many years of career vestment in a cause his career could not afford to turn from, but from which his intellect and heart could no longer support.

One aspect of justification gained from taking the Popularizer stance has not been considered here. Everyone has focused on the unreliability aspect, and yet what of ethical and moral responsibility? Not only is the time and research responsibility at the feet of the sources, so Dan might view the ethical and moral responsibility of the real life effects that this is having on people.

Among Dan's quirks over the years of the likes of needing to give out laundry lists of all the important places and people he is off to see (which seems to have died out), is his obsession with calling himself the villain, the bad guy, the evil one, per others view of him (which seems to have grown).

As Elton John lamented: Dan's Popularizing might simply be trying to say:

"...And I think it's gonna be a long long time, till touch down brings me round again to find I'm not the man they think I am at home Oh no no no ... And all this science I don't understand, it's just my job five days a week ..."

As I've reflected on several of my regrets in life over the last year .... I hope it ain't so with you dan
god that would hurt.