I didn't watch the entire debate because it was clearly not intended to inform an educated audience, but the parts that I did see really disturbed me. Neither of the debaters made any tangible assertions, nor any statements of fact that contradicted statements made by the other. Nonetheless, the two still somehow found a way to "argue" and "debate" for two hours.
Nye should have had it easy. He could have argued that creationists need to demonstrate why their beliefs are any more true than the hundreds of other contradictory creation myths that come from various world cultures (as salgernon mentioned). He also could have argued that science and creationism are not fundamentally incompatible, but instead sort of orthogonal. Creationism can be thought of as a cosmological hypothesis. It happens to be a hypothesis that is basically impossible to test, so scientists instead spend their time evaluating other hypothesis.
Instead, it sounded like he argued the position that "science helps us learn and do cool things, plus you don't need to believe in God to seek answers to life's important question." Weak position. Counter argument: "I don't care about learning or technology because when I die I am going to heaven, and that's ultimately more important than science."
> He also could have argued that science and creationism are not fundamentally incompatible, but instead sort of orthogonal. Creationism can be thought of as a cosmological hypothesis. It happens to be a hypothesis that is basically impossible to test, so scientists instead spend their time evaluating other hypothesis.
I'm really surprised this didn't come up more as the idea that "science is attacking my religion" tends to be one of the main reasons that people seemed to be adverse to science. It places a false dichotomy in choosing between their faith & science.
> I'm really surprised this didn't come up more as the idea that "science is attacking my religion" tends to be one of the main reasons that people seemed to be adverse to science. It places a false dichotomy in choosing between their faith & science.
There's a dichotomy between science and religion, but it's not false by any means. In the most fundamental sense, and not to oversimplify, the scientific mind assumes ideas to be false until there is evidence to support them (scientists call this the "null hypothesis"), and the religious mind assumes an idea to be true until evidence proves it false -- exactly the opposite outlook.
Why is it a mistake to assume claims are true unless proven false? Easily explained — let's say I'm a True Believer who believes in Bigfoot. According to the True Believer's way of picturing reality, Bigfoot exists unless someone can prove he doesn't exist. But think about this — Bigfoot cannot possibly be proven not to exist somewhere in the universe, hiding under some rock. In formal logic, a disproof would require "proof of a negative", an impossible evidentiary burden. Therefore a skeptical, scientific outlook is essential to avoid wasting time on childish fantasies. Need I add that religious people just don't understand this?
Remember this when you see endless phony TV documentaries about Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster and ghost hunters. These shows are popular because most people don't have the slightest idea how to process ideas. And only some of them have religious beliefs -- others are simply out in the ozone.
The above is the "big secret", the divide that separates science and religion. And it's not a puddle, it's bigger than the Grand Canyon.
> If you want to convince people, it's best to find common ground rather than running to points where you'll know you find contention.
Some contention is unavoidable. Consider the chasm that separates science and religion -- the scientist's default outlook is that ideas are assumed to be false until there's supporting evidence. The religious believer's default outlook is that ideas are assumed to be true until evidence proves them false (and some believers refuse to examine any evidence) -- exactly the opposite outlook. This can't be waved away, and no meaningful discussion can begin until the chasm is bridged.
Until 1600, religion solved the science problem by killing all the scientists. Since then, it has solved the problem by ignoring science, even while living in a world increasingly defined by science and scientific thinking. That's not a trivial problem, and it's not a question of common ground -- there isn't one.
> Baby steps.
Let the religious make the journey to science, with steps of any size they choose.
> Let the religious make the journey to science, with steps of any size they choose.
I wrote a comment earlier where this attitude is commonplace. that seems to take an approach of "let them figure it out" - while abdicating any responsibility for helping them do so. That approach exemplifies the attitude of "amateurs get angry, professional educate"[1]. I think you can argue that Nye was the consummate professional in that regard in that he's willing to engage a discussion in order to educate people & explain the importance of science & the need for proper education.
> I wrote a comment earlier where this attitude is commonplace. that seems to take an approach of "let them figure it out" - while abdicating any responsibility for helping them do so.
You're obviously a thoughtful person, but this business of "helping them do so" is in my view rather paternalistic. I think the right moment for a religious person to engage with science is when he feels he must, to make sense of his life, not when a scientifically literate acquaintance independently decides it's time. This serves to break the pattern of bogus authority and a lifelong dependence on others for intellectual guidance.
The parent never said smart people couldn't hold completely irrational beliefs. They just did not arrive to their position by reasoning about the issue.
I was reading this article about a vocal Japanese revisionist. Like creationists, or conspiracy theorists, there is nothing rational about these beliefs. When you reach for the conclusion first, and establish it is the absolute truth and then cherry-pick and twist facts and make excuses to support your conclusion, you are actively engaged in a process of denying reality. These people don't need a TV debate, they need a therapy.
On the other hand, you probably have people who have never really examined why they believe in creationism, and do not suffer from the same disease. These people may be convinced, perhaps, but they are not the ones at the frontline of the movement, frothing at the mouth and being engaged in a public debate as if they had any shred of credibility.
> Even smart people believe dumb things because they have a greater ability to rationalize their choice of beliefs.
This is quite true -- many very smart people hold onto embarrassing beliefs only because they can (and do) out-argue anyone in their immediate environment. There's a name for this that I have unfortunately forgotten.
No creationist has ever been able to explain why their version should be preferred over, say, Mayan creation myths. It kind of makes my mind explode that they can claim absolute truth over other such myths. But, that's religion, I guess. Pointless and I wish bill nye hadn't given th the time of day.
To be fair, thats like asking you to explain why gravity works. (without saying that it just does) There are a lot of things that seem simple which smart people have only theorized.
> To be fair, thats like asking you to explain why gravity works. (without saying that it just does) There are a lot of things that seem simple which smart people have only theorized.
Be careful when you say "only theorized." A well-supported scientific theory is the highest form of human knowledge. A scientific theory isn't just a hunch (the everyday meaning of theory), it's a combination of observational evidence, a careful explanation of the evidence, and some predictions based on the explanation that can be researched to expand the domain of the theory. And (very important) a basis for falsifying the theory, an observation that would prove the theory false.
The recent discovery of the Higgs boson is an example of theory confirmation -- it's based on the "standard model", the theoretical structure of modern physics, and the Higgs was predicted on theoretical grounds long before we had any chance to detect it.
As to "smart people only theorized", gravity has an explanation, and a very good one -- general relativity. Relativity is one of the two best-confirmed scientific theories we have (the other one is quantum theory, that makes our computers possible).
Please remember this when you want to say "only a theory".
>and I wish bill nye hadn't given th the time of day.
Agreed. I loved Bill Nye's shows when I was a growing up, and I think he made a positive difference in my life. I don't know if participating in the debate will have had the same effect on anyone there.
I wish Bill would continue the kind of work he did when I was younger, instead of debating creationists, or going on FOX News to be the wacky scientist from that kids show that explains middle school science to the viewers.
Getting children interested in science. In discovery. Fostering a love of learning. That's what I think matters. That will be his legacy.
Atheist who grew up in Oklahoma here. The people in this thread who think that the correct tactic is to immediately jump to "Why is your religion better than Mayan creation myths?" are completely clueless. If you ever even met a creationist, you would know that that would just make them dig in their heels and "confirm" their low opinion of mainstream science.
The idea of tiptoeing around religious fundamentalism may bother you, but ultimately you have to decide if you want to be as "right" as possible or if you want to have a shot at convincing someone. And if you don't care about convincing the kind of person who can be a young earth creationist in 2014, then I don't know why you'd even pay attention to any of this.
I'm an atheist that spent my teenage years at a quasi religious military school in south Texas. There was a school chaplain. There were bullies that assumed that since I didn't believe in god, I must therefore worship satan.
I had a revolver held to my head for this when I was 15. Loaded? Dunno. No reason to think that it wasn't. He did this because he wanted me to renounce my beliefs, which I didn't do before someone pulled him away...
My point being that these are not rational people, they cannot be reasoned with or taught reality. They wallow and take pride in their ignorance with a "god said it I believe it that settles it" conviction.
It won't do them by good in the end, since they will die and release their carbon like the rest of us, but to the extent that they hurt society by their insistence that fairy stories should govern our lives, discourage understanding our universe and preach their bigoted filth, we should give them no truck and no platform. They are worthy of our contempt and scorn and public ridicule, but there is no point in debating them.
OMG, that was painful. Bill Nye began by wasting two of his five minutes of opening statement talking about freakin' bow ties!
Then the first substantive statement out of his mouth was: the question tonight is, does Ken Ham's creation story hold up? Is it viable?
No no no! The question is: what is science? And the answer is, as the late great Richard Feynman put it, science is the proposition that EXPERIMENT is the ultimate arbiter of truth. So as soon as you say, as Ken Ham does, that the Bible is the ultimate arbiter of truth, you are not doing science BY DEFINITION.
Now, Ken Ham contends that secularists have "hijacked" the word "science." No. It is Ken Ham who has hijacked the word, because the definition is not arbitrary. There is a REASON for it. That reason is, as Ken Ham himself admitted, it works. Experimental science has produced all of the world's technological progress.
When Ken Ham claims that the central tenet of science -- that experiment is the ultimate arbiter of truth -- cannot be applied to the past because "we weren't there" he is simply, demonstrably wrong. It can be, and it is.
Now, of course one can choose, as Ken Ham does, not to accept the premise that experiment is the ultimate arbiter of truth. There are certainly areas of human endeavor where that standard is not applicable: art, poetry, music. But it can certainly be applied to the past.
The debate should not be about whether Ken Ham's model of the world is "viable", the debate should be about what is the standard by which truth is decided: experiment, or a holy text. You can choose one or the other, but experiment produces better results.
(warning: Stephen Meyer is several notches up the scale of intellectual acuity than Ham)
In short, any set of criteria you choose to demarcate science from non-science will either simultaneously include or simultaneously exclude both intelligent design and 'descent from common ancestor'. [And, in the case of inclusion will also bring in a lot of other non-sensical theories].
You have completely missed the point. The debate is not (or at least should not be) about what is and is not science. That is merely quibbling over terminology. The debate is (or should be) over the process one uses to arrive at the truth. Empirically, if you use experiment as your arbiter of truth, you are led to make VASTLY more accurate predictions about the world, and hence obtain vastly more power to control the world, than any other criterion that man has yet managed to devise (and in particular, you do better than using any holy text as your arbiter of truth).
It doesn't matter if intelligent design is or is not science. What matters is that when you put ID or YEC to experimental test, it fails. When you put Darwinian evolution to experimental test, it succeeds. Whether or not that makes evolution "true" is a debate over the meaning of the word "true", not the meaning of the word "science." You can choose to believe that the universe is borne on the back of a turtle. You can even call that science if you like. But if you put your turtle cosmology to experimental test, I will bet you any amount of money you care to wager that your predictions will be wrong. In the long run, I will win and you will lose. THAT is what matters.
That's not true. ID is based on forensic science and information science. I know that this debate wasn't about what is or isn't science but I think that, in the larger picture, it definitely is. Evolution is dogma and it isn't to be challenged. Let anyone who does so be considered anathema (blasphemous even!).
[Btw, I'm not defending YEC but I definitely do think that ID has a place in the discussion]. We are going to continue to make so many more discoveries at the sub-cellular level of organic life that continued support of the idea of abiogenesis will look rather silly (and honestly it already does).
> In short, any set of criteria you choose to demarcate science from non-science will either simultaneously include or simultaneously exclude both intelligent design and 'descent from common ancestor'.
No, not if you actually understand science. Science requires empirically derived evidence and falsifiability (or tests against reality -- meaning if reality disagrees, the theory must be discarded).
Descent from a common ancestor passes the above test, because there is copious empirical fossil evidence supporting that conclusion as well as present-day tests of evolution and natural selection, derived from both biology and computer science. The idea also could easily be falsified by new empirical evidence, if any existed.
Intelligent design requires the intervention of a supernatural agency, it is therefore not empirical, not falsifiable, therefore it's not science.
That's truly an ignorant position to take. Do you think you are repeating anything that I haven't heard? Why don't you actually read the essay? That's the thing about you dogmatists-- you don't even bother to read any articles which might cause you to challenge your worldview. That's so cowardly in my opinion.
If you read the essay, all of your points are considered (and refuted). I'm not going to do the work for you, but if you have the courage, you can do it for yourself, pussy!
> Then the first substantive statement out of his mouth was: the question tonight is, does Ken Ham's creation story hold up? Is it viable? No no no! The question is: what is science?
Apart from the fact that the debate gave the Creationists unearned attention and was therefore a mistake, no, trying to summarize science to these religious people would only have piled one mistake onto another. Consider the basics of science:
1. Skepticism toward everything, and the assumption that an idea without evidence is assumed to be false (the "null hypothesis") -- the opposite of a non-scientist's attitude toward an unsupported idea.
2. The idea that any worthwhile idea must in principle be falsifiable by the right empirical evidence, or, to put this a different way, all ideas must pass muster by means of a reality-test. No reality-test, no validity.
3. The idea that all theories (ideas) are temporary and dispensable, that no scientific theories ever become true or beyond challenge by new evidence.
To simply describe this foundation of modern science would strike religious believers, people whose lives are ruled by blind belief and a severe lack of critical thinking, as monstrous. The scientific outlook cannot possibly be more opposed to the religious outlook, and to simply present it to a group of religious believers would bring down any house of believers.
What science actually consists of is on a long list of things that religious people don't know about the modern world -- it's too painful to contemplate. To try to break through this barrier would be a mistake. Better to do what Nye did -- show a fossil that's obviously older than 6,000 years. Something small and manageable.
But again, I think the debate was a mistake -- it gave the creationists unearned attention.
Unfortunately, there's also a high cost to people who are christians but are not young earth creationists. Nye actually did a good job pointing out that many reconcile their faith and science and that he was specifically debating Ham's view. Of course, that will probably get glossed over and some will takeaway that christian == wacky like ham
I'm a Christian, and I feel that people like Ham are actively harming Christianity, by effectively teaching people that it's at odds with the observable reality of this world, God's creation (which is studied by science). If you teach people that your faith contradicts science, and they later discover that science works, then what do you think their conclusion is going to be?
And it's so utterly unnecessary. For centuries Christians haven't had any problems with science. This stupid biblical literalism movement is a very recent thing, and it thrives on ignorance. It's harmful not just to science, but also to Christianity. It's a false idol.
And yet Christians have, at many times, rejected science in favor of dogma. See, for example, Galileo Galilei, Giordano Bruno, Nicolas Copernicus, and other scientists who were tortured, excommunicated, imprisoned, or had their works banned by the Church in the 15th, 16th, and early 17th centuries, when the Catholic Church had essentially absolute political power.
It wasn't until the Church lost its political power that anti-scientific sentiment diminished.
> See, for example, Galileo Galilei, Giordano Bruno, Nicolas Copernicus
You clearly do not know what the Galileo case was about. I'm not sure about Bruno, but Copernicus wasn't prosecuted, excommunicated or tortured either. If you believe Galileo or Copernicus were, then you've been fed lies or have jumped to unfounded conclusions (though you wouldn't be the first).
The Church of that day played an active role in science, and was absolutely open to the possibility of a heliocentric system. But they wanted a model that accurately reflected observations, which Galileo's model didn't. Galileo claimed it was correct anyway (which it wasn't), and called the pope a fool, for which he got house arrest, but wasn't tortured or anything. Eventually, Keppler's model was proven correct and was accepted by the church.
A lot of people seem to be saying that you shouldn't talk to people who are familiar with creationism at all.
Question: What alternative method is there to reach them? Believe it or not, there are some communities where science isn't readily known. What's the alternative? Refusing to engage sounds not only spiteful but not very useful as you're essentially giving up on a segment of the population while simultaneously getting upset that they don't know better.
Using another example that might help this crowd - this reaction reminds me of an article by Paul Jarvis: "Amateurs get angry with clients. Professionals educate them"[1].
There seem to be a lot of people here that are angry & not a lot of people willing to educate. It's easy to label & categorize a whole group of people (whether clients or people who may be uninformed), but if you have the ability to inform, educate & change their opinion over time and don't try - don't get mad at people for staying uninformed - it's your fault.
If you attempt and they're hostile, that's a whole different story, but it's definitely worth attempting.
I think it's a product of the typical nerd black-and-white thinking. People are either raging fundamentalists who take the Bible as literal truth and reject all science that contradicts it, or they are reasonable people who think the Earth is old and evolution happened.
In reality, there are a ton of creationists who aren't raging fundamentalists. They aren't creationists because they believe so fervently that they cannot accept any contrary evidence. They're simply creationists because that's all they know. Many of these people, when exposed to the truth in a constructive way, will change their minds.
In fact, I was one of those people. My elementary school taught creationism and I believed it because, well, why not? Later on I found out about the scientific explanations, and came to accept them instead.
You'll never convince Ken Ham. Nor will you convince his hardcore supporters. That's not the point. The point is to reach out to people who aren't hardcore about it, but who still believe nonsense simply because they don't know any better. And what better way to convince them to listen at all than to involve a religious figure arguing for the other side? How many of these non-fundamentalist creationists would tune in to "Bill Nye Explains Evolution", versus "Bill Nye Debates Ken Ham"? You'll convince lots of them.
> How many of these non-fundamentalist creationists would tune in to "Bill Nye Explains Evolution", versus "Bill Nye Debates Ken Ham"? You'll convince lots of them.
I think this is a great point that a lot of people are missing. It's sort of like trying to lay out the features that you like about your product as a developer when realizing that your customer cares nothing about what you like and you have to present / sell it to them in a way completely different to how you would sell it to yourself.
> Question: What alternative method is there to reach them?
Oh, that's easy. Instead of confronting their belief system, present them with evidence from the modern world, and carefully guide them from an observation to a scientific conclusion -- but without calling it that.
Instead of saying "science opposes religion, and science is right", instead tell the modern story of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Explain that penicillin used to work, but a handful of bacteria were able to resist the penicillin, and those few bacteria, by surviving and procreating, eventually became all the bacteria. Then explain that we tried a different antibiotic which wiped out nearly all the bacteria again -- but not all of them. Again, the few survivors became the new species, and this entire drama played out over a period of years, not millennia, and we observed it happening with microscopes, not fossils, meaning there were no gaps in the fossil record to argue about.
Wait until your True Believer has grasped the basic idea, then let him visit a clinic filled with dying children. Then say, "To solve this problem, to save these children, we need to understand and accept evolution, because these bacteria prove that evolution by natural selection is real."
There are as many similar examples as there are branches of modern science. Each of the stories can be told in an engaging, narrative way, with real people, in modern times, and it's not even necessary to say "science".
> A lot of people seem to be saying that you shouldn't talk to people who are familiar with creationism at all.
No one has said that. Notable amidst the number of errors you've managed to cram into that one sentence, you seem to have confused "people who want to engage in public 'debate' about creationism" with "people who are familiar with creationism at all". The two groups aren't even approximately the same.
By "familiar with" I meant "perceive it to be credible." Often they're not quite argumentative as much as people like to make them out to be.
Sure there are your Ken Ham types, but there are others that just aren't familiar with evolution & think it means we came from monkeys. Those are people that I think really benefited from hearing Nye talk about it simply & concisely on their level.
I've engaged in discussions of various topics over the years and developed a few guidelines and practices which I try to adhere to. Starting with the "training-wheel" arguments typical of high-school and college age, and evolving through many of technology's "religious wars" (vi vs. emacs, Microsoft vs. Linux, etc. -- particularly the latter).
Among them:
• Go Socratic. Sometimes the best way to convince someone is to let them argue their own way out of their position. Ask questions rather than make assertions or pound facts.
• Realize that often the game isn't to convince. I have positions I hold strongly, most on the basis of experience, evidence, or logic that's convincing to me (and I'm occasionally persuaded to change my mind). But in discussing them with others my objective is often to understand what the basis of their position is. I might learn something. Fairly often, I'll find that the views aren't well-founded or aren't convincing (strengthening my own conclusions).
• Distressingly often your'll find that a person's primary argument is "it benefits me to claim this belief despite no rational or factual basis for it" -- it's Upton Sinclair (and Al Gore)'s observation: "It's difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
• Rejection of concepts is often driven by fear. I ran across this passage re-reading Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: "You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt."
• Psychology is a hell of a drug. There area all sorts of weird aversions people have. I've met pathological liars. I've met people who simply deny obvious truths. Who feel "it's not a lie if I simply don't say it" (the lie of omission) or "if I only try to draw your attention from it" (lie of distraction). People are rather less rational than you might hope.
And for all of that, I've had some pretty amazing, interesting, and productive exchanges, often in the oddest places. Pulled into a highway rest area in the deep south a few years back, started talking with another man there. We both verbally circled for a few minutes trying to suss each other out, then realize that, actually, our views were fairly similar despite the miles that separated us. That was one of the more interesting 45 minute conversations I've had in years. Possibly decades.
The problem is that religion is a package deal. Members of religious communities see and do a lot of good through the church. They raise money for charity, form close knit social groups and generally spend more time thinking about the good of others than the average person does. But all of this good comes at an ideological price and it could all fall apart easily.
If gradual evolution is true then the book of Genesis must be wrong. If the book of Genesis isn't "true", then the Bible itself is based on a lie. If the Bible is a lie then what's the point of going to church? No one wants to worship a fallacious holy book. And if people stop going to church then they'll lose their sense of community and stop doing all the charity work. The thought is too much to bear. It's better just to believe everything the book says, whole cloth, and defend it against all attacks.
A debate won't change any minds, but a dialogue will. We shouldn't ignore creationists. We should continue to talk to them, even if we spend a lot of time arguing over insignificant details. This kind of argument can't be won with facts and figures, but only through attaining mutual respect. It may not have been a good idea for Bill Nye to accept this debate, but he had the opportunity to change some minds with the the way that he carried himself and presented his beliefs.
For the life of me, I never understood why evolutionary biologists engage in such ridiculous behavior. Instead of explaining religion from a scientific point of view, they instead debate nonsense as if it is on equal footing with empirically validated science. Richard Dawkins, who taught me biology through his incredible books, has wasted a majority of his life following this foolish path. I still don't understand why.
Religious beliefs result in adaptive behaviors proven to increase fitness in certain environments. That is, these behaviors enhance the fitness of the genes which make one predisposed to religiosity. This has been hypothesized many times, and is the only rational explanation for the vast and fervent religious behaviors we witness today. In brief, religious behaviors cause individuals to engage in cooperative exchanges which are mutually beneficial to both parties. Iterated over many interactions, in a large population, with reputation, it becomes obvious that these behaviors are adaptive.
What biologists must emphasize is that religious behaviors are distinct from religious mythology. It is the behaviors we are interested in as scientists, not the literary masterpieces that constitute such works as the Bible, Quran, Torah, etc. Although they are linked, from an empirical point of view it is meaningless to analyze the philosophy of religion. We must instead look at the behaviors and their resultant consequences.
For those interested, there is a massive amount of knowledge on this subject. I would recommend beginning with Richard Dawkins' Selfish Gene, and intuitively working through the corollaries thereafter. Further reading can be found here [1].
EDIT: Removed Wikipedia link as it wasn't very useful upon closer inspection. The research group linked instead is a much better resource. Also reworded for clarity as per comments below.
"these behaviors enhance the fitness of the genes which make one predisposed to religiosity. This has been hypothesized many times, and is the only rational explanation for the vast and fervent religious behaviors we witness today."
It's also possible that religion is a net negative just not a significant net negative, aka it's a thought virus. Viruses have a lot more pressure to avoid being a huge negative like killing there host quickly than they do helping their host, but as long as they can spread it's ok to be lethal as long as it's not rapidly lethal.
EX: Religions who's priests avoid reproduction are clearly a net negative on the individual level at least from an evolutionary standpoint.
Quite possibly, though that begets one more question:
Why are certain religions much more successful than others?
@herbig
>Certain religions are more successful than others for the same reason that other organisms are more successful: they adapt more quickly to their environment.
Precisely!
@lutusp
Absolutely. But we have to remember that religious behaviors act through humans. As such, they become just like any other behavior which is selected by evolution through natural selection at the genetic level. Am I correct in assuming that you were thinking of bees and ants, which display behaviors which may not be individually adaptive, but genetically so? If that's the case, you may find this paper [1] interesting.
Perfect, now let's look at every single one of these factors through the eyes of an evolutionary biologist. You will find that almost each one has a direct analogue in evolution, and the behaviors become indistinguishable from those seen across a wide variety of species. They are just much more nuanced versions of the same tactics employed by every living creature.
> Why are certain religions much more successful than others?
Evolution. I know this sounds like a punch line for a joke, but consider that a religion's doctrinal choices represent natural selection -- some choices are more effective than others, and a dominant religion in a world of competing religions equals a dominant species in a world of competing species -- the same rules apply.
And what are the successful species traits? One, a reverence for authority, a time-tested way to attract and hold people who cannot think for themselves. Two, a prohibition against having sex without the intent to breed more miniature believers, a prohibition that the Catholics have raised to an art form. Three, a prohibition against independent thought or constructive criticism, in which the masses are described as a flock of sheep, and they eat it up.
The great irony is that many religions (not all by any means), while very clearly exploiting the strategy of evolution by natural selection to grow their submissive flocks, reject the very idea of evolution, describe it as an evil idea.
Looking at the most successful religions, a few candidates spring to mind:
* Proselytism: if you don't go looking for converts, you probably won't get them. In particular, a lot of religions are inextricably linked with ethnicities; they tend to stay small.
* Syncretism: your religion can get a lot of followers if it co-opts existing beliefs, and doesn't try to immediately displace them. For example, look at how Taoism fits in neatly with a lot of folk religion that predates its arrival in the area. Similar examples can be found for most (all?) major religions.
* Political fortune. Catholicism, for example, happened to spread through the world alongside European colonialism, especially by Spain.
* Luck. There are an awful lot of dead religions that used to be pretty successful.
There are probably others, but those are the most obvious ones.
I'm tempted to say nations and states that support homosexuality (which is by far the most colossal structural opposition to reproduction) have "a net negative on the individual level at least from an evolutionary standpoint." What do you think?
The answer is that, in a world steered more by ideas than children (or more by memes than genes), one's sexual orientation is much less important, so accepting homosexuality doesn't reduce the true fitness of the species, which is a composite of ideas and genes.
To those who doubt the significance of ideas compared to children, I ask if they can recall the names of Einstein's children. No?
I have no idea what his children are named. But does relativity make me (or the species) much fitter for survival? Not at this point I might argue.
The biggest practical application of relativity at this point (that I'm aware of) seems to be GPS. One can argue about whether GPS makes us better or worse as a species but it's not a huge deal wrt evolution.
If there's a better practical application of relativity I'd love to know. This is just what I was able to come up with off the top of my head. We're all intellectually indebted to Einstein for relativity.
> I have no idea what his children are named. But does relativity make me (or the species) much fitter for survival?
Einstein also contributed to quantum theory and a number of other physical fields.
Does understanding reality have survival value? The computer you're sitting at requires an understanding of quantum theory. No understanding, no computer.
> The biggest practical application of relativity at this point (that I'm aware of) seems to be GPS.
No, relativity doesn't make GPS possible, science makes GPS possible. It happens that relativity theories must be taken into account for GPS to work as it should, but this doesn't mean GPS is about relativity.
> One can argue about whether GPS makes us better or worse as a species but it's not a huge deal wrt evolution.
Only if you discount the role of ideas in human survival. People have big brains to hold ideas, not sperm. Those ideas contribute to our fitness. They represent a factor in natural selection.
We aren't the dominant species because of our big muscles -- many animals are stronger. We're the dominant species because of ideas.
> If there's a better practical application of relativity I'd love to know.
It helps us understand reality. It provides the theoretical basis for nuclear power. It's also the theoretical basis for fusion power, a future development. It helps us to understand the universe.
But this isn't about relativity, it's about the role of ideas in evolution. That's not remotely controversial, because (1) we have big brains and (2) nature doesn't waste anything.
> Does understanding reality have survival value? The computer you're sitting at requires an understanding of quantum theory. No understanding, no computer.
Up to a point understanding reality has survival value. We're well beyond that. For example, dunces are still able to have kids and thus are just as fit -- if not fitter -- than smart people. Evolutionarily.
No, the computer I'm sitting at doesn't require understanding quantum theory. Computers are (largely) built out of transistors and they're decidedly classic devices. You don't need any quantum mechanics to understand a transistor. Quantum effects only come into play when you're making exceedingly tiny transistors, and they hurt rather than help.
> No, relativity doesn't make GPS possible, science makes GPS possible. It happens that relativity theories must be taken into account for GPS to work as it should, but this doesn't mean GPS is about relativity.
GPS can only work because we understand relativity and thus can correct for it. Transistors can work just fine if we're ignorant of quantum effects. GPS's locating ability goes from meters to many kilometers without understanding relativity. If you want to argue that GPS would be just as good if it could resolve only 10km, OK, but most would disagree with you.
> Only if you discount the role of ideas in human survival. People have big brains to hold ideas, not sperm. Those ideas contribute to our fitness. They represent a factor in natural selection.
Most reproduction is done well in advance of deep learning and understanding so I might argue that the ideas don't play in evolutionarily. Dumb or uneducated people reproduce just as successfully as smart or educated ones. I don't have a study to back this up but if you can find one to the contrary I'd love to know about it.
> We aren't the dominant species because of our big muscles -- many animals are stronger. We're the dominant species because of ideas.
Actually a lot of research shows that we're the dominant species because we've taken a serious evolutionary right-turn by shedding all the fur, walking upright and having hands that allow us to carry things. All the things that you would need for the persistence hunt where you basically walk/jog/run an animal to death. Our ability to shed heat by having a fairly high surface area to mass ratio and little/no fur might be more important than our brains in many ways.
> But this isn't about relativity, it's about the role of ideas in evolution. That's not remotely controversial, because (1) we have big brains and (2) nature doesn't waste anything.
I'll ignore the part where you pass off opinions as fact and move on. This is a logical fallacy, nature absolutely does waste things. Suggesting otherwise is a bit nutty or requires that you construct a tautology. The idea that every single species on the planet is 100% tuned optimally is patently ludicrous; if that were true no evolution would take place anymore since everything would be perfect. If we accept that the world changes (which it does) and that adaptation takes time (I don't know how else it happens) then we can't help but conclude that nature is wasting things all the time, however good it's doing. Since evolution can't predict the future it wastes plenty with unsuccessful mutations.
I don't think celibacy of priests is a good example of this. For one thing, it rarely actually happens, as priests routinely abdicate in order to marry or just father children out of wedlock. For another, if only priests are celibate but everyone else is forbidden from using birth control, numbers will always outweigh the cost of the celibate priests.
Even suicide bombers can, through their zeal and dedication, inspire many others and bring groups and clans closer.
Heaven's Gate though, you can't really argue a net positive for, since they're all gone.
Certain religions are more successful than others for the same reason that other organisms are more successful: they adapt more quickly to their environment.
> What biologists must emphasize is that religious dogma (i.e. behaviors) are distinct from religious theology (i.e. mythology).
You know that these are distinctly non-standard (to the point of not having any resemblance to the usual ones) definitions of "dogma" and "theology", right?
If you mean "behaviors" and "mythology", then just say that, rather than saying "dogma" and "theology" with those others in parenthesis, when "dogma" doesn't mean "behavior" and "theology" does not mean "mythology".
There is a very simple explanation for religion: most people conform to the culture of their surrounding.
That's why most people growing up in Muslim country become Muslims, most people growing up in Mormon area become Mormons, most people growing up in atheist countries are atheist and Germany (yes, I'll go there) had a surge of Natzis-ism.
Cultural norm is a powerful thing.
But hey, I'm open to changing my mind given some evidence.
Why don't you sequence a few deceased atheists and a few deceased religious folks and by way of simple diff isolate the "religion" gene. There might be a Nobel prize in it.
> Why don't you sequence a few deceased atheists and a few deceased religious folks and by way of simple diff isolate the "religion" gene. There might be a Nobel prize in it.
It's been established that there's no single religion gene, and there's no single stupidity gene. But I repeat myself.
Unfortunately, by releasing the God Delusion, he engaged creationists as equals in an intellectual debate. He would have been better served by supporting research on the evolutionary psychology of religion, while staying very far away from debating creationists, which has sadly become a hobby of his.
That being said, I have yet to read a book which so elegantly describes evolution as The Selfish Gene. This includes Darwin's own works. It is an absolute masterpiece, and was the foundation of my lifelong passion for biology. I consider Dawkins the most influential man in my life. That is why it hurts me to see him behave in such a counter-productive manner.
I agree that formal debates over evolution are counterproductive - they give the impression that evolution and creationism should be taken equally seriously, and anyway they're more about who's a better presenter than who has the better evidence.
I appreciate Dawkins' writing, though. If nothing else, it contributed significantly to my shift away from evangelical fundamentalism. One of the benefits of Dawkins' choice of material is that it can communicate new ideas to the very religious (not "always does" but "has the capacity to"), whereas arguments about historical accuracy or studies of religious behaviour can't - because, from a fundamentalist perspective, that sort of evidence is necessarily secondary to communication directly from God.
For me, Dawkins first presented the idea that it might be possible for evidence to be more meaningful than faith, that everyone who wasn't a fundamentalist might not be lying or deceived. I consider that a justification for his work, though perhaps I'm wrong about its effectiveness (though I was a fairly strong believer when I read it). I don't know on what criteria you're basing your own judgement.
(Of course, I'm speaking here from my own experience and observation just of the community where I grew up. I'm glad that he existed at that time, but this is ultimately just an anecdote with a limited perspective.)
I'm surprised by your enthusiasm for evolutionary psychology. My admittedly limited experience of it seems like it's just a story telling contest with no actual science. The stories are often very interesting and plausible, but is there any sense in which they can be tested or have predictive power?
More to the point, evolutionary psychology fails the standard litmus tests for science:
1. Skepticism toward ideas not supported by empirical evidence, specifically the assumption that an idea not supported by evidence is assumed to be false (the "null hypothesis") -- the opposite of the normal attitude toward ideas shared by psychologists, who famously assume an idea to be true until it's been proven false.
2. A basis for falsification of theories based on empirical evidence. Not to say all ideas are false, but any of them must be falsifiable in principle by empirical evidence, by reality tests.
3. The idea that all theories are temporary and open to replacement by newer theories supported by better empirical evidence, in other words, nothing ever becomes true and beyond challenge.
Psychology in general, and evolutionary psychology in particular, certainly fails one or more of these tests.
I'm not very into the whole atheism/religion scene, but I think there are many people who basically don't care one way or the other about "the great questions", but when asked might have said that they're religious or spiritual in vague terms. I think it's these people that Dawkins has been helping, by essentially letting them know that 'unbelief' is a totally OK category for them to fall into.
I do truly wonder. I mean do you guys give absolutely zero consideration to the massive psychological difference in message ?
What does evolution say ?
Well, if one were to be really blunt, here's the message : First of all, the natural laws generally referred to as "conservation laws", mean that there is a finite carrying capacity of our planet. And even if we find more ... well this explains it far more eloquently than I ever could : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umFnrvcS6AQ . Second, evolution can only work with a high growth rate and a high rate of natural selection. Natural selection means you and your family/friends/... die.
Translation : whatever level of comfort, safety and survivability you currently have, evolution means that outside of very short exceptional periods (like the one we're in now : the oil/fossil fuel age, as it will be called when historians finally see the need for sane naming) it will go down. A large portion of humans will die without offspring, and if you allow for a few generations, most people (>90%) will not have any great grandchildren at all. The chances of you dieing without offspring, and without energy to keep you warm and without food to eat, are in reality over 30%. This is masked by currently being in an oil age, in a rich country. Evolution means that it will run out though.
The scientific view on this (which almost no-one accepts as true, especially the fact that evolution MUST stretch resources to the breaking point and the inevitable consequences of doing that) is accepted by almost nobody. I'm willing to bet you'll see plenty of evidence of that in replies to this post. But, for example, if evolution is true, global warming is unstoppable until oil/coal run out or get replaced. That's a trivial consequence of evolution, but nobody accepts it.
Oh and the correct reaction to global warming is to make it worse, as fast as possible. Any economics textbook about nash equilibria will tell you why, as will running computer simulations of actors surviving on limited resources.
Other things are that are beyond obvious make much more sense if viewed in the frame of evolution. Rationality, for example. Aside from the fact that it cannot exist (see your nearest philosophy of logic course, or read a course about the "failure of the AI project"), humans are not rational, they think along evolutionary lines. What does our mind do ? It looks for ideas, ways of doing things, what to do, how to behave. It changes the ones it finds a little bit, then executes them. If you look at the architecture of the human brain, I find it rather obvious that you do not have original thoughts. Some ideas' origins are really hard to trace, because they are a combination of what someone did in a tv show plus something you saw a squirrel do, and slightly modified, making it incredibly hard to see the connection between the "new" idea and the originals, but the same goes for genes. And yes, there are "new" ideas that you saw in a random pattern, but keeping in mind how fast human generations work, there would be no more than 1 of those per year for the entire human population, if that.
This of course means that no matter how convinced you are of the opposite, you are NOT thinking rationally.
There is plenty of proof that this is how it works. For example, kids that get raised by animals (it happens sometimes) do not walk on 2 legs (well except those raised by chimps and even then, I wouldn't call their gaits 2 legged), despite obviously still having a body that's built for walking on 2 legs.
There are fun experiments. Even the very signals we use to control our bodily functions are not actually generated by our brain. Our brain simply finds ways to process it's inputs to generate the correct signal to send, e.g. to your legs to walk. So if you give your brain an overwhelming signal that's explicitly designed to make processing it really hard then you can make the human brain sabotage it's own body because it can't reconfigure the external signal fast enough to make it useful. Result : human incapacitated (heart attack happens after ~2 minutes as was discovered by accident. Note that that figure is based on 2 accidental experiments and is probably not very accurate, but nobody's about to do more testing) [3]
And then you have the other side :
Christianity : good news ! Jesus will save you (and we will help you make the best of it in the meantime). You live in misery anyway ? That's God testing you. Invite more misery and help others and it will help you too[1].
Islam : that's may or may not be true, but you can fight and take richess (and -slaves-) from dar-al-harb (everyone else), in fact that's what those other guys' "God", henceforth called allah, wants you to do to earn your salvation. Oh you live in misery despite fighting ? Well either you're a traitor, or it's the enemy's fault.
Judaism : we have a contract with God, and as long as you follow these 613 rules to the letter, that will not happen. And don't worry, they sound insane, sure, but you can read them a million different ways. It happened anyway ? Look, you violated interpretation 5 of rule 328, you deserve it !
Buddhism : you will live in misery, true, salvation lies in accepting it and making the worst of it.
Socialism : that is true, but if we all pull together and follow the little red book/this charter/hitler/... we can make life comfortable for everyone through research, working together, building everything up, ... [2]. Didn't solve your misery problem ? Must be the bourgoisie/spies/traitors/... screwing it up ! Let's kill them.
I don't mean to be rude, but is anyone truly in doubt why atheism can never win ? Hell, I don't want it to win. If I ever am in real trouble, then I'd like to find a group of Christians in my path if you don't mind. Despite knowing more than 99.9% of hacker news about evolution and how the human mind works.
[1] I would argue that that last part is the essence of our modern states.
[2] I don't mean to make it sound so ridiculous, but it worked for large parts of the world for quite a while in the sense that it improved their situation considerably for up to half a century, so please don't think it can never work. This way of thinking got the first human to space, and collected pretty much the only information we have about the inner solar system.
Kudos! It drive me nuts how people who are supposedly devoted to rationality accept the premise that rationality will win simply because it is rational, despite the fact that you can show rationally (via Darwinian evolution!) that this premise is false.
I agree. And you know what sucks? Illogical people, office politics, and having to play them. We shouldn't have to... But a logical and analytical person understands they exist whether we like it or not and plays them (if they care about getting to a desired result quickest).
> Second, evolution can only work with a high growth rate and a high rate of natural selection.
This is false, quite false. Even a flat growth rate, a population that doesn't change in size at all, supports the mechanisms of natural selection. Examples abound in which one or more species that are pushing against the carrying capacity of their environments continue to evolve, both within and between species.
Can you give me an example of such a species ? Because I don't know any. The type of growth you're referring to would be like rabbits versus cats, and their numbers are anything but stable.
And frankly, even if you can actually do that, give a stable species, the fact is that humans follow a pattern of massive expansion followed by large die-offs, rinse and repeat.
Note the logarithmic scale. Realize what it means if, on that graph, there is a very slight but visible drop. Note that "details" like the holocaust + all worldwide WWII victims simply don't register on that graph at all (events like that have been a near constant throughout history, just read what happened during islamic expansion in Europe over 700-800 years, with constant extermination campaigns usually, but not exclusively, by the invaders. And that's something that barely registers if you compare it to the islamic massacres in India). Then realize that this is a smoothed graph, where you wouldn't even see the majority of die-offs at all.
The minimum you'd need to see it on that graph at all is a 10% die off, and that would be a flat horizontal line. Can you imagine a 10% die-off ? The minimum we'd need to detect it >200 years back, is a plague-sized event. There were lots of those, as you can see.
That's the species we are. That's how our numbers have evolved. That's the reason evolution works.
You need examples of species whose numbers aren't changing, but that are subject to the process of natural selection? Where shall I start? Well, there's one obvious starting point -- the fact that the theory of evolution models stable populations mathematically:
> ... even if you can actually do that, give a stable species, the fact is that humans follow a pattern of massive expansion followed by large die-offs, rinse and repeat.
You just answered your own question. From the standpoint of natural selection there's no difference between a species whose numbers don't change, and one whose numbers fluctuate up and down around a maximum defined by its environment.
In any case, apart from humans there are thousands of species whose numbers are limited by their environments, and natural selection continues to choose which members of that species survive, based on the changing nature of the environment. This is evolution 101.
> Still a fan ?
What are you going on about? Do you or do you not want to understand evolution? You have already accepted, and given examples of, the idea that natural selection applies to growing populations and declining populations -- all you need to do now is fill in the blank space lying between the two.
I note you failed to actually illustrate species with stable numbers. What the logistic function has to do with anything, I don't know. When reading through the reason they choose this function to model population growth it is exactly to construct a stable population growth, not because this was observed in practice.
And most certainly the human population curve looks nothing like the logistic function. It was going up much faster than the logistic function predicts. And the current slowdown of human population growth is so much faster than the ramp-up it's ridiculous to compare them. In the logistic function the slowdown mirrors the ramp-up. That's obviously not happening to humans.
I can give plenty of popular examples of wildly fluctuating population numbers. Cats versus kangaroos/wallabies versus rabbits versus birds in Australia. Buffalo's versus beavers versus cats versus ... in Yellowstone park. Those are well studied examples of major flips in population density. I also grew up in an area with lots of farms, and I know that for example the number of wolves living in nature follows this pattern. Some years it is so bad they actually attempt to eat adult humans (and sometimes succeed), sometimes there are none. We had a rabbit problem while I was at university, and the biology department investigated. There was an exchange between the number of cats (ex-housecats) and the number of rabbits. First the cats would eat nearly all the rabbits, then they'd starve to the point that few cats remained (and human interference like milk bowls does indeed make things worse), after that the rabbit population multiplied in two years by a factor of more than 1000, after which the cat numbers started growing again.
In all these cases you will observe massive swings in the population numbers. The swings were so large that just the swings themselves were at risk of making the species die off entirely (if a swing hits the number 1 or 0, the species never recovers, and has to be reintroduced. In practice that number is 9-10 according to the biology department. For rabbits or cats it never takes long for the species to be reintroduced of course). The biology department paper also claimed that while the timeframes vary wildly from species to species, these swings are the status-quo (within one habitat, the global population is more stable), not the exception.
I do know this more from an algorithmic point of view, and I learn biology only as I need it, or if I'm bored or stuck. Which is why I asked you for a few examples of these stable population numbers, as I wouldn't really know. In genetic algorithms stable population numbers don't occur.
Normally, because from time t -> t+1 you either let every current try duplicate n -> kn (higher k is better, but requires more resources), which is of course exponential growth. Then you kill all the ones that underperform (which is always basically all of them), or you select the k best performers. Or you can try to be smarter and model sexual reproduction, at which point you grow like n -> k n * (n - 1), which is even faster.
There are plenty of variations, but almost all the ones I've ever seen work have exponential growth + 90%+ die offs. Even then genetic algorithms are disappointingly slow in most cases. On the plus side, genetic algorithms will find answers no other algorithm is able to find (much better coverage of the search space). However this comes at a truly massive cost in resources (as you would expect, but it'd be nice if it didn't).
So you have an exponential growth, followed by a 99% dieoff (the number that die off has to increase the greater the population size becomes due to memory/cpu constraints).
> I note you failed to actually illustrate species with stable numbers.
In that case, you have no idea what stable numbers means -- it means a species whose long-term average remains the same. Or do you think species are like dormant bank accounts, with constant balances to the penny?
> What the logistic function has to do with anything, I don't know.
If you don't understand the evolutionary role of the Logistic Function, and since you didn't bother to read the article on that topic I linked, there's no point in this conversation.
> And most certainly the human population curve looks nothing like the logistic function.
Absolutely false. Do you really want to advertise your ignorance this way?
Here are some articles that demonstrate the relation between the human population and the logistic function:
> In that case, you have no idea what stable numbers means -- it means a species whose long-term average remains the same. Or do you think species are like dormant bank accounts, with constant balances to the penny?
Given the examples I've seen so far, I'd consider any species that stays within 50% of it's previous numbers over 2 generations stable.
But intuitively I'd have a stricter standard, something like no more than 10% per generation.
> Absolutely false. Do you really want to advertise your ignorance this way?
Essentially makes the case for malthusianism, and proposes to re-introduce population control measures (laws, forced abortions, ...). It's at least 50% a political paper. Need I go on ? I'd really rather not read it in detail. It's also hosted on a site by the social sciences department of the university of Hamburg. Even so, the paper merely intends to "fuel the debate" on this issue, not actually carry out analysis.
Allow me to copy a sentence from the paper's conclusion : "Although they [regulatory suggestions to overcome the "normal population cycle"] might seem strangely scandalous and even marginal today, the suggestions and effected regulatory measures to control population growth in the late 1960s and early 1970s merely followed a rigid and conservative accountancy logic still in effect" (I do know a bit of German, the last part is a way-to-literal translation from German.
It means to say that while population control laws were repealed, the reasons for having them have become stronger.
Now to put things bluntly, but when it comes to scientific credibility, the social sciences rank significantly below my local bookstore's "Fiction" section. I would note that the social sciences see it as their mission not to advance scientific knowledge, but rather to influence public debate and regulation. This obviously means that any social sciences related paper explicitly is NOT the facts, but an attempt to convince you, and should be read like a commercial advertisement.
A set of exercises constructed to match the logistic function by the math department ... The one example of human population it has actually contradicts your thesis : human population growth starting in 1927, and ending in 2071 (because at that point there would be no more growth) somewhat matches the logistic function. Needless to say this is a prediction. Further analysis reveals that human population growth was calculated at the UN using the logistic function, with the same parameters.
As to what this means, I'd have to say it's a very bad example of statistical fitting, nothing more. For example, they just assume they have the answer, and don't even bother to measure the error in their fitting.
Please note that this is not criticism of the authors of the paper, who undoubtedly are achieving exactly what they set out to achieve : train students to correctly evaluate a non-trivial calculus function. This is criticism of your interpretation of this paper.
Is a paper that I would say defends my side of the argument (I'd say it's a critique against the logistic model). Note the prominent line : "Why does the logistic model fail so spectacularly in this case (and many others)?", and look at the graph right above it, and the explanation below.
A quote : "Specifically, the logistic model fails to consider mechanisms of population regulation. When density increases, what is affected? Birth rates? Death rates? The r parameter in the logistic model is simply the difference in the gross birth and death rates when there are no conspecifics present."
"Given the examples I've seen so far, I'd consider any species that stays within 50% of it's previous numbers over 2 generations stable"
Most plants are vary stable as in within 5% over time as they tend to be vary resource limited, so they kill off competitors. Infact most species's say within 5% outside of environmental changes dispite boom and bust times simply because the planet is large enough that area A may go though a boom, while area B, C, and D is in bust period. EX: Deer.
You said you had no idea what the logistic equation had to do with natural selection, but you believed that human populations didn't show a correlation with the function. I provided the links only so you would have a way to find out how wrong that was, nothing else. But you're one of those posters who can't seem to stick to a single topic.
As to that topic, I can't believe that you're still unable to see that a stable population supports classic natural selection. In such a population, who survives is determined by their fitness, just when the population's size is changing. The fact that a population's size is stable or changing is irrelevant to natural selection -- it is unaffected. On that basis, population rate of change, and natural selection, are orthogonal factors.
The only way a stable population would interfere with natural selection is if there was no reproduction taking place, no births or deaths, and that is certainly not what a stable population means.
I have come to understand the people that don't believe in evolution are either incapable of grasping the concept or they are too afraid to accept it b/c of it's (supposed) implications. My grandmother is one of the former. Whenever we discuss it she always asks why apes are still here if we descended from them. I try to explain about a common ancestor, etc. But it is useless. Perhaps she too just doesn't want to accept the implications, but I have to consider it possible she simply is incapable of grasping the theory. My mother on the other hand is of the later group. It took quite a bit of effort but I think she finally understood the basic idea. However, she is simply too afraid that believing it might mean there is no such place as Heaven. And that, she just cannot bare to accept.
So it is useless really to argue the facts of Evolution vs Creationism. It's the wrong argument. If the person is capable of scientific thinking at all, you still have deal the emotional question of death.
I wouldn't call myself a creationist, but I think there's a substantial chance that our current understanding of the physics of the universe will seem as backwards to people in a 200 years as people's under standing 200 years ago does to us now. I even believe that there's a small chance that our understanding of the universe now will seem as backwards as creationism in 5000 years.
As there is so much we don't know yet, it seems crazy to say that creationism absolutely cannot be true, even though it's crazy to say that creationism is true.
Sure! I'm a trained nuclear physicist, and a biblical literalist.
The rather trivial reconciliation of the two viewpoints is that the material world is a small reflection of the theological world.
Frankly, I find the debate with Nye and Ham regrettable - in that neither seemed to understand their own position well and did a disservice to both viewpoints.
I've created several worlds, so I guess it's plausible that this world was created as well. But the actual evidence for this world being "created" is pretty much non-existent. I'm not sure how you would even test for it.
The distinction between 'observational' and 'historical' is a matter of political and social convenience.
Consider carbon dating. Since it's been observed, we should assume it's observational. carbon dating indicates that dinosaurs existed hundreds of millions of years ago instead of mere thousands. but that's historical and therefore this is a contradiction, so we can't assume the distinction.
the only logical conclusion is that we have a false premise.
Minor nit pick here, but carbon dating is not used to date fossils and rocks because C14 has a half-life of only ~5k years. With such a short half-life, the C14 all decays away to trace levels in only a few tens of thousands of years.
Other radioactive isotopes with much longer half-lives are more appropriate for geologic dating. The U-Pb system is really good for most geologic applications.
Although, the idea of debates like these is great, I feel that they do little to make people think rationally, or convince anyone to switch sides. They only galvanize each sides feels that they are right.
it's unbelievable that the argument of the creationist guy was: "it's not true cause you didn't observe it" and "the evidence it's god's word" as god was something we can all observe...
I REALLY hate to agree with a creationist to any degree but there is something to the observational/historical debate.
We now understand a LOT of physics and chemistry. That's because it's observational, and because it's observational you can make predictions, perform experiments and get results. Other people can do the same as well, thus enabling not only peer review but actual verifiability.
This is why we understand physics and chemistry extremely well, biology OK but rapidly improving, and economics and public policy much less well. Because we can reproduce results in physics everyone either agrees on the truth or is generally regarded as a crackpot. Biologists can't produce the kinds of extremely clean data physicists can but it's still meaningful. In macroeconomics there's very little ability to perform experiments in a repeatable fashion, which results in everyone observing the world and then arguing about why things happened and nobody can prove that they're right or that others are wrong.
When you're dealing with math or computer science induction is a great tool that allows you to do pretty incredible things. But it does so because the nature of math or algorithms is stationary; the rules are 100% fixed from the beginning of time 'til the end (or so you can assume if you're building the system) and thus any assumptions are by definition correct. It's much harder to do this when you're dealing with things that can change over time (and thus potentially invalidate your assumptions), which is basically everything else. That's not to say that induction is worthless outside of math and computer science but it's use comes with more caveats.
I totally get why serious scientists don't want to even acknowledge that a creationist might raise a good point but once it's made the damage is done. If you don't respond at all they pile on saying "look he doesn't have an answer for X!" and if you do respond with a reasonable statement about "this is the best we know thus far and of course nothing can be known until we observe it directly" then they'll pile on with "see it's not guaranteed!" Both of those outcomes are extremely frustrating when you're dealing with someone who can't be convinced with any amount of evidence.
But failing to acknowledge that there is a difference between direct observation and historical/induction and that they create two classes of certainty which are not identical does the very tedious and difficult work of science a disservice in my opinion.
EDIT: To clarify I think what I'm mostly talking about is certainty. If you can't directly (or indirectly) observe something happening with some kind of experiment you can have a personal opinion about certainty and someone else can have another but neither one can be provably wrong. Once that happens there's real certainty and very little room for opinion anymore. Until then things are a bit more fluid. A well educated person's estimate of certainty might be much more accurate than a plebe's but it's not guaranteed to be right.
As you say, it seems that the main point of creationists' argument is that historical science isn't valid, because "you haven't seen it happen".
There are so many things wrong with this argument that I don't even know where to begin, but let's play along with this ridiculous line of thought anyway. The obvious question that follows is why is the "historical science" given by the bible any more plausible than the "historical science" of any other creation myth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_creation_myths) ?
Of course there is a difference between circumstantial evidence and direct evidence, but even if you can't guarantee that your interpretation of the circumstantial evidence is true (something which by the way you can't do with direct evidence either), one should strive to find an interpretation that has the highest probability of being true given all the evidence at a given moment.
Look I completely agree with you that the creationists are irrationally clinging to a fairly small nitpick and using it to bury their heads in the sand.
BUT that doesn't mean that the small point that they raise with regards to repeatedly observing in the now versus observing the record of the past isn't valid.
>one should strive to find an interpretation that has the highest probability of being true given all the evidence at a given moment
Agreed but until the matter is settled via direct observation by multiple people in multiple experiments you have to kind of play Schrodinger's cat with the evidence. Just because you think you've found the highest probability explanation doesn't make it true, and thus alternative explanations aren't "false" but merely "less likely" Others might disagree with your level of certainty and at this point we're all basically spouting opinions, not facts.
tl;dr:
"Creationism is a worthless and uneducated position to hold in our modern society and Nye is about to treat it as an equal, debatable 'controversy'."
"Scientists should not debate creationists. Period."
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Nye should have had it easy. He could have argued that creationists need to demonstrate why their beliefs are any more true than the hundreds of other contradictory creation myths that come from various world cultures (as salgernon mentioned). He also could have argued that science and creationism are not fundamentally incompatible, but instead sort of orthogonal. Creationism can be thought of as a cosmological hypothesis. It happens to be a hypothesis that is basically impossible to test, so scientists instead spend their time evaluating other hypothesis.
Instead, it sounded like he argued the position that "science helps us learn and do cool things, plus you don't need to believe in God to seek answers to life's important question." Weak position. Counter argument: "I don't care about learning or technology because when I die I am going to heaven, and that's ultimately more important than science."