Chris Matthews ask Representative Mike Pence a simple question — “Do you believe in evolution?” — and Pence spends 5 minutes squirming avoiding giving an answer. He changes the subject repeatedly, to global warming and stem cells, and tries to pretend that the Republican party doesn’t have a serious problem with an anti-science agenda, which he himself is demonstrating.
I have to commend Matthews, too: he bulldogs that question and won’t let it go. Let’s see more of that from our media, please.
The pugs must like to show their ignorance. Since they do it all time.
They seem to practice a kind of homeopathic politics.
Some of the worst tap dancing I’ve ever seen.
That was as relieving to watch as when Jon Stewart flogged Jim Cramer on The Daily Show.
Answer the GOD DAMN QUESTION!!!
Newver says no I don’t believe that the world was created in 6 days.
Trys to come up with someone other than Teddy that was “Scientific” and can’t. The most pro science guy you could come up with was president over 100 years ago?!?
He sounds like a creationist.
Go, Chris, go! Rip his nuts off! Blood! Blood! Blood! …
Good grief why not answer the question. Things must be really bad out there in Republican land.
Absolutely ludicrous. He can’t even tap dance well. Another republican loser. It says volumes about the electorate in his state. Just remember the five D’s of Republican “answers”: Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive, and errrr… Dodge.
Actually, they very often squirm around the issue in order to avoid saying that they are not creationists.
Many of them are too well educated to be IDiots/cretins, yet want the votes of theocrats. Much as Chris said to Pence, in fact.
I think he was right.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
I knew Mike back in college, and he definitely does not believe in evolution. He’s a power-hungry fundie who seriously believes in Biblical inerrancy and a 6,000-year-old earth and whose ultimate ambition reaches to the White House.
I encountered this on another blog:
No, this kind of stuff is why the label is sticking. Enough already, Republicans!
nice hair though
What everyone else said — but I gotta know…
What the hell is a dramonsterable? (about 1:50 I think)
JC
I perhaps should just say why I’m pretty sure of that. It’s because Pence used the code words “the means he [god] used to do this, I can’t say.”
That’s what a whole lot of theistic evolutionists state in some form or other. Although, when they’re admitting it they’re more likely to say something like “I wouldn’t dictate to god how he has to do it.”
The problem, of course, is not just the weaseling, it’s that he says that both sides must be discussed in schools. If he didn’t support teaching woo, I wouldn’t particularly care if he were an affirmed creationist. The difficulty in knowing that he wouldn’t push woo as a creationist is what would keep me leery of his intentions.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
JC, it’s a perfectly cromulent term.
@ #10
Reckon you’ve hit the nail on the head there. If you can’t be pinned down to a specific position you don’t alienate voters. Well, unless you count the voters clever enough to spot what you’re doing.
@Sven
It’s an evolved entity in it’s own right that uses the body for transportation.
Absolutely ludicrous. He can’t even tap dance well.
Oh he can tapdance pretty good if they let him. Most news people don’t really give a crap so they let him get away with it. We’ve seen it a million times. Most of them give up on the first sign of tapdancing. “Yep here comes the dance, on to the next question. Yawwwwwnnnn, when’s the lunch break.”
Obscuratist bullshit answers from a smug political windbag.
I have just two comments.
One, Spence revealed not just that he “believes” in creationism, but that he knows it’s not something one should admit in public, at least not on national TV. And
Two, people like Matthews should stop asking if people “believe” in evolution. Biologists do not “believe” in evolution, they accept it based on data. Nothing more and nothing less. Evolution is not a belief but theory well grounded in fact. Beliefs have no grounding in fact.
He thinks science teachers are supposed to just throw a bunch of facts out there and let the wind carry them where they may. Sounds like some fun science classes…
Chris Matthews, while not as stupid as Pence, is a blithering idiot, repeatedly claiming that Pence believes things he doesn’t and he has intelligence and education that he doesn’t.
Chris Matthews, while not as stupid as Pence, is a blithering idiot, repeatedly claiming that Pence believes things he doesn’t and he has intelligence and education that he doesn’t.
I think half of that was trying to flatter Pence into answering the damn question, and the other half was a big boatload of sarcasm, and then the other half maybe some blithering in there too. :P
Pence referred to Teddy Roosevelt, the same guy who said “A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.”
The funniest part of the clip was at the very end, when Matthews said “Thank you for your honesty.” And repeated it.
Beliefs have no grounding in fact.
I wish people would stop saying this sort of thing, because it is incredibly stupid and ignorant, or just plain intellectually dishonest, far more so than not accepting evolution. We all know what the word “belief” means; we use it all the time, and we all claim to have beliefs that we know are grounded in facts. I believe humans are causing global warming, I believe Booth shot Lincoln, I believe Obama is a better President than Bush — whom I believe is a war criminal, I believe there were no WMDs in Iraq, I believe there is milk in my refrigerator, I believe that evolution occurs … so really, please, stop portraying scientists as morons too stupid to understand such a common concept and too dimwitted to distinguish belief and faith.
the other half was a big boatload of sarcasm
There was no sarcasm in Matthews’ making a distinction between Pence and the fundie flock. Matthews was either lying, saying something he knew isn’t true in order to “flatter” Pence, or he’s an idiot. And there’s already ample evidence that he’s an idiot.
Hehe. He said that “science is about dremonstrable facts.”
Evolution is not a belief but theory well grounded in fact.
Sigh. Evolution is a fact — so we believe, for very good reasons, reasons so good that we can be said to know it. The theory of evolution — a totally different thing — is a scientific theory. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_as_theory_and_fact
Hehe. He said that “science is about dremonstrable facts.”
And Matthews foolishly agreed, and then blathered about “the scientific method” as if he has the faintest idea what it is.
Politics in America is like driving a car; select D to go forward, R to go backward.
(Try both at once and you won’t be going anywhere for quite a while.)
Chris Matthews, while not as stupid as Pence, is a blithering idiot, repeatedly claiming that Pence believes things he doesn’t and he has intelligence and education that he doesn’t.
Really? If Pence would simply say what he believes and deny what he doesn’t believe (imagine that), he wouldn’t make Chris Matthews look like he has the intelligence and education that he supposedly doesn’t have.
C’mere, Chris Matthews. Mmmmmm-wha!
Long live the evo-gotcha.
Bah I don’t see any sarcasm in there now that I look again. I think he actually meant it when he complimented Pence on his honesty. Apparently Pence was really really honest in the parts of the interview prior to the clip that was shown here. :P
The simple truth of that comment makes it so so quoteworthy… I’m gonna have to use that one again somewhere.
(#32)
So the “N” is for Nader?
Pence was squirming like a worm being forced onto a fishing hook.
I perhaps should just say why I’m pretty sure of that. It’s because Pence used the code words “the means he [god] used to do this, I can’t say.”
That’s what a whole lot of theistic evolutionists state in some form or other.
For some reason you’re trying hard to fool yourself. Virtually by definition, theistic evolutionists say evolution is god’s way — they don’t say they don’t know what god’s way is. You’re pretty sure of something that isn’t true — Pence is an Evangelical Christian, not a theistic evolutionist.
Run, run, as fast as you can! You can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man!
Really?
Yes.
If Pence would simply say what he believes and deny what he doesn’t believe (imagine that)
He believes in the literal truth of the bible and doesn’t believe in evolution (that is, he doesn’t believe evolution occurs, at least not “macroevolution”).
he wouldn’t make Chris Matthews look like he has the intelligence and education that he supposedly doesn’t have.
That’s rather incoherent. What I said is that Pence doesn’t have the intelligence and education that Matthews claimed that Pence does have.
Thank you, Keanus, for bringing up what’s one of my pet peeves: “Do you believe in evolution,” like evolution is Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.
Would you ask someone “Do you believe in Organic Chemistry?”
Evolution isn’t something one ‘believes’ in; it’s something one does (or does not) accept as the foundation of the biological sciences.
nothing’s sacred; I agree with you completely, we need to take back the word belief.
The problem is that Creationists use the term to put the ToE on equal footing with creationism. They simultaneously try to elevate creationism to the level of science and degrade science to the level of creationism. To them belief is directly tied to faith, so if we admit to believing in evolution then, in their minds, we are admitting that all we have is unfounded faith.
In my humble opinion we should be using the term belief when it is appropriate and if necessary point out a creationist’s disingenuous use of the word to give their belief credibility.
momma, momma, momma. i wanna go to the flintstone museum.
Matthews did the same thing to wingnut radio vermin, Kevin James, who made the “Chamberlain appeaser” accusation against Obama for wanting to talk to our enemies rather than attacking them. Matthews kept drilling at the guy to explain what Chamberlain did to get the appeaser label. What was it that was so bad. Because Matthews knew that negotiating with an enemy and giving away half of an innocent country’s land to an enemy are two very different things.
And of course, the wingnut guy had no fucking clue why Chamberlain’s form of appeasement was so reviled.
Watch the insanity here
I think Tweetie did a fine job dogging Mr. Pence. Regardless of what others may think of Matthews’ interview style, the net result made it quite obvious that Mr. Pence’s was refusing to answer the question–which appeared to me that he wanted very badly to side with the creationists but was afraid to answer truthfully for fear of appearing as Matthews presumed, anti-science.
The net result of the interview? More GOPasaur blood spilled.
Thank you, Keanus, for bringing up what’s one of my pet peeves: “Do you believe in evolution,” like evolution is Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.
One of my pet peeves is wrong-headed pet peeves. People who make this complaint are inept in their use of English. There are two ways to use “believe in”: moral assertions, such as “I believe in fair play”, and existential assertions, such as “I believe in deep sea vents”. The latter is usually used with something never directly experienced — which explains why all beliefs in the existence of things that actually don’t exist get phrased that way. But it’s a fallacy of affirmation of the consequent to extend it the other way and claim that anything believed in is like those fantasies.
Evolution isn’t something one ‘believes’ in; it’s something one does (or does not) accept as the foundation of the biological sciences.
First, “X accepts P” and “X believes P” mean the same thing; a belief is simply assent to a proposition. Second, “evolution occurs” and “evolution is the foundation of the biological sciences” are very different assertions; one can accept/believe believe either without accepting/believing the other.
Good Lord, Murtagh, you think that because Xian wingnut Republicans are bad that makes Xian wingnut Democrats progressive?
“D for dumb, R for repugnant” might make a little sense… (although the current Xian D in charge isn’t dumb, he’s just part of a large corporate-funded antihumanist political machine) …what part of Obama and McCain both kneeling before the Israelite altar did you miss?
The enemy of your enemy isn’t always your friend.
#39
OT: Whoa! I used to listen to that record as a little kid!
The problem is that Creationists use the term to put the ToE on equal footing with creationism.
I disagree. Creationists claim that science and evolution are based on faith — were they to claim that they are both matters of belief, one could easily counter with the blatantly obvious fact that some beliefs are well grounded in fact and reason whereas others aren’t. No, it’s primarily friends of science who are inept in their use of the language who are responsible for the wrongheaded equation of “belief” with “faith” — as was done by Keanus and CaseyL.
They simultaneously try to elevate creationism to the level of science and degrade science to the level of creationism. To them belief is directly tied to faith, so if we admit to believing in evolution then, in their minds, we are admitting that all we have is unfounded faith.
You said you wanted to reclaim the word, so why such cowering? First, it’s easy enough to give the sorts of examples I gave, which are boundless. Second, their minds aren’t important; it’s those whose minds we’re competing for that matter. Third, we should admit to believing in evolution for good reason, and then refer to the overwhelming empirical evidence supporting that belief.
Theothuglicans are only 22% of the voters now. Probably the vast majority are fundie creationists.
Sarah Palin made no secret that she thought the world was 6,000 years old. She also said the Rapture will happen within her lifetime, say the next 30 years.
Being anti-science is typical these days for what is left of the GOP. That isn’t even close to being one of their major defects as they have so many more.
Aquaria, that was awesome.
Kevin James got his ass handed to him. What a shrill little man. What an idiot. Get this shithead off the radio.
“Your problem, Kevin, is that you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I think Tweetie did a fine job dogging Mr. Pence.
Well, he certainly dogged him, but it’s a hardly a fine job when he ends up putting words in Pence’s mouth that Pence is happy to have there but can’t speak himself because they are well known not to be true. Matthews is an inept, lazy pretend-journalist who can’t be bothered to do the most basic research, like finding out that Pence is a fundie who definitely does not accept evolution.
… Didn’t Roosevelt’s efforts at conservation seriously fuck up Yellowstone for several decades, specifically in relation to the control of animal populations? Or am I thinking of someone/somewhere else? Or was that a dream?
How nauseating to be reminded that plastic mannequins like this guy are just waiting to get back into power again.
Mike Pence is using the classic creationist excuses. Nothing new here.
Teddy Roosevelt. He had to go back ONE HUNDRED YEARS to find a Republican president who supported some kind of environmental program.
You don’t need to be so formal, I hardly ever require anyone to call me Good Lord.
To answer your question, no, my thinking’s a little more nuanced than that; I’ve noticed that while kowtowing to the invisible is de rigueur for all pols, the D’s are by and large far, far less hostile to progress whereas the R’s make an absolute fetish of being so. Neither case is absolutely constant, but it’s a pretty reliable rule of thumb these days.
I was also hoping it was funny.
Didn’t Roosevelt’s efforts at conservation seriously fuck up Yellowstone for several decades, specifically in relation to the control of animal populations? Or am I thinking of someone/somewhere else? Or was that a dream?
At best you’re cherry picking like crazy; Roosevelt’s conservations efforts were major and essential.
http://uwacadweb.uwyo.edu/RobertsHistory/presidential_preservation.htm
Beleif is an assumption made without evidence. If I say “I believe you are right” I am saying I think you are right but have no evidence to establish it as fact.
The ToE has plenty of evidence to back up its assertions and claims and therefore is accepted as fact. We do not believe it to be true, we accept it to be true because there is evidence to prove it.
I would rather see him interviewed by Colbair or
Stewart. They would make it crystal clear what am idiot he is. And speaking of nutty fundies, Eric Hovind will be at American River College in Sacramento on the seventh at noon. Would appreciate any of you who have time to come on down. My school has a high ratio of evangelical fundamentalists and a dean to spineless to oppose them.
I’m just delighted to see these meme infested rethuglicans out of office.
Just think, these guys had their hands on the switches of thermonuclear weapons…scares the shit out of me!
And now Pakistan seems ready to fall to the Taliban…oy vey!
#32: Actually, Nader is one of those odd gear settings that you will never shift to during the entire life of your car. ;)
But if it wasn’t there at all, more cars would be exploding by having their doors slammed too hard.
I’m so stealing that.
“Beleif is an assumption made without evidence. If I say “I believe you are right” I am saying I think you are right but have no evidence to establish it as fact.
”
Plato, and every philosopher of epistemology since then would like to have a word with you.
AF@59
Actually, no, that is faith.
From Webster-Merriam:Belief:
1 or 2 might be the meaning used by the layman, while 3 is more in line for the biologist/scientist.
I like Matthews’s doggedness, but I have to say that if I’d been asking the questions, I wouldn’t have been so deferential and I would’ve used really tight language to make the weaseling more obvious.
In my dreams, this would be like a bit on a Jonathan Winters comedy record, in which Winters plays an Indian chief. The interviewer ends with: “Just one more question, sir. If you could see anything different with respect to government policy on the reservation, what would it be?”
(Chief Crying Trout): “Just…give me and my people….five minutes with John Wayne.”
Good for Matthews. For mainstream American news media, this is pretty impressive
Beleif is an assumption made without evidence.
No, you illiterate fool, it is not.
If I say “I believe you are right” I am saying I think you are right but have no evidence to establish it as fact.
Perhaps you are, but intelligent people generally are not.
Plato, and every philosopher of epistemology since then would like to have a word with you.
And not just him/her but numerous other supposedly educated people, including PZ on occasion, who have made similar stunningly wrong claims about the meaning of the word “believe”.
AF@59 Beleif is an assumption made without evidence.
You can have no evidence for a belief, or you can have evidence for a belief. It doesn’t have to be without evidence. Same goes for faith too. Faith is a noun, belief is a noun, believe is a verb. Ummm, I think that about covers it! Have a good day!
P.S.
Beleif is an assumption made without evidence. If I say “I believe you are right” I am saying I think you are right but have no evidence to establish it as fact.
An additional problem here is the absurd false dichotomy, that either we have evidence to establish something as fact or we have no evidence for it. How can anyone with an IQ over 75 think that? Especially someone posting on a science blog? There are all sorts of things for which we have some evidence, but not enough to establish them as fact. And in many cases we have enough evidence to believe something, even if we haven’t established it as fact. I believe that Barack doesn’t beat Michelle, but I haven’t established it as fact. I believe that, if I go to the store right now and buy a lottery ticket, I won’t win millions of dollars, but I haven’t established it as fact. I believe that there are no rabbit bones in pre-Cambrian formations, but I haven’t established it as fact. I have a lot of evidence in support of these beliefs, but not enough to establish them as facts … each of them could be false yet consistent with the evidence I do have.
The ToE has plenty of evidence to back up its assertions and claims and therefore is accepted as fact.
The ToE is most certainly not “accepted as fact” — not by anyone intellectually competent. Evolution is accepted as fact, but not the ToE, which is simply our current best explanation, incomplete and subject to revision, of evolution.
We do not believe it to be true, we accept it to be true because there is evidence to prove it.
This complete gibberish. “believe” and “accept” are synonyms. One cannot both hold a proposition to be proven and not believe it. And no intellectually competent person considers the ToE to have been proven.
It doesn’t have to be without evidence. Same goes for faith too.
Generally not.
faith: Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.
To be more precise: faith can be partially based on evidence, but the connotation is of a belief that is stronger than the evidence warrants.
I would have to answer the question “No,” because evolution is an established scientific fact, not a belief, not an opinion, not a philosophy, and certainly not a religion. While “belief” is a useful term, it’s so closely connected to “thinking something is true without evidence” in common usage that friends of science should not use it.
Use “theory,” but make sure people who are hearing/reading understand that theory means an established fact, not a belief as it does in common usage. We need to keep pounding it in: Evolution and other scientific theories are facts; they’re the way the natural, material, physical world works and there is nothing we can do to change it.
Denial of physical reality is useless at best, dangerous at worst. Anyone who denies the reality of evolution should avoid flu vaccines!
in thinking about the alleged divide between evidence and believing, consider a question like “what would it take for you to believe in bigfoot?” how would you answer such a question? in normal conversation something like “i would need to see some solid evidence of their existence” would be appropriate. but if that counts as a good answer, then you must accept that the proposed split between evidence and believing cannot be true, since you’d just have declared that evidence would be necessary to believing.
in order to get around that issue, you would need to instead make the completely unreasonable sounding claim that there is nothing that could make you believe that bigfoot exists – that if bigfoot existed and you had evidence of it, you wouldn’t believe it. now, you could talk that way, but it would sound very strange. so why bother?
I would have to answer the question “No,” because evolution is an established scientific fact, not a belief, not an opinion, not a philosophy, and certainly not a religion. While “belief” is a useful term, it’s so closely connected to “thinking something is true without evidence” in common usage that friends of science should not use it.
Only an idiot or someone abandoning their intellectual honesty in order to maintain this absurd position would deny “I believe that 1+1=2”, “I believe that Obama is President of the U.S.”, “I believe Booth shot Lincoln”, etc. Since no sensible person would deny any of those, why would they deny “I believe that evolution occurs”, or a belief of any other established scientific fact? It’s incredibly stupid and wrong to indulge in this false dichotomy that an established fact is “not a belief”.
“… the means he used to do this, I can’t say”.
Which, for those keeping score at home, means;
“I will allow myself deeply-held, unshakable beliefs in anything but scientific fact.”
We need to keep pounding it in: Evolution and other scientific theories are facts
No, we need to keep pounding it in that people who make such claims are scientific illiterates; evolution is a fact, it is not a theory. The theory of evolution is a scientific theory, it is not a fact.
Two people dancing around each other on a subject they demonstrate they know nothing about. What a stupid question “do you believe in evolution”. Typical Chris Matthews “interview” ie shout down.
Anyone who denies the reality of evolution should avoid flu vaccines!
Do you believe that flu vaccine is effective in reducing the incidence of flu, yes or no? If you evade the question, you’re no better than Pence.
@#78
Well, the ToE might be a fact. I mean, there is presumably some fact of the matter about the explanation for the stuff the ToE explains. And if the ToE has it right, then you could legitimately say that it is a fact that life evolved according to the principles laid out in the ToE.
“The Democrats put ideology over science” (or something to that effect)
I knew I should have bought that extended warranty on my irony meter.
Well, the ToE might be a fact.
Category mistake. The ToE is an explanatory framework, from which we can make predictions. If it so happens that every prediction made by the ToE is correct, then one might risk saying that the ToE is correct as far as it goes (we know it’s incomplete) — but there might well be other possible theories of evolution with the same characteristic; in fact, an inverse application of Ockham’s Razor guarantees it.
I mean, there is presumably some fact of the matter about the explanation for the stuff the ToE explains.
See above; “the explanation” is an improper referent, as there are always multiple possible explanations that fit any set of observations, and we already know that the ToE is incomplete and does not account for all observations.
And if the ToE has it right, then you could legitimately say that it is a fact that life evolved according to the principles laid out in the ToE.
Yes, but that is not the same as saying that the ToE is a fact, and even if it were, that would be a theoretically possible fact, not one in hand as was being stated. In fact we can never know that the ToE “has it right” the way we know that evolution occurs; the former is universally quantified whereas the latter is not.
There’s some incredible hair-splitting going on here. Let’s do some basic English.
For most people, a belief is something they think is true, with or without evidence. “God” is a belief. “Jesus died for our sins” is a belief. “Joseph Smith was a prophet who got history straight from God via an angel holding golden plates in front of his face” is a belief. “George W. Bush is competent” is a belief. “The Holocaust did not happen” is a belief. “Stalin was a good leader” is a belief. “Cheney is not evil” is a belief. “Vaccines cause autism” is a belief. And so on.
I use the word belief casually in daily life. But in any strict, philosophical sense, I avoid it, as I try NOT to believe in things. I’m a newspaper editor, so I have to understand nuances as much as possible. Misunderstandings nuances can lead to professional embarassment.
A belief is something people think is true with or without evidence. A fact is something that simply IS. If you take two pencils from two piles and put them together, then 1+1=2. If everything from people falling down to planets orbiting the sun moves in accordance with the same Newtonian mathematical equation (modified by Einstein’s equation in some situations), gravity is a fact. If atomic theory explains how elements behave, that is a fact. Belief has nothing to do with any of these. Neither does philosophy, opinion or religion.
I would be less touchy on this if I had not seen so many claims that “evolution is just a theory” or “evolution is just a belief,” etc. But when so many ignorant people (reading books by a collection of liars) insist that science is just “belief” – denying not only biology but geology, chemistry, physics and astronomy – then I have to make the distinction between beliefs and facts.
Sorry, nothing’s sacred, but the Theory of Evolution is a fact. Even if someone shows that extraterrestrials have occasionally intervened to violate TOE; even if Zeus, Hera, Athena, Apollo and the other Olympians sometimes favor particular plants or animals (including us) over other lifeforms; the fact remains that diversity (by whatever source) guided by natural selection (design, but not intelligent design) is a major (or the sole) driving force in how life on this planet has changed over strange aeons.
TOE might be modified or revised some day if other factors are found that influence what lifeforms prevail in the competition of nature, but the evidence is overwhelming that diversity and natural seletion explain most, if not all, evolution. It is not a belief. It is a way the world is. Deal with reality.
nothing’s sacred – as a fellow lover of the mother tongue, I’m enjoying your contributions immensely. You’re saving me a lot of facepalms. Keep up the good work.
Regards,
Chris Doms
http://skeptikiwi.com
Why didn’t Chris Matthews cite the GOP godmongers who raised their hands for not accepting evolutionary theory during the campaign? There wer five, I recall.
nothing’s sacred – you are 100% correct technically speaking, and you have just reason to be pedantic with those that are wrongly pedantic about words. You presented your case superbly.
I just get the feeling that that is like thinking winning the battles is a sure way to win the war. Think to that classic shit military action I had the pleasure of being dragged into in the 60’s. Body count scoring as barometer for winning – BRILLIANT!
With all due respect: there is a politics associated with words, and we should be mindful of it. As Humpty Dumpty said to Alice when she complained to him about his (wrong) use of words: “it all depends on who is the master of words!”
My point is (and I think PZ agrees) is that the religious nuts OWN the words belief and faith in our society. We march to defeat when we use them for our own when we do battle, we lose even when we clearly seem technically to be winning. Use of their words is a trap. I may be technically correct in saying “I believe that the principles of evolution offer the best explanation for ….” but I weaken my winning position in the war against superstition and wingnuttery by using their word. “Humpty” owns the meaning — not pedantic “Alice.”
This is war — every move has to be measured in engagements (direct or indirect) with the enemies of reason and progress. For purposes of engagement “I THINK evolution offers the best and only available cogent explanation for for several actual reasons – (1)blah, (2)blah, … – while alternatives like ID offer no supported reasons for me to think otherwise.”
The more strategically beneficial questions I think have a form something along these lines: “do you think that .. and if yes(or no) by what supporting evidence.” Someone may argue that think and believe are equivalent; I am saying they are not politically, and all wars are won or lost politically.
My two cents. Flay away :-) .
I use the word belief casually in daily life. But in any strict, philosophical sense, I avoid it, as I try NOT to believe in things….
Sorry, nothing’s sacred, but the Theory of Evolution is a fact.
Sorry, you pompous git, but you’re incapable thinking coherently or comprehending. You believe that you try not to believe in things, you believe “nothing’s sacred” is my handle, you believe that I’m wrong about the ToE not being a fact, and you believe that the ToE is a fact … those are just the beliefs you make evident in those two sentences (as well as a lot of beliefs about spelling and syntax). You blather about “strict, philosophical sense” but are devoid of any understanding of the epistemology of belief.
As for the ToE, I will say it again; the ToE is a scientific theory — have you heard of those? It’s an explanatory framework. It is not the sort of thing that can be a fact – that is a category mistake.
TOE might be modified or revised some day
The ToE is being modified and revised by biologists every day, you scientific illiterate.
the evidence is overwhelming that diversity and natural seletion explain most, if not all, evolution.
There are many many elements of the ToE that you omitted and are apparently unaware of, instead mentioning “diversity”, which is a consequence of evolution, you ignorant arrogant fool. Since you know virtually nothing of the ToE other than that it involves natural selection, you’re in no position to be talking about whether it’s a “fact” or what might be done to it “some day”.
My point is (and I think PZ agrees) is that the religious nuts OWN the words belief and faith in our society.
Then stop letting them by being such frigging ILLITERATES.
And I should join battle to fight directly the politics of words?? A distraction they’d welcome I am sure.
I am not illiterate. And I also grant your technical points “truthmachine.” I have a broader strategic point and tried to offer why and something of practical value to the conversation.
So be it. It is all for what it is worth.
NS @ 46,
Can you explain to me where the conditional statement is that would be required for there to be an affirmation of the consequent in that “belief in evolution” sentence mentioned? I cant figure it out.
And a lot of people here seem to be confusing “belief” with “faith”.
TheVirginian:
Why are all your examples of beliefs false beliefs?
”I try NOT to believe in things”
That doesn’t seem very sensible to me, as I think it is an unobtainable goal for a thinking person.
Why not simply strive to make your beliefs be based on evidence and reason instead?
”If atomic theory explains how elements behave, that is a fact. Belief has nothing to do with any of these.”
A scientific theory is pretty useless if no one believe it to be true, and probably would never have been developed in the first place. Rational people believe the theory based on evidence and reason.
”the Theory of Evolution is a fact”
It is a fact that the theory exists, and the overwhelming amount of evidence gives us convincing reason to believe that it is a fact that evolution occurs and that the theory is factually true, but what did you say about doing basic English?
Just because religionists and woo-believers believe things without or even contrary to evidence, it doesn’t follow that rational people can avoid believing in what they are convinced by evidence and reason.
I am not illiterate.
You’re illiterate enough to mistakenly think I said you were.
I have a broader strategic point and tried to offer why and something of practical value to the conversation.
What you offered was being a pompous ass, with “I just get the feeling that that is like thinking winning the battles is a sure way to win the war”. All I did here was correct people’s egregiously mistaken claims about words like “belief” and “theory” and “fact”. Notably, my battles here weren’t with creotards, so take your idiotic “feeling” about what I think and shove it. If you had simply wanted to talk about strategic points, you could have done it without implying that my pointing out how wrong and stupid it is to claim that beliefs don’t have evidential support or that we accept proven claims without believing them was somehow a bad strategy in a war.
Can you explain to me where the conditional statement is that would be required for there to be an affirmation of the consequent in that “belief in evolution” sentence mentioned? I cant figure it out.
If you’re a faithbot, then you “believe in” things.
You believe in evolution.
Therefore you’re a faithbot.
I refuse to give up the word theory to colloquial use, but nothing’s sacred, you’re fighting a war that is long over here with belief. Regardless of what your particular edition of a dictionary states, “belief” in common parlance absolutely means without need for evidence, and people know EXACTLY what a creationist means when they say evolutionist “believe” in evolution – it’s equated directly with belief in the tooth fairy, belief in Santa Claus, and most importantly, belief in God. It puts science and God on the same footing, and therefore neither can say it’s more truthful than the other. There has to be a way to easily convey the idea that evolution has facts behind it and God does not, and using the word believe for both completely obscures that difference.
Oh, they do not. When you use the word “belief” in the course of your daily life, are you always referring to belief that is without evidence or in conflict with the evidence? Of course not. If someone asks you if you think it’s going to rain today, and you answer, “I bleieve so,” then presumably you have some basis for that belief. Whatever they’re trying to pull in the realm of public discourse and with whatever degree of success, the use of the word in everyday language provides a more than adequate basis for our continuing to employ it (and even “reclaiming” it fully in the evolution pseudodebate).
@ 94,
thanks,that makes sense now.Been bothering me all afternoon…:-)
If atomic theory explains how elements behave, that is a fact.
Yow, this guy is a newspaper editor? No wonder they’re dying.
Belief has nothing to do with any of these.
I guess no one believes that atomic theory explains how elements behave, no one believes that’s a fact, and none of our beliefs about the behavior of elements or what the atomic theory states (if we have any; I hear that we’re supposed to try not to) have anything to with whether the atomic theory explains how elements behave.
Regardless of what your particular edition of a dictionary states, “belief” in common parlance absolutely means without need for evidence
Another illiterate.
But just because they know what a creationist means doesn’t mean they are necessarily of the same mind, or that they have no other uses of “belief” to draw upon. The response to this sort of nonsense is simply: “As an intelligent, rational person, I believe things for which I have satisfactory empirical evidence. (In the case of the ToE, this evidence is overwhelming.) Anyone who believes something without an evidentiary basis or despite strong evidence to the contrary is either foolish or delusional, wouldn’t you say?”
Whatever they’re trying to pull in the realm of public discourse and with whatever degree of success, the use of the word in everyday language provides a more than adequate basis for our continuing to employ it (and even “reclaiming” it fully in the evolution pseudodebate).
Indeed, and I’m glad I’m not the only one saying so against this tide of ignorance and surrender.
Damn people, get off the “belief” pedantic bus for a bit. Either you know what people mean when they say “belief” and you’re an asshat by forcing them to only use in your prescribed manner OR you don’t understand and can’t figure it out by context (like a 6 year can) so you should probably zip it and not show your ignorance.
I’d just like to state the obvious: We’re all born ignorant, then things get worse.
Regardless of what your particular edition of a dictionary states, “belief” in common parlance absolutely means without need for evidence.
To take another stab at this:
In my “particular edition of a dictionary”, as well as in all editions of all dictionaries, and in common parlance, the word “belief” is neutral in regard to evidentiary or logical support; one can believe things for good reason or for no reason or despite reasons to the contrary. Belief is simply assent to a proposition — a psychological state of accepting a claim to be true. Anything known is necessarily believed; anything accepted as true is necessarily believed; anything held (believed) to have been proven is necessarily believed — just as necessary as that a bachelor is necessarily unmarried.
Carlie @95 makes a good point. When asked by students if I “believe” in evolution, my answer is always:
“There is a huge amount of evidence that supports the theory of evolution. It’s not belief; that is where the evidence leads.”
SC OM does raise a valid point that “belief” is used to describe positions held with or without evidence. Perhaps a better response to “Do you think it will rain?” might be “I think so, the clouds are coming over the mountains.” This will not, of course, change the way to population at large continues to use language with complete indifference to nuance. If I hear one more creotard say “It’s ONLY a theory…” I may lose my normally sunny nature.
There has to be a way to easily convey the idea that evolution has facts behind it and God does not,
I stated it back in #49: “we should admit to believing in evolution for good reason, and then refer to the overwhelming empirical evidence supporting that belief.”
and using the word believe for both completely obscures that difference.
No, it doesn’t, any more than our both using words like “the” and “it” does.
I can understand the argument being made,that “belief” is a term used by “believers”,i.e.religious people,and we should therefore avoid using that term,because it is somehow poisoned.
But there are other terms that are hijacked by religionists,esp creationists,and more blatantly so than “belief”,just think of all these false “-isms” they make up all the time.
Intuitively I think NS is right,of course we “believe” in evolution or ageing,or gravity,they are the most likely explanations for the phenomena we witness.
“There is a huge amount of evidence that supports the theory of evolution. I believe it because that is where the evidence leads.”
Argh. Let me get this straight: You agree that “belief” is, contrary to what some here are asserting, used in common parlance to describe positions held with evidence, and your response is to recommend that we stop using it like that? How bizarre. Why on earth would I do that?
(Appending some description of the evidence, if possible, is useful whether one uses “think” or “believe.”)
Wrong. This isn’t hair-splitting and it isn’t basic English. nothing’s sacred is simply trying to hold peoples’ feet to the fire regarding the meanings that these words have in science. This isn’t about basic English; this is about science. If you don’t understand that there is a very important distinction being pointed out here, then perhaps more reading and less commenting is in order. Word choice matters in science. Fact, hypothesis, theory, and law have different definitions in science because they describe different things. Facts and theories are different. Conflating the two is a mistake, and it doesn’t help anyone; it simply perpetuates a misunderstanding of how science works. We have a hard enough time getting people to understand how science works as it is; please don’t make it more difficult.
You might get away with this in daily life, but with respect to science, this statement is wrong. If I heard a colleague make this statement, I would be very concerned. Scientific theories are not facts. Facts are observations with associated errors attached to them. Theories explain observations. The two are not the same. If you think that this is nothing more than pedantic hair-splitting then, please, for the love of science, go spend your time talking about something else.
I agree with this sentiment 100%, but misusing scientific terminology doesn’t help us. Please stop doing it. I don’t care about your use of “belief” really, but please stop conflating theory and fact when you’re using them to refer to scientific facts and theories.
Sorry, Virginian, but you’re simply wrong. There is a fact of evolution. This is explained by the Theory of Evolution. The two are different and the difference is important. No matter how well we ever understand evolution, the Theory of Evolution will never be a fact–unless the definition of scientific theory changes.
This isn’t an uncommon mistake. People make it all the time, including on this blog. People also make the mistake of thinking that scientific theories, if they get “successfully tested” long enough, get promoted to being scientific laws. This is also a misconception about how science works. These mistakes are both very common (just go look at the Wikiblabbia entry on science). The fact that they are common doesn’t change the fact that they are mistakes.
And again, this isn’t just hair-splitting among professionals. It’s simply not. I do this shit for a living and I assert that the differences between these words matter because the words have different jobs to do.
Pre-Cambrian versus Precambrian is hair-splitting. The word is not Pre-Cambrian. It is Precambrian. If I make an issue of this distinction, then I’m splitting hairs.
That’s not what I’m getting at in this comment. It doesn’t really matter that much if I use Pre-Cambrian or Precambrian. I’m still talking about the same period of time. However, it matters if I conflate dinosaur and pterosaur; they are not the same kind of animal. It matters if I use sandstone when I really mean mudstone; the two words refer to different processes of deposition and the distinction is important. The accuracy of word choice in science is important. Please don’t make our jobs harder by ignoring it.
“There is a huge amount of evidence that supports the theory of evolution. It’s not belief; that is where the evidence leads.”
To claim it’s not belief is wrong; it is illiterate. You will lose credibility with students who know that.
Do you think it will rain?” might be “I think so, the clouds are coming over the mountains.”
“I think so” and “I believe so” mean exactly the same thing.
This will not, of course, change the way to population at large continues to use language with complete indifference to nuance.
Using “believe” and “belief” in these contexts is not indifferent to nuance, it’s correct, and it’s absurd to try to make some sort of distinction between supported beliefs and unsupported beliefs when there’s no basis for it in the language and it isn’t going to stop the population from continuing to use the word correctly.
This is one of the funniest videos I have ever seen.
it’s absurd to try to make some sort of distinction between supported beliefs and unsupported beliefs when there’s no basis for it in the language
Argh … I meant to say that it’s absurd to try to make that distinction by using two different words for “belief”. “supported belief” and “unsupported belief” make it clearly enough. If you want to emphasize the distinction, then always say “I believe P for good reason” and “they believe Q without good reason”.
@Nothing’s Sacred #106
Just so. But the quest for – “a way to easily convey the idea that evolution has facts behind it and God does not” – is actually the search for a formulation that does not open itself to the dishonest and/or illiterate crowing about “belief” in a “theory” in the first place.
Obviously belief is not necessarily credulity, but the need to *explain* the distinction is the weakness in the presentation of the argument to those who hold, for example, that the subtitle of Origin of Species – “the preservation of favoured races,” – is a clear indication Darwin’s racist tendencies [ => eugenics => holocaust => etc.]
Stuff like this really angers me. These people are holding science hostage and stopping progress in the public arena.
Mike Pence seems to be afraid of his base and he knows if he says evolution is true he’ll get their wrath. This is troubling. Science shouldn’t be a political issue, yet millions of people make it a point to deny science all the way.
Science is “man’s understanding” and their thousands of years old collection of books are “God’s Understanding.” There is probably no arguing with them. The GOP relies on them way too heavily for their, and our, own good.
apologies for the html fail above
Uggh, painful to watch, but hilarious at the same time. Made me feel like listening to Leaving Jesusland
NOFX Leaving Jesusland
This song is dedicated to this thread.
Was the subject Global Warming though? It is sort of like if I invited you to talk about Biology and suddenly pepper you with some controversial Astronomy question and then kept at you about it even though you wanted to go back to the main topic, Biology.
But it’s a completely bogus dichotomy, a category mistake. A fact is a true proposition; “1+1=2” and “Pharyngula is PZ Myer’s blog” are facts. Facts can be believed or disbelieved, and beliefs can be factual or erroneous. To treat the findings of science as facts rather than beliefs, as “The Virginian” wishes to do, is to negate one of science’s most important features, tentativeness. We believe that various scientific findings are facts, and we believe that for good reason, but we could be wrong, our beliefs could be mistaken. Facts, OTOH, cannot be mistaken; facts are true by definition. To remove belief from the equation is to remove doubt — that is what the religious do — to them, it’s a fact that God exists, it’s a fact that Jesus rose from the dead, etc. With faith they can eliminate doubt — belief without reason can’t be contradicted by the reasons turning out to be mistaken.
Mike Pence seems to be afraid of his base and he knows if he says evolution is true he’ll get their wrath.
You have it backwards. Pence is an Evangelical Christian and he knows that if he says he doesn’t believe in evolution then he’ll be conceding Matthews’ point that Republicans are anti-scientific bumpkins.
Not to flagellate a deceased equine:
A belief and believing are terms that carry the implication there is a lack of evidence. You Believe in ID. You Believe in Santa. An ‘unsupported belief’, if you will.
I don’t Believe in evolution; I accept the Fact that evolution occurs, based on evidence. That is why I cite the fact that there is evidence that points in that direction. A ‘supported’ belief.
The use of the term ‘belief’ with respect to issues such as evolution incorrectly puts both views on equal footing. Going back to Carlie’s statement, this removes issues of fact from the debate and it just turns into “That’s just your OPINION.”
Languages are living things, what words mean morphs constantly, and common usage pays little heed to science. Theory and hypothesis are not the same thing; speed and velocity are not the same; weight is not the same as density. For most of the population, the differences are trivial and the stuff eggheads worry about, not real people.
Sheesh – this is like 10 PM at the UMC.
those who hold, for example, that the subtitle of Origin of Species – “the preservation of favoured races,” – is a clear indication Darwin’s racist tendencies [ => eugenics => holocaust => etc.]
But this is just one indication of why “the search for a formulation that does not open itself to the dishonest and/or illiterate crowing …” is an impossible quest. There isn’t anything that can’t be lied about or misrepresented. This sort of search for an unpickable linguistic lock is the wrong strategy, and it’s even worse when it depends on our side misrepresenting the meanings of words like “believe”.
The GOP is an embarrassment right now, as they continue to try to appease the Neanderthal Religious Right. They have in fact defined themselves as anti-progress, anti-science.
I’m no fan of a one party system, but that is basically what you have in the USA today.
Not to flagellate a deceased equine:
Really? Then what are you doing?
A belief and believing are terms that carry the implication there is a lack of evidence.
What’s your evidence for this stupid, wrong, illiterate belief?
You Believe in ID. You Believe in Santa.
Pathetically dishonest cherry picking. As Elisabeth E. said in #92, “Why are all your examples of beliefs false beliefs?”
I don’t Believe in evolution; I accept the Fact that evolution occurs,
We’ve been over this. “believe” and “accept” are synonyms. You are simply establishing yet again that you are illiterate and that you simply repeat ridiculous falsehoods that have already been refuted.
What I’m saying is that the fact that you can turn to the dictionary and find that belief can mean supported by evidence does not mean that the majority of the general public takes it that way, and I fail to see why you would want to hand over a succinct, easily understood, brutal sound bite over to the creationists with a pretty bow on top. “They believe in evolution just like we believe in God, therefore either 1) they should both be taught in schools since they’re equal or 2) they’re just as much of a religion as we are and therefore neither should be.” Are you honestly trying to say this is not the way the word is used by them? And that people haven’t been persuaded by that argument? Because they have. In school district after school district, state after state, stupid tv interview after stupid tv interview. You can say that “belief” covers all bases until you’re blue in the face, but if you insist on saying “I believe in evolution” you will get smacked in the face with 1 and 2 every single time. I’m saying there is no reason to be wedded to the word belief when it has been so heavily co-opted, there are other words available that make the distinction more clear, and that “belief” has no special status in scientific jargon that makes it worth fighting for in this context.
Yes, we know, nothing sacred — you are the smartest, cleverest, most knowledgeable commenter in all of these threads. You’re absolutely brilliant.
Now, how about demonstrating that genius by saying something constructive now and then, instead of by telling everyone how much dumber they are than you? The act is getting stale.
Illiterate. I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
Why do you believe this? :) You again assert it, but you’ve already acknowledged the contrary. nothing’s sacred and others have given examples of using “belief” in everyday language when referring to positions thought/believed to be supported by evidence. I think if people stepped outside the evolution discussion for a moment they would recognize that we very commonly use “believe” simply to mean “hold to be true” or “consider to be correct,” with none of the spin the creos, with their incessant language games, have been trying to give it. They don’t “own” it, and in fact it can provide a useful starting point to discuss the evidentiary basis of belief and to challenge people on how their supported everyday beliefs differ from their unsupported religious or political beliefs.
OK – back to grading. Almost done…
Matthews is really a curious case. 80% of the time he ranges from worse than useless to downright offensive, but just now and then he’ll do something like this that’s vastly better than what we get from any of the other cable talking heads.
A Republican is shown to be an intellectually dishonest fundy.
Conclusion: All Republicans are intellectually dishonest fundies.
This is what passes for “logic” and “reason” on this blog.
NS is, not for the first time, right about the foolishness of letting the creotards own the word belief. It’s not their word, and call them on it when they try this crap with Sastra’s awesome, “I believe because that’s what the evidence indicates.”
People also make the mistake of thinking that scientific theories, if they get “successfully tested” long enough, get promoted to being scientific laws.
I don’t know what deranged cavity vomited that mindless little trope, but this is one of my huge pet peeves with creationists. It’s like saying that electromagnetism theory supports Ohm’s law, not vice versa; otherwise, that would mean that devices that don’t conform to Ohm’s law can’t be electromagnetic, like p-n junction diodes. But somehow those little oddballs are powering (or at least the grandpappy) of all kinds of electronics we use everyday. Wow! Go figure!
*backs slowly away from the thread*
Gee, CHL, maybe people would be a little more inclined to cut these morons of the conservative persuasion some slack if so many of them weren’t a) sanctimonious pricks b) religious fruit loops c) liars d) a little to fond of violence in language and action e) bigots and f) hypocrites. But somehow, they keep saying retarded, bigoted, hateful things with a certain Christian flair, and, gee, they kind of keep proving it.
It’s insanity to see someone do something time after time after time and expect that next time, they won’t be a fucking retard moron.
When this is a frequent, constant pattern of behavior, well, if the shoe fits…
Are all of them lying hypocritical bigoted violent judgmental prick morons for Jebus? Maybe not.
But if they want to change their image, they need to stop saying and doing so many numbskull things that prove otherwise. Then they’ll stop being the party considered a bunch of lying hypocritical bigoted violent judgmental prick morons for Jebus.
nothing’s sacred, sorry, you might be technically correct, but your meaning of ‘belief’ is not the way ‘belief’ is used colloquially. There are, in fact, three different words used colloquially that describe a way of perceiving things – facts, theories and beliefs.
Facts are things that are directly verified to be true. I do not ‘believe’ that 1+1=2 because I can verify this at any time – it is a fact. Similarly, I do not ‘believe’ I am currently sitting on a chair because I can directly verify this – it is a fact.
Theories are constructs based on facts and evidence to explain those facts and evidence, such as gravity and evolution. There’s no real ‘belief’ required, other than that the evidence is not misleading you.
Beliefs are things held to be true, regardless and even in spite of the evidence. Sometimes the belief may have a core of evidence to it, but, even in those cases, there are unsupported suppositions.
Actually, Aquaria, I think the major problem isn’t that Republicans are all “a) sanctimonious pricks b) religious fruit loops c) liars d) a little to fond of violence in language and action e) bigots and f) hypocrites” but that the ones who aren’t let the ones who are run the show. The problem isn’t that Pence, Cantor, Palin, Limbaugh and Boehner are idiots, but that no one in the Republican party has the balls to tell them to shut the hell up.
“A fact is a true proposition; “1+1=2” and “Pharyngula is PZ Myer’s blog” are facts.” – nothing sacred
Who is this “PZ Myer” of whom you speak, and when did (s)he take over Pharyngula from PZ Myers?
“nothing’s sacred, sorry, you might be technically correct, but your meaning of ‘belief’ is not the way ‘belief’ is used colloquially.” Smidgy
Nonsense. “I believe there are no hippopotami on Mars, I believe I have a pair of socks in the desk draw to my right, I believe Barack Obama is President of the USA, I believe in evolution by natural selection, I believe there is an infinity of primes, I believe there is no god.” All these are perfectly acceptable colloquially.
Fixed it.
*ducks and runs*
Normally, Josh, I would say that, but it’s awful early for the f-bomb, and as I’m around kids a lot lately, I’m trying to clean up my language.
No need to run… I don’t hit that hard.
I love how he shakes his head throughout Matthews sticking it to him that most GOPers reject science on everything. He continues to shake his head until Matthews hits “evolution”. If you watch carefully he starts to nod his head slightly in agreement. Wow.
I believe OJ Simpson is a murderer.
There is also a bunch of evidence to support my belief.
You might have had a point if this was the only case of a Republican being shown to be a dishonest fundy. However there are plenty of other instances to justify the conclusion that the Republicans are, as a class, dishonest fundies.
Yes, but why introduce the possibility of confusion when you don’t need to? With your statements, you have just left yourself wide open to someone interpreting hippopotami on Mars = evolution. Rather than digging in heels and yelling that the word does SO mean two different things and spending all one’s time arguing about that, wouldn’t it make more sense and be more educational/productive/useful/persuasive to just use a different word?
From Pence’s website:
Congressman Pence describes himself as “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order.”
The 6th Congressional District of Indiana is as American as baseball and apple pie. This quintessential heartland district covers the east-central portion of the Hoosier state with rolling fields of corn and soybeans, dairy silos and hog barns.
Seems like Pence brought a load of cow and hog shit from the barns to Hardball.
Funny thing, this interview is not posted on his media page.
PZ:
Knockgoats:
Who is this “nothing sacred” of whom you both speak, and when did he take over from nothing’s sacred (TCFKA truth machine)?
:)
Pence referred to Teddy Roosevelt, the same guy who said “A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.”
Not to mention that the parties have played a little flip-flop in the past century. Remember your history? It was the Democrats that went after evolution in the courts. Bryan: tried to run as a Dem.
But then goofy shit happened and the religious right leapt across the aisle to glom on to a new host.
Or so it seems to me. I was born after Reaganomics. I’ve heard good things, but “trickle down” reminds me of “shit flows down-hill”.
I did a shot every time nothing sacred said ‘illiterate’.
Does anyone have a spare liver?
In regard nothing’s sacred comment (#94)
If you’re a faithbot, then you “believe in” things.
You believe in evolution.
Therefore you’re a faithbot.
I might caution this seems to be an instance of affirming the consequent (to start critically, on the first day I quit my lurking on this wonderful blog). Greatly enjoy the discussion, though.
On topic, it appeared strange for Matthews letting Pence get away that easily. I expected more insistence on such a direct yes-or-no-question when the answer was avoided so obviously, and for (at least, seemingly) obvious reasons…
Nothing’s Sacred, Aquaria and SC, OM are – of course – right. I’m beginning to wonder if the widely differing views of how the word belief should be used, is regional. My English is based on living in England, and there “I believe” would be a perfectly acceptable way of saying “I think”. In fact, I believe I use “I believe” more than I use “I think”. Where are you guys from?
If talking to an IDiot, I may say that “I think the theory of evolution is true/correct/in accordance with know facts etc” instead of “I believe…”, but that would only be in an effort to avoid the stupidity that ensues in certain company. However, I would not say that the theory of evolution is a fact, because it simply isn’t. One thing is picking your words carefully Another is saying something, which is blatantly wrong and will only confuse scientific illiterates even more, just because you are afraid of the word “belief”.
Ooh! Another thought. Could the real problem word be that little innocent looking “in”? “I believe in” seems a lot more loaded than “I believe that”, doesn’t it? “I believe that evolution happens” surely seems better than “I believe in evolution”, doesn’t it? I mean, if we really want to nitpick and split hairs, maybe that is the nuance we could discuss. Usually people believe *in* ideologies and gods, but believe *that* certain things are true or do happen or whatever (don’t they? Or am I being silly?). Of course there is no real difference; the word still means the same. But some people may believe that there is a difference, and if those people are the ones we’re trying to convince, there is no reason to muddy the waters with a phrase they perceive as being analogous with the word “faith”. Right?
Just my two cents.
You are still applying the characteristics of some (ok, probably most) Republicans to the entire group. Also, does Republican refer just to politicians, or to anyone that votes, registers, or otherwise supports the Republican party qualify? I am personally very far away from being a ‘dishonest fundie’, since I have never been religious at all, so I would reject that assertion.
I think the positive side of this is that at least it’s becoming out of vogue to blatantly parade one’s ignorance on national TV. They try to obfuscate it and use code words, but at least some of them are beginning to recognize the stupidity of it, or at least the stupidity of admitting it publicly like that.
Nothing at comment #119–I’m mostly with you here (and might modify that part of my comment), except for this philosophy which is weaved through your text:
This statment isn’t accurate within science. Facts are observations with associated errors. “Good facts,” I guess you could call them, are rigorously verified and are generally assumed to be “true,” but the error bars are still there. Of course not all facts in science are “good.” More the issue, though, is that nothing in science is incontrovertible, including facts (I took your statement to imply that facts are incontrovertible–my mistake if that’s not what you meant). Everything in science can be mistaken, including facts. And everything in science is subject to later revision, including facts. They are not true if true means cannot be mistaken or cannot be overturned.
Consider the following:
I have an ulna. I find two points on the bone that I can set as measurement landmarks and between these I measure the length with a tape, returning a value of 35mm. I’ve obtained an observation. I have a fact. This fact will lend itself to the statement “this ulna is 35mm long,” which will often be conflated with the measurement value itself. But the premise that this fact cannot be mistaken is flawed. And I argue that the premise that it, as it stands, is true, is also flawed.
First, there is the issue of the simple accuracy of the fact. How “good” is our observation? What if I make a bunch of measurements between my landmarks and return a nice consistent average length of 35mm, but also return a nice consistent average length of 31mm from a different set of landmarks? What if I can find the first set of landmarks easily every single time, but just choose to measure the ulna’s length from this different set of equally distinct landmarks? Is “this ulna is 35mm long” no longer a true statement or does it remain true? Or is it “true” with some qualifiers? How does it compare with the statement “this ulna is 31mm long?” Which is the accurate length? Which choice of landmarks returns the true length of the ulna?
Along these lines, what if I return a nice consistent 35mm average length from my tape measurements, but I also return a nice consistent 34.5mm average length if I instead make the measurements with calipers? Is “this ulna is 35mm long” no longer a true statement or does it remain true? Or is it “true” with some qualifiers? Which choice of measurement device returns the true length of the ulna?
Next, there is the issue of repeatability, which also affects how “good” our fact is. If I use the same tape and attempt to measure the ulna again between the first two landmarks, will I obtain the same result the second time? What about the third? Or the seventeenth? Perhaps, but you absolutely do not know this when you’ve only made measurement number 1. It’s possible (especially as I haven’t provided any information to you regarding the taxonomy of the ulna…) that the landmarks you chose to measure between aren’t distinct enough to return particularly repeatable results (i.e., it might be very hard to find those exact landmarks each time). If I return 34, 33, 35, 35, 34, after repeated measuring, then what is the “truth” of my original 35mm result? Is “this ulna is 35mm long” a true statement? Is it a false statement? Is it a statement that’s “true” with some qualifiers? Which of my measurements repr
Illiterate. I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
Nah. “Illiterate”, just like “faith” and “belief”, can have more than one meaning or connotation!
The relevant point is that the party is headed by fundamentalists and other theocrats. So no matter how reasonable your next door neighbor Republican might be, if you vote for their party, you’ll get Christian theocracy.
Party of Teddy Roosevelt, huh? I suppose that you could say that. I also suppose that if the Republicans started worshipping Cthulhu and chewing loco-weed that they’d still be the “party of Teddy Roosevelt”. Such ridiculous name-dropping is so transparently disingenuous, it’s revolting. Just because Roosevelt was a Republican doesn’t mean that any Republicans alive today think or act anything like Roosevelt. If anything, I think that an early 20th-century Republican would be horrified by the shameless smear tactics and smug bellowing that the party has defined itself with in the last 20 years. That sort of thing ought to be beneath them, but they eat it up with the gusto of a fat kid tearing into his Halloween bounty.
Y-E-S or N-O. At this point I don’t even care what you think, just pick one!
Re: belief.
When someone asks be what religion I am I say something like “I have an evidence-based belief system…basically I’m an atheist”. I certainly don’t ascribe to the idea that belief implies a lack of evidence to support an idea. Again, maybe that’s my Canadian english, and maybe not even shared by all Canadians. It seems a stupid thing for us to get upset about.
I swear I hit preview before, and not submit…
Nothing at comment #119–I’m mostly with you here (and might modify that part of my comment), except for this philosophy which is weaved through your text:
This statment isn’t accurate within science. Facts are observations with associated errors. “Good facts,” I guess you could call them, are rigorously verified and are generally assumed to be “true,” as long as true is used with the understanding that the error bars are still there. Of course not all facts in science are “good.” More to the issue, though, is that nothing in science is incontrovertible, including facts (I took your statement to imply that facts are incontrovertible–my mistake if that’s not what you meant). Everything in science can be mistaken, including facts. And everything in science is subject to later revision, including facts. They are simply not true if true means that they are viewed as “cannot be mistaken” or “cannot be overturned.”
Consider the following:
I have an ulna. I find two points on the bone that I use as measurement landmarks and between these I measure the ulna’s length with a tape, returning a value of 35mm. I’ve obtained an observation. I have a fact. This fact will lend itself to the statement “this ulna is 35mm long,” which will often be conflated with the measurement value itself. But the premise that this fact cannot be mistaken is flawed. And I argue that the premise that this statement, as written, is true, is also flawed.
First (presuming I’m not reading the tape wrong ever…), there is the issue of the simple accuracy of the fact. How “good” is our observation? What if I make a bunch of measurements between my landmarks and return a nice consistent average of 35mm, but also return a nice consistent average length of 31mm from a different set of landmarks? What if I can find the first set of landmarks very easily every time, but just choose to measure the ulna’s length from this different set of equally distinct landmarks? Is “this ulna is 35mm long” no longer a true statement, or does it remain true? Or is it “true” with some qualifiers? How does it compare with the statement “this ulna is 31mm long?” Which value is the accurate length? Which choice of landmarks returns the true length of the ulna?
Along these lines, what if I return a nice consistent 35mm average length from my tape measurements, but I also return a nice consistent 34.53mm average length when I make the measurements with calipers? Is “this ulna is 35mm long” no longer a true statement, or does it remain true? Or is it “true” with some qualifiers? Which choice of measurement device returns the true length of the ulna?
Next, there is the issue of repeatability, which also affects how “good” our fact is. If I use the same tape and attempt to measure the ulna again between the first two landmarks, will I obtain the same result the second time? What about the third? Or the seventeenth? Perhaps, but you absolutely do not know this when you’ve only made measurement number 1. It’s possible (especially as I haven’t provided any information to you regarding the taxonomy of the ulna…) that the landmarks you chose to measure between aren’t distinct enough to return particularly repeatable results (i.e., it might be very hard to find those exact landmarks each time). If I return 34, 33, 35, 35, 34, after repeated measuring, then what is the “truth” of my original 35mm result? Is “this ulna is 35mm long” a true statement? Is it a false statement? Is it a statement that’s “true” with some qualifiers? Which of my measurements represents the true length of the ulna?
And of course we should always keep in mind that even really good facts have a shelf life. What if, while fumbling with my calipers, I drop the ulna onto the polished cement floor of the lab and it breaks into four pieces? Is “this ulna is 35mm long” still a true statement, or do we now have to start thinking about it in terms of whether or not it was previously a true statement?
Sometimes the error associated with a fact is going to be tiny (even to the point where talking about it is kinda dumb); sometimes not. It’s always there.
Trys to come up with someone other than Teddy that was “Scientific” and can’t. The most pro science guy you could come up with was president over 100 years ago?!?
Teddy Roosevelt wasn’t an evolution denialist. I don’t know how “scientific” he was about it though!
Nixon.
Yes, Richard Milhous Nixon, called Tricky Dick. Clean Air Act and stuff.
Plato would most likely have to be taught the English distinction between “belief” and “faith” first… I don’t know Greek, but that’s a distinction that German, Latin, French, Russian just don’t make.
And judging from the rest of the thread, not all native English speakers make it either… apart from the potentially confusing fact that “belief” comes with a verb, while “faith” does not (unless you count “to have faith”)…
On the other hand, nothing’s sacred and Josh are completely right on the definitions of “fact” and “theory”. These are technical terms that must not be confused.
PZ, I don’t think it’s a good idea to interpret nothing’s sacred like you’d interpret a neurotypical.
It’s true that you can read his (admittedly somewhat repetitive…) comments as implying that “you’re illiterate, and I’m not” without being logically incoherent or something. But I really don’t think nothing’s sacred is even aware of that. I don’t think he wants to imply anything about himself.
You see, I have to constantly make a special effort not to fall into the same trap. It’s hard work to figure out how what I’m going to say is going to come across to different people. And sometimes I just fail. nothing’s sacred just fails more often.
@ Queequeg #148:
I think you’re right that it’s the “I believe in” formulation that really rubs people around here the wrong way. I suppose that, technically at least, there is not really any difference between saying “I believe in evolution” and “I believe that evolution occurs”, but “I believe in” is the formulation generally used for such things as “I believe in the Tooth Fairy” or “I believe in alien abduction” and not generally used for belief in things for which there are evidence. I know that is the reason that the interviewer’s question made me cringe a little. Not that he was using the word belief, but that he was asking about evolution the same way one might ask about Santa Claus.
Where “stuff” includes the Endangered Species Act.
Even a sleazy lying cynical crook is right twice a day…
[OT, submitting comments has gotten a LOT slower recently, and my status bar blames it on something called ping.chartbeat.net–whatzit?]
Dunno, but
ought to fix it for you :)
Now that commenting appears to work again…
BTW, in German it’s very unusual to say “I think”. It’s fully grammatical and all, just hardly anyone ever does it (with some regional variation, though AFAIK not much). Consequently, “I believe” is used so commonly that sometimes it might be considered an adverb, or perhaps an evidential clitic that attaches to the preceding verb, as in sentences like (roughly) “that’s uhbleeve the other one”.
Awwww, did widdle Texas Republican Concealed Gun Carrier get him feewings hurt? You’re supposed to be the proof to the exception of that broad generalization? Dude, your only commonality with 90% of the people on this blog is that you don’t believe in deities, otherwise you’re closer to Ann Coulter than to Molly Ivans.
How would you believe your particular demographic rates in political power as an atheistic conservative Republican? I’m going to go out on a limb and venture that Log Cabin Republicans are less contradictory and more common.
SC @128:
Perhaps I should have stated that, from my experience, I have learned to differentiate ‘beliefs’ as being concepts held without evidence. I understand that the term does not carry the same meaning for all people, but I have found it useful in communicating the role of evidence.
I think the key is are you able to substitute “there is evidence for” Q for the statement “I believe in Q”. As I first said, this is my response to the “E” question. I do NOT use BELIEVE because for most people, that equates to OPINION.
While the distinctions and arguments made here are certainly valid, for most folks, it may just appear pedantic.
Yes, we know, nothing sacred — you are the smartest, cleverest, most knowledgeable commenter in all of these threads. You’re absolutely brilliant.
Now, how about demonstrating that genius by saying something constructive now and then, instead of by telling everyone how much dumber they are than you? The act is getting stale.
A ridiculous ad hominem attack. My posts here were constructive and had nothing to do with any sort of comparison with myself. Just ask SC, Josh, Chris Doms, Rorsh ach, Aquaria, among others who spoke positively of my posts, or at least of the points I have made.
Aquaria #44
Yes, that “Obama is Chamberlain” segment was a jewel.
But maybe if Pence had answered, ala Obama, “That is above my paygrade”; he would have floated instead of floundering.
I might caution this seems to be an instance of affirming the consequent
If you carefully read my post, you will see that I offered it as such upon request. Check #46 and #91.
Shaddap.
I believe the more common term for a collection of observations is “data”. Generally, “facts” are defined to be “true”. Measurements (in scientific or engineering situations) are generally not referred to as “facts”, but as “data” for exactly the reason you describe, that there is error inherent in any measurement so the “true fact” of the thing being measured is not actually known but is only estimated by our measurement. So in your example, the micrometer reading of 35mm is a fact (that is what the device reported), but the length of the ulna as 35mm is not a fact but a measurement.
Having said that, this whole thing is getting way out of hand. Words have multiple similar meanings with nuances derived from context. All the argument about “believe” comes from the fact that it has multiple definitions, whether one usage is right or wrong would require that it have only one meaning. Likewise with my description of “fact” and “data” above. Those are just my understanding of their most common use, but does not rule out entirely your use of “fact” (as in Sgt. Friday’s famous “Just the facts, ma’am”).
I think we’ve all reached something of an impasse here. Some people are arguing that in their experience “belief” in common language means or carries implications of X, while others are saying that in theirs it does not. Some think it’s been coopted to the point that using it is counterproductive, while others completely disagree and think it’s not only acceptable but useful. It’s an empirical question whether most people use or understand it in a particular way in most or all circumstances, and I don’t think anyone has enough evidence to support a position either way.
It may well be national or regional. I use “believe” and “think” interchangeably (when speaking, and probably even more often when writing, which leads me to suspect that in some way I do see “believe” as slightly more formal). Others I know in New England do as well. But then nothing’s sacred is from a different part of the country… Perhaps it’s touchier for people in real fundie territory, where maybe it has been coopted more…? I honestly don’t know.
(As for the “in” question, I’m unable to watch the video, but if someone asked me if I believed in evolution, my answer would be to tell them that I don’t understand the question and ask them to clarify.)
That may be, but I don’t think this has anything to do with pedantry. It’s about politics. People are telling me that I shouldn’t use a perfectly good word with the meanings that I understand to be attached to it on the basis of claims about how “most” people hear it for which I haven’t seen sufficient evidence. I see this position as one of, as ns put it, surrender. They’re always going to try to twist the meanings of our words, and I’m not at all convinced that giving in to it in this case is not a mistake.
Perhaps PZ could gain a bit of insight if he knew that “NS” stands for “nothing’s sacred”. Of course, it would also help if he read the thread more carefully before lashing out at me …
… and scaring away the best voices.
This belief of yours is unsubstantiated by evidence. OTOH, I have more than once refuted it with evidence and logic. It isn’t even clear that you understand what “my” meaning is; as I said, “belief” is neutral in regard to whether it is supported.
Being able to verify something doesn’t stop it from being a belief, and taking such a position leads you to absurdities. Do you believe that 1+1=2, or don’t you? Of course you do believe it. Do you believe that Booth shot Lincoln, or don’t you? Of course you do believe it. Do you believe that men landed on the moon? Of course you do. These are all legitimate uses, “colloquial” or not.
This is a terribly naive and misguided view of empirical science. One has beliefs about what has been observed, about what has been claimed to have been observed, about what inferences have been drawn from observations, about the validity of such inferences … all such beliefs are potentially subject to error, which is why all science is tentative.
OR because of evidence. Beliefs are things held to be true, period. To claim otherwise is like claiming that some organisms are too complex to evolve — it’s apologetics, arguing to an end rather than based on evidence and logic.
What are the core unsupported suppositions behind my belief that 1+1=2 and Fermat’s Last Theorem? Indeed there are always such unsupported suppositions behind any proposition to which we assent, and it’s a terrible mistake to carve out evolution or any other proposition as an exception.
Got me. But as SC notes, there’s a certain irony here.
Nonsense? Nonsense you say? What, do you think you’re smarter than everyone else? C’mon, Knockgoats, say something constructive!
Ah, you did. And so did I.
I “believe” this Horse is DEAD already!
I “believe” this Horse is DEAD already!
Let’s use words the correct way. Just take a look again at the dictionary.
Belief:
1: a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing
2: something believed ; especially : a tenet or body of tenets held by a group
3: conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence
SYNONYMS belief, faith, credence, credit mean assent to the truth of something offered for acceptance.
belief may or may not imply certitude in the believer.
faith almost always implies certitude even where there is no evidence or proof.
credence suggests intellectual assent without implying anything about grounds for assent .
credit may imply assent on grounds other than direct proof.
Next time you meet a fundie, send him/her to the dictionary.
Matthews should have asked “Do you believe evolution occurs?”
“I don’t believe IN evolution, but I believe evolution occurs, and the theory of evolution by natural selection is the best explanation we have so far”.
ps: thanks nothing’s sacred for making this clear.
Perhaps it’s touchier for people in real fundie territory, where maybe it has been coopted more…?
I should add to that, though, that you’d have a very difficult time convincing me that even there it’s been co-opted in any meaningful way outside this particular context, rendering the general understanding of a “belief” as simply something held to be true somehow unavailable or useless in fighting this battle. That much has been acknowledged right here on this thread.
Seems like this notion that belief means without evidence is common mostly among science-minded people in the U.S. fighting the good fight against creationism/religionism.
But if we can’t believe things based on evidence and reason because the irrational folks don’t, then shouldn’t we stop “accepting” the evidence, because the Christians accept the Bible as evidence for their religion?
And how can we consider something to be “true”, when truth is a religious concept, according to the religionists?
Today I heard Rush Limbaugh demonstrate the way he thinks christian conservaitve politicians should answer this question: Say yes evolution has occured, theres no denying that, but then change the subject to ask if a creator/god exists or not.
My guess is thats enough to fool a tv journalist. But what he’s really referring to is the Discovery Institutes version of “microevolution”, that wolves evolved into dogs, etc… not that all life evolved from lower life forms, not that man evolved from primates. Once someone like Limbaugh answers the question that way they then must be pressed to find out if theyre talkign about just “microevolution” (which still allows for the idea that god placed animals here out of thin air) or macroevolution too.
Seems like this notion that belief means without evidence is common mostly among science-minded people in the U.S. fighting the good fight against creationism/religionism.
I think it’s more that they are uncomfortable with it because of the way creationists equivocate with the different kinds of beliefs. Some beliefs are based on evidence, and some are based on fantasy. But a lot of the lamer creationists will pretend like they don’t understand the difference, so long as it helps them to win an argument inside their little fantasy land up there in their own heads.
Creationist: “I believe in creationism but my belief doesn’t require evidence, you believe in evolution and your belief requires evidence. But both of them are beliefs, so that means they’re the same thing!!”
Yeah it doesn’t make sense but that’s pretty much the way it works though. :P
This thread needs something.
I believe that this thread needs more bacon.
Anybody who doesn’t know the meaning of belief is no different than Hitler.
It’s a good job the phrase
“Place ideology over science”
already broke my Irony Meter, because some of the posters’ comments here would have sent the widget flying across the room (and you know how hard they are to replace).
People, on the internet, apparently Columbines, arguing about not using colloquialisms. Usually the arguement ius all about the evolution(!) of language when someone criticises usage.
The interviewer used the colloquial usage of ‘belief’. If he was a professor presenting a paper to a auditorium of experts, then the usage would be more precise. He was not. He was on a TV show for popular access.
My answer to the question would have depended on who was asking, and how quick my response would be. For this interview I would have said ‘yes’. If it was Pat Robertson asking, and I thought quick enough, I would have asked “Do you believe in tables?” in response.
This thread reminds me of a thread where Prof. Myers printed an anti-Creationist Doonesbury cartoon, and the comments concentrated on the fact that the DNA helix was the wrong way, and attacking Trudeau for this. When I pointed out this was missing the big picture of what the cartoon was trying to say, I got attacked.
“The people’s front of Judea” is a lampoon of this sort of thinking among the left/progressives/etc.
How about an apple bacon pie?
“However there are plenty of other instances to justify the conclusion that the Republicans are, as a class, dishonest fundies.”
Ok, I’ll use your brand of “logic”…
There are plenty of instances to justify the conclusion that the Democrats are, as a class, dishonest tax cheats.
Only if I can put cream on it and throw it at whoever’s responsible for these Sb “improvements.”
Seriously, though, if the bacon were super crispy and crumbled, and with a slice of cheddar on the side, or a bit of gorgonzola…
Bacon is good, but now it’s time for Scotch.
The fact remains that the mor[m]ons are lying, and using the identities of dead people for propaganda without their consent.
The rampant and shameless dishonesty of it all is objectionable enough.
Ooops, wrong thread
Though if we’re gonna discuss rampant, shameless dishonesty, the Republican Party has get mentioned somewhere!
It’s always time for scotch.
Since in my job, I can have random drug testing at any time, and it includes alcohol, I’ll wait until I’m home.
TX CHL Instructor:
All you have is straw man and false equivalence fallacies? Your Soldier of Fortune persona sticks out like a sore thumb. Face it, you’re just an ideological hair away from being Scott from Oregon, but you probably under the misapprehension you’re wholly pragmatic and charmingly eccentric – a poster boy for Texas non-conformity, when in actuality you’re just one more example of why we Texans have reputations for being ideologically twisted.
So what are your views on Secular Humanism, or need I ask? I’m sure we all can guess what your views will be.
Seems like this notion that belief means without evidence is common mostly among science-minded people in the U.S. fighting the good fight against creationism/religionism.
It’s common with them in that context. In other contexts I strongly suspect that they act like everyone else.
I think it’s more that they are uncomfortable with it because of the way creationists equivocate with the different kinds of beliefs.
Yes, they are uncomfortable, and for good reason, but that’s not an excuse for misrepresenting what words mean and how they are used.
It’s a good job the phrase
“Place ideology over science”
already broke my Irony Meter, because some of the posters’ comments here would have sent the widget flying across the room (and you know how hard they are to replace).
Yes. Here’s some irony:
(Some) Pharygulans can’t even admit that they believe that 1+1=2.
For anybody who has made it this far, Matthews has just had Tom Tancredo on, and the results were almost as bizarre. Tancredo says he believes in Intelligent Design and sort of evolution, but I’m not sure, except about the Intelligent Design part. Matthews pressed him too but never brought out the big guns of facts. Tancredo actually said with a straight face that there were no transitional fossils and there was no evidence of any species becoming another species. I would have thrown something at the screen but it was really expensive, so I refrained and screamed at it instead.
SC, cheddar is in the apple bacon pie. Srsly. I have a friend who makes it, although I am many states too far away to taste it.
And I agree, it’s always time for Scotch.
I think you may be right on the regionalism of it. Those of us who grew up deep in the Bible belt have heard “belief” used in a religious sense a huge majority of time the word comes up. I’d still rather avoid words that have the possibility for misinterpretation, though. It’s just as easy, and a bit more of a dig, to say I understand evolution, or I accept evolution.
Well.. polls (Gallup, not internet) show clearly that the vast majority of Americans don’t believe in evolution (http://tinyurl.com/cpa8ja). Why blame the poor guy. Blame our educational system.
Lee Picton @#194: Repeating that there are no transitional fossils makes it true. Didn’t you know that?
More tripe from Matthews and Tancredo … about evolution. Chris is really confused, Tancdreo is outright stupid (nothing new here).
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/#30607082
(Some) Pharygulans can’t even admit that they believe that 1+1=2.
I’m reminded of “An Epistemological Nightmare”, by Raymond Smullyan, reprinted in Dennett and Hofstadter’s The Mind’s I. Funny stuff.
I think the whole thing is posted as HTML on Dennett’s Tufts site.
“So what are your views on Secular Humanism, or need I ask? I’m sure we all can guess what your views will be.”
Go ahead and guess. Show me how well you read minds, or invent ‘facts’. Or, if you actually wanted to do some research, you might find that I have mentioned my views on that subject in prior comments on this blog. My guess is that your bias would not allow you to accept that an atheist or Freethinker could be anything other than a Liberal Democrat.
But I really don’t think nothing’s sacred is even aware of that.
Of course I’m aware of that, and of other ways that people can misinterpret intent, innocently or willfully, and I sometimes bait people that way, although not here — I am truly concerned and exasperated by the degree to which scientists and friends of science misrepresent the meanings of these words, either from ignorance or because they are so set on their agenda of battling the fundies that they are unable to rationally assess a rather straightforward matter.
But PZ went way beyond misinterpretation, to the absurd claim that I’m haven’t made any constructive contribution. Why then did so many people state their agreement with my supposedly non-existent substance? Why, for that matter, did a number of people voice substantive disagreements with me? You know, I know, every person being at all honest knows that I made significant substantive points, whether they agree with them or not. Rather than trying to explain my behavior, based on your apparent but quite mistaken belief that I have an autism spectrum disorder, you might want to think about how to explain PZ’s.
Just to make a tangential comment: nothing’s sacred, you have some technical points but I do not want to be standing next to you at this party. Communication is important; understanding is important; iron-clad rules of language are only one attempted means to that end.
absurd false dichotomy
How can anyone with an IQ over 75 think that?
not by anyone intellectually competent.
complete gibberish
no intellectually competent person
Only an idiot or someone abandoning their intellectual honesty
It’s incredibly stupid and wrong
need to keep pounding it in that people who make such claims are scientific illiterates
SC OM:
I was thinking of a term used by a business law professor I had – “words of art”. He used this to describe how a term in common usage had a very different meaning within the law. In science, we use words of art all the time. This plagues us in ways both trivial (speed vs. velocity) and vital (theory vs. hypothesis) for example.
I don’t think it’s pedantic to argue the finer points, only that many people would view such a debate as being meaningless. To quote another instructor “Never use yourself as an example. The fact that you are here means you are not average or typical”. That certainly applies to this blog.
Time for some falling down water.
Too well educated to be a creationist? If one wants to be a 1st class crackpot, the best thing to do is to get a PhD from a secular university. That’s what’s so chilling about Georgia Purdom; she has a PhD and works for AIG’s Creation Museum. The country has plenty of such people. Somehow, “reason ed” is not part of the U.S. curriculum.
Uh, you may want to read that first sentence again, and consider that this may be one of those times.
(I’m sorry. That first sentence still has me laughing. Who wouldn’t feel charmed and vindicated to read that about him- or herself?)
:)
Wow. Just thinking about it – even before I knew that – drove me out for a nice long run.
But that’s the thing – I would never have considered the possibility that it could be open for misinterpretation if people didn’t keep talking about it here. I mean, I just expect creationists to say loopy things; I don’t generally believe that they’ve had that much impact on language more broadly. But that may be different where you are (…not that I would consider this a valid reason for me – or even you – to abandon the word).
Funny – when I first read this quickly it looked like you were proposing “I dig evolution” (which might make a good t-shirt for certain scientists…). Duuuuude, yeah.
I think you may be right on the regionalism of it. Those of us who grew up deep in the Bible belt have heard “belief” used in a religious sense a huge majority of time the word comes up.
The issue of whether some or even most uses of “belief” refer to religion in one region or another is very different from whether the word “belief” carries a connotation of “without evidence”, in that or any other region. I saw a documentary in which people were asked whether they believe that Obama is a Muslim, and they were happy to justify their belief by explaining that not only had they read that in email but that the newspapers had said so as well (and in that region perhaps some did). Even in the bible belt people say things like “I’ll believe it when I see it” and “I believe her when she says he hit her because he’s a no-good skunk”.
I’d still rather avoid words that have the possibility for misinterpretation, though.
All words have the possibility of misinterpretation, especially when there’s an agenda. But no one is saying you can’t or shouldn’t avoid “believe” if you choose. The problem goes the other way, with some people berating those who do use that word and misstating what the word implies. This discussion started with #21 and the ridiculous fdeclaration “Beliefs have no grounding in fact.” Sorry, but mine do.
It’s just as easy, and a bit more of a dig, to say I understand evolution, or I accept evolution.
It’s not “just as easy” if you’re asked directly, “Do you believe in evolution?” A direct and appropriate answer is “Yes, because of the massive scientific evidence from the fossil record, anatomic relationships, genomic relationships, clearly observable instances in the flu virus and other organisms, and hundreds of thousands of papers in biology journals that support and confirm it in one way or another”. Why not do that rather than fart around with pedantic (and erroneous) distinctions between “believe” and “accept”? (As for “understand”, even fundies claim to, so that’s not an answer.)
But that’s exactly what you’ve been doing! Have you read my last few posts?
“Fact” is the singular, “facts” is the plural, “data” is the collective :-)
I’d rather say “consistent” than “true”. That keeps us out of philosophical hairsplitting.
The argument from the dictionary is a logical fallacy… dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive; they record the current usage(s), and sometimes they even get that wrong.
Horrible.
<being reflexively shaken in disgust>
Now that’s easy: he’s too neurotypical. :-| He’s not capable of thinking of a reason why anyone could call five or ten people in a row “illiterate” and the other things mentioned in comment 202 without having the agenda of portraying oneself as somehow super-clever. He probably thinks arguing about a single word like “believe” is rather silly, at least not worth devoting half a thread to it. (Sure, you also… talked about the much more important distinction between “fact” and “theory”, but other people would have done that anyway [and soon did it], without getting all exasperated over it.)
You see, when faced with breathtaking, violent stupidity, you and I get holy wrath. PZ gets snarky instead, like Mrs. Tilton did in the comment you pointed out on the Molly thread.
And yes, I get just as exasperated as you appear to. The difference is that my anger is much less verbal. I expose my canine teeth and contract my jaw and neck muscles all at the same time, making me tremble in what must be a scary sight (sometimes drives half my family mad…), and often I add to it by cramping my fingers in mid-air; but, if anything, I just say “hnnnnnnnng”. Before I could get my fingers back on the keyboard and finish writing “STUPID STUPID STUPID!!! TSIB!!!“, HTML formatting and all, the quite exhausting fit of anger is simply over, and I end up writing something that sounds much milder. You, on the other hand, manage to put your wrath into words (and you’re not a bad writer, I must add), so you submit one or two comments before your fit is over, and only your next comment sounds more “civil” – take your comments 106 and 105, which say the exact same thing as 101 and 99 in a way that is much less likely to throw people off track and make them go irrational.
I can imagine that PZ has simply been confronted with so much headdesk-inducing stupidity that he has made a conscious decision to stop being seriously angered, because it’d be just too exhausting. Or maybe it’s innate. In any case, he simply doesn’t grasp why you get all exasperated (and he doesn’t see what I get), so he has to resort to the most parsimonious explanation he can come up with, which is that you’re a boasting narcissist. Even though it’s completely obvious to me that you aren’t.
And don’t call it a “disorder”. All taken together, I actually like having what looks like a couple Asperger symptoms. For example, getting all exhausted from resisting peer pressure is still better than succumbing to it and then suffering from doing things one didn’t actually want to do. :-)
Communication is important; understanding is important; iron-clad rules of language are only one attempted means to that end.
Ironclad rules that declare that “belief” implies lack of support are bad for communication or understanding. It’s convenient to make me the bad guy and blather about whether I’m neurotypical, but it’s intellectually dishonest. Again, some Pharyngulans can’t even admit that 1+1=2 — how ironic given the title of this article. There’s nothing sacred about being an atheist or an evolutionist or a liberal; it doesn’t excuse one from a burden of honesty. Look at #192; I’ll take TX CHL Instructor’s side in that debate.
Again, some Pharyngulans can’t even admit that 1+1=2 — how ironic given the title of this article.
Argh; I so blew that. Some Pharyngulans can’t even admit that they believe that 1+1=2.
What’s up with these examples?
I don’t generally believe that they’ve had that much impact
I swear that was entirely unintentional.
He’s not capable of thinking of a reason why anyone could call five or ten people in a row “illiterate” and the other things mentioned in comment 202 without having the agenda of portraying oneself as somehow super-clever.
He probably thinks arguing about a single word like “believe” is rather silly, at least not worth devoting half a thread to it.
David, you’re not paying attention. I said that, aside from his (mis)interpretation my intent, he made a ridiculous claim about my failure to make a constructive contribution. You’re so intent on making your point that you aren’t even bothering to read or comprehend what I wrote, so I’m not going to bother with responding to the rest of yours.
I understand what you mean, but I didn’t write “ill”. I didn’t write “insane”. And I didn’t write “stupid”… and nothing’s sacred appears to have understood that I used “neurotypical” as the technical term for “not having anything vaguely similar to autism”, because he didn’t fly off any of the available handles* and then went on to referring to “an autism spectrum disorder”.
* Mixing metaphors can be a lot of fun.
Also (as I have now posted), I think that, within limits, a bit of Asperger’s is actually a good thing. It’s certainly not something to be ashamed of.
People who view the debate that way would be encouraged, at least by me, to spend their time discussing something that isn’t science.
Oh, and Steve, I have a reply brewing for #170, but I just don’t have the motivation to finish it this evening. I presume you’ll forgive me if it waits until the morning?
Some Pharyngulans can’t even admit that they believe that 1+1=2.
I would never say “I believe that 1+1=2.” That statement is nonsensical to me. I would say “I know that 1+1=2.”
What’s up with these examples?
I could facilely say that they are a result of exposure to large amounts of violence against women in our culture, and maybe even tack on “especially in the bible belt”, but that wouldn’t at all explain the first one. So, I’m not sure, it’s somewhat disturbing and I understand why you find them alarming. Thanks for pointing it out, and I will think twice and avoid such gratuitous references to violence against women (or anyone else) in the future. (And because tone and intent can be so hard to read: sincerely.)
And before anyone starts getting cute with alternate base systems, I could clarify it to I know that 1+1=2 given a specific set of parameters.
Really, believe has a degree of uncertainty to it. It works well for things that are emotion-based or have a known amount of possible error. Would you like to have brain surgery performed by a person who says “I know how to do this” or one who says “I believe I can do this”?
Oh, so you did misunderstand. I apologize for the confusion I’ve produced.
Stop assuming malice already. It’s simply almost half past two in the morning over here, and I should have gone to bed at the very least an hour ago.
I did address that point, too, however: I think PZ thinks debating the precise meaning of “belief” is an unproductive word game like theological quarrels (and massacres) over “homoousious” vs “homoiousios”, and I think he thinks your contribution about theory vs fact was just too small to count as “substantive”, let alone “constructive”, or to outweigh the loads of outrage you throw around (which count as destructive). In fact, considering the post he made on the definition of “science” a year or two ago, I’m not sure if he cares even about such rather important terminological distinctions at all, as long as the errors don’t reach the magnitude of “just a theory”.
Bonne soirée, have a nice rest of the evening or whatever. I’m going to bed.
I would never say “I believe that 1+1=2.”
That’s not the issue. I’m asking you: Do you believe that 1+1=2? Yes or no?
That statement is nonsensical to me.
How can it be nonsensical to you when you know that dictionaries say that a belief is something held true, and numerous posters have pointed out this meaning? You might have reasons to resist or disagree with that definition, but nonsensical? I find that claim nonsensical.
I would say “I know that 1+1=2.”
False dichotomy. I know that 1+1=2, and I believe that 1+1=2; knowing something implies that it is believed.
And please consider how you would address the numerous other examples that Knockgoats and I have given where certainty isn’t so great: Booth shot Lincoln, there are no hippopotami on Mars, Fermat’s Last Theorem is true, there are infinitely many primes, there are socks in your sock drawer, etc. Do you really want to take every statement that you accept, distinguish between those that you know and those that you believe, and claim that it’s “nonsensical” to use “believe” whenever “know” applies? Is that really a maintainable position?
Stop assuming malice already.
Stop making me the bad guy, esppecially with false accusations. I’l talk to you about the substantive issues, but not about me.
Do you really want to take every statement that you accept, distinguish between those that you know and those that you believe, and claim that it’s “nonsensical” to use “believe” whenever “know” applies? Is that really a maintainable position?
Well, yes. I’m finding it difficult to understand why you want to mush them both together like that and not distinguish between them. They seem like easily defined discrete entities to me. But maybe that’s just the Aspie genes I apparently passed on to my son talking. ;)
I “believe” that the colloquial use of “believe” is most certainly not just for propositions without evidence. 99% of regular people, in normal conversation, will use “believe” for any proposition they hold which they are not absolutely certain is true. For those which they are certain are true, they use “know.”
The degree of certainty for “believe” ranges all the way from complete wild guess to near certainty.
All scientific propositions are also beliefs, they are a subset of beliefs with varying levels of justification.
Human beings can’t know anything without believing it as well. (Knowledge is a subset of belief).
Huh? My point was that an unsolicited suggestion (in a public forum, no less) that someone is not neurotypical or might have an autism spectrum disorder is certainly something that might not come across at all well to some people, regardless of its truth.
OK. Substitute “not being what people generally consider pretty” or “not being particularly bright” [er, that might not be the best example ;P] for “a bit of Asperger’s.” Doesn’t even matter if you put yourself in the category; it’s…high-risk to offer your opinions on these matters.
I mean, you offered that you have to work at this and often fail. (I agree with you that it’s nothing to be ashamed of and potentially positive. And it may have rolled right off ns’s back. He was, as I expected :), bothered about the lack of appreciation of his point that he had made substantive arguments.)
[But then, as an admittedly hypersensitive person who has a problem with unsolicited opinions, I may be responding to it as, well, a hypersensitive person who has a problem with unsolicited opinions. OTOH, reading the Einstein biography I’m laughing at the parts where Isaacson makes fun of Einstein for his total lack of social awareness, as when he sends unsolicited critiques and suggestions to senior scholars thinking that they’ll be appreciative. I still – knowing intellectually how silly this is – read this and my first thought is “What’s the problem? Why wouldn’t they appreciate that? I do that – it’s a sign of respect!” (No, I’m not comparing myself to Einstein in any way other than this.)]
Would you like to have brain surgery performed by a person who says “I know how to do this” or one who says “I believe I can do this”?
This is bizarre, especially on a science blog. Are you asserting that there is a brain surgeon alive who has no uncertainty as to how to perform an operation? On top of that, these statements are in no way parallel. The first is about “know how”, which is quite distinct from “know that”: I know how to ride a bicycle; it’s a competency, not certainty about a proposition. And the second is a belief about an ability. Compare “I know I can do this” and “I believe I can do this” — the difference is in attitude, not degree of knowledge. Why would you believe the former? I would want a lot more information in either case, about their experience and track record. And I would be wary of someone who appeared overconfident.
I’m sitting here wracking my brain, honestly trying to think of a situation where I’d use “believe” for something for which I’m 100% certain, and I honestly can’t come up with anything. The only category I can come up with is intangible emotions along the lines of “I believe you’re telling the truth”, or “I believe my husband loves me.” Those are things I might say I’m entirely certain of, but that is a different kind of certainty based on feelings that I know may on some level be faulty. “I believe the earth revolves around the sun”? “I believe Van Gogh painted Starry Night”? I just…wouldn’t say that.
He’s not making you the bad guy. He is saying that he believes he understands how you think, but PZ doesn’t.
(That reminds me of the Andy Thomson talk and the limits of recursion in attributing mental states to others.)
Carlie @225:
Interesting distinction. Had not thought about it as a matter of certainty. it could be another way the usage becomes differentiated.
So what do you ‘believe’ Pence was avoiding so strenuously?
Well, yes. I’m finding it difficult to understand why you want to mush them both together like that and not distinguish between them. They seem like easily defined discrete entities to me.
Perhaps you would understand it better if you actually carried out the exercise of identifying which of the various claims you know, and which you believe. As for “mush them both together”, do you understand the concept of a false dichotomy? Knowing something entails believing it — they aren’t mutually exclusive. You noted that belief involves a degree uncertainty. And apparently you think that, if the degree reaches zero, it’s suddenly not a belief. What if the degree is .00005? How can you even be certain what your degree of uncertainty is? You say knowledge and belief are “discrete entities”. Do you know that, or believe it?
And I’ll ask you again my question: Do you believe that 1+1=2? Yes or no? Answering it straightforwardly may help you understand; dodging it again, either by ignoring it or by answering some different question or making some other point instead will not.
Here’s my (completely unsolicited :)) analysis:
PZ is annoyed that ns is being (rather) abrupt and abusive (at times) to respected commenters and to him. This is understandable. He is the host of the party, and this may also scare off potential commenters who fear being skewered by ns. Moreover, ns obviously likes and appreciates this blog and respects PZ and his intellectual acumen, or he wouldn’t be here, so the apparent hostility without expressions of appreciation is…
But ns is fundamentally, deeply, profoundly, (pathologically? :P) analytical. For him, with few exceptions, it’s all about the logic and the arguments. Saying “you’re illiterate” or (quite justifiably, in my view) becoming exasperated when people are misusing words or muddying the intellectual waters just reflects the nature of who he is. And he’s shown enough of himself as a human being here that perhaps people can accept that about him – as Sastra does – and address the substantive arguments.
I’m sitting here wracking my brain, honestly trying to think of a situation where I’d use “believe” for something for which I’m 100% certain, and I honestly can’t come up with anything.
Instead of doing that, why not just answer the question, do you believe that 1+1=2, yes or no? And while you’re at it, answer the same for whether there are hippopotami on Mars, etc. How about the moon having a center made of green cheese. I believe it doesn’t; how about you?
Anyway, we’ve made progress from belief meaning without evidence to belief meaning not being absolutely certain. That’s enough to refute the original claims, though one can do better.
I didn’t dodge it. I said that I wouldn’t say I believe that 1+1=2, because I know 1+1=2. At the time that uncertainty is removed, it does cease to be a belief, because belief implies uncertainty. What is so difficult about that? In any case, I’m much more likely to say “I think” or “I’m pretty sure” about something than “I believe” it. That may in part be because as SC identified, for a lot of us who grew up in certain areas the word “believe” automatically has certain connotations linked to religion. There are quite a few words like that. Ask an evangelical in Georgia what it means to give someone their testimony, and you might be quite surprised at the answer even though you think you know exactly what “testimony” means.
SC, I so appreciate those words, and I might say more, but I’ve just been informed by sheriffs at the door that I’m in a mandatory evacuation area for the fire in Santa Barbara so I’ve got to go. Bye for now.
That’s enough to refute the original claims, though one can do better.
Which original claims are you talking about? If you will recall the original argument, I was making the point that saying “I believe in evolution” is a stupid thing to do because to the general public “believe” incorporates an element of faith. It’s without sufficient evidence. It uses the same language as religion, giving people false ideas about their equivalence. It’s a bad idea.
Personally, I don’t use the term “believe” much at all in the first place, but before you started grilling me on my exact personal usage, my argument was tactical. You keep saying “that’s not what it means” and I keep saying “most other people don’t see it that way”. SC gave a connecting line of thought that some people might be like you, some like me, depending on where they are. I agree, but then still hold to my point that if one goes on national television and says something about believing in evolution, an awful lot of people who see it are going to take it the wrong way, and there’s simply no reason to try and force a large swath of the country that what you REALLY mean is… when you could just use different terminology in the first place and avoid the whole problem.
I like and pretty much agree with what SC wrote in #229
Good luck NS.
nothing’s sacred – Be sure to grab the photo albums on your way out, and stay safe. I would love to make a joke about arguing more after the smoke has cleared, but that seems a little too gallows for the moment. Good luck; even if you don’t get any damage, that’s still a lot of hassle to deal with for the next couple of days.
‘Kay — I’m from Indiana. There, I said it, even though Mike Pence is a Hoosier, too.
Hurt, though.
Glen D: Nice catch, noticing that Pence endorsed teaching the controversy without actually saying so. Pence stayed with the talking points; gotta give him credit for consistency, although he is being consistently ignorant.
‘Course, giving credit isn’t the same thing as giving respect.
Many of you are missing the point: Pence won more votes than he lost with this interview. To his base, he appeared as a heroic defender of the faith (in this instant, fundamentalist Christianity) in battle with a Depraved Lib’rl Journalist. It did not hurt Pence that Matthews stayed in interrupt-mode.
Prediction: Pence will be re-elected to Congress, unless he runs for president with at least 60 percent of the vote.
Which says more about Indiana than I’d really like to admit.
Gah! Fuck you, Scienceblogs! I mean that. Everything else is working fine, but here I have the equivalent of fucking dial-up. WHY WOULD YOU CHANGE SOMETHING THAT WAS FINE, AND MAKE IT NOT FINE?
Take care, ns, and stay safe. Please let us know how you are.
Interviews like this necessarily are pressed for time to the point where nothing of any substance WHATEVER gets to be discussed…
Chris Matthews was almost nearly as brilliant as one can be on the fly like that in that utterly disgusting, horrible, obscene and dispicable excuse of a “journalistic interview” but I have to say that Mike Pence and his Republican Party have done NOTHING BUT encourage PRECISELY this sort of unavailing effort.
They’re the ones who have seeded, cultivated and harvested that kind of “drive by shooting” interview.
Journalism is now saturated with this sort of crap, and it’s high time that people like Matthews – who are ostensibly TRYING to make a difference – are made aware that that they’ve lost their touch to a grievous extent.
Doesn’t anybody realize at all how much that asshole resonates with people already brain-dead who are watching?
Doesn’t anybody understand that an “interview” of this kind means next to nothing, EXCEPT as a bolstering of the common asshole view that the “liberal media sucks”?
Incredibly, they have a point. But it sure as death doesn’t mean that THEIR estimation of what journalistic integrity is all about has anything to do with actually informing the public.
NO.
Instead, we have to wince repeatedly at this kind of idiotic nonsense posing as “political journalism”. And have to fight off the ASSHOLES who are DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE for this state of affairs, who yet continually declare that the “liberal media is the problem”.
Being trapped in his time constraint, Matthews had to compose a PARTICULAR PLAN in order to call that asshole out, but BECAUSE of that “plan” he passed over what was BY FAR the very BEST cue for an argument ever offered by any imbecile of Pence’s dimensions.
He MISSED IT because it didn’t fit his friggin’ PROGRAM of how he would ostensibly demolish that idiot and what he stands for.
But he could have put that jackass away by calling him out on his assertion that evolution was a “CONTROVERSY”.
WHAT controversy? That Science doesn’t work?
An ACE IN THE HOLE right there, and Matthews “reacted” to it like a deaf man.
Of course, Matthews was doing his job. And he’s super-competent. Within those ridiculous parameters. He has no choice but to pay attention to the goddamned clock, which is why he and people like him in his position are compelled to arrange a “plan of action” for any “interview”.
Then? Like IDIOTS they forget to LISTEN to the OTHER IDIOT to grab upon anything they may say. If only they could depart from their PLAN, they could actually take advantage and would put them away with every dunderheaded statement. Unfortunately, we do not see this.
As we so often witness, the interviewer is pressed for time, and BECAUSE he’s pressed he comes “armed” with a plan. A “strategy”. Too fucking bad he wasn’t using his fucking EARS.
When the FLYING FUCK will we wake up and see that this crap isn’t working? …REGARDLESS OF HOW GOOD IT MAKES US FEEL that an idiot is squirming to make sense?
NS hope you made out OK .. scary. Let us know how you are.
I stand by my statements “way” above re: politics of language and how be have to carefully and strategically use words. I do not think we advance toward a win by using the enemy’s framing.
However I think I have a deeper seated aversion to using the word believe, and I think I figured out why. My Italian is haunting me:
I use believe when I am very uncertain or when I have none or very few real facts to backup my assertion and I use think when I have normal uncertainty but have shifted through data and came to a reasoned supportable conclusion on accepted facts. Why do I draw the distinction? Because my Italian does.
One uses credere (to believe) in matters requiring mostly faith or acceptance without knowledge and pensare (to think) in matters that one thinks through and comes to conclusions.
It is like sapere (to know) and conoscere (to know). I know (conosco) PZ but I do KNOW (so) PZ. I know (conosco) astrophysics but I KNOW (so) biology [relatively speaking]. The former means I am acquainted and have some opinions on the matter mostly very subjective or unlearned while the latter means I have studied rigorously or others have for me and I accept objectively certain facts and my conclusions stem from those facts.
I just would not say in Italian “credo” in ToE .. I would say “penso” the ToE is true.
Aside from the politics of words .. there is some other reason in origins of words for the uneasiness.
Others my have other perspectives. NS again hope all went / is going well.
I am exactly what Chris Matthews described: a former Republican who can no longer deny the fact that Conservative Christians have hijacked the party, turned it into a church, and are quite happy to push down reality in defense of God.
As a (former) linguist, I find extended discussions of a word or set of words as fascinating as some biologists might find extended discussions of, e.g., pharyngulas, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I attempt to contribute a few comments here.
I think Queequeg @#148 finally hit on a major point. There really is a difference between “believe in” and “believe [that]”. For example, I might say any of:
But I would consider it unlikely in the extreme (as CaseyL pointed out in #41) to say:
IOW, although “believe in” can have the ‘believe that X exists’ meaning, it tends toward the (often, but not exclusively moral) ‘goodness’ connotation. Similarly, I might plausibly say:
Dictionaries certainly exist and are often useful and beneficial. On the other hand,
Despite the best efforts of dictionary makers, it is often difficult and sometimes just plain impossible to give a good, concise, and consistent definition of a word that accurately reflects how it is used. The words “believe” and “belief” are merely a couple of examples where this difficulty (or perhaps impossibility) occurs.
I think nothing’s sacred made a good point in #104 that ‘the word “belief” is neutral in regard to evidentiary or logical support.’ However, because it is neutral, “believe” or “belief” is often used in situations where there is no evidentiary or logical support and despite the fact that affirming the consequent is a logical fallacy, too many people commit logical fallacies all the time :( for me to be entirely comfortable allowing that particular one to go unremarked. An obvious strategy might be to make a specific point of it, as in responding to “Do you believe in evolution?” with something like “Yes, I believe, and have strong evidence supporting my belief, that evolution is a fact and that the ToE is a pretty good explanation of the facts.” However, I would not feel comfortable just responding with a simple “Yes” for the reasons that many people have adduced in this thread already.
ConcernedJoe seems to have put it about as well as anyone in #87: “This is war — every move has to be measured in engagements (direct or indirect) with the enemies of reason and progress.” IMHO, ns is correct wrt to the actual neutrality of “believe” as well as wrt the fact that “There isn’t anything that can’t be lied about or misrepresented.” (#122) But why make it easy for them to misunderstand (either really misunderstand or twist words tactically)? The words “believe” and “belief” are too closely tied to what religionists do and for “political” purposes at least, we have other and arguably better choices for what scientists do.
Paul
I believe the sun should never set upon an argument
I believe we place our happiness in other people’s hands
I believe that junk food tastes so good because it’s bad for you
I believe your parents did the best job they knew how to do
I believe that beauty magazines promote low self esteem
I believe I’m loved when I’m completely by myself alone
I believe in Karma what you give is what you get returned
I believe you can’t appreciate real love until you’ve been burned
I believe the grass is no more greener on the other side
I believe you don’t know what you’ve got until you say goodbye
I believe you can’t control or choose your sexuality
I believe that trust is more important than monogamy
I believe your most attractive features are your heart and soul
I believe that family is worth more than money or gold
I believe the struggle for financial freedom is unfair
I believe the only ones who disagree are millionaires
I believe forgiveness is the key to your unhappiness
I believe that wedded bliss negates the need to be undressed
I believe that God does not endorse TV evangelists
I believe in love surviving death into eternity
Harknights@5, 386sx@8 & jorge666@9
I feel like I have to mention that this behavior is not Party specific.
Your boys do the same damn thing. Ask them a question and they use up their time talking about some other agenda item that they are selling.
James F@12
If it is “sticking” it’s because the legacy media and their spin offs filter information to the uninformed masses.
Enough already, Tools.
Mover, the only tool here is you, every time you post. Get it? You add nothing to the discussion.