Of what real value is evolutionary "knowledge"?

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and i don't appreciate being called an idiot, you jackass

ESPECIALLY AFTER I APOLOGIZED AND RETRACTED A LONG TIME AGO

I hate to be a broken record, but Ragtime you did say back a bit that you do believe in a form of evolution.

Please clarify what part of 'macro-evolution' you don't believe in, or else it's just not possible to hold an intellegent debate. Presumably, if you believe in at least part of evolution, then you'd be okay with at least part of it being taught in class. So I just can't figure out what your beef is. Please specifically tell us what you don't want taught.

As I wrote (and you read) earlier, they make you write papers explaining why you know evolution is true.
In other words, they make religious people violate their beliefs, in between making fun of them.

I wasn't referring to you, I was referring to "every idiot".
But you took it personally, and have now called me a name.
If you're going to choose to read some personal insult into everything I write,
then you're just going to continue to misform yourself as to my meanings.

You're not being a broken record, but you are playing semantics.
Scientists have tried to create life from non-life, using the same basic chemicals
and theorized electrical stimulus. Nothing happened.
Until scientists can create life from non-life in a lab,
I won't be very inclined to believe it happened on its own.
(I'm being very scientific about this, you know?)

My own view is in line with the bible, then.

With life being to short to learn everything, the consequences of applying that principle depend on what you consider important enough that ignorance would be wrong, how good you are at spotting your own ignorance, and what you judge to be the information most likely to cure that state of ignorance. (The "you" here is a general "you", not you personally, Ragtime. It applies to everyone.)


The part I marked is an important distinction, for three reasons.

1. It is an example of the naturalistic fallacy. Being natural or unnatural doesn't make something right or wrong.

2. The militant advancement of the moral principles you allude to comes from laissex-faire capitalists and people with related political views. The two people who best fit your idea of militant evolutionists, Dawkins and Dennett, do not advocate Spencer's "for the good of society, let those who can't support themselves suffer or die" policies.

3. For at least the last 20 years, no one with even a passing acquaintance with work on the biological basis of altruism and cooperation could claim that pure selfishness was a natural consequence of evolution. That claim is just ignorant. If I had read Kropotkin's book Mutual Aid, I could tell you whether that time line should be pushed back to 1902. Because I haven't read it, I can't tell you whether Kropotkin's argument was good enough to blow Spencer's social Darwinism out of the water even back then. I do know that for at least 20 years the claim of evolutionary theory supporting Spencer's ideas has been a case of at least grossly negligent ignorance, and possibly deliberate ignorance. There's enough information about, and not difficult to find. A good starting point is this BBC programme on human cooperation. If you look up the web site of one of the researches mentioned there, Herbert Gintis, you find lots of rigorous research on the subject. You might be specifically interested in this paper on Strong Reciprocity and the Roots og Human Morality and the one on "Behavioral Ethics Meets Natural Justice" (just follow the link to "Papers".


Close. I say those who try should understand the naturalistic fallacy, so they can avoid it, and understand evolution well enough to know what it says about selfishness and cooperation.


That is not true. Those who object to evolution often believe that this conclusion would follow, and that forms the basis of their objection. They attribute their mistaken belief about the implication of evolution to those who accept evolution. It's as ignorant as claiming that all religious belief leads to to terrorism.

I suggest you make a poll with these four options:
1. I accept evolution and I DO think its moral implication is that survival of the fittest is literally right
2. I accept evolution and I do NOT think its moral implication is that survival of the fittest is literally right
3. I do NOT accept evolution and I DO think its moral implication is that survival of the fittest is literally right
4. I do NOT accept evolution and I do NOT think its moral implication is that survival of the fittest is literally right

We might expand it to eight questions by also asking people whether or not they are laissez-faire capitalists. I predict opponents of evolution and laissez faire capitalists will make up the majority of people who think that the moral implication of evolutionary theory is that survival of the fittest is literally right

it's hardly a worthwile essay to write on why evolution "is true"... i sincerely doubt you'd see an essay as creatively LAME as that.

i'm sure they'd give you a contextual essay where'd you'd have to discuss things intelligently

if i read that into everything you say, i woulda been offended a long time ago... and when you keep doggedly criticizing a statement i retracted pages ago... and holding me to it... i do take it pretty personally... when you use the term idiot in the same breadth.

w/e

Well, remember, I'm talking about what they actually do, and will likely continue to do, not what they should do.
"Should" wins the game of life every time.
But of course, realists know that people do what they do, not what they "should" do.

And the vast majority of people 1) are always going to derive morals, and many of those people are hence
2) going to be influenced by certain mega-beliefs they hold (such as the Godless theory of our origins).
"Godless" is not to say that they'd think God doesn't exist, but rather to say that God wouldn't be part of a
theory of naturalistic origins.
And if people believe that God wasn't an active part of how we got here (whether or not He exists),
then that breeds a strong sense of nihilism in them. And Nihilism indeed is no father of great moral virtues.

Last edited by Ragtime on 13 May 2008, 12:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Please don't change my wordings into strawmen.
I didn't say the paper would be on why evolution is true;
I said it would explain why evolution is true.
Meaning in the process of addressing a broader discussion.



Uh-oh! You used the word "intelligently"! You're not bringing the idea that we were intelligently designed
INTO THE CLASSROOM, ARE YOU??!??!?!One1!? Remember, we all came from NON-LIFE, and NO GOD CREATED US!
The CLASSROOM only has room for ONE IDEA! ONE IDEA as to our origins!! !
Don't you go bringing GOD into my classroom!! !



Sorry, just launched into what most Christian students have to endure in America today.

Last edited by Ragtime on 13 May 2008, 12:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You asked my opinion about what people should or should not do.


I would like to know whether there is any empirical evidence for that claim, or whether it is one of those things that some people see as so obvious that they never bother to check. The claim conflicts with my experience, and with a secondary reference mentioning a paper reporting that how moral people are is independent of whether or not they are religious.

Not a single one of the people I know to be atheists has any sense of nihilism. Of the five most morally rigorous people I know, four are atheists, I don't know the religious opinion of the fifth, only that he has never expressed any religious belief in my presence. From my own experience, I find your claim implausible, but I would like to see a better data set with larger sample size.

Getting back to your original question, have you had time to look at the scientific journal Evolutionary applications? Just looking through the abstracts should give you some answers.

No, I didn't. We had a miscommunication.

The verb Sedaka linked to the adverb "intelligently" was "discuss", not "design".

Actually, neither. I don't think how nihilism affects people can be tested in the lab, but that doesn't mean we're simply stark-blind to its effects, or that we "don't bother to check". Any thinking person bothers to re-check everything he knows regularly.
Are the entire fields of Philosophy and Sociology bogus because they can't be proven or disproven in a lab?


It doesn't at all conflict with my experience, and as for that study, which I remember reading about, "religious" can mean you go to church every Sunday because you want people to see you, and to think that you are a good person -- while you may not really believe in God at all. I know many, many "religious" people personally who don't evidence any significant sense of morality. I don't consider myself religious, as it's now become a synonym for merely "ritualistic", or "habitual in church-related activities", neither of which I am. I simply believe in my friend Jesus Christ, and that belief is my own personal belief -- sustained by God's power and His Word, not by any church or group of people.
Going to church doesn't make you a true believer in God any more than sitting in a garage makes you a car.

no they don't

do you have to write lamo essays in history class saying "i believe in history"
or i believe in physics?

or i bleieve in math?

no..... but they are contextually applicable essays im sure.

I believe he probably knew that, unless he had his mind so set that he actually didn't see it or else, or intellectually dishonesty?