Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

@Thomas,

Okay. To answer your first question, my statement that most scientists disagree with Dawkins can not be supported. It may be true, however, that most scientists simply do not care one way or the other. I again have no support, only intuition.

I understand your second point about both Miller and Dawkins making assertions. In my opinion, Miller is being much more modest (by only asserting "compatibility") while Dawkins is trying to make a controversial pronouncement.

1 Reply

@wandeljw,

Thanks for answering my questions, JW. On to the next question: My impression is that you prefer scientists to make uncontroversial questions rather than controversial ones. Am I correct about this impression? And if so, what's your problem with controversial scientists? Why would scientists have any obligation to be uncontroversial?

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@Thomas,

Your impression is partly correct. I am against scientists making pronouncements about religion.

My problem with controversial scientists is that a "value-free" approach is necessary to produce accurate findings.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

Why would scientists have any obligation to be uncontroversial.

They haven't any obligations in that respect except to themselves and their nearest and dearest in not wishing to look like fools.

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@Thomas,

Miller has been a practicing Catholic and has spent time explaining the compatability of his belief v his science. DAwkins , mostly in his more strident writings and TV appearnaces< ridicules the religious from no valid POV (IMHO). Im agnostic but I dont believe that religions are folly. Theyve served a great function in the development of civilizations starting from extended families (where a kind of worship of ancestors and natural features with no pparent control over everyday life was initiated)--all the way to worship of gods by city states and nationsand intra nations, where GODS do exert controls over everyday lives. Whether we need them going orward is not my interest or concern(Just as long as the Funadmental and Activist religious leave my life and work alone and they dont try to rewrite history and law.

I am grateful for but not wholly convinced that the "separation of Chruch and state" will survive as Fundamentalist Christianity more closely resembes Shariah law. BUT, I am unwilling to go out on the street to carry posters for Methodological Naturalism and Materialism. Thats just as stupid as DAwkins POV.

DAwkins doesnt bring anything new to the party. He just sees himself as a modern day Thomas Huxley with a twitter account.

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@wandeljw,

wandeljw wrote:

a "value-free" approach is necessary to produce accurate findings.

I have no idea what that even means.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

DAwkins doesnt bring anything new to the party. He just sees himself as a modern day Thomas Huxley with a twitter account.

If "the party" means the conversation about religion, its validity, and its proper role in society, I pretty much agree. I would have said Bertrand Russell with a Twitter account, but that's not a huge difference.

Our disagreement is that I consider "Russell with a Twitter account" a valid role for a public intellectual to play, whereas you don't.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

You seem to be wobbling somewhat fm. It's as if you are trying to remain on good terms with both camps as Voltaire eventually did. But everybody knows that Confucius said that he who sits in middle of road gets run over by traffic going in both directions.

The main thing is that you don't seem to feel it necessary, and nor do any other members of the anti-ID claque, to set sail with a definition of what evolution theory or science actually is. This enables you, and the others, to proceed with your tripe, which you fondly assume is intelligible, as is quite understandable in the circumstances, simply with the help of the words, which become in your hands magical symbols, without any other idea to them than what is common to the rest of the world you confine yourself to socialising with.

We will all have to hope that if you find yourself too entangled in confusion in this mystic labyrinth you will eventually find a way out as we also hope will your fellow frustrated control freaks.

I cannot bring myself to disguise my debt here to Laurence Sterne who wrote in Vol. VI of his masterpiece of English Literature without an understanding of which no one can legitimately claim to be educated, assuming he knows what's good for him, which is how species evolve--

Quote:

All I contend for is, that I am not obliged to set
out with a definition of what love is ;
and so long as I can go on with my story
intelligibly, with the help of the word
itself, without any other idea to it, than
what I have in common with the rest of
the world, why should I differ from it a
moment before the time? ---- When I
can get on no further, -- and find myself
entangled on all sides of this mystick la-
byrinth, -- my Opinion will then come
in, in course, -- and lead me out.

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

farmerman wrote:
DAwkins doesnt bring anything new to the party. He just sees himself as a modern day Thomas Huxley with a twitter account.

If "the party" means the conversation about religion, its validity, and its proper role in society, I pretty much agree. I would have said Bertrand Russell with a Twitter account, but that's not a huge difference.

Our disagreement is that I consider "Russell with a Twitter account" a valid role for a public intellectual to play, whereas you don't.

But Bertrand Russell wasn't an evolution scientist. He gave up mathematics to be a philosopher and peace activist. His role was pretty different, I would say.

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Anyone who does not ROTFLTAO reading the last few chapters of Vol. VI of Tristram Shandy is sadly bereft of not only any shred of a sense of humour but also the slightest indication of a proper scientific attitude.

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@edgarblythe,

Russell was also a forceful opponent of religion. You should get some pretty typical examples of his style by Googling "Russell teapot".

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

wandeljw wrote:
a "value-free" approach is necessary to produce accurate findings.

I have no idea what that even means.

But it is very meaningful to me. These are the words that guide me in everything I do. Smile

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@edgarblythe,

Quote:

Our disagreement is that I consider "Russell with a Twitter account" a valid role for a public intellectual to play, whereas you don't.

Im a very good geologist and am a recognized expert on specific types of minerals. I too have opinions about religion that my expertise in geology does not afford me any special consideration by anyone.
Dawkins, a biologist with expertise in animal behaviro has no additional credentials in the "culture wars" issue than do you or I. I fail to see his damned logic , it seems to be based mostly on churlishness.

Hes like one of thoise country physicians who is called into speak on just about any subject because "Hey hes a doctor no?"

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Yes, I understand that. I have read some of his works, including "Why I Am an Atheist" essay, among others. But doesn't his background set him apart from Dawkins, in the sense that Dawkins works with evolution and Russell didn't - freeing Russell to make his pronouncements without compromising himself? Or something. Maybe I am putting it wrong, but I think you can see my meaning.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Russell of course opposed any kind of institutional religiosity, but he was much more sympathetic to, and knowledgable about, the mystical elements of Western philosophy, the Dawkins, whose knowledge of Western philosophy could be captured on a single page.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Im a very good geologist and am a recognized expert on specific types of minerals. I too have opinions about religion that my expertise in geology does not afford me any special consideration by anyone.
Dawkins, a biologist with expertise in animal behaviro has no additional credentials in the "culture wars" issue than do you or I. I fail to see his damned logic , it seems to be based mostly on churlishness.

Dawkins is not just an expert in animal behavior. He is also an expert in evolutionary biology. As it happens, expertise in evolutionary biology is an important credential for refuting the "argument from design", which is currently the most frequently argument for the existence of god.

Another important credential for refuting this argument is historical geography. I think you're selling your qualifications short.

On top of all that, I disagree with your apparent assumption that debunking religious claims in the culture wars requires any particular type of expertise. To me, it's as simple as the child at the emperor's ball saying: "But has nothing on at all!". The child didn't need any particular sartorial expertise to say that. All it needed was the guts---or the unawareness of grown-up etiquette---to state the obvious.

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@jeeprs,

jeeprs wrote:

Russell of course opposed any kind of institutional religiosity, but he was much more sympathetic to, and knowledgable about, the mystical elements of Western philosophy, the Dawkins, whose knowledge of Western philosophy could be captured on a single page.

I don't know that that's true. Have you tested Dawkins's knowledge of Western philosophy?

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@Thomas,

I hope that this doesnt keep going on like some eternal kvetch posts.

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@farmerman,

If that's what you're hoping, maybe JW and you shouldn't have started the kvetchfest with your remarks about me. Before you did, I had been absent from this thread for many months. I merely responded to the issues you had raised. And unlike you, I didn't make them personal.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Dawkins knowledge of philosophy and theology is extremely slight, from my readings of him. (Terry Eagleton said 'Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology'. Source) I am familiar with some of the ideas in Blind Watchmaker, Selfish Gene, Climbing Mount Improbable, and The God Delusion and see very little evidence of any understanding of philosophy in them. Whenever he is challenged by someone who actually understands the subject, he will usually defer, and his devotees will say 'oh well, Richard is a scientist' or make some other excuse. Dawkins is one of those thinkers who is inclined to believe that our splendid knowledge of Scientific Fact makes such quaint old-fahioned subjects as philosophy obsolete. Besides, he has a Theory of Everything, which as he says in his latest blockbuster, renders every previous attempt to understand humanity superfluous. (I can find the quote if you want.)

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