What to tell AOC about evolution

http://www.bearfabrique.org/evorants/isid.html

Not bad. The hell of it is, they’ve been so successful at inculcating the current mindset that any other POV is immediately dismissed as whacky and not actually engaged with.

I’ve decided the only answer is a massive dose of LSD to the world's water supply.

Wonder if that'll be flagged by the computers at NSA.

Do you really think that we should engage with "whacky" POVs?

It doesn't seem like engaging with them has any benefit. Where does it stop? Do we have to take the Flat Earth people seriously? The Telekinesis people? Tarot cards?

I am fully on the side of ignoring whacky theories, and I am comfortable saying so.

If you read what I said carefully, I didn’t say we should.
The problem is dismissing any idea that doesn’t fit your current understanding as 'whacky'.

Oh good. I am glad you clarified. There are three categories.

1. There are some ideas that fit my "current understanding".

2. There are some ideas that don't fit my "current understanding", but that I can respect because they are reasonable. Intelligent people can disagree.

3. There are some ideas that are "whacky". They are too crazy to take seriously or to give any respect.

Creationism goes in the third category, as does ESP and Flat Earth.

There's what I mean. Failure to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Lamarkianism is wnjoying a healthy re review as is "satation".

Looks like Gunga is back but now hes a self published author on steemit and seeking his pay in cryptodollars. Im sure he will find folks dumb enough to buy his **** because as Ive skimmed it, nothing he says is new . Most is at least 40 yer old crap thatwas easily dismissed then and is just in the "dusty shitboox archives" of 1980.

We know wayy too much about growing fossil assemblages closely ties to micro-temporal and depositional environmental that we can fairly easily follow nat selection and its products . Also, the genetic pictures are so much clearer and are growing more and more clear that Darwin himself, if he were alive would no longer fearfully hide behind his office drapery.

Theres really not much of value the Creationists or IDers can bring to the table anymore.

I noticed that! Someday 'creationism' will get its turn.

Simply dismissing the argument of ‘complexity' as 'that was debunked years ago' does not cut it.

Noneof the stuff I posted has ever been debunked. Evolution is basically a dead theory walking, and will be gone altogether in another twenty years after a last generation of academic dead wood dies out and is not replaced. Nobody else is trying to defend it anymore.

You must be an alzheimers patient as well. Its ALL been debunked several ways from sunday.(IM sure you will re- hang your Dr Ham list of idiotic claims against science).

You just have neither smarts nor imagination with which to assess the meaning of "facts and evidence"

Any more fake rubber skeltons within a fossil allosaurus mouth? That was a classic as funny as the "tegosaur" carving and the IKA stones.

lamarkian form of saltation is an example of evolution via mman that are inheritable over a single generation.
"Creationism" and "ID" are just religious based, made up ,fact-free, non evidenced BULLSHIT.

ALL arguments in science require evidence to even enter the ring, the argument based on "complexity" is mwrely a way to back away from presenting any evidence and avoiding the counter evidence which foiled your worldviews.

"Complexity" is a haven for fact free beliefs. Whenever we ask a "complexity- ist" to provide evidence and examples of what they can come up with on the fact side, theyve always just kept repeating that as an argument. You cant us your conclusion as your evidence. It just dont work that way.

I hope youre not gonna go through that **** again are you?

You can't reason with Maxadona about science. All he does is create categories and then use the categories that aren't science to avoid discussing anything that he decides doesn't match with what he considers science.

In other words, he doesn't think critically. He only engages in classificatory identity sorting logic.

First, there is no 'ring.' Science is not a territory to be policed. Science is just part of a broader culture of knowing and studying. Individuals take information from science and include it in their personal path of truth-seeking. Some reach a level of truth-seeking that adds to scientific discourse as well. While some people might be 'fighting to police the ring' for bad science, that is just territorialism and should be ignored.

What is important for critical thinking is to ask questions of scientific claims by understanding what the critical aspect of them is. E.g. if you read that science knows the universe is expanding and they are just trying to specify details about whether the expansion is accelerating or slowing and at what rate; then you need to learn about redshift and why it is taken as an indication of physical motion away from an observer.

Once you understand that, you can question whether the redshift actually indicates expansion or if there could be some other cause. It is not insane or wrong to question whether observed facts could have other explanations besides the ones that are published as 'scientific consensus.' People shouldn't chastize others for thinking broadly and questioning interpretations of data/facts. It is their right to do that. You can tell them that you are thoroughly convinced that the redshift really is caused by expansion, but there's no reason to chastize them for questioning and wondering if some other explanation might exist and even speculating about what other explanation could be true.

Now you might say that this gives people like flat-Earthers more credit than they deserve for basically just dismissing numerous facts as being fake facts or whatever. But the issue shouldn't be giving people credit or not; when all we should all be doing is trying to make sense of our lives and the universe as best we can, and if we are sincerely motivated to question whether the Earth is really round, then why isn't that as good a path of critical thought as any other to embark on?

Assuming that truth is real and convergent, that means anyone questioning any knowledge will eventually become convinced of the truth, if it is in fact true. If it's not, critical questioning may not lead them back to it. If their seeking is biased, it might lead them away from the truth in favor of whatever they want to believe for whatever reason. Either way, however, there is always the possibility of critical discussion and thought that will lead them away from provably-false assumptions; but of course there is also the hazard of misinformation disguising itself as valid critical discussion and thought. In short, critical assessment of truth-claims is not easy work, any more than investigation and conviction of crime is.

whenever any one makes a dsumass fact-free evidence free claim, Trust me, theres a ring. The internet has a habit of virally expanding such totally idea-free and fact-free phrases as you and gunga are engaged in.
Science engages in conferences where new ideas and rising theories are presented for comment ,critique, and review.

Apparently you are unaware of these simple realities

I don't think you are capable of understanding that things like internet discussions and conferences are just venues for communication.

The reality that matters is what's being communicated, and if you don't really understand how to think and communicate critically, e.g. because you think science is something that magically emerges because some people with credentials fly to a conference and then go publish papers; then there's no science going on - even when the information you're playing with looks and smells scientific.

What baffles me is how I can explain exactly how a specific theory, such as the expanding universe theory, should be understood in terms of its fundamental basis, i.e. redshift as an indicator of relative motion; and then explain how once you understand this, it's fine to wonder and speculate about alternative theories - and then you can just ignore all that and talk about conferences and metaphorical boxing rings.

you certainly seem distraught about scientific communication. try reading open journals in university libraries.(you can read whats known about almost any subject and review the present state of acceptance and application.

Otherwise, Im under no obligation to correct your science literature ignorance. Usually we go to conferences to discuss the papers that have been written(not the other way around as you seem to demand)

When I see a evolution site I know some religious creationist nut has posted it.